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| The Master reveals the Doctor's hidden history... |
NOTE:
I previously reviewed Ascension of the Cybermen and The Timeless Children as a single story. Given how different the focus is for each episode, and my very different overall response to each installment, I have chosen to re-review these as individual episodes before moving forward with the latest season. You can find my original review here.
THE PLOT:
Graham, Yaz, and Ravio (Julie Graham) continue to evade the Cybermen, led by the half-converted Ashad (Patrick O'Kane). Meanwhile, the Doctor has arrived at "The Boundary," a phenomenon separating this universe from a pocket dimension. The divide is guarded by Ko Sharmus (Ian McElhinney), an aging veteran who has stayed behind to guide other survivors to safety. When he shows the Doctor the divide, she is astonished at what's on the other side:
She has found the remains of Gallifrey, with the Master himself waiting eagerly to reveal his secrets! As the two Time Lords wander around the ruins of their society, the Master tells her about "The Timeless Child" - the lie upon which everything they knew was founded...
CHARACTERS:
The Doctor: Remains intensely protective of her friends. When the Master springs his inevitable trap, she appeals to whatever good may lie within him to help her friends. Unfortunately, this Master has no better nature, and he refuses with a smirk and then taunts her with her hidden past. Worn down over the course of the episode, she finally reaches the point of physically attacking him (well, his image at least).
Yaz: Has (finally) started coming into her own over the second half of this season, and this proves to be another strong story for her. When the group realizes that the Doctor is trapped on the other side of the boundary, they all agree that they should rescue her. But the barrier is strange and scary, leaving them all hesitating... except Yaz, who storms forward, heedless of all except the need to help her friend. Near the end, when the Doctor insists on facing the Master alone, Yaz is the one who protests the most: "We're not letting you go!"
Graham: Though much worse-used than in the previous episode, he does get one fine moment. As he and Yaz prepare to utilize a desperate disguise to escape the Cyber-ship, both realize there is a good chance their efforts will end in death or conversion. He takes a moment to tell Yaz how impressed he is with her in a lovely speech... which ends with a light punchline when Yaz responds.
Ryan: Appears to have taken the Doctor's warnings about weapons too much to heart, as Ko Sharmus has to convince him to take up arms against the Cybermen. "You can be a pacifist tomorrow; today, you have to survive." Ryan manages to take out one group of Cybermen... though in his celebration, he almost gets himself captured by a second group coming up behind him.
The Cybermen: Both Ashad and his Cybermen are greatly reduced. In the previous two episodes, Ashad in particular was an unstoppable threat - as relentless as he was vicious. Here, the Cyber-army is transformed into a handful of too-easily dispatched extras. Ashad survives to cross the boundary, where he makes a deal with the Master... leaving him as nothing but the Master's henchman for the remainder of the story. Oh, and the final appearance of the new race of "Cyber Lords" is just laughable; I hope this particular Cyberman variant never appears again.
The Master: Sacha Dhawan's Master reminds me of Anthony Ainley's early appearances in the role, before he descended into camp. Much like Ainley in Logopolis, this is a Master who has been battered and broken, his surface urbanity now only a thin veneer covering utter insanity. Like the Ainley Master in Castrovalva, he isn't content with merely defeating the Doctor - He needs the Doctor to experience the same revelation that broke him.
Dhawan's chemistry with Jodie Whittaker is tangible. He coaxes a raw quality out of Whittaker, leaving her more exposed and vulnerable than we've seen elsewhere. At the same time, he becomes twitchy (well, twitchier) and off-balance at the mere sight of her. Twice in the episode, he proves himself willing to die as long as he gets to "win." I'd go so far as to argue that his entire goal here is to make the Doctor angry enough to put him out of his misery. I have many problems with this episode; the dynamic between this Master and this Doctor is definitely not one of them.
OF RETCONS AND REVELATIONS:
The Timeless Children is an indisputably significant story. Whether you love its revelations or hate them, it is an episode deliberately targeted at changing everything we thought we knew: about the Time Lords, about Gallifrey, about the Doctor, and - I suspect - about the Master as well (there are clearly some revelations still to come). It is not really a conclusion to Chibnall's overall Doctor Who narrative, but rather a turning point. Which I suspect means that how Chibnall's choices are ultimately regarded will depend on what comes next.
I said much the same about Steven Moffat's decision to save Gallifrey in The Day of the Doctor - that whether I thought it was good or bad would come down to what he did with them. The answer in that case ended up being... well, Hell Bent and not much else. In this case, at least, I'm pretty sure Chibnall will actually do something with the pieces he's set up here.
The revelations have been carefully devised. Chibnall delivers a massive retcon; but by making both the Doctor and (most of) the Time Lords ignorant of this hidden history, he has avoided any direct conflict with previous episodes and managed to neatly fold together the seemingly irreconcilable stances of Hinchcliffe/Holmes's The Brain of Morbius and The Deadly Assassin and Terrance Dicks's The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors.
None of which is enough to actually make The Timeless Children a good episode...
A TWO-PARTER THAT SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN:
The Timeless Children was made not just as the finale to Series 12, but as the second half of a two-parter, paired with Ascension of the Cybermen. I believe this was a mistake. It rapidly becomes clear that this episode has no use for the Cybermen plot. As a result, the previously formidable metal foes are brushed aside too quickly and far too easily, clearing away this distraction from the Doctor/Master material.
In my opinion, Part One should have ended with the Doctor defeating the Cybermen at the Boundary - perhaps by using the very same Doomsday Device (TM) that does the job at this story's climax, with her and her friends jumping through the Boundary to avoid the explosion. The cliffhanger could then have been the Master waiting for them in the ruins of Gallifrey... leading into this episode, now free to fully focus on the Doctor/Master confrontation.
By making it into a 2-parter, Chibnall has damaged both parts: an excellent Cyberman story is denied a satisfying conclusion; and the Master's machinations are left feeling undercooked because time that might have been used to better develop his plan is instead devoted to tying off the previous episode's story.
THE INFODUMP:
The Timeless Child flashbacks are beautifully shot and well-edited, particularly as we are shown how Brendan's tale fits into the larger whole. Sacha Dhawan's delivery of the Master's narration is often compelling, and Jodie Whittaker's reactions show how each and every bit of new information shakes the Doctor to her core.
But it still amounts to an extended infodump, and this stalls any momentum the episode might have built. I've complained before that Chris Chibnall tends to tell when he should show, and this episode is the apotheosis of this. The Timeless Children's grand revelations are delivered as pure exposition, and quite a lot of it.
This shouldn't have been necessary. Fugitive of the Judoon revealed the existence of hidden Doctors, and did so with a fantastically effective visual flourish in a story that didn't stop moving for a second. Other pieces of information could have been similarly parceled out in other episodes. To pick an obvious choice: Can You Hear Me? involved hidden fears and memories; why wasn't some of this information divulged in that story? It would have given that interesting but flawed episode further weight, and at the same time would have relieved some of the expositional burden from this finale.
As I said above, my verdict on the Timeless Child concept will depend on what is done with it. But even if Chibnall somehow manages to stick that landing, I will still find the manner in which this episode unveiled it to be both clumsy and artless.
THE CLIMAX:
Speaking of sticking the landing... My confidence in that is not helped by me finding this episode's single weakest scene to be its climax.
The first half of the scene actually works. The Doctor's plan is to use the story's Doomsday Device to save the universe by blowing up the Master, herself, and the purely robotic remnants of the Cybermen all in one go. And the Master is fully on board with this. He believes he will "win" if she becomes the kind of "ends justify the means" killer that she's tried so hard not to be. Meanwhile, the Cybermen stand by like the robots the Master's reduced them to, commanded by him not to shoot. All of this is tense, well-acted, and beautifully shot.
And then a guest character shows up to relieve the Doctor of her horrible burden, and the scene implodes. Not only does it feel like a cheat, it's genuinely badly executed.
The guest character appears at the edge of the room and takes several seconds to walk to the Doctor to take the device from her. During this time, there is nothing stopping the Master from either using his patented Shrink Ray or ordering the Cybermen to just shoot the new arrival, either of which would restore the previous stalemate. Nor is there any reason for the Master not to do so. Is he willing to die in order to make the Doctor lose? Of course. Is he willing to die in order to let Random Guest Character 27 go out in a blaze of glory? Er... I wouldn't particularly tend to think so, no.
OVERALL:
I think there are legitimate dramatic possibilities in this episode's big reveal. Even so, it was unveiled almost exclusively via expositional infodump. The story itself is harmed by the need to tie off the previous episode's Cybermen plot, and the ending confrontation dissolves into a ridiculous "Noble Self Sacrifice" cliché.
In short, for the second season in a row, Chris Chibnall has delivered a finale that doesn't quite work. Give this story outline to either Steven Moffat or Russell T. Davies, and I suspect they'd have left me slack-jawed, staring at the screen, digesting everything for weeks. In Chibnall's hands, I find myself instead picking over its flaws, trying to puzzle out how the same basic story could have been made to work much better.
Overall Rating: 4/10.
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