Oh Brilliant: Oh yes, she is. Series 12 as a whole has afforded Whittaker the chance to sink her teeth into a diverse and rich vein of material and she has risen the challenge with relish. The 13th Doctor is one of my absolute favourite things about the twelfth season and how with each story she has been given the opportunity to play darker, more compelling material and rise up the ranks of my favourite Doctors. Now she is nestled near the top, alongside Troughton, Colin Baker and Tennant. Strangely the point in which she was truly cemented in my mind as the Doctor was when she faced down the Master in Spyfall, there’s something about when these two get together that brings out the best in the Doctor (and probably another reason why I don’t hold Matt Smith in such high esteem). Whittaker and Dhawan’s chemistry is palpable and thrilling and their final showdown in The Timeless Children is one of the best of this type. It’s charged because the Doctor is back in the horrible position of having to destroy Gallifrey and despite his bluster you can see the Master willing the Doctor on because he truly wants to die. You can feel the weight of their relationship in this exchange, of their shared past and of how their dance around the universe has led them to this point. Will she murder her friend? Destroy her planet? Commit Suicide? It’s hold your breath time as the Doctor makes her choice for what would be the final time. This is a story that sidelines the Doctor for much of its running time because she is locked up and force-fed explanations but unlike something like Last of the Time Lords that rendered him completely impotent, she gets to show off her range as her life is turned completely upside down. Whittaker has spent enough of this season reacting to shocks (the return of the Master, the Jo Martin Doctor, the destruction of Gallifrey) but the revelations here are very personal and so is her response. The moment when she decks the Master and screams at him to show her more really made me sit up and pay attention. The scene at the climax (whilst ripped directly from Resurrection of the Daleks and is similarly powerful) where she has to send her friends away and face the villain with a weapon that would destroy him is loaded with feeling (and Ludo was perfectly convinced that this Doctor was walking to her doom). Strangely enough my favourite moment of hers comes right at the very end when she walks into the TARDIS, the one absolute certainty in her life and leans on the console to take a minute. She’s been assaulted with shocks in this episode and for once she cannot find it in her to dash off to the next adventure. She needs time. The scene with Jo Martin’s Doctor is the most important one in the entire episode. Not only because it is so nice to see her back but because it highlights that whilst what we understand about the Doctor has changed, that ultimately it changes nothing. ‘Have you ever been limited by who you were before?’ That’s the series in a nutshell. Moving on, creating new stories, new characters. Acknowledging the past but looking to the future. The Timeless Children uses that as its crutch, and it is the most essential line. Yes, the show isn’t quite what you thought it was. Yes, there are more things to learn about its building blocks. But no, nothing has been taken away from those adventures you have enjoyed. At each point in the Doctor’s many lives that you have enjoyed, those adventures counted, they are relevant and they are there to savour. The past didn’t affect them at the time, and going forward it won’t affect the show now. Just enjoy what you are watching. The Doctor’s adventures. ‘People need the Doctor’, whoever that might be. Ultimately what Chibnall has done is put the Who back in Doctor Who. It worked for the first six years of the show when it was shrouded in mystery and it works now that we have learnt that there is much more to know about the Doctor’s past. He’s ticked a few boxes (explaining The Brain of Morbius, the Doctor’s ‘I am far more than just another Time Lord’), created a fascinating new Doctor (Jo Martin) and left some questions hanging about what the Doctor got up to pre-Hartnell. For those of you who loathe the fact that the Doctor has been mythologised this much and feel it has taken away from her as a hippy exile wandering around space…for one the show is called Doctor Who and so the mystery of this character has been flashed up on screen in every single episode and secondly that is precisely what she still is. All those lives she has lived as a space tramp bumbling through the universe are still there and relevant. I think we could do with a little time away from these revelations and some good old-fashioned adventuring (the ending of this story promises that) but there are some intriguing threads to pick up and I cannot wait. In the face of shattering revelations, Whittaker’s optimism still shines through. The Doctor takes what the Master has thrown at her and turns it into a positive direction for her life. Mysteries to unpick, a life to understand, a fresh identity to claim. On a dead Gallifrey, surrounded by Time Lords converted into Cybermen and in the wake of learning that her entire life has been a lie, the Doctor refuses to crumble. She spits in the eye of the Master’s attempts to crush her. It’s her finest moment to date. ‘You’ve given me the gift…of myself.’
O: Let me get this out of the way first because I don’t want to bore you with my salivating for the rest of this review. Sacha Dhawan is quite simply the most delicious looking man that the series has ever put on screen and I want to do unspeakable things to him every time I see him. It’s a problem that perhaps the most sadistic version of the Master is the one I fancy but I am coming to terms with that. Dhawan also happens to be a brilliant, dangerous actor who is willing to go to manic lengths to suggest the Master’s lunacy and pain are something that consumes him without every tipping over into pantomime. He plays the Master as damaged, brutal, playful and sexy. He’s magnetic and risky. I was a little terrified of him but also turned on and laughing at his madness. It’s a terrifically engaging mix and the best of this episode. Dhawan is the one who takes the most from this insane script and delivers some exceptional scenes. I enjoyed Simm’s Master very much and Missy was an awesome diversion from the norm as an anti-hero that the Doctor can work alongside but Dhawan’s Master is the purest version of evil we have seen since The Deadly Assassin. He’s as inspired by his own self hate as he is damaged by it. The few moments where the Doctor tries to get inside his head and stir up the rage and jealousy I actually felt sorry for him, despite his actions, because he is a victim of his own self-hate. He’s always hated the fact that Doctor acts like she is something special or different from the rest of their people and now to learn that she genuinely is special and that part of her uniqueness lives inside of him makes him detonate with anger and violence. It forces him to bring down the species that the Doctor (however unwillingly) helped to create. It’s a therapist’s wet dream. A man who hates everything his species is and so he annihilates them. He feels more unpredictable than ever because of the lengths he is going to. The moment when he growls for the Doctor to detonate the particle and destroy everything she has helped to inspire; he’s really asking her to kill him because of the battle that is raging inside of him. His mind has snapped, he’s ready for it to all end.
Graham, Ryan and Yaz: I’m pleased that the Fam didn’t leave in this episode because they are sidelines in favour of all the other developments and I’m at the stage now where I’m very fond of them and want them to exit in a story that gives them focus. Graham shares a gorgeous moment with Yaz early on that made me well up, and it’s a moment that is well deserved after two years of travelling together. I loved the plan to escape in Cyber-suits (Yaz really has come into her own now) and Ryan gets a very funny moment when he takes out a platoon of Cybermen with slam dunk only to miss the patrol that is coming over the hill. More importantly is their reaction to the Doctor wanting to commit suicide and take the Master with her. They beg with her and try convince her to find another way and its one of those moments where you can really feel the love between them all. For the Doctor, this is goodbye but she wants to make sure they all get home safe. As far as they are concerned this is the last time they will ever see her.
Sparkling Dialogue: ‘I just need a moment.’
Many Lives: Regeneration is explained, not as a biological function of the Time Lords but as a stolen ability from another species from another dimension. I have never quite gotten my head around how any species could evolve with this natural ability to change into a different person when they die and so this works for me. The fact that the Doctor is patient zero is neither here nor there. It could have just as easily have been the Master. I’m sure along the line we will meet the species that the Doctor comes from and learn all about their regenerative powers although that is something I would prefer to be kept shrouded in mystery as it far better to leave these things in your imagination (think the Time War, which was much more exciting in my head than anything I saw in Day of the Doctor that reduced it to battle ships going pew pew pew). I have questions about a mother experimenting on her child in such a horrific fashion but then this is a mother from another species (and one that has proven themselves to be duplicitous and inhuman on countless occasions) and so perhaps I shouldn’t judge on our terms. Perhaps subjecting your offspring to torturous experiments is tenapenny in Time lord society. What I love about this explanation is that the Doctor now has countless lives (which throws all those people who are obsessed with continuity to number the Doctor’s into apoplexy) and we don’t have to worry about any of that keeping track nonsense ever again. It also comes as no surprise whatsoever that the Gallifreyans would take an ability from another species that would give them more power over the universe and graft it onto themselves. This is the same species that threw the Earth across the universe, manipulated the history of the Minyans and blew a whole in the universe in their petty feud with the Daleks. They are opportunistic wannabe Gods. I wonder what else from their society is begged, borrowed and stolen. Probably more than we think. The fact that they would package all those innovations into a race that goes by the name of Time Lords is perfect, it was exactly the sort of arrogance that Robert Holmes was trying to expose when he burst their bubble in The Deadly Assassin. The Doctor points out in Trial of a Time Lord that the Time Lords are the ultimate villains of the series. Weren’t you paying attention?
Brendan: That was genius. Having the Doctor’s history play out in the previous episode, beat for beat as it is explained by the Master in The Timeless Children, but without us knowing that was what was being shown to us, is perhaps Chibnall’s sneakiest and smartest writing to date. It elevates Ascension even more for me for it’s sheer underhandedness. There we were trying to figure out what the hell that sub plot was all about and Chibnall was literally telling us the Doctor’s origin story with a filter slapped over the top. Bravo.
Delete!: The Cyber Lords are so utterly ridiculous and camp it makes me deliriously happy that Doctor Who can still produce something this off the wall in 2020. The idea is chilling and in their own way the designs are beautiful but the whole idea is so utterly grandiose and overdone that I just wanted to laugh. It’s like Chibnall has taken a dose of mind-altering drugs and then sat down to write the ultimate Cyberman story. God bless the Master; this really does feel like one of his most lunatic schemes. Certainly, his most epic, after the destruction of half the universe in Logopolis (nothing could ever quite beat that). The idea that these monsters have dead Time Lords inside them is thoroughly sick and the fact that they are dressed up as though they are about to attend the Panopticon’s grand high cocktail party even moreso. Diodati saw the Cybermen stripped back to their original concept of pure body horror, men half finished and replaced with parts. This takes the idea to the other extreme, where we are talking about pure robotics. Both are equally valid approaches (although I prefer Diodati’s) but as the Master points out turning the Cybermen into pure robots lacks imagination. Cybermen who can regenerate are a terrific (if terribly wanky) concept. Overall the three episodes see the ultimate exploration of the Cybermen; the Ashad monstrosity, the CyberDrones, the call-backs to Earthshock and classic Cybermen and the CyberLords. It’s a very creative bunch when taken as whole. At times they were terrifying (Ashad holding the baby), at times they were dynamic (the marching Cybermen out for the Doctor’s companions), at times they were imaginative (the Drones might stifle a giggle but they are the most destructive the Cybermen are here) and times they are downright ridiculous (the Lords). The Cybermen are very silly and also very scary, so that just feels right to me. It might just be their most fulsomely realised appearances.
The Bad: The fact that Gallifrey is taken out by a bomb and a Dapol toy makes me howl with laughter. It’s more than it deserved after all the dull stories set there. Given his criticisms as a young man, Chibnall’s choice to use so many elements of Pip and Jane’s Trial of a Time Lord scripts almost feels like atonement. The Master, Gallifrey, the Matrix and a previously undiscovered incarnation of the Doctor. If he faces the same reaction from fans as he dished out in the 80s it might be what you call poetic justice. The Master and the Cybermen on Gallifrey reminds me of The Five Doctors. I don’t care how epic you make this….you can’t top ‘I have found the ones from the TARDIS’, ‘Ahhhh’, ‘take the patrol across’ and ‘isn’t that a little ruthless, even for you?’ It’s funny how much more overblown this feels compared to that.
Result: Doctor Who? Well you can’t say that you haven’t had the question raised over the past 57 years. The Timeless Children is mostly a series of explanations rather than an actual narrative, with a lunatic scheme of the Master’s thrown in, an epic use of the Cybermen and Gallifrey and an unfortunate cliché of a climax that sees a character who hasn’t registered stepping in, sacrificing himself and saving the day. The Doctor is neutered here to the point of learning everything but achieving nothing. On the other hand the explanations given are designed to make you sit up and pay attention (or make your head explode), the Master has never been in more electrifying hands than Dhawan, the companions have a number of gorgeous moments, the production is out of this world and the mysteries spin the series in a more enigmatic and optimistic direction that offers excitement and hope for the future. There is much more still to learn but I think, for now, we’ve been told enough to digest until Christmas. It’s an episode that is steeped in myth, pomp and visual insanity that it might take several re-watches to get your head around it. As an episode of television, it is lacking. As an experience of raw emotions and revelations, it is delicious. As an event in Doctor Who history it is unprecedented. It’s possibly the ultimate mind fuck. It’s the episode where the Cybermen resurrect dead Time Lords and take over Gallifrey and that is the least impressive shockwave. It’s the episode that teaches us that everything we know about the Doctor is a lie. It is the episode where the Master begs the Doctor to kill him and destroy their planet because of what he has learnt about their past. Chibnall has taken out all the toys; the Doctor, the Master, Gallifrey, regeneration, the Cybermen and assembled them in the most twisted way imaginable. Whether this works for you or not is personal, but anybody who accused him of lacking ambition in his first season needs to bow their head in shame. Be careful what you wish for. He has fundamentally marked the series from this point, pleasingly offered explanations for lots of questions that were thrown in the air this season, thrown up new mysteries to be solved and handed as developments to the mythos that is constantly being re-invented (the Time Lords in The War Games, a wealth of information that contradicts that in The Deadly Assassin, a huge gap in mythology with the introduction of the Time War, the utterly preposterous plonking of a new incarnation between Doctors 8 and 9). Forget Dicks, Holmes, RTD and Moffat, this is the most impactful and customising episode of Doctor Who and who on Earth suspected Chibnall was capable of that? He might have bitten off more than he can chew in trying to tie all the threads of the season together (he tries, but leaves a ton of stuff hanging) but I’m truly impressed with his ambition, energy and willingness to stir the pot to keep things interesting. The Timeless Children ends a terrific season on an unforgettable note. I was left scratching my head when it was over, but in a good way. There’s probably more madness to come from Chibnall but if it can be delivered with this much scope, risk and (perhaps most important of all because this was the thing that kept this very much on track) exceptional acting, sign me up. Pure unadulterated wank of the highest order but extremely well done for the most part and producing mystery at the heart of the series again: 8/10 (It was almost a 7 for the reasons stated at the beginning of the Result but those Doctor/Master scenes were just so damn good)
22 comments:
I've enjoyed your reviews for this series, thank you. I haven't enjoyed Doctor Who this much in years - I understand that there are those who really dislike it, but the show has always divided fandom, nothing new there. I think Chris Chibnall has given us a real gift in, as you say, putting the mystery back into the Doctor. The Gallifrey storyline was somewhat played out and the Time Lords were always rather a boring creation in my opinion. Now we can get back to the essentials - a mysterious alien being wandering the universe having adventures and righting wrongs. I think there's a lot of fun to be had in future. The show may just have bought itself another 50 years of life . . . Now that's a regeneration!
^This. A thousand times this^
Our show is the best in history. Long may it thrive.
All of this....ALL of this....couldn't have said it better myself
Chibnall has balls, I respect that. If the fanboys (sadly the vast majority of the fandom) are furious now and perhaps forever, it's because they haven't read anything from Lawrence Miles or Lance Parkin or watching the classic series. Still Chibnall is playing with fire, and I'm afraid that sooner or later there will be consequences (until another showrunner changes the series, again). I would like to know what Marc Platt thinks about this episode that has destroyed his work on "The Other".
I still don't understand why the secret of Timeless Child is so disturbing to the Master, more than the sound of the drums in his head that is not strangely mentioned here, since that secret affects the Doctor and not him? He, Rassilon and the Time Lords have done much worse things, both on screen and in other media, which makes the character look like a hypocrite. Is it because of pride since its existence and almost immortality is due to his archenemy or perhaps destroying Gallifrey was an excuse for him to use the universe as a playground without Time Lords to ruin his fun? Although that last one makes more sense due to how sadistically erratic this incarnation is.
About the assistants, I wish "Can You Hear Me?" would have been his farewell, so that the finale is the equivalent of The Deadly Assassin, since as likeable as they are unfortunately they are also superfluous here and their scenes are pure padding that could have been used to better explore the Timeless Child or the CyberMasters . And I call them "assistants" and not "companions" since all their participation in the series so far is in obeying the Doctor's orders or saying the obvious, not in bringing the best of the Doctor with their humanity or (as Donna would say) someone which should stop her if she becomes the "Time Lord Victorious" (Ace's "At Childhood's End" book for me is the best use of the "fam" that on-screen). Frankly, I think that the Doctor sees them as adorable pets and not as people who should relate or friends to whom she can talk about personal things and know better, she doesn't even bother to learn the names of the families of her assistants and only refers to them as "Yaz's mother" or "Ryan's father" as if it were a minor nuisance (imagine if they were Jackie or Sylvia). Another thing is that two seasons have passed and I do not see much change in them, except for Graham who overcame the loss of his beloved wife and take advantage of every moment of his life to enjoy it, there is nothing new he can say about Yaz and Ryan that is not about his police job and his family or his inconsistent dyspraxia and basketball respectively. Well, compare them to how much Jack or Rory, or Rose and Clara have changed when traveling with the Doctor, even Amy was more convincing as a policewoman in a scene in The Eleventh Hour that Yaz is two seasons!
About Jo Martin, I wish she was the thirteenth Doctor, I'm very sorry but Jodie still doesn't convince me, especially when she's next to Jo, who looks like a girl playing to be the Doctor but not bothering to watch the series to understand the character . Jo Martin has gravitas, great character and dominant presence that I have not seen since John Hurt, she would have silenced Jack Robertson with a look. I would kill to see a series with Jo Martin as the Doctor.
Re: Tango's comment #3 above, I don't think it does destroy Platt's mythology of The Other. "The Timeless Children" tells us how Gallifreyans acquired regeneration, but not how they developed time travel, TARDISes, the Matrix, or any number of other important milestones on their way to becoming the Lords of Time. So there's still plenty of room for Rassilon, Omega, and the Other. It doesn't even really dismantle the concept of Looming, though I could do without that bit of Who mythology myself. Consider: the Time Lords might very well have "reset" the Timeless Child's memories and life any number of times by dumping their biodata back into a Loom and reincarnating the child as an infant to live out another set of lifetimes, over and over.
No, I don't think Chibnall's contribution to Who mythology undermines Platt or the Cartmel Masterplan at all. If anything, it gives them back some wiggle room that had been closed off by the TVM and New Who until now.
The sooner Whitaker, Chibnall, the whole bunch of useless companions she has are gone, the better. Sick of the endless BBC political preaching through these past two seasons, the shove-everything-down-the-fans-throats attitude with pc gender politics, ethnicity balance politics, sexual orientation politics.. Total headache. Chibnall is a BBC puppet, he knows nothing about storytelling. The last three episodes may have been the most watchable of the entire two seasons, but the scripts are full of gaping holes, appalling acting, nonsensical atrocious writing and endless preaching political trash. The show was brilliant in the 60s and 70s. It has been ruined by Whitaker, Chibnall and the BBC's political rants for two years now. RTD gave us some great stories, Moffett over-complicated scripts to the point they just contradicted the very stories they were trying to tell. He stayed TOO long. There was talk that Chibnall would fetch a darkness back to the series, possibly akin to the feel of the 60s. All he brought was talentless writing, incredibly controversial on every level - and ripped the very heart out of our 57 year old sci-fi favourite. To rubbish everything that has gone before isn't the mark of a real fan - it's the knife in the back to every true long-term fan.. He hasn't got a clue what he's doing, apart from offending and destroying everything that made this series great. He seriously needs to go...
You lost all credibility when you identified Colin Baker as one of the best Doctors. Seriously? What about Tom Baker? Whittaker's flat affect, the dull aimless scripts, and abysmal cinematography have done serious damage to Doctor Who.
Maybe Jo is the next Doctor. After all, ignoring all the serves and curves the (Jodie) doctor doesn't know her or recognise her. You never know.
Ďull,muddled plotting,mediocre charactefisation and an eponymous lead who after 2 seasons still hasn't managed to convince me she's found her take on the role.I will never not watch an episode of Doctor Who but Im certainly not revisiting any episodes of the past 2 years.
Having read the part about Whittaker being up there with the other doctors. I can only wonder what dodgy substances you took? Whittaker comes over as a bad Tenant/Smith impersonation a point I made elsewhere.
I had more fun watching paint dry and being a decorator I see alot of that.
The best person on this programme is Bradley Walsch excuse spelling.
Flat affect? What on Earth are you talking about?
I miss when I used to entertain myself watching the series, it's so boring now.
Ha ha ha!!!
You must be really stupid to like the piece of shite the Doctor has become.
The Doctor is dead, bad woke writing and acting killed him
The last two seasons have been terrible. Boring writing, awful acting and dull music. It has nothing of the stuff that used to appeal me. Jodie as your favorite Doctors? What a joke. She doesn't have the acting chops to pull this character. Jo Martin is the 13th Doctor we deserved but we didn't have because Jodie is matey with Chibs
You are sadly so right. Doctor Who is dead and the ratings are on a downfall spiral. Rip Doctor Who 1963-2017
Im afraid I totally disagree with you. I hate Chris and Jodie's version of Who. I gave you watching half way through this series and wont be coming back. And of cause for this I get called all the -isms and the -phobes. Who will only keep going if these new stories find a new audience because it is losing a lot of the old audience. The rating do not read well, but the proof is how many people tune in for series 13. Lets wait and see. I just hope big finish doesnt take any of thiese modern plot points and twists into its classic stories or Im done there too.
Non of this is new to me. i have lived through the cancellations of the 80's, the disapointment of the 90's. To my shame I was sceptical of RTD restarting it in the 00's and didnt watch for a series or two.I wanted no more new who, I was happy with my classics. But I came round and loved it. Moffet started heading a bit off the rails, and now its crashed for me and I back to being happy with my classics again.
I'm not one of these people who are going to say you are wrong and boycott the show etc. We all have different opinions and I love that. The world would be boring if everyone agreed the same.
I didn't really like series 11 because I felt 13 was just to blend, one note etc. Mainly hyper. In general series 12 has been great and has showed multiple sides to 13. One of my favourite moments was the end of the Mary shelley story where she reveals it's not always an equal team. It was the moment where I truly saw her as the doctor. She's far from my favourite but it shows that series 11 just didn't let her shine.
My favourite episode of the series was fugitive of the Judoon and actually probably prefer the Ruth doctor. However I have a problem with what it leads up to.
The timeless child is basically the other doctor reimagined which sounds good in theory, re adding the mystery back. Problem is both would suck the mystery out in the end.
I much prefer the doctor as a bored rebel who ran away to explore. Having her play such an important role in the timelords creation just doesn't sit right with me.
Does the doctor now have unlimited regenerations? This to me takes the stakes away. We always knew they would find a way to keep the doctor going but the doctor doesn't know that and so each sacrifice or potential sacrifice used to mean possibly getting closer to the end.
It also suggests the doctor was destined to do what they did which I dislike. For me the point of the doctor has always been not who they are but what they have done.
I know nothing technically changes but you could argue that the doctor might do stuff due to their hidden past. Also if nothing changes what is the point?
I do worry they have put themselves into a corner where people will want it explained but explaining will also ruin the mystery. For that reason I've always preferred the doctors childhood to be left unexplored. That left people wondering things like was the first the first which adds more mystery not knowing
I liked this episode a lot and simply adored this season, but, sadly, I didn't enjoy this Master. He was so boring! I know you love him and the actor and all, but he was the weakest Master I've seen so far and I couldn't care less about him.
I also was baffled by the Master's plan (so childish, so mediocre) and specially the reason why he destroyed Gallifrey. I was expecting something unique, exhilarating, huge and at the end it was so average. I was disapointed.
Another thing that is bothering me is this come and go with Gallifrey. I'd prefer to have Gallifrey and the Time Lords back. The Doctor being the last one because of the Time War as we knew on the beginning of Eccleston era was one thing (interesting, new, refreshing, painful, sad, heart wrenching), but then they brough them back and went with them again, and then brough them back and went with them again and on and on and on...I'd rather have Gallifreyans back, for the good and the bad, specially because I like the idea of the Doctor not being the only one meddling with time out there.
That said, I'm quite excited to watch the New Year Special. I hope it was good.
This 12th season made me love Doctor Who again (because last season was difficult. I tried to like, I wanted so badly to like it, but it was so horrible that even though those few episodes that were good weren't enough to save the season).
Thank you for your reviews. I always come here as soon as I finish an episode to see how you perceived things ^_^.
Hi.
I appreciate the review, and always enjoy hearing your perspective, but I'm afraid I beg to differ on this one.
I've really quite disliked the new series obsession with Gallifrey and the Doctor's past.
Ever since the retcon of the time war in day of the doctor (a big mistake imho), Gallifrey's mythos has become ever more complicated.
clara was responsable for the Doctor stealing the Tardis, the Timelords were back, no they weren't, the series just can't make up its mind. And now Gallifrey returns only to get destroyed yet again by the master, with the timelords resurrected to be cybermen? And our big revelation is that the first doctor wasn't the first doctor after all?
This just feels too much that Chibnall, like Moffat before him has wanted to play more with the backstory and create everything in his own image, than want to actually concentrate on newer stories going forward, indeed imho the new series has been at its best when leaving the past mysterious and dealing with new and unknown threats, than just playing around with the Doctor's past.
I'll also say that this did feel very much a slap in the face to William Hartnel as the first doctor, by not making him the first doctor and just sticking in cheap amnesia.
I certainly wasn't against the idea of a female doctor, albeit my thoughts on Jody Witickerare mixed, and wouldn't be against more female doctors in the future (the Ruth doctor seemed far more to have the Gravitas the doctor needed imho), however this appears to exist to simply justify the doctor starting off female, and suggest that there are more diverse incarnations out there, a dip into the usual post modern, identity driven nihilism theme, seen so often in Hollywood productions.
It doesn't matter who the doctor is or what the doctor's past is, because the doctor is anyone who chooses to be the doctor.
This is severely jarring with the message of the davies era of the show, about responsibility, and guilt and past trauma.
so for me, I'm sorry to say that I'm glad Chibnall and Witicker are both gone, and hope the timeless child revelations will be gone too in the future, and that the doctor can get back to being the doctor, a mysterious man (or woman), who flies around in a police phone box, largely separated from his (or her), own people, solving problems and writing wrongs.
You don't make mystery by taking away from mystery, or from making a character a super hero, you make mystery by leaving questions unasked, and concentrating on other matters, and that's what I really hope the series will get back to.
Yeah, Chinball damaged the show so much that the BBC had to bring back RTD and Tennant to save it.
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