Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, Preview, TV, YouTube | Tagged: bbc, doctor who, Ncuti Gatwa, russell t davies

Doctor Who: RTD Embraced "Timeless Child" in 2021 Audition Script

Based on the 2021 Fifteenth Doctor audition script, Doctor Who Showrunner Russell T. Davies viewed the "Timeless Child" storyline as canon.

With showrunner Russell T. Davies' Ncuti Gatwa (Fifteenth Doctor) & Millie Gibson (Ruby Sunday)-starring Doctor Who set to kick off a new era of adventuring across time & space this May, the BBC Scripts Library (along with a whole bunch of other "Who" and non-"Who"-related scripts) is now the official home for the RTD-penned eight-page "The Fifteenth Doctor Audition Piece." Now, that alone would be cool enough to check out – but even better, the December 2021 script demonstrates that RTD had already integrated a recent major change to the show's canon into his thinking about the show.

Written by then-Showrunner Chris Chibnall and directed by Jamie Magnus Stone, 2020's Doctor Who Series 12 Episode 10: "The Timeless Children" proved to be a game-changer episode on a number of levels – leaving fans questioning what they thought they knew about the Doctor's origin story. It's the storyline that would introduce Jo Martin's Fugitive Doctor, one of the original regenerations that was wiped from the Doctor's (the "Timeless Child") mind – leaving the Doctor believing that their origin was the one that viewers had come to know. Of course, Chibnall's new take on the Doctor's origin wasn't exactly embraced by a decent chunk of the fandom out there – with many considering the move a bridge too far that should be "un-retconned" once Davies returned.

Apparently, no stranger to the rumblings out there that he was planning to "course correct" what Chibnall did (we loved the darker twist to the Doctor's story, personally), Davies wasted no time setting the record straight on what his plans were – and what they weren't – during an interview with SFX Magazine that went live back in November 2023. "Let's stare that question right in the eye. I'm not going to unwrite my good friend Chris Chibnall's work on 'The Timeless Children," Davies offered matter-of-factly. "I'm not going to deny what he wrote. I'm going with it. It's absolutely fine."

And that brings us back to our original topic – the audition script. While RTD may have gone public in 2023 to reaffirm that he had no intentions of undoing anything that Chibnall crafted regarding "Timeless Child," the script page used for Gatwa's audition approximately two years prior contained this line of dialogue on the fifth page: "I came from another universe but the Time Lords adopted me and that's my heritage now; the very last Time Lord in existence." Here's a look at the eight-page script that was uploaded earlier today:

RTD not undoing "Timeless Child" makes perfect sense when you consider the storyline possibilities tied around the idea that the Doctor has a whole set of earlier regenerations that they know nothing about. In fact, we could see that being an interesting route to go with Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor. With Davies viewing Gatwa & Gibson's first series as "Series 1," the idea of the Doctor learning who they truly are could make for an interesting early series-long arc.

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