River Song and The Timeless Children

Television Doctor Who (2005-2022)
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Warning: spoilers for TV Doctor Who series 6 and 12

I am re-listening to the Diary of River Song audio box sets and just finished Series 3, which focuses on River’s backstory and how she was taken by Madame Kovarian, turned into a Time Lord, and brainwashed the kill the Doctor - it’s a really good series if you like River.

It also explores some more of Kovarian’s experiments and got me thinking - at the time, I had wondered exactly how you create a Time Lord simply because River was conceived in the Time Vortex, and that had always kind of soured a bit of A Good Man Goes to War for me - I thought it was a bit of a stretch that she could do that.

But then! I just realised that in The Timeless Children we learn that the Doctor isn’t a Time Lord, they were found by Tecteun and then experimented on, and their genetic ability to regenerate was extracted and given to the Time Lords! So this actually makes perfect sense now.

Is it the case that River Song isn’t actually a Time Lord at all, but just had the ability to regenerate given to her? Which of course she sacrifices to save the Doctor so essentially she’s just a normal human again now, just with a connection to the TARDIS.

Perhaps in order to be able to regenerate, you need two things - DNA from the Doctor, and to have travelled in a TARDIS to get the connection to the Time Vortex. This is why it’s not easy to just give that gift to anyone, and why it hasn’t been used much.

What do you think? Do you think Chibnall had thought of this? Does it help make more sense of River Song’s backstory?

I’m just ranting now. I love River :sweat_smile:

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Now I’m imagining Madame Kovarian going on a mission to Division to steal Tecteun’s notes on genetically engineering the ability to regenerate :slightly_smiling_face:

Are the Diary of River Song Box-sets interconnected or are they standalone seasons? There are so many right now that it seems a bit daunting to go through them all (and a wee bit expensive)
I have a feeling that you might be the person to answer this question :wink:

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Maybe the Doctor was also conceived in a time vortex?

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Ooh yes that would be so cool!

They are all stand alone. Most stories are stand-alone stories, although there are slight interconnecting arcs in each box set.

You can jump into any one without listening to the others.

I definitely think this is why Big Finish seem to be ditching the idea of numbered series, as it scares people off!

When I’ve finished my re-listen I’ll post about my favourite box sets, but Friend of the Family is the best, it’s one big story across the whole box set and doesn’t rely on gimmicks like returning characters from the show.

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I think it’s even scarier when there’s no number to tell you what order to go in…

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But if the stories aren’t connected then there isn’t an order to follow?

Anyway you can always look at the range and sort it by release date on this little site called TARDIS Guide :smiling_face:

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Ooooh, I’ve heard of that site. I believe it’s supposed to be quite good, isn’t it? :stuck_out_tongue:

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