The Doctor is not The Timeless Child: One can dream, can't one? It's perfectly possible to back away from this idea. Problem is, Chibnall invented it, so why would he? But just in case he has second thoughts - or, maybe, was playing us for mugs all along - there are two ways to retcon the whole Timeless Child mess.
The hard retcon would reveal that there is no connection between The Timeless Child and the Doctor. The Master lied about them being one and the same, or - more plausibly - misinterpreted his findings in the Matrix and was quite simply mistaken. If he lied, then the truth would have to be that he is The Timeless Child as he would still need a reason to destroy Gallifrey. Many fans have commented on how much better it were if the Master was The Timeless Child and his bitterness towards the Time Lords was due to the fact that his former self was exploited for experiments, so that they could live (almost) forever. I'm not sure about what I think about this, as it would mean that the Master is a truly ancient being rather than the Doctor's contemporary, but it does fit, and I'd settle for it as a solution. The best thing, though, in my opinion, would be if the identity of The Timeless Child became a mystery again, and the story arc would be the Doctor setting out to find it.
The soft retcon would revolve around The Timeless Child indeed being the Doctor, but in essence a separate entity due to the mind wipe. It would be made clear that it's only from William Hartnell's incarnation onwards that the series protagonist truly becomes the Doctor, taking that title, running away with a TARDIS, travelling time and space while trying to help out etc. Both this solution and the previous one would demand that my second wish came true:
The Ruth Doctor is not pre-Hartnell: I didn't have time to get into the mystery of the Ruth Doctor in my previous post. To summarise, in the episode Fugitive of the Judoon, the Doctor runs into a woman who at first seemed to be an ordinary human, whose husband was possibly the said fugitive and an alien. It turns out, though, that she is the fugitive, and not just any old fugitive. After having her biology rewrite reversed and her memories restored, she introduces herself to the astounded Doctor as - the Doctor. When you're a time traveller with several lives, you're bound to run into yourself now and again, but puzzlingly, neither of the women can remember ever having been the other.
Now, while I liked the mystery and speculation around the Ruth Doctor as much as the next nerd, I wasn't too happy with this plot development. Unlike many fans, I just wasn't that impressed with Jo Martin's Doctor. Perhaps I was biased by my impression of her performance as Ruth: I had just remarked to myself that she seemed oddly flat and unengaging (to be fair, her hubby had just been disintegrated), when Ruth was suddenly revealed to be the Doctor. I mean, what? I assumed that we were being introduced to the future Fourteenth Doctor and wasn't much looking forward to her being around for three series or so.
With hindsight, however, this would have been better than what was soon hinted instead: that Jo Martin's Doctor predated Jodie Whittaker's. I've already explained how The Timeless Child lessens the impact of Whittaker's Doctor being a woman; the same could be said for the Ruth Doctor development. What's more, after we learned about The Timeless Child, the inference seemed to be that the Ruth Doctor was one of the Timeless Child incarnations of the character. But why was she already calling herself the Doctor? Why did she have a TARDIS in the shape of a police box? Is there no difference between the Timeless Child lives of the Doctor and the ones we know about?
It is profoundly unsatisfactory. For the sake of the future of the show, I would prefer the Ruth Doctor to indeed be the Fourteenth Doctor, although some plot details would have to be explained away. You can't expect to instantly love every version of the Doctor. I could warm to Martin's portrayal in time. She did perk up once the reveal was done, and maybe she was going for a "clueless human" effect in her performance as Ruth expressly meant to contrast with her Time Lord (or something) self, in the way Tennant contrasted John Smith with The Doctor in Human Nature/The Family of Blood. Martin would not have been my pick for the part, but if accepting her as the Fourteenth Doctor means the canon remains intact and Whittaker can still be the first female Doctor, then I'll take it.
Sacha Dhawan's Master being before Missy in The Master's time line: Sometimes I wonder whether Chibnall watched series ten at all. The Master being Missy, or her and the Doctor getting close to healing the breach back when she was Michelle Gomez and he was Peter Capaldi, are circumstances never alluded to in series twelve. Instead, there appears to have been a reset: the Master is much more reminiscent of John Simm's version, and even the Simm Master wouldn't have destroyed Gallifrey. So what happened? I want to know.
Now, if the Doctor and the Master met in the wrong order time-wise, and Dhawan's Master has actually not become Missy yet, that would explain a lot, though not everything (Missy shows no sign of remembering having destroyed Gallifrey, for instance). My linear mind prefers a straight A to B character development, but at least this solution wouldn't effectively wipe away all the effort Moffat put into Missy's redemption arc. I mean, I can see a post-Missy Master turning bad again - Missy was never truly good, after all - but then surely he or she would be bad in a different way, and have different feelings towards the Doctor (more regret than hatred and envy)? If Dhawan is after Gomez, they'd better have a good explanation.
A story arc: Although The Timeless Child turned out to be a story arc I didn't care for, I still appreciated there being one in series twelve. The arc-lessness of series eleven really dragged it down. I know many fans are fed up with the "mystery box" arc in Doctor Who (What is Bad Wolf? What is Torchwood? Who is Harold Saxon? What is the Hybrid? Keep watching and we'll tell you!) I don't have any problems with it, frankly: it sparks many an inventive fan theory you can enjoy along the way. But yes, there are other kinds of arcs - the Doctor travelling to find the real Timeless Child for instance, or other Time Lords, survivors of the Master's attack, showing up here and there throughout the Doctor's adventures until she finds their new colony. I'm almost through the Classic Doctor "Key to Time" episodes, and something as simple as that - components of something that need to be found and then joined, with huge consequences in the finale - would work just fine.
Some old Doctor Who writers returning: Chibnall must be credited with finding some new, interesting talent, though they don't always deliver the second time around. But I miss the brilliance of Moffat's writing: couldn't he and Russell T Davies deliver standalone episodes to help out their successor? Toby Whithouse scripted several strong episodes as well - he's the one I would have chosen as show runner after Moffat. Mark Gatiss's record is more mixed, but there are several of his episodes I like very much (Night Terrors, The Crimson Horror, Robot of Sherwood and of course the Dickens episode, The Unquiet Dead, which I positively love). I'd be happy for him to return, as long as he doesn't introduce any Ice Warriors into his stories, 'cause they're boring. There are many others I could name: most of them may happen to be white and male, but they can write a story, and surely that's what matters. Let's see a little less worthiness and a bit more razzle dazzle. On that note:
The show climbing down from its soap box: Would you, Chibnall? Please? Doctor Who isn't Speaker's Corner. It isn't a beauty contest where the participants must declare their longing for World Peace. Under Chibnall, even elements the show previously managed to pull off admirably smoothly, such as having a diverse cast and some gay plot lines/characters, have become forced. Little effort is put into making side characters of all colours and sexual preferences interesting. An exception, and one thing that actually worked in Praxeus, was the relationship between Jake and Adam: someone had actually gone to some trouble to make their problems relatable. Too bad this plot point was weakened by the story and by side-characters' empty referencing of same-sex partners in previous episodes, a ploy that did little more than signal "Whoo! Look how enlightened we are!". And this is just the pretty uncontentious stuff, harmless hobby horses ridden a little too hard. It's when the show gets truly political that it also gets truly nauseating, for which Orphan 55, Praxeus and Arachnids in the UK from series eleven are ample proof.
If Chibnall and his co-writers want to get serious, tackling existential problems is something you can easily do in a sci-fi show - the mental health theme in Can Your Hear Me? was a bit modish, but it was on point. Just scrap the ideology and give us some solid story-telling.
