Doctor Who just made best move ever resurrecting its most controversial story
Doctor Who just made best move ever resurrecting its most controversial story
What could this mean for the future of the show?
Pretty goofy take. As much as the Timeless Child is a "controversial" story, the Fugitive Doctor has been just about as universally-embraced as you can get.
Edit: I should clarify - the article itself is fine. The headline writer definitely tried to milk the "controversy" aspect of things, which...is what headline writers do.
"Resurrected" — yeah, sure, I guess. If it's controversial not actually touching on the Timeless Child at all, and still bringing back Jo Martin's Fugitive Doctor, the objectively best thing we got out of that storyline.
Longish rant about the Timeless Child
The Timeless Child subplot is mostly still controversial because it wasn't really followed through, or told with the impact you'd expect — and because certain online pundits haven't really bothered keeping up with the show since they decided that that was going to be their hill to die on.
Doctor Who has always played fast and loose with its own continuity. Sometimes elaborately overwriting it, sometimes just ignoring the bits that didn't work out, or might generally work out but 'this week we need to suspend certain things that happened to tell this story'.
We honestly had more explicit mention of the Timeless Child arc in 2023's "Wild blue yonder", and in "The church on Ruby Road" the same year. The Fugitive Doctor appearing in "The story & the engine" only acknowledges that she is a Doctor we have seen on screen.
Rather like the otherwise non-canon Shalka Doctor, who suddenly appeared in a holographic mugshot slideshow of the Doctor's incarnations in "Rogue" last season. Was that controversial? No, because nobody is that invested in Richard E Grant's shortlived Doctor that was retroactively erased when the show returned in 2005. Also, the Shalka Doctor was neither female or black, so what's there to moan about?
TL;DR — Doctor Who continuity (and even more so canon) is a "best of" mixtape at best, but Metro is gonna Metro regardless. If they can home in in the last perceived controversy around the show they recall, that's what's going in the headline.
The Timeless Child accomplished its goal of opening up a world of storytelling possibilities, should anyone choose to play in that sandbox - and RTD has done so sparingly, but consistently since his return to the franchise.
It's definitely bizarre that Chibnall himself didn't do anything with the idea besides put it out there. But all in all, I'm way madder about him re-destroying Gallifrey than I am about anything to do with the Timeless Child.
Most controversial story: The Timeless Children.
The most recent episode references it with a Fugitive Doctor cameo.