Doctor Who's Jodie Whittaker reveals why "disrupting the lore" is crucial after Timeless Child reveal

Looking back on her time as the Doctor in a new interview, she reflected on the Timeless Child arc, which revealed that the Doctor is actually a being of unknown origins, upending everything we thought we knew about them and their past incarnations.

It was a personal storyline for Chibnall, who was inspired by his own experience being adopted.

Whittaker told Doctor Who Magazine: "What's probably very scary as a Whovian writing for your beloved show... is disrupting the lore, potentially.

"But having the bravery to do that, and to open it up in such a personal way, and knowing that every writer who comes in will do the same – taking their thing that's personal to them and putting it in the show – that's why Doctor Who keeps going, why we still want to watch it.

"If you only tried to do what's been done before, the show would have died long ago."

Whittaker went on to say that the Timeless Child storyline worked because it was explored over the course of a season, rather than being crammed into the space of a few episodes.

She added: "The beauty of it is, it doesn't necessarily have to weigh on every Doctor. This revelation happened to my Doctor, in my time. You can let it go. Not erase it – it's always a lived experience for the Doctor – but you don't have to play every massive revelation forever."

While it was speculated upon Russell T Davies's return that he would "unwrite" certain storylines from Chibnall's era, instead he chose to embrace the Timeless Child, focusing on adoption for Ruby Sunday's (Millie Gibson) storyline.

Speaking to RadioTimes.com about why he chose to continue that storyline, Davies said: "I think The Timeless Child doesn’t mean anything to anyone, to a lot of viewers. Genuinely, to a few outside the show – what does that mean?

"But what it does mean is the Doctor’s an orphan, he was abandoned, he was adopted by the Time Lords, so you play that for the emotions."

He continued: "I don't want to hang things off science fiction words, that simply won't mean anything around the breakfast table.

"But, if you're talking about a family with a world in which people adopt children, or foster children, or abandoned children, then suddenly it begins to register with you. So that's our take on that.

"And that's going to have a lot of ammunition and fuel going forward. Because it goes Millie as Ruby Sunday, she was abandoned as a family on the church doorstep. So you have the Doctor and and [the] companion suddenly chiming with their lives connecting."

Doctor Who Magazine is on sale now.

Doctor Who is available to stream on BBC iPlayer. Dive into our Doctor Who story guide: reviews of every episode since 1963, plus cast & crew listings, production trivia, and exclusive material from the Radio Times archive.

Check out more of our Sci-fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.