That it was a special effect to show the doctor fighting the monster, and that was it, then i went out to play and the world moved on, that was the world in 1976,
True, nobody knew back then when the last incarnation might hit, and with the 4th Doctor (3rd regeneration, that we knew of), nobody cared. So many lives left to go, would anybody really be thinking about that? If nothing else, if anything, they might have thought that the issue would be addressed...
Never mind that the show already explained it in 1966 in "The Power of the Daleks". Obviously, people would eventually look at the wristwatch waiting for the Doc to get back to the TARDIS, so that was subverted by the Time Lords' trial. Then came the second-biggest retcon with Pertwee's finale and giving it a name. Two years later, the limitation is canonized after stories making references to regeneration and potentially hinting at something to explain the Doctor not being the 4th incarnation but a greater one. Which got dropped /abandoned as Hinchcliffe got put onto another show and Williams cared nothing for it, apart from letting Tom Baker crack more jokes about it as the years went by.
"The Five Doctors" reveals that new 12-regeneration cycles can be handed out like candy, but that just means that there will be another Gallifrey story every couple of decades or so and voila. The issue is to eliminate it, completely and credibly. Guess where this is headed:
but then Chibnal came along and seems to have decided the quickest and easiest way to leave his mark on the show was not with good stories, but to go and kick the dust from 50 years of Who which was bothering no one but him it seems,
Moffatt threw in a new lifespan of x number of lives being handed out. In a story that's largely Earth-based and uses cheap stunts like hanging off a helicopter because cool, or whatever, but it was vague enough that it could have been left be. From what I recall, anyhow.
Series 11 had Chibnall trying to tell completely fresh stories, untethered to the albatross of continuity. Had the stories worked, nobody would have complained. A lot of them are just clunky or had ideas poorly grafted on. A couple were solid, but 11 was disappointing. Especially as it starts with memberberries as the Doctor falls to the planet from orbit, a la Tennant. How exciting. Or otherwise.
Then comes 12, with the eventual reveal of "the timeless child". Hokey or not, it does deserve props for trying to take an unexpected and unpredicted way to get around the regeneration issue entirely. Was it needed? Arguably, or arguably not - hardcore fans would want an explanation, casual viewers who tune in to have a giggle and/or listen to it from another room as they do other stuff won't give a jot either way.
But the show created a problem. The GOAT of all problems. Thanks to Robert Holmes. Who, by the mid-70s, had so many cynicism-driven stories that it'd be a greater surprise if he really hadn't written in the limitation as means to force an ultimate ending to the show. HIs 80s-penned stories aren't any less cynicism-driven as well, arguably even more so in ways.
and as we have seen this has now continued with RTD and the War chief because..........
Fanwank?
The War Chief, whom Terrance Dicks did say was not the Master, was likely a possible influence on the evil Time Lord introduced two years later. But why not say that the Master from "The Mind Robber" be the same one and fluff it up that route? Casual and new series-only fans being introduced to classic Who like this won't care or think the incidental music is too on the nose to swallow, which is the one thing many classic series fans will agree with due to how contrived the notion was pushed.
.well only those two can tell you why.
True. They'll probably say something, possibly, after which half a dozen YouTube channels will make retorts to varying extents, probably.
