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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 5, 2020 21:03:07 GMT
Hey, hang on.
If "Ruth" is pre-Hartnell and calls herself the Doctor, then that means even the Doctor doesn't know why his name is hidden, because that information has been wiped from his memory.
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Post by olegrand on Mar 6, 2020 7:57:01 GMT
Hey, hang on. If "Ruth" is pre-Hartnell and calls herself the Doctor, then that means even the Doctor doesn't know why his name is hidden, because that information has been wiped from his memory. Not to mention the fact that the Police Box appearance of the TARDIS cannot be pre-Hartnell (hey, but I guess none of this has any importance, now that continuity has been drawn, quartered and thrown to the dogs). We should start a Time Lords Rebellious faction - just kidding.  |
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Post by ninjaconor on Mar 6, 2020 9:40:49 GMT
I've come up with my own headcannon to get around this Timeless Child thing and all the associated plot holes:
The Doctor isn't literally The Timeless Child. Ruth was too rebellious and powerful for the Time Lords so wiped her memories and regenerated her into a child. However, this child wasn't The Doctor, it was The Master. This explains his crazy ability to never die and why the weapon specifically designed to kill Time Lords apparently didn't work on Missy.
Meanwhile, all of the best elements of Ruth's consciousness were stored in The Matrix. Sensing the Time War approaching, and needing their secret weapon again, the Time Lords imprinted these elements on one of their own, hoping they would prove easier to control than the actual Timeless Child. This was The Doctor, who took on the same title that The Timeless Child did because of this other consciousness buried in his own.
However, the Time Lords didn't reckon on The Doctor's own rebellious streak. He stole the TARDIS (the same one that Ruth had used, whose chameleon circuit was showing a preference for police boxes, but wasn't yet fully stuck as one) and ran off on his adventures.
This explanation allows for everything in The Timeless Children and the rest of the season to happen as it did while still letting The Doctor be a Time Lord. It also allows both for the Morbius faces to be in her head and for her to still be the 14th incarnation of The Doctor. It also makes The Timeless Child The Master, which would have made infinitely more sense.
I'm hoping season 13 comes to a similar outcome but I'm not getting my hopes up.
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Post by olegrand on Mar 6, 2020 9:51:20 GMT
ninjaconnor: this is brilliant! Some (not me) may argue that it is a bit "pointless" - but hey, where would the DW fandom be without "pointless" fan theories, discordant realities and conflicting hypotheses? KUDOS to you!
to all those who were gutted by the finale: come on, people! Let's not this destroy or spoil our love for the Whoniverse, this fantastic series and its unique cultural legacy. It has survived the 1989 cancellation. It has survived the 9-years gap between the 8th Doctor TV movie and the 2005 rebirth... It will survive the Great 2020 Discontinuity!
TIME LORDS REBELLIOUS!
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Post by senko on Mar 6, 2020 10:44:53 GMT
ninjaconnor: this is brilliant! Some (not me) may argue that it is a bit "pointless" - but hey, where would the DW fandom be without "pointless" fan theories, discordant realities and conflicting hypotheses? KUDOS to you! to all those who were gutted by the finale: come on, people! Let's not this destroy or spoil our love for the Whoniverse, this fantastic series and its unique cultural legacy. It has survived the 1989 cancellation. It has survived the 9-years gap between the 8th Doctor TV movie and the 2005 rebirth... It will survive the Great 2020 Discontinuity! TIME LORDS REBELLIOUS! I fear I am not strong enough to do that and I suspect the fandom will never be the same because of it. |
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Post by ninjaconor on Mar 6, 2020 10:57:28 GMT
I think Doctor Who has always been a bit of a roller-coaster in terms of quality. I'm definitely not going to stop watching, because while we're in a bit of a low at the moment, it always bounces back.
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stahlman
3rd Incarnation
Doctor, stop wasting my time, will you?
Posts: 222
Favourite Doctors: second,third,fourth
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Post by stahlman on Mar 8, 2020 22:29:38 GMT
In the Cartmel/ Aaronovitch plan Rassilon ,Omega and 'the other' were the founders of time lord society. 'The Other' is likely to be The Doctor.
Lady Peinforte ,in Silver Nemesis, remarked that the Doctor was more than a time lord.
The idea back then ,I guess, was to reintroduce mystery into the Doctor's origins and nature.
Revisiting these concepts was justifiable but I am not sure what Chris Chibnall acheives by having Cyber Timelords, death particles and Judoon clogging up the works.
It is not so much the concepts of the pre timelord beings -I can live with that but the execution which is terrible.
Maybe series 12 is better than series 11 but it is still not great and many many people have just given up now.
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Post by Stormcrow on Mar 8, 2020 23:44:35 GMT
In the Cartmel/ Aaronovitch plan Rassilon ,Omega and 'the other' were the founders of time lord society. 'The Other' is likely to be The Doctor. Lady Peinforte ,in Silver Nemesis, remarked that the Doctor was more than a time lord. The idea back then ,I guess, was to reintroduce mystery into the Doctor's origins and nature. That was explicitly the idea. There are video interviews where the producers say so. The difference here is that they don't just info-dump you the whole story. They were apparently going to build it up slowly. And there's no telling how they were going to handle it. I get the feeling it might have been a mystery without a resolution: that we were meant to start wondering about the Doctor's origins, but that they weren't actually going to tell us. That wouldn't have been great, but it wouldn't have been harmful, either. If Chibnall had written an arc in which the Doctor slowly pieces together details of her past that don't make sense and hint at something more than we'd known previously, I would have been okay with that. It would have to mean something, though. It can't just be for cheap season-finale reveals that go nowhere, which is exactly what we got. The Timeless Child is the Midichlorians of Doctor Who. |
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Post by ninjaconor on Mar 9, 2020 9:09:59 GMT
In the Cartmel/ Aaronovitch plan Rassilon ,Omega and 'the other' were the founders of time lord society. 'The Other' is likely to be The Doctor. Lady Peinforte ,in Silver Nemesis, remarked that the Doctor was more than a time lord. The idea back then ,I guess, was to reintroduce mystery into the Doctor's origins and nature. That was explicitly the idea. There are video interviews where the producers say so. The difference here is that they don't just info-dump you the whole story. They were apparently going to build it up slowly. And there's no telling how they were going to handle it. I get the feeling it might have been a mystery without a resolution: that we were meant to start wondering about the Doctor's origins, but that they weren't actually going to tell us. That wouldn't have been great, but it wouldn't have been harmful, either. If Chibnall had written an arc in which the Doctor slowly pieces together details of her past that don't make sense and hint at something more than we'd known previously, I would have been okay with that. It would have to mean something, though. It can't just be for cheap season-finale reveals that go nowhere, which is exactly what we got. The Timeless Child is the Midichlorians of Doctor Who.I think this is exactly it. Episodes that deal with The Doctor's past work because it's the ultimate tease. We know we're never going to find out anything substantial, just a few crumbs of lore to get your imagination going. A perfect example is the woman in The End of Time. She was a Time Lord and part of The Doctor's past but even RTD hadn't really committed to who she was. She can be the Doctor's mother or wife or Romana or Susan depending on your reading of it and you know you'll never get a definitive answer. Another would be The Curator. It's heavily hinted at that he's a future version of The Doctor who has learned to revisit past regeneration, hinting at some great and powerful future Doctor, but they left it vague enough that he could just be a weird curator who looks like Tom Baker. In both these cases you're free to imagine whatever resolution you like and that's going to be far more effective and personal to you than if they wrote an explicit explanation into the show. The problem isn't The Timeless Child itself. It's that it was explained so coldly and thoroughly that rather than make The Doctor more mysterious, it's actually done the exact opposite. |
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Post by starkllr on Mar 9, 2020 15:45:34 GMT
The Timeless Child is the Midichlorians of Doctor Who.I think that’s a perfect description. |
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Post by grinch on Jun 16, 2020 19:46:37 GMT
Gave this one another look in the hope that my opinion might have changed.
It hasn’t.
Still as awful and poorly written as when I first watched it. I almost wonder if the all seeing forces of the BBC (considering the negative backlash) might have had a word with Chibnall and made him rewrite the next series to retcon this Timeless Children stuff. All merely conjecture though.
Might just be me but I found Dwan’s Master just insufferable the next time around. Just feels like a caricature of Simms Master as one of you said and to be frank I’m getting rather bored of the Master merely just being a cackling maniac. One does long for suaveness and charm of Delgado or the War Master.
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Post by senko on Jul 5, 2020 9:32:24 GMT
That was explicitly the idea. There are video interviews where the producers say so. The difference here is that they don't just info-dump you the whole story. They were apparently going to build it up slowly. And there's no telling how they were going to handle it. I get the feeling it might have been a mystery without a resolution: that we were meant to start wondering about the Doctor's origins, but that they weren't actually going to tell us. That wouldn't have been great, but it wouldn't have been harmful, either. If Chibnall had written an arc in which the Doctor slowly pieces together details of her past that don't make sense and hint at something more than we'd known previously, I would have been okay with that. It would have to mean something, though. It can't just be for cheap season-finale reveals that go nowhere, which is exactly what we got. The Timeless Child is the Midichlorians of Doctor Who.I think this is exactly it. Episodes that deal with The Doctor's past work because it's the ultimate tease. We know we're never going to find out anything substantial, just a few crumbs of lore to get your imagination going. A perfect example is the woman in The End of Time. She was a Time Lord and part of The Doctor's past but even RTD hadn't really committed to who she was. She can be the Doctor's mother or wife or Romana or Susan depending on your reading of it and you know you'll never get a definitive answer. Another would be The Curator. It's heavily hinted at that he's a future version of The Doctor who has learned to revisit past regeneration, hinting at some great and powerful future Doctor, but they left it vague enough that he could just be a weird curator who looks like Tom Baker. In both these cases you're free to imagine whatever resolution you like and that's going to be far more effective and personal to you than if they wrote an explicit explanation into the show. The problem isn't The Timeless Child itself. It's that it was explained so coldly and thoroughly that rather than make The Doctor more mysterious, it's actually done the exact opposite.
I agree the concepts here are bad enough by themselves but how they were handled make it even worse. Its part of something I've mentioned before in that we get villains/concepts that by themselves are a justifiable season ark with appearances, hints and build up to a massive final confrontation. Instead of that however they're a one or two episode villain of the week to preach X idea and then gone. This was just handled so poorly starting off with the human/cyberman hybrid (I've a number of separate issues with that) but then they basically get sidelined and out of the blue we're info dumped ...
blah, blah, blah, master, blah, blah wiped out entire time lord race (what, how? doesn't matter he just did), blah, blah, blah time lord cyberman (isn't the whole point of cybermen they remove the meat how is it regenerating and didn't the nightmare in silver do the same with tech? Ignore that its a cool idea isn't it?), blah, blah surfing the matrix (weren't you in there before? Stop questioning my genius!), blah, blah, blah timeless child information (oh that's what that was about isn't this pretty heavy handed? Well we kind of ran out of time with our misdirection earlier making you think this would be about cybermen.), blah, blah, blah stupid comment (oh come on you just shattered canon and left plot holes everywhere of course if matters! Look just like it like a good little peon you entitled fan.), blah, blah Judoon imprison doctor (So your doubling down on the TARDIS being so easy to infiltrate that the doctor can be arrested by a lower level tech species than the daleks who couldn't breach the shields . . . Are you done? Yes, yes I'm done. Hey come back here we have plans for the next season!).
The doctor doesn't figure anything out, the important issues are just handwaved away in the name of a cool visual or concept, major revelations that demolish 50 years of canon are just preached at you then followed up by a "Does it really matter" comment. Even if you like the ideas how they go about it was awful they drop a timeless child bit here and there but there's no real build up, no suspense, no investigation they didn't even have the earlier seasons hidden message repeating through the series. Then on top of that they explain their new reality so thoroughly to a captive doctor/audience there's no room for fan creativity or growth, no maybe they mean this or maybe they mean that and it ruins a lot of what has come already in the show for no gain.
Gave this one another look in the hope that my opinion might have changed. It hasn’t. Still as awful and poorly written as when I first watched it. I almost wonder if the all seeing forces of the BBC (considering the negative backlash) might have had a word with Chibnall and made him rewrite the next series to retcon this Timeless Children stuff. All merely conjecture though. Might just be me but I found Dwan’s Master just insufferable the next time around. Just feels like a caricature of Simms Master as one of you said and to be frank I’m getting rather bored of the Master merely just being a cackling maniac. One does long for suaveness and charm of Delgado or the War Master.
Honestly I've found him pretty insufferable from the beginning though it wasn't helped with how he was introduced and the whole unit's been stood down for budget reasons even though the world is now in a state where alien invasions are expected not covered up and the intelligence agencies are all "Nah she'll be right someone deals with them. Us no we mock those who believe in them. Sure they're real but we like to pretend they aren't issue."
The other masters felt villainous or crazy in one case but they generally gave a sense of gravitas and menace. He just can't pull it off and I can't see how we go from Missy to him personality wise because again it just got handwaved into the background. Missy, Delgado and the rest good or bad moments we see their build up, their planning. Its not just what they do but how they do it showing their brilliance. Him its "Oh yes he fooled MI5. Oh yes he fooled those aliens till the doctor interfered. Oh yes he fooled the Nazi's because of tech making him look like (presumably) some officer he dollified, oh yes he wiped out Gallifrey." we kept getting told about his amazing achievements but are never shown him actually doing it and when he does show up its generally for a bit of preaching as his plan gets derailed whereas with previous masters and mistresses we saw them waiting as they're plan unfolded. We saw them captured, apparently defeated and still having a plan to come out at least even if not on top. Dwan's master due to the writing is just "Behold my evil plan, I am thwarted, Behold my evil plan" with no explanation of how he escapes the failure of the previous one. We aren't shown his escaping from the aliens/nazis because of back up plan X he just shows up again whereas to use Missy as an example we see her captured, restrained and calmly waiting for the right moment to escape and kill a few more people. We see her planning, her collection, her vicious control of a situation where she should have none and so it works. We see her grow and change and plan over and over again. As much from the writing as his portrayal Dwan just never really has that.
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