Doctor Who S12E10 – Review – The Timeless Children

The series 12 finale of Doctor Who was a game-changer, it completely alters the Who mythos and defies everything viewers thought to be true.

The last episode ended with a cliffhanger, the return of the Master and the rise of an army of Cybermen. This episode starts immediately after these events, with the Master taking the Doctor to Gallifrey, which he had destroyed and revealing the truth about the Time Lords. He takes her to the Matrix, which is a database with all the Time Lords’ history, and shows her how the Gallifreyan race came to be what they were. He reveals that Gallifreyans were a primitive species and everything changed when Tecteun, whilst exploring the galaxy, found a mysterious child. Tragedy strikes and the child falls from a cliff and dies… or so Tecteun thought, the child regenerates and this is the first recorded regeneration on the planet of Gallifrey. Tecteun experiments with the child’s DNA and manages to transfer those regenerating abilities to herself. This leads to the creation of the Time Lords, as we know them. However, this isn’t the biggest revelation but the fact that the Timeless Child was none other than… the Doctor. This character who was always tormented by survivor’s guilt, thinking she was the last of the Time Lords, now finds out her life has been a lie, she had lived more times than she remembers and is the reason behind the existence of the Time Lords. As the Master puts it, the revelation breaks her but the knowledge that part of the Doctor is inside him completely wrecks the Master and drives this terrible violence. Missy, the previous Master, was scary at times but she seemed to antagonize the Doctor for fun, whereas this incarnation of the Master is blood-thirsty and enjoys bringing pain to others.

The arc with the Cybermen connects with the Master when he takes the Cyberium to create a new race: the Cyberlords. Their impact is minor and they are destroyed pretty quickly, so it seemed a bit unnecessary to introduce these new characters.

Overall this series has been pretty mixed but one thing for sure is that the show is trying to reinvent itself, without straying too far. The last couple of episodes were extremely enjoyable and brought back the essence of Who, moreover, Whittaker’s performance was fantastic and sheds any doubts left about her incarnation as the Doctor. The series 12 finale was controversial, with some viewers hating this new direction and claiming it is riddled with plot-holes and that it destroys the show they’ve loved for decades. It is fair to say how incredibly hard it must be to keep things new and interesting for a show that’s over 50 years old, whilst staying inside the canon boundaries but I do have to say that the risks taken during this season have paid off and the possibilities this storyline has opened are infinite. 

Score: 9/10

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