Doctor Who Season 11 (15 Dec 1973-8 Jun 1974)
Companion:
Sarah Jane Smith; also Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Sgt. Benton, and Capt. Yates
1. “The Time Warrior”
Episode 1 (15
Dec 1973)
Episode 2 (22
Dec 1973)
Episode 3 (29
Dec 1973)
Episode 4 (5
Jan 1974)
2. “Invasion of the
Dinosaurs”
Episode 1 (12
Jan 1974)
Episode 2 (19
Jan 1974)
Episode 3 (26
Jan 1974)
Episode 4 (2
Feb 1974)
Episode 5 (9
Feb 1974)
Episode 6 (16
Feb 1974)
3. “Death to the
Daleks”
Episode 1 (23
Feb 1974)
Episode 2 (2
Mar 1974)
Episode 3 (9
Mar 1974)
Episode 4 (16
Mar 1974)
4. “The Monster of
Peladon”
Episode 1 (23
Mar 1974)
Episode 2 (30
Mar 1974)
Episode 3 (6
Apr 1974)
Episode 4 (13
Apr 1974)
Episode 5 (20
Apr 1974)
Episode 6 (27
Apr 1974)
5. “Planet of the
Spiders”
Episode 1 (4
May 1974)
Episode 2 (11
May 1974)
Episode 3 (18
May 1974)
Episode 4 (25
May 1974)
Episode 5 (1 Jun
1974)
Episode 6 (8
Jun 1974)
“The Time Warrior”,
which takes place in 13th century England, marks the first appearance of both
Sarah Jane Smith and the Sontarans (well, one of them, anway), and is also the
first time Gallifrey is named as Doctor Who’s home planet. It involves the strife between Irongron and
his band against Lord Edward of Wessex.
“Invasion of the
Dinosaurs” features the betrayal of UNIT by Capt. Yates as a result of PTSD
from his experiences in “The Green Death”.
It begins with Doctor Who and Sarah returning to 1970s’ London to find
it abandoned because of an outbreak of dinosaurs, which turn out to be part of
a plot to return England to its pre-industrial days called Operation Golden
Age.
“Death to the Daleks”
takes place on the planet Exxiion in the far future, with Doctor Who and Jo having
to ally with a squadron of Daleks and a contingent of the Marine Space Corps to
escape the planet.
“The Monster of
Peladon” is an allegory about labour resistance to exploitation inspired by the
BBC strike which took place during the real-life showing of “The Curse of
Peladon”. The story includes the
Galactic Federation again.
In “Planet of the Spiders”,
the Eight Legs, a race of mutant spiders, seeks the blue crystal taken by
Doctor Who from the planet Merebelis III in “The Green Death”. The story includes the now-civilian Mike
Yates, who is at a Buddhist retreat center run by Abbot K'anpo Rimpoche, which
is in truth a renegade Time Lord like Doctor Who. At the end, K’anpo regenerates into Cho-Je
and Doctor Who regenerates into another version of himself.)
FOURTH DOCTOR
Doctor Who Season 12 (28 Dec 1974-10 May 1975)
Companions:
Sarah Jane Smith & Harry Sullivan; also Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and now-Warrant Officer Benton (“Robot”)
This season’s
serials continued directly from each other, tracing one single problematic
voyage of Team TARDIS.
1. “Robot”
Part 1 (28 Dec
1974)
Part 2 (4 Jan
1975)
Part 3 (11 Jan
1975)
Part 4 (18 Jan
1975)
2. “The Ark in Space”
Part 1 (25 Jan
1975)
Part 2 (1 Feb
1975)
Part 3 (8 Feb
1975)
Part 4 (15 Feb
1975)
3. “The Sontaran
Experiment”
Part 1 (22 Feb
1975)
Part 2 (1 Mar
1975)
4. “Genesis of the
Daleks”
Part 1 (8 Mar
1975)
Part 2 (15 Mar
1975)
Part 3 (22 Mar
1975)
Part 4 (29 Mar
1975)
Part 5 (5 Apr
1975)
Part 6 (12 Apr
1975)
5. “Revenge of the Cybermen”
Part 1 (19 Apr
1975)
Part 2 (26 Apr
1975)
Part 3 (3 May
1975)
Part 4 (10 May
1975)
With the
newly-renegerated Doctor Who almost comatose at the opening of “Robot”, he is
left in the care of UNIT’s medical officer, Lt. Harry Sullivan while Sarah goes
to see the National Institute of Advance Scientific Research and interview its
director, while UNIT tries to stem a series of break-ins and thefts which turn
out to have been committed by a sentient robot, K1.
“The Ark in Space” is
a favorite of later showrunners Russell T. Davis and Steven Moffat. It established the location of the space
station named Nerva Beacon, aka ‘The Ark’, which is a key point in the rest of
the season, most of which takes place in the year 16087. The Ark is home to thousands of humans in
cryogenic sleep and has been invaded by the parasitic Wirrn, which threatens
the survival of humanity.
“The Sontaran
Experiment” takes place on a seemingly deserted Earth and the orbital Space
Station Nerva. Doctor Who, Sarah, and
Harry arrive on the planet to find a shipwrecked crew of astronauts from a
distant Earth colony being experimented on by Sontarans preparing for an
invasion and searching for a method to defeat their perpetual enemies, the
Rutans.
Taking place in
Earth’s 16th century, “Genesis of the Daleks” is one of the Fourth Doctor Who’s
best episodes and includes a spectacular monologue on genocide that comes about
because he and Sarah have sent to Skaro by the Time Lords to prevent the
humanoid Kaleds from being transformed into the Daleks to give themselves an
advantage in the Thousand Year War with the Thals, which Doctor Who ultimately
decides would be genocide.
“Revenge of the Cybermen”
takes place thousands of years before the events of “The Ark in Space” aboard
Nerva Beacon, reached by Doctor Who, Sarah, and Harry using the Time Ring,
which is now orbiting the planet Voga, whose inhabitants are engaged in a civil
war and are also under threat from an attempt at genocide by the Cybermen.
Disney Time (25 August 1975)
August Bank
Holiday edition of the BBC show presented by the Fourth Doctor Who (Tom Baker
as the character, not as himself)
Doctor Who presented
excerpts from Clock Cleaners, Blackbeard's Ghost, The Jungle Book, African
Lion, The Apple Dumpling Gang, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Return of the Big Cat,
Escape to Witch Mountain, and Lady and the Tramp. The show ended with Doctor
Who leaving in the TARDIS to go to the aid of the Brigadier, a tie-in with the
start of “Terror of the Zygons” the following Saturday.
Doctor Who Season 13 (30 Aug 1975-6 March 1976)
Companions:
Sarah Jane Smith; Harry Sullivan (thru “Terror of the Zygons”; guest in “The Android
Invasion”); also Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart & Warrant
Officer Benton (“Terror of the Zygons”)
1. “Terror of the
Zygons”
Part 1 (30 Aug
1975)
Part 2 (6 Sep
1975)
Part 3 (13 Sep
1975)
Part 4 (20 Sep
1975)
2. “Planet of Evil”
Part 1 (27 Sep
1975)
Part 2 (4 Oct
1975)
Part 3 (11 Oct
1975)
Part 4 (18 Oct
1975)
3. “Pyramids of Mars”
Part 1 (25 Oct
1975)
Part 2 (1 Nov
1975)
Part 3 (8 Nov
1975)
Part 4 (15 Nov
1975)
4. “The Android
Invasion”
Part 1 (22 Nov
1975)
Part 2 (29 Nov
1975)
Part 3 (6 Dec
1975)
Part 4 (13 Dec
1975)
5. “The Brain of Morbius”
Part 1 (3 Jan
1976)
Part 2 (10 Jan
1976)
Part 3 (17 Jan
1976)
Part 4 (24 Jan
1976)
6. “The Seeds of Doom”
Part 1 (31 Jan
1976)
Part 2 (7 Feb
1976)
Part 3 (14 Feb
1976)
Part 4 (21 Feb
1976)
Part 5 (28 Feb
1976)
Part 6 (1 Mar
1976)
“Terror of the Zygons”
features the eponymous species later seen in several episodes of New Who, whose
existence comes to light when Doctor Who, Sarah, and Harry are sent to Scotland
by the Brigadier to investigate the disappearance of three oil rigs. It turns out the culprit is the Loch Ness
Monster, who is being controlled by the Zygons.
Harry elects to stay on Earth at the end.
“Planet of Evil”
refers to Zeta Minor in 37155 CE, where Doctor Who and Sarah travel after
receiving a distress call in a story inspired by the 1956 film Forbidden Planet
and the novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, and featuring an
antimatter creature.
“Pyramids of Mars”,
which takes place in Victorian England and Egypt and on Mars in 1911, features
Doctor Who’s first encounter with the god Sutekh the Destroyer, who reappears
in New Who Series 14’s “The Legend of Ruby Sunday” and “Empire of Death”.
“The Android
Invasion”, influenced by the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, takes place in 1980 (broadcast in 1975) in
the village of Devesham in England, home of the Space Defence Center, which
turns out to be inhabited by an android race known as the Kralls.
“The Brain of Morbius”
the Time Lords direct the TARDIS to the planet Karn, ruled over by the
Sisterhood of Karn, where Mehendri Solon, follower of renegade Time Lord
Morbius, who now exists only as a brain, is trying to find him an appropriate
body. A mental battle in the last
episode reveals eight previously unseen incarnations of Doctor Who who existed
before the First Doctor. The Sisterhood
of Karn later appears in three episodes and one minisode of New Who.
“The Seeds of Doom” takes
place in England and Antarctica after scientists on the southern continent
discover an egg-shaped pod and Doctor Who and Sarah are sent to investigate,
learning it is of extraterrestrial origin and contains an intelligence of its
own, and must compete with a mad millionaire plant collector named Harrison
Chase.
Doctor Who Season 14 (4 Sep 1976-2 Apr 1977)
Companions:
Sarah Jane Smith (thru “The Hand of Fear”); Leela of the Sevateem (from “The
Face of Evil”)
1. “The Masque of
Mandragora”
Part 1 (4 Sep
1976)
Part 2 (11 Sep
1976)
Part 3 (18 Sep
1976)
Part 4 (25 Sep
1976)
2. “The Hand of Fear”
Part 1 (2 Oct
1976)
Part 2 (9 Oct
1976)
Part 3 (16 Oct
1976)
Part 4 (23 Oct
1976)
3. “The Deadly Assassin”
Part 1 (30 Oct
1976)
Part 2 (6 Nov
1976)
Part 3 (13 Nov
1976)
Part 4 (20 Nov
1976)
4. “The Face of Evil”
Part 1 (1 Jan
1977)
Part 2 (8 Jan
1977)
Part 3 (15 Jan
1977)
Part 4 (22 Jan
1977)
5. “The Robots of
Death”
Part 1 (29 Jan
1977)
Part 2 (5 Feb
1977)
Part 3 (12 Feb
1977)
Part 4 (19 Feb
1977)
6. “The Talons of
Weng Chiang”
Part 1 (26 Feb
1977)
Part 2 (5 Mar
1977)
Part 3 (12 Mar
1977)
Part 4 (19 Mar
1977)
Part 5 (26 Mar
1977)
Part 6 (2 Apr
1977)
“The Masque of
Mandragora” takes place in the (fictional) Duchy of San Martino, Italy, in
1492, where Doctor Who and Sarah go after encountering the Mandragora Helix in
the time vortex. They have to deal with
palace intrigue, a sinister cult, and a rogue fragment of Helix energy before
the Mandragora swallows the Moon.
After landing the
TARDIS in a quarry, Doctor Who and Sarah are caught in an explosion which
reveals a fossilised hand that is 150 million years old, which turns out to be
from Eldrad, a traitor from the planet Kastria who was sentenced to death for
destruction of the barriers that keep the solar winds of the planet at bay. At
the end of their adventure, Doctor Who receives a message from the Time Lords
and abruptly deposits Sarah back on Earth at the end of the serial, telling her
that as a non-Gallifreyan human she isn’t allowed on Gallifrey.
“The Deadly Assassin”
takes place entirely on Gallifrey and is the only Classic Who serial with a
companionless Doctor; it features the Time Lords and the Master, and introduces
the robes and headgear of the Time Lords, the Matrix, and the six Chapters of
the High Council, along with Borusa and Rassilon. Answering the Time Lords’ summons, Doctor Who
has a premonition of the assassination of the Lord President, which comes true.
“The Face of Evil”
takes place on the planet Mordee, site of a previous (but unshown) visit by
Doctor Who, which is divided between the technological Tesh and the primitive Sevateem,
where Doctor Who finds out he is their ‘Evil One’ when he discovers a carving
of his face as the Evil One. The god of
the humans, Xoanon, is actually a supercomputer that has achieved sentience
along with a bit of schizophrenia. After
Doctor Who gets things sorted, Leela of the Sevateem leaves with him.
Inspired by the works
of Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, and especially Agatha Christie, “The Robots of
Death” takes place on an unnamed desert planet in the year 2880 CE. Doctor Who and Leela arrive in a giant
sandminer named Storm Mine Four after the first in what turns out to be a
series of mysterious murders of crew members, which turn out to have been
committed by the SuperVoc, Voc, and Dum robots who have been reprogrammed by
one of the members of the crew.
“The Talons of Weng Chiang”,
which takes place in 1892’s London, is one of Classic Who’s one of its most
beloved and criticised serials, an excellent Gothic mystery, if you get past
the unfortunate ‘yellow face’, involving Chinese Tongs, disappearing women, an
Asian stage magician, his murderous ventriloquist’s dummy, and giant sewer
rats.
Doctor Who Season 15 (3 Sep 1977-11 Mar 1978)
Companions:
Leela of the Sevateem; K9 (from “The Invisible Enemy”)
1. “Horror of Fang
Rock”
Part 1 (3 Sep
1977)
Part 2 (10 Sep
1977)
Part 3 (17 Sep
1977)
Part 4 (24 Sep
1977)
2. “The Invisible
Enemy”
Part 1 (1 Oct
1977)
Part 2 (8 Oct
1977)
Part 3 (15 Oct
1977)
Part 4 (22 Oct
1977)
3. “Image of the
Fendahl”
Part 1 (29 Oct
1977)
Part 2 (5 Nov
1977)
Part 3 (12 Nov
1977)
Part 4 (19 Nov
1977)
4. “The Sunmakers”
Part 1 (26 Nov
1977)
Part 2 (3 Dec
1977)
Part 3 (10 Dec
1977)
Part 4 (17 Dec
1977)
5. “Underworld”
Part 1 (7 Jan
1978)
Part 2 (14 Jan
1978)
Part 3 (21 Jan
1978)
Part 4 (28 Jan
1978)
6. “The Invasion of
Time”
Part 1 (4 Feb
1978)
Part 2 (11 Feb
1978)
Part 3 (18 Feb
1978)
Part 4 (25 Feb
1978)
Part 5 (4 Mar
1978)
Part 6 (11 Mar
1978)
“Horror of Fang Rock”
is an excellent gothic horror mystery that features the only appearance of the perpetual
archenemies of the Sontarans, a Rutan who is a scout from their empire, which
takes place on the (fictional) island of Fang Rock and mostly inside its
lighthouse. This story is notable for
the fact that other than Doctor Who and Leela, there are no survivors. The story was inspired by Wilfred Gibson’s
1912 poem “Flannan Isle” based on true events in 1900 in which the lightouse
crew on Flannan Isle in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland disappeared without a
trace.
“The Invisible Enemy”
takes place in 5000 CE at Titan Base, on the eponymous moon of Saturn, and the Bi-Al
Foundation, or Center for Alien Biomorphology on asteroid K4067 in the Asteroid
Belt, with the titular anatagonist being the sentient virus called The Swarm,
which takes over the second base and tries to take over the first. The serial introduces the sentient robot dog
K9, later known as K9 Mark I, who joins the TARDIS crew at the end of the
serial.
“Image of the Fendahl”
takes place in the present day at Fetch Priory in Fetchborough, England, where
scientists examining an ancient skull reawaken the godlike being the Fendahl,
creating a disturbance in the TARDIS which draws the attention of Doctor Who
and Leela.
“The Sunmakers” takes
place at Megropolis One on the planet Pluto in the Sol System in the far future
in which the Earth has become uninhabitable, forcing humans to colonize Mars,
then Pluto. Doctor Who, Leela, and K9
arrive to find the common people being heavily exploited by the Collector and
the ruling elite, and are then determined to help the former be free.
“Underworld” is the
nickname for planet P7E, near which the TARDIS is flying when its crew
encounters Minyan spaceship R1C; the Minyans met the Time Lords early in their
history, resulting in events that led to the destruction of their planet Minyos
in a nuclear war and the Time Lords to adopt their policy of noninterference.
“The Invasion of Time” sees
Doctor Who return to Gallifrey once again, bringing Leela and K9 with him
(which makes you wonder why Sarah could not accompany him), going there to
claim his rights to claim the vacant presidency of the High Council. He has also led a group of telepathic aliens
called the Vardans there in order to eliminate them completely, after which the
Sontarans take advantage of the breech to invade, including the TARDIS in a
series of scenes that demonstrate just how vastly humongous the interior of the
TARDIS really is. After everything is
over, Leela stays on Gallifrey, having fallen in love with Andred, commander of
the Chancellary Guard, and K9 stays with her, though Doctor Who has aboard his
ship a box containing K9 Mark II. K9
Mark I staying on Gallifrey provides a plausible link to the Australian show K9.
Doctor Who: The Key to Time Season 16 (2 Sep 1978-24 Feb 1979)
Companions: Romana
Dvora I (Time Lord) & K9 Mark II
This
season is a loose arc of separate stories featuring Doctor Who with Time Lady
Romana Dvora as his companion searching for the six pieces of the Key to Time,
one of the Time Lords’ most precious artifacts.
1. “The Ribos
Operation”
Part 1 (2 Sep
1978)
Part 2 (9 Sep
1978)
Part 3 (16 Sep
1978)
Part 4 (23 Sep
1978)
2. “The Pirate Planet”
Part 1 (30 Sep
1978)
Part 2 (7 Oct
1978)
Part 3 (14 Oct
1978)
Part 4 (21 Oct
1978)
3. “The Stories of
Blood”
Part 1 (28 Oct
1978)
Part 2 (4 Nov
1978)
Part 3 (11 Nov
1978)
Part 4 (18 Nov
1978)
4. “The Androids of
Tara”
Part 1 (25 Nov
1978)
Part 2 (2 Dec
1978)
Part 3 (9 Dec
1978)
Part 4 (16 Dec
1978)
5. “The Power of
Kroll”
Part 1 (23 Dec
1978)
Part 2 (30 Dec
1978)
Part 3 (6 Jan
1979)
Part 4 (13 Jan
1979)
6. “The Armageddon
Factor”
Part 1 (20 Jan
1979)
Part 2 (27 Jan
1979)
Part 3 (3 Feb
1979)
Part 4 (10 Feb
1979)
Part 5 (17 Feb
1979)
Part 6 (24 Feb
1979)
“The Ribos Operation”
takes place in the far future on the ice-covered planet Ribos, whose
inhabitants are unaware of other worlds.
It is the location of the first piece of the Key to Time, with Doctor
Who tasked with quest of gathering the disguised pieces by the White Guardian
of Light and Order, with the assistance of a Time Lord fresh from the Academy,
who goes by Romana, a truncation of Romanadvoratrelundar. We learn (from Romana) in the first episode
of the serial that while she aced her exit exams first time around, Doctor Who
had to take them twice and only passed with a 51%. The White Guardian does not appear again
until “Enlightenment”, the third and final serial of Season 20’s Black Guardian
Trilogy.
In “The Pirate
Planet”, Doctor Who and Romana learn the next piece in on the planet Calufrax
in the present-day (1978), but when they arrive at what they believe is their
destination, they land on the planet Zanak, which is a hollowed out planet used
by its owner to enclose smaller planets and steal all of their resources.
In “The Stones of
Blood”, Doctor Who and Romana travel to present-day (fictional) Boscombe Moor
in Cornwall, where the Nine Travellers stone circle is the key to finding the
next segment of the Key (though it was filmed at the King’s Men monument of the
Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire, the Nine Travellers themselves were
constructed by the production crew). In
this part of the quest, the duo have to deal with a neo-pagan druid cult as
well as the very real Irish goddess, the Cailleach.
“The Androids of Tara”
is based on the 1894 novel The Prisoner of Zenda, but with a Doctor Who
twist, on a planet named Tara, where the next piece is hidden, with a medieval
culture and housing but an advanced technology that includes computers and
androids. There is a doppelgänger of
Romana, the princess Strella, and much of the action revolves around the
political machinations of Grendel, Count of Gracht, against Prince Reynart,
heir to the planet’s throne.
“The Power of Kroll”
takes place in the 51st century on Delta III, a marsh moon of the planet Delta
Magna, to which the green-skinned Swampies were ejected after being
ethnically-cleansed by the human colonists who took over the primary planet and
where the next piece of the Key lies. At
the time Doctor Who and Romana arrives in search of the next segment of the
Key, the Swampies are resisting the growth a a methane refinery their human
antagonists have built on the moon. The
titular Kroll is a giant squid they worship as a god.
“The Armageddon Factor”
takes place on the planet Atrios, hiding place of the last segment of the
Key. Doctor Who and Romana arrive there
to find themselves in the midst of a war between that planet and the planet
Zeos, with events manipulated by The Shadow, an agent of the Black Guardian of
Darkness and Chaos, who appears in the sixth episode disguised as the White
Guardian, though the Doctor sees through the disguise. The key figure is Princess Astra, the six
child of the sixth dynasty of the sixth royal house of Atrios, who turns out to
be the final segment of the Key, and the story also includes Doctor Who’s
classmate Drax, a Time Lord who once spent 10 years in Brixton Prison because
his own TARDIS was wonky.
Doctor Who Season 17 (1 Sep-1979-12 Jan 1980 + 18 Jul 2018)
Companions: Romana
Dvora II & K9 Mark II
1. “Destiny of the
Daleks”
Part 1 (1 Sep
1979)
Part 2 (8 Sep
1979)
Part 3 (15 Sep
1979)
Part 4 (22 Sep
1979)
2. “City of Death”
Part 1 (29 Sep
1979)
Part 2 (6 Oct
1979)
Part 3 (13 Oct
1979)
Part 4 (20 Oct
1979)
3. “The Creature from
the Pit”
Part 1 (27 Oct
1979)
Part 2 (3 Nov
1979)
Part 3 (10 Nov
1979)
Part 4 (17 Nov
1979)
4. “Nightmare of Eden”
Part 1 (24 Nov
1979)
Part 2 (1 Dec
1979)
Part 3 (8 Dec
1979)
Part 4 (15 Dec
1979)
5. “The Horns of
Nimon”
Part 1 (22 Dec
1979)
Part 2 (29 Dec
1979)
Part 3 (5 Jan
1980)
Part 4 (12 Jan
1980)
6. “Shada” (19 Jul 2018; see below)
“Destiny of the
Daleks”, a direct sequel to Seasons 12’s “Genesis of the Daleks” and a prelude
to the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War.
It begins with Romana choosing to regenerate, going through five
transformations only to end up where she started, wearing the guise of Princess
Astra (it’s literally the same actor).
The rest of the story takes place on Skaro in 4500 CE, in the midst of a
war between the android Movellans and the Daleks, who are using humans as slave
workers. In search of guidance, the
Daleks seek out their creator, Davros, who at the end of the serial is put into
suspended animation, who is incensed to find his creations being led by a
Supreme Dalek and vows to become the Emperor of the Daleks. The story continues in Season 21’s
“Resurrection of the Daleks”, Season 22’s “Revelation of the Daleks”, and
Season 25’s “Remembrance of the Daleks”.
“City of Death” is the
highest rated serial of the Tom Baker era and the all-time highest rated serial
for Classic Who, thanks in large part to a strike at ITV. The
serial was shot entirely in presnt-day Paris, taking place in the and in 1505
CE Florence, Italy, with Doctor Who and Romana learning Count Carlos Scarlioni
is planning to steal the Mona Lisa to finance studies in time travel. Scarlioni is actually Scaroth, last of the
Jagaroth, a species who died out in a war 400 million years ago, with the other
survivors destroyed in an accident which Scaroth wants to undo the resurrect
his species, but was also what brought the seeds of life to Earth (life
actually arose here 3.7 billion years ago) .
In “Creature from the
Pit”, Doctor Who and Romana avert a war between Chloris, where most of the
story take place and on which the mining of all metals is controlled by Lady
Adrasta, and Tythonus, home to an amorphous blob-like race, and negotiate a
trade agreement between the two.
“Nightmare on Eden”,
set in 2116, involves the TARDIS landing on the starliner Empress which is locked with a private ship, the Hecate, after the two emerge from hyperspace at
the same coordinates. Someone aboard the
Empress is smuggling the drug
vraxoin, and it turns out that the Hecate is smuggling members of a species
called the Mandrels, whose bodies turn into vraxoin when they died. Doctor Who and Romana thwart the planned
exchange and return the Mandrels to their planet Eden.
“Horns of Nimon”
begins with the TARDIS colliding with a ship from the planet Skonnos, which is
carrying youths from the planet Aneth to be sacrificed to the god Nimon,
actually the name of the species from the dying planet Crinoth, of which the
‘god’ is a member, in an effort to revive the Skonnon Empire, something averted
by Doctor Who and Romana.
“Shada” was the original
serial planned as the final one of this season, but was unfinished in 1979 due
to a strike against BBC. It was later broadcast
as a single TV movie, with the filmed live action of the original cast plus
animation to fill in the missing parts, in 2018. On 1 November 2023, a re-edited version of
that 2018 broadcast was released on BBC iPlayer in the originally intended six
parts, with cliff-hangers intact. The
name derives from that of a prison built by the Time Lords for would-be
conquerors of the universe, which is one of the story’s locations, along with
St. Cedd’s College at Cambridge University, a carrier ship, and Think Tank
Space Station. The action is initiated
when the captain of the carrier ship, Skagra, infiltrates Earth to interrogate
Professor Chronitis of the college (in reality, Salyavin, a renegade Time Lord
from 10 thousand years before Doctor Who’s time) as to Shada Prison’s location
so that he can retrieve one of its inmates.
Doctor Who Season 18 (30 Aug 1980-21 March 1981)
Companions: Romana Dvora II & K9 II (thru “Warriors’
Gate”); Adric (from “Full Circle”); Nyssa (from “The Keeper of the Traken”); Tegan Jovanka (“from Logopolis”)
This season forms a loose story arc dealing with the theme of entropy,
the first time the show presented an arc or a theme.
1. “The Leisure Hive”
Part 1 (30 Aug
1979)
Part 2 (6 Sep
1979)
Part 3 (13 Sep
1979)
Part 4 (20 Sep
1979)
2. “Meglos”
Part 1 (27 Sep
1979)
Part 2 (4 Oct
1979)
Part 3 (11 Oct
1979)
Part 4 (18 Oct 1979)
3. “Full Circle”
Part 1 (25 Oct
1979)
Part 2 (1 Nov
1979)
Part 3 (8 Nov
1979)
Part 4 (15 Nov
1979)
4. “State of Decay”
Part 1 (22 Nov
1979)
Part 2 (29 Nov
1979)
Part 3 (6 Dec
1979)
Part 4 (13 Dec
1979)
5. “Warrior’s Gate”
Part 1 (3 Jan
1981)
Part 2 (10 Jan
1981)
Part 3 (17 Jan
1981)
Part 4 (24 Jan
1981)
6. “The Keeper of
Traken”
Part 1 (31 Jan
1981)
Part 2 (7 Feb
1981)
Part 3 (14 Feb
1981)
Part 4 (21 Feb
1981)
7. “Logopolis”
Part 1 (28 Feb
1981)
Part 2 (7 Mar
1981)
Part 3 (14 Mar
1981)
Part 4 (21 Mar
1981)
“The Leisure Hive”
sees Doctor Who and Romana arriving on the planet Argolis in the year 2290 for
some peaceful R&R at the famous Leisure Hive only to become caught up in
the fight against a takeover scheme by the Argolins’ enemy, the Foamasi, and
the plans of Pangol, a clone-child of the Tachyon Recreation Generator to take
the peaceful Argolins on a campaign of war and conquest.
“Meglos” takes place
in the present day mostly on the planet Tigella but also on the planet
Zolfa-Thura. On the planet Tigella, the
Savants under Deedrix and the Deons under Lexa are locked in a struggle over a
mysterious artefact called the Dodecahedron.
Doctor Who and Romana get involved when Zastor, leader of Tigella,
appeals for help. Meanwhile, Meglos,
last of the planet Zolfa-Thura (also played by Tom Baker), steals the
Dodacahedron and takes it back to his planet.
“Full Circle”, “State
of Decay”, and “Warriors’ Gate” form The E-Space Trilogy, ‘E-Space’ being a
contraction of ‘Exo-Space/Time Continuum’, also called ‘Exo-Space’, is a
pocket-sized parallel universe in which these three serials take place.
In “Full Circle”, the
TARDIS falls through a CVE (Charged Vacuum Emboitement) from N-Space to E-Space
and end up on the planet Alzarius, home to three different but closely related
races: the Alzarians (who mistakenly believe themselves descendants of
Terradonian colonists), the Marshmen, and the Outlers. At the end of the last episode, one of the
Alzarian scientists, Adric, stows away aboard the TARDIS.
“State of Decay” sees
the TARDIS materialising on a planet with medieval-style buildings and culture,
where all the people are peasants but for the Three Who Rule, vampire mutants
in thrall to the King Vampire. In
reality, the peasants are descendants of astronauts from N-Space pulled through
a CVE and stuck in E-Space long ago, while the Three were members of the
ancient crew mutated by the Great Vampire.
“The Warriors’ Gate”
takes place in the null space between E-Space and N-Space called The Gateway,
in which the TARDIS gets stuck trying to return to its own universe. Also stuck there is a slaver ship carrying
time-sensitive Tharils, who in turn have humans for slaves, who built robots
called Gundans to liberate them. At the
end, Romana stays in E-Space to help Biroc, leader of the Tharil rebellion, and
K9 Mark II remains there with her, while Adric goes to N-Space with Doctor
Who. The story is actually quite
complex.
The final two serials
of this season, “The Keeper of Traken” and “Logopolis” together with Season
19’s first serial “Castrolava”, form The Master Trilogy, formerly known as the
New Beginnings Trilogy. It marks the
return of The Master as The Decayed Master, followed by his transformation into
The Tremas Master in a stolen body. The
trilogy is considered ‘essential’ to
watch according to many Classic Who fans.
“The Keeper of Traken”
takes place on the planet Traken, seat of the Traken Union, in the year
1981. Doctor Who and Adric go there
after being called by the Keeper, who seeks their help in preventing the evil
Melkur from taking over the Source, which gives him the power to protect
Traken. They are assisted in their task
by Consul Tremas and his daughter Nyssa.
They succeed, but the Decayed Master takes over his body at the end.
“Logopolis” is a planet of
mathmeticians to which Doctor Who and Adric go to attempt to repair the
chameleon circuit of the TARDIS. On the
way there, they find they’ve acquired an accidental stowaway, a stewardess
named Tegan Jovanka, who thought she was entering a real police box But when they get there they find The Master,
in Tremas’ body, there ahead of them, with Tremas’ daughter Nyssa held in a
trance. When she is freed, Nyssa joins
the TARDIS crew, but Doctor Who is mortally wounded in the fight against The
Master.
K9 and Company
Pilot: “A Girl’s Best Friend” (28 Dec 1981)
This
was a pilot for a spinoff from Classic Who, the first spinoff attempt ever in
the Whoniverse, but it never took off. In
the fictional town of Moreton Harwood, Sarah acquires a companion of her own, her
Aunt Lavinia’s ward Brendan Richards, and a gift from Doctor Who, K9 Mark
III. The three go up against a cult of
Hecate worshippers planning a human sacrifice.
Of note is the fact the Liz Sladen’s character still goes by just
‘Sarah’, as she did throughout her run as Doctor Who’s companion.
Fifth Doctor
Doctor Who Season 19 (4 Jan-30 Mar 1982)
Companions: Nyssa of Traken & Tegan Jovanka; Adric (thru “Earthshock”)
Beginning this season, the lead character is
billed as ‘The Doctor’ rather than as ‘Doctor Who’.
1. “Castrovalva”
Part 1 (4 Jan
1982)
Part 2 (5 Jan
1982)
Part 3 (11 Jan
1982)
Part 4 (12 Jan
1982)
2. “Four to Doomsday”
Part 1 (18 Jan
1982)
Part 2 (19 Jan
1982)
Part 3 (25 Jan
1982)
Part 4 (26 Jan
1982)
3. “Kinda”
Part 1 (1 Feb
1982)
Part 2 (2 Feb 1982)
Part 3 (8 Feb
1982)
Part 4 (9 Feb
1982)
4. “The Visitation”
Part 1 (15 Feb
1982)
Part 2 (16 Feb
1982)
Part 3 (22 Feb
1982)
Part 4 (23 Feb
1982)
5. “Black Orchid”
Part 1 (1 Mar
1982)
Part 2 (2 Mar
1982)
6. “Earthshock”
Part 1 (8 Mar
1982)
Part 2 (9 Mar
1982)
Part 3 (15 Mar
1982)
Part 4 (16 Mar
1982)
7. “Time-Flight”
Part 1 (22 Mar
1982)
Part 2 (23 Mar
1982)
Part 3 (29 Mar
1982)
Part 4 (30 Mar
1982)
“Castrolava”, which
finishes The Master Trilogy, begins immediately where “Logopolis” left off,
with Adric, Tegan, and Nyssa running to The Doctor after he collapses, seeing
him regenerate into the Fifth Doctor.
The three take him to the town of Castrolava, on unnamed planet, for
recuperation, but The Master has taken Adric captive and hypnotised him, and
the whole town of Castrolava is a giant trap built by The Master.
“Four to Doomsday”
begins with The Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa, and Adric materializing aboard a
spaceship filled with humans of different historical eras—Ancient Greeks,
Chinese Mandarins, Mayans, and Australian Aboriginals—and three Urbakans:
Monarch, Persuasion, and Enlightenment, who are planning an invasion of
Earth.
“Kinda” is the first
serial of the Mara Duology continued in Season 20’s “Snakedance”. While Nyssa recuperates from a mental
disorientation, The Doctor, Tegan, and Adric explore the planet Deva Loka,
during which The Mara, a hive mind which can take over a person in their dreams
later revealed in New Who Series 14’s “The Legend of Ruby Sunday” as a member
of the Pantheon of Gods, takes an interest in Tegan. The Kinda were the humanoid inhabitants of
Deva Loka.
“The Visitation” gathered
higher ratings with each succeeding episode.
Once again attempting to deliver Tegan back to Heathrow Airport in the
20th century, the TARDIS instead takes the crew to the village of Heathrow in
the parish of Harmondsworth, Middlesex, in 1666, where they stumble upon a plan
by an alien Terileptil fugitive who plans to conquer Earth. During a scuffle on Pudding Lane as the crew
tries to stop the Terileptil, the alien’s weapon overloads, igniting the Great
London Fire .
“The Black Orchid”,
the highest rated serial for the Fifth Doctor, the TARDIS, with The Doctor,
Tegan, Nyssa, and Adric, arrives on Cranleigh Halt, the train station for the
town of Cranleigh, in 1925. After The
Doctor is dragooned into a cricket game due to a case of mistaken identity, the
crew is invited to a masked ball at Cranleigh Hall, where it turns out murders
are being committed.
“Earthshock”, another
whose ratings grew with every episode, takes place on Earth in the year 2526,
where there is a conference to unite military powers to opposed the
Cybermen. It begins with the TARDIS
materialising aboard Briggs’ space freighter, which the Cybermen (CyberNeomorphs)
plan to use to crash into and destroy Earth.
In “Time-Flight”, The
Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa arrive at contemporary Heathrow Airport but are
distracted by a vanishing Concorde, which they investigate only to find
themselves thrown back to 140 million BCE and the crew and passengers of the
Concorde enslaved by the aliens called the Plasmatons. After they free themselves along with the
crew and passengers of the Concorde and return to ‘the present-day, Tegan
leaves the TARDIS and stays behind in England.
Doctor Who Season 20 (3 Jan-16 Mar 1983)
Companions: Tegan Jovanka; Nyssa (thru “Terminus”); Vislor
Turlough (from “Mawdryn Undead”); Kamelion (from “The King’s Demons”)
To
celebrate the show’s being on for twenty years, every serial this season
included a returning villain.
1. “Arc of Infinity”
Part 1 (3 Jan
1983)
Part 2 (5 Jan
1983)
Part 3 (11 Jan
1983)
Part 4 (12 Jan
1983)
2. “Snakedance”
Part 1 (18 Jan
1983)
Part 2 (19 Jan
1983)
Part 3 (25 Jan
1983)
Part 4 (26 Jan
1983)
3. “Mawdryn Undead”
Part 1 (1 Feb
1983)
Part 2 (2 Feb
1983)
Part 3 (8 Feb
1983)
Part 4 (9 Feb
1983)
4. “Terminus”
Part 1 (15 Feb
1983)
Part 2 (16 Feb
1983)
Part 3 (22 Feb
1983)
Part 4 (23 Feb
1983)
5. “Enlightenment”
Part 1 (1 Mar
1983)
Part 2 (2 Mar
1983)
Part 3 (8 Mar
1983)
Part 4 (9 Mar
1983)
6. “The King’s Demons”
Part 1 (15 Mar
1983)
Part 2 (16 Mar
1983)
“Arc of Infinity” sees
the return of the Doctor’s nemesis Omega, with action taking place on Gallifrey
and on Earth in Amsterdam, involving Omega trying to take over The Doctor’s
body in order to return to N-Space from the antimatterverse. Through a series of events on Earth, Omega
learns of Tegan’s connection to The Doctor and tries to use her against
him. After they defeat Omega, Tegan
rejoins The Doctor and Nyssa in the TARDIS.
“Snakedance”, the
second serial of the Mara Duology, is a sequel to Season 19’s “Kinda”. The serial begins with the TARDIS landing
unscheduled on the planet Manussa, which is about to celebrate its five hundred
years of freedom from the Sumaran Empire.
Mara, who has been haunting Tegan’s dreams, plans to take over her body
and use it to subjugate Manussa. The
Mara appears again in Torchwood Series
1’s “Small Worlds”
“Mawdryn Undead”, “Terminus”,
and “Enlightenment” form the Black Guardian Trilogy.
“Mawdryn Undead”
begins at Brendan Public School in 1983’s Heskith, Herfordshire, where the
former brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart is maths teachers, with a student,
Vislor Turlough, who is not what he seems, but a Trion exiled from his plaent
over a failed civil war, tasked by the Black Guardian with killing The Doctor
in return for a ride home. Also in the
mix are Mawdryn and his followers, all immortal, who are trying to die.
“Terminus” takes place
at the eponymous space station at the exact center of the universe in the year
3480, where the TARDIS goes after Turlough sabotages it under the influence of
the Black Guardian. At the end of the
serial, Nyssa elects to stay behind on Terminus.
“Enlightenment” is the
prize for winning the race the space yacht upon which the TARDIS materializes,
the Striker, is competing in. Enlightenment in this case is the wisdom to
find one’s heart’s desire. Another space
ship in the race, the Buccaneer, is also under control of the Black Guardian
like Turlough. The White Guardian
returns and Turlough successfully rids himself of the other. This serial also introduces the Eternals
later seen in Season 26’s “Ghost Light”, New Who’s Series 12’s “Can You Hear
Me?”, its Series 13’s “The Vanquishers”, and Torchwood Series 2’s “Dead Man
Walking”.
“The King’s Demons”
introduces shapeshifting android companion Kamelion, and is a rare return to a
historical story such as those once common in the Harnell (First Doctor) era,
with the arrival of the TARDIS in the year 1215 to witness King John signing
the Magna Carta. However, not all is as
it seems, and as a matter of fact, nothing is, and The Master is behind it all.
The Five Doctors (20th Anniversary Special; 23 Nov 1983)
First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Doctors along
with companions Sarah Jane Smith, Tegan Jovanka, Susan Foreman, Brigadier Alastair
Lethbridge-Stewart, Mike Yates, Liz Shaw, Zoe Heriot, Vislor Turlough, Romana
II, and K9 Mark III, along with Rassilon, Borusa, and The (Tremas) Master, plus
Cybermen (CyberNeomorphs), Daleks, a Yeti, and Raston Warrior Robots
The
action takes place mostly in the Death Zone on Gallifrey, where most of those
listed above have been brought by, it turns out, by the Lord President Borusa,
who disappears at the end, with the High Council then appointing The Doctor as
Lord President. It also marks the first
story in which Sarah Jane Smith insists on being called ‘Sarah Jane’ rather
than just ‘Sarah’.
Doctor Who Season 21 (5 Jan 1984-16 Mar 1984)
Companions: Tegan Jovanka (thru “Resurrection of the Daleks”); Vislor Turlough & Kamelion (thru “Planet of Fire”); Peri
Brown (from “Planet of Fire”)
1. “Warriors of the
Deep”
Part 1 (5 Jan
1984)
Part 2 (6 Jan
1984)
Part 3 (12 Jan
1984)
Part 4 (13 Jan
1984)
2. “The Awakening”
Part 1 (19 Jan
1984)
Part 2 (20 Jan
1984)
3. “Frontios”
Part 1 (26 Jan
1984)
Part 2 (27 Jan
1984)
Part 3 (2 Feb
1984)
Part 4 (3 Feb
1984)
4. “Resurrection of
the Daleks”
Part 1 (8 Feb
1984)
Part 2 (15 Feb
1984)
5. “Planet of Fire”
Part 1 (23 Feb
1984)
Part 2 (24 Feb
1984)
Part 3 (1 Mar
1984)
Part 4 (2 Mar
1984)
6. “The Caves of
Androzani”
Part 1 (8 Mar
1984)
Part 2 (9 Mar
1984)
Part 3 (15 Mar
1984)
Part 4 (16 Mar
1984)
“Warriors of the Deep”
features the teaming up of the Silurians and the Sea Devils, taking place on
the ocean floor at Sea Base 4 in the year 2084, under the shadow of war
threatening between the world’s two superpowers.
In “The Awakening”,
The Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough travel to the village of Little Hodcombe in
contemporary (1984) Sussex, where they find the residents engaged in a
reenactment of Civil War battles from 1643, in the midst of which an evil alien
entity, The Malus, threatens to awaken.
“Frontios” finds the
TARDIS and its crew being pulled into the gravity well of the human-inhabited
planet Frontios in the far future, with the colony plagued by people seemingly
eaten by the ground. The culprits turn
out to be Tractators, a species that once invaded Turlough’s home-planet,
Trion.
“Resurrection of the
Daleks”, a sequel to Season 17’s “Destiny of the Daleks”, is the first serial
of the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War, a story continued in Season 22’s
“Revelation of the Daleks” and concluded in Season 25’s “Remembrance of the
Daleks”. The TARDIS is forced the land
on 20th century Earth by the Daleks, who send a squad of humanoid Dalek
Troopers led by Gustave Lytton to free Davros from his suspended animation in
the year 4590, which they do, leading to the civil war.
“Planet of Fire”
begins with the TARDIS being drawn to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands by a
mysterious signal, where Turlough rescues an American tourist from drowning,
one Peri Brown, who has an artefact with the same symbol which Turlough was
branded with when he was imprisoned.
When Kamelion falls under the control of a powerful mind, the path from
there leads to the planet Sarn, and to The Master. Kamelion is destroyed, and Turlough returns
to Trion, while Peri remains on the TARDIS.
In “The Caves of
Androzani”, one of the highest rated serials of the Classic Who era, The Doctor
and Peri land on the planet Androzani Minor in the 51st century where they
become embroiled in a planetary civil war ove a substance called Spectrox. After they both are poisoned, The Doctor
eventually finds an antidote, but only enough for one of them, and, being The
Doctor, gives it to Peri, soon regenerating into the Sixth Doctor.
SIXTH DOCTOR
7. “The Twin Dilemma”
Part 1 (22 Mar
1984)
Part 2 (23 Mar
1984)
Part 3 (29 Mar
1984)
Part 4 (30 Mar
1984)
In
“The Twin Dilemma”, the newly-regenerated Sixth Doctor takes himself and Peri
to the barren planet Titan III to recuperate, where they stumble on a plot
which could destroy the galaxy. Involved
in the events is one Prof. Edgewater, in reality the Time Lord Azmael first
mentioned in “The Time Monster”, who has kidnapped twin maths geniuses on
behalf of the one who deposed him from rule of Jaconda.
Doctor Who Season 22 (5 Jan-30 March 1985)
Companion: Peri
Brown
This
season marked the one and only during which episodes were a full hour rather
than a half-hour long.
1. “Attack of the
Cybermen”
Part 1 (5 Jan
1985)
Part 2 (12 Jan
1985)
2. “Vengeance on
Varos”
Part 1 (19 Jan
1985)
Part 2 (26 Jan
1985)
3. “The Mark of the
Rani”
Part 1 (2 Feb
1985)
Part 2 (9 Feb
1985)
4. “The Two Doctors”
Part 1 (16 Feb
1985)
Part 2 (23 Feb
1985)
** “Doctor Who: A Fix
with the Sontarans”, Jim’ll Fix It
(23 Feb 1985)
Part 3 (2 Mar
1985)
5. “Timelash”
Part 1 (9 Mar
1985)
Part 2 (16 Mar
1985)
6. “Revelation of the
Daleks”
Part 1 (23 Mar
1985)
Part 2 (30 Mar
1985)
In “Attack of the
Cybermen”, The Doctor takes the TARDIS back to 1985 London, landing in I.M
Foreman’s Yard to fix the chameleon circuit on the TARDIS, he finds Cybermen
from the future (CyberNeomorphs) there trying to hatch a plan to send Haley’s
Comet into Earth, with the assistance, it seems, of former Dalek ally Gustave
Lytton. The story also returns to Telos
in the far future, where the story “The Tomb of the Cybermen” takes place in
Season 5.
“Vengeance on Varos”
is considered the best serial for both the Sixth Doctor and for Peri. In search of the rare mineral Zeiton-7 to
repair the TARDIS, the two land on the prison plaent Varos, where a rebel named
Jondar is about to be tortured to death for the entertainment of the populace
watching live and on intractive TV.
After they intervene and help Jondar escape, they go on the run, but are
captured.
“The Mark of the Rani”
introduces the eponymous Time Lord scientist, this time allied with The Master
in a story that takes place in the mining village of Killingworth,
Northumberland, in the late 19th century.
As it turns out, cooperation between the two renegades only goes so
far. The title of the serial refers to
the mark that appears on The Rani’s victims.
In “The Two Doctors”,
the Second Doctor and Jamie McCrimmon, in full great kilt, land on the Space
Station Camera in 1985 to find it in the hands of the Androgums, who turn it
over to the Sontarans, with the Sixth Doctor and Peri arriving soon chasing a
vision Six had only to be cast down to Seville, Spain. And that is just the beginning.
“Timelash” finds The
Doctor and Peri working with “Herbert” (better known as H.G. Wells after he
begins writing science fiction) against the tyrant The Borad, creator of the
Timelash, who has taken over the planet Karfel and is planning to wipe out its
population and the Bandrils, acting both there and in Scotland, both in 1885.
“Revelation of the Daleks”
continues the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War story begun in Season 21’s “Resurrection
of the Daleks” and concluded in Season 25’s “Remembrance of the Daleks”. It takes place on the planet Necros
post-4590, to which The Doctor and Peri are lured by false information into a
trap created by Davros.
Doctor Who Aborted Season 23 (aka Season 22B)
Companion: Peri
Brown
Prior to the decision to make a season-length serial, six
standard serials following the same model of Season 22, two 45-minute episodes
of each serial, were written. Three of
the stories were later adapted into novels, with Big Finish adapting several of
the scripts into audio stories.
1. “The Nighmare
Fair”
Intended return of The
Toymaker, with the story continuing straight on from “Revelation of the Daleks”,
taking place in the town of Blackpool, Lancashire, in the present day.
2. “The Ultimate
Evil”
The story would have
been set on the planet Tranquela, with the main enemy being the Dwarf Mordant.
3. “Mission to
Magnus”
Intended return of Sil
the Mentor and the Ice Warriors, with the story taking place on the planet
Magnus.
4. “Yellow Fever and
How to Cure It”
Intended reappearance
of The Master, The Rani, and the Autons, as well as the Brigadier, with the
story taking place in Singapore.
5. “The Hollows of
Time”
Intended return of the
Tractators from Season 21’s “Frontios”.
6. “The Children of
January”
Would have seen The Doctor
and Peri go up against the Z’ros, described by the writer as “human bees”.
Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord Season 23 (6 Sep-6 Dec 1986)
Companions:
Peri Brown (thru “Mindwarp”); Melanie Bush (from “Terror of the Vervoids”)
This
season, which reverts to the format of half-hour episodes, is one continuing
tight arc of three four-part serials, ending with a two-part serial, about the
Sixth Doctor being on trial in a court presided over by the Inquisitor in a
case prosecuted by The Valeyard, who, according to The Master, who appears in
the final serial, is The Doctor’s penultimate incarnation. The stories in the first three serials—the
titles of which were not broadcast, though they were written in the script—are
presented as the evidence at the trial.
When broadcast, all the episodes were numbered 1-14 in a single
sequence. The highest rated story of the season, “Terror of the Vervoids”, is considered Mel’s best.
1. “The Mysterious
Planet”
Part 1 (6 Sep
1986)
Part 2 (13 Sep
1986)
Part 3 (20 Sep
1986)
Part 4 (27 Sep
1986)
2. “Mindwarp”
Part 5 (4 Oct
1986)
Part 6 (11 Oct
1986)
Part 7 (18 Oct
1986)
Part 8 (25 Oct
1986)
3. “Terror of the
Vervoids”
Part 9 (1 Nov
1986)
Part 10 (8 Nov
1986)
Part 11 (15 Nov
1986)
Part 12 (22 Nov
1986)
4. “The Ultimate Foe”
Part 13 (29 Nov
1986)
Part 14 (6 Dec
1986)
Seventh Doctor
Doctor Who Season 24 (7 Sep-7 Dec 1987)
Companions: Mel Bush (thru “Dragonfire”); Dorothy Gale ‘Ace’ McShane
(from “Dragonfire”)
1. “Time and the Rani”
Part 1 (7 Sep
1987)
Part 2 (14 Sep
1987)
Part 3 (21 Sep
1987)
Part 4 (28 Sep
1987)
2. “Paradise Towers”
Part 1 (5 Oct
1987)
Part 2 (12 Oct
1987)
Part 3 (19 Oct
1987)
Part 4 (26 Oct
1987)
3. “Delta and the
Bannermen”
Part 1 (2 Nov
1987)
Part 2 (9 Nov
1987)
Part 3 (16 Nov
1987)
4. “Dragonfire”
Part 1 (23 Nov
1987)
Part 2 (30 Nov
1987)
Part 3 (7 Dec
1987)
“Time and the Rani”
features the return of the renegade Time Lord scientist as the sole villain of
the story, triggering regeneration of the Sixth Doctor into the Seventh Doctor
in the rare (for Classic Who) cold open.
She disguises herself as Mel to trick The Doctor into helping her take
control of an asteroid composed entirely of ‘strange matter’. That’s the last appearance of Rhe Rani in
Classic Who, but she features in “Downtime” during the Wilderness Era, and returns
in New Who at the end of Series 15’s Episode 6 “The Interstellar Song Contest”
and is in its Episode 7, “Wish World”, and Episode 8, “The Reality War”.
“Paradise Towers” is
the name of a residential complex on an unnamed planet in the 22nd century that
promises a peaceful life to all its residents, which The Doctor and Mel visit,
only to find they have to deal with conflicts among the Kangs, killer cleaning
robots, and a computer with artificial intelligence named Kroagon.
In “Delta and the
Bannermen”, which takes place in South Wales in 1959 and Tollport G715 in 4687,
The Doctor and Mel board a Nostalgia Tours Bus for a holiday only to learn one
of their fellow passengers is Delta, a queen of Chimeron and the last of her
species but for an egg she took off the planet Chumeria with her to escape the
Bannermen trying to genocide her people.
“Dragonfire” takes place in
Iceworld on the planet Svartos in the year 2,000,000, where they soon run into
their sometimes ally Sabalom Glitz, who is on the planet to work off a debt to
crimelord Kane, who is trying to free himself from exile. They meet a waitress called ‘Ace’ (full name Dorothy
Gale McShane), whom Mel especially befriends and later learns came from 20th
century Perivale, Greater London (formerly Middlesex). At the end, The Doctor offers to take Ace
back to Perivale, via the “scenic route”, and Mel stays with Glitz aboard the Nosferatu
II.
Later we find out there is a link between the events of this serial,
Season 25’s “Silver Nemesis”, and Season 26’s “The Curse of Fenric”.
Doctor Who Season 25 (5 Oct 1988-4 Jan 1989)
Companion: Ace
1. “Remembrance of
the Daleks”
Part 1 (5 Oct
1988)
Part 2 (12 Oct
1988)
Part 3 (19 Oct
1988)
Part 4 (26 Oct
1988)
2. “The Happiness
Patrol”
Part 1 (2 Nov
1988)
Part 2 (9 Nov
1988)
Part 3 (16 Nov
1988)
3. “Silver Nemesis”
(25th Anniversary)
Part 1 (23 Nov
1988)
Part 2 (30 Nov
1988)
Part 3 (7 Dec
1988)
4. “The Greatest Show
in the Galaxy”
Part 1 (14 Dec
1988)
Part 2 (21 Dec
1988)
Part 3 (28 Dec
1988)
Part 4 (4 Jan
1989)
In reader polls
conducted by Doctor Who Magazine,
“Remembrance of the Daleks” is voted one of the best serials of Classic
Who. It concludes the arc begun in Season
21’s “Resurrection of the Daleks” and continued in Season 22’s “Revelation of
the Daleks”. The story takes place
November 1963 in Shoreditch, shortly after the events of ‘An Unearthly Child’,
with The Doctor, Ace, and the military trying to prevent the Daleks from
finding a secret device The Doctor hid on Earth and discovering the secret of
Gallifreyan time travel. The
Imperial-Renegade Civil War is said to be one of the chief instigators of the
Last Great Time War. The story of the
schism continues in New Who’s Series 7 episode “Asylum of the Daleks” and its
Series 9’s “The Magician’s Apprentice” and “The Witch’s Familiar”.
With a story theme
somewhat similar to New Who Series 10’s “Smile”, in “The Happiness Patrol”, the
TARDIS lands on the planet Terra Alpha and find sadness there is against the
law, zealously enforced by the Happiness Patrol, with the penalty being ceath
in a molten stream of candy.
“Silver Nemesis”, the
25th Anniversary episode, finds The Doctor and Ace trying to stop present-day
(1988) neo-Nazi Hans de Flores, 17th century sorceress and poisoner Lady
Peinforte, and Cybermen (CyberNeomorphs) from getting their hands on the
Nemesis, a statue containing living metal, all of whom are fortunately
competing against each other. There is a
connection between this story, Season 24’s “Dragonfire”, and Season 26’s “The
Curse of Fenric” that we find out in the last serial.
“The Greatest Show in the
Galaxy” refers to the Psychic Circus on the planet Segonax, which The Doctor
and Ace travel to see, where they find a single family as the audience, a
family which turns out to be the Gods of Ravnarok.
Doctor Who Season 26 (6 Sep-6 Dec 1989)
Companion: Ace
1. “Battlefield”
Part 1 (5 Sep
1989)
Part 2 (12 Sep
1989)
Part 3 (19 Sep
1989)
Part 4 (26 Sep
1989)
2. “Ghost Light”
Part 1 (4 Oct
1989)
Part 2 (11 Oct
1989)
Part 3 (18 Oct
1989)
3. “The Curse of
Fenric”
Part 1 (25 Oct
1989)
Part 2 (1 Nov
1989)
Part 3 (8 Nov
1989)
Part 4 (15 Nov
1989)
4. “Survival”
Part 1 (22 Nov
1989)
Part 2 (29 Nov
1989)
Part 3 (6 Dec
1989)
“Battlefield” sees the
TARDIS materialize in the (fictional) English village of Carbury near (the also
fictional) Lake Vortigern, at the bottom of which lies a spaceship with the
body of King Arthur and his sword Excalibur.
Sir Ancelyn arrives from another dimension, closely followed by Mordred
and the sorceress Morgaine. All of them
recognize The Doctor as Merlin. A fight
breaks out between Morgaine’s army and UNIT, led by Brig. Lethbridge-Stewart,
come out of retirement.
“Ghost Light” is set
in the mansion Gabriel Chase in Perivale, Middlesex, in 1883, where Ace
confronts her nightmares she’s had since visiting the manor a century later in
a story featuring the Eternal known as ‘Light’.
“The Curse of Fenric”,
considered the best for both the Seventh Doctor and Ace, sees the TARDIS
materializing at a secret naval base off the coast of Northumberland during
World War II, where scientist Dr. Judson has created a supercomputer called the
Ultima Machine designed to break German military codes. However, Judson uses Ultima to decipher the
runes on the crypt containing the evil force given the name ‘Fenric’ by CMDR
A.H. Millinton, the base OC. Fenric
reveals to The Doctor and Ace that it was he who caused the time storms that
drew Ace to Iceworld (Season 24’s “Dragonfire”) and Lady Peinforte to 1988
England (Season 25’s “Silver Nemesis”), and claims he’d been shadowing the
Seventh Doctor’s life in pursuit of revenge.
“Survival”, though not a
formal finale, is the last serial of the Classic Who era, which sees The Doctor
bring Ace back to her home, Perivale, where her friends have been disappearing
due to being kidnapped by the Cheetah People, who were shown the way to Earth
by The Master.
DOCTOR WHO (WILDERNESS ERA)
With
three exceptions, none of these are part of the main TV show canon, and only Doctor
Who: The Movie at the time it was
released. The others have been made so
by mention in the TV show, such as Dimensions in Time and Scream of the Shalka, or
by authorised inclusion of characters from the TV show, such as Downtime and Daemos Rising.
Search Out Space (21 Nov 1990)
(Doctor Who-Search Out Science crossover featuring: Seventh Doctor and
companions Ace & K9 playing in-universe game)
The Stranger: Summoned By Shadows (Sep 1991)
(stars DW alumni Colin Baker, aka the ‘Sixth Doctor’, as The Stranger,
Nicola Bryant, aka ‘Peri Brown’, as Miss Brown, and Michael Wisher, aka ‘Davros’,
along with others)
The
first three DVD films of The Stranger direct-to-video series were intended as
implicit, but not tacit, stories of the Sixth Doctor, but this was later
changed.
The Stranger: More Than a Messiah (Feb 1992)
(star DW alumni Colin Baker as The Stranger, Nicola Bryant as Miss Brown,
Sophie Aldred, aka ‘Ace’, as The Girl, and Peter Miles, aka ‘Nyder’ in “Genesis
of the Daleks”, along with others)
The Stranger: In Memory Alone (Mar 1993)
(Colin Baker as The Stranger and Nicola
Bryant as Miss Brown, with Nicholas Briggs as Minor)
The AirZone Solution (Sep 1993)
(features DW alumni Colin Baker, Peter
Davison, Jon Pertwee, Sylvester McCoy, and Nicola Bryant, as well as future
alumnus Alan Cumming, along with others)
Doctor Who and the
Daleks (TV featurettes)
** Bigger Inside Than Out (5 Nov 1993)
** The Antique Doctor Who Show (12 Nov
1993)
** Missing In Action (19 Nov 1993)
** Dimensions in Time, Parts 1 & 2
(26-27 Nov 1993)
This
was a Children in Need special for the Doctor Who 30th anniversary featuring Third, Fourth,
Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Doctors along with companions Sarah Jane Smith, Ace,
K9, Melanie Bush, Peri Brown, Nyssa, Romana, Leela, Mike Yates, Liz Shaw,
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Victoria Waterfield, and Susan Foreman facing off
against The Rani, with help from several of the EastEnders.
Doctor Who: Thirty
Years in the TARDIS (29 Nov 1993)
Documentary
Doctor Who and the
Daleks (TV featurettes, cont.)
** I Was That Monster (3 Dec 1993)
** Police 5: The Master (10 Dec 1993)
** UNIT Recruiting Film (17 Dec 1993)
Stranger Than Fiction (Jan 1994)
(Gary Russell explores the rise of BBV
Productions and its first outings, including interviews with cast members, plus
lost scenes from The Stranger series
and The AirZone Solution)
P.R.O.B.E.: The Zero Imperative (Direct-to-video; Jan 1994)
(stars Caroline John, reprising Liz Shaw as an
operative of the ‘Preternatural Research Bureau’, and Louise Jameson as Patsy
Haggard, featuring DW alumni Jon
Pertwee, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, Sophie Aldred, and Peter Davison, along
with others)
Former
UNIT operative Liz Shaw and her assistant Patsy Haggard investigate a series of
bizarre murders in the vicinity of soon-to-be closed Hawthrone psychiatriac
hospital.
The Stranger: The Terror Game (Jul 1994)
(stars DW alumni Colin Baker as The Stranger, David Troughton, son of ‘Second Doctor actor Patrick Troughton, as
Egan, Louise Jameson, aka ‘Leela’, as Tamora Hennessey, Nicholas Briggs, aka
‘voice of the Daleks’, as Raven, along with others)
The Stranger: Breach of the Peace (Aug 1994)
(stars DW alumni Colin Baker as The Stranger and David Troughton as Egan, along
with others)
Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans (1 Jan 1994)
(featuring the Sontarans and the
Rutans, the cast stars Jan Chappell and Brian Croucher but includes DW alumni
Carole Ann Ford, Sophie Aldred, and Michael Wisher)
Stranger Than Fiction 2: From Script to Screen (1995)
(documentary exploring the making of
BBV’s latest three productions—The
Terror Game, Breach of the Peace,
and The Zero Imperative—from the
writer’s point-of-view)
P.R.O.B.E.: The Devil of Winterborne (Direct-to-video; Jan 1995)
(stars
Caroline John as Liz Shaw and Louise Jameson as Patsy Haggard with Peter
Davison and others)
PROBE
are summoned to investigate the murders of former headmaster Mr. Whitaker and
his dog near the Winterborne School, only to learn that the tragedy is just
beginning.
The Stranger: Eye of the Beholder (Jul 1995)
(stars DW alumni Colin Baker as The Stranger and David Troughton as Egan, along
with others)
Dalekmania (TV
documentary, 24 Jul 1995)
Explores
the 1960s craze of children in the UK for all things Dalek.
Downtime (TV spin-off movie, 2 Sep 1995)
(features Sarah Jane Smith, Victoria Waterfield, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and Professor Edward Travers from “The Abominable
Snowmen” and “The Web of Fear”)
The
Brigadier and Sarah Jane investigate New World University, run by known other
than Victoria Waterfield, which has become a gateway to Earth for the Great
Intelligence by its taking over Victoria.
P.R.O.B.E.: Unnatural
Selection (Direct-to-video; October 1996)
(stars
Caroline John and Louise Jameson, along with
others)
The
discovery of several oddly mutated bodies alerts Liz Shaw and PROBE to the fact
that something is stalking the original site of Project BEAGLE, a secret
evolutionary project which the government shut down and destroyed the records
of in 1975.
P.R.O.B.E.: The Ghosts of
Winterborne (Direct-to-video; November 1996)
(stars
Caroline John and Louise Jameson, with Peter Davison and others)
When
the body of the last victim of the Devil of Winterborne disappears and a book
of black magic spells is stolen from a local museum, Liz Shaw begins to wonder
if the ghosts of the past have really been laid to rest.
** Time
Is Everything (10 Feb 1997)
Starring Tom Baker as an
aged version of the Fourth Doctor, this was a series of 15 second-1 minute
adverts for the New Zealand Superannuation Services collected and released
under this title.
Auton (Oct 1997)
(first movie of the Auton Trilogy
featuring UNIT)
When
Dr. Sally Arnold inadvertantly activates an artefact in The Warehouse of UNIT
which turns out to be connected to the Nestene Consciousness, Graham Winslet,
archivist at the facility, calls in the Containment Team led by ‘Lockwood’
(codename of Agent 8954B).
Unfortunately, the Autons have already been activated.
Auton 2: Sentinel (Oct 1998)
(second movie
of the Auton Trilogy)
Two years after it was
released, the Nestene Consciousness strikes again, using Autons, and Lockwood
is drawn to Sentinel Island, where, along with Winslet, he is helped by new
scientific adviser Natasha Alexander.
Stranger Than Fiction III: Acting Up (1997)
(features interviews with cast members
of Eye of the Beholder and The Ghosts of Winterborne)
Mindgame (1998)
(featuring a human, a Draconian, and a
Sontaran in a prison cell and force to fight by a mysterious Alien; cast
includes Sophie Aldred, with it being heavily implied she is Ace)
Mindgame Trilogy (Jan 1999)
(three stories: Sontaran Field-Major
Sarg must face off against the Rutans, alone, in “Battlefield”; in “Prisoner
451” a Draconian is on trial for subversion; in “Scout Ship”, an unnamed Human
played by Sophie Aldred faces death in a dying ship in space)
Doctor Who: The Curse of Fatal Death (live-action Red Nose Day
parody for TV and webcast, 12 Mar 1999)
(featuring ‘the
Doctor’, the Quite Handsome Doctor, the Shy Doctor, the Handsome Doctor, the
Female Doctor, and Companion Emma)
Auton 3: Awakening (Sep 1999)
(third movie of the Auton Trilogy
featuring UNIT)
The
story begins with the Millhampton Event, in which the entire population of the
town of Millhampton are taken over by the Nestene Consciousness which aims to
release other Nestenes buried meganni ago.
Lockwood and Alexander return to find Winslet the only human left there,
kept in the hospital by the Autons as the model for Auton Winslet. Dr. Arnold returns.
** Auton: The Auton Diaries (Sep 1999)
(a spoof of the Auton Trilogy also made
by BBV)
* * * * *
Doctor Who Night (8:55
pm-12:30 am, 13 Nov 1999)
This night was both to
celebrate what had gone before and to attempt to build interest in a reboot.
8:55 – “Introduction to the Night”
Tom Baker, in
character as an aged future version of The Doctor, introduces the night’s show
then continues his story during breaks between shows throughout the night.
In addition to Baker’s
pieces, five animated shorts 5-10 seconds in duration were shown throughout the
night: Dalek Grand Prix, Jelly Dalek, Squashed Dalek, Microwaved Dalek and Dalek Corridor.
9:00 – “The Pitch
of Fear”
Comedy sketch by Mark
Gatiss and David Walliams
9:05 pm – “Adventures
in Space and Time”
Documentary covering
the history of Doctor Who from its
first serial in 1963, “The Unearthly Child”, thru the 1996 film Doctor Who:
The Movie, narrated by Peter Jones.
9:45 pm – “How to
Live Forever”
Prof. Tom Kirkwood
talks about the possibility of regeneration.
9:50 pm – “Carnival
of Monsters”
A look at the various
monsters that have appeared in the show, narrated by Fenella Fielding.
10:20 pm – “The
Web of Caves”
Comedy sketch by Mark
Gatiss and David Walliams
10:25 pm – “How
to Build a TARDIS”
Dr. Jim al-Khalili
discusses the possibility of a TARDIS.
10:30 pm – “The
Daleks: The Story So Far”
Peter Jones recaps the
first six episodes of Season 1’s “The Daleks”.
10:35 pm – “The
Daleks” final episode, ‘The Rescue’
Shown in its entirety
11:00 pm – “The
Kidnappers”
Comedy sketch by Mark
Gatiss and David Walliams, also featuring Peter Davison
11:05 pm – Doctor
Who: The TV Movie
The 1996 film
featuring the Eighth Doctor, shown uncut
* *
* * *
** The Web of Caves (TV short, 13 Nov 1999)
Do You Have a Licence to Save This Planet? (1 Jan 2001)
(a parody of Doctor Who starring Sylvester McCoy as “the Foot Doctor”, Nigel
Peever as Rassilon, and featuring Cyberons, Autons, Krynoids, and Sontarans as
enemies)
Death Comes to Time (webcast animated series)
(featuring
Seventh Doctor and companions Ace & android Antimony)
When
two Time Lords are killed, the Seventh Doctor together with his companion
Antimony must stop the powerful General Tannis' plans for conquest and Ace is
groomed to face her possible destiny as a Time Lord.
1. At the Temple of
the 4th (13 Jul 2001)
2. Planet of Blood,
Part 1 (14 Feb 2002)
3. Planet of Blood,
Part 2 (22 Feb 2002)
4. Planet of Blood,
Part 3 (1 Mar 2002)
5. The Child, Part 1
(29 Mar 2002)
6. The Child, Part 2
(5 Apr 2002)
7. The Child, Part 3
(12 Apr 2002
8. Death Comes to
Time, Part 1 (19 Apr 2002)
9. Death Comes to
Time, Part 2 (26 Apr 2002)
10. Death Comes to
Time, Part 3 (3 May 2002)
Doctor Who: Real Time (webcast animated miniseries)
(featuring
Sixth Doctor and companion Evelyn Smythe)
On
the planet Chronos, two science survey teams vanish, with the only clue the
screamed word, “Cybermen!”.
1. Episode 1 (2 Aug
2002)
2. Episode 2 (9 Aug
2002)
3. Episode 3 (16 Aug
2002)
4. Episode 4 (23 Aug
2002)
5. Episode 5 (30 Aug
2002)
6. Episode 6 (6 Sep
2002)
Dæmos Rising (direct-to-DVD, 14 Mar 2004)
(sequel to Downtime and to Season 8’s “The Daemons”; featuring
Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and Douglas
Cavandish of UNIT)
When
Kate responds to a message for help from Cavendish, she finds herself embroiled
in ancient rituals and demonic power.
EIGHTH DOCTOR
The second of these was not really part of the Wilderness
Era but was a retcon prequel to the 50th Anniversary Special, Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor. However, it is set in the Last Great Time
War, with the second featuring the regeneration of the Eighth Doctor into the
War Doctor.
Doctor Who: The Television Movie (12 May 1996)
Companion: Grace Holloway
An
attempt to relaunch the series to an international audience, the story begins
with the Seventh Doctor escorting the body of The Master from Skaro, where he
has been executed, to Gallifrey for burial.
Not so dead after all, The Master forces a landing in 1999’s San
Francisco. Mortally wounded by a stray
shot in a gang fight, the Seventh Doctor regenerates into Eight in a hospital,
and the cadiologist attending him becomes his new companion as he looks for a
berylium clock he needs to stop The Master.
The Return to Shada (webcast
animated miniseries, 40th Anniversary Special)
Companions:
Lord President Romana II & K9 II
The original script of
the Season 17 story was rewritten to feature the Eighth Doctor in the
continuity of the Big Finish audio productions; originally called Doctor Who: Shada, but renamed after the original was completed and released as a single
DVD movie in 2017.
1. Episode 1 (2 May
2003)
2. Episode 2 (9 May
2003)
3. Episode 3 (16 May
2003)
4. Episode 4 (23 May
2003)
5. Episode 5 (30 May
2003)
6. Episode 6 (6 Jun 2003)
** Doctor Who: The Night of the Doctor (TV short, 14 Nov 2013)
Not
really part of the Wilderness Era but a retcon prequel to the 50th Anniversary
Special, Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor, this is set in the Last Great Time War, with the featuring the
Sisterhood of Karn and the regeneration of the Eighth Doctor into the Warrior.
THE WARRIOR, aka WAR DOCTOR
The War Doctor (never so-called in the TV show) was
especially brought into existence by the Sisterhood of Karn to end the Last
Great Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks. His face is seen in a mirror after the
regeneration of the Eighth Doctor in The
Night of the Doctor. He later
appears in alongside the Eleventh Doctor and the Tenth Doctor in the 2013
Autumn Special (25 November) Doctor Who:
The Day of the Doctor.
** Doctor Who: The Last Day (TV short, 20
Nov 2013)
Shows
the beginning of the Fall of Arcadia from the point-of-view of a Gallifreyan
soldier.
** The
Final Battle (or, Leela vs. the Time
War; Doctor Who official website,
11 Jan 2024)
Shows
how Leela, who’d stayed on Gallifrey to marry Castellan Andred, survived the
Last Great Time War.
SHALKA
Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka (webcast animated miniseries, 40th Anniversary Special)
(featuring the Alternative Ninth, or Shakla, Doctor and companions Alison Cheney & the Master)
The Shalka Doctor was
originally considered by the BBC as the Ninth Doctor until Christopher
Eccleston was announced as the revival’s Ninth Doctor, and given the latter has
been largely dismissed by fans. However,
the Fifteenth Doctor’s Series 14 “Rogue” has made this Doctor canon, though
without explaining how he fits into the timeline, with the best guess that he
was part of a bigeneration of either the Eighth Doctor or the War Doctor.
The Doctor lands in the
village of Lannet in Lancashire to fight against the Shalka who have
established a forward operating post there for a planned invasion of Earth,
which The Doctor plans to stop with the help of Alison Cheney and the Master. There are similarities in the backstory
prelude to this miniseries with the Last Great Time War.
1. Episode 1 (13 Nov 2003)
2. Episode 2 (20 Nov 2003)
3. Episode 3 (27 Nov 2003)
4. Episode 4 (4 Dec 2003)
5. Episode 5 (11 Dec 2003)
6. Episode 6 (18 Dec 2003)
DOCTOR WHO REVIVAL ERA
In the following, the entries indented by two asterisks and
two spaces are shorts broadcast on TV, webcasts, or home video releases; the
venue is given. With one exception, all
of the Lockdown! were webcast shorts released on YouTube; the exception was a
short story in text. The rest are
regular or special full-length Parts or TV movies.
NINTH DOCTOR
Doctor Who Series 1/Season 27 (26 Mar 2005-18 Jun 2005)
Companions: Rose
Tyler; also Adam Mitchell (“Dalek” & “Long Game”), Jack Harkness (from “The
Empty Child”)
(Note: In this
first series of the revival, the lead character is billed as ‘Doctor Who’.)
** Doctor Who and the Time War (Lockdown!, 26 Mar 2020)
1. “Rose” (26 Mar
2005)
** “Revenge of the Nestene” (Lockdown!, 26
Mar 2020)
2. “The End of the
World” (2 Apr 2005)
Blue Peter,
“Doctor Who Special” (4 Apr 2005)
3. “The Unquiet
Dead” (9 Apr 2005; set at Christmastime)
4. “Aliens of London”
(1/2; 16 Apr 2005)
5. “World War Three”
(2/2; 23 Apr 2005)
6. “Dalek” (30 Apr
2005)
** Sven and the Scarf (Lockdown!, 30 Apr 2020)
7. “The Long Game” (7
May 2005)
8. “Father’s Day” (14
May 2005)
9. “The Empty Child”
(1/2; 21 May 2005)
10. “The Doctor
Dances” (2/2; 28 May 2005)
11. “Boom Town” (4
Jun 2005)
12. “Bad Wolf” (1/2;
11 Jun 2005)
13. “The Parting of
the Ways” (2/2; 18 Jun 2005)
“Rose” takes place in
present-day London, kicking things off by introducing the first companion of
the revival and reintroducing the Autons and the Nestene Consciousness.
“Revenge of the
Nestene” was a short story written by Russell T. Davies of which an audio
recording was made for Lockdown!; in it, part of the Nestene survives in the
form of a Pierrot clown which enters Westminster and merges with the body of
someone killed in the destruction, vowing revenge.
In “The End of the
World”, which takes place aboard a space station over Earth in the year
5,000,000 CE, where we also first encounter the Face of Boe and Lady Cassandra,
and Doctor Who first mentions the Last Great Time War by name. It forms a loose trilogy with Season 2’s “New
Earth” and Season 3’s “Gridlock”.
In “The Unquiet Dead”,
Doctor Who and Rose travel back in time to 1869 Cardiff and work with Charles
Dickens against the Geith who fell through the Cardiff Space-Time Rift, which
appears in two episodes of Torchwood
and one in the fourth series of Doctor Who. Of note is the maid Gwyneth,
who is clairvoyant, and is played by the same actor who plays Torchwood’s agent Gwen Cooper.
The two-part story
“Aliens of London” and “World War Three” introduces the Slitheen later seen in
both Doctor Who and The Sarah
Jane Adventures, as well as featuring the
first revival reappearance of UNIT. It
begins with Rose returning home to find she’s been missing for a year.
“Dalek” reintroduces
the Daleks and gives a peak at Doctor Who’s dark side, in this case largely
driven by his experiences in the Time War.
“The Long Game” takes
place on Satellite Five, aka Game Station, orbiting Earth in the year 200,000
and satirizes the media and the reliability of stories they feed to the mass
audience. Satellite Five reappears in
the two-part series finale.
“Father’s Day”, which
takes place in London in 1987, sees Rose meet her father, who died when she was
a baby, and learn the consequences of changing a fixed point in time.
The two-part story in
“The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances” takes place during the Blitz in
London, specifically in November 1941, where they have arrived after chasing
Time Agent Capt. Jack Harkness and encounter a group of homeless children and a
mysterious plague spreading throughout the city.
In “Boomtown”, Doctor
Who, Rose, and Jack travel to present-day Cardiff to meet up with Rose’s
boyfriend Mickey Smith to discover Blon the Slitheen still alive and trapped on
Earth and willing to blow up the planet if necessary to escape.
The two-part series finale,
“Bad Wolf” and “Parting of the Ways” sees a much bigger Dalek presence than in
the eponymous episode, takes place mostly on Game Station in 200,100, where
Doctor Who, Rose, and Jack are forced to play games for their lives before the
Daleks attack the station. Rose looks
into the Time Vortex of the TARDIS and becomes Bad Wolf to save them, with
Doctor Who absorbing it from her to save her life, after which he then has to
regenerate into the Tenth Doctor.
Tenth Doctor
Beginning
with the 2005 Christmas Special, the lead character returns to being billed as
‘The Doctor’, largely at the insistence of the actor David Tennant.
** Doctor Who: Born Again (TV short; 18 Nov
2005)
Shows
the Tenth Doctor just after his regeneration from the Ninth.
Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion (Christmas Special 2005)
Companion: Rose
Tyler; with Mickey Smith & Jackie Tyler
On
Christmas Eve, the Tenth Doctor is still recovering from his regeneration when
he has to fight the Sycorax who are holding Earth for ransom and save the human
race from slavery.
** Doctor Who: Attack of the Graske (BBCi Red Button; 25 Dec 2005)
An
interactive game in which the player helps The Doctor catch a Graske that is
loose and causing havoc.
Doctor Who Series 2/Season 28 (15 Apr 2006-8 Jul 2006)
Companions: Rose
Tyler; with Mickey Smith (“School Reunion” thru “The Age of Steel”); Sarah Jane
Smith & K9 Mark III then K9 Mark IV (“School Reunion”)
The
main story-arc this series is the Torchwood Institute, which lays the
groundwork for the Torchwood
spinoff TV show, and a secondary arc is the romantic feelings between The
Doctor and Rose.
An
experiment not repeated, the Tardisodes were webcast.
** Tardisode 1 (1 Apr 2006)
1. “New Earth” (15
Apr 2006)
** Tardisode 2 (15 Apr 2006)
2. “Tooth and Claw”
(22 Apr 2006)
** Tardisode 3 (22 Apr 2006)
3. “School Reunion”
(29 Apr 2006)
** Tardisode 4 (29 Apr 2006)
4. “The Girl in the
Fireplace” (6 May 2006)
** Tardisode 5 (6 May 2006)
** Pompadour (Lockdown!, 6 May 2020)
5. “Rise of the
Cybermen” (1/2, 13 May 2006)
** Tardisode 6 (13 May 2006)
6. “The Age of Steel”
(2/2, 20 May 2006)
** Tardisode 7 (20 May 2006)
7. “The Idiot’s
Lantern” (27 May 2006)
** Tardisode 8 (27 May 2006)
8. “The Impossible
Planet” (1/2, 3 Jun 2006)
** Tardisode 9 (3 Jun 2006)
9. “The Satan Pit”
(2/2, 10 Jun 2006)
** Tardisode 10 (10 Jun 2006)
10. “Love &
Monsters” (17 Jun 2006)
** Tardisode 11 (17 Jun 2006)
** The Genuine Article (Lockdown!, 14
February 2021)
11. “Fear Her” (24
Jun 2006)
** Tardisode 12 (24 Jun 2006)
12. “Army of Ghosts”
(1/2, 1 Jul 2006)
** Tardisode 13 (1 Jul 2006)
13. “Doomsday” (2/2,
8 Jul 2006)
On “New Earth”, in New
New York in the year 5,000,000,023, The Doctor must figure out how the healing
order of cat-nuns of the Sisters of Plentitude can cure all illnesses as well
as protect Rose from Lady Cassandra; features introduction of Novice Haim and
the return of Lady Cassandra. It forms a
loose trilogy with Season 1’s “The End of the World” and Season 2’s “Gridlock”.
“Tooth and Claw” sees
The Doctor and Rose travel to Torchwood House on the estate of the same name in
Aberdeenshire in the year 1879, when The Doctor introduces himself to Queen
Victoria as ‘Dr. James McCrimmon’. He
and Rose must protect the queen from being assassinated and prevent the Lupine
Haemovariform from taking over the Empire.
The queen founds Torchwood Institute to investigate and protect Great
Britain from alien threats, including The Doctor, though she did dub the two
time travellers Sir Doctor of TARDIS and Dame Rose of Powell Estate.
In “School Reunion”,
The Doctor, Rose, and Mickey go undercover to investigate strange bat-like
creatures haunting Deffry Vale High School at night, where The Doctor reunites
with former companion Sarah Jane Smith, who tells him he did not leave her in
South Croydon when they parted at the end of “The Hand of Fear” but in
Aberdeen, Scotland. He repairs the
nonfunctional K9 Mark III to the point of becoming the new K9 Mark IV.
“The Girl in the Fireplace”
is Mickey’s first trip in the TARDIS, with The Doctor intending to take him and
Rose to pre-Revolution France but ending up on the SS Madame de Pompadour in 5037, which offers several portals to
that time during the life of Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson herself along with Louis
XV of France. Also, this is the first
appearance of the Clockwork Droids who later appear in Series 8’s “Deep
Breath”.
The two-part story
“Rise of the Cybermen” and “The Age of Steel” reintroduces of the Cybermen, now
sporting a revamp from an alternate universe containing ‘Pete’s World’
(Cybusmen), where Pete Tyler still lives and is married Jackie Prentiss, though
they remain childless. Recreated
Cybermen overrun Pete’s World with the resistance against them known as the
Preachers.
“The Idiot’s Lantern”
finds The Doctor and Rose materializing in 1953 London at the time of the
coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and encountering an entity known as The Wire
hiding in the TVs in the UK and causing people to lose their faces.
The two-story “The
Impossible Planet” and “The Satan Pit” takes place on the barren,
atmosphereless planet Krop Tor orbiting black hole K37 Gem 5 in the year 4221,
where The Doctor and Rose and its mining crew must deal with an entity called
The Beast which the drilling has awakening.
It also introduces the Ood species.
Set in 2007 London,
“Love & Monsters” was the first ‘Doctor-lite’ episode of the Revival Era,
featuring Elton Pope, who becomes obsessed with The Doctor after encountering
him and Rose several times. He meets
others similarly obsessed and they form L.I.N.D.A. (‘London Investigation 'n'
Detective Agency’), but find themselves preyed upon by the Abzorbaloff.
The Genuine Article
was an animated webcast short made for the Lockdown! series in which The Doctor faces off against the Abzorbaloff and his
associate the Krakanord aboard a spaceship in orbit around Earth.
In “Fear Her”, The
Doctor and Rose travel to London in 2012 to see the Olympics, only to becomes
involved in a case of disappearing (but not kidnapped) children, in a story
about the impact of child abuse through character Chloe Webber.
The two-part series finale,
“Army of Ghosts” and “Doomsday”, features the Torchwood Institute, specifically
Torchwood One (where Adeola, lookalike cousin of later companion Martha Jones,
works), the Cult of Skaro (Daleks), Cybermen (Cybusmen), and the Battle of
Canary Wharf, which includes nearly all the recurring characters of the
Revival.
Torchwood Series 1, 1-10 (22 Oct 2006-17 Dec 2006)
Torchwood 3:
Jack Harkness, Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato, Ianto Jones, Suzie Costello, Gwen
Cooper
The
series focuses on Torchwood Three, based in Cardiff in a headquarters known as
the Hub to monitor the Cardiff Space-Time Rift, the only surviving branch of
the Torchwood Institute after the Battle of Canary Wharf.
1. “Everything
Changes” (22 Oct 2006)
2. “Day One” (22 Oct
2006)
3. “Ghost Machine”
(29 Oct 2006)
4. “Cyberwoman” (5
Nov 2006)
5. “Small Worlds” (12
Nov 2006)
6. “Countrycide” (19
Nov 2006)
7. “Greeks Bearing
Gifts” (26 Nov 2006)
8. “They Keep Killing
Suzie” (3 Dec 2006)
9. “Random Shoes” (10
Dec 2006)
10. “Out of Time” (17
Dec 2006)
11. “Combat” (24 Dec
2006)
“Everything Changes”
introduces Torchwood Three, its headquarters the Hub, and its team members:
team leader the immortal Captain Jack Harkness, former Time Agent and former
companion to The Doctor; medical officer Owen Harper whose wife died of an
alien parasite; Toshiko Sato, a scientist who first appeared in Doctor Who’s
“Aliens of London”, joined after being released from detention by UNIT; Ianto
Jones, a junior researcher at Torchwood One before the Battle of Canary Wharf;
and Susie Costello, Jack’s second-in-command.
The team takes over a case a murder case being investigated by PC Gwen
Cooper that is actually one of a series of horrific murders; PC Cooper joins
the team at the end of the episode. The
episode also introduces the Weevils.
On “Day One”, Gwen
lets a gaseous entity that takes over a host and consumes its victims during
orgasm, leaving only dust behind.
In “Ghost Machine”,
the team discovers an alien machines that shows visions of stong emotion-laden
events past and future.
“Cyberwoman” refers to
partially converted Lisa Hallet, Ianto’s lover and fellow ex-employee of
Torchwood One, where she worked in acquisitions, whom he is hiding in the
basement of the Hub.
“Small Worlds” sees
the team investigating a group of deadly fairies who have set their sights on
young girl Jasmine Pierce for joining them.
In “Countrycide”, the
team investigates a series of gruesome deaths in a small village in the Brecon
Beacons only to find that not all monsters are aliens from other worlds.
“Greeks Bearing Gifts”
centers on Tosh, who is given an Arcateenian telepathy pendant by a woman
pursuing her romantically, Mary, who turns out to be not what she seems.
In “They Keep Killing
Suzie”, the team uses the resurrection gauntlet to bring Suzie back from the
dead because they need her help with a series of brutal murders around Cardiff.
“Random Shoes” focuses
on Gwen and murder victim Eugene Jones, who watches Gwen investigate his
murder.
In “Out of Time”, the
team deals with three people aboard a plane in the 1950s which falls through
the Cardiff Rift, leaving them stranded in 2006.
In “Combat”, savage aliens
are being abducted off the streets, and when Owen investigates, it turns out to
be for an alien fight club for human spectators, with contenders fighting for
their lives.
Doctor Who: The Runaway Bride (Christmas Special 2006)
Companion:
Donna Noble
The
TARDIS accidentally kidnaps temp secretary Donna Noble from her wedding, which
turns out to have been part of a plot by an alien called the Empress of the
Racnoss and someone close to Donna.
The Sarah Jane Adventures: Invasion of the Bane (1 Jan 2007)
Companions: Maria Jackson, Luke Smith, Mr. Smith, Kelsey Hooper, K9 Mark IV
The
‘pilot’ of the new show, though series one had already been approved,
reintroducing Sarah Jane Smith and K9 Mark IV, her sentient living
supercomputer Mr. Smith, and the young people who join her on her adventures in
the London borough of Ealing, including Luke, who becomes her adopted son. The story involves the Bane seeking to take
over the world through an addictive soft drink called Bubble Shock!, which
Sarah Jane investigates as a reporter.
Torchwood Series 1, Episodes 12-13 (both 1 Jan 2007)
12. “Captain Jack
Harkness”
13. “End of Days” (story continues in Doctor Who S03E11 “Utopia”)
The
two-part finale takes place in Cardiff both in the 2000s and in 1941, Jack
meets his namesake, the team learns Jack is immortal. Jack and Tosh are examining derelict dance
hall and fall through the Rift to 1941; when the team reopens the Rift to
rescue them, it releases Abaddon, son of The Beast (Doctor
Who Season 2’s “The Impossible Planet”
and “The Satan Pit”), along with people from various historical eras back to
the Romans. Standing in the background
of it all is the mysterious ‘Bilis Manger’.
The story ends with the sound of the TARDIS materializing, with Jack’s
story continuing in Doctor Who Season
3’s “Utopia”.
Doctor Who Series 3/Season 29 (31 Mar 2007-30 Jun 2007)
Companions:
Martha Jones; with Jack Harkness (final trilogy)
The
story arc defining this season is the rise to power of Harold Saxon, who
eventually becomes Prime Minister of the UK.
The Infinite Quest TV minisodes are explained below.
1. “Smith and Jones”
(31 Mar 2007)
** The Infinite Quest, Part 1 (2 Apr 2007)
2. “The Shakespeare
Code” (7 Apr 2007)
** The Infinite Quest, Part 2 (9 Apr 2007)
3. “Gridlock” (14 Apr
2007)
** The Infinite Quest, Part 3 (16 Apr 2007)
4. “Daleks in
Manhattan” (1/2, 21 Apr 2007)
** The Infinite Quest, Part 4 (23 Apr 2007)
5. “Evolution of the
Daleks” (2/2, 28 Apr 2007)
** The Infinite Quest, Part 5 (30 Apr 2007)
6. “The Lazarus
Experiment” (5 May 2007)
** The Infinite Quest, Part 6 (7 May 2007)
7. “42” (19 May 2007)
** The Infinite Quest, Part 7 (21 May 2007)
8. “Human Nature”
(1/2, 26 May 2007)
** The Infinite Quest, Part 8 (28 May 2007)
9. “The Family of
Blood” (2/2, 2 Jun 2007)
** The Infinite Quest, Part 9 (4 June 2007)
10. “Blink” (9 Jun
2007)
** The Infinite Quest, Part 10 (11 Jun
2007)
11. “Utopia” (1/3, 16
Jun 2007)
** The Infinite Quest, Part 11 (18 Jun
2007)
12. “The Sound of
Drums” (2/3, 23 Jun 2007)
** The Infinite Quest, Part 12 (25 Jun
2007)
** The Infinite Quest, Part 13 (30 Jun
2007)
13. “Last of the Time
Lords” (3/3, 30 Jun 2007)
“Smith and Jones”
introduces new companion Martha Jones, whose cousin Adeola worked at Torchwood
One and was lost in the Battle of Canary Wharf, as well the rhino-like galactic
mercenary police, the Judoon. The story
involves the hospital where medical student Jones works, with The Doctor her
most recent patient, being transported to the Moon by the Judoon seeking a quarry.
“The Shakespeare Code”
takes place in 1599 Southwark, London, at the Globe Theater, where The Doctor
takes Martha as a reward for her help on Luna.
However, their jaunt turns to serious drama when they learn three
Carrionites, the (in-universe) basis for the Weird Sisters, are trying to
manipulate Shakespeare for their own designs.
“Gridlock” takes place
on New Earth in the year 5,000,000,053, where most surviving citizens are
trapped in an eternal gridlock several stories high in a story featuring the
return of the Macra (Season 4’s “The Macra Terror”), Novice Hame, and the Face
of Boe.
The two-part story
“Daleks in Manhattan” and “Evolution of the Daleks” features the return of the
Cult of Skaro, this time in the Great Depression in Manhattan, where their
minions stalk the Hooverville of Central Park, offering jobs to hungry men
desperate to feed themselves and their families.
“The Lazarus
Experiment” refers to the work of Prof. Richard Lazarus to rejuvenate his body
so that its regains his youth, which is successful, but with a very serious
drawback. The experiment is funded by
Harold Saxon, for whom Francine Jones, Martha’s sister, is now working.
“42” finds The Doctor
and Martha in the 42nd century trapped on the SS Pentallion, which has been
damaged and is hurtling towards a nearby star with which it will collide in 42
minutes. The two must work with the crew
to repair the ship while a silent, invisible killer stalks the
passageways. On Earth, it becomes
apparent Harold Saxon is interested in The Doctor and is using Francine to get
to him through Martha.
The two-part story
“Human Nature” and “Family of Blood” sees The Doctor fully human as teacher
John Smith at the Farringham School for Boys in 1913, with Martha undercover as
a maid at the school, with her memories fully intact. They are hiding from a group of aliens known
as the Family of Blood who have stolen The Doctor’s vortex manipulator. The Doctor has hidden his Time Lord essence,
and all knowledge of himself as a Time Lord, in a fob watch; when the time
comes to open the fob watch and return to being The Doctor, the human he has
become will, in effect, be committing suicide, and reflecting on this changes
his view of regeneration. He gives the
Family the eternal life they seek, but not in the way he wants. Of them, only Daughter of Mine appears in the
Whoniverse again, in “Shadow of a Doubt” and “The Shadow in the Mirror”, both of which take place in the time of the Thirteenth Doctor.
“Blink” is a
Doctor-lite episode that introduces what may be the show’s most terrifying
monsters: The Weeping Angels. The story
centers around a young woman named Sally Sparrow, whom The Doctor communicates
through different televisions and various other means.
“Utopia”, part one the
three-part series finale, sees the return of Jack Harkness to the show
(straight from Torchwood Season 1’s “End of Days”) and the TARDIS catapaulted
to the planet Malcassairo, inhabited by the Futurekind in the year 100,000,000,000,000 CE (‘Utopia’
is one of the universe’s last surviving planets). There they meet Professor Yana, who turns out
to be The War Master, regenerating into The Saxon Master, aka Harold Saxon,
near the end of the episode, and stealing the TARDIS.
In “The Sound of
Drums”, which opens immediately after “Utopia”, The Doctor, Martha, and Jack
use the last’s vortex manipulator to return to the 21st century, where they find Harold Saxon,
aka The Saxon Master, had become Prime Minister of the UK. In the ensuing events, Martha escapes, though
her family is held prisoner along with Jack and The Doctor, and Saxon unleashes
his Toclane allies to decimate the human population.
“Last of the Time
Lords” begins one year later. While Jack
and The Doctor have been held prisoner, and her family as slaves aboard the
Valiant, Saxon’s sky ship Valiant,
Martha has become a leader of the resistance.
Jack destroys the Paradox Machine, which resets time back to Day
Zero. The Master is mortally wounded,
but refuses to regenerate. Jack tells
The Doctor and Martha that in his early days with the Time Agency, he was known
as the “Face of Boe”. Martha stays on
Earth, and The Doctor powers up the TARDIS just as a spaceship named Titanic crashes through its wall.
TV shorts of The
Infinite Quest were broadcast in 2 Apr-29
Jun 2007 as segments of the CBBC companion show Totally Doctor Who; the whole, including never-before-seen Part
13, was broadcast on CBBC as one omnibus stand-alone version, Doctor Who: The Infinite Quest, on 30 June 2007, before the Doctor Who series
3 finale on BBC 1. The story involves
The Doctor and Martha having to find the lost starship Infinite before the space pirate Baltazar. It is not part of the official canon, but the
most sensible place to watch the omnibus version would be after “Blink”, before
the trilogy finale of series 3.)
** Doctor Who: Time Crash (Children in Need
TV short, 16 Nov 2007)
The
Tenth Doctor meets the Fifth Doctor in this short which explains how the
Titanic crashed into the TARDIS.
The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 1 (24 Sep 2007-19 Nov 2007)
Companions:
Maria Jackson, Luke Smith, Clyde Langer, Mr. Smith
1-2. “Revenge of the
Slitheen”, Parts 1 & 2 (24 Sep 2007)
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “Park Vale:
Case Update”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “Coldfire
Construction: Data Analysis”
3. “Eye of the
Gorgon”, Part 1 (1 Oct 2007)
4. “Eye of the Gorgon”,
Part 2 (8 Oct 2007)
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “Lavender:
Lawns Data”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “St. Agnes
Abbey”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “The Bea
Nelson-Stanley Case”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “The Talisman”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “The Gorgon”
5. “Warriors of
Kudlak”, Part 1 (15 Oct 2007)
6. “Warriors of
Kudlak”, Part 2 (22 Oct 2007)
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “Combat 3000
Data”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “General
Kudlak: Data”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “Entanglement
Shells”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “Cibianite
Flux Fuse Rods”
7. “Whatever Happened
to Sarah Jane?”, Part 1 (29 Oct 2007)
8. “Whatever Happened
to Sarah Jane?”, Part 2 (5 Nov 2007)
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “Deep Space
Scan of Meteor K67”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “Who Is Andrea
Yates?”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “The Puzzle
Box”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “The Update of
Andrea Yates”|
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “Sarah Jane’s
Past”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “Data Analysis
of the Trickster”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “Data Analysis
of the Graske”
9. “The Lost Boy”,
Part 1 (12 Nov 2007)
10. “The Lost Boy”,
Part 2 (19 Nov 2007)
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “The Pharos
Institute”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “Access
Denied”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “Return of the
Slitheen”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “Stafford:
Case Update”
** Mr. Smith’s Data Update – “Alien Object
Detected!”
** Mr.
Smith’s Data Update – “The MITRE Headset”
Mr. Smith’s Data Updates were
summaries of certain parts of the preceding story less than a minute-long,
similar to the later Alien Files.
In “Revenge of the
Slitheen”, the criminal Slitheen family (previously seen in Doctor Who Series 1’s “Aliens in London”, “World War
Three”, and “Boomtown), take over several of the faculty at Parkvale
Comprehensive School from the first day of school for Maria and Luke, and Clyde
whom they befriend during the fight.
The Mr. Smith’s
Data Update shorts, even shorter than the
later Alien Files, were webcast
during The SJA Series 1 and 2.
“Eye of the Gorgon”
sees Sarah Jane, Luke, Maria, and Clyde investigate ghostly sightings at
Lavender Lawns Rest Home, which turn out to be of an actual Gorgons, but in
this case an alien rather than a terrestrial monster.
In “Warriors of
Kudlak”, Sarah Jane, Mr. Smith, and Maria investigate the disappearances of
children across the UK that seems to be connected to the laser tag game Combat
3000, which, in the meantime, Clyde takes Luke to play, not knowing of anything
suspicious.
“Whatever Happened to
Sarah Jane?” finds Maria alone in remembering her after she (and therefore
Luke) have disappeared, with a woman named Andrea Yates in her place. Introduces The Trickster, later revealed to
be part of the Pantheon of Discord as God of Traps, and his ‘Brigade’.
“The Lost Boy” is
supposedly Luke, whom Sarah Jane is forced to have over to his alleged
parents. It turns out to be a plot of
the Slitheen, in league with Mr. Smith, to bring the Moon crashing into Earth.
Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned (Christmas Special 2007)
Companion:
Astrid Peth
This
Christmas Special is the second-highest rated, in terms of viewership, of any
episode of Doctor Who next
to Season 17’s “City of Death”. It
begins immediately after the ending of “Last of the Time Lords”, involving the
spaceship Titanic, which has been set
on a collision course with Earth, robot angels known as the Heavenly Host, the
cyborg Max Capricorn, the first appearance of Wilfrid Mott, Donna Noble’s
grandfather, and The Doctor’s companion in this episode, Astrid Peth, as well
as midshipman Alonzo Farne, whom he also connects with.
Torchwood Series 2 (16 Jan 2008-4 Apr 2008)
Torchwood 3:
Jack Harkness, Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato, Ianto Jones, Gwen Cooper
1. “Kiss Kiss, Bang
Bang” (16 Jan 2008)
2. “Sleeper” (23 Jan
2008)
3. “To the Last Man”
(30 Jan 2008)
4. “Meat” (6 Feb
2008)
5. “Adam” (13 Feb
2008)
6. “Reset” (1/3, 13
Feb 2008)
7. “Dead Man Walking”
(2/3, 20 Feb 2008)
8. “A Day in the
Death” (3/3, 27 Feb 2008)
“Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang”
begins straight off the end of Doctor Who’s Season 3 finale “Last of the Time
Lords” and sees the appearance through the Rift from the 51st century of Jack’s
former lover and Time Agency colleague Capt. John Hart, who lies the team into
helping him with a nefarious plan.
In “Sleeper”, the team
investigates fatal injuries to two burglars and suspect one of the residents of
the home may be an alien sleeper agent.
“To the Last Man”
features Tosh and centers on Tommy Brockless, a British soldier from the First
World War being treated for shell shock (PTSD) who was placed in cryogenic
storage by two Torchwood agents in 1918 and is brought out once a year.
“Meat” sees the team
investigate the source of alien meat and Rhys Williams, Gwen’s fiance, learn
the truth about Torchwood and aliens.
“Adam” is a
shape-shifting alien with the power to change memories who infiltrates the
team.
“Reset” sees UNIT
medical specialist and former companion of The Doctor Martha Jones temporarily
assigned to Torchwood Three, to assist with investigating a series of murders
connected to a drug trial, the first episode of a loose trilogy in which she is
with the team.
“Dead Man Walking” is
Owen, who was killed at the end of “Reset”, and whom Jack brings back to life
with the other resurrection glove.
“A Day in the Death” sees
Owen trying to get a handle on his undeath while being dismissed then
readmitted to Torchwood.
Zygon: When Being You Just Isn’t Enough (home video; 27 Feb 2008)
Kritakh,
aka engineer Mike Kirkwood, and Torlakh, aka mass murderer Bob Calhoun, have
been trapped on Earth for 20 years, and ‘Mike Kirkwood’ is dating psychiatrist
Lauren Anderson.
** Zygon:
Behind the Changing Faces (short; 27 Feb 2008)
A
behind-the-scenes commentary on the story immediately above.
Torchwood Series 2 (continued)
9. “Something
Borrowed” (5 Mar 2008)
10. “From Out of the
Rain” (12 Mar 2008)
11. “Adrift” (19 Mar
2008)
12. “Fragments” (1/2,
21 Mar 2008)
13. “Exit Wounds”
(2/2, 4 Apr)
“Something Borrowed”
is the egg with which Gwen is implanted the night before her wedding to Rhys by
a Nostrovite.
“From Out of the Rain”
finds the team up against the Night Travellers, who have escaped their
celluloid prison at the Electro theatre to steal the breaths of the living to
use as their audience.
In “Adrift”, Gwen
investigates a series of disappearances against Jack’s wishes and learns the
missing have been found but are being kept isolated because they were taken by
the Rift and came back mentally and/or physically scarred.
“Fragments” refers to
the memories of Jack, Tosh, Ianto, and Owen each joining Torchwood after they
get bombed in a trap, leaving Gwen and Rhys to pull them out. Jack receives a message from John Hart that
he has taken his brother Gray, whom Jack has not seen since childhood, captive.
“Exit Wounds” features the
return from the assumed dead of Jack’s brother Gray, seeking revenge for all he
suffered after his capture, leading to a series of events that end with Jack
putting Gray into cryo and the deaths of two Torchwood team members.
Doctor Who Series 4/Season 30 (5 Apr 2008-5 Jul 2008)
Companions: Donna Noble; also Martha Jones (“The Sontaran
Strategem”, “The Poison Sky”, & “The Doctor’s Daughter”); Rose Tyler (“Turn
Left”); River Song* (“Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead”); and
the Children of Time (“Stolen Earth” & “Journey’s End”)
The story arc this
series is the recurring mention of disappearing planets and their moons, the
‘Missing Planets Arc’.
The editions of Captain
Jack’s Monster Files were webcast the
same day as the episodes of Series 4, after the episode, a quick review of the
main enemy or alien race that week.
1. “Partners in Crime”
(5 Apr 2008)
** Captain Jack’s Monster Files: “Adipose”
2. “The Fires of
Pompeii” (12 Apr 2008)
** Captain Jack’s Monster Files: “Pyrovile”
** The Descendants of Pompeii (Lockdown!,
17 May 2020)
3. “Planet of the Ood”
(19 Apr 2008)
** Captain Jack’s Monster Files: “Ood”
4. “The Sontaran
Strategem” (1/2, 26 Apr 2008)
** Captain Jack’s Monters Files: “Slitheen”
5. “The Poison Sky”
(2/2, 3 May 2008)
** Captain Jack’s Monster Files: “Sontarans”
6. “The Doctor’s Daughter”
(10 May 2008)
** Captain Jack’s Monster Files: “Hath”
7. “The Unicorn and
the Wasp” (17 May 2008)
** Captain Jack’s Monster Files: “Vespiform”
8. “Silence in the
Library” (1/2, 31 May 2008)
** Captain Jack’s Monster Files: “Judoon”
9. “Forest of the
Dead” (2/2, 7 Jun 2008)
** Captain Jack’s Monster Files: “The Vashta
Nerada”
10. “Midnight” (14
Jun 2008)
** Captain Jack’s Monster Files: “Midnight”
11. “Turn Left” (1/3,
21 Jun 2008)
** Captain Jack’s Monster Files: “The Trickster’s
Brigade”
** U.N.I.T. On Call (Lockdown!, 14 November
2020)
12. “The Stolen Earth”
(2/3, 28 Jun 2008)
** Captain Jack’s Monster Files: “Daleks”
13. “Journey’s End” (3/3,
5 Jul 2008)
** Captain Jack’s Monster Files: “Davros”
“Partners in Crime”
reunites The Doctor with Donna Noble (“The Runaway Bride”, Chrismas 2006) when
they both investigate, separately, Adipose Industries, creators of a seemingly
magical new diet pill.
In “Fires of Pompeii”,
The Doctor attempts to take Donna to ancient Rome, only to end up in Pompeii on
23 August 79 (the day before Vesuvius erupted).
Of note among those they meet there are merchant Lobus Caecilius, whose
face The Doctor chooses when his Eleventh incarnation regenerates, and the
Soothsayer (played by Karen Gillan).
“Planet of the Ood”
takes place in the year 4126 on the planet Ood Sphere, where The Doctor and
Donna learn that the Ood, whom we first saw in Season 2’s “The Impossible
Planet” have been enslaved by the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire for
two centuries, leading to the Revolution of the Ood.
The two-part story
“The Sontaran Strategem” and “The Poison Sky” with Martha Janes, former
companion and now medic at UNIT, calling in The Doctor to help with a case of
several simultaneous deaths by persons in autos with ATMOS (Atmospheric
Omissions System) installed. Martha and
Donna quickly becomes friends as ATMOS turns out to be part of a plot by a
Sontaran forward group from the 10th Sontaran Battle Fleet under General Staal
the Undefeated to conquer Earth. In the
end, there is one Sontaran survivor, Commander Kraagh, whom we meet in SJA
Series 2.
After taking care of
the Sontarans, The Doctor takes Donna and Martha on a jaunt in which the TARDIS
goes out of control and lands on the planet Messaline in the year 6012 where
humans and Hath are at war, and where a progenation machine clones a daughter,
Jenny, from The Doctor’s DNA (who is played by Georgia Moffet, real-life
daughter of the Fifth Doctor actor Peter Davison, who eventually married Tenth
Doctor actor David Tennant).
In “The Unicorn and
the Wasp” sees The Doctor and Donna meet Agatha Christie at Eddison Manor in
December 1926 and purports to tell the story of how and why she disappeared
then turn up at Harrowgate Hotel ten days later with no memory of what had
happened.
The two-part story
“Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead” sees The Doctor show Donna a
planet-sized library from which thousands of visitors disappeared without a
trace centuries ago, introducing the Vashta Nerada and an archaeological team
led by Prof. River Song, who we learn knows The Doctor quite well though he’s
not met her yet.
In the utterly
terrifying “Midnight”, The Doctor and Donna take a holiday on the leisure
planet called Midnight. While Donna
indulges herself at the spa, The Doctor boards a tour bus to see the Sapphire
Waterfall, and during the trip, a malevolent entity takes possession of one of
the passengers, Sky Sylvester, and sows fear and mistrust among those
aboard. The planet and the Midnight
Entity appear again in Series 15’s “The Well”.
The first part of—or
prelude to—the series finale, “Turn Left”, takes place on the planet Shan Shen
in the 85th century, where a fortune teller shows Donna an alternate timeline
(‘Donna’s World’) of what would’ve happened had she turned right to ask a
wealthy business man for a permanent job as her mother prodded her to do rather
than turn left, which led to her meeting The Doctor in “The Runaway
Bride”. The consequences are disastrous
for both Donna and the world, with events manipulated by the Fortune Teller and
the Time Beetle, members of the Trickster’s Brigade, from whose influence she
saves herself with the help of Rose Tyler.
The two-part series finale
proper, “The Stolen Earth” and “Journey’s End” sees Earth and 26 other planets
taken to Medusa Cascade, with The Doctor vanished, leaving the ‘Children of
Time’ (Martha Jones, Rose Tyler, Sarah Jane Smith, Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith,
and K-9) and their associates (Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones, Luke Smith, Mr. Smith,
Wilfrid Mott, Sylvia Noble, Harriet Jones, and Jackie Tyler) to resist Davros
and the New Dalek Empire and deal with the Judoon. The Doctor receives secret help from an
unlikely source (Dalek Caan, last of the Cult of Skaro) leading to a series of
events that sees his Time Lord energy split between himself, the half-human
Meta-Crisis Doctor, and the half-Time Lord DoctorDonna. The Meta-Crisis Doctor goes to Pete’s World
to live with Rose Tyler after the Daleks are defeated, while the Tenth Doctor
hides all Donna Noble’s memories of him so the power of the Time Lord energy won’t
kill her. Donna and her family continues
in the 60th Anniversary Special “The Star Beast”.
Doctor Who at the Proms 2008 (27 Jul 2008)
Host: Freema Agyeman, with special
appearance by Catherine Tate
The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 2 (29 Sep 2008-8 Dec 2008)
Companions: Luke Smith, Maria Jackson (“The Last
Sontarran” & “The Mark of the Beserker”), Clyde Langer, Rani Chandra (from
“The Day of the Clown”), Mr. Smith, Alan Jackson (“The Mark of the Beserker”)
1-2. “The Last
Sontarran”, Parts 1 & 2 (29 Sep 2008)
3. “The Day of the
Clown”, Part 1 (6 Oct 2008)
4. “The Day of the
Clown”, Part 2 (13 Oct 2008)
5. “Secrets of the
Stars”, Part 1 (20 Oct 2008)
6. “Secrets of the
Stars”, Part 2 (27 Oct 2008)
7. “The Mark of the
Beserker”, Part 1 (3 Nov 2008)
8. “The Mark of the
Beserker”, Part 2 (10 Nov 2008)
9. “The Temptation of
Sarah Jane Smith”, Part 1 (17 Nov 2008)
10. “The Temptation
of Sarah Jane Smith”, Part 2 (24 Nov 2008)
11. “Enemy of the
Bane”, Part 1 (1 Dec 2008)
12. “Enemy of the
Bane”, Part 2 (8 Dec 2008)
“The Last Sontarran”
features Commander Kaagh, last survivor of the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet that
was obliterated in “Journey’s End”, who is seeking revenge with a plan to use satellites to target the
planet’s nuclear reactors in the last regular apperance of Maria Jackson and
her father Alan before their move to America.
The Mr. Smith’s
Data Update shorts were webcast during The
SJA Series 1 and 2.
“The Day of the Clown”
introduces new student at Park Vale School, aspiring journalist Rani Chandra,
who also happens to be the new across-the-street neighbor of Luke and Sarah
Jane as well as daughter of the new principal, Haresh Chandra. The villain is an evil clown (played by
Bradley Walsh, later to play 13th Doctor companion Graham O’Brien), who is in
reality the Pied Piper who stole the children from Hamelin.
In the “Secrets of the
Stars”, the Bannerman Road Gang face the Ancient Lights, entities older than
the Big Bang, who are seeking to control the world through their chosen
vehicle, astrologer Martin Trueman.
“The Mark of the
Berserker” concerns an alien mendant which gives its possessor the power to
control others but leaves a blue mark on the hands of its user, which comes
into the hands of Paul Langer, Clyde’s father, unfortuately for him and Clyde,
in a case in which the Bannerman Road Gang gets help from Maria Jackson in
America and her dad Alan.
“The Temptation of
Sarah Jane Smith” is the desire to see her parents not disappear from the
village of Foxgrove, Hertfordshire in 1951 when she was just 3 months old in an
alternate timeline created by The Trickster with the aid of his slave, Krislock
the Graske.
“Enemy of the Bane” sees
the return of Mrs. Wormwood, servant of the Bane, Commander Kaagh as her ally,
and the Brigadier, former commander of UNIT, with the story introducing UNIT’s
Black Archive of very dangerous alien technologies.
** Captain Jack’s Monster Files: “Christmas”
(9 Dec 2008)
Doctor Who: The Next Doctor (Christmas Special 2008)
Companions: Jackson
Lake, Rosita Farisi
** Captain Jack’s Monster Files: “The
Cybermen” (25 Dec 2008)
This
Christmas Special, “The Next Doctor” takes place in 1851 London and derives its
title from the fact that for much of the story, Jackson Lake believes he
himself is The Doctor, then ends up teaming with the actual Doctor and Rosita
to stop the Cybermen (Cybusmen) from creating a Cyber King to rule Earth.
** Doctor Who: Music of the Spheres (1 Jan
2009)
The
Doctor composes a piece of music for the 2008 Proms, with a Graske trying to
take advantage of that to reach Earth.
** The
Daleks & Davros (1 Jan 2009)
A live skit at the 2008
Proms; the Daleks take over the Albert Hall, with Davros intent on making it
the heart of the New Dalek Empire.
** The Sarah Jane Adventures: From
Raxacoricofallapatorius with Love (Rose Nose Day TV short, 13 March 2009)
The
Slitheen try once again to infiltrate Earth in the first Comic Relief special
from the Whoniverse since The Curse of Fatal Death in 1999.
Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead (Easter Special 2009; 11 Apr)
Companion:
Lady Christina de Souza
The
planet in question is San Helios, a desert planet at the end of a wormhole from
Earth through which a London double-decker bus carrying The Doctor and master
thief Christina de Souza falls. While
the two of them try to keep themselves and the other passengers alive, Capt.
Erisa Magambo and Malcolm Taylor of UNIT try to bring them back while keeping
out the metal stingrays that have destroyed San Helios. The episode also introduces the “he will
knock four times” and the “something is returning” connecting themes to the
next three episodes.
Torchwood: Children of Earth
(Series 3; 6 Jul 2009-10 Jul 2009)
Torchwood
3: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Gwen
Cooper, Rhys Williams, with ally Lois Habiba
1. “Day One” (1/5, 6
July 2009)
2. “Day Two” (2/5, 7
July 2009)
3. “Day Three” (3/5,
8 July 2009)
4. “Day Four” (4/5, 9
July 2009)
5. “Day Five” (5/5,
10 July 2009)
All
children in the world, plus the elderly Clement McDonald, freeze in place and
speak messages in unison announcing the return of The 456, an alien race which
last visited in 1965, demanding the population turn over one-tenth of its
children. UK’s Prime Minister orders
Torchwood destroyed and its people all killed.
Civil servant John Frobisher (played by later 12th Doctor actor Peter
Capaldi) takes the lead for the government’s efforts in a story which features
Jack’s (previously unknown) daughter Alice Carter (by former Torchwood Three
agent Lucia Moretti) and grandson (Steven) and has what may be the darkest
ending in the entire Whoniverse.
The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 3, 1-10 (15 Oct 2009-13 Nov 2009)
Companions:
Luke Smith, Clyde Langer, Rani Chandra, Mr. Smith, K9 IV (from “The Mad
Woman in the Attic”)
The Alien Files were webcast shorts
appearing online the same day as Part 2 of each episode.
1. “Prisoner of the
Judoon”, Part 1 (5 Oct 2009)
2. “Prisoner of the
Judoon”, Part 2 (6 Oct 2009)
** The Alien Files: “Androvax”
3. “The Mad Woman in
the Attic”, Part 1 (22 Oct 2009)
4. “The Mad Woman in
the Attic”, Part 2 (23 Oct 2009)
** The Alien Files: “Eve”
5. “The Wedding of
Sarah Jane Smith”, Part 1 (29 Oct 2009)
6. “The Wedding of
Sarah Jane Smith”, Part 2 (30 Oct 2009)
** The Alien Files: “The Doctor”
7. “The Eternity
Trap”, Part 1 (5 Nov 2009)
8. “The Eternity Trap”,
Part 2 (6 Nov 2009)
** The Alien Files: “Erasmus Darkening”
9. “Mona Lisa’s
Revenge”, Part 1 (12 Nov 2009)
10. “Mona Lisa’s
Revenge”, Part 2, (13 Nov 2009)
** The Alien Files: “Mona Lisa”
The “Prisoner of the
Judoon” in question is a Veil named Androvax, who takes possession of Sarah
Jane to escape the pursuing Judoon.
“The Mad Woman in the
Attic” is the elderly Rani in the year 2059, who recounts how her life
beginning in 2009 went so wrong.
In “The Wedding of
Sarah Jane Smith”, the Trickster strike again, and as Luke, Clyde, Rani, and K9
work to save her, and the Earth, they get help from the Tenth Doctor.
“The Eternity Trap”
sees the Bannerman Road Gang struggle against alien scientist Erasmus Darkening
in the present and in 1665.
“Mona Lisa’s Revenge” is
set mostly in The International Gallery in London, where the famous painting in
on loan and to which Clyde’s, Rani’s, and Luke’s class has won a trip because
Clyde won an art contest. Mona Lisa
comes alive, searching for her brother The Abomination, trapped in another
painting at the museum.
Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars (Autumn Special: 15 Nov 2009)
Companion: Adelaide Brooke
This
story takes place as The Doctor is beginning to no longer see himself as the
Last of the Time Lords but as the Time Lord Victorious in command of the Laws
of Time. On Bowie Base One, the first
human colony on Mars, commanded by CAPT Adelaide Brooke, an entity known as The
Flood begins taking over the base’s personnel one-by-one. The Doctor, sure of his own power, intervenes
to change history, only to have it changed back. The next story in the Tenth Doctor’s
timeline, though not the show’s, is “The Day of the Doctor”.
The Sarah Janes Adventures Series 3, 11-12 (19-20 Nov 2009)
11. “The Gift”, Part
1 (19 Nov 2009)
12. “The Gift”, Part
2 (20 Nov 2009)
** The Alien Files: Blathereen
“The
Gift” refers to the plant Rakweed, which the Blathereen, home planet rivals of
the Slitheen family, give to the population of Earth which could end world
hunger, without informing them ahead about its side-effects to humans and to
the planet.
Doctor Who: Dreamland (animated webcast , Parts 1-6, 21-26 Nov
2009; TV broadcast as one 42-minute special 5 Dec 2009)
(featuring
Tenth Doctor and companions Cassie Rice & Jimmy Stalkingwolf)
The
story takes place in Area 51 and Dry Springs, Nevada, in 1958, leading The
Doctor, with help from Cassie and Jimmy, to rescue Grey alien Rivesh Mantilax,
who crashed to Earth in 1953, from the Viperox, as well as his wife Seruba
Velak, who did so in 1947, in Roswell.
The trio must also deal with the Men In Black android servants of the
Alliance of Shades (both later seen in The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 4’s “The Vault of Secrets”)
** Doctor Who: A Ghost Story for Christmas
(webcast; 24 Dec 2009)
Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part 1 (Christmas Special 2009)
Doctor Who: The End of Time, Part 2 (New Year Special 2010)
Companion: Wilfred Mott
** The Secret of Novice Hame (Lockdown! webcast, 30 May 2020)
“The
End of Time” sees the coming to fruition of the “something is returning” thread
in the return of both The (Saxon) Master and of Gallifrey with its Lord
President, Rassilon, and the “he will knock four times” thread signalling the
end of the Fourth Doctor’s time as The Doctor, “he” being Wilfrid. It also sees The Doctor and The Master
teaming up to stop Rassilon from enacting a plan that will destroy the
universe. After returning Wilfrid home,
the Fourth Doctor visits all his companions before regenerating; The
Secret of Novice Hame recounts his visit
to her.
ELEVENTH DOCTOR
Doctor Who Series 5/Season 31 (3 Apr 2010-5 Jul 2010)
Companions: Amy
Pond; Rory Williams (thru “Cold Blood”); River Song (4 eps); Craig Owens (“The
Lodger”)
The
story arcs this season are the cracks in the universe, the sporadic but
increasing disappearance of people and objects from existence, the phrase
“silence will fall”, and the warnings about the Pandorica opening.
River Song’s Monster Files were webcast.
1. “The Eleventh Hour”
(3 Apr 2010)
** Meanwhile in the TARDIS 1 (home video, 8
Nov 2010)
** The Raggedy Doctor
by Amelia Pond (Lockdown!, 3 Apr 2020)
2. “The Beast Below”
(10 Apr 2010)
3. “Victory of the
Daleks” (17 Apr 2010)
4. “The Time of
Angels” (1/2, 24 Apr 2010)
5. “Flesh and Stone”
(2/2, 1 May 2010)
** Meanwhile in the TARDIS 2 (home video, 8
Nov 2010)
** River Song’s Monster Files: “Weeping
Angels” (1 May 2010)
6. “The Vampires of
Venice” (8 May 2010)
** River Song’s Monster Files: “Vampires”
(8 May 2010)
7. “Amy’s Choice” (15
May 2010)
8. “The Hungry Earth”
(1/2, 22 May 2010)
9. “Cold Blood” (2/2,
29 May 2010))
** River Song’s Monster Files: “Homo
Reptilia” (29 May 2010)
10. “Vincent and the
Doctor” (5 Jun 2010)
11. “The Lodger” (12
Jun 2010)
12. “The Pandorica
Opens” (1/2, 19 Jun 2010)
13. “The Big Bang”
(2/2, 26 Jun 2010)
“The Eleventh Hour”
takes place in the village of Leadworth in Gloucestershire in 1996, 2008, and
2010. The newly regenerated Eleventh
Doctor crashes to Earth in 1996, meets 7-years-old Amelia Pond, gets sorted,
finds his favorite food is fish fingers and custard, sees the dimensional crack
in Amelia’s bedroom wall, leaves promising to be back in 5 minutes, comes back
12 years later (but 5 for him) to meet 19-years-old Amy Pond and her “sort of”
boyfriend Roy Williams. Together the
trio capture the escaped Atraxi prisoner Patient Zero, who is the first to warn
him that “silence will fall”.
“The Beast Below”
takes place aboard Starship UK in the
3290s, where Liz 10 is queen, that turns out to be powered by a Star Whale
being tortured into compliance.
“Victory of the
Daleks” finds The Doctor called back to 1941 London during the Blitz by his old
friend Winston Churchill, where he and Amy see Professor Ediwn Bracewell’s “new
invention”, the Ironsides, which The Doctor immediately recognizes as Daleks
while Amy is clueless.
The two-part story
“The Time of Angels” and “Flesh and Stone” takes place in the 51st century on
the planet Alfava Metraxis when River Song appeals to The Doctor finding an
escaped Weeping Angel who has fled to that planet, where they find a multitude
of the chilling monsters. The story
intruduces the Church of the Papal Mainframe.
“The Vampires of
Venice” takes place in 1580, with Roy along for the adventure, and the
‘vampires’ actually Saturnyns from a planet in another dimension who fled
through the Crack from the Silence.
“Amy’s Choice” takes
place in 2015, at least as far as Amy knows; when The Doctor does arrive
accidentally, she starts to wonder whether her life with The Doctor is real or
her life in Upper Leadworth with Roy is; in fact, she has fallen under the
influence of the Dream Lord.
The two-part story
“The Hungry Earth” and “Cold Blood” takes place in the Welsh mining village of
Cwmtaff, Glamorganshire, in 2020, featuring the return of the Silurians. The action kicks off with Amy getting sucked
into the same hole which swallowed the missing worker Mo. During the rescue, Rory is shot, dies, and
his body is sucked into the Crack, erasing him from our reality, so that Amy
and everyone else but The Doctor forgets him.
“Vincent and the
Doctor” is one of the best, if not The Best, of the Revival Era, taking place
in Auvers-su-Dise, France, in 1890, and at the Musée d'Orsay in present-day
Paris, Vincent in the title being Vincent van Gogh.
In “The Lodger”, The
Doctor lands in Colchester but then some mysterious force whisks the TARDIS
away with Amy inside it. He tracks the
distrubance to a house on Aickman Road with a staircase which people go up and never
come down, so he rents a flat from Craig Owens.
In the two-part series
finale, “The Pandorica Opens” and “The Big Bang”, the main action takes place
in Stonehenge in 102 CE, though there are scenes from many places in disparate
times.
In “The Pandoria
Opens”, Stonehenge is guarded by Roman soldiers led by a centurion who is an
Auton copy of Rory Williams, searching for a cave below containing the
Pandorica. River Song gets word in
prison that The Doctor needs her and escapes.
The Pandorica Alliance locks The Doctor in the Pandorica, the TARDIS
(flown by River) explodes, all the stars begin to go dark, and silence falls. The Alliance is led by the Nestene
Consciousness and the Supreme Dalek and includes Atraxi, Autons, Blowfish,
Chelonians, Cybermen (Cybusmen and Cyberguards), Daleks, Draconians, Haemogoth,
Hoix, Judoon, Roboforms, Silurians, Sycorax, Terileptis, Uvodni, Weevils, and
Zygons.
In “The Big Bang”, The
Doctor from the future appears to Auton Rory telling him to unlock the
Pandorica to release The Doctor and replace him with Amy, which will eventually
save her. Rory then stands guard outside
it for 2000 years, sparking the legend of the Lone Centurion. In the “present” of this timeline, a young
girl named Amelia still believes in stars, and that belief eventually saves the
universe, leading to the undoing of what was done by the TARDIS explosion which
now never happened.
Doctor Who at the Proms 2010 (24 & 25 July 2010)
Host: Karen Gillan; special appearances
by Arthur Darvill & Matt Smith
The Sarah Janes Adventures Series 4 (11 Oct 2010-16 Nov 2010)
Companions: Luke
Smith (“The Nightmare Man” & “Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith”), Clyde Langer, Rani
Chandra, Mr. Smith, K9 IV (“The Nightmare Man” & “Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith”)
The
CBBC Extras were shorts introducing new viewers to aspects of The
Sarah Jane Adventures broadcast just
before the first part of each serial.
The full
half–hour SJA Alien Files Parts broadcast weekly during Series 4 beginning 11
October 2010 immediately after part 1 of each serial. When I’m rewatching the Whoniverse, I watch
them before Series 5 of TSJA because of its shortended duration.
** CBBC Extra: Introduction to SJA (11 Oct
2010)
1. “The Nightmare Man”,
Part 1 (11 Oct 2010)
Sarah Jane’s Alien
Files 1: “The Trickster and Krislock the Graske”
** CBBC Extra: Rani and Clyde (12 Oct
2010)
2. “The Nightmare
Man”, Part 2 (12 Oct 2010)
** CBBC Extra: Attic Padz (18 Oct 2010)
3. “The Vault of
Secrets”, Part 1 (18 Oct 2010)
Sarah Jane’s Alien
Files 2: “Pied Piper, Eve, and Ship”
** CBBC Extra: Clyde Introduces… (19 Oct
2010)
4. “The Vault of
Secrets”, Part 2 (19 Oct 2010)
5. “Death of the
Doctor”, Part 1 (25 Oct 2010)
Sarah Jane’s Alien
Files 3: “Sontarans, Mrs. Wormwood, and Bane Mother”
6. “Death of the
Doctor”, Part 2 (26 Oct 2010)
7. “The Empty Planet”,
Part 1 (1 Nov 2010)
Sarah Jane’s Alien
Files 4: “Slitheen, Blathereen, and Rakweed”
8. “The Empty Planet”,
Part 2 (2 Nov 2010)
9. “Lost in Time”,
Part 1 (8 Nov 2010)
Sarah Jane’s Alien
Files 5: “Berserkers and Mona Lisa”
10. “Lost in Time”,
Part 2 (9 Nov 2010)
11. “Goodbye, Sarah
Jane Smith”, Part 1 (15 Nov 2010)
Sarah Jane’s Alien
Files 6: “Judoon, Androvax, and Mister Dread”
12. “Goodbye, Sarah
Jane Smith”, Part 2 (16 Nov 2010)
In “The Nightmare
Man”, the titular villain takes advantage of Luke’s fears about leaving for uni
to trap him, Clyde, and Rani in a dreamscape from which he draws power to
eventually come into the real world, which leaves only Sarah Jane and K9 to
fight him. At the end of the story, Luke
leaves for uni with K9.
“The Vault of Secrets”
sees the return of Androvax, this time seeking the Bannerman Road Gang’s help
to recover the last of his people, as well as the Men In Black android servants
of the Alliance of Shades from Doctor Who: Dreamland.
“Death of the Doctor”
sees Classic Who companions Sarah Jane and Jo Grant Jones meet for the first
time after The Doctor is declared dead.
Actually The Doctor has been stranded in the Wasteland of the Crimson
Heart by the Shanseeth, who are working with UNIT’s Col. Tia Karim to stop
death across the universe. And Clyde
holds the solution in his hands.
In “The Empty Planet”,
Clyde and Rani finds themselves apparently the only survivors of the human race
on Earth, the rest having vanished. They
also have to deal with two Automaton robots.
“Lost in Time” sees
the three Bannerman Road Gang members sent by The Shopkeeper and his parrot,
Captain, to three different time periods: Rani, to the Tower of London in 1553,
where she meets Lady Jane Grey, the ‘Nine Day Queen’; Clyde, to Norfolk in
1941, where he discovers a secret Nazi landing; and Sarah Jane to England in
1889, where she finds a haunted house and helps a girl Emily Morris prevent a
tragedy.
In “Goodbye, Sarah Jane
Smith”, Sarah Jane has apparently developed rapid onset dementia, but which is
actually caused by a Qetesh, a species which feeds off people’s emotions. Clyde and Rani turn to Luke, and he and K9
find a way to reverse what Ruby had done.
The Sarah Jane Adventures: Miracle on Bannerman Road
This was a planned Christmas
2010 special cancelled when CBBC not only ordered Series 4 but a full Series
5. It would have followed the pattern of
Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol,
with Tom Baker as ‘The Guide’ and an appearance by the Eleventh Doctor at the
end.)
Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol (Christmas Special 2010)
Companions: Amy
Pond, Rory Williams, Kazran Bardick, Abigail
Amy
and Roy are trapped on the spaceliner Thrasymachus, which is heading toward
crashing into the planet Ember, and the only way for The Doctor to save them is
to save the soul of a lonely old miser, the richest man in Sardicktown, Kazran
Sardick.
** Doctor Who: Space & Time (TV short, Red
Nose Day 2011, 11 Mar)
The
Doctor, Amy, and Roy are trapped in a time loop and begin seeing versions of themselves
from a few moments off.
Doctor Who Series 6/Season 32, Part 1 (23 Apr 2011-4 June 2011)
Companions: Amy Pond & Rory Williams; River Song (6 eps),
Canton Everett Delaware III (“The Impossible Astronaut” & “Day of the Moon”); the Pasternoster Gang (“A Good Man Goes to War”)
** Prequel to The Impossible Astronaut
(webcast, 25 Mar 2011)
1. “The Impossible
Astronaut” (1/2, 23 Apr 2011)
2. “Day of the Moon”
(2/2, 30 Apr 2011)
** Prequel to The Curse of the Black Spot
(webcast, 30 Apr 2011)
3. “The Curse of the
Black Spot” (7 May 2011)
4. “The Doctor’s Wife”
(14 May 2011)
5. “The Rebel Flesh”
(1/3, 21 May 2011)
6. “The Almost People”
(2/3, 28 May 2011)
** Brain Trafficking (webcast, 28 May 2011)
7. “A Good Man Goes
to War” (3/3, 4 Jun 2011)
In the two-part story
“The Impossible Astronaut” sand “Day of the Moon, the first part sees The
Doctor, Amy, Roy, and River summoned to Lake Silencio in 21st century Utah,
launching them on an adventure where they travel to the White House and Cape
Kennedy in Florida in 1969, meet Richard Nixon, and learn Amy is pregnant. “Day of the Moon” sees The Doctor locked in
the perfect prison with Amy, Roy, and River fleeing from Delaware III and the
FBI and trying to figure out how to deal with The Silence.
In “The Curse of the
Black Spot”, the TARDIS lands on the pirate ship The Fancy in 1699, skippered by (real historical
person) CAPT Henry Avery, which is being plagued by a Siren. Avery was previously alluded to in the Season
4 serial “The Smugglers”.
“The Doctor’s Wife”
refers not to River Song (whom we don’t yet know is his wife) but to the
TARDIS, in this case wearing the guise of the woman named Idris. The Doctor receives a distress call from The
Corsair, an old Time Lord friend of his, and takes the TARDIS to an unnamed
planet in a bubble universe ruled over by a malevolent entity called House, who
kills Time Lords and eats their TARDIS’s vortex energy.
In “The Rebel Flesh”
and “The Almost People”, The Doctor, Amy, and Roy visit an acid-mining factory
in an old monastery on an island off the coast of Great Britain, where the
workers use artificial copies of themselves, known as ‘Gangers’, to do the
really dangerous jobs. A solar tsunami
gives the Gangers consciousness, and The Doctor must mediate. At the end, some of the Gangers have to take
the place of miners who died, and the Amy with whom The Doctor and now Roy have
been travelling with is proven to be a Ganger herself.
“A Good Man Goes to War”
shows the wrath of The Doctor when someone harms one of his friends and how
quickly they can muster an army when needed (Judoons and Silurians) as he and
Roy go searching for Amy. The story
reveals the true identity of River Song, introduces the Headless Monks faction
of the Silence, and sees the Battle of Demon’s Run on the planet where Amy has
been prisoner until giving birth, in addition to debuting the Paternoster Gang:
Silurian detective Madame Vastra, her assistant and wife Jenny Flint, and
Commander Strax the Sontaran, the last of whom dies in the battle.
** The Battle of Demons’ Run, Two Days Later
(webcast, 25 Mar 2013)
Madame
Vastra and Jenny revive Strax from death using resurrection technology, much to
his displeasure.
Torchwood: Miracle Day (Series 4; 8 Jul 2011-10 Sep 2011)
Torchwood Team:
Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Rex Matheson, Esther Drummond, Vera Juarez
Each
episode of the web series Web of Lies tells two parallel stories, one from 2007
with Gwen as narrator and one from the present with Holly as narrator,
accompanied by puzzles to solve.
** Web of Lies: Gwen (5 July 2011)
** Web of Lies: Holly (5 Jul 2011)
** Web of Lies, Part 1 (9 Jul 2011)
1. “The New World” (14
July 2011)
** Web of Lies, Part 2 (16 Jul 2011)
2. “Rendition” (21
July 2011)
** Web of Lies, Part 3 (24 Jul 2011)
3. “Dead of Night” (28
Jul 2011)
** Web of Lies, Part 4 (30 Jul 2011)
4. “Escape to L.A.” (4
Aug 2011)
** Web of Lies, Part 5 (6 Aug 2011)
5. “The Categories of
Life” (11 Aug 2011)
** Web of Lies, Part 6 (13 Aug 2011)
6. “The Middle Men” (18
Aug 2011)
** Web of Lies, Part 7 (20 Aug 2011)
7. “Immortal Sins” (25
Aug 2011)
** Web of Lies, Part 8 (27 Aug 2011)
8. “End of the Road”
(1 Sep 2011)
** Web of Lies, Part 9 (3 Sep 2011)
9. “The Gathering” (8
Sep 2011)
** Web of Lies, Part 10 (10 Sep 2011)
10. “The Blood Line” (15 Sep 2011)
The
series-long story takes place mainly in the UK and the USA, but spans most of
the planet. The mystery begins when
people stop dying, no matter how seriously they are injured or they are
sickened. Gwen and Jack work with CIA
case officer Rex Matheson, CIA analyst Esther Drummon, and NHS surgeon Vera
Juarez to uncover the plot and end the crisis in a story which reaches back
into some of the darkest reaches of Jack’s person history.
Torchwood: Web of Lies
(14 Nov 2011)
(Edited version
of the web series, without the puzzles online, released with the DVD &
Blue-ray editions of Torchwood: Miracle
Day)
Doctor Who Series 6/Season 32, Part 2 (27 Aug-1 Oct 2011)
Companions: Amy Pond & Rory Williams; River Song; Craig Owens
(“Closing Time”); Canton Everett Delaware III (“The Wedding of River Song”)
** Prequel to Let’s Kill Hitler (webcast,
14 August 2011)
8. “Let’s Kill Hitler”
(27 August 2011)
9. Night Terrors (3
Sep 2011)
10. The Girl Who
Waited (10 Sep 2011)
** Night and the Doctor: “First Night”
(home video, 22 Nov 2011)
** Night and the Doctor: “Last Night” (home
video, 22 Nov 2011)
** Night and the Doctor: “Bad Night” (home
video, 22 Nov 2011)
** Night and the Doctor: “Good Night” (home
video, 22 Nov 2011)
11. The God Complex
(17 Sep 2011)
** Night and the Doctor: “Up All Night” (home
video, 22 Nov 2011)
12. “Closing Time”
(24 Sep 2011)
** Prequel to The Wedding of River Song
(webcast)
13. “The Wedding of
River Song” (1 Oct 2011)
** Death Is the Only Answer (TV short, 1
Oct 2011)
“Let’s Kill Hitler”
takes place mostly in Berlin in 1938, opening with a scene of Amy and Rory
summoning The Doctor, in which we meet her best friend Mels when she brandishes
a gun and demands to be taken to 1930s Berlin to kill Hitler. Shortly after their arrival, Mels regenerates
into Melody Pond, aka River Song. The
story explains why Madame Kovarian and The Silence were trying to kill The
Doctor, and introduces the Teselecta.
“Night Terrors” sees
The Doctor, Amy, and Rory receiving a call from George, a young boy terrorised
by the monsters in his cupboard.
“The Girl Who Waited”
refers to Amy, or rather a version of her 36 years older than she was when she
landed with The Doctor and Rory at the Two Streams Facility on the planet
Apalapucia (also referring to her 12 year wait for The Doctor to return in her
childhood), which at the time of their arrival is on lockdown due to a
plague. In the end, The Doctor promises
to save both versions of Amy, knowing he cannot.
The Night and the
Doctor minisodes were part of the home
video release of Series 6. The first
four are connected, and while usually the last two of these are listed first,
the order below makes more sense, involving The Doctor breaking River out of
prison for a night of good time, and Amy complaining about the noise being
made. The fifth minisode is a prequel to
“Closing Time”.
“The God Complex” is a
prison spaceship which appears to be an Earth hotel in the 1980s when The
Doctor, Amy, and Rory arrive, with a different horror lying behind every
door. The experience persuades The
Doctor to leave Amy and Rory behind, which he does, presenting them with the
keys to their own cottage and to Roy’s favorite car in front.
In “Closing Time”, The
Doctor, bereft of Amy and Rory for some time now, visits his friend on Colchester,
Craig Owens, in a story that involves the Cybermen and the Cyber Legion which
shows who was in the suit that killed The Doctor at Lake Silencio and that some
of The Silence survived the massacre at the end of Part 1’s “Day of the Moon”.
At the opening of “The
Wedding of River Song”, the War of the Roses enters its second year as
picnickers are warned not to feed the pterodactyls, Charles Dickens is
interviewed on BBC TV about his upcoming Christmas special, and Holy Roman
Emperor Winston Churchill returns to Buckingham Senate on his personal wooly
mammoth, complaining about his upcoming meet with Cleopatra in Gaul: something
is clearly wrong with time. The Doctor
does marry River Song, the truth about what really happened at Lake Silencio is
revealed, and tribute is paid to the Brigadier, whose actor, Nicholas Courtney
died earlier in the year.
The Sarah Janes Adventures Series 5 (3 Oct 2011-18 Oct 2011)
Companions: Clyde
Langer, Rani Chandra, Sky Smith, Luke Smith, Mr. Smith
This series was
sadly cut short by the 19 April 2011 death of show lead Liz Sladen from
pancreatic cancer. Production was put on
on hiatus while she was being treated.
This first half season already filmed was broadcast in tribute to her.
1. “Sky”, Part 1 (3
Oct 2011)
2. “Sky”, Part 2 (4
Oct 2011)
3. “The Curse of
Clyde Langer”, Part 1 (10 Oct 2011)
4. “The Curse of Clyde
Langer”, Part 2 (11 Oct 2011)
5. “The Man Who Never
Was”, Part 1 (17 Oct 2011)
6. “The Man Who Never
Was”, Part 2 (18 Oct 2011)
** CBBC Extra: Chris Meets the Bannerman Road Gang (19 Oct 2011)
“Sky” introduces the
new character thus named who becomes an adopted daughter of Sarah Jane after
she, Clyde, and Rani try to figure out why she was left at 13 Bannerman Road’s
doorstep, why the baby is maturing so rapidly, and how she is connected to the
war between Metalkind and Fleshkind.
In “The Curse of Clyde
Langer”, Clyde is cursed by Hetocumek, an alien trapped inside a totem pole
which he touches in a museum, and finds himself rejected by all his family and
friends. Homeless, he is befriended by a
street kid calling herself ‘Ellie Faber’, whom he goes to look for after
everything is set right, only to find she boarded the ‘Night Dragon’ to be
carried away to a different life.
“The Man Who Never
Was” sees Luke return hom to Ealing to meet his new sister, Sky, while ‘Joseph
Serf’, who turns out to be a hologram, launches his new SerfBoard computer that
no one can seems to resist buying.
* * * * *
After Liz Sladen revealed
her diagnosis, the show’s production went on hiatus while she underwent
treatment and was to resume filming in 2012; in the meantime, production of
four Halloween specials was planned in between broadcast of Part 1 and Part 2,
but those didn’t happen.
Halloween Special #1:
“Full Moon” (unproduced live-action)
Clyde, Rani, Sky, and
Luke dress up and celebrate Halloween until the pagan gods Gog and Magog try to
escape an alien ship.
Halloween Special #2:
“The Station” (unproduced live-action)
Clyde, Rani, Sky, and
Luke wait at a rural train station to return to Ealing for giat’s Halloween
party when they are transported back to 1911 and 1934.
Halloween Special #3:
“The Gargoyle” (unproduced live-action)
Clyde, Rani, Sky, and
Luke are in Oxford to investigate a haunting with one of Luke’s friends at uni,
Caroline, when they encounter a gargoyle-like creature.
Halloween Special #4:
“Night of the Spectre” (unproduced animation)
In this animated
special, Sarah Jane and Luke travel to western Massachusetts for the wedding of
Maria’s dad, Alan Jackson, to Lauren Proctor, who has a 14-year-old daughter,
Sable. Sarah Jane, Luke, Maria, and
Sable encounter a wraith-like called the Spectre.
The Sarah Janes Adventures Series
5, Part 2 would have included the
following serials:
7. “Meet Mr. Smith”,
Part 1 (unproduced)
8. “Meet Mr. Smith”,
Part 2 (unproduced)
9. “The Thirteenth
Floor”, Part 1 (unproduced)
10. “The Thirteenth
Floor”, Part 2 (unproduced)
11. “The Battle for
Bannerman Road”, Part 1 (unproduced)
12. “The Battle for
Bannerman Road”, Part 2 (unproduced)
The following
descriptions are in the same style as the rest for uniformity, but the scripts
were never completed.
In “Meet Mr. Smith”,
an alien throws a bomb into Sarah Jane’s attic that turns Xylok computer Mr.
Smith, who begins referring to himself as ‘Smithy’ and dating Carla
Langer. However, the alien, Ozmo, forces
him to secretly work for him, which Sarah Jane discovers. In the end, however, Smithy sacrifices his
humanity to save the world, and Clyde pens a heartfelt letter from Smithy about
why he has to leave (without telling the truth).
In “The Thirteenth
Floor”, Rani has landed an internship with a major newspaper, and when she and
Clyde go to its 13th floor, they open a door that sucks them into another
dimension where time moves faster and they spend decades, marrying and having a
child before they are rescued, which erases everything that happened to them,
including their daughter.
In the “The Battle for
Bannerman Road”, features Third Doctor companion Jo Grant Jones, Sky Smith is revealed
as the ‘child of the Trickster’ when she transforms into his likeness. She later becomes an entity who casts The
Trickster out of our universe. As for
Bannerman Road, it is destroyed. Mr.
Smith’s crystal survives, however, and Sarah Jane taksn him to her childhood
hometown of Foxgrove, which would have been the new location of The Sarah
Jane Adventures, with all new, younger,
companions.
** Farewell,
Sarah Jane (Lockdown!, 19 April 2020)
An in-universe tribute
to Sarah Jane Smith from Gita Chandra, Jo Grant Jones, Ace McShane, Luke,
Clyde, Rani, and Mr. Smith, written by Russell T. Davies, which assumes that
the transformation of Sky took place, only without the destruction of Bannerman
Road and the move to Foxgrove.
** A Message
from Elisabeth Sladen’s Daughter, Sadie Miller (Lockdown!, 19 April
2020)
Broadcast immediately
following the one above; Sadie Miller has voiced Sarah Jane Smith on several
Big Finish audios.
** My Sarah Jane: A Tribute to Elisabeth
Sladen (23 Apr 2011)
Real-life tribute to Sarah
Jane Smith actor Elisabeth Sladen broadcast on CBBC immediately after the showing
of Doctor Who Series 6 opener “The Impossible Astronaut”, with interviews of
Matt Smith, David Tennant, Russel T. Davies, Tommy Knight, Daniel Anthony,
Anjli Mohindra, John Barrowman, Barney Harwood, and Kate Manning.
** The Naked Truth (Children In Need, 18
Nov 2011)
The
Doctor comes out of the TARDIS, fully aware he’s addressing an audience,
announces he’s going to literally give the clothes off his back to the Children
in Need.
** Prequel to The Doctor, the Widow, & the
Wardrobe (6 Dec 2011)
Doctor Who: The Doctor, the Widow, & the Wardrobe (Christmas
2011)
Companions: Madge,
Cyril, & Lily Arwell, Amy Pond & Rory Williams
On
Christmas Eve 1938, Madge Arwell comes to the aide of a Spaceman Angel—The
Doctor—and he promises to repay her; all she has to do is make a wish. Three years later, she’s just received a
telegram telling her that her husband, Reg, and his bomber are missing in action
over the English Channel, and she makes her wish, for her children to have the
best Christmas ever. After his goes on
an adventure with the Arwells, The Doctor shows up at Amy and Roy’s front door,
two years after he left them, and has Christmas Eve dinner.
** Good As Gold (TV short, 24 May 2012)
Bored,
The Doctor and Amy go on an adventure , and when they land the TARDIS, an
athlete carrying the Olympic torch crashes through the door, chased by a
Weeping Angel.
** Pond Life (webcast, 27-31 Aug 2012)
Originally
released as one-minute clips,this omnibus offers brief look at the life of Amy
and Rory without The Doctor, with him checking in occasionally; on the last
time he sees Amy kick Rory out of the house.
Doctor Who Series 7/Season 33 1-5 (1 Sep 2012-29 Sep 2012)
Companions: Amy
Pond & Rory Williams; with Oswin Oswald (“Asylum of the Daleks”); Brian Williams (“Dinosaurs on a Space Ship” & “The
Power of Three”); River Song (“The Angels Take Manhattan”); Nefertiti & John Riddel
(“Dinosaurs on a Space Ship”)
** Prequel to Asylum of the Daleks (webcast,
30 Aug 2012)
1. “Asylum of the
Daleks” (1 Sep 2012)
2. “Dinosaurs on a
Space Ship” (8 Sep 2012)
** The Making of the Gunslinger (webcast,
14 Sep 2012)
3. “A Town Called
Mercy” (15 Sep 2012)
4. “The Power of
Three” (22 Sep 2012)
5. “The Angels Take
Manhattan” (29 Sep 2012)
** P.S. (webcast, 12 Oct 2020)
** Rory’s Story (Lockdown!, 11 Apr 2020)
In “Asylum of the
Daleks”, the Parliament of the Daleks, the ruling body of the New Dalek Empire,
kidnaps Amy, Rory, and The Doctor, and asks for their help, then takes to them
a planet they call ‘the Asylum’, where the Daleks have traced a signal of
unknown origin. The Doctor traces the
signal back to a woman named Oswin Oswald.
Her parting phrase to The Doctor, “Run, you clever boy, and remember”,
becomes a theme runnning through the next two seasons.
The Doctor finds
“Dinosaurs on a Space Ship” in 2367, when he gathers a team that includes
himself, Amy, Rory, Rory’s father Brian, Nefertitti, and big game hunter John
Riddel at the behest of the Indian Space Agency to investigate the space ship
hurtling toward Earth, which turns out to be a stolen Silurian Ark from which
the criminal Solomon (played by David Bradley, who portrayed William Hartnell
in An Adventure in Space and Time and
the First Doctor in Series 10’s “The Doctor Falls”, the 2017 Christmas Special Twice
Upon a Time, and the Centenary Special, The
Power of the Doctor) has spaced the crew.
“A Town Called Mercy”
takes place in the town of that name in 1870 Nevada, the first Western episode
of Doctor Who since Season 3’s “The
Gunfighters” which sees The Doctor facing off against ‘The Gunslinger’, an
alien cyborg named Kahler-Tek hunting a war criminal from his planet who has
taken refuge in the town, Kahler-Mas.
“The Power of Three”
features the ‘Year of the Slow Invasion’, by small cubes, sent, as it turns
out, by the Shakri, to pave the way for the Shakri to conquer Earth by first
killing all the humans. The story
features Brian Williams again, more prominently this time, as well as the
return of UNIT and the introduction of its new chief, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart.
In “The Angels Take
Manhattan” , The Doctor tries to take Amy and Rory to Manhattan in the present,
but interference by the Weeping Angels sends them to the 1930s, where they find
River investigating the Angel infestation of the city. Rory gets sent back to the 1880s by a Weeping
Angel, so Amy lets another send her back there too.
“P.S.” was
webcast soon after “The Angels Take
Manhattan” to show that Rory and Amy did indeed live a good life in 20th
century New York City.
“Rory’s Story” was a
message direct from Rory produced for the Lockdown! specials in 2020 as a
sequel to “P.S.”.
The Sarah Janes Adventures Series 6 (unproduced)
Well before Liz Sladen’s illness,
SJA was already
approved for a Series 6, with Sarah Jane now based in her childhood home of Foxgrove,
with new, younger companions, though Luke would continue in a recurring role,
along with appearances planned for Seventh Doctor companion Dorothy Gale ‘Ace’
McShane, the Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond, Rory Williams, and even a young,
pre-Manhattan regeneration Melody Pond.
** The Great Detective (TV short, 16 Nov
2012)
** Vastra Investigates, A Christmas Prequel
(webcast, 17 Dec 2012)
Doctor Who: The Snowmen (Christmas Special 2012)
Companions: Clara Oswin Oswald, Pasternoster Gang
Bridging
the gap between “The Angels Take Manhattan” and “The Bells of St. John”, “The
Snowmen” takes place in 1892 London and includes the reappearance of the
Paternoster Gang. It also sees the
reintroduction of The Great Intelligence, not seen since Season 5’s “The Web of
Fear”, with an explanation of its origins.
The Doctor becomes charmed by barmaid Clara Oswin Oswald, who doubles as
a governess to ‘Franny’ and Digby Latimer, children of CAPT Latimer, even as animated
snowmen begin popping up all over town.
** One Born Every Minute (TV short, 15 Mar
2013)
An
expectant couple with the mother about to give birth call for the midwife, and
get several characters from TV show Call the Midwife; appalled, they call for a doctor, and The
Doctor shows up in the TARDIS.
Doctor Who Series 7/Season 33 6-13 (30 Mar 2013-18 May 2013)
Companions: Clara
Oswald; Paternoster Gang (“The Crimson Horror” & “The Name of the Doctor”); Angie
& Artie Maitland (“Nightmare in Silver”)
This
half of Series 7 continues the arc of the Impossible Girl and the theme of
“Run, you clever boy, and remember”.
** The Bells of Saint John, A Prequel
(webcast; 23 Mar 2013)
6. “The Bells of
Saint John” (30 Mar 2013)
7. “The Rings of
Akhaten” (6 Apr 2012)
** Strax Field Report: The Doctor at
Trafalgar Square (9 Apr 2013)
8. “Cold War” (13 Apr
2013)
9. “Hide” (20 Apr
2013)
10. “Journey to the
Center of the TARDIS” (27 Apr 2013)
11. “The Crimson
Horror”
12. “Nightmare in
Silver” (11 May 2013)
** Strax Field Report: The Name of the
Doctor (16 May 2013)
** Strax Field Report: A Glorious Day (18
May 2013)
13. “The Name of the
Doctor” (18 May 2013)
** She Said, He Said: A Prequel (webcast; 11 May 2013)
** Strax Field Report: The Doctor’s
Greatest Secret (24 May 2013)
In “The Bells of Saint
John”, when Clara Oswald is having trouble with her internet in 2013, she calls
a number she’s been given and reaches the phone of the TARDIS in 1207 Cumbria,
where and when The Doctor is on retreat at a monastery, which the monks refer
to as the “bells of St. John”. Together,
they save Earth from Miss Kizlet and The Great Intelligence, who are using the
worldwide web to upload consciounesses into their data cloud.
“The Rings of Akhaten”
(similar to the rings of Saturn) are what The Doctor takes Clara to see when
she tells him she wants to see something awesome, with the Festival of
Offerings on the inhabited asteroid Tiaanamat in full swing, where they find an
entity who demands the sacrifice of a young girl. The episode also gives some of this Clara’s
backstory.
The Strax Field
Reports feature Strax sending reports to
Sonatar.
“Cold War” sees Soviet
submarine Firebird in 1983 discover a
strange creature frozen in the ice of the Arctic, which turns out to be an Ice
Warrior (not seen since Season 11’s “The Monster of Peladon”), which attacks the
crew. When they start to fight back, The
Doctor warns that this could be considered a declaration of war against the
entire Ice Warrior race.
“Hide”, inspired by The
Haunting of Hill House as well as the Quatermass horror scifi serials, sees The Doctor and
Clara investigate the haunting of Caliburn House on the moors by the ‘Witch of
the Well’, alongside the ghost-hunter Prof. Alec Palmer, a member of the Baker
Street Irregulars* (to which The Doctor also belonged), and his assistant, gifted
empath Emma Grayling. *‘Baker Street
Irregulars’ was a codename for the Special Operation Executive in World War II,
which was also called the ‘Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’.
“Journey to the Centre
of the TARDIS” sees Clara get lost in the TARDIS after it is seized by the Van
Baalen Bros. salvage company, with the primary purpose of the episode being to
explore the inner TARDIS (largely due to Steven Moffat’s longtime
dissatisfaction with the exploration of that in Season 15’s “The Invasion of
Time”.
In the “Crimson
Horror”, the Paternoster Gang head from 1893 London to the supposedly utopian
community of Sweetville in Yorkshire, run by Mrs. Winifred Gillyflower, after finding the body of a victim of the
‘crimson horror’, which leaves its victims with red skin and preserved like
statues, who has an image of The Doctor visible in one eye. At the end of the story, the Maitland
children, Angie and Artie, blackmail Clara into her and The Doctor taking them
aboard the TARDIS for an adventure.
“Nightmare in Silver”
finds The Doctor and Clara giving in to the Maitland children’s blackmail and taking
them to Hedgewick’s World of Wonders the biggest amusement park in the galaxy,
but all they find are a punishment platoon in the service of Ludens Nimrod
Kendrick Cord Longstaff XLI and one impressario with only, ostensibly, empty
Cybmerman (Cybusmen) shells.
While Clarence and
the Whispermen was released four days after “The Name of the Doctor”, it is nonetheless
a prequel to the latter.
“The Name of the
Doctor” reveals the reason so many versions of Clara are scattered throughout
The Doctor’s timeline, resolving The Impossible Girl arc (though not why The Doctor and Clara were brought together,
which isn’t revealed until Series 8’s “Death in Heaven”), as well as seeing the
return of The Great Intelligence and showng the First Doctor stealing the
TARDIS to escape Gallifrey. The
Paternoster Gang accompanies the Eleventh Doctor after he is summoned to
Trenzalore, in a story which climaxes with The Great Intelligence sacrificing
itself to undo all the good The Doctor has done, with Clara responding by
throwing herself into the scar in spacetime to splinter herself across The
Doctor’s timeline to save him, and the good that he has done, across multiple
timelines.
While
“She Said, He Said” is literally titled a prequel, internal references to
events on Trenzalore place it after “The
Name of the Doctor”.
Doctor Who at the Proms 2013 (13 & 14 Jul 2013)
Hosts: Matt Smith & Jenna Coleman
** Clara and the TARDIS (home video; 24 Sep
2013)
** Rain Gods (home video; 24 Sep 2013)
** The Inforarium (home video; 24 Sep 2013)
In Clara and the
TARDIS, the TARDIS plays a number of
tricks and practical jokes on Clara.
In Rain Gods, The Doctor and River Song find themselves
at the mercy of the people of a planet who want to sacrifice them to their
deities.
In The
Inforarium, which refers to the greatest
source of illicit information in the universe, a pre-Snowmen Eleventh Doctor explains how he is deleting
himself from history to support the story of his death.
** Strax Field Report: “The Zygons” (7 Nov
2013)
** Strax Field Report: “Queen Elizabeth” (17
Nov 2013)
A Night with the Stars: The Science of Doctor Who (15 Nov 2013)
A documentary with
physicist Dr. Brian Cox on the science of Doctor Who, with each section
introduced by a clip of Dr. Cox with the Eleventh Doctor.
** The
History of the Doctor (18 Nov 2013)
Released separately as
well as being part of the documentary below.
Doctor Who: The Ultimate Guide (18 Nov 2013)
Documentary by BBC
Events Production giving a broad overview of the show’s history and included
interviews with Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylverster McCoy, Paul McGann,
David Tennant, Steven Moffat, Nicola Bryant, Sophie Aldred, Noel Clarke, Karen
Gillan, Louise Jameson, Bruno Langley, Katy Manning, Tom Craine, Jon Culshaw,
Joel Dommett, Rick Edwards, Konnie Jug, McFly, Al Murray, Ricky Norwood, and
Kayvan Novak.
It was bookended by
the minisode The History of the Doctor,
with related in-universe shorts between sections connecting the bookends.
Doctor Who: Tales from the TARDIS (18 Nov 2013)
A documentary for the
50th Anniversary covering Regeneration, New Clothes, the TARDIS, The Doctor’s
Friends, The Doctor’s Nemesis, The Doctor’s Family, including interviews with
Matt Smith, David Tennant, Anneke Willis, Peter Davison, Tom Baker, Colin Baker,
Sylvester McCoy, Carole Ann Ford, William Russell, Julie Gardner, Freema
Agyeman, Nicola Bryant, John Leeson, Louise Jameson, Nicholas Briggs, Karen
Gillan, and Jenna Coleman.
** Doctors
Assemble! (Lockdown!, 23 May 2020)
Trapped in the TARDIS
by a pandimensional entity bent on conquering Earth, the Fourth Doctor contacts
all his other selves throughout Space and Time for help in this special
produced for the watchalong of the following.
An Adventure in Space and Time (50th Anniversary Special, 21
Nov 2013)
A docudrama about William
Hartnell’s era as Doctor Who and Verity Lambert’s struggles to produce the
program.
** Message from Strax - 50th Anniversary
(23 Nov 2013)
** Cinema Introduction to The Day of the Doctor
by Strax and the Doctors (23 Nov 2013)
** Strax Saves the Day (Lockdown!, 21 Mar 2020)
Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor (50th Anniversary Special: 23 Nov
2013)
Companion: Clara
Oswald
** TARDIS Index Files: “Zygon Stats” (23
Nov 2013)
The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot (23 Nov 2013)
The three shorts
‘Message from Strax’, ‘Cinema Introduction…’, and ‘Strax Saves the Day’ are
prequels to the 50th Anniversary Special.
The 50th Anniversay
Special, The Name of the Doctor, is a massive epic that takes place in
present-day London, England in 1562 (where The Doctor becomes engaged to
Elizabeth I), and Gallifrey on the Last Day of the Last Great Time War, which
shows what really happened to Gallifrey.
The story includes the Eleventh Doctor, the Ten Doctor (in his timeline
between “The Waters of Mars” and “The End of Time”), the War Doctor (an incarnation
which The Doctor has scrubbed from his consciousness), Clara Oswald, the
incarnation of The Moment (in the guise of Rose Tyler), UNIT’s Kate Stewart and
scientist Petronella Osgood, and the Paternoster Gang, as well as—at the end—Tom
Baker as ‘The Curator’, who is, in fact, an incarnation of The Doctor in charge
of the Under Gallery established by Elizabeth I in 1562 to house dangerous art.
The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot was a
tongue-in-cheek mockumentary about attempts of Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and
Sylvester McCoy to get into the 50th Anniversary Special.
** Strax Field Report: “The Doctors” (19
Dec 2013)
** Strax Field Report: “A Sontaran’s View
of Christmas” (webcast; 23
Dec 2013)
Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor (Christmas Special 2013)
Companions: Clara
Oswald & Handles
** Strax Field Report: “The Doctor has
Regenerated!” (25 Dec 2013)
The Time of the Doctor brings to a conclusion the incarnation of the Eleventh Doctor and the
arcs of The Silence, the cracks in time, Trenzalore, and the salvation of
Gallifrey, along with the granting of a new cycle of regenerations to the
Eleventh Doctor, who was in his last, enabling him to regenerate into the
Twelfth Doctor. The action takes place
mostly on and in the vicinity of the planet Trenzalore, with The Doctor defending
it from his numerous enemies surrounding it for three centuries.
TWELFTH DOCTOR
Doctor Who Series 8/Season 34 (23 Aug 2014-8 Nov 2014)
Companions: Clara
Oswald; Paternoster Gang (“Deep Breath”); Danny Pink and the Coal Hill School
Year 8 Gifted & Talented Group (“In the Forest of the Night”); Courtney
Woods (“Kill the Moon”)
This series continues
Clara’s time on the TARDIS, at least when she is not being a teacher at Coal
Hill School (first seen in Episode 1 or Season 1, ‘An Unearthly Child’, where
The Doctor’s grandaughter Susan Foreman attended school and where Ian Chesterton
and Barbara Wright were teachers), as which she was briefly first shown in “The
Day of the Doctor”.
The main arc of the series
is the mystery of ‘Missy’, a regular character who keeps turning up in every
episode welcoming people who have died to the ‘Promised Land’. Another theme is The Doctor questioning whether
or not he is a good man.
** Prequel to Deep Breath (theatrical short,
23 Aug 2014)
1. “Deep Breath” (23
Aug 2014)
2. “Into the Dalek”
(30 August 2014)
3. “Robot of Sherwood”
(6 Sep 2014)
4. “Listen” (13 Sep
2014)
** Listen, a poem by Steve Moffat (Lockdown!,
20 May 2020)
** Fear Is a Superpower (Lockdown!, 20 May
2020)
5. “Time Heist” (20
Sep 2014)
6. “The Caretaker”
(27 Sep 2014)
7. “Kill the Moon” (4
Oct 2014)
8. “Mummy on the
Orient Express” (11 Oct 2014)
9. “Flatline” (18 Oct
2014)
10. “In the Forest of
the Night” (25 Oct 2014)
11. “Dark Water” (1/2,
1 Nov 2014)
12. “Death in Heaven”
(2/2, 8 Nov 2014)
“Deep Breath” sees the
return of the Paternoster Gang, this time with each bearing their own version of
sonic screwdriver, which also introduces Missy and troublemaking Coal Hill
School student Courtney Woods. The main scene
is 1890s London, with The Doctor, Clara, and the Paternoster Gang dealing with
the ‘Half-Face Man’, who is in reality a Clockwork Droid stalking London and
killing humans to replace his components with flesh. His space ship, the SS Marie Antionette, is the sister ship of the SS Madame de
Pompadour in Series 2’s “The Girl in the
Fireplace”.
“Into the Dalek” sees
The Doctor and Clara assist a damaged Dalek who has developed a conscience,
whom they name ‘Rusty’, to destroys its comrades to aid rebel ship the Aristotle, commanded by Journey Blue, after Clara
convinces The Doctor not to destroy it.
The episode also introduces the new Maths teacher at Coal Hill School
(and former soldier), Danny Pink, whom Clara (who teaches English there) asks
out for coffee.
In “Robot of
Sherwood”, The Doctor takes Clara to Sherwood Forest in 1190’s Nottinghamshire
to prove Robin Hood is just a legendary myth, only when they arrive, that is
exactly who they meet, along with his Merry Men: John Little, Will Scarlett,
Friar Tuck, Alan-a-Dale, and Walter.
They agree to help him recover Maid Marian from the Sheriff of
Nottingham, who is later proven to be a cyborg, whose spaceship in the castle
is programmed for the ‘Promised Land’.
“Listen” sees The
Doctor use the telepathic circuits of the TARDIS to try to get Clara to reach
back into her childhood, but instead they find themselves visiting Danny Pink’s
childhood, where he is called Rupert. Then
The Doctor and Clara go forward in time where they meet Orson Pink, a
descendant of Danny (or, rather, his family), the first time travel pilot of
Earth. Later we also get a peek into the
life of The Doctor as a young child.
In “Time Heist”, The
Doctor and Clara, along with mutant human Saibra and augmented human Psi, are
recruited to rob the Bank of Karabraxos, which is protected by a telepathic
being called ‘The Teller’, in a story which has more layers than a set of
Russian dolls.
“The Caretaker” is the
role and identity The Doctor assumes undercover at Coal Hill School in order to
stop world-threatening alien robot the Skyvox Blitzer, during which he comes
into conflict with Danny. The story also
introduces Mr. Francis Armitage, who later appears in the spinoff Class. To
make matters even more complicated for Clara, things come to a head on Parents’
Night, and while she is meeting with Courtney Woods’ parents, Courtney stows
away aboard the TARDIS just as it is about to launch.
In “Kill the Moon”,
The Doctor takes Clara and Courtney to visit the Moon in 2049, only after
landing in a spaced shuttle from that time on its way there, with astronauts
Lundvik, Duke, and Henry, who are coming to destroy the Moon because of severe
gravitional imbalances affecting Earth.
They discover the Moon is actually a giant egg that has been gestating
for millennia, and The Doctor leaves the humans to decide its fate.
“Mummy on the Orient
Express”, which is supposed to be the last hurrah for The Doctor’s and Clara’s
traveling together, or at least that’s what she promised Danny, he takes her to
a space-train named the ‘Orient Express’ where they encounter a mysterious
entity that only its target can see who kills them 66 seconds after the lights
flicker. Afterwards, Clara tells Danny
that yes, she told The Doctor no more, but she’s lying.
In “Flatline”, Clara
takes over The Doctor’s role as protector of humanity from hostile aliens when
the TARDIS is shrunk to miniature and he is trapped inside. Notified by local tagger Rigsy doing
community service about a rash of missing persons, they have to join forces to
stop the Boneless, who are flattening people into two dimensions. Rigsy later appears in Series 9’s “Face the
Raven”.
“In the Forest of the
Night” sees Danny Pink and the Coal Hill School Year 8 Gifted & Talented
Group become temporary and short-lived companions of The Doctor after a forest
appears overnight in London, where they are on a field trip, leading to Danny’s
discovery that Clara is still travelling with The Doctor aboard the TARDIS.
In the two-part series
finale, “Dark Water” starts out quite dark, with Danny getting a phone call
from Clara and steps out into the street to be hit be a car, and dies. While Clara tries to blackmail The Doctor
into reversing his death, he turns up in the Nethersphere, aka ‘The Promised
Land’, which turns out to be a construct of a Time Lord ‘hard drive’ owned by
Missy, who is about to reveal herself as The Master, with a plan to turn the
human race into Cybermen (CyberFaction variety). “Death in Heaven” sees all the dead rise from
their graves as Cybermen, including the Brigadier and Danny Pink, who has
managed to refuse to turn off his emotions, even as the Brigadier has managed
to do also. UNIT is called in, Missy
kills Osgood, Danny saves the Earth.
Doctor Who: Last Christmas (Christmas Special 2014)
Companion:
Clara Oswald
On
Christmas Eve, Santa Claus appears on Clara’s roof needing help stopping
whatever the Dream Crabs killing people in their sleep at the North Pole, where
an international science station is located, just as The Doctor arrives to take
Clara away.
P.R.O.B.E.: When to Die (15 Apr 2015)
(stars Hazel Burrows as an elderly Liz
Shaw and Georgette Ellison as her also elderly wife Patsy Haggard, and
introducing new P.R.O.B.E. members Bill Baggs as Giles and the computer Box,
voiced by Burrows)
Doctor Who Series 9/Season
35 (19 Sep 2015-5 Dec 2015)
Companion:
Clara Oswald (thru “Face the Raven”)
The
series’ main arc revolves around the identity of the mysterious being known as
The Hybrid, a combination of two great warrior races. Another is the introduction and frequent
reappearance of Ashildr/Lady Me. It is
notable for having only one stand-alone episode, the others being halves of two-part
stories or thirds of the one three-part story.
** Prologue (webcast, 11 September 2015)
** The Doctor’s Meditation (theatrical
short, 15 September 2015)
1. “The Magician’s
Apprentice” (1/2, 19 Sep 2015)
2. “The Witch’s
Familiar” (2/2, 26 Sep 2014)
3. “Under the Lake”
(1/2, 3 Oct 2015)
4. “Before the Floor”
(2/2, 10 Oct 2015)
5. “The Girl Who Died”
(1/2, 17 Oct 2015)
6. “The Woman Who
Lived” (2/2, 24 Oct 2015)
7. “The Zygon
Invasion” (1/2, 31 Oct 2015)
8. “The Zygon
Inversion” (2/2, 7 Nov 2015)
** The Zygon Isolation (Lockdown!, 10 May
2020)
9. “Sleep No More”
(14 Nov 2015)
10. “Face the Raven”
(1/3, 21 Nov 2015)
11. “Heaven Sent” (2/3,
28 Nov 2015)
12. “Hell Bent” (3/3,
5 Dec 2015)
The webcast Prologue introduces the confession dial which will
play an important part in the climax of the series, along with the reappearance
of Ohila and the Sisterhood of Karn.
Released through
various media, The Doctor’s Meditation
takes place in Essex in 1138; it sees the first scene of the battlefield on
Skaro during the Thousand Year War.
The two-part story
“The Magician’s Apprentice” and “The Witch’s Familiar” begins with The Doctor
meeting Davros as a young boy in a handmine field on Skaro during the Thousand
Year War. UNIT summons Clara to help
find The Doctor; Missy grabs the attention of the world; Kate, Clara, and Missy
meet at an outdoor café; Clara and Missy seek out The Doctor (they find him, of
course) even as Colony Sarff, a servant of Davros also looks for The Doctor to
tell him Davros is dying. And that’s
just the set-up.
In the two-part story
“Under the Lake” and “Before the Flood”, The Doctor and Clara visit an
underwater mining facility at the bottom of an artificial lake in Caithness,
Scotland, in 2113, where they find crew members dying and the living being
haunted by what appear to be ghosts.
They have to go back to the town that used to be there before it was
flooded in 1980 in order to stop the plans of The Fisher King.
The two-part story
“The Girl Who Died” and “The Woman Who Lived” introduce the character Ashildr,
who later goes by Lady Me, with the first part of the story taking place in 9th
century Norway, with the main enemy being “Odin”, or rather a member of the
Mire species masquerading as him; also The Doctor remembers from where and why
he picked out the face he now wears. The
second part takes place in 1651 London, where Ashildr, now Lady Me, where her
alter ego is a highwayman named Knightmare.
In the two-part story
“The Zygon Invasion” and “The Zygon Inversion”, the peace forged between Humans
and Zygons by the War, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctors in “The Day of the Doctor”
is breaking down due to a dissident factio of Zygons who want to go about as Zygons.
With action also taking place in Truth of Consequences, New Mexico, in
the USA, UNIT is heavily involved, with scientist Pertonella Osgood and Kate
Stewart front-and-center, in a story which sees The Doctor made President of
Earth and give one of the best speeches in the history of the show.
The story of the
single one-shot episode of this series, “Sleep No More”, is told mostly through
‘found footage’, with action taking place aboard the space station Le Verrier in the 38th century.
The final three episodes form a trilogy for The Doctor.
“Face the Raven” takes place in present-day London, on
Trap Street, a refuge for aliens which is usually hidden from humans (the way
Diagon Alley in Harry Potter
can only be found by wizards and magical creatures), which is presided over by
Mayor Me, the former Ashildr. The story
involves Rigsy from Series 8’s “Flatine”, and includes the death, as far as The
Doctor knows, of Clara.
These events lead to the Time Lords imprisoning The
Doctor in a waterlocked castle in “Heaven Sent”, where he is stalked by a
mysterious shrouded figure demanding he give up his secrets, in particular the
identity of the Hybrid that the prophecies of the Time Lords foretell, who is
to stand in the ruins of Gallifrey and unravel the Web of Time. After he breaks through the wall, which took
him 4.5 billion years, he tells a young boy to let the Time Lords know he’s
coming for them.
“Hell Bent” opens in a
diner in the Nevada desert with a waitress who looks a lot like Clara, though
The Doctor does not recognize her because of events at the end of “Heaven
Sent”. The Doctor describes how he
arrived on Gallifrey, deposed Lord President Rassilon with the help of the
military, with the help of The General, now in a female body, and as the new
Lord President set about trying to undo Clara’s death. Ashildr/Me appears on Gallifrey in her own
stolen TARDIS, telling him the she believes he and Clara together are the
Hybrid. Also features Ohilia and the
Sisterhood of Karn.
Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song (Christmas Special 2015)
Companions: River
Song, Nardole, Ramone
The
subject matter of these shorts is self-explanatory; they were released on
Youtube and are still there.
** TARDIS Index Files: Who Are The
Silurians? (24 Feb 2016)
** TARDIS Index Files: Who Are The Weeping
Angels? (21 Mar 2016)
** TARDIS Index Files: Who Are The Silence?
(28 Apr 2016)
** TARDIS Index Files: Who Are The Ood? (21
May 2016)
** TARDIS Index Files: Who Is Davros? (20
Jun 2016)
** TARDIS Index Files: Who Is The Master?
(18 Jul 2016)
** TARDIS Index Files: Who Are The Zygons?
(3 Aug 2016)
** TARDIS Index Files: Who Are The
Sontarans? (14 Sep 2016)
** TARDIS Index Files: Who Are The
Cybermen? (26 Oct 2016)
** TARDIS Index Files: Who Are The Daleks? (26
Nov 2016)
** Friend from the Future (23 Apr 2016)
Introduces
the Twelfth Doctor’s new companion, Bill Potts, in what was supposed to be a
sneak peak, but nearly all of it wound up on the cutting room floor, so to
speak.
Class Series 1 (22 Oct 2016-3 Dec-2016)
1. “For Tonight We
Might Die” (22 Oct 2016)
2. “The Coach with
the Dragon Tattoo” (22 Oct 2016)
3. “Nightvisiting” (29
Oct 2016)
4. “Co-Owner of a
Lovely Heart” (1/2, 5 Nov 2016)
5. “Brave-ish Heart”
(2/2, 12 Nov 2016)
6. “Detained” (1/2,
19 Nov 2016)
7. “The Metaphysical
Engine, or What Quill Did” (2/2, 26 Nov 2016)
8. “The Lost” (3 Dec
2016)
“For Tonight We Might
Die” introduces the main cast, the Shadow Kin and their king Corakinus, and the
basic storyline. April is the school
outcast, but a good student, who befriends Tanya, a supergenius who has been
elevated three grades ahead. Ram is the
school’s star footballer, whom Tanya helps with his homework. Charlie tries to lay low, but ends up in a
relationship with Matteusz, whose conservative religious parents throw
out. The climax takes place at the
school prom. The Doctor appears after
Corakinus had crossed over, but only after the latter murders Ram’s date and
severs his leg (which The Doctor replaces).
Quill gives April a gun and tells her to shoot Corakinus, but her aim is
off and results in binding the two together.
The Doctor commissions the six as the Coal Hill Defenders (of planet
Earth).
“The Coach with the Dragon
Tattoo” is Ram’s football coach, who has a dragon tattoo on his body which is
in reality an actual dragon that came through the Coal Hill Rift, the six
formers learn, whose mate kills several people, including Mr. Armitage, the
principal. Meanwhile, Miss Quill is
observed by an inspector from Ofsted who turns out to be a robot. Tanya and Ram start to become friends.
In “Nightvisiting”,
Tanya is visited by an apparaition of her dead father while throughout East
London, alien vines emerge from the Rift and similarly seduce others, including
Miss Quill (or rather, an attempt).
Relationships develop between Ram and April and Charlie and Matteusz.
The two-part story
“Co-Owner of a Lovely Heart” and “Brave-ish Heart” sees Mr. Armitage’s
replacement, Dorothea Ames, introduce herself to Miss Quill; the release of
April’s father from prison triggers a response in April that reveals her
situation; to end this, April crosses over to the Underneath, the world of the
Shadow Kin, with Ram following her at the last second; Ames recruits Miss Quill
to force Charlie to use the Cabinet of Souls; on Earth, carnivorous flowers are
swarming the streets; April defeats Corakinus in combat, becoming the Shadow
King, and she sends her new army to destroy the carnivorous flowers, but loses
her kingship when Corakinus breaks the connection between them.
The two-part story
“Detained” and “The Metaphysical Engine, or What Quill Did” shows in the first
what happens to the five six-formers in when Miss Quill locks them in detention
and a tear in spacetime forces the group to face uncomfortable truths, courtesy
of an alien prisoner; in the second, we see what Miss Quill did and underwent
while the students were trying to get back to Earth, going with Ames and a
shapeshifting alien named Ballon, with events leading to a most startling
conclusion for Quill.
In “The Lost”, Corakinus
returns to Earth, murders Ram’s father and Tanya’s mother, initiating a final
confrontation between himself and the Coal Hill Defenders, which ends with him
dead but April trapped in his body, and the Shadow Kin defeated forever thank
to Charlie’s opening of the Cabinet of Souls, for which the Governors, who have
been preparing for an event known as ‘The Arrival’ punish headmistress Ames…by
turning loose a Weeping Angel on her.
** Looking for Pudsey (18 Nov 2016)
This
short includes a scene with the Twelfth Doctor, but stars Eddie Redmayne and is
primarily an ad for Fantastic Beasts.
Doctor Who: The Return of Doctor Mysterio (Christmas Special 2016)
Companion:
Nardole
The
Doctor faces off against the Harmony of the Winter Shoal, who are out to take
over Earth, with the help of Nardole and a ‘real-life’ superhero, the Ghost,
whose alter ego Grant Gordon accidentally met The Doctor in the 1990s as an
8-year-old boy.
Doctor Who Series 10/Season 36 (15 Apr 2017-1 Jul 2017)
Companions: Bill
Potts, Nardole
The
series’ main arc sees The Doctor guarding Missy in her prison vault while
lecturing at St. Luke’s University in Bristol.
1. “The Pilot” (15
Apr 2017)
2. “Smile” (22 Apr
2017)
3. “Thin Ice” (29 Apr
2017)
4. “Knock, Knock” (6
May 2017)
5. “Oxygen” (13 May
2017)
6. “Extremis” (1/3; 20 May
2017)
7. “The Pyramid at
the End of the World” (2/3; 27 May 2017)
8. “The Lie of the
Land” (3/3; 3 June 2017)
9. “Empress of Mars”
(10 Jun 2017)
10. “The Eaters of
Light” (17 Jun 2017)
11. “World Enough and
Time” (1/2, 24 Jun 2017)
12. “The Doctor Falls”
(2/2, 1 Jul 2017)
** The Best of Days (Lockdown!, 7 June 2020)
As described above,
“The Pilot” sees The Doctor as a lecturer at St. Luke’s University in Bristol with
Nardole as his teaching assistant, which is a cover for guarding Missy in her
cubical prison vault underneath the school, where The Doctor meets and becomes
intrigued with one of the canteen servers, Bill Potts, with his interest
becoming hazardous after her girlfriend, Heather, is absorbed by an alien along
with her feelings for Bill.
The story in “Smile”
present a problem similar to that in Season 25’s “The Happiness Patrol”, when The
Doctor and Bill learn that on Gliese 581, one of Earth’s first offplanet colonies
after the evacuation of Earth, learn that the robots that are supposed to aid
the new colonists still in hibernation, vaporise the sad, starting with the
advance team.
“Thin Ice” takes place
in London in 1814, where The Doctor and Bill find a giant sea creature chained
to the bottom of the Thames, making the Sutcliffe family rich for generations
by selling its bodily waste for fuel, so of course they plan to free it.
In “Knock Knock”, Bill
and five other students sing a lease with a mysterious Landlord to rent a very old
but very nice house in a posh neighborhood at a cheap price; The Doctor becomes
suspicious after helping her move in, and even more so when students start
disappearing.
“Oxygen” is the focus
of this episode in which visiting the mining station Chasm Forge in the far
future, The Doctor and Nardole encounter walking dead in spacesuits, with the
mystery leading back to the company which owns the station.
Episodes 6-8 make up
‘The Monks Trilogy’, because they deal with the attempt of an alien race called
the Monks to take over Earth.
“Extremis” reveals
that Missy is the one being held prisoner in the vault, along with how and why
she got there, as well as how Nardole came to travel with The Doctor. Also, the Vatican asks The Doctor to examine
a mysterious book called the Veritas,
because everyone who has read the translation has committed suicide. His investigation leads to the realization
that the alien race called the Monks has created a Shadow Earth to test the
feasibility of trying to conquer it.
“The Pyramid at the
End of the World” takes place in ‘Trumezistan’ and at Agrofuel Research
Operations in Yorkshire; the pyramid in question has been placed at the point
where the American, Russian, and Chinese armies have concentrated their forces
duing the current crisis. The Doctor is
drafted to help by the UN Secretary-General to assist, but in the end of the
story, the Monks have taken control of the world.
“The Lie of the Land”
is that is appears to all humans on the planet that the Monks have been here
and in control for millions of years.
The Doctor seeks a solution from Missy, but he doesn’t like what she
says. When he tries to save the planet,
however, he fails; salvation comes from Bill but not in the way Missy
predicted.
“Empress of Mars”
kicks off with NASA discovering the messages ‘GOD SAVE THE QUEEN’ under the
surface ice of Mars, leading to The Doctor, Bill, and Nardole to travel to the
planet in 1881, where they find contingent of British soldiers, who have
rescued an Ice Warrior from his crashed ship.
Nardole takes the TARDIS back to Missy for help. Later events lead to revival of Empress
Iraxxa, who begins to revive her army.
“Eaters of Light”
takes place in Devana (Aberdeen) in 117 CE, where Legio IX Hispana disappeared
that year, and to which The Doctor, Bill, and Nardole go after The Doctor and
Bill disagreed about what happened to the Ninth Legion; after the resolution,
Bill and Nardole are shocked to find Missy waiting for them in th TARDIS.
The two-part series finale
“World Enough and Time” and “The Doctor Falls” begins with The Doctor sending
Missy on a test run with Nardole and Bill that winds up on a 1056-level colony
ship caught in the edge of a gravity well of a black hole, with the resulting
time dialation meaning a difference in time between different levels of up to
decades, even centuries. The Doctor
learns the ship is from Mondas, and we see CyberMondans for the first time
since Season 4’s “The Tenth Planet”, as well as the return of the Saxon Master. Bill is turned into a Cyberman, though she is
rescued by ‘Heather’, while Nardole leads the remaining humanoid Mondans. The First Doctor appears at the end.
** The
Best of Days (Lockdown!, 7 June 2020)
Nardole and Bill correspond
some time after the events of “The Doctor Falls”.
Class Series 2 (unproduced)
Several scripts were
begun but not finished, with at least two stories approved for development
before the show was cancelled. The theme
of Series 2 would have been ‘deals with the devil’.
April would have made
a deal with the Governors to get back her own body.
Charlie would meet a
future Charlie who had given his soul away to save Matteusz.
The Weeping Angels
would have sent them back to the 1990s, where their only way back would be
inside a time capsule in suspended animation.
There would have been
a visit to the planet of the Weeping Angels and discovery of a civil war among
their species.
Tanya would be sent on
a Ferris Buehler’s Day Off type
adventure with her in the role of Ferris.
One episode was going to
revolve around the internet, fame, and the backlash that always comes with that,
as well as ‘fan entitlement’.
The White Witch of Devil’s End (home video; 13 Nov 2017)
This six-episode series
focuses on Olivia Hawthorne from Doctor Who Season 8’s “The Daemons”, with Olivia in her old age recounting her
adventures, starting with how she became the White Witch of Devil’s End. A companion short story anthology called Olive
Hawthorne and the Dæmons of Devil's End covering
the same stories had been released 1 November.
1. “The Inheritance”
2. “Half Light”
3. “The Cat Who Walks
Through Worlds”
4. “The Poppet”
5. “Dæmos Returns”
6. “Hawthorne Blood”
Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time (Christmas Special 2017)
Companions:
Bill Potts, Nardole, Clara Oswald, Ben Jackson, & Polly Wright
The
story opens with the First Doctor in the last moments of “The Tenth Planet”,
including newly shot footage with Bill Bradley, then switches to the Twelfth
Doctor, who is banging outside the door of the TARDIS, both at the beginning of
their regeneration, both refusing to change, in an episode that takes place in
1986 Antartica, the planet Villengard in the far future, and the battlefield of
Ypres, where the Christmas Truce of 1914 took place. Also appearing are Ben Jackson and Polly
Wright, as well as Bill, Nardole, and Clara, in the forms of glass avatars,
along with the reformed Dalek dubbed Rusty by Twelve, from Villengard. Twelve finally lets go and regenerates into
Thirteen as One lets go and regenerates into Two.
Thirteenth Doctor
Doctor Who Series 11/Season 37 (7 Oct 2018-9 Dec 2018)
Companions:
Graham O’Brien, Ryan Sinclair, & Yaz Khan
There
is no official overall arc this season, though it does see the first mention of
“the Timeless Child”. However, it is
notable for a return to historical episodes with three excellent examples this
series along with two in the following series, which is half the number of the
entire Revival Era and half the number of the Classic Era.
The
self-explanatory Yaz’s Case Files
broadcast after each episode.
1. “The Woman Who
Fell to Earth” (7 Oct 2018)
** Yaz’s Case Files One: The Stenza
2. “The Ghost
Monument” (14 Oct 2018)
** Yaz’s Case Files Two: The Remnants
3. “Rosa” (21 Oct
2018)
** Yaz’s Case Files Three: Krasko
4. “Arachnids in the
U.K.” (28 Oct 2018)
** Yaz’s Case Files Four: Mutant Spiders
5. “The Tsuranga
Conundrum” (4 Nov 2018)
** Yaz’s Case Files Five: Pting
6. “Demons of the
Punjab” (11 Nov 2018)
** Yaz’s Case Files Six: The Thijarians
7. “Kerblam!” (19 Nov
2018)
** Yaz’s Case Files Seven: The Kerblam Man
& The Postmen
8. “The Witchfinders”
(26 Nov 2018)
** Yaz’s Case Files Eight: Morax
9. “It Takes You Away”
(2 Dec 2018)
** Yaz’s Case Files Nine: Creatures of the
Antizone
Festive Thirteenth
Doctor Yule Log (4 Dec 2018)
10. “The Battle of
Ransoor Av Kolos” (9 Dec 2018)
** Yaz’s Case Files Ten: The Ux
“The Woman Who Fell to
Earth” opens in Sheffield, Yorkshire, with Ryan Sinclair making a Youtube video
about ‘the greatest woman he ever met’, recounting a story about him trying
once again to ride a bike, with his grandmother Grace and her husband Graham O’Brient. Events lead him to discovery of a strange,
alien-seeming pod, he calls the police, probationary constable Yasmin Khan
shows up to take the report. Later,
Graham and Grace are on a train which is attacked by an alien, the Thirteenth
Doctor arrives to save them, Yaz and Ryan arrive to see the alien, then the
adventure really begins. It includes the
first appearance of Tzim-Sha, who the team dubs ‘Tim Shaw’, who aspires to
become leader of his people.
“The Ghost Monument”
takes place on the planet Desolation in the Twelve Galaxies, whose only
inhabitants are the Remnants. It begins
with The Doctor and her fellow-travellers (not yet ‘companions’) awakening
aboard different spaceships, not knowing where the TARDIS is, the two
spaceships flown by the last surviving participants of the Rally of the Twelve
Galaxies. It is the Remnants who first
mention ‘the Timeless Child’ to The Doctor.
When The Doctor does find the TARDIS, it has completely rebuilt itself.
“Rosa”, one of the most
powerful episodes of the entire Revival Era, takes place in Montgomery,
Alabama, USA, 30 November-1 December 1955, in which The Doctor and her
companions meet Rosa Parks, defeat an alien named Krasko who is trying to
prevent the events from taking place, ending with The Doctor, Graham, Ryan, and
Yaz having to stand by and do nothing while Rosa is arrested and taken to jail.
“Arachnids in the UK”
introduces shady American entrepeneur Jack Robertson and Yaz’s family. It starts with The Doctor finally getting her
three fellow-travellers home to Sheffield, just a half hour past the time they
left. However, the Sheffield they have
left is not the Sheffield they come back to, or rather, it is, but something
beneath the surface they had not known about bubbles up, in the form of spiders
taking over the city. At the end, Yaz,
Ryan, and Graham decide to accompany The Doctor on her travels wherever they
take her.
“The Tsuranga
Conundrum” opens with Team TARDIS scavenging on a junkyard planet when they are
rendered unconscious by a sonic mine accidentally tripped. They wakes up on a hospital ship, the Tsuranga, upon which they learn is a creature known
as a Pting, which devours anything nonorganic, including the hospital ship
itself.
“Demons of the Punjab”
takes place largely in 1947 India just at the time of its partition, which is
also when Yaz’s grandmother married the Muslim man who is her grandfather, only
to learn that her grandmother’s first love was, in fact, a Hindu man whose
brother is a Hindu extremist. Also
involved are the alien Thijarians.
In “Kerblam!”, The
Doctor receives a package from Kerblam!, the galaxies largest retailer, with a
plea for help inside. Arriving on the
planet, the team secures various jobs with the company, the workforce of which
is only 10% human with the rest robots.
The answers are both not as bad as they suspect and far worse than they
fear.
“The Witchfinders”
takes place in the early 17th century village of Bilehurst Cragg, Lancashire,
with an appearance by King James I, who makes passes at Ryan, with the leading
‘witchfinder’ in the village, Becka Savage, possessed by an alien known as the
Morax.
“It Takes You Away”
takes place in present-day Norway, when Team TARDIS discover an isolated cabin
in the forest whose only apparent inhabitant is a young blind girl. Further investigation leads to the discovery
of a doorway to the Anti-Zone, a buffer between universes, with the Solitract
Plane on the other side, which appears to be a paradise where dead family
members appear to live again.
The Festive Thirteenth Doctor Yule Log is a two-hour long video of a burning Yule log in a fireplace in a
comfortable-looking front room with a snow-swept landscape seen through the
window released on Youtube by BBC America.
“The Battle of Ranskoor Av
Kolos” sees the return of ‘Tim Shaw’ in this episode which takes place on the
planet Ranskoor Av Kolos in 5425, to which Team TARDIS travels after receiving
nine different distress calls from it.
But its only inhabitants are an old woman named Andino and her protégé Delph,
who have extrasensory perception and use telekinesis, as well as amnesiac pilot
Paltraki.
** ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (18 Dec
2018)
Narrated
by actor Bradley Walsh, who does not appear as Graham O’Brien, this video just
over a minute tells the story of The Doctor taking over for Santa Claus after
his sleigh crashes in Lapland.
Doctor Who: Resolution (New Year Special 2019)
Companions: Graham O’Brien, Ryan Sinclair, & Yaz Khan; with Aaron Sinclair, Lin, Mitch
Two
archaeologists, Lin and Mitch, working on New Year’s Day uncover something no
one has ever found before among artifacts from 9th Sheffield, a squid-looking
creature…which turns out to be a Dalek.
Meanwhile, Ryan’s father returns and wants to reconcile.
** Yaz’s Case Files Eleven: The Renaissance
Dalek
** The Doctor Needs YOUR Help! (TV short, 15
March 2019)
The
Doctor appeals the people of UK and of Quicksarpantagarus for donations to
Comic Relief.
** Hello, Boys! (16 Apr 2019)
Jo
Grant Jones and Cliff Jones return to Llanfairfach, Wales, driving Bessie, to
defeat giant maggots for The Doctor.
Sil and the Devil Seeds of Arodor (4 Nov 2019)
(features Sil, the Mentor from
Thoros-Beta in Season 22’s “Vengeance on Varos” and Season 23’s “Mindwarp”)
The
story takes place in Lunar City in the year 2386, with Sil being held in a
detention cell awaiting a deportation hearing.
Doctor Who Series 12/Season 38 (1 Jan 2020-1 Mar 2020)
Companions: Graham O’Brien, Ryan Sinclair, & Yaz Khan; also Nikola
Tesla, Thomas Edison, & Dorothy
Skeritt (“Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror”); Jake Willis, Gabriela Camara, Suki Cheng, & Adam
Lang (“Praxeus”); Tahira & Tibo (“Can You Hear Me?”)
1. “Spyfall”, Part 1
(1/2, 1 Jan 2020)
2. “Spyfall”, Part 2
(2/2, 5 Jan 2020)
3. “Orphan 55” (12
Jan 2020)
4. “Nikola Tesla’s
Night of Terror” (19 Jan 2020)
5. “Fugitive of the
Judoon” (26 Jan 2020)
6. “Praxeus” (2 Feb
2020)
** The Shadow Passes (Lockdown! prose
short-story, 20 Apr 2020)
** Shadow of a Doubt (Lockdown! webcast, 24
Apr 2020)
** The Shadow in the Mirror (Lockdown!
webcast, 24 Apr 2020)
7. “Can You Hear Me?”
(9 Feb 2020)
8. “The Haunting of
Villa Diodati” (1/3, 16 Feb 2020)
9. “Ascension of the
Cybermen” (2/3, 24 Feb 2020)
10. “The Timeless Children” (3/3, 1 Mar 2020)
The two-part opener
“Spyfall” opens with MI6 contacting The Doctor for her assistance investigating
a series of assassinations of officeers of spy agencies around the globe, with
the investigation by Team TARDIS leading to Daniel Barton, CEO of Vor, an alien
race known as the Kasaavin, and MI6’s Agent O, who monitors extraterrestrial
activities, the last of whom turns out to be The Master, who reveals that he
has uncovered a dark secret of Gallifreyan history, and, later, that he has
destroyed Gallifrey. The Doctor is
transported to the Kasaavin dimension, where she encounters Ada Lovelace, Lord
Byron’s daughter, with whom she travels to 1834 London before they are both
transported to Paris 1943, where they meet SOE operative Noor Inayat Khan and
find The Master disguised as a Nazi. And
that doesn’t even cover what Ryan, Yaz, and Graham go through.
In “Orphan 55”, Graham
wins a trip to Tranquility Spa on planet Orphan 55 in a far future and takes
all of Team TARDIS with him. They
discover that Orphan 55 is, in fact, Earth, which was made an orphan planet by
climate change and nuclear warfare, and that the ferocious Dregs menacing the
spa are, in fact, descendants of humans unable to escape.
“Nikola Tesla’s Night
of Terror” takes place in early 1900s New York City, where Team TARDIS meets
Tesla, his secretary Dorothy Skerrit, and his chief rival, Thomas Edison, in a
story about an alien race called the Skithra trying to abduct Tesla to help fix
their damaged spaceship.
“Fugitive of the
Judoon” introduces a previously unknown incarnation of The Doctor who has been
hiding out in Gloucester for quite some time as ‘Ruth Clayton’, now known as
the Fugitive Doctor, an incarnation that came before even the Morbius Doctors
(Season 13’s “The Brain of Morbius”, Part 4), who used to work for The Division
and whose former partner there, Gat, is the main hunter. While this is going on, Jack Harkness rescues
Graham, Ryan, and Yaz, though he doesn’t see The Doctor (either one), and warns
them to “Beware the Lone Cyberman”.
“Praxeus” is an alien
bacterium that turns its victims into crystal that then shatters, which also
feeds on pollution, especially plastic.
The story takes place in Madagascar, Peru, Hong Kong, and the bottom of
the Indian Ocean, with Team TARDIS initially split up into three separate
missions, so The Doctor gets help from Jake Willis, Gabriela Camara, Suki
Cheng, & Adam Lang, all of whom get a ride aboard the TARDIS. Suki is an alien whose planet was overwhelmed
by the Praxeus, and she came to Earth to work out a cure.
The Shadow Passes, told
from Yaz’s point-of-view, is an allegory of passing time during the COVID-19
pandemic lockdown. The Doctor recalls
putting a girl in a mirror (referring to Daughter of Mine from Season 3’s “The
Family of Blood”) and says that she intends to release her.
In Shadow of a
Doubt, archaeologist Prof. Bernice
Summerfield meets a girl trapped in a mirror in the ruins of Andromeda who
talks about the various incarnations of The Doctor whom she has met.
The Shadow in the Mirror find The Doctor visiting Daughter of Mine in her mirror on Andromeda,
releases her from her prison, and takes her to her home planet.
“Can You Hear Me?”
starts as The Doctor drops off Graham, Ryan, and Yaz in Sheffield. The Doctor receives a distress call from 1380
Aleppo, where she meets a young woman named Tahira, who has been troubled by
strange visions. Ryan hangs with his
friend Tibo, Graham plays cards with his friends Gabriel and Fred, and Yaz eats
dinner with her sister Sonya, which Sonya made.
All three experience strange, supernatural visions that eventually lead
them to a telepathic alien with evil designs.
“The Haunting of Villa
Diodati” takes place at the manor named on the shore of Lake Geneva in June
1816, when The Doctor brings Yaz, Ryan, and Graham to see the night that Mary
Shelley, at the time Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, was inspired to write
Frankenstein. There they also find Lord
George Byron (who mentions his daughter Ada, the later Ada Lovelace), his
partner Claire Clairmont, Dr. John Polidori, and, eventually, Percy Shelley,
along with butler William Fletcher and maid Elise. The figure haunting the villa, it turns out,
is the Lone Cyberman, whose name is Ashad.
“The Ascension of the
Cybermen” opens with Team TARDIS arriving in the far future at the last refuge
of the last humans in the aftermath of the Cyber Wars. During an attack by CyberDrones, they becomes
separated from the TARDIS and from each other, but they have the same goal: to
reach The Boundary and safety.
Interspersed with this is the story of Brendan, a foundling discovered
in the middle of the road in mid-1900s Ireland, who grows up to become a Garda,
survives a fall from a tremendous height, and continues as a Garda. The Cybermen in this episode are Cyberguards
and Cyber-Warriors.
In “The Timeless Children”,
The Spy Master reveals that he learned the suppressed truth of the story of the
beginning of the Time Lords hidden and disguised in The Matrix on Gallifrey
underneath the story of ‘Brendan’, a story which also told the true origin of
The Doctor and the part the former Shobogon traveller Tecteun played in that,
as well as The Division and the operative Solpado. It introduces a further development of the
Cyber-Warriors: the Cyber-Masters, Cybermen with Time Lords’ bodies, and
concludes the arc of Ashad, his Cyber-Warriors, and their attempt to establish
a New Cyber Empire. At the end, Graham,
Ryan, Yaz, and the refugees are returned to 21st century Earth in their own
TARDIS, without The Doctor, who soon arrested by the Judoon and taken to a
maximum security prison inside an asteroid.
** P.R.O.B.E.:
Shadows of Doubt (webcast; 28 Apr 2020)
Features Giles, from P.R.O.B.E.:
When in Doubt, now director of P.R.O.B.E.
** Return of the Autons (25 Nov 2020)
Originally
released as Jo Grant vs. the Autons…Again?, this sees Jo and Cliff Jones confronted by Autons at their home, but
they are defeated.
** The Defence Drones (webcast, 21 Dec
2020)
A
prequel to Revolution of the Daleks formatted as an in-universe ad for Jack
Robertson’s Defence Drones.
Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks (New Year Special 2021)
Companions:
Graham O’Brien, Ryan Sinclair, Yaz Khan, & Jack Harkness
While
Yaz, Graham, and Ryan search desparately for The Doctor for 10 months in their
TARDIS, The Doctor spends around 20 years in the Judoon prison before Jack
Harkness breaks her out. But soon after
Team TARDIS is reunited, they learn to their horror that Jack Robertson’s
company has converted the remains of the Reconaissance Dalek into an army of
‘Defence Drones’ to whom the security and law enforcement of the UK will be
turned over, The Doctor takes drastic action.
Afterward, Graham and Ryan leave the TARDIS to stay in Sheffield.
** Welcome to the TARDIS (1 Jan 2021)
Teased
the introduction of Dan Lewis and his meeting The Doctor.
** 2020: The Movie Trailer (19 Mar 2021)
Red
Nose Day 2020 minisode featuring Jodie Whitaker and Mandip Gill as “the Doctor
and another Doctor”.
P.R.O.B.E. Case Files,
Volume 1 (21 Jun 2021)
The PROBE Case Files
were similary to the TARDIS Index Files, the Alien Files, Yaz’s Case Files, etc.,
only coming from PROBE, narrated by Giles.
The files here were first released individually online to Youtube,
except for the two files that serve as bookends.
** “First Entry”
** “Kelpie”
** “Peckham
Poltergeist”
** “Manchester”
** “Stacey Façade”
** “Varunastra”
** “Doctor X”
** “Gool”
** “Sherwood Sorceress”
** The Flux is Coming
(9 Oct 2021)
Teases
the coming apocalypse with an in-universe distress call from The Doctor.
Doctor Who: Flux Series 13/Season 39 (31 Oct 2021-5 Dec 2021)
Companions: Yaz Khan & Dan
Lewis; also Karvanista, Inston-Vee Vinder, Joseph Williamson, Kate Stewart, Diane
Curtis, Claire Brown, Bel, Prof. Eustacius Jericho
This
series is one six-part story, the first since Season 23: The Trial of the
Doctor, with the first being Season 16: The Key to Time. It shows more of The Doctor’s hidden (until
now) backstory, continuing the revelations begun in “The Timeless Children”.
1. “The Halloween
Apocalypse” (1/6, 31 Oct 2021)
2. “War of the
Sontarans” (2/6, 7 Nov 2021)
3. “Once, Upon a Time”
(3/6, 14 Nov 2021)
4. “Village of the
Angels” (4/6, 21 Nov 2021)
5. “Survivors of the
Flux” (5/6, 28 Nov 2021)
6. “The Vanquishers”
(6/6, 5 Dec 2021)
The Time Lords
worshipped her, but with the Time Force free, Time was chaos. To end the Dark Times, the Division bound
Time, an Eternal, to the artificial planet Time, guarded over by the Mouri in
the Temple of Atropos. The Ravagers who
also worshipped her thought this was sacrilege and launched the Founding War against
the Time Lords to free her. The final
conflict of the war was the Siege of Atropos, was The Doctor, the Fugitive
Doctor, leading the team including Karvanista and two other agents, to restore
the Temple and imprison Swarm and Azure, the leading Ravagers.
This story is eons later,
with Swarm and Azure breaking free of their confinement in a story taking place
in many different points across space and throughout time, including a version
of the Crimean War where an army of Sontarans are the enemy rather than the
Russian Empire, the people above who become part of Team TARDIS, Daleks,
Cybermen (specifically Cyber-Warriors), Sontarans, and Weeping Angels, whom The
Doctor finds worked with the Division. It
begins when The Flux, a destructive mass composed mostly of anti-matter from
outside the universe, spreads out to destroy the universe, and succeeds halfway. Shocked to learn its actual origin as well as
who initiated it, The Doctor manages to acquire her biodata module fob watch
containing her stolen memories, but has the TARDIS hide it from her.
Doctor Who: Eve of the Daleks (New Year Special 2022)
Companions: Yaz
Khan & Dan Lewis
The
Doctor, Yaz, and Dan are forced to wait in the ELF Storage facility in
Manchester while the TARDIS reboots, which it needs to do as a result of the
damage suffered during the Flux. It
being New Year’s Eve, there are only two other humans there, Sarah the owner
and Nick the only customer, at least until ten minutes to midnight when Dalek
Executioners show up seeking revenge for The Doctor allowing the Sontaran
Empire to destroy the Dalek War Fleet as depicted in “The Vanquishers”. But
with the TARDIS rebooting, a time loop is created, losing a minute on
each repeat.
P.R.O.B.E. Case Files,
Volume 2 (25 Feb 2022)
In this case, most of
the files had previously been made available for download from BBV Productions
website.
** “A Message from
Sir Andrew”
** “Daylight Savings”
** “Ichor”
** “Out of the
Shadows of Doubt”
** “Fog”
** “Lauren Anderson”
** “Living Fiction”
** “The Only Cure”
** “Ex-President”
** “Legend”
Doctor Who: Legend of the Sea Devils (Easter 2022 Special)
Companions: Yaz
Khan & Dan Lewis
This
adventure takes place in 1807, with a side trip to 1533, with Team TARDIS
meeting real-life Chinese pirate queen Madame Ching, as Zheng Yi Sao (born Shi
Yang), and helping her free her pirate crew from the clutches of Sea Devils who
plan to use a gem from the lost treasure of the Flor
de la Mar, ship of the (fictional) legendary
16th century Korean pirate Ji-Hun to flood the world and take it over.
Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor (BBC Centenary Special; 23 Oct
2022)
Companions: Yaz
Khan & Dan Lewis; also Graham O’Brien, Kate Stewart, Dorothy Gale “Ace” McShane, Tegan
Jovanka, Inston-Vee Vinder, plus Fugitive Doctor, First Doctor, Fifth Doctor,
Sixth Doctor, Seventh Doctor, Eighth Doctor
The story opens with
The Doctor, Yaz, and Dan rescuing a Toraji Transport Network bullet train from
a group of Cyber-Masters. The Spy Master
takes the identity of Grigori Rasputin in 1916 at the Winter Palace of the
Russian Empire. In 2022, Dorothy Gale
‘Ace’ McShane investigates missing art while Tegan Jovankalooks into missing
seismologists and The Doctor gets a call from the ‘Traitor Dalek’ who has
becomes aware of how far the Daleks have strayed from their original purpose
but ends up leading her into an ambush by the Daleks.
Then things get really
crazy involving Graham O’Brien, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT, Inston-Vee
Vinder, plus Thirteen having visions of the Fugitive Doctor, First Doctor,
Fifth Doctor, Sixth Doctor, Seventh Doctor, and Eighth Doctor, as well as Ashad
and his Cyber-Warriors attacking UNIT.
After the crisis is past,
Yaz goes with Graham and Dan to a meeting of former companions, which also
includes Ace, Tegan, Kate, Melanie Bush, Jo Grant Jones, and Ian Chesterton, along
with a chair with a laptop for companions unable to be there in person. And while this is going on, the Thirteenth
Doctor goes to a seaside cliff and regenerates, into the Fourteenth Doctor…who
has the face of the Tenth Doctor.
** The
Passenger (13 Jul 2023)
Minisode included with the
release of the Blu-ray version of Season 20 featuring Tegan, and Nyssa of
Traken.
Tales of the T.A.R.D.I.S. (all
released 1 Nov 2023)
These
were edited, and sometimes heavily redacted, versions of Classic Who stories
each bookended by brief discussions between older version of the characters
listed looking back at the particular adventure.
1. Earthshock
(Fifth Doctor
companion Tegan Jovanka)
2. The Mind Robber
(Second Doctor
companions Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot)
3. Vengeance of Varos
(The Sixth
Doctor and companion Peri Brown)
4. The Three Doctors
(Third Doctor companion
Jo Grant and Sarah Jane Smith companion Clyde Langer)
5. The Time Meddler
(First Doctor companions
Vicki Pallister and Steven Taylor)
6. The Curse of Fenric
(Seventh Doctor
and companion Dorothy Gale ‘Ace’ McShane)
Fourteenth Doctor
Companion:
Donna Noble
** Destination: Skaro, or The Fourteenth Doctor
is Here! (Children in Need Special, 17 Nov 2023)
A
mostly comedic minisode that takes The Doctor back to the genesis of the Daleks
and shows the Fourteenth Doctor’s unwitting contribution to a change in their
design from the original.
Doctor Who: The Star Beast (60th Anniversary Special #1, 25 Nov
2023)
Companion:
Donna Noble
The
TARDIS lands in present-day North London, with the Fourteenth Doctor almost
running into Donna Noble several times before a meteor, which turns out to be a
small spaceship, crashes in the neighborhood.
A cute alien called the Meep appears in the Noble family’s toolshed,
which is daughter Rose’s workshop; they make friends. Wrarth Warriors from the Wrarth Galaxy invade
the Noble house looking for the Meep. Donna
does eventually remember The Doctor and all her adventures, but does not die,
for which there is a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder (60th Anniversary Special #2, 2 Dec
2023)
Companion: Donna Noble
The
first full adventure with Donna and Fourteen begins hot on the heels of the end
of the previous episode, only with the TARDIS wildly out of control, first
taking the reunited duo to 1666 and crashing into an apple tree. At this, Isaac Newton, whom The Doctor says
is “hot”, formulates his Law of ‘Mavity’, which becomes an underlying theme
from this point on, indicating that something is kind of ‘off’ with the
timeline. The still malfunctioning
TARDIS next taking them to the edge of the universe and deposits them on a derelict
spaceship before disappearing. There
they encounter the No-Things, two beings from the Void who threaten the entire
(remaining) universe (half of which was never restored after the Flux). Susan Twist appears briefly as Mrs. Merridew
in the Isaac Newton scene. Wilfred Mott appears
in the final scene when The Doctor and Donna return to London, greeting them as
they step out of the TARDIS.
Doctor Who: The Giggle (60th Anniversary Special #3, 9 Dec 2023)
Companion: Donna Noble
This
episode, which sees the return of the Toymaker, now revealed as a member of the
Pantheon of Discord, from Season 3’s “The Celestial Toymaker”, begins
immediately on the heels of “Wild Blue Yonder” as people in London driven crazy
by the Giggle riot. Travelling to the
new UNIT headquarters, The Doctor and Donna learn they find Kate
Lethbridge-Stewart and science office Shirley Ann Bingham immuned from the
effects of the Giggle by a Zeedex armband, while Donna and Mel Bush, now at
UNIT, are immune because of their exposure to time travel. The Doctor and Donna travel back to 1925,
seeking the origin of the current crisis; the final battle is fought at UNIT
headquarters. When The Doctor
regenerates, he does so through bi-generation, resulting in two Doctors and two
TARDISs. The Fourteenth Doctor retires
to live with the Noble family in London, while the Fifteenth Doctor continues
the mission.
FIFTEENTH DOCTOR
Doctor Who: The Church on Ruby Road (Christmas Special 2023)
Companion: Ruby
Sunday
This special was both
the final episode of the 60th Anniversary and the first of the new series.
On Christmas Eve 2004,
the Fifteenth Doctor witnesses a newborn baby being left the church on Ruby
Road in Manchester, England, and taken in by the vicar. Almost exactly 19 years later, beginning 1
December, the now-grown woman, Ruby Sunday, begins experiencing a series of
accidents, saved from some of them by The Doctor, that turn out to be caused by
Goblins. That Christmas Eve, 2023, her
adopted mother Carla brings home for the holidays another foster child,
Lulubelle, who is stolen later that day by Goblins, which Ruby notices when the
baby monitor goes silent. Trying to
catch the flying Goblin ship is how she and The Doctor meet.
This is the first
appearance of actor Susan Twist in various roles this series, the one here being
‘Woman’ in the crowd watching Ruby’s band on 22 December, and of the character
Mrs. Flood in three scenes, in the last of which, after the TARDIS disappears,
she breaks the 4th wall by turning to the audience and asking, “Never seen a
TARDIS before?”.
Doctor Who Series 14/Season 40 [Disney Season 1] (May 2024)
Companion:
Ruby Sunday
This series continues the
arc begun in the Christmas Special 2023 of having Susan Twist appear as a
different character in each episode, regardless of the time or location.
1. “Space Babies” (11
May 2024)
2. “The Devil’s
Chord” (11 May 2024)
3. “Boom” (18 May
2024)
4. “73 Yards” (25 May
2024)
5. “Dot and Bubble”
(1 Jun 2024)
6. “Rogue” (8 Jun
2024)
7. “The Legend of
Ruby Sunday” (15 Jun 2024)
Tales of the TARDIS:
Pyramids of Mars (20 Jun 2024)
8. “Empire of Death”
(22 Jun 2024)
In “Space Babies”, The
Doctor takes Ruby 155 million years into the past to what will become the town
of Green River, Wyoming, USA. They then
travel to the year 21,506, where they land on Baby Station Beta orbitting the
planet Pacifico Del Rio, where they find a crew made up of babies, under CAPT
Poppy, under the overall care of a Nanomatrix Electroform, Nan-E for short, who
turns out to be a live human. The
station is menaced by a creature the babies call the Bogeyman. Susan Twist appears here as a recorded
version of Gina Scalzi, the comms officer for Baby Station Beta, who quit in
protest of the corporation’s suspension of the station. Poppy appears briefly in Series 15’s “The
Story and the Engine” and more fully in “Wish World” and “The Reality War”.
“The Devil’s Chord”
involves The Doctor and Ruby visiting Liverpool in 1963 to discover The Beatles
unable to play good music. Further
investigation uncovers a being known as Maestro, who proclaims themself the
child of the Toymaker with the ability to eat music, against whom The Doctor
and Ruby join with the Beatles to defeat.
Susan Twist plays ‘ Tea Lady’.
“Boom” takes place on
the planet Kastarion 3 in 5087, where Anglican Marines (the same outfit serving
Madame Kovarian in Series 6’s “A Good Man Goes to War”) are fighting an unseen
enemy, with The Doctor trapped in place after stepping on a landmine. It runs out that there is no enemy, that the
alleged conflict is wholly created and carried out by Villengard. Susan Twist plays the AI of the Villengard
ambulance. Features Anglican marine
Mundy Flynn, a descendant of The Doctor’s Series 15 companion Belinda Chandra.
“73 Yards” takes place
in an alternate timeline known subsequently as ‘Ruby’s World’, after an initial
scene in Wales near the town of Glyngatwg, where Ruby breaks a fairy circle
warning people to beware ‘Mad Jack’.
Here there is no Doctor, but there is a mysterious woman following Ruby
at a distance of 73 yards, and every time someone approaches The Woman,
whatever she says makes them flee in terror from Ruby. While living her life, Ruby learns who ‘Mad
Jack’ is, though once she solves the problem (in 2046), she continues in this
timeline till she dies in 2089.
Afterward, she finds herself back on the cliff in 2024, this time taking
care to avoid breaking the fairy circle.
Susan Twist plays ‘Hiker’, who gives Ruby directions to Glyngatwg from
the cliffs.
“Dot and Bubble” takes
place in Finetime, a colony on a planet where the children of the rich beyond
the dreams of avarice on Homeworld live in an idyllic paradise where they work
just four hours a day even while spending all their time inside the holographic
social media echo chamber Dot-and-Bubble for a constant stream of
affirmation. The story, which focuses on
the character Lindy Pepper-Bean, heavily satirises the classism, xenophobia,
racism, and hubris of the ruling elite.
Susan Twist plays Penny Pepper-Bean, Lindy’s 62 yo mother.
Inspired by the
ongoing period drama Bridgerton, “Rogue”
takes place in the Regency-era city of Bath, Somerset, in 1813, at the mansion
of the Duchess of Pemberton, where guests to the ball she is throwing begin
disappearing one-by-one. The episode is
named for Rogue, a bounty hunter from the future looking for a shapeshifting
Chuldur; during his investigation, he scans The Doctor and passes through all his
numerous incarnations. These include an
image of Richard E. Grant, who voiced the ‘Alternate’ Ninth Doctor’ in the 2003
animated series Scream of the Shalka,
explicitly making the ‘Shalka Doctor’ part of TV canon. Susan Twist does appear again, but only as
‘The Portrait’, a painting Ruby stares at.
“The Legend of Ruby
Sunday” begins with The Doctor and Ruby seeking the help of UNIT to find out
the identity of a woman they keep seeing in various locations across time and
space. UNIT has, in fact, been following
her since 2021, a woman named Susan Triad, owner of Triad Technology,
previously mentioned in “The Giggle” and “The Church on Ruby Road”. When Ruby and Rose Noble go to Ruby’s home to
get a video tape of the night she was found, Carla demands to go along, and
they get Mrs. Flood watch Carla’s mother, Cherry Sunday. Just as The Doctor solves the riddle of Susan
Triad, Harriet Arbinger at UNIT turns into the Harbinger of Sutekh, god of
death and chief of the Pantheon of Discord, whom The Doctor last saw in Season 13’s
“Pyramids of Mars”.
Instead of characters
from its main story or nearby in time as with the other Tales for the 60th
Anniversary, Tales of the TARDIS: Pyramids of Mars is bookended by discussion between the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby
Sunday, with him recounting to her the story of his encounter, in an edited
form.
“Empire of Death” reveals
that rather than being trapped in the space-time tunnel, Sutekh evaded that by
attaching himself to the TARDIS and shrouding his presence. Susan Triad, now revealed as a creation of
Sutekh, releases his dust of death, which disintegrates everyone in UNIT HQ
before spreading out into the city of London; there is a notable scene of Mrs.
Flood and Cherry Sunday holding each other before they too disintegrate, Mrs.
Flood remarking just before she does that “I had such plans…”. Then the dust spreads to everywhere and
everywhen The Doctor has ever been. After
the crisis is over and Sutekh dead, Ruby learns via a quirk of temporal
mechanics the identity of her mother (as well as that of her father), who turns
out to be very ordinary, at which The Doctor informs her that the significance
they had given her mother made her more powerful than Time Lords or even
gods. The story ends with Mrs. Flood on
a rooftop with an umbrella to ward off snow, again breaking the 4th wall. Susan Twist, created by Sutekh but a year
previously, somehow survives with all her implanted memories intact and goes to
work for UNIT.
Doctor Who at the Proms 2024 (26 Aug 2024)
Host: Catherine Tate
* Bad Music, aka Pantheon of Discord (26 Aug 2024)
Minisode debuting at the
Proms, of the Vlinx making contact with the Royal Albert Hall from UNIT HQ and
being interrupted by Maestro.
Doctor Who: Joy to the World (Christmas Special 2024)
Companion: Joy Almondo; also Anita Benn
This
special takes place mainly in the Time Hotel, which is connected to places and
times throughout the universe. The
special begins with The Doctor travelling across times and spaces to ask people
if they want a cheese toastie and a pumpkin-spiced latte, in a story involving
the evil Villengard corporation, a briefcase made by Villengard which contains
a star seed, and a year in which one version of The Doctor takes a job working
at the hotel during which he befriends the manager, Anita Benn, while another
version of The Doctor befriends a lonely holiday traveller named Joy, who takes
the star seed inside her and becomes the Star of Bethlehem, a sign of hope to
all the world.
Doctor Who Series 15/Season 41 [Disney Season 2]
Companions: Belinda Chandra; also Ruby Sunday
There
are two arcs this season: first, Mrs. Flood turns up in every single episode even
after her secret identity is unmasked; and, second, The Doctor trying to get
the TARDIS and Bel back to London on May 24th, 2025.
1. “The Robot
Revolution” (12 Apr 2025)
2. “Lux” (19 Apr
2025)
3. “The Well” (26 Apr
2025)
4. “Lucky Day” (3 May
2025)
5. “The Story &
the Engine” (10 May 2025)
6. “The Interstellar
Song Contest” (17 May 2025)
7. “Wish World” (24
May 2025)
8. “The Reality War” (31 May 2025)
In “The Robot
Revolution”, nurse Belinda Chandra, who lives in a multi-tenant flat, is
kidnapped by robots to the planet Missbelindachandra One, orbitting a star
which her childhood boyfriend named for her, to make her their cyborg
queen. Caught in a time fracture
as he pursues her, The Doctor lands 6 months ahead, joins a resistance group,
and is ready to rescue her by the time the kidnap party arrives. When he tries to return her to Earth,
however, the TARDIS is repelled.
“Lux” sees The Doctor
and Belinda trying an indirect route back to London on 24 May 2025, before 7
pm, with the TARDIS landing in 1952 Miami, Florida, USA, where they can’t help
but investigate how fifteen people disappeared from the Palazzo Movie Theatre
three months ago while watching a film there.
There they find a cartoon character, Mr. Ring-a-Ding, has been possessed
by Lux Imperator, god of light and card-carrying member of the Pantheon of
Discord. The Doctor constructs a vortex
indicator to help him and Bel find their way back home.
In “The Well”, The
Doctor and Bel step out of the TARDIS onto a drop ship 500,000 years in the
future (5,020th century) then jumping down to Planet 6-7-6-7, which has no air
and is full of X-tonic radiation, with Platoon 7-7-5 led by Commander Shaya
Costallion, which is there to learn why there has been no communication from
the mining crew stationed there. They
find everyone dead, except for one woman, who is deaf and with whom The Doctor
communicates by BSL. He learns that the
planet’s old name was ‘Midnight’, the same visited by the Tenth Doctor in
Series 4’s “Midnight”, where his fellow travellers were menaced by a malevolent
noncorporeal entity, and which has returned from the well being dug. Rose Ayling-Ellis, who plays the deaf Alis
Fenly, carries the episode.
“Lucky Day” reveals
that Ruby Sunday joined UNIT after leaving the TARDIS, after a scene with The
Doctor and Bel trying to get back to May 24th, 2025, and getting thrown back to
2007. In 2007, The Doctor appears
briefly and is seen by 8-year-old Conrad Clark.
In 2024, The Doctor and Ruby Sunday rescue now 25-year-old Conrad from
the Shreek, and a year later, he and Ruby begin dating. It turns out, however, that Conrad is the
leader of an anti-UNIT group known as Think Thank. Visiting Conrad in prison after “Joy to the World”
but before “The Robot Revolution”, The Doctor first learns of Belinda Chandra.
“The Story and the
Engine” takes place in 2019 Lagos, Nigeria, where The Doctor visits his
favorite neighborhood barbershop, now ruled by a story-teller called the Barber
and his partner Abena, whom it turns out The Doctor knew in his Fugitive
incarnation. While this is going on,
alarms sound all over the TARDIS and its lighting goes red, tipping Bel that
something is wrong. While racing to the
shop, she sees briefly a child that later turns out to be Poppy from Series
14’s “Space Babies”.
In “The Interstellar
Song Contest”, which The Doctor and Bel happen upon accidentally landing at
Harmony Arena in 2925, both definitely deciding to stay for the show, which is
hosted by Ryan Clark, brought out of cryogenic stasis. While there, the two learn that they can’t
get back to Earth because it and humanity were disintegrated on May 24, 2025. Sabotage blows off the roof of the main
arena, with all the audience immediately cryo-frozen, though the ‘mavity’ shell
keeps them from flying off into space; The Doctor is brought out of it by his
granddaughter Susan. After he aborts the
plan of the terrorists to kill all 3 trillion viewers, he and those who were in
parts of the station not exposed bring the rest back, the last being Mrs.
Flood, who almost immediately bigenerates, into herself and the ‘other’ Rani
(Season 22’s “The Mark of the Rani”, Season 24’s “Time and the Rani”).
“Wish World” opens in
1865 Bavaria, where The ‘Next Rani’ steals a baby who is the seventh son of a
seventh son of a seventh son, to imbue him with the essence of Desiderium, god
of wishes and member of the Pantheon of Discord. Back in 2025, The Doctor has becomes the
human John Smith who works at UNIT, now the Unified National Insurance Team,
wakes up in bed with Bel, to whom he is married, their daughter Poppy in the
next room, in this heteronormative fantasy of the 1950s controlled by Conrad
Clark through Desiderium. When he
regains himself thanks to interventions by Rogue and his granddaughter Susan,
The Doctor learns the plan of the ‘Next Rani’ is to collapse reality into the
Under Neath and release Omega, the First Time Lord (Season 10’s “The Three
Doctors” and Season 20’s “The Arc of Infinity”). The balcony of the Bone Palace on which The
Doctor stands breaks off and he falls.
“The Reality War” begins
with The Doctor escaping his fate, then restoring the memories of the UNIT
personnel with the help of Anita Benn and the Time Hotel. He confronts the Next Rani as Mrs. Flood
looks on, then Omega crashes through, devouring the Next Rani as his first
act. Meanwhile, Ruby confronts Conrad
and convinces him to end Wish World, wishes him a good life and to be happy,
then wishes for no more wishes. She also
plays a central role in almost everything else that follows, which is too much
to go into here; plus, as River Song would say, “Spoilers”. But it is probably not a spoiler to conclude
with the Fifteenth Doctor’s regenerating into a form with the face of companion
Rose Tyler, but whether as the Sixteenth Doctor, the Moment, the Bad Wolf, or
something else, we do not yet know.
SIXTEENTH DOCTOR
* * * * *
K9
This Australian show (aimed
at 10-14 year olds, the same group The Sarah Jane Adventures was made for) is set in a dystopian London of
the year 2050, where a totalitarian agency called The Department has replaced
MI5 and MI6 and the UK government is in control of the Americas, the Pacific
Union, and lesser countries. It ran for
one season.
K9 Season 1 (takes place
in London, 2050)
K9 Mark I/II;
K9 Unit: Insp. June Turner, Prof. Alistair Gryffen, Starkey, Jorjie Turner,
Darius Pike
In the opener, “Regeneration”, street artist and social rebel Starkey and his friend Jorjie take refuge in a large old house, which turns out to be that of Prof. Gryffen. Agoraphobic Gryffen does science work for The Department, where Jorjie’s mother June is an inspector, and is currently experimenting with a Space-Time Manipulator; he has a live-in helper, Darius. Four Jixen cross over thru the device from the 51st century, followed by K9 Mark I, presumably from Gallifrey (but it’s not mentioned). K9 blows himself up to defeat the Jixen, then regenerates into K9 Mark 2 (not ‘Mark II’), with no memories of his past life other than that there was a past life. Starkey eventually moves into Gryffen House. The chief antagonist of the K8 Unit, other than various aliens, is Inspector Drake, rival to June, with his CCPC security robots. Later Inspector Thorne, replaces Drake, Both secretly work for Lomax, a Korven Imperial Commander from the 501st century who is working to invade Earth and who is behind the totalitarian government of UK along with it the creation of The Department to impose its dictates.
1. “Regeneration”
(1/3; 11 Jan 2010)
2. “Liberation” (2/3;
18 Jan 2010)
3. “The Korven” (3/3;
25 Jan 2010)
4. “The Bounty
Hunter” (1 Feb 2010)
5. “Sirens of Ceres”
(8 Feb 2010)
6. “Fear Itself” (15
Feb 2010)
7. “The Fall of the
House of Gryffen” (22 Feb 2010)
8. “Jaws of Orthus”
(1 Mar 2010)
9. “Dream-Eaters” (8
Mar 2010)
10. “Curse of Anubis” (15 Mar 2010)
11. “Oroborus” (22 Mar 2010)
12. “Alien Avatar” (29 Mar 2010)
13. “Aeolian” (5 Apr 2010)
14. “The Last Oak Tree” (12 Apr 2010)
15. “Black Hunger” (19 Apr 2010)
16. “The Cambridge Spy” (26 Apr 2010)
17. “Lost Library of Ukko” (3 May 2010)
18. “Mutant Copper” (10 May 2010)
19. “The Custodians” (17 May 2010)
20. “Taphony and the Time Loop” (24 May 2010)
21. “Robot Gladiators” (31 May 2010)
22. “Mind Snap” (1/5; 7 Jun 2010)
23. “Angel of The North” (2/5; 14 Jun 2010)
24. “The Last Precinct” (3/5; 21 Jun 2010)
25. “Hound of the Korven” (4/5; 28 Jun 2010)
26.
“The Eclipse of the Korven” (5/5; 5 Jul 2010)
While a Series 2 with
another 26 episodes was planned, that never came to fruition. A film, K9: TimeQuake, was also planned to have K9 face off against Omega (yes, THAT Omega) in
deep space, but the movie never made it into production. Thus “The Eclipse of the Korven” was the show
finale as well as the season finale.
However, it did not end on a cliffhanger and nearly all its loose
threads had been tied up, with the power behind The Department exposed and the organization
almost certainly dissolved, so continuing it would have been a little like
continuing The Lord of the Rings (the
film trilogy) after Frodo had destroyed the One Ring in Mount Doom or Star
Wars after the deaths of Darth Vader and
Emperor Palpatine.
* * * * *
VALEYARD DOCTOR
The Valeyard has only been seen in Season 23: The Trial of a Time Lord as the leading
prosecutor of the Sixth Doctor, whom The Master informs is his own penultimate
incarnation.
* * * * *
CURATOR DOCTOR
The Curator, only seen in the 50th Anniversary Special, “The
Day of the Doctor” (perhaps The Doctor’s final incarnation?), is curator of the
Under Gallery, the space beneath the National Gallery created in 1562 by
Elizabeth I to house art too dangerous for public consumption.