Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor Who era secretly brought back two classic Time Lord villains, giving them an even older history with the Doctor. The Whittaker era of Doctor Who had a strangely ambiguous relationship with the Time Lords; the Timeless Child retcon fundamentally rewrote the Doctor’s relationship with Gallifrey, revealing she was not a Time Lord at all. Rather, the Doctor was a being who originated from another universe, and the Gallifreyans had learned the secret of regeneration by reverse-engineering it from the Doctor.
The Doctor learned the truth of her identity and history when she was plunged into the Matrix, a vast repository of Time Lord knowledge. There, she experienced her own history in a series of visions. Crucially, though, these flashbacks also established the Doctor’s adopted mother Tecteun as one of the founders of Time Lord civilization. But she wasn’t alone.
Rassilon & Omega Both Appeared In Doctor Who’s Timeless Child Flashback
Virgin’s classic Doctor Who: The New Adventures novels had revealed Time Lord civilization was established by three figures; two classic series Time Lords, Omega and Rassilon, and a being known only as “The Other.” Those novels strongly suggested the Doctor was in fact the Other, but one scene in the Timeless Child flashback revealed the truth. Tecteun was seen standing next to two other Time Lords, and the script for “The Timeless Children” confirms they are Rassilon and Omega. Actors were even cast due to their physical resemblance to previous versions, including from Big Finish audio-dramas.
Rassilon has appeared before in the post-2005 Doctor Who revival. Restored by the Time Lords to lead them through the Time War, Rassilon tried to avoid Gallifrey’s destruction through a horrific plan that would have doomed Earth. As seen in “The Day of the Doctor,” he ultimately chose to accept the Doctor’s plan to hide Gallifrey in a bottle universe, safe from the Daleks. Omega, meanwhile, has been largely ignored by modern Doctor Who; the stellar engineer who unlocked the power of time travel, he was trapped in an antimatter universe and stranded for millennia.
Omega Must Return To Doctor Who Now, Right?
Omega hasn’t been seen since 1983’s “Arc of Infinity,” when he launched a desperate attempt to escape his antimatter universe by linking his biology to the Doctor’s. This originally seemed just a matter of convenience – the Doctor is a renegade, so was unprotected by the science of the Time Lords – but it now looks more like a power bid, an attempt to steal the unlimited regenerations of the Timeless Child. After all, as one of Gallifrey’s founders, Omega would be one of the few who knew about the Timeless Child.
Gallifrey may have been destroyed, but it’s already clear current Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies is keen to continue exploring the consequences of the Timeless Child retcon. That means it’s easy to imagine him bringing back Omega, a Time Lord who survived the Time War, who would have been completely safe from Gallifrey’s fate. Omega has been notably absent from the Doctor Who revival so far, but the flashback in “The Timeless Children” surely sets him up for a grand return.
