History YMMV / DoctorWhoS38E10TheTimelessChildren

* AudienceAlienatingEnding: The Thirteenth Doctor's run was divisive overall, but even many fans who otherwise liked the previous episodes turned against it when this episode aired, because it [[spoiler:reveals the Doctor is ''not'' an ordinary Time Lord, but a mysterious immortal who the Time Lords experimented on to get their regenerations from]]. This reveal, while enjoyed by some, also infuriated enormous numbers of fans, with entire video essays on [=YouTube=] dedicated to arguing why the reveal doesn't work. [[spoiler:Common complaints are that it is a massive {{retcon}} to a decades-lasting franchise that strips the Doctor of their status as TheUnchosenOne, contradicts canon and creates many plot holes, turns the Time Lords into frauds, undermined the CharacterDevelopment of the First Doctor, and generally comes off as disrespectful to the franchise and its history.]] Granted, [[Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse other aspects of the franchise]] have delved into a similar concept with [[spoiler:the Other]] decades prior.

** And then you have the fans who [[TakeAThirdOption take a position somewhere in the middle]], not being necessarily opposed to the changing of the show's canon, welcoming the new ideas and they way it at least tries to tie into the classic series, but feeling the revelation could've been handled better, and a common complaint on both sides is that the Master's prolonged {{Infodump}} explaining it all to the Doctor came off as forced, taking away a lot of the Doctors' agency. Some also feel it may have been more fitting for the Master to be the Timeless Child, especially given the abuse Rassilon already put on him, and all the pain he experienced due to his regeneration cycle being limited; all of which gives him a bigger reason to blame the Time Lords for robbing him of his original unlimited cycle.

* CrazyIsCool: Ko Sharmus, introduced innocuously in the previous episode as an old man who had escaped the Cyber-Camps and helped other humans escape through the Boundary and stayed behind on the slim chance others might come, shows his true awesomeness (and a fantastic [[DeadpanSnarker sarcastic streak]]) in this episode when he leads Ryan and Ethan, with hardly any weapons, no training and very few defences, in an assault against a death squad of Cybermen and the three take out all but a few of them. He packs enough explosives to take out a Cyberman War Carrier and caps off the episode in a HeroicSacrifice to take out the Master and his new race of Cyber-Masters after revealing he was part of the squad that sent the Cyberium back in time in the first place, starting off this whole mess with the Cybermen to begin with, and destroys what's left of Gallifrey for good.

** And then you have the fans who [[TakeAThirdOption take a position somewhere in the middle]], not being necessarily opposed to the changing of the show's canon, welcoming the new ideas and they way it at least tries to tie into the classic series, but feeling the revelation could've been handled better, and a common complaint on both sides is that the Master's {{Infodump}} explaining it all to the Doctor came off as forced, taking away a lot of the Doctors' agency. Some also feel it may have been more fitting for the Master to be the Timeless Child, especially given the abuse Rassilon already put on him, and all the pain he experienced due to his regeneration cycle being limited; all of which gives him a bigger reason to blame the Time Lords for robbing him of his original unlimited cycle.

*** Or even, since the Time Lords' regeneration ability came from a black person, how humanity began in Africa.
** Within a few hours of airing, there was already a lot of meta on how much the Timeless Child/Doctor's backstory hit home for people who had been abused as children, had adoption trauma or were trans/intersex. The Master's behaviour towards the Doctor could also ring some bells for siblings born into an abusive family - often they might resent the one who was abused rather than the abuser as a way of dealing with having felt powerless, just as the Master unfairly blames the Doctor for having 'started' the Time Lords and part of her genes being in him, when the Doctor was just a child and had no control over any of it.
* AudienceAlienatingEnding: The Thirteenth Doctor's run was divisive overall, but even many fans who otherwise liked the previous episodes turned against it when this episode aired, because it [[spoiler:reveals the Doctor is ''not'' an ordinary Time Lord but a mysterious immortal who the Time Lords experimented on to get their immortality from]]. This reveal, while enjoyed by some, also infuriated enormous numbers of fans, with entire video essays on [=YouTube=] dedicated to arguing why the reveal doesn't work. [[spoiler:Common complaints are that it is a massive {{retcon}} to a decades-lasting franchise that strips the Doctor of their status as TheUnchosenOne, contradicts canon and creates many plot holes, turns the Time Lords into frauds, undermined the CharacterDevelopment of the First Doctor, and generally comes off as disrespectful to the franchise and its history.]] Granted, [[Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse other aspects of the franchise]] have delved into a similar concept with [[spoiler:the Other]] decades prior.

** The theme that plays when the Time Lord-Cybermen are revealed, a great mix of the Master, the Cybermen and the Time Lords' themes from this season.

** On the one hand, you have fans that felt that this was an exciting new development, adding a new layer of intrigue into the Doctor's history and opening up the possibility for the show to go into bold new directions by delving further into the Doctor's past and revisiting the potentially infinite number of prior incarnations and their forgotten history. There were fans that loved the way that the show finally resolved the question of the prior faces of the Doctor seen in "The Brain of Morbius", and allowed them to co-exist with the regeneration limit. Lines in other stories that strongly implied, or even outright stated, that Hartnell's Doctor was the first incarnation could simply be chalked up to the First Doctor simply being ''the first incarnation to be referred to as the Doctor'' (though this paradoxically ignores that only five episodes ago the Fugitive Doctor was ''already'' calling herself the Doctor, and acted as such to boot!). Notably, Steven Moffat used a similar justification to retroactively place the War Doctor between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors without any change to the numbering of the incarnations, by saying the the War Doctor should be unnumbered because he refused to be known as "the Doctor" throughout his life. There's also the fans that also welcomed the change to the canon in the sense that it made the Doctor far more powerful than they were in the past, and examined the possibilities that she could (possibly[[note]]Assuming their regeneration cycle wasn't limited by the Time Lords when their memories were wiped[[/note]]) use her regeneration energy on a whim to replicate the same sort of destruction the Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Doctors wrought to their surroundings during their regenerations.
** On the other hand, other fans felt that this was a cheap and / or bad attempt to rewrite the entire history of the show, that the revelations made the Doctor ''less'' interesting (not more), and undermined the characters' status as being a shining example of TheUnchosenOne by making them no longer just an ordinary Time Lord who became different through their own choices. Many fans were deeply opposed to the idea of Creator/WilliamHartnell's incarnation no longer being the "first" Doctor, even labelling it as "disrespectful". Some also felt that showing a pre-Hartnell incarnation of the Doctor already acting like the familiar character undermined the significance of the First Doctor's CharacterDevelopment from amoral traveller to hero. Many also felt that the potential for introducing more past Doctors was an unwelcome, cheap attempt to set up future spin offs. Resolving the "Morbius Doctors" plot thread or adapting the Other storyline was derided by some as excessive FanWank.

* CompleteMonster: [[YMMV/DoctorWhoS38E8TheHauntingOfVillaDiodati Ashad returns again]], [[YMMV/DoctorWhoS38E1E2Spyfall as does the "Spy" Master]]. [[YMMV/DoctorWhoS39E5FluxChapterFiveSurvivorsOfTheFlux Tecteun]] is also introduced here, though their morality was left ambiguous until later.
* CrazyIsCool: Ko Sharmus, introduced innocuously in the previous episode as an old man who had escaped the Cyber camps and helped other humans escape through the Boundary and stayed behind on the slim chance others might come, shows his true awesomeness (and a fantastic [[DeadpanSnarker sarcastic streak]]) in this episode when he leads Ryan and Ethan, with hardly any weapons, no training and very few defenses, in an assault against a death squad of Cybermen and the three take out all but a few of them. He packs enough explosives to take out a Cyberman War Carrier and to caps off the episode in a HeroicSacrifice to take out the Master and his new race of Cyber-Time Lords after revealing he was part of the squad that sent the Cyberium back in time in the first place, starting off this whole mess with the Cybermen to begin with, and destroys what's left of Gallifrey for good.
-->'''The Master:''' KILL HIM!\\
'''Ko Sharmus:''' Killed you first! ''[gets shot by the [=CyberMasters=] and pulls the trigger]''
* CrossesTheLineTwice: The Master wants to roll out the red carpet for the Cybermen. The carpet is red from the blood of the Time Lords he slaughtered.

** The [[RememberTheNewGuy introduction]] of Tecteun to the early history of Time Lord civilization has led to many fans speculating about their relationship to the rest of the canon, with one very popular suggestion being that they ultimately changed their name to Rassilon. There is also speculation that Tecteun may be the Woman from "The End of Time", due to a distinct similarity between their actresses, though others are quick to point out issues with this theory. On the other hand, she looks vaguely like Romana.

** Some fans with mixed feelings on the Timeless Child reveal have revived the old Season 6B theory, suggesting that the Fugitive Doctor actually came between the Second and Third Doctors rather than before the First, to explain why she was already calling herself the Doctor and using a police box-shaped TARDIS. Not to mention her TARDIS being a reconstruction of the prop used by the First and Second Doctors.
* FanficFuel: So where ''did'' the Doctor / the Timeless Child come from all those millions of years ago, and are they truly from another universe? What were they doing during all those prior lives that have now been erased? What was the Division having them do? And did each of these incarnations get a Clara echo encounter? If so why didn't she mention them to the Doctor back then? The fandom's mind was already spinning on these and countless other questions within moments of the episode airing.
* HesJustHiding: While the episode seemingly takes pains to render the Time Lords and Gallifrey well and truly DeaderThanDead and leave the Doctor firmly established as the last of the Time Lords (the Master's inevitable JokerImmunity notwithstanding) once again, many fans doubted that the Master could possibly have killed ''everyone'' on the planet considering how the assembled horrors of the Time War failed to accomplish that until the War Doctor attempted to use the Moment. To say nothing of any Time Lords that might have been off-world (such as Rassilon) or able to escape via TARDIS use or other means when the Master pulled his ApocalypseHow, considering nothing states he sued a time lock to keep them there. Also, given that destroying Gallifrey forever and ever would make "The Day of the Doctor" and a chunk of the Twelfth Doctor's character arc AllForNothing, it seems possible, if not likely, that it will ''eventually'' be amended -- though, as it turned out, by hands other than the seemingly-unconcerned Thirteen's.
* IronWoobie: She has plenty of undesirable qualities and bad coping methods, like all versions of the Doctor, but Thirteen deals with her trauma by weaponizing it, or in other words, honouring who she's been. Compared to this version of the Master, who falls apart at what's been done to both her and him, and scapegoats her for it.
* LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt: So Gallifrey and the Master are gone for good, huh? We'll believe it when we see it. Especially as the Doctor had a spare TARDIS in convenient running distance so the Master (and at least some of the other Time Lords) probably did too. The Master can even be heard ordering the [=CyberMasters=] to follow him somewhere to escape, and they came back in "The Power of the Doctor", Thirteen's GrandFinale, the following year. Gallifrey, however, did not.

* NarmCharm: The "[=CyberMasters=]" (Time Lord corpses upgraded into Cybermen) have metallic versions of the High Council headdress in place of the traditional handlebars, along with black robes draping from their shoulders. Are these design choices impractical and slightly silly-looking? Maybe. Are they a dread-inducing indication of what exactly these things are and how dangerous a threat they represent? '''Absolutely.'''

-->'''The Master:''' Oh bitches that was a nice ENTIRE CIVILISATION you had shame it suddenly BURNED TO THE GROUND.

** TheReveal that the Doctor is actually an important figure from Time Lord history, without necessarily being consciously aware of this, is nothing new; it was a key aspect of the "Cartmel Masterplan" from the classic series ([[WhatCouldHaveBeen it would have formed the backbone of Season 27 onward had the show not been cancelled]]), and the Expanded Universe showcased the connection more fully. (Although the can of worms this episode opens regarding the nature of the Other [[MindScrew is best left to the most dedicated of theorists]].)
** The Doctor having multiple incarnations prior to the one we know as the First Doctor was first teased all the way back in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E5TheBrainOfMorbius The Brain Of Morbius]]", when the Fourtu Doctor's brain was scanned and several mysterious faces were glimpsed alongside the Doctor's four known incarnations. This episode indeed calls back to said serial by including those very same faces in the montage of the previous Doctors, finally confirming them to have been incarnations of the Doctor after four decades of speculation.
** As pointed out by Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine, the fandom’s complaints about the reveal “destroying the canon” was previously made concerning "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E3TheDeadlyAssassin The Deadly Assassin]]" and its depiction of the Time Lords. A later issue points out that both were made on similar reasoning (namely that past continuity opened itself up to some FridgeLogic that could do to be resolved).

** The Doctor finds out that the Time Lords experimented on her, wiped her memory and have been lying to her her whole life. This should naturally lead to a huge confrontation with them... except they were seemingly wiped out off-screen before the start of the series.
** Ashad, the Lone Cyberman, was built up since "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E5FugitiveOfTheJudoon Fugitive of the Judoon]]" to be a major threat and antagonist and in the previous two episodes as well. Yet here, he is unceremoniously shrunken by the Master and is barely mentioned again beyond becoming a MacGuffin. It would've been much more interesting to have him and the Master either work together or be at odds with each other throughout the episode.

** A common complaint among detractors (such as [[https://screenrant.com/doctor-who-master-timeless-child-not-doctor-better/ ScreenRant]]) is that the idea of the Timeless Child is not intrinsically terrible, but that it would have been a far better and more interesting idea for the Timeless Child to be the Master instead of the Doctor. The Master was already a victim of Rassilon and had a bad history with the Time Lords in general, and making him be the victim of their immortality experiments would further justify his hatred of the Time Lords and make him more sympathetic. Especially since he spent one incarnation as a walking corpse stealing bodies to survive because he ran out of regenerations at the time, meaning they doomed him to that fate by cutting off his previously unlimited regeneration cycle to hide the deception. It would also lead to the above interesting moral quandary of whether the Doctor should continue using this ability or not, considering the effects it would have had in their former best friend.

** Some fans felt that this was an exciting new development, adding a new layer of intrigue to the Doctor's history and opening the possibility for the show to go in bold new directions by delving further into the Doctor's past and revisiting the potentially infinite number of prior incarnations and their forgotten history. Many fans loved the way that the show finally resolved the question of the prior faces of the Doctor seen in "The Brain of Morbius", and allowed them to co-exist with the regeneration limit. Lines in other stories that strongly implied, or even outright stated, that Hartnell's Doctor was the first incarnation could simply be chalked up to the First Doctor simply being ''the first incarnation to be referred to as the Doctor'' (though this paradoxically ignores that only five episodes ago the Fugitive Doctor was ''already'' calling herself the Doctor, and had a Police Box TARDIS, to boot!). Notably, Steven Moffat used a similar justification to retroactively place the War Doctor between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors without any change to the numbering of the incarnations, by saying the the War Doctor should be unnumbered because he refused to be known as "the Doctor" throughout his life. Some fans also welcomed the change to the canon in the sense that it made the Doctor far more powerful than they were in the past, and examined the possibilities that she could (possibly[[note]]Assuming their regeneration cycle wasn't limited by the Time Lords when their memories were wiped.[[/note]]) use her regeneration energy on a whim to replicate the same sort of destruction the Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Doctors wrought to their surroundings during their regenerations.
** On the other hand, a wide margin of fans felt that this was a cheap and / or bad attempt to rewrite the entire history of the show, that the revelations made the Doctor ''less'' interesting (not more), and undermined the characters' status as being a shining example of TheUnchosenOne by making them no longer just an ordinary Time Lord who became different through their own choices. Many fans were deeply opposed to the idea of Creator/WilliamHartnell's incarnation no longer being the "first" Doctor, even labelling it as "disrespectful". Some also felt that showing a pre-Hartnell incarnation of the Doctor already acting like the familiar character undermined the significance of the First Doctor's CharacterDevelopment from amoral traveller to hero. Many also felt that the potential for introducing more past Doctors was an unwelcome, cheap attempt to set up future spin offs. Resolving the "Morbius Doctors" plot thread or adapting the Other storyline was derided by some as excessive FanWank.

** A common complaint among detractors (such as [[https://screenrant.com/doctor-who-master-timeless-child-not-doctor-better/ ScreenRant]]) is that the idea of the Timeless Child is not intrinsically terrible, but that it would have been a far better and more interesting idea for the Timeless Child to be the Master instead of the Doctor. The Master was already a victim of Rassilon and had a bad history with the Time Lords in general, and making him be the victim of their immortality experiments would further justify his hatred of the Time Lords and make him more sympathetic. Especially since he spent one incarnation as a walking corpse stealing bodies to survive because his he ran out of regenerations at the time, meaning they doomed him to that fate by cutting off his previously unlimited regeneration cycle to hide the deception. It would also lead to the above interesting moral quandary of whether the Doctor should continue using this ability or not, considering the effects it would have had in their former best friend.

* AudienceAlienatingEnding: The 13th Doctor's run was divisive overall, but even many fans who otherwise liked the previous episodes turned against it when this episode aired, because it [[spoiler:reveals the Doctor is ''not'' an ordinary Time Lord but a mysterious immortal who the Time Lords experimented on to get their immortality from]]. This reveal, while enjoyed by some, also infuriated enormous numbers of fans, with entire video essays on [=YouTube=] dedicated to arguing why the reveal doesn't work. [[spoiler:Common complaints are that it is a massive {{retcon}} to a decades-lasting franchise that strips the Doctor of their status as TheUnchosenOne, contradicts canon and creates many plot holes, turns the Time Lords into frauds, undermined the CharacterDevelopment of the First Doctor, and generally comes off as disrespectful to the franchise and its history.]] Granted, [[Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse other aspects of the franchise]] have delved into a similar concept with [[spoiler:the Other]] decades prior.

** The theme that plays when the Time Lord-Cybermen are revealed, a great mix of the Master and Cybermen's themes from this season.

** Some fans felt that this was an exciting new development, adding a new layer of intrigue to the Doctor's history and opening the possibility for the show to go in bold new directions by delving further into the Doctor's past and revisiting the potentially infinite number of prior incarnations and their forgotten history. Many fans loved the way that the show finally resolved the question of the prior faces of the Doctor seen in "The Brain of Morbius", and allowed them to co-exist with the regeneration limit. Lines in other stories that strongly implied, or even outright stated, that Hartnell's Doctor was the first incarnation could simply be chalked up to the First Doctor simply being ''the first incarnation to be referred to as the Doctor'' (though this paradoxically ignores that only five episodes ago the Fugitive Doctor was ''already'' calling herself the Doctor, and had a Police Box TARDIS, to boot!). Notably, Steven Moffat used a similar justification to retroactively place the War Doctor between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors without any change to the numbering of the incarnations, by saying the the War Doctor should be unnumbered because he refused to be known as "the Doctor" throughout his life. Some fans also welcomed the change to the canon in the sense that it made the Doctor far more powerful than she was in the past, and examined the possibilities that she could (possibly[[note]]Assuming their regeneration cycle wasn't limited by the Time Lords when their memories were wiped.[[/note]]) use her regeneration energy on a whim to replicate the same sort of destruction the Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Doctors wrought to their surroundings during their regenerations.
** On the other hand, a wide margin of fans felt that this was a cheap and / or bad attempt to rewrite the entire history of the show, that the revelations made the Doctor too ''less'' interesting (not more), and undermined the characters' status as being a shining example of TheUnchosenOne by making them no longer just an ordinary Time Lord who became different through their own choices. Many fans were deeply opposed to the idea of Creator/WilliamHartnell's incarnation no longer being the "first" Doctor, even labelling it as "disrespectful". Some also felt that showing a pre-Hartnell incarnation of the Doctor already acting like the familiar character undermined the significance of First Doctor's CharacterDevelopment from amoral traveller to hero. Many also felt that the potential for introducing more past Doctors was an unwelcome, cheap attempt to set up future spin offs. Resolving the "Morbius Doctors" was derided by some as excessive FanWank.
** And then you have the fans who [[TakeAThirdOption take a position somewhere in the middle]], not being necessarily opposed to the changing of the show's canon, welcoming the new ideas and they way it at least tries to tie into the classic series, but feeling the revelation could've been handled better, and a common complaint on both sides is that the Master's {{Infodump}} explaining it all to the Doctor came off as forced, taking away a lot of the Doctors' agency. Some also feel it may have been more fitting for the Master to be the Timeless Child, especially given the abuse Rassilon already put on him, and all the pain he experienced due to his regeneration cycle being limited; all of which gives him a bigger reason to blame the Time Lords for robbing him of his original unlimited cycle.

** Some fans with mixed feelings on the Timeless Child reveal have revived the old Season 6B theory, suggesting that the Fugitive actually came between the Second and Third Doctors rather than before the First, to explain why she was already calling herself the Doctor and using a police box-shaped TARDIS. Not to mention her TARDIS being a reconstruction of the prop used by the First and Second Doctors.

* HesJustHiding: While the episode seemingly takes pains to render the Time Lords and Gallifrey well and truly DeaderThanDead and leave the Doctor firmly established as the last of the Time Lords (the Master's inevitable JokerImmunity notwithstanding) once again, many fans doubted that the Master could possibly have killed ''everyone'' on the planet considering how the assembled horrors of the Time War failed to accomplish that until the War Doctor attempted to use the Moment. To say nothing of any Time Lords that might have been off-world (such as Rassilon) or able to escape via TARDIS use or other means when the Master pulled his ApocalypseHow. Also, given that destroying Gallifrey forever and ever would make "The Day of the Doctor" and a chunk of the Twelfth Doctor's character arc AllForNothing, it seems possible, if not likely, that it will ''eventually'' be amended -- though, as it turned out, by hands other than the seemingly-unconcerned Thirteen's.

* LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt: So Gallifrey and the Master are gone again, huh? We'll believe it when we see it. Especially as the Doctor had a spare TARDIS in convenient running distance so the Master (and at least some of the other Time Lords) probably did too. The Master can even be heard ordering the [=CyberMasters=] to follow him somewhere to escape, and they came back in "The Power of the Doctor", Thirteen's GrandFinale, the following year. Gallifrey, however, did not.

** The Doctor having multiple incarnations prior to the one we know as the First Doctor was first teased all the way back in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E5TheBrainOfMorbius The Brain Of Morbius]]", when the Doctor's brain was scanned and several mysterious faces were glimpsed alongside the Doctor's four known incarnations. This episode indeed calls back to said serial by including those very same faces in the montage of the previous Doctors, finally confirming them to have been incarnations of the Doctor after four decades of speculation.

** The idea that the Time Lords experimented on an innocent entity in order to develop their regeneration ability could have posed an interesting moral quandary for the Doctor, forcing her to grapple with the question of whether she should keep using it while knowing where it came from. Unfortunately, her turning out to ''be'' the innocent being in question removes this quandary, since it always belonged to her anyway.
** A common complaint among detractors (such as [[https://screenrant.com/doctor-who-master-timeless-child-not-doctor-better/ ScreenRant]]) is that the idea of the Timeless Child is not intrinsically terrible, but that it would have been a far better and more interesting idea for the Timeless Child to be the Master instead of the Doctor. The Master was already a victim of Rassilon and had a bad history with the Time Lords in general, and making him be the victim of their immortality experiments would further justify his hatred of the Time Lords and make him more sympathetic. It would also lead to the above interesting moral quandary of whether the Doctor should continue using this ability or not.

* AudienceAlienatingEnding: The 13th Doctor's run was divisive overall, but even many fans who otherwise liked the previous episodes turned against it when this episode aired, because it [[spoiler:reveals the Doctor is ''not'' an ordinary Time Lord but a mysterious immortal who the Time Lords experimented on to get their immortality from]]. This reveal, while enjoyed by some, also infuriated enormous numbers of fans, with entire video essays on [=YouTube=] dedicated to arguing why the reveal doesn't work. [[spoiler:Common complaints are that it is a massive {{retcon}} to a decades-lasting franchise that strips the Doctor of their status as TheUnchosenOne, contradicts canon and creates many plot holes, turns the Time Lords into frauds, undermined the CharacterDevelopment of the First Doctor, and generally comes off as disrespectful to the franchise and its history.]] Granted, [[Franchise/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse other aspects of the feanchsie]] have delved into a similar concept with [[spoiler:the Other]] decades prior.

* AudienceAlienatingEnding: The 13th Doctor's run was divisive overall, but even many fans who otherwise liked the previous episodes turned against it when this episode aired, because it [[spoiler:reveals the Doctor is ''not'' an ordinary Time Lord but a mysterious immortal who the Time Lords experimented on to get their immortality from]]. This reveal, while enjoyed by some, also infuriated enormous numbers of fans, with entire video essays on [=YouTube=] dedicated to arguing why the reveal doesn't work. [[spoiler:Common complaints are that it is a massive {{retcon}} to a decades-lasting franchise that strips the Doctor of their status as TheUnchosenOne, contradicts canon and creates many plot holes, turns the Time Lords into frauds, undermined the CharacterDevelopment of the first Doctor, and generally comes off as disrespectful to the franchise and its history.]]

* AudienceAlienatingEnding: The 13th Doctor's run was divisive overall, but even many fans who otherwise liked the previous episodes turned against it when this episode aired, because it [[spoiler:reveals the Doctor is ''not'' an ordinary Time Lord but a mysterious immortal who the Time Lords experimented on to get their immortality from]]. This reveal, while enjoyed by some, also infuriated enormous numbers of fans, with entire video essays on [=YouTube=] dedicated to arguing why the reveal doesn't work. [[spoiler:Common complaints are that it is a massive {{retcon}} to a decades-lasting franchise that strips the Doctor of their status as TheUnchosenOne, contradicts canon and creates many plot holes, turns the Time Lords into frauds, undermined the CharacterDevelopment of the first Doctor, and generally comes off as disrespectful to the franchise and its history.]] As a result, ratings plummeted following the episode, many fans stated their disinterest in any future Who content, and the BBC had to release an official statement and news articles addressing the change- which only fanned the flames when the official statements were seen as ignoring the complaints and talking down to fans.

** A common complaint among detractors (such as [[https://screenrant.com/doctor-who-master-timeless-child-not-doctor-better/ ScreenRant]]) is that the idea of the Timeless Chimd is not intrinsically terrible, but that it would have been a far better and more interesting idea for the Timeless Child to be the Master instead of the Doctor. The Master was already a victim of Rassilon and had a bad history with the Time Lords in general, and making him be the victim of their immortality experiments would further justify his hatred of the Time Lords and make him more sympathetic. It would also lead to the above interesting moral quandary of whether the Doctor should continue using this ability or not.

** A common complaint among detractors is that the idea of the Timeless Chimd is not intrinsically terrible, but that it would have been a far better and more interesting idea for the Timeless Child to be the Master instead of the Doctor. The Master was already a victim of Rassilon and had a bad history with the Time Lords in general, and making him be the victim of their immortality experiments would further justify his hatred of the Time Lords and make him more sympathetic. It would also lead to the above interesting moral quandary of whether the Doctor should continue using this ability or not.

** Some fans felt that this was an exciting new development, adding a new layer of intrigue to the Doctor's history and opening the possibility for the show to go in bold new directions by delving further into the Doctor's past and revisiting the potentially infinite number of prior incarnations and their forgotten history. Many fans loved the way that the show finally resolved the question of the prior faces of the Doctor seen in "The Brain of Morbius", and allowed them to co-exist with the regeneration limit. Lines in other stories that strongly implied, or even outright stated, that Hartnell's Doctor was the first incarnation could simply be chalked up to the First Doctor simply being ''the first incarnation to be referred to as the Doctor'' (though this paradoxically ignores that only five episodes ago the Fugitive Doctor was ''already'' calling herself the Doctor, and had a Police Box TARDIS, to boot!). Notably, Steven Moffat used a similar justification to retroactively place the War Doctor between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors without any change to the numbering of the incarnations, by saying the the War Doctor should be unnumbered because he refused to be known as "the Doctor" throughout his life. Some fans also welcomed the change to the canon in the sense that it made the Doctor far more powerful than she was in the past, and examined the possibilities that she could (possibly) use her regeneration energy on a whim to replicate the same sort of destruction the Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Doctors wrought to their surroundings during their regenerations.
** On the other hand, a wide margin of fans felt that this was a cheap and / or bad attempt to rewrite the entire history of the show, that the revelations made the Doctor ''less'' interesting (not more), and undermined the characters' status as being a shining example of TheUnchosenOne, by making them no longer just an ordinary Time Lord who became different through their own choices. Many fans were deeply opposed to the idea of Creator/WilliamHartnell's incarnation no longer being the "first" Doctor, some even labelling it as "disrespectful". Some also felt that showing a pre-Hartnell incarnation of the Doctor already acting like the familiar character undermined the significance of First Doctor's CharacterDevelopment from amoral traveller to hero. Many also felt that the potential for introducing more past Doctors was an unwelcome, cheap attempt to set up future spin offs. Resolving the "Morbius Doctors" was derided by some as excessive FanWank.
** And then you have the fans who [[TakeAThirdOption take a position somewhere in the middle]], not being necessarily opposed to the changing of the show's canon, welcoming the new ideas and they way it at least tries to tie into the classic series, but feeling the revelation could've been handled better, and a common complaint on both sides is that the Master's {{Infodump}} explaining it all to the Doctor came off as forced, and taking away a lot of the Doctors' agency. Some also feel it may have been more fitting for the Master to be the Timeless Child. Especially given the abuse Rassilon already put on him, and all the pain he experienced due to his regeneration cycle being limited, which gives him a bigger reason to blame the Time Lords for robbing him of his original unlimited cycle.

'''Ko Sharmus:''' Killed you first! ''[gets shot by the Cybermasters and pulls the trigger]''

* FanficFuel: So where ''did'' the Doctor / the Timeless Child come from all those billions of years ago, and are they truly from another universe? What were they doing during all those prior lives that have now been erased? What was the Division having them do? And did each of these incarnations get a Clara echo encounter? If so why didn't she mention them to the Doctor back then? The fandom's mind was already spinning on these and countless other questions within moments of the episode airing.
* HesJustHiding: While the episode seemingly takes pains to render the Time Lords and Gallifrey well and truly DeaderThanDead and leave the Doctor firmly established as the last of the Time Lords (the Master's inevitable JokerImmunity notwithstanding) once again, many fans doubted that the Master could possibly have killed ''everyone'' on the planet considering how the assembled horrors of the Time War failed to accomplish that until the War Doctor attempted to use the Moment. To say nothing of any Time Lords that might have been off-world (such as Rassilon) or able to escape via TARDIS use or other means when the Master pulled his ApocalypseHow. Also, given that destroying Gallifrey forever and ever would make "The Day of the Doctor" and a chunk of the Twelfth Doctor's character arc AllForNothing it seems possible, if not likely, that it will ''eventually'' be amended -- though, as it turned out, by hands other than the seemingly-unconcerned Thirteen's.

* LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt: So Gallifrey and the Master are gone again, huh? We'll believe it when we see it. Especially as the Doctor had a spare TARDIS in convenient running distance so the Master (and the other Time Lords) probably did too. The Master can even be heard ordering the Cyber-Masters to follow him somewhere to escape, and they came back in "The Power of the Doctor", Thirteen's GrandFinale, the following year. Gallifrey, however, did not.

* NarmCharm: The "Cyber-Masters" (Time Lord corpses upgraded into Cybermen) have metallic versions of the High Council headdress. Is it impractical and slightly silly-looking? Maybe. Is it a dread-inducing indication of what exactly these things are and how dangerous a threat they represent? '''Absolutely.'''

** The idea that the Time Lords experimented on an innocent entity in order to develop their regeneration ability could have posed an interesting moral quandary for the Doctor, forcing her to grapple with the question of whether she should keep using it while knowing where it came from. Unfortunately, her turning out to ''be'' the innocent being in question removes this quandary.

* CompleteMonster: [[YMMV/DoctorWhoS38E8TheHauntingOfVillaDiodati Ashad returns again]], [[YMMV/DoctorWhoS38E1E2Spyfall as does the "O" Master]]. Tecteun is introduced here, though See those pages for details.

* HesJustHiding: While the episode seemingly takes pains to render the Time Lords and Gallifrey well and truly DeaderThanDead and leave the Doctor firmly established as the last of the Time Lords (the Master's inevitable JokerImmunity notwithstanding) once again, many fans doubted that the Master could possibly have killed ''everyone'' on the planet considering how the assembled horrors of the Time War failed to accomplish that until the War Doctor attempted to use the Moment. To say nothing of any Time Lords that might have been off-world (such as Rassilon) or able to escape via TARDIS use or other means when the Master pulled his ApocalypseHow. Also, given that destroying Gallifrey forever and ever would make "The Day of the Doctor" and a chunk of the Twelfth Doctor's character arc AllForNothing and reflect badly on Thirteen's abilities, it's more than likely it will be amended to a happier fate in time.

* LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt: So Gallifrey and the Master are gone again, huh? We'll believe it when we see it. Especially as the Doctor had a spare TARDIS in convenient running distance so the Master (and the other Time Lords) probably did too. The Master can even be heard ordering the Cyber-Masters to follow him somewhere to escape.

** The Doctor having multiple regenerations prior to the one we know as the First Doctor was first teased all the way back in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E5TheBrainOfMorbius The Brain Of Morbius]]", when the Doctor's brain was scanned and several mysterious faces were glimpsed alongside the Doctor's four known incarnations. This episode indeed calls back to said serial by including those very same faces in the montage of the previous Doctors, finally confirming them to have been incarnations of the Doctor after four decades of speculation.