Chris Chibnall may be departing Doctor Who, but his successor can’t simply ignore the Timeless Child retcon. When Chris Chibnall took over as showrunner of Doctor Who, he decided to implement a story he came up with back when he was a fan in the late 1980s. He launched an ambitious retcon that rewrote the Doctor’s history, revealing she is far more than just a Time Lord.
The Timeless Child retcon revealed the Doctor predates Time Lord civilization. Over a billion years ago, a Gallifreyan explorer named Tecteun discovered a mysterious gateway, described as a “Boundary” to another dimension or universe. At the foot of this boundary she found a child, a little girl, alone and abandoned, who she adopted as her own. One day, the child suffered a tragic accident, one that should have killed her – but instead she regenerated, the first regeneration to happen on Gallifrey. Tecteun’s experiments upon her adopted daughter unlocked the secret of regeneration, with this Timeless Child becoming the base genetic code for Time Lord civilization. The Timeless Child was absorbed into Time Lord society, her memories erased, and a billion years later she became the Doctor.
The Timeless Child retcon has proved tremendously divisive, in part because it places classic Doctor Who over modern. Some viewers are willing to give it time, understanding that Chibnall intended to restore some mystery to the Doctor; others object vehemently, hoping the Timeless Child will either be forgotten or retconned again. All this means that, when Chris Chibnall leaves as showrunner after season 13 and the three specials that will release in 2022, his replacement will face a difficult decision: will they ignore the Timeless Child or build upon it?
The Timeless Child Retcon Builds Upon A Longstanding Doctor Who Mystery
The Timeless Child itself builds upon a number of concepts from the classic series, most notably Doctor Who‘s so-called “Cartmel Masterplan.” Script editor Andrew Cartmel was hired from Doctor Who season 24, and he believed the show’s then-decline was not due to production budgets or a lack of vision, but rather to the fact all elements of mystery had been lost from the Doctor’s character. He began to hint the Doctor was “more than just a Time Lord,” and had been present at the very dawn of Time Lord civilization. Cartmel never intended to explain all this, though, because his “masterplan” was not to rewrite the Doctor’s past but simply to restore mystery to it. Amusingly enough, although Chibnall has built upon this foundation, Cartmel is no fan of his work. “All I wanted to do is throw the Doctor back into shadow again and just give hints of what was going on,” he explained in an interview with The Legend of the Traveling TARDIS Radio Show. “And [with “The Timeless Children”] there’s a lot of detail in specifics, which is the last thing you want.“
Sadly, the truth is that – however excellent a script editor he may have been – Andrew Cartmel was naïve. Any mystery naturally invites the demand for answers, for resolution. All the hints and teases Cartmel wrote into the scripts in Doctor Who seasons 24 and 25 inspired a generation of viewers to come up with their own answers – including one Chris Chibnall, who decades later became the showrunner and implemented his ideas as the Timeless Child retcon. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, so a long-running TV series like Doctor Who will inevitably provide details as time goes by.
The Timeless Child Retcon Demands Resolution
It is possible Chibnall has already figured out answers to some of these questions, and will explore them in season 13. But Chibnall’s plans have, of course, been severely disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic; Doctor Who season 13 is just six episodes in length, with three specials airing in 2022, the last of which – part of the BBC’s centenary celebrations – will feature Jodie Whittaker’s regeneration. This can’t be what Chibnall originally intended, and thus it is quite possible he will be unable to build on the foundation of the Timeless Child. If that is the case, then the burden will pass on to his successors.
Cartmel may believe Chibnall’s story is too detailed, too specific, but the Timeless Child retcon raises many unanswered questions. If the Doctor is not a Time Lord, then what is she? Where does she really come from, and what was that enigmatic “boundary” to another universe or dimension? Given her powers of regeneration are bound to the time vortex, it is reasonable to assume the Doctor’s true species are somehow tied to the fourth dimension – but why have they not been seen before now, not even when all of time and space was torn apart by the Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks? Just as the Cartmel Masterplan inspired the Timeless Child, so the Timeless Child will inevitably inspire the next development in Doctor Who lore.
Chris Chibnall’s Successor Should Reveal The Doctor’s True Origin
At the moment, the Timeless Child changes everything and nothing. The Doctor Who season 12 finale, “The Timeless Children,” rewrote the Doctor’s origin story while going to remarkable lengths to reassure viewers it had changed nothing about the Doctor herself. The Master expected the Timeless Child reveal to break the Doctor, but she ultimately concluded that she had never allowed herself to be limited by her past before, and wouldn’t start now. The Doctor has always been more than just a Time Lord, simply because she rejected their isolationist ways and insisted on shining a light on the dark corners of the universe where evil dwelled. The Timeless Child twist doesn’t change that, it simply explains why the Doctor has never been able to fit in with Gallifreyan society – because she is not Gallifreyan at all. The story is important in terms of the TV show’s lore, but it carries absolutely no weight in character terms. Indeed, “The Timeless Children” explicitly ensured that was the case.
But there is one way Chris Chibnall and his successors can redeem the Timeless Child retcon, making it all worthwhile – by building upon it, creating something fresh and new out of it. The Doctor’s true race is a mystery once again, and Doctor Who should answer this by revealing the origin of the Timeless Child. Modern viewers have forgotten that the Time Lords were a clumsy retcon from the start, and many of the stories that developed Gallifrey’s lore – most notably 1976’s “The Deadly Assassin” – were every bit as controversial as the Timeless Child. Chibnall and his successor have the opportunity to move beyond Gallifrey, establishing a new race who can become an essential part of Doctor Who‘s mythology if they are well-developed. That approach, not simply ignoring the Timeless Child or finding a way to retcon it again, is the way forward for Doctor Who.
