\u201cI am the last of the Time Lords\u2026 and I am so, so glad to be alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not for the first time, Doctor Who<\/a> has established its lead character to be the last surviving member of their (adoptive) race \u2013 but how did this set of circumstances come to be, and what happened to the Time Lords? Well, it\u2019s all rather complicated\u2026<\/p>\n The first time that the Doctor (then played by Christopher Eccleston) was referred to as \u201cthe last of the Time Lords\u201d was in 2005 episode The End of the World<\/a>, in which it was revealed that, at some point between the classic series of Doctor Who wrapping up in 1989 and the show\u2019s relaunch in 2005, the denizens of Gallifrey had all been eradicated off-screen.<\/p>\n Further details were drip-fed in stories that followed, with episodes including Dalek<\/a> and The Parting of the Ways<\/a> gradually revealing that the Doctor themself had been responsible for the the extermination of their people, detonating a device known as The Moment to end the Last Great Time War by wiping out both sides, the Daleks and the Time Lords.<\/p>\n Simple enough? Stick with us\u2026<\/p>\n 2013 episode The Day of the Doctor<\/a> later ret-conned this genocidal reveal, explaining that while the Doctor had indeed believed Gallifrey to be destroyed, the planet was in fact frozen in time and survived in a pocket universe.<\/p>\n By the time of 2015\u2019s Hell Bent<\/a>, the status quo had changed again \u2013 the Time Lords had somehow returned from banishment, with Gallifrey re-materialising at the end of our universe.<\/p>\n This resurrection lasted all of five minutes, though \u2013 alright, five years \u2013 as 2020 episode Spyfall<\/a> revealed that the Master (Sacha Dhawan) had launched a devastating attack on Gallifrey, leaving it in ruins.<\/p>\n It was unclear if any of the Time Lords in residence might have survived the assault, but the same year\u2019s The Timeless Children<\/a> clarified the matter \u2013 to stop the Master from using the corpses of dead Time Lords to build an army of Cybermen with the power of regeneration, the warrior Ko Sharmus (Ian McElhinney) activated a weapon known as the Death Particle, wiping out all organic life on Gallifrey.<\/p>\n This all chimes with what the Doctor (now Ncuti Gatwa) tells new companion Ruby in Space Babies<\/a>, the first episode of the show\u2019s new season: \u201cMy world is called Gallifrey [\u2026] Ruby, it\u2019s gone. They died. There was a genocide and they died. So the one that was adopted<\/a> was the only one left.\u201d<\/p>\n Surely, though, there might be some Time Lords who \u2013 like the Doctor \u2013 had left Gallifrey, and so escaped the effects of the Death Particle?<\/p>\n Perhaps not. In the season\u2019s second episode, The Devil\u2019s Chord<\/a>, the Doctor admits to Ruby that they don\u2019t know if their granddaughter Susan<\/a> (played on the show between 1963 and 1964 by Carole Ann Ford) is still alive.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Time Lords were murdered,\u201d they explain. \u201cGenocide rolled across time and space like a great big cellular explosion \u2013 maybe it killed her too.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, this doesn\u2019t quite fit with what was previously established on-screen. Why would Susan \u2013 who was last seen on Earth in the 22nd century \u2013 have been killed by the Death Particle?<\/p>\n Of course, it\u2019s possible that she might have returned to Gallifrey at some point since she was last seen on-screen, but even so, the Doctor\u2019s description of a wave of killer energy that \u201crolled across time and space like a great big cellular explosion\u201d obliterating all Time Lords in existence, wherever they might reside, is different to what we were told the Death Particle had achieved.<\/p>\n Whatever the explanation (some off-screen cataclysm, or something related to the Flux<\/a>?), it\u2019s another shift in the status quo, putting back into place the Doctor\u2019s status as last of the Time Lords which was originally introduced by Russell T Davies during his first stint as showrunner.<\/p>\n Though it\u2019s not absolute, the strong possibility exists that \u2013 at least as far as the Doctor\u2019s concerned \u2013 no other Time Lords survive (with the possible exception of the Master, currently experiencing a kind of living death trapped inside the Toymaker\u2019s golden tooth<\/a>).<\/p>\n Who\u2019s to say how long that\u2019ll last, though? The Time Lords didn\u2019t let a little thing like total extinction stop them before, and we suspect this time will be no different\u2026<\/p> Doctor Who continues next Saturday (18th May) \u2013 the first two episodes of the new season are available now on BBC iPlayer and will air on BBC One from 6:20pm. <\/strong>Previous seasons are available to stream on\u00a0BBC iPlayer<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Check out more of our\u00a0Sci-Fi<\/a>\u00a0coverage or visit our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Streaming Guide<\/a> to see what\u2019s on tonight.\u00a0<\/strong>For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to <\/strong>The Radio Times Podcast<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Space Babies and The Devil’s Chord establish a new status quo for the Doctor’s adoptive race. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":51223,"template":"","categories":[1,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/05\/what-happened-to-the-time-lords-in-doctor-who.jpg",620,413,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/05\/what-happened-to-the-time-lords-in-doctor-who-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/05\/what-happened-to-the-time-lords-in-doctor-who-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/05\/what-happened-to-the-time-lords-in-doctor-who.jpg",620,413,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/05\/what-happened-to-the-time-lords-in-doctor-who.jpg",620,413,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/05\/what-happened-to-the-time-lords-in-doctor-who.jpg",620,413,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2024\/05\/what-happened-to-the-time-lords-in-doctor-who.jpg",620,413,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Space Babies and The Devil's Chord establish a new status quo for the Doctor's adoptive race.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/51222"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"John](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2020\/10\/war-doctor-63ffad8.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"war-doctor\\"\/")
\n<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n<\/div>![\"Ncuti](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2024\/04\/476169-5257ffc.jpg?quality=90&resize=619%2C413\" "\\"476169,Doctor")
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