Home Entertainment Let’s talk about that absolutely mad revelation in the season 12 finale of Doctor Who

Let’s talk about that absolutely mad revelation in the season 12 finale of Doctor Who

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Doctor…Who?

For over fifty years, that’s been one of the central questions regarding the BBC’s wibbly wobbly timey wimey show. Just who is the Doctor really? An old man who stole a trans-dimensional box and set off to save the day wherever he could? A survivor of the last Great Time War, wracked with guilt? A lonely god living in exile?

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For decades, Doctor Who has built itself around that question, and while it has also proven that it can exist and craft a compelling story beyond that drive for answers (Peter Capaldi’s entire be kind narrative being a prime example here), having a juicy mystery at its core has always made Doctor Who a compelling show.

Season 12 of the modern era has come and gone, and in its wake it left a gigantic revelation that broke everything you thought you knew about Doctor Who. In one fell swoop, the oldest lie in the show’s history was laid bare, an enigma was solved and an exciting new status quo was revealed. So let’s talk! Naturally if you haven’t seen all of season twelve, find your nearest lurking agent of the Silence and get them to erase your memory because there’s a heck of a spoiler ahead!

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So let me paint you a picture: The Master is back, more deranged than ever and burning with a fury that saw Gallifrey utterly destroyed. Its monuments have been razed, the streets are littered with corpses and there’s a new Cyberman army on the warpath that’s just about ready to fall victim to the oldest trope in the book: Being heralded as the deadliest force in the universe and then cast aside as throwaway cannon fodder yet again. I cannot tell you how damn desperate I am for a Cyberman story where they actually live up to their promise.

Anyway, caught in the middle of all this is the Doctor. The rogue Time Lord, held hostage by the Master as he reveals an M Night Shyamalan twist to her: She’s not just a Time Lord…she’s the origin of the species. Turns out that eons ago, Gallifrey was populated by a culture known as the Shabogans, with one explorer being so embarrassed at how impossibly lame their culture’s chosen name was that she decided to set out and explore the universe on her own.

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Known as Tecteun, she eventually stumbled on a child from another universe, adopted her and discovered her ability to survive death by regenerating. Cue multiple years of testing, watching the Timeless Child die and regenerate multiple times and hey presto! Tecteun has managed to splice Shabogan DNA with the Timeless Child’s unique genetics and pass regeneration on to the Shabogans. Who with their newfound immortality, rechristen themselves as the Time Lords once they begin exploring chronal frontiers. Thank Rassilon for that.

Here’s the kicker: The Timeless Child is the Doctor. A being who is far more than a mere Time Lord, the Doctor now has a new mystery to explore: Where did she come from? Why was she sent to our universe? Amidst all that, the reveal of her status as the Timeless Child is one that also solves so many continuity problems within the show (while also starting a few but screw it). The revelation of Ruth and her place in the Doctor’s timeline, the classic Brains of Morbius Doctors from the older era, and so much more previous “plot holes” now actually make sense.

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Showrunner Chris Chibnall is admittedly a huge fan of Doctor Who before its 2005 reboot, and his entire strategy feels inspired by the “Cartmel Masterplan”. This was the fan name for the proposed strategy that would have seen the show’s production heavy-hitters at the time – Andrew Cartmel, Ben Aaronovitch, and Marc Platt – restore a sense of mystery to the Doctor instead of having him exist as a demigod who shaped Gallifreiyan history alongside Rassilon and Omega.

Hints for that grand reveal were littered throughout the Seventh Doctor’s run, but never materialised due to the show being EXTERMINATED by the BBC back in the 1990s. With Chibnall’s control of the show, his own masterplan has unfolded and paved the way for Doctor Who to focus on the Who once again. There’s an entire universe of Doctors now running about, their existence a secret from the original incarnations we’ve grown up with and saving the day like time-hopping antibodies that happen to have the sonic screwdriver cure for what ails you.

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The limits are gone, the mystery is back and we’ve got just as many questions as we do answers from that heavy info-dump of an episode which was leagues better than season 11’s finale about some sort of tooth monster named Tim. Just the way that Doctor Who is supposed to be.

Last Updated: March 4, 2020

18 Comments

  1. Kromas

    March 4, 2020 at 13:51

    Is it that Doctor who is finally ending?

    Reply

    • Son of Banana Jim

      March 4, 2020 at 16:01

      lol, one can only hope… but no, the gang is coming back for another season (without a few of companions)

      Reply

      • Kervyn Cloete

        March 4, 2020 at 16:45

        Listen, Tosin Cole can GTFO. Terrible actor playing a terrible role. He is a charisma black hole who sucked the life out of every scene in which he stood around confused. Which were all his scenes!

        I’m a bit bummed that Bradley Walsh is going tho as I actually think him and the Doc have a nice dynamic. It’s a neat reversal of the usual formula that had an older male Doctor with a younger female companion.

        Reply

        • MaSeKind

          March 4, 2020 at 16:50

          Yeah she should just leave all the companions on a planet somwhere and then go and find Wilfred Mott. Man I love that old ballie

          Reply

    • The D

      March 4, 2020 at 14:32

      NEEEEEEEEEEVER
      Not so long as the people who hate Doctor Who the most, its own fanbase, walk the planet.

      Reply

      • Son of Banana Jim

        March 4, 2020 at 16:01

        Hate-watching the current season has actually brought me more joy than being a fan experiencing the last season… and then crying myself to sleep after every episode….

        Reply

  2. MaSeKind

    March 4, 2020 at 16:20

    But wait, the Doctor grew up on Gallifrey with the Master. They’ve been frenemies since they were small. And there were already Time Lords when they were young. And why is the Doctor not a child anymore then? (Although that outfit the Doctor wears now does look like something a child would choose). Also surely the Doctor would have a much more prominent role in Time Lord society if they were created from him/her/whatever. And not be a prodigal son kind of figure who bascially rebelled and just wanted to explore and travel the universe.

    Sorry but this just seems like a distraction from all the criticism the show is getting. Make a story so crazy and way out there that doesn’t even make sense to distract people from all the other things they were complaining about

    Reply

    • Kervyn Cloete

      March 4, 2020 at 16:31

      They actually explain this in the show. Or at least the Doctor has the exact same questions, which is that if she is the Timeless Child, then how can she remember a childhood with the Master? She figures that the Time Lords played her for some reason and de-aged her and erased her memories, but we don’t know why.

      Reply

      • Son of Banana Jim

        March 4, 2020 at 16:31

        It’s a terrible retcon, my dude. Just think about a little. It’s just idiotic.

        Reply

        • Kervyn Cloete

          March 4, 2020 at 16:36

          I wasn’t commenting on the retcon, which I’m 50/50 about coz it fixes some problems but creates a bunch of others. I was just trying to explain to MaSeKind that his concerns are addressed, even if only in a hand-wavey fashion.

          Reply

    • Son of Banana Jim

      March 4, 2020 at 16:31

      Oh it most definitely is (a distraction from how poorly his run has been received).

      The problem with Chibnall is that he doesn’t understand Dr Who or its lore at all. If he was a fan, he would understand how all of this doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t fit. It makes for a nice, “Oh My WHAT THE F” moment though. It also means that the next showrunner (after season 14 – if they don’t just cancel it) will have to fix the damage this nutcase has done.

      But it’s lore now… sigh! Thanks… Chibnall…

      PS: I watched Jodie on Graham Norton’s show and she’s such a funny person with a great wit. A true character…, and then you realise that her run as Dr Who will always be remembered because Chibnall doesn’t understand Dr Who.

      Reply

      • MaSeKind

        March 4, 2020 at 16:36

        Also I’ve got serious issues with how it was discovered that the Timeless Child could regenerate. Did Tecteun just randomly decide to kill this child to see what happens? Because unless something “kills” them they keep on living forever. So it couldn’t even be that they just discovered it when he/she died of old age. Cause all the whatever-they-were-before-TimeLord people would have died out by the time the child got old.

        I really don’t care what direction they go with their stories but when there’s such obvious inconsistencies and just illogical things it just shows that whoever wrote this isn’t a very good story teller. Like I’ve said before (and what I said about new StarWars and StarTrek) it feels like fanfiction.

        Reply

        • Kervyn Cloete

          March 4, 2020 at 16:36

          I’m going to blame Darryn here for not giving a blow by blow of the episode (lazy git!) but the child has an accident while playing that causes her to fall off a cliff to her “death”. It looked like even she didn’t know the regeneration was going to happen.

          Reply

          • MaSeKind

            March 4, 2020 at 16:45

            I kinda thought that was the case. I realise I’m again commenting on stuff I’ve not seen myself and only going by what I’ve read and heard. But honestly I’m not sure the showrunners know what they want to do and where they want to go and thus don’t really want to watch the new Doctor Who. And I’ve been a big fan since the reboot. And then became a fan of the old Who as well.

            So I’m basically waiting to see how things turn out. I’ve not watched any DW since the first few episodes with Jody. It just didn’t grab me like with previous ones. To be honest I didn’t really get into Peter Capaldi either even though I love the actor. Just think he didn’t have the best stories.

          • Kervyn Cloete

            March 4, 2020 at 16:45

            I honestly would not blame anybody who tapped out during the previous season. With one exception, the fantastic Demons of the Punjab episode, everything else was very meh. I can barely remember any of that season. This new season has been a big step up tho, and there actually appeared to be a bigger plan from the get-go. Whether that plan made 100% sense and/succeeded is a different story, but I will much rather take a season that went for broke with big stupid ideas and then failed than a season that just coasted along being utterly forgetful.

            Also, I’m a Matt Smith guy through and through and as such, the transition to Capaldi wasn’t easy for me either. I definitely don’t rate his tenure on the same level as Smith and Tennant, BUT some of his episodes were some of the best in the entire show’s history (HEAVEN SENT, MAN!!!!)

  3. Son of Banana Jim

    March 4, 2020 at 17:02

    I hope in a few years they retcon it again and the Doctor is just a random time lord, rather than some space Jesus/messiah/Romulus/Remus who was the reason for Time Lords, their civilisation and everything in between.

    The more I think about it, the more this just pisses me off.

    Reply

  4. Son of Banana Jim

    March 4, 2020 at 18:24

    lol, this season has been a huge improvement over the last one which was utter trash (but it’s still been unbelievably cringe-worthy). I think the mad revelation for me is that Chibnal is coming back for another season. At this stage, I’m pretty sure the guy has blackmail material on all the executives at the BBC – maybe he has Epstein’s black book? https://media0.giphy.com/media/H6Esu1SO2MBxT4UJ98/giphy.gif

    Reply

    • Kervyn Cloete

      March 4, 2020 at 19:08

      I legit loved The Haunting of Villia Diodatti tho. Easily the best hour of Doctor Who in the last two seasons for me.

      Reply

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