{"id":38191,"date":"2023-04-23T00:10:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-22T23:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/?p=38191"},"modified":"2023-04-22T13:00:14","modified_gmt":"2023-04-22T12:00:14","slug":"what-if-the-timeless-child-revelations-happened-a-different-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/2023\/04\/23\/what-if-the-timeless-child-revelations-happened-a-different-way\/","title":{"rendered":"What If… The Timeless Child Revelations Happened a Different Way?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

I complain that Chris Chibnall screwed up the Timeless Child idea, so I\u2019m putting my money where my mouth is, and giving my thoughts on how another approach might have worked a bit better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the record, it\u2019s not that the very concept of the Timeless Child is totally unthinkable or impossible. After all, Philip Hinchcliffe, Robert Holmes, and those gang of pranksters loaded up The Brain of Morbius <\/em>with an in-joke of putting mysterious extra faces on a screen in addition to Hartnell, Troughton, Pertwee, and Baker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it really a shock that some 5 year old watching it was mesmerized by it? That he\u2019d imprint on it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, totally ignore the obvious possibility that those extra faces were Morbius\u2019? The fact that he\u2019d eventually be a future showrunner who\u2019d blow it all up exponentially was admittedly a curve though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve long held the belief that you can do any story \u2014 as long as it\u2019s done well. Execution is all. That being said, let\u2019s take a little trip over to a different time track. Imagine if the different elements of the Timeless Child were presented a bit differently, with a different showrunner. This would be taking a different direction at the fork in the road when writing the script.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all begins and ends with Fugitive of the Judoon<\/em>. I\u2019ve said before that this is my favourite of the entire Chibnall\/Jodie Whittaker era. The fact the Vinay Patel was the co-credited writer probably has a lot to do with it. Another bonus: this episode is basically the Jo Martin era all in one go, and she\u2019s a very good Doctor, outshining Jodie throughout.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this alternate path, the episode would play out exactly the same, until we hit the grave site scene, where we diverge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Doctor\u2019s sonic is picking up incredible readings inside the grave. She digs until she unearths the edge of a generic, cylindrical TARDIS. Hearing a voice behind her, she spins around to face \u201cRuth\u201d in full costume, looking calm, confident, and holding a large weapon. She begins to introduce herself, \u201cHello, I\u2019m\u2026\u201d\u00a0\u00a0We cut away to an aerial shot, with thunder rumbling, and when we return, the Doctor says that that was a Gallfreyan name — checks to confirm Ruth\u2019s biology with the sonic, only to find out that not only is Ruth a Time Lord, they are the same<\/em> Time Lord. The Doctor\u2019s stunned, but Ruth\u2019s settled and determined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They teleport into Martin\u2019s TARDIS, and from there, things run along similar paths as in the episode — we see the confrontation with Gant run its course. After departing, instead of Martin being severely annoyed and ditching Jodie at the next stop, they have an actual heart to heart conversation, where Jodie shows a bit of compassion with her curiosity, while Martin softens a bit. After all, she remembers losing Lee, as well as going on the run in the first place, her human life, and she still wants nothing to do with Division anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She slumps down a bit over the TARDIS console. She feels so old. Ancient. Older than the stars. And she\u2019s tired of the violence. The Doctor tries to comfort her, telling her there is another way. Having resigned herself that Ruth is in the Doctor\u2019s past. The Doctor realises that because of the time differential, Martin won\u2019t remember this meeting at all. Probably not, says Martin. But Martin hits a few controls and the Doctor, in proximity to the psychic circuits on the console, rocks back a bit, stunned. The Doctor\u2019s dropped off, not realising Martin hit her with a remote mind-wipe, and later is found sleeping on a park bench by “the fam”. Her memory of almost everything having to do with Ruth has faded. The TARDIS crew move along to maybe very different stories filling out the rest of Series 12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in Martin\u2019s TARDIS, she knows she can\u2019t go on like this. She needs a fresh start. Not as a human though. She\u2019ll never do that<\/em> again. The blonde was annoying, but she wasn\u2019t wrong about changing her ways. She decides to go back to the one place Division won\u2019t look. Gallifrey. As her memory of the strange blonde in braces begins to fade, she decides to bring out the chameleon arch again, but this time, to make a different change. A new name, a new Gallifreyan life, a new start.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Immortality became a curse millions of years ago. A strain\u2026 A burden she no longer wanted any part of, so she\u2019ll become someone else. Someone hopeful. Someone who can care again. Someone who\u2019ll walk a different path. At least whoever she becomes will have a chance.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometime later, a small child is found outside the walls of Arcadia and taken in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s many, many years later when the grown man chooses his path with a name. A name to help and heal. Never cruel, never cowardly. He decides he\u2019ll be not a warrior, but a Doctor. This is where his life truly begins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many years later still, he and his granddaughter steal a TARDIS and escape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that\u2019s a rough outline, but I feel it would have been more acceptable to the audience at large. Possibly still divisive, but maybe not as much. In essence, yes, the Doctor had this existence before the Hartnell incarnation for billions of years, doing God knows what, and possibly some unspeakable things, but the headline here would be that this Time Lord remade themselves and only when they decided to change, only then<\/em>, would they begin again with the Hartnell incarnation and truly become the Doctor.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You could easily rationalise this path, see how it could work with a \u201cTimeless Child\u201d scenario, because here, Hartnell truly would be the first Doctor<\/em>. A lot cleaner, I feel. The Thirteenth Doctor finds a<\/em> TARDIS in the grave, not hers and Ruth may be her but with a different name, not the Doctor.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The separation there, I think, is important. If the character reinvents themself, effectively starting fresh with a self-imposed type of \u201cwitness relocation protection\u201d program that even they don’t know about, it gives the actual Doctor his own beginning, separate from everything that had gone before: a clean break, instead of the confusing, irreconcilable bramble of questions originally presented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, dear reader, instead of what we actually got, would this<\/em> scenario have been more acceptable? \u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Fugitive of the Judoon had happened a little differently, would the Timeless Children idea be more accepted?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":25975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"What If... The Timeless Child Revelations in #DoctorWho Happened a Different Way?","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[73,1895],"tags":[411,5251,5215,5242,2848,261,5284,5243,2264,4088],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fugitive-of-the-Judoon-13th-Jodie-Whittaker-Ruth-Jo-Martin.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":38171,"url":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/2023\/04\/18\/chris-chibnall-is-ready-for-his-era-of-doctor-who-to-be-contradicted-by-future-stories\/","url_meta":{"origin":38191,"position":0},"title":"Chris Chibnall Is Ready for His Era of Doctor Who to be Contradicted by Future Stories","author":"Philip Bates","date":"18 April 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"But will those contradictions be explained too?","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/The-Timeless-Children-Jodie-Whittaker-13th-Thirteenth-Master-Sacha-Dhawan.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/The-Timeless-Children-Jodie-Whittaker-13th-Thirteenth-Master-Sacha-Dhawan.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/The-Timeless-Children-Jodie-Whittaker-13th-Thirteenth-Master-Sacha-Dhawan.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/The-Timeless-Children-Jodie-Whittaker-13th-Thirteenth-Master-Sacha-Dhawan.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":25635,"url":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/2020\/02\/27\/chris-chibnall-promises-series-12-finale-will-explain-jo-martins-doctor\/","url_meta":{"origin":38191,"position":1},"title":"Chris Chibnall Hints That Series 12 Finale Will Explain Jo Martin's Doctor","author":"David Traynier","date":"27 February 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Next week\u2019s 70-minute Doctor Who season finale, The Timeless Children, promises answers about the mysterious incarnation of the Doctor who first appeared a few weeks ago in Fugitive of the Judoon. The \u2018Fugitive\u2019 or \u2018Ruth\u2019 Doctor was played in robust style by Jo Martin and is either an unknown future\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fugitive-of-the-Judoon-TARDIS-Jo-Martin25080154.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fugitive-of-the-Judoon-TARDIS-Jo-Martin25080154.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fugitive-of-the-Judoon-TARDIS-Jo-Martin25080154.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fugitive-of-the-Judoon-TARDIS-Jo-Martin25080154.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fugitive-of-the-Judoon-TARDIS-Jo-Martin25080154.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":33961,"url":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/2021\/12\/04\/daring-to-change-doctor-who-is-change-really-that-difficult-for-fans-to-accept\/","url_meta":{"origin":38191,"position":2},"title":"Daring to Change Doctor Who: Is Change Really That Difficult for Fans to Accept?","author":"Rick Lundeen","date":"4 December 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Doctor Who has had some massive gear-changes, but what does it take for fandom to widely accept them?","rel":"","context":"In "Features"","block_context":{"text":"Features","link":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/category\/features\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fugitive-of-the-Judoon-13th-Jodie-Whittaker-TARDIS.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fugitive-of-the-Judoon-13th-Jodie-Whittaker-TARDIS.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fugitive-of-the-Judoon-13th-Jodie-Whittaker-TARDIS.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fugitive-of-the-Judoon-13th-Jodie-Whittaker-TARDIS.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":40288,"url":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/2023\/12\/28\/lets-go-all-in-on-the-whoniverse-a-controversial-idea-about-the-doctor-and-the-big-bang\/","url_meta":{"origin":38191,"position":3},"title":"Let’s Go All In On the Whoniverse: A Controversial Idea About the Doctor and the Big Bang","author":"Rick Lundeen","date":"28 December 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"How could Russell T Davies \"top\" the Timeless Child idea?","rel":"","context":"In "Features"","block_context":{"text":"Features","link":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/category\/features\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Jodie-Whittaker-Thirteenth-13th-regeneration-The-Power-of-the-Doctor.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Jodie-Whittaker-Thirteenth-13th-regeneration-The-Power-of-the-Doctor.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Jodie-Whittaker-Thirteenth-13th-regeneration-The-Power-of-the-Doctor.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Jodie-Whittaker-Thirteenth-13th-regeneration-The-Power-of-the-Doctor.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":34240,"url":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/2022\/03\/13\/the-brain-of-morbius-okay-so-did-chris-chibnall-have-a-point\/","url_meta":{"origin":38191,"position":4},"title":"The Brain of Morbius: Okay, so Did Chris Chibnall Have a Point?","author":"Rick Lundeen","date":"13 March 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I may owe Chris Chibnall an apology. 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From the upped performances to the return of the Master, Judoon, Captain Jack, and the upcoming Cybermen. 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