Doctor Who Hinted At The Timeless Child Twist In 2015
Doctor Who’s Timeless Child retcon was unwittingly foreshadowed during the Peter Capaldi era – but even the Doctor didn’t notice the setup.
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An amusing line of dialogue in Peter Capaldi’s tenure as the Doctor foreshadows Doctor Who’s controversial Timeless Child retcon. Current Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall had promised to change everything, and no one can fault his ambition; Doctor Who season 12 ended with the shocking revelation that the Doctor is not a Time Lord after all. Rather, she is the Timeless Child, a being who potentially predates the universe itself and whose power of limitless regeneration meant she became the base genetic code for every Gallifreyan who lived within the Citadel.
It’s one of the biggest changes in Doctor Who’s lore since 1969, when the Time Lords were first introduced, and it’s divided the fanbase. Some are keen to see it retconned away, others are willing to give it time to see what comes next; the general consensus is that this works surprisingly well with classic Doctor Who, but explicitly contradicts some of the characters arcs since the 2005 relaunch, most notably Matt Smith’s regeneration story. Still, there are occasional hints even within modern Doctor Who that may have pointed towards the Timeless Child reveal.
Take, for example, the 2005 Christmas Special “The Husbands of River Song.” This saw the Doctor’s old flame River Song go up against some villains who hoped to use her to get to the Doctor. River was entirely unaware she was actually working with the Doctor himself, because she’d never met Peter Capaldi’s incarnation before. In one scene, the villains of the episode discuss the Doctor, and they describe him as “a legendary being of remarkable power and an infinite number of faces.” This is clearly a reference to regeneration, but the key point is that the legends of the Doctor suggest there is no limit to the number of faces and forms he can take. The Timeless Child retcon means that comment can be true.
This throwaway line of dialogue was, of course, only intended to suggest the bad guys of “The Husbands of River Song” knew a little about the Doctor, but not all that much; writer and then-showrunner Steven Moffat had no idea about the coming Timeless Child retcon, which would establish the Doctor having an infinite number of regenerations. But, with the benefit of hindsight, it takes on new meaning as unwitting foreshadowing of a major coming plot twist.
It’s more than a little amusing to imagine the Doctor has been stumbling across evidence of the Timeless Child throughout her lives, but she simply assumed all the people who referred to her “infinite” regenerations were confused. It fits with a short story written by returning Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies in 2020, when he further rewrote the rules of regeneration and suggested the Doctor can change species, unlike Time Lords. One of Davies’ characters, Novice Hame, had conducted her own research on the Doctor. “I have heard so many stories about him over the years – his hundreds of faces and forms,” she wrote. “The men and women and animals who have taken that name. And yet the one who comes for me is so familiar. This one is mine.” Like the Doctor’s foes in “The Husbands of River Song,” Novice Hame knew more about the Doctor than the Doctor himself, and hopefully Doctor Who season 13 will continue this arc and show how it all joins together.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/doctor-who-timeless-child-retcon-river-song-setup/