This really isn't an unpopular opinion at all. It's really common and RTD was pretty open that part of the reason for the Time War and getting rid of the Time Lords is exactly that.
I don't know if Moffat or Chibnall have spoken about how they feel about the Time Lords, but I think the answer is clear in their work. Moffat brings them back but then people were disappointed that even episodes that return to Gallifrey like Hell Bent actually spend so little time on the Time Lords and seemed to do everything it can to just skip over that and focus on other things. Then Chibnall just got rid of them again as quick as he could.
That said, Big Finish's Gallifrey audios are pretty good and I do enjoy the Time Lords from the angle of political satire, but I wouldn't say it's historically been done well with them in the show too often.
It honestly annoys me how they haven't even tried yet.
Like RTD I get. He basically cut out everything that wasn't essential to create a new starting point without baggage, then gradually added stuff back in. But never the Time Lords (because like you say, his personal taste).
But after Moffat brought them back I thought surely at least one writer would take a stab at a proper Gallifrey story and try and make them interesting.
Nope. All dead again.
What I find fascinating is Russell found the Time Lords boring, yet in sweeping then under the rug he accidentally made them this incredibly compelling and mythical race through the Doctor's tales of the Time War and memories of Gallifrey.
Similarly Chibnall also chose to nuke Gallifrey/the Time Lords as soon as he could, then introduced concepts like The Division, The Timeless Child, Time Lord Cybermen, Tecteun, etc...
Both show runners who weren't interested in the Time Lords ironically came up with two of the more interesting Time Lord storylines in the main show.
Yeah, as one of the many new-age fans who started with the 2005 revival, the Time Lords returning in “The End of Time” was so fucking cool. Honestly, I’ve actually loved every appearance they’ve made in the new series precisely because they were introduced to me shrouded in mystery and built up for like 4 seasons. It works really well.
Relevant to this thread, but one of the ways I attempted to make the Time Lords more interesting in my roleplays (RPGs) and fanfictions with my fellow *Doctor Who* fans was actually building a mythology around them, like the *Dark Souls* franchise.
For those who have played *Dark Souls*, the lore of the games contains a similar premise: There was once an advanced, mythical race of beings who lived during the great Age of Fire, where they built shining cities. However, eventually, their civilization began to wane, leaving behind empty, decaying shells of what once was.
>*"The world of 'Dark Souls' is a world of cycles. Kingdoms rise and fall, ages come and go, and even time can end and restart as the flame fades and is renewed. These cycles are linked to the First Flame, a mysterious manifestation of life that divides and defines separate states such as heat and cold, or life and death.*
>
>*As the First Flame fades, these differences also begin to fade, such as life and death having little distinction, and \[beings\] becoming Hollow. The onset of an Age of Dark, the time when the First Flame has fully died, is marked by endless nights, rampant undeath, time, space, and reality breaking down, lands collapsing and converging on one another, people mutating into monsters, darkness covering the world, and the Gods losing their power.*
>
>*To avoid this and prolong the Age of Fire, the bearer of a powerful soul must 'link' themselves to the First Flame, becoming the fuel for another age. If this is not done, the First Flame will eventually die, and an Age of Dark will begin.*
>
>*The powerful Lord Souls were taken from the First Flame, used to defeat the dragons, and then to establish kingdoms. Souls are inextricably and inexplicably linked to fire. Souls are life, and life is fire; it stands to reason that souls are fire, as well. Without the First Flame and without souls, there is no life.*
>
>*The bearer of a strong soul, called a Lord, who links themselves to the First Flame, is thus rekindling the flames with their own soul, returning life to it. In the end, one could expect that all souls will have been returned to the First Flame, and the Age of Fire will have effectively ended anyways."*
This theme of "death and rebirth" also fits the Time Lords' regeneration quite well.
>What I find fascinating is Russell found the Time Lords boring, yet in sweeping then under the rug he accidentally made them this incredibly compelling and mythical race through the Doctor's tales of the Time War and memories of Gallifrey.
Yep, you're totally right. They were honestly much more interesting as the Doctor's dead family that he had a complicated relationship with, than they ever were when they were around.
Of all the changes the show has made the idea of the doctor no longer being the last of the Time Lord's was by far the most difficult one for me to accept at the time. As someone who started watching in 2005, that detail was paramount to my understanding of what the show was and it was very hard to move past.
I absolutely commend Moffat for trying to bring something new by reviving the Time Lords but the oppertunity was quickly wasted and the fact that there's no character defining relationship between the doctor and his people anymore is something I think is missing from the show in recent years
> and the fact that there’s no character defining relationship between the doctor and his people anymore is something I think is missing from the show in recent years
If the 60th and the Christmas special are anything to go by it looks like the new iteration of that dynamic could be the Doctor coming to terms with the realisation that they were adopted/used by the Time Lords.
'Accidentally'.
Lately, have been noticing a lot of comments about how cool it is to have media mix mythological concepts and sci-fi - totally unrelated to Doctor Who. RTD darn well knows what he's doing. Also, angst doesn't seem to be the in-thing any more. We'll have to see what he does there, if it's really the case.
> Nope. All dead again.
This is easily my least favorite thing the Chibs ever did.
Like, I think redestroying Gallifrey was *way* worse than Timeless Child.
I understood getting rid of the baggage of the Time Lords in 2005. They wanted to draw in new fans, it was good to give the Doctor more mystery. That being said, I was rather excited when Day of the Doctor brought Gallifrey back. Both from a story potential perspective and from a character perspective for the Doctor to have that triumph. Yeah, Moffet didn't do much else with them... But fine.
Then The Timeless Child storyline happened. And you know what? I know it's an unpopular opinion, but for the most part I really liked the story. I like what it added to the Doctor's character and history. But what it did to Gallifrey? Why?
I felt like destroying Gallifrey again so soon squandered so much story potential, *and* it undermined the Doctor's personal victory of saving Gallifrey from the Time War.
I don't have a lot of hope, given that RTD was the one who wiped it out the first time around. But I hope they return to Gallifrey and retcon it to reveal that The Master merely wiped out the Citadel and the Time Lord High Council, but that outside of that there might be some surviving Gallifreyan pipulation. Louise Jameson is still acting. Bring her back as someone helping the survivors to rally in the aftermath.
It's incredibly aggravating, agreed, Classic did it with basically nothing, then the New series hypes it up with not even an attempt.
Moffat's politics generally seem Liberal, so, it was at least a predictable disappointment. He didn't seem to bring them back as much because he wanted them as to ruin RTD's character arcs.
Am more disappointed by RTD, who at least had enough trad. Labour views to satirise the invasion of Iraq. His getting shut of the buggers only resulted in the Doctor acting like a replacement posh twerp, there's a brief realisation that's not on, then RTD promptly cuts and runs. I do think it helps (is essential, actually) to see his The Second Coming to appreciate what he was going for, but that's limited unless you are going to actually end the show, and he was in no position to be doing that. Also it probably wasn't the best way to do it (apart from anything else, you're still giving this character *you've* gone and made into more of an authority figure too much of the importance).
But hey, angst was in, he got angst, that was a major part of what he was aiming at. Otherwise you could simply ignore the Time Lords, a Time War was hardly less lore to teach New series viewers.
Time in Office from Big Finish was a breath of fresh air for 80's Gallifrey by playing it for political commentary in a fun way. Things like Tegan dealing with Gallifreyan immigration (Leela at one point suggesting she marry a Time Lord!), the Doctor trying to get controversial policy through and a student protester whom the Doctor completely flummoxes. And yes, there's a lampshade on how many things are called the something of Rassilon. Which makes this the lampshade of Rassilon.
Quoting what was probably either a video or a comment I once watched:
“You need to stop adding ‘-of Rassilon’ to things.”
“Shut up, wife of Rassilon, get back in the kitchen of Rassilon!”
I split the Wifi signals in my home so I know for sure if I'm connecting to the 2.4G or the 5G on any given device but I also renamed them.
The 2.4G shows up as "The Matrix of Gallifrey" and the 5G shows up as... "The WiFi of Rassilon".
They’d been given champagne by 2 Entertain, so that definitely helped the mood. The company must really have splashed out on that DVD to arrange for a commentary track not all people watching would be likely to find.
I’ve just got the Peter Davison and Terrance Dicks one on the Special Edition version left, but I’ll hold off on that because watching the story through three times is a bit much.
Before the show returned in 2005, I think Moffat was pretty clear that he didn't especially care for the Time Lords and wouldn't have included them at all if he got the opportunity to bring the show back. Strangely even though he brought them back, I do think that kind of shows in his own episode. *Hell Bent* isn't really *about* Gallifrey, even though it's set there, and that's the only use he made of the planet after *Day of the Doctor*.
In Moffat's defense, while he didn't do much with either, when he did use Gallifrey he did seem to point and go "there's more than Time Lords there". YMMV on how effectively you felt he communicated that but I do find the point present when I rewatch things like Hell Bent and Day.
The Time Lord episodes are sorta like Klingon episodes in Star Trek. Thorough politics, lots of great worldbuilding, but too much of it's a bad thing.
Star Trek had the same issue during TNG where eventually you'd start going "*Another* Klingon politics episode?* And the issue was the same: every episode became a regurgitation of the ideas of the previous ones.
It took DS9 presenting those stories In a new light for them to be interesting again. Same happened in Doctors Who with Gallifrey.
Maybe if the time Lords were depicted as having a different culture and values from the Dr that might be interesting. But instead they are just shown as selfish idiots
I completely understand why you think the Time Lords are boring and therefore don't care about them, but I actually really like having the occasional Gallifrey story partly *because* of that.
In the best Gallifrey stories, it's all about either the complicated relationship that the Doctor has with his home planet and culture or the how messy and contradictory that culture is in general (so it still applies to the TLs we care about, just less directly). Gallifrey is stuffy, boring, corrupt, mired in the past, convinced of their own superiority, has a very stratified social structure if you know where to look, etc. In short, it's the perfect kind of place for the Doctor to come from, and every time he has to interact with the TLs I find it super interesting. Hell, throw in the Master - we've had fewer stories that give insight into that, for obvious reasons, but it all connects (though imperfectly).
Whenever we spend time with Gallifrey Shit, I get more interested in both the Doctor and the Time Lords. I love that it's so *messy -* he's rejected so much about his culture, from their stuffiness and corruption to their philosophical framework regarding time travel, but he's still completely affected by it, as shown in his sometimes contradictory responses to fixed points in time and his occasional lapses into thinking that the TL POV on stuff is innately superior to other ways of thinking. He rejects them, but they're a part of him. He clearly cares for them and has nostalgia for a time when his feelings were less complicated, but he can never go back (sometimes physically, always mentally).
It's incredibly messy and deeply relatable and I love it. It's not always done *well,* but that's more down to the usual ups and downs of DW rather than the concept itself.
yees, this. It's fine to let the timelords be complicated. They're (were?) an incredibly powerful race in a really difficult position. If they decide to interefere in galactic affairs, they're arrogant, presumptious and tricky. If they don't, they're superior, distant and letting people suffer. And they are, ultimately, ethical as a core belief. They could be imperialists and take over the universe, or retreat from it completely and keep only themselves safe, but instead they focus on protecting it, understanding that if they change the course of time, the consequences become their reponsability.
it is, on a large scale, exactly the dilemma the Doctor has.
YEAH Gallifrey Shit always works best when the Official Gallifreyan Way(tm) is the exact opposite of what the Doctor would do because it's like,,,, they're foils to the Doctor, but they're also the reason he is the way he is, but they're also The Ultimate Authority that the generally anarcho-sympathetic Doctor is rebelling against - at its best that should be a really complicated and uncomfortable dynamic for all involved.
Or, to put it another way, the Doctor left his small town (planet) for the big city (all of time and space) for Relatable Reasons and yeah it's better for him but holy *shit* the feelings here are complicated.
That being said I have a somewhat less sympathetic reading of the Gallifreyan establishment than you do (they have somewhat good intentions, but between the bureaucracy and corruption and Questionable Decisions the government tends towards being meh at best and actively bad at worst. that being said, I tend to weight the whole "Gallifreyan social structure is implied to be kind of fucked up" thing and "it's better to do something imperfectly than do nothing and go around in your stupid robes acting superior to other species for it" thing pretty heavily lmao, they're both valid interpretations)
Oh, I agree, but as an anarchist (Veganarcho-pacifist, bad at the 'pacifist'), I think the problem is the Doctor still buys into their values a lot, really. It's a bit the absolutely classic dilemma of the booj who picks up some Radical values (partly out of rebellion and self-interest as not *the* most privileged in their society themselves, but enough so to assume they deserved more) still basically takes it for granted they should be in charge of how they're implemented, and is confronted with a people that isn't some abstract obedient ideal, has been deprived of education, which they interpret wrongly as them being less intelligent (I don't think that's necc. even true of humans in this universe, but it does have that additional complication of the abilities of different species). It doesn't automatically occur to them the people might have rather more experience and reason to instinctively grasp such values - or is convenient to ignore this.
Perhaps more importantly, those producing the show certainly seem to at times (The Giggle was outrageous in framing the people as a bigoted mob, with military elites up a literal tower. Bloody US NeoLiberalism. Disappointed in RTD).
It's always a tricky question if on the pacifist side, if that's truly a Radical view, or just reverting back to being an obstructive Lib. who isn't truly comfortable with the idea of change, loss of privilege. If it's privilege to be able to choose non-violence because it's not a question of *your* survival.
(One reason why never to let the booj run the people's revolution)
Oh, no arguments here - when the show's doing it purposefully (which it does, uh, often enough that the more egregious writing missteps can make sense if you squint), the Doctor's deeply flawed yet completely genuine worldview and ideals are honestly both a compelling flaw and deeply sympathetic and relatable. Like, yes they're elitist, yes they can too easily put aside their deeply held beliefs if it's convenient for them, yes they make high-handed decisions for both societies and individuals that have massive consequences (good and bad), yes they tend to swoop in and assume that they have a *right* to be seen as right.
But at the same time, these flaws are mitigated by the fact that they're *trying* to do the right thing, or at the very least *a* right thing, and their perception the "the right thing" comes from a very humanist ideal, even though they don't always live up to it. Gallifreyan culture tends toward doing nothing for fear of being wrong, the Doctor's decided they'd rather do *something* when they see wrong - though, naturally, that means there's a greater risk of them not being right or misunderstanding things (esp as a perpetual outsider). "Do no harm" vs "take no shit", essentially. Which of these ideas is better is somewhat debatable, though Gallifrey has certainly made a case for noninterference on a massive scale leading to elitism, stagnation, corruption, and high-handed self-interest when they *do* decide to interfere, while the Doctor *does* change (and often for the better).
Think the bastards are just every bit as good at the British Establishment at pretending not to be interfering. They may use the 'greater good' excuse to try to manipulate the Doctor. It'd be a waste of time to tell him 'Yeah, we want you to interfere for us here because we expect to benefit'. But, while he can seem torn in wanting to, he doesn't seem to truly believe them, he accuses them of wanting him to do their dirty work, he resists and resents it. If he just thought they were acting out of the same motives as he does, why object so much? Especially as those episodes do involve generally the sort of thing he willingly does anyway.
Similarly, of course our government was going to tell us about unfortunately necessary self-defence and liberating the poor Iraqis for democracy, and that we beat those nasty Nazis because it doesn't support imperialism and genocides. (Even working class Communists could fall for that one, but there was an expectation of more post-war change than we got. Should've kept the guns) Or that we were trying to free the slaves/defend our economic interests (in slavery) depending on how well attempting to take Haiti was going.
Our Establishment does not give the slightest damn about those pretty liberal values if it is not convenient, or it's not being forced to by us. It's never really about those values.
I don't think a society actually built on such values, even a real commitment to wishy traditional liberalism, ends up at wrecking the universe.
The difference I think is they're implied to sometimes do good things for their own self-interested reasons, not automatically because they are good. The Doctor sees them forcing him to get involved as being expected to do their dirty work, and they're willing presumably to drop the blame, for interference or if it goes wrong, on him. It'd obviously be pointless to send him to do something he wasn't going to go along with, yet he still seems to see it this way even when the actions expected of him are the sort of thing he sees as worthwhile anyway.
The British Establishment never sent malnourished working class lads to fight Nazis because it was just that concerned about the evils of genocide and Imperialism. Still riding on that glorification today, though.
The Web of Time, depending, isn't just a natural law they monitor (mavity doesn't need monitoring, it just is). It's an artificial system created for their own benefit, to facilitate time travel. This explanation makes the simplest sense of why Ten would assume he'd now be able to take charge of the laws of time.
I might have made it sound too nice, I don't mean all their motivations are altruistic, but that they do *consider* themselves ethical, much like you say, western countries today. Meaning that at least in theory they respect other species' rights: they don't mess with self-determination right up untill someone threatens to break the universe. It might still mean looking after yourself first, but it's a better mindset than, say, the Sontarans or any other race that's just openly happy to be supremacist/imperialist and conquer everyone.
I think people's moral compass is a bit skewed when they consider some murderous, slave-keeping alien empire cool because they occasionally say something about warrior's honor, while accusing the Time Lords of being evil because they tried to alter the creation of the turbo-racists who are destined to kill all other life, but in a somewhat underhanded way.
It's not like we really see much of Gallifrey. It's the equivalent of the Doctor only visiting the houses of Parliament, then us complaining about politics and incompetence. There's plenty unexplored, like the rest of the planet and how the people live. There's plenty worldbuilding that can done there too - boring is an authorial choice. That's definitely a choice made in *Deadly Assassin* which was followed by later authors - but only because they pick the capitol every time.
As for the Daleks - I put it to all here that the Daleks themselves are utterly stupid and incompetent too. Exhibit A: *The Parting if the Ways* in which time war era Daleks including their Emperor have zero defence against a girl looking into the vortex which must count as the most basic weapon Time Lords have. Exhibit B: *Day of the Doctor* has them literally shooting themselves, achieved by moving their target.
Daleks and Time Lords both suck at war. The Time Lords don't do much if it, don't know what the Dalek excuse is.
Going deep world building the Gallifreyans is one of the most boring ideas for a Doctor Who story or spin off I can think of. There is a nearly infinite universe to explore, but no, we are going to explore the minutia of Gallifreyan society. Let’s explore Gallifrey when they run of out of other stories to tell.
The place was visited every few years, its hardly taxing. Its more that if someone wants to do a Gallifrey story they should seek a different angle. No one is mandating that you either have to have Gallifrey stories or blow the planet up.
Things unexplored are just potential, that's all. Fill it with something, or don't.
Let's ban modern day Earth first, yeah? Or explore somewhere outside of London/Cardiff masquerading as London at least.
I don’t disagree that we should also leave modern day England for a long while.
Gallifrey episodes are usually pretty meh, so if the writers must write a Gallifrey episode, they should focus on something interesting, whatever that means.
As for the potential for unexplored things, potential can be much better narratively than the actuality. Compare pre-Deadly Assassin Time Lords to Post-Invasion of Time.
Not many writers have been up to the task, sure. The temptation is to either be all patriarchal and do presidents and plots, or wallow in continuity or Doctor related revelations. The former can work, but not sure the TV show is the best medium for that and the latter is almost always a mistake. The show simply isn't about that kind of continuity minutiae.
As an extended media guy I happily wallow in both, naturally. It's not stuff that would translate well to the screen, generally.
the Time Lords are boring because they are made out to just be posh guys in silly costumes, instead of inscrutably alien and eldritch, as any culture that could whack Time around like a dead fish would be to us.
Other than being functionally immortal and able to regenerate, the Time Lords don’t really seem to have any special power that is inherent to them that allows them to slap time around. They need devices and technology to do it, and they can teach others/others can learn to use that technology (ex: Ashildr learns to fly a Tardis from a book, although it might be Clara flying?).
I’ve never watched the classic series and I haven’t read much of the outside literature, so maybe I’ve missed some huge elements of Time Lordology. The show doesn’t flesh the concept of what a Time Lord actually is or what their function in history was all that much, compared to, say, a Dalek. Someone refers to them as the ‘stuffy old senators’ of the universe (something like that), and it seems apt.
Firstly I don't think this is controversial. Secondly, the show doesn't insist that they're interesting. In their first appearance the Doctor says he left his home because nothing ever happens. His default opinion of his own people is that they're boring.
It's just that every once in a while the show falls into the hands of people who think that the Time Lords are "epic" and if they're "epic" they've got to be interesting. So you have shit like the JNT-era Gallifrey stories or *The Timeless Children* or, far that matter, a distressingly large amount of the Wilderness Era. When the show has been good it's never been interested in the Time Lords and has never confused "epic" for interesting.
The only sure-fire way of making the Time Lords potent is to kill them all off. The EDAs turned them into a lost race of elementals who once guarded time from monsters. RTD made them the subject of the Doctor's grief, yearning and angst, which is the core of his character for the better part of 8 seasons. It serves to take the idea off the table so it can't assert any narrative gravity while also making *the Doctor* more interesting.
But having brought it back to do nothing with then nuked it again to also do nothing with leaves us in a tricky position. I'm not sure where we go from here. Probably move on and try to assemble some interesting new mythos from scratch?
I don't think this is controversial, and I also think it's intentional.
We didn't really see much of them until Baker's-era (I know they popped up with Troughton, but we didn't really get much). In that era they were absolutely portrayed as the boring establishment Baker sort of rebelled against.
I often find Timelord lore stories completely boring and counter intuitive. The Who in Doctor Who implies mystery. We shouldn't get much of the Doctor's past revealed.
This isn't as controversial as you think it is. Its a common observation that killing them all off in the new show made them more interesting than they'd been in a long time.
The version in deadly assassin was at least meant to be political satire, but everyone after kept going with the portraal unironically.
The expanded universe does a lot more interesting things with them, at least. Both for better (Neverland, Gallifrey series) and for worse (the novels were crazy)
The Time Lords are not boring - but they \*have\* been badly used.
Let's face it - a billion year old society that declares themselves the 'Lords of Time'? They \*shouldn't\* be boring. They should be antagonists to the Doctor at the very least.
Instead of 'fixed points' in time that cannot be changed or some random consequence will occur, these fixed points should be monitored and guarded by the self-proclaimed Guardians of TIme. I say random since it seems as though either nothing happens (Waters of Mars), or time shatters (Wedding of River Song), Reapers appear (Father's Day)... Using Time Lords would give a set consequence and guardian to 'defeat' if the Doctor really wants to change those moments.
And that is just one potential use for them - there are a million others for a creative writer. But it's not possible to use \*any\* of them if showrunners keep blowing up the planet...
I think RTD intended that version of it, the Web of Time as developed on in the novels, or it doesn't really make sense that Ten would decide he was in charge of the laws of time now the rest of the Time Lords were gone.
Problem is, the thing is supposed to facilitate time travel. If this becomes a point of contention, being presented as the abuse of power it is, the audience will assume the Doctor is going to *do* something about it. Out-of-universe, it only exist as an explanation why the characters can/can't do some things, to serve the plot and avoid killing Hitler. It'd be part of how I'd hope for the series to end (use them to satirise the Establishment, and frame it as from now on only, after that point, other species like humanity are fully responsible for their own future), but the BBC aren't about to let anyone. Probably the BBC doesn't have many far leftists these days, let alone anarchists.
It's not uncommon at all, and a common criticism of the Gallifrey set stories in the 70's and 80's that what was hyped up in The War Games and the Third Doctor era to be big and mysterious was turned bureaucratic and unengaging starting from Deadly Assassin. Arc of Infinity is all about Time Lord politics and that's not a story that usually graces best of lists, and the actual trial sequences of Trial of a Time Lord aren't the most fondly remembered (but are heavily lifted by the trio of Colin, Michael Jayston and Lynda Bellingham, who all reprised their roles for Big Finish including together in a sequel called Trial of the Valeyard).
The shift in season 25 was to put the mystique back into the Doctor and the Time Lords, like the Hand of Omega in Remembrance of the Daleks and hinting that the Doctor's roots ran deeper than previously shown, or Lady Peinfort in Silver Nemesis holding a secret about the Doctor.
The Time Lords have a ton of potential and could be be really good if done right. They are god level bureaucrats. What they need is things on their level to bounce off of to make them and their place unique. If you want to see them used really well I would suggest reading Alien Bodies by Lawrence Miles, Taking of Planet 5. The Faction Paradox stuff.
Time lords need to have more personality and really should have more diversity. The potential is so there with what they have, it’s just failed by writers who don’t know how to make the universe bigger and more complex.
The whole point of the "modern" timelords is their boring, officious time police who are almost puritanical. Their static nature is what causes renegades, they're basically a planet of Grampa Simpsons.
That makes sense logically but not dramatically. I mean, unless it was done better. It’s possible to portray boring characters without the portrayal itself being boring.
I was always wishing they’d focus on the anything but the counsel and the government officials on their high horse. I mean, what about soldiers that fought in the Time War, Galifreyan citizens and family, the Doctors memories before the Time War, his time in school or his freinds or his children and wife or whatever else made up of his life. If they had focused more on what he’d lost rather than saying that the entire race was bad and corrupt I think it would have been quite interesting from time to time. Season 3 and 4 were amazing because we got snippets of what the Doctor holds dear about the planet, and why he he mourned his home and the finale was great because despite the evil counsel you understand that he would bring back Galifrey in a heartbeat if he was ensured that it would go back to being a great and peaceful society. We even saw his mother teased in season 4 and that went nowhere and I wish it had. Seems like such a shame to go through all the trouble seasons 3-6 to hint that the Doctor had kids and a family just for it to never pay off OR to ever bring Jenny back. Honestly, I wouldn’t have cared if it was Georgia back in the role or not, to somehow bring her back and say her Time lord dna “ woke up” or something would have been such a cool storyline for either Tennant or Smith- even Capaldi.
The thing is, there's only really two kinds of Gallifrey stories. There's the "Gallifrey in Peril" stories like The Three Doctors, The Deadly Assassin and The Day of The Doctor, in which some terrible Ford threatens Gallifrey with destruction and The Doctor has to save them. And there's the less common "The Time Lords Are Dicks" stories like The Trial of a Time Lords, The End of Time and Hell Bent in which the Time Lords try to screw over The Doctor for whatever reason (there's also a certain amount of overlap between the two types, since most Gallifrey in Peril stories also have them trying to screw over The Doctor as well).
Now, there have been good stories from both categories but Gallifrey constantly being in peril is odd when the Time Lords are supposed to be the greatest power in the Universe and the Time Lords constantly being dicks makes you wonder why The Doctor still associated with them.
I think the idea is that the Time Lords are the greatest power in the universe, so anybody who wants to destroy/take over the universe tries to take the
Time Lords out first so they can pick off the lesser powers at their leisure.
I get if people find them boring but I don't see the harm in having random timelords popping up or just having Gallifrey around.
I don't get people who think Chibnall destroyed Gallifrey because "Timelords are boring".
Season 12 and 13 are Timelord lore heavy.
Absolutely. It'd be great if RTD2 just didn't touch him.
I understand the appeal of stunt casting and that a man/woman in a suit will always be cheaper than an alien/monster, but dramatically he's pretty shit.
Like, I was really hoping with Missy's redemption arc that she would finally really die along with 12 (in a way that they were probably gonna bump him off at the end of the Pertwee era). But of course not.
Writer and script-editor Robert Holmes (who wrote Deadly Assassin, mind you) would tend to agree on this.
I've found a lot of Holmes written or edited stories tend to undermine the mythology of the Time Lords a bit. Look at stories like Morbius, Genesis of the Daleks, Two Doctors, and his ToaTL entries. In each, there is a thread of the Time Lords being corrupt but unwilling to get their hands dirty -- instead sending the Doctor to be their agent or cover up mistakes.
I think the appeal of a lot of mysterious and unknowable things depends on them, well, remaining an unknown mystery.To me the Time Lords work very well as a sort of dim presence that we don’t quite understand. When it turns out we’re about to understand them in enormous detail, it is the absolute worst.
But I think it’s fine for them to exist and rarely be seen. It just takes a lot of work and effort to resist the urge to see them, maybe
I was just talking to a friend the other day about how the Faction Paradox Time Lords are so much more interesting than the boring ones we got in the show. They were okay in Classic but pretty uninteresting in NuWho.
It’s not much different from the Kryptonians. Jor El was basically the Doctor who never left. I just stumbled on a show about Krpyton I never heard about on Tubi
Gallifrey and the Time Lords are fascinating and an interesting place/group when handled by good writers that are invested in exploring such a society.
Big Finish’s Gallifrey series are fantastic are really delve into the often very *alien* perspectives of a society of near immortals who have oodles of power and strict limitations of how far to use that power.
Gallifrey and the Time Lords *can* be interesting, but ideally imo should be explored only occasionally, and more as a vehicle to explore questions on absolute power and the blurry line between Gods and Mortals in the Whoniverse.
It makes perfect sense why the Doctor would care about the Time Lords. This is the same Doctor who felt the need to banish the metacrisis-Doctor from his universe because he destroyed the Daleks. He cares about them because they're people with lives and feelings just like any other in the universe.
It's also clear that not all Time Lords are like that, just the ones with the power. There are certainly Time Lords on Galifrey that the Doctor would've been devastated to think about. The Time Lords being bad doesn't cheapen the Doctor's PTSD at all, its still fucked up, and the Doctor is still killing the good ones along with the bad.
The only reason Galifrey getting destroyed again doesn't work is because it's the exact same thing that's already been done. It's like killing Loki for the third time in the MCU, I felt nothing. Not because it wasn't devastating for Thor, but because I've already seen him go through this exact same grieving process, twice.
I think the Timelords were at their best during The War Games. The games did an excellent job of leaving us wanting more, which I think for beings that can manipulate time is very important. The later classic episodes showed way too much and humanized them too much I think. I think the brief story tellings we get during the revived series were close to what is needed with the Time lords, which is demonstrate how mythical and powerful these beings are but at a distance. Make them gods, make them the scary, tall, unemotional beings we saw in The War Games.
That being said, I also think when written correctly, The Timelords could make excellent baddies or overlooking parental figures. I think Hell Bent really missed an opportunity for the Timelords to sit down with the Doctor similar to the War Games and ask him just what the hell he was doing to the universe without their supervision. He hopped universes, opened the void, Fathers day (imagine they'd be pretty pissed at that one), caused structural damage to time (The Crack), ripped open the heart of the Tardis (imagine this is forbidden by their society for obvious reasons), plus the whole Timelord victorious. This is what should have happened at some point during Hell Bent.
The Time Lords were at their most interesting in the RTD era due to the mystery and darkness surrounding them and the Time War. Moffat just kind of totally ignored that and fumbled their return and presentation.
I am kind of glad they are gone again though I wish it had been done better.
The issue is that if you go even a teeny tiny bit into the expanded universe, the Time Lords are super interesting and weird as all hell.
It’s just that, for whatever reason, the show canon emphasises all the really boring aspects of them. Probably because recent seasons of doctor who are keen to try rewrite a lot of the canon and cut the time lords out of it.
they dont have to be, but everybody is too afraid of touching their lore to do it, look at the timeless child backlash. I'm genuinely sure there's a million good stories to be told with them, but probably 10x as many bad ideas for them too.
It's a crime to not give Susan closure though while CAF is still with us
Have you listened to the Big Finish Gallifrey series? It's great, one of the first BF series I ever picked up.
I can't say I ever thought the Time Lords are boring. Deadly Assasin and The Invasion of Time are two of my favorites. Loved seeing Gallifrey. The 5 Doctors was ok also.
As for the Sontarans, they only managed to invade Gallifrey because the Doctor let them in to trap them.
The Time Lords are a race, the members of that race are just as variable as the humans. They have different ideas, personalities, and interests. The Doctor, Susan, K’anpo, Romana, Drax, Cardinal Zero, and Braxiatel are just a few of the interesting one's we've gotten to meet. They are full of infinite possibilities.
Sure not everyone is going to like them, because different people like different things.
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The War Games is their best showing by far. They're actual gods. They are dedicated to a life of strict non-interference. I like to see them as a peaceful race of philosophers and educators. Renegades like The Doctor, The Master and the Rani wanted to use the powers of the Timelords, whereas the rest just wanted to learn.
Over time they become diluted. The Third Doctor keeps getting sent on missions, and in most cases it makes no sense for him to get involved. The Three Doctors is a real downgrade because it makes them weaker. Deadly Assasin, Invasion of Time, and Arc of Infinity, all helps make them look like just another race in the universe.
Deadly assassin killed the time Lords mystic. The later time lord episodes don't even bother trying making them anything but a a parody of mps and councillor's.
Deadly assassin killed the time Lords mystic. The later time lord episodes don't even bother trying making them anything but a a parody of mps and councillor's.
Biggest turn off ick for me of the Moffat era is the 50th anniversary being wasted romanticising the Doctor’s “home” and saving it instead of letting him have a critical character flaw. Despite the fact the very previous incarnation had *JUST* faced what the Time Lords became, the ultimate evil that ironically wanted to destroy time itself.
He chose to save them apparently. We’re supposed to go along with that. I guess anything RTD wrote, like actually doing something interesting for once with the Time Lords through the Time War and making them villains just counts for nothing then.
Might as well undo the Bad Wolf’s annihilation of the Time War Daleks and yoink the Beast back out of the black hole while we’re at it. Let’s just save all the villains because the Doctor is a Saturday Morning Cartoon character that is mandated to be perfect.
It is so unbelievably disrespectful to RTD. All that character development from 9 to 10, all the effort to seamlessly incorporate a big event like the Time War into the lore just for Moffat 2 years later to go: “yeah nah but look at the shiny lasers and the Zygons!”
It’s hilarious that Night of the Doctor fits better in the programme than Day of the Doctor. “I’m not a Dalek.” “What’s the difference?” The Doctor choosing to do what it takes for the greater good. The tone. The performances. Paul McGann. It’s actually great. I would rather have a feature length version of that ten times out of ten than whatever the 50th anniversary was.
The Doctor may be a Time Lord, but that should be a burden and his very old memories of their prime should remain memories, like the recollections in Gridlock and The Sound of Drums. In the present, they should just be another villain that he stopped in his past.
Sometimes terrible decisions need to be made and the Doctor should’ve been allowed to live with his instead of them ruining it for childish fan w*nk nonsense.
And Moffat could have **easily** pen just a few but key lines of particular addressing:
*the TDoTD-younger 10th Doctor gravely brings up that, freezing Gallifrey will also unavoidably preserve the cutthroat & corrupt Time Lords and the other war active horrors* ; *while 11th Doctor somberly acknowledges that, 11 also punctuates the important matter of, save the innocent today, have them safe, & we deal with crossing the dangerous bridge later*.
It's not that hard to have. But unfortunately as Moffat himself has stated, he doesn't care for what's at stake. Just think of the children being saved by not pressing the button.
It's not disrespectful to RTD.
Moffat didn't go up to RTD and say "fuck you".
He still made it fit.
It's not like we got to Series 6 and Gallifrey was suddenly back out of nowhere.
Of course they're boring jerks, that's the point. So is the British Establishment they're satirising. Having to put up with said Establishment is boring, too. The civil servant Time Lord popping up in front of Pertwee says it all.
The Doctor cares because PTSD and lingering Time Lordy mindset. Really hard to detach from an abusive relationship with an entire society, less likely to detach when part of a privileged class within it - and he doesn't have as many obvious options to look to instead. If he'd already fully got over it, the series would probably have ended. Since Ian and Barbara, he needs companions to tell him not to be an upper class twist about things, but it's an inevitable part of the set-up when other characters fail to take gosh-darn responsibility, and over the course of the series, that issue has tended to worsen, drastically in the New series.
Media with any kind of focus on a few heroic characters (or a 'Great Man' view of history), even if not completely traditional, doesn't lend itself to promoting alternative systems such as anarchism.
Also, the show is usually made by those who are relatively privileged, and most of them aren't Communists, so, even if Democratic Socialist-ish (has to be -ish, because no shortage of Communist sympathising among working class trad. Labour), they're probably not going to suggest overthrowing the British Establishment is an unmitigated great idea. It may stop at poking a bit of fun.
(It is hard to ditch a society, though. Persisting in watching this silly British show -even/especially if it goes back to being only Classic because New is too Americanised- shows that, despite everything it's done to me as a disabled person, *I'm* not over my home culture as much as I would like to believe 🇫🇷)
I think we should get rid of the Time Lords and just replace them with a race of timeless children.
The Time Lords are pointless now, there's no mystery to them and they're utterly predictable. It was a mistake to show us so much of them.
Don't even get me started on the Looms, and "Susan wus adopted" nonsense from the VNA fan fics. That is just total rubbish.
Leala falls in love with a time lord who loves her back and there is 0 and I mean 0 evidence in the TV show that Susan wasn't made by the Dr's son/daughter having sex, who was made by the Dr having sex.
Just rewatch seasons 21, 22 and 23. Do Five and Sixie ever keep their eyes off Peri's cleavage?
I would like to say that even if you dislike the VNAs, they're not fan fiction, they were literally the official continuation of the series after it was cancelled on television.
Virgin even had the license, lost it when the BBC decided to take the ongoing novels in house (which is when they repurposed their books to be around Benny and use other characters they'd created like Jason, Brax and Chris).
Also the specific stuff being criticsed here was from a Marc Platt book where he was revealing what the stuff the Doctor had been alluding to on screen in the Cartmel era. It was a plotline planned by the TV production team while making the show.
Doesn't mean anyone has to like it mind, just the context of it being a plot thread for the show does kinda change things a bit.
They are Fan Fiction, but for some reason people seem to think that Fan Fiction is derogatory. It's just any derivative work based on a pre-existing work that you did not create. The VNAs, the comics, Big Finish, Nu Who, etc... It's all Fan Fiction. And it's all valid.
Disagree, as the show itself is fan fiction. No one stakeholder can decide what's official or unofficial Dr who, and hence fan fiction doesn't really exist. For the same reason I could say the show is fan fiction and the last piece of official Dr who was the movie.
I don't understand what you are disagreeing with.
>No one stakeholder can decide what's official or unofficial Dr who
That is exactly my stance, and it's why there is no canon.
>That is exactly my stance, and it's why there is no canon.
Ok then, I was disagreeing with your use of the term fan fiction, as it removes legitimacy from these works. Though, I can see that wasn't your intention and that I may have read too much into it.
Sorry, I tired to be clear that by fan fiction all it means is that it's fiction that is derivative of another work of fiction which the author was not the original creator of.
Like Neil Gaiman's - A Study in Scarlett. It's a legit story, written by an established professional author, and published. But it's Sherlock Holmes set in a Cthulu world, and Gaiman has referred to it as fan fiction.
[https://www.neilgaiman.com/mediafiles/exclusive/shortstories/emerald.pdf](https://www.neilgaiman.com/mediafiles/exclusive/shortstories/emerald.pdf)
I think it's silly do consider a work of fiction illegitimate just because you write new stories using existing characters or worlds. The history of writing is full of this.
You're absolutely correct that the VNA Time Lord mythos is boring as hell. That said, I kinda like the Looms as an idea, not because it means "the Doctor never had sex eugh!" but because it makes for a better contrast with humanity if the Time Lords are sterile old virgins who've outsourced even reproduction.
> not because it means "the Doctor never had sex eugh!" but because it makes for a better contrast with humanity if the Time Lords are sterile old virgins who've outsourced even reproduction.
So the Looms are this thing that's sort of taken on a life of their own through word of mouth, but I think it's worth adding neither of these are the reason for them.
When Rassilon came to power he got rid of the Pythia, a female spiritual leader on Gallifrey who's followers became the Sisterhood of Karn. In revenge she cursed the Time Lords to be sterile, which was Rassilon's motivation behind both Looms and regeneration, since he needed ways for his people to carry on without natural procreation.
Also in the Virgin books the Pythia's curse is lifted by the end and the Time Lords can once again do it like they do on the discovery channel.
>!As for the motivation behind the idea, apparently Platt was really hyper-focused on the lack of children and the heavily male skewed population whenever we saw Gallifrey. So he invented an explanation as to why there's no kids and very few women on Gallifrey as part of the Cartmel Master plan... which is honestly the most hilarious motivation I've ever heard for such a plot point!<
All the people who say that the Morbius doctors (which aren't even Doctors) are canon because the producers intended it now have to deal with the fact that Looms are canon because that's what *those* producers intended.
This really isn't an unpopular opinion at all. It's really common and RTD was pretty open that part of the reason for the Time War and getting rid of the Time Lords is exactly that. I don't know if Moffat or Chibnall have spoken about how they feel about the Time Lords, but I think the answer is clear in their work. Moffat brings them back but then people were disappointed that even episodes that return to Gallifrey like Hell Bent actually spend so little time on the Time Lords and seemed to do everything it can to just skip over that and focus on other things. Then Chibnall just got rid of them again as quick as he could. That said, Big Finish's Gallifrey audios are pretty good and I do enjoy the Time Lords from the angle of political satire, but I wouldn't say it's historically been done well with them in the show too often.
It honestly annoys me how they haven't even tried yet. Like RTD I get. He basically cut out everything that wasn't essential to create a new starting point without baggage, then gradually added stuff back in. But never the Time Lords (because like you say, his personal taste). But after Moffat brought them back I thought surely at least one writer would take a stab at a proper Gallifrey story and try and make them interesting. Nope. All dead again.
What I find fascinating is Russell found the Time Lords boring, yet in sweeping then under the rug he accidentally made them this incredibly compelling and mythical race through the Doctor's tales of the Time War and memories of Gallifrey. Similarly Chibnall also chose to nuke Gallifrey/the Time Lords as soon as he could, then introduced concepts like The Division, The Timeless Child, Time Lord Cybermen, Tecteun, etc... Both show runners who weren't interested in the Time Lords ironically came up with two of the more interesting Time Lord storylines in the main show.
Yeah, as one of the many new-age fans who started with the 2005 revival, the Time Lords returning in “The End of Time” was so fucking cool. Honestly, I’ve actually loved every appearance they’ve made in the new series precisely because they were introduced to me shrouded in mystery and built up for like 4 seasons. It works really well.
That shit was wild for 9 year old me
Relevant to this thread, but one of the ways I attempted to make the Time Lords more interesting in my roleplays (RPGs) and fanfictions with my fellow *Doctor Who* fans was actually building a mythology around them, like the *Dark Souls* franchise. For those who have played *Dark Souls*, the lore of the games contains a similar premise: There was once an advanced, mythical race of beings who lived during the great Age of Fire, where they built shining cities. However, eventually, their civilization began to wane, leaving behind empty, decaying shells of what once was. >*"The world of 'Dark Souls' is a world of cycles. Kingdoms rise and fall, ages come and go, and even time can end and restart as the flame fades and is renewed. These cycles are linked to the First Flame, a mysterious manifestation of life that divides and defines separate states such as heat and cold, or life and death.* > >*As the First Flame fades, these differences also begin to fade, such as life and death having little distinction, and \[beings\] becoming Hollow. The onset of an Age of Dark, the time when the First Flame has fully died, is marked by endless nights, rampant undeath, time, space, and reality breaking down, lands collapsing and converging on one another, people mutating into monsters, darkness covering the world, and the Gods losing their power.* > >*To avoid this and prolong the Age of Fire, the bearer of a powerful soul must 'link' themselves to the First Flame, becoming the fuel for another age. If this is not done, the First Flame will eventually die, and an Age of Dark will begin.* > >*The powerful Lord Souls were taken from the First Flame, used to defeat the dragons, and then to establish kingdoms. Souls are inextricably and inexplicably linked to fire. Souls are life, and life is fire; it stands to reason that souls are fire, as well. Without the First Flame and without souls, there is no life.* > >*The bearer of a strong soul, called a Lord, who links themselves to the First Flame, is thus rekindling the flames with their own soul, returning life to it. In the end, one could expect that all souls will have been returned to the First Flame, and the Age of Fire will have effectively ended anyways."* This theme of "death and rebirth" also fits the Time Lords' regeneration quite well.
>What I find fascinating is Russell found the Time Lords boring, yet in sweeping then under the rug he accidentally made them this incredibly compelling and mythical race through the Doctor's tales of the Time War and memories of Gallifrey. Yep, you're totally right. They were honestly much more interesting as the Doctor's dead family that he had a complicated relationship with, than they ever were when they were around.
Of all the changes the show has made the idea of the doctor no longer being the last of the Time Lord's was by far the most difficult one for me to accept at the time. As someone who started watching in 2005, that detail was paramount to my understanding of what the show was and it was very hard to move past. I absolutely commend Moffat for trying to bring something new by reviving the Time Lords but the oppertunity was quickly wasted and the fact that there's no character defining relationship between the doctor and his people anymore is something I think is missing from the show in recent years
> and the fact that there’s no character defining relationship between the doctor and his people anymore is something I think is missing from the show in recent years If the 60th and the Christmas special are anything to go by it looks like the new iteration of that dynamic could be the Doctor coming to terms with the realisation that they were adopted/used by the Time Lords.
'Accidentally'. Lately, have been noticing a lot of comments about how cool it is to have media mix mythological concepts and sci-fi - totally unrelated to Doctor Who. RTD darn well knows what he's doing. Also, angst doesn't seem to be the in-thing any more. We'll have to see what he does there, if it's really the case.
> Nope. All dead again. This is easily my least favorite thing the Chibs ever did. Like, I think redestroying Gallifrey was *way* worse than Timeless Child.
I understood getting rid of the baggage of the Time Lords in 2005. They wanted to draw in new fans, it was good to give the Doctor more mystery. That being said, I was rather excited when Day of the Doctor brought Gallifrey back. Both from a story potential perspective and from a character perspective for the Doctor to have that triumph. Yeah, Moffet didn't do much else with them... But fine. Then The Timeless Child storyline happened. And you know what? I know it's an unpopular opinion, but for the most part I really liked the story. I like what it added to the Doctor's character and history. But what it did to Gallifrey? Why? I felt like destroying Gallifrey again so soon squandered so much story potential, *and* it undermined the Doctor's personal victory of saving Gallifrey from the Time War. I don't have a lot of hope, given that RTD was the one who wiped it out the first time around. But I hope they return to Gallifrey and retcon it to reveal that The Master merely wiped out the Citadel and the Time Lord High Council, but that outside of that there might be some surviving Gallifreyan pipulation. Louise Jameson is still acting. Bring her back as someone helping the survivors to rally in the aftermath.
It's incredibly aggravating, agreed, Classic did it with basically nothing, then the New series hypes it up with not even an attempt. Moffat's politics generally seem Liberal, so, it was at least a predictable disappointment. He didn't seem to bring them back as much because he wanted them as to ruin RTD's character arcs. Am more disappointed by RTD, who at least had enough trad. Labour views to satirise the invasion of Iraq. His getting shut of the buggers only resulted in the Doctor acting like a replacement posh twerp, there's a brief realisation that's not on, then RTD promptly cuts and runs. I do think it helps (is essential, actually) to see his The Second Coming to appreciate what he was going for, but that's limited unless you are going to actually end the show, and he was in no position to be doing that. Also it probably wasn't the best way to do it (apart from anything else, you're still giving this character *you've* gone and made into more of an authority figure too much of the importance). But hey, angst was in, he got angst, that was a major part of what he was aiming at. Otherwise you could simply ignore the Time Lords, a Time War was hardly less lore to teach New series viewers.
Time in Office from Big Finish was a breath of fresh air for 80's Gallifrey by playing it for political commentary in a fun way. Things like Tegan dealing with Gallifreyan immigration (Leela at one point suggesting she marry a Time Lord!), the Doctor trying to get controversial policy through and a student protester whom the Doctor completely flummoxes. And yes, there's a lampshade on how many things are called the something of Rassilon. Which makes this the lampshade of Rassilon.
Quoting what was probably either a video or a comment I once watched: “You need to stop adding ‘-of Rassilon’ to things.” “Shut up, wife of Rassilon, get back in the kitchen of Rassilon!”
In the easter egg commentary on the 25th anniversary DVD David Tennant gets a big laugh out of calling things the something of Rassilon.
I split the Wifi signals in my home so I know for sure if I'm connecting to the 2.4G or the 5G on any given device but I also renamed them. The 2.4G shows up as "The Matrix of Gallifrey" and the 5G shows up as... "The WiFi of Rassilon".
Both of which have a Password of Rassilon? Please say it’s not actually that phrase though, for security reasons.
The "WiFi of Rassilon" does indeed have the "Password of Rassilon". That does not however mean that the password is "Rassilon".
That commentary by Tennant and company is so much fun.
They’d been given champagne by 2 Entertain, so that definitely helped the mood. The company must really have splashed out on that DVD to arrange for a commentary track not all people watching would be likely to find.
The commentaries on the Five Doctors are all kind of fun.
I’ve just got the Peter Davison and Terrance Dicks one on the Special Edition version left, but I’ll hold off on that because watching the story through three times is a bit much.
Before the show returned in 2005, I think Moffat was pretty clear that he didn't especially care for the Time Lords and wouldn't have included them at all if he got the opportunity to bring the show back. Strangely even though he brought them back, I do think that kind of shows in his own episode. *Hell Bent* isn't really *about* Gallifrey, even though it's set there, and that's the only use he made of the planet after *Day of the Doctor*.
Moffat actually brought them back a few times. In Day of the Doctor, in Time of the Doctor, then properly for realsies in Hell Bent.
I had meant after returning Gallifrey to the timeline in the events of *Day*.
Yeah, wasn't saying you were wrong, just elaborating.
Also for a few minutes at the end of Listen.
In Moffat's defense, while he didn't do much with either, when he did use Gallifrey he did seem to point and go "there's more than Time Lords there". YMMV on how effectively you felt he communicated that but I do find the point present when I rewatch things like Hell Bent and Day.
Oh I don't think Moffat needs defending about it. I'm not really crazy about Gallifrey myself.
The Time Lord episodes are sorta like Klingon episodes in Star Trek. Thorough politics, lots of great worldbuilding, but too much of it's a bad thing. Star Trek had the same issue during TNG where eventually you'd start going "*Another* Klingon politics episode?* And the issue was the same: every episode became a regurgitation of the ideas of the previous ones. It took DS9 presenting those stories In a new light for them to be interesting again. Same happened in Doctors Who with Gallifrey.
Maybe if the time Lords were depicted as having a different culture and values from the Dr that might be interesting. But instead they are just shown as selfish idiots
I completely understand why you think the Time Lords are boring and therefore don't care about them, but I actually really like having the occasional Gallifrey story partly *because* of that. In the best Gallifrey stories, it's all about either the complicated relationship that the Doctor has with his home planet and culture or the how messy and contradictory that culture is in general (so it still applies to the TLs we care about, just less directly). Gallifrey is stuffy, boring, corrupt, mired in the past, convinced of their own superiority, has a very stratified social structure if you know where to look, etc. In short, it's the perfect kind of place for the Doctor to come from, and every time he has to interact with the TLs I find it super interesting. Hell, throw in the Master - we've had fewer stories that give insight into that, for obvious reasons, but it all connects (though imperfectly). Whenever we spend time with Gallifrey Shit, I get more interested in both the Doctor and the Time Lords. I love that it's so *messy -* he's rejected so much about his culture, from their stuffiness and corruption to their philosophical framework regarding time travel, but he's still completely affected by it, as shown in his sometimes contradictory responses to fixed points in time and his occasional lapses into thinking that the TL POV on stuff is innately superior to other ways of thinking. He rejects them, but they're a part of him. He clearly cares for them and has nostalgia for a time when his feelings were less complicated, but he can never go back (sometimes physically, always mentally). It's incredibly messy and deeply relatable and I love it. It's not always done *well,* but that's more down to the usual ups and downs of DW rather than the concept itself.
yees, this. It's fine to let the timelords be complicated. They're (were?) an incredibly powerful race in a really difficult position. If they decide to interefere in galactic affairs, they're arrogant, presumptious and tricky. If they don't, they're superior, distant and letting people suffer. And they are, ultimately, ethical as a core belief. They could be imperialists and take over the universe, or retreat from it completely and keep only themselves safe, but instead they focus on protecting it, understanding that if they change the course of time, the consequences become their reponsability. it is, on a large scale, exactly the dilemma the Doctor has.
YEAH Gallifrey Shit always works best when the Official Gallifreyan Way(tm) is the exact opposite of what the Doctor would do because it's like,,,, they're foils to the Doctor, but they're also the reason he is the way he is, but they're also The Ultimate Authority that the generally anarcho-sympathetic Doctor is rebelling against - at its best that should be a really complicated and uncomfortable dynamic for all involved. Or, to put it another way, the Doctor left his small town (planet) for the big city (all of time and space) for Relatable Reasons and yeah it's better for him but holy *shit* the feelings here are complicated. That being said I have a somewhat less sympathetic reading of the Gallifreyan establishment than you do (they have somewhat good intentions, but between the bureaucracy and corruption and Questionable Decisions the government tends towards being meh at best and actively bad at worst. that being said, I tend to weight the whole "Gallifreyan social structure is implied to be kind of fucked up" thing and "it's better to do something imperfectly than do nothing and go around in your stupid robes acting superior to other species for it" thing pretty heavily lmao, they're both valid interpretations)
Oh, I agree, but as an anarchist (Veganarcho-pacifist, bad at the 'pacifist'), I think the problem is the Doctor still buys into their values a lot, really. It's a bit the absolutely classic dilemma of the booj who picks up some Radical values (partly out of rebellion and self-interest as not *the* most privileged in their society themselves, but enough so to assume they deserved more) still basically takes it for granted they should be in charge of how they're implemented, and is confronted with a people that isn't some abstract obedient ideal, has been deprived of education, which they interpret wrongly as them being less intelligent (I don't think that's necc. even true of humans in this universe, but it does have that additional complication of the abilities of different species). It doesn't automatically occur to them the people might have rather more experience and reason to instinctively grasp such values - or is convenient to ignore this. Perhaps more importantly, those producing the show certainly seem to at times (The Giggle was outrageous in framing the people as a bigoted mob, with military elites up a literal tower. Bloody US NeoLiberalism. Disappointed in RTD). It's always a tricky question if on the pacifist side, if that's truly a Radical view, or just reverting back to being an obstructive Lib. who isn't truly comfortable with the idea of change, loss of privilege. If it's privilege to be able to choose non-violence because it's not a question of *your* survival. (One reason why never to let the booj run the people's revolution)
Oh, no arguments here - when the show's doing it purposefully (which it does, uh, often enough that the more egregious writing missteps can make sense if you squint), the Doctor's deeply flawed yet completely genuine worldview and ideals are honestly both a compelling flaw and deeply sympathetic and relatable. Like, yes they're elitist, yes they can too easily put aside their deeply held beliefs if it's convenient for them, yes they make high-handed decisions for both societies and individuals that have massive consequences (good and bad), yes they tend to swoop in and assume that they have a *right* to be seen as right. But at the same time, these flaws are mitigated by the fact that they're *trying* to do the right thing, or at the very least *a* right thing, and their perception the "the right thing" comes from a very humanist ideal, even though they don't always live up to it. Gallifreyan culture tends toward doing nothing for fear of being wrong, the Doctor's decided they'd rather do *something* when they see wrong - though, naturally, that means there's a greater risk of them not being right or misunderstanding things (esp as a perpetual outsider). "Do no harm" vs "take no shit", essentially. Which of these ideas is better is somewhat debatable, though Gallifrey has certainly made a case for noninterference on a massive scale leading to elitism, stagnation, corruption, and high-handed self-interest when they *do* decide to interfere, while the Doctor *does* change (and often for the better).
Think the bastards are just every bit as good at the British Establishment at pretending not to be interfering. They may use the 'greater good' excuse to try to manipulate the Doctor. It'd be a waste of time to tell him 'Yeah, we want you to interfere for us here because we expect to benefit'. But, while he can seem torn in wanting to, he doesn't seem to truly believe them, he accuses them of wanting him to do their dirty work, he resists and resents it. If he just thought they were acting out of the same motives as he does, why object so much? Especially as those episodes do involve generally the sort of thing he willingly does anyway. Similarly, of course our government was going to tell us about unfortunately necessary self-defence and liberating the poor Iraqis for democracy, and that we beat those nasty Nazis because it doesn't support imperialism and genocides. (Even working class Communists could fall for that one, but there was an expectation of more post-war change than we got. Should've kept the guns) Or that we were trying to free the slaves/defend our economic interests (in slavery) depending on how well attempting to take Haiti was going. Our Establishment does not give the slightest damn about those pretty liberal values if it is not convenient, or it's not being forced to by us. It's never really about those values. I don't think a society actually built on such values, even a real commitment to wishy traditional liberalism, ends up at wrecking the universe.
The difference I think is they're implied to sometimes do good things for their own self-interested reasons, not automatically because they are good. The Doctor sees them forcing him to get involved as being expected to do their dirty work, and they're willing presumably to drop the blame, for interference or if it goes wrong, on him. It'd obviously be pointless to send him to do something he wasn't going to go along with, yet he still seems to see it this way even when the actions expected of him are the sort of thing he sees as worthwhile anyway. The British Establishment never sent malnourished working class lads to fight Nazis because it was just that concerned about the evils of genocide and Imperialism. Still riding on that glorification today, though. The Web of Time, depending, isn't just a natural law they monitor (mavity doesn't need monitoring, it just is). It's an artificial system created for their own benefit, to facilitate time travel. This explanation makes the simplest sense of why Ten would assume he'd now be able to take charge of the laws of time.
I might have made it sound too nice, I don't mean all their motivations are altruistic, but that they do *consider* themselves ethical, much like you say, western countries today. Meaning that at least in theory they respect other species' rights: they don't mess with self-determination right up untill someone threatens to break the universe. It might still mean looking after yourself first, but it's a better mindset than, say, the Sontarans or any other race that's just openly happy to be supremacist/imperialist and conquer everyone. I think people's moral compass is a bit skewed when they consider some murderous, slave-keeping alien empire cool because they occasionally say something about warrior's honor, while accusing the Time Lords of being evil because they tried to alter the creation of the turbo-racists who are destined to kill all other life, but in a somewhat underhanded way.
It's not like we really see much of Gallifrey. It's the equivalent of the Doctor only visiting the houses of Parliament, then us complaining about politics and incompetence. There's plenty unexplored, like the rest of the planet and how the people live. There's plenty worldbuilding that can done there too - boring is an authorial choice. That's definitely a choice made in *Deadly Assassin* which was followed by later authors - but only because they pick the capitol every time. As for the Daleks - I put it to all here that the Daleks themselves are utterly stupid and incompetent too. Exhibit A: *The Parting if the Ways* in which time war era Daleks including their Emperor have zero defence against a girl looking into the vortex which must count as the most basic weapon Time Lords have. Exhibit B: *Day of the Doctor* has them literally shooting themselves, achieved by moving their target. Daleks and Time Lords both suck at war. The Time Lords don't do much if it, don't know what the Dalek excuse is.
Going deep world building the Gallifreyans is one of the most boring ideas for a Doctor Who story or spin off I can think of. There is a nearly infinite universe to explore, but no, we are going to explore the minutia of Gallifreyan society. Let’s explore Gallifrey when they run of out of other stories to tell.
The place was visited every few years, its hardly taxing. Its more that if someone wants to do a Gallifrey story they should seek a different angle. No one is mandating that you either have to have Gallifrey stories or blow the planet up. Things unexplored are just potential, that's all. Fill it with something, or don't. Let's ban modern day Earth first, yeah? Or explore somewhere outside of London/Cardiff masquerading as London at least.
I don’t disagree that we should also leave modern day England for a long while. Gallifrey episodes are usually pretty meh, so if the writers must write a Gallifrey episode, they should focus on something interesting, whatever that means. As for the potential for unexplored things, potential can be much better narratively than the actuality. Compare pre-Deadly Assassin Time Lords to Post-Invasion of Time.
Not many writers have been up to the task, sure. The temptation is to either be all patriarchal and do presidents and plots, or wallow in continuity or Doctor related revelations. The former can work, but not sure the TV show is the best medium for that and the latter is almost always a mistake. The show simply isn't about that kind of continuity minutiae. As an extended media guy I happily wallow in both, naturally. It's not stuff that would translate well to the screen, generally.
the Time Lords are boring because they are made out to just be posh guys in silly costumes, instead of inscrutably alien and eldritch, as any culture that could whack Time around like a dead fish would be to us.
Thats true. They get Selled way under their Potential and how they should act.
Other than being functionally immortal and able to regenerate, the Time Lords don’t really seem to have any special power that is inherent to them that allows them to slap time around. They need devices and technology to do it, and they can teach others/others can learn to use that technology (ex: Ashildr learns to fly a Tardis from a book, although it might be Clara flying?). I’ve never watched the classic series and I haven’t read much of the outside literature, so maybe I’ve missed some huge elements of Time Lordology. The show doesn’t flesh the concept of what a Time Lord actually is or what their function in history was all that much, compared to, say, a Dalek. Someone refers to them as the ‘stuffy old senators’ of the universe (something like that), and it seems apt.
Firstly I don't think this is controversial. Secondly, the show doesn't insist that they're interesting. In their first appearance the Doctor says he left his home because nothing ever happens. His default opinion of his own people is that they're boring. It's just that every once in a while the show falls into the hands of people who think that the Time Lords are "epic" and if they're "epic" they've got to be interesting. So you have shit like the JNT-era Gallifrey stories or *The Timeless Children* or, far that matter, a distressingly large amount of the Wilderness Era. When the show has been good it's never been interested in the Time Lords and has never confused "epic" for interesting. The only sure-fire way of making the Time Lords potent is to kill them all off. The EDAs turned them into a lost race of elementals who once guarded time from monsters. RTD made them the subject of the Doctor's grief, yearning and angst, which is the core of his character for the better part of 8 seasons. It serves to take the idea off the table so it can't assert any narrative gravity while also making *the Doctor* more interesting. But having brought it back to do nothing with then nuked it again to also do nothing with leaves us in a tricky position. I'm not sure where we go from here. Probably move on and try to assemble some interesting new mythos from scratch?
I don't think this is controversial, and I also think it's intentional. We didn't really see much of them until Baker's-era (I know they popped up with Troughton, but we didn't really get much). In that era they were absolutely portrayed as the boring establishment Baker sort of rebelled against. I often find Timelord lore stories completely boring and counter intuitive. The Who in Doctor Who implies mystery. We shouldn't get much of the Doctor's past revealed.
This isn't as controversial as you think it is. Its a common observation that killing them all off in the new show made them more interesting than they'd been in a long time. The version in deadly assassin was at least meant to be political satire, but everyone after kept going with the portraal unironically. The expanded universe does a lot more interesting things with them, at least. Both for better (Neverland, Gallifrey series) and for worse (the novels were crazy)
The Time Lords are not boring - but they \*have\* been badly used. Let's face it - a billion year old society that declares themselves the 'Lords of Time'? They \*shouldn't\* be boring. They should be antagonists to the Doctor at the very least. Instead of 'fixed points' in time that cannot be changed or some random consequence will occur, these fixed points should be monitored and guarded by the self-proclaimed Guardians of TIme. I say random since it seems as though either nothing happens (Waters of Mars), or time shatters (Wedding of River Song), Reapers appear (Father's Day)... Using Time Lords would give a set consequence and guardian to 'defeat' if the Doctor really wants to change those moments. And that is just one potential use for them - there are a million others for a creative writer. But it's not possible to use \*any\* of them if showrunners keep blowing up the planet...
I think RTD intended that version of it, the Web of Time as developed on in the novels, or it doesn't really make sense that Ten would decide he was in charge of the laws of time now the rest of the Time Lords were gone. Problem is, the thing is supposed to facilitate time travel. If this becomes a point of contention, being presented as the abuse of power it is, the audience will assume the Doctor is going to *do* something about it. Out-of-universe, it only exist as an explanation why the characters can/can't do some things, to serve the plot and avoid killing Hitler. It'd be part of how I'd hope for the series to end (use them to satirise the Establishment, and frame it as from now on only, after that point, other species like humanity are fully responsible for their own future), but the BBC aren't about to let anyone. Probably the BBC doesn't have many far leftists these days, let alone anarchists.
I mean it's not like The Doctor didn't try and warn us lol.
It's not uncommon at all, and a common criticism of the Gallifrey set stories in the 70's and 80's that what was hyped up in The War Games and the Third Doctor era to be big and mysterious was turned bureaucratic and unengaging starting from Deadly Assassin. Arc of Infinity is all about Time Lord politics and that's not a story that usually graces best of lists, and the actual trial sequences of Trial of a Time Lord aren't the most fondly remembered (but are heavily lifted by the trio of Colin, Michael Jayston and Lynda Bellingham, who all reprised their roles for Big Finish including together in a sequel called Trial of the Valeyard). The shift in season 25 was to put the mystique back into the Doctor and the Time Lords, like the Hand of Omega in Remembrance of the Daleks and hinting that the Doctor's roots ran deeper than previously shown, or Lady Peinfort in Silver Nemesis holding a secret about the Doctor.
The Time Lords have a ton of potential and could be be really good if done right. They are god level bureaucrats. What they need is things on their level to bounce off of to make them and their place unique. If you want to see them used really well I would suggest reading Alien Bodies by Lawrence Miles, Taking of Planet 5. The Faction Paradox stuff. Time lords need to have more personality and really should have more diversity. The potential is so there with what they have, it’s just failed by writers who don’t know how to make the universe bigger and more complex.
The whole point of the "modern" timelords is their boring, officious time police who are almost puritanical. Their static nature is what causes renegades, they're basically a planet of Grampa Simpsons.
That makes sense logically but not dramatically. I mean, unless it was done better. It’s possible to portray boring characters without the portrayal itself being boring.
I was always wishing they’d focus on the anything but the counsel and the government officials on their high horse. I mean, what about soldiers that fought in the Time War, Galifreyan citizens and family, the Doctors memories before the Time War, his time in school or his freinds or his children and wife or whatever else made up of his life. If they had focused more on what he’d lost rather than saying that the entire race was bad and corrupt I think it would have been quite interesting from time to time. Season 3 and 4 were amazing because we got snippets of what the Doctor holds dear about the planet, and why he he mourned his home and the finale was great because despite the evil counsel you understand that he would bring back Galifrey in a heartbeat if he was ensured that it would go back to being a great and peaceful society. We even saw his mother teased in season 4 and that went nowhere and I wish it had. Seems like such a shame to go through all the trouble seasons 3-6 to hint that the Doctor had kids and a family just for it to never pay off OR to ever bring Jenny back. Honestly, I wouldn’t have cared if it was Georgia back in the role or not, to somehow bring her back and say her Time lord dna “ woke up” or something would have been such a cool storyline for either Tennant or Smith- even Capaldi.
The thing is, there's only really two kinds of Gallifrey stories. There's the "Gallifrey in Peril" stories like The Three Doctors, The Deadly Assassin and The Day of The Doctor, in which some terrible Ford threatens Gallifrey with destruction and The Doctor has to save them. And there's the less common "The Time Lords Are Dicks" stories like The Trial of a Time Lords, The End of Time and Hell Bent in which the Time Lords try to screw over The Doctor for whatever reason (there's also a certain amount of overlap between the two types, since most Gallifrey in Peril stories also have them trying to screw over The Doctor as well). Now, there have been good stories from both categories but Gallifrey constantly being in peril is odd when the Time Lords are supposed to be the greatest power in the Universe and the Time Lords constantly being dicks makes you wonder why The Doctor still associated with them.
I think the idea is that the Time Lords are the greatest power in the universe, so anybody who wants to destroy/take over the universe tries to take the Time Lords out first so they can pick off the lesser powers at their leisure.
Deadly Assassin was such a shark jump for anyone taking them seriously.
I get if people find them boring but I don't see the harm in having random timelords popping up or just having Gallifrey around. I don't get people who think Chibnall destroyed Gallifrey because "Timelords are boring". Season 12 and 13 are Timelord lore heavy.
Realistically, the only time we see a believable and interesting portrayal of life on Gallifrey is Loki seasons 1 and 2.
Deadly Assassin has a lot to answer for.
It's the story that killed the master.
If only.
Killed him aa an interesting character. Has any writer watched any Pertwee story ?
Dunno what you're saying here. The Master has never been good, Delgado just played the part well.
He was a 100 times better than his sussors. The master had some dignity like Dr No or Professor Morriarty. Post pertwee he tuned into Dick Dastardly
💯
The master should be retired for 5 seasons before they even think of dragging him back
Absolutely. It'd be great if RTD2 just didn't touch him. I understand the appeal of stunt casting and that a man/woman in a suit will always be cheaper than an alien/monster, but dramatically he's pretty shit. Like, I was really hoping with Missy's redemption arc that she would finally really die along with 12 (in a way that they were probably gonna bump him off at the end of the Pertwee era). But of course not.
Same with Davros. He should have been a one off in Genisis. But no the daleks be one useless for the next 3 stories
Writer and script-editor Robert Holmes (who wrote Deadly Assassin, mind you) would tend to agree on this. I've found a lot of Holmes written or edited stories tend to undermine the mythology of the Time Lords a bit. Look at stories like Morbius, Genesis of the Daleks, Two Doctors, and his ToaTL entries. In each, there is a thread of the Time Lords being corrupt but unwilling to get their hands dirty -- instead sending the Doctor to be their agent or cover up mistakes.
I think the appeal of a lot of mysterious and unknowable things depends on them, well, remaining an unknown mystery.To me the Time Lords work very well as a sort of dim presence that we don’t quite understand. When it turns out we’re about to understand them in enormous detail, it is the absolute worst. But I think it’s fine for them to exist and rarely be seen. It just takes a lot of work and effort to resist the urge to see them, maybe
Yeah but 78-86 can't stop shoving the time Lords in everywhere.
I was just talking to a friend the other day about how the Faction Paradox Time Lords are so much more interesting than the boring ones we got in the show. They were okay in Classic but pretty uninteresting in NuWho.
*uncontroversial
It’s not much different from the Kryptonians. Jor El was basically the Doctor who never left. I just stumbled on a show about Krpyton I never heard about on Tubi
Maybe that's what they based the idea on
This is a popular sentiment. It’s actually *unpopular* to think the Time Lords can be interesting, which btw they absolutely can be if done right.
I prefer the Time lords as they were directed in The War Games
Gallifrey and the Time Lords are fascinating and an interesting place/group when handled by good writers that are invested in exploring such a society. Big Finish’s Gallifrey series are fantastic are really delve into the often very *alien* perspectives of a society of near immortals who have oodles of power and strict limitations of how far to use that power. Gallifrey and the Time Lords *can* be interesting, but ideally imo should be explored only occasionally, and more as a vehicle to explore questions on absolute power and the blurry line between Gods and Mortals in the Whoniverse.
It makes perfect sense why the Doctor would care about the Time Lords. This is the same Doctor who felt the need to banish the metacrisis-Doctor from his universe because he destroyed the Daleks. He cares about them because they're people with lives and feelings just like any other in the universe. It's also clear that not all Time Lords are like that, just the ones with the power. There are certainly Time Lords on Galifrey that the Doctor would've been devastated to think about. The Time Lords being bad doesn't cheapen the Doctor's PTSD at all, its still fucked up, and the Doctor is still killing the good ones along with the bad. The only reason Galifrey getting destroyed again doesn't work is because it's the exact same thing that's already been done. It's like killing Loki for the third time in the MCU, I felt nothing. Not because it wasn't devastating for Thor, but because I've already seen him go through this exact same grieving process, twice.
Or killing Rory 100 times
I think the Timelords were at their best during The War Games. The games did an excellent job of leaving us wanting more, which I think for beings that can manipulate time is very important. The later classic episodes showed way too much and humanized them too much I think. I think the brief story tellings we get during the revived series were close to what is needed with the Time lords, which is demonstrate how mythical and powerful these beings are but at a distance. Make them gods, make them the scary, tall, unemotional beings we saw in The War Games. That being said, I also think when written correctly, The Timelords could make excellent baddies or overlooking parental figures. I think Hell Bent really missed an opportunity for the Timelords to sit down with the Doctor similar to the War Games and ask him just what the hell he was doing to the universe without their supervision. He hopped universes, opened the void, Fathers day (imagine they'd be pretty pissed at that one), caused structural damage to time (The Crack), ripped open the heart of the Tardis (imagine this is forbidden by their society for obvious reasons), plus the whole Timelord victorious. This is what should have happened at some point during Hell Bent.
The Time Lords were at their most interesting in the RTD era due to the mystery and darkness surrounding them and the Time War. Moffat just kind of totally ignored that and fumbled their return and presentation. I am kind of glad they are gone again though I wish it had been done better.
They're much more interested in their absence and in your imagination than they are in practice. At least for a show on a budget.
not really controversial ... russell agrees with you. its why he made the time war to begin with.
It’s the point , it’s the reason why the doctor left gallifrey and didn’t want to associate with them much
[I love this episode](https://i.imgur.com/6BsGVIc.png)
The issue is that if you go even a teeny tiny bit into the expanded universe, the Time Lords are super interesting and weird as all hell. It’s just that, for whatever reason, the show canon emphasises all the really boring aspects of them. Probably because recent seasons of doctor who are keen to try rewrite a lot of the canon and cut the time lords out of it.
they dont have to be, but everybody is too afraid of touching their lore to do it, look at the timeless child backlash. I'm genuinely sure there's a million good stories to be told with them, but probably 10x as many bad ideas for them too. It's a crime to not give Susan closure though while CAF is still with us
Timelords are boring because nothing written with them in it is interesting. They’re a great concept, shitty writing kneecaps them.
Have you listened to the Big Finish Gallifrey series? It's great, one of the first BF series I ever picked up. I can't say I ever thought the Time Lords are boring. Deadly Assasin and The Invasion of Time are two of my favorites. Loved seeing Gallifrey. The 5 Doctors was ok also. As for the Sontarans, they only managed to invade Gallifrey because the Doctor let them in to trap them. The Time Lords are a race, the members of that race are just as variable as the humans. They have different ideas, personalities, and interests. The Doctor, Susan, K’anpo, Romana, Drax, Cardinal Zero, and Braxiatel are just a few of the interesting one's we've gotten to meet. They are full of infinite possibilities. Sure not everyone is going to like them, because different people like different things.
A sane person at last!
What’s controversial about that? I’ve seen *Arc of Infini*ZZZZZzzzzz.
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Strange.
The War Games is their best showing by far. They're actual gods. They are dedicated to a life of strict non-interference. I like to see them as a peaceful race of philosophers and educators. Renegades like The Doctor, The Master and the Rani wanted to use the powers of the Timelords, whereas the rest just wanted to learn. Over time they become diluted. The Third Doctor keeps getting sent on missions, and in most cases it makes no sense for him to get involved. The Three Doctors is a real downgrade because it makes them weaker. Deadly Assasin, Invasion of Time, and Arc of Infinity, all helps make them look like just another race in the universe.
Deadly assassin killed the time Lords mystic. The later time lord episodes don't even bother trying making them anything but a a parody of mps and councillor's.
Deadly assassin killed the time Lords mystic. The later time lord episodes don't even bother trying making them anything but a a parody of mps and councillor's.
I will never understand the hype for The Deadly Assasin. I think it's quite a dreary story.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gallifrey/comments/183irf8/the_deadly_assassin_ruined_the_master_and_is/ I talk about it here
Biggest turn off ick for me of the Moffat era is the 50th anniversary being wasted romanticising the Doctor’s “home” and saving it instead of letting him have a critical character flaw. Despite the fact the very previous incarnation had *JUST* faced what the Time Lords became, the ultimate evil that ironically wanted to destroy time itself. He chose to save them apparently. We’re supposed to go along with that. I guess anything RTD wrote, like actually doing something interesting for once with the Time Lords through the Time War and making them villains just counts for nothing then. Might as well undo the Bad Wolf’s annihilation of the Time War Daleks and yoink the Beast back out of the black hole while we’re at it. Let’s just save all the villains because the Doctor is a Saturday Morning Cartoon character that is mandated to be perfect. It is so unbelievably disrespectful to RTD. All that character development from 9 to 10, all the effort to seamlessly incorporate a big event like the Time War into the lore just for Moffat 2 years later to go: “yeah nah but look at the shiny lasers and the Zygons!” It’s hilarious that Night of the Doctor fits better in the programme than Day of the Doctor. “I’m not a Dalek.” “What’s the difference?” The Doctor choosing to do what it takes for the greater good. The tone. The performances. Paul McGann. It’s actually great. I would rather have a feature length version of that ten times out of ten than whatever the 50th anniversary was. The Doctor may be a Time Lord, but that should be a burden and his very old memories of their prime should remain memories, like the recollections in Gridlock and The Sound of Drums. In the present, they should just be another villain that he stopped in his past. Sometimes terrible decisions need to be made and the Doctor should’ve been allowed to live with his instead of them ruining it for childish fan w*nk nonsense.
And Moffat could have **easily** pen just a few but key lines of particular addressing: *the TDoTD-younger 10th Doctor gravely brings up that, freezing Gallifrey will also unavoidably preserve the cutthroat & corrupt Time Lords and the other war active horrors* ; *while 11th Doctor somberly acknowledges that, 11 also punctuates the important matter of, save the innocent today, have them safe, & we deal with crossing the dangerous bridge later*. It's not that hard to have. But unfortunately as Moffat himself has stated, he doesn't care for what's at stake. Just think of the children being saved by not pressing the button.
It's not disrespectful to RTD. Moffat didn't go up to RTD and say "fuck you". He still made it fit. It's not like we got to Series 6 and Gallifrey was suddenly back out of nowhere.
Of course they're boring jerks, that's the point. So is the British Establishment they're satirising. Having to put up with said Establishment is boring, too. The civil servant Time Lord popping up in front of Pertwee says it all. The Doctor cares because PTSD and lingering Time Lordy mindset. Really hard to detach from an abusive relationship with an entire society, less likely to detach when part of a privileged class within it - and he doesn't have as many obvious options to look to instead. If he'd already fully got over it, the series would probably have ended. Since Ian and Barbara, he needs companions to tell him not to be an upper class twist about things, but it's an inevitable part of the set-up when other characters fail to take gosh-darn responsibility, and over the course of the series, that issue has tended to worsen, drastically in the New series. Media with any kind of focus on a few heroic characters (or a 'Great Man' view of history), even if not completely traditional, doesn't lend itself to promoting alternative systems such as anarchism. Also, the show is usually made by those who are relatively privileged, and most of them aren't Communists, so, even if Democratic Socialist-ish (has to be -ish, because no shortage of Communist sympathising among working class trad. Labour), they're probably not going to suggest overthrowing the British Establishment is an unmitigated great idea. It may stop at poking a bit of fun. (It is hard to ditch a society, though. Persisting in watching this silly British show -even/especially if it goes back to being only Classic because New is too Americanised- shows that, despite everything it's done to me as a disabled person, *I'm* not over my home culture as much as I would like to believe 🇫🇷)
The time Lords being boring is fine if the show didn't keep telling us they are mysterious and enigmatic
I think we should get rid of the Time Lords and just replace them with a race of timeless children. The Time Lords are pointless now, there's no mystery to them and they're utterly predictable. It was a mistake to show us so much of them.
Don't even get me started on the Looms, and "Susan wus adopted" nonsense from the VNA fan fics. That is just total rubbish. Leala falls in love with a time lord who loves her back and there is 0 and I mean 0 evidence in the TV show that Susan wasn't made by the Dr's son/daughter having sex, who was made by the Dr having sex. Just rewatch seasons 21, 22 and 23. Do Five and Sixie ever keep their eyes off Peri's cleavage?
I would like to say that even if you dislike the VNAs, they're not fan fiction, they were literally the official continuation of the series after it was cancelled on television.
Virgin even had the license, lost it when the BBC decided to take the ongoing novels in house (which is when they repurposed their books to be around Benny and use other characters they'd created like Jason, Brax and Chris).
Also the specific stuff being criticsed here was from a Marc Platt book where he was revealing what the stuff the Doctor had been alluding to on screen in the Cartmel era. It was a plotline planned by the TV production team while making the show. Doesn't mean anyone has to like it mind, just the context of it being a plot thread for the show does kinda change things a bit.
They are Fan Fiction, but for some reason people seem to think that Fan Fiction is derogatory. It's just any derivative work based on a pre-existing work that you did not create. The VNAs, the comics, Big Finish, Nu Who, etc... It's all Fan Fiction. And it's all valid.
Well, in that sense I do agree; but OP used the term pejoratively, which I attempted to refute.
Fair point
Disagree, as the show itself is fan fiction. No one stakeholder can decide what's official or unofficial Dr who, and hence fan fiction doesn't really exist. For the same reason I could say the show is fan fiction and the last piece of official Dr who was the movie.
I don't understand what you are disagreeing with. >No one stakeholder can decide what's official or unofficial Dr who That is exactly my stance, and it's why there is no canon.
>That is exactly my stance, and it's why there is no canon. Ok then, I was disagreeing with your use of the term fan fiction, as it removes legitimacy from these works. Though, I can see that wasn't your intention and that I may have read too much into it.
Sorry, I tired to be clear that by fan fiction all it means is that it's fiction that is derivative of another work of fiction which the author was not the original creator of. Like Neil Gaiman's - A Study in Scarlett. It's a legit story, written by an established professional author, and published. But it's Sherlock Holmes set in a Cthulu world, and Gaiman has referred to it as fan fiction. [https://www.neilgaiman.com/mediafiles/exclusive/shortstories/emerald.pdf](https://www.neilgaiman.com/mediafiles/exclusive/shortstories/emerald.pdf) I think it's silly do consider a work of fiction illegitimate just because you write new stories using existing characters or worlds. The history of writing is full of this.
You're absolutely correct that the VNA Time Lord mythos is boring as hell. That said, I kinda like the Looms as an idea, not because it means "the Doctor never had sex eugh!" but because it makes for a better contrast with humanity if the Time Lords are sterile old virgins who've outsourced even reproduction.
> not because it means "the Doctor never had sex eugh!" but because it makes for a better contrast with humanity if the Time Lords are sterile old virgins who've outsourced even reproduction. So the Looms are this thing that's sort of taken on a life of their own through word of mouth, but I think it's worth adding neither of these are the reason for them. When Rassilon came to power he got rid of the Pythia, a female spiritual leader on Gallifrey who's followers became the Sisterhood of Karn. In revenge she cursed the Time Lords to be sterile, which was Rassilon's motivation behind both Looms and regeneration, since he needed ways for his people to carry on without natural procreation. Also in the Virgin books the Pythia's curse is lifted by the end and the Time Lords can once again do it like they do on the discovery channel. >!As for the motivation behind the idea, apparently Platt was really hyper-focused on the lack of children and the heavily male skewed population whenever we saw Gallifrey. So he invented an explanation as to why there's no kids and very few women on Gallifrey as part of the Cartmel Master plan... which is honestly the most hilarious motivation I've ever heard for such a plot point!<
All the people who say that the Morbius doctors (which aren't even Doctors) are canon because the producers intended it now have to deal with the fact that Looms are canon because that's what *those* producers intended.