Includes spoilers

 

Introduction

Many fans were dissapointed with Doctor Who Series 12's season finale. The 2 part episode promised a big revelation in the lore of the Doctor's specicies: the Time Lords. However, after the season aired many fans were enraged by the revalation that the Doctor is the 'timeless child'. The Timeless Child was found by a Time Lord scientist and experimented on to be able to get 'regeneration', the ability to regenerate and change your body when you die, bringing you back to life in some sense. As it turns out the Doctor isnt a Time Lord after all and is this mysterious creature that is core to the ability of regeneration. Fans are upset because the Doctor being the timeless child makes no sense with the shows 57 year old history and undermines one of the core messages of the show.

 

Plot holes

The Doctor being the timeless child provides a variety of plotholes. Time Lords can have a maximum of 12 regenerations, once they regenerate 12 times they will die for good. We know from the show that the Time Lords purposefully limit the regenerations to 12 and have the ability to grant more if deemed neccessary. Howver, since the Doctor is a different species and has regeneration naturqally, we can assume that the Doctor has infinite regenerations. This means that in episodes such as "The Time of the Doctor" where the Doctor recives additionall regenerations from the Time Lords is just complete nonsense. Additionally, if the Doctor has eternal life, then why doesnt he sacrifice himself in every single episode? There have been many emotional sacrifices over the shows history such as the sacrifice of River Song in "Silence in the Libary part 2" and her sacrifice of regeneration energy in "Let's Kill Hitler" - so if the Doctor is immortal then why did they allow so many people to die? Selfisheness?

Another plot hole is when Clara, one of the 11th and 12th Doctor's compaions, is split throughout the Doctors timeline. She meets all incarnations of the Doctor, exept any before William Hartnell's era. (William Hartnell was the actor for the first Doctor.)

The Doctor being the timeless child also tells us that there were many previous versions of the Doctor, one of which is 'Ruth' who was introduced in "Fugitive of the Judoon" as a mysterious character. However, she calls herself the 'Doctor' and her tardis is in the form of a blue police box. The Doctor only had a blue police box and called them self the Doctor DURING the first Doctor's area.

One arguement used to defend the several previous versions of the Doctor is the episode "The Brain of Morbius" which suggests there have been many more previous versions of the Doctor. Although this is a strong arguement, it is a singular and isolated case, there have been many episodes dating muh further back than the Brain of Morbius such as the episode "The Three Doctors" in which the first Doctor is reffered to as the earliest incarnation of the Doctor. Although to be fair the lore of the specifics of Doctor who have often been unclear, and it doesn't really matter if there are previous versions of the Doctor. But what DOES matter, is that the Doctor is the 'Timeless child' and the backbone for Time Lord Regeneration technlogoy because of how it undermines one of the shows principle messages.

 

Undermining the message

So, what exactly is so bad about the message? Throught Doctor who history, the Doctor was just and ordinary time lord, exept what the Doctor did differently from other time lords it that (s)he tried to do good in the universe instead of just watching passivly. The Doctor has had a long time conflict with the Master, another time lord who also explore the galaxy, but instead of appreciate it, wanted to burn it down. The story of Doctor Who is that you don't have to be born special, you can become special by doing the right thing and by doing good. Now that the Doctor is 'special' it somewhat defeats this buetiful message.

 

To quote the 12th Doctor "Winning? Is that what you think it’s about? I’m not trying to win. I’m not doing this because I want to beat someone, or because I hate someone, or because I want to blame someone. It’s not because it’s fun. God knows it’s not because it’s easy. It’s not even because it works because it hardly ever does.. I do what I do because it's right! Because it’s decent! And above all, it’s kind!"