Andrew Cartmel Thinks Timeless Child “depletes the mystery” of Doctor Who
Speaking on The Legend of the Traveling TARDIS Radio Show, Cartmel said: “I think as soon as we delve into the minutiae, into the fine detail, of what Chibnall’s done… Chibnall’s obviously done a reset on it, which is great, but as soon as you start to specify that reset you’re back in the same old problem that you’re explaining too much. You just want to say ‘what you thought you knew was going on you didn’t, it’s much more than that’, and leave it there.”
As classic fans will recall, Cartmel himself planned to implement a backstory for the Doctor during his time on the show, affectionately known today as the “Cartmel Masterplan”. However, Cartmel wanted to only tease the Doctor’s background, retaining the mystery. He thinks “The Timeless Children” is “too detailed”.
He elaborated: “All I wanted to do [with the “Cartmel Masterplan”] is throw the Doctor back into shadow again and just give hints of what was going on. And [with “The Timeless Children”] there’s a lot of detail in specifics, which is the last thing you want. Number one: it depletes the mystery, and number two: that was the chief failing of the Moffat era.
“Moffat’s an incredibly good writer, in some ways the great Doctor Who writer, but he would always get hung up on all these tiny little details of the mythos, of the mythology. You just didn’t know what the hell was going on.”
Cartmel concludes: “So when you get too hooked on detailing the mythology the snake is kind of swallowing its tail, and it sounds like Chris is somewhat making the same mistake that Steve did.”
And for Cartmel it isn’t his only bugbear with Doctor Who right now: “If I was to return to the show, with any autonomy as a writer, the first thing I would do is get rid of that ****ing sonic screwdriver, I gotta tell you!”
