Doctor Whoseason 15 has brought back one of the show’s most iconic recurring moments; in “Lux”, Gatwa’s Doctor was finally given his own variation of the “last of the Time Lords”speech that every incarnation since 2005 has delivered. This powerful moment happened while the Doctor and Belinda were trapped in a two-dimensional world, and Belinda correctly asserted that they’d be able to return to reality if they opened up and became more “three-dimensional”. The scene both cemented Belinda as one ofDoctor Who’s best companionsand helped new audiences more deeply understand the Doctor’s past.
The Doctor’s history is a very complicated one, and hisstatus as the “last of the Time Lords”has been repeatedly brought into question in recent years. It was certainly true when the Ninth Doctor emotionally confessed, “I’m the last of them… they’re gone”in his second adventure, butthe show has given so much extra backstoryin the years since that it’s hard to take these words at face value.
The Fifteenth Doctor’s “Last Time Lord” Speech Lacks Emotional Impact
The Doctor Knows That Gallifrey Survived The Time War
While it was touching to see the Doctor recognize his heritage in “Lux,” the speech that he gives ultimately lacks conviction and emotional impact because of how convoluted the story of Gallifrey has been recently. When actors such as Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant gave similar speeches during their time on the show, it worked effectively becausethe audience had no reason to believe that Gallifrey still existed. Every word could be taken as the Doctor intended it, and it helped develop the Doctor’s story in a powerful way.
However, the events of “The Timeless Children” make it difficult to care about the future of Gallifrey anymore. Ever since 2005’s “Rose”,Doctor Whohad been building towards the “return” of the Time Lords’ home planet, and it took ten years before“Hell Bent” finally took the Doctor back where he belongs. However, the planet quickly became irrelevant in laterDoctor Whostories, withthe Master destroying Gallifreyagainin “The Timeless Children”. Knowing how easily the planet can be made redundant makes it difficult to fully invest in its safety anymore.
Gallifrey Shouldn’t Have Been Destroyed So Quickly After Coming Back
Audiences Didn’t Even Get A Chance To Return To The Time Lord’s Home
The Doctor’s journey to reclaim Gallifrey took ten years in total, andit was the single overarching subplot that connected the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth Doctors. Whileevery incarnation of the Doctor had their own companionsand storylines, this grief for Gallifrey was the one thing that connected them. This is why it was so impactful when the 50th anniversary special, “The Day of the Doctor”, revealed that Gallifrey had actually been safe all along, as multiple versions of the Doctor from his past, present, and future teamed up to transport the planet into a pocket dimension.
Doctor Who’s unwillingness to discuss Gallifrey’s second destruction in any meaningful depth proves just how poor of a writing decision it was.
But after this ten-year-long subplot of the Doctor saving his people and overcoming the grief that had plagued him since the show’s reboot in 2005, it only took another five years before the show ruined all this character development by having the Master destroy Gallifrey again. This made so much of the show’s previous storytelling redundant, andDoctor Who’s unwillingness to discuss Gallifrey’s second destruction in any meaningful depth proves just how poor of a writing decision it was.
Can Future Doctor Who Seasons Resurrect Gallifrey (Again)?
It’s Probably Too Late For Gallifrey To Be Saved A Second Time
Another reason that the second destruction of Gallifrey doesn’t work from a narrative perspective is that now it’s almost impossible to bring the planet back without the entire storyline feeling repetitive.Saving Gallifrey was the single plot thread that connected the modern erafor almost a decade, and “The Day of the Doctor” was supposed to be a way of wrapping that up for good - and, crucially, reintroducing Gallifrey and the Time Lords to the show.
IfDoctor Whowants to bring Gallifrey back, the storyline will suffer from one of two things. Either the show will dash through everything too quickly and feel rushed and meaningless, orDoctor Whowill take its time, and audiences will lose interest because they’ve already been emotionally invested in this. This means that Gallifrey is pretty much off-limits for the foreseeable future - a very poor decision given the show’s intention to “soft reboot” from season 14.
