#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who The Two Doctors

Fifth Doctor: I'm the Doctor. Who are you?

Tenth Doctor: [amazed at meeting his former self]  Yes you are! You are the Doctor!

Fifth Doctor: Yes I am... I'm the Doctor.

Tenth Doctor: Oh good for you, Doctor! Good for brilliant old you!

Fifth Doctor: Is there something wrong with you?

- The Tenth and Fifth Doctors, Time Crash

Another Sunday Special on the A to Z. Today, I want to cover some other multi-Doctor stories, this time with just Two Doctors.

The Two Doctors

The first one that comes to mind is appropriately titled, The Two Doctors. This was set during the Colin Baker years (originally airing Feb/March 1985) and features the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) and the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton).  Troughton has always wanted to come back to Doctor Who, but not as the Doctor, but as an alien. He thought it would be fun to play something under so much makeup that no one would know it was him. This was during the John Nathan-Turner years, and JTN wanted to bring back all sorts of old friends and enemies. So it really is no surprise that the Second Doctor and Jaime were brought back.

While the episode itself was not supposed to celebrate anything, like the Three and Five Doctors did, it was the 100th book put out by Doctor Who novel publisher Target. So that is nice. Also, I felt this episode marked a turning point for Colin Baker's Doctor. He became less brash after this moving towards that kinder Doctor he always wanted to play. 

Trial of a Time Lord

In the modern Doctor Who era we are used to big surprises, especially when they come to the Doctor (see below), but in the classic series this was something new and unexpected. In a story that would fir in in with New Who well we have The Trial of a Time Lord. Again with Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Anothony Aniley as the Master (and doing things that will have an effect on Jodie Whittaker's Doctor and Sacha Dhawan's Master) and another figure, the Valeyard played by Michael Jayston. We learn he is an incarnation of the Doctor between his "12th and last regeneration."  So evil that the Master joins up with the Doctor to defeat him.  We don't see him after this year-long series but he is mentioned a few more times.

Time Crash

This one was a short that appeared on the Season 4 DVD (or maybe Season 3) DVD sets. It was right before the Christmas Special "Voyage of the Damned" and featured the Tenth and Fifth Doctors.

Ok this one is so meta. First off, David Tennant grew up with the Fifth Doctor as his favorite Doctor. Earlier that year David had just met Georgia Moffett and they would get married in 2011. Georgia Moffett is Peter Davidson's (the Fifth Doctor) daughter. Georgia in fact played"Jenny" the Doctor's Daughter in a previous episode called, "The Doctor's Daughter."

Confused? Not surprising. When asked at a convention "what was the strangest thing a fan had ever given him" Peter Davidson replied "Grandchildren."

The episode is fun and pure fluff to be honest, but fun fluff.

Twice Upon a Time

Jumping past the 50th Anniversary special for now.  We get to our next double Doctor story. This one features the Twelfth Doctor, Peter Capaldi, as he is trying to decide if he should regenerate or not, and he meets up with his former self, the First Doctor, now being played by the amazing David Bradley, going through a similar existential crisis. 

Before I say too much about this episode (it is wonderful) I need to say something about David Bradley here. WOW. He is so great as the First Doctor (he has played him since and even played William Hartnell). Yes, yes, this script makes him seem older and more cantankerous than he really was, but it was done to show the differences between 1 and 12 more.

Technically this episode is not a Two Doctor story but rather a Three Doctor one since at the end the Twelfth Doctor does decide to regenerate into the Thirteenth Doctor in the form of Jodie Whittaker. 

Fugitive of the Judoon

Now here is an episode that totally surprised everyone.  The "Fugitive" in this episode is not The Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) but instead a completely unknown and never before seen incarnation from before the First Doctor. This Doctor, called the Fugitive Doctor (play AMAZINGLY by Jo Martin), had her memories wiped via a Chameleon Arch by the Time Lords. 

Look, I'll be honest. I LOVED Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor. I just felt some of the scripts were weak. But Jo Martin? Damn. She lit up and took over every scene she was in. 

My head cannon is this. We know the First Doctor took a TARDIS that was "a museum piece," according to River Song. We know that he was going to steal one, but Clara, in her Impossible Girl incarnation, directed him to a different one.  That TARDIS, old with a broken Chameleon Circuit was brand new when The Fugitive Doctor used it (it looks new in the above clip). It was her TARDIS then and when the Time Lords wiped her memories and made her into the "First Doctor" that TARDIS sat there and waited until the Doctor decided to run again. Like the First Doctor she even calls it her "ship."

I want more Jo Martin and her Doctor. I want to know what her actions were to give us the Doctor we know today. 

The War Doctor in The Name of the Doctor

Ah. There is so much to unpack here. This one will need its own post.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who The Master

Chantho : Chan-Professor, please!
The Professor : THAT IS NOT MY NAME! "The Professor" was an invention. So perfect a disguise that I forgot who I am.
Chantho : Chan-Then who are you-tho?
The Master : I am... the Master.

- Professor Yana/The Master, Utopia 

The Master. Moriarty to the Doctor's Holmes. Lex Luthor to the Doctor's Superman. He is possibly the deadliest enemy the Doctor has ever known, next to the Daleks, and they began as friends.  Not just friends but old, good friends.

Like the Doctor, the Master is a Time Lord. Like the Doctor he is a renegade. We know from various sources they were both good friends and were shown the Untempered Schism together. The Doctor ran, the Master went mad. They went to the academy together, along with another brilliant Time Lord, The Rani. 

Also, like the Doctor, the Master has been played by many actors.  The role was originated by Roger Delgado in the Pertwee (3rd Doctor) years and was introduced in the serial "Seeds of Death" which also gave us Jo Grant. At first they Doctor and the Master knew each other but did not act like they had a history.   Delgado died in car crash a few years later and it was one of the reasons Jon Pertwee left the show, they two were very good friends. Next we had a couple of actors play a "decayed" version of the Master, having gone through all of his regenerations and was now in regeneration crisis.

We next see him at the end of the Tom Baker (4th Doctor) years. He steals the body of a Trakenite named Tremas (more on that) and is played with over-the-top gusto by Anothny Ainely. Now a LOT of people didn't like Ainely's portrayal of the Master compared to the more suave and sophisticated evil of Delgado. And I waiver back and forth a lot myself. 

We last see the Master in the old series in the serial "Survival" with the Seventh Doctor and Ace. Though we know he escapes that doomed world. 

Ace : Last time I saw you, you were half cat.
The Master : A man's allowed to experiment.

- The Power of the Doctor (2022)

He is the major antagonist of the US Fox/BBC-produced Doctor Who movie with Paul McGann as the Doctor. Here is played with gleeful scenery chewing by Eric Roberts as only Eric Roberts can. Making this the only time a Time Lord was played by an American actor. Eric Roberts real-life wife Eliza (who should be familiar to anyone that frequents this site) appears as his wife in this movie as well. In this the remains of the Master find a way to possess poor paramedic Bruce (Roberts) and use him as he did Tremas.  He is seemingly destroyed here as well...but I am sure you know what is next.

Just like "Bad Wolf" was an Easter Egg for the first season of the new Doctor Who, and "Torchwood" was for the second season, "Mister Saxon" was for the third season. We heard a lot about Mr. Saxon, but the payoff was not until the end.

The 10th Doctor, Martha and Jack Harkness end up at the very end of the Universe, 100 trillion years in the future. The stars have all burned out and the last of the humans are living on a dark planet ("Malcassairo") with hopes of finding the last surviving home for humanity, Utopia. Hoping to get them all there is Professor Yana, a strange and sort of bumbling scientist (of the type the British do so well) played by Derek Jacobi (THE Derek Jacobi).  Yet not all as it appears. The Professor carries a watch, like what the Doctor had used when he was disguised as a human for a while. Opening the watch (a Chameleon Arch) returns his memories and Yana is revealed to be the newest incarnation of the Master. Sadly we only get a few moments of Jacobi playing the Master before he is killed and then he surprisingly regenerates! To the new Master played by John Simms. Who, if anything, is more akin to the Joker than Lex Luthor. 

We learn that Mister Saxon is really the Master in the form of John Simms who came back to Earth in the Doctor's stolen TARDIS six months prior.  John Simms gives us some of the best performances as the Master up to that point. Yes, even better than Delgado and Jacobi. We learn a lot more history about the Master here from the 10th Doctor.  The Master is killed, again, and this time to spite the Doctor he refuses to regenerate. Of course, he has a backup plan.

We next see the Master when Rassilon (from the Five Doctors) comes out of Death/Retirement to win the Time War (more on that) tries to pull Gallifrey out of the War and into orbit near Earth. The Master sacrifices himself to save the Doctor and Earth (crazy right?).

No Master at all for the 11th Doctor. But when we get the 12th Doctor a new character keeps poping up in his wake, someone called "Missy" and refers to the 12th Doctor as her "boyfriend."

Missy is played by the absolutely delightful Michelle Gomez.

"Please try to keep up. Short for Mistress. Well, I couldn't very well keep calling myself the Master, now could I?"

- Missy/The Master, Death in Heaven

Missy seemed more like she was trying to impress the Doctor rather than defeat him. Indeed it seemed like maybe the old friendship they had would rekindle and Missy could be something new.  That is until she ran into the John Simms (now with a goatee) version of herself. The old master re-corrupts the new Master/Missy, but they still ended up killing each other.

Finally, we have the most recent Master during the time of the 13th Doctor, played again with over-the-top glees by Sacha Dhawan.  This Master is back to being evil. Very, very evil. This Master seemingly dies in the same episode that he, once again, kills the Doctor. 

Honestly, I could go on and on here about the Master, they are just as colorful and interesting as the Doctor.  A couple of things though. While both the Doctor and the Master have hypnotic and psionic powers, the Master's seems to be much greater. The Delgado Master would routinely hypnotize people and the Simms Master even took the power to take over the Earth using a series of interlinked satellites. 

Another thing about the Master is his seeming compulsion to use anagrams or alternates of his own name. The Delgado Master was often known as Mr. Masters or Magister. Even Tremas of Traken (who the Master could have been grooming to be his new body) is an anagram of Master. Speaking of anagrams, "Mister Saxon" is an anagram of "Master no. six" to indicate John Simms as the sixth person to play the Master at that time. Even Professor Yana came as a warning from the Face of Boe to the Doctor of "You Are Not Alone." 

Will we see a new Master now after the Doctor has regenerated? Oh yes, just like the Daleks and the Cybermen the Master keeps coming back for more.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Leela

"Empty threats, Rutan. Enjoy your death as I enjoyed killing you."

Leela to a Rutan, Horror of Fang Rock

I mentioned that the role of the Companions in Doctor Who was largely one of screaming, getting captured, and going, "what Doctor?" every so often. 

That is not true for Leela. 

If Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor was my first Doctor, then Leela was my first Companion. And what an impression she made! She was from a savage tribe descended from human space travelers that crash-landed on her planet. Her tribe, The Seevtem, aka "Survey Team," had reverted back to savagery and superstition. Leela herself when first meet her is on trail for disobeying the will of her elders. So she was head strong, and intelligent from the very start.  And actress Louise Jamison played the character with undisguised gusto.  Louise Jamison rather famously talked about getting scripts and seeing "Leela screams" with her crossing it out and writing in "No she does not!"

Leela didn't scream, at least not typically, and she usually ran into danger than from it. She had a knife and a bag full of Janis thorns that would paralyze and then kill.  Unlike other companions before (and since really), Leela had a body count. Though in her mind, the world, and then the universe was a savage kill-or-be-killed place.  

She was unlearned but obviously very bright and she picked up on concepts the doctor threw at her quickly, although sometimes in her own way.

For reasons unknown the production team made Jamison wear these red contact to turn her normally blue eyes brown.

She hated them and they were uncomfortable. So in the episodes of "Horror of Fang Rock" and exploding Rutan spaceship blinds her temporarily (and in typical Leela fashion she asks the Doctor to kill her because she is no use to him) and her eyes heal and turn blue.  A bit I used, somewhat unconsciously, for my witch Larina. 

Leela is the prototype companion that would later give us Ace and the modern companions but in particular River Song.

 

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who K9 and Kamelion

Rose Tyler: [referring to K-9] Why does it look so... disco?
The Doctor: Oi! Listen, in the year 5000, this was cutting edge!

- Doctor Who, School Reunion

Most of the Doctor's companions have been human, most of whom are from Earth. But two stand out as not only non-human but non-living robots. I am talking about K9 and Kamelion.

K9 was a robot dog (get it, K9?) from the year 5,000 during the Tom Baker years. Invented by Prof. Marius who lived on a space station and wanted to bring his real dog but couldn't. 

K9 went on to join the Doctor and Leela, who he referred to as "Master" and "Mistress." He stayed behind on Gallifrey with Leela. When the Doctor left he introduced his new version K9-Mk2 who traveled with him and both Romanas.  He stayed behind in E-Space with Romana and that was the last time we saw him. For a while.

K9, this time Mk-3 was given to Sarah Jane Smith as a present and for the start of his own spin-off show K9 and Company. But that only lasted one episode. We would not see him, or Sarah Jane again until the 10th Doctor episode, School Reunion. The Doctor rebuilt him to give us K9 Mk-4.

K9 would appear again, briefly in the Sarah Jane Smith spin-off and in his own Australian version, "K9" with a different look. We only got such brief glimpses of him because the character is still owned by its creators, Bob Baker and Dave Martin. So to use him, the BBC has to pay Baker and Martin. 

K9 though was extremely popular and I can remember my younger brother desperately wanting to build one (he is an engineer now, so I suppose he could) and I know others that loved that "little tin dog" as well.

On the other end of the popularity spectrum is Kamelion. Originally a tool of the Master to disrupt the signing of the Magna Carta in "The King's Demons." He was a robot that could appear as anyone commanded. 

Let's be honest here. The episode he stared in was a bit weak. Even the Doctor admitted that the plan was small time by the Master's standards. And Kamelion, well he was really kind of lame.  The prop used was not built for the show, but was found by then producer John Nathan-Turner as a K9 replacement.  Plus it was a prop and not an actor in a suit, so it was always breaking down.  

Kamlion seems to have been cursed from the start. The man who designed it's software, Mike Power, had been killed in a boating accident around the time the show was aired and no one knew how to operate it properly.  Terence Dudley (1988) and Peter Grimwade (1983), who scripted the robot companion's appearances, left the show or died while the show was running. His voice, Gerald Flood, died in 1984. And the last actor to play him as a human also died. 

The companion/prop was so hated in fact that Peter Davison has said that any sign of regret shown by him/the Doctor during Kamelion's (the prop's) "death" scene was pure acting. He was happy it was gone.

I remember the fans at the time also rather hated it. I guess they all can't be winners. 

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Jago & Litefoot (and Jenny & Vastra)

Of all the secondary characters (not companions), one of the standout successes has been the ongoing adventures of Henry Gordon Jago and Professor George Litefoot. Jago & Litfoot were first introduced to us in the wonderful Tom Baker-era story "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" in 1977.  The pair, a somewhat shady theatre manager and a semi-retired academic went on to solve mysterious crimes and mysteries in Victorian London courtesy of various audio dramas from Big Finish Audio.

They were popular in their time but grew increasingly popular with the airing of the Tom Baker Doctor on PBS.

The audio dramas have also been big hits for Big Finish, with 17 completed dramas. Each one features the original actors, Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter, resuming their roles. Some even feature other Doctor Who companions such as Leela (4th Doctor) and Strax (11th Doctor). They are even sometimes guests on their contemporaries' Madam Vastra & Jenny (11th Doctor) audio dramas.

 Of course, I love the Victorian-era. So I liked "Talons" from the word go. Yes, there is some unfortunate "Yellowface" going on in the episode, something the cast and production team (who are still alive) regret and have mentioned many times. But the story is good, and the characters from this tale are wonderful. 

If Jago and Litefoot have been given new life in these audio dramas, then their Victorian-era contemporaries Vastra & Jenny (and Strax) have been given continued life in the Cubicle 7 Doctor Who RPG.

In both mediums (audio and RPGs) there are some cross-overs. But for me I love the RPG structure the best for further adventures (though the audio dramas are very, very close!)

The best thing about Jago & Litefoot is the implication that once the Doctor enters someone's life, they are forever changed and want to do more to improve their world. This has been an explicit detail in the newer series. 

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Inferno

Something a little different again since I will talk about a single serial of Doctor Who. This time it is 1970's "Inferno."  It is the second serial (from the seventh season) to feature Jon Pertwee as the Doctor in exile on Earth.  The Time Lords have crippled his TARDIS and removed all knowledge of how to Time Travel from his mind. He is stuck on Earth and not taking it well, so he tinkers with the TARDIS all the time with mostly disastrous results. 

In Inferno he manages to slip into a parallel universe with a Fascist Britain. In both universes there is an experiment to drill through the Earth's crust, but at the point they are doing will cause catastrophic problems. The fascist universe is slight ahead in time as the "prime" universe so the Doctor knows what needs to be done.

I liked this episode for a lot of reasons. First it played into my growing interest in the idea of the Multi-verse, something that I began to explore in the comic "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and later in books like "Job: A Comedy of Justice" and "The Coming of the Quantum Cats."  It was something that at the time I was really ready to enjoy.  

Secondly, and this is the big one, it was the Doctor Who episode that introduced me to other Doctors. 

Growing up I watched Doctor Who on my local (St. Louis) PBS station KETC.  Now KETC has a huge market, and they played the Tom Baker era almost exclusively. But they were not the only local PBS station. Just to the north of me was WILL out of Urbana IL and it was connected with the University of Illinois at Urbana.  While I did not get that station on our cable package there were some in town that had access to it. Also there was a steady stream of VHS tapes coming down from Urbana to my hometown from people going to school there. Inferno was one such tape.

I remember watching it in, of all places, my High School's library. One of my friends had it and was watching in the "media room" which was supposed to be off limits to general students unless you worked there. I didn't. But I was fascinated by this episode and mostly by this "new to me" Doctor. I knew Pertwee came before Baker and that his Doctor was a different sort, but this episode was an eye-opener for me.

Recently, I had the chance to rewatch in prep for today's post. It is slower than I remember, but just as good.  Though I do find it very odd that I am right now older than Pertwee was in this episode (he was 51).

I have made a habit since first watching this one to check out all the Pertwee/3rd Doctor episodes I can. I know there are a few I have never seen. I have not sought them out because I do enjoy the joy of stumbling upon them just like I did with Inferno.

Since moving to the Chicago area I have had the chance to talk to others who watched Doctor Who from the same time period and how their PBS stations differed from my local St. Louis one. It has been very interesting and I'll talk more about it on "P" day.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Highlanders & Outlanders

Back in 1966/67 a Doctor Who serial aired called "The Highlanders" and it featured the Second Doctor and introduced us to the soon-to-be companion Jamie McCrimmon, played by Frazer Hines during the Battle of Culloden.

Jaime quickly became a favorite among the fans. In the late sixties, he was often voted the #1 fan favorite, and this also included "the best legs on TV."

One of those fans was author Diana Gabaldon. Who took her love of this episode and crafted her own tale about the Scottish Highlands, the Battle of Culloden, and Time Travel. One of the stars of these novels (and later) series was a Highlander named Jamie Fraser. 

Of course I am talking about the wildly successful "Outlander" novels and TV series.

I have never read the novels, but I have seen the series. It is quite fun really. The time-travel elements are only a plot device, as opposed to something central as in Doctor Who.  Frazer Hines even made a guest appearance. 

Outlander is not the only property inspired by Doctor Who, either directly or indirectly.

"DC's Legends of Tomorrow" (2016-2022) was part of the "Arrowverse" subset of DC Comics TV shows. It dealt with a group of misfit heroes, led by Rip Hunter, played by Arthur "Rory" Darvill (fresh off of Doctor Who). Now DC has always had time travel and Rip is an established character, but the Doctor Who elements here are turned way up.

Douglas Adams who was a script editor and writer for Doctor Who in the Tom Baker years gave us "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."  Not only was the book inspired by Adams, but Adams was also good friends with Lala "Romana II" Ward, and the Tenth Doctor even name-drops Adam's famous protagonist, Arthur Dent in "The Christmas Invasion."

One could argue that the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation are more or less Cybermen.  Comics publisher IDW makes this even clearer with their Doctor Who / Star Trek Crossovers.  It doesn't end there. For years fans speculated that Guinan, Whoopi Goldberg's character, was something akin to a Time Lord.  Same with the Travellers, which now include Wesley Crusher, and the "Supervisors" Tallinn (Star Trek Picard), and Gary Seven (Star Trek The Original Series).  Gary even has a sonic screwdriver-like device. So many in fact that this topic really deserves a post on it's own. Maybe I'll touch more on that later on.  IDW Comics also featured an "Assignment: Earth" comic and the original episode, "Assignment: Earth" which introduces Gary Seven, began with the Enterprise slingshotting to Earth in the 1960.

Bill & Ted, in their movies travels in time and space use a phone booth. You could argue that Rufus, played by George Carlin, was pretty close to a Time Lord.

The shadow of the Doctor is long. Both in their universe and ours.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who The Five Doctors

Last week I did a Sunday special on the 10th Anniversary show "The Three Doctors." This week I am covering the 20th Anniversary special, "The Five Doctors."

The Five Doctors got it's Global premier on November 23, 1983, exactly 20 years after the first episode appeared.

Like the previous anniversary special this one involved the Doctor getting caught up in the machinations of an evil and powerful Time Lord. This time though, the Doctor was pulled in, and in doing so he felt pieces of himself "breaking away like an iceberg."

Of course, there was a problem. Tom Baker, the Fourth Doctor and still the actor with the longest tenure as the Doctor, did not want to return so soon after leaving the role. A choice he much later came to meet with some regret. So his incarnation was stuck in a "time eddy" which honestly worked out ok. They had some footage they had from a canceled show (Shada) and used that to fill in the blanks.

Sadly William Hartnell the original First Doctor had died in 1975 so Richard Hurndall was brought in to play the character. He sadly would die the year after this. I am not sure of the details, but I am wondering if the First Doctor would have been stuck. But the script, as these thing do, went through a lot of rewrites so who knows what could have been.  Tom Baker did get a chance to come back later. William Hartnell is at least featured in a clip before the show begins.  There is a nice story about how Bill Hartnell's wife Heather was invited to the set and she told the then current Doctor, Peter Davidson, how much he reminded her of Bill and how he would have loved to have seen him in this role. 

So we get a lot of favorite companions back, a lot of favorite enemies, and more workings into the happenings on Gallifrey.

A couple of standouts. Susan, the Doctor's Grandaughter is back and she recognizes right away they are on Gallifrey. So meaning she is also a Time Lord and allows her early character to retroactively say the planet's name first.   Fan favorite Sarah Jane is back, including her K-9 from "K-9 and Co." She interacts with the Third Doctor again.  She tries to explain to him that she saw him regenerate into the Fourth Doctor and says "you became..." but he interrupts with "all teeth and curls?" Meaning Tom Baker.  The lines were supposed to be Elizabeth Sladden's (Sarah Jane) but Jon Pertwee thought it was funnier coming from him. It was. 

There are a lot of DVD versions of this out. I have the Special Edition which swaps out some of the 1983 special effects for "updated" ones that are nearly universally hated. I have not seen the 25th anniversary version (the 45th for Doctor Who) but I wonder if they are restored?  I watched it recently on PlutoTV and it was the original 1983 broadcast version, so that was nice.

The story is a bit contrived, but no more so than any other Doctor Who story and it was a lot of fun really.  Still one of my favorites.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Gallifrey

"Ah, you should have seen it, that old planet. The second sun would rise in the south, the mountains would shine. The leaves on the trees were silver. When they caught the light every morning, they lit the forest on fire." 

- The Tenth Doctor, Gridlock

Next to the Earth, the planet that gets the most mention in Doctor Who lore, is his home world of Gallifrey.

It has been called many things during the run of Doctor Who, most just "The Home World" in the earliest episodes. Among other names, it is known as "Jewel" and "the Shining World of the Seven Systems." It wasn't even named Gallifrey until the time of the Third Doctor in the episode "The Time Warrior" (December 1973) so a full decade went by before we ever learned its proper name.

What do we know about the Doctor's home planet? Well, it s mostly orange in color. Has two suns. It is much larger than the Earth, but humans seem to be fine on it. Likely this is due to Time Lord science. We learn it is in the constellation of Kasterborous at galactic coordinates 10-0-11-0-0/0-2 from Galactic Zero Centre.  It also seems to be part of our galaxy as opposed to a "galaxy far, far away."

Gallifreyians look human, and not all of them are Time Lords. The Time Lords appear to be an elite ruling class and the rest are just regular folk. I am fairly sure though all of them have the same two hearts and ability to regenerate. 

Gallifrey is also special because it is the home of the Untempered Schism, a rip in the fabric of Time and Space that all Time Students of the Academy are taken too. Some Time Lords are driven mad by it, like the Doctor's arch rival The Master. Others, like the Doctor, see it and want to run.  

In addition to this (and likely related to it in some way) is the Eye of Harmony, a stable black hole that is near Gallifrey and in the heart of every TARDIS. This is what gives the Time Lords mastery over time and space. 

We see very little of Gallifrey in the series, even after 60 years. There is the Citadel, the primary city of the Time Lords, and Arcadia, Gallifrey's "Second City."  So like a Time Lord Chicago, I am thinking.

And we know that in the Time War The Doctor (thought) he had burned all of Gallifrey to stop the war. Turns out he (and all his other selves) figured out how to tuck it away in a pocket Universe. Though the Master may have destroyed yet again. Hard to say about an ancient planet where the rules of time and space no longer apply.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Fendahl

Today's is a bit different. I am going to talk about a single serial, the four-part "Image of the Fendahl."  This one struck a chord with me for a lot of reasons.

The story deals with the discovery of a human skull dated 12 million years old. Modern humans did not appear on the scene until about 300,000 years ago. So this has the various scientists in a stir.  At the same time the Fourth Doctor and his companions Leela and K-9 (both get their own days!) discover a "hole in time" and follow it to it's source which is of course on Earth.

 The skull has some odd psychic powers and it attracts the attention of one of scientists, Thea Ransome, and begins to take her over.

I won't go into the details of everything here. There are plenty of places to read about that. I do want to talk about what this one means to me.

So as I will mention on P day, in the 1980s, Doctor Who was shown on my local (St. Louis) PBS station. It was also on late on Sunday night, so to watch it I had to sneak it. So I never saw the Image of Fendahl in order. I would catch it here and there, and I of course people at school would talk about it. So the story of the episode was in my mind very different than what was on the screen.  I have also talked about how I would spend my paper route money on D&D books and Doctor Who books. So when I could I bought the Terrance Dicks novelization long before I ever saw it. But by then the ideas I had of it became deeply routed.

Also, this episode played into my keen interest into astronomy with the destruction (by the Time Lords no less) of a 5th planet between Mars and Jupiter, where the asteroid belt is now.

Occult Overtones

In the episode, there are various occult overtones. It was made in the later half of the 1970s so this is no surprise really.  The Fendahl skull had a pentagram in it. There was a pentagram involved in the ritual to recreate the gestalt creature.  Also there were in my young mind overtones of Jungian psychology here. Now I was already reading all this sort of stuff in the 80s so it blended in a heady brew of half-remembered, half-concocted ideas.  

Personally, I would not be surprised if there are ideas I generated then due to this that appear in my various witch books today.  Not a lot I am sure, but if I chased the right thread I bet it would lead me here. 

I have really been meaning to re-watch this one for some time. I know have seen it in the last 10 years or so. I recall watching it one winter while taking down our Geek-themed Christmas tree. But I really need to see it again.

That Wholock Crossover

Spend any time at all in Doctor Who fandom and you will run into people that want a Sherlock/Doctor Who crossover. Makes sense, both shows have similar sensibilities, a super-smart main character, and their companion, and both shows were (at the time) headed by Steven Moffat.  I even got on board with it after my own fashion. 

The Image of Fendahl has the best link to a Wholock crossover (besides the multiple appearances of Mark Gatiss).  Wanda Ventham who plays Thea Ransome is none other than Benedict "Sherlock" Cumberbatch's mother. He was just about 1 year old when this was filmed.

I'll need to see if I can find this anywhere to re-watch, I just checked my DVD collection and oddly enough I don't have it. 

ETA: Ok, I just grabbed on DVD (not BluRay) to go with my others here.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Earth

When you go back to the stars and tell others of this planet—when you tell them of its riches, its people, its potential— when you talk of the Earth. Then make sure that you tell them this: “It. Is. Defended.” 

- The Tenth Doctor, The Christmas Invasion

More than any other planet in all of time and space it is the Earth that is the Doctor's favorite. It was where The First Doctor and his granddaughter hid when they left Gallifrey. It was The Third Doctor's home in exile during the 1970s when he worked for U.N.I.T. It was the Earth he returned to time and time again.

The Ninth Doctor took Rose to the end of the Earth to watch the sun consume it. The Tenth Doctor took Donna to see the Earth form from rocks in space. The Eleventh Doctor then took Clara to see the Earth from formation to its end to get a picture of a slow-moving time traveler. 

Of course, there are a lot of practical reasons for this. The writers are most familiar with the Earth over all the other planets.  All the filming of Doctor Who is done on Earth, so the sets are already here. 

In-universe there are a lot of reasons are given. I have seen that Gallifrey has the same length of day and year as the Earth. And, of course, the people of the Earth look like Time Lords. A fact the Time Lords always found curious. That was never mentioned on the show, but in a few of the books and audio dramas do.

"You think it'll last forever, the people and cars and concrete. But it won't. One day it's all gone, even the sky."

- The Ninth Doctor, The End of the World

The Doctor mentioned time and time again how much he loves the Earth and humans. Even going as far as the Tenth Doctor falling in love with a human and the Eleventh Doctor marrying the (mostly) human daughter of Rory and Amy. 

Atraxi: You are not of this world.
The Doctor: No, but I’ve put a lot of work into it.

- The Eleventh Doctor, The Eleventh Hour

Good thing for us that he does!

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Daleks

"Do you know what they call me in the ancient legends of the Dalek homeworld? 'The Oncoming Storm'. You may have removed all your emotions, but I bet that deep down in your DNA there's one spark left, and that's fear. Doesn't it just burn when you face me?"

- The Ninth Doctor

More than any other creature the Doctor has faced, none have struck fear into the characters and the audiences quite like that of the Daleks.

The appeared in the very second Doctor Who story "The Daleks" a group of war mongering aliens on the planet Skaro. When the Doctor first encountered them they were still wagging a battle with their ancient enemies the Thals; two species that shared the same planet. We later learn in "Genesis of the Daleks" that the Thals and Kaleds had been fighting for a 1,000 years using every weapon they could from knives to atomic weapons. Here we see their creation as the Kaled leading scientist Davros, himself a victim of a nuclear blast, takes the Kaleds to their ultimate form, something they were already mutating into, and builds a shell for them to survive.  This shell is armed with sensors and advanced weapons, all to kill more Thals. 

From here the genetically and cyber-enhanced Kaleds, now known as Daleks, spread out to the cosmos to destroy all life that is not Dalek. 

While the Daleks of the old series never looked frightening, they were portrayed as such. So much so "that hiding behind the sofa when the Daleks came on" entered into the English cultural consciousness. And they have been voted the greatest monster of all time. This is even considering that the earliest Daleks rolled everywhere. There is a long-running joke that goes like "Daleks don't need to use stairs. They just level the building."

The revised new series brought back the Daleks and added the new concept of the Time War. This was a war the Daleks were in against the Time Lords. Over the course of the years we learned more and more. Like how the Time Lords and the Daleks wiped each other out. The Doctor played a major role in this War and finally how it was the Doctor that used the last weapon (The Moment) to end the war for good destroying both sides. The Time War became a focus of the new series and really made the Daleks feel more menacing. 

The old series used to equate the Daleks and the Cybermen. Both evil races, both cybernetically enhanced humanoids. But it was the new series that finally brought them together and erased all notions they were on equal footing.

The Daleks are so popular they have also been the subject of two non-canon Doctor Who films (called Dr. Who here): Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD. These starred Peter Cushing as "Dr. Who" and were based on the television serials The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth, respectively.

I would argue that is was the Daleks that made Doctor Who so popular. The first story, An Unearthly Child, was good, but it wasn't great. The next story, The Daleks, while quaint by our standards today, was a real attention-getter. I will also claim that the serials The Dalek Invasion of Earth and The Chase from the First Doctor helped cement them as worthy adversaries of the Doctor. And the 4th Doctor series, Genesis of the Daleks, the one that introduces Davros, is one of the best Doctor Who stories ever.

All incarnations of the Doctor have had to battle the Daleks. Well. We never see the 8th Doctor do it, he likely did, but he also tried to stay out of the Time War. His successor, The War Doctor, battled them extensively.

If your enemy has to rise to the level of the hero then it is no surprise then that the Daleks are as powerful, and as popular as the Doctor themself.

ETA: Elena Square Eyes is also doing Doctor Who for her A to Z, but she is focusing on the new series. Today she did the Christopher Eccleston episode "Dalek."  Pop over there and see what she has to say!

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Companions

 "When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it'll never end. But however hard you try you can't run forever. Everybody knows that everybody dies and nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever for one moment, accepts it."

- River Song

More than time and space, more than aliens, more than maybe even the TARDIS and the Sonic Screwdriver, it is the Companions that define the Doctor.

The role of the companion is dramatically a simple one. They are the eyes and the ears of the audience in the Doctor's world. They stand in for us. 

Historically the job of the Companion was to scream, to get captured, and ask "What is it, Doctor?"  Certainly, we saw a lot of that in the early years and even later on. But in 60 years the companions have changed with the times. Susan knew popular music, Jo Grant was very fashionable, Sarah Jane was a go-get-them reporter, and Leela...well I have to get back to her.  There is no way I can go through all the companions here, even all the ones I liked the most, but I will do some.

Susan - Susan is the Doctor's first companion and his granddaughter. Like the Doctor she is a Time Lord, though we don't see her doing much other than having knowledge of the future. She doesn't regenerate, as far as we have seen, but the actress Carol Anne Ford is still alive and could return.

Jamie McCrimmon - A companion of the Second Doctor Jaime breaks the stereotype of companions. First off he is male. Though he is still showing off some leg, since as a Highlander he wears a kilt. He has no problem talking back to the Doctor and has been a fan favorite for years. How much of a favorite? Well this is going to get it's own post later! He also has appeared in more episodes than any other companion. 

Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart - The Brig is another stereotype-breaking companion. First seen with the Second Doctor, he was there for all the Third's Doctor exile on Earth when they both worked for U.N.I.T. (yes, you guessed it, more on that later!) The Brig was no nonsense, by the book and was already tired of the Doctor's shenanigans. They butt heads all the time but there was obvious great respect and even love between them.  As he got older (and encountered the Fourth, Fifth, and Seventh Doctors) he showed his respect more. The Seventh and Twelfth Doctors in particular expressed their respect for the Brig.  Sadly the actor, Nicholas Courtney, passed in 2011. But the Brigadier's daughter, Kate Stewart, continues her father's (and the Doctor's) work as U.N.I.T.'s scientific advisor. 

Sarah Jane Smith - Sarah Jane. She started out as a companion to the Third Doctor and then the Fourth Doctor where she became one of the most favorited companions of all time. She was a reporter looking for a story about U.N.I.T.'s mysterious scientific advisor. She was so popular that she came back in the new series with the 10th Doctor and then again in her series with the 11th Doctor.  Sarah also was the only companion to get not just one, but two spin-off shows.

Honestly, seeing her come back with the 10th Doctor is one of the highlights of the new series. 

Leela - Leela was so different as a companion to what had come before she also gets her own post.

Romana I and II - I always like Romana. She was a Time Lord sent to help the Doctor recover the Key to Time.  She was smart, funny and was more than a match for the Doctor. At the end of her first season, she regenerated and Mary Tamm became Lalla Ward. I always had huge crush on Lalla Ward. I was not alone, since she and Fourth Doctor Tom Baker got married. Though they got divorced soon after. 

Adric - Ok. Now to be fair, I never liked Adric. I thought he was whiny and a jerk. I was also not alone in this. There is a rumor that when Tom Baker was filming his last scene where he regenerates into the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davidson) he turned to Matthew Waterhouse (Adric) and said "Adric, you're a cunt and always will be."  Ok. maybe harsh.  Adric is here though for his exit. Adric was killed off. The first time I ever saw that and I was in shock! Just killed and there was nothing the Doctor could do about it. 

Perpugilliam "Peri" Brown - Peri was a new companion for the Fifth Doctor and was unique in that she an American. I always thought it might be due to Doctor Who's growing popularity in America. She is also the only companion to call the Doctor (the Sixth Doctor now) an "asshole" I was shocked. But I also admit I had a bit of a crush on Nicola Bryant (she is not American at all I learned). 

When we last see Peri her mind and body are taken over by the villainous Kiv. King Yrcanos (played by the amazing and always over the top Brian Blessed) had fallen in love with Peri and ended killing her, Kiv and Sil, and everyone else.  I understand that this ending was her idea.  We later see Peri in 2022. She married Yrcanos and became known as the Warrior Queen.

Dorothy "Ace" Gale McShane - was a chemistry student bored with her life on Earth. She managed to whip up a Time Storm and was transported in time and space where she encounters the Seventh Doctor. Her story becomes central to the Seventh Doctor's as he investigates her past. She is more akin to modern companions really. Plus she liked to blow things up.

Rose Tyler - Rose was the first new companion of the rebooted series in 2005/6 and she was the perfect point of view character for new viewers. They can discover the Doctor's universe as she does. She was quite popular and I have to say I was very, very pleased she was not killed off. I talk more about her in my Bad Wolf post.

Capt. Jack Harkness - Capt. Jack almost got his own post. He brought many firsts to Doctor Who. He was an American played by an American (ok American-Scottish), he was openly pan-sexual, he may not have been all he seemed and was certainly not a "good guy" when he started. But he was changed (in a lot of ways) with his time with the Doctor and Rose and became a well loved character. So well loved he got his own spin-off Torchwood.

River Song - Ah. River. So much to say about her. So much, in fact, she is getting her own post.

Amy and Rory - The first married couple on the TARDIS and the best friends of the Doctor.  The chemistry between the three actors was amazing. Amy and Rory would leave the Doctor in a tragic way (no, they did not die). But their legacy lives on in the form of River Song and Rory "The Last Centurion" Williams.  Rory made every other husband in the universe look second-rate.

Clara Oswald - The Impossible Girl. She met the Doctor on the Dalek homeworld, where she died. Then she met him again in Victorian England...where she died.  And then again in London in modern times where...she didn't die, and traveled with the Doctor. When the Doctor was forced to go to his own grave and see the rip in time his death caused. Clara jumped in to save him but got lost in his own timestream. It was here we find the Doctor's darkest secret. That in between his 8th and 9th regeneration there was another Doctor...the War Doctor and it was he that destroyed the Daleks and Galifrey.

Bill Potts - Bill didn't walk the Earth, or absorb the heart of the TARDIS, she was just a girl that kept the Doctor grounded. She was also the first openly lesbian companion.  In the end, she was converted to a cyberman thanks to the Master, but she was rescued by a girl she had fallen in love with who had merged with a synthetic living fuel. She rescued Bill and then they traveled the universe together.  To give you an idea of the respect the writers gave these characters they were named Bill and Heather, named after William Hartnell (the First Doctor) and his wife Heather.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Bad Wolf

"No, no, in this form, I'm called...Bad Wolf. Are you afraid of the big bad wolf, Doctor?"

- The Moment in the form of Rose Tyler/Bad Wolf.

Bad Wolf was an "easter egg" / recurring theme/motif in the first season of the Doctor Who revival in 2005/2006.  The ninth Doctor (in his only season) and his companion, Rose Tyler, kept running into the words "Bad Wolf" wherever they went in Time and Space.

At first, it seemed it was all the places where the Doctor was going, but in the end, it was revealed to be Rose. During the final episode of the season, the Doctor has to face off alone against the enemy he thought he had destroyed, the Daleks. So to protect Rose, he sent her to the TARDIS and had it take her home to 2006. 

Rose, not wanting to leave the Doctor behind and not knowing how to operate the Doctor's TARDIS (his time machine, come back on T-day for that!) forces the console open and accidentally absorbs the heart of the TARDIS. Which is essentially, a contained black hole.  She takes the TARDIS back to the future where the Doctor is about to be killed by the Daleks (again, come back on D-day for those guys) and... well it is spoilery if you have not seen it, but it is a great scene.

What is significant here is Bad Wolf/Rose's line "the Time War ends."  When we next see the Bad Wolf in the 50th Anniversary episode it/she is the interface for a weapon known as The Moment. A weapon that the War Doctor (the one before the Ninth) was going to use to end the Time War.

Time travel, especially in Doctor Who, is never a straight line. It is, as the Tenth Doctor would say a "big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff."

What is great about Bad Wolf is how the Companions of Doctor Who would come to be viewed by the Doctor in this new refresh of the series. This would give us such companions as Martha (the girl who walked the Earth), Donna (the most important woman in the universe), Amy (the girl who waited) and Clara (the Impossible Girl). And, of course, River Song. But she gets her own day.  And in 2006 after dealing with the toxic way Whedon treated his characters and actors this was a breath of fresh air. EVERYONE thought Russel T. Davies was going to kill off Rose, but no. He did the opposite. 

The Bad Wolf would make other appearances, but never like that first season. Likely good too, the times she has shown up again have usually meant the end of the Universe. 

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who The 3 Doctors

Sunday is not a normal posting day for the A to Z Challenge, but I always use Sundays as "Special Topics." This challenge will be no different.  Plus Sundays were the day Doctor Who was on for me in the 1980s, so it has always been "Doctor Who day" for me.

For my Sundays, I am going to talk about the various Multi-Doctor episodes, ones that have more than one Doctor in them. Since this is our first Sunday, I am going to start with the first multi-Doctor story, the 10th Anniversary "The Three Doctors."

The Three Doctors aired from December 1972 to January 1973 during the time of Jon Pertwee's run as the Third Doctor.

The story involves a lost member of the Time Lords, Omega, the engineer who figured out how to harness the power of a black hole to give the Time Lords enough power to be able to travel in time and space. Believed lost he existed in an "anti-matter" universe created by his own force of will. He began draining all the power from Gallifrey (the Doctor's home world) and leaving the Time Lords helpless. The only one not affected was The Doctor who was on Earth in exile.

The Time Lords realized that only the Doctor had a chance of stopping Omega, but not a great one, so they figured if one Doctor had a chance, then two Doctors had double the chance, even if it meant breaking the First Law of Time. Something even a renegade like the Doctor was unwilling to do himself.

The story was a great one to be honest and I recently had the chance to rewatch it.  William Hartnell even got to reprise his role of the First Doctor, despite being in very ill health. The rapport between Patrick Troughton (the Second Doctor) and Jon Pertwee (the Third Doctor) was just so much fun it made me wish we could have seen more of them together. 

It also set the stage for more multi-Doctor shows to occur for the anniversaries of the show, though not always.  

Complaining about the special effects from the time feels like a cheap shot, so I will not do it, instead, I want to focus on the story and the acting. Nicholas Courtney was at his very best as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. He played the role with such convincing annoyance at the Doctor (all of them) and confusion he stole every scene he was in. Katy Manning was wonderful as always as Jo, and John Levene gave us his typical strong turn as Sergeant Benton.  Though I understand Frazer Hines was due to return as the Second Doctor's companion Jaime and that would have been fun. Thankfully Frazer, and Jaime, get to come back later, and he has some lasting appeal even today.

This is also an interesting one for me. In the 1980s I read all the Doctor Who books I could get my hands on and this was one of the ones I read long before I ever saw it. My mental image of everything was different than what we got on screen, but I was not disappointed.

Sadly this was William Hartnell's last acting role and his health was so poor that his role here was only in cameos. He later died in 1975.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.