frankly i love the timeless child stuff, the inconsistencies work out if you think about it a bit (and with chibnalls creativity shining here you can see any writer for doctor who regardless of skill is creative enough to iron out these inconsistencies even in different ways than what immediately came to mind for me). i definitely understand why people dislike the doctor being special on principal but the doctor being like fei fong wong xenogears style characterization is actually making me literally nuts right now This is probably going to be the only way chibnall era can peak.

on paper this idea sounded kind of bad but in execution it holds so much emotional weight (sacha dhawan absolutely carried this with his performance of the master constantly having a specific look in his eyes no matter if he was smiling frowning yelling or laughing) i will say there was moments during the whole reveal with 13 where i wonder if the acting direction was just really poor (mainly at the paralysis bit) i think also this script was way too bloated for a reveal as huge as this which actually took away from the impact they were going for.

i honestly couldnt care less about a single other thing happening in this episode, the lone cyberman ended up being stupid and the plot played out like some low budget childrens movie. this easily couldve been a 5 star episode with a more wise way of wedging this reveal into an episode with better pacing as well. i honestly forgot this was technically a 2 parter while writing this but it is which is actually nuts because ascension of the cybermen is such a forgettable episode! maybe if it had some real substance i wouldve given this a higher rating. absolutely disappointing one of the most interesting doctor who twists of all time gets sandwiched into a pretty poorly written plot.

this definitely is a set up for a great arc in the future to explore the doctors 'true' origins but i hope they dont do it as soon as 15s era and i truly hope they dont take a boring and easy way out of it by saying the doctor is an eternal and moving on