Doctor Who season 12 finale confirms 44-year-old Time Lord theory in game-changing Gallifrey twist
DOCTOR Who answered some crucial questions about its titular Time Lord in the season 12 finale on Sunday night.
Viewers were stunned to discover the origins of the time-travelling race, who made Gallifrey their home world.
It transpired that the Timeless Child, who has been referenced for the last two series, is in fact The Doctor herself.
The Doctor, it transpires, was the very first of the Time Lords as we know them, exhibiting the ability to regenerate forms indefinitely.
Her DNA was subsequently spliced into other Time Lords, but through genetic engineering, their number of regenerations was capped at 12.
This new knowledge solves the confusion around The Doctor exceeding the number of regenerations typified by Time Lords.
However, it also confirms that there were an unknown number of incarnations of The Doctor before William Hartnell – the first seen on screen back from 1963 to 1966.
The twist was first touched upon in 1976 episode The Brain of Morbius, which starred Tom Baker as The Doctor.
In that adventure, The Doctor finds himself locked in a “mind-bending contest” with a Time Lord criminal named Morbius via some sophisticated apparatus, which allows the pair to engage in a literal battle of wits.
During the tussle the machine displays The Doctor’s face, before bringing up that of his previous incarnation (Jon Pertwee), followed by glimpses of the second (Patrick Troughton) and first (William Hartnell) Doctors.
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However, the machine goes on to display a further eight faces, who were widely perceived to be former iterations of The Doctor.
The production team responsible for the show confirmed that these were indeed former identities of everyone’s favourite Time Lord.
“It is true to say that I attempted to imply that William Hartnell was not the first Doctor,” producer Philip Hinchcliffe told Lance Parkin, author of Doctor Who: A History of the Universe.
“We tried to get famous actors for the faces of the Doctor, but because no one would volunteer, we had to use backroom boys,” he confirmed.
It turns out, the faces actually belonged to to script editor (and Brain of Morbius co-writer) Robert Holmes, Doctor Who’s production unit manager George Gallaccio, production assistant Graeme Harper, director Douglas Camfield, production assistant Christopher Baker, writer Robert Banks Stewart, director Christopher Barry, and Hinchcliffe himself.
This was always at odds with the regeneration cap of 12, which was first introduced in subsequent episode The Deadly Assassin.
Now we know that the Morbius story arc fits into the wider cannon of the Whoniverse, representing a collection of the Timeless Child’s identities.
However, given that The Doctor’s mind was wiped by secret police service The Division, there are no doubt countless other identities that Jodie Whittaker won’t recall.
The first of these came in the form of Jo Martin, another version of The Doctor who Jodie had no memory of.
Fans were horrified last night when in the finale’s closing moments, a Judoon squadron teleported aboard the vehicle and informed The Doctor that she had been sentenced to life in prison.
Doctor Who will return for festive special Revolution of the Daleks in December.
Meanwhile, filming for season 13 will begin this autumn, for a 2021 release.
All episodes of season 12 can be streamed on BBC iPlayer.