Doctor Who origin stories: The Timeless Children vs Lungbarrow – Which is better and why?

The Timeless Children gave us a lot of answers regarding the Doctor’s origins. But was it handled well, or did another story handle it better?

Photo Credit: James Pardon/BBC Studios/BBC America

Raphael Kiyani takes a look at two Doctor Who stories that come the closest to an ‘origin’ for the Doctor. The Series 12 finale, The Timeless Children by Chris Chibnall and the novel Lungbarrow by Marc Platt.

Before I begin the article properly, I must raise a couple of brief points. This piece  – spoilers (sorry River) – will be incredibly scathing towards The Timeless Children. If you enjoyed the episode, then all power to you. This isn’t an attack on those who got something out of the story. It should go without saying that these are simply my opinions. More importantly, I will be spoiling elements of Lungbarrow, so if you wanted to go into that novel completely blind this won’t be the article for you.

Right, now that I’ve gotten that out the way, we can truly delve into the ancient past of the Doctor Who universe. So sit back, relax and grab some jelly babies. We might be getting to our destination “the long way round”.

Doctor Who?

"First Doctor: We are not of this race. We are not of this earth. Susan and I are wanderers in the fourth dimension of space and time.Thirteenth Doctor: I’m just a traveller. Sometimes I see things need fixing, I do what I can."

Doctor Who. It’s not only a title; it’s a central question to our beloved show. Just who is the Doctor? Ever since the programme’s debut story, 1963’s An Unearthly Child, mystery was a compelling and driving feature of the character simply known as ‘the Doctor’.

Over the prevailing years, we began to unpeel some of the otherworldly layers. We were introduced to his species, his planet, and regeneration. Gallifreyan history became a vast tapestry and we gained insight into various parts of it.

But, despite these developments to the ever-expanding Doctor Who lore, the Doctor was largely an unknown entity. We had a picture of who he now was, of course. But details on his first life remained elusive.

Neither The Timeless Children nor Lungbarrow take the approach of directly revealing the life and times of the Doctor before he left Gallifrey. Quite rightly too. Whilst we’ll never quite get the sense of mystery and aloofness during Hartnell’s tenure, a core enigmatic thrust behind the character still persists.

I don’t think many would want that changed. It’s an area of Doctor Who history we don’t need to be privy too. We don’t need to see a swashbuckling Doctor in his mid-twenties wanting to go on adventures whilst agonising over his career path. Or witness a teenage Doctor lust over Time Ladies in TARDIS swimming pools. Some things are simply best left to the sparkling imagination of the viewer.

Instead, both the Timeless Children and Lungbarrow offer us a glimpse into Time Lord history and give a semblance of an origin story. Lungbarrow enriches the show’s universe and character, whilst The Timeless Children tarnishes it.

The Timeless Children changed history, and not for the better.

Photo Credit: James Pardon/BBC Studios/BBC America

Let’s talk about canon

When deploying an emotive word like “tarnishes” to a single episode of Doctor Who it can come across as hyperbolic. After all, the Doctor Who universe has had a relatively fluid continuity and the BBC themselves don’t really make a declaration on what is or is not canon.  I completely acknowledge this. I don’t think it’s inherently wrong to meddle around with a show’s mythos once in a while.

However, it’s one thing to add bits of lore or retcon certain events in order to craft a story. It’s completely another to fundamentally alter the origins and legacy of a show. Not only that, a show that has maintained said legacy for nearly 60 years – over half a century’s worth of material. This is not trivial. Obviously, a great many will have become attached to the building blocks of this particular universe.

Many will disagree and point out that a showrunner has carte blanch to interpret a property in any way they see fit. I say that’s complete bunk. The role of being a showrunner is an immensely privileged position; I believe that an element of this role is a duty of care to character and continuity.

If I miraculously had the keys to the Star Trek universe for instance, I wouldn’t have the gall to write that Spock wasn’t really Spock. That he wasn’t really half-Human/half-Vulcan and that he’s in fact from another species entirely and covertly set up the Federation.

To sum up this section, I’m arguing that “canon has always changed” is not a thoughtful or relevant rebuttal in and of itself. There are shades of grey and voicing displeasure towards canon-shattering plotlines isn’t to deny the fluidity exhibited in the past.

The Seventh Doctor novel Lungbarrow featured major revelations about the Doctor. However, it’s also a far stronger story than The Timeless Children.

Image Courtesy BBC Studios, BritBox

Lungbarrow enriches

Lungbarrow gave Doctor Who an origin, of sorts, but did so in a way that felt organic.

It’s a novel that introduces and expands a lot of material pertaining to the Doctor’s life and Time Lord history in general – layering Gallifrey with further detail and mystique. For those unfamiliar, I’ll swiftly rundown the core elements.

Lungbarrow introduces us to the Great Houses. Sentient constructs that house a Time Lord family. The Doctor’s House being Lungbarrow. This in turn, gives our first major insight into parts of the Doctor’s family. We also get a new background behind Time Lord reproduction and regeneration in the form of the Looms. Looms are, essentially, breeding-engines where batches of Gallifreyans are “weaved” into existence.

To many, touching on the Doctor’s family will be seen as violating sacred ground. But, in this instance, I would argue it was handled correctly. This is because we are not given a true ‘origin’ or complete breakdown of his familial relations; we get a melancholic snapshot of the world left abandoned by the Doctor. It’s used both to inform us of the Doctor’s multifaceted nature and drive a murder-mystery plot connected to the history of Gallifrey. It’s nuanced, developed and layers pre-existing facts known about Time Lords. It drives a story that deconstructs the nature, history, and power of Gallifrey by not painting them as evil or leeches.

Instead, it offers us a complex battle between ideology and power-structures. It’s not a word-salad that’s insubstantial, it links the past and the present in an engaging plot. The Doctor revisits Lungbarrow, derelict, forgotten and forlorn. He becomes trapped and must deal with the machinations of the Housekeeper. The Doctor’s abandonment and the murder of the past reveal more about the Doctor and Gallifrey.

Essentially, the short of it is, Lungbarrow is positively brimming with concepts that take the universe in a refreshing and interesting direction without undermining what we have come to understand about it. It’s very clever in this regard.

Lungbarrow also brings together key elements of the Classic Series.

Image Courtesy BBC Studios, BritBox

The Cartmel Master Plan

Furthermore, there are more pertinent aspects to touch on. Lungbarrow fits in and completes the McCoy era ‘Cartmel Master Plan’ – lead script editor Andrew Cartmel’s vision to reinvigorate the show with new ideas and further mystery. The main elements of this come to fruition with the Other and the Hand of Omega.

The Other is one of the founding fathers of Time Lord society – along with the more familiar Rassilon and Omega. The Other had a – if you pardon the pun – hand in creating the Hand of Omega. The stellar manipulator that helped Gallifrey gain access to time travel.

The revelations of Lungbarrow heavily imply that the Doctor is a ‘reincarnation’ of the Other – or has some sort of essence of said entity. Why does this work, as opposed to The Timeless Child‘s twist about the Doctor’s previous lives? This is simply because the Other and the Doctor are incongruous to each other and are fundamentally not the same being.

However, what it does do is inject further mystery without being contradictory. It also provides the First Doctor with an interesting journey prior to leaving Gallifrey, his connection with the Hand of Omega and his alienation from his family and the House of Lungbarrow.

The whole story is written in a way that feels like natural development, in step with what’s been previously established whilst doing something interesting with the main character. It offers answers whilst also retaining mystery. It introduces layers without cheapening what has come before.

While Lungbarrow built on existing Doctor Who well, the same cannot be said for The Timeless Children…

Photo Credit: James Pardon/BBC Studios/BBC America

The Timeless Children tarnishes

The Timeless Children gave Doctor Who an origin, of sorts, but did so in a way that felt ham-fisted.

Even with the developments of Lungbarrow and a canon that has shifted a multitude of times, the legacy and tale of the Doctor has been sewn into the fabric of the show and has remained consistent. It’s a story about a Time Lord, bored of the ancient, bureaucratic society he inhabits. Instead of observing from afar, he wants to experience and live the wonders of the universe. He steals a time-machine and runs away – eventually becoming a hero through his many adventures throughout time and space.

I think there’s something so beautiful, touching and mysterious about the story of Doctor Who. It’s about someone who isn’t innately special. It’s the trials and tribulations, joys and discoveries of a renegade who just wanted to explore.

In my view, The Timeless Children utterly destroys this premise and butchers the very character we have come to know and love. When one decides to retcon in storytelling, you have to make an important calculation. You weigh up what you gain vs what you lose. The Timeless Children goes and does the unthinkable; it creates a status quo where nothing of value is gained.

Choosing to render the First Doctor not the First Doctor I think is silly. But, arguably a development that could cobble up a half-decent story if done with maturity and love for the source material like Lungbarrow. It’s the other creative choices that exacerbate the flaws of doing that. To rewrite Gallifreyan history, to make the Doctor a different species, to make the Doctor the source of regeneration and to have the Doctor have countless lives over billions of years. That is a level of disgusting disrespect that I never could conceive as possible.

Cheap and easy twists

First of all, making the Doctor the source of regeneration and tapping into the ‘chosen/special one’ trope not only lazily retcons lore, it is the antithesis of what the Doctor represents. The Doctor is not a Superman or a Skywalker figure. This development, to me at least, shows a stunning disregard to the legacy of the character. Altering the species and overall history of the Doctor is also a move that makes me utterly perplexed and apathetic. What’s the point in getting invested if the fundamental components can be done away with?

Lungbarrow, conversely, doesn’t fall into these pitfalls. It hints at more whilst not altering the entity known as the Doctor. It’s a distinct if subtle difference. It refuses to make the Doctor a special one or a God figure from the very beginning. It largely adds, not re-works the history of Gallifrey. It increases interest in the lore, rather than dispenses with it.

The twists were a cheap, lazy way of administering some sort of shock value and mystery. Many think the twists add more mystery. But, do they? We know more about the Doctor’s origins than ever before. Also, the idea of millions of other ‘Doctors’ or Timeless Children doesn’t offer any meaningful mystery to engage with. It just cheapens our Doctor. Why would I care about all of these incarnations? Who are they? Well, it’s the Doctor but as a Timeless Child. A victim of child abuse, the source of Time Lord biology and an entity with billions of years worth of amnesia.

It so spectacularly shreds what the character of the Doctor is that it’s laughable. It utterly fails as a coherent, well thought-out plot. Subversion isn’t inherently a good thing and doesn’t make for a competent twist/story in itself. Simply pulling the rug and saying “everything you thought you knew is a lie” is ill-conceived and the embodiment of laziness. Literally anyone can do that without making sure it flows organically between character and plot.

It’s a completely artificial mystery that comes out of nowhere and attempts to fill in ‘gaps’ that never needed an explanation like the Morbius Doctors. By giving us answers and a back-story that we never needed, we get the polar opposite of enrichment – a story that directly contradicts and undermines stories through the entire history of Doctor Who. Clearly Chris Chibnall didn’t get the memo attached with the old adage, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.

Which leads me to my next point, what does it positively offer the universe or the character in a meaningful way? Nothing. Which begs the ultimate question: Why even bother to tell this story? It seems like a supreme act of trolling and cultural vandalism if you ask me.

Forced diversity

Many have pointed out that the diversity this could unleash for the character is an overall positive new direction. I couldn’t disagree more and I feel it may be important to note here that I am a person of colour (POC). The “diversity” of making the Timeless Child/the Doctor originally a black girl (and incarnations that differ from white, pre-Hartnell) is, quite frankly, a terrible shoehorned way of attempting representation. It’s shallow, tokenistic drivel. It looks like Chris Chibnall – a white man – trying to get street-cred without doing any hard work.

By all means, make the next Doctor a person of colour, but you need to do better than a pointless, continuity-breaking twist like the one I had the misfortune of witnessing. Chris Chibnall could also do better in the representation department, by, you know, giving his POC companions something called a personality.

Even putting aside my critiques of the twists, The Timeless Children is a pathetically dull attempt at crafting a new origin story. Especially when compared to Lungbarrow. The reveals were made in the most awkward and laborious way possible. The Doctor trapped and helpless, with the Master bumbling about giving a monologue for most of the episode. It was a lecture, not a story. And a shockingly terrible one at that. If you’re going to subvert the lore, then at least tell a compelling story about it and not produce an inconsequential bore-fest that amounted to nothing more than an info-dump.

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To conclude…

I hope I have demonstrated why I believe The Timeless Children isn’t a very good ‘origin’ to the Doctor or a great addition to the Doctor Who universe as a whole. The novel Lungbarrow does a far better job at establishing more of the past by being an endearingly crafted love-letter to our favourite hero. Using lore and expanding it rather than simply waving it away is a far more effective approach. Sadly, The Timeless Children has really sapped my enthusiasm from the show with its shallow, lazy, cheap and downright insulting take.

I’d like to once again reiterate, as this is the internet, if you enjoyed The Timeless Children then that’s okay. I’m not here to say you’re wrong to do so. The funny thing about Doctor Who is that opinions and tastes can so widely differ. I prefer Classic Who to New Who, I think Adric is a brilliant companion and I find Torchwood: Miracle Day to be very solid. We are all so different. As sad as I am with the current state of the show, I know that one day it may be something I can connect with again. Let’s just all respect the fact we are so passionate about Doctor Who and continue to be friendly with one another.

Do you agree on how The Timeless Children has tarnished continuity? Or do you personally think it enhanced it? If you’ve read Lungbarrow, what were your thoughts on the novel? Let us know in the comments below.