Summary
- Doctor Who's revival in 2005 brought back the concept of a Time War, building upon stories told in expanded media like books.
- The First Time War, depicted in the novels, was a biblical conflict between the Doctor and a nameless enemy, resulting in the destruction of Gallifrey.
- The Doctor Who revival wisely avoided the complexity of the First Time War, focusing instead on the consequences of the Doctor's actions in the Great Time War, adding depth to the character.
When Doctor Who season 14, brought it back to the BBC in 2005.
However, the gap between the TV movie and the revival series was not entirely fruitless. The BBC maintained control over publishing rights to the Doctor Who trademark, which resulted in the consistent release of new, original media, including numerous books by author Lance Parkin. Featured prominently in these novels is a narrative about a biblical, convoluted conflict that has not been seen in the show despite its epic scale. Its influence, however, is undeniably prevalent and can be seen in the very first episodes of Davies’s revival, although with some subtle changes. With that in mind, this is Doctor Who's First Time War before the 2005 reboot explained.
Doctor Who’s First Time War Explained
The Eight Doctor Adventure novels were written and published between the release of the TV movie and the show’s revival, and heavily revolved around a conflict similar to Doctor Who's Time War depicted in the show. In the novels, the Doctor inadvertently learns that a nameless enemy will soon fight a war against the Time Lords, although he appears powerless to do anything about this. He later thwarts the Time Lords in their attempts to prepare devastating weapons for the war, while factions grow among the species, the Enemy, and future entities including of UNIT from the 2050s.
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Gallifrey is soon destroyed by the Doctor’s attempt to prevent the war’s beginning, with him believing that it would be better for them to die prematurely rather than walk the evil path through the war that the Doctor has foreseen. This all creates a cataclysmic event horizon, throwing the universe into chaos that countless species squabble for dominion over. At the cost of his memories, the Doctor s the contents of the Matrix into his subconscious, supposedly giving him the ability to restore Gallifrey and the Time Lords, although the novel The Gallifrey Chronicles does not confirm whether he succeeds in doing this. The conflict is generally referred to as the ‘War in Heaven’.
The Two Doctor Who Time Wars Are Remarkably Similar
Though Russell T Davies has said explicitly that the War in Heaven and the Last Great Time War are unrelated conflicts (they both remain canon, suggesting that the Doctor succeeded in restoring his planet), there are a number of similarities. The first is that both wars can trace their roots back to the Doctor’s actions. Though the exact trigger of the Time War is ambiguous, many (Davies including) have cited the Doctor’s actions in the 1975 serial Genesis of the Daleks as the true beginning of the war. The War in Heaven is unintentionally triggered by the Doctor after his personal history is altered by the Faction Paradox, a malevolent criminal syndicate of Time Lords.
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Furthermore, both conflicts are (to an extent) ended by the Doctor. The War in Heaven’s many ambiguous endings include that of the ‘Ancestor Cell’ novel by Stephen Cole and Peter Anghelides, which details the apparent destruction of Gallifrey and the Time Lords at the Doctor’s hands as he brings the war to a close. Other novels interpret the war’s end differently, with the taking of the strategic location Planet 5 being one, and the Doctor’s own mediation and development of a ceasefire between the Time Lords and the Enemy. However it ends, the Doctor is crucial to it, forced to prevent the increasingly antagonistic, warmongering Time Lords.
How Doctor Who’s 2005 Relaunch Avoided The Mistakes Of The First Time War
The trouble with the War in Heaven was the sheer scale of it. It is difficult to find a coherent narrative in any of the wider Doctor Who literature, even in the novels that it is most prominently detailed. This is not only problematic for readers trying to understand it, but also for the story itself, which is simply too grand and too convoluted for the Doctor to have any compelling role within it. Furthermore, the fact that the aftermath of the War in Heaven is not shown in the canon means that the show was unable to really get into the consequences of it – which would surely have been immeasurable.
Not only does the Doctor Who revival of 2005 bring down the complication and scale of the War in Heaven with its own Great Time War, but it also forces the Doctor to come to with the consequences of his actions. Much of the early seasons of the revival were devoted to the Doctor’s PTSD as a result of the war, although the details were not entirely explained until the 50th Anniversary. Nonetheless, a cornerstone of their character in the 21st century has been the haunting memory of their actions in the Time War, giving them a new layer of depth and intrigue that was not present in the original show’s run.