The Only Doctor Who Character Who Knows All about the Timeless Child
The Timeless Child is one of the most controversial story arcs in Doctor Who, and it’s probably not over yet.
The Thirteenth Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker, has found out that she is a lot older than she previously believed to be. In fact, she is not even a Time Lord or a Gallifreyan. Doctor Who season 12 has revealed that the Doctor is originally from another universe altogether.
When she was just a child, she was found stranded on a distant planet by Tecteun, an ancient Gallifreyan traveler. The Doctor’s genetic code was then used to create Time Lords, giving some Gallifreyans the ability to regenerate, which is why she is essentially the Timeless Child.
This claim was supported by another episode – Jo Martin’s Fugitive Doctor popped up to meet the Thirteenth in the same season. The Fugitive Doctor hasn’t exactly confirmed that she is a pre-First Doctor regeneration, but all signs point to it.
Her TARDIS looks a lot like William Hartnell’s design, and she refers to it as her “ship,” which is also something that the First Doctor used to do. Plus, the Fugitive Doctor has no clue about what a sonic screwdriver is, and this device was invented by Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor. Martin’s Doctor is definitely an earlier regeneration.
The Doctor has no idea what this all means, and she’s evidently missing huge chunks of her memory. The good news is – there is someone she can turn to if she wants to learn more about the Timeless Child, and she doesn’t even have to go that far.
The Doctor’s TARDIS holds all the answers to this mystery. In the season 6 episode The Doctor’s Wife, the TARDIS comes alive and unveils a few secrets by accident. Remember when she said that she archived old console rooms “for neatness” and revealed that she had “about thirty now”?
The TARDIS struggles to differentiate between the past and the future, which is why Matt Smith ’s Doctor and the audience are led to believe that she’s already archived some future console rooms. In light of the Timeless Child arc, it’s actually more likely that the TARDIS meant the console rooms of the previous regenerations that the Eleventh Doctor himself didn’t remember at the time.
The Doctor really should dig deep into the TARDIS’ archives if he wants to regain his memories of the olden days, that’s all we’re saying.