Did An Early Draft of Jodie's Finale Feature the Timeless Child?
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- čas přidán 4. 10. 2023
- Let me explain my theory of the finale Whitaker/Chibnall story, which I think originated from draft scripts which tied up all the loose ends of the Timeless Child/Fugitive Doctor/Doctor's Origins plotlines. Did you also think it was odd that everything set up over three years was dropped after Flux instead of concluded? Well, excavating the evidence from the broadcast version, here's my take on the original plan.
I'm pretty convinced, and I hope you will be too. Leave your thoughts/alternate theories in the comments, and I'll make a response video reading them all in the near future.
Also, if you enjoy this or any of my videos, I've set-up a Ko-Fi page which I hope to use to fund being better equipment for recording these: ko-fi.com/V7V4PU05E - Krátké a kreslené filmy
I have to admit, when I first saw the child on the train, my guess was that this kid was from the same origin as the Timeless Child, and that the main (or at least, initial) plot thread in the episode was going to be “uh-oh, the Cybermen got their hands on their own TC, what are we going to do about it?”
I thought that that was going to be the Doctor, and that the cybermen were going to be meddling with the Doctor's origins. My other theory was that that was Bell and Vinder's daughter
@@brewster_4This video went with both. :)
Do you think the fob watch that gets dropped into the console at the end of The Vanquishers was ever planned to be revisited in Whittaker's finale? That scene felt a lot like setup for the finale when I first saw it, but on the other hand plenty of commenters here have said that it wasn't going to be revisited, and I have wondered if Chibnall deliberately chose not to revisit it on a thematic level so he can validate the decision for adoptees to not pursue finding out who their birth parents are/not letting their identity be defined by who their birth parents are.
Chibnall did confirm that the opening bit with the child on the train was meant to make audiences think: "Oh, this is that Timeless Child stuff again" (or something amongst those lines) Call it a bit of a joke on his part.
Yeah, joke’s on us for thinking that a show runner would see any reason to resolve plot threads that they introduced. Funny stuff, Mr. Chibnall.
@@ianmcintire6696 I think he might have had the intention do so, but that (way too over the top) 'fan' backlash caused him to drop the idea, as mentioned in this video.
There was a very brief musical motif as the child is revealed that sounds remarkably similar to the TC theme. I agree, it seemed a deliberate misdirect / red herring.
@@hotdog1214 It didn't just 'seem', it was confirmed by Chibnall in a podcast to be a deliberate misdirect.
@@timrob12 Ah cheers, was that the WHO Corner to Corner Podcast? I haven't had a chance to listen to the whole thing yet.
I think my only problem is establishing Vinder and Bel as the Doctor’s parents. The child being The Timeless Child makes a lot of sense and adds a lot to the title “the power of the Doctor.” I think the special was fun enough as is. One of Chibnall’s better episodes for sure. But incorporating the Timeless Child would have fit the episode better and rounded off the era really well
Also, I love the greater emphasis it gives for the Fugitive Doctor. Honestly upset we didn’t see more of her. She has like 10 minutes of screen time altogether and 2 minutes of that is holograms
Great! I like it.Everything you came up with is actually all there on screen it's just not spoken about or made clear and could be true and made so retrospectively in future episodes.
I figured Chibnall mostly wanted Vinder there because he needed a companion who was willing to shoot the Master and River Song wasn't available.
They only used Vinder because they couldn’t use Captain Jack.
I actually like this a lot more. It makes a lot of sense for the whole of the story arc with the Timeless Child. I think the bit that I still want to get a resolution for is the fob watch because it still exists in the TARDIS, but likely won't get picked up by RTD or any future showrunners.
My one big question about this would be: Why does Vinder and Bel's child have an unprecedented ability to regenerate? Where did that come from? You could handwave it as having something to do with Bel having gone through Flux while pregnant, but I'm sure she was far from the only pregnant woman in the universe at the time.
Actually that would be interesting imagine if there was a whole generation of timeless children
I mean, river got the ability to regenerate just from the time vortex, so it's not unprecedented.
I posted a possible reason for that here, based entirely off this video, before seeing you had already asked the same question... it's here somewhere. Definitely the plot hole though!
@@hgwells1899 Does it count as a plot hole if it's an unfinished plot
@@plantainsame2049 It's 100% the overlooked plot hole in the theory being presented in this video
@@hgwells1899 ok
God this would’ve been such a good episode. As much as I hate the timeless child subplot… at least this would’ve tied it up and made it mean something
Think you've got this pretty spot on, really well explained. There is no way that the whole plot point of having this stolen child being tortured in order to obtain some kind of energy/power so their torturer can regenerate wasn't originally intended to be the Timeless Child, or at least linking to it in some way.
This is based on a fantheory that holds no water. I don't think Chibnall would ever separate Bel and Vindr from their child, goes against what their arc was supposed to be in contrast to the Timeless Child.
Also, it's interesting that Vinder might have been in the original script, because that puts a different spin on my original thought, where I thought that his part in the story was originally written for Captain Jack, but then the allegations against John Barrowman came up and Chibnall, for safety reasons, decided to change the script.
But that's my theory, I have no proof of this anywhere, I'm just thinking what could have been the most logicial thing from the BBC's side.
Actully captain Jack was ament to be the companion for series 13 before covid
@@nathanielfarkas4431 And before the allegations.
@@timrob12 The stuff about John Barrowman was already public knowledge 13 years before Flux aired.
@@toast99bubbles I know. But that doesn't excuse it from being inappropriate.
@@timrob12 I never said it did excuse him. I just don't see why the BBC only blacklisted him 13 years after everyone knew about it, considering they kept working with him all those years.
I think it would be interesting to see
Sorry but all of your theories are just incredibly circumstancial, with borderline no evidence to back them up. I personally thought Chibnall made it quite clear with The Vanquishers, that he didn't want to continue with The Timeless Child storyline and instead wanted to leave it open for future showrunners to explore by having the Doctor drop the fob watch into the console explicitly telling the TARDIS to "Do me a favour. Keep this safe somewhere deep within this TARDIS. Somewhere I can never find it. Unless I really ask for it."
Exactly. And Chibnall has said in interviews that he has no idea where the Doctor is really from and prefers to keep it that way. Which is fine by me because I have my own theory about the Doctor's origins and I have no interest in seeing it disproven.
@@thomasahearn4142 The way Big Finish (I think it's Big Finish) handles it is the doctor has numerous different origins due to their timestream being... I believe the technical term is "wibbly wobbly."
The different explanations of their past are all equally canon, and even the doctor isn't sure which is his real history... because he doesn't really have a single real history.
That is, for example, how the doctor can be the timeless child and yet their biological timelord mother (potentially) appears in the end of time.
Indeed, pretty sure in one of the latter interviews prior to POTD Chibnall actually stated that he told the story he wanted to, in his eyes 'made the Doctors background more mysterious' while acting as an analogy of being an adopted child. It was always pretty clear to me that he wasn't going to address it in the finale.
@@jamezevans123 Things like that are why I said "potentially." These things have traditionally been kept rather mysterious (think of the confusion 8 caused when he said he was half human on his mother's side).
But that was just an example, there are numerous different pasts of the doctor hinted at throughout the show's and especially audio/comics etc tenure.
The real answer to "what is the doctor's backstory?" Is effectively "whatever you headcanon it to be."
@@jamezevans123 The woman in The End of Time could also have been Susan's mother - the Doctor's daughter.
Toymaker has been behind this all along a mask of who is who or what is real or not, the more you think on some of those stories it seem someone had a huge hand in go behind the stories and changing the outcomes. Web of time and making the source of the origin is something this Toymaker might do with help from say the Master?
Time and Space is a storyboard for a author of puzzles and mystres, tik tok the doctor is lost so who will save the doctor? Dona Noble and Susane and Mot? Family of time?
Honestly i dont hate TC, i dont love it, but by no means was i offended as many others. For me it was the writing and directing of Jodies run overall i had issues with. Enjoyed your ideas and the video.
If the Master wanted to soil the Doctor's image and take over her body, he should've kept her face
If this is true, I’m glad we have the story we got even if it came out as rather messy. Vinder being there to be revealed as the father would have crossed a line even the regular Timeless Child lore doesn’t cross when it comes to revealing too much about the Doctor’s distant past.
Also, hoo boy, it’s always harrowing to hear about how close this show is to cancellation seemingly all the time. I believe they considered ending it after both Eccleston and after Tennant, as well.
Sorry, what's the timeless child?
Exactly.
The Master would need to get the child from the OTHER REALITY so if CHIBNALL did do that how could the Master pull it off
IT DOESN'T WORK
What do you mean?
@@irrevenant3 I was commenting on the differculty of pulling off the plan suggested by the guys video but I am not 100% sure now and I've forgot exactly SINCE then IT'S not my best ever remark but thanks for being polite enough to ask
Man, this is as messy as when Eric Saward had an original script for Trial of a Timelord that featured the Doctor dying (and the show ending) and all because another writer died before they could finish it. And then this idea was canned for being too conclusive and/or the show didn't need to end anyway. Which all ties in with how much the Flux season felt like Trial of a Timelord as well.
This would have been interesting, honestly the idea of the doctors parents being nobodies isn't even that bad and wouldn't have to hold that much weight! However...Star Wars proved doing that is franchise suicide and that sting isn't going away any time soon.
Star Wars turned out quite okay. The main problem was that JJ Abrams hyped Rey's parents up without ever having the idea or intention of revealing who it was.
IMO Rey being a 'nobody' was a perfectly good reveal, especially combined with the reveal that the Force was springing up in a new generation of Force users across the galaxy (see: broom boy). The big problem was that Abrams and Johnson had massively conflicting visions. Rey being a nobody was fine, the issue came in when the trilogy got handed back to Abrams and he decided to go in a completely different direction again.
I'd love to see a Rian Johnson Star Wars trilogy and I'd probably be happy to watch a JJ Abrams Star Wars Trilogy. One that zigzags back and forth is just a mess.
@@irrevenant3 Well JJ had no idea where Rey's parentage was going in the first one. I personally like the Rey nobody twist. I hate how recently shows/movies have made it seem you have to somehow be related to a hero from the past or be a chosen one to be a hero.
@@brewster_4 I tend to agree, but in JJ's defence it **is** very Star Wars to be obsessed with powerful lineages. I was happy to see Rian broaden the setting a bit from thst though.
@@irrevenant3 But the problem is that JJ had no plan for that lineage when he was making Force Awakens, and just left that problem for Rian Johnson to deal with
I find it so hilarious that people call the 13th Doctor “Jodie” 😂😂😂😂😂😂 she was that bad people can’t even refer to her as “13th Doctor”
I blame Chibnall far more than I blame Whittaker. If she had better scripts with a better story arc she would held in much higher esteem.
Actually I found something from a Magazine. It seems that it was all intentionally left open ended so that it cpukd all fans to fill in the blanks, as they alway do with Doctor Who lore.
Honestly I just hope that the whole timeless child thing is forgotten about and puahed under the rug like the doctor being half-human.
But if you recall, the very first flashback image we saw of the TC, stranded at the portal, was in the episode, Can You Hear Me? Which featured literally immortal beings from another dimension who like to play with human emotions... which also included themes of eternally enduring love and of one being "left behind..."
I would suggest that it might not have been only the Morbius Doctor's that Chibbers was out to retcon into existence, but perhaps also the Eighth Doctor being "half human" on his mother's side... suggesting we may have deliberately been given a hint of a candidate for the race on his father's side, by virtue of that flashback appearing as if by random, in Can You Hear Me?
I quite like this as a concept. It has problems but it's better than what we got, at least on its own merits, and i think the show has proven itself more that capable of moving on from a conclusion by mostly pretending it never happened so I don't think it would have hamstrung future writers overly
Jodie's finale would've originally been different but I don't think it would've been this, The Vanquishers pretty much wrapped the Timeless Child storyline and left it open ended for anyone in the future to pick up if they want to with the whole fob watch thing. The Power of the Doctor as we know it now was ordered as part of the BBC's Centenary celebrations, they made it a centrepiece of their celebrations - originally the plan was for Jodie to regenerate in an Easter Special but because the BBC asked Chibnall to do the Centenary (which he happily agreed to) this was changed and it was made to be much bigger and more of a love letter to Doctor Who, and Legend of the Sea Devils was made in place of the episode at Easter that would've been Jodie's finale!
I do wonder what Power what would've been originally.
I really don't think Tegan, Ace or the classic Doctors would've been in it.
I think perhaps Graham and Dan would've had Tegan and Aces roles. Since it Legend of sea devils wouldn't of existed, maybe John Bishop could've committed to filming.
The basic bear bones plot Power doesn't rely on classic elements being included really.
Power was only fan service heavy because it was bumped up to being the centenary.
Legend came from an unused S13 idea if I'm not mistaken.
Eve of the Daleks didn't exist too until they didn't have the budget for the original idea. The opening scene of Power on the train is basically what the original script for the New Year's special was.
The entirety of the 2022 specials was essentially changed because of situations outside of Chibnall's control.
I would be interested to see how the original New Year's special and the original version of Power would've looked like together.
I notice what's not explained here is HOW Vinder And Bel's human child became the TC? Unless it's that Jodies infinite regenerations, stolen by the Master in TPotD, are returned in the end not just to Jodie herself but inadvertently also to the child?
Perhaps when both become trapped in the cabinet for... reasons. Naturally it's too much for any poor human especially a kid and she is about to depart this mortal coil when... omg... regeneration! With a major crisis attached, of course, the first and only words of this newly minted unearthly child, before she collapses again, being: "Who... am I?!" Creating the TC from scratch and leading to the whole bootstrap paradox of her then going through the portal for... reasons... to where Tecteun found her.
This is at odds of course with your idea of the child being kidnapped in the first place by reason of her being needed as an energy source. I'm suggesting that need not in fact be why she she was nabbed off the train... in which case I have no explanation for why V and B's child was important to the plot here at all beyond her ultimately becoming the TC... but I like the simple fact of the episode literally being called The Power of the Doctor being fully justified by it being the story of how, and who, and why the whole infinite regeneration thing happened.
I'm also not saying that I stand by either synopsis but I do agree that so much was lost, firstly from the season that became Flux - due to lockdowns etc as we know - and that this must then have effected the nature of TPotD as a finale to this entire era of canon-reshaping revelations.
Fandom would possibly have raised pitchforks and flaming torches if much more had come to pass under Chibnall, though! As a self confessed Jodie-hater myself I was kinda numb to it (in fact, kind of amused by the reactions of so many) but I do find that Flux, TPotD and the earlier revelatory episodes in particular were the best things about her era. Not so much that I can stomach a rewatch, however, with so much was left in such an unsatisfactory state... I do personally feel that Doctor Who was always headed towards something like the TC happening, or in some other way finding that the Doctor was more than we only really thought we knew, if the show continued on for long enough.
I won't bore you with my own crackpot tinfoil theories since they border on fanfiction (no, let's face it, they are the definition of fan-fiction, lol) but I do like alternative takes and this video certainly was one, so it's a thumbs up from me:)
It's pretty bold to assume Chibnall had a script done with enough time to go through multiple drafts.
The information in this document is based on the timeless child arc from Chris chibnall the brain of Morpheus starring Tom Baker in the classic who series and Doctor Who cannon I have filled in blanks with my own thoughts and speculations.
A child was found under a mysterious Arch by a gallifreyan by the name of tecton she experimented on the child causing the child to die and regenerate several times after finding the child had regenerated after a fatal fall once tech tyun was able to uncover the child's secret of regeneration she experimented on herself to see if it would work for her since it did she gave it to gallifreyan's who would later become the time Lords the child grew up and went to work for the division she where she lives several lives and had long distinguished service with them she had undergone several faces over her years including ones that seen were seen in the brain of Morpheus and at some point she retired from the division at this point they use the chameleon Arch to wiper memories and to make her a child again and in place the memories that we’re taken they implanted the thoughts that the child who would grow up to become the doctor had always lived on gallifrey the child grew up to become the doctor this child looked into the schism and found his meaning while the master looked into the schism and went mad. The fugitive doctor from my guess is where the timeline split off and The fugitive doctor took off to hide while the doctor himself went on to have adventures and The fugitive doctor stayed in hiding until she met the 13th Doctor.
I think that Covid spoiled the story Chibnail wanted to tell (wether we would have liked that is another story). His third series had to be totally redone as a mini series and so not having the room to round it off it just felt disjointed. And his childish writing style of we are over here, now we are here and then suddenly this happened meanwhile in Mongolia... Didn't help.
That just sounds like too much of a mess. Now I need to re-watch. I really don't remember the episode. By her admittedly not doing any research on the character, and the writing. I just couldn't get into her run. It definitely could have been better.
@@jamezevans123 Did not know that. Thanks for the info.
@@jamezevans123Although it would be all too easy of her to be influenced by Tennant, given that the 2 worked together, so I don't think that an unconscious (?) inspiration is impossible.
The Timeless Child really is THE single worst storyline Doctor Who ever had
I can’t disagree. If it’s ever revisited, the Twist should be that the Doctor was never the TC, and that it wa sin fact Susan. Which would be an interesting opening to bring her back.
that wouldve fixed everything! sad the show would be over though. limp on doctor. galifrey forever!
rip galifrey
I think I know the answer to this and it's "No". Chibnall is notoriously lazy and can barely be bothered to finish a script. He crapped out the shit he could bring himself to do and the production team couldn't find someone to make sense of the shit he crapped out. It's Broadchurch all over again but this time there was no producer to finish the script.
Why do studios keep hiring him?
At this point I think the best thing is for everyone to pretend that Chibnall was a figment of our collective imagination and move on without worrying about any of the junk he wrote or the fact that even within his own framework it was very poorly done with some really dumb choices.
Nah, the timeless child was something that the bbc and chibnall dared to do irl and the world saw it. Only a full apolology from both of them can bring g back an extreme amount of fans to once again be mega fans and not at best casual observers who watch with baited breath fearing more damage to their beloved show.
@@wardjunior1450 they don't owe you anything.
How about... no.
@@friendlyotaku9525 they owe us the fucking moon after what they’ve done.
@@wardjunior1450 "what they've done" it's a TV show.
WRAPPING UP THE SHOW! THAT MONSTER! CHIBNALL! GO AND GIVE A PUBLIC APOLOGY FOR RUINING DOCTOR WHO
He didn’t ruin it, though. No-one did.
No disrespect to the efforts you've put in here but this story proposal sounds bloody awful; I know a lot of fans wanted the TC to be wrapped up and despite Chibnall saying no, did expect it in the finale. I'm sort of glad he didn't though, the whole child in a time loop thing is a bit contrived and frankly the less TC stuff the better as far as I'm concerned.
seriously? Youre just guessing and making things up. You have no facts to back up your statements. Everything you say is plausible, perhaps even an interesting hypothesis, but to act like youve certainly figured out the truth is ridiculous
No. I can confirm that the information is true. For I am Chibnall
The Master even referenced the Timeless Child when he said maybe more than once, who knows? not you! on how many times the Doctor had been forced to regenerate in the same manner as her remembered second self.
Jodie isn't canon, Tennant 2 isn't canon, Gatwa isn't canon
Dude stop the hate. We haven’t seen Tennant and Gatwa yet
@@callumhaigh8233 You don't need to see something to hate it
@@mattthesilent777RED how can you hate something without seeing it? Don’t you know how ridiculous it sounds?
@@callumhaigh8233 You don't need to see, you can know about it
@@mattthesilent777RED that’s your opinion. If you hate it and consider it non canon that’s your opinion. I’ll be watching the show regardless