Doctor Who season 12 finale recap: The Timeless Children
By Ariba Bhuvad
Was that the best Doctor Who season finale ever? Heck yes!
Doctor Who concluded its 12th season this past week, but has left with so much to think about in its wake. I can’t believe that the finale played out the way it did, and I’m still trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Suffice to say, it was an epic, epic, epic finale, and completely shattered any truths the Doctor knew about her history.
The series has been around for a number of decades, but we’ve never truly known the Doctor’s origin story–until now. The Master is the one to catch the Doctor up on what is her history and her beginning, and suddenly, the entire season makes sense.
Okay, so we’ve heard a lot about the Timeless Child/Children, right? Well, after the Master brings the Doctor into Gallifrey, he sticks her inside the Matrix. This techy machine has all the information on Time Lords and their past. Being in the Matrix shows the Doctor one very major truth about herself–she is the Timeless Child. It is from her that the line of Time Lords began and there were regenerations that took place before William Hartnell’s first Doctor.
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There was once a woman named Tecteun who found a child from another universe. This child was able to regenerate, which is demonstrated by the fact that she falls over a cliff, and somehow survives–into someone else. Long story short, Tecteun found a way to transfer the child’s regenerating DNA into her own body.
As for the child, she basically became part of an organization known as the Division. She’d run missions for them, and after each one, her memory was wiped out.
Eventually, we got to the point where Hartnell’s Doctor came to be, and then the subsequent Doctors after him all the way up to the current one.
Up until now, we’ve thought the Doctor Who universe didn’t exist before Hartnell. It wasn’t ever really a thought but there were many regenerations before that one. This explains how Jo Martin was also calling herself the Doctor–she must have been prior to Hartnell’s.
As a Whovian, I was blown away by the reveal because Time Lords were created, they weren’t always this way. And learning that truth is why the Master is diving off the deep end. It’s also what leads him to team up with the Cybermen, who by the way, are now operating with the ability to regenerate as well thanks to the Cyberium the Master absorbed.
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How frightening is a Doctor Who world where Cybermen never die?!
One of the most riveting moments of the finale is when the Doctor breaks free of the Matrix and takes in all the memories and knowledge she’s been faced with. How cool was it to see all the images of past Doctors?!
In an effort to save her human friends and humanity in general, the Doctor decides she will make a sacrifice, but Ko Sharmus shows up and takes her place as she makes a narrow escape before Gallifrey is blown to kingdom come.
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Finally, on her T.A.R.D.I.S, the Doctor heads back to Yorkshire but before she can even catch her breath, Judoon soldiers show up and arrest her, placing her in maximum security prison. And that’s where we leave things in the season 12 finale–on a freaking cliffhanger.
We have to wait until the holiday episode to find out how the Doctor will get out of this one, which by the way, is going to involve DALEKS! Exterminate! Exterminate!
Until the holidays, Whovians!