Blayne wrote:They already had a somewhat significant conversion between Wilf and the Doctor about father-son relationships which I consider a sub issue of the matter of the importance of family the conversation implied to me that the Doctor's father was already dead long before even in his reference of time.
Which might've made a bit of foreshadowing sense if the President had turned out to be his father or something instead of Rassilon (it would've been cliche as hell, and Star Wars fans would cry foul, but as far as foreshadowing goes it would've been somewhat relevant).
Instead we get the entirely irrelevant, and I can't emphasize this enough,
off screen tangent that the woman was the Doctor's mother. If RTD really wanted her to be his mother, why not have him TALK about her a bit? Maybe to Wilf, maybe describe something unique about her that Wilf later says to himself "hang on a minute.."
Again it's not that she's his mother that's the problem, it's that it's done so badly. When the writer has to TELL US externally about a very, very important aspect of a character that has never even been hinted at within the story, that's a bad writer.
It's a shame because Bernard Cribbins is always awesome, and there were some great scenes with him, and him and the Doctor all polluted by the shit being shovelled on top of it by RTD.
Going back on it while Romana and Susan Foreman could both make interested appearances there's not that much bring his mother back into the story that would help the Doctor progress as a character and by back into I mean as a recurring role, he already had Donna Noble as something of a mother figure.
So why bring her at all? I'm sorry but someone as significant as the parent of the god damn Doctor is not disposable enough to throw out after two episodes.
Though I suppose she's lucky she got more than the Time Lords themselves.
So as a character that they can definately 'put on a bus' his mother makes the most sense and at the same time visits the opposite consideration of his earlier conversation with Wilf to complete its significance.
It makes absolutely zero sense. She could turn out to be Mother Theresa and it wouldn't change a damn thing.
Susan wouldn't be on the Time Lord council, Romana might be, but I always figured her as somewhat vain and wouldn't willingly stay in the form of a grandmother aged body.
I wouldn't say ONLY on two regenerations but the number of episodes and her role within them which I'm under the impression was probably around 20 serials.
You're forgetting the little thing called the Time War which would probably through vanity out the window. And was the woman on the council? I didn't see her around the conference table, and I assumed that the two face-palming Time Ladies behind Rassilon (of which she was one) were some sort of psychic escort or something.