The last script editor of the show’s classic era, Andrew Cartmel, had come to the same conclusion and had developed a multi-season story arc that was designed to reintroduce the mystery. It bore certain similarities with what they have now done - the Doctor was to be revealed as one of the founders of Time Lord society, and not on his first cycle of regenerations. They never got to implement it beyond a few lines of dialogue thrown in to McCoy’s second and third seasons, and in the end it was only finally revealed in the New Adventures novels, mostly in the final NA, a badly plotted, navel-gazing mess called Lungbarrow. I much prefer Chris Chibnall’s solution.
It’s kind of amusing though, on the dedicated Who forums there are people who still insist the Cartmel Master Plan is part of the show’s official canon because it was conceived and began during the classic tv run and concluded by writers who had been involved with the classic series. Until now it was just about possible to accommodate it into everything we’ve seen on tv in the classic and revival series, but last weekend explicitly trod on the same ground and there’s no longer room for both. There has been a bit of dummy-spitting.
