TV Show of the Week - Doctor Who

I held off talking about the ending of series 12, The Timeless Children until now because I had never been so conflicted with a piece of entertainment than I had watching that episode unfold. When the credits rolled, Doctor Who would never be the same again, and that has been said many times during its long run. I knew that this would split the audience down the middle, and the strong reviews about them loving or hating the episode were flooding in from the very moment the episode ended. With the audience so definitively split as they continue to be, being on either side of the spectrum, the one neutral statement they made before writing whether they loved or hated the episode was the acknowledgement that Doctor Who’s continuity has been twisted and broken and changed so many times in the passed, and that this revelation won’t be the last. What sets myself aside from those reviewers, and the reason why I held off talking about that episode for so long, was I struggled to choose a side for I was split down the middle with my own opinions on the episode.

My initial reaction about the episode in general, coupled with the previous episode as they are a part of one story, sub-par at best. The lone Cyberman story arc had the potential to be an emotionally impactful storyline, it had the makings of a grand story across the entire tenure of Jodie Whittaker’s 13th Doctor, much the same as the Silence was for Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor. But Chris Chibnall destroyed any of those opportunities by literally killing the Lone Cyberman off, suddenly and with no real impact, by the Master. The storyline about the Lone Cyberman inside the episode The Timeless Children had literally no influence about the massive revelation that Chris wanted to emphasise. To make a massive change to the show such as that, there needed to be so much more focus on the revelation, allowing us, the audience, to process just how the show is going to deal with it, instead of just plonking it on our screens as an hour of exposition and then told to wait for months for the next episode, Resolution of the Daleks, which only briefly skimmed over the events of The Timeless Children at best, so now we have to wait yet another few months before we get at least some answers.

Quick side step, Resolution of the Daleks as an OK episode - it was exciting to see Captain Jack Back and make references to past events and compagnions, namely Rose Tyler, but it has made me nervous for the next series. Whilst it is labelled as a New Year’s special, we need answers, and if it can give us the impression that the show, and Chris, can move on so quickly from the events of The Timeless Children, then maybe series 13 isn’t going to feature everything we need as long time fans of the show to help process the massive change that it underwent.

Chris does have the freedom to change continuity and the show’s history, because Russell T. Davis and Stephen Moffatt did so as well, so we can’t criticise Chris for making his own mark on the show, but changing continuity as massively as The Timeless Children had, and even changing the very history of the show itself, could have been done better, there’s no doubt about that. For all the exposition we were given, ironically, it had very little justification. Throughout the segments where we’re given the history of the Time Lords, it felt as if we weren’t given enough explanation, and what I mean by that is how the show contradicts previously established continuities. We, the audience, were left in a pile of questions, and that’s why I’m nervous about series 13, because I’m afraid that not all of them, if not none, of the questions we have will be answered. As the show stands, we, the fans, are left trying to piece it together for ourselves, instead of the show doing it for us, and that shouldn’t be how something like that should work.

If you’ve made it this far into the article, you might have noticed that I haven’t actually been critical about the massive change Chris made, just how it was handled. This brings me to the main reason for why I held off talking about that episode for so long. As a fan of the show, it does mess things around a bit - it does contradict a lot of continuity, and it does take some meaning away from William Hartnell being the 1st Doctor. It does make us see previous episodes in a different light. Much the same as the 50th anniversary changed the way we perceived the 9th Doctor’s episode Dalek in series 1, knowing that he really did save Gallifrey. Changing continuity is nothing new, contradicting facts is nothing new, but it’s how you present them is.

I haven’t been critical about the recent change because, as a writer, (controversially) I liked it. As a writer, I understood why the show had to change again, to keep things fresh, to give future writers of the show ample room to move around in the show’s lore. Stephen Moffatt revealed quite a lot about the Doctor’s life during his reign, obsessing over the character’s name throughout Matt Smith’s run. As a writer, I can see that the show hasn’t entirely lost its mystery. The title, Doctor Who, still remains firmly intact, because, let’s face it, after being told that the Doctor originates from a different dimension entirely, we don’t have a clue who the heck she is, and within the lore of the show, currently, she doesn’t either.

We need answers, and we need them to be good. I understand that some people are wishing for the change to be completely written out entirely, but we all know that it will be either a very long time before that happens, or it won’t happen at all. As a fan of the show, we need to give it the benefit of the doubt for series 13. I am nervous that it won’t satisfy us fans, but series 13 is going to happen, and maybe it will help us transition into the new era that Chris has created for the show. I just wish it was handled so much better than it was.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)