Warning: This post contains spoilers concerning the Doctor Who Christmas and New Year specials – if you haven’t seen them and don’t want to know anything about them, STOP READING!
Christmas Day usually brings an extra treat here in the UK (aside from the usual presents, I mean). For a few years now there’s been a Doctor Who Christmas special to look forward to, but this year we also got a New Year’s Day one.
The Christmas Day one was pretty strange, with my dad and I sitting there wondering what on earth was going on. Part two, on New Year’s Day, was much better and introduced us to the new Doctor, played by Matt Smith. Something else really excited me about the story, though, the return of Gallifrey and the Time Lords!
If you’re wondering what on earth I’m talking about here’s the summary: The Time Lords are a race of people from the planet Gallifrey. They harnessed the power of a black hole (the Eye of Harmony) and used the energy from that to develop time travel technology. The Doctor is a Time Lord, dotting around the universe in a stolen TARDIS. The Time Lords are no more, however, after a devastating war that left them sealed within a time bubble… only the Doctor and the Master survived.
The Time Lords make a return in this Christmas and New Year’s specials, but the Doctor is horrified by the thought. While Doctor Who fans might remember them as benevolent overseers of time, avoiding interference in the affairs of other species and trying to track down renegade members of their species (the Doctor included) they’ve changed into warmongering people, determined to destroy everything that has ever existed simply to win their war. So… they don’t get to stay around very long.
I had really hoped they’d come back though, because they were among the only people the Doctor couldn’t just wow with his tricks: they knew most of them.
Psychic paper? “Yeh, you probably just nicked that from stores.” TARDIS bigger on the inside than outside? “They’re all like that – we designed them that way, and don’t think of running off ‘cos we’ve changed your TARDIS’ locks.”
Ok, so I’m being a bit silly, but I loved the idea of the Doctor being on the run, a hero to many but a renegade to his own people. I loved there being someone genuinely more powerful than the Doctor, and I loved the idea that another Time Lord could come along in any story and we’d discover a bit more about the race’s background. But it looks like that’s all behind us now.
I have to say, the new series’ of Doctor Who have been fantastic… I’ve just never really liked the “last Time Lord” thing and thought this year’s specials were a great chance to bring them back. It’s a shame that didn’t happen.
Am I the only one to think that? What did you think of the episodes, if you saw them? And what of the Time Lords? Have your say in the comments!
