Doctor Who and the Timeless Child

First off can I just say I'm really enjoying Jodie's tenure as the doctor. I was sceptical at first but she has had some fantastic episodes (as well as some filler/dud ones).

Now major spoilers ahead but I dont know how to hide them.

If you have seen the latest episode, do you believe the doctor is the timeless child or was the Master lying? I honestly believe him due to the doctor's scrambled memories but if the Doctor is really not from Gallifrey, then where could she be from and what species is she.

I feel this arc has turned the whole history on its head and I dont know if it's a good or a bad thing. I'm excited to see where this goes but dont know how to feel about it.

I feel practically the exact same. I’ve watched it too. I really like the episode but it does have a few major potholes that need explaining.
Like when Clara went into the doctors timeline surely she would have seen all the doctors previous lives, and will have been a part of them too.
Then there’s rassilon the redeemer who ‘gave the doctor more lives’ and wether he knew or not and also what went into the doctor when hat happened- was it like giving someone extra of their own dna or like a pointless extra glittery stuff that just gave the doctors body incentive to regenerate.
Then there’s so many more things like Ruth’s police box tardis when the chameleon circuit should be fine

So, I believe this comes down to the secrecy of this Division. I don't think that even the Lord High President of Gallifrey is party to their dealings, and since everything about the timeless child was scrubbed from the Matrix there would be no way for Rassilon to go and access it. It seems like when the Division disbanded, they wiped the Timeless Child's memory clean, and then dumped the back as a child to exist again as a nondescript member of Time Lord Society. Perhaps the Doctor would have just gone a similar way to how Hartnell regenerated, from being old. Obviously there was no way either he or the Timelords could have known that.

The timeline thing is interesting. Perhaps she just did not go back far enough?

We at the ODWS have been supposing that the reason Martin's Doctor goes by the same name and has the same TARDIS as the Post-Division Doctors is that she had it first, and something subconscious was left over after the mind wipe, so that when the Doctor ran away with Susan, the choices were subconscious.

Some interesting things: In The Five Doctors, Borusa gets the Doctor to go to Rassilon's tomb so he can have the ring and gain immortality (which is a terrible trick.) Rassilon asks the Doctor if he would also like immortality. This casts in a very different light now!

Also, I presume the reason not everything about the timeless child was completely destroyed in the Matrix was that you cannot fully delete from the matrix, and the sort of encryption used to lock it down is very material intensive. If we look at The Brain of Morbius, and the Morbius Doctors, is it possible that the reason Morbius lost (because there is now no reason he should have done) because he was using the Doctor's innate link to the Matrix to go back through his lives. As he went back far enough, he encountered where the Matrix had gotten to in encrypting the Doctor's life, and so he was violently booted out (possibly as he was not expecting it)?

As far as I can reckon, I think Chibnall has done a good job in not writing himself into a corner in terms of contradictions.

The regeneration explanation is nonsense - how was River Song able to regenerate when she had 0 Shaboogan DNA and never even set foot on Gallifrey?

Also if the timeless child has infinite regenerations then why didn’t Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor regenerate sooner on Trenzalore?

Finally, this episode completely ruins the First Doctor’s character and his entire arc in Twice Upon a Time where he was anxious of regenerating.

Chibnall is a talentless show runner and the entirety of series 12 has just been rip offs of better stories from the wider Doctor Who canon.

Yeah. It makes sense. But I do think that the timeline thing is still something that needs a bit of explaining

The regeneration explanation is nonsense - how was River Song able to regenerate when she had 0 Shaboogan DNA and never even set foot on Gallifrey?

Also if the timeless child has infinite regenerations then why didn’t Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor regenerate sooner on Trenzalore?

Finally, this episode completely ruins the First Doctor’s character and his entire arc in Twice Upon a Time where he was anxious of regenerating.

Chibnall is a talentless show runner and the entirety of series 12 has just been rip offs of better stories from the wider Doctor Who canon.

Is it not more fun to sit and theorise? But yes, it does need some sort of expanation.


1) Did you watch the episode? It's not Shobogan DNA that enables one to regenerate. It's the Timeless Child's DNA, which is not Shobogan. The whole River Song arc was a mess before this, but you can keep blaming Chibnall if you want. I don't see how you can accept the "time energy" explanation but not this?

2+3) Again, if you'd watched it, it's explained that the Doctor's memory is completely wiped after their work with the Division, they are reverted to baby form and left with some random family. The Division then covered up their existence in the Time Matrix. So, Hartnell has no idea he has regenerated before, which explains his anxiety. Matt Smith and the Timelords also thought he was a regular Time Lord when he was on Trenzalore. It's possible that if the Doctor remains as one regeneration for too long, they actually age and become old (like Hartnell did) and that if Smith had gotten to the point of regeneration from old age (like Hartnell did) he would have regenerated as normal instead of just like straight up dying. Hartnell's regeneration is the only one that is not a result of injury or other intervention (The War Games.) However, with Timelord intervention, Smith was kick started into regeneration, meaning the natural surprise regen was no longer natural or a surprise.

I don't care for Chibnall, but you're just finding nothings to hate.

I agree with all of that.

Can you hear me is a badly done version of SJA’s Nightmare Man.
The reality particle was a much weaker reality bomb.
Someone coming to save the doctor was like Luke Rattigan with the Sontarans.

The Timeless Child thing was so stupid, serves no character development and doesn’t get used as a proper plot point.

And now we have 3 Tardis’ in the mix with two having working chameleon circuits.

Is it not more fun to sit and theorise? But yes, it does need some sort of expanation.


1) Did you watch the episode? It's not Shobogan DNA that enables one to regenerate. It's the Timeless Child's DNA, which is not Shobogan. The whole River Song arc was a mess before this, but you can keep blaming Chibnall if you want. I don't see how you can accept the "time energy" explanation but not this?

2+3) Again, if you'd watched it, it's explained that the Doctor's memory is completely wiped after their work with the Division, they are reverted to baby form and left with some random family. The Division then covered up their existence in the Time Matrix. So, Hartnell has no idea he has regenerated before, which explains his anxiety. Matt Smith and the Timelords also thought he was a regular Time Lord when he was on Trenzalore. It's possible that if the Doctor remains as one regeneration for too long, they actually age and become old (like Hartnell did) and that if Smith had gotten to the point of regeneration from old age (like Hartnell did) he would have regenerated as normal instead of just like straight up dying. Hartnell's regeneration is the only one that is not a result of injury or other intervention (The War Games.) However, with Timelord intervention, Smith was kick started into regeneration, meaning the natural surprise regen was no longer natural or a surprise.

I don't care for Chibnall, but you're just finding nothings to hate.

Even the good episodes of this series that I somewhat enjoyed:

Fugitive of the Judoon was just a ****ty modern remake of Human Nature/The Family of Blood (and more generally an homage to the RTD era with the Judoon/Jack’s cameo.)

The Haunting of Villa Diodati borrows heavily from two big finish Cybermen stories (The Silver Turk (which also features Mary Shelley) and Spare Parts (which already explored the concept of the lone cyberman.))

Name me one memorable Chibnall episode that was written before he became show runner - it’s ****ing impossible.

Even his two series of Torchwood are known as the “bad ones” that pale in comparison to the heavily RTD written Children of Earth.

The time energy explanation fit with Rose becoming the bad wolf and Jack’s immortality that resulted from that, artron energy was clearly SHOWN to have remarkable properties.

The episode doesn’t say that the Doctor’s memory was wiped it only hints at it with the Brendan vagueness, also if the “Morbius doctors” explanation is real why didn’t 4 question those incarnations when he was clearly aware of what was going on?

Fugitive of the Judoon was the only episode I really enjoyed and it was still a bit meh.

Praxeus had something in it that I’ve always wanted. Communicators! Finally they have comm pieces! It makes no sense to not have them given they have all of space and time to explore.

Why didn't you like Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror? I really liked that one.

Bit redundant. The lpots are being fixed too easily.

The episodes are barely even memorable. I can list all the others easily from new who but ask me to list hers and I can't.

Bit redundant. The lpots are being fixed too easily.

The episodes are barely even memorable. I can list all the others easily from new who but ask me to list hers and I can't.

Many people can say the same for any other Doctor. Not everyone will like every Doctor from the show.

I like all the other new doctors, and I don't dislike Whittaker she just has bad episodes. Capaldi had a similar issue but the quality hadn't declined as far in his era.

Many people can say the same for any other Doctor. Not everyone will like every Doctor from the show.