Doctor Who – The Timeless Child

By: Ellie Dolan-Yates

At the Boundary we see The Master (Sacha Dhawan) persuade (well, blackmail) The Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) into taking his hand and crossing the Boundary to Gallifrey with him. Ryan (Tosin Cole) says that they need to go after The Doctor, but the Cyber Carrier appears above. In the warship the Cybermen are after the humans. Bescot (Rhiannon Clements) stays behind to cover the others, but is sadly caught by one of the Cybermen. As Yedlarmi (Alex Austin) wonders how they are going to survive under surveillance on a ship full of Cybermen, Graham (Bradley Walsh) announces that he has an idea. They’re going to hide in the Cybermen’s armor!

The Master and The Doctor land on a desolate Galiffrey. The Master takes the Doctor to the ruined Citadel where he calls to the Cyber Carrier. The Master tells Ashad (Patrick O’Kane) to come through The Boundary as he’s got a planet going spare. Ashad can achieve something the Cybermen could have only ever dreamed of – land in the ruins of Gallifrey. He also tells Ashad that there are three humans left at The Boundary. Ashad sends three execution units to the surface before heading for Gallifrey.

As Ravio (Julie Graham) and Yedlarmi tamper with dormant Cybermen, Graham and Yaz (Mandip Gill) have a heart-to-heart. Graham tells Yaz that she’s the best person he’s met. She doesn’t have a sonic screwdriver or a time machine, but she’s always brave and never beaten. He tells her that she’s doing her family and the whole human race proud. A tearful Yaz tells Graham that he’s not such a bad human himself. Ashad is alerted to the fact that the surveillance footage has malfunctioned and goes after the humans. He finds them and sniffs the armor as the humans inside try not to breathe. After hearing a clang, Ashad is distracted and goes to open another pod. Luckily, the ship reaches Gallifrey and Ashad leaves.

Down below Ko Sharmus (Ian McElhinney) shows Ryan and Ethan (Matt Carver) his weapon store – i.e. a couple of guns and a bomb in a tent. As they take cover ready to fight the Cybermen, Ko Sharmus tells Ryan and Ethan to gird their loins. Not that either of them knows what this means. As the Cybermen attack, Ko Sharmus manages to kill a few before they notice him and start to shoot. Ryan throws a bomb toward a group of marching Cybermen, blowing them up. As he is celebrating being the reason the humans defeated the Cybermen, he’s shot at. Ko Sharmus gives Ethan and Ryan a gun each and tells them to hide well. Despite his best efforts to hide, the Cybermen capture Ethan and give Ryan and Ko Sharmus ten seconds to surrender. Ryan and Ko Sharmus appear to be too late as they hear shots fired only to find Ethan alive surrounded by dead Cybermen, four still alive behind him. As Ryan points his gun towards them, Yaz removes her helmet. Graham struggles to get his “hat” off.

The Master explains to The Doctor that he got lost in the Chamber of the Matrix, which holds every memory of the Time Lords – living or dead – and found out the truth. He uses a paralysis field on The Doctor and sends her into the Matrix to find out for herself. The Master shows The Doctor the story of Tecteun (Seylan Baxter) who was the first of the Shobogans, Gallifrey’s indigenous race, to develop space travel. One day she came across a boundary into another universe and stood beneath it was a child. Tecteun rescued the child and cared for it as her own. Once when the child was playing it fell from a cliff. Following this, they regenerated which was the first regeneration of any person on Gallifrey. The Cybermen arrive, which interrupts The Master as he goes to greet Ashad.

The Master tells Ashad that they have a common interest and Ashad replies that he has a death particle inside of him which is capable of destroying all organic life when activated. The Master points out that Cybermen are part organic, but Ashad says they have been purged from organic parts. The Master tells Ashad he’s a bit disappointed that his plan basically means they’ll be an army of robots and any idiot can become a robot. The Master explains that he can facilitate them becoming the dominant force in the universe. The Master goes with Ashad to the Cyber Carrier but keeps his mind with The Doctor to tell her more about the truth of Gallifrey.

Continuing the story, The Master shows The Doctor how Tecteun studied her child for years over several of their regenerations until she finally understood the regeneration process and tested the theory on herself. As Gallifrey evolved, the Shobogans grew in knowledge and ability and discovered how to travel through time as well as space. Tecteun ruled and proposed that the genetic ability to regenerate be spliced into people for them to regenerate. However, the regeneration limit was set to twelve times. This was the birth of the Time Lords. The Master reveals that the child Tecteun found is The Doctor.

Aboard the Cyber Carrier The Master is like a child in a sweet shop. Ashad explains that the Cyberium won’t leave him whilst he lives so The Master uses his zapper thingy to turn Ashad into a miniature toy Cyberman. The Master expected the death particle to explode, but now it’s just a mini death particle in a mini Cyberman. The Master tells the Cyberium that if they put all Cyber knowledge and all Time Lord knowledge together they can rule the universe. The Cyberium chooses him as its host.

Back with The Doctor we listen as The Master tells her that her past was hidden from her. He’s angry that he only is who he is because of The Doctor. The Master shows her two Time Lords being told that intervention in other times and planets is prohibited. However, at times it is necessary and that is the purpose of The Division, but The Division does not exist. As this happens the scenes flicker to Brendan in Ireland. The memory then disappears as if the Time Lords have tried to hide it. The Master tells The Doctor that the images she keeps seeing from Ireland were hidden deep in the Matrix. Tecteun used a visual filter to make the memories look unremarkable, but they are clues to The Doctor’s past life. As The Doctor watches Brendan being electrocuted, she notices that the clock he received upon his retirement is engraved with “For Services to the Division.” The Master wakes her and tells her he’s kept the bodies of the Time Lords that he has killed and he has created a new race…of regenerating Cybermen! CyberMasters. The Doctor is left paralyzed as The Master retreats to finish building his army.

The humans, led by Yaz, cross The Boundary to find The Doctor who is now face-to-face with herself (Jo Martin), but she can’t tell if it’s the Matrix playing tricks on her. After talking to herself for a while, The Doctor realizes that she needs to literally blow her own mind to leave the Matrix. She holds her head as her past regenerations and a few old friends show. The memories blow the Matrix.

The humans find The Doctor who is happy to see her fam. The Doctor tells them about the CyberMasters. The Doctor explains that they need to leave, but Ravio tells her that they’re going to blow the Cyber Carrier up. The Doctor tells them to do so, but she needs more to stop the CyberMasters. The Doctor realizes that Ashad told her that the death of everything is within him, but she’s not sure what he meant. Ethan and Ravio explain that there’s a myth that Ashad holds the death particle. The Doctor has a plan…She just needs to get them all off of Gallifrey first. She fixes on The Master’s location as she sends Ko Sharmus, Ravio, Yedlarmi and Ethan to blow up the ship. Although, Ko Sharmuis accidentally sets the bombs off early.  After coming across mini Ashad, The Doctor communicates with The Master and they agree to meet in the Citadel alone…once The Doctor has got everyone off of the exploding ship of course.

The Doctor finds an old TARDIS for the humans to use to get them away from Gallifrey. She will take Ashad and the hand detonated timer to blow him up so that everything on Gallifrey is erased, including her. The fam plead with her not to do this, but they don’t win. The Doctor sets a course for the TARDIS to arrive on 21^st Century Earth. She tells them to live great lives. The Doctor goes to meet The Master who has brought some of his CyberMasters with him. The Doctor shows The Master that she is there to end everything, but The Master says he left Ashad for her on purpose to see if she had the guts to erase everything on Gallifrey forever. The Master encourages The Doctor to finish everything that she was the start of. As The Doctor hesitates, Ko Sharmus appears. He asks The Doctor to let him make sure the CyberMasters are gone. He says that he started all of this. He sent the Cyberium back through time and space, but obviously not far enough. He tells The Doctor that the universe still needs her. The Master pleads with The Doctor not to go and Ko Sharmus asks The Master if he’s still feeling confident. The Master orders his army to kill Ko Sharmus, which they do. However, with his dying breath he detonates the timer activating the death particle.

The fam and friends arrive on Earth as their TARDIS materializes in the form of a house. As Yaz wonders what has happened to The Doctor, she emerges from a tree back where she left her own TARDIS. She sits for a moment to think about everything that has just happened. There’s not long for it to sink in though before the Judoon appear to arrest her! They place The Doctor in a maximum-security facility in the middle of space.