Doctor Who: Russell T Davies Reveals If He'll Undo Controversial Timeless Child Twist

Few revelations in Doctor Who history – at least during the modern era – have proven as divisive among fans as learning that the Doctor is "The Timeless Child," the source of the Time Lord's ability to regenerate and thus the font from which all Time Lord culture sprung. The Doctor's "mother," Tecteun, hid this truth from the Doctor – along with all of her lives before the First Doctor, including her service to the shadow organization called the Division -- and all of Gallifrey. The Master eventually discovered the truth, and he did not take it well. Could the return of Russell T Davies to Doctor Who for the show's 60th anniversary mean that the Timeless Child retcon will go away? Davies is eager to quell that notion during an interview with SFX magazine.

"Let's stare that question right in the eye," Davies offered. "I'm not going to unwrite my good friend Chris Chibnall's work on 'The Timeless Children.' I'm not going to deny what he wrote. I'm going with it. It's absolutely fine. It's canon, it happened. It was transmitted. You cannot unwrite things, that would be absolutely rude to a great colleague and a lovely friend."

The note about "The Timeless Children" came at the end of a longer answer about whether Davies feels "beholden" to changes to Doctor Who's canon that have occurred during his absence from the series. "Oh, quite beholden actually. I'm very well behaved in that sense… I feel completely free to make up my own stuff. But I think it's very interesting that the only piece of Doctor Who lore that's never been held aloft and run with is Paul McGann having a human mother.

"None of us can deal with that. None of us cope with it and it's never been mentioned since. I find that really fascinating. That's not a hint that I'm going to engage with it at all. It's amazing, isn't it? Everything else gets kind of absorbed."

When is the Doctor Who Disney+ release date?

The Doctor Who anniversary specials will be the first new episodes of Doctor Who to stream globally on Disney+ as part of a deal between Disney Branded Television and the BBC. The BBC and Disney announced a plan to "transform Doctor Who into a global franchise for UK audiences and the rest of the world" days after Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker's final episode.

Doctor Who returns in 2023 for its 60th-anniversary specials ahead of 2024's Season 14, starring Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, which wrapped filming in July. Doctor Who Season 15, Gatwa's second as the Fifteenth Doctor, began production in October. This is a perfect time to jump into past seasons of Doctor Who, which are streaming on a different service. You can get caught up with our Doctor Who streaming binge guide. Doctor Who begins streaming on Disney+ on November 25th.