Time Lord

Time Lord

The Time Lords are an ancient extraterrestrial race and civilisation of humanoids in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, of which the series' protagonist, the Doctor, is a member. Time Lords receive their name for their non-linear perception of time, which allows them to see everything that was, is, or could be at the same time, as shown in the 1996 movie Doctor Who. They developed a culture of custodianship and time-related technologies based on this perception which includes strictly controlled time travel machines (known as "TARDISes") and monitoring devices to travel through time and to prevent time from being subverted or abused – although actual action was described as rare in practice due to their traditional policy of strict non-interference and neutrality. They can act to manipulate timelines of a wide range of events and individuals, so long as they do not cross back into their own timeline.

Originally they were described as a powerful and wise race from the planet Gallifrey, from which the Doctor was a renegade; details beyond this were very limited for the first decade of the series. They later became integral to many episodes and stories as their role in the fictional universe developed. Over subsequent episodes their history, their development of time manipulation, and their internal politics were touched upon, with Time Lord society portrayed as a stagnated ceremony-bound oligarchy and their past having descended into myth and legend. The Doctor became at times an ally, being appointed their president during his fourth incarnation and assisting them on many occasions. After the series was resumed in 2005, the Time Lords were presented as no longer existing, having been destroyed by the Doctor at some intervening point during the Last Great Time War in which they became corrupted, led by a tyrannical Lord President Rassilon willing to sacrifice the entirety of time and space for survival. The Time Lords made a subsequent appearance as a race in 2010 when they schemed to escape the resulting time lock and resume their plan, as well as in the appearance of individuals such as the Master, and at times, inadvertent human-time lord hybrids.

A female time lord may be described either as a Time Lord or Time Lady.