#like if it was jo and she saw the doctor using the sonic on a machine

[sandymybeloved]

I think it's be really funny if an old companion rejoined the TARDIS

the doctor keeps treating them like a new companion, because it's been 400 years, they've gotten a lot better at this whole, being the Doctor thing, so its just contantly

"oh no, my oldest enemies, the daleks, it isn't safe here, stay with me and be extra careful"

meanwhile the companion is not listening because they've heard this all before and already solved the situation

[gallifreyanhotfive]

Random Doctor Who Facts You Might Not Know, Part 42

The Mara jumped from Tegan into the Fifth Doctor, then also affected Nyssa and Turlough. The Mara will stay with them all forever in the back of their minds. (Audio: The Cradle of the Snake)

The Brigadier has forced the Fourth Doctor to write apology and thank you letters before but always thoroughly edits them to make them more polite or completely rewrites it himself if they're too rude. (Novel: The Time Lord Letters)

Turlough had a childhood sweetheart named Deela. Since they had been teenagers, they decided to make the key to the vault of his winter palace their literal kiss. (Audio: Kiss of Death)

The Third Doctor taught Jo Venusian aikido. (Audio: The Sacrifice of Jo Grant)

While at the Academy, the Doctor wrote a paper dissecting romantic love. He concluded that love was nothing but chemicals and metabolites. His professor gave him an absolutely dreadful grade on it because the Doctor missed the point of the assignment entirely. (Audio: The Wormery)

The TARDIS recalls that the Ninth Doctor was beaten after losing a war "against Death." She misses this incarnation. (Short story: What the TARDIS thought of "Time Lord Victorious")

The TARDIS had a lot of issues trying to translate Peri's accent. (Audio: The Lost Planet)

Putting the sonic screwdriver through the laundry can result in all the dirt molecules being agitated until it forms a mud creature. (Comic: Laundro-Room of Doom)

The Eighth Doctor once became depressed with his model train set because he wanted something less perfect. After he returned from an adventure, he found that a disaster had occurred among his model trains. When he went to clean up, he saw that the miniature people in his train set had started putting things right, so he decided to let them fix it themselves and hopefully learn things from the experience. (Short story: Model Train Set)

At one point, the Doctor switched out the TARDIS stereo system for a micromodulator switch, which is capable of shrinking things, and forgot about it. The Tenth Doctor and Rose were accidentally shrunk using it, and while shrunk, he got stuck in a spider web. (Comic: Which Switch?)

Type 1 TARDISes were notoriously temperamental and sometimes attacked and consumed the scientists working on them. When the Eleventh Doctor managed to calm one down after winding up in early Gallifrey, Rassilon noticed this and had him work on developing Type 1s, taking advantage of his advanced knowledge. (Comic: The Lost Dimension)

When these scientists had asked who the Doctor was, he eventually decided to let everyone call him Theta-Sigma. (Comic: The Lost Dimension)

Vortex drillers were used by early Gallifreyans to tunnel through the time vortex. They were discontinued because of the damage this did to time. They kind of looked like castles, but instead of turrets, there were drills. There would be altars for Gallifreyan cults inside, and they had mineralic circuitry. (Audio: The Auton Infinity)

The War Master once manipulated Jo into thinking that he was her uncle. (Audio: A Quiet Night In)

"Theta Sigma" was simply a unique identifier used by the Doctor in his youth. It should not be spoken out loud outside of the Academy (not that this ever stopped many people who knew him at the time). (Novel: Falls the Shadow)

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[sophfic27]

The Mysterious Watch (You know the one)

Read on AO3

First, Previous, Next

Chapter 5: Finally, a Result

Word Count: 2,040

They had been out and about for hours already. Jo and Yaz went for breakfast together and made it out to their second warehouse to similar results as their first one. Their lease had read “shipping for online shop,” which had turned out to be a small customized t-shirt shop. There were screen printing machines set up along the walls and boxes of t-shirts. Overall, innocuous enough. Now they were pulling up to so far the largest warehouse on the list. As opposed to the two previous ones which only had one room, each about the size of a hockey rink. This building appeared much larger, and also had what looked like a complex of smaller rooms like offices wrapped around the front and the side of the bulk of the warehouse.

Jo sauntered towards the entrance, a pair of glass doors that entered a hallway with a desk, most likely for a secretary or receptionist. The hallway extended to their right, with doors leading to other rooms, and turned the corner to left. The desk sat empty. Yaz questioned aloud what operation could require a space with a receptionist’s desk, but not an actual receptionist. Jo studied the desk as well and muttered a quiet acknowledgment of the question. Before she could properly reply, a door swung open in front of them. Yaz only caught a small glimpse through the door before it swung closed again, but she could tell that it was a direct entrance into the main space of the warehouse. Through the door stepped a tall man dressed in a suit. He frowned at the sight of them but didn’t seem surprised by their presence there.

Jo stepped up to greet him as Yaz cast a glance around the entrance hall, catching sight of a single surveillance camera over the receptionist desk. So he had seen them coming. She looked around and down the hall, but didn’t see anymore. She didn’t remember seeing one outside the entrance but would have to check to be sure.

Yaz zoned back in when she heard Jo introduce her, giving the same bogus explanation for their arrival as she had at the previous locations they had seen. Jo extended a hand for the man to shake. He stared down at it, and back at Jo, the look on his face grumpy, and possibly hostile.

After a few awkward moments during which Yaz swore Jo was having a staring contest with the stranger, he shook her hand. “I’m Al Armet,” he said in an American accent. Yaz scrutinized the man warily. He released Jo’s hand. “I signed the lease. I’m sorry you had to come all this way for nothing, but I can assure you, everything here is totally up to code.”

Jo nodded, disbelieving, and shared a quick look with Yaz. “I’m sure it is, Mr. Armet, if we could just take a quick look around-”

“No, no,” he interrupted hastily, “I’m sorry, but I’m just too busy for this.” Jo cocked her head slightly, and he rushed to continue, “if you come back in, say, three days, I’d be happy to give you a tour then, but I have to get back to work.” He moved toward the pair, clearly intending to push them back toward the door.

Jo stood her ground for a minute, thinking, before finally saying, “okay, sure. Three days then. Yaz?” she turned toward her as if confirming the plan. Yaz nodded uncertainly, and Jo grinned back at her. “Great, we will see you then.”

Mr. Armet gave a half-smile, and Jo turned to head out the front door. Yaz watched as Mr. Armet retreated into the warehouse, and followed Jo out. She stopped just outside the door to scan the entryway quickly and jogged to catch up with Jo, who was now leaning against the car.

“We’re not actually leaving, are we?” Yaz said.

“Course not, he’s obviously hiding something,” Jo replied with a chuckle. She nodded toward the door before asking, “what were you looking at?”

“Inside, he came to intercept us in the entryway, but we didn’t do anything to alert him. So I noticed that there was a security camera mounted on the ceiling above the receptionist’s desk.”

Jo nodded, “but there wasn’t one outside the front door?”

“No,” Yaz confirmed, “I think the one in the entrance hall is the only one.”

Jo furrowed her eyebrows, “how can you be so sure?”

Yaz smirked, “it wasn’t built into the ceiling, it was just a small one screwed in and plugged into an outlet up there. It was more like a nanny cam. They usually stream live to one account over the WiFi, and there aren’t usually more than one of them.” Jo nodded, impressed. “Since it’s a short-term rental, and they don’t seem to have much staff, they probably don’t have much of a security system, just that camera.”

Jo grinned at Yaz, “very good point, officer,” she winked playfully. “That’ll make it easy enough to break in, then,” she added as she started toward the right side of the building.

“We’re breaking in? How?” Yaz walked quickly to catch up to Jo and walk by her side.

“Well, it’s a big enough building,” Jo said making a wide turn around the corner, “there’s bound to be another entrance.”

Sure enough, in the middle of the right side of the building, there was a plain door. Jo smirked again and made a bee-line for the door. The wall was also lined with windows, through which Yaz saw unused office spaces and empty rooms full of folded up chairs, some of them also containing tables. The warehouse was huge, clearly intended for some large business to use the large warehouse as well as multiple offices and conference rooms, but the whole place seemed deserted outside of whoever hid within the main room. She came up alongside Jo, who was working to pick the lock. Yaz thought about the Sonic Screwdriver. That always seemed to do the job, and she wondered where the Doctor had left it.

After a few minutes of work, Jo got the door open. She winked at Yaz and put a finger to her lips. She tugged the door open quietly. They were greeted by a darkened hallway and not a soul in sight. Jo and Yaz made their way into the building, looking up and down the hall. On one side, the hall was lined with doors into the office spaces she had seen from the outside, a small amount of sunlight streaming in through the windows on the doors. On the opposite side of the hall, she could only see one door, a few meters to their right. There were some distant sounds coming from the door, and Jo and Yaz made their way to it. Through a small window on that door, Yaz noticed that the view of the room was obstructed by a large stack of crates. Yaz and Jo exchanged a look, and together, they pushed into the main warehouse. They peered around the crates at the space. It was much larger than the others they had been to, the ceiling checkered with lighting fixtures and skylights, and covered with latticework. Yaz noticed a metal balcony toward the back of the warehouse. She tried to visualize how to get onto it, guessing that the staircase to reach it was at the end of the hallway they had entered from. She then turned her focus to the five massive machines standing scattered across the floor of the warehouse. She noticed that Jo was studying them closely, her forehead creased in concentration. Yaz looked at them as well, taking in their massive shape. They were rounded on the tops with three long antennae mounted on top. They were made up of sheets of metal, held together by rickets. On one of them, she saw that there was an open face, hundreds of wires and cords exposed. Lying nearby was a panel she supposed would eventually be installed onto the machine to act as controls. Yaz opened her mouth to ask Jo about the machines, but before she could, she heard voices come from somewhere past the machines.

Jo heard them, too, and the two of them squatted down against the crates, getting out of sight. One of the voices she recognized as Mr. Armet’s, but the other one was almost exactly the same as him. Jo turned to look around the crates. The men apparently did not notice her, so Yaz leaned over to peer around as well. She saw Mr. Armet and… a second Mr. Armet. Twins perhaps? She tuned in, straining to hear their conversation.

“As you can see they are almost all complete. Even the ones that haven’t been fully assembled are completely tamper-proof,” one of the Mr. Armets explained.

The second Mr. Armet surveyed the incomplete machine. “How long before they’re ready?” he asked.

“Three days, I predict,” he responded, “and we are undiscovered?”

“There were some inspectors by, but we chased them off for a few days,” the other one replied.

“Good, then let’s get back to work.” The two Mr. Armets nodded at each other and split up, walking off in two different directions.

When they were out of sight, Jo tried to turn to talk to Yaz, only to find her leaning over her, now only a couple inches from her face.

Yaz and Jo looked at each other, startled. Yaz hadn’t realized just how close she had been to Jo, and she pulled back, blushing awkwardly. Jo raised an eyebrow at her before saying, “we’ve found our place, now we have to destroy these things.”

Yaz stared at her for a second, “destroy?” she repeated, feeling a little dumb, but still a little flustered, and vaguely distressed by Jo’s general casualness about the situation.

Jo nodded, “Mr. Armet said they’re tamper-proof, so we destroy them, and see to it these things don’t come back.” Yaz nodded thoughtfully. “Now shall we go. Or we could just stay here while I watch you get all cute and blushy again,” she winked at Yaz, smirking mischievously.

Yaz felt her face burn even more, as Jo just chuckled and stood, making her way back to the door. Yaz stared after her for a moment, completely at a loss. She followed Jo helplessly back to the car.

Once back on the road, the pair sat in quiet for several minutes. Yaz considered asking about the machines but was still struggling with how to say anything to the women. She glanced at the woman to her left. Jo was looking out the window with an unfamiliar look of anxiety. Well, unfamiliar for Jo, Yaz mused. She actually seemed to look more like the Doctor at the moment. Less cool and certain, more brooding. And maybe a little nervous, although that didn’t seem as much like the Doctor.

Before Yaz could manage to speak, Jo did. “Sorry… If I made you uncomfortable. I was joking,” Yaz saw her glance at her quickly, “mostly.”

Yaz was quiet for a minute. She couldn’t tell if Jo was expecting a response or not, she was staring back out the window. “It’s fine, I was just… surprised is all.” She looked over and caught Jo’s eyes for a second. Jo nodded hesitantly. Yaz weighed her next words in her mind, debating whether or not she should say them. “I think you’re cute, too,” she said finally. She bit her lip nervously and kept her eyes trained on the road ahead, though she could see Jo’s head snap toward her in surprise out of the corner of her eye. Yaz panicked slightly, suddenly worried that she had said the wrong thing.

Then she noticed Jo grin. Jo looked pleased. Yaz cast a quick look at her, noting the tint to her cheeks.

“Right,” said Jo after a second, giving a satisfied nod, “good.”

Yaz smiled slightly, but she felt it drop a few moments later. She probably shouldn’t have done that. What would the Doctor think? Would she even remember this? And what did it mean that Jo seemed to like her? Did it mean that the Doctor…

(A/N: I mentioned this in the notes on AO3, but I’ll put it here, too. I know this chapter is a bit late, and I’m going to try a Monday/Thursday or Friday schedule form here on out because those are usually the days I have the least amount of homework. Bear in mind, based on my pattern, that probably means after midnight Mountain Time, so uh. Look for it the day after what I said I guess. Thanks for reading!)

[anne-white-star]

Third doctor x depressed!Reader

Please before you read this x reader

Here is a link to a post with phone numbers to difrent suicide hotlines please stay safe and alive and remember you are important and loved!!💗💗💗

Words : 1847

Warning : attempted suicide, depression, drowning

A good ending with some Fluff enjoy reading

Being one of the doctors companions was something really great but somethimes she wanted to be more than just a companion. Y/n enjoyed being at UNIT most of the time and also being a secretary at UNIT was a verry important job. Checking papers and making sure everything is correct. But the past few months stress has been building up. Y/n somethimes missed meals or she din't sleep some nights. The others din't notice anything.

She sat wrighting at her desk when the door opend "Miss y/l/n" the brigadier walked in. "yes sir" she awnserd back. "I need you to come with miss grant, the doctor and i on a trip to Londen for a very important meeting" "yes sir i'll be right with you". The brigadier walked out and y/n grabed her bag with the things She would need. She sighed and walked outside the others were waiting in bessie. "Ready for a trip my dear" asked the doctor "yes i am" she nodded and sat next to jo in the back Seat.

*ariving at Palace of Westminster*

When they arived they all got out of bessie and walked to the doors to get in "miss y/l/n you come with me, doctor you and miss grant can go and explore we will see echoter again round 5 o clock". When the doctor looked at y/n he saw that something isn't right, but then it was gone again and he brushed it off. Y/n followed the brigadier to a room and start the meeting. "Miss y/l/n its so great to see you again" said one of the men who sat at the table, she gave a nod and sat down grabbing her pen and note pad to start writing.

The meeting went like normal all about politics, aliens the master and of course money. Y/n started to zone out. And then she snaped out of her trans when the brigadier spoke "i think its time to call this meeting to an end" The brigadier stood up And shook hands with the people at the table. Y/n put her stuff back in her bag and stood up as wel. She walked out of the room back to the doctor who was waiting for them they got the news they could stay at Buckingham palace where they would stay for the upcoming few days.

When they got there they got escorted to their room y/n had to try and calm her self down She sat down on the bed and hold her head in her hands looking down at the ground tears fell from her eyes. And then she heared a knok at the door "one moment please" y/n dried her eyes with her sleeves" she stood up and unlocked the door. When she opend it jo stood there waiting for her "Hey y/n i was wondering if you want to get dinner with the brigadier, doctor and me?"  she said in a cheerfull tone "yeah sure" y/n gave a fake smile, jo looked at her "are you alright y/n? It looks like you have been crying", "im fine sorry i accidentally stubbed my foot and that hurt" she smiled again. "Alright i just want to make sure, so how about dinner". "Sounds good" y/n closed the door and walked togeter with jo to the dining hall.  

When they got there the brigadier and the doctor were waiting for them y/n sat next to the doctor. "Hello my dear did you setttle in your room already?", " Yes i have it has a great view of the garden" she smiled. Then the food was served but y/n wasn't that hungry she picked at her food with the fork. "Is somthing wrong miss y/l/n?" Asked the brigadier. "No not at all im just not that hungry, i think im going to bed im extremly tired, good night". Y/n stood up And walked away from them when she was gone the doctor spoke "have any of you two noticed something off about y/n the isnt her self it seems". "Yes i have noticed it as wel, because when i came to her bedroom she had been crying" spoke jo "the only thing i noticed is that she's never in the break room when its time for some food or a drink".

Y/n was in her room sitting at a table Wrighting a piece of paper while tears fell on to the paper. It was a goodbye note. When she was done she grabed her jacked and walked out leaving the paper on her bed. Walking past the guards she asked them if they could let her pass. When she was out of the palace gates she started on her walk to the tower bridge. About 10 minuts later the doctor the brigadier and jo went to check up on her they knoked on the door but got no reply. It was locked and the doctor could not open it with his his sonic "jo do you perhaps have a hair pin with you" jo nodded and grabed the pin out of her hair "thank you dear" the doctor fiddled with the lock and then *click* they opend the door and turned on the light but she wasn't there. "Where could she have gone to" asked the brigadier while looking around the room. "Doctor, brigadier look!" Jo grabed the piece of folden paper of the bed and gave it to the doctor to read it. The doctor unfolded the paper and began to read it out loud.

"Hello doctor, brigadier and jo

If you read this note its the last paper that i will be wrighting in my life, things haven't been to kind on me while i loved working with and for you all. im sad to say that i can't do this anymore. I thought it would go away but unfortanetly it hasn't, please don't blame it on your self its my own fault for this.

Oh and doctor if you are the one reading this i have something to tell you but i had never the courage to say it, doctor i love you and always have, i wish i could have been more than just a companion but knowing i would die one way or an other i kept it to myself. Like i wrote before please don't blame yourself you are not at fault. Please remember that i love every one of you and please tell it to Mike and benton as well."

You will find me at the tower bridge

Sincerely

Y/n, y/l/n.

When the doctor finished reading he had a bad feeling in his chest. Jo had tears dripping from her eyes and the brigadier looked shocked he dint know that it was this bad. The doctor spoke "we have to find her we can't let her take her own life" he ran out of the bedroom and the others followed him, bessie was parked outside Lucky enough but they had to ask the guards to let them pass. Y/n was already at the tower bridge she was staring at the dark waters below her. She trew off her jacked and climbed on the side of the bridge. She looked up at the sky wispering words in the air. The doctor and the others were still on their way they were not far from the tower bridge "doctor look!" Jo screamed while pointing, the doctor looked where jo was pointing and they could see the figure of y/n stand on the side of the bridge. When they were almost there she jumped in the water.

When y/n was done wispering her final words she jumped. She felt the cold water toutch her body at first it was cold but then it was comforting and welcoming. Y/n dint have any oxygen left and let go of her last breath she din't strugle or try to swim upward she just let her body sink to the botom of the thames.

The doctor stopped bessie once they came to the place where y/n had jumped. they all got out and looked over the side hooping that she din't really take her life. Unfortanetly they could not see her. The doctor din't hesatate and took of his cloak and jacket "jo go and get some warmth blankets brigadier i need you to stay here and help me" jo nodded and ran away to get the blankets. The doctor jumped in to the water as wel he hoped there was a chance that they could save her.

Looking around he saw her lying between some water plants she was pale and her lips wer blue. The doctor knew that this isnt good. He swam to her body and took her in his arms. Swiming upward was not that hard for him, when he came to the surface he saw the brigadier standing there waiting for him. The brigadier trew a rope ladder over the side of the bridge. The doctor grabed it and put y/n her body over the side of his shoulder, when he was back on dry land he put y/n her head on his folded cloak and started to preform CPR. pushing her chest up And down and then pintching her nose close and repeat "comone now y/n please wake up don't leave us". But nothig happend. The doctor looked down in sadness tears dripping from his eyes, the brigadier never had seen the doctor cry. But they were caught off guard by the sound of somone coughing. Looking again y/n had been brought back from death trying to cough up the water in her lung, the doctor rolled y/n on her side and rubbed her back "easy now dear its alright" jo came running back with some warm blankets. The doctor took one and placed it over y/n her wet body. The brigadier also placed one over the doctor. "I'll drive" he stood up And walked to bessie jo sat next to the brigadier in the front seat while the doctor placed y/n in the back and sat next to her, the fell uncontious again next to him.

The next time y/n woke up she was back in her guest room, she had new warm clothes on and the doctor was sitting next to the bed on a chair "doctor?" Her voice was hoarse, he looked up at the sound of his name. "How are you feeling?", "cold but thats fine but why did you save me?". The doctor looked at her sadly "y/n why wouldn't we? You are important to us but also really important to me". Y/n looked at him her mind still foggy "i love you doctor" the doctor softly smiled "love you to my dear". "im still cold even while laying under these blankets". The doctor stood up And walked around the otherside of the bed he got in next to her "i hope this alright" he said while taking her in his arms. Y/n snuggled closer to him. "Goodnight doctor", "good night my dear" and they both fell asleep.

The end

[lastbluetardis]

Day by Day

Summary: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” The Doctor and Rose take that first step together as they begin to clear the air and reconnect after being left alone in a parallel universe together.

Tentoo x Rose, ~6400 words, Mature

What is this? I wrote something that’s not an AU??? Indeed I did. I was inspired to write Tentoo/Rose after rewatching Journey’s End this weekend, and after finding half of this fic on my laptop’s hard drive. I wrote the first half of this sometime in 2015 and finally finished it this morning. Enjoy!

AO3

They’d been in Pete’s World for a grand total of six hours. Six frustrating, emotionally-draining, confusing hours. Using the newly-obsolete dimension jumpers and some jiggery-pokery of the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver—which had not been stolen, thank you very much—they’d managed to teleport themselves directly to the London-based Torchwood offices, where they were greeted enthusiastically by the Torchwood team. Congratulations, handshakes, and hugs were given plentifully and freely; even the Doctor was corralled into the merriment and celebration.

As soon as was polite, though, Rose had grabbed his hand before tugging him and her mother out of the building. Jackie departed their company straight away, not giving either the Doctor or Rose the option of staying with her and Pete. (Jackie knew her daughter would hide from the situation, and was doing her damnedest to make Rose talk to this new Doctor.) Though Jackie did tell Rose quite firmly that she was expected ‘round for dinner one night soon—her little brother would be overjoyed to see her again.

That was how Rose suddenly found herself with a new flatmate and a belly full of butterflies.

The taxi had pulled up to Rose’s home—a small cottage away from the bustle of London that she was renting—and she had guided the Doctor inside.

But rather than sit down and have a much-needed chat about everything that had gone on, they’d cleaned up a little and went straight to bed. In separate beds. In separate rooms.

Sleep didn’t come as easily as Rose would have wished. She should have been able to fall asleep immediately. She’d been awake for over twenty-four hours; she should have been sleeping like the dead. Instead, Rose found herself tossing and turning with nothing but her racing thoughts for company.

So much had happened. She had found the Doctor and lost him again all in the span of a few hours. Only, she hadn’t lost him. He was right down the hall, hopefully having more luck than she was with sleep.

The Doctor was in her flat. The Doctor—her best friend and lost love—was in her flat in the next room over. And here she was, cooped up alone.

Letting out a groan of frustration and exhaustion, Rose flopped onto her back. She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes and sighed.

When she’d undertaken the Dimension Cannon project, this was not how she had seen things turning out. At all. She had imagined a bit of everything. Her bleakest thoughts were that the Cannon would never work, and she was doomed to die in this universe as every single star eventually winked out. Then there were even bleaker thoughts that she would make it back to the Doctor, only to find he had regenerated into a new body, into a new person who didn’t want her anymore. But at least in that scenario, she imagined they’d saved the universe—the multiverse—and her family would be safe.

However, there were moments she had allowed herself to hope. She allowed herself to imagine that she found him exactly as she left him: tall, thin, tight suit, really great hair and all. She allowed herself to immerse herself in the burning desire and love that she knew would sear through her veins as soon as she’d lay eyes on him for the first time. She imagined being swept into a rib-crushing hug that turned into a heated, bruising snog that turned into some really fantastic sex…

But not in any of her imaginings did she predict this: two Doctors, one of the Doctors coming to live with her while the other left her behind, no TARDIS (yet), no (foreseeable) travelling. And she was still stuck in this godforsaken universe.

At least the company was better this time around, she mused as her thoughts began to turn to the man the next room over. The Doctor was just next door. A white wall still separated them, but between those walls were simple drywall, insulation, and air molecules; there was no impenetrable Void keeping them apart anymore. Just her own stubborn pigheadedness.

Rose’s chest tightened as she remembered the look in his eyes when she’d left him alone in her flat several hours earlier. After a short, cursory tour of his new living environment, she’d made a quick escape, claiming to need a shower and sleep. He’d looked so lost, hurt, and panicked at the thought of being on his own, yet he had forced a smile and agreed wholeheartedly with her. He hadn’t protested, hadn’t asked to stay with her. He’d given her space and time, and she had selfishly taken it.

But why? Why was she hiding from him? She had been looking for him for years, yet the first thing she did was run away.

Cursing softly, Rose flung off the blankets and stepped out of her bedroom into the hallway. The door to the guest room was wide open, and upon peeking in, she saw it was empty. The bed was neatly made up; he obviously hadn’t been in here yet.

Unease flitted through Rose. Surely he was exhausted as she was? He was human now, and would need more rest than he had before. They’d gone through quite a traumatic ordeal, after all. Him especially. He’d gone and split himself in two, for God’s sake. If it was anything like a regeneration, he surely needed to sleep off any lingering stress, lest he make himself ill. Her guts twisted at the thought of him slipping into a coma as he had done that Christmas day after he’d regenerated.

Rose moved down the hall and into the living room. Perhaps he was entertaining himself with the telly? Or the scant collection of books she’d acquired over the nearly four years of existing in this universe. After all, Dickens hadn’t died until 1873 in this world—rather than 1870—and had managed to coax out one last novel before passing. She’d tried reading it herself, but found the material a bit dry and language too foreign for her to thoroughly enjoy by herself.

Before, reading together in the library, snuggled against the Doctor with hot tea and nibbles, had been Rose’s favorite pastime on the TARDIS. He had thoroughly enjoyed narrating books to her, and she had likewise enjoyed listening to him. He’d brought the stories alive in ways she could never have imagined. Quite literally sometimes, seeing as he would often surprise her with trips to go and visit long-dead authors.

Since being trapped in Pete’s World, reading by herself had only left her feeling hollow and alone.

Anyway. Rose was sure the Doctor would have snatched that particular book right up. She was eager to visit a bookstore or library with him now; she was dying to know if any of their old favorite authors had produced anything new or different in this universe. Perhaps they could resume their habit of reading together every night before bed. She would like that very much, and hoped he would as well.

With every step down the hall, her excitement grew. A smile was already tugging up the corners of her mouth in preparation of seeing him, but it slipped when she found her living room as empty as the guest bedroom.

Where is he?

She noticed with some satisfaction that the unique-to-this-universe Dickens novel was resting on the coffee table, a bookmark tucked into the pages about a quarter of the way through. But the satisfaction disappeared, only to be replaced with dread.

Where was he? Surely he wouldn’t have left without telling her? A peek into the kitchen told her he wasn’t there either. Nor was he in the loo.

“Doctor?” she called out, her voice trembling. 

No answer. But before she could work herself into a panic, she glimpsed his red Chucks strewn haphazardly by the front door. She breathed out a sigh of relief. He wouldn’t have gone anywhere without shoes.

She scrubbed her hands over her eyes, feeling utterly exhausted suddenly. She wondered if she should just go back to bed, but she quickly decided against it. They really, really ought to have a chat about their circumstances and expectations of each other. Yes, she wanted him here with her, but only if he wanted it too. Yes, she was happy to be with him again even though part of her heart was breaking at being abandoned by the other Doctor.

The middle of the night probably wasn’t ideal for that conversation, but at least it might help clear the air a bit. If they were both awake at this ungodly hour, there was no reason not to have this conversation. And at the very least, she really ought to apologize for running away from him like she’d done.

But a conversation required two people, and for all intents and purposes, her flat was empty. Where on Earth could the Doctor have gone?

He hadn’t been taken, had he? By some alien species that recognized him as alien? Was he even still alien? He said his body was human, but he still had a Time Lord’s consciousness. A Time Lord’s memories. Would that show up as alien?

Before she could call Torchwood to track him down, Rose noticed the door to her back garden was unlocked. She strode to the door and nudged aside the curtains. Bingo. A dark, familiar, lanky form was sprawled on one of her lounge chairs. He looked so small, sitting out there by himself underneath the stars he used to travel.

Her heart twinged. How hard must this be for him?

Sighing, Rose turned away from the door. As much as she ached to go and join him, she needed a minute. She needed to organize her thoughts and emotions, lest she simultaneously hug him and rage at him. No, she needed to get her anger and hurt in check first. There would be time to work through that later, but for now, she allowed herself to be filled up with the joy of being with the Doctor again.

To busy her hands, Rose filled the kettle and set about making tea. She pulled down two bags of chamomile tea and worked on making it to each of their likings. At least, she made it according to how he used to like his tea. She wasn’t sure if his tastes had changed, either from time or from becoming human.

With the tea finished, Rose rummaged around her bare cabinets for a box of her favorite biscuits. Tucking the box beneath her arm, she carefully picked up both mugs and headed outside. She struggled with the door for a few seconds until she was able to push down on the handle with her elbow.

The summer night was cool and there was a gentle breeze that nipped at her nose and cheeks. She wished she’d thought to put on a dressing gown; she was soon shivering in her pajama shorts and t-shirt. She wondered if the Doctor was cold. She didn’t know how long he’d been sitting out here, and he was dressed similarly to her: in boxer-briefs and a shirt. She winced when she realized it was the same shirt he’d been wearing beneath his suit. They really needed to get clothes for him.

She took a selfish minute to observe him, to drink in every inch of him before she approached. He must have heard her, because he turned his head. A small smile tugged up a corner of his mouth as she set the mugs and biscuits on the table beside him.

“Hello,” she said, her voice a little breathless.

“Hello.”

“I, er, made tea,” she said awkwardly, wringing her fingers in front of herself. “May I join you?”

“I would like that,” he said. He hovered his fingers over the two mugs and looked up at her questioningly. She pointed to his tea and watched as he took a long gulp, not seeming to care if the hot liquid scalded his throat. He smacked his lips appreciatively. “You remembered how I take it.”

She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. “I was worried that you might not take it the same way.” She picked up her own mug and took a more cautious sip than he had. “But you’re still you, right?”

“Oh! Yes! Of course!” He cleared his throat, then lowered his voice to something a little more appropriate for the quiet night air. “I meant… it’s been a while, is all. Didn’t know if you’d remember something as silly as how I take my tea.”

“I remember everything about you,” Rose murmured, hiding behind a sip of tea.

His face softened.

They slipped into an awkward silence, with each of them nursing their own cups of tea. Rose was painfully aware that she was just standing there like a nutter.

“D’you…”

“Can I…”

They chuckled nervously, and Rose wanted to rip out her hair. Why was everything so stiff and awkward between them? Why did this feel like meeting up with her ex, rather than her lover whom she’d been parted from for four years?

“You first,” the Doctor prompted. He glanced sidelong at the box of biscuits.

Rose grabbed the box and opened it one-handed before nudging it towards him. He beamed at her and didn’t waste any time with grabbing a biscuit and stuffing it whole into his mouth. His cheeks puffed out comically.

Her heart squeezed with love for him, and tears inexplicably burned her eyes. Apart from the layer of tension between the two of them and their current location, it could have been any other night aboard the TARDIS with them sharing late night tea and biscuits before bed.

But there was a layer of tension between them. And they weren’t in the TARDIS.

“‘Oo were sch’aying?” he mumbled as he chewed his biscuit.

The confidence Rose had built up suddenly left her. “S’nothing. Wanted to know if you wanted company. But you looked deep in thought. Don’t want to interrupt. Just thought you might like some tea, though. It gets a bit cold out here.”

Rose realized she was rambling and scrambled to make an escape. “I’ll let you get back to… whatever it was you were doing.”

With her face burning from embarrassment and annoyance at her own cowardice, Rose was about to turn around when cold fingers wrapped around her forearm, halting her exit. She took a deep breath, willing her face to cool down, before turning towards him.

The Doctor was wearing a similar expression to the one he had when she left him alone in her flat earlier that evening. His eyebrows were knitted together, his mouth was drawn up tight into a thin, white line, and his eyes were so deep, so fathomless, and so sad it made her breath catch.

He opened his mouth to say something, and his Adam’s apple bobbed, but nothing came out. He exhaled in a rush, and tried again. Swallowing deeply, he averted his gaze from hers as he asked softly, “Stay? Please?”

He finally dropped his hand from her arm, moving it to cradle his mug of tea. He kept his eyes downcast, staring into the milky liquid, tracing the rim of the mug with his index finger.

The waver in his voice as well as the uncertainty shattered any resolve Rose had of fleeing back to her room. She placed her half-drunk mug of tea on the table and stepped up to him. She rested her hand on his shoulder, gave it a squeeze, then gave him a hug. Standing as she was, she towered over him for once. His shoulders were at her stomach, his head at her breasts. She tried not to think too much of that as she wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders and held him. This was the first intimate touch between them since their kiss on the beach.

The Doctor clutched at her desperately, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist and burying his face between her breasts. She was suddenly extremely aware that she was not wearing a bra. A shiver that had nothing to do with the night air rippled through her.

She bent over him and pressed a kiss to his hair. It was just as soft as she remembered.

They stayed like that for an immeasurable moment, with her hunched over him and him stretched up towards her, holding each other as if their lives depended on it.

When Rose’s back began to protest, she stood, shivering as the cool night air replaced his warm, solid body.

“Will you stay?” he asked again.

Rose bit her lip. She really was quite cold, and judging from the goosebumps raising his arm hairs, he was too.

“I’ll be right back,” she said.

Before she could overthink it, she leaned down and pecked a kiss to the corner of his mouth, then skipped inside. She shivered when the warm air of her flat kissed her skin. She went to the couch and grabbed the fuzzy blanket balled up in one of the corners. She shook it out as she strode back to the Doctor.

He was sitting in the same position as when she’d left him. She held up the blanket for him to see.

“Budge up a bit,” she said, flapping her hand at him. He blinked, and she rolled her eyes. “Scoot up, and spread your legs. I’ll sit between them. That way we can both share the blanket. Unless…?”

Doubts crept into her mind. This would be a very intimate position for them to sit in. They’d engaged in much more intimate positions before, but that had been years ago.

The Doctor moved quickly, slinging his legs on either side of the lounge chair, leaving room for her between them. 

“Good idea,” he said, patting the seat to encourage her to sit. “I didn’t realize how cold it was. This human body is quite rubbish with the cold.”

Rose carefully lowered herself to the chair, settling between his thighs before she threw the blanket across herself and draped it over his legs and feet. The Doctor wrapped his arms around her middle and tugged her closer until her entire back was flush with his front. A warm tingle bloomed in her stomach.

“That’s better,” the Doctor sighed, leaning back in his chair.

“Yeah. It’s nice.”

She pillowed her head against his collarbone and let out a deep breath to relax herself into his arms. His hands rested loosely against her lower abdomen, and before long, his fingers began tracing idle lines across the waistband of her shorts. His lips then pressed ever so softly against her temple before he nuzzled his cheek into the top of her hair.

Rose hadn’t felt this complete in years. Despite the maelstrom of thoughts and other emotions churning through her, the one dominating this moment was utter peace. She loved him so much, had missed him so much, and now she was back with him once more. They still needed to talk, to clear the air between them. She needed to wrap her head around her new reality, to give herself the proper time and space to grieve the loss of the other Doctor, but not right now. Not on such a beautiful, perfect night when she was in the arms of the man she loved.

“I missed you.”

He’d spoken so quietly that if she hadn’t felt the rumble of his chest, she wouldn’t have been sure if he’d spoken at all. She tilted her head up to look at him and saw the depth of his longing in his eyes.

She reached up and cupped his cheek, stroking it with her thumb. His eyes fluttered shut as he leaned into the touch.

“I missed you too, Doctor. So much.” She paused for a moment, then added, “I’m really glad you’re here.”

“Are you, though?”

Her heart squeezed. “Yes. I know I didn’t act like it earlier. And I’m sorry. I really am. But I am very glad you’re here. With me.”

He was silent for a few seconds, then he said, “This probably wasn’t what you were expecting, was it?”

“Not really,” she admitted. His entire body tensed behind hers, but she wouldn’t lie to him. “But I’ll get used to it.”

“Great,” he scoffed, and he slowly withdrew his hands from her hips.

“No,” she said. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just… I expected to be back on the TARDIS, with…”

“With him,” the Doctor bit out.

“You’re the same man,” she said. He hummed noncommittally. “Please, Doctor. Don’t do this. No, this isn’t what I expected, and yes, I’m angry and hurt and confused. But I’m also happy to be with you. I- I love you.”

He slumped back in his chair and ducked his chin to hide his face. For one horrible moment, she thought he was about to reject her, reject what she’d just said.

Instead, he said, “I’m sorry. I’m happy to be with you, too.”

Rose was said nothing for the span of several heartbeats, then she asked, “What happens now?”

The Doctor cocked his head to the side. “Well… we take it day by day, I guess.”

“Together?” Rose couldn’t help but ask.

A faint smile crossed the Doctor’s lips. “Together. Though, first thing’s first, you’re cold. Let’s go inside.”

Rose, who, despite the blanket, was close to shivering in the cold night air, nodded and stood up from the seat. She messily folded the blanket and began gathering up their mugs and the box of biscuits. The Doctor hurriedly jogged to the door and held it open for her. He followed her into the brightly-lit kitchen but stood there awkwardly while she dumped the dregs of their cold tea down the sink and put the biscuits away.

“This is a nice flat,” the Doctor said, glancing around. “You didn’t stay with Pete and Jackie?”

Rose shrugged. “I did for a while. Then needed my own space.” She held out her hand for him, glad when he threaded their fingers together. After the quiet intimacy they’d generated in the garden, she was loath to let any barriers come between them.

“I noticed the new Dickens book,” the Doctor said, pointing with their joined hands when they walked to the living room. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” she said. “Is it any good? I tried reading it but, well… The classics were never my favorite.”

“But you let me read them to you all the time,” the Doctor said, sounding a bit affronted. “Why didn’t you ever say anything.”

“I enjoyed listening to you read them to me,” Rose said, squeezing his fingers. “Maybe you could read that one to me? Like we used to?”

“I would like that,” he murmured. “Did you want to start it tonight…?”

“I’m a bit too knackered for that,” she admitted. “I’d probably fall asleep after the first page.”

Rose guided him down the hall and to the guest room. Rather than releasing his hand, she gripped it tighter.

“You could sleep in here, or you can join me in my room,” she said, her voice low. “Your choice.”

“Your room,” he said immediately, and Rose breathed a sigh of relief.

They untangled her sheets and crawled beneath them. Without speaking, they moved until they were spooned together with the Doctor curled around her as tightly as he could be. His front was flush with her back, his legs tangled in hers. He wrapped his arms around her chest and anchored her firmly to him.

Rose knew this position wouldn’t last the night; no matter how many times they’d fallen asleep tangled together, they always awoke separated the next morning. But for now, Rose relished the closeness, the movements of his chest as he breathed, the tickle of his breath in her ear.

“Goodnight,” he whispered, and the kiss he planted to the sensitive spot just below her ear sent goosebumps prickling through her.

“Night,” she managed, and before she could tell him she loved him, she was asleep.

oOoOo

When Rose next awoke, pale yellow sunlight was filtering through her window. Her head was fuzzy and her eyes gritty, and it took all of a second before the memories of yesterday rushed back to her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the Doctor curled up behind her, wide awake and staring at her. He met her gaze and smiled.

All of a sudden, everything came over Rose at once. Tears burned behind her eyes, making her vision swim before she covered her face with her hands and began sobbing. Sobbing for everything she had lost and everything she had gained. For the years of exhaustion and hard work that led her back to the Doctor and led to the salvation of the universe. For the heartbreak and agony of the Doctor rejecting and abandoning her, and for the joy and love of the Doctor that was now crushing her into his arms.

She cried and cried until it felt like her entire body might break apart from the force of it. And through it all, the Doctor held her. His voice was low and soothing amidst her shuddering breaths, and though she couldn’t make out the words, she appreciated it nevertheless.

It took many long minutes before her tears stopped, and even longer before she felt like she could look at the Doctor. When she finally peeked up at him, he offered her a sweet smile and kissed her forehead gently.

“Feel better?” he asked, drying her cheeks with his thumbs.

“Not really,” she said thickly, her voice scratchy. Her head and body ached, and she felt like she could sleep for another couple of hours.

“I’m so sorry, Rose,” he said, kissing her forehead again.

“Please don’t think I’m unhappy with you. With being with you,” Rose said. “I’m happy you’re here. But I’m furious and heartbroken at him at the same time.”

“I know,” he murmured. He loosed a long exhale then admitted, “I never expected to be able to do this again. To wake up beside you. You were lost to me forever. But here you are.”

The wonder in his voice was almost enough to set her off crying again. She tucked her face closer into his chest until the urge went away.

“We can do this every day. If you want. Fall asleep together. Wake up together.” Her voice was muffled by his shirt, but she knew he’d heard her. 

He shivered and his arms tightened around her. “I would like that very much.”

Rose pulled back just far enough to press a kiss to his Adam’s apple. The muscles of his throat bobbed beneath her lips as she trailed kiss after kiss to his neck. He hummed and sighed, the sounds making his throat vibrate deliciously against her lips.

“Rose,” he groaned.

He pushed at her, pushing her away, making her stop. Her heart dropped. But as soon as she took her face away from his neck, his lips descended on hers. Her surprised exclamation was muffled by his mouth as his lips devoured hers, searching and pushing and pulling in all the best ways.

A violent shudder rippled down her spine, blazing an inferno through her veins that screamed for more, more, more. She had missed this, missed him, missed sharing her body and soul with him as they made love. And she needed him right now.

Needing better leverage than what was being afforded, Rose wrapped her arms around his shoulder and one leg around his hips and pulled. Without breaking the kiss, Rose rolled onto her back, bringing the Doctor with her. He moaned as their bodies aligned perfectly. His hips were cradled in hers, and she felt the burgeoning evidence of what this kiss was doing to him growing against her.

“Rose,” he panted, wrenching his mouth away from hers. “Rose, wait. Is this… do you…?”

“I want this,” she said, cradling his lightly-stubbled cheek in her hands. Her thumbs brushed his kiss-swollen lips. “I want you.”

A helpless little noise escaped his throat before he ducked his head down to catch her lips in his once more. She buried her fingers in his hair, so soft and strong, to deepen the kiss. Her lips parted for him, and their tongues tentatively met in the middle, slipping and gliding against each other, relearning each other after all these years.

An aching heat throbbed between her legs and she shifted restlessly. Hooking her thighs around his hips, she brought him into tighter contact against her. His groan was lost amidst hers as he rubbed against her so deliciously.

“Rose,” he breathed, releasing her lips to trail frantic little kisses along the curve of her jaw. He scraped his teeth along the side of her neck, sending shivers of pleasure sparking across her skin. She tightened her hold of his hair, keeping him where he was and urging him to do it again. He obliged. “I missed you. I love you.”

It was the first time he’d said those words since the beach. She gasped out his name and arched further into him, needing to be closer, closer, closer.

“I love you,” he repeated, kissing and sucking at her neck until Rose was sure there would be a deep red stain across her skin.

The pressure in her gut coiled tighter and tighter the longer they moved together. Their hips arched and rubbed and squirmed, hurtling her closer and closer to the edge. Rose wasn’t sure how much longer she would last when the Doctor’s rhythm faltered and he bit the soft part where her neck met her shoulder.

“R-Rose,” he rasped. “I… sorry, but if we keep going, I’m going to… er, make a real mess of things.”

As much as she would love to continue as they were, she was desperate to feel more of him. They were still fully clothed, for heaven’s sake. Granted, they were each in shorts and a t-shirt, but still. They hadn’t removed anything, though the Doctor’s hands were doing a pretty good job of mapping out any bit of skin he could reach.

“Shift up a bit,” she ordered, lowering her legs from his hips.

“Right, yeah…”

He moved to clamber off of her, but she wrapped her legs around him once more.

“Don’t want to stop,” she said. “Just… freeing up the important bits.”

“Oh… ohhhh.” She had unceremoniously reached into his pants and wrapped her fingers around his hard, throbbing length. His hips stuttered into her touch, and she tried not to give him too much stimulation to send him over the edge. She made sure he didn’t get caught in the elastic of his waistband before she worked his pants halfway down his arse.

“Feels good,” he croaked, thrusting shallowly into her hand.

“It’ll feel better in a minute,” she said, wrenching her own sleep shorts down her legs.

After a whole lot of squirming, Rose managed to free one of her legs from the shorts, letting the fabric dangle at her other thigh. She made very quick work of lining him up and taking him into her.

“Oh… oh Rose,” he hissed, eyes and jaw clenched shut.

She was nearly beyond words at the friction, at the glide of him into her. Her hips undulated against his, working him deeper and deeper until he was seated as far as he could go. The Doctor trembled above her as he held himself still, letting her adjust.

After only a few seconds, Rose couldn’t bear the pressure anymore and she arched into him, wrapping her thighs around his lower back once more. She pressed her feet into his arse to spur him on, and he was all too willing.

It was over embarrassingly quickly, but it was so, so good. When his clever fingers drummed at the sensitive bundle of nerve just above where they were joined, the tightening coil deep in her belly burst outward, spiraling through her entire body from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. She bowed off the bed, a garbled, wordless cry coming from her throat as she lost herself in her pleasure, in him.

He followed mere seconds later, his rhythm absolutely nonexistent as he worked for his release. It shattered through him in a rush of grunted curses and a sigh of her name as he pulsed and throbbed deep within her.

The world dissolved around her. There was nothing except for her and him, tangled together in the ultimate expression of love and unity. Rose trembled with aftershocks as her mind, for the first time in a long time, went utterly blank.

The Doctor breathed harshly at her breast, his forehead on her collarbone. His hair tickled her nose, and she brushed it away.

His arms trembled as he held himself above her, still seated inside of her. It was half a minute before he pressed a kiss to her chest and rolled onto his side, slipping out of her. She winced and grimaced, but followed him, tucking herself into his side. She threw a leg over one of his, careful not to accidentally knee him in a very sensitive area.

She was sure they looked slightly ridiculous. Her shorts were still dangling off of one of her legs and his boxers were barely tugged off his hips, and both their shirts were still on but twisted from their movements.

But Rose wouldn’t have had it any other way.

She leaned up and pressed a kiss to his jaw, then to the corner of his mouth. The Doctor hummed and turned his head to meet her kiss.

“That was really rather brilliant, wasn’t it?” A self-satisfied smile played across his lips.

“Yeah, it was,” she agreed, snuggling beside him.

“Er… rather messy, though,” he said, beginning to squirm.

Rose breathed out a laugh. Thank God. Their combined fluids were rapidly cooling between her legs and becoming rather… sticky.

“A little bit,” she answered. And though she really wasn’t in the mood for it, she knew she ought to clean up.

As though he read her mind, he said, “Do you want to… erm, take care of things? Well. I should as well. It’s a bit… damp. Anyway. Do you maybe want to… share? A shower? With me?”

Rose peered up at him; he was looking directly at the ceiling. She rolled her eyes. After what they’d just done together, he was worried she would reject the intimacy of a shower?

“That sounds brilliant,” she said, kissing his chest.

She wriggled off the bed, and let her shorts finally fall to the floor. The Doctor very gingerly worked his boxers down his legs.

“I’m gonna need clothes,” he said, looking down at his discarded pants. “I’ve got no clothes. Definitely gonna need clothes. And- and money, I s’pose, to buy clothes. Blimey. Money. I’ve got no money. Never needed it, but now I do. You’ve got bills, so now I do too. Money. I’m gonna need a job, and a name for identification, and papers, and…”

The Doctor’s eyes widened in his growing panic and his chest began rising and falling as his breathing went shallow and rapid. She stepped up to him and took his hands in hers, squeezing them once, before she dropped them to wrap her arms around his waist. He stood somewhat stiffly, but as Rose stroked his back gently, his muscles unlocked.

“We’ll take it day by day, yeah?” she said, echoing his words from the night before. “Day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, if we need to. We’ll get everything sorted out. I’ll text Mum and ask her to bring a change of clothes for you, then we can think about going shopping. But for right now, you and I are gonna get a shower, then we’re gonna eat breakfast.”

“Most important meal of the day,” he quipped weakly. He hugged her tightly and tucked his face into the curtain of her hair. “Thanks. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Doctor. D’you think I didn’t have the same freak out when I first got here?” she asked. 

“I’m not freaking out,” he muttered petulantly.

She ignored him and continued. “We had to invent a whole new person for me. And raise Mum from the dead. We can do the same for you.” She paused and worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “It’s okay, y’know. To not be okay.”

The Doctor exhaled raggedly. “I know. But I don’t want you to feel like I regret being here. Because I don’t. Being with you again is… it’s the happiest I’ve ever been.”

She smiled into his neck. “Me too. But we’ve got a lot to adjust to.”

“Day by day,” he murmured.

“Together,” she added.

He finally pulled away from the embrace. His eyes hadn’t fully lost their panicked gleam, but it was definitely more muted. She understood all too well that anxiety.

Though their morning was utterly perfect and she was utterly content, Rose knew it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t last. Too much had happened and so much had changed. There were so many emotions and hurts to sort through, and she knew some days would be worse than others.

But she also knew some days would be better than others. Some days would be perfect. And that would make it all worth it. Those days would be the days she would be fighting for when the fragile peace between them eventually cracked. But she had faith in herself and faith in him that they could work together to mend any breaks and piece themselves back together again, stronger than they ever were before.

As if he could see exactly what she was thinking, he smiled at her. His smile was a paradoxical mixture of sorrow and longing and joy; she was relieved he was on the same page, that he didn’t expect everything from here on out to be sunshine and rainbows. It would take work, on both their parts.

The Doctor reached out to cradle her cheeks in his palms. She leaned into the touch. His thumbs stroked her lips, then her cheeks as he ducked his head down towards hers. He skated the tip of his nose along hers, and hovered with his lips barely a centimeter away from hers.

“Together,” he affirmed, before he pressed his lips to hers to seal the promise of their forever.

[yeonchi]

Doctor Who 2021 New Year’s Special Review: Revolution of the Daleks

Air date: 1 January 2021

New Year’s Day is the new Christmas Day for Doctor Who. Two years ago, I was writing the review for the 2019 New Year’s Special, Resolution. One year ago, I was writing the review for the first episode of Series 12, Spyfall Part One (which essentially served as the 2020 New Year’s Special). Today, I'm writing this review for the 2021 New Year’s Special. Whether the change was because of political correctness, low ratings or just to change up the status quo, I think we should be glad that we even have a festive special, unlike the English dubs on Koei Tecmo’s Warriors games.

Amazingly, this special was filmed alongside Series 12 last year and kept on hold to today, meaning that production was largely unaffected by the coronavirus. Even with the anticipation and uncertainty for Series 13, which has already been reduced to eight episodes (with festive special status unknown), this episode serves as a good icebreaker given everything that’s happened in 2020 and the Timeless Child arc of Series 12.

Here is my spoiler-free thought for this episode: “It’s epic, heartbreaking and ridiculous at the same time.”

Spoilers continue after the break. Also, please don’t forget to check out my look at Doctor Who: Lockdown and the hiatusbreaker update for some post-Series 12 review thoughts.

Introduction

Chibnall mentioned that the recon scout Dalek from Resolution give birth to the new Dalek variant that was seen in this episode, thus making this episode a sequel to said episode. As such, this was the case.

367 minutes (about 6 hours) after the Doctor and her extended fam fought the recon scout Dalek at GCHQ, its shell was recovered. Jo Patterson, then Technology Secretary, tipped Jack Robertson (he will be referred to by his surname hereafter to differentiate him from Jack Harkness) off about it and managed to acquire it. After acquiring the plants of car firms that had abandoned Patterson and Rugazzi Technologies, Leo’s company, Robertson had defence drones developed (and 3D printed) based on the design of the Dalek’s shell.

The production of this episode was concluded by April 2020, with Chibnall stating that post-production work was continuing during the lockdown. This was before the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests, meaning that the scene showing the testing of the defence drones was likely inspired from the Hong Kong protests. We see people throwing bricks and molotov cocktails, and the Dalek is shown to be fitted with a water cannon, CS gas sprayer and a sonic deterrent. That’s about all the allusion we get - if we had any more then we would have had a serious problem.

Doctor and companions separated

At the end of The Timeless Children, the Doctor was sentenced to life imprisonment in a maximum-security prison, while Graham, Ryan and Yaz were brought back to Earth along with Ravio, Yedlarmi and Ethan. We don’t get to see those three in the episode, sadly.

Over the next ten months, Graham and Ryan had moved on with their lives while Yaz became obsessed with finding the Doctor (yeah, just forget that you have a family and a job as a policewoman lol). Graham shows Yaz some leaked footage of Robertson at the defence drone testing. They go to confront Robertson, but are turned away by his security guards.

Meanwhile, the Doctor had been in prison for decades, accompanied by a Weeping Angel, an Ood, a Sycorax, a Silent and even a Pting. Unbeknownst to her, Captain Jack Harkness had managed to get into the same prison as her, spending 19 years just to get the cell next to her, before making himself known and breaking out of the prison together. The Doctor and Jack head to Graham’s house, where they catch up and set out to find Jack Robertson.

There are a couple of one-to-one scenes that really got me thinking. When Jack and Yaz investigate traces of Dalek DNA in Osaka, they talk about their separation from the Doctor and what their time with the Doctor has changed them into. Jack tells Yaz, “Being with the Doctor, you don’t get to choose when it stops. Whether you leave her, or she leaves you.”

Let’s break that line down with information from the TARDIS Wiki page on companions. There are several ways that a companion can join the Doctor - they stow away on the TARDIS, they were “kidnapped”, or were assigned by higher powers, like UNIT, the Time Lords or the White Guardian. Just like that, there are several ways that companions leave the Doctor - they might choose to leave, the Doctor decides or is forced to leave them behind, or they die.

The interesting thing is that Jack says that they don’t get to choose when they leave. In the case of companions who decided to leave of their own will, you might think it was an easy decision for them, but in truth, there is context behind their motivation to leave. In Series 2, Mickey Smith stayed on Pete’s World to help defeat the Cybermen after that world’s counterpart of himself (Ricky) died and he became increasingly disillusioned with Rose favouring the Doctor over himself. In Series 3, Martha Jones decided to leave the Doctor after seeing her family enslaved by the Master for a year, travelling around the world to get people to think of the Doctor, and realising that her feelings for him would never be reciprocated. In the classic series, Tegan Jovanka left the Fifth Doctor after being sickened by the death and destruction she witnessed. From this, I can deduce that what Jack meant to say isn’t that the companions don’t get to choose when they leave, but that they don’t get to choose the circumstances that lead to them leaving. In some cases, that also applies to the companions who get left behind by the Doctor or killed.

The other one-to-one is between Ryan and the Doctor in the TARDIS. The Doctor apologises to Ryan for leaving him, Graham and Yaz behind for ten months and Ryan tells him that during this time his relationship with his father has improved and that he got to catch up with friends. Ryan asks the Doctor what has changed with her since they last met and the Doctor tells her that she isn’t who she thought she was (that storyline’s never going to go away, isn’t it? Hope to learn about the full story of the Timeless Child in Series 13). This scene really highlights how the companions can be a source of support for the Doctor, just as the Doctor is a source of support for them.

Ryan tells the Doctor that she is the same as she has always been. The Doctor comforts herself by saying that nothing’s changed, but Ryan says that it wasn’t what he meant; things change all the time and we might be scared of the new, but in the end, we have to confront the new, or the old. This bit was definitely made with the Timeless Child twist in mind. Yes, things change (particularly when it comes to Doctor Who), but some changes can be good or bad; just as there are people who saw the Timeless Child twist as good, there are people who saw it as bad (including myself). It’s like what I said in the hiatusbreaker update about The Timeless Children pulling an Ultraman Orb and trying to lessen the impact of the twist when it didn’t make sense and caused more damage than expected.

Human-created Daleks (sort of)

When the recon Dalek’s shell was salvaged, some traces of its DNA remained in it. Since, according to Missy in The Witch’s Familiar, every cell of a Dalek is genetically hardwired to survive, their consciousness can live within the tiniest fragment of their DNA. Leo managed to clone the recon scout Dalek out of those traces and hooked it into the neural network. Disgusted after being shown the creature, Robertson tells Leo to incinerate it, but when he tries to do so, it escapes and takes possession of him. In a way, the recon scout Dalek was resurrected in this episode, but it didn’t feel like the same character.

While hooked into the neural network, the Dalek managed to make more clones of itself using Robertson’s resources, feeding them with the liquefied remains of the people who worked on them. After being confronted by the Doctor and the others, the Dalek uses the UV light to activate the Daleks, transport themselves into the shells that it augmented, then kills Rob and begins subjugating Earth.

Just as Jo Patterson introduces the defence drones in her first speech as Prime Minister, she gets exterminated by them quickly after they are activated. If Jack Robertson is an expy of Donald Trump, then Jo Patterson is an expy of Theresa May - a forgettable Prime Minister whose claim to fame (defence drones for the former, Brexit for the latter) backfired on them. To be honest, when I heard that they would be in this special, I almost thought that they got married or something.

There was a similar situation like this in the Series 3 two-parter, Daleks in Manhattan and Evolution of the Daleks, only this time, the Daleks were more involved. In that story, the Cult of Skaro were attempting to find a way to survive beyond the Dalek shell, to the point of creating Dalek-human hybrids, a new race with the intelligence of Daleks but with the emotions of humans. In both cases, the new Dalek variants were considered impure due to the human elements within them.

I’ve compared this episode to Victory of the Daleks when the trailer came out. With the addition of the conflict between the two Daleks (as I will outline below), there are additional contrasts to the Seventh Doctor story Remembrance of the Daleks and the Big Finish Eighth Doctor audio story Blood of the Daleks.

The nuclear option

With thousands of defence drone Daleks on the move and no weapons to deal with them, the Doctor seems to do the only thing she can think of that doesn’t involve destroying the Earth ala the Moment (which was what I was thinking) - signal a ship of Death Squad Daleks (SAS Daleks, but more brutal) to Earth to deal with the impure defence drones.

The two groups of Daleks confront each other on a bridge (specifically the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol). After seeing his Daleks get exterminated, Robertson takes his nuclear option - part with the Doctor and side with the Daleks. That’s right, Jack Robertson does an Utsumi (Nariaki Utsumi from Build, if you didn’t know) and sides with a race that would kill him the first chance they got. Give him a cane to break and we would have gotten the first tokusatsu meme in Doctor Who.

For someone who seems to be so obsessed with protecting himself (normally by using other people), I must say that this was a strange step for Robertson to take. Given that Robertson is an expy of Trump, one can only wonder what Chibnall and people like him think of Trump. Would Trump sell himself or humanity out to invading aliens? Personally, I don’t think he’d be stupid enough to do so. I think he’d bomb them with everything he has.

Robertson convinces the Daleks to take them aboard their ship and meet their commander. Meanwhile, Jack, Graham and Ryan board the ship and plant explosives on it. Graham tries to get Ryan to fistbump him, but he just tells him to “stop talking weird”. We’re back, fellow kids. Missed us?

Robertson tells the Daleks that the Doctor summoned them. The original Dalek returns and offers to be purified, only to be exterminated. Graham, Ryan and Jack find Robertson and they get off the ship together just as it is destroyed.

The Doctor floats her TARDIS in the sky among the Daleks and lures them inside, which would normally be an impossible feat if it weren’t for the fact that it isn’t actually the Doctor’s TARDIS, but the other TARDIS from earlier. She sets it to fold in on itself and send itself to the heart of the Void, thereby destroying them.

Soon after that, Robertson claims that he was acting as a decoy and so, he is lauded as the saviour of humanity. A honorary knighthood and a revived presidential run is mentioned after the toxic waste scandal (Arachnids in the UK) ruined his previous attempt. This is where my comparison to Utsumi weakens - Utsumi pledged himself to Evolto so that he could find a way to bring him down, but there doesn’t seem to be any ulterior motive in Robertson’s actions. Frankly, I’m surprised that he wasn’t exterminated at all.

Parting ways (for now)

By the time Graham and Ryan return to the TARDIS, Jack has left and is on his way to see Gwen Cooper, who has apparently had another child, a son. Honestly, his departure feels quite lackluster.

The Doctor offers to take the fam to a restaurant apparently named the Meringue Galaxy, but Ryan decides to leave the Doctor since he believes that his friends and planet need him. Graham struggles to decide, but in the end, he decides to leave with Ryan, leaving the Doctor and Yaz on the TARDIS. The Doctor gives them some psychic paper as a parting gift.

The final scene is a throwback to the beginning of The Woman Who Fell to Earth. Graham is helping Ryan ride his bike when they bring up some strange incidents around the world, like a troll invasion in Finland or gravel creatures in Korea. Ryan begins riding his bike one more time when they see Grace looking back at them in the distance. This is the last episode where Ryan’s dyspraxia is explored. Shame Chibnall never managed to do a lot with it.

We’ve known that Graham and Ryan would be leaving the series for months now, and we’ve also known that there would be opportunities for them to return. Let’s hope we see them again in Series 13.

Going back to my discussion about companions leaving, the major factor in Ryan and Graham’s decision to leave was that they had spent ten months away from the Doctor and unlike Yaz, they had already moved on with their lives. Additionally, for Graham, he doesn’t want to leave Ryan given the relationship they built up during their time with Doctor and possibly also for fear of abandoning Ryan, given how his father wasn’t there for him previously. This doesn’t feel as deep compared to other companions’ motives for leaving the Doctor, but it’s still quite deep.

At the end of Can You Hear Me?, we see Ryan talking to Yaz about spending their lives with the Doctor and forgetting everyone back home. I’d always thought that the human element of being a companion was annoying, but we have to remember that companions are people too and they had their own lives before they met the Doctor.

Other general thoughts

I know this is kind of irrelevant given that this episode was produced at the end of 2019, but could Leo be considered an Uncle Tom for inventing something designed to suppress protesters? By the way, don’t let China know about this or we’re all screwed, even in Hong Kong or Taiwan.

Jack gets a gold star for rescuing the Doctor. That puts Jack and Graham at 10 points and Yaz and Ryan at 20.

Jack also has his sonic blaster back as well. Will Jack also be back for Series 13? We’ll just have to see it to believe it.

The title cards are jarring again. Can the production team not be inconsistent with their fonts?

I swear, all the Yaz favouritism in the last two series must have given her Stockholm syndrome. Who’s to say that Mandip Gill wanted to leave, but Chibnall asked her to stay?

Taking a look at the designs for the Daleks, the defence drones are alright. They glow a bluish-white colour normally, but they glow red and shoot red beams when the Dalek creatures took control of them. You could probably mistake them for being red in the dark, which is highlighted when they are shown shooting people in the streets. As for the Death Squad Daleks, they’re basically just the basic bronze Daleks, including their leader. They should’ve brought back the multicoloured New Paradigm Daleks just so the Death Squad Daleks could be differentiated from ordinary Daleks.

Following the premiere of this episode, a new companion was announced for Series 13, with John Bishop playing the role of Dan. Honestly, with the Timeless Child mystery still looming and the lack of character development for Yaz, a new companion is the last thing this series needs, particularly since Series 13 would be Jodie Whittaker’s third series and possibly, her final one (if we’re going by previous Doctors). At the moment, Bishop is currently isolating after being tested positive for the coronavirus. I wish him well and look forward to seeing him in Series 13.

The reduced number of episodes in Series 11 or 12 may have contributed to the lack of focus on Ryan’s dyspraxia or character development on Yaz, but that’s no excuse. Chibnall had plenty of opportunities to factor them in, but he was too focused on not having a story arc in Series 11 and destroying canon in Series 12 to even think about it (Graham and Ryan got more character development in those two series than Yaz did). Now that Series 13 has been reduced to eight episodes (not counting the possibility of a split series or another New Year’s Special out of the eight), I fear that Chibnall won’t have enough opportunity to factor in Dan’s character development with Yaz’s character development, the Timeless Child, Ruth and/or the Master, particularly when he delegates half of the series to other writers and does very few good things in the remaining episodes he writes (or co-writes). Honestly, Series 11 and 12 felt like a waste of time in some aspects.

Summary and verdict

Like I said at the start, this episode acted as a good icebreaker in the long break between series. However, ever since my red-pilling in The Timeless Children, I’ve started to see this series in a new light, particularly with the help of YouTubers like Bowlestrek or Nerdrotic. Despite this, I’m reluctant to hop on the #RIPDoctorWho bandwagon because we still don’t have the full details for the Timeless Child arc, so I’m reserving most of my judgement until we get it.

Most of the episode was good, but the ridiculous part for me was when Robertson Utsumi’d himself and somehow managed to survive. Jack’s departure felt lackluster, Ryan and Graham’s departure felt lackluster to other companions’ departures and Jo Patterson was just... ehh. Let’s not forget that we didn’t see or hear a mention of the surviving humans from the previous episode because Chibnall just forgot about them.

Rating: 6/10 Series 12 total: 77/100 (77%) Series 12 total with Revolution of the Daleks: 83/110 (75%)

Overall, this special brought down my total score for Series 12, but it still did slightly better compared to Series 11. If it weren’t for Jack Harkness, my score for the episode would have been lower. Robertson, being a Trump expy, essentially represented all the SJW red flags in this episode; pointing them out is unnecessary at this point given my red-pilling.

That’s it for my review of the New Year’s Special. There is a certainty that Series 13 will premiere this year, so the next time I return with another review will presumably be in late 2021. As long as Jodie Whittaker is the Doctor, my mission to review her episodes will continue. Follow me on Facebook and/or Tumblr and keep an eye out for my future posts, Doctor Who-related or otherwise, such as the Kisekae Insights series where I give insights on my personal project, which was heavily influenced by Doctor Who.

Stay safe and I’ll see you then.

[love-of-fandoms]

The Non-Companion (The Master + OC) Chapter 8

Chapter 8 of The Non-Companion (Master List)

Pairing: The Master + OC

Word Count: 2757 words

The Doctor didn’t take too long to get to the TARDIS, for which Jo was thankful. It was unsettling to be in O’s hut. What was once charming now made her almost want to throw up. She came running through the door, and Jo grinned, standing and walking to greet her.

“What’s up, Doc?” the Doctor rolled her eyes with a fond smile at Jo’s line. They couldn’t go a week without Jo saying it.

“Doctor, why is this house so important?” Ada asked, and the Doctor grinned.

“Because it's not a house. It's a machine that travels in space and time. This is my way back, to finding my friends and saving humanity-” she cut herself off, seeing the looks Ada and Noor were giving her. She looked to Jo for support, who nodded.

“She’s telling the truth,” she said, and Ada and Noor looked to her. “We’re not crazy!” she paused, sharing a look with the Doctor. “Well, okay, we are, but not because of this!” she amended, and the Doctor nodded.

“Give us 5 minutes, and you’ll see!” she promised, before turning to look at the map they had seen earlier, which the Master hadn’t bothered to take down. “ I know what this is. A temporal map, showing every significant person in the development of computers through history,” she began, before turning to Ada. “starting with you!” Jo grinned. There was something about watching the Doctor sort through a problem that always made her feel empowered. “This is the plan, see?” she looked to the two women, who continued to stare at her with blank faces.

“No,” they said together, and the Doctor grimaced. Jo giggled.

“Did you expect them to?” she asked, and the Doctor shrugged. “That isn’t a dig at your intelligence, by the way, you just haven’t dealt with any of this stuff before,” Jo said to the two women, not wanting them to think she saw them as stupid or anything.

“What is a computer?” Ada asked, and Jo shot the Doctor a glare.

“Forget you heard that word! Otherwise I've just disrupted the whole of history!” the Doctor exclaimed, and Jo coughed into her hand.

“Again,” the Doctor shot her a glare, though there was no fire behind it.

“Okay, ahh, my brain’s fizzing, good. The Kasaavin posted an agent on every person on that map. Because that's what spies do. What Barton does. They gather all the data,” the Doctor began to pace, trying to put all the puzzle pieces together in that big brain of hers. “But where does the DNA fit?” she looked to Jo, but all she could do was shrug. She was at a loss. “Kasaavin, technology, DNA. How are they all connected?” she continued to pace for a moment, before coming to an abrupt stop. She turned to Jo with a look of horror on her face. “Human DNA!” she gasped. “That’s what they’ve been testing!” with that she ran to the TARDIS controls, and began to frantically flip levers and push buttons. The Master’s TARDIS was much quieter than hers, instead of the loud wheezing that accompanied Sexy, the Master’s TARDIS sounded more like a continuous hum.

“I bet they started with Barton,” Jo said, coming to the Doctor’s side to help manage the controls. Noor turned to Ada, a look of bewilderment on her face.

“How much of that did you understand?” she asked, and Jo laughed as she looked over her shoulder at them.

“If you understood around 5%, you’re doing great!” she encouraged, and Noor and Ada exchanged another look of uncertainty.

“Where to first?” Jo asked, and the Doctor grinned.

“We have a TARDIS with a working chameleon circuit,” she said excitedly. “We’re breaking into Barton’s office!” with that, she yanked down hard on a lever, and the TARDIS was sent flying through the vortex. They could all see the flashing, swirling lights out the window, and Noor and Ada both ran to the window, looking out to try and see what was happening.

“What is this?” Ada asked, and Jo approached them, looking out the window as well.

“The Time Vortex,” she told them. “Right now, we’re traveling 76 years into the future to stop the Kasaavin from taking the universe,” Ada and Noor both looked at her in shock, though at this point they seemed to at least believe her.

The Doctor landed the TARDIS near a flight hangar, and all four of them exited, looking around.

“So?” Jo asked, turning to the Doctor, and she pointed ahead of them, where they could see someone’s tailcoat flapping behind them as they entered a building. “Is it him?” the Doctor nodded in confirmation, before beginning to walk to the warehouse.

“Let’s go!” she exclaimed, grabbing Ada and Noor’s hands and striding forward to confront the Master. Jo followed along, straining her ears to hear what was being said in the warehouse when they were close enough.

“-live through the 20th century?” that was the Master. “The places I've escaped from. Still just in time to watch you all pay!” he sounded like there was a grin on his face, and the Doctor stopped just before the entrance to the hangar.

“What’s that machine?” Ryan asked, and Jo glanced at the Doctor.

“The fam’s here?” she whispered, and the Doctor nodded.

“Quite independent, that lot,” she muttered back, and Jo’s lips quirked up in a smirk.

“Conversion and transmission. We're transmitting Kasaavin energy around the world all at once, into every device, hitting every human being and erasing their DNA. Simultaneously,” the Master exclaimed, and all of a sudden they heard Ryan shout.

“Yaz!” Jo peeked her head out just enough to see what was going on, and she had to muffle a gasp behind her hand when she saw a white light escaping from a tablet and crawling up Yaz’s arm.

“I can’t let go of it!” she shouted, her body shaking.

“First her,” the Master said, pointing to Yaz. “Then you,” to Graham. “Then you,” and finally to Ryan. It would have been quite terrifying, if the Silver Lady, which sat just behind Yaz, seemed to short circuit, powering down. The Master growled, approaching the statue. “Don’t do this!” he shouted pleadingly, but it laid dormant, smoke coming out the bottom of it.

“Sorry, I think that might’ve been me,” the Doctor said, striding out of their hiding plot and into plain sight. Noor and Ada followed just behind her, and Jo ran to Yaz, throwing the tablet she had been holding to the ground and examining her arm. She took out her sonic and quickly scanned Yaz’s arm, not seeing anything out of the ordinary.

“Are you alright?” she muttered, and Yaz nodded.

“And I’ll admit, it was close,” the Doctor grinned, and the Master snarled, shoulders sagging in defeat.

“No,” he muttered.

“Two can play at embedding things in history,” the Doctor said, and the Master’s glare twitched from her to Jo and back again. “I knew the Silver Lady was important, that you'd built it for a reason. But I couldn't work out why. So I traced its movements through history. When I saw Barton now owned it, we stopped off in his office. Middle of last year. Using your Tardis,” that just rubbed salt in the wound.

“Kick a man while he’s down,” Jo muttered, the Master turning slightly to direct all his fury at her. “Harsh,” she mostly ignored the Master, trying very hard not to look him in the eye. She had held herself well in the gallery, but it was still difficult not to see O in him. Kasaavin began to flood out of the machine, and suddenly Jo didn’t have to worry about trying not to look at the Master anymore, because she screeched in pure agony, collapsing to her knees. Yaz crouched down beside her, gripping her shoulder and rubbing comfortingly, though it did little to help.

“I built in a failsafe to that machine. Planted a virus, if it ever detected the massing of a Kasaavin army in its systems. Total shutdown,” the Doctor explained, glancing worriedly at Jo. “Though I never figured out why that happens,” she grimaced, imagining the pain Jo must be in. The Master chuckled at the sight of the Kasaavin.

“You’re gonna have to explain your actions to them, Doctor,” he said darkly, but the Doctor just smirked, tilting her head to the side.

“Am I?” she countered as Jo began to stand with Yaz’s help. The tingles were all over her body, but she fought through it so she could keep an eye on things. The Doctor addressed the Kasaavin then. “ Listen you lot. I’ve rigged the Silver Lady to exile you back to your own dimension. This planet is off limits. And that deal he did with you?” she brought out her sonic screwdriver, and held it up, pressing the button, and a recording rang through the warehouse. It was the Master’s voice.

“Barton and those creatures do the dirty work and once they are done I get rid of them having destroy your precious human race in the process. Win, win, win.” The Master’s face fell at the sound of that.

“Ohh,” he muttered, beginning to back away from the Kasaavin, who had turned to him. The Doctor smirked.

“That’s your name,” she said. “Don’t wear it out,” the Kasaavin began to mass together, closing in on the Master, and the Doctor continued. “That's the trouble with modern technology. Never know when you're being spied upon,” the Master growled, beginning to stalk towards the Doctor.

“No!” he shouted, reaching out towards her, but Jo grit her teeth and pulled her knife from her boot. In less than a second it had flown across the room and lodged in the Master’s hand. He pulled back from the Doctor with a shout of pain, and looked at her with wide, crazed eyes. In fact, everyone in the warehouse looked at her with wide eyes, shocked that she had done that, and shocked that she had been able to do that through her pain. In a blaze of light, the Kasaavin descended on the Master, surrounding him as he screamed, before blinking out of existence.

The remaining people in the warehouse stared at each other for a moment, and Jo’s shoulders sagged in relief at the loss of the excruciating pain. Her eyes zeroed in on a body, facedown in front of the Silver Lady’s case.

“Who’s that?” she asked cautiously, pointing at her, and Ryan grimaced.

“Barton’s mum,” he answered, and Jo’s eyes widened.

“He killed his own mother?” Ryan nodded. “That’s sick,” again, the fam nodded. They then all turned to the Doctor, who tilted her head.

“What?!” she asked, and Yaz crossed her arms over her chest.

“You’ve got a lot of explaining to do,” she said, and Graham nodded.

“Like what?” the Doctor asked, and Graham pointed at Ada and Noor, who still stood slightly behind her.

“Like who are they?” he asked. “Are we being replaced?!” Jo giggled at that.

“No! This is Ada, this is Noor. 1834. 1943. Helped me out,” the Doctor said with a shrug. The women both raised their hands in an awkward wave, smiling ‘hello’ at the fam. “I’m dropping ‘em back in a second,”

“How did you manage to save our lives on the plane?” Ryan asked, and the Doctor and Jo looked at each other for a moment, both of their eyes wide.

“Shit,” Jo muttered, racing to the TARDIS, and the Doctor nodded, racing after her.

“Be right back!” she called over her shoulder to the fam, grabbing Ada and Noor’s hands on the way.

Jo positioned the camera with a slight smile, pressing record and hopping on frame with the Doctor.

“Welcome aboard!” the Doctor greeted, and Jo gave a dramatic wave.

“You must have a lot of question!” Jo added, and the Doctor nodded, pausing for a moment before smiling.

“First of all, you're not gonna die. Second of all, don't talk to the screens, obviously I'm a recording and can't hear you. Third, don't panic. Especially you Graham,” she pointed at the camera, and Jo smirked slightly. After another moment’s pause, the Doctor spoke again. “Yes you were,” she said, and Jo giggled.

“She just said don’t talk back to the screens!” she exclaimed, rolling her eyes playfully. Jo tapped her wrist, signalling to the Doctor and she nodded.

“Right! Haven't got long. The bomb in the cockpit knocked out the signals from the computer to the engines. But the computers on this aircraft aren't in the cockpit, they're under the cabin floor. Ryan, the app should've opened. Use it to communicate with the engines via the aircraft wiring,” Jo piped up at this point

“By the way, you have shut the cockpit door, haven't you?” she asked with raised eyebrows. “That’s very important, their designed to withstand basically anything,”

“Now, pay attention and do this fast, worried you might lose me if there's a power surge,” the Doctor began. “Don’t tap the buttons too many times, that’ll cause you to dive,”

“Focus on levelling out,” Jo added. “Then the plane’s pre programmed flight plan should kick in,”

“We’ll see you guys soon!” the Doctor said.

“You got this!” Jo gave them a thumbs up before turning off the camera. She turned to the Doctor.

“What’re the odds they actually see the whole video?” she asked, and the Doctor shrugged.

“5%? Maybe?” she answered, and Jo giggled, rolling her eyes.

“Of course,”

After they had finished putting everything in place to save the fam, it was time to drop Noor and Ada off. The Doctor went outside with Noor, while Jo stayed inside the TARDIS with Ada.

“This one is so much different,” Ada said, looking around the Doctor’s TARDIS, and Jo nodded.

“Yeah, she’s got a mind of her own,”

“She?” Ada looked over at Jo in surprise, but she just shrugged.

“Well, yeah,” she muttered. “People call ships ‘she’, right? Countries, weapons, anything really,” she said, and Ada nodded.

“I see,” “No you don’t,” Jo giggled, and Ada gave her a small smile.

“No, I don’t,” she admitted, before bursting out in a fit of giggles as well.

“Glad to see you two having a good time!” the Doctor exclaimed, walking into the TARDIS, and Jo nodded, standing and going to the opposite side of the controls from the Doctor.

“To 1834!” Jo exclaimed, pressing a couple buttons on her side while the Doctor did her part. Ada watched the work in tandem, a look of awe on her face.

They materialized in Charles Babbage’s parlor, and all three of them stepped out. Ada turned to the Doctor, a sad look on her face.

“Doctor, does this have to be the end?” she asked. “All the things I've learned with you and Jo; the advances, the machines. I would dearly love to see more,” she pled, and the Doctor and Jo exchanged a sad look as well.

“I’m afraid I have to do something about that,” the Doctor muttered stepping towards Ada. The girl took a step back, confused.

“What do you mean?” she asked, and the Doctor sighed, stepping closer and bringing a hand to Ada’s temple.

“I’m ever so sorry, Ada,” she murmured, and Ada seemed to realize what was happening, as tears began to fill in her eyes.

“Doctor, what are you doing?” she asked.

“Wiping the things you shouldn’t have knowledge of,” the Doctor told her, sighing heavily. “Including me and Jo,” A tear streaked down Ada’s face.

“But I want that knowledge!” she argued, looking between the Doctor and Jo. “Don’t take it away!” she pled. “Jo! You’re just going to let her?” Jo nodded sadly.

“It’s for the best,” she said, placing a comforting hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Goodbye, Ada,” and then her eyes rolled back into her head, and she passed out. The Doctor caught her in her arms, and carried her over to the lounge.

“Oh Ada, you don't need a preview. You figure it out before anyone. The first to see the potential in things like that. To work out what could be. What they can really do. Computers start with you,” the Doctor said softly, stroking a strand of hair out of Ada’s face, and Jo approached, stroking Ada’s cheek.

“Sweet dreams, Ada Lovelace,” she murmured, the Doctor repeating the sentiment, before they both returned to the TARDIS, disappearing into the night.

[expelliarmus]

Doctor Who Tag Game

An excuse to ramble on about my favourite dumb show??? Thank you for tagging me (again) @sopheirion!! :D

I’m not going to tag anyone but you can say I tagged you if you want to do it!

Favourite Doctor: MY BOY TEN!! ALSO ELEVEN! I LOVE THEM BOTH SO MUCH ;o; And please please please get Matt Smith on board at Big Finish and then have them MEET UP AGAIN that would honestly be the dream. But I’ve loved all the multi Doctor stories in the comics too, so I mean they have met up more than once, but still, you can never have enough of them in my opinion. :’) But that being said, I LOVE TWELVE so much I’m so proud of him and how much he grew. AND I LOVE NINE. AND THIRTEEN IS MY GIRL no matter what the writers decide to do with her. As for the Classic boys, I love Three and Four and Five. Also Two. AND ONE. And EIGHT. Well actually I love THEM ALL!!!! But to be fair, I haven’t watched much of Six and Seven... it’s okay, I still love them.

Favourite Master: Missy!! I miss her so much, she would have been amazing with Thirteen... even though I know Michelle was saying that Peter was her Doctor and she wouldn’t feel right going up against anyone else. :( I’m excited to hear her second Big Finish series! I still really liked that story in her first series about that clock...

Favourite Sonic: Oh gosh, I don’t know. Maybe Eleven’s just because it springs out and the way Matt waves it around?? (also because my Eleventh Doctor sonic is broken and doesn’t close anymore because I clicked it open one day and the springs snapped........... I need to buy a new one) Also Thirteen’s sonic is just really pretty and I love how my version has the crystal spinning around and the orange/gold lighting is just very very nice. (But actually I love them all shhh)

Favourite Companion: DONNA NOBLE ALWAYS. Clara Oswald is a very very close second though. :’) I miss them both very much and I hope they can come back one day. And (I don’t know why I’m doing a top 3 but) I love Amy Pond!! Just thinking about how much I cried when Amy left and THEN HOW MUCH I CRIED WHEN ELEVEN SAW HER BEFORE HE REGENERATED....... rip

Favourite Story: Blink still remains my most favourite episode ever. I just love the Weeping Angels and the timey-wimey-ness of it all. But does this mean like favourite story arc... hmmm I guess the missing planets from series 4, and the cracks in time in series 5 because I love series 4 and 5 lots.

Favourite Soundtrack: I HAVE TOO MANY FAVOURITES so here we go:

I am the Doctor - I can literally listen to this on repeat every single day, I miss Eleven’s theme SO MUCH

The Long Song - SO BEAUTIFUL I listen to this one every day lmao

The Wedding of River Song

Song of Freedom

A Pressing Need to Save the World

Clara’s theme

The Shepherd’s Boy

The Sad Man With a Box

This is Gallifrey

Vale Decem

All the Strange Creatures

This Time There’s Three of Us

The Majestic Tale (of a Madman in a Box)

The Sun’s Gone Wibbly

Basically, I miss Murray Gold a lot... Haven’t listened much to the series 11/12 soundtracks yet to have definite favourites from Segun Akinola but they’ll come along eventually. :)

Dream Actor for next Doctor: Idris Elba!! Or bring in Jo Martin to take over once Jodie chooses to move on. :D Richard Ayoade would also be hilarious lmao. Or Eddie Redmayne just because Newt Scamander reminds me so much of Eleven.

Dream Composer: Oooh, maybe Lorne Balfe. The music he composed for His Dark Materials is wonderful!!! Maybe a bit more on the epic side than is needed for DW, but yeah!

Dream Story: The Doctor at Disneyland, and specifically that all the animatronic dolls in come to life (or they’re all Autons!!) and want to take over the Earth!! Or actually, doesn’t matter what the story is about, as long as the Doctor goes to Disneyland hehe.

A companion you’d like to see back: DONNA :’( and Kate and Osgood!! BRING BACK UNIT. And Clara and Bill would be the easiest to bring back - they’re out there in space somewhere, Doctor!! You just gotta find them! AND MARTHA! Though I really liked that Thirteen met her in the comics. :’)

An Enemy/Alien/Creature you’d like to see again: Weeping Angels!! Also the Time Lords...... bring Gallifrey back again ;o; WHERE IS ROMANA??? Give me the Rani too while we’re at it!

If you could travel with one of the Doctors, which Doctor and why?: Ten, just because I love him the most, but also professor Twelve. I would love to attend the Doctor’s lectures because honestly, what is he going to talk about today?? Who knows!!! I love that text post that’s about Twelve throwing darts or flipping open a dictionary at random to decide what he’ll lecture on because that would honestly be how the Doctor decides lmao. And I would just like to be there to see Twelve and Nardole bicker.

Yay, that was fun!! :’) And I started the book about Ace and Thirteen today! Maybe I’ll make a gifset now, idk. I haven’t really done anything today except attend an online staff meeting for an hour and then I just finished reading Deathly Hallows the rest of the day...... okay bye

[causalityparadoxes]

Doctor Who Tagging Game

Tagged by @popcornpages88 and @incorrect-doctorwho. I have been tagged by two (2) separate people so now I have to do it. But seriously ty for tagging me this was really fun to do.

(Sorry this is so long. I ramble A Lot.)

Favourite Doctor: Twelve!! I LOVE HIM! Especially later in his run but I still love him at the beginning too. He's just so lovely but also ready to snark. Plus his character (and hair) growth is just wonderful. Second fave is Eleven, since he was the first doctor I watched where I was old enough to really appreciate the story

Favourite Master: mmm... Missy! I'm not even sure why really, she's just magnetic. Delgado is a close second though! Which I mostly attribute to how many times I watched the Sea Devils when I was younger, haha.

Favourite Sonic: Eleven's one. I find the clicking mechanism really satisfying. Plus is the colours are nice?

Favourite Companion: DONnNaAaaa... noble. I love her so, so, much. She's wonderful and ready 2 fite. Her relationship with ten is just so close and strong, without any need for romance. It's brilliant.

Favourite Episode: Tough one. Really, really, tough one. Maybe Empty Child/Doctor Dances? That one is brilliant. It absolutely terrified me as a kid. I love how creepy it is while still having so much humour. Also the ending is really sweet. Love a happy ending me.

(Weird site note: but when I was younger I used to think Rose said the Doctor should have more 'spock' as in a misspronouniation of 'spunk'. So you can imagine my shock when I later realised it was a Star Trek reference lol.)

Favourite Soundtrack: 'I am the Doctor' is definitely my all time favourite. It so bouncy and has all the right nostalgia.

My top 13 favourites (eyy) in no particular order (other than the obvious) are: I am the Doctor, Madame De Pompadour, Amy's theme, Impossible astronant, Martha's theme, Gallifrey Our Childhood Home, Clara's theme, A Dazzling End, Song of Freedom, Rose's theme, Shepards Boy, Doomsday, and Bad Wolf (which I know is actually Nine's theme but I'm sorry it's Bad Wolf to me.).

Dream actor for the next male/female Doctor: For female definitely Jo Martin. I don't care how they do it but I want it. She had so many good doctor vibes and she wasn't even on screen for more than 20 minutes. Other than that, I guess I just want a good actor? I've heard a few people suggest Colin Morgan and if we get another guy I think he'd be cool.

Dream Composer: Really dont know enough about music composers to choose... Though honestly Murray Gold was the dream.

Dream story: I'm very much a moment to moment forgets ideas two second after I thought them kind of person so I don't have anything concrete but.

1: a multi doctor story, with Donna, Clara, and Bill. (Or any one of them). Where the subplot is 13 struggling with guilt and making herself not stop a future that has already happened. Maybe 12 also feels guilt over Clara & Donna and 11 feels guilt over Donna and all their half hearted attempts to stop the past get interrupted by each other. Idk I just want Angst. (In this scenario 10 would just be getting gradually more worried about his future lmao)

2: I saw an amazing thread (link here) about the next Doctor & Master regenerating at the same time in the Tardis and both getting amnesia. Basically neither of them know which one is which and the entire story is them working together to figure out who they are... While they also deal with an alien threat. I love the idea that, because they're both bastards and two sides of the same coin, you literally can't tell who's who until the reveal. Bonus points if the main foreshadowing of their actual identity is that the Doctor is played by someone substantially taller.

Companion you'd like to see back: oh Ace, definitely. I think it would be wonderful if there was a 'School Reunion' (without the jealously though please) esque episode. It would be really fun to see her interact with a newer companion like Yaz. I've seen screenshots of a story I believe Sophie Aldred wrote(?) and yeah something like that.

Tagging, @dw-textposts, @queerconfusionthings, @oxbowreality, @alyona11, @bootstrapparadoxed, @uselesstimelords, @starlightanddragons, @being-of-rain, @the-patrex, @stillthesunkenstars, @yesokayiknow, @imnotgivingmynametoacomputer, @madfanboyinablueblog

Only if you want to ofc! Don't feel like you have to do it. I just like seeing other people's opinions :)

[aion-rsa]

Doctor Who: Previous Guest Stars Who’d Be Great as the New Doctor

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It’s not unusual, in the world of Doctor Who, for the same actor to play more than one role on screen. From classic to modern Doctor Who, Nicholas Courtney, Ian Marter, Lalla Ward, Jaqueline Hill, Jean Marsh, Adjoa Andoh, Eve Myles, Naoko Mori, Vinette Robinson and more have all played multiple parts in the whoniverse. Before she debuted as companion Martha Jones, Freema Agyeman was a Torchwood employee who fell foul of the Cybermen in series two’s ‘Army of Ghosts’. Karen Gillan was a seer in series four episode ‘The Fires of Pompeii’ before she recurred as Eleven’s companion Amy Pond. Even the Doctor has had test runs. Colin Baker played a Gallifreyan commander in season twenty before taking over from Peter Davison. Peter Capaldi appeared in ‘The Fires of Pompeii’ as well as playing John Frobisher on Torchwood before taking up residence in the TARDIS.   

In the search for the new Doctor then, it makes sense to rifle through those actors the show already picked once to see who might be asked back. Continuity can be handled if need be – just do what Russell T. Davies did and make up something about spacial genetic multiplicity, or what Steven Moffat did and pretend it was all part of the Doctor’s plan to remind him to be a good man. In a few cases, the shared genetics wouldn’t even be an issue as the actor in question’s first appearance was either solely as a voice, or beneath too many layers of prosthetics to matter.

Gliding over a few previous guest stars whose current filming commitments likely take them out of the running (Andrew Garfield, Carey Mulligan, James Norton, Felicity Jones, Gemma Chan and Gugu Mbutha-Raw are probably all tied up…), here’s a choice selection of guest actors since 2005 who could all make fantastic, and very different, Doctors.

Chris Addison

Played: AI interface ‘Seb’, who greeted the recently deceased to Missy’s Nethersphere. Appeared in: Two-part Series Eight finale ‘Dark Water/Death in Heaven‘. Watch his stand-up and there’s a real Tenth Doctor energy about writer-director-producer-comedian-actor Chris Addison (The Thick of It, In the Loop, Veep). That probably means his time has come and gone on Doctor Who, as the show isn’t likely to want to repeat itself at this stage. Addison also has his plate full with the third series of Sky/FX’s excellent comedy-drama Breeders, but you could definitely picture him at the TARDIS console, couldn’t you?

Arsher Ali

Played: Bennett, a bookish recent military recruit to a Scottish underwater mining facility in 2119. Appeared in: Series 9 two-parter ‘Under the Lake/Before the Flood‘ Part of a large crew (initially at least) we didn’t see loads of Arsher Ali in his Doctor Who role, but what we saw was enough to convince that he has the presence and bearing of a potential Doctor. He was great as the lead in BBC’s Informer and as a conflicted journalist in the first series of The Missing, as well as in supporting role in Line of Duty‘s best series. Add all that to his breadth of stage experience and he’s a highly intriguing prospect.

Percelle Ascott

Played: Delph, a member of the Ux, humanoid aliens who live for thousands of years and have the power of telepathic inter-dimensional engineering (they can teleport planets). Appeared in: Season 11, Episode 10 ‘The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos‘. Not the only entry on this list with a Doctor Who-adjacent role in his back catalogue (see also: Anjli Mohindra in The Sarah-Jane Adventures), as a teenager, Ascott played science geek Benny in Russell T. Davies’ Wizards Vs Aliens. He was great then, but really showed his range in cancelled-too-soon Netflix supernatural drama The Innocents, where he stole the show. When he popped back up opposite Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor as the wise and conscience-led Delph, it was hard not to imagine what he might do in the Doctor’s role.

Zawe Ashton

Played: Lieutenant Journey Blue of the Combined Galactic Resistance, a solider on the Aristotle. Appeared in: the Ben Wheatley-directed Series 8 episode ‘Into the Dalek‘. A regular on ‘Next Doctor’ wishlists for some time now, Zawe Ashton is a terrific actor who came to fame as hedonist Vod in Channel 4 student comedy Fresh Meat and who’s recently been seen in Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale. In ‘Into the Dalek’ she played a ‘shoot first ask questions later’ soldier, but Ashton has the range for serious, absurd and very funny – in short, everything required to make a great Doctor.

Maxim Baldry

Played: Dr Polidori, a nineteenth century character who was part of Mary and Percy Shelley’s social circle. Appeared in: Series 12’s ‘The Haunting of Villa Diodati‘, about the summer Mary Shelley conceived her famous science-fiction novel Frankenstein. Baldry’s scored a role in Amazon Prime Video’s new mega-money Lord of the Rings TV series, so his dance card is likely full for now, but he’s just the sort of actor to breathe fresh life into the role of the Doctor, much in the way Matt Smith did back in 2010. He’s probably best recognised right now as Viktor, the asylum-seeking boyfriend of Russell Tovey’s character in Russell T. Davies’ future-predicting Years and Years, but the Russian-British actor has been acting in films since he was a child.

Sanjeev Bhaskar

Played: UNIT’s Colonel Ahmed, a colleague of Kate Lethbridge-Stewart in the fight against Missy’s Cybermen-from-corpses wicked plan. Appeared in: Series 8 finale ‘Death in Heaven‘. This Doctor Who role was just not enough of Sanjeev Bhaskar, an actor-writer-comedian whose role as DS Sunny Khan in ITV detective series Unforgotten has elevated him to the status of national treasure (partly because of his backpack, but mostly because of his decency and warm humour). Bhaskar is playing Cain opposite Asim Chaudhry’s Abel in Netflix’s forthcoming The Sandman series, and there’s series five of Unforgotten on the way, but wouldn’t he be great as the Doctor? As would another member of his family (see below)…

Mark Bonnar

Played: 22nd century miner Jimmy Wicks in the one with the ‘ganger’ clones. Appeared in: Series 6 two-parter ‘The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People’. No, of course they won’t let another funny, clever, slightly scary Scot with a brilliant face be the Doctor so soon after Peter Capaldi, but in a parallel universe, Mark Bonnar would make a very fine Doctor – something that hasn’t escaped Big Finish. He’s got it all (funny, clever, slightly scary, brilliant face) and frequently steals whichever show he’s in. Watch this two-parter, Catastrophe, Unforgotten series two and the brilliant Guilt (series two of which is approaching) for evidence of that.

Kevin Eldon

Played: Ribbons of the Seven Stomachs, a trader in the ‘Antizone’ obsessed with the Doctor’s “tubular” (or Sonic Screwdriver), and the voice of companion Antimony in an animated online adventure. Appeared in: Series 11’s ‘It Takes You Away‘ and 2001 webcast ‘Death Comes to Time’. It just seems a waste for the multi-talented Kevin Eldon to only play just one (or technically two, but just one on-screen) role on Doctor Who. And because his series 11 appearance was under a faceful of prosthetics, it wouldn’t even cause any continuity errors for him to come back in the role of the Doctor. Or a companion. Or another alien. Whatever it is, just give us more Eldon please.

O-T Fagbenle

Played: ‘Other Dave’, an engineer on an expedition to The Library who was eaten by the Vashta Nerada but brought back to life in the computer core. Appeared in: Series 4 two-parter ‘Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead‘ Fagbenle has recently been seen as Natasha’s fixer in Black Widow, June’s husband Luke in The Handmaid’s Tale, and as the lead character in sitcom Maxxx, about a washed-up former boy band member. The man has dramatic and comedy range, a very good American accent (not necessarily relevant here) and excellent screen presence. He’d rock the role of the Doctor.

Siobhan Finneran

Played: 17th century landlady/witch prosecutor Becka Savage/Morax queen Appeared in: Series 11’s ‘The Witchfinders‘. If the new Doctor’s going to be a woman in her early fifties, then it should really go to Jo Martin, but if she’s busy, how great would Siobhan Finneran be? The Happy Valley and Downton Abbey actor’s a treat in everything. She can be equal parts funny and imperious, and you can easily imagine her running circles around alien fiends and having a load of fun doing it.

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Tamsin Grieg

Played: the Nurse who inserts Adam’s infospike on Satellite 5. Appeared in: Series 1 Simon Pegg-starring episode ‘The Long Game’, alongside Anna Maxwell-Martin (who might also deserve a place on this list come to think about it). Tamsin Grieg would make such a good Doctor it almost makes you angry she’s never played the role. She has the dramatic chops to deliver all the world-saving speeches, and the comedic skill to give it all a sparkling light touch. She was chilling in her small Series 1 role, but it only showed a tiny portion of what she can do. Also, wouldn’t she look great in a signature coat.

Suranne Jones

Played: Idris, into whom the ‘soul’ of the TARDIS was poured, making her the ship incarnate until her body died. Appeared in: Series 6 episode ‘The Doctor’s Wife‘, written by Neil Gaiman. Perhaps a bit too similar to Jodie Whittaker to be a likely successor, but you only have to see Suranne Jones in BBC/HBO drama Gentleman Jack to know that she’s made of Doctor material. As nineteenth-century landowner and famed lesbian Anne Lister, she’s cleverer and faster than everybody else, with a fierce sense of boundary-breaking why-not-ness, and plenty of emotion. Look at most of Jones’ roles, including that of the TARDIS itself, and she’d be great in the part, especially if her regular collaborator Sally Wainwright is enticed into the showrunner gig.

Paterson Joseph

Played: the venal Rodrick, who competed against Rose Tyler in The Weakest Link on the Game Station. Appeared in: Series 1 two-parter ‘Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways’. Paterson Joseph was famously up for the role of the Eleventh Doctor that ultimately went to Matt Smith, and has been a stalwart entry in ‘Who next?’ lists of this sort ever since, so… this isn’t going to happen, but wouldn’t it have been great if it had? The Peep Show, The Leftovers, Noughts + Crosses actor and Big Finish voice artist is currently showing off his commander chops in BBC One submarine thriller Vigil.

Ralf Little

Played: Steadfast, one of the few crew members of an off-world colony ship who weren’t murdered by nano-bots. Appeared in: Series 10 episode ‘Smile‘. He’s currently solving baroque murders on a fictional Caribbean island in Death in Paradise, but none of that lot ever last long, which could free Little up for another spin in the TARDIS. Little has been a familiar face on British TV for years, after playing feckless teenager Anthony on The Royle Family and starring in a BBC Three sitcom that spanned the entire noughties, but now a little older, with plenty of experience under his belt, it could be Ralf Little’s time.

Susan Lynch

Played: Pilot Angstrom, a competitor in an intergalactic race who meets Thirteen on her second ever adventure. Appeared in: Series 11 episode ‘The Ghost Monument’. You don’t need telling why Susan Lynch would make a great Doctor, just watch any decent British drama from the last decade and she’s in it, showing you. From Save Me to Unforgotten to Happy Valley to Killing Eve to any number of TV and film roles, she’s a scene-stealer who can play mystery, tragedy, power… everything the role calls for.

Daniel Mays

Played: Alex, the unwitting foster dad of a Tenza-in-human-form son, George. Appeared in: Series 6 episode ‘Night Terrors‘ written by Mark Gatiss. RADA-trained Danny Mays can do comedy, drama, has some serious dance moves, and was a Line of Duty guest star, so we know he’d have no problem at all learning the Doctor’s long speeches. If the TARDIS wanted to cast a Gallifreyan Doctor by way of Essex, he’d be top of the list.

T’Nia Miller

Played: The General, Military Commander of the Time Lords, in their Twelfth Regeneration. Appeared in: Series 9 finale ‘Hell Bent’. The Years & Years and Foundation star played a Time Lord in her Doctor Who debut and can even already tick ‘Regeneration’ off the to-do list. Miller clearly has the bearing and gravitas required of the Doctor, looks great even in impractically massive armour, and was the absolute stand-out in Netflix’s 2020 horror series The Haunting of Bly Manor. If they could work out the continuity for a reappearance, she’d rock the role.

Lucian Msamati

Played: Guido, the father of Isabella, a new enrolment at Rosanna Calvierri’s school for girls. Appeared in: Series 5 episode ‘The Vampires of Venice.’ Since appearing in this 2010 Doctor Who episode, Msamati has gone on to appear in major series, from Game of Thrones to Gangs of London and His Dark Materials. He’s an experienced stage actor too, who’d be sure to bring dramatic heft to the role of the Doctor.

Anjli Mohindra

Played: the Scorpion-like Queen of the Skithra, a species that relies on other species for their engineering. Appeared in: Series 12 episode ‘Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror‘. Anjli Mohindra already has a long history with Doctor Who, having appeared under layers of prosthetics and make-up in Series 12, provided the voice of the Mechanoid Queen for animated Time Lord Victorious series Daleks!, and playing the recurring role of Rani Chandra from series two of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Would that preclude the Vigil and Bodyguard star from stepping behind the TARDIS console in the top role? Nah.

Sophie Okonedo

Played: Elizabeth X of The United Kingdom aka Liz 10 of Starship UK. Appeared in: Series 5 episodes ‘The Beast Below’ and ‘The Pandorica Opens’. One of our finest actors, Sophie Okonedo not only played the future queen opposite Matt Smith and Karen Gillan in Doctor Who, she was also the voice of the Shalka Doctor’s companion in the BBC’s ‘Scream of the Shalka’ animated webcast, way back when. She’s currently starring in Amazon’s Wheel of Time adaptation and voices the key role of angel Xaphania in His Dark Materials, so probably has too full a plate to step into the TARDIS, but casting her as the Doctor would be a no-brainer.

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Tom Riley

Played: Robin Hood. Appeared in: 2014 Series 8 episode written by Mark Gatiss ‘Robot of Sherwood’. Tom Riley played a legendary genius and multi-hyphenate over three seasons of Da Vinci’s Demons so taking on the role of the Doctor wouldn’t really be a stretch. The actor is currently playing Augie in HBO/Sky drama The Nevers, which started life as a Joss Whedon-created supernatural fantasy before the showrunner left the project after the first six episodes.

Danny Sapani

Played: Colonel Manton/Runaway (depending on your perspective). Appeared in: Series 6 episode ‘A Good Man Goes to War’. The River Song/Melody Pond revelation overshadowed much else that happened in ‘A Good Man Goes to War’, but nonetheless, seasoned Brit actor Danny Sapani made an impression as enemy of the Doctor, Colonel Manton, who conspired with Madame Kovarian to kidnap Amy and Rory’s baby. Sapani’s enjoying a long career on screen and stage, with stand-out TV roles in Penny Dreadful, Harlots and Killing Eve, as well as the upcoming part of Captain Jacob Keyes in video game adaptation Halo.

Amit Shah

Played: Rahul, brother to missing person Asha Chandra, both victims of Tzim-Sha. Appeared in: The Series 11 opener ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth‘. A skilled comedic actor who has a habit of stealing scenes, even in serious supporting roles like this one, or last year’s turn as a doctor experimenting on children in His Dark Materials, Amit Shah would be a great surprise to find in the TARDIS. Experienced but not yet a household name, there’s a Matt Smith vibe about this one. Revive him as a companion, at the very least?

Peter Serafinowicz

Played: the voice of alien warlord The Fisher King (though the character’s screams were provided by Slipknot front man Corey Taylor). Appeared in: Series 9 episode ‘Before the Flood‘. Likely not the photo of Peter Serafinowicz his Nan keeps on the mantelpiece, this is the villain he voiced in a Series 9 two-parter. It’s Serafinowicz out of the make-up and prosthetics though, who’d make an intriguing prospect as the Doctor. Great voice(s), great face, serious presence, humour, loads of experience… what else do you need?

Nina Sosanya

Played: Trish Webber, mother of Chloe Webber, the little girl endowed with the psychic powers of an Isolus. (And in Big Finish audio adventure ‘Aquitaine’ Captain Maynard’). Appeared in: Series 2 Olympics episode ‘Fear Her‘. A regular RTD collaborator, with previous roles in Casanova and Wizards Vs Aliens as well as Doctor Who, Nina Sosanya is a joy to see in any cast, which must be why she’s (thankfully) in everything. She’s great in comedy (Good Omens, WIA, Staged, Nathan Barley) and in drama (Last Tango in Halifax, Killing Eve, His Dark Materials, Little Birds) and would no doubt make a very convincing centuries-old two-hearted big-brained Time Lord. Get her a statement coat and get her in the TARDIS.

Meera Syal

Played: Dr Nasreen Chaudhry, the scientist in charge of an ill-fated deep drilling mission in a Welsh village. (As well as voicing audio stories and audiobook Borrowed Time). Appeared in: Series 5 two-parter ‘The Hungry Earth’ and ‘Cold Blood‘. Actor-writer-comedian Meera Syal, CBE, had a fair crack of the whip in Series 5 Silurian two-parter, but would always, always be welcome back for more. As well as comedic talent, she has the dramatic presence, brains and stature to play the Doctor. Her husband Sanjeev Bhaskar (see above) will just have to fight her for the role.

Joivan Wade

Played: Bristol graffiti artist Christopher Riggens aka Rigsy. Appeared in: Series 8’s ‘Flatline’ and Series 9’s ‘Face the Raven‘. Joivan Wade is currently starring as Victor Stone in Doom Patrol for the MCU, so it may be a while before he returns to the UK, but his two appearances in Doctor Who proved him to be a charismatic talent who’d energise the TARDIS if welcomed back.

Harriet Walter

Played: British Technology Secretary and later, Prime Minister Jo Patterson. Appeared in: Series 12’s ‘Revolution of the Daleks‘ (as well as voicing the role of Beatrice in audio story ‘The Boy That Time Forgot’). Having a Dame in the TARDIS would be quite something; that Dame being Harriet Walter would be off the charts brilliant. Just look at her – the face, the voice, the hard-to-define quality that means the moment she opens her mouth, everybody shuts up and listens. Harriet Walter, stage and screen star of Killing Eve, Succession, The Crown, Downton Abbey and so much more, would make a very fine Doctor indeed.

Marc Warren

Played: Elton Pope, co-founder member of LINDA, a group of humans who meet to swap stories on their encounters with the Doctor. Appeared in: Little-loved Series 2 episode ‘Love & Monsters‘. A very familiar face on British screens, with regular roles in hits including Hustle, Mad Dogs, The Good Wife and The Musketeers, there’s always been something about Marc Warren that makes you think he’d make a really great alien. See him as The Gentleman in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, or Mr Teatime in The Hogfather, and you’ll agree. Top Doctor potential.

Gemma Whelan

Played: the voice of loads of characters for Big Finish audio adventures, but never (yet) on screen. Appeared in: ‘Ninth Doctor Adventures’, ‘Dalek Universe’, ‘Counter-Measures’ and more. Always a treat wherever you find her on screen, actor-comedian Gemma Whelan is best recognised as warrior leader of the Iron Islands, Yara Greyjoy in Game of Thrones but she’s been great in Killing Eve, Gentleman Jack, Upstart Crow, The End of the F***ing World, and recently, a killer episode of Inside No. 9. If Doctor Who is looking for another late-thirties Yorkshire lass to take on the Doctor’s mantle in future, go Whelan or go home.

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Doctor Who Series 13 will air on BBC One and BBC America this autumn.

The post Doctor Who: Previous Guest Stars Who’d Be Great as the New Doctor appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3CC4kfL

[lady-sci-fi]

 @butterflyslinky  reactions to Sarah Jane Adventures #10:

Death of the Doctor

When UNIT comes up to Sarah’s house and the Colonel tells Sarah the Doctor is dead- “So do they normally bring and brandish guns when giving people condolences?”

At Sarah’s refusal to accept the news relayed through the Shansheeth hologram, and Clyde and Rani trying to help her through grief- “She’s been through the Doctor being “dead” before. Of course she doesn’t believe it.”

At Rani’s small breakdown to Haresh about him never leaving her- “Awww….”

When Clyde’s hand first shows the artron energy- “Yeah, Doctor definitely isn’t dead.”

At the mention of Alistair being stuck in Peru- “Again? What does he do there?”

At Sarah’s Ten-only flashbacks- “Come on, give us Four.”

At Jo’s entrance- “Still being her sort of cute.”

At Sarah’s reaction when she realizes who Jo is, and vice versa- “Well, didn’t take them long to fall in love.”

When Jo says to Sarah, “I never saw him again. He must’ve really liked you.”- “Four was in a romantic relationship with Sarah, so yes…”

When Rani and Santiago are itching to leave the room as Sarah and Jo get cutesy again, then Clyde smiling and shutting the door as they leave- “Let’s go, they need to bang now.”

When Sarah and Jo are remembering together and Four is in the flashbacks- “Yes!” *squee*

When Rani says, “Clyde, I’m staring at your bum,” while in the vent shafts- “But it’s a nice butt, so you shouldn’t mind.”

When Sarah and Jo realize something is wrong, and Sarah grabs Jo’s hand as they go off to investigate- “Come on, Jo, you’re my companion today.”

When realizing the way Sarah and Jo are dressed- “Wait, they’re dressed reminiscent of their Doctors, Three and Four!”

When Clyde raises his hand to find a larger white one instead of his own- “Well, that’s not normal.”

When Eleven appears- “Yes, my puppy is here.”

At Jo’s reaction to the Doctor saying to her, “It’s like someone baked you.”- “Yep, it’s him alright.”

At the heart-to-hearts Sarah and Jo have with the Doctor on the planet- “Awww….”

When Sarah and Jo get captured, and the Doctor is deciding who to go after- “Companions or their kids? Well, Sarah and Jo have enough experience to survive longer… and if I let anything happen to their kids, they won’t be happy…”

When Clyde makes comments about the Doctor’s new face and asking him questions about regeneration while they’re shuffling through the vents- “Not really the time, Clyde.”

When the Colonel gets really close when taunting Sarah, “Foeyay, much?”

When the Doctor tells Sarah and Jo to remember everything they ever experienced with him- “Sarah, remember all the amazing sex we had.”

When the Doctor opens the coffin to find Sarah and Jo snuggling and laughing- “Okay, kids, let’s just… close this and leave them alone for a bit.”

When Sarah and Jo leave the Tardis- “Well, that was a good threesome.”

When Sarah and Jo watch the Tardis leave, and Sarah has her arm around Jo, and Jo is holding Sarah’s hand on her shoulder- “Well, at least he brought us together to be hook-up girlfriends.”

When Jo tells Sarah to “find yourself a fella”- “I already did, and the asshole left me. I’m waiting for him to come back.”

When Sarah says Ian and Barbara haven’t aged since they got home in the 60s- “I’d like to see Thirteen see them and deal with that somehow.”

 The Empty Planet

At Sarah shooing Clyde and Rani from the attic- “Bedtime.”

At Clyde and Rani discussing “Great Expectations.”- I’m with Clyde not reading it, it’s boring.”

When Haresh tries to talk with Rani, but she’s reading her homework- “He’s trying to be a good den mother.”

When Rani goes through the house calling for her parents, and sees the open magazine on the bed- “Well, that’s definitely weird.”

When Rani takes the sonic lipstick from the attic- “At least Sarah left that behind.”

When Clyde comes to Rani’s house and says he called her first- “Awww… yeah, he’s getting over Luke.”

When Clyde and Rani go into town and look over deserted London and say the entire world has disappeared- “London isn’t the entire world, you know.”

At Clyde and Rani wondering if they were left to repopulate Earth- “You two are hardly the best candidates for that, and you’d think the aliens would know that’s not a viable gene pool.”

When Clyde complains about getting the pink bike- “Let go of that toxic masculinity.”

When the robots appear- “We’re being invaded by Transformers.”

At Clyde hiding among the mannequins- “Good thing those are diverse mannequins.”

When Gavin decides to stay with them, with an obvious crush on Rani- “Hey, she’s sort-of taken.”

At Rani realizing that Gavin is half-Human/half-alien, and Clyde’s reaction to the interspecies sex implication- “Come on, Clyde, what do you think happened between Sarah and the Doctor?”

When Gavin pronounces them Lord Clyde and Lady Rani- “Unfortunately, that has no official meaning here on Earth.”

At Haresh questioning Rani where she’s been- “Having sex with Clyde- I mean…”

At Clyde making himself comfortable in Rani’s house to Haresh’s disapproval- “Breakfast is for people not trying to get with my daughter.”

When Rani tells Sarah that after that day, Sarah has no idea what it’s like to be alone- “You were with Clyde most of the time.”

At Rani and Clyde saying they’ll never be alone because they have each other, and calling each other “My lord” and “My lady”- “Awww, babies….”

[esonetwork]

Timestamp #198: The Sontaran Stratagem and The Poison Sky

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/timestamp-198-the-sontaran-stratagem-and-the-poison-sky/

Timestamp #198: The Sontaran Stratagem and The Poison Sky

Doctor Who: The Sontaran Stratagem Doctor Who: The Poison Sky (2 episodes, s04e04-e05, 2008)

  The Undefeated meets his match on Earth.

  The Sontaran Strategem

Reporter Jo Nakashima is physically thrown out of Rattigan Academy by Luke Rattigan and his students. Jo threatens to find someone who will listen to her about the threat posed by the ATMOS system, which is installed on her car and others around the globe. As she drives to UNIT Headquarters, Rattigan recommends to a hidden boss that she be terminated.

Sure enough, the ATMOS system leads Jo to her final destination: A body of water where her sealed car drives itself into the depths.

Meanwhile, in the depths of space and time, Donna is driving the TARDIS and trying to avoid putting a dent in the 1980s. The Doctor receives a call on a special mobile phone only to find Martha Jones on the other end. She’s bringing him back to Earth.

The TARDIS materializes in an alley near Martha. The Doctor and Martha embrace each other, check in on her family, and discuss her engagement to Tom Milligan. Martha and Donna hit things off right away, and Marth introduces the Doctor to her new job at UNIT as they storm an ATMOS during Operation Blue Sky.

A familiar three-fingered figure watches the festivities from a remote location.

Martha takes the Doctor and Donna to meet her boss, Colonel Mace. Mace salutes the Doctor, impressed by what he’s read in the files of the Time Lord’s service in the ’70s – or was it the ’80s? – but Donna likens it to how the Americans run the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Mace tells the Doctor of fifty-two simultaneous deaths worldwide, all linked to ATMOS. Since UNIT can’t figure out how the system killed so many people at once, they called in their expert scientific adviser on the hunch that it might be alien tech.

In the depths of the factory, two UNIT soldiers find themselves in a restricted area. When they investigate further, they find mysterious technology and a humanoid creature in a crypt-like box. The soldiers investigate the embryonic form before being introduced to a Sontaran.

The cordolaine signal in the room renders their weapons useless. The soldiers are disabled and sent for processing. Their assailant is General Staal of the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet, better known as Staal the Undefeated.

Well, there’s a bit of foreshadowing if I ever saw one.

The Doctor takes the ATMOS system apart and investigates it piece by piece, impressed by Martha Jones but warning off the UNIT troops and their guns. Donna finds the HR files on ATMOS personnel sick leave, or rather specifically how none of the workers ever take time off.

While Donna and Martha look into the personnel issues, the Doctor learns about Luke Rattigan, the child prodigy developer of the ATMOS system. Martha talks to Donna about family matters and how she needs to be careful with them and her travels.

The Doctor gears up to visit Luke Rattigan, but Donna wants to go visit her family. The Doctor misunderstands, thinking that she’s leaving him forever, giving her a good laugh. As they depart with a UNIT escort named Ross Jenkins, Martha examines a factory worker named Trepper with strange results.

The UNIT soldiers, Privates Harris and Gray, are hypnotically programmed to further the Sontaran stratagem before Staal returns to his ship via transmat. Harris and Gray watch the Doctor and Donna leave before escorting Martha to what she thinks is a meeting with Colonel Mace. Instead, she’s locked away in one of the Sontaran cloning vats.

Donna returns home, thinking over her adventures so far with the Doctor, before sharing an embrace with her grandfather Wilfred. Donna tells him all about the Doctor, but she refuses to tell her mother about the experiences.

The Doctor and Jenkins arrive at Rattigan Academy, scoffing at ATMOS the whole way there. Rattigan gives them a tour, and while the Doctor is impressed at the science lab he is skeptical about the technology’s origins. He recognizes that it’s been a long time since anyone has told the boy no, but he also recognizes the teleport pod in Rattigan’s office. It takes him to the Sontaran ship and back, and he’s followed by Staal before he disables the teleport with a wave of the sonic.

Jenkins refers to the general as a baked potato in armor, but the Doctor displays the Sontaran’s weakness by ricocheting a racquetball into the armor’s probic vent. While the Doctor and Jenkins run, Skaal and Rattigan repair the teleport and return to the ship. Skaal orders Commander Skorr to begin the invasion of Earth, which involves visiting Martha Jones and the cloning vat.

Sure enough, he’s breeding a clone of Martha.

Rattigan suggests using ATMOS to kill the Doctor, and Skaal links the name to the survivor of the Last Great Time War. He relishes the thought of killing the last of the Time Lords. Sure enough, the UNIT jeep drives itself to the river, but the Doctor uses a logic trap to stop the jeep and blow the UNIT in a not-so-spectacular pop of sparks.

The Doctor finds himself on Donna’s doorstep. As he examines Donna’s car, he meets Wilf for the second time (but the first time proper) and tries to warn Martha, unknowingly calling the clone instead. Martha’s mother, Sylvia, recognizes the Doctor from Donna’s wedding as he unlocks the ATMOS unit. This triggers a Sontaran battle group to head for Earth as the travelers figure out that ATMOS means to poison everyone on Earth.

Wilf ends up locked in the car as every ATMOS vehicle starts gassing the planet. The car is sonic-proof, the planet is choking, and the Sontarans are chanting.

It’s a perfect place for a cliffhanger.

  The Poison Sky

Sylvia saves Wilf using a totally low-tech option: An axe through the windshield!

UNIT is on high alert, unaware of the mole in their midst as the Martha clone accesses the NATO defense system. She transmits the information to the Sontaran ship as Donna rushes off with the Doctor and Jenkins to fight the Sontarans.

The travelers return to the UNIT mobile headquarters, and the Doctor hands Donna a key to the TARDIS as he rushes off. Donna finds fresh air in the time ship, the Doctor beckons Clone-Martha to follow him, and the mole dispatches Harris and Gray to steal the TARDIS and transmat it to the Sontaran ship.

Donna figures out her predicament as Rattigan returns to Earth and the Doctor figures out that his TARDIS has been stolen. He laments being trapped on Earth (again) before returning to the command center. The UNIT forces find the Sontaran ship and the Doctor makes contact with them. Donna rushes to the monitor, just missing Rose, to catch the transmission as the Doctor handles the Sontarans and ruffles their feathers about the war with the Rutan Host. He also sends a secret message to Donna, asking her to contact him, but she doesn’t know how yet.

She calls home instead to check in with her family. She promises that the Doctor will save them. The Doctor has his own problems as he puzzles over the gas and UNIT spools up the world’s nuclear arsenal to attack the Sontarans. Even though the nuclear missiles wouldn’t even dent the ship, they stop the launch, and the Doctor begins putting the pieces together about Martha’s identity.

The Sontarans storm the factory, killing the UNIT troops in their path including Ross Jenkins. The Doctor is downright furious and Colonel Mace finally starts listening to him. The Time Lord wishes that the Brigadier was there, but Mace states that Sir Alistair is stranded in Peru.

He’s been knighted! Good for him.

Rattigan outlines his plan to take his students off-world and restart the human race. His students are unimpressed with his plan, including his mating program, and they abandon him. He reports back to Staal and finds out that the students would have been sacrificed. Rattigan’s plan was a Sontaran ruse, and the boy returns to Earth to avoid being shot down. The Sontarans lock down the teleport system.

The Doctor borrows a mobile phone and calls Donna, calling her his secret weapon and asking her to go into the ship and re-open the teleport link. He walks her through how to disable a Sontaran with the probic vent and open the ship’s doors before he’s interrupted by Mace’s battle plan.

The Doctor heads outside with a gas mask – “Are you my mummy?” – while ignoring Mace’s briefing. He’s sure that it will not work, after all, but still marvels at the Valiant‘s arrival. After all, he remembers it from a year that never happened even if no one else does.

The UNIT “helicarrier” clears the air with its powerful turbines before attacking the factory. The UNIT troops storm the facility as the Doctor and Clone-Martha follow the signals to the cloning facility. He finds Martha’s body and reveals that he’s known about Clone-Martha all along by her off smell. He removes the memory transfer device from Martha’s head, which disables the clone, and opens communications with Donna again.

While Martha consoles her clone, the Doctor with Donna to fix the teleport. The clone tells Martha that the gas is clone feed, set to convert the planet to a massive cloning facility. Remarking on Martha’s soul brimming with life as the character’s theme takes on a military air, the clone dies.

The Doctor saves Donna by teleporting her and the TARDIS back to Earth. He then teleports Donna and Marth to the Rattigan Academy, throws Luke’s gun from his hands, and uses the boy’s colonization tech to build a device to ignite the planet’s atmosphere.

As the atmosphere burns, the Doctor begs for the plan to work. It’s quite the parallel as his planet burned to death, but the Earth burns to life. The air is clean again and the world rejoices, but the Doctor’s job is not done.

The Sontarans level their weapons on the planet below. The Doctor runs to the teleport and bids farewell to his companions, planning to sacrifice himself to end the Sontaran threat. He heads to the ship to give them a choice: Leave or be destroyed.

The Sontarans refuse to yield. Staal is eager to end the Time Lords and humans once and for all. But the humans get the last laugh as Rattigan swaps places with the Doctor, yells “Sontar-HA!”, and presses the button.

The Sontaran ship is destroyed and the threat is done. Donna heads home to share the moment with her family, and Wilf tearfully tells her to go see the stars. She kisses him goodbye and returns to the TARDIS. Martha is there to say goodbye, but before she can leave the TARDIS slams the doors and takes flight on her own accord.

As the TARDIS rocks, the Doctor’s hand bubbles away happily in the jar.

  As I write this in the year 2020, Doctor Who fandom is beset by complaints that the show has become too political and too obsessed with “social justice”. One thing that I’ve learned over the course of the Timestamps Project is just how much Doctor Who has been political and socially conscious since 1963:

Unchecked capitalism’s effect on ecology (Planet of the Giants);

The rights of indigenous peoples (any story with the Silurians and/or Sea Devils, starting with Doctor Who and the Silurians);

The debate over nuclear energy (most notably Inferno) and nuclear war (starting with The Daleks);

Peace and war (permeates the entire series, once again starting with The Daleks, but especially The War Games and The Caves of Androzani);

The role of the military and the threat of the military-industrial complex (any episode with UNIT, particularly Robot and Battlefield, and while we’re at it, anything to do with the Sontarans);

Environmentalism, destruction of resources, and ignoring scientific warnings for personal gain (most notably, Inferno and The Green Death);

Membership of the European Economic Community and labor strikes (The Curse of Peladon and The Monster of Peladon);

Sexism and feminism (particularly Jo Grant’s and Sarah Jane Smith’s tenures);

Genocide (most notably, Genesis of the Daleks);

The responsibility and power of the media (The Long Game);

Taxation (The Sun Makers);

Margaret Thatcher (The Happiness Patrol and The Christmas Invasion);

LGBTQIA+ representation (the revival era gets quite a few props for this, but (despite the classic era’s hands-off approach to the topic) give some deep consideration to the queer-coding with The Rani, Ace and Kara in Survival, The Happiness Patrol, and The Curse of Fenric)

Racism and xenophobia (the entire series as the Doctor relates to every alien species he/she encounters);

The threat of technology overtaking humanity (any episode featuring the Cybermen);

Nazis, including intolerance, xenophobia, genocide, racial purity, racial supremacy, totalitarianism, and everything that evil regime stands for (literally any episode featuring the Daleks).

And that, without the slightest hint of hyperbole, is just barely scratching the surface. After all, we just tackled assimilation and slavery last week. Let’s face facts: The Doctor has been what is disparagingly known today as a “social justice warrior” since 1963.

And here we are again, tackling ozone depletion, air pollution, and technology to reduce both. Tangentially, this story also hits on carbon emissions and the environment, as well as the social justice implications of detainees and unchecked military power. I mean, Donna’s mention of the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay is square on the nose.

Doctor Who has been politically and socially conscious from day one. The show was even co-created and helmed by a woman, and directed from day one by a gay man of Indian descent. Come for the monsters, stay for the moral at the end of fable.

[Inadvertently (but equally) right in the snout is my watching this end-of-the-world pandemic during the COVID-19 crisis, but I digress.]

  On top of all of that – and by the gods, it is a lot to digest – I deeply enjoyed the return of both Martha Jones and the Sontarans. Freema Agyeman is a delight, and the Sontarans are a force of nature. Add to that the emotional depths of Donna’s relationship with Wilf – one of my absolute favorite family members and the embodiment of every child who’s ever looked at the stars and wanted to fly among them – and this story just rocks.

    Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

  UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Doctor’s Daughter

    The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

[love-of-fandoms]

The Non-Companion (The Master + OC) Chapter 2

Chapter 2 of The Non-Companion (Master List)

Pairing: The Maser + OC

Word Count: 2105

It wasn’t until after the sun had set that something interesting happened. 

O was sitting in the chair in front of the monitors for his security system, and Graham and the Doctor were standing behind him, looking at the screen. Jo was still sitting in the chair O had pulled out for her, a little off to the side.

“What just happened?” Graham asked when a light came on outside, showing through the window and on the screens in front of them, and O’s eyes darted up to him before focusing back on the screen.

“Two motion sensors tripped,” O told them, his brows furrowing in worry. Another light came on, then another, and soon the whole area surrounding O’s cabin was lit up by his light sensors. “What have you brought here Doctor?” O asked, voice low, and Jo looked up to see the Doctor worrying her lip between her teeth, eyes darting back and forth.

“I don’t know,” she answered, voice barely audible. She perked up quickly though, turning with a flourish of her coat. “Let’s take a look outside,” she suggested, and O stood to follow her. Jo and Graham exchanged looks as Jo slowly stood from her own seat.

“Looking outside was actually quite low on my list-” Graham tried to argue, but they heard the door open at the front of the hut, and he heaved out a heavy sigh, looking at Jo with a lost look. She shrugged, and he rolled his eyes. “But when does she ever listen to me?” he asked himself, and Jo chuckled before beginning to follow O and the Doctor outside. “Oi!” Graham called after her, and she heard his footsteps pounding so he could catch up. “Don’t go without me!”

They exited the hut as Seesay was approaching O and the Doctor. His shoulders tensed in irritation when he saw Jo and Graham as well. All of a sudden, the lights went off. Jo gasped as they were plunged into a sudden darkness.

“That’s not good,” she muttered, and Graham hummed in agreement.

“Please all of you, back inside!” Seesay urged, but the Doctor ignored him, taking out her sonic and pointing it around the area. She looked at the side and shook her head.

“No readings,” she reported, and Graham held up a hand.

“You didn’t get any readings off that thing in the TARDIS either,” he reminded her, and Jo’s head snapped to look at him.

“The sonic didn’t pick anything up?” she asked in surprise, and the Doctor groaned.

“I know! There’s something-” she paused, her eyebrows furrowing as she tried to see further in the darkness. “It’s like I can sense them,”

“I know what you mean,” O agreed, and Jo shifted uncomfortably as she felt an odd sensation begin to prickle all around her. Was this what O and the Doctor were talking about?

“Out there, hiding, tripping the sensors to let us know they’re here,” the Doctor said, obviously trying to figure out what the game plan of these creatures was. “It’s like they’re watching us,”

“Like animals stalking their prey,” O contributed, though he cringed when Graham and the Doctor both shot him incredulous looks. “Sorry, not helpful,” he apologized, and Jo shrugged. The prickling sensation got worse, and she cringed, it was becoming almost painful. She was now sure that this was not what O and the Doctor were experiencing.

“I’m gonna head inside,” she whispered to Graham, hoping that being inside would lessen the sensation, and he nodded as Seesay began to speak to the Doctor. Jo made her way into the cabin, sighing in relief when the sensation lessened a bit. She sunk down on the couch, wrapping her arms around herself and curling into a ball, desperate to not feel the prickling anymore.

A minute or so later, the rest of them came inside, though the Doctor was pouting. 

“Jo?” Graham asked, walking over to her. O followed closely behind him. “What’s the matter?” Jo shook her head where it was dropped between her knees.

“Can you not feel it?” she asked, and Graham and O exchanged puzzled looks.

“Feel what?” O asked.

“The tingling,” Jo answered, shivering a bit as the sensation began to get worse once more. “It’s like it’s all around me, it hurts,” she whimpered a bit when the sensation amplified.

Jo groaned in pain, and O and Graham sat themselves on the couch on either side of her., exchanging worried looks over her curled up form. O raised a hand to gently stroke along her back, and Jo relaxed a little.

All of them jumped when they heard the sound of gunshots outside, and Jo whimpered once more. 

“Browning!” the Doctor gasped, running outside, and Graham stood to follow her, hesitating for a moment as he looked back at Jo.

“I’ll stay with her,” O assured him, and he nodded, following the Doctor outside. Jo shivered again, before her body jerked. O jumped in surprise.

“Are you alright?” he asked, and Jo shook her head, her body jerking again.

“I don’t-” she was cut off by another jerk. “Know what’s happening,” she said, and O could clearly see the panic in her eyes.

“Get away from them!” they heard the Doctor yell, and Jo sighed in relief as all of a sudden the tingling stopped. Unfortunately, the relief was not long lived, and as a blinding light came from the windows outside the cabin, Jo grit her teeth and let out a shout of pain. O glanced between her and the door, before giving her an apologetic look. 

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, before standing and running to the computer banks where he could see what was happening. Not a moment later, Graham and the Doctor ran in, going straight to where O was.

“No signals off any of them,” the Doctor said, glancing over at Jo as she groaned in pain once more. “They just obliterated those bodies. What can they be?” she asked, though she knew that nobody had any answer for her.

“Looks like they’re moving,” Graham said, his voice extremely worried. “They’re surrounding the building-look!” O smirked.

“That’s what we want,” he said, and both Graham and the Doctor looked at him in surprise.

“Do we?” she asked him, and he nodded, biting his lip as he observed the screen closely.

“Yep, just a little closer-” he slammed a button on his keyboard, and blue bolts of electricity intercepted the creatures. They all heard howls of pain before all of a sudden-they just blinked out of existence.

Jo sagged in relief, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Did we kill them?” Graham asked, to which the Doctor shook her head.

“More like they retreated,” she answered, and Jo stumbled off the couch, making her way over to the other three slowly.

“How did you know that’d work?” Graham asked O, and he shook his head with a small smile.

“Didn’t-I gambled,” he answered, and the Doctor’s eyebrows raised. 

“Some kit you’ve got here,” she observed, and O shrugged, about to answer, but Jo piped up, at this point close enough to them.

“Guys,” she croaked, and all of them looked over at her in surprise. “They’re not all gone,” she said, shivering as she still felt a faint tingle. Sure enough, they looked at the screen to see a lone figure of light standing outside. Jo cringed as it got closer, and Graham directed her to sit in a chair once more as O turned to the Doctor.

“Plan B. I've got a plan B. It's in the blueprints Doctor, just under the folder – I rigged it in case anything got past the first line of defence,” he told her, and the Doctor nodded, digging through the files for the blueprint. She pulled it out as the creature began pushing through the wall, the light disappearing as it took on the colors of the wall.

“It’s coming through the wall!” Graham exclaimed. “How can it do that?” 

“Physical boundaries don't stop it -- but it's still not used to this planet -- maybe even this reality,” the Doctor explained as the creature broke through the wall and took on it’s form of pure light once more. It flicked off, and Jo almost screamed in pain when it showed itself once more, closer to them this time.

“Spring loaded?” the Doctor asked O, to which he nodded.

“Yep,”

“What’re you talking about?” Graham asked, his eyes wide as the creature continued to stalk towards them. Jo curled herself further into a ball the closer it came. The Doctor lifted her sonic and pressed the button, and all of a sudden the creature was encased in a plastic box.

“You could’ve warned me about that,” Graham sagged his shoulders in relief, and Jo relaxed minutely, the plastic almost muting the sensations.

“Reroute the charge, we need to keep it in there,” the Doctor commanded O, and he nodded, turning back to his computer and frantically typing into it. The creature realized it was trapped, and began to push its way through the plastic, causing Jo to writhe in agony. “Bit quicker?” the Doctor prompted, and O shook his head.

“Yes, doing my best,” he confirmed. The creature pushed a bit further, and the Doctor shoved O out of the way, beginning to work at the computer herself.

“That thing can’t hold it!” Graham shouted, and O rolled his eyes a bit.

“Is he just here for running commentary?” he asked, and Graham’s eyes snapped over to him, a bit offended. The Doctor slammed a button on the keyboard, and all of a sudden the creature was pushed back, howling in pain as electricity jolted it. O looked on in awe. “It worked-it actually worked!” he gave an almost breathless laugh as Jo was able to uncurl herself from the ball once more. The Doctor stepped up to the case, facing off with the creature.

“Who are you?” she asked, but got no answer. “What are you doing to the people of this planet?” she tried again, only to get the same result. “Why are you changing their DNA?” nothing. “Why spies? Why are you only attacking spies?” she rolled her eyes as the creature remained impassive. “What are you except reluctant to talk?” she demanded, and O picked up his laptop once more.

“I’m thinking one more blast,” he muttered as the Doctor continued to fire out questions.

“How many are you? Your race, or species, or whatever you are?” silence. “Where are you from?”

“Far beyond,” they all gasped when the creature answered her, well, except the Doctor.

“So you can communicate then, beyond where?” she asked.

“Your understanding,” an eerie sound filled the cabin, and Jo shifted uncomfortably.

“Is it laughing?” she asked, and Graham nodded.

“Think it’s laughing at you, Doc,” the Doctor sighed.

“Yes, I got that,” she observed the creature closer. “Is this your native form? Or where it is you’re from, is this what you look like at home?” she asked.

“We take this form,” it paused. “To mock you, your shape amuses us,” the Doctor stared on, her face blank.

“Very funny,” she deadpanned.

“We are stable. We are ready,” the creature said, and the Doctor’s head tilted.

“What does that mean, stable? Ready for what?” she asked.

“To take this,” the creature answered.

“To take this what?” the Doctor pressed. “Hut? Country? Planet?”

“Universe,” the glow from the creature began to get brighter, and Jo cringed in pain once more.

“Interesting. That glow’s increasing,” the Doctor stepped a bit closer, peeing at the creature. “Life getting more intense? Or is something going on?” she asked, and the glow increased to the point where they all had to cover their eyes, though Jo’s were squeezed shut in pain.

“This isn’t good Doctor!” O said as he turned away with his laptop, trying to continue working. “It’s trying to overload my system!” as soon as he said that, his laptop exploded. He jumped back as smoke and sparks erupted from it, and turned back to the creature, shielding his eyes with his hand. “It’s like it’s taken a suicide pill,” he observed, and the creature’s glow continued to expand. Jo screamed in pain as the light encased the whole cabin, before all of a sudden-it was gone. The light, the pain, and standing in the box was no longer a white creature.

Yasmin Khan stood in the center of the box, a look of terror on her face. The Doctor frantically turned to get O to turn the power off. Jo collapsed.

Next Chapter

[yeonchi]

Doctor Who Series 12 Review Part 5/10: Fugitive of the Judoon

Air date: 26 January 2020

The Doctor Who fandom is in further meltdown this week as we deal with further bombshells on top of all the bombshells from the series up to this point.

My spoiler-free thought for this episode: “We’re gonna need David Tennant back at this point to explain what is going on.”

At this point, I have caught up with the last three episodes. Weekly posting of reviews will continue from next week. Spoilers continue after the break. Make sure you’ve watched the entire series up to the end of this episode before you continue on.

That big bombshell

Before the series started, we did get confirmation that the Judoon would be returning. That was a pretty good cover for this episode.

This week, we saw the debut of a new Doctor played by Jo Martin. Talk about representation, amirite? Look, in all honesty, I’m not too worried about this being an SJW red flag over this being something that could potentially rattle the status quo of Doctor Who. John Hurt as the War Doctor did do that, but eventually, we came to understand that it was because of three reasons - there was a discrepancy between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors in that there was no regeneration, Christopher Eccleston was unable to return for the 50th Anniversary and Steven Moffat wanted to explore what would happen if the Doctor used up all twelve regenerations.

On a side note, Jo Martin is pretty good as the Doctor. It should also be noted that she is the first black Doctor in the series (maybe not actually the Doctor depending on how this series turns out). What are the chances that this was done for fanservice because people were expecting a more radical choice for the Thirteenth Doctor (as if Jodie Whittaker being female and a feminist wasn’t radical enough)?

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of Chameleon Arch stories. I think that if you (forcibly) conceal yourself as a lesser species despite having superior powers, abilities and knowledge, then it demeans who you really are and makes you look like a bit of a coward. John Smith put it best in The Family of Blood when he was struggling over whether to open the fob watch and become the Doctor again as it meant that this John Smith wouldn’t exist anymore. In the end, he didn’t stand up and insist on staying John Smith, thus making him a coward either way.

So, upon becoming the Doctor again and learning that 13 is also the Doctor, Ruth (we’ll call her this from now on) surmises that the Doctor is from her future, yet the Doctor doesn’t remember being Ruth. Given the design of her TARDIS and her not recognising the sonic screwdriver, I’m surmising that Ruth is based on the classic series Doctors. Let’s take a look at three possible theories I’ve come up with.

Theory 1: Parallel universe/Alternate timeline

This seems to be the most popular and easy-to-explain theory among fans. It would certainly explain the Master’s reappearance and it doesn’t change the status quo too much. However, Chris Chibnall said that Ruth is “definitively the Doctor” (how that sentence even makes sense I don’t know) and that there is no parallel universe involved, which could potentially jeopardise everything.

The Doctor Who Wiki documents many incarnations and alternate versions (including non-canonical versions) of the Doctor other than those we have seen onscreen. However, the fact that Ruth might come from a parallel universe would be too simple unless it’s part of a bigger thing in the story arc. I’m foreseeing a Dimensional Merge thing going on.

(If Peter Cushing actually ends up being acknowledged as canon or an incarnation of the Doctor onscreen, then I’m going to be pissed)

Theory 2: The Valeyard

The Valeyard, a villain from the Sixth Doctor’s Trial of a Time Lord series, was seemingly forgotten until it was mentioned twice in the Moffat era, during The Name of the Doctor and Twice Upon a Time. The Valeyard is apparently an amalgamation of the Doctor’s darker sides from between his twelfth and final incarnations - in terms of the Doctor’s first set of regenerations, it would technically be between the Tenth (post-Journey’s End) and Eleventh Doctors. However, now with the Doctor’s new regeneration cycle, people seemingly like to stretch it out to after the Twelfth Doctor’s era, so anything goes at this point. It would explain Ruth’s darker side during the confrontations with the Judoon and her willingness to bear arms when the Doctor opposed it.

Theory 3: Pre-Hartnell Doctor

This would be the most dangerous theory because it would drastically change the status quo of Doctor Who. During the Moffat era, the show seemed to reinforce the fact that all and only all of the Doctor’s incarnations up to that point were the Doctor. The child we saw in Listen was basically the First Doctor.

The details of the Doctor’s birth and upbringing are very conflicting because different Doctor Who-related media seems to have their own interpretation of it. The 1997 Virgin New Adventures book Lungbarrow details how The Other, one of the original founders of Time Lord society alongside Rassilon and Omega, would reincarnate himself into the loomed Doctor. I don’t like the idea of the Looms, though, so things might be questionable for me if they are canonised. Chris Chibnall has said in an interview around the start of Series 11 that he had not been able to find a copy of Lungbarrow, but chances are that whatever happens will be even more complicated than whatever I’ve theorised.

The return of Captain Jack Harkness

This was another surprise in this episode. As such, this makes Jack the first companion from the revived era, or more specifically, the RTD era, to reappear in the series. Sadly, the return of Jack Harkness may have been fanservice as well as Chibnall also said that he won’t be appearing again in Series 12. If you’re going to have fanservice in order to advance the story, then the fanservice should be more involved in it, like Rose Tyler in Series 4. With the announcement that the Cybermen would return in the Series 12 finale, I would have expected Jack to return then.

So what did Jack warn Graham, Ryan and Yaz about? He had them tell the Doctor to “beware the Lone Cyberman” and not to give it what it wants. He also mentions that an “alliance” sent something back through time and that somehow because of it, the Cyberman empire is in ruins. What this and/or Ruth have to do with the Timeless Child we have no idea yet, but I’ll be sure to keep watching.

Other general thoughts

Since the term was coined in the 2017 Free Comic Book Day comic The Promise, the fob watch portion of the Chameleon Arch has been known as the biodata module. The fire alarm in the lighthouse acted as Ruth’s biodata module; having it in a stationary location does make it harder for it to be noticed, particularly if perception filters are involved.

In the next time trailer for this episode, I thought that Ruth was Grace. And people say all Asians look the same.

Why didn’t the Doctor ask more questions to Ruth if she was confused at whether she was her or not?

Ruth gives the Doctor five points for guessing how she disguised herself on Earth. We haven’t seen the points system for a while now. For those of you keeping track at home, Yaz is on 10 points (S11E5), Ryan has a gold star, which I presume to be 10 points (S11E6) and the Doctor is on 5 points. Way to underestimate.

Following this episode, the next two episodes are also co-written by Chris Chibnall. Whether they will have more details to build onto the story arc is unknown yet.

Summary and verdict

No tokusatsu references in this episode. There was a big SJW red flag, but that was overshadowed by the story arc. Regardless, Ruth and Jack served as mere fanservice to advance the story and I expect to see them again soon.

Once again, I’ve finally caught up on the episodes now, so we will be returning to the normal posting schedule next week. I didn’t complete all the reviews for the last three episodes all in a day - my mind gets tired whenever I’ve done something big.

Rating: 8/10

Mid-series review

Compared to the same period in Series 11, the first half of Series 12 was definitely more dramatic than Series 11. We had a two-parter reintroducing the Master, a story about climate change and an Edison vs. Tesla episode. I thought there weren’t going to be a lot of SJW red flags, but Episode 3 alone proved me wrong. Still, the SJW agenda is less of a problem for me this year than it was last year (though I’m still going to be cautious).

Here are my ratings for the series so far:

Episode 1: 8/10

Episode 2: 8/10

Episode 3: 5/10

Episode 4: 9/10

Episode 5: 8/10

Mid-series total: 38/50 (76%)

Compared to the mid-Series 11 total of 70%, this is probably the better series for me so far. I think the returning characters and story arc really helped.

Stay tuned next week as I review the sixth episode, Praxeus.