#still dealing with the sontarans

[variousqueerthings]

VERY RAMBLY BUT I think rose and martha are like the inverse of one another in terms of narrative, in that they both meet a doctor who is deeply deeply hurt, but the doctor interacts with them about it so differently, because of where they're at with that hurt, and the doctor is like "hey, I'm suave and vulnerable beneath the surface, which is quite attractive, want to travel in space and time in my whimsical timeship?" and they both go "oh heck yes!" and then it's like splintered glass from that point on, like martha lives in a funhouse mirror of rose's story -- up until she makes it her own of course and she does call the doctor out on it relatively early on, although rose continues to have that haunting effect

so rose has this bubble created around her that is perfect and unchangeable almost, in which nothing bad can ever happen (except for all the times it does but huuush, we'll be together forever forrealsies don't look at that big ol hurricane hurtling our way), which then inevitably bursts, but is always there-as-memory, because rose becomes something of an impossible ideal to some extent

and martha isn't protected at all, and has all the badness spilling out on her because the doctor is unable to contain any of it (and maybe is relieved to finally give up on being strong), and subsequently all of the promise of wonder has an air of sourness to it, and the doctor will always feel incredibly guilty about how it all ended

but crucially there's a lot they have in common, that is quite different to, say, donna (who is woven in in her own, interesting, way) -- they both become attracted to this powerful, interesting, and suuuper traumatised being, they're both taken along on a journey of promised wonders, they're both incredibly reliable to the point that the narrative is retroactively fitted around how much the doctor's belief-systems revolve around belief in their companions, with many others from the past given their dues (starting with sarah-jane), and they both do see wonders beyond their comprehension (and so does donna, but again, there's something a bit different there to poke at in another post...),

except where for rose this wonder helps her break out of the path that was set down for her and become who she always had the potential to be in a way that is mostly framed as a positive (although with some -- I think -- under-analysed caveats...) and she will be forever thankful for the doctor arriving in her life, martha's is more like an awe that the universe is so hostile and so lonely and so heartbreaking, and so she needs to become more resilient and more ready to make choices that are terrible (from travelling the broken world for a year to the osterhagen key....), and so there's another story about someone who becomes strong and tough (just like rose) but it's because the doctor wasn't really able to be there for her, and while I don't think the show (from memory) ever has her totally regretting the doctor dropping into her life, there for sure is some solemnity to how her story ends, a bit of a dampener in comparison (even tbh in comparison to donna, who yeah, gets her memory taken, but is suggested -- now confirmed perhaps? -- to get more of her life in order/feel more self-confident, also partially because of that subliminal influence of her time with the doctor)

and this isn't to say that it's all-bad for martha! her working for UNIT and Torchwood has a lot of very interesting facets to it, and she is fulfilling her potential to be this impressive, capable person, but the ways all of this was built up to is so heartrending

rose coming in and "saving" the doctor, except it was a bit of a lie, because the second she wasn't there they crashed even harder than before, and martha coming in with the idea that she could save the doctor and walking away when realising what it was doing to her life, and both rose and martha irrevocably changed to the point that the person pre-doctor is barely recognisable in them anymore, both take on the doctor's self-sacrificial traits...

and also the idea that rose gets the fantasy, but it's the fantasy a-bit-to-the-left (funhouse again) because there's always something a bit disconcerting about the lengths the doctor goes to to maintain the bubble, to the point of offering up the alternate-him/tentoo so that she can still have it, even though the actual physical doctor that shared it with her isn't actually there! and martha gets the glimpse of the fantasy, and then has to come to terms with the fact that she's not the person it's "for" and reassess her relationship to the idea of a fantasy in the first place (it helps that martha is an incredibly practical, pragmatic person, but it's still so... ouch)

I don't think it was intentional, but this also fascinating from the perspective of rose as a white woman and martha as a black woman -- who is the fantasy for, to the extent that strange and universe-breaking events go into maintaining it, and who has to be practical and pragmatic and self-reliant?

and also, it's got more tragedy in both cases -- rose as a spectre/haunter of the narrative is always a little bit intangible when she's looked back on (even though in the story she's in she's incredibly real and well-rounded, every time I go back to s1 I am struck by how grounded she is in reality), and I think that's something interesting in terms of her mother's warning in s2, how if she travels with the doctor "forever" she'll become something else, something not her

and martha's mother warns her as well, although she's not completely sure of what, and in contrast to rose this warning comes into very painful fruition, harming her entire family (except, maybe her brother? I wonder if there's anything written about that), but where rose is so omnipresent, martha tries several times to take herself out

(also something about both of their mothers being their anchor-points)

there's something there that's at the centre of both rose's and martha's arcs:

is the change they're going through because of the doctor... good? good for them? good for their families? good as in they're becoming better people than before? good for the world they inhabit? is it good for the person they used to be? did they become better than that person? can they ever truly deal with or even begin to comprehend how these events made them who they are? can they even connect who they are now to who they were then? was this good?

they both become these larger-than-life people, somewhat without noticing on both parts (but the narrative does notice), one of them a ghost, and the other a soldier -- one of them an increasingly intangible, ever-present idea, and the other someone who has to fight every step of the way

it's just a bunch of things I've had going through my head that I can't quite formulate in coherent essay-like sentences, but for sure it's there

opposite sides of the coin, rose tyler and martha jones

I do wish they'd had space in the story for them to talk

[doublycharming-tetraquark]

I don't know how to explain this but I really don't like that the last we see of Martha in the End of Time, she is brandishing a gun. Like I already knew RTD didn't care about Martha as much as his other (white) companions. But just, something about seeing it.

It makes no sense, narratively speaking. Martha not carrying a gun was a big deal in The Sontaran two-parter. And the ostrahagen key incident ended with Martha realizing (or at least Jack pointing out) that UNIT wasn't right for her. (Ig at this point it was supposed to be a lead in for Martha joining Torchwood but that never panned out due to Freema's busy schedule. which, good for her actually! )

I keep thinking of what would've been a satisfactory ending for her. Like rewatching Martha's arc has solidified my belief that her story is a tragedy. Other people have talked about the doctorification and solderification of Martha and they are absolutely correct. And in that sense, maybe her ending makes sense to some.

But Martha is also the companion who looked at all that the Doctor brings into your life and decided to walk away. She rejected the Doctor and in turn, RTD's premise of the companions wanting to travel with him forever despite the personal cost. So I also wanted her to be able to narratively reject her own doctorification and solderification and in turn, the tragedy of her arc. And it would've been so easy too!

Just have her reevaluate her life after the s4 finale and the ostrahagen key incident and leave UNIT because of what they wanted her to do and be. She can still go freelance but on her own terms. She could maybe open a clinic that helps humans and aliens alike. Be a proper doctor, one who helps people wherever she can.

(P.S. This is just a rough draft of what I wanted out of Martha's arc. Please feel free to share yours! Would love to hear other perspectives!)

[expectiations]

Dear Tia,

I am scared of pressuring you, but it is rather difficult to keep track of whether anonymous asks have been answered already. And I saw you answering asks and just wanted to check in whether you have gotten around to my ao3 asks yet. So that if you have, I can go scavenge for them :)

I hope you are having a good day <3

(And don't listen to the River haters; I pity them, it is so much better to love her)

ao3-anon

OH SHIT I AM SO SORRY. I genuinely thought you're the same participant. Or maybe it's two? Idrk 🥹 but anyways here are my answers. And I'm assuming (🥹) that these previous asks came from the same person? So I'm grouping them into this ask too.

– one

When I wrote that DNW, I was in a messy headspace (heh) so I just wanted lighthearted fluff stuff. However, it's also okay for me to have a few angsty moments while keeping the overall fic lighthearted in feels.

Playful DoctorRiver banter? Sure! They're fine for me.

I'm a bit partial to River but if the situation fits for Mels, go ahead! Same goes for using another regeneration of the Doctor.

– two

I am glad to say that I've been doing my best to sleep before 12 am 🫶🏻✨ (except last night. that was a fluke. and totally @croxxbunx's fault 🙄)

Aw thank you! I totally missed writing fanfics 🥹

I am proud to say I'm quite good at drumming up endless prompts. I'm just rubbish at moving it from prompt-level to fic-level lol

– three

I didn't include it since the questions have been answered but thank you for the hug!! 🫂

–

On another note, I just remembered how I came up with that prompt in the first place. I found it amusing to put the Paternoster Gang in a situation where they have to deal with DoctorRiver shenanigans but in a sort of loop. Cause I have this headcanon that the Gang are sort of like parental figures to River. And also provide marriage counseling on the side. And the fun Strax and young!River, who's still quite attached to her guns, would have together!

I mean we all know how the TARDIS totally adores her Water, right? So she makes River a room full of weapons and she and Strax have such a fun time there. Totally for the glory of the Sontaran Empire of course.

Like just imagine young!River, new to Luna U, struggling to be more 'human' than 'weapon'. Fighting the urge to punch/shoot first, ask second. Here comes along the Gang, who shows her how to find her balance, who comforts her and assures her it's okay to hold a weapon while also holding her back from going on a rampage at the slightest grievance.

Strax also had a nursing stint, yes? He nurses River's wounds (you really should be more careful, boy. you are not a strong and mighty Sontaran.) and teaches her how to take care of different kinds of wounds and how to fight for the glory of the Sontaran Empire. I can just hear baby River's giggle and see her bright eyes taking in everything Strax teaches her.

Jenny and Madame Vastra. Feminominons of the Victorian Era. Also River's badass mothers who try to teach her empathy and etiquette, how to give as good as she gets. I like to imagine them dropping in on River and making sure she's eating well, helping her study. (They also totally had nothing to do with the disappearance of the Professor who tried to claim her essay as their own. Absolutely not.)

[whoify]

hiiii dalek post. ik we all know the daleks are overused but i was thinking about all the stories earlier and wanted to do an episode by episode breakdown and see where i personally think they’re utilized well.

overall i think daleks have a tendency to be used as a villain in stories where it doesn’t really matter if they’re daleks. like think of a dalek story and if you could replace them with cybermen sontaran alien of the week etc and not see a difference. then it doesn’t need to be daleks. and they are used like this a lot. two things dw writers should keep in mind when creating dalek stories are that daleks should be used sparingly and strategically. so let’s look at the episodes and see which ones fit the bill:

series 1: dalek and bad wolf/parting of the ways. dalek is incredibly good and that’s pretty widely recognized. it’s the first dalek story of the revival and we see the doctor reconciling with what he thinks is the lone other survivor of the war. you definitely can’t swap out the dalek for anything else. the bad wolf/parting of the ways villain doesn’t technically have to be daleks, but their use still feels impactful since it’s the first big nuwho story with them and it establishes that they’ve survived the time war.

series 2: army of ghosts/doomsday. this does not have to be daleks. these are good episodes but the cybermen are definitely the more relevant enemy here what with the established parallel world business. nothing hinges on the fact that specifically the daleks are there.

series 3: daleks in manhattan/evolution of the daleks. i don’t have a very good memory of these episodes but i don’t think they need to be daleks. there’s like a human-dalek hybrid (insert hybrid joke) that has some philosophical consequences for the doctor but other than that it’s more of a new york story than a dalek story.

series 4: the stolen earth/journey’s end. hopefully we can all agree that these are wonderful episodes. but i need us to be real with ourselves and ask if the daleks need to be there. if this was a cyberman story instead, would anything about the plot fall apart or need to change? the answer is no. this is textbook example of overuse of daleks.

series 5: victory of the daleks and the big bang. victory of the daleks is kind of a suck episode. but it does matter that the dalek is a dalek! you can’t change it so that the british army accidentally builds a slitheen or whatever. plus we get the doctor’s moral compass freakout over there being a “good” dalek, a la series 1 which is always good to see. the big bang has A Dalek in it in which it shoots the doctor and river makes it beg for mercy. that in itself is significant because of the whole daleks don’t do mercy thing.

series 6: no dalek episodes!! rejoice!!

series 7: asylum of the daleks and day of the doctor and time of the doctor. asylum is a very good dalek episode. it raises and answers the question of what you do with a defective dalek and shows us daleks in a completely new setting. obviously the fact that they’re daleks is crucial. day of the doctor is like. yeah it’s the time war there’s gonna be daleks. time of the doctor has a whole host of enemies which the daleks are a part of. they could be removed but so could any one of the other enemies. it’s the sheer number that’s making the story work, so i don’t feel like their use is unnecessary.

series 8: into the dalek. another “good dalek” concept!! another completely new way to show us daleks, this time from the inside. this is definitely a unique dalek story where rusty’s use is crucial to the plot.

**an aside here to say that yes there have been three separate episodes dealing with the concept of a “good dalek” where we get to see the doctor’s moral compass go haywire about it, but i don’t think that that is a repetitive storyline. the doctor will always abhor a dalek that deviates from their idea that they are all irredeemable, because then the things the doctor has done to the daleks as a whole are no longer justified. they could meet 100 “good daleks” and go through this every time.

series 9: the magician’s apprentice/the witch’s familiar. this is a davros story so it makes sense that the daleks are there. they’re kind of side characters in comparison to davros and missy, but obviously you can’t replace them with anything else. satisfactory use of daleks.

series 10: pilot. definitely moffat’s laziest use of the daleks lmao, they’re there for two minutes for absolutely no real reason. i think everyone was officially tired of the “one dalek story per series” rule if that was even still a thing.

13th doctor era: resolution and revolution of the daleks and eve of the daleks. i’m gonna be real i don’t remember a thing about the first two episodes. i think one of them is about dalek cops which is admittedly funny. eve of the daleks is a very good episode buttt the dalek could be replaced with almost anything else.

that’s all of them!! after going through each episode i’ve honestly come to the conclusion that moffat’s dalek stories are some of the better ones, at least considering the qualities of using them sparingly and strategically. he doesn’t have a single dalek finale (while rtd has 3 and chibnall has 3 dalek specials), rather he works them into existing stories or creates stories that really delve into like. the dalek psyche. rtd’s daleks mostly feel shoehorned in to me. again, not to say the episodes are bad, but the daleks don’t have to be daleks. and i think a good dalek story should necessitate the use of the daleks.

[73chn1c0l0rr3v3l]

Ace/Yaz Ship Manifesto

So I decided, what the heck, I'd write a new ship manifesto. Why not!

Ace/Yaz is the ship that I didn't expect to get bitten with half as hard as I did. That's what keeps happening to me - I should just embrace it at this point.

When I'm talking about Ace and Yaz, I'm talking about the Ace we meet in the Power of the Doctor - I feel like younger!Ace would also get on with Yaz… eventually, but the two of them would also butt heads a good deal. One of the reasons PotD!Ace/Yaz is such a fun ship to me is that Ace is a lot more… settled in herself. She doesn't need to prove anything, she doesn't need to fight the whole world the way she seems to need to when she was younger. Younger Ace and Yaz would be a delight, don't get me wrong, but I think the dynamic that really hit me is a post-Doctor Ace.

So I really love Ace and Yaz as a ship for a whole load of reasons. Some of them are, admittedly, very shallow - Ace is hot, Yaz is hot, I would like them to kiss. We know that Yaz likes older women, which… well. I mean. It's kind of funny, since Ace is so much younger than Yaz's LAST love interest, and yet. I feel like they'd still get more sidelong looks.

I really love the idea of Ace getting it. 7 and 13 both keep things from their companions for completely different reasons (emotional constipation versus general Machiavellian scheming), but there's that same complicated "I love you and I can't stay with you" which I think they both experienced. Ace was manipulated by the Doctor, while Yaz was more abandoned, but they've both got complicated, painful feelings towards the Doctor even as they love them.

I think it's also… Ace/Yaz as post thasmin, because Yaz knows that someone she loves can disappear forever. Someone she admires can change in ways she can't follow. The both of them know the grief of being the Doctor's close confidante (inasmuch as the Doctor can have close confidantes) and then having to go back to life on Earth. The mundanity of it must take a good deal of getting used to.

Part of it, for me, is that I feel like at least some of 13's basis of… herself is based on Ace. I know some of that is based on the cinematography - thinking of that one shot with the Doctor and the Slingshot in War of the Sontarans, which is a nice mirror of Silver Nemesis. I know that the Doctor takes aspects of themselves from their companions, and the fact that Yaz could see some of the Doctor in Ace would be… it's so much. And Ace could see bits of herself in Yaz as well - eager, excited, seen all those adventures.

What do you think of their dynamic? Do you think I missed any particular interesting part that draws you to them in particular? I'd love to hear what you think!

It's a really fun dynamic in general - the person comfortable in their place after their adventures and the person still getting used to adjusting to life back on earth.

I can also see there being a degree of jealousy between the two of them - Yaz being jealous of the way the Doctor was so... different with Ace (even the Gallifrey whatnot, if you want to go with the EU), Ace jealous of the way Yaz was trusted (that whole "you can fly the TARDIS!" exchange). I could see Ace having complex feelings about Yaz's Doctorification, being into it and not at the same time. Maybe Yaz seeing Ace's own Doctorification as well?

[believerindaydreams]

Ok apparently I'm having a mental block about watching "Genesis of the Daleks" while doing my loose adaptation, so we're just skipping ahead to Revenge of the Cybermen. if I drop down to one episode a week that's still a couple months of polycule content before me boy gets put on a bus Intercity

anyway!

always liked the sound effect for the Time Ring. They better bring it back and credit Dudley if ever it is used again.

Sarah is straight up "yeah I thought we were gonna die during those weeks on Skaro" :((( they have trauma now and it sucks

the Doctor straight up cannot deal with that anymore than I can and blathers technobabble to talk over her. this is of course rude but I too would babble if I saw Lis on the verge of emotional collapse

Ian stop corpsing just because the Doctor has played a gag on Harry, it sounds noticeably different than your Harry voice

It's very human for Harry to take Sarah's hand after they find a corpse but dude you just touched a corpse! You know better!

Hang about Harry has lost his camel coat. He had it during the Sontaran story. must have lost it on Skaro.

me: I wonder what's going on with that quote about Tom preferring what frock coats did to his profile

BBC cameraman: how many shots can I set up at butt level

me: hmm

today in things you won't observe unless you're doing a close watch, the Doctor is actually holding his scarf up so not to trail on any dead bodies, a thing he rarely bothers with this season

Doctor stop making stupid hand jokes, you're just proving Sarah's point about making bad jokes under stress

Harry. Harry you have been in a TARDIS and been transported far into the future. Why should it be hard to imagine it just materializing.

Doctor carefully distinguishes between Harry being medical and him as a doctor of Many Things anyway he's wanting to help a sick guy even at gunpoint and I'm just like. sigh.

Harry. Harry you have absolutely had contact with the plague. why are you so bad at your job.

Sarah: I'll help you!

Random crew member: hands her his gun

Lolllllllll I'll remember the reference poses for the FNV crossover

Harry is so heartbreakingly out of his depth with future plague. ugh.

I was going to say "I want the Prof's lil machine for instant Doctor Who watching" and then I. Uh. Looked at my phone.

...the one thing that Harry has noticed is the vampire puncture marks. hmm. Maybe that's why he's not worried?

I feel like "Doctor hiding under bed" is only plausible via cunning camera angles. It's not the height, it's the layers.

...actually that's not even vaguely plausible. No wonder the Prof gasses his bedroom.

some unsung BBC set builder made "Tom riding a cupboard door without it promptly cracking in two" possible and I would like to salute whoever it was

Sarah: I have been left to my own devices

Sarah: space magazine time!

Actually that's a solid cliffhanger

Sarah: I'm gonna die of plague!

Doctor: I'm going to die of asphyxiation!

Harry: oh I'm fine actually

Lol

[fancoloredglasses]

Doctor Who (Wait, didn't we already cover this?)

[All images are owned by the BBC. Please don’t sue or EXTERMINATE! me]

Now, I know some of you are wondering if this is a RERUN because I already reviewed the show. That’s not entirely true. You see, most fans differentiate between the series (and TV movie) that featured the first eight Doctors (“Classic Who”) and what came after (“New Who”) In my original review, I covered Classic Who, as New Who was (and is) still airing, but I feel that these newer Doctors deserve their time in my spotlight (plus I would like to review some of the newer episodes, and I don’t review episodes to series I haven’t already reviewed)

Now as a rule I don’t review series that are still releasing new content, mainly due to fear of being contradicted by episodes that haven’t yet aired. However, I’ve broken that rule before. Also, I’m expecting to have to update this review eventually to cover newer Doctors as their tenures come to an end.

Now, on with the review!

When William Hartnell left Doctor Who, to be replaced by Patrick Troughton, in 1966, many fans thought that was the end of the series. I mean, how can you replace the title character with another actor? Surprisingly, instead the show continued to be a success, and when each subsequent Doctor regenerated, fans were a mixed bag of dread (due to their Doctor leaving) and anticipation (due to wondering how this would change the tone of the show). However, that came to an end in 1989 when the BBC cancelled Doctor Who.

However, fans were given new hope when the TV movie/pilot aired in 1996. However, a new series wasn’t picked up and fans were sure this was actually the end.

However (again) the BBC announced a new Doctor Who series to debut in 2005! Fans were once again a mixed bag. Was this a reboot or a continuation? Would Paul McGann return as the eighth Doctor or would we get a new Doctor (and would it be a rebooted first or the ninth)? Would we see the villains and allies we’ve seen in the past? What would a decade of advances in special effects do for the look and feel of the series (and will they actually get a special effects budget this time)?

These questions were answered when Christopher Eccleston burst on the scene as a Doctor fresh from his regeneration to deal with the latest threat facing Earth. This Doctor was intense and haunted by the fact that he was the last of the Time Lords (the rest were destroyed, along with the Daleks, to stop a Time War between the two sides that threatened to destroy the universe)

His companion for his entire tenure was Rose Tyler (played by UK pop star Billie Piper) There was definite romantic tension between the two as they traveled together.

Of course, as we all know, every major threat in Doctor Who is never finished “Once And For All”, so we see that the Daleks survived!

(Thanks to CyberTARDIS)

…and 21st century effects showed them to be the threat they were meant to be!

(Of course the Daleks weren’t the only threats to return, but the others would have to wait until later)

However, there was one other major addition to the series during the Ninth Doctor’s tenure…

Jack Harkness, an immortal scoundrel, befriends the Doctor and Rose. Eventually he returns to modern London and joins the alien defense group (and spin-off show) known as Torchwood.

However, due to conflicts behind the scenes, Eccleston only stayed on for one season (making his tenure as the Doctor the shortest if you count the nine years between the TV movie and New Who as McGann’s tenure) and he regenerated into…

David Tennant, who brought his brand of manic energy to the character. He would also bring back the rest of the Doctor’s old foes…

The Cybermen

The Sontarans

…and the Master (who’s no longer trying to look like Roger Delgado), as well as a new threat…

The Weeping Angels, who “steal” time (sending their victims to the past) with a touch, but can’t move when observed.

But he would also bring back an old friend…

Sarah Jane Smith (played by Elisabeth Sladen reprising her iconic role), who would get a second chance at a spin-off series in The Sarah Jane Adventures, which she would star in until her death in 2011.

He would also introduce a new recurring character in her final appearance (time travel…gotta love it!)

River Song (who keeps a diary so she knows which Doctor is which when) Though she meets her end (SPOILERS!) when the Doctor first meets her, she is a recurring character throughout the rest of the series.

Eventually, Tennant’s time comes to an end and he regenerates into…

Matt Smith (the youngest to play the Doctor to date), who ironically played the Doctor as an old man (he is over a millennium old, after all!) trying to connect with his younger companions…

(Thanks to Will TThe Ghost)

…and feels the weight of the universe and all he done for (and to) it on his shoulders.

With a new Doctor comes a new threat to the Universe to join the Daleks and the rest of the lot…

The Silence, who make can their victims forget they exist (and work with the Weeping Angels)

However, we would see the introduction of one of his “past selves”...

…played by John Hurt (though technically he’s the ninth Doctor and regenerated into Eccleston, the fans do not give him his “proper” designation and simply call him “The War Doctor” as he existed only during the Time War)

This makes the “eleventh” Doctor the twelfth (and final, as Time Lords only have 12 bodies) However, the Universe couldn’t bear to be without the Doctor, so…

(Thanks to Doctor Who)

Thus was the twelfth Doctor (thirteenth if you count the War Doctor, which most fans don’t) brought into the universe

…played by Peter Capaldi (tied for the oldest actor to play the Doctor with Willam Hartnell). This Doctor was very much the Grumpy Old Man who was mean and sarcastic to pretty much everyone (even moreso than he usually is)

In addition to the Usual Band Of Threats, this Doctor faced a number of minor threats from previous incarnations that returned stronger than before, as well as a new version of…

…the Master (or “Missy” as she calls herself), which sets the precedent that Time Lords are gender fluid. Which was important, as when Capaldi’s time ended he regenerated into…

…Jodie Whittaker. This Doctor was a lot more empathic than her predecessors (the closest being the fifth) and called her first companions her “Fam” (short for family)

Unfortunately, hers was the one that was the worst received (primarily due to the Gatekeepers of the fandom, but also her writing was a bit erratic at times), and her time eventually ended…

(Thanks to BBC)

Yes, the fourteenth Doctor regenerated to a previous body!

Now, the fifteenth Doctor will have been announced and revealed by the time this review is uploaded, but that’ll be for another time (as I haven’t seen the fourteenth's tenure yet! Will he have the same manic energy or will Tennant bring something new to the table?)

As always, if you would like to see an episode reviewed, let me know. For now, I leave you with a non-canon Doctor Who episode filmed for the British charity Comic Relief courtesy of TJ DW. You may recognize who’s playing the Doctor…

Part 1

the conclusion

[chocolatequeennk]

Forever and Never Apart, 13/42

Summary: After taking a year to recover from the Master, the Doctor and Rose are ready to travel again. But Time keeps pushing them forward, and instead of going back to their old life, they slowly realise that they’re stepping into a new life. Friends new and old are meeting on the TARDIS, and when the stars start going out, the Doctor and Rose face the biggest change of all: the return of Bad Wolf.

Series 4 with Rose, part 7 of Being to Timelessness; sequel to Taking Time (AO3 | FF.NET | TSP)

Betaed by @lastbluetardis, @rudennotgingr, @jabber-who-key, and @pellaaearien. Thank you so much!

AO3 | FF.NET | TSP

Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 8 | Ch 9 | Ch 10 | Ch 11 | Ch 12

Chapter Thirteen: A New Strategy

When Wilf took a staggering step towards the house, Rose drew a breath of relief and immediately gagged. The sharp, acrid taste of the poison hit the back of her throat and she covered her mouth and coughed as the Doctor and Donna helped Wilf.

Hold your breath as much as possible and breathe shallowly when you have to, she told herself.

Sylvia charged down the walkway and shoved the Doctor away from Wilf. Shrugging, the Doctor stepped back next to Rose, then nodded to Donna. “Get inside the house,” he directed as they helped Wilf to the door. “Just try and close off the doors and windows.”

“Doctor, Miss Tyler.”

Rose turned and squinted at Ross in a big, black taxi.

The private nodded for them to come over. “This is all I could find that hasn’t got ATMOS.”

The Doctor ran to the car, but Rose looked back at Donna. “Donna, you coming?”

The other woman hesitated, pursed her lips for a moment, but finally nodded. “Yeah.”

“Donna!” Sylvia exclaimed. “Don’t go. Look what happens every time that Doctor appears.” She gestured expansively at the poison gas filling the sky. “Stay with us, please.”

Wilf put his hand on Donna’s shoulder and pushed her towards the car. “You go, my darling.”

The gas was making Rose’s eyes burn, so she ran for the relative protection of the car. “Is she coming?” the Doctor asked as she scooted close to him.

Rose coughed a few times and nodded. Yeah, she said, opting for telepathy since her throat hurt. But what is it about the mothers that makes them decide to blame you for all the stuff we try to stop? My mum did it, and so did Francine.

The Doctor snorted. You ask as if it makes any sense to me, he pointed out as Donna slid into the car.

Ross put the car in gear, and the Doctor leaned forward to look at Donna. “How are you holding up?”

Her eyes were red and watering, but she set her jaw and nodded. “I’ll be all right,” she said.

He eyed her dubiously, but let it go for now. “And you, Rose?” he asked, looking his bond mate over critically.

She smiled at him. “I’ve been practicing holding my breath. I figure the fewer breaths I take, the less the gas will affect me.”

After that, the drive back to the ATMOS factory was tense and silent. Ross dropped them off out front by the mobile HQ unit, and the Doctor bent down to look him in the eye. “Ross, look after yourself. Get inside the building.”

He nodded. “Will do.”

After he drove away, Donna looked up at them, gagging a little. “The air is disgusting.”

“It’s not so bad for us,” the Doctor told her sympathetically. “Go on, get inside the TARDIS.”

“She needs a key, Doctor,” Rose pointed out.  

“Quite right, Rose.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled one out, handing it to Donna. “Keep that. Go on, that’s yours. Quite a big moment really,” he added with a grin.

“Yeah.” Donna coughed. “Maybe we can get sentimental after the world’s finished choking to death.”

“Good idea.” The Doctor and Rose jogged towards the entrance to the factory, ducking under the security gate over the driveway.

“Where are you going?” Donna asked.

They turned and jogged backwards a few steps. “To stop a war,” the Doctor called out.

Rose took the Doctor’s hand as they ran into the ATMOS factory. You didn’t suggest I go to the TARDIS with Donna, she observed.

He shot her a sidelong glance. Would you have gone, if I had?

She shook her head. Of course not. I’m staying with you. The air is awful, but UNIT will have gas masks.

Thought so. Figured it would just be a waste of time. But promise you’ll tell me if the gas gets to be too much for you.

Rose brushed her thumb over his knuckles. I promise. They pushed open the door to the mobile HQ, and she slowed down and raised her eyebrow when he looked down at her. Remember to be courteous to Colonel Mace.

He sighed, but she saw a smile on his face.

Colonel Mace turned to the door when they walked into the command room. The Doctor nodded briskly at the man, noting the hard set of his jaw.

“Colonel Mace, do you trust me?”

The military man blinked, and the severity of his expression softened. “I trust your record, Doctor, and Sir Alistair’s high opinion of you.”

“Thank you. Then do not engage the Sontarans in battle. There is nothing they like better than a war.” He looked at the map, which displayed a live map of all the ATMOS devices worldwide. “Just leave this to me.”

“And what are you going to do?” the colonel pressed.

The Doctor took a deep breath. Something was off in the room. Something smelled… smelled like a clone. He glanced at Martha—Martha who hadn’t answered her phone this afternoon for several long minutes.

“I’ve got the TARDIS,” he said nonchalantly, baiting a trap for the spy who might be in their midst. If he was wrong, nothing would happen. If he was right and they took the TARDIS, he’d soon have a spy of his own onboard the Sontaran vessel. “I’m going to get on board their ship.”

Rose smiled at him, but a moment later, her eyes widened and then hardened, a glint of gold present in her whiskey brown irises. The Doctor shook his head quickly, and she pressed her lips into a thin line.

He dashed to Martha’s side, barely able to withstand his gag reflex. She was definitely the clone. Beside the smell, he also noticed the distinctive hair pattern and the way her pupils didn’t react quite right to the light. “Come on,” he whispered, and she smiled and ran after him and Rose, just like old times.

But it wasn’t like old times. Rose, Martha is a clone, he told her. Don’t do anything to give away that we know. If she thinks she’s fooled us, we have a triple agent.

She helped the Sontarans steal our TARDIS, Rose deducted.

Yes, and she’s going to help get it back.

Outside, the gaseous emissions from the ATMOS devices were rapidly creating a repeat of the Big Smoke, the smog event of 1952 which had killed as many as twelve thousand people. The Doctor engaged his respiratory bypass as they ran through the haze to the alley where the TARDIS had been only a few minutes before.

As he’d suspected, it was empty. Not-Martha did an impressive job of standing at the entrance to the alley, looking confused.

“But… where’s the TARDIS?”

The Doctor circled his finger in the air. “Taste that, in the air.” He stuck his tongue out and made a face when the nasty taste hit his advanced tastebuds. “That sort of metal tang. Teleport exchange. It’s the Sontarans. They’ve taken it. I’m stuck on Earth like, like an ordinary person.” A large cloud of gas billowed around him as he rambled. “Like a human. How rubbish is that? Sorry, no offence, but come on.”

Rose stood by Not-Martha, watching the Doctor’s performance. It was hard not to lash out at the clone for impersonating her friend—especially when she knew that if the real Martha could see the Doctor now, she’d know something was wrong.

“So what do we do?” Not-Martha asked.

“Well…”

Not-Martha was looking at where the TARDIS had stood, so the Doctor shot her a calculating glance.

Rose looked at him, then put a hand on Not-Martha’s shoulder. “Have you phoned your family, Martha?”

Not-Martha shrugged her hand off and glared at Rose. “No,” she snapped, and that one word eliminated any doubt that this was not Martha. She looked from Rose to the Doctor. “What for?”

“The gas,” the Doctor pointed out evenly. “Tell them to stay inside.”

Not-Martha smiled suddenly and rolled her eyes, like she’d just misunderstood what they were saying. “Course I will, yeah but, what about Donna? I mean, where’s she?”

“Oh, she’s gone home,” the Doctor lied as fumes billowed around him. “She’s not like you. She’s not a soldier.”

Not-Martha straightened slightly with pride, and the Doctor and Rose both pressed their lips together to keep from snapping at her. The real Martha wouldn’t accept that title from them.

But they didn’t have time to stand around here. “Right. So. Avanti,” the Doctor said and led them back to HQ.

He pushed the doors open and tossed his coat off to the side. “Change of plan,” he announced. “No TARDIS, so I’ll have to work from here. You don’t mind, do you, Colonel Mace?”

The colonel straightened and clasped his hands behind his back. “Not if you have a plan to save the planet, Doctor.”

The Doctor grinned at him. “Oh, I always have a plan to save the Earth. That’s pretty much my primary job description.”

“Has anyone figured out what the gas is yet?” Rose asked. The live, interactive map onscreen was terrifying.

“We’re working on it,” Not-Martha told her.

A UNIT officer spoke up from her computer station. “It’s harmful, but not lethal until it reaches eighty percent density. We’re having the first reports of deaths from the centre of Tokyo City.”

“And who are you?” the Doctor asked.

She stood up quickly and snapped a salute. “Captain Marion Price, sir.”

The Doctor sighed. “Oh, put your hand down. Don’t salute.” He walked away from her to adjust the communications controls at the main ops desk.

Preparing to call the Sontarans, Rose realised as she watched him work.

Rose watched Colonel Mace anxiously. So far, he’d been friendlier than she’d expected of a military higher-up, but the more tense the situation became, the more pushback she expected from him.

“Jodrell Bank’s traced a signal, Doctor,” Colonel Mace said, referring to the observatory in Manchester, “coming from five thousand miles above the Earth. We’re guessing that’s what triggered the cars.”

The Doctor stopped and looked at the new display being projected onscreen. “The Sontaran ship.”

“NATO has gone to Defcon One,” Colonel Mace told them. “We’re preparing a strike.”

“You can’t do that,” the Doctor insisted, and for once, Rose wasn’t inclined to encourage him to speak more delicately. “Nuclear missiles won’t even scratch the surface. Let me talk to the Sontarans.”

Colonel Mace’s eyes widened when he realised what the Doctor had been doing for the last ninety seconds. “You’re not authorised to speak on behalf of the Earth.”

The muscle in the Doctor’s jaw twitched, and Rose put her hand on his shoulder. “Colonel Mace, the Doctor is the only person on this planet who has the knowledge and experience necessary to bring us through this safely.”

His gaze flicked from her to the Doctor, and he nodded once.

“Thank you,” the Doctor said and stuck his sonic screwdriver into the communications system. “Calling the Sontaran Command Ship under Jurisdiction Two of the Intergalactic Rules of Engagement. This is the Doctor.”

The satellite image of the Earth was replaced with a video relay of the Sontaran ship. “Doctor, breathing your last?” General Staal asked smugly.

“My God.” Colonel Mace recoiled. “They’re like trolls.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes and started pacing. “Yeah, loving the diplomacy, thanks,” he muttered to the colonel. Then he raised his voice again to speak to the Sontarans. “So, tell me, General Staal,” he drawled as he sat down at a computer station. “Since when did you lot become cowards?”

General Staal’s face scrunched up in anger and he strode towards them. “How dare you!”

“Oh, that’s diplomacy?” Colonel Mace asked sarcastically.

But Rose had seen the Doctor use this tactic earlier, and she leaned close to explain it to him. “It’s the one insult they can’t stand,” she whispered. “Call them cowards, and they’ll give away all their plans.”

Staal was glaring at the Doctor from five thousand miles away. “Doctor, you impugn my honour.”

The Doctor leaned back in his chair and swung his feet up onto the table. “Yeah, I’m really glad you didn’t say belittle, because then I’d have a field day. But poison gas? That’s the weapon of a coward and you know it. Staal, you could blast this planet out of the sky, and yet you’re sitting up above watching it die. Where’s the fight in that? Where’s the honour? Or,” he suggested, striking out with his best guess, “are you lot planning something else? This isn’t normal Sontaran warfare. What are you lot up to?”

Staal and his second-in-command both straightened to their full height. “A general would be unwise to reveal his strategy to the opposing forces.”

A grin spread across the Doctor’s face. “Ah, the war’s not going so well, then. Losing, are we?”

Staal scowled. “Such a suggestion is impossible.”

“What war?” Colonel Mace asked.

The Doctor turned slightly towards him and answered the question without taking his eyes off the Sontaran leader. It was vital to maintain eye contact when talking to a Sontaran—looking away was seen as a sign of weakness.

“The war between the Sontarans and the Rutans,” he explained. “It’s been raging, far out in the stars, for fifty thousand years. Fifty thousand years of bloodshed, and for what?”

“For victory,” Staal declared, going immediately into the Sontaran war cry. “Sontar-ha. Sontar-ha. Sontar-ha. Sontar-ha. Sontar-ha. Sontar-ha.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes and reached into his pocket for the sonic screwdriver. “Give me a break,” he muttered, and pointed the sonic at the screen to replace the image of the Sontarans with a cartoon.

Colonel Mace shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Doctor, are you quite sure this is the best way to handle this interaction? You seem to be doing nothing but antagonising them.”

“I’m sure,” the Doctor said, his voice curt. He changed the channel back to the open comms link with the Sontaran ship. “Finished?” he asked General Staal.

Staal started walking, and the Doctor leaned forward, wondering what he was doing. “You will not be so quick to ridicule when you’ll see our prize.” He pointed at the TARDIS. “Behold. We are the first Sontarans in history to capture a TARDIS.”

The Doctor’s hearts raced, but he kept his face as blank as possible to hide his excitement. If the TARDIS was in the same room as the comms link, then she should have patched into the conversation and been broadcasting it for Donna to watch. And that meant he could get a message to her.

His mind spun, trying to think of a secret code that she would understand. “Well,” he started quietly, “as prizes go, that’s noble. As they say in Latin, Donna nobis pacem.” He let the words linger in the air for a moment, hoping she knew he was talking to her. Then he got to the actual message. “But did you never wonder about its design? It’s a phone box. It contains a phone. A telephonic device for communication. Sort of symbolic. Like, if only we could communicate, you and I.” He pointed from himself to the camera, knowing that to Donna, it would look like he was pointing directly at her.

“All you have communicated is your distress, Doctor.”

The Doctor ignored Staal, pointing at the camera again, hoping Donna would understand his message. Since she and Rose had exchanged numbers, Donna could be their secret weapon, working from inside the Sontaran ship to take them down.

He took a deep breath and looked back at Staal. “Big mistake though, showing it to me.” He waggled the sonic screwdriver tauntingly. “Because I’ve got remote control.”

You know, we really should, Rose said, just as Staal ordered the transmission to be closed.

“Ah, well.” The Doctor jumped to his feet, feeling more hopeful than he had since he’d realised Sontarans were behind ATMOS.  

Colonel Mace looked at the blank screen and back at the Doctor. “Doctor, would you mind telling me exactly what that accomplished?”

The Doctor pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth and pretended to consider. He had no objection to letting the military man know what his plan was—at least in part—but he couldn’t let Not-Martha overhear.

“I would,” he said finally, “but it’s classified Omega Scarlett,” he said, giving the highest level of UNIT clearance. No matter how fast Martha had advanced through the ranks, there was no way her clearance was that high.

Colonel Mace’s eyes widened. “Very well, Doctor. There’s an office here where we can speak privately.” He nodded at Rose. “The files are clear, ma’am, that you are to receive every courtesy and security clearance the Doctor receives. You’re welcome to join us if you’d like.”

Rose looked up at the Doctor, and he nodded. The three of them hustled to the small office, where the Doctor immediately turned on the sonic screwdriver and waved it at the walls, soundproofing them.

Colonel Mace sat down behind the desk and pointed at the two chairs. “Sit down,” he invited. “And then perhaps you could tell me what exactly is going on.”

Rose sat, but the Doctor paced the length of the office. “You can’t beat the Sontarans by going against them head-to-head. They’re too advanced.”

The colonel sighed and shook his head. “You don’t give us enough credit, Doctor. We have more resources than you are aware of.”

“Come on, Colonel,” Rose exclaimed, finally losing a little bit of her patience. “You heard the Doctor. The Sontarans have been at war with the Rutans for fifty thousand years. Do you really think they haven’t perfected the art of warfare by now? The chances that you’ve salvaged something from Torchwood that could beat them are slim to none—because that’s what you meant when you referred to resources we don’t know Earth has, wasn’t it?”

The colonel’s jaw dropped a little, and the Doctor rested his hand on Rose’s shoulder. “Thank you, Rose.” He looked at the military man. “I understand you want to believe in your own military superiority,” he said, “but you have got to trust me. You cannot beat the Sontarans in head-to-head combat.”

Colonel Mace pursed his lips into a thin line and finally nodded. “Very well. What is your alternative suggestion, then?”

The Doctor grinned and bounced on his toes. “Infiltration! Because as it turns out, I already have a spy onboard their ship.”

“And just how did you manage that?”

He tugged on his ear. “Bit of an accident, really,” he admitted. “We sent our friend to the TARDIS so she wouldn’t choke on the gas, and then the Sontarans locked onto it and transported it to their ship.”

“So that’s why the Sontarans have the TARDIS,” Colonel Mace said. He straightened up a moment later. “And everything you said about connecting via phone…”

The Doctor nodded. “Donna has Rose’s mobile number. She’s our man on the inside, Colonel Mace. Well, woman on the inside.”

The colonel looked at the Doctor for another long moment and finally nodded. “Very well, Doctor. I will trust your strategy for now.”  

“Thank you, Colonel.” The Doctor turned to leave, but one more thought occurred to him. “Do you still have men inside the factory?”

Mace’s brow furrowed. “Of course we do. Why?”

The Doctor shook his head and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m almost positive the Sontarans have a teleport pod somewhere in the factory. They can bring soldiers in without us even knowing.”

The Colonel’s face hardened. “Then we’ll be ready for them.”

His stubborn dependence on firepower elicited the first glimmer of real anger from the Doctor. “Get your men out of there,” he growled.

Colonel Mace paused and looked up at him. “Why would I do that, Doctor?”

The Doctor took a deep breath and raked his hand through his hair. “I told you: Sontarans are a warrior race,” he said, speaking rapidly. “Clone bred so that every one of them is a perfect soldier. They have superior armour and superior weaponry. There is no way your men can beat them.” He looked at the colonel, letting his gaze bore into the man. “Tell them to fall back.”

“But what if the Sontarans advance on us here?” Mace countered.

The Doctor pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth and stared at the ceiling. It was a fair question, and a likely possibility. How could they keep the Sontarans from attacking without sacrificing their men?

The saying might go, “The best defence is a good offence,” but the Doctor had always preferred defence. He grinned when he hit on the answer and bounced on his toes. “Use mines to create a perimeter around the factory.”

The Colonel blinked, and the Doctor rolled his eyes.

“You don’t need to confront them yourself,” he explained as he launched into his plan. “All you need to do is contain them—keep them from attacking you. So use the mines so they have no way out.” He shrugged. “They’ll probably teleport back to their ship, but at least they won’t kill all of your men.”

He stared at the colonel. “Please, Colonel Mace, I’m begging you. Don’t sacrifice those men because you can’t see past your military training to find another way. We will save the Earth. I promise. But we’ll have to outsmart them, because we can’t outgun them.”

Colonel Mace didn’t look at all certain, but he finally nodded and picked up his walkie talkie. “Trap One to all stations. Retreat. Order imperative. Immediate retreat.”

oOoOoOoOo

Donna Noble was having a hell of a day. After watching her grandfather nearly choke to death inside his death trap of a car, she’d been eager to go back to the ATMOS factory with the Doctor and Rose. She wanted to do something to help stop this. But instead, the gas had been too much for her lungs, and she’d been sent to the TARDIS, like she was back in school and it was the school nurse’s office.

She’d felt a light bump only a few minutes later, like the TARDIS had landed—but she knew the ship hadn’t actually flown anywhere. So she’d cautiously opened the door and peeked out, and caught a glimpse of several aliens from the back.

Not even she was brash enough to step out there and challenge them on her own, so she’d closed the door carefully.

She’d been pacing the console room ever since, trying to figure out what to do. When the Doctor had looked directly at her a moment ago, she’d known he had a message for her. Donna nobis pacem, he’d said—that had to be her.

“Like, if only we could communicate, you and I.”

The TARDIS rocked, and Donna grabbed onto the console. The Sontarans must be moving it, scared of the Doctor’s comments about having a remote.

Donna pulled her mobile out of her pocket again and stared at it. “But what do I do?” she wailed helplessly. She’d tried to dial Rose as soon as the Doctor’s transmission had cut off, but Rose had yet to pick up.

She bit her lip and looked at her contacts. She really wanted to talk to her granddad, but she knew that if she called the house, it was likely to be her mother who answered. Finally, not seeing any way around it, she sighed and called home. The phone rang twice, then her familiar voice said, “Donna. Where are you, sweetheart?”

Donna swallowed back tears. “Mum, you all right?”

In the background, she heard her granddad ask, “Is that her?”

“Oh, just finish the job,” Sylvia chided.

Donna rolled her eyes. Even at the end of the world, her mum had to have a go at someone.

“Your granddad’s sealing us in,” she explained a moment later. “He’s sealing the windows. Our own house, and we’re sealed in.”

She sounded scared, Donna realised. Even with everything that had happened in the last year—the disastrous wedding reception, her dad getting sick and dying—her mum had never been scared. Or maybe she was, and she just hid it by being angry.

Her mum was still talking though. “All those things they said about pollution and ozone and carbon, they’re really happening aren’t they?”

“There’s people working on it, Mum,” Donna assured her. For once, she was in the position to make her mum feel better. “They’re going to fix it, I promise.”

“Oh, like you’d know. You’re so clever.”

Donna flinched. The words were no different than what she’d heard from her mother her whole life, but after a month on the TARDIS with the Doctor and Rose, actually being praised when she thought of something, they stung more than they had in the past.

“Oh, don’t start. Please don’t.”

“I’m sorry,” her mum whispered, and Donna could tell she was almost crying. “I wish you were here.”

Donna was quiet for a moment, wondering what to say to that, then she heard her granddad’s voice as he took the phone.

“Now, come on, Sylvia,” he said. “Look, that doesn’t help. Donna, where are you?”

Donna’s heart started racing when she heard his voice, and she took a calming breath before she spoke. He didn’t need to know how scared she was.

She glanced around the TARDIS. In a way, that’s where she was, but she was also… She shrugged. “It’s sort of hard to say. You all right?”

“Yeah.” His voice was bracing, full of reassurance. “Fighting fit, yeah. Are they with you, the Doctor and Rose?”

“Oh, those two,” her mum grumbled in the background.

Donna shook her head. “No. I’m all on my own.”

“Look, you promised you were safe with them.”

“I am, Gramps.” Donna clenched her hand around her phone. “There’s something they need me to do. I just don’t know what.”

“Well, I mean, the whole place is covered. The whole of London, they’re saying. The whole, the whole world. It’s the scale of it, Donna. I mean, how can one couple stop all that?”

Donna thought of all the things she’d seen the Doctor and Rose do, and her fear receded. How many alien invasions had they already averted? “Trust me. They can do it.”

“Yeah, well, if they don’t, you tell them they’ll have to answer to me.”

Donna smiled. His protective attitude was comforting in its familiarity. “I will. Just as soon as I see them, I’ll tell them.”

On the other end of the line, her granddad huffed slightly, then hung the phone up. Donna realised he was more upset than she’d caught before. He didn’t want her to hear him cry, but that only made her more determined to get out of this and make it back home.

And as soon as she saw the Doctor and Rose, she’d let them know what she thought of them telling her to call and then not answering the bloody phone.

oOoOoOoOo

Rose looked at her phone, then dropped it back into her pocket before Not-Martha could see. Ten missed calls from Donna, she told the Doctor.

He tugged on his ear. I know. But I can’t talk to her until I figure out more of the Sontarans’ strategy. He grimaced. We’ll just have to make it up to her later.

They shared an amused look. Donna would not be pleased that they’d ignored all her calls.

They found Not-Martha in the main command centre, holding a clipboard. The Doctor snatched it out of her hands, and while Rose would normally chastise him for being rude, she didn’t really care if he was rude to the clone with her friend’s face. He smirked slightly as he read, having caught that thought.

Not-Martha scowled at him, but didn’t argue. Instead, she rattled off the contents of the report he’d taken from her. “There’s carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, but ten percent unidentified. Some sort of artificial heavy element we can’t trace. You ever seen anything like it?”

Behind her back, Rose rolled her eyes. That was a leading question if she’d ever heard one.

“It must be something the Sontarans invented,” the Doctor mused. “This isn’t just poison. They need this gas for something else. What could that be?”

“Launch grid online and active,” Captain Price said.

Rose spun around and looked at the huge monitors, now displaying the global nuclear launch grid. She looked from the monitors to the Doctor, who was staring at the computers in wide-eyed horror.

“Positions, ladies and gentlemen,” Colonel Mace ordered. “Defcon One initiatives in progress.”

The Doctor shook his head and stalked over to the colonel. “You said you trusted my strategy,” he protested.

“And I did, Doctor,” he said, a hint of apology in his voice. “But the gas is at sixty percent density. Eighty percent and people start dying, Doctor.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “We’ve got no choice.”

The Doctor raked his hands through his hair as the countdown began. None of Earth’s weapons would even scratch the surface of the Sontarans’ ship, but this would be seen as an act of war regardless of its success, and that gave the Sontarans the right to attack.

“Launching in sixty,” Captain Price announced. “Fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven, fifty-six. Worldwide nuclear grid now coordinating. Fifty-four, fifty-three…”

“You’re making a mistake, Colonel,” the Doctor said quietly, unable to hide his disappointment entirely. “For once, I hope the Sontarans are ahead of you.”

Rose rested her hand on his back. Well, they do have a spy, she pointed out reasonably.

The Doctor blinked, and his gaze flicked over to Not-Martha, who was watching the countdown on the screen avidly. True. They obviously want this planet for something, so maybe they cloned someone with high enough clearance to halt the launch.

Captain Price rattled off country names as their nuclear launch codes came online. “North America, online. United Kingdom, online. France, online. India, online. Pakistan, online. China, online. North Korea, online. All systems locked and coordinated. Launching in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five—”

“God save us,” Colonel Mace whispered.

—“Four, three, two, one.”

Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor saw Not-Martha tap at her phone. He held his breath and stared at the monitor, hoping with all he had that Rose’s guess was right.

“Zero.”

The screen stayed at zero for just a second, then it went completely dark.

“What is it?” Colonel Mace asked. “What happened? Did we launch? Well, did we?”

The Doctor stared at the screen, then looked over at Not-Martha. The smirk on her face confirmed Rose’s suggestion, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Negative, sir,” Captain Price said, working frantically at her computer. “The launch codes have been wiped, sir. It must be the Sontarans.”

The Doctor let out a long, slow breath, then he and Rose casually walked over to Not-Martha while the two military officers tried to sort out what had happened.

“Can we override it?” Colonel Mace asked.

Captain Price worked frantically with her computer station. “Trying it now, sir.”

As glad as the Doctor was that the launch kept getting cancelled, it was yet another mystery. “Missiles wouldn’t even dent that ship, so why are the Sontarans so keen to stop you?” He looked down at Not-Martha. “Any ideas?”

“How should I know?” she retorted.

A series of explosions rocked the trailer. The Doctor and Colonel Mace exchanged a glance; the Sontarans had attempted to cross the perimeter.

Not-Martha looked up, her eyes wide. “What was that?”

“That,” the Doctor said with some satisfaction, “was the safety measures we took against a possible Sontaran invasion of the factory.”

She stared at him, her eyes hard. “You mined the exits.”

“Yep.” He grinned at her. “Pretty clever, don’t you think? They can get in, but they can’t get out.”

Her hand clenched on her mobile, and he realised she was torn between a desire to warn her superiors about their surprise tactic, and the need to stay alert and ready to cancel yet another launch attempt.

“They’ve taken the factory,” Colonel Mace said, “but they can’t get out of the building. Your plan is working so far, Doctor.”

“No need to sound so surprised!” the Doctor complained. He scratched at his sideburn. “But why? They don’t need it. Why attack now? What are they up to?”

“Launch grid back online,” Captain Price announced as the screen flickered to life. A moment later, it went blank again, and the captain tried to track the interference. “They’re inside the system, sir. It’s coming from within UNIT itself.”

“Trace it,” Colonel Mace ordered. “Find out where it’s coming from, and quickly. Gas levels?”

“Sixty-six percent in major population areas, and rising.”

[likethecastle]

Thinking more about why I don’t really connect to the companions as much in Chibnall’s era, I think I’ve narrowed down at least one thing: The companions don’t tend to be as involved in the resolutions of the episodes. The one driving the conclusion is nearly always the Doctor, with the companions having little to no input.

For example, in series 11, Thirteen is the one who ultimately confronts Tzim-Sha. Thirteen directs everyone’s actions in The Ghost Monument. She is the one warning against interference with Rosa Parks or in Demons of the Punjab. She’s the only one truly dealing with the Solitract in It Takes You Away, and she’s the one who resolves the major issues in the finale. And this continues through series 12—Thirteen deals with the Master in Spyfall, again is directing everyone in Praxeus and Can You Hear Me?, is obviously the one making the major choices in The Haunting of Villa Diodati/Ascension of the Cybermen/The Timeless Children, and then is the one making that final confrontation with the Daleks in Revolution of the Daleks. Even in Flux, Thirteen is really still the one ultimately fixing everything at the end (albeit with three of her now directing everyone to help).

Granted, this isn’t always the case! They do have moments where they’re greater contributors in their own right—Ryan suggesting his rap music in Arachnids in the U.K., Yaz pushing to learn more about her family in Demons of the Punjab, Yaz being the one to go after Thirteen on Gallifrey, Ryan sitting down to talk with Thirteen, Dan exploring that ship with his wok in War of the Sontarans. But generally, they’re more along-for-the-ride, more on the side of taking orders from Thirteen. They often do a lot of the smaller tasks that help the Doctor get up to the final confrontation—but ultimately, it’s nearly always the Doctor making the final stand. 

To be clear, this can and should happen! The Doctor is the one with the wealth of experience, the one who’s 2000+ years old, the one who’s often going to have the final say. It really is true—“Sometimes, this team structure isn’t flat.” There’s an inherent power imbalance. But when that’s always the case, it’s harder to see the companions’ beliefs.

Compare this to previous companions: Rose swinging in on that chain to save Nine, looking into the heart of the TARDIS, figuring out how to get the Doctor out of the drawings in Fear Her. Martha dealing with Ten for literally the entirety of the Family of Blood two-parter and literally walking a hellscape Earth for a year in the finale. Donna challenging Ten in Pompeii, figuring out the dates on the walls in The Doctor’s Daughter, or literally anything in Turn Left. Amy pushing that button at the end of The Beast Below and being the only one who could remember Eleven and bring him back in The Big Bang. Clara being the one to ultimately step up with that leaf on Akhaten, jumping into the Doctor’s timestream, or making those final tragic choices in Face the Raven and Hell Bent. Bill being the one who ultimately reaches out to Heather and stops her in The Pilot and literally shooting Twelve in the monks three-parter. While they were still companions, obviously, and the Doctor frequently did still make the final move—it wasn’t every time. And that really matters for showing us who the companions are as people.

And while this has been getting somewhat better recently—Yaz’s 1904 arc in Flux comes to mind, and Dan acting as more of her companion rather than Thirteen’s—I feel like it’s also too little, too late in a sense. It’s all well and good having companions who help, but there are rarely moments where Chibnall-era companions have been the ones to truly define the course of an episode, whether by stepping in physically, figuring out the key clue that was missed, or by challenging the Doctor’s views.

Maybe some of it’s Chibnall trying to avoid having a female doctor appear weak or not in charge. And also look, I get it: Thirteen’s whole deal is that she’s hurt, she doesn’t want her own issues on display or to hurt the people she’s with, so she bottles up her feelings and keeps them out of what danger she can and puts on a front and just does things alone. I get that. The fact that the companions are pushed away is a major, evident plot point. And honestly, I think it’s a pretty logical one, given all the trauma that the Doctor’s gone through over the years. It’s not supposed to be seen as a good thing—“Stop leaving us all the time!” I understand that.

But I think that the core issue of it all is that the show didn’t then give us an alternative way to showcase the companions’ personalities, moralities, and strengths. If Thirteen’s keeping them out of those final major plot points because of her desire to keep them unharmed and safe, the show should have taken better care and more time to show us their characters in different ways, whether via more-developed subplots or by instead writing some episodes where they are circumstantially dragged into the final conflict alongside Thirteen and help change the course of it as a result. 

For the most part, I’ve been enjoying Chibnall’s era—I think there are a lot of good things in it. But I also think that’s mostly because I enjoy Thirteen as a doctor, and right now, the show is extremely Doctor-centric. If you disagree, that’s fine—this is just my opinion. But it’s just that in most cases, I feel like the show hasn’t taken enough care to allow the companions to do things themselves, and it’s left their characters lacking as a result. 

[variousqueerthings]

thing about rose, for me, is that she wasn't there first -- this in a "she was first in nu!who in the sense that this was the first person to travel with nine, and the first person since the timewar, and the last person that nine was with, to the point that ten was born out of that experience/modelled on her."

and in that framing, I am a big fan of her haunting of the narrative, because it start outs with her placing herself inside the doctor's ribcage and rebooting their ability to want to feel things, but unfortunately rose is still a human, like every human the doctor travelled with before, it's just that the doctor forgot how to steel themself against that inevitability because of the circumstances around meeting rose

this is The thing that I find tragic about martha, because I think she could have been that person, if she'd been the first person post-timewar to travel with the doctor, but because she's coming in during bleeding-heart times, she's got to deal with triage instead. and yes, there are wonders, and yes, there are good times, but for a lot of it, it's shrapnel, and I think if it hadn't been, she would have had a very different attitude towards *waves hands* space and time travel and aliens and the universe (one where she wouldn't be the person trusted with something like the osterhagen key)

and donna had a sense of that Space the doctor was in post-rose (she canonically stopped the doctor from dying in runaway bride) and stepped away from it, and didn't get back to the doctor until some of that hole-in-chest had been bandaged up, which martha did a great job of, but didn't get to really benefit from, and I think that's the sad thing about martha jones, is that she absolutely got a taste of the beauty and the splendor, but never without all the violence and heave weight that was put onto her

which, again, she seems to have been very aware of, considering she joined UNIT and Torchwood. her eyes were barely ever rose tinted (no pun here) during her whole journey in the story. martha really is in my opinion the most tragic companion (that I've met so far, I know Adric straight up dies, but maybe he had some fun times before that?), because yes, donna loses her memories and rose is in a parallel universe, but that's more tragic for the doctor -- they've both built lives

in donna's case there's probably a lot of imperfection in that life, but clearly a lot of joy as well, with her and her husband and her kid and her mum, and I'm sure she'd have preferred to be the donna who saw the universe and was splendid, but martha never gets to forget, and has to continue her life one step out of sync of everything she could have been

which, maybe her life is pretty flipping fantastic, but we really don't know, which is the biggest thing I side-eye about the first nu!who era. that whole weird ending with the sontaran and mickey is like... anti-character work, it answers nothing and it makes very little sense

all I know about her at the end is that she more than anyone saw the doctor's life and became a soldier (still a doctor as well, but...) because that was the work she saw needed doing, and she's the kind of person who does what needs doing. but is she... okay? youknow?

but going back to the original point, is that framing martha through the lens of rose is all well and good in the sense that rose is the reason the doctor is at that emotional point when he meets martha -- although donna absolutely had a very big hand in that as well -- but once we've established that, martha's arc is martha's arc, and it's dull to me to frame it as the "rebound" arc or even particularly about alloromanticism (including -- and this is why i get why people do it in fandom -- some shit said by rtd, which is just less interesting than what I get out of it, so shhhh)

she's got so much going on, and her relationship with the doctor changes the trajectory of her life, and it's in many ways a more interesting and far less straightforward trajectory of bad-to-better that many companions get -- it's a wonderfully complicated narrative that (and again, I get that some of this comes from within deliberate framings of the text, even though I think it's more than open enough to do more with, death of the author and all that -- but certainly not all of this is text either, some of it is ignoring what is actually there) is done a disservice by not going through the real messed up fascinating extraordinary shit that's going on during her era + arc in s4

but also... is she ok? I want to know. it's one of my top three burning questions, since we're getting a bit of best-ofs of the noughties DW era, some of your crimes can be righted by a simple bit of martha mr davies

[swamp-cats-den]

Now that Thirteen's run is coming to an end, I've figured out what bothered me about those at times enjoyable, but never satisfying seasons the most. For all his attempts to emulate Russell T Davis, Chibnall failed to grasp what made the former showrunner's writing so appealing to many people - the philosophy of the series. Don't get me wrong, I'm not implying that it was perfect during the RTD 's 'golden days', the way he explored ideas could also be flawed, inconsistent and deserving of criticism. But it was always there, and it was very specific. Meanwhile, the Chibnall's era just leaves you with the feeling of gaping void in that regard.

In Season 1-4, we see a broken ex-soldier, who is so traumatized by the war he adopts a very loud anti-violent stance. And often is a total hypocrite whose mercy can be a cruelty. But that's how trauma combined with coming from a very prideful, condescending society works. Being in pain is not a pretty picture, and the Doctor goes through lots of it on a regular basis as he has to make impossibly difficult decisions.

That's where the writing, in my opinion, often shined and that's what used to distinguish Doctor Who from many other similar series or movies. Death and destruction of the enemy were on par, but they rarely if ever felt triumphant. The Doctor would go on a suicide mission to the Sontaran spaceship to give them a warning about setting off the bomb unless they left, knowing, of course, that they wouldn't. That was the behaviour of a person who understood what the consequence of such actions would look like, who'd experienced too much loss to take even the demise of a ruthless enemy lightly.

And that's why I hated Thirteen agreeing to destroy all the Daleks, Sontarans and Cybermen so much. I know lots of people say they deserved to die, but was Doctor Who ever about getting one's just desserts? There's so much wrong with this kind of writing it's hard to even begin to explain. First of all, who the fuck could get so lucky that all their enemies would gather at the same time in one place to be wiped out by an unstoppable force, leaving the hero both with their hands clean and their nemesis crushed? It's the laziest cop-out I've ever seen. For all the talk of morality being the Doctor's strong suit (what kind of morality? what did you mean by morality? who thought that line was a good idea?), she faces no moral dilemmas.

Wiping out all the enemies is bad not because the Doctor isn't a killer (she certainly is), but because there is no gravity behind her choice. Of course, we know all of them will come back, but the characters should feel like the won't. On the other hand, why bother with the demise of some Daleks if Thirteen seems not to give a fuck about losing half the Universe to the Flux. And that's after the villians of the finale have made a whole speech about how her personal philosophy was 'keeping things alive'. Not mention it sounded completely idiotic, can't believe all those talanted actors had to say that nonsense.

I used to complain about Chibnall spoon-feeding the viewer the ideas in his episodes dealing with social problems, but now I think he's likely not to have any strong views regarding those issues and was just incorporating what was popular and talked about at the moment. That's why his takes felt so superficial. His Doctor Who is about nothing. And don't get me started on the imperialism thing, if you want to see some actual exploration of it in the fantasy/sci-fi setting, go read the Baru Cormorant series or something.

For me, RTD's era was about a character who saw the potential for goodness and change in even the worst, and despite their life being painful, never failed to appreciate the beauty of the Universe. The protagonist rediscovered it through the eyes of other people, as it was never just the Doctor showing the world to the companions. Chibnall has shrunk that Universe to one single person, his Timeless child, and, ironically, still has no interest in exploring her depths. His show is about getting from point A to point B, with the protagonist's perfunctory interactions to explain how they'll reach there.

[missmarthanightingale]

alright the thing is. listen i love chibnall's commentary on empire & power but what really caught my eye this episode was bel's story, & the way it parallels my (our?) experience of the pandemic. i know people have touched on this before, talking about the general themes this season deals with & especially the isolation vinder seems to have endured for however long he was stuck in that outpost, but with bel it's just so on point.

i mean her first scene has that speech which just kills me, about how "the biggest changes to our lives start small; catastrophes creep in quietly. & by the time you realize, the life you once had is already behind you." this could not more obviously be about the pandemic, but just to really reinforce it we have that shot of her hiding from the daleks only just passing her by, talking about how there's no one with the ability to stop them spreading to regions that she thought would be safer. the maps don't matter, nowhere is safe, & the days ... we see how the days slip away from her in totally unpredictable ways.

then there's like. okay maybe (definitely) i'm reading too much into this one but that first appearance of those tiny evil blue swarms. bel catches sight of them & clearly knows that her best option is to stay where she is, her only option is to wait it out, but she sees those people on the other side of the field & they make a different choice, try to outrun it, & they die. & her body language when she realizes they're running for it - she's shaking her head at them, not in disapproval but in an attempt to communicate that they shouldn't do that, but either they don't see her or they don't listen. & she has to watch these people she doesn't even know run towards their own deaths bc she's on the other end of the field & it might as well be the other side of the planet for all that she can do to stop them.

next sequence again has a voiceover that takes me out at the knees. "it feels like the last days of the universe ... & here i am, still doing what i do [...] who'd have thought that one thing could do so much damage?" who doesn't relate to that in this day & age, as we live through at least three separate end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenarios & just. try to live our lives, to keep moving forward through the mess, & hoping that the darkness won't sustain & we'll see each other again soon. bel has a lot of agency but she what she doesn't have is power, which limits her agency in ways that aren't very obvious at first glance? she can't stop the bad things from happening, all she can do is watch & work to protect herself to the best of her ability. & she is very able, but she doesn't have the power to protect others, & i just. fuck, i relate, okay.

& then the. that conversation with the cyberman, my god. this whole time in the backdrop of bel's story there's been this situation where. the universe has ended, pretty much, & yet these imperial powers - daleks, cybermen, sontarans - these ridiculous imperial powers are still squabbling over things that don't fucking matter when it's the end of the universe, jesus wept. bel is so cathartic for me in this scene bc ... rule what, exactly, why does any of it matter when there's not going to be anything left!? why are they acting like nothing has changed, like what they thought mattered before is still what matters now, how have they not realized that the only thing that matters is love? the only thing that matters is each other, is compassion & connection & working towards a kinder tomorrow. love is the only mission, idiot. tell me it doesn't all sound so familiar you want to scream.

the last scene is where we find out about her connection to vinder, & her pregnancy. i admit, this one made me cry. being apart from the people you love is always hard, especially when it's not your own choice, but when it's during a major catastrophe & you don't have anyone else & you're just alone? oh, i felt that. i felt so isolated, & sometimes it honestly felt like all i had of the people i wanted to be with were memories that i was wearing out with how often i revisited them. how many people were separated for months or years bc they couldn't be in the same place? i didn't see my grandfather for eighteen months bc even if i'd been willing to risk bringing something into his home, we live in different countries. my grandmother died & i wasn't able to attend the funeral that was taking place a two-hour drive away from me. i cannot fathom how much worse it would have been if i were going through something as major as a pregnancy alone, without even my partner there to support me.

i just. bel's story fucking got to me, okay?

[being-of-rain]

Thoughts from my Classic Who watch, this time season 11. (Amy Pond voice) Posh fistycuff man, goodbye.

I’ve read of quite a few Doctor Who writers saying that Three and Sarah are their favourite Tardis team, which has surprised me since I thought Sarah was more well-known as Four’s companion. But I can see now why Sarah’s early stories would’ve had such an impact on them, and why she went on to be one of the show’s most popular characters. She’s immediately likable; witty and smart and funny and charming. The banter and joking between her and the Doctor is endless fun. It’s hilarious that she’s first introduced to him under a false name because she’s currently infiltrating a military establishment for a news story, absolute icon. And honestly her occasionally in-your-face feminism is so refreshing after the total disrespect that Jo sometimes got. The rest of The Time Warrior is great too. It feels like a modern episode of the show- the script is tight, there are lots of good and funny character moments, and it’s a neat introduction for the Sontarans. Sorry to go back to talking about Sarah again, but I can’t believe she escaped from the occupied castle with another prisoner in there, befriended some local aristocracy, and then broke back in to the first castle to kidnap the Doctor out of it! And all this without the Doctor’s help or even explanations that she had time-travelled! Once again I must say, absolute icon!!

Invasion of the Dinosaurs was definitely an interesting one! Firstly, I’ll always be amused that the title was shortened in the first episode to preserve a twist in this story and this story only, as opposed to every story ever with ‘Dalek’ in the title that used “it’s the Daleks!!” as the cliffhanger to part one. Secondly, is this the most Disaster Movie that Classic Who has ever got? I was actually shocked by the bloody corpse of the looter that they showed at one point. Now, back to Sarah. She really knows how to accept things and roll with them, it says volumes how quickly she followed the Doctor’s lead and smiled for her mugshots 😂 I once saw a post describing that as the first time she got arrested, but given how she met the Doctor (not to mention her general demeanour), I find that somewhat hard to believe. And honestly she basically wraps up the whole plot of this story herself. While the Doctor and the Brig are busy first being hoodwinked by Yates and then dealing with the Doctor being (badly) framed, Sarah does actual investigative research, finds the people responsible for the situation, and leads a revolt against them. She wouldn’t have needed the Doctor at all if her gang had done the smart thing at the end and moved the evil scientist away from the doomsday lever. As for the other characters, this story really gets what makes the UNIT family fun. There’s so many great gags with them, especially the scene where the Doctor gets fed up with everyone distracting him, which ends with him looking about as distressed as you ever see him (and with Jon Pertwee’s fantastic face, that’s saying something). I’m glad it was this story that involved Yates’ betrayal, because it ties his point of view back to his past experiences, and makes it very clear throughout that he’s still holding onto his morals even as he betrays everyone. Very ironically, this is maybe the most likable Yates has ever been for me, it breaks your heart a little when the one thing he seems most certain of is that his life doesn’t matter. I did start to worry that this story and Operation Golden Age was a reaction to The Green Death and was arguing against the strong environmentalist themes in that story. But thankfully that wasn’t the case at all, it never goes down that path, and actually makes a point at the end to say “saving the environment is extremely important, just don’t be an eco-fascist about it.” Also, Sarah being separated and ending in a colony vastly far away from the Doctor in time and space while he mucks around in modern-day England definitely feels like inspiration for the Interference novels. That subplot happens to Fitz, except in that case its actually real, and it only loops back round to the Doctor’s plot with heartbreaking consequences.

Those nasty Daleks are back again! And this time the story isn’t really about them, even though they still eventually become the most imposing threat, which I think is a nice balance that Death to the Daleks managed to strike. The beginning of the story was proper spooky, with all the darkness and mist. The TARDIS’ safety being invaded always feels unnerving, so Sarah seeking sanctuary in it before finding that a creature had found its way into the new shadows of the console room was really creepy. And shout-out to Elizabeth Sladen for being a hell of an actress and making all of Sarah’s terror very believable, even when I think the script and directing was probably doing her a disservice by making her scream and freak out quite a bit. The horror of the planet was undercut a bit for me when it was revealed that the aggressors were a tribe of native species that veered a little too close to Colony In Space territory for me. I started to think that maybe I’d been quick to judge when it was revealed that there were other Exxilons who were more open-minded than the tribe that worshipped the city, that they were the remnants of a galactic empire, and when the antagonistic Galloway made a bigoted comment that sounded very self-aware of the show. But then it turned around and out of nowhere said that ancient Peruvians couldn’t possibly have built their buildings without alien intervention, so I think I’m going to go ahead and chalk this story up to another reason Classic Who should be banned from using the word “primitive” until it learns its lesson. Finally, I love a good puzzle rooms plot, but the fact that so many people literally starved to death in a room where the puzzle was a maze that looked like it could be in a children’s puzzle book made me laugh. And so did the cliffhanger which was just a dramatic zoom on a pattern on the floor. I adore a Living City, but I don’t think this story used the trope as much as it could.

I can see why Peladon was popular enough to revisit, it was a very strong setting last season. And The Monster of Peladon was okay, but in my eyes it didn’t live up to its predecessor because it didn’t do some of the things that most interested me in Curse: it didn’t have a bunch of interesting new alien species, and its twist was that the Ice Warriors were the villains. Again. Although, admittedly, Ice Lord Azaxyr being held back by four strong men then throwing them all off at the end looked cool as heck. Also, Monster is 2 episodes longer than Curse. I think I get more easily bored by 6-parters after 60s Who than I did during the show’s early years, maybe because I was kept entertained by the charming quaintness of ‘60s television, I don’t know. Also also, Aggedor is cute as heck again in this, and it’s so sad that he dies 😭 I should’ve checked Does The Aggedor Die Dot Com. I love how the Doctor sees a character in need of some Womens Liberation and immediately refers her to Sarah jsdlkfj. Everyone knows about Sarah saying “there’s nothing only about being a girl,” but at the end of the story she also tells the queen that “there's nothing only about being a miner, your Majesty, any more there was about being a girl.” Sarah Jane said intersectional feminism! Another line I didn’t realise Sarah said was when she quoted what the Doctor has apparently said to her, that “while there’s life...” before trailing off. That’s some great foreshadowing.

I’m glad I’m not more arachnophobic than the average person, because Planet of the Spiders has some Magnus Archives-esque shit near the start, when the Doctor projects the recorded thoughts of a dead man and gets a screen full of spiders, and when some meditating men physically manifest the horrors of their unconscious mind and it’s a giant spider. Overall, the story is very intriguing because of its sudden interest in Buddhism, which gives it a good vibe for the Third Doctor’s send-off I think. I did like that it addressed the Doctor’s faults, because that’s something I think Three’s era sometimes failed to do to its detriment, even if phrasing it as the Doctor’s greed was a bit weird. Once again, Sarah jumps into the plot quicker than the Doctor. It’s extremely interesting how chummy she is with Yates at the very start of the story, calling him Mike and getting driven around the countryside by him alone, when Invasion of the Dinosaurs was her first meeting with him and apparently he hasn’t talked to the Doctor or the Brigadier since then. It makes me think that there’s definite room for a short story featuring Sarah and Yates between the two stories, maybe with Sarah sympathising with him after being on the same end of the Golden Age’s brainwashing as he was. Speaking of Yates, it tugged at the heartstrings that evidentally everyone thought it was best not to tell Jo about Yate’s betrayal (though it was lovely to hear from her for Three’s final story). And speaking of untold stories with Sarah, it’s interesting that there’s a 3 week gap for her between the final scene and the rest of Planet of the Spiders, but apparently no Doctor Who media has dipped into that time. If this franchise is going to milk stories out of the gaps in episodes, they should look at the ones that would give interesting character pieces! Okay this post has already become so long. For the Third Doctor’s last story, let’s do five rapid final points. -There’s some good villains in this one! Lupton and his spider outcast friend both being fallible and (for lack of a better term) human was engaging and well demonstrated when they both started causing each other pain in a childish attempt to get their way. Lupton’s gang really felt like a bunch of normal people who didn’t actually set out to be the villains, and regular spiders given superintelligence is at the same time funny and scary, and well used. -Poor Professor Clegg is such a tragedy. He’s made so sympathetic in his few scenes before being killed off, which was basically the result of the Doctor roping him into doing some trials. I like that the Doctor admits to feeling guilty about that too. That’s good writing that is. -The Brigadier is maybe used for comic relief a bit too much, and is painted as a bit of a buffoon during his short screentime. Oh, I do love that he calls Harry Sullivan at one point, that’s a great little easter egg for people watching with future knowledge. -I’ve always found it appropriate for Jon Pertwee that there was such a sprawling vehicle chase sequence during episode 2. Including Bessie v Whomobile, Dawn of Justice. And on the topic of vehicles, it also feels appropriate that after all the work the TARDIS has had done this era, the Doctor refers to her as being alive here. I love the headcanon/basically canon that it was the Doctor’s time taking apart and rebuilding a lot of the TARDIS during his exile that really made him realise how much of a living thing his ship is, and how close a bond they share. -And finally, as always, the Doctor and Sarah’s chemistry is wonderful. A particular highlight is when they’re both trapped in spiderweb and making very silly jokes to pass the time while their fellow prisoner looks on in disbelief. Also, of course, their fantastically-acted farewell as the Doctor dies 💔

[aion-rsa]

Doctor Who: Perfect 10? How Fandom Forgets the Dark Side of David Tennant’s Doctor

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As recently as September 2020 David Tennant topped a Radio Times poll of favourite Doctors. He beat Tom Baker in a 2006 Doctor Who Magazine poll, and was voted the best TV character of the 21st Century by the readers of Digital Spy. He was the Doctor during one of Doctor Who‘s critical and commercial peaks, bringing in consistently high ratings and a Christmas day audience of 13.31 million for ‘Voyage of the Damned’, and 12.27 million for his final episode, ‘The End of Time – Part Two’. He is the only other Doctor who challenges Tom Baker in terms of associated iconography, even being part of the Christmas idents on BBC One as his final episodes were broadcast. Put simply, the Tenth Doctor is ‘My Doctor’ for a huge swathe of people and David Tennant in a brown coat will be the image they think of when Doctor Who is mentioned.

In articles to accompany these fan polls, Tennant’s Doctor is described as ‘amiable’ in contrast to his predecessor Christopher Eccleston’s dark take on the character. Ten is ‘down-to-earth’, ‘romantic’, ‘sweeter’, ‘more light-hearted’ and the Doctor you’d most want to invite you on board the TARDIS. That’s interesting in some respects, because the Tenth Doctor is very much a Jekyll and Hyde character. He’s handsome, he’s charismatic, and travelling with him can be addictively fun, but he is also casually cruel, harshly dismissive, and lacking in self-awareness. His ego wants feeding, and once fed, can have destructive results.

That tension in the character isn’t due to bad writing or acting. Quite the contrary. Most Doctors have an element of unpleasantness to their behaviour. Ever since the First Doctor kidnapped Ian and Barbara, the character has been moving away from the entitled snob we met him as, but can never escape it completely.

Six and Twelve were both written to be especially abrasive, then soften as time went on (with Colin Baker having to do this through Big Finish audio plays rather than on telly). A significant difference between Twelve and Ten, though, is that Twelve questions himself more. Ten, to the very end, seems to believe his own hype.

The Tenth Doctor’s duality is apparent from his first full appearance in 2005’s ‘The Christmas Invasion’. Having quoted The Lion King and fearlessly ambled through the Sycorax ship in a dressing gown, he seems the picture of bonhomie, that lighter and amiable character shining through. Then he kills their leader. True, it was in self-defence, but it was lethal force that may not have been necessary. Then he immediately topples the British Prime Minister for a not dissimilar act of aggression. Immediately we see the Tenth Doctor’s potential for violence and moral grey areas. He’s still the same man who considered braining someone with a rock in ‘An Unearthly Child’. 

Teamed with Rose Tyler, a companion of similar status to Tennant’s Doctor, they blazed their way through time and space with a level of confidence that bordered on entitlement, and a love that manifested itself negatively on the people surrounding them. The most obvious example in Series 2 is ‘Tooth and Claw’, where Russell T. Davies has them react to horror and carnage in the manner of excited tourists who’ve just seen a celebrity. This aloof detachment results in Queen Victoria establishing the Torchwood institute that will eventually split them apart. We see their blinkers on again in ‘Rise of the Cybermen’, when they take Mickey for granted. Rose and the Doctor skip along the dividing line between romance and hubris.

Then, in a Christmassy romp where the Doctor is grieving the loss of Rose, he commits genocide and Donna Noble sucker punches him with ‘I think you need somebody to stop you’. Well-meaning as this statement is, the Doctor treats it as a reason to reduce his next companion to a function rather than a person. Martha Jones is there to stop the Doctor, as far as he’s concerned. She’s a rebound companion. Martha is in love with him, and though he respects her, she’s also something of a prop.

This is the series in which the Doctor becomes human in order to escape the Family of Blood (adapted from a book in which he becomes human in order to understand his companion’s grief, not realising anyone is after him), and is culpable for all the death that follows in his wake. Martha puts up with a position as a servant and with regular racist abuse on her travels with this man, before finally realising at the end of the series that she needs to get out of the relationship. For a rebound companion, Martha withstands a hell of a lot, mostly caused by the Doctor’s failings. 

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Why David Tennant Lost Hannibal Role According to Bryan Fuller

By Kirsten Howard

TV

Staged: BBC Comedy Confirms Sheen & Tennant’s Double-Act Greatness

By Louisa Mellor

Series 4 develops the Doctor further, putting the Tenth’s Doctor’s flaws in the foreground more clearly. Donna is now travelling with him, and simply calls him out on his behaviour more than Rose or Martha did. Nonetheless the Doctor ploughs on, and in ‘Midnight’ we see him reduced to desperate and ugly pleas about how clever he is when he’s put in a situation he can’t talk himself out of.

Rose has also become more Doctor-like while trapped in another reality, and brutally tells Donna that she’s going to have to die in order to return to the original timeline (just as the Doctor tells Donna she’s going to have to lose her memories of travelling with him in order to live her previous life, even as she clearly asks him not to – and how long did the Doctor know he would have to do this for? It’s not like he’s surprised when Donna starts glitching). Tied into this is the Doctor’s belief in his own legend. In ‘The Doctor’s Daughter’ he holds a gun to Cobb’s head, then withdraws it and asks that they start a society based on the morals of his actions. You know, like a well-adjusted person does.

What’s interesting here is that despite presenting himself as ‘a man who never would’, the Doctor is a man who absolutely would. We’ve seen him do it. Even the Tenth Doctor, so keen to live up to the absolute moral ideals he espouses, killed the Sycorax leader and the Krillitanes, drove the Cybermen to die of despair, brought the Family of Blood to a quiet village and then disposed of them personally. But Tennant doesn’t play this as a useful lie, he plays it as something the Doctor absolutely believes in that moment, that he is a man who would not kill even as his daughter lies dead. It’s why his picking up a gun in ‘The End of Time’ has such impact. And it makes some sense that the Tenth Doctor would reject violence following a predecessor who regenerated after refusing to commit another double-genocide.

In the series finale ‘Journey’s End‘, Davros accuses the Doctor of turning his friends into weapons. This is because the Doctor’s friends have used weapons against the Daleks who – and I can’t stress this enough – are about to kill everyone in the entire universe. Fighting back against them seems pretty rational. Also – and again I can’t stress this enough – the Daleks are bad. Like, really bad. You won’t believe just how mindbogglingly bad they are. The Doctor has tried to destroy them several times by this point. Here, there isn’t the complication of double-genocide, and instead the very real threat of absolutely everyone in the universe dying. This accusation, that the Doctor turns people into weapons, should absolutely not land.

And yet, with the Tenth Doctor, it does. This is a huge distinction between him and the First Doctor, who had to persuade pacifists to fight for him in ‘The Daleks’.

In ‘The Sontaran Strategem’ Martha compares the Doctor to fire. It’s so blunt it almost seems not worth saying, but it’s the perfect analogy (especially for a show where fire is a huge part of the very first story). Yes, fire shines in dark places, yes it can be a beacon, but despite it being very much fire’s entire deal, people can forget that it burns. And fire has that mythical connection of being stolen from the gods and brought to humanity. The Time Lord Victorious concept fits the Tenth Doctor so well. Of all the Doctors, he’s the most ready to believe in himself as a semi-mythic figure.

Even when regenerating there’s a balance between hero and legend: the Tenth Doctor does ultimately save Wilfred Mott, but only after pointing out passionately how big a sacrifice he’s making. And then he goes to get his reward by meeting all his friends, only to glare at them from a distance. His last words are ‘I don’t want to go’, which works well as clearly being a poignant moment for the actor as well, but in the context of Doctor Who as a whole it renders Ten anomalous: no one else went this unwillingly. And yet, in interviews Russell T. Davies said it was important to end the story with ‘the Doctor as people have loved him: funny, the bright spark, the hero, the enthusiast’.

It’s fascinating then, that this is the Doctor who has been taken to heart by so many viewers because there’s such an extreme contrast between his good-natured front, his stated beliefs, and his actions. He clearly loves Rose and Donna, but leaves them with a compromised version of happiness. They go on extraordinary journeys only to end up somewhere that leaves them less than who they want to be, with Russell T. Davies being more brutally honest than Steven Moffat, who nearly always goes the romance route. Davies once said to Mark Lawson that he liked writing happy endings ‘because in the real world they don’t exist’, but his endings tend towards the bittersweet: Mickey and Martha end up together but this feels like they’re leftovers from the Doctor and Rose’s relationship. The Tenth Doctor doesn’t, as Nine does, go with a smile, but holding back tears.

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It’s a testament to how well written the Tenth Doctor is that the character has this light and shade, and with David Tennant’s immense likeability he can appeal to a wider audience as a result. It’s not surprise he wins all these polls, but I can’t help but feel that if the Doctor arrived and invited me on board the TARDIS, I’d want it to be anyone but Ten.

The post Doctor Who: Perfect 10? How Fandom Forgets the Dark Side of David Tennant’s Doctor appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[hypexion]

And so, the Flux was vanquished by The Vanquishers before things were Fluxed Up Beyond All Repair. Anyhow, here are some hot thoughts:

Somehow this was almost clean with how it resolved things. Almost.

First issue: The Grand Serpent is clearly hinted to be, like, Rassilon or another important Time Lord, yet he gets left on a rock.

Second: Sort of unclear what happened to the rest of the universe. Did it get fixed?

Third and last: Swarm and Azure ended up being sort of a nothing at the end.

But yeah, real powerful action-packed finale. Less of a mess than I’d expected.

Hell, I’ll say it: it's better than some of the Moffat finales. Consult the rewatch posts if you want to consider which ones.

Sweet multi-Doctor action. Nice how it was a problem as well as a solution.

Thasmin is real like they hugged and had a heart-to-heart.

Seriously Thirteen hates heart-to-hearts.

Yay Vinder and Bel reunited!

Yay Dan and Diana reunited!

Nooo Professor Jericho how could they do this to you!?

Also I guess it’s bad that all the Lupari got killed.

Claire is back and still pretty neat.

Sontaran plan was clever although it sort of relied on the Daleks not immediately entering murder-mode.

Really though what was Swarm and Azure’s deal?

Okay so Time is apparently a person and they’re getting in on the “Doctor you’re totally gonna die“ train.

Hmm “and their Master“ who could Time possibly be talking about?

Honestly I was expecting the Doctor to have to sacrifice her old memories but dropping them in a hole forever is close enough.

No but seriously who is the Grand Serpent you can’t just leave him on a rock Chris this is worse than the Lazurus Machine!

Is he Rassilon? This Braxiatel guy the EU fans keep talking about? Omega? AaaAaaAHH

Mad Mole saves the universe.

But yeah, best Thirteenth Doctor finale, absolutely no contest.

[my-ghost-monument]

Thoughts on 13x05:

In a nutshell, a lot of incoherent screaming.

- I loved Yaz. She is sheer perfectism in this episode. Taking control of the situations, being the Doctor and all. I thought I’d be wary of the three years skip, but no. It works out! She’s honestly so awesome this whole series so far. can’t be squeamish. The dealing of the bomb. She’s having to be strong, effective, no hesitation. But then we have the private moment of emotion.

- THE HOLOGRAM. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

- seriously, the hologram. The thought that the Doctor made that just bfore Yaz called about the angel gets me. How many times has Yaz listened to that? The ‘I’m missing you’ bits as well. d y i n g.

- The Doctor. Oh my. Oh my.

First, the theory on Answok’s identity being Tecteun was right! I thought so and what a reveal. Ahh, she’s such a cruel cold woman. But such good characterisation. And the Doctor’s reaction to the reveal. The whole scene was perfect. 

Even in the division between universes, the Doctor is still trying to save her universe. I think 13 was absoulutely amazing in her whole scenes. Jodie’s acting was top notch as well.

- THE FOBWATCH. Okay, literally dying. Also the Doctor’s little snarling grin when she’s offered the chance to have her memories or the universe, since she’ll always choose saving the universe over herself. But that manipulative oh, but you could take your friends thing. ahhh.

- I love the Yaz-Dan-Jericho team up. She’s really the doctor-like figure with her two companions. And they bring some funny scenes! One lump or two. Fetch your dog/fetch your human. Oh my I laughed my socks off. Not only was the hermit hilarious, but Dan’s look and then Karvanista’s reaction to the message. Literally hilarious.

- The liverpool guy. The look on his face when Yaz tells him she’s looking to try and fix everything. Also, he’s seen things - it makes me think about how Claire saw visions, and Jericho’s a study of all that. Just nonformed curious thoughts, but I can’t wait to see how it all pans out next episode.

- The Grand Serpent. Ahhhh. He’s literally been snaking throughout UNIT’s whole history! The way he kills people is very creepy - but also he said a long time and place ago I had someone else to do this for me. So - he’s Vinder’s old leader. Vinder, who was exiled for presumably a long time. He led a place that we see from Vinder is now in ruin. He says a long time. Bel’s pregnant and is in the same time piece as Vinder (from their near miss). What the hell is the time line for their people? How far has the Grand Serpent hopped?

But yes. Creepy murders. And the TARDIS is in UNIT’s hands? Or was?

- Bel and Vinder, missing each other by literal moments! argh! But: Vinder. Did he plan to get into that passenger then? Also, Diane seemed pretty pumped to see a gun - why does she want one so badly? Bel and Karvanista is a hilarious go-up-ahead I didn’t predict and love.

- Kate! That explains entirely why UNIT’s gone, because she’s had to go into hiding. I loved her definace in the face of the Serpent. Such a fierce woman - can’t wait to see her next episode!

- Swarm and Azure walk in like party crashers then. Swam killing Tecteun - ahhh. That is such vengence for Swarm. But the Doctor’s face! Her choice of what to do with the woman stripped away.

- And the fobwatch. The memories. Oh my. They’re going to force it all back into her.

- SONTARANS. I love the tie in! All the threads are picked up so well and weaved in, and flux really feels like a well written story overall so far.

In conclusion: I need to rewatch this episode immediately, and I loved it. It was hilarious, fun, high tension and packed.