DOCTOR WHO: THE TIMELESS CHILD - BIGGEST MISSTEP IN HISTORY OF SHOW?

[@TwoOnions275]

I was depressed for a week; I'm reconciled now...RIP Dr Who.

[@jimhillis3745]

The Timeless Child skewered the one trick pony that is Chris Chibnall: obsessed with making male characters female(everything from Cybermen to Daleks to Doctors) he thought that he would go one step further: make the Doctor ORIGINALLY female and adopted- just like he was! All this- from a scriptwriter who couldn’t write a captivating shopping list.Dreadful. I thought that his lack of vision was unparalleled-and then I watched the Specials and Series one.

[@noblerees1]

Utterly depressing and done with so much exposition I was bored. Where was the story? Why can’t the doctor be a hero? Why the cybermasters? Why mess up gallifrey?

[@lesigh1749]

@@noblerees1 Messing up Gallifrey is an obsession with RTD and Chibnall's, because they want only the Doctor to exist, furthering the special status. They find the notion of them being the last timelord utterly fascinating, while the rest of the fandom find it largely tedious and far less satisfying than having other Timelords who can yank the doctors leash and bring him back down to earth. Its a trope with Woke lefty writers though, destroying the organization that a character answers to and making them consequence free. That other spectacled lefty hack did it to Star Trek where they killed of the Federation and made Starfleet a memory for a whole series too. before that JJ Abrahams (Glasses wearing lefty too...hmmm there's a pattern) destroyed Romulus and Vulcan and altered the history of the Star Tek setting too. They are all just repeating the same bad idea, because they haven't got any better ideas.

[@Randy_Batswinger]

So much of Chibnell's reputation is based on Broadchurch, but that was just repurposed Scandi Noir without the jumpers.

[@paulholgate4664]

Chinballs had by his own admission never had the Timeless Child fully mapped out. He just wanted to put his stamp on the series and instead made a complete mess of everything and it was an insult to Hartnell’s legacy. The best way out of it would have been to just reveal that it was all a lie by the Master. Turdy Davies has since made a complete mockery of the series and has ruined Doctor Who.

[@noblerees1]

Yes poor narrative mapping

[@Paul_1971]

This killed the show stone dead for the majority of fans.

[@gregsmith7949]

One of the things that made Who special was all the mystery surrounding his past. Like many fans, I loved to speculate over his youth and what ultimately caused him to rebel. Now, all that has been dumped in the toilet. 😡 What really gets me is it could easily be undone, but RTD refuses.

[@noblerees1]

Totally agree with you. It was a wrong turn and easily could have been erased

[@RaymondWilliams-uu1ns]

It’s bad ! Chibnall destroyed the canon but RTD 2 is even worse. He’s destroyed the character of the Doctor. The audience that watched the TC was tiny. The TC could have just been avoided and put right at a later date but turning the Doctor into a human sexual predator was worse. RTD assassinated our Doctor’s character and replaced him with his fantasy version. The damage the episode Rogue did has still to be realised. Even those that had been enjoying Season 1 up to that point felt that was a step too far. The terrible finale killed any hope of any resurgence. Chibnall wounded Dr Who. Russell T Davies killed it stone dead.

[@lesigh1749]

The Timeless Child retcon was definitely the end of the shows canon, replacing it with a badly written fanfiction that is far less satisfying than that which it erased. Bi-generation comes close on its heals for silliness, but the Timeless child had already destroyed all canon before it.

[@noblerees1]

Yes the show is not being taken seriously now

[@JohnSteed-ef7fl]

The timeless children or as I like to call it the tiredmess was the beginning of the end of new who , other things had damaged it but this was the beginning of the end of the show and it needs to rest.

[@iluv2b]

In terms of an avoidable embarrassment, the 'Timeless Child' was definitely a misstep on the part of Chibnall, but none of these ego-driven attempts to distort can do real harm to the show. For that to happen, fans would have to decide to accept these badly-executed, outlandish narratives; wilfully discard thirty plus years of diligent, incremental additions to canon, all of which resulted in a robust overall classic narrative (1963-89, 2005-17) that true custodians knew better than to violate . I simply don't believe that the majority of fans are inclined to accept any such ill-judged amendments, and this alone will serve very well in protecting and regulating our show. Many thanks, Brendan, Michelle, Noel, Cinnamon and John, for these invaluable debates. All the best for now. Paul

[@lesigh1749]

Big Finish managed to add a lot of "canon" to the old show without retconning or erasing anything that had come before them, and it for the mot part works really well. it enhances, it does not replace. That the BBC went with hacks like Chibnall and RTD rather than hiring the writing staff from Big Finish reeks of insider nepotism and political agenda.

[@iluv2b]

@@lesigh1749 I completely agree; to my mind, everything Big Finish added was commensurate with decades-established canon; although they've lost their ideological way, of late, there was a time when the audio company would have been the safest, most trusted pair of hands in terms of creating televised Doctor Who..

[@paulholgate4664]

Doctor Who needs a rest for at least 5 years and then brought back with fresh blood - no Davies, no Chibnall, not even Moffatt. Take a lead from Pertwee / Baker / Letts / Dicks / Hinchcliffe / Holmes - jettison all the DEI rubbish. Otherwise, leave it dead and buried.

[@noblerees1]

Agreed

[@davidharding1299]

Sadly, I don't think 5 years will cut it. IMHO, it's not about just waiting for another showrunner to come along that has a great idea. Enough time has got to go by to do at least 2 important things: 1) To cleanse our palette so we're not still quite so annoyed at what Chibnall and RTD2 have been up to. 2) To make people actually want it to come back. I don't think there is any demand for Dr. Who anymore. I think right now, a good number of people who are (or were up until recently) fans would rather see the show disappear for a while... than see it die an unremarkable death. The longer the Chibnall/RTD2 crap-fest continues... the longer the hiatus will need to be. And in all honesty, it might require the show to start over with a complete reboot when it does come back.

[@DerelictHangar]

RTD could have fixed it easily, but chose to ruin the show in ways we never saw coming.

[@lesigh1749]

Because he admired people like Alex klutzman who openly stated Star Trek was now mainly used as a platform for social justice advocacy back during the BLM summer of love, and RTD has openly repurposed Doctor Who into a platform to push his own pet politics in the same way.

[@davidmullen6011]

It depends on how you define 'Canon'. The shows internal mythos was always kept simple and streamlined as "Renegade Timelord from Gallifrey", he left his homeworld and became an exile as he wanted to explore and help those in need. It's a simple and easy to grasp premise. Over the years you got an occasional hint there was more going on - Hinchcliffe's Morbius faces and the hidden ancient Tardis console room in 'Mandragora for example might suggest a hidden chapter in the Doctors life, but these were only hints, and never returned to... and this caretaking of the character and the mythos is a reason the show kept its longevity - by keeping it simple, and therefore easy for anyone to join in with the character and series. Chris Chibnall's arrival, gender-swapping, and his very thorough 'The Timeless Child' reinvention of the character was the end of all that. You can't just ignore all of that revisionism, the sheer depth of it, as unlike Cartmel's ideas and the above Hinchcliffe/Holme teases of a hidden past life, Chibnall (and now Davies) have established 'The Timeless Child' as FACT. Thy have made certain It can't be shrugged off as another throwaway tease. And despite what Davies may believe it alters both the character, and the series. Suddenly it became something else, and a lot harder for the general audience out there to join in with, or understand. It is Baggage, heavy baggage. This is the 'Canon' Davies is talking about in his SDDC panel, but unlike Big Finish and the Novel ranges it isn't 'sympathetic' Canon - It doesn't respect the established mythos, and the simplicity of the character and premise. Instead it refutes it, replaces it. With something that complicates both the Character and mythos, and replaces the simplicity of the 'Renegade Timelord from Gallifrey' with... something more Opaque. Ugly. I can accept the audio and Novel ranges, not a problem for me, but I have a resistance to accepting what we got with 2017 onwards. Because it doesn't respect the 'Canon', instead it wants to smash it. And for extremely selfish reasons.

[@davidmullen6011]

By way of an example on good, well considered writing - One way to introduce a revision into the canon of the series and the character, and not actually change a thing, would be to point to 'The Doctor's Wife' as an example. There Neil Gaiman went back to a background element in the Doctor Who mythos and used it to reveal a secret about the Doctor's Tardis. It doesn't change anything. But in a way it changes how you *perceive* the Tardis now, no longer just a 'ship', but something more... One similar background question in the Doctor Who mythos was the old question over whether the Doctor had built the Tardis himself. Generally the mythos that developed had him 'steal' the craft in order to leave his homeworld, but as early as the Hartnell era there were suggestions... "That's the Fault Locator, it's been in the ship since I built it!" says the Doctor in The Chase. I can well imagine this long neglected idea being revisited today, Steven moffat writing an offhand comment from Peter Capaldi's Doctor on how he had had a hand in building the Tardis, that this was _his_ Tardis. It wouldn't be something swelled on, but as with 'The Doctors Wife' it would alter the *perception* of the viewers. The Doctor had some hand in building his Tardis? Intriguing. So in other words he 'stole' his own mothballed Tardis to leave Gallifrey? "Just *who* is this man...?!" Is the question left in the wake of this reveal. And this then is a very clever and natural way in how you generate a real question about the character, not by the butchery of The Timeless Child and Chris Chibnall's desperate lack of ability. But by simply framing a question, and presenting it... If you toss out the idea that the Doctor _built_ his Tardis, or had some hand in it... what does this mean? Who was this man before he left Gallifrey, and reinvented himself as 'The Doctor'? As with Hinchcliffe's spare console room, and Morbius faces, it is all about the subtelty. You can drop a new kernel of continuity, and by doing so generate a lot of discussion and wonder. And you don't have to 'gut' the existing mythos to do it.

[@triplejazzmusicisall1883]

The money makers will dry out any franchise to reel in the dollars. It is a sad state of affairs but unfortunately money comes first.

[@Randy_Batswinger]

🎶 "It's-just-an-other-manic-Matrix..."🎶

[@davidharding1299]

Hello, @Brendan! How was the wedding and your vacation? I hope you had a great time! For me, "The Timeless Children" was the biggest misstep in the show's history. Fan-fiction at it's worst. It caused me to stop watching the show after "Revolution Of The Daleks" (I just couldn't enjoy it anymore)... and it made me look at the 60th stories perhaps much more critically than I might have otherwise done. And because of it, I have no interest in the new show... because I don't want RTD reaching back in time and messing with the Classic stories and ruining it for me too anymore than he already has. On the night it aired, my first reaction to it (which I sent to 2 Doctor Who fans) was that it was "Total bullsh*t!!!". Even now, almost a year later... and my anger/frustration with that story has not abated one bit. It is an unnecessary and wide-ranging blemish on Doctor Who's canon. For me, it comes down to the point that I just don't see the changes making things better or more interesting. If Gallifrey isn't the Doctor's true home world... then I don't care where he's from or what his people are like. What I always liked about the Doctor... was that he was an atypical Time Lord and Gallifreyan because of who he is... not what he is. By making the Doctor immortal (or potentially unkillable), Chibnall has taken a lot of the peril out of these stories.... because the Doctor isn't in mortal danger anymore. Oh, he/she might lose a body every now and again... but the Doctor will ultimately continue. To be honest, for a while, I thought Chibnall was going for a vibe of everyone the Doctor meets in a story is another Doctor (even if they don't know it)... because he's been around since for eons and has inadvertently populated the universe with a virtually infinite number of regenerations. And that could extend to the viewer too. Now, with bi-generation, I can't help but think that's still a possibility for what Chibnall was going for. Sorry for the rant. This is still a very sore point for me. It's why I stopped watching the show.

[@noblerees1]

Fantastic vacation and wedding thanks. First live show is next weds so hope to see you there

[@davidharding1299]

@@noblerees1 I will try very hard to be there. Take care!

[@boomerdoug4242]

I don't have a problem with William Hartnell not being the First Doctor. He was my First Doctor so that's good enough for me. I do wish they would stop retconning everything though. Keep the mystery. It's called Doctor WHO

[@noblerees1]

Agreed

[@FantomKat]

I would retcom TC by making it "oooohhh the TC isn't The Doctor, turns out it's The Master!!" And watch the virtue signalers heads literally explode.

[@Changeling_cosplay]

Had the Doctor actually turned out to be the son of Leela and Andred, would that have made it any better? I don’t think so.

[@AndrewGosling-bz1lw]

Why not create a new charater, ie the timeless child. H/she arrived on gallfrey in a sayali fe boat. As for the jo martin dr, shes from another earth

[@Changeling_cosplay]

Not even close. The Doctor being half human and them just sweeping that under the rug was far worse imho

[@paulholgate4664]

Chinballs sets up but doesn’t deliver, sounds a lot like Turdy Davies.