#also i have no idea when thirteen began wearing the coat dark site out rather than light and tardis wiki didn't note it on her costume

[regicidal-defenestration]

If you were to write a Frankenstein episode* of doctor who, how would you do it?

*episode here includes radio plays etc. Your choice of doctor, companions, and format

(Also there probably has been a Frankenstein episode of doctor who at some point that I'm not aware of so please also include your opinion on it if you so wish!)

SO

I would not be surprised in the slightest if there’s something in the Doctor Who verse with the plot of “guy puts together dead body parts to bring a creature to life”, but if it’s out there it’s not one I’ve encountered I don’t think.

The Doctor has met Mary Shelley a minimum of twice (TARDISWiki assures me there are more), both of which happen on the same series of nights funnily enough, the ones where Frankenstein got written. The Haunting of Villa Diodati is a Thirteenth Doctor episode in which the inspiration for Frankenstein’s Creature is made to be a Cyberman. The Company of Friends (Mary’s Story) is an Eighth Doctor audio where the inspiration for the Creature is this time the Doctor himself. Both are very good episodes! Haunting has a fucked up house, Thirteen getting a moment of rage and loneliness, and one hell of an ending shot; Mary’s Story has time travel shenanigans and unethical science being performed on Eight.

Neither of these are Frankenstein adaptations though. They get a bit Frankenstein-y around the edges, because you would, if you in the present day was writing a story featuring Mary Shelley, but the focus is always more on the ghosts/Cybermen/Doctor/Percy Shelley wanting to electrocute Eight. We can do more than that, in a move I’m going to call

Jodie Whittaker Is A Strong Actor And Thirteen Doesn’t Have To Always Be Cheerful.

It’s set vaguely around the events of The Timeless Children, definitely before Flux, and the main purpose is to give us a moment to let the RevealTM settle in, before half the universe gets destroyed (more on that later). The Timeless Child was a move which has made a lot of different people have a lot of different opinions! Personally I think it was Fine and Not That Awful and will probably get forgotten about and retconned in a few years anyway (also as a noted Doctor “I’m half human on my mother’s side” Who TV Movie fan I am in no position to complain about plot twists that upend canon as we know it or whatever), but I do think we can use it to make Thirteen worse. Both Timeless Children and Flux (and maybe Power of the Doctor)  would be slightly different, mostly with the Division being gone, but also I haven't re-watched either since they were broadcast and don’t remember every plot beat, so adjust them in your mind as necessary

ANYWAY

What this isn’t is a “guy goes to uni, drops out of uni, makes another guy, has life ruined by that guy” adaptation. What it is is a “can you imagine if you were the creature and you were given life only to be abandoned and hated by both your creator and also most of the universe I think that’d suck” type story.

We open with the Doctor waking on an autopsy table. No bindings hold her down, but she has no coat, no sonic screwdriver, and no memory of how she ended up here. The laboratory setting around her is unfamiliar but appears to have been abandoned in a hurry - papers left out, computers not shut down, smashed glass and split liquids.

Slowly, she begins to explore. It starts inconsequential enough - there’s a hat stand with a dark coat hanging on it. She puts it on, has a look in the mirror to the side, it fits! It looks good!

We will, though, start to put together what’s going on here: creating bodies; life after death ("Oh Mary," she says, "you'd love this one!"); experiments on people, or maybe only the one person. Regeneration. The Timeless Child.

The realisation has a physical force behind it. This is the place Tecteun took the Timeless Child apart to learn the secrets of regeneration, and put them back together to make the Doctor.

I have made the executive decision to equate Thirteen and Frankenstein’s Creature

They are both alone, made by a parent-creator-god and abandoned when they’d served their use. They are both a bit fucked up. They both deserve better!

Back to the mirror, smashed now, though we never heard nor saw anything happen to it. Thirteen sees herself again… but not quite herself. In every shard is a different face, all reflected back at her, reflected back twisted and shattered. Bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification indeed. 

HYPOCRITE SIDEBAR Thirteen is a hypocrite! The Doctor has always been a bit of a hypocrite, it comes from being a 60 year old character written by hundreds of different people, but Thirteen especially is a hypocrite. No guns, but she’d let the spiders suffocate and die. A flat team structure, until she needs to be at the top. This is slightly related to what I'm about to say I'm also just saying it

She speaks to herselves then, in a move that’s a bit more metaphorical than what will happen in Power of the Doctor, but will lead into that. It’s a “I never told anyone my name, I never ate pears, I don’t know if I always managed to be kind but I tried to do my best.” type confrontation. A “was I too cruel? Too cowardly? Did I run too far to return to a beginning they hid from me?”

Jodie Whittaker did Antigone one time I think. Thirteen can have a brief flash of rage, all this advice from her past selves none of them could have seen this one coming, an “in this desolation I am alone, what would you have me do?” that could be fun

The Guardians of the Edge (1/5/6/7/8) will assure her she's doing fine, in time. For now, she is alone, and there's no-one to allay the doubt.

A computer beeps a warning. Flux deployment a success, warning, en route to your location.

We might reasonably assume this is a bomb, or missile, or something, programmed by Tecteun to destroy all evidence of what they did here. The Doctor certainly does, jumping into action to try and determine what this Flux is and how to stop it. (Her sonic screwdriver is in her pocket now. It definitely wasn't there earlier)

And then, she slows. Stops. Thinks.

Would it be so bad, to see all of this destroyed? (You may think this sounds a lot like the Master, and you’d be right. We’re laying the groundwork for the better Power of the Doctor that exists in my mind, where the Master and the Doctor do a Proper full body swap and perhaps they’re not always as different as they think)

It’s not like there’s anyone else here, she tries to justify. It’s not like she cares if Tecteun loses all this work. It’s not like she doesn’t want it to all burn down, just this once. (We are reminded of Ten, who doesn’t kill the Racnoss in The Runaway Bride because Donna stops him. Eight, in Terror Firma, wanting to unleash Davros’ death virus and only stopping because his friends could remind him of who he was. The War Doctor, preparing to use the Moment. We are reminded that Thirteen is alone)

Maybe the Doctor does a half hearted search through some documents for any sign that might sway her (Oh! My creator, make me happy; let me feel gratitude towards you for one benefit etc) and maybe there was never going to be anything to change her mind.

“I tried to inspire love,” she says. She doesn't finish the line.

(“Oh Mary,” she’ll go and mutter under her breath. “What'd you make of that one?”)

The clock is still ticking, alarms getting more urgent. The Doctor legs it to the exit - we don’t have time to wonder at how the lab has fallen apart even more, mould crawling over the ceilings and a lightshow of sparking, dying, machines. She reaches the door, throws it open-

Through it, space.

Thirteen looks behind her, frowns, looks back. We zoom out, see the TARDIS hanging in the void, the Doctor leaning out the doorway.

The alarm is still beeping, the Flux, and we know, now, that it's nothing so simple as an explosive, still approaching. The agony of the torturing flames.

Something terrible is coming.