Doctor Who: Just Be Kind, Fam

[theangelJean]

I've been keeping up with everything I've seen linked on twitter (also people have been doing big rewatches/livetweets of certain episodes, which have been fun to follow, especially when writers and cast join in). I like them.

Ooh, who can I follow for these rewatches? Apparently there were also scheduled re-showings of the 50th anniversary episode and Rose, but I was interested in livetweets and haven't seen one before.

I suppose I should say what I was actually going to say about the new short stories, which was that I didn't like Moffat's. I've always been more of an RTD fan anyway, but for this particular story the premise (after the reveal) felt cheap; and, even though Moffat isn't currently involved in the series, it felt self-congratulatory, even if all the Doctor did was

Spoiler

Show

stop a little boy from running away and freezing to death.

But a new short story by Paul Cornell is out on the website now, and I really like it.

[Thufir]

Ooh, who can I follow for these rewatches? Apparently there were also scheduled re-showings of the 50th anniversary episode and Rose, but I was interested in livetweets and haven't seen one before.

Yeah, Day of the Doctor was the first one, and since then there's been (not necessarily in this order) Rose, Vincent and the Doctor, The Eleventh Hour, Spyfall, The Doctor's Wife and Heaven Sent.

Next one is The Stolen Earth/Journey's End, on Sunday. https://twitter.com/Emily_Rosina is the one organising them, so she's the one you should be following to keep track of each one as it's announced. Other accounts you may be interested in following include but are not necessarily limited to https://twitter.com/LockdownWho and https://twitter.com/russelldavies63, Moffat's account is inactive but he'll probably reactivate it if there's a livetweet for another of his episodes.

[Anonymouswizard]

Nope. There’s one techie who was utterly baffled by the notion that a Time Lord could get more lives in The Deadly Assassin.
Being granted new regenerations was presented as possible but extraordinary.

Huh. But then again, it's literally been over decade since I saw that serial.

But even the concept of who among the Gallifreyan population can and can’t regenerate was (and still is) unclear, so...

To be fair it's at least clear that not all Galifreyans are Time Lords given that you can fail to become one, but otherwise the series has been incredibly vague on who gets what benefits.


Finally on the Dalek Invasion of Earth, and wow does Episode 3 have some running down hallwaysstreets of London, I feel like they could have made this a five episode serial if they didnn't include all the gratuitous landmark shots. The Dalek voices also just sound so Wimpy compared to Nicholas Briggs, serves me right for starting the Eighth Doctor New Adventures dramas at the same time as watching the classic series.

[jayem]

Finally on the Dalek Invasion of Earth, and wow does Episode 3 have some running down hallwaysstreets of London, I feel like they could have made this a five episode serial if they didnn't include all the gratuitous landmark shots. The Dalek voices also just sound so Wimpy compared to Nicholas Briggs, serves me right for starting the Eighth Doctor New Adventures dramas at the same time as watching the classic series.

I saw Planet of Giants (the preceding seriel), it felt very topical, as I imagine the first bit of DIOEarth does.

[Fyraltari]

The Dalek invasion of Earth is basically just ‘What if Nazi Germany succeeded in invading the UK’. Overall I remember it being a decent serial.

[Anonymouswizard]

I saw Planet of Giants (the preceding seriel), it felt very topical, as I imagine the first bit of DIOEarth does.

Eh, DIOE doesn't feel that topical or relevant, like The Daleks it feels more like a B movie with an unusual monster. Certainly not in the way that Planet of the Giants was very clearly about pesticide development and ethics. The streets are too empty for my current experience of London.

The Dalek invasion of Earth is basically just ‘What if Nazi Germany succeeded in invading the UK’. Overall I remember it being a decent serial.

Yep, could possible be a great one if they cut it down by an episode. I'm definitely getting the 'we need to make the budget stretch' vibes in what I know was a very expensive story for them to make.

[jayem]

Eh, DIOE doesn't feel that topical or relevant, like The Daleks it feels more like a B movie with an unusual monster. Certainly not in the way that Planet of the Giants was very clearly about pesticide development and ethics. The streets are too empty for my current experience of London.

Yep, could possible be a great one if they cut it down by an episode. I'm definitely getting the 'we need to make the budget stretch' vibes in what I know was a very expensive story for them to make.

Up here our streets are empty (ish).

Which I suspect, is another feature, nowadays the pictures don't relate as much to the near-current experience on many levels. Then it's half an hour of "Daleks in (an empty post plague) actual here", now it's "Daleks in 60s London (they couldn't even get the people)",
But they did have a lot of filler, so the only debate is why that filler (which wouldn't be that cheap anyway), rather than another.

[The Troubadour]

If anyone's confused about what these stories are, some of the series writers have written very short stories starring the Doctor. So far, I've really liked Davies' and Chibnail's! McTighe's and Cornell's are fine, but Moffat's is... *sigh* I don't know if it's just because I'm tired of lazy metafiction, or if it's the usual "Moffat thinks he's way more clever than he actually is", but I didn't like it.

Anyway, here are the links!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwh...d-1c16cd065614
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwh...2-dbf97ef85516
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwh...2-0f7da6ac64a8
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwh...7-2f509fe2a117
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwh...f-3136207abfa2

[Thufir]

Moffat's is probably my least favourite of the short stories, but I liked all of them.

There have been some other bits of lockdown Doctor Who content posted as well. RTD also wrote a short followup to Rose about the last remnant of the Nestene plotting its revenge, there's a video somewhere of it being read (it was posted after the Rose livetweet).
There's also one Neil Gaiman wrote which was put up after the livetweet of The Doctor's Wife, with Arthur Darvill reprising his role as Rory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVqW4XjZwC8

And today (in about an hour) we'll be getting another from RTD, Farewell, Sarah Jane. Announced on twitter here: https://twitter.com/russelldavies63/...65497151000581

[Aedilred]

I felt that The Dalek Invasion of Earth was slow, and like most early serials it struggles in the modern era with being 4:3 black and white of variable picture quality, but the plot was decent, and the story and setting was bleak, which appeals to me because I am on some level a terrible person.

I also suspect that, even more than The Daleks, that's the episode which cemented them as what makes you hide behind the sofa.

In other news, and probably to the interest of nobody, I have been sufficiently bored as to rank all the companions I've watched in order of preference. Buckle in.

I've listed every companion for whom I've seen at least one episode. This means that among classic companions I haven't always seen their complete run, and there are a couple of fan-favourite companions who don't appear at all. My slightly arbitrary definition of a “companion” in the NuWho era is whether or not they were named in the opening credits of an episode, with two exceptions. The first is Mickey Smith, who travelled with the Doctor for about as many episodes as Jack Harkness but was never credited, and the second is John Simm's Master, who obviously wasn't a companion. I've also excluded Missy, who was borderline.

Spoiler: The List

Show

Clara
Rory
Adric
Jamie
Turlough
Wilfred
Nardole
Jack
Bill
Sarah Jane
Adelaide
Mickey
Barbara
Ian
Susan
Victoria
Martha
Peri
Nyssa
Jackson
Amy
Rose
Astrid
Kamelion
River Song
Christine
Mel
Donna











Tegan

Spoiler: Notes

Show

I've never read a Who book or listened to an audio in my life. The rankings are based entirely on TV serials.

There are several one-shot companions listed. Some (Wilf, Adelaide, Jackson) I thought were excellent, but I have tended to mark them down for only appearing in one episode.

Clara and Adric have never been the most popular companions with fans so it may be surprising to see them so high up. But Adric was annoying in the right way: intentionally so, and it sprang from his being precocious and smug rather than just having an irritating manner. Clara I've never understood the hate for. I know she's criticised for being a Mary Sue but in terms of the actual show, rather than the memetic recollection of it, I just don't see it. To my mind she's certainly the best companion of the New Who era.

There's a large tranche of companions in the middle who were “basically fine”. This includes several classic companions who weren't outstandingly memorable and essentially served as audience-surrogate exposition receptacles. It also includes Martha.

Amy, Rose and Donna are relatively low on the list. My recollection of Amy is that she had great moments, but she also all too often degenerated into a hypocritical shrieking harpy with an unpleasant infidelity problem, and somehow I remember that more than her better stuff. All the criticism levelled at Clara can I think equally if not more fairly be thrown at Rose. Donna just gets on my nerves, as, for that matter, did Mel, but it probably doesn't help Mel that I don't really like the Sixth Doctor either.

Kamelion and River are two characters where I think the concept was better than the execution. Kamelion has both the blessing and the curse of appearing in fewer episodes, so there's less to be annoyed about but also less to like.

Spoiler: The Truth

Show

Yes, I did just do this as a calculated burn on Tegan.

[Anonymouswizard]

I felt that The Dalek Invasion of Earth was slow, and like most early serials it struggles in the modern era with being 4:3 black and white of variable picture quality, but the plot was decent, and the story and setting was bleak, which appeals to me because I am on some level a terrible person.

I also suspect that, even more than The Daleks, that's the episode which cemented them as what makes you hide behind the sofa.

I have to note that I have absolutely zero problem with 4:3 black and white, and find attempts to colourise or widescreenify things intended to be in 4:3 or black and white distasteful. The episode was made to be shown in 4:3 SD black and white, and looks just fine in that, and occasionally the greyscale nature can make props look better because, well, this is pre-bubble wrap and so making monsters was even harder. Like most of the early series it looks fine, sure it might look a bit prettier in colour, sure it might look nicer if it was originally made to be in high definition, but considering it's limitations being in colour could have made it look absolutely terrible.

Remember, when the show switched to colour it also switched to being earth-based near-present plots to save on the gravel quarryalien planet budget. And that the Daleks we see in The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth we used until what, the Sixth Doctor's run?

And honestly? Both of the first two Dalek stories are really well written stories. Sure DIoE is bleak, but it uses that bleakness, and both stories develop the Daleks as actual characters (with DIoE giving us the Dalek Supreme as a specific character to identify with them). But yes, DIoE makes them significantly more scary, partially because of those London padding shots' making use of easily recognisable landmarks.

[Fyraltari]

I felt that The Dalek Invasion of Earth was slow, and like most early serials it struggles in the modern era with being 4:3 black and white of variable picture quality, but the plot was decent, and the story and setting was bleak, which appeals to me because I am on some level a terrible person.

I also suspect that, even more than The Daleks, that's the episode which cemented them as what makes you hide behind the sofa.

In other news, and probably to the interest of nobody, I have been sufficiently bored as to rank all the companions I've watched in order of preference. Buckle in.

I've listed every companion for whom I've seen at least one episode. This means that among classic companions I haven't always seen their complete run, and there are a couple of fan-favourite companions who don't appear at all. My slightly arbitrary definition of a “companion” in the NuWho era is whether or not they were named in the opening credits of an episode, with two exceptions. The first is Mickey Smith, who travelled with the Doctor for about as many episodes as Jack Harkness but was never credited, and the second is John Simm's Master, who obviously wasn't a companion. I've also excluded Missy, who was borderline.

Spoiler: The List

Show

Clara
Rory
Adric
Jamie
Turlough
Wilfred
Nardole
Jack
Bill
Sarah Jane
Adelaide
Mickey
Barbara
Ian
Susan
Victoria
Martha
Peri
Nyssa
Jackson
Amy
Rose
Astrid
Kamelion
River Song
Christine
Mel
Donna











Tegan

Spoiler: Notes

Show

I've never read a Who book or listened to an audio in my life. The rankings are based entirely on TV serials.

There are several one-shot companions listed. Some (Wilf, Adelaide, Jackson) I thought were excellent, but I have tended to mark them down for only appearing in one episode.

Clara and Adric have never been the most popular companions with fans so it may be surprising to see them so high up. But Adric was annoying in the right way: intentionally so, and it sprang from his being precocious and smug rather than just having an irritating manner. Clara I've never understood the hate for. I know she's criticised for being a Mary Sue but in terms of the actual show, rather than the memetic recollection of it, I just don't see it. To my mind she's certainly the best companion of the New Who era.

There's a large tranche of companions in the middle who were “basically fine”. This includes several classic companions who weren't outstandingly memorable and essentially served as audience-surrogate exposition receptacles. It also includes Martha.

Amy, Rose and Donna are relatively low on the list. My recollection of Amy is that she had great moments, but she also all too often degenerated into a hypocritical shrieking harpy with an unpleasant infidelity problem, and somehow I remember that more than her better stuff. All the criticism levelled at Clara can I think equally if not more fairly be thrown at Rose. Donna just gets on my nerves, as, for that matter, did Mel, but it probably doesn't help Mel that I don't really like the Sixth Doctor either.

Kamelion and River are two characters where I think the concept was better than the execution. Kamelion has both the blessing and the curse of appearing in fewer episodes, so there's less to be annoyed about but also less to like.

Spoiler: The Truth

Show

Yes, I did just do this as a calculated burn on Tegan.

Any companion list that does not include Romana at the top is objectively wrong. Also who is Christine? Is it Christina de Souza from the episode with the flying bus and the desert planet?

[Aedilred]

Any companion list that does not include Romana at the top is objectively wrong.

I haven't seen any Romana episodes! Ace and the Brigadier are the other major omissions, for the same reason. Strictly speaking both Romana and the Brigadier did appear in The Five Doctors but not enough for me to form an opinion.

Also who is Christine? Is it Christina de Souza from the episode with the flying bus and the desert planet?

Yes.

[Anonymouswizard]

I haven't seen any Romana episodes!

I've only seen the Key to Tine episodes, but they're well worth watching. She's possibly my third favourite companion, part of which has to do with partially reversing the Doctor/Companion dynamic (the Doctor is miles more intelligent than most of his companions, but he's bottom rung in pure brain power for a Tine Lord. What he has that most, including Romana, lack is ingenuity, which he has had in spades even in his first incarnation*).

May Romana Zwei will change my mind, I've got a lot to get through.

* He successfully hotwired a TARDIS and managed to somewhat control it after failing his driving test. Even with later revelations about her he still solves his problems via quick thinking.

[dps]

I'd love to do a ranking of all the companions I've actually seen, but I haven't seen episodes with some of them in over 40 years, so I don't think I could do a good job at this point.

[The Troubadour]

I've seen very few Classic!Who serials so far, so any list from me would necessarily include only Nu!Who companions.

"Farewell, Sarah Jane" was lovely! I'm going to watch the other lockdown videos now. Does anyone have the link to the sequel to "Rose"?

[dps]

I've seen very few Classic!Who serials so far, so any list from me would necessarily include only Nu!Who companions.

I've seen all or almost all of the 3rd and 4th Doctors' episodes, and most of the 5th Doctor's stories, but almost none of the 6th or 7th Doctor's. I've only seen a few of the 1st Doctor's episodes and a couple of the 2nd Doctor's, but 1st and 2nd Doctors' stuff I've seen has been fairly recent on DVD, whereas the other Classic Doctors' stories I've seen were a long time ago on broadcast TV. So I have a much clearer memory of the 1st and 2nd Doctors' stories I've seen than I do of the 3rd through 5th Doctors' stories.

[Aedilred]

I have to note that I have absolutely zero problem with 4:3 black and white, and find attempts to colourise or widescreenify things intended to be in 4:3 or black and white distasteful. The episode was made to be shown in 4:3 SD black and white, and looks just fine in that, and occasionally the greyscale nature can make props look better because, well, this is pre-bubble wrap and so making monsters was even harder. Like most of the early series it looks fine, sure it might look a bit prettier in colour, sure it might look nicer if it was originally made to be in high definition, but considering it's limitations being in colour could have made it look absolutely terrible.

Remember, when the show switched to colour it also switched to being earth-based near-present plots to save on the gravel quarryalien planet budget. And that the Daleks we see in The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth we used until what, the Sixth Doctor's run?

And honestly? Both of the first two Dalek stories are really well written stories. Sure DIoE is bleak, but it uses that bleakness, and both stories develop the Daleks as actual characters (with DIoE giving us the Dalek Supreme as a specific character to identify with them). But yes, DIoE makes them significantly more scary, partially because of those London padding shots' making use of easily recognisable landmarks.

Oh, I absolutely agree about colourising/etc. older footage. I have no problem in principle with watching things in black and white. I also totally get the limitations of their budget and that better-quality footage probably wouldn't do it any favours. But I do find a marked difference between contemporary black and white cinema (often 1.85 and shot for the big screen) and early Who, which was shot for a small screen display designed in the 1930s.

It's not too bad in the studio shots but in location footage the contrast is often quite poor which combined with the lack of colour can at times make it hard to see clearly what's going on, especially when there's no dialogue. I am undoubtedly spoiled by having a widescreen 4K and getting used to crisp footage: even the Tennant-era Who looks a little grainy by comparison now, but I do find watching the Hartnell episodes to be rather harder work than usual.

Realistically it may just be that the Hartnell Who is actually the lowest-quality footage I've watched in stretches of more than a couple of minutes at a time, other than some earlyish silent movies. I haven't watched much else in the way of contemporary television, and the contemporary or earlier sporting footage that I've seen tends to be fairly brief. Which probably makes it seem worse than it is.

And for the avoidance of doubt I came to praise DIOE, not to bury it. It would have got a thumbs-up for me just for that moment where the Doctor gleefully shouts "Kill the Daleks! Kill the Daleks!" which you wouldn't get these days.

[theangelJean]

I've seen very few Classic!Who serials so far, so any list from me would necessarily include only Nu!Who companions.

"Farewell, Sarah Jane" was lovely! I'm going to watch the other lockdown videos now. Does anyone have the link to the sequel to "Rose"?

Here you go.

All the lockdown videos are on this Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoR...wcCT8YJBxKrWLw

For some reason I thought they were also linked at www.doctorwho.tv, but apparently that's only the prose stories. Just noticing now that the doctorwho.tv stories are all related to the current Doctor and fam, and apparently for licensing reasons etc. none of the Twitter/Lockdown content is. Edit: except for the one recorded by Jodie in a cupboard, and apparently that was a huge deal to get approved.

[Anonymouswizard]

Here you go.

All the lockdown videos are on this Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoR...wcCT8YJBxKrWLw

For some reason I thought they were also linked at www.doctorwho.tv, but apparently that's only the prose stories. Just noticing now that the doctorwho.tv stories are all related to the current Doctor and fam, and apparently for licensing reasons etc. none of the Twitter/Lockdown content is.

I suspect that the Twitter/Lockdown stuff might be working on a similar licence to Big Finish. I've not been following it, but I have been using the lockdown to make my way through the Big Finish backlog (and when I've finally put an SD card on my phone will get back on that). Didn't really find most of the Lockdown stuff entertaining.

Actually, I can't wait for Big Finish to get hold of Thirteen, I trust them to successfully develop and resolve the Timeless Child stuff more than I do the TV series.


Also, wasn't Rassilon the one who invented regeneration? I know Doctor Who canon is very wishy washy, but 'Rassilon was the guy who with his two friends basically created Time Lord society from the ground up ' was one of the most solid pieces of Lore there was. Maybe this will be combined with the entire 'the Doctor is the genetic reincarnation of the Other' idea from those Seventh Doctor novels, although I'm not going to be happy until they make the Doctor a Galifreyan again.

[Androgeus]

Also, wasn't Rassilon the one who invented regeneration? I know Doctor Who canon is very wishy washy, but 'Rassilon was the guy who with his two friends basically created Time Lord society from the ground up ' was one of the most solid pieces of Lore there was. Maybe this will be combined with the entire 'the Doctor is the genetic reincarnation of the Other' idea from those Seventh Doctor novels, although I'm not going to be happy until they make the Doctor a Galifreyan again.

Off the top of my head the only source that suggests Rassilon invented regeneration is Zagreus. I don’t think there’s anything else that says it was specifically Rassilon. That aside The Timeless Children would cover itself if there was any proof that he did, with it’s reveal being a hidden history that’s been covered up.

[Fyraltari]

It’s not definitely stated in the show (at least as far as I recall) but between Rassillon having invented pretty much everything in Time Lord society and him having infinite regenerations, that was the logical follow-up.

[Thufir]

I know Doctor Who canon is very wishy washy, but 'Rassilon was the guy who with his two friends basically created Time Lord society from the ground up ' was one of the most solid pieces of Lore there was. Maybe this will be combined with the entire 'the Doctor is the genetic reincarnation of the Other' idea from those Seventh Doctor novels, although I'm not going to be happy until they make the Doctor a Galifreyan again.

In the Timeless Children when the Master was describing the founding of Time Lord society and onscreen Tecteun was talking to two Time Lords, apparently there was a line in the script saying something like "We can probably assume these might be Rassilon and Omega." Implying Tecteun was the Other.
Though obviously that's not explicit in the episode so they could take it in a different direction if they wanted.

Edit: found the scripts, they're online here and the relevant passage is on page 32 of The Timeless Children.

[The Troubadour]

Here you go.

All the lockdown videos are on this Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoR...wcCT8YJBxKrWLw

Awesome! Thanks a bunch! :-D

In the Timeless Children when the Master was describing the founding of Time Lord society and onscreen Tecteun was talking to two Time Lords, apparently there was a line in the script saying something like "We can probably assume these might be Rassilon and Omega." Implying Tecteun was the Other.

Shame they didn't leave that in! I don't want Who to become too self-referential, but I like those nods to the classic series.

[Thufir]

Shame they didn't leave that in! I don't want Who to become too self-referential, but I like those nods to the classic series.

They did leave it in. It's not a spoken line though, just a description of the scene, sorry if that was unclear.

[Anonymouswizard]

In the Timeless Children when the Master was describing the founding of Time Lord society and onscreen Tecteun was talking to two Time Lords, apparently there was a line in the script saying something like "We can probably assume these might be Rassilon and Omega." Implying Tecteun was the Other.
Though obviously that's not explicit in the episode so they could take it in a different direction if they wanted.

Edit: found the scripts, they're online here and the relevant passage is on page 32 of The Timeless Children.

Without a direct statement in the show we can assume that the three are Rassilon, Omega, and the Other, but we can't directly state who is who (although Tecteun=the Other is the simplest and most logical solution).

I suspect they're setting up either Rassilon or Omega as the big bad of the next series, or very maybe the Rani, with the ongoing arc being an exploration into the early history of Galifrey. The finale will involve Rassilon either confirming that the Doctor is the Timeless Child or berating her for thinking that she is.

Which is what I'd do for you final ever series, and much more specifically the final ever episode. But then I have very different views on the lore than the current showrunners. Here's my view on how the last episode should go.

Spoiler: The Dawn of Time

Show

The Doctor is in the final body of their second regeneration cycle, and is starting to show their age. They are in the TARDIS flying solo when something goes wrong and the TARDIS crash lands, throwing the Doctor out of the door in the process. We see some natives rescue the Doctor, they look a lot like humans.

The Doctor wakes up in a hospital ward with a broken leg, and gets to know the other patients as well as Ras, a medical student. When asked for their name the Doctor gives it as Theta Sigma. The first act revolves around the Doctor and Ras's growing friendship, including Ras's disillusionment with medicine and the Doctor's gentle encouragement of him to pursue something he's passionate about.

It's only at the beginning of the second act where we get confirmation of what we all guessed, when one of the patients in the ward dies and their features shift, this is Galifrey and Rassilon. The second act shifts scenery as the Doctor's condition improved enough that they can leave the hospital. The Doctor moves in with Rassilon or gets their own place and after a lot of hassle the Doctor gets the TARDIS moved to a place where they can work on it, at which point we find out that not only is she broken, but that the parts needed to fix her haven't been invented yet. Act 2 takes place over several years, as Rassilon quits medicine and begins to study physics, whole the Doctor tries to repair her ship. As the act goes on Rassilon begins to work out that the Doctor is a time traveller from the future, and starts trying to convince them to help Galifrey to unlock the secrets of time travel.

The third act is a lot more sketchy, but includes two major events. The Doctor shares with Rassilon enough knowledge of physics to create the Eye of Harmony in exchange for being left out of the historical record. As Rassilon begins the act that will propel Galifrey to being true lords of time the Doctor returns to the TARDIS, their body failing. The Doctor's body finally gives out as they're fiddling with the cables behind a roundel, at which point the TARDIS activates, travelling to the end of the universe, the end of matter.b with the Doctor's least breath they see the start of the end of everything, as protons decay and matter disintegrates into nothing.

The Doctor is the other. But not solve future version or reincarnation, but the person with the desire to know and the drive to explore that eventually lead them to the beginning of their civilisation with the will to see it all happen.

I'm sure you can pick holes in it and bring up stuff that doesn't work, but I had a lot of fun writing it down.

[Psyren]

Rassilon being the next big bad makes a lot of sense to me - pitting Jodie against the ultimate patriarch of time and space just makes sense.

[Rater202]

So I don't normally post in this thread... I'm a filthy casual when it comes to Who(I got in with 11 and my interest started to become periodic in 12's era) but I learned about the recent bombshell and...

I'm gonna be honest a lot of stuff makes more sense now.

Like, eleven's regeneration to 12 was weird: He basically exploded with enough energy to take out a Dalek warrship, suddenly got his youth restored, and then like, maybe twenty minutes later he sneezed and then it was 12.

He rationalizes it as a factor of being granted a second cycle, but... Honestly, the idea that he would have regenerated regardless and the extra cycle being completly superfluous to the process resulting in a greater excess of regeneration energy with unusual effects and the particularly destructive nature of the change makes a lot of sense.

It would also explain the existence of the Caretaker: The Museam Caretaker, played by Tom Baker, who in response to 11 thinking about eventually retiring and becoming a museum caretaker more or less implies that they eventually do exactly that and that they'll eventually go through so many generations that they start looping back around. The existence of the Caretaker predates history being changed so that the Doctor diddn't die on Trenzalore... And honestly, it's only the breaking down TARDIS on trenzalore that tells us that the Doctor died there. It is entirely possible that the Doctor died, regenrated, and in the original timeline decided that it'd be better if the universe thought he was dead so he fracked off to lie low and the change to time wasn't as extreme as we initially thought.

This reveal was set up seven years ago, basically.

---

Also, and you can thank Tvtropes for this one: The Timeline child seems perfectly calm, almost bored, when falling off the cliff. The child is completly jaded to the idea of dying and coming back as someone new.

How the **** does a child get used to something like that? What horrors has that child seen before being brought to Gallifrey? The dozen or so Timeless Children we see while the Master is narrating the experiments to understand regeneration don't seem to care about being forced to regenerate, either: Every last one of them looks bored.

Is this a random mutation of the Doctor's real species or is limitless regeneration and immortality a nessesary evolutionary adaptation for their homeworld?

[Anonymouswizard]

So I don't normally post in this thread... I'm a filthy casual when it comes to Who(I got in with 11 and my interest started to become periodic in 12's era) but I learned about the recent bombshell and...

I'm gonna be honest a lot of stuff makes more sense now.

Like, eleven's regeneration to 12 was weird: He basically exploded with enough energy to take out a Dalek warrship, suddenly got his youth restored, and then like, maybe twenty minutes later he sneezed and then it was 12.

He rationalizes it as a factor of being granted a second cycle, but... Honestly, the idea that he would have regenerated regardless and the extra cycle being completly superfluous to the process resulting in a greater excess of regeneration energy with unusual effects and the particularly destructive nature of the change makes a lot of sense.

It would also explain the existence of the Caretaker: The Museam Caretaker, played by Tom Baker, who in response to 11 thinking about eventually retiring and becoming a museum caretaker more or less implies that they eventually do exactly that and that they'll eventually go through so many generations that they start looping back around. The existence of the Caretaker predates history being changed so that the Doctor diddn't die on Trenzalore... And honestly, it's only the breaking down TARDIS on trenzalore that tells us that the Doctor died there. It is entirely possible that the Doctor died, regenrated, and in the original timeline decided that it'd be better if the universe thought he was dead so he fracked off to lie low and the change to time wasn't as extreme as we initially thought.

This reveal was set up seven years ago, basically.

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Also, and you can thank Tvtropes for this one: The Timeline child seems perfectly calm, almost bored, when falling off the cliff. The child is completly jaded to the idea of dying and coming back as someone new.

How the **** does a child get used to something like that? What horrors has that child seen before being brought to Gallifrey? The dozen or so Timeless Children we see while the Master is narrating the experiments to understand regeneration don't seem to care about being forced to regenerate, either: Every last one of them looks bored.

Is this a random mutation of the Doctor's real species or is limitless regeneration and immortality a nessesary evolutionary adaptation for their homeworld?

Eleven's regeneration weirdness is generally explained as 'he had to burn off a couple of the new regenerations to integrate the new regeneration energy, as well as intentionally pausing it halfway through to give Clara some closure (stopping at 'fixes damage' but before 'changes appearance', regeneration has been weirder). So it's not actually twelve additional regenerations, but the actual number is still vague.

Also regenerations have never been portrayed consistently' (it's only by 12 we get an apparently official rule of 'holding in your regeneration causes explosions'), the most consistent bit is 'glow and features change' but there's been niggles. Nine's regeneration, which is the template for all NewWho regenerations, was actually meant to be something closer to a classic series regeneration plus Nine spewing out the Time Vortex energy. We haven't seen astral projections of a Time Lord's next regeneration for starters...

And there's nothing explicitly spelling out the Curator as the Doctor, while he could be he also could be a Time Lord (or even human) historian who specialises in his adventures.


As for the Timeless Child, it's possibly something more akin to an Eternal (although they're straight up immortal without anything like the Sisterhood or Karn's drawbacks). But there's a key thing we know about regeneration: it can be interrupted. Which means the TC likely doesn't come from an overly dangerous planet, one with a lot of dangers yes, but not ones overly likely to kill you again in quick succession.

[Fyraltari]

So I don't normally post in this thread... I'm a filthy casual when it comes to Who(I got in with 11 and my interest started to become periodic in 12's era) but I learned about the recent bombshell and...

I'm gonna be honest a lot of stuff makes more sense now.

Like, eleven's regeneration to 12 was weird: He basically exploded with enough energy to take out a Dalek warrship, suddenly got his youth restored, and then like, maybe twenty minutes later he sneezed and then it was 12.

He rationalizes it as a factor of being granted a second cycle, but... Honestly, the idea that he would have regenerated regardless and the extra cycle being completly superfluous to the process resulting in a greater excess of regeneration energy with unusual effects and the particularly destructive nature of the change makes a lot of sense.

It would also explain the existence of the Caretaker: The Museam Caretaker, played by Tom Baker, who in response to 11 thinking about eventually retiring and becoming a museum caretaker more or less implies that they eventually do exactly that and that they'll eventually go through so many generations that they start looping back around. The existence of the Caretaker predates history being changed so that the Doctor diddn't die on Trenzalore... And honestly, it's only the breaking down TARDIS on trenzalore that tells us that the Doctor died there. It is entirely possible that the Doctor died, regenrated, and in the original timeline decided that it'd be better if the universe thought he was dead so he fracked off to lie low and the change to time wasn't as extreme as we initially thought.

This reveal was set up seven years ago, basically.

---

Also, and you can thank Tvtropes for this one: The Timeline child seems perfectly calm, almost bored, when falling off the cliff. The child is completly jaded to the idea of dying and coming back as someone new.

How the **** does a child get used to something like that? What horrors has that child seen before being brought to Gallifrey? The dozen or so Timeless Children we see while the Master is narrating the experiments to understand regeneration don't seem to care about being forced to regenerate, either: Every last one of them looks bored.

Is this a random mutation of the Doctor's real species or is limitless regeneration and immortality a nessesary evolutionary adaptation for their homeworld?

History didn't get changed on Trenzalore. The Great Intelligence sates that the doctor will die in a skirmaish that is nothing compared to the doctor's others battles. A six-century long siege agaisnt all of his ennemies at once does not qualify. The GI also mentions the Doctor as being called "The Shadow of the Valeyard" but as of 11th time, the Valeyard hasn't been formed yet meaning that teh gI was from a timeline where the Doctor survided the events of the Name of the Doctor.

Twice during Twelve's run it is theorized that the Doctor was granted an infinity of regenarations. Considering the hassle the twleve regeneration limits gave Moffat, I wouldn't be surprised he already had that idea back when writing the Day of the Doctor explaining the Curator (and Tom Baker narrating Shada as an old 4th Doctor).

As for the big boom, we don't know what being graned anew cycle looks like since we never saw the Master get his. All in all, I don't think the timeless child explains any of this better than what we had before.

The only thing it explains better is the Morbius Doctors and I remain convinced it exists solely to expalin the Morbius Doctors and make the Doctor special & mystrious again, both things I couldn't care less about.