Talk:Time Lord/GA2

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Nominator: Pokelego999 (talk · contribs) 22:23, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 13:21, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

Will review this in partial fulfilment of my pledge made for Talk:Emil Utitz/GA1. Comments to follow over the next days, should be completed by the weekend. To fulfil your own pledge, please do not take one of my articles (not that there are any at the moment) but rather find something else that you enjoy reviewing. —Kusma (talk) 13:21, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

Content and prose review

I will comment on anything I notice, but not all of my comments will be strictly related to the GA criteria, so not everything needs to be actioned. Feel free to push back if you think I am asking too much, and please tell me when I am wrong.

• Overall it reads like it could do with a decent copyedit.
• Lead: "The Time Lords would serve as recurring characters in the series, with many individual Time Lords... recurring throughout the series." Apart from the WP:WOULDCHUCK, the repetition is not good writing.
• "Following the show's cancellation in 1989 and its later revival in 2005, the Time Lords had been wiped out in-universe" I learned in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe that the main problem with time travel is one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner’s Time Traveler’s Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations, but this is a rather confusing way to say that some time after the 2005 revival, we learn that the Time Lords were wiped out in-universe at some point in the Doctor's timeline between the Seventh and Ninth Doctor.
• "The Time Lords initially did not exist in the series' narrative, with the Doctor initially being referred to as having unknown origins" duplication of "initially". Easily avoided by rephrasing, for example: "In the early episodes, the Doctor was described as having unknown origins; the Time Lords were only introduced later."
• "When creating 1969 serial The War Games, the production team needed a way to resolve the narrative in a satisfying manner, with the team wanting to go back to the start of the series and have him meet his own people." Why would going back to the start of the series make him meet his own people, who (other than Susan) do not occur until 1969?
• "a distinct visual identity for the Time Lords, having them wear ceremonial robes and large collars" this is true only for the Time Lords on Gallifrey, not for any of those recurring through the series. Does the Rani ever wear large collars?
• The same problem is there at "killing the Time Lords"; while the Doctor believes for a while he is the Last of the Time Lords, the Master and later others show that this isn't quite true.
• "The Time Lords have been the subject of much scholarly analysis for a variety of subjects." this isn't quite supported by the fairly short Analysis section of the article.
• History: "Time Lords and human beings look alike, but differ in that they have several physiological differences" redundancy
• A lot of this section is actually not "history" (neither in-universe nor in real life), but more a description of Time Lord physiology, society and their planet.
• "Another process that exists is known as bi-generation, in which the Time Lord splits into two copies of the same person" from an out of universe perspective, it would be nice to mention that this is a recent invention. "Two copies of the same person" is not how I would describe Gatwa's and Tennant's doctors; they not only look rather different, but have very different personalities.
• "Time Lords are also capable of altering their species using a device called a Chameleon Arch" Chameleon Arch redirects to a page not even mentioning the device.
• "The Citadel contains a location known as the Academy, where young Gallifreyans are raised as Time Lords" should probably not precede the explanation that "All Time Lords are part of the species known as Gallifreyans, but not every Gallifreyan is a Time Lord". Also, this contradicts the lead's claim that Time Lords are a species.
• "The Time Lords became an influential race in the universe." from here on, everything is suddenly unreferenced.
• Classic series: "Eventually, the First Doctor steals a TARDIS" why "eventually"? (Most occurrences of this word are not very helpful). We haven't heard about the First Doctor yet. Are you claiming he is the first Time Lord to leave Gallifrey without permission?
• The word "thwarts" is perhaps a bit overused here.
• "The Fourth Doctor eventually returned to Gallifrey" the rest of the text is in present tense.
• Everything here is unsourced. Arguably some of it is episode plots, but it isn't even always clear which episodes. Given how much has been written about Doctor Who, I can't really see a reason not to provide references.
• There are lots of individual Time Lords mentioned here that are not quite the same as "the Time Lords" from 1976 onwards.
• I haven't managed to finish watching The Trial of a Time Lord. But "escapes into Time Lord information repository the Matrix in an attempt to escape" doesn't quite work, not just because of the Department of Redundancy Department issues.
• Revived series: "Sometime between the show's cancellation and its later 2005 revival, the Time Lords were revealed" can you say more precisely when this happened? I find it hard to believe that we don't know when between 1989 and 2005 this was. (I actually think this was added to the fictional history in 2005 and then revealed by Eccleston's Doctor).
• "The Time Lords subsequently return to the universe, with the Twelfth Doctor seeking their location" in what episodes does he do that? It is a bit anticlimactic to tell us they are actually on Gallifrey. Or was the location of the planet lost?
• "The Doctor also encounters the Division during the events of "Fugitive of the Judoon" (2020) in which she and her Fugitive incarnation, who was a former Division operative, defeat a Time Lord operative named Gat. The Thirteenth Doctor later encounters Tecteun, who adopted the Timeless Child and pioneered regeneration in Time Lords, during the events of Doctor Who: Flux. Tecteun attempts to orchestrate a wave of anti-matter known as the Flux to destroy the entire universe, but is killed by Swarm and Azure, enemies of the Division, with the Doctor later defeating them and stopping the Flux wave." who of these people are Time Lords?
• "Time Lords have appeared in various pieces of spin-off media for the series, including novels, comic strips, and audio dramas." this is unreferenced and there are not even examples given.

Will stop here. This doesn't seem quite ready. —Kusma (talk) 10:08, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

General comments and GA criteria

• Prose: The article needs a general copyedit. There is a lack of clarity on "the Time Lords" as a species or not, and how individual Time Lords are treated as opposed to Time Lord society.
• I guess this is a difficult article to write, since you are describing a moving target, so perhaps you shouldn't even try to describe what Time Lords are like in-universe, but focus on how every new writer changes them quite a lot.
• It is not obvious which in-universe things get references and which do not. Given that you are not commenting on an individual work, but on many, this looks like original research.
• Is Time Lord society explained more in depth in spin off media?
• The scholarly analysis is a bit short and does little to put Time Lords in context of other sci-fi stories. The most glaring omission here is that there is nothing on the concept of regeneration, one of the defining features of Time Lords as a species. (This seems to be only about Time Lords as Doctor Who villains).

I think I am going to fail this now, there is too much work to do to fix during a quick GA review. At a first glance, the "Creation and development" section looks pretty good, so I am sure this can eventually get to GA. —Kusma (talk) 10:32, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.