10 Huge Doctor Who Moments That Didn't Matter At All

1980s script editor Andrew Cartmel had bold plans to reveal the Doctor as a founding figure from Time Lord society – much of which never actually ended up on screen because of classic Who’s cancellation.

Additionally, a line about the Doctor being “far more than just another Time Lord” was cut from Remembrance of the Daleks by producer John Nathan-Turner.

However, some references to this so-called Cartmel Masterplan did make it into Silver Nemesis via the 17th century aristocrat Lady Peinforte, who is granted cosmic knowledge by the Nemesis statue. Specifically, she speaks of secrets concerning Gallifrey and “the time of chaos”, threatening to spill them if the Doctor doesn’t play ball.

Retroactively we can perhaps read this all as an allusion to the Timeless Child… though the fact that the Doctor seems to know what Lady P is talking about muddies this theory a bit.

In the end though it all just amounted to nothing, through no fault of those involved. With Doctor Who taken off the air there simply wasn't anywhere to develop these ideas further, despite the significance of what they were hinting at clearly being massive.

In the end it's probably for the best that we didn't learn too much about the Doctor's history anyway.