Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Timeless Children

You are exploring the Discontinuity Index, a place where any details or rumours about unreleased stories are forbidden.
Please discuss only those whole stories which have already been released, and obey our spoiler policy.

This page is for discussing the ways in which The Timeless Children doesn't fit well with other DWU narratives. You can also talk about the plot holes that render its own, internal narrative confusing.

Remember, this is a forum, so civil discussion is encouraged. However, please do not sign your posts. Also, keep all posts about the same continuity error under the same bullet point. You can add a new point by typing:

* This is point one.
::This is a counter-argument to point one.
:::This is a counter-argument to the counter-argument above
* This is point two.
::Explanation of point two.
::Further discussion and query of point two.

... and so on. 

This was getting very long and questions were starting to repeat so I've broken it into headings for ease of use. --Irrevenant ☎ 09:55, July 12, 2020 (UTC)

Graham's speech

• Graham says to Yaz that she said the Doctor was the best person she knew, but in fact it was Graham who said this in Fugitive of the Judoon , how did he 1) forget and 2) think Yaz said it and 3) why didn't Yaz remember correctly?

How did the Doctor remember Jack's return in 'The Timeless Children'?

• How was the Doctor able to recall Jack's recent return in her memories when she wasn't there when it happened?

Graham and company told her about it. Seeing Jack on screen is for our benefit, not necessarily in her mind.

Why is the Timeless Child's biology so similar to Time Lords/Shobogans (two hearts etc.)

• If the Doctor is the Timeless Child from a world other than Gallifrey then she isn't a Timelord. She must have a different biological structure to the Shobogans, contradicting countless references to her/him having two hearts (and two brains, which is a thing now apparently) and to the Chameleon arch which rewrote his Timelord DNA.

Presumably the multiple organ redundancies are a biological prerequisite to regeneration, so the Time Lords presumably took on the same biology as the Timeless Child when they copied the ability to regenerate.

The Shobogans are a bit harder to explain. One possible explanation is just that the Timeless Child's biology tends to breed true and there's been enough interbreeding between Time Lords and Shobbogans over the aeons that it spread through the Shobogan population too.

• The Time Lords probably rewrote the Doctor's biology with something like a Chameleon Arch at some point, turning them from a Timeless Child species to a Shobogan/Gallifreyan/Time Lord.

The First Doctor had one heart, it's pretty much established that Timelords grow their second heart after their first regeneration

What happened to the other humans who escaped through the portal?

• What happened to the humans who went through the barrier to escape the Cybermen offscreen? Did they go to Gallifrey?

I think we can assume that the humans were transported to habitable planets, whether that be in another galaxy or universe altogether. However I don't think we will ever know exactly as a result of the Master's interference. And no I don't believe the survivors travelled to Gallifrey. The proof being that when the boundary opened in ascension of the cybermen all seemed to be perfectly normal before Gallifrey appeared within the portal itself, as caused by the master.

Further proof that the surviving humans ended up on another planet can also be seen in the Doctor's origin story, the timeless child having appeared on a planet having been transported from another place entirely be it in or out of our universe.

Why can Time Lord corpses still regenerate?

• If the Master killed all the Time Lords how can their cyber-converted dead bodies still retain regenerative abilities? Come to that, if they were preserved intact why didn't they regenerate?

Presumably however the Master killed them switched off their regenerative abilities but didn't entirely destroy them. By (very rough) analogy you can kill a human by stopping our heart, but it can be restarted given the right technology.

The Master said if Tecteun could experiment then so can he, leading me to think that even though they were already corpses, there was enough genetic material for the Master to tinker. The Doctor can make a person with a pack of crayons and a can of spam, think what an evil genius like the Master could do!

What happened to the Cyberium?

• What happened to the Cyberium at the end, unless we are meant to presume it was an organic life form?

Assuming that the master survived I see no reason why the Cyberium hasn't continued to exist within him.

However assuming that the master didn't survive and the explosion somehow caused the cyberium to exit his body perhaps it resorted back to it's original form (as seen in the Haunting of Villa Diodati) and now remains in the ruins of Gallifrey awaiting a new host.

Why didn't Brendan regenerate?

• If Brendan was the Timeless Child/Doctor why did he not regenerate when he fell off the cliff?

"Brendan" did technically regenerate. The perception filter just hid that fact, making it look as if he simply, miraculously came back to life after his fall. Which makes sense considering the whole point of the filter was to hide the truth.

• I can't actually remember the events of the episode as it aired a while back, but I decided to do a google search to see what I could find. I found some site that stated 'Brendan' may be immortal as the way he potentially 'died' shared many similarities with the way Captain Jack Harkness gained his immortality. However can Jack age, because the site also stated Brendan can age, so maybe he is immortal like Jack, but immortal in some other kind of way?
  • You've taken the Brendan thing too literally, him waking up after dying is a euphonism of him regeneration. The article you read was before the finale when we didn't know who Brendan was, and was designed to be Captain Jack-esque in order to throw people of, some more than others. Please do more than Google one (irrelevant and outdated) article when chpping in.

• • "Brendan" isn't real. He is a perception filter manifestation.

Infinite regenerations and "The Time of the Doctor"

• So was the Doctor able to regenerate endlessly all along? If so, that makes the events of The Time of the Doctor a bit more confusing in hindsight; would the Eleventh Doctor have regenerated anyway even if the Time Lords hadn't gifted him a new "cycle"?

Yeah, the Doctor as the Timeless Child makes for a grand and powerful story but it plays merry hell with continuity. You're right, the granting of a new cycle makes no sense if it was unnecessary, unless the Time Lords only pretended to do so in order to continue shielding the Doctor from the truth. Then again, we are meant to suppose that the truth was hidden even from the Time Lords themselves. The Timeless Child does explain a line in Kill the Moon (TV story) when the Doctor speculates if he would regenerate forever. I guess explanations are possible but it empties The Time of the Doctor (TV story) of all its power and Pathos. We remember too that the Great Intelligence attempted to kill the Doctor in all his incarnations and Clara followed it to rescue him. So are we meant to believe that somehow the Great Intelligence could only go back to the Hartnell Doctor? I can't help feeling that the Timeless Child is going to create huge problems for the show in the future.

Unless the pre-First Doctor Doctor (the timeless child, part of The Division) somehow became, physically, as other Time Lords when becoming the First Doctor, with the same physiology and limitations (including no memory of his/her former existence). Thus, no memory of the earlier stuff (in some senses, a different person), and the same limit on regenerations.

Additional point: if the Doctor was never actually in any danger of not regenerating after their eleventh incarnation, how was the grave at Trenzalore able to exist in any capacity?

Yep, just one of the many continuity problems this new canon is going to bring up.

It's been demonstrated numerous times that the Doctor can indeed die if the death happens too fast to allow for regeneration (i.e. Turn Left, The Night of the Doctor).

The simplest explanation is that, when The Division reset the Doctor to infancy, they also installed the exact same regeneration limit that's standard for Time Lords. So the Doctor genuinely was running out of regenerations just like any other Time Lord.

Note: in Time of the Doctor, the Time Lords gave the Doctor "a whole new set of regenerations" so it seems reasonable to assume that the cap hasn't been completely removed and she currently only has another 11 regenerations left.

Suppose, quite simply, this; the Timeless Child is not the Doctor, and never was. The Timeless Child is the Other. Bear in mind that the Master has never had any inkling of the Other's history or relation with the Doctor as related in Lungbarrow (novel) - without this information, he could easily enough conflate the two, just as the Doctor him/herself might do so, given the experiences of that same novel- and yet now, the backstory of the Timeless Child, and the otherwise apparently incompatible main backstory of the Doctor start to make sense together again.

Tecteun was strongly implied to be The Other (or TV canon's equivalent to that idea). It's questionable to what (if any) extent TV canon reflects the extended universe, including Lungbarrow.

It's possible that the Doctor isn't the Timeless Child, but it fits into canon if she is, and at this point that's the simplest explanation for Ruth and why she's in the Doctor's mind.

The ability to regenerate coming from the Timeless Child vs coming from exposure to the Time Vortex (ala River Song)

• If the Time Lords got their regeneration powers from the Doctor’s DNA and not from the time vortex, why was River Song able to regenerate?

I believe that the time vortex still contains the same regenerative energy as contained in the Doctor. Therefore it still make sense that River was able to regenerate upon being conceived in the time vortex. Let me explain:

Long answer:

What's different now however is the terminology behind it. The Doctor has always been under the assumption that the time lords as a species shared/attained these abilities with/from the time vortex (the untempered schism). What this episode has done is shown us that the regenerative abilities in the time vortex were once ONLY contained in the Doctor. The Doctor now knowing the truth knows that he/she was the ONLY one who contained a regeneration cycle. The gene splicing of the doctor's DNA into the Gallifreyan race simply made their species appear superior, as described by the master it was a 'noble creation myth' that their species had always contained regenerative abilities. The Time Lords thereby believed that they contained the same energy as the time vortex. However now we know that all the elite time lords did was lie about their origins to their entire species. Having erased the doctor's memories of his/her past lives and taken on the myth that they were of a greater origin they were able to hide the fact that all time lords contained the doctor's regenerative abilities.

Short answer:

Overall the time vortex and the Doctor contain regeneration energy, that's why River could regenerate. The time lords having only gotten/stolen it from the Doctor (The Timeless Children). This means that any time the Doctor made reference to Time lord dna and it's connetion to the time vortex he/she actually meant himself/herself (having not known it's true origin on Gallifrey). Only now does the Doctor know the truth that he/she was the true origin of this dna that contains regeneration energy as does the time vortex.

Is the Master lying?

• There remains the possibility that the Master is lying to the Doctor. He is controlling her access to the Matrix but why does she assume he is showing her the truth and he has not somehow manipulated it? And then there's the redacted record. What's there - the record of the Doctor's regenerations before Hartnell or something else which debunks everything she has just been told? After all there's a mass of Who history that does exactly that - Number 11 needing a new cycle of regenerations, the Valeyard, the Great Intelligence and Clara delving into all of the Doctor's regenerations, Rassilon making a pointed reference to granting the Doctor a new cycle (Hell Bent), etc. I guess it's possible that Chibnall left a great chunk of the Doctor's history redacted precisely so he could pull a rabbit out of the hat and say = 'you know what? That never happened' - if the fan base reacts unfavourably to this new canon.

Its possible Chibnall did it this way to leave an out - or even with the intention of later revealing it to be a lie. But that would still leave Ruth unexplained. It wouldn't be impossible to explain her away, but at the moment both The Doctor and we the audience have every reason to assume this is legit.

You're right, Chibnall could've left the possibility of the Master lying as a way out. Does that really solve anything though? The Timeless Child is such a huge retcon that changes so much of the lore of Doctor Who. Does the Master lying really make any sense at all? Do we want the Master to have lied? Even if we want the Timeless Child to be retconned, is the Master lying really the way to do it?

Why does Ruth's TARDIS look like a police box prior to Hartnell's era?

• The TARDIS looks like a police box because when the Hartnell Doctor took up residence in 1960's London,it took that form as a disguise then the chameleon circuit broke. Why would Ruth's TARDIS (seen in Fugitive of the Judoon) resemble a police box before this happened?

This is still an open question but my headcanon is this: Ruth (or an earlier incarnation) took refuge from The Division in 1960s Britain at which point the TARDIS first adopted this form, liked it, and kept it. When Ruth (or a later incarnation) was captured, the TARDIS was stored on Gallifrey and repaired. When Hartnell fled,he felt subconsciously drawn to steal his old TARDIS. She promptly took him to 1960's Earth,both because she knew it would be good for him,and as an excuse to "get stuck in" her favourite form again. It's a little convoluted but i think it best fits the evidence.

In a comic, it's revealed that the TARDIS gets stuck as a police box because Matt Smith's Doctor went back in time and deliberately sabotaged the TARDIS so it would always look like a police box.

Also, Hartnell's Doctor chose his TARDIS because the Clara splinter told him to.

It's implied that all Clara did was counter the Great Intelligence's interference. So presumably that's the same TARDIS he would originally have selected before the GI interfered and presumably that's because on some level he recognised his old TARDIS.

I think Ruth's TARDIS was a police box to make it obvious to the audience that she was the Doctor. I don't really like what the Fugitive Doctor does to the continuity (especially as it leads to the Timeless Child), but the police box TARDIS just seems like a way for Chibnall to leave no question of Ruth being the Doctor.

How did The Doctor remember his previous lives in "The Brain of Morbius"?

• Obviously this story leans into the mystery of the faces in "The Brain of Morbius", and confirms that the string of previously-unseen faces present in the episode were previous lives of the Doctor; pre-Hartnell. However - during "The Brain of Morbius", the Doctor engages in a mind-bending competition with Solon. I think it's safe to assume that the Doctor is using 'his mind' during a 'mind-bending' battle. The first face we see is Tom Baker's. Then Pertwee's; Troughton's and Hartnell's. Then about six/seven new faces. Now that these faces have confirmed to have been the Doctor, then how can the Fourth Doctor recall them during the mind battle, if they are supposedly hidden from his mind, as "The Timeless Children" states they were?

There are better ways to lean into the "Morbius Doctors". Many writers have wanted to bring them back and address them and the writers of "The Brains of Morbius" did intend them to be previous incarnations of the Doctor. "The Timeless Children" doesn't really support the "Morbius Doctors". Yes they both establish previous incarnations of the Doctor, but one adds more mystery to the Doctor's past and doesn't screw up the continuity. The other blows a giant hole in established lore and continuity.

• Okay just going to state instantly, I haven't seen an episode of Classic Who, however knowing the 11 regeneration cycle I could offer up my theory. I believe that maybe the new faces Solon showed were his past lives and they couldn't be covered up until he had gone through another regeneration. So if it were to happen with the doctor after the one in the episode, maybe there would be at least one new face less. However with regenerations they became hidden from the doctors mind perhaps so all the 13th Doctor knew about this was her 12 previous incarnations and Ruth. So basically my theory is that had Solon returned every series or a villain similar to Solon and he always engaged in a mind battle with the new incarnation there would always be a face or two less until facing off against 12 wherein there would be the previous 11, and 13 wherein it could go from 1-11 or 2-12 therefore showing a typical regeneration cycle as was previously believed before The Timeless Child. Perhaps Solon was trying to show The Doctor that they were not immortal and that as soon as they'd became mortally wounded as 11 that'd be it, it'd be game over (yet obviously Solon never knew that the Doctor would get the new cycle)? This is just my theory surrounding this anyway.

It's been a few weeks since I've seen either episode, but I don't remember anyone called Solon in either. Who are you talking about? Morbius?

• If I recall correctly, in Lungbarrow, the Seventh Doctor recalls the Brain of Morbius and realises the faces were those of the Other. But recalls that at the time the battle was taking place, the Doctor wasn't truly aware of what had actually happened. Possibly a similar thing to that.

Why didn't the senior Time Lords know about The Doctor's pre-Hartnell regenerations in "The Three Doctors"?

• In The Three Doctors, when viewing the Doctor's timestream, the Time Lords want to see "the FIRST incarnation of the Doctor". We see William Hartnell. But, why would the senior Time Lords lie to each other about Hartnell being the first, when nobody who "shouldn't know" is present?

The Division appear to be a very covert and secretive organisation. It seems likely that they kept the information from the Gallifreyan Government and that very few people knew about it, or about the Doctor's secret history. The Time Lords from "The Three Doctors" presumably weren't in the loop.

Why didn't Borusa know about the Doctor's pre-Hartnell regenerations in "The Five Doctors"?

• In The Five Doctors Borusa timescoops every incarnation of the character played by Peter Davison. As Borusa knows all the secrets of the Time Lords, why does he go no further back than William Hartnell?

It's been a while since I've seen these episodes. Remind me how Borusa knows all the secrets of the Time Lords. Does that extend to knowing information that The Division deliberately hid and which was only stored in the Matrix in disguised form?

If Borusa knew the secret, he would have known how important it was too be kept THE secret of the lie of Gallifreyan origins, and thus collected the 5 Doctors in order to keep the secret. Otherwise what, Borusa was going to time scoop 20 versions then have to explain what was going on? If he did or didn't know, either way he wasn't going to expose the secret.

How were the Cybermen suddenly able to cyber-convert Time Lords?

• It is repeatedly stated throughout Doctor Who that the reason Cybermen are so fixated on humans, is that human DNA is the only one compatible enough with Mondasian Cyber-technology. In other words, you can only cyber-convert Mondasians and Earthpeople. You can't cyber-convert Ice Warriors or Thals or Androgums etc. Until The Timeless Children, apparently, where DEAD Gallifreyans are cyber-converted.

That has been the case up until now, but this is also the first time the Master has worked on the problem. He's presumably much more brilliant than the Cybermen's best scientists.

As stated in Nightmare in Silver (TV story), that was a long time ago. Modern Cybermen can upgrade from almost anything.

How is the "Ruth Doctor" the Doctor?

• We know from The Sound of Drums that the Doctor chose his title at the same time that the Master chose his. If the Ruth Doctor comes before Hartnell, (and therefore, before the Doctor starts calling himself the Doctor) why does she refer to herself as the Doctor?

One plausible explanation is that both incarnations came up with the name "The Doctor" independently because it's the perfect term to describe who they are and want to be. Like Thirteen said in Fugitive of the Judoon - "Same brain!". It's not that surprising the same brain would converge on the same term to describe the same thing.

Going along the lines of "Same brain," in The Almost People, Miranda Cleaves comes up with a code word to prove she's not a doppelganger. She cleverly types out the code word rather than saying it aloud in case her doppelganger is listening in. However, the doppelganger eventually guesses the code word, explaining that she has the same mind and thoughts as the original Miranda Cleaves.

• Why did Ruth Have to be the Doctor? They still could've been the same person without sharing that name. I'm curious if anyone thinks that would've made things better? Maybe the Doctor being the Timeless Child would've been easier to accept if it there had been more focus on the incarnations before Hartnell being a separate person. Kinda like how the War Doctor is the Doctor's past but not the Doctor.

The Doctor's timestream

• In the Name of the Doctor, the Great Intelligence and Clara enter the Doctor's time stream and we see ALL of the Doctor's past incarnations, but no pre Hartnell ones.

Actually we don't see all of the Doctor's previous regenerations - we don't see the War Doctor onscreen and Clara doesn't recognise him at the end of the episode. It seems like Clara didn't see that incarnation because the Doctor had repressed it and that presumably applies to incarnations the Doctor was unaware of as well. Alternatively she may have only explored the points in the Doctor's timeline that the Great Intelligence had interfered with. Either way, she clearly didn't see all of it.

In The Timeless Children, how can they be the last remnants of humanity?

• If there were, then doesn't that contradict the Utopia / The Sound of the Drums / The Last of the Time Lords episodes whereby hundreds / thousands of humans had survived the end of the universe. I know that time can be re-written, but if that was true then the latest version of The Master shouldn't exist, because the events that took place in Utopia led Professor Yana to realise his true identity, and to escape using The Doctor's TARDIS. Throughout the two-parter, it is

consistently said that they are the last remnants of humanity, but they can't be at all, so is it that they are oblivious to how many humans actually survived?

• • They're described as the last humans this side of the galaxy. Still lots of other side's that humanity could be clining too.
  • Nine once said that the human race comes close to extinction a number of times then rebounds. Theb relevance of The Timeless Children appears to be one of those times. Humanity has been reduced to a small number of people, but an unknown amount have already fled through the guardian to safety, scattered throughout the universe. At some point they apparently managed to reunite again. Utopia takes place long after The Timeless Children.

Good point, well made. The references are very strong too, and it actually makes a lot of sense.

see

In Resolution and Fugitive of the Judoon, how come the Doctor's companions don't recognise aliens that have conquered Earth before?

• In Resolution, Graham, Ryan and Yaz didn't have a clue who the Daleks were, even though they invaded the Earth in Army of Ghosts / Doomsday and The Stolen Earth / Journey's End. The Eleventh Doctor was shocked when Amy didn't remember them in Victory of the Daleks, because there last remnants were eaten by the crack in her wall, but the universe was rebooted, so they should definitely remember them.

In "The Waters of Mars" it is established the Captain Adelaide Brookes remembers the Daleks from "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End". A character remembering a previous alien invasion of Earth wasn't a big deal story wise. It made sense in the episode, it was part of character's story, but it was such a small part, you could easily forget it. Why can't it be like that for companions that join the Doctor?

• • It's a recurring thing in Doctor Who that humanity overall keeps wilfully forgetting the various alien incursions. I've always thought it was kind of dumb, but it's probably a necessary handwave. Without it "present day Earth" in the show would become vastly different to the real world.
• In Fugitive of the Judoon, Graham, Ryan and Yaz don't recognise the Cybermen, despite Army of Ghosts / Doomsday, and it was the same with Amy in Blood of the Cybermen, only this time, The Doctor didn't even question her about not knowing who they were.
  • Same answer as re: Daleks above.

Very true. Now that you come to mention it, in the first episode of Torchwood, Gwen Cooper was shocked to realise the existence of aliens. Jack asked her how much more proof did she need following the Sycorax spaceship and the battles of Canary Wharf, and Gwen said something about Psychotropic drugs being put in the water supply which cause mass hallucinations.

• (Not sure if this is spaced out right, my apologies if it isn't). I've always seen it as a character has to be there during an event such as the battle of Canary Wharf for example to know what happened there, so that way when the writers bring in new characters they don't have to retcon the battle as in my mind it's explained as 'if a character isn't there they don't know what the aliens are', so as previously stated it's probably a necessary handwave. I never watched the original show but the way Graham was on about 'aliens in Sheffield' makes me think the show hadn't used Sheffield before 'The Woman Who Fell To Earth', and the world of the show maybe has global news be a very rare thing and often use local news when we see the news broadcasts that are part of the shows stories (The second half of this is my theory at least).
• It's possible some rogue sect of UNIT turned on the Archangel Network and used it to erase the knowledge of aliens from the wider populace after Miracle Day.
• I think it's just the writers being lazy. Addressing so many previous episodes would be too much for them. Even though all they really have to do is have the companions make a side comment about the aliens looking familiar and the Doctor referencing a past encounter with the aliens on Earth.
• It's how the writers establish that with each Show-runner the show is separate from the show under the previous show-runners. Like how there is a distinction between Classic Who and the Revival Series, there is distinction between each show-runner. The Davies Era, Moffat Era and Chibnall Era are all separate and the writers want that to be obvious. If they keep referencing previous eras as much as they would have to by having companions remember previous alien invasions, then there would be too much nostalgia in a show where nostalgia already becomes a main character in some episodes. *cough cough* "School Reunion" (great episode)