Doctor Who Series 12 Episode 10 - The Timeless Children (Part 2) - Review

Starring: Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole, Mandip Gill & Sacha Dhawan

Written By: Chris Chibnall

Directed By: Jamie Magnus Stone

Welcome back to my review of 'Ascension Of The Cybermen' and 'The Timeless Children'. You can my review of Part 1 here. So let's waste no more time and crack on with Part 2!

The Master takes the Doctor through the Boundary, and to the ruins of Gallifrey. There, he imprisons the Doctor in the Matrix and begins to show her the truth of the Timeless Child and who their people really were. Meanwhile Ashad and his newly-awakened army of Cybermen arrive at the Boundary, where the Master has his own plans for them. With the Doctor incapacitated, her companions split up and each being pursued by Cybermen, things will never be the same again...

Writing about 'Ascension Of The Cybermen' was admittedly a bit tricky as there wasn't a whole lot for me to go on. We didn't get much in the way of answers with Part 1 as it mostly served to keep building up anticipation for this week. However, now that we've arrived at 'The Timeless Children', I almost have the opposite problem. There is so much to unpack here that keeping this review at a moderate length and knowing where to even start is just as tricky. But seeing as I've been whinging quite a lot about it lately, I can say that even though there was far too much on 'The Timeless Children's To-Do list, it worked pretty well and is about as cohesive as you could get for an episode with so much going on. I have big respect for Chris Chibnall at the moment - while this finale isn't perfect, he's got guts to rewrite this much continuity, and wrap so much up in a mostly satisfying way. 'The Timeless Children' was always going to be controversial. The usual angry, hateful voices on YouTube were always going to turn up the performative outrage and scream this was the "death of the show" for the thousandth time. But even ignoring this ugliness, even your average fan might not be sold on this finale. There are legitimate reasons to dislike 'The Timeless Children' and I'll get round to why in due course, but I'm generally in the camp that was quite happy with this conclusion.

The rest of this review will contain major spoilers!

With that in mind I suppose it's worth getting the biggest talking point out of the way here, and that's of course the Timeless Child reveal. The Timeless Child was the foundation of Time Lord society, and the ability for Time Lords to regenerate was extracted from that Child. Most of all, the Timeless Child is the Doctor... and true to the Master's word, this is a reveal that changes a lot. Although it's quite a change, it does still fit rather well into established continuity. The Time Lords covering up their origins is in line with what we've seen of them before. Them wiping the Child's mind and then limiting their regenerations is where the Doctor as we know them comes into play. What little we know of the Doctor's early life on Gallifrey remains the same - there's just more to it than we were originally aware of. It shows glimmers of the infamous Cartmel masterplan, and amazingly it's a reveal that explains more about the Doctor, while also adding more mystery to them. We don't know how many incarnations could still be out there. It makes the Doctor a figure of mystery again. It doesn't take away from the Doctor as a character, unlike the Hybrid bullsh*t from Series 9 which altered the Doctor's origins into something vastly less interesting and which ultimately amounted to nothing. 

This isn't to say the reveal is a perfect one. While I'm personally onboard with what we've learnt, I can understand why others aren't going to be. Those who aren't fond of the Doctor being treated as "Space Jesus" rather than a humble traveller aren't going to get on well with 'The Timeless Children' and that's completely fair enough. The issue I personally have with this reveal is that its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. It somehow changes everything and nothing at the same time - that hardly makes sense I know but bare with me. Obviously it changes what we thought we'd known about the Doctor, but what does this new information change going forwards? Maybe it remains to be seen, but when the Ruth Doctor and asks the same thing, you can understand why I might be sceptical. Why the Ruth Doctor called herself the Doctor and had a police box TARDIS even though she chronologically comes before the 1st Doctor is quite a plot hole as well. But even so, a surface-level reading of 'The Timeless Children' may stoke the fires of outrage for YouTube's algorithms, the 1st Doctor is still the FIRST Doctor. The Doctor as we know them is still the same having learnt this. It's good in a sense that this reveal expands and slots neatly into the mythos, but it's a tad redundant in another sense because it doesn't change that much.

Credit where it's due though - for a writer who's regularly accused (including by me sometimes) of being rather "tell, don't show", I've got to give Chibnall credit here for some actually neat subtle details woven through the episode. After it aired I saw a couple of users on Twitter express a way of viewing the episode that I hadn't considered before. They drew parallels between the Time Lords rewriting their own history to the British doing exactly the same with their Empire. That might be a stretch for some, but whenever I re-watch Jodie Whittaker deliver that line "But why would lie?! Why would they do that?!" with such anger, I can't help but think of it. Whittaker for the record is marvellous here. Although the Doctor's role is limited, she has some great material to work with nonetheless and she relishes it. As does Sacha Dhawan as the Master. Dhawan is still on top form in the role, and now that we know the Timeless Child is the Doctor, it explains that sense of hurt that was hinted at in 'Spyfall'. The Master is angry and can't stand the fact that his ability to regenerate stems from the Doctor. I love how it's the Master's own pettiness and loathing of the Doctor that's caused him to react like this. He's angry, not because he has much of an actual reason to be, but because he's chosen to be. He's created his own problem by choosing to be angry about what he's learnt - a bit like those who are seething and crying that this is the "death of the show" huh? 

While I do have respect for Chibnall being able to handle so many elements, let's not forget that 'The Timeless Children' still had an awful lot on its plate and you'd have to be the best goddamn writer in the world to handle everything well. Something had to give, and it's the Cybermen. Remember when this was a Cyberman story? With so much to deal with, the Cybermen get overshadowed as best exemplified through Ashad. Such a great villain is gone in literally a heartbeat as the Master shrinks him. I understand why it was done but after two strong outings, getting rid of Ashad so quickly can't help but feel disappointing. He does get one last genuinely frightening and claustrophobic scene when he searches for Graham and Yaz, but that's about it. Not even his "ascension" plan, to make the Cybermen 100% robotic, holds up. The Master quite rightly point out that they'd be just another race of robots, so he comes up with something far more interesting: Cybermen plus Time Lord, a.k.a. the CyberMasters. These things are... ridiculous, but in the best possible way. They're something you might find in a fanfic and their design is goofy as hell, but I really liked this. Giving Cybermen the ability to regenerate does pose a logical dilemma - the Master has made himself an army that's effectively invincible so the stakes are definitely high.

The CyberMasters are a neat way to marry the Time Lord stuff with the continuing Cyberman story, though I'm in two minds as to how it was resolved. Using Ashad's death particle, it's Ko Sharmus that eventually saves the day and while this is fine I suppose, it felt like the stage was set for one of the companions to make that sacrifice. In my eyes, Ryan would've been the ideal candidate. Given how little he had to do in not just this story, but Series 12 as a whole, opting for this could've justified his continued presence in the series. With Yaz, she's stepped up massively in the last few episodes and she's finally begun to grow on me. While Graham hasn't had as much of an arc or development in Series 12, he's still charming, loveable and my favourite of the three so I can't say I want to lose him. But Ryan has had the least to do, and this could've been a great way to round off his time on the TARDIS. It might sound morbid, but I don't see where else you could take him or why he's still here given that his story seems concluded. 

That about wraps up my thoughts on 'The Timeless Children'. Whether you're a die-hard fan or a casual viewer, it's understandable why this finale may turn you off. With Gallifrey, the Master, the Time Lords, the Cybermen and more, 'The Timeless Children' is a noticeable breakaway from the continuity-free approach of Series 11. I mean the Doctor literally breaks out of the Matrix at one point by showing it a "best bits" compilation - there is a lot of lore-wank in here. And being a continuity-heavy episode set on Gallifrey and that rewrites aspects of the lore meant this could've been 'Hell Bent' Vol. 2. For some people it might well be that, but on this site you can still find my original review of 'Hell Bent', one of the earliest I wrote. I stand by my view that that episode is total rubbish and the single most damaging episode of the show, but looking back I can admit that the outrage I felt in that review was massively overblown. If you hate 'The Timeless Children' fair enough, but take it from me that being outraged isn't worth it. The Hybrid crap from Series 9 hasn't been mentioned since. 'Doctor Who' can survive a lot and if this Timeless Child reveal doesn't work out, the show will move on. Otherwise this is a stronger second half, and a solid if imperfect conclusion to an overstuffed series.

Final score for Ascension Of The Cybermen & The Timeless Children

7/10