This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.

Character Information

• Actor: Caroline John
• Tenure (as a regular character): S07E01-25 (25 total episodes, 4 total stories)
• Doctor: 3rd (Jon Pertwee)
• UNIT: The Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney), Sgt. Benton (S07E16-25)

Retrospective

When Caroline John got the role of Elizabeth Shaw, brilliant scientist recruited by UNIT, she decided she needed to learn the meanings of a lot of scientific words and phrases. After all, if she was going to play the part surely she should learn the vocabulary. Naturally, she was sorely disappointed when she realized that she wasn't going to get the chance to use most of what she'd learned.

There are two reasons for this. The first is obvious: Doctor Who is the softest of soft science fiction. The science that goes into it can reasonably be described as "the bare minimum". Preparing for such a show by learning a bunch of scientific terms is a bit like preparing for a trip to Seattle by packing all of your post-apocalyptic survival gear. But the second reason is that Liz spends much of her time on Doctor Who being overshadowed by the Doctor.

Liz is a Scientist. Not in the real world sense, no Liz is the same kind of scientist that the Doctor is – a Scientist with a capital "S". By that I mean that she appears to by an expert in every single scientific field imaginable. In case you weren't aware, real scientists don't do that. But you see the issue is that Liz looks a lot less special than she actually is because she's paired for most of her lone season with the Doctor.

It's worth comparing this to Zoe, since she worked so well. Zoe, like Liz is highly, though maybe not unrealistically, intelligent, and like Liz that intelligence is presented as the primary thing she brings to the table. But see, we have a new Doctor on the show. Patrick Troughton's 2nd Doctor often liked to play the fool, to the extent to sometimes he would actually be foolish, which allowed the counterplay to be Zoe showing him up from time to time. Meanwhile, the 3rd Doctor is a much more serious character. Based on how Jon Pertwee plays the Doctor, it never makes sense for Liz to outshine him in her areas of expertise, often leaving her with a lack of things to do. I think it says something that arguably her time to shine is when she gets kidnapped by the villains of The Ambassadors of Death because sure, she's been captured, but she's actually of value to villains for her scientific knowledge.

All of this is frustrating because it started so well. Her first scene is the scene that reintroduces the Brigadier and UNIT, and she plays off of the Brig quite nicely. Liz has a sardonic quality that plays off of the Brigadier's serious soldier brilliantly. Like the Doctor she doesn't exactly want to be at UNIT, but as the season progresses we see that unlike him she doesn't quite want to leave either. Instead she sees the value in UNIT and the work they do, but still chafes at being constrained by military rules and values. That tension is something that could have been very effective as a sort of more subtle version of the natural conflict between the Doctor and the Brig.

But, like with Liz's scientific pedigree, that potential conflict is overshadowed by the Doctor and the Brigadier's version. And look, I actually like Liz a lot, that's why I'm so critical of her tenure. Because it feels like she never quite finds a spot to fit into the show. And that leads to the obvious question:

Was this inevitable? Was Liz always going to be overshadowed by the Doctor, or could she have succeeded with a different approach to her character? In other words, was Liz poorly suited for the show she was created for? I've already argued that a companion was unsuited for Doctor Who when I talked about Victoria. But no, I can imagine a world where Liz could have worked. There were hints of it throughout the season. I've already mentioned the period where she was kidnapped in Ambassadors of Death. There's also the period before the Doctor fully joins UNIT in Spearhead from Space, and to a lesser extent her taking care of the Doctor when he returns from the alternate universe in Inferno. These represent flashes of what Liz could have done for the show – essentially to be the Doctor while the Doctor wasn't around to do the science.

As you can imagine, I wish they'd kept her around longer.

Liz was a creation of Derrick Sherwin's. Then Sherwin unexpectedly left Doctor Who after Spearhead from Space to work on the Paul Temple TV series with fellow former Doctor Who producer Peter Bryant. And so the producer's job moved over to Barry Letts. And Letts wasn't a fan of Liz. He felt that she wasn't able to perform the role of audience surrogate, because of her scientific knowledge.

Personally, I think that's silly. The whole concept of Doctor Who needing at least one companion to be an audience surrogate is overblown honestly. Jamie and Zoe were a great companion duo, and neither of them were really audience surrogate types. Regardless, Letts fired Caroline John at the end of Season 7. Caroline John believed, incorrectly, for years that she had been fired due to her acting, but no, Letts just didn't like the character.

For whatever it's worth, Caroline John was likely to leave anyway. By the tail end of filming for Season 7 she had become pregnant (with future one-off Master Geoffrey Beevers' baby) and would likely have had to leave the show. While she wasn't showing, when the production team found out, they did choose to shoot around her parts in Inferno to avoid having her do anything to strenuous (which apparently included showing her shoot a gun for some reason). The decision to fire Caroline John occurred before the production team knew of her pregnancy, so it didn't enter into the decision by the way.

Liz could have been great. Given the time, I suspect she would have been. But unfortunately she was never quite given the chance to shine.

Key Story

Just one key story for Liz, as she was around for such a short period of time

Spearhead from Space: As Liz is introduced we get a sense of how she would likely interact with the Brig and she gets the chance to do some science early on. The Doctor tricking Liz into facilitating his (failed) escape from Earth allows us to see her be both trusting and a bit hurt, and she even gets a pretty significant role in the climax of the story, the only time that happens in her tenure.

Next Time: The Autons are back…and someone new is joining them.

Hello /r/gallifrey!

I'm sure many of you are aware of the upcoming MTG crossover with Doctor Who in the form of the 4 precon decks coming out later this year. What I want to discuss here is the color pie identity of the Doctor cards.

An (admittedly bit lengthy) Color Pie Primer

One of the ludonarrative / mechanical strengths of MTG is the color pie. (Almost) every card in Magic is associated with one of the five colors, with each of the colors having a different "philosophy" behind them. Mechanically, different colors have different strengths and weaknesses - no one color can do it all. Different combinations of colors can combine in different ways both philosophically and mechanically, at the expense of in-game consistency.

• White - the color of peace, law, order, harmony. Mechanically this shows up as supporting lots of small creatures, or lifegain, or enforcing limitations on what both players can do symmetrically.
• Blue - the color of knowledge, curiosity, and the pursuit of perfection. Mechanically this shows up as counterspells (having knowledge of what you're going to do before you do it), card draw (increasing knowledge) and to some degree artifact synergy.
• Black - the color of power, self interest, death and sacrifice. Notably not strictly an "evil" color in that you can have heroic characters in black who are just willing to do what is necessary. Think the Punisher or Magneto. Mechanically, they use life and sacrifice creatures as a resource and reanimate things from the graveyard.
• Red - the color of freedom, emotion, action and impulse. Do now, think later. Mechanically they have direct damage burn, randomness, high power low toughness creatures, and temporary resource accumulation. Notably can have an artistic side since what is art if not the expression of emotion?
• Green - the color of instinct, nature, spirituality and tradition. Mechanically has the biggest creatures, ramps out more permanent mana acceleration to make big plays sooner, with a touch of graveyard recursion as well as destruction of the manmade (artifacts and enchantments)

To go one level deeper, each color has two allies and two enemies. If you go in a circule from White to Green in the order above (WUBRG, Blue is U) the ally colors are those adjacent. So White is allied with Blue and Green, and is an enemy of Black and Red. That's not to say that enemy color's can't work together, it's just that there is some internal tension still.

• White Blue - blue's slow and steady progress for the sake of white's society's improvement. Think a functioning government with perhaps a bit too much bureaucracy. Mechanically uses "stax" effects to shut down combat and accrue marginal advantage turn over turn.
• Blue Black - using blue's secrets and blacks' forbidden knowledge. Think a cabal of spies using hidden information to win a war of information. Mechanically can mill an opponent's library into the graveyard or discard their hands till they have no options left.
• Black Red - You're here for good time, not a long time. Think a berserker army on a suicide charge for glory. Mechanically one of the most aggressive color pairs often going for a beatdown and sacrificing creatures and life to kill your opponent before yourself.
• Red Green - Uses red's emotion and Green's instinct for survival. Think a clan of shamans who live in nature by the rule of survival of the fittest. Mechanically some of the biggest creatures in the game.
• Green White - Green's harmony with nature and White's communal nature leads to a color that cares about taking care of a lot of creatures. Think of a group of hippies who aren't afraid to throw down when their commune is threatened, but would otherwise just want to garden in peace. Mechanically cares about making lots of small creatures and then pumping them up.

Moving to the enemy colors

• White Black - While white cares about rules and Black think morality is a construct, when you work within the system to extract power you get black white. Think corrupt religions or cults who are willing to give up life for the greater good.
• Blue Red - Blue's forward thinking and logic is usually in contrast with Red's emotion and impulsiveness, but that's a good combination for creativity - weird wacky effects that are often represented by artists (skill + emotion) or scientists (knowledge + inspiration)
• Black Green - Black is willing to use death as a means to an end, while Green embraces death as part of the circle of life. As such the intersection between the two often plays into death. Think your neighbor who very aggressively recycles everything and makes their own compost for their rooftop garden.
• Red White - Red's zeal applied to White's desire for an organized society manifests itself into a very proactive color pair that will aggresively pursue order and justice. Think cops.
• Blue Green - Green believes in nature while Blue believes in nurture. Combine the two and you get growth out the wazoo. Often ends up being a catchall for value / resource mechanics that involve both a lot of ramp from green and card draw from blue. Think about mathematicians - is math something inherent to nature or discovered by humans?

Okay so how does this all relate to the Doctor Who set coming up?

In the 3 Doctors precons you have each doctor represented by a two color card. and then one of their companions represented by a third monocolor card.

• Doctors 1-8 are in some combination of the White/Blue/Green color trio. Meaning all doctors will be two of those three colors, and their companion being the third one. They've already announced that the 4th doctor is Blue-Green with Sarah Jane Smith being White for example.
• Doctors 9-11 are in some combination of White/Blue/Red. 10 and Rose Tyler are announced, though no colors yet.
• Doctors 12+13 are in some combination of Blue/Red/Green. 13 and Yasmin Khan are announced, with no colors yet.

So all this to say... how would you categories each of the 13 doctors based along these colors? And which companions of theirs would be the best representative as their supplementary color?

If doctors 1-8 are all White/Blue/Green, there will be some overlap - at least 2 each of White-Blue, Blue-Green and Green-White, plus two extra.

If doctors 9-11 are all White/Blue/Red, then it's pretty easy to have one be Red-White, one White-Blue, and one Blue-Red. This is the era I'm most familiar with so my speculation is

• 9 - White/Blue, paired with a Red Jack Harkness (since Rose is already allocated to the 10th)
• 10 - Red/White, paired with a Blue Rose
• 11 - Blue/Red, paired with a White Amy Pond (and maybe dual card with Rory?)

For doctors 12+13, if they're Red/Blue/Green, since there's already a lot of Blue Green from the first deck, that it will be Red/Blue with a Green companion in the second deck, plus a I think it will be a Red/Green doctor (12?) with a Blue companion (Clara?).

What do you think each doctor's and companion's color will be?

Bonus Question - Sagas

They also announced each doctor (plus the War Doctor plus the Fugitive doctor plus 4 villains) will have a "Saga" These are a card type that are used to tell in-universe stories and legends. Some examples

• An analogue for the Trojan War
• One Ring to Rule Them All from the upcoming LOTR set
• The Horus Heresy from the WH40k crossover

They've already shown the art (not the card) for the 9th doctor's Saga, "Parting of the Ways." Each saga will be named after an iconic episode for that doctor.

So my question again is - which episodes of Doctor Who do you think will be turned into sagas? I don't know much about classic who (though 8 is probably "Night of the Doctor"), but I'd predict "The End of Time" for 10, "The Doctors Wife" or "A Good Man Goes to War" for 11, and then "Heaven Sent" for 12. War Doctor is either Name or Day of the Doctor (or perhaps just The Time War). And then the four villains getting Sagas are probably Daleks, Cybermen, Master, and then I would bet that the Weeping Angels get one as well.

Also shoutout to designer u/GavinV aka Gavin Verhey who led design on this product. I know you probably can't comment too much about this speculation but if there is anything you can share or correct :eyes:

Ryan was developed as the main audience eyepiece of the Chibnall era and while not as successful as certain other first companion characters, did a decent enough job of bringing the initial tardis team together. One of his most distinguishing features is that he’s often not as effective as past companions, but his bravery and tenacity doesn’t allow him to stop trying regardless. While yaz was often left in the background, Ryan appeared to have the most thought out into his character arc. Poor Ryan often gets the reputation of being a bit bland with inconsistent bursts of his dyspraxia. He is sometimes also unfairly maligned for his series arc of ‘not riding a bicycle’ which is not really true and which somewhat misunderstands his development.

Ryan is perhaps most interesting when considering his relationships with those around him. His friendship with yaz (and the other guy in can you hear me) are convincing; and he gets some good moments with his absent father, as well as both his grandparents. And times it feels he’s only really inserted as a link between yaz and Graham, but at other times he seems to be the most important of the three, which at times lead to some tonal inconsistencies.

While his grandmother Grace’s sacrifice is noble and a transitional moment for Ryan, there are some unfortunate connotations with the black female character getting fridged in her first appearance. Ryan at least gets some attention in the form of his developing relationship with his step-grandad Graham which is actually quite well plotted over their two series, and watching the two come together is surprisingly nice to see.

Of course Ryan’s relationship with the doctor is a little less focused (and he probably has the least scenes with her out of the three). It’s clear that he initially sees her as a replacement for her absent father but then they later fall into a kind of mild friendship for most of his tenure . His final episode shows him moving on from the need for a father figure however and accepting Graham as his family and his final discussion with the doctor is as intense as their friendship ever really gets (not much to be honest).

Overall Ryan was a pleasantly different companion to bring in the new era and provided the key link between the other members of the tardis team and while a bit bland at times was key to getting the series off to a flying start

And now we remember him, by looking back at his very best appearances, and his very worst.

Five Best Appearances:

1. Revolution of the Daleks -

(Here is where we see Ryan finally grown up. After a year without the doctor, he’s no longer desperate for a father figure, and he’s matured and become happy with his own life. He’s also clearly come to terms with and accepted Graham as his family, and their final scene is quite pleasant).

2. Can you hear me? -

(Here Ryan actually gets some personality as we see what he’s like with his own friends. We also see the impact that tardis travel has on the friends that get left behind, and Ryan is strangely sympathetic and empathetic here which makes him a little more likeable).

3. Rosa -

(Rosa puts Ryan through the wringer a bit as we see the discrimination he’s often subjected to, and it’s sad to see that he’s learned to accept it as something unavoidable. It’s also the first big step forward in his and Graham’s relationship).

4. Resolution -

(In Resolution we learn more about Ryan’s absent father issues as we see his family drama play out onscreen. We also get a few touching moments where Ryan and Graham support one another and we see how far they’ve come (Ryan even calls him grandad in this one)).

5. Praxeus - (Despite not having any real standout moments, this is a good showing for Ryan who spends most of the story at the forefront of events and is very actively involved throughout).

Very Worst Appearance:

• It takes you away - (Ryan has absolutely no reaction to seeing his grandmother again after a whole series, and to be honest all his interactions with Hanne are kind of annoying, so while not being awful, it’s definitely not his best).

So what do people think? Do you agree/disagree? Let us know in the comments!

im writing a discursive essay on wether the doctor is a "good man" or not. im thinking of including things such as the long game, dalek, a town called mercy, the daleks telling the doctor he'd be a good dalek etc to argue for him not being a "good man" and im still working on the other side of the argument im just wondering if anyone can give me any suggestions for either side of this argument wether it's episodes or specific examples any and all is helpful!

This applies to both general Wikipedia and the TARDIS Wiki:

Why is it apparently the agreed convention that 20th-century multipart TV stories get one article for the lot, yet 21st-century ones get one article per episode? In what way is that consistent, and who on Earth decided that would be the way to go?

(Yes, I know The Trial of a Time Lord gets split into sections under the unofficial titles; I vaguely see why they’ve done that, but I do wish they wouldn’t as those titles are not official, and even DWM accepts it is just one very long single story.)

https://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/doctor-who-set-to-feature-mickey-mouse-in-special-episode-98289.htm

Okay. I know this was an April Fools joke. But it really had me thinking. For the last two years, I had been thinking about a story in which the Doctor actually met Mickey Mouse and the rest of the sensational six.

The story could easily be about the TARDIS landing in 1940s Hollywood and there is a strange case of disappearances of other cartoon characters. And the Doctor and Mickey team up to get to the bottom of the situation at hand only to find that the Master and the Phantom Blott are the villains behind the kidnappings. Think of this story as an odd amalgamation between the Deadly Assassin, Roger Rabbit, and the gazillion Mickey Mouse-Floyd Gottfredson comics.

I mean, this is just a random thought. Tell me what you think.

In his (many) dying moments, the Tenth Doctor visits space Wetherspoons and helps a forlorn Jack to get off with Alonso.

Jack is obviously feeling miserable because he just brutally murdered his grandson to save the human race, destroying his relationship with his daughter in the process (and probably ruining her entire life).

In Children of Earth, Gwen theorizes that the Doctor must sometimes 'turn his back in shame'.

When the Doctor shows up with his note ('his name is Alonso'), do you think he's aware of what Jack has recently done? I like to think so. It's almost there in Tennant's expression. He surely disapproves, but also knows that even when there are only bad choices, you still have to choose.

I don’t think there’s any companion in the entire show with as much unrealised potential as Yasmin Khan. Introduced with the most interesting background (as a Muslim Yorkshire policewoman) of the three companions in 13’s ‘fam’ she gets relegated to the background for much of her first series which is a shame, as Mandip Gill plays the character quite gleefully, and in her best moments shows us that she really could’ve been one of the very best if she was just used a bit better.

Unfortunately despite being 13’s definitive companion and perhaps the longest serving companion (in terms of real time years) she leaves the show without us having learnt all too much about her, and as a result she’s already fading in a lot of peoples memory. The character suffered most from being introduced into an overstuffed tardis team, and could really have benefitted from a staggered intro. She also suffers from the writers doing ‘tell’ rather than ‘show’ character development with multiple characters telling us she’s the greatest person they’ve ever met, without us actually seeing it.

Yet the character works when done well, as her family (who we don’t see nearly often enough) are one of the small highlights of the era, and help ground the character a bit more. She also fits nicely alongside the other companions well (with first Ryan and Graham,and later Dan) despite being relegated to the background early on, and actually is quite a good fit for Jodie’s doctor. Their banter is engaging, Yaz genuinely seems to love travelling with the doctor, and their angry moments are well delivered. Add to that the friendship between Whittaker and Gill offscreen giving them a believable friendship onscreen and you could have had a winner.

However one point that should be mentioned is the poor doctor-yaz romance subplot shoehorned into the last 4 or so episodes at the behest of some rabid twitter fans, which ultimately falls flat because of how late it is left to develop. This also led to Yaz’s disappointing exit where she kind of just leaves because the doctor tells her to go away, which was sadly lacklustre in nature.

Overall Yaz was a well conceived and acted but ultimately underused and bland character, and it’s a shame she wasn’t given more to do throughout 13s era, as she could’ve been brilliant.

And now we remember her by looking back at her very best appearances, and her very worst.

Five Best Appearances:

1. Demons of the Punjab -

(In this episode not only do we get to see more of Yaz’s family but we learn about the pain and sacrifices her mother went through in her youth. A surprisingly emotional story and only one of a few that have had companions meet their family in the past; here Gill gets to show off her acting prowess with some very emotional and understanding moments where Yaz gets to feel like a more complete and sympathetic character).

2. Village of the Angels -

(The episode where the writers remember Yaz is a policeman. She’s actually pretty good here, leading the search and showing off her police skills. This is also the first time she’s truly alone with Dan, who ends up being more her companion than the doctors after they spend 3 years together. Overall it’s a pretty solid showing for Yaz).

3. The Halloween Apocalypse -

(Here we see that the doctor and Yaz have developed a strong rapport after travelling together for a while since series 12. The two of them actually make quite a good duo here (I wonder what more of this could’ve looked like) and both actresses seem to be having a lot of fun, particularly in the intro segment).

4. The Woman Who Fell to Earth -

(In her first appearance Yaz is far more interesting than she ends up being, as the Yorkshire policewoman who gets mixed up in an alien plot. He she’s confident, smart, active and interesting; and while some of these traits occasionally bleed through later, they’re never as clear as they are here).

5. Can your hear me? -

(Here Yaz’s character gets some actual development, as we learn about her previous mental health issues and inspiration for becoming a police officer. This could have been a very interesting thread to explore moving forward, but sadly it is left at the curbside).

Very Worst Appearance:

• Revolution of the Daleks -

(This is a remarkably poor showcase for Yaz as we see she’s spent almost a year sleeping in the ruined tardis pining over the doctor and neglecting her actual job. And then when the doctor returns she gives her a load of anger about being abandoned despite the doctor having been in space prison for over a decade. She then proceeds to fade back into the background for the rest of the episode. Not a good showing overall).

So what do people think? Do you agree/disagree? What do you think are Yaz’s best and worst stories? Let us know in the comments!

This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.

Season Information

• Airdates: 3rd January - 20th June 1970
• Doctor: 3rd (Jon Pertwee)
• Companion: Liz (Caroline John)
• UNIT: The Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney), Sgt. Benton (John Levene, S07E18-25)
• Producers: Derrick Sherwin (S07E01-04), Barry Letts (S07E05-25)
• Script Editor: Terrance Dicks

Review

Let's start here: this was an absurdly good season.

I usually don't make too much reference to my own review scores in the body of these season reviews because, well, those scores are ultimately a very subjective number that I've shoved at the end of a lot of text, but well, I gave the four stories of this season a seven, two eights and a nine. And I think the only major argument I would receive on those scores is that I was too hard on the seven.

And this is strange right? This was, after all, the season that took away the show's primary plot device in the TARDIS. In last season's review I spoke fondly of the experimental nature of that season concluding with the line "Doctor Who is whatever you want it to be". And yet here we are taking away much of that flexibility and achieving positive results. So what went right?

Well, the shortening of the season probably helped. Due to a 25 episode season which was mostly made up of 3 7-part stories Script Editor Terrance Dicks only needed to find four story ideas to approve. That's a lot less room for something bad or even mediocre to slip through the cracks than in previous seasons, which all had between seven and ten stories in them. And of course you can't overlook the fact that sometimes, in creative endeavors, limitations produce positive results. For all that I do love Doctor Who's more experimental seasons, the fact is that this season showed there was a lot to gain by limiting the show to a single time and place.

For one thing it effectively got rid of the need for the initial phase of any Doctor Who story where The Doctor is mistaken for an intruder and locked up in prison. Now admittedly, this is hardly as frequent an occurrence as some make it sound, but still, the ability to never have to have the Doctor explain who he is and where he comes from is an advantage that the UNIT era has.

Similarly, the setup for the season gives a natural way for the show to fill time – by advancing the side plot of the Doctor trying to advance the TARDIS. Throughout this season we see him trying to find ways to make the machine work…and inevitably failing. That being said, it does have a pretty big influence on the plots of both Spearhead from Space and Inferno, and provides some amusing moments throughout the season.

But honestly, a Season as good as this can't be explained. It just happens. Like, from a production standpoint this was the final season that really looked like the black and white era, with the shift in producers happening mid-season. This means that, while Barry Letts was producer from Silurians on, he only worked on one story from beginning to end, naturally being Inferno. Everything else was commissioned and at least partially produced by Derrick Sherwin. And you wouldn't think that the chaos that naturally comes with a shift in producers mid-season would lead to such a great season. But it does, because a season like this just happens.

Season 7 was, of course, the season that saw several major shifts occur. We've already touched on the UNIT era and the Doctor's exile on earth, but obviously this was a profound change. On one hand, this limited the show to settings in (essentially) present-day Earth. On the other hand…the Doctor has an army now. And sure, he might not like that he has an army, and might chafe up against the military mindset frequently, but he still has an army that he can call in if he ever needs it. That's a pretty big change in the structure of a show where, previously, if the Doctor needed an army he had to find it and convince it that he knew what he was talking about.

There's the shift to color, which shouldn't be understated in the effect it has on the end-product. Now from a historical perspective I do think it's important to remember that most people watching the show in 1970, were not watching in color. But I am watching the show in color and you probably are too, so the shift to color has an impact on how we all view the show.

From a viewing perspective it is, of course, somewhat easier to get immersed in a color program. The flipside of that is that the detail is much easier to spot in color, so the effects can look a bit more fake. Like the Silurians look a lot more artificial than the Sensorites, but I don't think that's because the quality of the costumes is lower, but rather because color allows us to see the material used in these costumes much easier. Also, black and white lends itself naturally to the darker and more foreboding atmosphere that Doctor Who likes. Still, the shift to color is a net positive on the show. It's just a shift that naturally changes the perception the audience has of the show and show handles that transition pretty well.

But the biggest thing that changes this season is that we have a new lead. In season 7, Jon Pertwee's Doctor is in many ways a return to the pricklier more uptight 1st Doctor, but with a greater flair for the dramatic. The 3rd Doctor has been described as the James Bond Doctor, but honestly that flavor of the show isn't well-established at this part. He's not really using a lot of gadgets, or delivering one-liners, and he barely engages in any Venusian Aikido (and calls it Venusian Karate when he does). Instead we have a Doctor who just does not want to be here. He's stuck on Earth, stuck in one place in one time. Forget about traveling through time and space, he doesn't even get to leave England this season. Which, naturally, makes him irritable.

Oh and he's stuck working with the military. The 2nd Doctor seemed to enjoy working with Lethbridge-Stewart and company in The Invasion but he also got the hell out of dodge as soon as the problem in that story was resolved. The Doctor, in any incarnation, does not like to be constrained by other people's rules. So having to deal with the military on a day in and day out basis doesn't exactly do wonders for the 3rd Doctor's disposition.

It sometimes makes him irritable to the point of cruelty. In my review of Inferno I mentioned how I didn't like how the Doctor treated the Brigadier at the end of that story. But honestly, there's a pattern of behavior here that extends beyond any one scene. When he first meets Ralph Cornish in The Ambassadors of Death he almost instantly declares the man an idiot. Cornish is an intelligent man who is in many ways philosophically aligned with the Doctor. The 3rd Doctor, especially in Season 7, has a tendency to be aggressively arrogant towards anyone who doesn't instantly and automatically agree with him, and it can make him a frustrating character at times. On the other hand, like the 1st Doctor, this also means he gets a lot of great snarky put-downs. What I think is important is that, while I don't always enjoy this side of his character, I do think it makes sense, especially in Season 7 where he can barely get the TARDIS console to do anything.

The season ends with the Doctor witnessing the destruction of a parallel Earth, something which will have ramifications for the character going forwards. It's a traumatic moment, both for character and audience, as characters that both have learned to care about are sent spiraling into a struggle for survival, and not even their own.

This season also introduced Elizabeth "Liz" Shaw, our brand new companion. Since Liz's tenure is actually over, I'm going to be writing about her character a lot in my next post, so here I'll focus on her relationship with the Doctor. Unlike with prior companion Zoe, Liz is keenly aware that the Doctor's intelligence and scientific knowledge are far greater than her own, but she's humble enough that the two get along well regardless. Liz, like the Doctor, doesn't like to be constrained by military rules, but she does seem to come around to the value of UNIT as an organization. Mostly this means that she's able to back up the Doctor's intelligence with her own – by which I mean she generally understands what he's trying to do and is able to help – and back up his snark with her own.

Stuck managing these two brilliant but prickly minds is the Brigadier. The Brig comes off as a very sympathetic figure in this season, mostly because he takes a lot of mistreatment from the Doctor, and to a lesser extent Liz, and handles it with grace and the occasional dry comment. For a military man who, when he took the job at UNIT must have expected to get his own way with the people underneath him the vast majority of the time, this is pretty impressive honestly.

The rest of UNIT are basically a bunch of interchangeable soldiers. Occasionally one will get a name or some sort of characterization but you'll forget them pretty soon after they're off the screen. Even Sergeant Benton, who was first introduced in The Invasion and will be a mainstay through the UNIT era, doesn't really get much to distinguish himself in his one and a half stories. He's just a charming, likable bloke. The lack of individuals within UNIT is, I would argue, a weakness of this season (and to a lesser extent the UNIT era as a whole), but not so much that it seriously detracts from any of the stories, even if it does leave UNIT feeling a bit faceless when looking at the season as a whole.

Now we've already talked about how changes in the production of the show affected the visuals, but I do want to touch on the music as well. The first two stories of this season, Spearhead from Space and The Silurians both used music composed around the actual episodes, as opposed to the prior method of composing a limited number of tracks and/or pulling stock music from the BBC's library and using that as incidental music.

The funny thing is, I actually prefer the music from the other two stories of this season, that went back to the prior method, although they were the last to do so. Now part of this is that I just prefer those tracks as music, compared to the first two stories. There's some weird instrumentation in those stories that works some of the time, but other times is just odd in a very distracting way. However, I also think that a lot of the music in Spearhead and Silurians is a bit too on the nose, like it's trying too hard to accent the beats that are happening on screen.

I said in my review for Spearhead that overall I preferred it to the incidental music from Season 6, but on further reflection, I don't think that's actually the case. The show still sounds good for the most part, even in those earlier episodes, and the music will mostly settle down in the next season, but it does bear mentioning that the show's music this season could be a bit off-putting at times.

On the whole, I've found a lot more to criticize in this season than I thought I would. There are a lot of little things that aren't quite working for me. The Doctor's personality comes on a little strong, UNIT can feel like this big faceless organization, I wish they'd found more for Liz to do, and the music has overall gone down in quality after Season 6 sounded excellent.

But all of those things come with positives. I still do enjoy the 3rd Doctor quite a bit, and I was always going to have a tough time adjusting from whoever followed Patrick Troughton's Doctor. UNIT might feel at times like a big faceless organization, but the charming personality of the Brigadier and to a lesser extent Benton, help alleviate that. Liz is great when she's given a chance to shine. And the music is still good for the most part.

But talking about all of that stuff is missing the point. This season has four stories and they're all somewhere between good and great. And that's just absurd.

Awards

Best Story: Inferno

Season 7 ends on its best effort, the haunting tale of a world's destruction, and the triumph at being able to prevent that destruction from happening again. A great story all around.

Worst Story: Spearhead from Space

"Worst" is relative here, although I am a bit lower on Spearhead than most. It's main failing is that while it does a great job at introducing its cast and UNIT, the actual plot is a bit basic even though there was arguably room to spice it up a bit, and the pacing is a bit awkward. This is still a good story though, but since Season 7 has no bad stories, this had to go here.

Most Important: Spearhead from Space

And no, we're not done with Spearhead just yet. This was an obvious choice, since this was the story that introduced the 3rd Doctor and Liz, as well as reintroducing the Brigadier and UNIT. The fact that it's the first Auton/Nestene story is just a tiny bit of extra significance.

Funniest Story: Spearhead from Space

OK, this is the last time I'll be talking about Spearhead here, I promise. Season 7 doesn't really have a ton of comedy, but Spearhead does manage a fair amount in its first two parts, mostly down to the 3rd Doctor settling in after his regeneration.

Scariest Story: Inferno

Look, having just four stories kind of limits the pool for these awards OK? I considered going with Ambassadors of Death because the titular Ambassadors, while ultimately benevolent, are decidedly creepy as they walk around deliberately in their spacesuits. However, nothing beats the sheer horror of Inferno's sixth episode as we prepare for an entire world to be consumed by lava. It's really just down to that episode, although the Primords are fairly creepy, but that's enough.

Rankings

Story Rankings

1. Inferno (9/10)
2. The Ambassadors of Death (8/10)
3. Doctor Who and the Silurians (8/10)
4. Spearhead from Space (7/10)

I think it's pretty funny that I've managed to rank these stories in the reverse order that they aired. If I wanted to I could make some sort of point about the season gradually improving, but honestly, I think it's just a coincidence.

Season Rankings

These are based on weighted averages that take into account the length of each story. Take this ranking with a grain of salt however as doubtless as I work my way through the show, my standards will change for what each rating means, if they haven't already

1. Season 7 (8.1/10)
2. Season 4 (7.0/10)
3. Season 6 (6.3/10)
4. Season 1 (6.2/10)
5. Season 3 (6.0/10)
6. Season 5 (6.0/10)
7. Season 2 (5.8/10)

Next Time: It might not seem like it but we've seen the last of Liz. So that means it's time to look back on her character.

When it comes to ranges Doctor Who Unbound is the equivalent of Marvel’s What If.. for Doctor Who and I’m actually surprised how short the list is when it comes to how many stories they’ve done with this concept with the most famous being Symphony for the devil the introduction of David Warner’s Doctor and Mark Gatiss Master for a what if.. the Doctor wasn’t exiled to the 70s but the 90s. Tho my new personal favourite is the Unbound War Doctor where they answer the famous question what if the Doctor ignored his better judgment and killed the Daleks at there genesis. Naturally it didn’t end well. I hope we get a storyline where what if the Doctor ignored River and saved her thus breaking her predestination paradox what would that entail? or what if the doctor never joined the Time War what would have the consequences been? So many what if’s to ponder

In my ever-growing Doctor Who video and audio collection, I've gathered over a thousand individual stories, and I'm attempting to (briefly) review them all in the order in which they might have happened according to the Doctor's own personal timeline. We'll see how far I get.

Today's Story: The Evil of the Daleks, written by David Whitaker and directed by Derek Martinus

What is it?: This is the ninth serial of Season Four of the television show, though most of the episodes are missing, so this review is partly based upon the animated reconstruction and the narrated soundtrack.

Who's Who?: The story stars Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, and Deborah Watling, with John Bailey, Marius Goring, Brigit Forsyth, Geoffrey Colville, Griffith Davies, Alec Ross, Windsor Davies, Sonny Caldinez, Gary Watson, Jo Rowbottom, Peter Hawkins, Roy Skelton, Robert Jewell, Gerald Taylor, John Scott Martin, Murphy Grumbar, and Ken Tyllsen.

Doctor(s) and Companion(s): The Second Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon, Victoria Waterfield

Recurring Characters: This story features the Daleks, including the first televised appearance of the Dalek Emperor.

Running Time: 02:55:20 (narrated soundtrack), 02:57:14 (animated reconstruction)

One Minute Review: The TARDIS has been stolen from Gatwick Airport, and the only clue the Doctor and Jamie have to its whereabouts is a book of matches from a local coffee bar. At the cafe they are contacted by the representative of Edward Waterfield, who wishes to meet them at his antique shop. However, when they arrive they are subdued by Waterfield and dragged backwards in time to 1866, where they are delivered into the hands of the Doctor's greatest foes, the Daleks.

"The Evil of the Daleks" brings Season 4 to a close in grand style, telling a story that stretches from 1960s London to a Victorian manor house to the planet Skaro itself, and its tone is equally varied over the course of its seven episodes, featuring action, horror, character drama, and even a bit of comedy. In short, it's incredibly ambitious, and it almost always delivers on those ambitions. It's easy to understand why this story ranks high among those fans wish had survived to the present.

Fortunately for viewers (and listeners) there are now a number of ways it can be enjoyed, and all of them have their merits. I will say I am impressed with how well the animation handles the long stretches of wordless action in the middle of the serial, obviously taking cues from the Loose Cannon reconstruction, though I still think I prefer the soundtrack as narrated by Frazer Hines. I think it's some of his better work as a narrator. But however you choose to enjoy it, "The Evil of the Daleks" is a straight-up classic befitting what was intended to be the swansong for the Doctor's worst enemies.

Score: 5/5

I don't mean "pitch another story set in the Land of Fiction". There have been lots of those and most of them have revelled in the possibilities of the place, but they are by definition riffing off the original idea. What makes The Mind Robber so brilliant and unique is that it comes out of nowhere. Suddenly there's a plane of reality where fictional characters are real. No effort is made to ground this in scientific-sounding jargon or link it to the rest of the show (and I think the attempts to do so by later stories, like saying it was created by the Gods of Ragnarok or it's part of the Matrix or whatever, strip it of a lot of its charm). It's something the show generally stopped doing as its "rules" became more fixed, though the Capaldi era interestingly has two examples of something like it (Kill the Moon and In the Forest of the Night, both of which have gonzo insane ideas that come out of nowhere and don't connect to the rest of the show at all).

So my challenge to you is to pitch a modern version of The Mind Robber. That is, a story that casually introduces an absolutely barmy idea that seems completely out of keeping with the rest of the show's ethos and cheerfully refuses to be reconciled with it. Go nuts!

Anyone know where it would be possible for me to get my hands on the charity anthologies Forgotten Lives and Forgotten Lives 2. They seem conceptually really interesting but I didn't find out about them until after they were long sold out. Any way to get a copy or will I just have to hope they rerelease them if they make a Forgotten Lives 3?

I stopped watching halfway through Matt Smiths season and want to get back but trying to cut costs. I could get HBO n try to burn through the seasons until Disney picks it up but I'd rather own them so I can rewatch them. Is Blueray worth buying, it's a lot more expensive? Are these 2 the only options?

Just wondering how or where everyone listens to Big Finish episodes? Do you have a particular personal place you go to listen? What helps you concentrate on the stories most? Do you have to be doing something while you listen, jobs/chores around the house, driving, cooking? Do you listen before bed?

Would be interesting to hear people's preferences!

I know already that Whittaker's seasons were unfortunately the weakest due to the writing, but are they still any good? Every season has been pretty good with some banger episodes and some mid ones (except for season 10 where every episode was a banger), so are seasons 11-13 still enjoyable?

Its always bothered me that the tardis is the Doctor's home but it's never treated as such. Why dose every scene in it take place in the consul room? That's fine for navigating scenes. Buy why have casual conversations in it?

Like why can't we have a scene in the tardis kitchen where they talk over breakfast? Or a scene in one of the bedrooms? Those haven't been seen since the Davidson era. Why dose every tardis scene have to he the consal room? Can we not have a tardis library? Or a tardis greenhouse? Or a tardis kitchen? What do they do for food? I get there are budget cuts but is a kitchen a bed room a library and or greenhouse too much to ask? Is a three minute scene in a 10 hour long season top much to ask? If nothing it would provide eye candy instead of the tardis feeling like one room.

It's the doctors house treat it as such.

And why is the tardis so dark? With Capaldi and Whiticker you can beatly make anything out. Their dark clothes don't help. "TURN THE LIGHT ON" to quote Mark Kermode. Why would you spend so much time in the dark?

https://imgur.com/a/Wm2buzS

I find it interesting that despite how focused on ceremony and ritual the Time Lords are they are very respectful of chosen names. And not even shortened nicknames like Romana, Narvin, Darkel, and Vansell but things like the Doctor, the Master, the Corsair, etc. Even Rassilon Lord President Eternal called them the Doctor and the Master. And when Drax meets the Doctor after centuries apart, he initially calls him his chosen name at the Academy, Theta Sigma not his original name. But as soon as the Doctor strongly asserts that his name is now the Doctor, Drax begins to call him that. The Doctor calls the Master Missy in that particular incarnation. Both the Doctor and the Master generally call Ushas by her chosen name the Rani. Among so many other examples.

Everyone except for Mortimus apparently cause fuck that guy I guess. He will always be the Monk to anyone and everyone. 🤣🤣🤣

I'm really trying to remember the name but I can't. You know they would send out tapes of shows to every school with educational programming, the one had el nombre and stuff, well in Wales one of ours in the late 90s was a doctor who parody.

Basically, the public toilet in some Welsh Town was a TARDIS. They would flash things up on the screen and go on I guess little trips, I don't think to the past and future though just like on location filming, and it was actually a pretty fun and engaging idea, if not cheesy. I'd love to revisit it if possible, and I think it'd actually be pretty fun for English fans to see a subtitled version.

I'm guessing it'd be an S4C production? Not 100%. Does anyone know the name of what I mean? Is it available online? It was circulated to all the schools I know in South Wales of the era, not sure if it would have been shared in the North.

Edit my muns a teacher and recons it might be a welsh advisory esis thing...?

I mean in that characters universe where do you think that character went after Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.?

The obvious answer would be that they just did the same things the main universes Doctor did but with a bigger budget like that had before.

But I think there's a few things to note

1. Doctor Who is confirmed to be human and therefore wouldn't regenerate

2. Doctor Who is from the 1960s.

   I think this is important as even when the main Doctor was written as human they were still a human from that future.

   When Doctor Who on the other hand visits The Dalek invasion of the 22nd Century he is visiting his future. Do you think that would effect him differently.

   Would they be a Cassandra warning people? Or try in someway to prevent it? Or was he such an Absent Minded Professor that it didn't actually bother him.

   Remember Doctor Who is human and therefore has no knowledge of The Laws of Time like The Doctor does.

3. Doctor Who is confirmed to have invented The TARDIS.

   While this is implied in the early days of the TV Show it's confirmed in the movies. This means that there likely isn't a Meddling Monk or later a Master in the universe.

   Or if there is they're significantly different to the way we know them.

Quite a few episodes have nicknames in the fandom, what are your fave ones? I think mine has to be Warriors on the Cheap for Warriors of the Deep when some of the BBC execs wanted to use its dodgy special effects against the show. The serial is pretty good but tbf, the enemy alien is pretty bad, doesn't necessarily ruin the story tho like the rat in Talons.

What are some other good episode nicknames? Good or bad, I'll take either...!!

Seeing as RTD is back in charge and lots of what was around in his first era is now back how cool would it be for there to be another permanent / semi-permanent Doctor Who exhibition like there was in Cardiff from 2012-2017? There was one the other side of Cardiff from 2005-2011 so it was totally a RTD thing and it would be awesome to spend a day looking at Doctor Who stuff again.

While I'm sure the actual 60th will be great, I think this was a missed opportunity to give Jo Martin a chance in the lead role. Could also help better tie up the Chibnall era, as well as giving a unique perspective to celebrate the show's history. This idea is mostly just a general structure, so would be quite open to go in any direction in terms of the specific subplots along the way.

It would be established that the Fugitive Doctor is the last of the unknown incarnations before William Hartnell's 1st Doctor. She finds out that the Time Lords are soon going to wipe her memories and force her to be reborn again as a child with a new set of regenerations. However, after much time trying to escape, she realises this is now inevitable. But before returning to Gallifrey to be forcibly made to regenerate, the Fugitive Doctor decides to travel forward in her own timeline to see what her future will look like. This then provides the opportunity to bring back any Doctors/companions/characters from any era of the show, likely depending on which actors are available to return. In each case, Jo Martin's Doctor would never explicitly reveal her identity though. This potentially could also be set over several episodes as with the actual 60th.

After this premise is set up, I would begin with the Fugitive Doctor landing in the 1960s and meeting David Bradley's first Doctor. This could also offer an explanation of why her Tardis was already a police box. The Eighth Doctor could also have a more extended appearance, giving Paul McGann some more screen time. And you could keep David Tennant in it too, but just playing his original 10th Doctor instead - however without Donna in this case. Matt Smith or Peter Capaldi could return too if they were interested.

I would instead have Donna appear separately (alongside her family), and could recycle a lot of whatever is planned for her character in the 60th. But as she would meet Jo Martin's Doctor instead, there wouldn't be the issue of her memories etc. In terms of other companions, Martha would be an obvious candidate, or any of the Moffat era main companions. Plus Missy, River Song or the Paternoster Gang could work well too. From the Chibnall era, maybe just Dan since he was in fewer episodes than the rest. I would also suggest featuring some classic companions, but set in the present day, allowing the Fugitive Doctor to see how their time in the Tardis has influenced their lives subsequently.

The final part of the specials would then feature Jodie Whittaker's Doctor alongside, also at the end of her regeneration. A few minor changes would have to be made to Power of The Doctor to accommodate. 13's final conversation with Yaz would be slightly different in tone, with 13 expressing some fear over regeneration, particularly the uncertainty of who she will be next (also giving more context to Yaz leaving, knowing that the Doctor won't quite be the same person anymore). Plus with Whittaker's incarnation being closely linked with the Timeless Child arc, 13 would also feel she hadn't had enough answers or closure yet before saying goodbye to this incarnation. The Centenary Special would then end slightly earlier, after Yaz leaves the Tardis.

The 60th would then pick up at this point, as the Fugitive Doctor is still exploring her future and now seeking 13. But for the first time on this journey, Jo Martin's Doctor is recognised by 13 (from the events of Fugitive of the Judoon - which Jo Martin's Doctor would not have remembered being an earlier incarnation). She soon learns that 13 found out about her hidden past, and the two have a series of adventures together, exploring this theme. The Fugitive Doctor takes 13 back to early Gallifrey and provides us with some more answers about Division (tying up this arc), and in return 13 shows her the effects of Gallifrey's destruction and the Flux. Both Doctors would conclude their arcs as a result of this, each finally becoming ready to regenerate and move on.

The companion support group scene would then be delayed to this point, with Jo Martin's Doctor watching from a distance. The moral here would be that it wasn't seeing her own future selves that reassured her of her future, but seeing the impact the Doctor has on everyone else they meet. Meanwhile, 13 has some more answers of her past, but is also now even more certain that this past isn't particularly relevant to who she is now and in the future, and goes off to regenerate. This would also give more context to the more positive outlook of her final words. Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor then appears at that sunset scene.

You could possibly also bring back the Guardians of the Edge, with 13 revisiting just before she regenerates, but this time with Jo Martin's Doctor now being one of the guardians.

So, I'm rewatching some of Smith's earlier episodes, basically series 5 and 6, and does it weird anyone else out with how they seem to tease the Dr/Amy relationship, especially with regards to Melody/River's paternity?

I think AGMGTW is the worst culprit of this, with Amy's speech that opens the episode, and then Vastra's questions later. Amy's speech is obviously playing a little joke on the audience, using language that could apply to both The Doctor and Rory, but more accurately just the Doctor. I suspect the "punchline" is meant to be the bit where Amy says "he's your father", by which I mean that I think that's meant to be the point where the audience realises she's talking about Rory. The trouble is, the show had created a narrative where that's not necessarily true, and we only realise (or at least, I only realised when I watched it for the first time all those years ago) that she's talking about Rory when he appears on screen.

There's also the fact that the Doctor replies "It's mine" to the question about the cot, in such a way that it makes it seem as though he's talking about Melody. This, again, is a bit of a joke, but not a particularly funny one.

And the Doctor does get very defensive when Vastra asks if Melody is purely human. More defensive than he should have been if there was absolutely no chance that she was his child.

These, and other signs throughout series 5 and 6, seem oddly adult for what was, and still is, ostensibly a family show. We all know Moffat was basically writing one-handed, but this always seemed a little less sexual and more creepy and dirty to me. To be honest, Amy's obsession with the Doctor always seemed a bit odd, from her running away with him on the night before her wedding to her wanting to kiss him at her own wedding reception, in front of all her friends and family, and her new husband.

Basically, I think Moffat thought he was being funny by implying that the Doctor might be River's father, but the problem was that he had made it too plausible a theory. If it had turned out to be case that he was River's father, I don't think anyone would have been that surprised, or at the very least it would have had the ring of truth to it.

Did anyone else feel the same way?

While Series 1 is seen as one of the better NuWho seasons, it's often derided for going too far in terms of the camp, with things like farting aliens and burping wheelie bins etc, on rewatches I'm actually surprised at how "gritty" it seems compared to the following seasons.

While the sets are a great deal more lifelike than the infamous wobbly sets of the Classic Series, they all seem to have a "run down" quality to them, particularly sets like Satellite 5, the hospitals from Aliens of London/World War Three and *The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances" or Van Statten's compound. This was probably the best they could make from a BBC budget in 2005, but I think it really helped give the enforce the "something rotten at the heart of this" that Russell was trying to signal in the Satellite 5 episodes.

This may not have been intentional, but scenes featuring Rose's council estate seem to almost always be filmed on grey days. For some reason I think that helps frame it as the kind of grim, "violent sink estate" that the tabloids were wailing moral panics about in the 2000s. While RTD doesn't really explore social class themes, there's enough to infer that Rose's estate isn't somewhere you'd want to find yourself. We spend much less time there from Series 2 onwards, and it doesn't seem to be framed as "harshly" for want of a better word in that season.

Lastly, the music in Series 1 had a more "industrial" style feel to it. Again, this probably wasn't intentional, as Murray Gold didn't have a full orchestra and relied a lot more on synth stuff, but it's a noticeable contrast to Series 2, which features many of the same musical motifs but recreated in a full orchestral style. The result is that S2 onwards feels a lot more whimsical than S1.

A lot of this stuff, particularly the sets and music, were largely due to the budget and resources the production team had available at the time, and we've come a long way since then. I've no doubt that Ncuti Gatwa's era will be wonderfully camp and bombastic as RTD's magic is, but let's face it: The world in 2023 is a much darker one than in 2005, and while Doctor Who should offer escapism, I wonder if RTD will lean more into that gritty aesthetic in order to reflect the world we live in today?

The creature from Midnight was a creature, who like the creature in The Impossible Planet/Satans Pit, was possibly trapped or contained by some other beings. A planet where no living thing can exist is the perfect prison for an entity that steals the consciousness and bodies of other living things. And based off of how it drains and takes over the Doctor it could perhaps do this exponentially. The midnight creature is a threat to consciousness itself. “that’s how he does it, he makes you fight, he creeps into your head and whispers” the creature is referring to itself. It latched onto Miss Sylvestry first as the most emotionally vulnerable (“She said she would get me”). And then it planned to spread until it took over every living thing it could. And perhaps, all living things eventually.

Midnight is easily my favourite episode of Doctor Who. Besides the creature the biggest threat in the episode is the Doctors own ego. The creature is one of patience. Who knows how long it has waited on the surface of Midnight. Potentially billions and billions of years. The creature needs only observe, as the Doctor turn the others against him through his own arrogance. And then it manipulates the others through their disdain for him, allowing it to take control of the situation, before it plans to take control of them and then everything else in existence. Truly chilling, so excited to have Russel back when he wrote masterpieces like this.

“We must not look at goblin men We must not buy their fruits Who knows upon what soil they fed their hungry thirsty roots”

Chase Masterson’s Vienna Salvatori is an interesting addition to the expanded universe as she wasn’t really a character one would think would get her own series as she only appeared in one story The Shadow Heart as an antagonist. However thanks to Chase’s great performance and her love of the character Bigfinish let her have her own series despite Vienna having very little to do with anything Doctor related. Which as you can imagine gave a lot of polarizing opinions If she is even canon. Fortunately The Eric Roberts Master came into finally set the record straight that yes she part of the larger Whonoverse in the same way Graceless is just doing there own thing in the background.