Doctor Who Series 12: 10 Huge Talking Points After The Timeless Children
7. Was The Timeless Child Thread Necessary?
The Doctor was completely side-lined from the action by being trapped inside a paralysis field and dropped into the Matrix. There, she would learn the truth about the Timeless Child with the Master acting like a tour guide through her forgotten past. Even when the Doctor had broken out of the Matrix, thanks to some self-help from the Jo Martin Doctor, she is powerless. The Doctor is unable to activate the death particle, knowing she would only be giving the Master what he wants.
As far as the Doctor is concerned then, the Timeless Child reveal made no difference. It explains some of the mysteries set up in Fugitive of the Judoon, and it will be the driver of many future episodes, but as far as the Doctor’s role in the finale goes, it was irrelevant. The companions and the last surviving humans are the true heroes of the piece.
The Master’s response to the Timeless Child is supposedly what drives him to destroy Gallifrey. But even this feels forced and unnecessarily literalistic. The rage inside the Master was always there, even if previous incarnations, from Delgado to Gomez, didn’t understand exactly why. The Master didn’t need to know the truth to feel jealous of The Doctor, to suspect she was special, and to hate the fact that he lives in her shadow.
But there is one essential link to the Timeless Child narrative in the Master’s plan to create a Cyberman/Time Lord hybrid. He sets himself up in the role of the Doctor’s adoptive mother, Tecteun. She gave the Shobogans the gift of regeneration through gene-splicing the Doctor’s DNA and he does the same to the Cybermen.