Did The Timeless Children Just Break Doctor Who?

It's probably safe to say The Timeless Children, the series 12 finale of Doctor Who, broke the Internet on Sunday night after being aired. There were serious revelations about the title character which completely flipped the show on its head, with major repercussions going forward. As a result, it's ended up being extremely divisive with many fans claiming it's either regenerated the show for a new generation, or destroyed 56 years of storytelling. So which is it?

Spoilers from this point on, you have been warned...

In the Timeless Children, The Master, through the use of the Gallifreyan Matrix data bank, reveals to The Doctor that she is the Timeless Child, a unique being from another universe or dimension. She was not born on Gallifrey as she believed, but was adopted by Tecteun, a space explorer who spliced The Doctor's ability to regenerate into the genetic code of her species, thus giving her the ability to form Time Lord society. The Doctor, after having possibly hundreds of different incarnations, at some point down the line had her memories wiped, although it's revealed she did at one point work for The Division, the Time Lord secret police.

So, following these revelations, has showrunner Chris Chibnall ruined the show?

Some of the concerns include retconning William Hartnell as the first Doctor, and contradicting what we know about regeneration. It apparently knocks Omega and Rassilon out of the founding of Time Lord society, and undoes a lot of the character arcs The Doctor has been through, especially in the Steven Moffat era. The list goes on, and many fans are worried the show is broken.

Now, it should be remembered that in a 56-year-old show with several different production teams and hundreds of writers, it is incredibly difficult to keep the canon intact. That said, this author actually believes Chibnall has been thinking about this for a long time, and has tried his best to cover every base. Remember, he is a fan of the show and is well aware of continuity. It is a bold move, but it's one that's needed for the show to evolve. It's actually built on the continuity and offered the potential for new adventures, rather than destroying it, while also filling some potential gaps in.

And let's get into how...

When you think about it, the Doctor's character arc before the episode hasn't really been affected. The first Doctor always believed he was 'the original, you might say'. His refusal to regenerate in 'Twice Upon A Time' and his fear of regeneration were genuine, because he didn't know he'd done it before. This reveal doesn't take away any of that emotion.

Similarly, Time Lord history mainly remains unaltered. While there's a whole new backstory to regeneration, it was still the Time Lords who themselves discovered how to time travel, still build the Citadel and established a high order of Galifreyan society.

There's even an implication of the Cartmel Masterplan coming to light with the new backstory. This was a plan set up in the 1980s during the Sylvester McCoy era to explain that Rassilon and Omega established Time Lord society with the help of a third, referred to only as the 'Other'. For years many people believed it was the Doctor, but the show went on hiatus before there was any concrete answers.

Now though, it could have very well been Tecteun. There's a very interesting shot in The Timeless Children where Tecteun walks and stands next to two other Time Lords, as if to address a crowd. Could it be that these are the three founders of Time Lord society together? Omega, Rassilon and Tecteun?

Moving on, the reveal also paints a lot of previous Who moments in a brand new light, but it doesn't destroy them. You have the Morbius Doctors, which Chibnall has outright canonised in The Timeless Children as past incarnations. We now have an idea of where they fit. You also have the Time Lords giving the Doctor a 'new' regeneration cycle in 'Time Of The Doctor'. This reveal almost adds a new level of deception to that story - if the Time Lords knew the Doctor was always going to regenerate, they had to give him a new cycle to stop their cover being blown.

There's also been the question around River Song being able to regenerate - how could she if she wasn't spliced with the Doctor's DNA? She wasn't born on Gallifrey. No, but she was conceived on the Tardis - the Doctor's Tardis. Remember, we don't actually know how the Doctor is able to regenerate yet or what sort of being she really is. It could be the Doctor's telepathic link with the Tardis allowed a new being on board to possess regenerative abilities.

Finally, it's always been implied across the show's history the Doctor was special or different in some way. Even the idea that he ran from the Time Lords in the first place shows something wasn't right. What if he was the Hybrid they were so frightened of? We know nothing of his original race. What if he ran because he was given a hint of who he really was and forgot?

He was always frowned upon by the Time Lords. What's not to say it was The Division that was responsible for having him exiled at the end of The War Games? He's been referred to by Rassilon himself as Gallifrey's 'infamous child'. What if Rassilon knew of his secret childhood? It would make sense for him, a power-hungry leader, to be jealous of the Doctor's abilities. The in-universe evidence is there and Chibnall's taken full advantage of it.

In summary, it seems that Chibnall has really done his homework, taking a lot of lore and references across many Who eras and building on them. Of course there are bound to be a few gaps, but that's the fun of being a fan - we get to interpret a lot of the answers ourselves. We should also remember that we're only at the start of this particular mystery and it's likely Chibnall will provide more answers over time. For now though, he's certainly got people interested in the show again.

Now, we just need to figure out where Susan fits into it all...