Last of the Time Lords?

[Qasim]

*confused*

[orii7]

From The Empty Child:

Doctor Constantine: Before this war began I was a father and a grandfather... now I am neither. But, I am still a Doctor.
The Doctor: Yeah... I know the feeling.


Face it. Susan is toast. And it was unknown if she was actually a Time Lord or just a run of the mill Gallifreyan. Also, Romana was Lord President of Gallifrey when the Time War began... so she's toast as well, presumably.

More on the Time War from Russell T. Davies himself as published in the 2006 Doctor Who Annual:

i have a few things to say about that whole thing.............

Wow and that was sad and amazing and wonderful and sadly terrible......

Now i know how The Doctor feels

Its sad......I must tell the other Incarnations of me on SWG (Star Wars Galaxies) yes im know as The Doctor on it and there r other people who r me
and yes its like we're Roleplaying on a completly diffrent roleplaying game

[Deputy-Assistant-Second-Prime]

*confused*

Well, just because I quoted all that, and even read many of the novels, don't think I actually understand how all these pieces are supposed to fit together.

The origins of the Doctor and Susan have become so convoluted, it's like trying to untangle a series of knots.

[Deputy-Assistant-Second-Prime]

*confused*

Maybe this will help...or confuse you even further.

Here is my take on the Doctor's origins....

Spoiler:

The Doctor had a normal life on ancient Gallifrey born from two parents (one human, one gallifreyan),

sacrificed himself into loom and was reborn as a different full-grown adult,

he was granted a regeneration cycle and regenerated at least once,

sacrificed himself to the loom again, was born as a different full-grown in modern-day Gallifrey, and granted another regeneration cycle. So far, he has used up 9 of those 12 regenerations.

Still confused...try reading this and this.

[creed462]

Hopefully some more light will be shed soon

[Bomber]

I suspect that if the BBC wants to completely remove the rest of the Time Lords from the Doctor Who universe for good then they'll need to do it more conclusively than they've done so far. Besides, how many times did we see the FINAL end of the Daleks? The Cybermen? The Master for that matter?

Just having the Doctor SAY that the Time Lords perished in the Time Wars really isn't good enough, especially given that their arc has been present from the beginning in one form or another. It ain't canon till we see it on the tele, not just hear the Doctor shooting his mouth off .

They'll be back. Just like the Doctor.

[orii7]

Perhaps Timelords fell throught time like the Dalek and as a result suffer tremendous Post Regeneration trauma perhasp unwillingly masking their own ablilities and therefore beleiving themselves to be human or a lesser species. That would make a great Doctor Who story.

Although u had a good idea and i think ur a great guy and i LOVE your sig i hate to say it but thats impossible for Time Lords to fall thru time

They would detect when they will fall thru time and avoid it (some how)
I think if u read pretty much ever book of Doctor Who there is u might get what im saying and know ALOT more about the Time Lords and Gallifrey and its people

[Lord Shiva]

Well if I can count on the official BBC webpage of Doctor Who to be fact rather then fiction, Susan Foreman (last name taken from the junkyard the TARDIS was stashed in) is, in fact, a Time Lord.

To Quote from the episode summary:

Susan can read very fast, is a brilliant scientist, and calculates in terms of five dimensions [all Time Lord characteristics]. She likes 20th-century England. The children of the Doctor's civilisation are advanced (he doesn't count Susan as a child). There is no suggestion that she isn't his granddaughter. She and the Doctor are cut off from their own planet, without friends. They've been in London for five months [probably mending the TARDIS: the Doctor speaks of replacing a faulty filament].

[creed462]

Gallefren not nessacerily Time Lord

[Deputy-Assistant-Second-Prime]

Well if I can count on the official BBC webpage of Doctor Who to be fact rather then fiction, Susan Foreman (last name taken from the junkyard the TARDIS was stashed in) is, in fact, a Time Lord.

The BBC website is quoting The Discontinuity Guide and The Television Companion, not the "official" BBC canon guide because in the 26 years of the classic series, little work was done to maintain continuity.

In fact, the two most famous and prolific script editor/writers for the series Terrance Dicks and Robert Holmes are both responsible for some of the biggest continuity problems. Those books mention but do not resolve those issues.

And it's such problems that eventually lead back to questions about the Doctor and Susan. The more we learn about the Doctor and Gallifrey, the more contradictions are revealed.

To Quote from the episode summary:

Susan can read very fast, is a brilliant scientist, and calculates in terms of five dimensions [all Time Lord characteristics]. She likes 20th-century England. The children of the Doctor's civilisation are advanced (he doesn't count Susan as a child). There is no suggestion that she isn't his granddaughter. She and the Doctor are cut off from their own planet, without friends. They've been in London for five months [probably mending the TARDIS: the Doctor speaks of replacing a faulty filament].

In particular, that passage is straight out of The Discontinuity Guide, page 6.

Just because the author surmises she has "Time Lord traits" isn't really conclusive.

You simply will not find any reference to Susan being a Time Lord in the series. The term wasn't used until well after her departure (The War Games) and in her guest appearance years later, The Five Doctors, no acknowledgment is made.

However, we know Susan lived on Gallifrey. In The Sensorites, we are told in detail that the Doctor and Susan are both from the same planet. In The Five Doctors, Susan knows about the Tower of Rassilon. The Time Warrior gives us the name Gallifrey. Also, in An Unearthly Child, we learn Susan created the acronym TARDIS in the course of their travels, yet other rogue Time Lords refer to their time capsules as a TARDIS (Time Meddler, The Dalek's Masterplan, The War Games, Terror of the Autons, Mark of the Rani) independently.

However, in The Deadly Assassin and The Invasion of Time, we learn that not all Gallifreyans become Time Lords.

The Doctor makes various references to living in modern Gallifrey, but also makes references to spending time in ancient Gallifrey (Remembrance of the Daleks and Silver Nemesis) which is considered impossible without high level intervention (The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors).

Now, I'm not saying you're wrong for believing Susan is a Time Lord, based strictly on the television series alone. I'm just saying, simply drawing from that source, you can conclusively prove she is a Gallifreyan...but not necessarily a Time Lord.

Also, if we really want to be strict about what is canon, we must look to Russell T. Davies for insight. To me, it seems the classic series, the new series, and the some of the untelevision production notes from the classic series form the basis of the new canon.

It seems the whole Cartmel Plan may be on its way out of canon. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, it's hopelessly detailed and convoluted...relying on arcane references and vague contradictory-sounding suggestions to form a tapesty of utter confusion. And on the other hand, I was just getting used to it after all these years.

[creed462]

What was the Cartmel Plan?

[Deputy-Assistant-Second-Prime]

What was the Cartmel Plan?

Andrew Cartmel was the script editor for Seasons 24, 25, and 26. Also, he wrote three Virgin novels in The New Adventures series, one BBC Past Doctor Adventure, one Big Finish audio adventure, and two Telos novellas.

Basically, his plan was to explain all the apparent continuity issues as just hints of a more complex story. The whole McCoy era and the Virgin novel series (The New Adventures & The Missing Adventures) were based on his plan resolve the continuity problems in Doctor Who and return the sense of mystery to the character by hinting about a secret past and his secret plans. The problem, as I saw it, were too many authors were too eager to explain the same issues, resulting in more apparent contradictions. Then they would, in turn, attempt to explain those new contradictions and made the Doctor's backstory even more convoluted. There were some brilliant ideas, but IMO too many cooks in the pot.

[Deputy-Assistant-Second-Prime]

Television needs to keep it simple. RTD has already introduced elements into the new series that have a high potential to permanently contradict the Cartmel Plan.

Now the novel writers have been instructed to end the new adventures of Eighth Doctor, thus preventing them from satisfactorily resolving the conflicts and preventing them from bridging the gap to the Ninth Doctor.

From now on, the writers may only write about the Eighth Doctor past adventures, thus with huge contradictions to explain, it looks as though the Cartmel Plan could be on its way out of canon.

[creed462]

Will that be good or bad?

[Deputy-Assistant-Second-Prime]

Will that be good or bad?

Depends on how you feel about that the established continuity of those novels.