#dws12

I absolutely loved that.

God, Sacha Dhawan is just so brilliant as the Master. We got to spend far more time with his character than we often do, especially for moments when the Doctor isn't even there. (Side note: I love how much aesthetic work the Master had clearly put into his Time Lord Cybermen.) I'm really hoping that that ending won't be the end to this incarnation of the Master (nothing ever finishes the Master off for good).

I'm amazed that we got an explanation of Ruth in this episode. I was expecting that mystery to continue well into the next series.

I just don't have the words to fully explain all of my thoughts and feelings right now.

The Timeless Child is the Doctor! I mean, we all kind of speculated as much, but that means a whole lot more than I expected it to. Agh, it just re-contextualises everything about the Doctor and Gallifrey in general, and actually doesn't ruin it! But also, the question that didn't get asked in the episode: where did she originally come from???

The Doctor, as it turns out, is not a native Gallifreyan. They aren't even actually a Time Lord. They are the model that Time Lords were built from, sure, but actual Time Lords are native Gallifreyans who have had their DNA spliced with the Doctor's regeneration gene. So... what species is the Doctor. Where was it that the original Timeless Child came from? I'm really hoping this will be explored in future because wow... This opens up a whole new chapter of lore that I can't wait to get into.

Though also, how was the 12 regenerations cap put on the Doctor when the Doctor was the blueprint for regeneration? I guess they could have imposed it somehow while forcing them into service and/or when wiping their memory. Or, my preferred theory, there is no regeneration cap on the Doctor and Gallifrey only pretended to grant extra regenerations to Eleven when he was dying. (It would also explain why the Eleventh Doctor was able to use future regeneration energy to heal River in Angels in Manhattan when he supposedly didn’t have any future regenerations.)

Another question is what about the future of humanity? If the final remaining humans have been transported back in time to the 21st Century, how do they continue to exist as far into the future as Utopia? I guess we can assume that there were a few other bands of survivors here and there, including the ones who went through the boundary. 

Which is another thing that wasn’t quite explained. The boundary is meant to go to different locations, so did all the other humans go to random places to live out their lives, or did they all get sent to Gallifrey? If the former, why does the boundary now seem to always lead to Gallifrey? And is it related to the original boundary where the Timeless Child was originally found?

Onto more general episode things, god I love Ko Sharmus. He was hilarious and adorable all the way through, and the ending made perfect sense. (Though not sure why the Master spent so long getting him shot once he realised what was happening, but whatever.)

And none of the companions died! Holy shit! I'm so pleased! I loved all of them so much in this episode, from Ryan's excited noises when he blew up some cybermen to Yaz and Graham's heart-to-heart.

Though, they're now going to think she's dead and won't have any way of rescuing her from Judoon prison.