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Hi! The theory got a brief outing in 2015. I mention it again:

1. Because I could never really let it go.
2. To see if anyone else found the development of Who from Series 9 onward not just profoundly disappointing but rather weird…

At the time I expected the clues to develop like the River/Amy story arcs, but… nothing…

So was there nothing there? Or was Moffat doing his meta thing; using what was happening to the show in the show? Jonathan Nathan Turner did this in Trial of a Time Lord and the Time War was apparently RTD’s comment on the cancelling of the show. Moffat addressed the centenary of WW1 in series 8 and annoyed very many people.

Series 9 started with talk of the hybrid (was it not his show anymore) and ended with Twelve having his mind wiped.

Goddamn it Moffat. What the dickens were you trying to say?

“The hybrid is Me!”

And, never mind the DNA, I would say to be human is NOT to be immortal.

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Permanent? The BBC do seem to have clawed everything back from the far reaches of the cable channels over the last 5 years. You would have thought there’s less chance of them letting it go again than Sky taking GoT off Sky Atlantic. But who knows?

I’ve gone for The War Games first up. Loving/Hating The War Chief vs The Security Chief: kind of Clint Eastwood opposite Lee Van Cleef but with all the stoopid dialogue very very intact and delivered very very slow and shoutily!

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Yeah.

I wondered if she was RTD’s PA threatening to send me a cease and desist letter. She certainly didn’t call me ‘dear’!

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Yes. Monica may be a problem, I’m afraid.

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Yes! This seems like a much better venue.

OK. Cut to the chase… The Timeless Child was horrific, and not in a dramatic way, but is it really enough just to put it down to Chibnall not being up to it? His skill set certainly didn’t help matters but I’m not totally down on the episodes he wrote before he was the show runner. They’re not remarkable but also NOT embarrassing.

The question is what was he trying to do at that point and why? This is a difficult one for me because I really don’t like engaging with that story. Was it simply a device to kill off the pesky Time Lords… again? Was it just is designed to dismiss a dubious quote from a tv movie at the flaky edge of canon?

You need to look at who is spouting the universe-altering exposition of The Timeless Child. The Master is mad enough to need a 10/6’ hat, and he’s even less likely than The Doctor to first destroy a cherry tree and then emulate George Washington. I think Russell can probably lay that plot aside and forget about it.

The Doctor’s mother however… aside from speculating on what’s going on in season 9, and why, The Girl Who Died plays some very curious cards. There are Twelve and Clara, trudging into the Viking village, and Clara immediately sees that Twelve recognises Ashildr.

“Too much time travel. It happens…<span class=”Apple-converted-space”>  </span>(premonition) it’s just remembering in the wrong direction.”

Well, we learn later that Ashildr becomes immortal. And in the next episode she’s become a bit bitter at the Doctor. They must have had a run-in some time… in the future.

Which brings us to Twelve talking baby. Curious that this should crop up again. Especially in relation to electric eels! This is not the strongest Moffat/Mathieson plot device. But strictly speaking the baby talk was Eleven in A Good Man… and then Closing Time. Both instances are well before Clara (though she’s been all over The Doctor’s time stream) but Twelve will have shown off, and it’s just as well Clara can explain because most of that scene really does sound like The Doctor’s paean to… who exactly?

Is Russell’s dismissal of Time Lord/human mixed heritage a problem if Ashildr is in fact a Mire hybrid? Never mind Twelve inheriting his face from The Fires of Pompei, wouldn’t he HAVE to help defeat the Mire, then resurrect Ashildr, if he wanted to avoid disappearing in a paradox?

The Woman Who Lived doesn’t do anything more than provide a few hints of where the narrative might go/have gone. Three cradles. Three young plague victims. Three is a significant number. The Cartmel plan was built about a legend of three wasn’t it? How interesting that in all Me’s volumes, Twelve should find THAT episode? Almost as if he was looking for it… and yeah, the kids are dead but then The Doctor knew all about Gangers in The Rebel Flesh didn’t he?

And Ashildr doesn’t like her original name but why choose THAT name? However it’s spelt. Knightmare. Nightmare.

Who then might be The (K)nightmare Child?

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Not sure if this the right place for this but…

…up until The Timeless Child I was kind of holding on by my fingertips. But that episode really did make me want to wipe my hands. So I fell off that particular cliff.

But hey Rusty’s back! Is it safe to come out now?
More importantly can we now talk about what really happened in the Chibnall era? And just as relevantly, what might have happened at the end of the Moffat era.
I’m thinking the reaction to Season Eight, the WW1 centenary narrative, the Soldier and the Officer, and most significantly all the cyber soldiers blasting off and exploding. Never mind ‘heaven’ turning out to be a nifty piece of Gallifreyan tech, you’re clearly a very naughty aetheist, Steven.

At that point did the authorities get interested (as in the 70s and 80s)? Did they take a look at and then balk at what Steven had planned for 2015? Too much older man/younger woman, too much funny godless stuff, too much continuity worship, too much meta writing. Enough! they said. Write it again!
But meta ran through Steven like a stick of rock. And he rather liked elements of his original story arc.

That was why The Girl who Died/Woman who Lived was so very odd; Ashildr was supposed to be the Doctor’s mother.
Discuss…

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