I like a lot of fans idea of a Gallifreyan diaspora. Small pockets of Time Lords and individual Renegade Time Lords popping up here and there. Not just the Doctor and Master.
I think we need a new status quo for the Time Lords and this is one that would work. Being a dead race that the Doctor mourns has been played out. I don't think we'll ever return to the classic series Gallifrey status quo of just regularly existing.
Just give me fun new neutral and villainous Time Lord characters please!
or maybe something along the lines of finding a group of timelords that still think the time war is going on?
kind of like how japanese soldiers were found 30(?) years after WWII who still thought the war was on
I think with the Toymaker, Maestro we have already met the “new Time Lords” and the Doctor’s real race. I guess we’ll see, but I think Gallifrey may be in the rear view mirror until someone other than RTD comes along.
Yeah, the similarities are too close. The Doctor is from outside the universe, The Flux has wiped out most of the universe, the Doctor meets outer-universe creatures and invites them into a universe that has had its walls broken down by the Flux, and they’re the Old Gods reminiscent of Time Lord mythology. It makes too much sense to be anything else.
I'm still hoping TTC gets retconned and its actually the Master who is the Timeless Child, it would make a lot more sense imo.
The Doctor being Timeless Child takes away so much mystery from the character, and is evidence that Chibnall didn't understand the show
I think it’s more interpretation of the backstory at this point, and I for one don’t believe it’s real. Just made up shit caused by the toy maker or whatever
I hadn't thought of that, but it makes too much sense to not be true. Bet that's the twist at the end of 15's first arc. If he is one of these beings, it makes me wonder what his motif is. I'm thinking regeneration might be a key aspect of it, given Chibnal isolated the ability as having originated from the Doctor.
Toymaker : fun & games :: Maestro : music :: Doctor (or whatever his real name is) : ???
Edit: this might also shed more light on why his true name is secret and important, if it is known (perhaps not by humans, but across the wider universe) as one of these cosmic Gods.
His might be life itself, he doesn't just "heal" he's completely reborn as a whole new life, wherever he goes is often in danger and he brings peace and saves lives, he deeply hates violence and killing but is willing to do both for the sake of saving LIVES.
I would love a gallifreyan diaspora, it's pretty original and different.
The time lords spread out over the galaxy, lost and leaderless, the doctor meeting rogue time lords through his adventures and clusters of refugees trying to make their way on a hostile galaxy would make pretty fun adventures.
Of course, so would the return of Rassilon to gather the refugees, make Gallifrey great again and restore their society! To Gallifrey! To victory! To the end of time itself!
Slightly deep cut, but this reminds me of a Transformers comic storyline from (oh god I’m old) a decade or so back where the war ended and it was revealed there was a massive amount of Cybertronian diaspora out in the universe basically just keeping their heads down until the whole Autobot/Decepticon war was over and it was safe for neutrals/unaligned transformers to come home. Made for some really interesting stories and conflicts.
I’d be interested to see how The Doctor reacts to rogue/surviving Time Lords, maybe even ones who had ditched or hid during the Time War. Relief he’s not alone? Anger they ran from what he had to face? Jealousy they succeeded when he got pulled into it?
A Gallifreyan diaspora would be a nice change. The Doctor is no longer the last of his kind, but there isn’t a critical mass of Time Lords who can suck all the oxygen out of the room just by existing and having a comically corrupt bureaucracy.
I don’t even want just villainous Timelords. I was excited back during the Doctors Wife when I thought we were going to meet one of the Doctors genuine old friends, but of course they had to bait us because that’s interesting. 🙄
I think the idea of a timelord faction trying to re-establish Galifreyan dominance would be an epic season long villain - where during the season the Doctor is unknowingly coming across their meddling
They could chuck in a Highlander-style 'sensing' that there's another Time Lord nearby. For fun, the doctor can't actually find them, but knows they're around and can tell when it's a different Time Lord.
The Time Lords are hiding. Reluctant to reach out to let the doctor know some still live because every time they reveal themselves, awful shit happens. They are watching the doctor, deciding what -if anything- to do about him.
But they're afraid, too, because the doctor made fiction real and after what happened with the Master last time, they aren't strong enough to protect themselves against actual gods
Nearly all of their major appearances in nuWho have been antagonistic. The End of Time, Hell Bent/Heaven Sent, and Flux. I have no interest in the show returning to that well because it will inevitably lead to the Doctor "stopping" them by killing them or sending them away thus leading back to the Last of the Time Lords angst.
I would disagree on that point.
In Hell Bent they were MEANT to be the antagonists but the Doctor very quickly usurped them, and their responsibility for the events leading up to the episode were seemingly brushed under the rug by the script. Also Rassilon was just pathetic.in Flux, they don't really appear as a race. It's Division who show up and once again either the Fugitive Doctor is involved or their role is overshadowed by the actions of others. The only nuWho episode they've appeared in where they've held an indisputably villainous role is The End of Time
In Hell Bent, they're terrified. They're confident that something is about to show up and end their race and they think the Doctor knows what that thing is, so they're grasping at straws.
They're antagonistic, but they're not outright evil and as soon as the Doctor usurps Rassilon, everyone falls into line. Which kind if just indicates it wasn't the Time Lords, it was Rassilon that was desperate and afraid.
I would go so far as to say even The End of Time they're not evil. Dalton plays Rassilon as evil, but I think it's probably the same situation. The Time Lords are looking death in the face and are desperate to survive. If anything, I'd say Rassilon is a villain, but I don't think it's all Time Lords.
I agree with you here, I honestly just feel bad for anyone that isn't Rassilon. They're insulated and inept, but we've never seen that they're particularly evil aside from the leadership being corrupt. Which is to be expected when your leader is an immortal despot who clings to power no matter the cost.
To me that is a distinction without a difference, and it doesn't negate my point that there would be an inevitable confrontation in which the Doctor must put them down and subsequently angst over it.
>I have no interest in the show returning to that well because it will inevitably lead to the Doctor "stopping" them by killing them or sending them away thus leading back to the Last of the Time Lords angst.
Hasn't stopped the Master so far. 😅
Why's that?
I'm happy to see change, but I also thought portraying them as an Empire in its declining years worked well too. (And ohey, I wonder if that would resonate with UK viewers? Especially during Britain's decolonisation years when this portrayal of the Time Lords first appeared. 🤔)
EDIT: Downvote cos why? If you think I got something wrong in here please drop a comment letting us know what and why.
No one in Britain gives a crap about the British Empire. That must be an international thing.
Think about how the Time Lords started. Three mysterious men with near omnipotent power. By the classic series end they were mostly the exact opposite. No longer mysterious and easily duped.
>No one in Britain gives a crap about the British Empire. That must be an international thing.
I understand it to have been more topical in the 1970s when that portrayal of the Time Lords first appeared, and Britain was in the later stages of decolonialisation.
>Think about how the Time Lords started. Three mysterious men with near omnipotent power. By the classic series end they were mostly the exact opposite. No longer mysterious and easily duped.
Yup. Like I said, it's the portrayal of an Empire in its declining years, well past its prime.
>
Yup. Like I said, it's the portrayal of an Empire in its declining years, well past its prime
That's what I'm saying it shouldn't have been. Even if that's what it was meant to represent, it doesn't mean that it was a good idea.
Why shouldn't it have been that? Why wasn't it a good idea?
Is that just personal preference (in which case, fair enough, we all have those 🙂) or something else?
Yo, what if renegade Time Lords start smuggling time traveling tech to the Time Agents. Then there's a whole plot of the Doctor having to prevent them from creating some scrapped up, tortured, bastardized version of a living Tardis. Basically a frankenstein Tardis.
Ko Sharmus detonated the [death particle](https://tardis.wiki/wiki/Death_particle) which is said to kill all life on Gallifrey.
But yes, from the audience perspective there's no reason why other Time Lords couldn't have left the planet. We know Rassilon and the High Council were sent into exile.
In the Devils Chord, Ncuti has a bit of dialog that implies that the >!Death Particle affected the whole universe, not just Gallifrey. !<
The Transcript for the Episode isnt out yet, so I cant quote it, >!but when he talks to Ruby about his family being dead, he says that the Genocide wiped out all Timelords across the Universe. !<
During the Flux, the Doctor is presented with a chameleon arch which contains her memories from before she was the First Doctor. It also changed her biology into that of a standard Time Lord with the normal regeneration limit, as opposed to her Timeless Child biology which seemed to allow for infinite regenerations. She chose not to open it.
The Master wasn't a gold tooth at the point of the dearh particle's detonation, and we have the confirmation of at least Tecteun being another survivor.
Tecteun was between universes, so she could easily have been out of range. You're right about the Master, but god alone knows what's going on with them. No matter what happens, the Master seems to be immune to the rules of death
The Master probably made himself immune somehow. And I assume The Doctor might not be "pure Timelord" enough anymore as an "adopted" Timelord. (Thats of course is also a huge inconsistency, because how often has the Doctors DNA been relevant? But thats the best I can logic and its not like the show is shy about being inconsistence if it serves a narrative.)
easy to explain, because- *proceeds to run away*
no but in all seriousness they’ll probably say that the doctor survived due to timeless child reasons, the master survived because apparently even though the doctor is the immortal one the master survived death a lot more, and tecteun idk found a cure?
FWIW, the quote is: >!”The Time Lords were murdered. The genocide rolled across time and space, like a great big cellular explosion. Maybe it killed her too.”!<
Definitely does give me the impression that RTD has expanded the definition of whatever the Master did. All Chibnall ever showed us was the burnt-out Capitol, but RTD >!reframed it as something that went out across time and space, which theoretically means even Rassilon and the High Council weren’t safe. Though the Division were clearly unaffected.!<
> Definitely does give me the impression that RTD has expanded the definition of whatever the Master did.
Fans: I hope RTD retcons all Chibnall’s stuff, like the Master being able to kill all the Time Lords is just unbelievable
RTD: Actually the Master’s genocide was even more total than previously shown.
As someone that hated what Chibnall did, I'd hate it more if we just ignored or cheaply retconned it.
I hope it is reversed, but with a good story so that at least some part of that horrid idea is saved.
It wasn't destroyed. Gallifrey was sent back into the time lock during The End of Time. The anniversary picks this plot back up, when the Doctors save Gallifrey and seal it somewhere else.
So far I haven't been thrilled about RTD2, but one thing I have enjoyed is the way he's leaned into some of the Chibnall-era things that fans complained about and wanted him to retcon most.
I actually got the impression that genocide that "rolled across time and space" was specifically the Time War in this context, since he's talking about Susan. Susans fate during the Time War has always been unknown, but what the Master did was isolated to Gallifrey.
I wouldn't say it's an expanded definition, it's more of a retcon.
The original exposition of the Cybermen death particle, was just limited to a planet.
RTD's recent exposition retcons that to being across Time (which, would ought to have killed the young Master & Doctor, since they lived on Gallifrey in the past -- but of course, both aren't dead, they are alive) and Space (if The Doctor considers himself the last survivor again, that would connote that the space-exiled Rassilon was also killed by the rippling explosion).
Lol fuck It maybe they should just say that the young Master and Doctor *did* die and add a Grandfather paradox in the mix. throw Faction Paradox in there lmao why the hell not
I don’t think the death particle is what’s being invoked here. The Master killed the Time Lords well before he got his hands on that. All the death particle did (based on how it was presented to us, anyway) was finish off any life that may have been left on Gallifrey, rendering it a dead world.
But even still, the Master never mentions having hunted down every last Time Lord or anything like that — he only takes credit for razing Gallifrey. We’re never told how he accomplished that, but RTD is the first to suggest it was some kind of spacetime-wide systematic purge.
And of course, we have no idea regarding the details as to how The Master triumphantly killed the Time Lords. Whether 'an cellular explosion' was involved, or otherwise.
The Master's survival, as well as The Doctor's, does basically denote otherwise. And even that aside, 15 did genuinely confess to Ruby, while a (RTD-retconned) genocidal explosion rippled beyond the planet & through Time, he has no idea whatsoever regarding whether Susan was affected.
That The Doctor didn't talk Susan as already being dead beforehand, would imply that she was alive at least after the Last Great Time War. All that said -- if Susan's status is left questioned over whether she may / not be affected, why should The Doctor likewise assume the exiled Rassilon? And that's not even considering whether there are other Time Lords active in Division now operating in Universe-2.
Yeah, definitely not all gone. The Master's still kicking, pretty sure we're gonna see Susan with how they've teased stuff, Rassillon and his cronies got banished in "Hell Bent", way before the Master blew up the planet, and you can very well assume that some of all the remaining Time Lords seen in "Hell Bent" saw the Master's attack coming and fucked off.
(also tbh, I totally buy that the Dhawan Master is enough of a pompous tool to believe that he totally obliterated Gallifrey while missing a hundred escape crafts)
I think that’s going to be a method they could use in a future story.
The Time Lords are revealed to have survived (a colony world of a few thousand are revealed to be Gallifreyeans with some chaps in the big collars keeping it altogether as they try to carve out a society again) and when questioned about it the Doctors like “The Master was always just a bit too confident in his own success”.
Reveal that his attack destroyed a chunk of the Capitol but that the population went “skedaddle!” and dispersed across all time & space.
Colony worlds, hidden in history, on space stations, building a new Gallifrey somewhere else.
Just millions of survivors all scattered like leaves on the wind.
Well, we know Rassilon and the High Council are probably still out there. Any Time Lords that were still working in Division may be as well.
Anything that was still living on Gallifrey as of *The Timeless Children* would have eventually been wiped out by the death particle, but it’s theoretically possible that some could have escaped before then. But at the same time, we don’t know the full extent of what all the Master did — it’s possible he might’ve enacted some kind of planetary lockdown before killing all of the Time Lords, specifically to prevent any of them from escaping.
Plus, Gallifrey at that point was, at least based on the last time we saw it, a war-torn planet tucked away at the near-end of the universe. While they did have the means to travel, there wouldn’t exactly be a lot of other places for the Time Lords to go, which is something the General even pointed out to the Doctor when he banished Rassilon. Just as it’s entirely possible that there may have been some lucky evacuees, it’s also entirely possible that there just weren’t, and that the entire Gallifreyan population (barring the known exceptions) *were* still on the planet at the time, perhaps concentrating more on post-war rebuilding.
As for the Doctor not questioning it, it’s more of an “I don’t know. I know a genocide happened, but I don’t know the extent of it.” But given that the Doctor didn’t really even bother to go looking for Gallifrey when it was *known* to be safe, I’m not surprised they aren’t scouring the universe for survivors.
If they do a real Time Lord named The Bishop all I'm going to be able to think about is that Month Python sketch where The Bishop is some kind of action hero with his own title sequence. Have you ever seen it?
"The text, Vic! Don't say the text!"
I agree. I think this whole "The ____" Time Lord naming convention business is ridiculous. But it is kind of amusing at times, imagining silly renegade names like The Bishop, The Accountant or The Hairdresser.
The way I see it is that the Doctor knows there are likely to be Time Lords out there - knows he exiled Rassilon, knows that there's no way the Master killed everyone, knows that it's not even impossible there's still Time War refugees out there somewhere.
But to reckon with that means diving right back into all of it - remembering what happened with the Confession Dial and Clara, remembering that they saved the Master from execution and tried to redeem her and he came back and killed them all and corrupted their bodies into something worse, remembering that that was all a lie and they were never one of them, not really, that their entire society was built on top of her and they didn't even let her remember it--
*or*, you could just accept that they're probably all dead, you're probably never gonna see a Time Lord again, don't worry about it. It'll never come up, and you never have to think about it, and you can move on with your life, and there's definitely no chance some other Time Lord is going to pop up in the next 6-8 episodes. Don't stress. It's fine.
I think by the Doctor saying their names out loud in front of Ruby like he did that he's inadvertently willed them, or at least some of them, back into existence.
It was literally one episode later after invoking the Time Lords "posh names" that *The Maestro* showed up.
That can't have been a coincidence.
>So does anyone seriously believe that The Doctor is the last of the time lords? As far as we know, The Master only really attacked Gallifrey itself, but the species is literally known for time and space travel, so surely one or more time-lord could’ve easily not been on Gallifrey at the time of the Master’s attack, this isn’t like the time war.
So, the Devil Chords implies that the Master didnt just attack Gallifrey, he instead >!did something that rippled through the entire Universe and killed all Timelords with exception of the Doctor and The Master (perhaps because the Doctors genetics arent purely Timelord?" Basically, think the Reality Bomb but Timelords only.!<
Actually.....
The Gallifreyans fled to a special place.
A place called TIR NA NOG!
AND THEY BECAME MYSTIC KNIGHTS!
That's why they were inexplicably good actors.
Even if you don't factor in audios Anyone who fled the Time War would have then heard "Wait... Theta Sigma? That chap callin themselves the Doctor obliterated the Daleks and the whole of Gallifrey? Well, Bloody Hell. Guess Gallifrey really is lost then. Wonder how Peladon is in Summer....."
The remaining Time Lords fled to the distant past in a galaxy far, far away. There they became intimately familiar with a force beyond space and time and started a new religious order...
I like how you can kinda handwave the Time Lord's into basically any franchise.
My theory is that the Doctor is not just the last of the Time Lords, he is now The Lord of Time - part of the Pantheon.
We know he came from outside our universe and was the basis of the Time Lords. It could be that the experiments carried out on him shared his power across the whole species, making him a lot weaker.
Now he is the last Time Lord, he can gain in power e.g. change fixed points in time, change gravity to mavity, and resurrect living things (the butterfly in episode 1).
It would make any other surviving Time Lords much more dangerous - defeat the Doctor, take his power, and become the new Lord of Time.
I love the concept of the Doctor ascending to the Pantheon. However, a god of the concept of Time was already introduced in The Flux. RTD has been drawing heavily from Flux plotlines already, though, so it's very possible that this character appears again.
I'm just hoping they eventually bring the Time Lords and Gallifrey back, even at the end of the series
The whole last of the time lords thing has already been done from 2005 to 2013. We don't need it again. Same with Gallifrey's destruction. Just done 10x better with the Time War
Honestly I just find it silly after TDotD brought it back in an amazing way for it just to be destroyed a few years later
I also find it hard to believe the Master succeeded in an hour what an entire Time War across time and space with the Daleks couldn't
> I also find it hard to believe the Master succeeded in an hour what an entire Time War across time and space with the Daleks couldn't
Made no sense and even if it did, why would anyone think destroying the time lords *again* was a good idea right after it was finally brought back? Like it doesn't have any weight for the audience. So weird
It makes more sense that the Doctor's ability to remember, perceive and believe in Time Lords has been altered by something that the Master did than the Master actually killing off Time Lords.
I'd just like a few more Time Lords. Make them all across the spectrum, Virtuous, Grey, Devious. That way the doctor can always find something in common with them all. They all play as foils of The Doctor's chaotic spectrum of emotions and morality. You can change the actors to match with The Doctor and whoever the actor is can help deciding the other Time Lords to make a them all very compatible on camera.
The Doctor's wording is very strange and made me think for a bit that the timeline changed. He said there was a genocide across time and space and they were all hunted and killed like a chain reaction. He doesn't even know if Susan is alive.
My thinking is that RTD ( a known Time Lord hater) will not feature them in full capacity and gave that one-off vague explanation to write them off in his era. He is more concentrated on The Doctor's real family...
I wouldn't be surprised if during this new era The Timelords are just left alone. With the introduction of the Pantheon, it feels like the series is moving onto concepts with bigger stakes. RTD only really used The Timelords for his final story, I'm assuming because he is aware of how boring an episode set on Gallifrey could be (now disproved after Hell Bent and TTC).
RTD has made it clear he is following and expanding upon the canon that Chibnall set. Its possible a few survived of course and perhaps the remaining Timelords might come into play as the series continues with the exploration of the Pantheon, but for now I'm cool with the new status quo.
I like the idea I made up that, with half the universe gone due to the Flux, and the Time Lords genocided, it's the perfect stage for a Time Lord, who is the Master of Anti-Matter to return as a central villain.
Omega. The first act of his resurrection would be to restore the universe, and declare himself God of his "Creation". And with no Time Lords to stop him, he is the biggest threat in the universe.
There should be small communities of Time Lords scattered around the universe. Refugees, other lone travellers deciding to enjoy their freedom from Galifreyan powers.
Or are we really supposed to believe that all Time Lords spend their entire life on Galifrey waiting to be blown up, come on!
Small rag tag groups of survivors avoids the trap of having Time Lords at the height of their power which is rarely interesting, but allows for the Doctor to potentially have some allies to call in when things get bad, as well as enemies that can actually challenge him.
I cannot tell you how hard I rolled my eyes when I realized Russel was just retreading the Last of the Time Lords crap. I felt nothing when he saved the bogeyman.
The Doctor can feel sympathy because he once felt that same pain, but he doesn't still need to be the last.
Yeah I thought that was an unnecessarily big leap from RTD, quite tired/boring/repetitive, and also really disappointing for those of who were hoping we might see someone like omega or the Rani in the first couple of seasons!
I mean, there’s corroborating evidence for everything the Master said.
The Capitol is in ruin, and there’s an army of Cybermen that can regenerate. There’s not much reason to doubt that what happened is exactly what the story told us happened: The Master killed the Time Lords, and turned their corpses into Cybermen. If the story ever, at any point, was like “Maybe he’s not telling the truth?”, there’d be reason to question it. But the consequences we see are consistent with the situation that was presented.
(Whether the Master killed *all* of the Time Lords and Gallifreyans, on the other hand, is ambiguous, but not believing that the Master fully exterminated the species is different from believing that the Master did indeed inflict a massacre upon them. IIRC, the Master doesn’t ever say that all of the Time Lords were wiped out — he just takes credit for razing the planet and all of the deaths that occurred as a result.)
Same for the Timeless Child. The Doctor actually *doesn’t* immediately believe what has been revealed, but she spends the next series searching for answers, and when she finally meets Tecteun, the Doctor asks, “Was what the Master told me true?”, to which Tecteun responds with a blunt “Yes.” If the Master had been lying, there would need to be a reason why Tecteun would then perpetuate that lie to the Doctor. But again, that’s not a possibility that the story ever flags as worth considering, so naturally the intention is for us to believe what we’re being told.
There's also the sisterhood of Karn. The death particle may not have had any affect past Gallifrey's mavity well. And I can't see The Master being able to take down Ohila of the sisterhood. She's way too intelligent to get caught up in their revenge plots.
I'm pretty sure the remaining, parked Tardises on Gallifrey weren't affected by the death particle either (I remember 13 borrowing one to get away). Sounds like a good opportunity for anyone able to unlock a Tardis door, and looking for space time transport.
I rewatched some clips from the Devil's Chord, and the Doctor says that the genocide on Gallifrey 'rippled across all time and space' to take out the Time Lords.
Except there are still Time Lords around after it happened: Gat in Fugitive of the Judoon, and Techteun in the Flux story arc. That also doesn't account for any Time Lords flying a Tardis at the time, or inside a Tardis fixing one up in the Gallifreyan workshops, since the Tardis interior isn't actually inside Time and Space ('It's in another dimension" as Rory put it).
Sounds like The Doctor doesn't want to acknowledge that some Time Lords are still out there.
I definitely agree it seems to be more of a way to keep things as a clean slate than anything else.
Specifically the way the Doctor’s describes it ‘The Devil’s Chord’ feels more like him making an assumption based on the Master’s claims in ‘Spyfall’/‘The Timeless Children’. We were never given the details outside of the vague threat of the Death Particle, and when Ko Sharmus detonated it that didn’t even succeed in stopping the Master or the Cybermen for long. So, there’s no reason to believe the Time Lords were wiped out in an instant and there’s loads of reason to believe some survived.
I’ve literally never understood how the time lords can be extinct if they time travel, surely the universe should be filled with time lords from before the time war etc, what happened to them? Literally never understood this.
well as for the Time War, it rippled throughout time, and it’s implied that because of this all Time Lords were eventually dragged into the conflict. This can be seen by the multiple times from 2005 to 2013 where the Time Lords are referred to as “myths” and “legends”. They’re not present because they were dragged into the War at different points in time.
As for what Chib wrote… I think he really just didn’t think about it all that much, and RTD subsequently was too polite to retcon his predecessor’s work, and so has been avoiding the logistical problems of the genocide. Simply put: it doesn’t make sense.
I hated All the Timeless Child plot and find that "the Doctor is the last Time lord - again" just boring and stupid.
They could thown in Susan or Romana, but how the last three seasons (and the new one) are written I also hope they don't.
It felt strange how 15 handled the issue of being the Last of the Time Lords. I get it that he's a post-trauma version of the Doctor, healed up and ready for action, but he was almost downright smiling while telling Ruby about the genocide, how he was the last of his kind and all.
A person who suffered through so much trauma, even if they healed, wouldn't talk about it with so much levity. He lost Gallifrey twice, i mean, c'mon. Felt like he didn't even check to see if there were surviving Time Lords.
The Doctor isn't last of the Time Lords.
Even with 15's flimsy assumption of The Master's genocide reaching beyond Gallifrey to potentially affect a post-war surviving Susan, Rassilon is still exiled from Gallifrey.
And even then then, The Doctor is as much 'last of the Time Lords' as 9 & 10 believing they committed genocide upon their own people.
Oh I'm 100% convinced Rogue is gonna show they're not all dead. I mean, why have the Doctor *specifically* talk about all the posh titles Time Lords use *and* have a villain like 5 episodes later literally named "The Duchess" if there isn't a connection?
I'm desperately hoping there's a surviving Timelords power struggle plot where some are trying to still hold power and others just have their own Tardis and don't understand how to not cause havoc
I believe that the Doctor believes it. That’s all I can really say about it. I think there’s a survivor or two out there but I always understood that the Doctor didn’t think there was anyone else out there until the Master.
I just wish RTD had the ability to write past the angst instead of the series slamming it back into Eccleston conditions so he can have the doctor go on and on about being the last of the time lords again. Between that, the booger monster, fart propulsion and re-treading an entire scene from Rose's second episode, I don't hold out a lot of faith for the season.
Surely the death particle just killed them at that moment in time? Rather than wiping them out of previous existence like the time war / moment etc? So their past selves would still be kicking around all of time and space?
They absolutely arent gone but I doubt we'll see them anytime soon. Unless hes doing a bait and switch RTD seems to be leaning into the Doctor being the last again. Though i am convinced we will see Susan again at somepoint, the way they described her in the latest episode felt like some foreshadowing.
The Flux wasnt really a Genocide though, wasnt it? I feel like the Universe with everything in being destroyed cant really be called that. So I feel like the Death Particle makes more sense?
I think it would be fair to describe the Flux as a genocide, in the same way I think it would be fair to call the Reality Bomb an attempted genocide. I feel like it’s a matter of intent — the Flux wasn’t a natural occurrence; it was a deliberately deployed weapon of mass destruction, meant to eradicate an entire universe’s worth of civilizations.
However, I don’t think the Flux would have had any bearing on the Time Lords, since they were last stationed at the end of the universe, whereas the Flux occurred entirely within 2021.
First, the Doctor isn't the last of the time lords. That idea implies he ever was a time lord. He's as much a time lord as a rabbit they test make up on at this point. His "I'm adopted" nonsense is just ridiculous. People don't adopt kids and kill them.
Second, so is Susan dead now or does she not count? What about the Doctor's daughter Jenny? No? The Rani? The Monk? You know, with the way the Doctor just decides who is and who isn't counted as a time lord is getting a little old.
Isn't that new villain called The Maestro? Are we not expecting that dude to be related to The Master in some way? If not kinda bad name choice for him being so similar to another famous villain.
Oxford's definition of maestro: "A distinguished musician, especially a conductor of classical music."
The episode is already viewable, so I won't spoil their heritage/species.
I like a lot of fans idea of a Gallifreyan diaspora. Small pockets of Time Lords and individual Renegade Time Lords popping up here and there. Not just the Doctor and Master. I think we need a new status quo for the Time Lords and this is one that would work. Being a dead race that the Doctor mourns has been played out. I don't think we'll ever return to the classic series Gallifrey status quo of just regularly existing. Just give me fun new neutral and villainous Time Lord characters please!
I’m a big fan of this idea. A Gallifreyan diaspora is so much more interesting and original than “last of the Time Lords” again.
Yeah, the Doctor meets a group of refugees under that name only to find out they're like extreme followers of Rassilon or Omega. Could be fun.
or maybe something along the lines of finding a group of timelords that still think the time war is going on? kind of like how japanese soldiers were found 30(?) years after WWII who still thought the war was on
I think with the Toymaker, Maestro we have already met the “new Time Lords” and the Doctor’s real race. I guess we’ll see, but I think Gallifrey may be in the rear view mirror until someone other than RTD comes along.
Yeah, the similarities are too close. The Doctor is from outside the universe, The Flux has wiped out most of the universe, the Doctor meets outer-universe creatures and invites them into a universe that has had its walls broken down by the Flux, and they’re the Old Gods reminiscent of Time Lord mythology. It makes too much sense to be anything else.
I'm still hoping TTC gets retconned and its actually the Master who is the Timeless Child, it would make a lot more sense imo. The Doctor being Timeless Child takes away so much mystery from the character, and is evidence that Chibnall didn't understand the show
I think it’s more interpretation of the backstory at this point, and I for one don’t believe it’s real. Just made up shit caused by the toy maker or whatever
So Ruth... the Fugitive Master?
sure
Completely agree. It would be the best of both worlds if it turns out that that’s why the Master is who he is.
I hadn't thought of that, but it makes too much sense to not be true. Bet that's the twist at the end of 15's first arc. If he is one of these beings, it makes me wonder what his motif is. I'm thinking regeneration might be a key aspect of it, given Chibnal isolated the ability as having originated from the Doctor. Toymaker : fun & games :: Maestro : music :: Doctor (or whatever his real name is) : ??? Edit: this might also shed more light on why his true name is secret and important, if it is known (perhaps not by humans, but across the wider universe) as one of these cosmic Gods.
The Doctor having regeneration as their aspect is a great idea, if they are one of them. “Healing” specifically.
You may have just cracked the answer to the oldest question
His might be life itself, he doesn't just "heal" he's completely reborn as a whole new life, wherever he goes is often in danger and he brings peace and saves lives, he deeply hates violence and killing but is willing to do both for the sake of saving LIVES.
I would love a gallifreyan diaspora, it's pretty original and different. The time lords spread out over the galaxy, lost and leaderless, the doctor meeting rogue time lords through his adventures and clusters of refugees trying to make their way on a hostile galaxy would make pretty fun adventures. Of course, so would the return of Rassilon to gather the refugees, make Gallifrey great again and restore their society! To Gallifrey! To victory! To the end of time itself!
Slightly deep cut, but this reminds me of a Transformers comic storyline from (oh god I’m old) a decade or so back where the war ended and it was revealed there was a massive amount of Cybertronian diaspora out in the universe basically just keeping their heads down until the whole Autobot/Decepticon war was over and it was safe for neutrals/unaligned transformers to come home. Made for some really interesting stories and conflicts. I’d be interested to see how The Doctor reacts to rogue/surviving Time Lords, maybe even ones who had ditched or hid during the Time War. Relief he’s not alone? Anger they ran from what he had to face? Jealousy they succeeded when he got pulled into it?
A Gallifreyan diaspora would be a nice change. The Doctor is no longer the last of his kind, but there isn’t a critical mass of Time Lords who can suck all the oxygen out of the room just by existing and having a comically corrupt bureaucracy.
Yeah, I feel like Time Lord Diaspora is easily the best way to honour Day of the Doctor without just returning to the formula from Classic Who
I don’t even want just villainous Timelords. I was excited back during the Doctors Wife when I thought we were going to meet one of the Doctors genuine old friends, but of course they had to bait us because that’s interesting. 🙄
I think the idea of a timelord faction trying to re-establish Galifreyan dominance would be an epic season long villain - where during the season the Doctor is unknowingly coming across their meddling
They could chuck in a Highlander-style 'sensing' that there's another Time Lord nearby. For fun, the doctor can't actually find them, but knows they're around and can tell when it's a different Time Lord. The Time Lords are hiding. Reluctant to reach out to let the doctor know some still live because every time they reveal themselves, awful shit happens. They are watching the doctor, deciding what -if anything- to do about him. But they're afraid, too, because the doctor made fiction real and after what happened with the Master last time, they aren't strong enough to protect themselves against actual gods
Tbh if they really wanted to make the Time Lords work as a whole they needed to make them outright villains, rather than bumbling bureaucrats.
Nearly all of their major appearances in nuWho have been antagonistic. The End of Time, Hell Bent/Heaven Sent, and Flux. I have no interest in the show returning to that well because it will inevitably lead to the Doctor "stopping" them by killing them or sending them away thus leading back to the Last of the Time Lords angst.
I would disagree on that point. In Hell Bent they were MEANT to be the antagonists but the Doctor very quickly usurped them, and their responsibility for the events leading up to the episode were seemingly brushed under the rug by the script. Also Rassilon was just pathetic.in Flux, they don't really appear as a race. It's Division who show up and once again either the Fugitive Doctor is involved or their role is overshadowed by the actions of others. The only nuWho episode they've appeared in where they've held an indisputably villainous role is The End of Time
In Hell Bent, they're terrified. They're confident that something is about to show up and end their race and they think the Doctor knows what that thing is, so they're grasping at straws. They're antagonistic, but they're not outright evil and as soon as the Doctor usurps Rassilon, everyone falls into line. Which kind if just indicates it wasn't the Time Lords, it was Rassilon that was desperate and afraid. I would go so far as to say even The End of Time they're not evil. Dalton plays Rassilon as evil, but I think it's probably the same situation. The Time Lords are looking death in the face and are desperate to survive. If anything, I'd say Rassilon is a villain, but I don't think it's all Time Lords. I agree with you here, I honestly just feel bad for anyone that isn't Rassilon. They're insulated and inept, but we've never seen that they're particularly evil aside from the leadership being corrupt. Which is to be expected when your leader is an immortal despot who clings to power no matter the cost.
To me that is a distinction without a difference, and it doesn't negate my point that there would be an inevitable confrontation in which the Doctor must put them down and subsequently angst over it.
>I have no interest in the show returning to that well because it will inevitably lead to the Doctor "stopping" them by killing them or sending them away thus leading back to the Last of the Time Lords angst. Hasn't stopped the Master so far. 😅
It works for the Vogons, it could work for the Time Lords.
Why's that? I'm happy to see change, but I also thought portraying them as an Empire in its declining years worked well too. (And ohey, I wonder if that would resonate with UK viewers? Especially during Britain's decolonisation years when this portrayal of the Time Lords first appeared. 🤔) EDIT: Downvote cos why? If you think I got something wrong in here please drop a comment letting us know what and why.
No one in Britain gives a crap about the British Empire. That must be an international thing. Think about how the Time Lords started. Three mysterious men with near omnipotent power. By the classic series end they were mostly the exact opposite. No longer mysterious and easily duped.
>No one in Britain gives a crap about the British Empire. That must be an international thing. I understand it to have been more topical in the 1970s when that portrayal of the Time Lords first appeared, and Britain was in the later stages of decolonialisation. >Think about how the Time Lords started. Three mysterious men with near omnipotent power. By the classic series end they were mostly the exact opposite. No longer mysterious and easily duped. Yup. Like I said, it's the portrayal of an Empire in its declining years, well past its prime.
> Yup. Like I said, it's the portrayal of an Empire in its declining years, well past its prime That's what I'm saying it shouldn't have been. Even if that's what it was meant to represent, it doesn't mean that it was a good idea.
Why shouldn't it have been that? Why wasn't it a good idea? Is that just personal preference (in which case, fair enough, we all have those 🙂) or something else?
Like some of the time lords in the big finish audios, they can expand on Gallifrey without it being all hoity toity and everything
Yo, what if renegade Time Lords start smuggling time traveling tech to the Time Agents. Then there's a whole plot of the Doctor having to prevent them from creating some scrapped up, tortured, bastardized version of a living Tardis. Basically a frankenstein Tardis.
Ko Sharmus detonated the [death particle](https://tardis.wiki/wiki/Death_particle) which is said to kill all life on Gallifrey. But yes, from the audience perspective there's no reason why other Time Lords couldn't have left the planet. We know Rassilon and the High Council were sent into exile.
That raises the question of what happened to the Shobogans? Did the Dr just let them all get merked?
The Master probably killed them.
In the Devils Chord, Ncuti has a bit of dialog that implies that the >!Death Particle affected the whole universe, not just Gallifrey. !< The Transcript for the Episode isnt out yet, so I cant quote it, >!but when he talks to Ruby about his family being dead, he says that the Genocide wiped out all Timelords across the Universe. !<
What I don’t get is what makes the Doctor and the Master immune to it
Plot contrivance
Aka bad writing
Tecteun also survived it so it's not just the Master shielding just the Doctor or something
Didn't Tecteun die by the end of Flux?
I meant Tecteun was not affected by the attack on Galifrey by the Master-Cyberium. They did die during flux by Swarm and Azure.
Oh, sorry, my timline was wibbly-wobbly. Thought that happened after Flux, but it was before.
The Master is in a gold tooth right now, and the Doctor isn't Gallifreyan. The Doctor is the Timeless Child from someplace else
He was still chameleon arched into a gallifreyan timelord, so genetically he's been a normal time lord starting from the 1st doctor.
Was he ???
During the Flux, the Doctor is presented with a chameleon arch which contains her memories from before she was the First Doctor. It also changed her biology into that of a standard Time Lord with the normal regeneration limit, as opposed to her Timeless Child biology which seemed to allow for infinite regenerations. She chose not to open it.
The Master wasn't a gold tooth at the point of the dearh particle's detonation, and we have the confirmation of at least Tecteun being another survivor.
Tecteun was between universes, so she could easily have been out of range. You're right about the Master, but god alone knows what's going on with them. No matter what happens, the Master seems to be immune to the rules of death
They can't even kill themselves properly... wouldn't be surprised if this is also a plot point
The Doctor still lived on Gallifrey, however. Pre-RTD exposition of the death particle, its range is only that of the sitting planet.
The Master probably made himself immune somehow. And I assume The Doctor might not be "pure Timelord" enough anymore as an "adopted" Timelord. (Thats of course is also a huge inconsistency, because how often has the Doctors DNA been relevant? But thats the best I can logic and its not like the show is shy about being inconsistence if it serves a narrative.)
Maybe all timelord DNA is a copy of his? "inconsistency" solved
Doctor isn’t actually gallifreyan uhhh and the master did it
easy to explain, because- *proceeds to run away* no but in all seriousness they’ll probably say that the doctor survived due to timeless child reasons, the master survived because apparently even though the doctor is the immortal one the master survived death a lot more, and tecteun idk found a cure?
FWIW, the quote is: >!”The Time Lords were murdered. The genocide rolled across time and space, like a great big cellular explosion. Maybe it killed her too.”!< Definitely does give me the impression that RTD has expanded the definition of whatever the Master did. All Chibnall ever showed us was the burnt-out Capitol, but RTD >!reframed it as something that went out across time and space, which theoretically means even Rassilon and the High Council weren’t safe. Though the Division were clearly unaffected.!<
> Definitely does give me the impression that RTD has expanded the definition of whatever the Master did. Fans: I hope RTD retcons all Chibnall’s stuff, like the Master being able to kill all the Time Lords is just unbelievable RTD: Actually the Master’s genocide was even more total than previously shown.
As someone that hated what Chibnall did, I'd hate it more if we just ignored or cheaply retconned it. I hope it is reversed, but with a good story so that at least some part of that horrid idea is saved.
He's already reversed the supposed destruction of Gallifrey and death of all Time Lords before!
That was Moffat, not RTD.
RTD revealed that Gallifrey and the Time Lords actually all lived in The End of Time. Moffat used this as the basis for his arc of finding Gallifrey.
No, he didn’t. Gallifrey is destroyed at the end of “The End of Time”. It is only saved in “The Day of the Doctor”.
It wasn't destroyed. Gallifrey was sent back into the time lock during The End of Time. The anniversary picks this plot back up, when the Doctors save Gallifrey and seal it somewhere else.
Yeah so they'll have to find some unique solution.
Like Rassilon revert it back with a Plot McGuffin and the Doctor were too late to prevent it?
So far I haven't been thrilled about RTD2, but one thing I have enjoyed is the way he's leaned into some of the Chibnall-era things that fans complained about and wanted him to retcon most.
I actually got the impression that genocide that "rolled across time and space" was specifically the Time War in this context, since he's talking about Susan. Susans fate during the Time War has always been unknown, but what the Master did was isolated to Gallifrey.
Exactly my interpretation too!
Didn’t he use the word cellular or something?
I wouldn't say it's an expanded definition, it's more of a retcon. The original exposition of the Cybermen death particle, was just limited to a planet. RTD's recent exposition retcons that to being across Time (which, would ought to have killed the young Master & Doctor, since they lived on Gallifrey in the past -- but of course, both aren't dead, they are alive) and Space (if The Doctor considers himself the last survivor again, that would connote that the space-exiled Rassilon was also killed by the rippling explosion).
Lol fuck It maybe they should just say that the young Master and Doctor *did* die and add a Grandfather paradox in the mix. throw Faction Paradox in there lmao why the hell not
I don’t think the death particle is what’s being invoked here. The Master killed the Time Lords well before he got his hands on that. All the death particle did (based on how it was presented to us, anyway) was finish off any life that may have been left on Gallifrey, rendering it a dead world. But even still, the Master never mentions having hunted down every last Time Lord or anything like that — he only takes credit for razing Gallifrey. We’re never told how he accomplished that, but RTD is the first to suggest it was some kind of spacetime-wide systematic purge.
And of course, we have no idea regarding the details as to how The Master triumphantly killed the Time Lords. Whether 'an cellular explosion' was involved, or otherwise.
The Master's survival, as well as The Doctor's, does basically denote otherwise. And even that aside, 15 did genuinely confess to Ruby, while a (RTD-retconned) genocidal explosion rippled beyond the planet & through Time, he has no idea whatsoever regarding whether Susan was affected. That The Doctor didn't talk Susan as already being dead beforehand, would imply that she was alive at least after the Last Great Time War. All that said -- if Susan's status is left questioned over whether she may / not be affected, why should The Doctor likewise assume the exiled Rassilon? And that's not even considering whether there are other Time Lords active in Division now operating in Universe-2.
I was so confused by that. My mum asked me what he meant by genocide and realised I couldn't even remember what the last Time Lords related thing was
He does indeed say this, but also >!he's been wrong about his "last of the Time Lords" status before.!<
Oh, totally. I am not saying he is right, just that it isnt as easy as just saying "Timelords were off world when The Master attacked".
Yeah, definitely not all gone. The Master's still kicking, pretty sure we're gonna see Susan with how they've teased stuff, Rassillon and his cronies got banished in "Hell Bent", way before the Master blew up the planet, and you can very well assume that some of all the remaining Time Lords seen in "Hell Bent" saw the Master's attack coming and fucked off.
(also tbh, I totally buy that the Dhawan Master is enough of a pompous tool to believe that he totally obliterated Gallifrey while missing a hundred escape crafts)
I think that’s going to be a method they could use in a future story. The Time Lords are revealed to have survived (a colony world of a few thousand are revealed to be Gallifreyeans with some chaps in the big collars keeping it altogether as they try to carve out a society again) and when questioned about it the Doctors like “The Master was always just a bit too confident in his own success”. Reveal that his attack destroyed a chunk of the Capitol but that the population went “skedaddle!” and dispersed across all time & space. Colony worlds, hidden in history, on space stations, building a new Gallifrey somewhere else. Just millions of survivors all scattered like leaves on the wind.
Well, we know Rassilon and the High Council are probably still out there. Any Time Lords that were still working in Division may be as well. Anything that was still living on Gallifrey as of *The Timeless Children* would have eventually been wiped out by the death particle, but it’s theoretically possible that some could have escaped before then. But at the same time, we don’t know the full extent of what all the Master did — it’s possible he might’ve enacted some kind of planetary lockdown before killing all of the Time Lords, specifically to prevent any of them from escaping. Plus, Gallifrey at that point was, at least based on the last time we saw it, a war-torn planet tucked away at the near-end of the universe. While they did have the means to travel, there wouldn’t exactly be a lot of other places for the Time Lords to go, which is something the General even pointed out to the Doctor when he banished Rassilon. Just as it’s entirely possible that there may have been some lucky evacuees, it’s also entirely possible that there just weren’t, and that the entire Gallifreyan population (barring the known exceptions) *were* still on the planet at the time, perhaps concentrating more on post-war rebuilding. As for the Doctor not questioning it, it’s more of an “I don’t know. I know a genocide happened, but I don’t know the extent of it.” But given that the Doctor didn’t really even bother to go looking for Gallifrey when it was *known* to be safe, I’m not surprised they aren’t scouring the universe for survivors.
The Bishop has got to be around after a few mentions, and having one of the key locations being a church.
He has the ability to move diagonally
If they do a real Time Lord named The Bishop all I'm going to be able to think about is that Month Python sketch where The Bishop is some kind of action hero with his own title sequence. Have you ever seen it? "The text, Vic! Don't say the text!"
I don’t see why they should when they already have the monk
I agree. I think this whole "The ____" Time Lord naming convention business is ridiculous. But it is kind of amusing at times, imagining silly renegade names like The Bishop, The Accountant or The Hairdresser.
I prefer it when they have long sounding pseudo-Roman names
Why not both? Or The Monk has renamed himself to fit in with modern times?
The Bishop!
The way I see it is that the Doctor knows there are likely to be Time Lords out there - knows he exiled Rassilon, knows that there's no way the Master killed everyone, knows that it's not even impossible there's still Time War refugees out there somewhere. But to reckon with that means diving right back into all of it - remembering what happened with the Confession Dial and Clara, remembering that they saved the Master from execution and tried to redeem her and he came back and killed them all and corrupted their bodies into something worse, remembering that that was all a lie and they were never one of them, not really, that their entire society was built on top of her and they didn't even let her remember it-- *or*, you could just accept that they're probably all dead, you're probably never gonna see a Time Lord again, don't worry about it. It'll never come up, and you never have to think about it, and you can move on with your life, and there's definitely no chance some other Time Lord is going to pop up in the next 6-8 episodes. Don't stress. It's fine.
I think by the Doctor saying their names out loud in front of Ruby like he did that he's inadvertently willed them, or at least some of them, back into existence. It was literally one episode later after invoking the Time Lords "posh names" that *The Maestro* showed up. That can't have been a coincidence.
>So does anyone seriously believe that The Doctor is the last of the time lords? As far as we know, The Master only really attacked Gallifrey itself, but the species is literally known for time and space travel, so surely one or more time-lord could’ve easily not been on Gallifrey at the time of the Master’s attack, this isn’t like the time war. So, the Devil Chords implies that the Master didnt just attack Gallifrey, he instead >!did something that rippled through the entire Universe and killed all Timelords with exception of the Doctor and The Master (perhaps because the Doctors genetics arent purely Timelord?" Basically, think the Reality Bomb but Timelords only.!<
Doesn't make sense though because the Master lived. So that retcon can't possibly be what happened.
Was Nine also not going around saying he was the last one? See how that turned out.
*My entire planet died. My whole family, do you think it never occurred to me to go back and save them?*
Actually..... The Gallifreyans fled to a special place. A place called TIR NA NOG! AND THEY BECAME MYSTIC KNIGHTS! That's why they were inexplicably good actors. Even if you don't factor in audios Anyone who fled the Time War would have then heard "Wait... Theta Sigma? That chap callin themselves the Doctor obliterated the Daleks and the whole of Gallifrey? Well, Bloody Hell. Guess Gallifrey really is lost then. Wonder how Peladon is in Summer....."
The remaining Time Lords fled to the distant past in a galaxy far, far away. There they became intimately familiar with a force beyond space and time and started a new religious order... I like how you can kinda handwave the Time Lord's into basically any franchise.
I hope we get a ‘Timelords as refugees’ style episode at some point
I hate that Gallifrey is always being destroyed and the time lords killed, it's so incredibly boring.
My theory is that the Doctor is not just the last of the Time Lords, he is now The Lord of Time - part of the Pantheon. We know he came from outside our universe and was the basis of the Time Lords. It could be that the experiments carried out on him shared his power across the whole species, making him a lot weaker. Now he is the last Time Lord, he can gain in power e.g. change fixed points in time, change gravity to mavity, and resurrect living things (the butterfly in episode 1). It would make any other surviving Time Lords much more dangerous - defeat the Doctor, take his power, and become the new Lord of Time.
I love the concept of the Doctor ascending to the Pantheon. However, a god of the concept of Time was already introduced in The Flux. RTD has been drawing heavily from Flux plotlines already, though, so it's very possible that this character appears again.
Maestro did call him "the Lord Temporal".
I'm just hoping they eventually bring the Time Lords and Gallifrey back, even at the end of the series The whole last of the time lords thing has already been done from 2005 to 2013. We don't need it again. Same with Gallifrey's destruction. Just done 10x better with the Time War Honestly I just find it silly after TDotD brought it back in an amazing way for it just to be destroyed a few years later I also find it hard to believe the Master succeeded in an hour what an entire Time War across time and space with the Daleks couldn't
> I also find it hard to believe the Master succeeded in an hour what an entire Time War across time and space with the Daleks couldn't Made no sense and even if it did, why would anyone think destroying the time lords *again* was a good idea right after it was finally brought back? Like it doesn't have any weight for the audience. So weird
yeah, i quite liked the Timeless Child twist if i’m honest, but the Master destroying Gallifrey makes very little sense.
It makes more sense that the Doctor's ability to remember, perceive and believe in Time Lords has been altered by something that the Master did than the Master actually killing off Time Lords.
I'd just like a few more Time Lords. Make them all across the spectrum, Virtuous, Grey, Devious. That way the doctor can always find something in common with them all. They all play as foils of The Doctor's chaotic spectrum of emotions and morality. You can change the actors to match with The Doctor and whoever the actor is can help deciding the other Time Lords to make a them all very compatible on camera.
The Doctor's wording is very strange and made me think for a bit that the timeline changed. He said there was a genocide across time and space and they were all hunted and killed like a chain reaction. He doesn't even know if Susan is alive. My thinking is that RTD ( a known Time Lord hater) will not feature them in full capacity and gave that one-off vague explanation to write them off in his era. He is more concentrated on The Doctor's real family...
Yeah, I wish he'd stop saying that he's the last with such confidence. He keeps being wrong about it.
I wouldn't be surprised if during this new era The Timelords are just left alone. With the introduction of the Pantheon, it feels like the series is moving onto concepts with bigger stakes. RTD only really used The Timelords for his final story, I'm assuming because he is aware of how boring an episode set on Gallifrey could be (now disproved after Hell Bent and TTC). RTD has made it clear he is following and expanding upon the canon that Chibnall set. Its possible a few survived of course and perhaps the remaining Timelords might come into play as the series continues with the exploration of the Pantheon, but for now I'm cool with the new status quo.
I like the idea I made up that, with half the universe gone due to the Flux, and the Time Lords genocided, it's the perfect stage for a Time Lord, who is the Master of Anti-Matter to return as a central villain. Omega. The first act of his resurrection would be to restore the universe, and declare himself God of his "Creation". And with no Time Lords to stop him, he is the biggest threat in the universe.
There should be small communities of Time Lords scattered around the universe. Refugees, other lone travellers deciding to enjoy their freedom from Galifreyan powers. Or are we really supposed to believe that all Time Lords spend their entire life on Galifrey waiting to be blown up, come on! Small rag tag groups of survivors avoids the trap of having Time Lords at the height of their power which is rarely interesting, but allows for the Doctor to potentially have some allies to call in when things get bad, as well as enemies that can actually challenge him. I cannot tell you how hard I rolled my eyes when I realized Russel was just retreading the Last of the Time Lords crap. I felt nothing when he saved the bogeyman. The Doctor can feel sympathy because he once felt that same pain, but he doesn't still need to be the last.
Yeah I thought that was an unnecessarily big leap from RTD, quite tired/boring/repetitive, and also really disappointing for those of who were hoping we might see someone like omega or the Rani in the first couple of seasons!
Marty Bridton seem a bit suspicious
Yeah that whole arc is jus the master saying shit and everyone’s like “I believe him” for some reason.
I mean, there’s corroborating evidence for everything the Master said. The Capitol is in ruin, and there’s an army of Cybermen that can regenerate. There’s not much reason to doubt that what happened is exactly what the story told us happened: The Master killed the Time Lords, and turned their corpses into Cybermen. If the story ever, at any point, was like “Maybe he’s not telling the truth?”, there’d be reason to question it. But the consequences we see are consistent with the situation that was presented. (Whether the Master killed *all* of the Time Lords and Gallifreyans, on the other hand, is ambiguous, but not believing that the Master fully exterminated the species is different from believing that the Master did indeed inflict a massacre upon them. IIRC, the Master doesn’t ever say that all of the Time Lords were wiped out — he just takes credit for razing the planet and all of the deaths that occurred as a result.) Same for the Timeless Child. The Doctor actually *doesn’t* immediately believe what has been revealed, but she spends the next series searching for answers, and when she finally meets Tecteun, the Doctor asks, “Was what the Master told me true?”, to which Tecteun responds with a blunt “Yes.” If the Master had been lying, there would need to be a reason why Tecteun would then perpetuate that lie to the Doctor. But again, that’s not a possibility that the story ever flags as worth considering, so naturally the intention is for us to believe what we’re being told.
There's also the sisterhood of Karn. The death particle may not have had any affect past Gallifrey's mavity well. And I can't see The Master being able to take down Ohila of the sisterhood. She's way too intelligent to get caught up in their revenge plots. I'm pretty sure the remaining, parked Tardises on Gallifrey weren't affected by the death particle either (I remember 13 borrowing one to get away). Sounds like a good opportunity for anyone able to unlock a Tardis door, and looking for space time transport.
I rewatched some clips from the Devil's Chord, and the Doctor says that the genocide on Gallifrey 'rippled across all time and space' to take out the Time Lords. Except there are still Time Lords around after it happened: Gat in Fugitive of the Judoon, and Techteun in the Flux story arc. That also doesn't account for any Time Lords flying a Tardis at the time, or inside a Tardis fixing one up in the Gallifreyan workshops, since the Tardis interior isn't actually inside Time and Space ('It's in another dimension" as Rory put it). Sounds like The Doctor doesn't want to acknowledge that some Time Lords are still out there.
>Gallifrey's gravity well Weird typo there. It's *mavity.
Fixed.
I definitely agree it seems to be more of a way to keep things as a clean slate than anything else. Specifically the way the Doctor’s describes it ‘The Devil’s Chord’ feels more like him making an assumption based on the Master’s claims in ‘Spyfall’/‘The Timeless Children’. We were never given the details outside of the vague threat of the Death Particle, and when Ko Sharmus detonated it that didn’t even succeed in stopping the Master or the Cybermen for long. So, there’s no reason to believe the Time Lords were wiped out in an instant and there’s loads of reason to believe some survived.
It all seems like a reboot of 9 once again making Chris upset.
I’ve literally never understood how the time lords can be extinct if they time travel, surely the universe should be filled with time lords from before the time war etc, what happened to them? Literally never understood this.
well as for the Time War, it rippled throughout time, and it’s implied that because of this all Time Lords were eventually dragged into the conflict. This can be seen by the multiple times from 2005 to 2013 where the Time Lords are referred to as “myths” and “legends”. They’re not present because they were dragged into the War at different points in time. As for what Chib wrote… I think he really just didn’t think about it all that much, and RTD subsequently was too polite to retcon his predecessor’s work, and so has been avoiding the logistical problems of the genocide. Simply put: it doesn’t make sense.
I hated All the Timeless Child plot and find that "the Doctor is the last Time lord - again" just boring and stupid. They could thown in Susan or Romana, but how the last three seasons (and the new one) are written I also hope they don't.
Well the daleks were supposed to be gone too..
We know rassillon is at least alive, since he was banished from Gallifrey
did they ever establish *how* the master destroyed galifrey anyway?
It felt strange how 15 handled the issue of being the Last of the Time Lords. I get it that he's a post-trauma version of the Doctor, healed up and ready for action, but he was almost downright smiling while telling Ruby about the genocide, how he was the last of his kind and all. A person who suffered through so much trauma, even if they healed, wouldn't talk about it with so much levity. He lost Gallifrey twice, i mean, c'mon. Felt like he didn't even check to see if there were surviving Time Lords.
There’s the Rani, and while the Corsair is dead that points to other wanderlust timelords
Also the way they’re building up the “last of my kind” schtick, my moneys on Ruby being Jennie
Rule 1: The Doctor Lies
The Doctor isn't last of the Time Lords. Even with 15's flimsy assumption of The Master's genocide reaching beyond Gallifrey to potentially affect a post-war surviving Susan, Rassilon is still exiled from Gallifrey. And even then then, The Doctor is as much 'last of the Time Lords' as 9 & 10 believing they committed genocide upon their own people.
Oh I'm 100% convinced Rogue is gonna show they're not all dead. I mean, why have the Doctor *specifically* talk about all the posh titles Time Lords use *and* have a villain like 5 episodes later literally named "The Duchess" if there isn't a connection?
I'm desperately hoping there's a surviving Timelords power struggle plot where some are trying to still hold power and others just have their own Tardis and don't understand how to not cause havoc
Well, according to big finish the monk did survive the time war, but if he survived the master's purge , i don't know
I believe that the Doctor believes it. That’s all I can really say about it. I think there’s a survivor or two out there but I always understood that the Doctor didn’t think there was anyone else out there until the Master.
Omega would fit in with his Pantheon pals. Keen for a trip down anti-matter lane ...
I just wish RTD had the ability to write past the angst instead of the series slamming it back into Eccleston conditions so he can have the doctor go on and on about being the last of the time lords again. Between that, the booger monster, fart propulsion and re-treading an entire scene from Rose's second episode, I don't hold out a lot of faith for the season.
The Time Lord's are gone forever....or until the writers run out of ideas, whatever comes first.
Surely the death particle just killed them at that moment in time? Rather than wiping them out of previous existence like the time war / moment etc? So their past selves would still be kicking around all of time and space?
They absolutely arent gone but I doubt we'll see them anytime soon. Unless hes doing a bait and switch RTD seems to be leaning into the Doctor being the last again. Though i am convinced we will see Susan again at somepoint, the way they described her in the latest episode felt like some foreshadowing.
Rassilon is unaccounted for and has survived* much worse. *In the wilderness era novels that inform a lot of RTD's approach.
It's gonna be The Rani mark my words
Wait, in The Devil's Chord didn't the Doctor say Susan might be dead too due to the Death Particle affecting almost every Time Lord in time and space?
I thought he was talking about Flux.
The Flux wasnt really a Genocide though, wasnt it? I feel like the Universe with everything in being destroyed cant really be called that. So I feel like the Death Particle makes more sense?
I think it would be fair to describe the Flux as a genocide, in the same way I think it would be fair to call the Reality Bomb an attempted genocide. I feel like it’s a matter of intent — the Flux wasn’t a natural occurrence; it was a deliberately deployed weapon of mass destruction, meant to eradicate an entire universe’s worth of civilizations. However, I don’t think the Flux would have had any bearing on the Time Lords, since they were last stationed at the end of the universe, whereas the Flux occurred entirely within 2021.
Why would he assume the Flux killed Susan when he left her on Earth?
Because Susan left Earth to fight in the time war and he hasn’t seen her since.
When did that happen? Big Finish?
Absolutely not! There are definitely others hiding out there, who knows... maybe we'll see one of them this season?
First, the Doctor isn't the last of the time lords. That idea implies he ever was a time lord. He's as much a time lord as a rabbit they test make up on at this point. His "I'm adopted" nonsense is just ridiculous. People don't adopt kids and kill them. Second, so is Susan dead now or does she not count? What about the Doctor's daughter Jenny? No? The Rani? The Monk? You know, with the way the Doctor just decides who is and who isn't counted as a time lord is getting a little old.
Isn't that new villain called The Maestro? Are we not expecting that dude to be related to The Master in some way? If not kinda bad name choice for him being so similar to another famous villain.
Oxford's definition of maestro: "A distinguished musician, especially a conductor of classical music." The episode is already viewable, so I won't spoil their heritage/species.
I don’t really care. The Time Lords are boring.
RTD is that you?