Doctor Who spoiler review: The Timeless Children rewrites history in a big way

Jodie Whittaker and Sacha Dhawan were fantastic to watch as the Doctor and the Master.

Photo Credit: James Pardon/BBC Studios/BBC America

Series 12 has proven to both major and divisive for Doctor Who fans. It’s only fitting that its finale, The Timeless Children, is exactly the same. (Spoilers follow.)

Oh boy. Where to even begin with this one? Whether we loved it or hated it, I think we can all agree that The Timeless Children was big. Not just for resolving a key arc for Series 12, but also for dealing with some major Doctor Who mythology, too. As a result, it’s an episode that has a lot of fans talking. But is it any good? To really discuss this episode, we really need to head deep into spoiler territory for this one.

Before we go into detail on the episode’s biggest talking point, let’s talk about the return of Sacha Dhawan as the Master. He was great to watch in Spyfall, and that’s even truer in this episode. He has some of the manic madness of more recent Masters like Simm and Gomez, but he’s at his best during the character’s quieter moments. When you can sense the rage bubbling within, ready to go off at any moment.

But as great as he is to watch on his own, Sacha Dhawan is even better when performing against Jodie Whittaker. While I love the Master’s own spin-off series – including The War Master and Missy – their relationship with the Doctor is always great to explore, especially if the chemistry between the actors is strong. Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado continue to stand out as a Doctor/Master pairing because they felt like equals with a shared history, and had just the right hint of friendship mixed with their enmity. (The fact that Pertwee and Delgado were friends in real life definitely added to their performances.)

In their own way, Whittaker and Dhawan are also fantastic to watch together. We get to see new, deeper sides of Whittaker’s Doctor, as well as a surprisingly vulnerable side to the Master. One scene that particularly stood out is the Master daring the Doctor to push the button and wipe out everyone – including the two of them. I really enjoyed seeing Whittaker and Dhawan together, and I hope that this isn’t the last time that we get a story with this pairing.

Ashad proved to be an effective villain in previous episodes. But was he overshadowed by the return of the Master?

Photo Credit: James Pardon/BBC Studios/BBC America

Ashad and the Cybermen

This is an interesting aspect of the episode. After all their focus in Ascension of the Cybermen, the classic monsters are almost pushed to one side this week. Not entirely – there are some decent battle scenes, for example – but unsurprisingly, there’s a lot more focus on Gallifrey and the return of the Master.

However, that might not be as much of a problem as it first appears. There wasn’t too much left to resolve of their story from last week, they just needed to be established as a threat. Which in this case, Chris Chibnall did a pretty decent job on. So their overall story doesn’t feel too rushed here, especially with the Master’s plans for them.

However, one aspect that was slightly disappointing was the resolution of Ashad’s story. While I wasn’t initially keen on him when he first appeared in The Haunting of Villa Diodati, it has to be said that he was an effective antagonist. The fact that he was highly emotional for a Cyberman – and therefore would be rejected by the rest of his race – became much more interesting once they acknowledged it in Ascension of the Cybermen.

So his quick and easy death in the finale’s second part was honestly a little disappointing. Admittedly, you knew what was going to happen the moment he revealed to the Master that the Cyberium wouldn’t leave him as long as he lived. But as fantastic a villain as Dhawan’s Master is, Ashad worked well on his own terms. So it would have been a little nicer if his story had been wrapped up better, at least.

It was hard not to notice how much this finale echoed others – particularly those featuring both the Master and the Cybermen in recent years.

Photo Credit: James Pardon/BBC Studios/BBC America

Echoes of other finales

One thing that’s pretty easy to notice about The Timeless Children is that there seems to be a few ideas taken from other finales. The Master using dead bodies for Cybermen and revelations of the Doctor’s origins being explored on Gallifrey particularly stand out – it’s hard not to be reminded of Peter Capaldi finales Death in Heaven and Hell Bent. So it’s hard not to see The Timeless Children as being a little derivative, at times.

Just as noticeable is that this is the third finale to feature both the Master and the Cybermen. And this isn’t just out of the whole of the New Series, but out of the last five seasons, too. While I’m glad that we haven’t had a finale focused on the Daleks since Russell T Davies’s era (who used them for three out of his four finales), this feels at least as problematic. Bringing either the Master or the Cybermen back for a finale is repetitive enough, but using the same combination of them several times? That honestly feels like overkill. (And I’m a particularly big fan of the Master, too.)

The one thing that might make that fact easier to digest is that it might be intentional. Because we still don’t know for certain if Sacha Dhawan’s Master directly follows Missy. With the Master clearly having some way of escaping at the end, he may reuse the idea of using corpses for Cybermen on Earth after regenerating, thus setting up the events of Death in Heaven. Or he is after Missy and simply reusing ideas already. Honestly, I just hope that the next time the Master is used for a finale, he teams up with something other than the Cybermen, at least.

History was re-written in this episode. Was it done well, at least?

Photo Credit: James Pardon/BBC Studios/BBC America

Rewriting canon – what didn’t work

Now we get to the heart of the episode. Where history itself is rewritten. Chris Chibnall basically rewrites decades of mythology in The Timeless Children. Finding out that the Doctor was not only “the Timeless Child” but central to the origins of the Time Lords was a bold move. After re-watching the episode, we have to ask: is it worth it?

Personally speaking, I definitely have mixed feelings about this. I’ve written before about why William Hartnell should remain as the first true incarnation of the Doctor in terms of the show’s chronology. It’s with his Doctor that the character’s journey truly begins, in so many ways. Finding out about other incarnations comes dangerously close to taking away from that.

Even worse is how important “the Timeless Child” was to Gallifrey’s history. What’s so fantastic about the Doctor’s story is that, in the beginning, he was just another Time Lord. Someone who dreamed of escaping his life on a boring world and discovering the universe for himself. It was only over time – and through the influence of his companions – that he gradually became the hero we all know. Making the Doctor special to the Time Lords’ origins goes against what made the First Doctor’s story so brilliant.

More from Winter is Coming

• For All Mankind finally gives us information in Episode 405, “Goldilocks”
• Watch a stunning VFX breakdown of The Wheel of Time season 2
• Of course Steve Toussaint (Corlys Velaryon) thinks Eve Best (Rhaenys Targaryen) should rule Westeros
• Confirmed: The Last of Us season 2 will air in 2025
• Final season of Star Trek: Discovery will have “a lot of action, a lot of adventure, a lot of fun”

What did work

Having said all of that…I have to admit, there are a few things that I do like about how The Timeless Children handled this idea. First off: the Morbius Doctors – the faces seen in The Brain of Morbius that were very strongly hinted to be those of the Doctor’s. Acknowledging those faces – even in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment – was a nice way of selling this idea. Perhaps even crucial.  At the very least, it was a reminder to the audience that Chris Chibnall was hardly the first man to think of the idea of pre-Hartnell Doctors.

Another aspect that I like about these revelations is that – despite revealing the very origins of the Doctor – it also adds a lot more mystery to the character. There are entire lives that even the Doctor isn’t aware of, and major questions that need to be answered. What did the Doctor do during those lives, and why did they lose their memories? While I’m sure that we’ll find out more in the next series, it’s good to be given a sense of mystery with the Doctor once more.

A divisive episode

Now, while many fans are excited by this development, a number of others are upset about this, and understandably so. As mentioned, it changes the Doctor’s backstory in a big way, and it feels almost blasphemous that William Hartnell is no longer the first chronological incarnation of the Doctor.

But at the same time, there are still many questions to be answered. A lot more to find out. Why did the Doctor lose their memories of this time? What is the Division? And is Jo Martin’s Doctor really from before Hartnell’s, or is she at a later point? There’s still a lot more to discover, and I’m sure Chris Chibnall will answer at least some of these in later series. (Even if we don’t like the answers.)

Regardless, The Timeless Children works well as a finale on its own terms. Regardless of the impact it has on mythology, it does have plenty of interesting ideas, and Whittaker and Dhawan are absolutely fantastic to watch throughout. It’s not perfect, far from it. But it’s a pretty solid end to the series. (And let’s be honest: it’s easily leagues better than The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos.)

What were your thoughts on this divisive episode? Do you love it? Hate it? Is this an exciting development, or simply a retcon too far? Let us know in the comments below.