#far more than I ever was with the Timeless Child lore

[intuitive-revelations]

Ok so... that episode. Mixed thoughts. First half I felt was really strong. The second half...well.

As usual I'm going to kind of vomit my thoughts out as bullet points. It'll be quite rough though, as I'm way too tired to break these down more carefully right now, and just want to say my piece before I go to bed:

LOL at UNIT being so out in the open now. Couldn't help but think of all the big bold 'secret' signs from the classic series when I saw that.

The Vlinx is a really odd addition... did anyone else think about Splinx (from the Mines of Terror game) when they heard the name?

MEL! I did find it curious that some of the reporting on her appearance was ambiguous about when it would be, so I guess that explains that. Kind of an odd choice for a UNIT / Toymaker story, but establishing her as a character at UNIT works fine.

Now that I think about it, wasn't POTD specifically written with awareness of who / what RTD would be using in the specials? If so, I guess that explains why Mel didn't play a part in the plot.

Speaking of which, they're definitely going for this UNIT spin-off aren't they? I mean... makes sense. It seems they're building off what we saw in POTD anyway.

Trinity Wells coming back was a fun surprise, given how long it's been since we've seen her.

The political commentary of 'being right' is kind of perfect. Between this and the trans representation in The Star Beast, it kind of feels like RTD is laying out this thesis for the next few years.

I kind of like how they did the Toymaker in this one? Though he's perhaps a little too flamboyant and 'Master'-y for me, I do think the stuff with his accents etc was quite clever. I also think there was clearly some thought about the more dated racial stuff with the character, which that line about the weather kinda felt like it was hinting at?

I liked all the little ways they hinted at the Toymaker's "crystal guardian" backstory, with him sitting outside of "Chaos and Order".

Speaking of which... did he imply he beat the the Black and White Guardians? Cause if so...

Not gonna lie, when the Doctor started talking about a mistake he made when he was young, a part of me really genuinely thought they were about to mention Divided Loyalties. The line about the 'face' the Toymaker wore didn't help.

I'm also glad we got the Celestial Toyroom stuff, as I wasn't sure how much we were going to get in this episode? I think the creepiness with modern effects was great. I kind of wish we got to spend more time there though, ala the original story.

Conversely, I also feel like we could have gotten a bit more out of the idea of the Toymaker escaping into the universe? We got a glimpse of that in 'realistic' terms with the outer world, and a more campy fun vibe inside UNIT, but I would equally love much more focus on the world going mad, both mentally, but also physically. I dunno, it feels like there's two ambitious stories you could have gone with, but the episode kind of half-and-halfed it.

The stuff with Amy, Clara, Bill and the Flux. I needed that. Seriously. As someone whose literally spent all last week thinking about how it's all been one line of tragedies for the Doctor, connected from one to the other, getting that acknowledged in text was great.

The twist with the Master getting trapped too was a bizarre addtion, and honestly unnecessary. It felt like that story (I can't remember which, sorry EU fans, an EDA I think) which offhandedly implies both the Master and Rani are dead. I feel it could have worked a bit better if it was another major character we haven't heard of in some time, like Rassilon or someone, instead of someone we saw just a few episodes ago.

I will say the games were disappointing. I get there's only so much you can do with recognisable simple games, but I definitely wish we got something a bit more complex than "biggest number wins" and "catch". This is a story that really needed a good resolution, ideally based on the Doctor outwitting the Toymaker, and we didn't really get that. I'm not upset about it, just felt weak.

That being said, the focus on rules with regards to 'best of three' was perfect. Exactly what I wanted more of tbh.

I'm surprised by the "One Who Waits", after being teased in marketing as referring to the Toymaker, actually being someone else. RTD's been doing a surprising amount of sequel hooking actually...

I'll get more into the mechanics in a second, but I do like the resolution being about the Doctor's own mental health? It feels like the right conclusion, not just based on the past couple episodes, but also based on Thirteen's character arc, as well as everything that happened before her. I'm sure fans will (rightfully) eat that up and talk about it a lot.

Ok, so let's seperate out the BIG thing, and my thoughts on it. Warning: I'm about to get uncharacteristically negative for me:

I had seen the leaks about the bigeneration, and am really disappointed at how accurate they were, though I had kind of accepted it based on the accuracy of The Star Beast's leaks.

Funny enough, I genuinely do quite like ideas of weird stuff to do with regenerations in terms of splitting etc. I genuinely have had some thought before about the idea of it from an assimilation kind of view, merging together, kind of a more horror-y take on the Master's plan in POTD.

But... did we have to do this with Tennant? I mean, don't get me wrong I love him and have genuinely loved what he brought to Fourteen, distinguishing him from Ten and giving him the feel of that extra history since then... but did he really need to be the Doctor to get a life after regeneration? After all, Ten is the one who 'didn't want to go'. Granted him such a thing really feels like it's going against not just the 'embrace change' message of DW in general, but even Ten's own arc specifically?

(This is a thought I had after writing everything else here, but it's also kind of messed up that he's the one to get this conclusion, when we literally just had a whole arc about 13 and Yaz not having enough time together because of 13's incoming regeneration...?)

I don't think I need to spell out the issues of having two 'current' Doctors, not just in-universe, but also out of universe, and the shadow that now hangs over Ncuti's series, whether or not we get more with 14. The TARDIS splitting was really bad too.

That being said, there is one saving grace, in that it's seemingly implied that the rest of 14's life still comes before 15, somehow, based on what the latter said about being better because 14 will take the time to rest, recover and reflect on everything that's happened?

This is the one thing that doesn't make me want to throw the resolution away, as it does seemingly provide some clarity. If RTD sticks by that line, it would suggest it's less that there's two whole new Doctors, and more that 14 has been given some grace of having a bit more time before he turns into 15. That there's still technically a linear progression of Doctors, it's just one gets to hang around a little while to give the new one a cleaner mental slate. How on earth that would work however, is a whole other question...

I mean... couldn't we have just done this by time travel instead? Rather than introduce this whole new, kinda show-breaking concept? You could still get your hypothetical Tennant and past companions miniseries (which seems like it'll be a thing) or whatever alongside 15's own debut. Just let it be non-linear, and let us meet and travel with 15 before we get a peaceful, recovered 14 regeneration?

Also... if we ARE going play fast and loose with the ideas of regeneration... why didn't Tennant's face coming back play into this? Like... what a weird choice to make that the 'mystery' of the specials, throw in a crazy regeneration sequence... then just suggest it's a bit of a subconscious message. If we are going to get crazy with what regeneration can do, why not go all in with stuff like the Guardians of the Edge, or the Valeyard or something? Have fun with the internal identities lore of regeneration?

So yeah, to summarise my thoughts on the bigeneration... I really think RTD might have gone a step too far this time. I spent a little time after the last episode talking about how the lack of resolution on the Flux was one of my bigger complaints about the Chibnall era, but this writing decision feels even more baffling. If Doctor Who is going to have a 'jumping the shark' moment, we might have just witnessed it.

That being said, as someone who hates being too negative, I did find a silver lining in that the dialogue implies he's planned ahead how to get out of some of these issues, with regards to two concurrent Doctors etc. It just doesn't feel good being in this situation at all, when it wasn't needed in the first place.

Overall thoughts

I didn't hate the episode. In fact I was very much in to most of it! There were a lot of good ideas, across the Toymaker, the Giggle etc. although I do feel some were woefully underused within the episode. It's just that they're all kind of marred by that one big bad idea at the end.

Like I said, the stuff focusing on the Toymaker and the Doctor's history, plus his time since he travelled with Donna was great. The Giggle was a fun satirical concept, if again underused, and the Toymaker's argument for targetting Earth was pretty great. The resolution of forcing the Doctor to settle down, for a little while, and be with friends is decent too, and a nice conclusion to come to, even if the way it came about was a mess.

I suspect, and hope, we might get some more details not just about how this will all work (or maybe just opening up the question without getting too specific), but also about any possible plans for spin-offs and whether or not they will overlap with the stuff in this episode, which may or may not alleviate my worries.

But for now.... yeah, I'm concerned, sorry.

[btnight1]

I'm about two thirds of the way finished with all of Classic Doctor Who... and here's the thing about the Timeless Child.

It no longer seems like that big a deal.

A lot has been said criticising the story of The Timeless Children; some of those critiques don't make a lot of sense, but the main point of contention was always that the Timeless Child revelation "depletes the mystery of the Doctor", which is the point I think you could make the strongest case for.

But having now seen a lot of classic series myself, the show apparently has a long history of slowly depleting the mystery of the Doctor's past.

If Doctor Who ever first "jumped the shark", it probably happened all the way back in 1969 with "The War Games". After six seasons, they decided to give a name to the Doctor's race, show other members of his race, and his home planet on-screen for the first time ever. From that point on, the show became much more continuity and lore-heavy.

It shouldn't be that surprising that the answer to what the Doctor's home planet was like turned out to be far less interesting than when it was a total mystery.

Every single time there was a story about Gallifrey, a tiny bit of the Doctor's mystery was depleted. Gallifrey was just... some planet. It had a government. There were other Time Lords with desk jobs. The Doctor was friends with some of them. He even met old school friends/enemies sometimes.

On one occasion, one of these old school friends even revealed the Doctor's (apparent) true name... a revelation that went entirely ignored by all subsequent writers and fans thought best swept under the rug.

I've always held onto my theory (now confirmed, thank you Chibbs) that the First Doctor couldn't really be the first first; otherwise, where exactly was the "Who" to wonder about in "Doctor Who"? There must have been some other past life, from before the character took on the name Doctor, that was so complicated and mysterious that we couldn't even fathom...

If anything, the Classic Series has given me a renewed appreciation for the Timeless Child.

It easily raises way more questions than it answers, and adds ambiguity to what we thought we knew, without necessarily retconning anything.

It also gives me a handy excuse to mostly ignore the Time Lords as part of the Doctor's true origin story... while still keeping the Doctor's life on Gallifrey as it was 100% intact.

And it fits in rather nicely with hints from the late 80s that the Doctor was "more than just another Time Lord"...

I like it.

I had a knee-jerk reaction at first, but I made peace with it relatively quickly, then I decided it was okay. And now after seeing almost all of the classic series, I really like it.

It was a good idea.

[kendrick-harlow]

[Doctor Who, the Giggle]

Man, I really had to sit that episode for a bit to sort through it because it moved so fast.

It's interesting that there's this possibility here that The Timeless Child is also an entity like The Toymaker given the comparisons made between the two, but one that's gone native. (Even though I wasn't a fan of the Timeless Child plot, I can appreciate the attempt to weave together some loose threads to patch over a handful of plot holes and solve the recurring regeneration problem, and I can appreciate the attempt to make it work now that it's part of the lore.) I could theorize on that all day long, but in the end, I'm not sure whether I'd ever want to know if I'm right or wrong.

As far as bi-generation goes...I feel like that's more a solution to real-world problems than in-story problems. (Like, having David Tennant back worked as a PR move, and I think giving Ncuti Gatwa extra introductory screen time helps people keep that re-investment because he's already proven to be pretty damn great in the role, and not tragically killing off 14 keeps the start of 15's era less tainted by grief at losing an established fan-favorite again, and we still get the traditional multi-Doctor anniversary fun. It works in the context of re-gaining the audience the show was losing.)

Anyway.

My main question about bi-generation is if 14.5 and 15 are just gradually gaining each other's memories? Because the most straight-forward explanation of bi-generation is literally regenerating into two bodies instead of one, but given 15's "we do rehab out of order comment" and them having that little back-and-forth about who is technically older, 15 is definitely getting some of 14.5's secondhand therapy, and probably not all at once. But is that one-way sharing or two-way sharing? (Since it looks like they're doing a soft reboot, I don't expect we'll ever find out.)

Either way, as much as I love David Tennant and it was fun having him back for a bit, I'm really looking forward to seeing Ncuti Gatwa take over the role, and I'm so glad we got an extended first look at what he's like as the Doctor instead of the usual one-liner.

[willfrominternet]

upcoming doctor who speculations

folks, i'm thirty-two years old and woke up with a head full of ideas about what the upcoming first ncuti gatwa/millie gibson season of doctor who will include. thoughts:

the doctor - having just gone through one of the most traumatic experiences of their lives - will lean more into their openness and vulnerability, showing a greater appreciation for life than ever before. they'll stand back in the shadows (or at least try to) and just want to hang out with their friends, even if they have to help fix some hijinks along the way.

ruby sunday will be a good-kid-turned-bad type, and she'll be on the run for getting in with some other bad folks and getting nabbed doing something she shouldn't. low-hanging fruit, but the title of the christmas special ("the church on ruby road") makes me think she'll have some sort of religious upbringing she's shed. doctor who rarely touches on religion for various reasons, but it'd be interesting for them to get into it (although who knows, considering now disney's involved with the show)

the doctor will at first find ruby brash and not like her criminal background, and ruby won't like the doctor because of their so-called "weirdness." however, the more they find out about each other - their shared proclivity for breaking rules, both of them wanting out of normal society, perhaps something having to do with perceived gender - they form the beginnings of a friendship.

their relationship will be strictly platonic, but incredibly strong. promotional pictures of them dressed up in period clothes make me think they'll just flit around history to have fun and go absolutely bonkers at parties. frankly, doctor who's been too serious for too long. we haven't had a good party doctor since ten. we're due!

for this reason: the main tardis console room won't change from how it looks in the 60th anniversary specials. and because of that, you know the doctor and ruby will put those to good use. we will get at least one televised tardis dance party. that's right, friends. manifest this with me: DISCO TARDIS.

no idea about stories, except we've got eight to work with, so they'd all better be good. from promo pics of costumes we've seen so far, we ought to have a 70s episode (given the pic of ncuti and millie in suits), something from the 18th century (jonathan groff's episode), one with a musical twist (jinkx monsoon's episode), and something in which the doctor will once again wear a stetson.

i have a feeling the show will return to a more educational/historical vibe, given the sci-fi of the last few series - the timeless child, trenzalore, the return to gallifrey - has all made the lore confusing. while sci-fi won't disappear full scale, it will take a back seat to let the show reset in a way. if it does explore the future, it will (i hope) focus more on socioeconomic/technological/ethical issues a la the ninth doctor's run rather than "ooooh scary monsters."

i've already got parts of conversations written in my head between characters and if i don't hear them in the show, i'll get upset. i am one of those terrible people who thinks they could've helped out the writer's room in a big way. expect me to write these scenes and post them to ao3 soon.

anyhow: very excited to see what they do with this apparent reboot of the franchise. you should read that as "i am ready to be hurt again." happy 60th, doctor who!

[thirddoctor]

llywela13 replied to your post:

I agree. I’ve enjoyed the season, although tonight’s episode was weak, but I really dislike the Timeless Child story, it doesn’t suit the show or the Doctor, it’s just messing with the character’s history for the sake of it and I’m never going to agree with that

I liked last night’s ep, and I’m glad that they’re at least doing something slightly more compelling now with the plot than the lore dump in S12, but I don’t think there’s anything they can do that will ever get me to actually accept the Timeless Child thing. It waters down the character into someone I find far less interesting.

[twistedtummies2]

Two Weeks in the TARDIS - The Thirteenth Doctor

Well, ladies and gents, we’ve nearly reached the end of ourTwo Weeks in the TARDIS! I’ve been talking about the different versions of the titular protagonist from “Doctor Who.” Each day, I’ve covered a different Doctor, going in order from the First to the Thirteenth...and it’s now time to talk about the Final Doctor to Date.

Let’s talk about the Timeless Child: Jodie Whittaker, as the Thirteenth Doctor.

BACKGROUND

Whittaker is our current Doctor, and her time on the show has been hit-or-miss, and racked with controversy. While most critics seem to have enjoyed her run so far, and general audiences seem to be okay with her, die-hard fans of the show seem to be split about her two seasons thus far. I am happy to say that the Doctor being portrayed as a woman has actually NOT, by all accounts, been a major reason for this. I will confess that I, myself, was a little worried when I heard that casting choice, BUT not for the reasons you might expect. My worry, you see, was that by making the Doctor a woman, the writers and directors would forget that this was the Doctor, and would oversexualize or over-feminize the character, so to speak. To me, the Doctor’s gender was never an issue; it was whether they would abuse it or not. Thankfully, the creators of this show have not done that; Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor, in terms of the character herself, rarely (if ever) has her gender be the focus of any story. She’s simply The Doctor, and the Doctor happens to be a woman now: exactly how I hoped. Having said that, the controversies and debates regarding Whittaker’s run so far are primarily due TO the writing: while it has wisely avoided THAT issue, many feel that the stories and some of the changes to the established lore of the series have become problematic. (Such as the one I hinted at in my little tagline, which I myself have mixed emotions about.) Personally, the way I see it, every Doctor has some hits and misses (there is no perfect era, to my knowledge), and this show has been changing its own lore and storyline practically since at least the moment Patrick Troughton took the helm. While you can argue if the pros outweigh the cons, I think it’s unfair to lay any of the blame on Whittaker, who has been doing a good job so far. As I said at the start of all this, I love ALL the Doctors, and she is no exception.

PERSONALITY

I’ve said several times now that Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor has been a heavy influence on the show since its revival, presumably because he was the Doctor many of the creators of the New Who era grew up with most fondly. Nowhere is that influence more noticeable than in the Thirteenth Doctor: she is, in many ways, a more feminine, modern twist on the Fifth Doctor. She’s much more mellow than the previous four who have preceded her in the modern series: still a bit odd, but in a different way. She’s more awkward and excitable than a “Madwoman in a Box,” with a sense of emotional maturity the other four have lacked. What’s interesting is this Doctor feels like the very age she looks: there’s no sense of a child in an adult’s body, nor even an aged lady in a younger form. She looks like a young woman, and she acts like a young woman, with emphasis on both those words: a direct contrast to the previous two incarnations. The Thirteenth Doctor is interesting because, once again, there’s something of a paradox in her morality. On the one hand, she’s a very forgiving Doctor: she doesn’t just give second chances, but also thirds. She gives you all the time she can to try and make a change for the better - to take her hand and accept her help, or to just back down and stop your evil dealings - but by that same token, her patience is not infinite. And once she decides she can’t spare the time to hope you’ll change, she can be just as ruthless as so many of her predecessors. She gives a Dalek multiple chances to surrender - something I don’t think ANY other Doctor would do before her - but eventually, she realizes she can’t stall any longer, and her payback is BRUTAL. Similarly, she listens to and tolerates the Master, despite all his nastiness (and he is ESPECIALLY nasty in this version), but she also literally leaves him to the unforgiving hands of THE FREAKING NAZIS. Bottom line: Thirteen is gentle, but she is not merciful. The soul of the old warrior is still inside her, and while she’ll always try to find a peaceful solution, once the chips are down, she will have no problem either leaving you to your own fate, or annihilating you herself. By the same token, however, the Thirteenth Doctor is one of the most sociable and friendly. With the people she likes and cares about, and the people she wants to help or just knows are doing what they need to do, she’ll generally work by a standard of “live and let live” and do all she can to make things work. She’s amiable and frequently sweet, and her quirkiness is just part of her charm...just don’t piss her off, because there is nothing more mortifying than a patient person’s fury.

COSTUME

I have to be honest, the Thirteenth Doctor’s Costume (at least so far) is my least favorite of all the Doctor’s outfits. The reason is because I don’t feel it really SAYS much about her character. With the Ninth Doctor, you had a somewhat more normal, simple look, but it matched his mood and the story of his character. With the Sixth Doctor, yes, the Amazing Technicolor Nightmarecoat is an infamous faux pas of both fashion and common sense, but I’ve warmed up to it over time and it does say a lot about who the Sixth Doctor is. With the Thirteenth Doctor...she really is just wearing clothes, and while the costume looks nice, there’s not much I can think to say about it, because it doesn’t really seem to mean anything. I guess it fits the more casual, friendly, “chill” Doctor we have here, since it is far less eccentric while still having a colorful and slightly quirky feeling to it...but I almost feel like if I saw someone dressed like this on the street, the fact they were trying to dress up as the Doctor wouldn’t even register. I feel the same way about Number Nine, but again, at least Nine’s clothes match his portrayal. This one...Whittaker looks good in it, but I just don’t see the DOCTOR in the design, aside from certain color choices. So...yeah. That’s my one big gripe here: not a fan of this costume.

COMPANIONS

I really do love the Thirteenth Doctor’s companions, for a lot of reasons. Once again, just like in Peter Davison’s era - especially in his early days - we have a sort of family dynamic aboard the TARDIS, with no less than three companions, and the Doctor at the helm as a sort of “big sister” to the bunch. Her three primary companions - Ryan, Yasmin, and Graham - are all people from different walks of life, of different ages, who end up roped into her adventures sort of by pure happenstance. Over the course of their many misadventures, the Doctor befriends them all, and they outright ASK to join her on a journey through space and time. There’s nothing romantic or even much in the way of a student/teacher relationship here: all three are bound by a single desire to travel the world and see about righting a few wrongs. They all have different motivations, but they’re bound by a single goal. I think my favorite of the bunch is Graham, simply because he’s the most unique: he’s the oldest companion the Doctor has ever had, at least in the modern era. We’ve seen spunky young women like Yasmin before, and young, slightly dopey men like Ryan, but Graham is a man who can sort of stand even with the Doctor in a very different way, and has one of the most fascinating reasons for his purpose aboard the TARDIS. In the most recent season, Graham and Ryan both left the TARDIS Team, and a new mate - Dan Lewis, a down-on-his-luck fellow the Doctor rescues from the hands of alien invaders. Whichever team you select, altogether, it’s a happy group, and I think the balance of the characters is actually handled better here than it perhaps was in Davison’s own time, which makes things even more sublime.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING

Again, Whittaker’s time as the Doctor has not yet ended, as of the moment I’m typing this. Having said that, her past appearances have, again, been very hit and miss. I debated for a while on which story to feature. Ultimately, I’ve decided to recommend the episode “Spyfall.” This two-part tale features the Thirteenth Doctor’s first encounter with The Master, some interesting references to past stories, some major developments that are a big part of this particular Doctor’s era. The first part is essentially one giant homage to James Bond, with the Doctor and her allies on an adventure straight out of a classic Bond movie, complete with all the trappings and tropes. The second half is more like…well…Doctor Who, with the Doctor having to go on a wild chase through time, pursuing the Master to find a solution to a greater problem. Being a Bond fan as well as a Doctor Who fan, I really liked this blend of things, and it’s great to see the Master again: he’s my favorite Doctor Who villain, and I don’t think I’ve recommended his episodess enough times, to be honest. I don’t necessarily know if this is my FAVORITE Whittaker story, but I would say it’s the most definitive in terms of describing her era.  

And just like that, we’ve covered all thirteen of the core Doctors of Doctor Who: the main pilots of the TARDIS! Tomorrow, our two-week adventure through time and space ends as I present to you all my comprehensive list of the Thirteen Doctors, from Least Favorite to Most Favorite. Who will top them all? Wait and see!

[kinsey3furry300]

A very confused Star Wars Fan desperately tries to justify their belief that “Caravan of Courage” shows the way forward for the franchise. No, really.

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve loved Star Wars. And I mean, all of it. The books, the games, the Lego, the spin-offs: I even enjoy the Holiday Special in a The Room so-bad-you-just-need-to-see-it sort of way.  But particularly the films. But here is when we run into the big problem: I’m just the wrong age. The original trilogy launched before I was born, the prequel trilogy hit cinemas when I was already a teen and while I went and saw them and enjoyed them, I was at that age where I was self-conscious about seeing a “kids” film, and hyper-aware of how silly and cringy those films were in parts. So my indoctrination, my inoculation with the Star Wars bug didn’t happen in the cinema, and it didn’t happen with any of the main franchise works. It happened on home video, on a skiing trip in the French Alps in the early 90’s. I’d have been about 6, and this was the first time I’d ever been abroad other than to see relatives in Ireland.  And I loved it: to this day I love skiing, but more than that, I have very, very fond childhood memories of this trip. This was shortly before I lost my biological mother to cancer, she’d have received her diagnosis just after we got back from the trip. This was when my younger sister stopped being an annoying screaming thing and became and became an actual person I could talk and play and share ideas with, this was before the combination my mothers long illness and my father having just launched his own IT start up meant I didn’t see him or her any more, despite the fact they were in the same house as me. This was this wonderful, nostalgic child-hood bubble when my family was intact, and nothing could ever go wrong. I skied all day with mum and dad, and would come back to the chalet in the evening. It was an English speaking chalet, I met my first real-life American there, and having grown up in the 90’s in the UK nothing was cooler than making friends with an actual American my own age. He had a hulk Hogan action figure with springs in the legs so if you put him on a hard surface and punched his head down, when you let go he’d jump really high in the air. We used to play with it together in the bath, back in that weird 90’s time-bubble when it was possible to convince two sets of parents that this kid you’d just met was you best friend in the world and of course shared bath time was, somehow, normal and appropriate. And fresh from bath time, tired from the day, the parents would give us some hot coco, dump us kids in front of the tv and grab the first shitty low-budget VHS they could find to keep us distracted while they went to the bar. In this particular time, in this particular place, that shitty low budget cartoon was the  complete set of the 1985 Lucasfilm/ABC Ewoks cartoon, plus the two spin off movies, and to this day that cheap, kitschy, kind of bad series has a special warm and cosy place in my heart. I remember being enthralled by the world, in love with the characters, applied by the bad guys and the injustice they caused (to this day I’m still irate about that time Wicket lost his set of beads documenting his progress towards becoming a full warrior and the older Ewoks basically said, tough, you need to re-earn all those merit badges from scratch. This struck me as exactly the sort of bullshit an adult would pull, and pissed me off) and on tenterhooks about what would happen to the characters.

It was also, by a coincidence, the first ever Star Wars media I was exposed to, and the above combination of events probably explains a lot about me.

So I was surprised, the other day, when scrolling Disney+, to find they’d added Caravan of Courage AND Battle for Endor to the roster in my region. Surely Disney wouldn’t want their slick, cool brand associated with this old trash? Surely there could be no place for this in the post-Mandalorian Star Wars cannon? Surely this is a horrible mistake some intern made, right?

Unless…. What if I’ve miss-remembered? What if it’s not just rose-tinted nostalgia goggles, and it’s, in fact, secretly really, really good?

I rushed to my comfy chair, got a blanket, dimmed the lights, made some coco (with rum in it, because why the hell not?) and sat down to re-examine this lost gem.

And wow: it’s every bit as shit as you’d expect.

It has aged exactly as poorly as you’d expect a cheap, mid 80’s direct to video spin-off to age. Caravan of Courage? More like Caravan of Garbage, am I right?

And yet… I still enjoyed every moment.

And it was sitting there, in my pyjamas, watching a cheaply made direct to video cash-grab from just before I was born, seeing it again for the first time in nearly 30 years, and I realised something.

It doesn’t really matter if this film is bad, so long as I enjoy it. And if it doesn’t really mater if this is bad, then I, like many Star Wars fans, wasted a huge amount of time and emotional effort on being butthurt about stuff I didn’t like about the Rise of Skywalker and it’s ilk. Because somewhere, right now, a tired and frustrated parent is putting Disney+ on to keep their kids quiet for two hours. And they won’t think too hard about what they put on, so long as it keeps little Timmy busy for a bit. Somewhere, right now, a kid is watching Rise of Skywalker, and it’s the first Star Wars media they’ve ever seen.

And that’s okay. Because we don’t know what that kids home life is like. We don’t know if it’s good or bad. Maybe it’s great, maybe it’s about to take a dramatic plunge like mine did, and this moment here will be the cosy, warm memory they look back on in 30 years time, and that’s beautiful.  They’re getting introduced to a fun, wonderful fantasy world that could be with them all their lives, through good times and bad, and as fans we should be happy about that.

Star Wars will never, die: it’s too darn profitable, Disney will never let it. And while I hope they learn from their mistakes and make sure every future Star Wars is a timeless gem of story-telling, statistically, if you keep making enough films, some of them will be bad. And while I’d like them all to be great, it’s still okay if they’re bad.

Because nothing can take away my memories of that week in that chalet. Nothing can take-away my memories of when they put the original trilogy on in cinemas for the special edition and I had my jaw hit the floor with how good it was on the big screen, not knowing or caring who shot first. Nothing can take away you memories of the Original Trilogy, the Prequels, or the Clone Wars. Nothing can tarnish the bits of the sequil trilogy that you like, and there are good bits in there.

But wait, what about continuity? What about the sacred, perfect written time-line that used to exist?

Well, what about it? Have you seen any other big, epic fantasy universe before? They’re all a mess. A work of fiction, particularly fantasy, can be extensive, or tightly written, but not both. Harry Potter is only seven books, and the last two feel, tonally, like they’re from an entirely different series. I love them, but the grim-dark kicked in so fast you’ll get whiplash. The Hobbit is a perfect written self-contained novel, and LOTR is *The* big boy high-fantasy trilogy: fast forward 50 years, and Christopher Tolkien is desperately squeezing every last drop of money out of his father’s corpse by finishing and publishing every unfinished note JRR ever wrote right down to his shopping lists. Even Dune goes of the rails with sequels. I can only think of four fantasy works that are both extensive and consistently tightly written, Song of Ice and Fire, Wheel of Time, Malazan: Book of the Fallen and Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe. And even then, the prequels and spin-offs mess with the timelines: the Dunk and Egg novella’s change some character’s canonical ages and timelines, Wheel of Time was going slowly off the rails even before the Jordan died, Forge of Darkness made what was a good metaphor for the creation of it’s world into a literal war deep in the past, and Sanderson’s first Novel Elantris got a re-write to bring it more in line with the rest of the shared universe. The MCU, oft held up as the modern example of tightly planned, well thought out ongoing storytelling, is a lie: it was never as pre-planned out as Disney wants us to think; the first Iron Man, apparently, barely had a script, with Downey ad-lib-ing most of his scenes. None of the MCU films are direct sequels to each-other other than Infinity war and Endgame. There are three Iron Man films, and Three Thor films, and none continue an ongoing story line across multiple films, and the Cap films barely continue an arc, but only where Cap’s relationship with Natasha and Bucky is involved.  Much like these, Star War’s cannon is a complete, nightmarish, confusing, tangled, illogical mess. And it has been since 1984, as Caravan of Courage proves. It was never consistent and well planned.

And that’s okay.

I used to care about plot holes. I used to care about which works were cannon in Star Wars lore. I’m over that now. I’m happy to imagine the books, films and games not as a blow-by-blow historical account of a galaxy far far away, but as campfire stories from within this fun, imaginative world that we’re all invited to listen to. Stories that are in-universe myth and folklore, that we can all snuggle up and listen to while drinking highly alcoholic rum and remembering better times, knowing that wherever the future throws at us, no matter how the world goes to hell around us, we’ll still have the memories, and the ability to make our own new stories in the wonderful Star Wars world we all share.

And that’s okay. No, more than that: that’s beautiful.

Also Star Wars is completely unambiguous on the fact we’re allowed to kill fascists no matter how many times they keep coming back with a new logo, so that’s timely I guess.

So, there’s my hot take two-years after everyone else stopped caring about this stuff, as per bloody usual. Tell me why I’m wrong below, and does anyone else have any truly awful spin-off shows that they kind of have a nostalgic soft spot for?

[terastalungrad]

I really like Doctor Who's Timeless Child retcon.

Lots of people hate it. I've heard a lot of reasons. The only criticism I'm willing to accept is, "I didn't enjoy the episode in which it was revealed".

But otherwise - come on! It's great!

Did we love the idea that the Doctor's always a white man? No we did not. Well, guess what - she wasn't. White men were the exception rather than the norm.

Did we love the idea that the Doctor was a Time Lord? She's still a Time Lord. Did we love that she was Gallifreyan? She was raised on Gallifrey, so she's still Gallifreyan in that sense.

"I don't like that it makes the Doctor special!" Well, she IS special. That ship had already sailed. She's the Oncoming Storm, the madman in a box. She makes whole armies turn and run, and swaggers back to her Tardis and opens the doors with a snap of her fingers.

What this really does is make the Time Lords less special. And that's great! They're colonialists. I love the idea that regeneration - their greatest trick, on which their civilisation is built - was stolen from an innocent.

Here's a criticism I've heard - "What's the point in a retcon like this? It's not like we're going to get any good stories out of it." Which seems strange to me, because it's already led to Fugitive of the Judoon, one of the best-received episodes of Jodie Whittaker's era.

But also ... since when has Doctor Who limited itself to lore that exists solely to set up good stories? Doctor Who's full of wild, imaginative details that are there for the audience to build their headcanons.

It also fits so well with everything we've seen. It allows the pre-Hartnell Doctors from The Brain of Morbius to co-exist with the Peter Davison Doctor's belief that he's only the fifth Doctor.

People point to Time of the Doctor as a story that's inconsistent now, but that's easy to fix. The Matt Smith Doctor genuinely believes he's run out of regenerations. He believes he's only able to regenerated because the Time Lords grant him a new cycle. But there's no evidence he's correct on either count.

People point to Name of the Doctor as a story that's inconsistent now, because surely Clara would have seen earlier Doctors. Which also seems fine to me. She only sees the John Hurt Doctor at the very end, so clearly it's possible to hide much of the Doctor's timeline from her. And Jo Martin isn't just being hidden by the Doctor - she's been hidden FROM the Doctor!

So, I love it. The Doctor is far older than she ever knew. Even she doesn't know where she's from. Nobody does. The Time Lords lied to her, exploited her ... and she rebelled. She stole a Tardis and ran away. Probably more than once. Her memories were wiped time and again. Her past is wildly inconsistent.

But she's still the Doctor. And ultimately, that's all that matters.

[motherwasapapafucker]

What are your overall thoughts on the Timeless Childe? I don’t like it myself but I don’t see it as a lore-shattering show-ruining cataclysm (unlike SOME people! Talk about an overreaction), I’m pretty sure the next showrunner will just ignore it. Like how most media (except the EDAs) ignored the quote from the TV Movie about the Doctor being half human. What do you think?

I think the Timeless Child is an unfortunate victim of -let's be honest here- segments of fandom that for all their “Doctor Who is the best thing ever/can tell any story/other stock marketing phrases” was never going to accept a transition away from an era of Who that firmly operated with the in-vouge approach to genre fiction where meta-text is as much a driving force as any actual plot specifics and the cottage industry of blogs and Twitter personalities that built up careers around engaging with that as the defining trend of Doctor Who as a property.  We’ve already seen these entrenched spaces use their position to push discourse in directions that while totally alien to any actual standards of academia -see Eruditorum ended the discussion around Moffat and misogyny as if it were possible for anything to serve as the final word on a topic- were readily accepted within fandom largely by volume and sheer aggression. So hardly surprising that TC discourse beyond “lore-heavy bad in this case” rants have been drowned out or met with a degree of bad faith that is genuinely embrassing coming from spaces claiming some degree of media savvy.  The story itself, personally, uses the usual trappings of your big Doctor Who event to build on the groundwork of Fugitive while generally playing with the expectations created by the tropes at play. The Timeless Child is at the heart of Gallifreyian Civilization, a dark secret buried away that played a singular role in their development but within the story itself, this is revealed as little more than cover for what is pretend, fairly starkly, as a story of an abused child slowly been exploited by authority figures and then fed into the same system that has exploited them. There’s been some (recent because you can track the development of these things like clockwork, watch as Chibb’s Who is elitist emerges after this one’s died down) argument that it underserves these aspects by reducing them to a montage, which is true to a degree but then that’s more a weakness of the 45/50 minute format as anything else and really doesn’t engage with the primary drive of the child’s story being her first and comparative last incarnation within the flashbacks.  As for how it’ll be handled by the next showrunner it really depends, I lean towards far less likely that tends to be presented giving NuWho’s reticence to really jettison anything beyond superficial changes or elements that were never going to make a dent in public perception like Missy’s ‘character arc’ (Which hey, why isn’t that an example of Eccleston’s views? or is that the mean old show moving beyond the past). Depending on who takes over, and given the track record it’ll probably be someone already involved with the show, so it’ll be less discarded and more building on and taking it in new directions ala Timeless Child’s engagement with the Doctor as foundational within Moffat Who which builds out of Davies’ Lonely God etc. etc.  And I think that’s ultimately the thing for me, more than anything, I don’t even think the Timeless Child is a masterpiece of storytelling but attempting to portray it as a grand departure from NuWho’s general quality is fucking stupid, like really fucking stupid. NuWho has never been groundbreaking television, at best its boldest ideas are hand-me-down’s that while introducing a number of people to bold concepts when they were 14 probably shouldn’t be viewed with the same degree of awe when you’re in your mid-20s. Half the weakness of the entrenched Who-sphere is a steadfast refusal to engage with the show as a show, and a show produced by the fucking BBC at that. 

[raggedydocs]

Why is everybody suddenly turning on the Thirteenth Doctor Era? During this season's broadcast there was nothing but good reviews and now all of a sudden every other blog is like "I personally love Jodie but the writing is terrible" and I'm like what the bloomin' heck -- this season was awesome!

To be honest, your experience of the reception to Thirteen’s era so far is clearly more positive than mine because from the start it has always appeared as if people’s attitudes towards it have been largely divisive – at least from what I’ve seen. I’ve been trying to articulate my opinion surrounding the fandom’s reactions to this era of the show ever since 2017, but seeing as it looks like this era could last for another few years, and with this ask popping up, I feel like now is a good time to talk about it. Excuse my rambling (although I feel like that’s pretty standard with my blog now 😂).

The fandom has always been pretty opinionated when it comes to new Doctors  being announced. I mean, for a show whose very existence is down to its ability to change and quite literally regenerate itself every few years, its die-hard audience really seems to struggle with this every time it comes around. At least for a little while. Every Doctor gets the typical “they’re too young!” or “they’re too old” or “the show is dead to me now” or “bring back [insert previous actor]” and then after a while most people grow to love them just as they loved the previous incarnations. It’s a cycle that most fans are self-aware of and often joke about. With Jodie though, this response was different. Heightened. And the anger and uncertainty wasn’t simply because of age, appearance, qualification or whatever superficial concerns that people tend to have. It started to be centred around gender, and I think that’s where the toxicity started. Jodie being the first female Doctor was HUGE, at least it definitely was over here in the UK, because it reached pretty much every news and media outlet that we have. There’s a whole argument I could have about whether a woman leading such a monumental television show like Doctor Who should be such a big deal, but I think either way, when a show with over half a century of history changes the gender of its main character for the first time, the buzz it generates is kind of inevitable. But it’s an unavoidable fact that ever since Jodie’s announcement there has been a group of people who from the very beginning, before they had seen anything of what Jodie has to offer, decided that the show was dead to them. Why? Because she’s a woman. And even to this day they remain very vocal of the fact, which does beg the question of why they are so bothered when they apparently don’t watch the show anymore. But what do I know?

Of course, there are also a lot of people who dislike this era for reasons that don’t necessarily concern Jodie’s gender. As you mentioned, this tends to be because of the writing or Chibnall’s general methods of showrunning, but if anything I would say that this was much more prevalent in Series 11 than Series 12. Series 11 was a hugely divisive series. It stripped back a lot of what made Doctor Who what it had become since the reboot; there were no story arcs, no familiar monsters or lore, very little to tie the show back to what had come before it. Apart from some beautiful visuals and stand out episodes (as well as some fab performances from Jodie), Series 11 felt to some like it was just sort of...there. No fanfare, very little threat, and nothing particularly memorable other than (in my opinion) the historical episodes. And even though I think Series 11 is hugely underrated, I definitely agree that in certain aspects the series just felt like it was lacking. It was great for new viewers, but isolated the old ones.

Series 12 generally seemed to have a much more positive response and the fandom really felt like it was alive again when it was airing. I think a lot of this was down to Dhawan’s Master being introduced in the first episode, as well as the Timeless Child arc. It was a brilliant twist and brought about excitement for what the rest of the series had in store, something that Series 11 simply didn’t do. And apart from a couple of flatter episodes, most of the episodes were genuinely really enjoyable to watch and very well received. In fact, I would argue that the sentiment towards Series 12 and this era overall would be much more positive if it wasn’t for the Timeless Child revelation. Although I personally quite like the way it expands the lore of the show and don’t particularly see it as ruining anything, it was a demonstration of Chibnall’s divisive showrunning. From the very beginning he has always been about bold moves and earth-shattering changes and this is something that I actually quite like about this era; I think it keeps things interesting and fresh. But it isn’t very palatable and that’s where it upsets a lot of fans. As I’ve said before, even the changes in Doctor Who can be too much for some people, and I can respect that, even if I don’t necessarily agree.

That being said, obviously this era has its supporters, and a lot of people like me can still enjoy what is being put out there whilst having our own criticisms. I think Jodie is an incredible Doctor who deserves so much more credit for what she does and I’m so glad that she seems to be sticking around. And I’m also always going to be intrigued by what Chibnall has up his sleeve for the next few years.

[rassilon-imprimatur]

Fugitive of the Judoon thoughts...

1) To me, everything with the two Doctors in this episode felt less like 13 literally stumbling upon a retconned and/or Unknown To Us™ past a la Name of the Doctor/Day of the Doctor and more... if Doctor Who of a Continued and Connected Narrative from the Original 1963 Show™ suddenly speared into the middle of a timeline where Doctor Who was rebooted on TV from scratch. I think this is far more leaning towards “alternate timelines occupying the same space” a la the EDAs with The Infinity Doctors, the various hints and implications towards the Doctor in Faction Paradox and City of the Saved, and The Blue Angel than it is “the Doctor has forgotten a bit of her past.” 

2) Ruth is already one of the best Doctors ever. One of the best Doctor outfits. Easily one of the New Series’ best console rooms. Using a Hartnell/Troughton Police Box is really cool.

3) I think this is more Timeless Child adjacent than it is strictly Timeless Child relevant, if that makes sense. Maybe the Master destroying Gallifrey has led to timelines mixing and merging? I’m sticking with this for now, with Ruth and her timeline being a connected result? “Time is swirling around me,” the universe ain’t doing so hot at the moment. 

4) Being me, I’m actually almost as excited about whatever the hell’s going on with “the Lone Cyberman” as I am about Jo’s Doctor. Really intrigued. 

5) It sucks to say that the companions are most definitely still the least engaging aspect of the series for me, even at their most delightful and fun (and they are all very lovely). I’m eating well this season, the craziness and the new lore and the kitchen sink are all a good and powerful thriving energy for me, but it’s very telling that an episode I consider one of the era’s best barely utilizes the bubs whatsoever. 

6) Jodie’s been REALLY thriving this season, between getting her own Master and her relationship with Ruth. 

7) I’m having a lot of fun. 

[hypexion]

The Timeless Children is the culmination of not just Series Twelve, but perhaps all of modern Doctor Who. Once again, the canon will be permanently altered, until a new showrunner comes along to change it. Nothing will be the same or different again!

Then again, what irks me about the Timeless Child stuff is that it distracts from the fact that The Timeless Children is a pretty poor conclusion to the whole Lone Cyberman arc that’s been going on. Ashad, who should probably be the main antagonist, gets killed halfway through to enable the Master to enact his lastest Master plan. The good news is that his plan is still Cyberman related, so all the Doctor’s terrible trauma still applies when he reveals his army of “Cybermasters“. But then the Doctor ends up in another inescapable situation, leading to the cop-out where Ko Sharmus shows up to die in the Doctor’s place. It’s a bit of a retread of The Doctor Falls, where the Doctor is in a position that is completely fatal, yet can’t actually die because she’s the main character. Everything just sort of falls apart right at the end, and it’s not very impressive.

Really, the only character who comes out ahead in this episode is the Master. Sure, he loses, but when he’s not being a giggling madman, Sacha Dhawan gives the character a very strong performance. Underneath the now-overplay “look how cRaZy the Master is“ stuff is something deeper and more interesting. His disappointment that the Death Particle doesn’t activate, his conversion with the Doctor when they arrive on Gallifrey, and “the rage and pain in [his] hearts“ all suggest that the truth of the Timeless Child is deeply upsetting to him. Beyond just “oh no I owe existing to the Doctor“, which was already true before all of this. It’s enough to wonder if the Master’s more manic side is a mask, some thing he plays up, just as the Doctor covers her own trauma with a facade of positivity. What ever the truth is, the Master has become a man tormented by what he’s learn, who has lashed out at anyone who might possibly be connected in an attempt to reassert control of his own existence.

Other characters are around, but don’t do that much. Ryan successfully throws a ball, and Graham says nice things about Yaz. Yaz then says that Graham is okay, which due to her upbringing is actually a very nice thing to say. Consider applying this metric to the already very nice things she says about the Doctor to discover a new ship. The future characters are also around, but one dies immediately, and Ko Sharmus basically absorbs all the personality allocated for side characters. Which is good for him, because it makes him a cool guy who justifies his screentime, but less so for the other characters.

So, the Timeless Child. The whole mystery thing that The Timeless Children is apparently built around. Once again, the Doctor is the most super-special person in the universe, due to the “Chibnall Masterplan“. It’s a big deal that completely overhauls the known lore, all to deal with a single scene in The Brain of Morbius. Is it really any different from all the other times the Doctor was the most important person in the universe? Only the Master actually seems to care, and while the Doctor might be a little discombobulated at first, she soon snaps back to reality.

Here’s the thing. The Timeless Child reveal is something that feels like it’s a big deal. A big secret about the Time Lord’s history is revealed, and the Doctor is right in the middle of it. Except, is she really? While the Doctor might be the Timeless Child, can it be said that the Timeless Child is the Doctor? All of the TC’s memories were erased to create the person who would become the Doctor. After that they had a childhood, an education, met the Master and had a family, before finally fleeing Gallifrey, maybe because of The Hybrid (who might be the Cyberium-Master actually?). There’s no continuity of identity - whoever the TC might have been, the Doctor is a separate person. This is even presented as a possibility by the episode - the Rth Doctor says that being the Timeless Child doesn’t matter, and Thirteen agrees. So far, this revelation does not matter in-universe.

And from a meta sense, is the Timeless Child anything more than a rehash of The Hybrid? Messing with the Doctor’s origins is a time-honoured tradition of Doctor Who. The name “Theta-Sigma“ was first used by a guy who popped out of a hole in The Armageddon Factor. The so-called “Cartmel Masterplan“, had the show not been cancelled before it could get going, would have coyly hinted that the Doctor was in fact connected to the origins of Gallifrey (and let us be honest: the execution would have actually been as subtle as brick to the face). Additionally, modern Doctor Who hasn’t shied away from presenting the Doctor in an almost divine manner. The Timeless Children sits upon the sins of Last of the Timelords, Voyage of the Damned, A Good Man Goes to War, The Day of the Doctor, and a myriad of other episodes, each portraying the Doctor as something more godlike than they ever should be. The Timeless Child isn’t new - in fact, it’s just directly stating what modern Doctor Who has been implying from the beginning: the Doctor is the most super-special-awesome person in the universe. Not that the Doctor cares.

And of course, nothing Chris Chibnall or anyone else writes can change the real-world fact that William Hartnel was the First Doctor. It’s also true that from an in-universe perspective, the Timeless Child is a Big Deal. But it’s a footnote compared to the hours and days worth of stories about the Doctor, the Time Lord who stole a TARDIS and ran away to see the universe. Until something actually happens because the Timeless Child is a thing, it’s essentially just another piece of throwaway trivia to bring when you feel like starting an argument, a bit like Looms. Things may seem different, but the true is that they’re the same as they’ve always been.

Also given that the Timeless Child stuff literally exists to explain a scene in The Brain of Morbius that already has better explanations, it’s clear that caring too much about continuity is a trap. Free yourself from “canon“ and “established lore” and embrace Doctor Who anarchy! It’s what the Doctor would want.

Ultimately, The Timeless Children fails to provide a statisfying conclusion to the Lone Cyberman arc or itself. It order to fit in the New Big Thing, plotlines are drop or folded into others, in a way that doesn’t quite work. And as for the big reveal? Like the rest of Series Twelve, no one takes the time to care. Except for the Master. Which, in the end, perhaps tells us how much we should care.

[billpottsismygf]

oh my god oh my god oh my god

I absolutely loved that.

God, Sacha Dhawan is just so brilliant as the Master. We got to spend far more time with his character than we often do, especially for moments when the Doctor isn't even there. (Side note: I love how much aesthetic work the Master had clearly put into his Time Lord Cybermen.) I'm really hoping that that ending won't be the end to this incarnation of the Master (nothing ever finishes the Master off for good).

I'm amazed that we got an explanation of Ruth in this episode. I was expecting that mystery to continue well into the next series.

I just don't have the words to fully explain all of my thoughts and feelings right now.

The Timeless Child is the Doctor! I mean, we all kind of speculated as much, but that means a whole lot more than I expected it to. Agh, it just re-contextualises everything about the Doctor and Gallifrey in general, and actually doesn't ruin it! But also, the question that didn't get asked in the episode: where did she originally come from???

The Doctor, as it turns out, is not a native Gallifreyan. They aren't even actually a Time Lord. They are the model that Time Lords were built from, sure, but actual Time Lords are native Gallifreyans who have had their DNA spliced with the Doctor's regeneration gene. So... what species is the Doctor. Where was it that the original Timeless Child came from? I'm really hoping this will be explored in future because wow... This opens up a whole new chapter of lore that I can't wait to get into.

Though also, how was the 12 regenerations cap put on the Doctor when the Doctor was the blueprint for regeneration? I guess they could have imposed it somehow while forcing them into service and/or when wiping their memory. Or, my preferred theory, there is no regeneration cap on the Doctor and Gallifrey only pretended to grant extra regenerations to Eleven when he was dying. (It would also explain why the Eleventh Doctor was able to use future regeneration energy to heal River in Angels in Manhattan when he supposedly didn’t have any future regenerations.)

Another question is what about the future of humanity? If the final remaining humans have been transported back in time to the 21st Century, how do they continue to exist as far into the future as Utopia? I guess we can assume that there were a few other bands of survivors here and there, including the ones who went through the boundary. 

Which is another thing that wasn’t quite explained. The boundary is meant to go to different locations, so did all the other humans go to random places to live out their lives, or did they all get sent to Gallifrey? If the former, why does the boundary now seem to always lead to Gallifrey? And is it related to the original boundary where the Timeless Child was originally found?

Onto more general episode things, god I love Ko Sharmus. He was hilarious and adorable all the way through, and the ending made perfect sense. (Though not sure why the Master spent so long getting him shot once he realised what was happening, but whatever.)

And none of the companions died! Holy shit! I'm so pleased! I loved all of them so much in this episode, from Ryan's excited noises when he blew up some cybermen to Yaz and Graham's heart-to-heart.

Though, they're now going to think she's dead and won't have any way of rescuing her from Judoon prison.

God, I'm just so happy with this series as a whole. Yes, there have been a few duds, but that's to be expected. Overall, the writing has been so much better. Seeing the Doctor get to be more vulnerable, more violent even (shoving the Master over, shaking Yaz off her), is incredible. This darker Thirteen is so much more compelling than the bubbly one from series 11. Disclaimer: I love bubbly Thirteen, but I desperately wanted to see underneath that and actually get some depth from her and holy shit has Chibs delivered.

[goldenkid]

doctor who rant time

literally the ONLY redeeming thing abt chibnall’s doctor who is that 13 is hot and that’s just me being gay but like. where’s her personality. like mr chibnall can we PLEASE see a personality that isn’t awkwardly forced speeches or not very funny one liners or cobbled together traits from previous doctors like a less likeable 10/11 with none of the...you know...heart/soul and personality.

and then there’s the companions. ryan is cool, dude got lucky with at least 3/4 of a personality and a sweet arc w graham in s11; speaking of graham what did he contribute in s12 except for comic relief and like 1 (one) nightmare about his dead wife (remember her??). and yaz........yaz. cardboard cutout half hearted queerbait who nobody bothered to give a personality or like...ANYTHING to do. at all. for 2 seasons. she just stands there and says a line that could’ve been ryan or graham’s once in a while. oh she was depressed? nice tidbit to throw in 1.5 seasons into her being a companion and then never elaborate on. love the character arc she had....oh wait. oh yaz yeah she’s so--uh....policewoman? brave i guess? she has cool hair that counts for something i guess

and ofc i don’t dare go near the mess of the plot. sure, there were a couple decent episodes, one or two solid plots and side characters who weren’t blander than cardboard cereal, but everything else is some of the most badly paced, forgettable, token-activism-with-weird-centrist??-messages, boring pile of plot points that go nowhere and suggestions at character development that make you want to yell at the screen to make these characters do something!! put them through something!! make them learn or at least get sad for more than half an episode!! can we get some meaningful interaction in here pls?? and no mr chibnall that doesn’t mean one long speech with the moral of the episode awkwardly shoved in and then everyone going about their business. like moffat plots made no fuckin sense half the time but at least they were fun!! at least the characters were dynamic and the situations were interesting!! like moffat may not have done good overarching plots or simple concepts/down to earth characters but he could like...write an entertaining story.

and then i literally can’t go into shit like the timeless child...nazi master...weird message of kerblam...13 being like ‘no guns!!1’ and also kinda indifferent to suffering...like what were you GOING FOR HERE? do you think doctor who fans watch the show for the lore?? of course not we watch it for the stupid shit and space and emotions. and also if it’s not too much to ask, for the gay characters who don’t die.

and basically at the end of it, s11 and 12 were just straight up not much fun to watch. i’m more invested in doctor who than the average person and i was always several weeks behind with s12 because i didn’t care to catch up. i’ll watch the new season but for the first time ever i’m not actively looking forward to it coming out. i’m not expecting it to get much better. or at least not enough to make me invested in these characters that i’ve tried REALLY HARD to love. i spent all of s11 overlooking flaws and persuading myself the episodes were good, but the doctor being a hot lady can only tide you over so far. i didn’t really like s12. it’s mediocre tv. good actors can’t make bad writing into fun tv. or they can, but not for two entire seasons.

idk. i had high hopes for chibnall, for a female doctor, for 3 companions for new doctor who but i’m probably the most disappointed i’ve ever been. i’d rather rewatch season 6 than this, and i still don’t know what the fuck was going on that season. but at least it was fun to watch!! unlike this, which is boring. it all comes down to doctor who not only being bad, which is excusable, but being dull as well. and that just sucks

[mr-craig]

Spoiler warning for last night's Doctor Who!

So, they finally revealed the identity of the Timeless Child, and it's pretty much the two theories I was trying to decide between, mashed together into one. The Timeless Child was an alien orphan with the power of regeneration, on whom the Gallifreyans experimented to build their Time Lord society, rather than regeneration being something native to Gallifrey. And that baby was... drum roll please... I mean it was always going to the Doctor, right? Why else would they even do this plot if it wasn’t gonna be the Doctor? Yep, it's the Doctor. She's not really from Gallifrey, and she has countless former lives that have been erased from her memory.

It's odd. I've seen comments from fans who are furious about the episode, and other fans who love it. Some were impressed with the subtext of colonialism - the Time Lords having built their society on the achievements and abilities of a black child from another land, by way of slavery and torture, then erasing that person's contribution from history. (Read through that lens, I appreciate the concept, if not the execution.) Some were angry about the Timeless Child because it means Hartnell is no longer the "First" Doctor, which is apparently disrespectful to his legacy. (Though of course he will always be the First Doctor in actuality and in spirit - and presumably also in name, if he was the first incarnation of the Timeless Child to use the name Doctor.) And some were angry simply because it changes the precious lore of the show.

And I wouldn't even say I'm in the middle of them. I'm not really anywhere. I just... don't really have any feelings about it, as a concept. It's so far in the Doctor's past that it's irrelevant to the story or her character as it stands. She has a bit of a wobble, then Ruth!Doctor gives her a talking-to in her imagination and she resolves to continue being the way she’s always been, the way we’ve always known her. So unless the Doctor finds her true home planet (which, from a narrative standpoint, I really hope she doesn’t, unless the show is ever going to come to a definitive end with her “going home” and ending her travels), all it really impacts is how we see the Time Lords - who I've always found deeply uninteresting anyway. It's just kinda nothing. (And like the episode itself, this here post is a long-winded way of saying very little!)

The Doctor doesn't even get to be an active participant in most of the story. She doesn't uncover the conspiracy by herself; the Master discovered it, captured and incapacitated her, and then told her about it in an attempt to blow her mind, which... didn't work, because he misjudged the Doctor’s strength of character. Part of me wonders if the whole thing was cooked up by Chris Chibnall as a way to reconcile The Brain of Morbius with the rest of canon. "See? That's why Tom Baker saw those extra faces in 1976! Now we can rest easy, all of Doctor Who makes perfect sense again!"

Was any of this entertaining to casual viewers?!

Surely it would have been much more effective storytelling for the Doctor to have been spurred into action by her encounter with Ruth!Doctor, realising that parts of their history have obviously been hidden from them, and thereby investigating and discovering the legend of the Timeless Child herself. Instead, she potters around for a few more standalone episodes (which were good episodes), gets tangled up with the Cybermen and the Master, and... gets told the thing. Okay then.

So yeah, that was a whole lot of continuity-wank for Whovian geeks. But as a Whovian geek myself, it wasn't even a very satisfying continuity-wank. Ehh.

All that said, I love Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor, Sacha Dhawan’s Master, and many of the other episodes this year. It’s been a good season of Who. This episode doesn’t change that.

[thirddoctor]

It bugs me when people defend the timeless child bc “the Doctor isn’t super special!! sHE’s a vICtiM!!” Like, and?? How does the Doctor being a victim inherently make the story better? And why would the Doctor being a Victim mean they aren’t super special as everyone has been complaining? Are victims not special? It’s just such a bizarre argument. It’s angst for the sake of angst.

Yeah, she was already some sort of powerful interdimensional being before the Time Lords found her, and she becomes the foundation of their society, even if it wasn’t by choice. She is, objectively, far more significant/special than her previous backstory indicated.

As someone who’s never been a victim of abuse or anything like that, I certainly don’t want to tell people who are how to feel about it---if they feel represented or empowered by it, I’m genuinely glad---but I’m not sure why the Doctor needed to be a child abuse victim (especially when that aspect is barely addressed in the episode, though it’s possible it will be in the future). It’s not that a story about abuse victims is a bad idea, it’s just that that wasn’t the Doctor’s story. I liked them just fine as someone from a planet of stuffy aristocrats who rejected that society and learned compassion. You don’t need to have been hurt yourself to want to help other people. (This is why I never liked the Doctor being half-human either, because the implication was that that was why the Doctor cared about earth, and I don’t like the idea that they would have to be personally connected to another species to love them and help them.) There’s also a common trend of males heroes getting to be heroic just because, while female heroes have to be survivors of great trauma, which this sort of feeds into. Unintentionally, of course, because I’m not even sure how intentional the abuse implications are.

Doctor Who certainly has a place for stories about victims, exploring that trauma and how they heal from it, but that’s not what the Timeless Child is. It’s not presented as a story of someone surviving and overcoming abuse, it’s about Doctor Who lore. It’s about fitting random contradictory bits of canon together (while contradicting far more) and opening up the Doctor’s backstory to accommodate more “mystery” and probably more opportunities for Big Finish to sell audios or for one-off TV specials about random pre-Hartnell Doctors played by high profile actors (which sounds incredibly dull and creatively bankrupt to me, but it fits with some of the rumours about DW’s future that were shared on GB prior to TTC). I don’t think there was ever an intention to tell a story about abuse.