Current Events > Doctor Who fans. Are you watching Flux? Opinions? *SPOILERS*

(+) Yeah! (+)

Wow, this season really makes up for the very poor 11th and 12th seasons.

How are you guys liking it? I mentioned in another thread how I'm starting to feel like I'm really gonna miss Whittaker, but now I'm sure I am.

The 3rd episode from last week was a little weak, but 1, 2 and 4 are great, even though the main boss is all sorts of cringe. I love Dan tbh even though I have no idea what he's saying sometimes lol.

This last episode was one of the best of Chibnall's era tbh.

2 more episodes to go for this short season. I have no idea where they're going. I'm guessing the old theory about Angels being punished Time Lords is gonna come true.

Please no leaked spoilers.

Anyways, what do you think?

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Brilliant so far.

Where has this Chris Chibnall been for the last few seasons?

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Is this Who or a spin-off? I kinda stopped watching.

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Ranting Nord posted...

Is this Who or a spin-off? I kinda stopped watching.

It's Who - Flux is the name of the story - it's a six-parter that takes up the whole season.

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Ranting Nord posted...

Is this Who or a spin-off? I kinda stopped watching.

Do not Blink!

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archedsoul posted...

Wow, this season really makes up for the very poor 11th and 12th seasons.

How are you guys liking it? I mentioned in another thread how I'm starting to feel like I'm really gonna miss Whittaker, but now I'm sure I am.

The 3rd episode from last week was a little weak, but 1, 2 and 4 are great, even though the main boss is all sorts of cringe. I love Dan tbh even though I have no idea what he's saying sometimes lol.

This last episode was one of the best of Chibnall's era tbh.

2 more episodes to go for this short season. I have no idea where they're going. I'm guessing the old theory about Angels being punished Time Lords is gonna come true.

Please no leaked spoilers.

Anyways, what do you think?

Got to love Americans struggling with real English accents lol.

Loving it so far.


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I'm enjoying it. It still has the major problems I have with the rest of the Chibnall era, those being that they overexplain and narrate everything. But everything around it is so much better.

Although... I didn't mind the season prior to this. The Master in that was amazing.

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Andrew Garfield might make another return in dr who series

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This is definitely the best season so far, as someone who's been making excuses for it the entire time. Next to Demons of the Punjab, I think the Sontaran and Weeping Angel episodes are some of this run's best episodes.

I do have gripes, though. The Flux storyline is getting weaker and weaker every episode. I like Jacob Anderson well enough after a rough start in episode one, and I thought his backstory was done pretty well in Once, Upon Time, but since his and Bel's quest to find each other has basically taken over the Flux plot of the miniseries it feels more and more tacked on. It all depends how this all pays off, but without the payoff, all I can say is that the Flux plotline is currently the weakest part of the season.

Though I do think Swarm is a cool character aesthetically, he's like Rocky Horror-era Tim Curry. Azure I can take or leave. I kinda called the Passenger twist with Dan's lady, but with it being an infinitely sized prison I can dig where they're going with the stakes of it. And as someone who doesn't mind the Timeless Child stuff, I'm kind of liking the Division stuff - ESPECIALLY in Village of the Angels. Going heavy on the Division, and giving the Angels both numbers and purpose, made this episode a great watch - and I'm not really a Weeping Angels fan.

I think Blink was okay, but they're too late-00's jumpscare for my taste and I think Moffat kept adding more and more pointless wank that made the later Weeping Angel episodes pretty meh. It reminds me of when he made human Daleks, human characters who would grow Dalek eyestalks out of their foreheads because "yOu NeVeR kNoW wHo'S a DaLeK!!!1!1!11!", or later on when he made an episode about the fucking monster under your bed. I hate that shit.

And yet, this Weeping Angel episode is one of my favorite episodes of Chibnall's entire run. It did justice to all of Moffat's wanky character traits without making it quite as unbearable, it made them threatening by giving them purpose and by adding more and more angels and exploiting the wanky later additions to add even more angels to the mix. It kept escalating the conflict and kept it engaging.

And on top of that, it's one of the first episodes to really pay off the Timeless Child stuff - another one being Once, Upon Time. This is why I think it works, even if people thinks it makes the Doctor too important and removes what makes them special. Mindwipe stuff is hit or miss, but by giving her such a storied history to draw from going forward, there's a metric truckload of new directions they could take this. In this most recent episode, we saw the sort of stakes this unknown past can result in.

With that being said, I still have some issues with the show. Namely, that the first and third episodes feel more like build-up, and how good they are in hindsight is going to rely on what they were building towards. The first episode was kind of a mess because it had to introduce everything and set the stakes, and the third episode similarly fleshed out a lot of what episode one was establishing to a slightly more coherent degree.

Another issue I have is with the character writing, and this is partially because I'm a Thasmin shipper.

For the most part, I think it's great that the characters are splitting up more. Episode 2 was so good because it actually did separate character plots for once - in series 11 and 12, the characters would rarely get a chance to split up and have their own moments, they'd just move around in a group and two of the characters would have a moment now and again. Some episodes involved the supporting cast getting a chance to shine without the Doctor, but for the most part they were a monolith, acting as a cohesive whole to the narrative detriment to at least one character per episode.

With that being said, though, I'd still like the characters to regroup and interact? Like what I like about RTD-era Doctor Who is that the characters split up, then they reform, then they solve the mystery and you get some nice character stuff.

So far in Flux, the Doctor has been treating Yaz kinda shittily? And Yaz has essentially been filling the Doctor mentor role for Dan. There's much more of a physical and emotional divide than I'd like to see, and I get that each episode is a cliffhanger so of course shit is gonna keep going off the rails, but it's like when the characters do meet up there's all this secrecy and urgency and tension - there's no downtime. It's like circumstances keep forcing the Doctor and Yaz apart, and that's fine because the stakes here are so impossibly high, but when they do see each other the Doctor does something shitty to avoid Yaz's concern.

And some of that is because I ship them, but it's also just not to my viewing taste as far as Doctor Who goes. I hate when the Doctor looks down on people or treats them like shit, Ten did it pretty well but it also got super old. Twelve was interesting in how negative he was at the start, but ultimately I really disliked series 8 because he was such a persistent prick about everything. To see Thirteen become this guarded person who keeps lashing out is kind of unpleasant, and I'd appreciate some sort of catharsis - if not now, then soon. And while I'd like for Yaz to stay on the TARDIS for longer, if things stay this way for much longer, I wouldn't mind her leaving for a better situation. Because all I seem to see is her tackling boatloads of trauma, being brave about it because she's internalised all of this cool action stuff from her time with the Doctor, only for the real deal to talk down to her and treat her poorly for trying to reach out to someone she cares about.

So long story short - I've made excuses for the earlier seasons at times, though I would say that I've enjoyed them relatively well with some shortcomings. But so far, I think Flux is Chibnall's best season. Episode one was wonky, episode two was one of my favorite episodes in years, episode three was pretty good but it'll all come down to whether the storyline of the season pans out, and episode four is the best Weeping Angel episode since Blink.

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I'm liking it so far. I really hope we get to see the Silence again.

Dan's a great new companion. I don't know what's going on between Yaz and the Doctor, but I feel bad for Yaz.

Is the Division like an evil Men In Black type organization?

CommonStar posted...

I'm liking it so far. I really hope we get to see the Silence again.

Dan's a great new companion. I don't know what's going on between Yaz and the Doctor, but I feel bad for Yaz.

Is the Division like an evil Men In Black type organization?

Spoilers for series 12 and pretty wide-spanning implications for the Doctor:

The Division were a secret Time Lord spy cell who would utilise agents to conduct clandestine operations for the will of Gallifrey. The Doctor was one of their operatives, with regenerations before what we know as the First Doctor - as hinted at in the Classic series with the "Morbius" Doctors - and potentially between the second and third Doctors. The Doctor had their mind wiped, and they would face regeneration any number of times between operations. Series 12 brought this to light, as well as tying the Doctor more strongly into Time Lord history, meaning there's entire regenerations missing from the Doctor's memory courtesy of the Division. She's hunting the Division down to understand the scope of what they did to her.

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MrMallard posted...

And some of that is because I ship them, but it's also just not to my viewing taste as far as Doctor Who goes. I hate when the Doctor looks down on people or treats them like s***, Ten did it pretty well but it also got super old. Twelve was interesting in how negative he was at the start, but ultimately I really disliked series 8 because he was such a persistent prick about everything. To see Thirteen become this guarded person who keeps lashing out is kind of unpleasant, and I'd appreciate some sort of catharsis - if not now, then soon.

I kinda like this direction for her really. 13 started out as just kinda boring and friendly all the time, but as time has gone on she's really struggling to maintain the facade of "everything is fine, we're just having adventures" while Yaz has consistently been noticing more and more that The Doctor is clearly really struggling and doing a terrible job of trying to hide it.

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FurryPhilosifer posted...

I kinda like this direction for her really. 13 started out as just kinda boring and friendly all the time, but as time has gone on she's really struggling to maintain the facade of "everything is fine, we're just having adventures" while Yaz has consistently been noticing more and more that The Doctor is clearly really struggling and doing a terrible job of trying to hide it.

I can respect that. I don't mind that she ended up having some grit, but I honestly really like the more happy, bombastic Doctor from series 11. It's like Twelve said - never cruel, never cowardly. Thirteen hasn't been cowardly, but she's starting to be a bit cruel. My favorite aspect is when she figures something out, and when the other people don't understand she puts the information in their hands and gets them to make the same connection - I characterised that as a love of learning and a love of getting other people to learn as well. That's very much a series 11 thing, series 12 was all about her coping with personal things and keeping secrets and series 13 has her keeping even more secrets and like lashing out due to stress.

A bit of grit is definitely fine, but I was hoping for a balance between that and the exuberant and fun person she became in series 11. But I definitely think I'm biased in my reasoning for wanting that, so at the end of the day, whatever.

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where was this Chibbers for the last two years? we knew he had it in him. he still needs to avoid faceplanting on the landing, though. and hopefully doesn't drag too much of the story into next year's specials.

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Maybe I'll check it out, but I'm not super stoked on 6-parters so idk. I stopped watching after the first season of Whittaker, but I honestly never understood why Doctor Who nerds were so worked up about a female doctor. The whole thing left be kinda bewildered tbh, but there was a noticeable drop in quality that season.

It reminded me alot of Star Trek Discovery (maybe because I watched them both at about the same time), but both shows seemed to move away from the "mystery of the week" type format that worked SO well in the past, and I think that's a big reason why I just couldn't get into either of them. Also, the writing and characters were just bad, lol. That's usually enough on its own.

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nexigrams posted...

but I honestly never understood why Doctor Who nerds were so worked up about a female doctor.

thankfully, that blew over pretty quickly. but, as you said, the writing did her no favors, so there were always a few, loud, people who couldn't let it go.

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Great responses. Lots of good points on the remaining issues, since it's definitely not perfect. Really hope there's a nice payoff.

I definitely appreciate someone learning and adjusting themselves. Series 12 was better than 11 and 13 is better than both, so Chibnall is clearly trying to fix issues people were critical about.

Whittaker is doing pretty great tbh. She puts in a lot of work and she feels as zany as past Doctors. Her TARDIS is a mess though. Really liked 11 and 12's one way better.

Anyways, I'm excited because we get a relatively good season, and then still have 4 specials next year with Whittaker and then RTD returns. So we could be looking at a few years of good Who.

As for the Master, I liked Dhawan's Master, but I miss Missy too much. She grew a lot in terms of the Master and he just regressed right back to Simm level.

spikethedevil posted...

Got to love Americans struggling with real English accents lol.

Loving it so far.

Lol, with Dan, it's not so much John Bishop's accent, but the slang/dialect and how fast/heavily he says it. Not sure if those are the correct words. I usually have no issues understanding most English people.

Like he was like "oi have me wok righ heeeya", which is supposed be "I have my wok right here".

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Yeah Scouse/Liverpool accent and dialect is one of the stronger ones.

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It's funny how years of watching panel shows allowed me to hear and understand John Bishop's dialogue very easily.

I know a lot of people hate RTD and I kinda hated him for how he ended his run, but I'm really excited to see what he's gonna do in his return.

Yeah, this is the best the show's been in years.

Love Dan. Love when the companions are just "some guy" who has no idea what's going on. Even funnier when you factor in that the whole season has only lasted maybe a day from his point of view, and he didn't even get to eat dinner before he was kidnapped. Dude's been fighting off Sontarans and Weeping Angels on an empty stomach, poor guy.

(His accent is impossible to make out half the time, yeah, but I just think that makes him funnier.)

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I can understand why Rose and the series 4 finale get flak. That was my first era of Doctor Who, so I'm biased in favour of Rose personally, but that series 4 finale honestly does deserve the negative rep it gets.

But to this day, I still like RTD's mediocre episodes to most Moffat episodes. Compare The Idiot Box, an episode about an alien that possesses TVs in the 60's and steals people's faces, or Gridlock, an episode about a century long traffic jam facilitated by cat nuns with giant killer crabs that feed on pollution, to Listen - an episode about the monster under the bed. Something about Moffat just rubbed me the wrong way a lot of the time, like the wanky "I am the Doctor" speeches, but even the mediocre episodes of RTD's era are immensely watchable to me.

To which someone might be tempted to say "But What About Love And Monsters", which is a bad episode for sure, but I would ask - what about Sleep No More, the most creepypasta-adjacent episode of Moffat's tenure? What about Moffat's human Daleks, created as a cheap story cop-out and an excuse for him to say "you never know who's a Dalek", which somehow makes the Daleks better because you never know who's going to grow an eyestalk and laser you to death?

idk, Moffat just shits me off. The 50th anniversary special was good, and I liked series 7 and Vincent and the Doctor. But his seasons just have this inherent punchable, eyerolling quality to it. And it's not just that it hasn't aged well - I never really liked series 5, it was a huge disappointment. Other seasons got slightly better, but outside of series 7, I wouldn't call any of the seasons beyond that outright good.

Give me RTD schlock or give me death. It's stupid, but it's watchable - barring a single particularly bad episode.

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Moffat's whole "the Doctor is a God" approach got really corny (in similar ways to Chibnall's "Timeless Child" thing), and 11's major plot involving the Silence and the cracks and stuff really fell off bad towards the end to the point I had lost track of what was going on, but Moffat did have some good stuff every now and again -- mainly in RTD's era, though.

Never seen hate for season 4's finale, though. With everyone coming together to stop Davros? That was great. Superb way to cap off all 4 years of RTD's era.

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Any idea when this will hit HBO Max?

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Rharyx211 posted...

Moffat's whole "the Doctor is a God" approach got really corny (in similar ways to Chibnall's "Timeless Child" thing), and 11's major plot involving the Silence and the cracks and stuff really fell off bad towards the end to the point I had lost track of what was going on, but Moffat did have some good stuff every now and again -- mainly in RTD's era, though.

Never seen hate for season 4's finale, though. With everyone coming together to stop Davros? That was great. Superb way to cap off all 4 years of RTD's era.

Oh yeah, there ended up being some crackers in there. Peter Capaldi's introduction episode as Twelve was one of the most ambitious and upsetting things I think Moffat ever did, anything written by Neil Gaiman was a treat, and one reason why I liked series 7 so much is because it has one of the best character episodes of Moffat's run - The Power of Three, going through Amy and Rory's life outside of the Doctor - and The Crimson Horror, which has fantastic performances and actually features the Doctor in some sort of peril for once. Not to mention Nightmare in Silver, but again, that's a Gaiman episode.

And as harsh as I am on Moffat, the 50th anniversary special was fucking excellent. That was the one time I wholly and utterly submitted to Moffat's bullshit - I loved it.

In regards to the series 4 finale, it just felt a bit bloated. It strained under the weight of all the cameos, the shocking twists felt a bit ehh and the Donna moment at the end has gone down as a controversial move. I loved Davros in it, but the finale was just spread a bit too thin for my liking.

Turn Left is legitimately one of the best revival-era episodes of the show, though, and the cliffhanger it ends on was hype as fuck.

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Rharyx211 posted...

Never seen hate for season 4's finale, though. With everyone coming together to stop Davros? That was great. Superb way to cap off all 4 years of RTD's era.

I mean the only reason I was irked by it was because he tied up everything leaving very little open for the continuation to connect back to his run. It felt a little selfish like he didn't want his successors to touch his characters.

I think it took like 5 or so months after season 12 aired for it to hit HBO, so probably around the Spring.

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MrMallard posted...

and the cliffhanger it ends on was hype as fuck.

Tell me about it.

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BeyondWalls posted...

Any idea when this will hit HBO Max?

If you've got a VPN, find a way to download the Australian ABC iView player onto your phone. The episodes play in HD right after the first airing of the show, and you can stream content without needing to make an account.

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Missys whole arc is amazing imo.

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MrMallard posted...

like the wanky "I am the Doctor" speeches

I thought David Tennant's doctor was the worst for this actually, with Peter Capaldi not having as many. Matt Smith still had a few though. But both Tennant and Smith, while I loved, I got so bored by the end of their speeches. It felt predictable.

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FurryPhilosifer posted...

I thought David Tennant's doctor was the worst for this actually, with Peter Capaldi not having as many. Matt Smith still had a few though. But both Tennant and Smith, while I loved, I got so bored by the end of their speeches. It felt predictable.

In hindsight, Ten did start with the grand megalomaniac speeches. I still liked them because they were snappy and David Tennant could pull them off pretty well, though in recent years I do find myself getting a bit annoyed at them.

The thing about Matt Smith, though, is that I feel like a solid third or quarter of his run is made up of him making some sort of badass boast to threaten the monster of the week - and maybe that's an exaggeration, but that's how it felt while I was watching it.

It happens in the first episode of series 5. It happens in the last episode of series 5. It happens a bunch in A Good Man Goes To War and all that sort of stuff. At one point or another, The Doctor's main schtick became listing off a bunch of grand offscreen achievements to make himself out as a badass - and it had roots in Ten's run, but I found it to be much, much more prominent and significantly more distracting in Eleven's run.

And that doesn't even stack up to him flying into the sun and rebooting the entire universe in his first season. Moffat's Doctor was just... if you were into the absurd power fantasy, fine. But I found the whole gothic fairytale, invincible Doctor vibe to be really jarring and unpleasant after Nine and Ten were so human and - dare I say it - grounded. Even with Ten becoming the Time Lord Victorious and becoming kind of a prick.

Like I'll take "Earth is under my protection" over "Look me up in that grand database of yours - the architect of the fall of X-K-57, defier of the Shadow Proclamation, ultimate enemy of the most feared alien races in the universe! I am the Doctor, and you'll never be able to defeat me!" any day of the week.

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MrMallard posted...

Like I'll take "Earth is under my protection" over "Look me up in that grand database of yours - the architect of the fall of X-K-57, defier of the Shadow Proclamation, ultimate enemy of the most feared alien races in the universe! I am the Doctor, and you'll never be able to defeat me!" any day of the week.

Yeah, I can't disagree. There's a lot of complaints over the timeless child storyline, but Matt Smith already portrayed the doctor as the most important thing in the universe ever, so it's been going in this direction for a while.

Matt Smith giving a big speech to scare the monster away vs Jodie Whittaker using the sonic screwdriver to reverse the polarity of something: choose your fighter.

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More or less, haha. I gummed this thread up with long fan rants, mb - the bug bit me when I saw this post I guess.

Tomorrow is episode five out of six. I hope they start to wrap up the season to some degree, especially in regards to the Ravages. Even if Vinder and Bel are in the next three specials in 2022, there has to be some closure at the end of this season imo. If the Flux storyline spills into the 2022 specials, or if this season ends on a cliffhanger, I'm gonna be pretty buttmad at the lack of resolution.

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MrMallard posted...

I hope they start to wrap up the season to some degree

I'm so sorry.

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Tecteun should have been the big bad, with the Ravagers being a secondary threat. That way, she could have gone into the specials, with the Division being the final threat the Doctor has to face.

For five episodes straight, the Ravagers keep getting what they want and fucking off into space. And now they've killed Tecteun, one of the most important characters in the Timeless Child storyline.

They couldn't give Tecteun one more episode? Left it at a cliffhanger with then dusting the Ood or something?

I've liked this episode, but I am very, very torn on the way they ended episode 5. Goddamn.

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The Swarm has gotten to the point where they seem too powerful that any setback for them is because they're holding back or being gimped by writing. It's kinda lame.

I really hope that's not the last we see of Tecteun.

CommonStar posted...

The Swarm has gotten to the point where they seem too powerful that any setback for them is because they're holding back or being gimped by writing. It's kinda lame.

I really hope that's not the last we see of Tecteun.

Swarm is just the name of the male Ravager.

i have a feeling we're either going to find out that their dusting isn't actually lethal or get a full reboot next week, though. so, either way i think she's going to be back.

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Decent episode but I have a horrible feeling about where this is going.

Major speculative spoilers ahead.

Vinder and Bel are The Doctor's parents and we're gonna see some closed loop sacrifice shit.

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I've heard that theory before, but I just don't see why people think that's the case. I think it's just because Bel is pregnant.

I hate going "ruined forever!" about stuff, it's stupid and petty. The Doctor's parents being these two characters, on top of the timeless child stuff and the division stuff, would be the threshold at which I call Chibnall on his bullshit and re-evaluate how much I like the show.

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Chibnells leaving next year anyway.

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If that theory about Vinder and Bel turns out to be true I wouldn't see the problem with it tbh.

I mean, unless they go all-in with Looms (and, to be fair, this whole arc is just Chibbers putting his spin on The Cartmel Masterplan, so this isn't beyond the realms of possibility - hell, that creepy black and white house they keep showing has some serious Lungbarrow vibes after all) then we have to assume that The Doctor has parents - he was in an orphanage as a child, but must have been conceived etc. - so showing them on-screen doesn't retcon or change anything about the character's history at all.

And if we are to see them, then two people who are brave, heroic, undaunted, compassionate and willing to search the universe for each other out of their love are probably some pretty great candidates for the role tbh - I can definitely see The Doctor telling them that she denies Tecteun's claim that she takes after her, and instead believes that she got all her best traits from Vinder and Bel instead - it would be quite a nice payoff and counterpoint to the scene on Sunday night.

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spikethedevil posted...

Got to love Americans struggling with real English accents lol.

Loving it so far.

To bad the English don't have them. The American accent, other then Boston with dropping the Rs, is more like the original English accent. After the Revolutionary War into the 1800s the British accent started to change. So Americans already know what real English accents sound like, we have them.

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Gamerguymass posted...

To bad the English don't have them. The American accent, other then Boston with dropping the Rs, is more like the original English accent. After the Revolutionary War into the 1800s the British accent started to change. So Americans already know what real English accents sound like, we have them.

Actually the real English accents are those of the celtic tribes!

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Gamerguymass posted...

To bad the English don't have them. The American accent, other then Boston with dropping the Rs, is more like the original English accent. After the Revolutionary War into the 1800s the British* accent started to change. So Americans already know what real English accents sound like, we have them.

English*

And I doubt American accents are the same as they were 200 years ago.

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Tom Clark posted...

If that theory about Vinder and Bel turns out to be true I wouldn't see the problem with it tbh.

I mean, unless they go all-in with Looms (and, to be fair, this whole arc is just Chibbers putting his spin on The Cartmel Masterplan, so this isn't beyond the realms of possibility - hell, that creepy black and white house they keep showing has some serious Lungbarrow vibes after all) then we have to assume that The Doctor has parents - he was in an orphanage as a child, but must have been conceived etc. - so showing them on-screen doesn't retcon or change anything about the character's history at all.

And if we are to see them, then two people who are brave, heroic, undaunted, compassionate and willing to search the universe for each other out of their love are probably some pretty great candidates for the role tbh - I can definitely see The Doctor telling them that she denies Tecteun's claim that she takes after her, and instead believes that she got all her best traits from Vinder and Bel instead - it would be quite a nice payoff and counterpoint to the scene on Sunday night.

Id be down with this.


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I'm not too bothered really about "butchering the lore" or "this ruins the doctor's character" or stuff like with revelations on her background.

I just think the writing around it has been really boring. This season still stands above the previous two, but given how high the stakes are, I don't think it's hitting like it should.

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spikethedevil posted...

English*

And I doubt American accents are the same as they were 200 years ago.

Actually they are for the most part.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english

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Huh the more you know.gif

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I mean, fwiw I've always been a bit wary about Big Doctor Event things. Wasn't at all a fan of the Doctor's name being this grand apocalyptic force that could end the universe if uttered, initially had my reservations about the War Doctor until I saw the 50th anniversary special, wasn't exactly thrilled to see Clara meld with the Doctor's timeline and shift the character to where he was today - or end up causing the childhood Doctor's fear of monsters under his bed, for that matter. The Doctor just is - I don't mind getting more backstory, unexplored or otherwise hinted at during the show, but I feel like it's not really necessary and that info should come slowly and sparingly.

In Chibnall's run, we've had the revelation that the Doctor isn't even a Time Lord - they're a progenitor species discovered by the first Time Lord, the source of all of Gallifrey's power. I was okay with that because frankly, Pandora's box had already been open with all of the legendary feats Moffat's run attributed to the Doctor - doubling his previously listed age by having Eleven spend a thousand years on Trenzalore, having the Doctor reboot the universe, making the Doctor's name this grave secret, all the stuff with River Song being the Doctor's wife, etc. If Moffat can make changes, so can future showrunners.

With that being said, I think if a showrunner is going to drop this Massive Character Lore for a 50+ year old character with 40 seasons of television behind them, they should only get one big revelation. Davies had the Time War, and that informed his entire era of the show. Moffat had a whole clusterfuck of stuff, but I'd say his biggest mark as showrunner was adding the War Doctor. And Chibnall has the Timeless Child.

I'm already annoyed at all of the stuff Moffat did, and while I'm on board with the Timeless Child due to precedent - and due to liking the possibilities it opens - I don't think this should be the era to drop the Doctor's parents on top of all the stuff that's already going on. It's unnecessary. I'm unabashedly a Russell T. Davies fanboy, but I'm not even saying to leave that story nugget for him to mine - I just don't think it's relevant or important yet, and given that the Doctor's parents have remained a mystery long before the Timeless Child stuff, I can easily see it remaining a mystery for longer.

There'll be plenty of time to have a storyline exploring where the Doctor actually came from, who her people are and who her parents are. I just don't think it has to be Bel and Vinder, on top of the Timeless Child and the Division and the TARDIS being corrupted and all of that. Chibnall has the Timeless Child. That's enough for one showrunner.

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Tom Clark makes some great points about Vinder and Bel. It actually would work. But still, just having the Doctor involved seems too grandfathery even though Bel's already pregnant.

Mr. Mallard does bring up a great point in that this would be too much to give Chibnall to explore after everything he's gotten.

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