Of course, then the Time War came along and suddenly we had to take the Time Lords seriously, with the Tenth Doctor looking properly terrified at the prospect of Timothy Dalton’s Rassilon returning to end existence (forgot that one – sixth attempt since 2005). But, as I think we’ve already demonstrated, you can only threaten to end the entire universe so many times before the threat starts to lose its urgency. So maybe the key to bringing the Time Lords back as a going concern is to look back at the more ridiculous Deadly Assassin version of the planet.
The best Doctor Who villains (and the Time Lords are definitely villains) have always been about Empire. Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, they are all varieties of expansionist military force, either genocidally annihilating, assimilating or merely conquering everyone in their path. But if the Time Lords work best as a satire of the British, they are now perfectly positioned to show us the threat presented by an ex-Imperial power.
Having fought the mother of all wars against the darkest evil history has ever known, the Time Lords are simply not what they once were. The universe has grown and diversified, new powers have risen, but the Time Lords being who they are, they’re not just going to forget the position they once held. And they aren’t about to start calling themselves the Time Ordinary Citizens either.
Give us Time Lords that are reduced in stature, a bit pathetic, even funny, but still thinking they are somehow Lords of Time, and trying to assert that status in a universe of Oodspheres and Time Agents and Tesselecta who have all come in to fill the gap they left. Time Lords who aren’t powerful, but sly, and bitter, and all the more dangerous for it. The Reform Party in giant frilly collars.
And who would they hate more than the Doctor? The individual who founded, rebelled against, betrayed, destroyed and repeatedly humiliated them?
There is more to this though. In among the Big Finish audios, one tiny bit of lore they added to the timey wimey stew was the idea that Time Lords hated divergent timelines and parallel universes, pruning them much like Loki’s TVA did. What if, post-Time War, the Time Lords decide to resume that work?
