The Doctor Who title has been given a brand new meaning thanks to the recent season 12 finale. “The Timeless Children” changed the landscape of Doctor Who forever with a series of stunning reveals, starting with the monumental revelation that The Doctor actually originates from another world, travelling to our own via a boundary. The Doctor was later taken in by a Gallifreyan called Tecteun and used to form the foundation of Time Lord civilization, giving rise to their regenerative powers. After Gallifrey was established as a force in the universe, The Doctor was recruited by The Division, and everything between then and the time of the First Doctor remains a mystery.
The title “Doctor Who” has carried various meanings throughout its long history. Some older seasons of the iconic science fiction series have credited the lead character as “Doctor Who” rather than “The Doctor,” leading to some semi-serious speculation that this could actually be the character’s name in some capacity. Originally, Doctor Who’s title was more a reference to the inherent mystery surrounding the character. For the entire tenure of the first 2 Doctors, virtually nothing was explained about The Doctor, with Gallifrey and the Time Lords only appearing in Patrick Troughton’s final adventure. Once that concept was introduced, however, the question marks surrounding The Doctor began to lift.
Although Doctor Who’s season 12 finale was divisive, one thing it undoubtedly achieved was giving the show’s title a renewed and deeper sense of meaning. Everything fans thought they knew about Jodie Whittaker’s character has been shifted. The audience no longer knows where The Doctor comes from, why she left her planet of origin, what her race is capable of, or even how many regenerations The Doctor has (or maybe would’ve had, if it weren’t for the interference of the Time Lords). Moreover, the past 50+ years of Doctor Who programming could be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what this character has experienced in their life. For the first time since the Patrick Troughton era, Doctor Who is fully delivering on its title. Doctor who? That’s certainly the question from here on out.
It would be unfair to say that Chris Chibnall is the first Doctor Who showrunner to try and recontextualize the very title of the series. During the era of Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor, Steven Moffat toyed with the idea of revealing The Doctor’s true name and built a long running mystery around The Silence and a question that would be asked on the planet Trenzalore. As yelled by a blue head in a box, that question was “Doctor who?” Essentially, the Time Lords needed to know if it was safe to come out of a crack in the universe and used The Doctor’s real name as a password of sorts. However, if the question was answered, the Daleks would resume their hostilities and destroy the planet. Instead, the Time Lords retreated back into their bubble universe and gave Matt Smith a new regeneration cycle (or did they?) to defeat their enemies with.
The “first question” arc was a clever, if something convoluted, way of giving new meaning to Doctor Who’s title, but its ramifications were fairly narrow, not reaching beyond Moffat’s own personal section of franchise canon. By contrast, the Timeless Child changes have completely redefined how the phrase “Doctor who” can be viewed, both retrospectively throughout the show’s history, and moving forward into season 13. It transpires that the audience never knew who their hero was, even after meeting the Time Lords, and The Doctor is more of an enigma now than ever before.
More: Doctor Who: Every Plot Hole Created By Ridiculous Timeless Child Reveal
Doctor Who returns with “Revolution of the Daleks” this holiday season on BBC and BBC America.
