25 July 2022

The Wisdom of Naomi Nagata

I don’t know if this dialogue was written by James S.A. Corey, Mark Fergus, Ty Franck, or David Abraham, but it is some of the best for a novel and/or TV episode, and the best ending thereof as well as in general prescription for a philosophy of life, that I have ever seen.  Naomi’s final line reminded me of my favorite quote from one of my favorite scifi novels.

* * * * *

Jim:  “I hope I did the right thing.”

Naomi:  “You did.

“You followed your conscience in the hope that others would follow theirs.

“You didn’t do it for a reward or a pat on the head.

“The universe never tells us if we did right or wrong.

“It’s more important to try to help people than to know that you did.

“More important that someone else’s life gets better than for you to feel good about yourself.

“You never know the effect you might have on someone,  not really.

“Maybe one cruel thing you said haunts them forever.

“Maybe one moment of kindness give them comfort or courage.

“Maybe you said the one thing they needed to hear.

“It doesn’t matter if you ever know.

“You just have to try.”

Jim:  “You are very wise.”

Naomi:  “I’ve lived a hard life.”

(“To be afraid is to be alone, but only then does one attain self-discovery.  Pain defines and exact the price of wisdom.” – from The Masters of Solitude by Marvin Kaye & Parke Godwin)

* * * * *

So, per the wise Naomi Nagata:

Follow your conscience in the hope that others will follow theirs, but don’t do it for a reward or a pat on the head.  The universe will never tell you if you did right or wrong.

It’s more important to try to help people than to know that you did.  More important that someone else’s life gets better than for you to feel good about yourself.

You never know the effect you have on someone,  not really.  Maybe one cruel thing you said haunts them forever.  Maybe one moment of kindness gives them comfort or courage.  Maybe you said the one thing they needed to hear.  It doesn’t matter if you ever know.  You just have to try.



Timelines of The Expanse, both TV episodes and written works

Had I read the novels before seeing what, in all its aspects, in many respects is the best scifi series ever, that timeline would come first.

THE EXPANSE:  THE TV SERIES

Rather than divide up the TV series by its seasons, this timeline separates them by the novels from which they are derived as well as noting two short stories added to episodes plus two novellas that in the TV series coincide with a season equivalent to a novel.

The Expanse: Origins TPB

Leviathan Wakes

The Expanse S01E01 Dulcinea
The Expanse S01E02 The Big Empty
The Expanse S01E03 Remember the Cant
The Expanse S01E04 CQB
The Expanse S01E05 Back to the Butcher + The Butcher of Anderson Station
The Expanse S01E06 Rock Bottom
The Expanse S01E07 Windmills
The Expanse S01E08 Salvage
The Expanse S01E09 Critical Mass
The Expanse S01E10 Leviathan Wakes
The Expanse S02E01 Safe
The Expanse S02E02 Doors & Corners
The Expanse S02E03 Static
The Expanse S02E04 Godspeed
The Expanse S02E05 Home

Caliban’s War

The Expanse S02E06 Paradigm Shift + Drive
The Expanse S02E07 The Seventh Man
The Expanse S02E08 Pyre
The Expanse S02E09 The Weeping Somnambulist
The Expanse S02E10 Cascade
The Expanse S02E11 Here There Be Dragons
The Expanse S02E12 The Monster and the Rocket
The Expanse S02E13 Caliban's War
The Expanse S03E01 Fight or Flight
The Expanse S03E02 IFF
The Expanse S03E03 Assured Destruction
The Expanse S03E04 Reload
The Expanse S03E05 Triple Point
The Expanse S03E06 Immolation

Abbadon’s Gate

The Expanse S03E07 Delta-V
The Expanse S03E08 It Reaches Out
The Expanse S03E09 Intransigence
The Expanse S03E10 Dandelion Sky
The Expanse S03E11 Fallen World
The Expanse S03E12 Congregation
The Expanse S03E13 Abaddon's Gate

Cibola Burn + Gods of Risk

The Expanse S04E01 New Terra
The Expanse S04E02 Jetsam
The Expanse S04E03 Subduction
The Expanse S04E04 Retrograde
The Expanse S04E05 Oppressor
The Expanse S04E06 Displacement
The Expanse S04E07 A Shot In The Dark
The Expanse S04E08 The One-Eyed Man
The Expanse S04E09 Saeculum
The Expanse S04E10 Cibola Burn

The Expanse TPB

Nemesis Games

The Expanse S05E01 Exodus
The Expanse S05E02 Churn
The Expanse S05E03 Mother
The Expanse S05E04 Gaugamela
The Expanse S05E05 Down and Out
The Expanse S05E06 Tribes
The Expanse S05E07 Oyedeng
The Expanse S05E08 Hard Vacuum
The Expanse S05E09 Winnipesaukee
The Expanse S05E10 Nemesis Games

Babylon’s Ashes + Strange Dogs

The Expanse S06E01 Strange Dogs
        The Expanse: One Ship E01 Ankawala
The Expanse S06E02 Azure Dragon
        The Expanse: One Ship E02 Zenobia
The Expanse S06E03 Force Projection
        The Expanse: One Ship E03 Win or Lose
The Expanse S06E04 Redoubt
        The Expanse: One Ship E04 Night Watch
The Expanse S06E05 Why We Fight
        The Expanse: One Ship E05 Remember the Cant
The Expanse S06E06 Babylon’s Ashes


THE EXPANSE:  THE NOVEL SERIES

The comic trade paper backs (TPBs) are not included here because they were written and drawn specifically to coincide with the TV series.

The Expanse 0.1  “Drive” (short story)
The Expanse 0.3  The Churn (novella)
The Expanse 0.5  The Butcher of Anderson Station (novella)
The Expanse 1.0  Leviathan Wakes
The Expanse 1.1  “The Last Flight of the Cassandra” (short story)
The Expanse 2.0  Caliban’s War
The Expanse 2.5  Gods of Risk (novella)
The Expanse 3.0  Abbadon’s Gate
The Expanse 3.5  The Vital Abyss (novella)
The Expanse 4.0  Cibola Burn
The Expanse 5.0  Nemesis Games
The Expanse 6.0  Babylon’s Ashes
The Expanse 6.5  Strange Dogs (novella)
The Expanse 6.0  Persepolis Rising
The Expanse 7.5  Auberon
The Expanse 8.0  Tiamat’s Wrath
The Expanse 9.0  Leviathan Falls
The Expanse 9.5  The Sins of Our Fathers (novella)

19 July 2022

Timeline of the entire TV & video Whoniverse (plus direct tie-ins)

(Updated through the end of Series 15/Season 41 [Disney Season 2], with the addition of synopses of every story and a few corrections on 4 July 2025)

This timeline is of all the known incarnations of The Doctor in the Doctor Who TV show, in order of their known existence, and of that show, all the related spinoff shows in the Whoniverse and their specials, mini-episodes, TV shorts, animated shorts and series, and web shorts (those that are in-universe, with a few of exceptions), in order on the Earth timeline.

The lack here of audio episodes and prose is not meant to disparage their “canonicity”, since Doctor Who has nothing like those of Star Trek or Star Wars, but the amount of Doctor Who audio and hardcopy DW materials is humongous.  Of course, there is the fact that when something from those crosses over to the TV, most fans celebrate it being recognised and made “canon” (for example, Richard E. Grant showing up in the review of the Fifteenth Doctor’s past incarnations in Series 14’s “Rogue” celebrated for making the ‘Shalka Doctor’, aka ‘Alternative Ninth Doctor’, canon).

TIMELESS CHILDREN

Before the Time Lords came to be, Tecteun, a Shobogan explorer from the planet Gallifrey discovered what appeared to be a child on a planet near the Boundary between dimensions or universes.  This child, called an outcast by the Remnants, was the First Timeless Child, and Tecteun used DNA from their seventh incarnation to allow herself to regenerate, then shared it with those in the Capitol, creating the Time Lords as the aristocracy of Gallifrey and the universe.  So far, they have only featured in Series 12/Season 38, Episode 10, “The Timeless Children”, and the BBC Centenary Special Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor.

First Timeless Child
Second Timeless Child
Third Timeless Child
Fourth Timeless Child
Fifth Timeless Child
Sixth Timeless Child
Seventh Timeless Child

FUGITIVE DOCTOR
       Companion: “Lee Clayton” (Time Lord)

This incarnation, the incarnation of the Doctor who worked for the Division during the Founding Conflict that ended the Dark Times, pre-dates all other known incarnations of The Doctor seen in the entire 39 season run of the TV show, though she only first appears in Doctor Who Series 12, Episode 5 “Fugitive of the Judoon” (26 January 2020), then in Doctor Who Series 12, Episode 10 (1 March 2020), then in Doctor Who Series 13/Season 39, Episode 3 “Once Upon a Time” (14 Nov 2021), and most recently in the BBC Centenary Special Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor (23 October 2022).

MORBIUS DOCTORS

The existence of these incarnations of the Doctor which came before the First Doctor was revealed to the Fourth Doctor in Season 13, Serial 5 “The Brain of Morbius”.  They appeared again in the BBC Centenary Special Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor and in the Series 14 episode “Rogue”.

Mindbend Doctor I
Mindbend Doctor II
Mindbend Doctor III
Mindbend Doctor IV
Mindbend Doctor V
Mindbend Doctor VI
Mindbend Doctor VII
Mindbend Doctor VIII

DOCTOR WHO CLASSIC ERA

FIRST DOCTOR

Note 1: The named episodes did not actually have numbers, which are merely provided for convenience.
Note 2: ~ denotes a missing episode.|
Note 3: ^ denotes a missing episode that has been officially animated.

Doctor Who Season 1 (23 Nov 1963-12 Sep 1964)
        Companions: Susan Foreman, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright

As was originally intended to be revealed in the serial “The Keys of Marinus” (cut before filming), Doctor Who and his granddaughter, Susan Foreman, are stuck on Earth because the scanner of his TT Type 40 Mark III TARDIS (one of 305 such registered) is broken and he is seeking the help of the BBC to fix it, only to have found them infernally secretive*.  In effect trapped on Earth, they have taken up residence in I.M Foreman’s Scrapyard at 76 Totter’s Lane in the district of Shoreditch in the borough of Hackney in the city of London, where Susan is enrolled at Coal Hill School, which is also in Shoreditch, while Doctor Who repairs the scanner himself.

(*I learned this from a video on the Youtube channel WhoCulture.)

The scrapyard later appears in Season 22’s “Attack of the Cybermen” and Season 25’s “Remembrance of the Daleks”, while Coal Hill School appears in Season 25’s “Remembrance of the Daleks” and several times in the New Who era.

At the outset, the lead character is billed as ‘Doctor Who’, which remains the case until Season 19, and at first says he is human, though not from Earth.

The journey that begins in “An Unearthly Child” lasts until the end of Season 6, which begins Doctor Who’s exile on Earth.

1.  “100,000 BC”*
         Episode 1 – ‘An Unearthly Child’ (23 Nov 1963)
         Episode 2 – ‘The Cave of Skulls’ (30 Nov 1963)
         Episode 3 – ‘The Forest of Fear’ (7 Dec 1963)
         Episode 4 – ‘The Firemaker’ (14 Dec 1963)
2.  “The Daleks”
         Episode 1 – ‘The Dead Planet’ (21 Dec 1963)
         Episode 2 – ‘The Survivors’ (28 Dec 1963)
         Episode 3 – ‘The Escape’ (4 Jan 1964)
         Episode 4 – ‘The Ambush’ (11 Jan 1964)
         Episode 5 – ‘The Expedition’ (18 Jan 1964)
         Episode 6 – ‘The Ordeal’ (25 Jan 1965)
         Episode 7 – ‘The Rescue’ (1 Feb 1964)
3.  “The Edge of Destruction”
         Episode 1 – ‘The Edge of Destruction’ (8 Feb 1964)
         Episode 2 – ‘The Brink of Disaster’ (15 Feb 1964)
4.  ~“Marco Polo”
         ~Episode 1 – ‘The Roof of the World’ (22 Feb 1964)
         ~Episode 2 – ‘The Singing Sands’ (29 Feb 1964)
         ~Episode 3 – ‘Five Hundred Eyes’ (7 Mar 1964)
         ~Episode 4 – ‘The Wall of Lies’ (14 Mar 1964)
         ~Episode 5 – ‘Rider from Shang-Tu’ (21 Mar 1964)
         ~Episode 6 – ‘Mighty Kublai Khan’ (28 Mar 1964)
         ~Episode 7 – ‘Assassin at Peking’ (4 Apr 1964)
5.  “The Keys of Marinus”
         Episode 1 – ‘The Sea of Death (11 Apr 1964)
         Episode 2 – ‘The Velvet Web’ (18 Apr 1964)
         Episode 3 – ‘The Screaming Jungle’ (25 Apr 1964)
         Episode 4 – ‘The Snows of Terror’ (2 May 1964)
         Episode 5 – ‘Sentence of Death’ (9 May 1964)
         Episode 6 – ‘The Keys of Marinus’ (16 May 1964)
6.  “The Aztecs”
         Episode 1 – ‘The Temple of Evil’ (23 May 1964)
         Episode 2 – ‘The Warriors of Death’ (30 May 1964)
         Episode 3 – ‘The Bride of Sacrifice’ (6 Jun 1964)
         Episode 4 – ‘The Day of Darkness’ (13 Jun 1964)
7.  “The Sensorites”
         Episode 1 – ‘Strangers in Space’ (20 Jun 1964)
         Episode 2 – ‘The Unwilling Warriors’ (27 Jun 1964)
         Episode 3 – ‘Hidden Danger’ (11 Jul 1964)
         Episode 4 – ‘A Race Against Death’ (18 Jul 1964)
         Episode 5 – ‘Kidnap’ (25 Jul 1964)
         Episode 6 – ‘A Desperate Venture’ (1 Aug 1964)
8.  “The Reign of Terror”
         Episode 1 – ‘A Land of Fear’ (8 Aug 1964)
         Episode 2 – ‘Guests of Madame Guillotine’ (15 Aug 1964)
         Episode 3 – ‘A Change of Identity’ (22 Aug 1964)
         ^Episode 4 – ‘The Tyrant of France’ (29 Aug 1964)
         ^Episode 5 – ‘A Bargain of Necessity’ (5 Sep 1964)
         Episode 6 – ‘Prisoners of Conciergerie’ (12 Sep 1964)

Of the premiere serial, only the first episode, ‘An Unearthly Child’, is necessary to watch; it takes place in Shoreditch in November 1963, which is the last time the TARDIS sees present-day London for six years in real time (for the crew).  It lands on Earth around 100,000 BCE, where they encounter the primitive humans of the Tribe of Kal, and since archaeological-historical evidence shows no human occupation in the Isles 130,000-60,000 BCE, it’s probably the Continent.

         *The official title of the serial in the published script is “100,000 BC”; the name for the whole serial as “An Unearthly Child” derives from the BBC homevideo release.

“The Daleks” marks the first appearance of Doctor Who’s most deadly, and most popular, enemies, as well as their enemies on the planet Skaro, the Thals; Season 10’s “Planet of the Daleks” is a direct sequel to this story, revealing the fate of the Thals.

“The Edge of Destruction” takes place entirely inside the TARDIS.

The entirely missing—but available in both reconstructed* and black-and-white animated versions—“Marco Polo” is the first real historical serial, portraying actual known persons and did the best job of Classic Who in recreating the society in which it was set.

(*Reconstructed, usually abbreviated as ‘recon’, using audio along with production stills and sometimes short surviving vidclips.)

“The Keys of Marinus” is the first story centered around an artificial intelligence.  The sentient computer controlling the planet is malfunctioning and the TARDIS crew help find the keys which will make it right.

“The Aztecs”, considered one of the best historicals, is the first to show Doctor Who with a romantic interest and the first to deal with the problems of trying to change history.

“The Sensorites” is the first definitively set in the future, the 28th century, and sees the TARDIS crew landing on the planet Sense-Sphere to cure a disease afflicting its native inhabitants, the telepathic Senorites.  Susan takes center stage in one of her best serials as she demonstrates her telepathic aptitude.

“The Reign of Terror” is an excellent historical set in the outskirts of Paris in 1794, with its two missing eps available in recon and good b&w animation.)

Doctor Who Season 2 (31 October 1964-24 July 1965)
        Companions: Susan Foreman (thru the end of “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”); Ian Chesterton & Barbara Wright (thru “The Chase”); Vicki Pallister (from “The Rescue”); Steven Taylor (from “The Chase”)

1.  “Planet of Giants”
         Episode 1 – ‘Planet of Giants’ (31 Oct 1964)
         Episode 2 – ‘Dangerous Journey’ (7 Nov 1964)
         Episode 3 – ‘Crisis’ (14 Nov 1964)
2.  “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”
         Episode 1 – ‘World’s End’ (21 Nov 1964)
         Episode 2 – ‘The Daleks’ (28 Nov 1964)
         Episode 3 – ‘Day of Reckoning’ (5 Dec 1964)
         Episode 4 – ‘The End of Tomorrow’ (12 Dec 1964)
         Episode 5 – ‘The Waking Ally’ (19 Dec 1964)
         Episode 6 – ‘Flashpoint’ (26 Dec 1964)
3.  “The Rescue”
         Episode 1 – ‘The Powerful Enemy’ (2 Jan 1965)
         Episode 2 – ‘Desperate Measures’ (9 Jan 1965)
4.  “The Romans”
         Episode 1 – ‘The Slave Traders’ (16 Jan 1965)
         Episode 2 – ‘All Roads Lead to Rome’ (23 Jan 1965)
         Episode 3 – ‘Conspiracy’ (30 Jan 1965)
         Episode 4 – ‘Inferno’ (6 Feb 1965)
5.  “The Web Planet”
         Episode 1 – ‘The Web Planet’ (13 Feb 1965)
         Episode 2 – ‘The Zarbi’ (20 Feb 1965)
         Episode 3 – ‘Escape to Danger’ (27 Feb 1965)
         Episode 4 – ‘Crater of Needles’ (6 Mar 1965)
         Episode 5 – ‘Invasion’ (13 Mar 1965)
         Episode 6 – ‘The Centre’ (20 Mar 1965)
6.  “The Crusade”
         Episode 1 – ‘The Lion’ (27 Mar 1965)
         Episode 2 – ‘The Knight of Jaffa’ (3 Apr 1965)
         Episode 3 – ‘The Wheel of Fortune’ (10 Apr 1965)
         Episode 4 – ‘The Warlords’ (17 Apr 1965)
7.  “The Space Museum”
         Episode 1 – ‘The Space Museum’ (24 Apr 1965)
         ~Episode 2 – ‘The Dimensions of Time’ (1 May 1965)
         Episode 3 – ‘The Search’ (8 May 1965)
         ~Episode 4 – ‘The Final Phase (15 May 1965)
8.  “The Chase”
         Episode 1 – ‘The Executioners’ (22 May 1965)
         Episode 2 – ‘The Death of Time’ (29 May 1965)
         Episode 3 – ‘Flight Through Eternity’ (5 Jun 1965)
         Episode 4 – ‘Journey into Terror’ (12 Jun 1965)
         Episode 5 – ‘The Death of Doctor Who’ (19 Jun 1965)
         Episode 6 – ‘The Planet of Decision’ (26 Jun 1965)
9.  “The Time Meddler”
         Episode 1 – ‘The Watcher’ (3 Jul 1965)
         Episode 2 – ‘The Meddling Monk’ (10 Jul 1965)
         Episode 3 – ‘A Battle of Wits’ (17 Jul 1965)
         Episode 4 – ‘Checkmate’ (24 Jul 1965)

Set in in a garden and a house of contemporary Norwich, England, with the TARDIS crew shrunk to the size of insects, “Planet of Giants” is the show’s first ‘environmentalist’ serial.

Set in 2167 London and Bedfordshire, England, “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” is defeated due to Doctor Who’s meddling, ending ten years of occupation begun in 2157; Susan is left behind to join a resistance fighter with whom she has fallen in love.

“The Rescue” takes place on the planet Dido, and the rescuee, Vicki, is added to the crew.

“The Romans”, taking place in Rome in 64 CE, is a good historical serial mixing drama and comedy in which the crew meet Nero.

In “The Web Planet”, with the highest viewing for any serial of the Hartnell era, the TARDIS crew help the Menoptera win back their planet, Vortis, from the Animus and its mind-controlled minions, the Zarbi.

“The Crusade” in question is the Third, led by Richard the Lionheart of England against the Saracens led by Saladin, and takes place entirely in Palestine, and includes Ian being knighted as ‘Sir Ian of Jaffa’ by Richard Lionheart himself.  The part about Richard trying to arrange a marriage between his sister Joan and Saladin’s brother Al-Adil is historically accurate, and it was scuttled primarily by churchmen.

“The Space Museum” deals with the dimensions of time as well as space, along with being the first serial to feature alternate timelines.

In “The Chase”, a Dalek assassination squad goes after Doctor Who for foiling their invasion of Earth across several planets and times, at the end of which, Ian and Barbara return to Earth in the Daleks’ time machine, with Steve Taylor coming aboard.

In “The Time Meddler”, we meet the first Time Lord other than Doctor Who, The Monk, though neither they nor Doctor Who are yet identified as such.

Dr. Who and the Daleks (theatrical movie; 23 Aug 1965)
        (featuring ‘Dr. Who’ and companions Susan, Ian, & Barbara)

This theatrical movie was an adaptation of the show’s Season 1’s “The Daleks”, with alterations from the original story.

Doctor Who Season 3 (11 September 1965-16 July 1966)
        Companions: Vicki Pallister (thru “The Myth Makers”); Steven Taylor (thru “The Savages”); Katarina of Troy (“The Myth Makers” thru “The Daleks’ Master Plan”); Bret Vyon & Sara Kingdom (“The Daleks’ Master Plan”); Dodo Chaplet (“The Massacre” thru “The War Machines”); Polly Wright & Ben Jackson (from “The War Machines”)

A majority of the episodes of these serials are missing, with only two serials completely intact, “The Ark” and “The Gunfighters”.

1.  “Galaxy 4”
         ^Episode 1 – ‘Four Hundred Dawns’ (11 Sep 1965)
         ^Episode 2 – ‘Trap of Steel’ (18 Sep 1965)
         Episode 3 – ‘Air Lock’ (25 Sep 1965)
         ^Episode 4 – ‘The Exploding Planet’ (2 Oct 1965)
3.  “The Mythmakers”
         ~Episode 1 – ‘Temple of Secrets’ (16 Oct 1965)
         ~Episode 2 – ‘Small Prophet, Quick Return’ (23 Oct 1965)
         ~Episode 3 – ‘Death of a Spy’ (30 Oct 1965)
         ~Episode 4 – ‘Horse of Destruction’ (6 Nov 1965)
2.  ^“Mission to the Unknown” (9 Oct 1965)
4.  “The Daleks’ Master Plan”
         ~Episode 1 – ‘The Nightmare Begins’ (13 Nov 1965)
         Episode 2 – ‘Day of Armageddon’ (20 Nov 1965)
         ~Episode 3 – ‘Devil’s Planet’ (27 Nov 1965)
         ~Episode 4 – ‘The Traitors’ (4 Dec 1965)
         Episode 5 – ‘Counter Plot’ (11 Dec 1965)
         ~Episode 6 – ‘Coronas of the Sun’ (18 Dec 1965)
         ~Episode 7 – ‘The Feast of Steven’ (25 Dec 1965)
         ~Episode 8 – ‘Volcano’ (1 Jan 1966)
         ~Episode 9 – ‘Golden Death’ (8 Jan 1966)
         Episode 10 – ‘Escape Switch’ (15 Jan 1966)
         ~Episode 11 – ‘The Abandoned Planet’ (22 Jan 1966)
         ~Episode 12 – ‘Destruction of Time’ (29 Jan 1966)
5.  “The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve”
         ~Episode 1 – ‘War of God’ (5 Feb 1966)
         ~Episode 2 – ‘The Sea Beggar’ (12 Feb 1966)
         ~Episode 3 – ‘Priest of Death’ (19 Feb 1966)
         ~Episode 4 – ‘Bell of Doom’ (26 Feb 1966)
6.  “The Ark”
         Episode 1 – ‘The Steel Sky’ (5 Mar 1966)
         Episode 2 – ‘The Plague’ (12 Mar 1966)
         Episode 3 – ‘The Return’ (19 Mar 1966)
         Episode 4 – ‘The Bomb’ (26 Mar 1966)
7.  “The Celestial Toymaker”
         ^Episode 1 – ‘The Celestial Toyroom’ (2 Apr 1966)
         ^Episode 2 – ‘The Hall of Dolls’ (9 Apr 1966)
         ^Episode 3 – ‘The Dancing Floor’ (16 Apr 1966)
         Episode 4 – ‘The Final Test’ (23 Apr 1966)
8.  “The Gunfighters”
         Episode 1 – ‘A Holiday for the Doctor’ (30 Apr 1966)
         Episode 2 – ‘Don’t Shoot the Pianist’ (7 May 1966)
         Episode 3 – ‘Johnny Ringo’ (14 May 1966)
         Episode 4 – ‘The O.K. Corral’ (21 May 1966)

After the 8th serial of Season 3, the show ceased naming each episode individually, giving them simply a cardinal number.

9.  “The Savages”
        Episode 1 (28 May 1966)
        Episode 2 (4 Jun 1966)
        Episode 3 (11 Jun 1966)
        Episode 4 (18 Jun 1966)
10.  “The War Machines”
        Episode 1 (25 Jun 1966)
        Episode 2 (2 Jul 1966)
        Episode 3 (9 Jul 1966)
        Episode 4 (16 Jul 1966)

“Galaxy 4”, one of the highest rated serials of Classic Who, sees the TARDIS crew become embroiled in the conflict between the Rills and the Drahvins, with the latter being the enslaved minions of Maaga.

In the “The Myth Makers”, the crew lands in Troas, where they witness the late siege and sack of Troy, from both sides; Vicki stays with Troilus, son of Priam, using the name Cressida given to her by King Priam, but servant girl Katarina joins the crew.  At the outset of the serial, Vicki is still nursing her twisted ankle from the end of “Galaxy 4”.  The names Vicki and Steven adopt during this adventure, Cressida and Diomedes, are figures that date back to Homer, but their characterisation here is more in line with those in Shakespeare’s play Troilus and Cressida and other medieval versions of the story than Homer’s.

“Mission to the Unknown”, the only single episode ‘serial’ of Classic Who, is a prelude to “The Dalek’s Master Plan”, and does not feature Doctor Who, the TARDIS, or its crew.

At twelve episodes, “The Daleks’ Master Plan” is the longest serial in Classic Who; it takes place on the planet Kembel in 4000 CE when the Daleks try to conquer the Sol System, with only the TARDIS crew able to stop them from succeeding.  The Daleks’ chief weapon is the Time Destructor, powered by taranium mined on the planet Uranus.  The Monk reappears in Episodes 8 & 9 of the serial, which also sees the first appearance of the Galactic Federation.  Katarina of Troy sacrifices herself to save the crew, and Bret Vyon (played by later Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart actor Nicholas Courtney) and Sara Kingdom, who had joined the crew only in this serial, are each killed in separate incidents.

“The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve” sees the TARDIS crew in the midst of the real 1572 event in Paris as well as marking the first time the lead actor played both Doctor Who and another role, in this case with William Hartnell also playing the fanatically anti-Hugenot Abbot of Amboise.

“The Ark” is set 10 million years in the future on a generation ship with the last Humans fleeing Earth that is about to be destroyed by the expanding Sol, with the last two episodes 700 years later.

Unfortunately, “The Celestial Toymaker”, with the eponymous villain later appearing in New Who’s “The Giggle”, is missing its first three episodes, though both black-and-white and colour animations have been released as well as recons with audio and stills.

“The Gunfighters” takes place in Tombstone, Arizona, USA, 1881, featuring the Gunfight at the OK Corral.

In “The Savages”, the crew helps the eponymous ethnic group end their exploitation by the Elders.

In “The War Machines”, Doctor Who and the TARDIS crew encounter the show’s first artificial intelligence bent on world domination, WOTAN, and its war machines.

Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (theatrical movie; 5 Aug 1966)        (featuring ‘Dr. Who’ and companions Susan, Louise, & Tom Campbell)

Like its predecessor, this theatrical movie was an adaptation of a serial from the show, this time Season 2’s “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”.

Doctor Who Season 4 (10 September 1966-29 October 1966)
        Companions: Ben Jackson, Polly Wright

1.  “The Smugglers”
        ~Episode 1 (10 Sep 1966)
        ~Episode 2 (17 Sep 1966)
        ~Episode 3 (24 Sep 1966)
        ~Episode 4 (1 Oct 1966)
2.  “The Tenth Planet”
        Episode 1 (8 Oct 1966)
        Episode 2 (15 Oct 1966)
        Episode 3 (22 Oct 1966)
        ^Episode 4 (29 Oct 1966)

“The Smugglers” takes place in 17th century Cornwall, and includes a search for ‘Avery’s gold’, a reference to the very real pirate captain Henry Avery, who is a major character in Series 6’s “The Curse of the Black Spot”.

“The Tenth Planet”, which takes place in 1986, marks the first appearance of the Cybermen, from Earth’s errant twin planet Mondas (these type of Cybermen, CyberMondans, are not seen again until Series 10’s “World Enouigh and Time”-“The Doctor Falls”); it also features the hypothetical planet Vulcan orbiting the Sun inside the orbit of Mercury, along with the first onscreen regeneration of Doctor Who.

SECOND DOCTOR

Doctor Who Season 4 (September 1966-1 July 1967)
        Companions: Ben Jackson & Polly Wright (thru “The Faceless Ones”); Jamie McCrimmon (from “The Highlanders”); Victoria Waterfield (from “The Evil of the Daleks”)

3.  “The Power of the Daleks”
        ^Episode 1 (5 Nov 1966)
        ^Episode 2 (12 Nov 1966)
        ^Episode 3 (19 Nov 1966)
        ^Episode 4 (26 Nov 1966)
        ^Episode 5  (3 Dec 1966)
        ^Episode 6 (10 Dec 1966)
4.  “The Highlanders”
        ~Episode 1 (17 Dec 1966)
        ~Episode 2 (24 Dec 1966)
        ~Episode 3 (31 Dec 1966)
        ~Episode 4 (7 Jan 1967)
5.  “The Underwater Menace”
        ^Episode 1 (14 Jan 1967)
        Episode 2 (21 Jan 1967)
        Episode 3 (28 Jan 1967)
        ^Episode 4 (4 Feb 1967)
6.  “The Moonbase”
        ^Episode 1 (11 Feb 1967)
        Episode 2 (18 Feb 1967)
        ^Episode 3 (25 feb 1967)
        Episode 4 (4 Mar 1967)
7.  “The Macra Terror”
        ^Episode 1 (11 Mar 1967)
        ^Episode 2 (18 Mar 1967)
        ^Episode 3 (25 Mar 1967)
        ^Episode 4 (1 Apr 1967)
8.  “The Faceless Ones”
        Episode 1 (8 Apr 1967)
        ^Episode 2 (15 Apr 1967)
        Episode 3 (22 Apr 1967)
        ^Episode 4 (29 Apr 1967)
        ^Episode 5 (6 May 1967)
        ^Episode 6 (13 May 1967)
9.  “The Evil of the Daleks”
        ^Episode 1 (20 May 1967)
        Episode 2 (27 May 1967)
        ^Episode 3 (3 Jun 1967)
        ^Episode 4 (10 Jun 1967)
        ^Episode 5 (17 Jun 1967)
        ^Episode 6 (24 Jun 1967)
        ^Episode 7 (1 Jul 1967)

“The Power of the Daleks” takes place on the planet Vulcan, whose orbit is inside that of Mercury, with the newly-regenerated Second Doctor, Ben, and Polly landing at the human colony there in the year 2020, where the colonists have found a pod containing three dormant Daleks.

“The Highlanders”, which features the aftermath of the 1746 Battle of Culloden and the addition of Jamie McCrimmon to the TARDIS crew, has been reconstructed with audio and stills.

“The Underwater Menace” features the TARDIS crew visiting the still hidden undersea city of Atlantis in 1970, with the story featuring the destruction of the city.

“The Moonbase” takes place on Luna in 2070 and features the Cybermen, these of the CyberTelosian variety, attacking a weather station there.

“The Macra Terror” takes place at a human colony on an unnamed planet in the far future where the inhabitants of the onstensible holiday camp are are actually brainwashed slave of a giant crustacean species called the Macra, who appear again in New Who’s Series 3 episode “Gridlock”.

“The Faceless Ones” finds the TARDIS crew landing on a runway of London’s Gatwick Airpot in 1966 and becoming embroiled with a species from a destroyed planet who have taken refuge on Earth disguised as humans.  At the end of the serial, Ben and Polly stay there.

In “The Evil of the Daleks”, Doctor Who and Jamie see the TARDIS stolen and are soon transported to Gatwick manor (Charlwood parish, Surrey) in 1866, where they find Daleks who try to force Doctor Who to distill ‘human factor’ so that they can learn why they always lose.  Victoria Waterfield joins the crew at the end of the story.

Doctor Who Season 5 (2 September 1967-1 June 1968)
        Companions: Jamie McCrimmon; Victoria Waterfield (thru “The Fury of the Deep”); Zoe Heriot (from “The Wheel of Space”); Col. Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart (first appearance in “The Web of Fear”)

(Note: “Fury from the Deep” marks the first appearance of the sonic screwdriver, invented by the Second Doctor Who.)

1.  “The Tomb of the Cybermen”
        Episode 1 (2 Sep 1967)
        Episode 2 (9 Sep 1967)
        Episode 3 (16 Sep 1967)
        Episode 4 (23 Sep 1967)
2.  “The Abominable Snowmen”
        ^Episode 1 (30 Sep 1967)
        Episode 2 (7 Oct 1967)
        ^Episode 3 (14 Oct 1967)
        ^Episode 4 (21 Oct 1967)
        ^Episode 5 (28 Oct 1967)
        ^Episode 6 (4 Nov 1967)
3.  “The Ice Warriors”
        Episode 1 (11 Nov 1967)
        ^Episode 2 (18 Nov 1967)
        ^Episode 3 (25 Nov 1967)
        Episode 4 (2 Dec 1967)
        Episode 5 (9 Dec 1967)
        Episode 6 (16 Dec 1967)
4.  “The Enemy of the World”
        Episode 1 (23 Dec 1967)
        Episode 2 (30 Dec 1967)
        Episode 3 (6 Jan 1968)
        Episode 4 (12 Jan 1968)
        Episode 5 (19 Jan 1968)
        Episode 6 (26 Jan 1968)
5.  “The Web of Fear”
        Episode 1 (3 Feb 1968)
        Episode 2 (10 Feb 1968)
        ^Episode 3 (17 Feb 1968)
        Episode 4 (24 Feb 1968)
        Episode 5 (2 Mar 1968)
        Episode 6 (9 Mar 1968)
6.  “Fury from the Deep”
        ^Episode 1 (16 Mar 1968)
        ^Episode 2 (23 Mar 1968)
        ^Episode 3 (30 Mar 1968)
        ^Episode 4 (6 Apr 1968)
        ^Episode 5 (13 Apr 1968)
        ^Episode 6 (20 Apr 1968)
7.  “The Wheel in Space”
        ^Episode 1 (27 Apr 1968)
        ^Episode 2 (4 May 1968)
        Episode 3 (11 May 1968)
        ^Episode 4 (18 May 1968)
        ^Episode 5 (25 May 1968)
        Episode 6 (1 Jun 1968)

“The Tomb of the Cybermen” sees the TARDIS crew land on the planet Telos in the 26th century, where an archaeological expedition has discovered a tomb of Cybermen (CyberTelosians) that turns out to be a trap for humans.

“The Abominable Snowmen”, which takes place in 1930s Tibet, marks the first appearance of the Great Intelligence, later seen in three episodes of New Who, and his robot Yeti minions.

“The Ice Warriors”, taking place at Britannicus Base in 5000 CE during another Ice Age, features the eponymous species seen in four later seasons of Classic Who and in three episodes of New Who.

“The Enemy of the World”, which takes place on Earth in 2018’s Europe and Australia, sees Patrick Troughtman playing both the Second Doctor and the archvillain Salamander.

“The Web of Fear” sees the return of the Great Intelligence and his robot Yeti minions, this time in the 1969 London Underground, and also sees the first appearance of Col., later Brig., Lethbridge-Stewart.

“Fury from the Deep” marks the first appearance of the sonic screwdriver, invented by the Second Doctor Who, and takes place in 1975 at the Euro Sea Gas refinery.  Victoria leaves to stay with the family of one of the refinery workers.

“The Wheel in Space” refers to Space Station W3, where most of the action takes place along with a spaceship named Silver Carrier, in 2079, with the TARDIS team defeating an attempt by Cybermen (of the CyberFaction variety) to take over the station and one of the scientists, Zoe Heriot, joining Doctor Who and Jamie.

Doctor Who Season 6 (10 August 1968-21 Jun 1969)
        Companions: Jamie McCrimmon & Zoe Heriot

(Notes: This season was the last to be filmed in black-and-white.)

1.  “The Dominators”
        Episode 1 (10 Aug 1968)
        Episode 2 (17 Aug 1968)
        Episode 3 (24 Aug 1968)
        Episode 4 (31 Aug 1968)
        Episode 5 (7 Sep 1968)
2.  “The Mind Robber”
        Episode 1 (14 Sep 1968)
        Episode 2 (21 Sep 1968)
        Episode 3 (28 Sep 1968)
        Episode 4 (5 Oct 1968)
        Episode 5 (12 Oct 1968)
3.  “The Invasion”
        ^Episode 1 (2 Nov 1968)
        Episode 2 (9 Nov 1968)
        Episode 3 (16 Nov 1968)
        ^Episode 4 (23 Nov 1968)
        Episode 5 (30 Nov 1968)
        Episode 6 (7 Dec 1968)
        Episode 7 (14 Dec 1968)
        Episode 8 (21 Dec 1968)
4.  “The Kroton”
        Episode 1 (28 Dec 1968)
        Episode 2 (4 Jan 1969)
        Episode 3 (11 Jan 1969)
        Episode 4 (18 Jan 1969)
5.  “The Seeds of Death”
        Episode 1 (25 Jan 1969)
        Episode 2 (1 Feb 1969)
        Episode 3 (8 Feb 1969)
        Episode 4 (15 Feb 1969)
        Episode 5 (22 Feb 1969)
        Episode 6 (1 Mar 1969)
6.  “The Space Pirates”
        ~Episode 1 (8 Mar 1969)
        Episode 2 (15 Mar 1969)
        ~Episode 3 (22 Mar 1969)
        ~Episode 4 (29 Mar 1969)
        ~Episode 5 (5 Apr 1969)
        ~Episode 6 (12 Apr 1969)
7.  “The War Games”
        Episode 1 (19 Apr 1969)
        Episode 2 (26 Apr 1969)
        Episode 3 (3 May 1969)
        Episode 4 (10 May 1969)
        Episode 5 (17 May 1969)
        Episode 6 (24 May 1969)
        Episode 7 (31 May 1969)
        Episode 8 (7 Jun 1969)
        Episode 9 (14 Jun 1969)
        Episode 10 (21 Jun 1969)

“The Dominators” find the TARDIS crew on Dulkis when the Dominators and their robot servants the Quarks land on the planet, and the TARDIS crew must convince the peaceful native Dulcians to fight for themselves.

In “The Mind Robber”, the Second Doctor Who moves the TARDIS outside of normal spacetime into an endless void and the crew find themselves in a land of fiction presided over by a man known only as the Master, who is in turn controlled by a computer known as the Master Brain.

In “The Invasion” of Earth by Cybermen (CyberFaction) in 1973, we first see the agency U.N.I.T., United Nations Intelligence Task Force, led by the returning now-Brig. Lethbridge-Stewart and including Corp. John Benton.

“The Krotons” are a race which crash landed on the planet of the Gonds thousands of years ago and enslaved the natives; the TARDIS crew assists the Gonds to rebel, and Doctor Who and the Gond scientist Beta destroy the Krotons and their ship.

“The Seeds of Death” takes place in London and on Luna in the year 2086, when Earth loses communication with Luna and the TARDIS crew learns that is because a group of Ice Warriors have taken it over.

“The Space Pirates” was the show’s first attempt at a space western, filled with achetype characters drawn from American western films and TV shows, plus pirates, with Doctor Who and his two companions in light roles.  It also introduces the ‘Interplanetary Mining Corporation’ later seen in Season 8’s “Colony in Space”,

In “The War Games”, the TARDIS crew gets caught up in the plans of a race known as the War Lords to conquer the galaxy, with their chief adviser being a renegade Time Lord known as the War Chief, with their army created by taking human soldiers from across Earth’s timeline.  At the end, the Time Lords dematerialize the War Chief, exile Doctor Who to Earth after he’s been forcibly regenerated, and dump Zoe and Jamie back in their own timelines after erasing their memories of Doctor Who and their travels.  (The Cybermen featured are CyberFaction.)

-- Beginning of Doctor Who’s Exile (on Earth) --

Third Doctor

Doctor Who Season 7 (3 Jan-20 Jun 1970)
        Companions: Liz Shaw; also now-Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart

This season began the production in colour.  It also begins Doctor Who’s exile on Earth that lasts through the first serial of Season 10.

1.  “Spearhead from Space”
        Episode 1 (3 Jan 1970)
        Episode 2 (10 Jan 1970)
        Episode 3 (17 Jan 1970)
        Episode 4 (24 Jan 1970)
2.  “Doctor Who and the Silurians”
        Episode 1 (31 Jan 1970)
        Episode 2 (7 Feb 1970)
        Episode 3 (14 Feb 1970)
        Episode 4 (21 Feb 1970)
        Episode 5 (28 Feb 1970)
        Episode 6 (7 Mar 1970)
        Episode 7 (14 Mar 1970)
3.  “The Ambassadors of Death”
        Episode 1 (21 Mar 1970)
        Episode 2 (28 Mar 1970)
        Episode 3 (4 Apr 1970)
        Episode 4 (11 Apr 1970)
        Episode 5 (18 Apr 1970)
        Episode 6 (25 Apr 1970)
        Episode 7 (2 May 1970)
4.  “Inferno”
        Episode 1 (9 May 1970)
        Episode 2 (16 May 1970)
        Episode 3 (23 May 1970)
        Episode 4 (30 May 1970)
        Episode 5 (6 Jun 1970)
        Episode 6 (13 Jun 1970)
        Episode 7 (20 Jun 1970)

“Spearhead from Space” begins Doctor Who’s tenure as a scientific adviser to U.N.I.T., and features the first appearance of the Autons and their controlling entity the Nestene Consciouness later seen in the first serial of Season 8, “Terror of the Autons”, in “Rose”, the premier episode of Series 1 of New Who, and in episodes of Series 2 and Series 5.  It also marks the first time Doctor Who admits he is not human .

“Doctor Who and the Silurians” marks the first appearance of that eponymous race, who later appear in Season 21’s “Warriors of the Deep” and in six episodes of four series of New Who.  They are awakened from their millennia old hiberation by deep drilling into the Earth.

In “The Ambassadors of Death”, Doctor Who and UNIT prevent a plot by xenophobic ex-astronaut George Carrington to provoke a war between Earth and aliens of a race who have sent ambassadors to Earth who have been taken prisoner by Carrington.

“The Inferno” is the first time the show explores parallel universes that begins with a murder at Project Inferno, which aims to drill all the way through the Earth’s crust to release its geothermal energy.  An accident throws Doctor Who into a parallel universe with a fascist Republic of Great Britain doing the same thing, with perilous results.

Doctor Who Season 8 (2 Jan-19 Jun 1971)
        Companions: Jo Grant; also Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Sgt. John Benton, and Capt. Mike Alexander Raymond Yates

The whole season forms a loose arc with the introduction of The Master, who is the villain in each storyline, with a conclusion in the last serial.

1.  “Terror of the Autons”
        Episode 1 (2 Jan 1971)
        Episode 2 (9 Jan 1971)
        Episode 3 (16 Jan 1971)
        Episode 4 (23 Jan 1971)
2.  “The Mind of Evil”
        Episode 1 (30 Jan 1971)
        Episode 2 (6 Feb 1971)
        Episode 3 (13 Feb 1971)
        Episode 4 (20 Feb 1971)
        Episode 5 (27 Feb 1971)
        Episode 6 (6 Mar 1971)
3.  “The Claws of Axos”
        Episode 1 (13 Mar 1971)
        Episode 2 (20 Mar 1971)
        Episode 3 (27 Mar 1971)
        Episode 4 (3 Apr 1971)
4.  “Colony in Space”
        Episode 1 (10 Apr 1971)
        Episode 2 (17 Apr 1971)
        Episode 3 (24 Apr 1971)
        Episode 4 (1 May 1971)
        Episode 5 (8 May 1971)
        Episode 6 (15 May 1971)
5.  “The Daemons”
        Episode 1 (22 May 1971)
        Episode 2 (29 May 1971)
        Episode 3 (5 Jun 1971)
        Episode 4 (12 Jun 1971)
        Episode 5 (19 Jun 1971)

“Terror of the Autons” marks the first reappearance of the species not seen again until New Who’s premier episode “Rose” as well as the introduction of The Master.

“The Mind of Evil” centers on Stangmoor Prison, where the Keller Machine can render violent criminals passive; Doctor Who and Jo discover The Master is behind it; meanwhile, UNIT oversees a World Peace Conference that includes a delegation from China and scenes where Doctor Who speaks Hokkien with the Chinese security chief Chin Lee.

In “The Claws of Axos”, Doctor Who defeats the attempt of the coposite creature Axos and his Axons to steal the secret of time travel, part of a plot by The Master.

“Colony in Space” is an allegory of the Native American struggle with European settlers.  It begins with the Time Lords discovering The Master has stolen their secret file on the Doomsday Weapon, and sending Doctor Who and Jo to the planet Urarieus in the year 2472, where they find the agrarian natives fighting against the Interplanetary Mining Corporation first seen in Season 6’s “The Space Pirates”.

“The Daemons” is, according to many, Jo’s best serial.  Involving white witchcraft, black witchcraft, a gargoyle, Beltane festivities, and the Master, the story takes place in the village of Devil’s End, Wiltshire, and its Devil’s Hump barrows (in reality, Aldbourne, Wiltshire, and its Four Barrows).  It ends with the arrest of The Master by UNIT.

Doctor Who Season 9 (1 Jan-24 Jun 1972)
        Companions: Jo Grant; also Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Sgt. Benton, and Capt. Yates

1.  “Day of the Daleks”
        Episode 1 (1 Jan 1972)
        Episode 2 (8 Jan 1972)
        Episode 3 (15 Jan 1972)
        Episode 4 (22 Jan 1972)
2.  “The Curse of the Peladon”
        Episode 1 (29 Jan 1972)
        Episode 2 (5 Feb 1972)
        Episode 3 (12 Feb 1972)
        Episode 4 (19 Feb 1972)
3.  “The Sea Devils”
        Episode 1 (26 Feb 1972)
        Episode 2 (4 Mar 1972)
        Episode 3 (11 Mar 1972)
        Episode 4 (18 Mar 1972)
        Episode 5 (25 Mar 1972)
        Episode 6 (1 Apr 1972)
4.  “The Mutants”
        Episode 1 (8 Apr 1972)
        Episode 2 (15 Apr 1972)
        Episode 3 (22 Apr 1972)
        Episode 4 (29 Apr 1972)
        Episode 5 (6 May 1972)
        Episode 6 (13 May 1972)
5.  “The Time Monster”
        Episode 1 (20 May 1972)
        Episode 2 (27 May 1972)
        Episode 3 (3 Jun 1972)
        Episode 4 (10 Jun 1972)
        Episode 5 (17 Jun 1972)
        Episode 6 (24 Jun 1972)

“The Day of the Daleks” is a fan favorite that takes place in both this timeline in the 20th century and an alternate timeline in the 22nd century where the Dalek invasion and conquest of Earth succeeded, with its population turned into slaves of the Daleks overseen by a mutant race called the Ogrons.  The story begins when a team of human resistance guerrillas return to the 20th century to assassinate the person they hold responsible for events that made the Dalek conquest possible, and includes a Dalek attack on Auderly House in the 20th century.

“The Curse of Peladon” is an allegory about the UK’s debate over whether to join the European Common Market that takes place on the planett Peladon in the year 3885 just before the coronation of the homonymous king, who must decide whether his planet is to join the Galactic Federation first seen in “The Daleks’ Master Plan”; their arrival is an accident that happens in a test flight of the TARDIS.

In the “The Sea Devils”, Doctor Who and Jo visit the island off the southern coast of England where The Master is imprisoned where they learn he has taken over the facility and is conspiring the eponymous race, cousins of the Silurians, to take over the world.  The Sea Devils are seen in two later Classic Who serials, in the Thirteenth Doctor episode “Legend of the Sea Devils”, and soon in the upcoming “The War Between the Land and the Sea” along with the Silurians.

“The Mutants” is an allegory about South African apartheid.  The Time Lords send Doctor Who and Jo to Skybase One space station orbiting the planet Solos in the 30th century, where Earth colonists, known as the Overlords, keep the native population, the Solonians, whom the Overlords refer to as ‘Mutts’, in apartheid-like subjugation.

In “The Time Monster”, set in both a village near Cambridge and the city of Atlantis, The Master poses as a professor to steal a device which will enable him to control Kronos, a creature outside of spacetime, a story which include the destruction of Atlantis in a way different from the account in Season 4’s “The Underwater Menace”.

Doctor Who Season 10 (30 Dec 1972-23 Jun 1973)
        Companions: Jo Grant; also Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Sgt. Benton, and Capt. Yates

1.  “The Three Doctors” (10th Anniversary Special)
        Episode 1 (30 Dec 1972)
        Episode 2 (6 Jan 1973)
        Episode 3 (13 Jan 1973)
        Episode 4 (20 Jan 1973)

-- End of Doctor Who’s Exile --

2.  “Carnival of Monsters”
        Episode 1 (27 Jan 1973)
        Episode 2 (3 Feb 1973)
        Episode 3 (10 Feb 1973)
        Episode 4 (17 Feb 1973)
3.  “Frontier in Space”
        Episode 1 (24 Feb 1973)
        Episode 2 (3 Mar 1973)
        Episode 3 (10 Mar 1973)
        Episode 4 (17 Mar 1973)
        Episode 5 (24 Mar 1973)
        Episode 6 (31 Mar 1973)
4.  “Planet of the Daleks”
        Episode 1 (7 Apr 1973)
        Episode 2 (14 Apr 1973)
        Episode 3 (21 Apr 1973)
        Episode 4 (28 Apr 1973)
        Episode 5 (5 May 1973)
        Episode 6 (12 May 1973)
5.  “The Green Death”
        Episode 1 (19 May 1973)
        Episode 2 (26 May 1973)
        Episode 3 (2 Jun 1973)
        Episode 4 (9 Jun 1973)
        Episode 5 (16 Jun 1973)
        Episode 6 (23 Jun 1973)

“The Three Doctors” features Omega’s first appearance, as well as the teaming up of the First, Second, and Third Doctors, whom the Time Lords on Gallifrey summon to assist them in preventing Omega’s return from the antin-matter universe, which they do, resulting in the High Council releasing Doctor Who from his exile, though he continues to be based on Earth and work with UNIT.

In “Carnival of Monsters”, Doctor Who and Jo believe they are going to Metebelis III but they end up on the SS Bernice in the Indian Ocean in 1926, or so it appears.  They are actually in a miniscope on the planet Inter Minor, imprisoned by aliens Vorg and Shirna for the entertainment of Inter Minor’s inhabitants along with a Cyberman (CyberFaction variety), an Ogron, and other species.

“Frontier in Space” and “Planet of the Daleks” form a loose duology, the first serial featuring The Master allying himself with the Daleks in an attempt to provoke Earth and the planet Draconia into war in 2540 CE in a serial which features the return of the Ogrons first seen in Season 9’s “Day of the Daleks”.  After leaving Draconia, the TARDIS lands on Spiridon, where along with the Spiridons there is a colony of Thals and also a squadron of Daleks; it is a direct sequel to Season 1’s “The Daleks” that reveals what became of the Thals and the legacy Doctor Who left on their culture.

“The Green Death” is a dual allegory of the dangers of both artifical intelligence (one such called BOSS is the chief villain of the story) and industrial pollution.  The story also shows the PTSD of Capt. Mike Yates resulting from his experiences in these events.  It takes place in the fictonal town of Llanfairfach, Glamorgan, Wales.  It includes an excursion by Doctor Who to the planet Metebelis III, from which he takes a blue crystal that later features in Season 11’s “Planet of the Spiders”.

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 pmDoctor 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.