The Doctor Who season 12 finale has far too many questions to answer. The twelfth season of Doctor Who is a short one, consisting of just 10 episodes. Showrunner Chris Chibnall has attempted to accomplish a lot over the course of those ten episodes, though; he’s introduced Sacha Dhawan as the latest incarnation of the Master, and a forgotten past incarnation of the Doctor, played by Jo Martin. He’s destroyed Gallifrey again, rewritten the show’s rules of time travel, and hinted the Time Lords have been concealing a dark secret all these years.
Chibnall certainly can’t be faulted for lack of ambition, but unfortunately Doctor Who season 12’s execution hasn’t always been great. The fundamental problem has been an over-dependence on third-act twists, which have frequently been quite poorly signposted. Some have worked - the Master’s unexpected appearance at the end of the season premiere was superb - but others have been lackluster. The canon twists especially have been hard to process, because Chibnall has deliberately avoided explaining how they fit into the established continuity. As a result, right now there’s a lot riding on the Doctor Who season 12 finale. Chibnall has promised it will answer some questions, while others will be developed over the rest of his tenure.
Entitled “The Timeless Children,” the season 12 finale has an extended 65-minute length. This was probably essential, just because of the sheer amount of plot threads Chibnall needs to tie up; but it raises the disturbing question of whether it’s possible for this to answer all the outstanding questions, while still being a good story. Let’s take a lot at everything “The Timeless Children” needs to do.
“The Timeless Children” Must Deal With The Cybermen
Chibnall has spent the last two episodes building up the threat of the Cybermen. It all began in “The Haunting of Villa Diodati,” which introduced the Lone Cyberman, the last survivor of the final Cyber War. Only partially converted, the Lone Cyberman was a creature of hatred and rage, passionately devoted to destroying humanity and restoring the Cyber Empire. He forced the Doctor into giving him the Cyberium, repository of all the knowledge and history of the Cybermen, and he’s used that to reactivate an army of Cyber Warriors. Several of the Doctor’s friends are now trapped on a Cybermen troop carrier, under attack from the Lone Cyberman and his forces. On the face of it, the Cybermen should stand at the center of the Doctor Who season 12 finale. Unfortunately it’s hard to divine how the cybernetic army could possibly connect to some of the other diverse plot threads, which raises the ominous possibility they’ll be dealt with at speed so Chibnall can pivot. While this would be in keeping with the general approach of season 12, it would be wholly unsatisfactory.
The Portal To Ancient Gallifrey
The last episode, “Ascension of the Cybermen,” ended with the Doctor confronted with a vision of Gallifrey. She had been attempting to take the last humans to safety, transporting them through some sort of cosmic wormhole. According to the wormhole’s guardian, this portal shifts through time and space, and has allowed humans to escape from the wrath of the Cybermen, going where they can never be followed. And yet, when faced with the Doctor, the portal opened on her homeworld of Gallifrey. It’s unclear whether the wormhole has been sending humans to Gallifrey all this time, or even whether this is Gallifrey of the present or the past. In another surprise twist, the Master emerged from the portal, which is particularly odd given he was stranded in another dimension, and really shouldn’t be on Gallifrey at all.
The Mystery Of The Timeless Child
The return of the Master neatly sets up the resolution of season 12’s major mystery, the Timeless Child. According to the Master, the Timeless Child is the dark secret at the heart of Time Lord history, systematically erased from all records. “They lied to us,” he told the Doctor, sounding mournful and shaken at whatever he had discovered. “Everything we were told was a lie. We are not who we think. You or I. The whole existence of our species - built on the lie of the Timeless Child.” Whatever the Master discovered, he reacted to it with absolute outrage and committed an act of genocide against his own race. Gallifrey was left in ruins, the Time Lords rendered all but extinct. In theory, the Doctor has spent the bulk of the last season investigating the mystery of the Timeless Child, but it hasn’t been advanced much; she’s received one slightly longer vision, apparently based on a race memory, but has otherwise drawn a blank.
This is clearly going to sit at the heart of the Doctor Who season 12 finale, given the episode bears the title “The Timeless Children.” That title alone suggests Chibnall is reframing the narrative, though, because up till now the Doctor thought she was trying to learn the truth about a single isolated individual. Instead, she’s not dealing with one child - she’s dealing with children, plural.
What Is The Truth About Brandon?
As if Chris Chibnall didn’t have enough to deal with, “Ascension of the Cybermen” introduced another unexplained plot thread; a character named Brendan. He was featured in a number of scenes that appeared to be set in 20th century Ireland, and was discovered by an adoring couple when he was abandoned as a baby. At first Brendan seemed to be just an ordinary human being, until the moment he was shot off the edge of a cliff - and got up inexplicably unharmed. The final Brendan scene in the episode revealed Brendan’s friends and family are conducting mysterious experiments upon him. At this stage, it’s impossible to say how Brendan figures into the overarching narrative; some have theorized he’s really the Lone Cyberman, others that Brendan is one of the Timeless Children.
Doctor Ruth
Finally, an earlier episode - “Fugitive of the Judoon” - introduced what appears to be a forgotten incarnation of the Doctor. She was hiding from the Time Lords on Earth, using an early version of the Chameleon Arch to transform herself into a human named Ruth. The episode strongly hinted this is a pre-Hartnell Doctor; her TARDIS interior bore a close resemblance to Hartnell’s, she shared Hartnell’s habit of referring to the TARDIS as her “ship,” and she didn’t know what a sonic screwdriver was. That last piece of evidence is especially significant, because the sonic screwdriver was created by Patrick Troughton’s Doctor. And yet, this flies in the face of almost all Doctor Who lore, which has consistently presented Hartnell’s as the First Doctor. It’s reasonable to assume Chibnall doesn’t intend to resolve this issue in “The Timeless Children,” instead viewing it as an ongoing mystery akin to River Song in the Matt Smith era, but he has suggested there’ll be some important clues.
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No single episode of Doctor Who has ever carried so much weight before. As noted, that’s a result of Chris Chibnall’s entire approach as a writer, because he enjoys mysteries and hasn’t really signposted resolutions to any of them. Hopefully the script of “The Timeless Children” will be stronger than some of the others in Doctor Who season 12, and will be able to both bear this weight, and be a strong and enjoyable episode in its own right.
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