#Ninth Doctor Adventures: Hidden Depths

[pers-books]

SALE! 😍 Click the link above to celebrate #ValentinesDay with up to 60% off selected romantic releases on collector's edition CD and download.  Offers end at 23.59 (UK time) on Friday 20th February 2023.

Be warned... the course of true love doesn't always run smooth at Big Finish!

All four Stranded boxsets are included in this offer if anyone’s wanting to get them! Also, the Ninth Doctor boxset Hidden Depths which includes a Liv & Tania meet Nine story. Also Ravenous 2 which includes the two-parter Better Watch Out & Fairytale of Salzburg which unofficially canonises Liv/Helen.

[meluisart]

I've been thinking about Liv's timeline a lot lately, especially because NDA: Flatpack and O&F: Time Lord Immemorial seemed to contradict one another. But, I think I cracked it today, so buckle up!

For the run of this post humanoid Liv is referred to by name, her synthetic duplicate is referred to as Liv2!

PSA: beware there be spoilers in the abyss, up to and including Once & Future: Time Lord Immemorial. Tread with care if you are not caught up!

To make this post make sense it's important to establish Liv's timeline in chronological order as we know it.

Robophobia

Dark Eyes 1-2

Doctor Who: Short Trips: The World Beyond the Trees

Dark Eyes 2-4

Doom Coalition 1-4

Ravenous 1-2.1

The Robots 1-6

Ravenous 2.2-4

Stranded 1-4.4

The Eigth Doctor Adventures: What Lies Inside?

The Eigth Doctor Adventures: Connections

The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Hidden Depths 3.3: Flatpack

The audio is heavily implied to take place during Ravenous, the question is where! Anything before Ravenous is off the table as the timeline is too packed, leaving no space for episode of the week style adventures. Helen is present in O&F: Time Lord Immemorial for a brief moment meaning she's been picked up from Rykerzon, as happens in Ravenous 1.4: Sweet Salvation. This eradicates the audio taking place during or after Stranded.

This however creates a tough spot. In neither O&F: Time Lord Immemorial or NDA: Flatpack does Liv recognise the Ninth Doctor. If introduced to him at one point, she would know him the next time as neither adventure involves a plot point where she is made to forget, yet, she does not. This is where Liv2 comes in.

Liv2 was created during Liv's gap year old Kaldor, so that Tula would not be left alone to fix the mess that was created after the range's finale. For the creation of her, Liv's consciousness and all her memories up until that point were transferred to Liv2. This means that Liv2 has all memories up to The Robots 6.3: The Final Hour and what happened on Kaldor and beyond.

My hypothesis is that O&F: Time Lord Immemorial takes place between Ravenous 2.2: Better Watch Out and Ravenous 3.2: Companion Piece as there is the most leeway in this section - still, it is a tight fit. This period would mark the moment that Liv meets the Ninth Doctor - her synthetic duplicate would then have no knowledge of him at all.

Liv stays on Earth with the rest of the TARDIS fam during Stranded, afterwhich she leaves briefly in Stranded 4.4: Best Year Ever to have more adventures with the Doctor and Helen. When she returns to stay with Tania she appears a little more distant than previously, her dialogue reflects this, as she deflects any questions thrown her way. Nor is there a proper farewel for her, the Doctor and Helen - which always struck me as weird since they were practically family to her.

Tania: You came back? Liv: Yes, of course. I missed you. Tania: M-missed me? W-when did you leave? How long has it been? That wasn't as quick for you as it was for me, was it? Liv: Let's... let's... don't worry about that for now. Tania: The Doctor and Helen, are they-? Liv: Let's not worry about that either. I'm back and I am staying. For good.

Liv is deflective, and almost responds like she's only been told about what happened during Stranded, instead of having lived through it. We've known Liv to be evasive but she does not usually shy away from explaining something complicated. And yes, they were at the end of the runtime when doing this but it does not take away that the farewel felt off, and that the dialogue felt strained/forced.

It is this, combined with her odd comments as well as not knowing the Ninth Doctor in NDA: Flatpack that makes me believe that it is Liv2 who returns to Earth - for reasons unknown.

As before mentioned Liv does not recognise the Ninth Doctor - the only Liv in the universe who would not in this case is Liv2.

Additionally, during Flatpack at one point there is a scenario where there are two of Liv at the same time. The following dialogue ensues:

Tania: I don't know if this is a dream or a nightmare. Liv: I'm not sure how to take that.

At first I took this as Liv thinking highly of herself and being mildly offended that her partner isn't too sure about there being two of her. Then the Robots 6 released and I assumed with there having been two Livs since then, she took mild offence to it combined with there genuinely always having been two of her in the universe for as long as she's known Tania for.

But then O&F: Time Lord Immemorial came out, and Liv not recognising the Ninth Doctor conflicted with everything we knew happened up until then. Why would she not recognise the Doctor in Flatpack if she had clearly met him before?

So, what if Liv responds this way because she is Liv2, because she is the duplicate? What if the offense is extra personal?

There are a lot of unanswered questions in this. Liv2 stayed behind on Kaldor specifically to help Tula out, we don't know if and why she would return to Earth. We know how it would be because she woudl have been picked up and dropped off per TARDIS - presumably by the Doctor, though we know not which incarnation as we don't hear who drops her off. We don't know where human Liv would be in this scenario. She could be anywhere: on her own, off somewhere with Helen, stranded elsewhere, dead etc. There are limitless options.

Still, this was the only way I could figure out how canon would completely fit together properly without anything conflicting itself. I am aware that it is likely a writing/continuity error as the BTS of O&F: Time Lord Immemorial reveals it was Nicola Walker's (Liv) first time working with Christopher Eccleston (Nine), but I still wanted to see if I could make sense of it without it being an error.

[riversofmars]

Hi! Been scrolling through the Nicola Walker tag and you managed to convert me, I'm starting to get interested in checking out her stuff with Dr. Who. No idea where to start though, any tips?

YESS! Honestly, few things make me happier than hearing someone wants to get into these audios!!

Best point to start would be Doom Coalition! It's not the first Nicola Walker series (Liv becomes the Doctor's companion in Dark Eyes and they meet in Robophobia even before then) but it's the best jumping on point as there is no prior listening required!

Doom Coalition is perfect because it's a self-contained arc and you get Helen joining as a companion in the second episode as well so she sort of functions as the audience's eyes (well, ears XD) and it makes for a great introduction to this world!!

Just to give you a quick overview, these are the Doctor Who audios featuring Nicola Walker (in release/chronological order, sort of):

Robophobia (single episode of the Main Range Monthly Adventures)

Dark Eyes 1-4 (series of 16 episodes)

The World Beyond The Trees (single episode of the Short Trips range)

Doom Coalition 1-4 (series of 16 episodes)

Ravenous 1-4 (series of 16 episodes)

Stranded 1-4 (series of 16 episodes)

The Eighth Doctor Adventures: What Lies Inside? (3 episodes)

The Eighth Doctor Adventures: Connections (3 episodes)

The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Hidden Depth (she's only in one episode of this)

The Robots 1-6 (Liv spin-off series set during an episode of Ravenous, the sixth and final box set is due to be released in April)

So yeah... I'd always suggest starting on DC and taking it from there, you can always go back to Dark Eyes and co later XD

Feel free to come and talk to me any time, love hearing how people are enjoying the audios and hoping to recruit more to the Liv/Helen cause XD

[thedoctorwhocompanion]

Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor Faces Off Against the Sea Devils

Christopher Eccleston's Ninth #DoctorWho Faces Off Against the Sea Devils for @bigfinish

Not only will the Ninth Doctor meet up again with his Eighth Doctor companions, Liv Chenka (Nicola Walker) and Tania Bell (Rebecca Root), in the next box set from Big Finish; he’ll also be facing off against the Sea Devils — only this time, they’re in space! Plus, the Doctor meets the first woman awarded the Nobel Peace Prize! The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Hidden Depths also stars Jeremy Swift…

[timeagainreviews]

“I call people dude now!”

Hello friends! Over the weekend I had myself a pretty difficult time. I learned a friend of mine is dying and there’s nothing that can be done for it. Because of this, I am not sure how long or thought out this article will be. I might just touch on some key elements from last night’s episode. Either way, I do have half of a Twin Peaks article written, and Edge of Destruction has been viewed, so expect those soon. Also, a friend of mine asked me to submit an article for her zine, and I will be writing that for both this and the zine. You can probably expect that one soon as well!

So far Chris Chibnall has proven to be an interesting showrunner. I’ve not hidden my disdain for his writing at times, but in other ways, I really do enjoy his work. His scripts have the tendency to be like a box of bran cereal with a really cool toy at the bottom. There’s a lot that works, and there’s a lot that doesn’t. One of my biggest issues with "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship," was how dour and depressing it was at times. With a title like that, you’d expect something more lighthearted. When I saw the trailer for last night’s episode, my biggest hope would be that it was more akin to "Gremlins 2." Something kind of camp and silly, which in some ways we did get.

The episode opens in a large hotel in Sheffield. A man named Jack Robertson (a Donald Trump proxy) is discussing the logistics of a vague problem that could "cost [him] in 2020." The woman he’s speaking to, Frankie, is his niece’s wife, though he had to be reminded of this. So far, we don’t like this guy much. His bodyguard waits to whisk him off to his plane, while he tells Frankie to make their problem disappear, though she’s not so sure it’s that easy. Before they can discuss this any further, they are interrupted by a woman named Najia Khan, the general manager of the hotel. She’s there to check up on things before the grand opening. Very callously Robertson fires her (further solidifying his Donald Trump status, and his role as the hotel owner) seemingly for interrupting his nefarious meeting. He gives Frankie and hour to "make this all go away."

Before saying anything else, I would like to talk about that time vortex sequence! How cool was that? The last time we saw the time vortex in such intimate detail was "Timelash," which if you ask the fandom, was pretty bad. (Though I sorta love it for that.) Elements of it reminded me of the hyperspace scenes from "Babylon 5," and other elements reminded me of "Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure," how you could take certain avenues to sort of dial a point in time. The way the sequence segues into the console room was a beautiful bit of production value series eleven has needed. (Even those god-awful closeups were missing!)

Watching the Doctor and her companions all fly the TARDIS, was kind of great. I was reminded of the scene in "Journey’s End," when the Doctor and his friends pilot the TARDIS together. I loved the idea of her still getting used to the controls. If you’ve not watched the video on YouTube of the production crew talking about the TARDIS interior, you really should. It’s a lovely glimpse into the design process. Not to be outshone, the exterior of the TARDIS, in its brilliant aqua blue, lands in Sheffield. This may be one of the Doctor’s best landings ever. She’s in Sheffield, it’s the right period, they’re right outside Yaz’s, and it’s only been thirty minutes since they were teleported away from the warehouse into the depths of space.

The Doctor made good on her promise- she brought her friends home. Looking like a kicked puppy, it’s more than obvious she doesn’t want to say goodbye. Yaz, picking up on this, invites her and the others up for tea. It’s a rather sweet scene. Graham, who’s not yet had any downtime to mourn since the funeral, decides to nip back home for a moment. Ryan offers to join, but Graham needs to do it alone. It’s a nice bit of character development between them. I rather loved it.

While heading into Yaz’s flat, the Doctor notices a worried woman trying to reach the occupant of a flat a couple doors down. She also notices a bit of spiderweb but doesn’t pay it much mind. Yaz lives with her family still, and we’re introduced to her dad and sister. I’ve been saying how I wanted a bit more Yaz, and this episode really delivers. Her dad is pretty much instantly likeable. He’s excitable, friendly, and has a personal project of keeping rubbish in the living room, or "evidence," as he calls it. It’s a conspiracy! Yaz’s sister is the typical bratty little sister. The banter they share was also charming. She teases Yaz that she’s surprised she even has friends. Yaz is usually too married to her job to worry about friends. Yaz counters with “At least I have a job to be married to.” I like sassy Yaz.

The Doctor is being her usual self- a bit weird. Marvelling at a couch is not exactly normal. Historically, she’s always been rather enamoured with the mundane elements of human life. Things like having a flat, going to work, watching a bit of telly, are all parts of a life she can never have. Yaz’s sister, Sonya, probes Ryan about his relationship to Yaz. She clearly has the hots for him. Yaz’s father, Hakim, wants to know if the police have followed up on the rubbish he’s collected. Before she can answer, Yaz’s phone rings revealing Najia to be her mother on the other end. She tells her she needs a ride home from work. (If you recall from my "The Woman Who Fell to Earth," review, I wondered if she didn’t have a mother, well she does!)

The sisters’ bickering as Yaz leaves, reminds the Doctor of her sisters. It also reminds her of the time she was a sister at an aqua-hospital, that actually turned out to be a training camp for the "Quiston Calcium Assassins." Ryan responds with "Going off on one again…" Which is what she’s doing right? Going off on a little tangent. Then why is it that the line really irked me? The Doctor is known for always telling stupid little stories, but this one really got to me. It’s right up there with suddenly having Audrey Hepburn or maybe Pythagoras’ sunglasses in her pockets. It’s a question of when. When would she have been a sister with some order of nuns?

The Doctor has always been male leading up to this point. So when would she be a woman in a past life to do this? When in this life would she have done this and not had Ryan around to have witnessed it first hand? If it’s just Chibnall trying to be cute, he’s really bad at it. It leaves you asking the wrong kind of questions, and for me, actually took me out of the story for a moment. Another implication is some "The Brain of Morbius" level fuckery indicating that the First Doctor, is not in fact, the first incarnation, which you could make an argument for. The War Doctor didn’t go as "the Doctor," which makes him "The War Doctor," and not "The Ninth Doctor." Another implication is that one of the past incarnations had a bit of a drag phase, which I could actually see. Both Two and Three have dressed in drag before. Either way, it’s a bad line and Chibnall should feel bad. (Ok rant over)

The Doctor notices that the Khans have a parcel to pick up from the neighbour down the way.  She offers to go pick it up while Yaz’s dad cooks his terrible pakora. We’re now back with Graham at his home. We see more of that portentous spiderweb. The house is empty and feels lifeless. It’s the first time he’s been back home since Grace died and is haunted by her essence, as depicted by having Sharon D Clarke actually there as Grace. She talks to him about all of the little things around the house he’ll need to remember to keep the house in working order. He indicates that he has something else to tell her, but it’s left unsaid. He sits and smells her clothes, trying to remember her. Anyone who has ever lost a loved one can immediately identify with this. I found these moments with Graham and Grace very effective. He’s interrupted by a sound up in Ryan’s room, where he finds massive strands of spider web, and the moulted exoskeleton of a spider the size of a house cat.

Graham isn’t the only one dealing with large spiders though. The Doctor and Ryan are about to discover these overgrown arachnids themselves. The parcel they’re picking up is at the same flat where the woman, we now know as Jade, was trying to reach her friend Anna. They both work in the same lab at their uni. After confirming Anna may be in trouble, the Doctor sonics the door open. Inside, the flat is covered in the same webbing as Ryan’s room. I’m reminded of "Mulholland Drive," where Naomi Watts and Elena Harring search the apartment of Diane Selwyn. Rather horrified, they discover the body of poor Anna, cocooned in spiderweb. "Spiders don’t do that, do they?" asks Ryan, but the Doctor asks a more important question- where is the spider that did this now?

Many people are squeamish about spiders. My mate Gerry’s wife sat this episode out, due to an intense dislike of the little creatures. Which is why I found myself rather amused when they finally show the spider, and it’s actually a bit cute. It’s a brown house spider, once again, about the size of a cat, but it is rather aggressive toward the Doctor, Ryan and Jade. Using some quick thinking, the Doctor uses vinegar and garlic paste to keep the spider quarantined, as the noses in spiders’ feet are sensitive to these substances. She creates a sort of perimeter around the spider which seems to work. Now outside the flat, they meet up with Graham who has also seen some freaky stuff today! Graham gives Ryan a sealed letter that he found back home. It’s from his father, who if you remember correctly, didn’t attend Grace’s funeral. The Doctor asks Jade to take her back to the lab where she’s been testing on spiders. Hakim and Sonya are having pakora alone tonight it would seem. 

The Doctor tells Jade she thinks she knows more than she leads on. She questions Jade about their experiments, but Jade defends their practices. They’ve been doing everything within the law. The spider carcasses are disposed of by a special containment unit. She doesn’t know why the spiders are mutating. Jade has been plotting out instances of giant spiders on a map in the lab. In what may be one of the most overused tropes in cinema history, the Doctor connects the dots with a series of lines all pointing to one centre point. It’s a bit stupid when you realise she could have just pointed at the centre point of the dots to the exact same effect, but that wouldn’t look as cool right? The centre point is, of course, the hotel Najia just got fired from, where she’s still waiting for Yaz.

Frankie walks through a pair of doors marked with danger warnings, into an underground tunnel that looks like rock that’s been excavated by human hands. It’s full of spider web. Timid and afraid, Frankie moves forward with her camera phone but is taken suddenly to her doom by an offscreen spider. Back in the lobby, Jack Robertson and Kevin confront Najia and Yaz who has just arrived. I was slightly frustrated by the fact that Kevin pulls a gun on Yaz and she doesn’t mention once that she’s a police officer. Not once does she cite any kind of statute or even try and calm the situation as a police officer. They explain that Yaz was there to pick her up, but feeling antagonistic, Robertson wants to show Yaz how bad her mother is at her job, and why he fired her. He takes them to a room full of spider web.

While in the room, Yaz thinks she hears something through the walls but is called away by the Doctor who is now outside the hotel with Jade, Ryan, and Graham. Still in the room, Kevin and Robertson are confronted by a very large spider, about the size of a car. Robertson very cowardly leaves Kevin as bait as he’s dragged into the depths underneath the hotel to his death. Poor Kevin.

The Doctor, using psychic paper (a nice callback I was hoping to see) tells Robertson she’s there on official business and goes about looking for the source of the spiders. Ryan and Graham know exactly who he is, as he’s a bit famous. Their standing there grinning like idiots at Robertson was cute. I loved the bravery the Doctor shows when sticking her head into the giant spider-sized hole to get a peek, and what a peek she gets! She pulls her head back just in time as the giant spider lunges at her and they all sprint toward the exit of the hotel, which has now been completely webbed up, which it hadn’t been before. The spiders are trapping them in!

The Doctor refers to Yaz’s mum since she knows the hotel so intimately. They go hide out in the kitchen where everyone begins asking questions. The Doctor doesn’t seem to know who Robertson is, much to his annoyance. She rather humorously asks if he’s the Ed Sheeran she’s been hearing so much about. Robertson, it turns out, is gunning for the presidency in 2020, mostly out of disdain for Trump. So he can’t be all bad, right? Robertson butts against the Doctor’s authority, but the companions in a sign of solidarity let him know with no uncertainty that she’s in charge. The Doctor sends Ryan and Graham to capture a spider for Jade to inspect and takes everyone else to find a map of the hotel.

Graham and Ryan find a spider and catch it in a cooking pot, only to get chased down the hall by an agitated army of arachnids. It’s about the closest the spiders get to being actually scary in the entire episode. If you don’t suffer from arachnophobia, it’s really rather tame. The true villain, as it turns out, is capitalism. It’s revealed that Robertson built the hotel on top of an old mine that was used as a landfill. It’s a profitable endeavour from his perspective. Get paid to cart off a bunch of rubbish, find use for a disused mine, and build a lavish resort on top of it! This explains the rubbish Mr Khan had been finding sprouting up all around Sheffield. While looking over maps, Najia wants to know how Yaz knows the Doctor and even asks if they’re in a relationship. The Doctor naively asks Yaz if they are, as she’s been ignorant to this sort of thing in the past. (Be still my heart.) They find the entrance to the mine on the map and set off.

As they barge past the danger doors, Robertson protests, trying to use his powerful status to keep everyone from discovering his dirty secret. He tries to stop Najia, and in what may be the best line of the episode she defiantly looks him in the eye and says "You’re not the boss of me anymore." Oof. Good one, girl. Now inside, they find the bodies of Frankie, Kevin, and several others, all of whom met the same fate as poor Anna. Even the callous Robertson can’t hide the tinge of guilt on his face, though it doesn’t stop him from pocketing Kevin’s web caked gun. Anna, who had spider pheromones on her from the lab, attracted spiders to her home from this location. (Why neither Jade nor the lab had been affected, or why they were attracted to the O'Brien homestead is anyone’s guess.) In a very "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," moment, it’s revealed that the toxic waste of gases building up, and the improperly disposed spider carcasses created a sort of mutagenic stew to breed giant mutant spiders. It’s all a rather stupid explanation, but I kind of love it for that. It was Laird and Eastman’s Doctor Who. I’m all for it.

Back in the kitchen, Jade tells Ryan and Graham she needs a bigger specimen, which basically is only written in as an excuse to give the two of them something to do. It’s a bit sloppy and doesn’t go anywhere. It does, however, give us a nice opportunity to have a bit of a heart to heart between Graham and Ryan. Ryan tells Graham that he read the letter from his father. He mentions he doesn’t like that his father referred to himself as the only proper family Ryan had left, indicating that he still thinks of Graham as family. Does this mean we might hear him call Graham "Granddad," soon? Their heart to heart is cut short, however, when they are confronted in the ballroom by a giant spider.

Once again, the spiders aren’t very scary, as the two of them escape rather quickly and they’re back in the kitchen. Why the kitchen has been established as the safest place in the hotel, is still unknown, but Yaz’s mum said! Robertson reveals he has a panic room installed in the hotel. He has one in every hotel, as he’s a bit of a paranoid guy. When he had it installed in case the poor ever decided to rise up and eat the rich, I’ll bet he didn’t foresee them being spiders! The panic room has an ocular scanner, a small green laser that really should have blinded him if I’m being honest, but hey, it looks cool! In the panic room, Robertson has enough food and drink to survive for six months. He also had a rather swank entertainment system with a flat screen and giant speakers. Using Ryan’s phone, the Doctor devises a plan! (Always with Ryan’s phone, that one.)

The next sequence is something akin to the campiness I was hoping we would get from this episode- hip hop spiders! Drawn to the sick beats from Ryan’s phone, and Robertson’s sound system, the spiders all gather inside the panic room where the Doctor and her friends trap them inside. Robertson, however, has become increasingly paranoid in the face of being the least powerful man in the room and has decided to take refuge in the safety of his gun.

The Doctor puts together a very "Ghostbusters," style backpack garden sprayer filled with peppermint and tea tree oil diluted in water. She plans on using this natural spider repellant as a way to wrangle the big spider that chased Graham and Ryan in the ballroom. After all, there’s the Sheffield Comic Con there in a week, they need it empty! However, the spider is behaving strangely. Under the weight of its own mass, the poor beast is struggling to breathe. The Doctor takes pity on it, and apologises to it, as she knows it’s going to die. Then the real monster enters the room in the form of Robertson wielding a gun. He fires a single shot into the spider, killing it, and angering the Doctor.

Now back at their homes, the companions all seem to be slightly removed from their roots. Before walking out of her flat, Yaz is told by Najia she still wants to know how she came to know the Doctor. There’s a sort of Jackie Tyler "I want to know who my daughter is out galavanting with," element to her questioning that I liked. They all convene back at the TARDIS, still parked outside Yaz’s. The Doctor invites them in, expecting to have to say goodbye. Instead, they decide they would rather travel with her. Graham says he’d rather grieve with her, than in an empty house. Ryan has no desire to resume working in a warehouse, and Yaz wants to see the universe. I rather like the responsibility the Doctor has been taking with her companions’ safety, as she tells them in no certain terms, that travelling with her will be dangerous. They all accept, and the Doctor christens their new "fam," as "the TARDIS team." Then, all together, they pull the lever and the TARDIS takes them on their next adventure!

And that’s it, really. Which I must say, was a bit disappointing. Not the entire episode, but the ending. It sort of fizzled out. While I was actually rather pleased to see the spiders weren’t treated as big evil monsters, it would have been nice to actually have some sort of final showdown. Maybe Ryan gets webbed up and they had to save him before it was too late. Something. Sadly, most of the danger was short-lived, or off camera. Also, what actually happened with the spiders? Will they spend the rest of their lives listening to garage beats? How many of them were still out in the wild? Did the waste get cleaned up? Will there be a public outcry? Are there more people dead in their homes, wrapped in a gauze of spider web? What’s the difference between killing spiders outright, and starving them in a panic room? Lots of unanswered questions.

I liked that they gave us more interior shots of the TARDIS. I liked that the console room still has Gallifreyan written somewhere. With as much change as the show has gone through, it’s nice to see that continuity. Speaking of change, Jodie Whittaker continues to sparkle as the Doctor. But I did have some issues with her role in this episode. Aside from wrangling spiders, and figuring out what was happening, the Doctor doesn’t actually do much in the episode. I mean, did she do anything to ensure this won’t continue to happen?

While I rather liked Jack Robertson’s campy turn as the villain, even his story seemed to fizzle out. Considering the Doctor had once taken down the prime minister with six words, I expected her to give Robertson a warning or something. But alas, he, like every villain this season, lives to fight another day. Doctor Who writer Paul Magrs said on twitter recently that Missy would have made them into mincemeat by now, and I’m inclined to agree. The Doctor and her crew have yet to really face a truly terrifying foe. The stakes have been disappointingly low. I’m beginning to expect we’ll see a sort of legion of men scorned by the Doctor come together at the end of this series. Perhaps they’ll form a society of the Doctor’s evil exes. Is this all turning out to be one big metaphor for misogyny? Maybe. Regardless, I must say I rather enjoyed this one.

[blueyesandleatherjacket]

Regenerate Nine Day: Better off dead

Volume: 1.

Number of parts: 11/?.

Pairings: Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler.

Synopsis: "She pleaded with the old girl not to let him find her, wherever she would be hiding in the infinite possibilities given by the space ship."

A/N: Today is Regenerate Nine Day (9/9) and so I've decided to repost all the one-shots I've written about the Ninth Doctor, whether they are DW verse or not to celebrate this fantastic Doctor. The first shot to be post is a rewriting of Journey's end.

“A hero is somebody who is selfless, who is generous in spirit, who just tries to give back as much as possible and help people. A hero to me is someone who saves people and who really cares.” - Debi Mazar.

BETTER OFF DEAD:

Pulling her sleeves over her arms, Rose ran away from the Doctor and hid away in the TARDIS. She pleaded with the old girl not to let him find her, wherever she would be hiding in the infinite possibilities given by the space ship. She could feel her hesitation of taking her away from the Doctor, of hiding her in the depths of her infinity, and yet, a door opened right in front of Rose. She rushed into the room, silently thanking her for helping her. She could hear the Doctor’s step running after her, but she didn’t want him to find her so she slammed the door behind her and hoped that the old girl would kept her word and make the Doctor go round and round without finding her. She didn’t want to see him right now. She didn’t even want to hear what he had to say. Even if he wanted to apologise. She was gonna ignore him as much as she could. She leaned against the door and closed her eyes, sighing deeply. She didn’t hear the Doctor’s steps anymore. Actually, she didn’t hear anything coming from this outside of the room she was locked in. It was a real relief. She opened her eyes again and looked around her, expecting to be in some kind of cupboard, but she wasn’t. The room was huge, and it was full of mess. All the gadgets the Doctor had retrieved from all their travels around Time and Space – and, according to the huge amounts of things, he’d probably start long before he met her – were stored here, long forgotten by their owner, or was it the place the Doctor was hiding when she couldn’t find him? Whatever, as long as the TARDIS was helping her, Rose would be safe here. He wouldn’t come in here as long as the TARDIS would keep her hidden. She slumped on a half burned out armchair – the Doctor must be doing some testing in there, he always tended to made things explode – and wiped away the last tears on her face. Her hands were trembling because of the strong feelings that she had gone through in the last hour. They were enjoying a nice time off after the Slitheens affair, and he had taken her to take some chips. They were both happy and laughing about that new adventure, about the strange woman Harriet Jones was, but she had made a mistake. She had totally forgotten about her arms and her sleeve had slipped a bit when she had put a strand of hair behind her ear. She had caught his look on her, but he didn’t say a thing. She had been relieved, thinking that he hadn’t seen her skin, or that he had chosen not to talk about it, but it was not knowing the Doctor much to think so. Soon as they were alone, soon as he was sure no one would come around them, the Doctor had caught her arms. The move had been so quick and so sudden that she remembered startling. Her face was twisted with a grimace of pain. She should have known. The Doctor saw everything, and he wanted to know everything. There was a mystery about her, a mystery he had just found out about, and now he wanted to know. He had pulled her sleeve up. His moves were very soft and caring, but she had stopped breathing, and her body had tensed up. She had shivered when his fingers brushed over the scars. She had swallowed as he kept silent about it. There was a lot of scars, some old, some recent, and she had felt ashamed that he had found her dark secret. He hadn’t let go of her and had pulled up her other sleeve. The same scars were on her other arm, their redness contrasting with her pale skin. ‘Why’ had been his only question and she hadn’t given him any answer. He had insisted, but she had remained silent. When he had loosened his grip on her, she had pulled down her sleeves and run away from him to hide in the TARDIS. She had thought she could trust him, that he would never stick his nose into her business, and he had proved her wrong. But it was her fault, she hadn’t been careful enough. For a second, she had let her guard down and he had seen her biggest and most terrible secret. She hadn’t wanted him to know about it, and now he knew, and she hated herself for this. She pulled her knees against his chest and wrapped her arms them. She pressed her forehead against them and sighed deeply, trying not to break down again. She couldn’t. She had to hold back of those useless tears. She had cried enough, but the only thing stronger than the mental pain was the physical one. She had to cut herself again, to see her arm bleeding, to feel the pain rushing through her brain to feel better. She hated that part of her, she hated what she had to do to herself to stop suffering so much, but she couldn’t help but do it. It was more powerful than her. She needed it to feel better. She was often thinking that it would be better if she failed, if she killed herself instead, but then, the Doctor made her realise that there were a lot of things still left to see in the universe, and her curiosity won over her dark thoughts. She knew why she was suffering so much and she didn’t understand how she could still be affected by it when she was with such a wonderful man like the Doctor, a man who was giving her the universes, a man who was taking care of her and worrying about her. Cutting herself when she was under his roof felt like betraying him, betraying his trust. She got up and walked to a desk. There probably would be scissors, or a Stanley knife or anything that cut enough to make herself bleed. She looked into all the cupboards and opened the drawers but there was nothing. The TARDIS was hiding all the possible weapons she could have found. Just like the Doctor, she was trying to protect the blonde girl. In a move of rage, Rose closed a drawer brutally and heard a strange noise. She got curious and opened the drawer again. Her violence had caused the drawer to break a little and she realised that there was a false bottom. Why would the Doctor have a drawer with a false bottom in a room no one but him had access to? She looked into the drawer and found a small and partially damaged little notebook. She got even more curious and started browsing through it. It was pages and pages and pages of the Doctor’s handwriting, but some pages were stained by blood, and what looked like tears. Rose looked around her. There was no one around. She bit her lip, wondering if it was a good idea to even read this. She was breaking into his privacy by doing so. It was what she was reproaching him. She couldn’t read it. It was none of her business. On the other hand, why would the TARDIS leave this in plain view? The old girl probably had had a purpose in mind to show her this. Rose was about to put it back down in the drawer and kept looking for a thing that cut but her eyes caught the sight of her name, and her curiosity got stronger than her will to cut herself. She sat back down on the armchair and started reading the Doctor’s prose, wondering why he had felt the need to write so much, why he had felt the need to write about her. First, she just read the pages where her name was mentioned and she was highly surprised to see how much the Doctor cared and worried about her. He was writing about every little thing he liked about her, about the things that were upsetting him when they were arguing, about the things he wanted to do for her if only she accepted his help, and tears were rolling down her cheeks when she realised how awful she had been to him when the man only wanted to make her happy and to give her things no other ‘normal’ man couldn’t have given her. She realised that he knew some parts of her past, parts she had never talked about to him – which meant that he had gone into her past at some point – but he never talked about the scars before. He had never seen them before today, but he had always been worried about that look of pain in her eyes, and wondering what she had been hiding from him. Then, she started getting really curious about the things the Doctor had written, things that weren’t about her. She hesitated once again, wondering if it was right to read this, after all it was the thoughts of the Doctor. It was his privacy, things he wasn’t telling her, things he couldn’t tell her – and it wasn’t a question of trust according to the things he had written on her – so, was she really allowed to read all of this? Why the TARDIS was letting her read all of this? She didn’t know, she felt guilty and yet, she started reading everything. She didn’t notice how fast the time was going while she was reading those lines. The Doctor was an exceptional writer, but his story was one of the darkest she had ever read. He had told her that he was the last one of his kind, but he had never told her how it all happened. And now, she knew. She knew about the Time War, about Gallifrey, about his guilt. She knew all the deep thoughts of the Doctor. She was reading his pain, his guilt, his dark thoughts, his will of killing himself. The blood stains were all the times he had tried to. The tears stains were all the times he had cried over what he had lost. He had never showed her any of this. For her, he was always the smiling goofy Time Lord, and when he was alone, he was writing everything that was making his soul bleed. And right now, Rose hated herself. She hated herself more than usual, because she just realised how much pain the Doctor was going through, she realised that his problems were much more important than hers, and that she had no right to suffer so much over something so pointless in the end. She pulled her knees back to her chest, wedging the notebook between her chest and legs, and wrapped her arms around them. She pressed her forehead to her knees and sobbed for a moment. “I’m sorry.” Rose jumped when she heard his voice and when she felt his hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, her face covered in tears. He was watching her with his icy blue eyes full of concern and she had to take a few minutes to understand what he had just told her. “No,” she protested weakly. “This is me. I am sorry. I didn’t know.” The Doctor knelt down in front of her and wiped her tears away gently. She could see how much he hated seeing her in such a condition. She was no stupid ape to him, she had read it in his notebook. He liked her, he really liked her a lot and she was ruining everything with her pointless human troubles. “I told the TARDIS to show the notebook to you when she finally told me that you were here.” She thought that the TARDIS probably told him so hours ago and yet, he hadn’t come sooner. The TARDIS had kept the door locked and prevented him from coming in, or he had respectfully waited for calm down and to be able to face him again. But she couldn’t face him. Not with what she now knew. She would never be able to look at him in the eyes now. She looked away from him and he gently took her hands in his. “I haven’t thought she would let you read the whole thing though, but maybe it’s not a bad thing.” “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “You’ve already said that.” “I really am. Everything looks so pointless now. I didn’t realise…” “Your pain is not pointless. I understand why you did this. And yes, I did go into your past to understand why you were in so much pain. What he’s done to you…” He swallowed. “What he’s done to you is not right, Rose, and you are allowed to suffer, to try and numb the pain.” She looked back at him. His eyes were still full of concern. He wasn’t angry against her at all for running away and hiding and not telling him what was going on in her mind. He had been really worried about her, and now he knew, and she knew too. He let go of her hands and took off his leather jacket. He rolled up the sleeves of his jumper and showed her his arms. They were full of scars too. The same as her. Scars showing how badly he had tried to take that pain away from him. Scars that explained the blood on the pages. “I couldn’t deal with my guilt, my pain, my self-hatred and my solitude, so I started cutting myself hoping it would make the pain go away, but I was only adding more pain to the one I already had.” She sniffled as new tears rolled down her cheeks. He was opening up to her. It was something he had never done before. He was opening up to her and showing her his scars to help her, to show her that she wasn’t alone in this, that he knew that she was going through to an extent. She held a hand out and slowly brushed over his scars. He didn’t move and just let her touch them. “What I’ve done is not right, but it was necessary. I’ll never be able to forgive myself but you, Rose Tyler, you showed me that I wasn’t alone anymore. You stuck by my side even after I tried to scare you, to make you feel that pain I was feeling inside down. You showed me that there could be light in the darkness. Your presence filled the hole in my hearts and mind, made my solitude disappear. Your smile and laugh numbed my pain with some joy I thought I would never feel again. You showed me the path of redemption, and I feel better when you’re by my side.” “Doctor…” “I stopped cutting myself when you came on board.” He had tears in his eyes, and Rose couldn’t remember ever seeing him so vulnerable. Her heart broke and she left her current position to hug him tight against her, to comfort him. She apologised once again and he promised her that he was gonna help her as much as she had helped him so far. Deep down, she knew it was a promise he was gonna keep, and she felt a bit better to know this. Now, they would be closer than before, and they would watch over each other like true friends were supposed to do. Rose promised herself that she would talk to him whenever she would feel bad and that she would try her best to take care of that strange alien man that she really liked too in the end.

Chronicles of a better man © | 2016 - 2018 | Tous droits réservés.

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In the next shot:

He was walking to his car, passing close to a small dark alleyway when he heard a small cry. He stopped, surprised, and listened. It could just have been a cat, but if it wasn’t, he had to make sure of it. His instinct was telling him it wasn’t just a stray cat, and if someone needed him, he had to go and see. There was another small cry. It was definitely human. Maxence pulled out his phone and switched on the torch. He started walking in the alleyway, calling out for whoever was there. The whimpers stopped as soon as the person heard him. He kept looking though. Someone needed help and he was surely one of the right persons for this job. He listened closely to everything around him, trying to find where the whimpers had come from. He was leading the small light of his phone around the dark alleyway that was stinking with long forgotten rubbish.

×××

Buy me a coffee?

[riversofmars]

I’ve been sucked into the livhelen fandom by some excellent fanfic, I read an crossover with them and my main ship osgate and that led me down the rabbit hole lol. Where’s the best place to start with their big finish stuff?

Oh my friend, you are more than welcome 🤣

Which fic was it? 🤣

Of course I will be more than happy to answer that! Best place to start would be the series "Doom Coalition" which is the series Helen joins as a companion. Liv is already there, she joins in the series before that called "Dark Eyes" but that's not a good jumping on point cause it's very complicated. If you want to go back later to listen to just the Liv content, do so later, which is what I've done!

Just to give you a quick overview of the adventures that feature them. The bold ones are Liv and Helen, the others just Liv.

Robophobia (single episode of the Main Range Monthly Adventures)

Dark Eyes 1-4 (series of 16 episodes)

The World Beyond The Trees (single episode of the Short Trips range)

Doom Coalition 1-4 (series of 16 episodes)

Ravenous 1-4 (series of 16 episodes)

Stranded 1-4 (series of 16 episodes)

The Eighth Doctor Adventures: What Lies Inside? (3 episodes)

The Eighth Doctor Adventures: Connections (3 episodes)

The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Hidden Depth (Liv is only in one episode of this)

The Robots 1-6 (Liv spin-off series set during an episode of Ravenous, the sixth and final box set is due to be released next week)

Now, I would suggest go listen chronologically from "Doom Coalition". It is honestly the best series to start cause you follow Helen's introduction and get to know everything through her eyes. Plus, it doesn't require prior listening, is relatively easy to follow and is just all round a brilliant story arc!

After that I would go straight for "Ravenous" cause DC (sort of) ends on a bit of a cliffhanger.

"Stranded" on the other hand - while being the continuation - I personally dislike. That's just my personal view of it. I can't, in good conscience, tell anyone to spend money on it... And you can go straight into the new "Eighth Doctor Adventures" series straight from "Ravenous" as the new EDAs are designed to be another jumping on point with no prior listening required. (There is one episode in "Connection" that links back to something in "Stranded" but it's explained in the episode anyway so it doesn't really matter).

But of course, that's something you can decide as and when you get to it. For now I would say: "Doom Coalition" and "Ravenous"! (And definitely "Connections" later on, cause as a Liv/Helen shipper you will go feral for it...).

Highly recommend you buy DC and Rav as bundles each, it'll save you a lot of money in comparison to buying the volumes separately.

Really hope this helps! <3

Welcome to the Liv/Helen fandom! Let me know if you (or anyone else that's reading this) want an invite to the Doctor Who Rare Pair Discord server which has a very active Liv/Helen corner!

[thedoctorwhocompanion]

The Ninth Doctor to Meet Liv and Tania for Big Finish's Upcoming Hidden Depths

The Ninth #DoctorWho to Meet Liv and Tania for @bigfinish's Hidden Depths

The Ninth Doctor runs into his former companions in Big Finish’s The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Hidden Depths, due for release in November 2022. In the third adventure of the set, Flatpack, Nicola Walker and Rebecca Root return as Liv Chenka and Tania Bell, respecively – most recently heard in the Eighth Doctor Adventures series, Stranded – now happily living together in London. While shopping,…

[pers-books]

Big Finish has released the trailer for the Hidden Depths boxset, which includes John Dorney’s Flatpack, starring Liv Chenka and Tanya Bell.

[ID Cover art for The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Hidden Depths.]