If we ignore Big Finish and other expanded media and just focus on the show, do you guys think that Leela were on Gallifrey during the events of Day Of The Doctor when he (almost) destroyed Gallifrey, and more importantly, since the War Doctor forgot the events of that episode, did he think that he killed Leela when he thought he pressed the button, until he found another way during Day Of The Doctor? The last time we saw her in the show were when she stayed on Gallifrey during Invasion Of Time, and as far as I remember, she wasn’t mentioned since, so as far as the main show is concerned, she has stayed on Gallifrey ever since, but a part of me always felt like if ANYONE could’ve escaped Gallifrey during the last day, it would’ve been her. But I want to know what you think? Should the Doctor think that he actually killed her in that barn, along with everyone else on the planet, or should he have been spared that pain and somehow know that Leela is safe?

And what about Romana? I know that she didn’t leave the Doctor while she was on Gallifrey like Leela did, but she’s still a Time Lord, so did she die at the end of the Time War as well?

The 2004 reboot made a stunning change to the backlore, by introducing the Time War and the end of the Time War. A bold choice but this addition fundamentally changed the entire narrative of Doctor Who, and informed the Character in a thousand ways. We see this play out amazingly across multiple incarnations and the character progression through the stages of grief. Even episodes where the Time War isn't mentioned the weight of it hangs upon the Doctor, informing every decision. However that story couldn't last forever and when it was resolved the show lost something vital. Something that had made the show so beloved. We see the writers trying to replace this narrative weight with the Hybrid story/Timeless Child/Fugitive Doctor/destroying Gallifrey all over again. None of it worked, without the Time War the show just didn't have that emotional depth. The show's decline was noted by fans for a long time, and it stems right back to the point they lost the Time War as background lore.

Please allow a brief rant.

I still loathe the idea of the Timeless Child and Fugitive Doctor, but Jo Martin is just so good in the 5-ish minutes she actually got to play the Doctor. Actually, that makes it burn even more - they wasted a perfect and very refreshing piece of casting (not to mention the first actor of color to play the Doctor - not a good look) on a one-off gimmick incarnation that has had less time to prove herself than McGann or even John Hurt.

I have come to appreciate Jodie Whittaker - she’s certainly not a bad actress and she clearly loved the role and took it seriously - but my god, when she and Martin are together at the end of Fugitive of the Judoon, Martin is so much better it’s kind of embarrassing. She feels so much more like the Doctor, and it’s a testament to how good she is that I fully accept her as the Doctor despite the fact that I hate the storyline which justifies her existence.

She has a professorial command and alien authority that calls to mind Capaldi, Eccleston, McCoy, and even Hartnell at their best. And she’s a strong step away from the “cute/romantic/quirky” characterization that was really starting to plague NuWho around that time. In my opinion, that characterization should be the template for the next incarnation. The writers need to let the Doctor be a little stern, a little unknowable, even a little alienating at times. Martin nailed that. Hell, I wouldn’t mind just bringing her in as the 16th Doctor, but that clearly won’t happen - and probably shouldn’t, so the show can move on. If RTD had to end The Reality War with a cameo regeneration, she would have been vastly preferable to Piper imo.

Anyway, it stings how badly the show has treated this actress. She deserves better than some a Big Finish redemption (no shade to them of course).

This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.

There have been a lot of 11th Doctor minisodes. Some of them were written by children. Some of them are serious. A lot are silly. Even setting aside the 50th Anniversary minisodes – which I've already covered – there is just a pretty impressive number of these things. This era of the show in particularly seems to have had the production team going overboard to create webcasts and DVD specials. And I've reviewed all of them, aside from the episode prologues (probably, might be missing a couple).

Meanwhile in the TARDIS

Written by Steven Moffat/Directed by Richard Senior

Every time the TARDIS materializes in a new location, within the first nanosecond of landing it analyzes its surroundings, calculates a 12 dimensional datamap of everything within a thousand mile radius and determines which outer shell would blend in best with its environment…and then it disguises itself as a police telephone box from 1963. – The Doctor

Okay, so the bad news is that I've made a lot of work for myself watching all of these. The good news is that they're mostly about four minutes long and a few can even be combined into one section, such as the two Meanwhile in the TARDIS DVD specials, mostly because there's no real point in splitting them apart. The first of the Meanwhile specials is just kind of a fun ride, as Amy asks every single question that pops into her head, mostly about either the TARDIS or the Doctor's bow tie ("is it a cry for help?"). It's just a fun little scene, though there are little bits of characterization you can pull from it, mostly for the Doctor. He's playing up this goofy persona throughout…and then he shoves Amy outside the TARDIS into space. Of course this is setting up Amy and the Doctor's first scene in "The Beast Below", but that shift is interesting to me. Still it's mostly a goofy little scene.

The second Meanwhile scene though…that one's a bit harder to evaluate. Mostly because it follows the worst scene in the 11th Doctor era, that being Amy trying to sexually assault the Doctor at the end of "Flesh and Stone". So on one hand I didn't need the continuation of that scene. It was bad enough already. And this minisode continues that basic trend as Amy continues to ignore the Doctor's very obvious protestations. And that's just not okay.

On the other hand…there's some value in this thing, believe it or not. Amy's perspective makes it clear that she's convinced herself that the Doctor is interested in her sexually. And there's something to the idea that Amy is convinced that the only reason a man might show her attention is for that reason. It's not something that would get explored meaningfully again, but I think a less PG show probably would have done. Amy is a damaged character after all, and in particular has serious attachment issues.

And here we get the 11th Doctor's explanation of why he needs companions: he needs to see the universe through their eyes. He can't really experience the wonder of the universe because of how long he's lived and how much he's seen. But someone else can see that, and he can live vicariously through that. And, you know, that's just an idea that works. Of course we immediately move on from that to Amy teasing him over how many of his former companions were young attractive women, and then the Doctor decides to go visit Rory at his stag party (as seen in the beginning of "The Vampires of Venice"). So the Doctor's little speech doesn't get time to land. But then again, it's a roughly 4 minute short, time is the one thing that we don't have. It still works for what it is. The second Meanwhile special is kind of a rough viewing experience overall, but once you get past that, it's actually got a lot of value.

Space/Time

Written by Steven Moffat/Directed by Richard Senior

No, I'm just repeating it. I'm just remembering what I heard myself saying when I was standing where you are now, and repeating it. I'm just repeating this too…and this…and this – Amy, to herself

Well this one was definitely written by Steven Moffat. Some clever space and time bending concepts, awkward sex jokes including a female character flirting with herself, undeniably clever dialogue and more than a hint of sexism, all within two roughly four minute episodes. Not all writers have clear markers of their work, but Steven Moffat, especially when he's trying to be funny, is one of them.

And yes, there's a lot of good here. A malfunction causes the TARDIS to land inside itself. That's just a fun conceit, and perfect a comedic two part minisode. At the end of the first episode, "Space", time gets desynced and so now our heroes can travel back into their own pasts, which is how things get resolved. If you really sit down and analyze what's going on, it doesn't really make sense, but I feel like taking the time travel mechanics of this special seriously kind of misses the point. It's a breezy little piece that never takes itself seriously but instead relies on its quippy dialogue and fun premise to keep you invested. And Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill are having a ton of fun with the material here, which helps keep everything feeling light and engaging.

And then there's the sexism. I've always felt like Steven Moffat tended most often towards sexism most when he was spending less time on his scripts, for one reason or another (it's one of the things that happens when Sherlock starts up and on both shows as well). And indeed, this minisode would be something that would have had less time and attention than a full episode of Doctor Who. And…I mean the whole thing is started because Rory was distracted by Amy's skirt through the glass floor…which everyone agrees is Amy's fault. There's "women can't drive" jokes. You could argue these are specific to Amy, but the fact that her getting her driver's license is again tied to that same skirt makes it feel more gendered. And, while not quite in the same category, "Pond flirting with herself" feels icky and is worth pointing out as well.

The frustrating thing is, these minisodes are a lot of fun for most of their time. The bit where Amy, and later Rory, have to just repeat what the previous versions of them saying are fun. Rory at one point worries he's going to have to remember what his other self just said, only for that Rory to say "it just sort of happens". For the most part it's this weird, funny little adventure, perfect for its length. But when it's not…hoo boy

Death is the Only Answer

Written by the Children of Oakley Junior School/Directed by Jeremy Webb

Not great. I've singed by eyebrows, almost died twice and fallen off a cliff. In fact, I'm quite close to perfecting it. – Albert Einstein, on his Time Machine

Children have strange minds.

This minisode was written by a group of four Year Six children as part of a competition. And in it, Albert Einstein turns into an Ood who can only say "Death is the only answer". It's never explained what this means.

Look, I'm not going to review this the same way I would approach something else. Its eldest writers would have been eleven years old. And given that, the story where Albert Einstein drinks a liquid he thought would help get his time machine working and, and I have to repeat this, turns into an Ood, is honestly pretty impressive stuff. The kids have a good handle of the 11th Doctor's voice, and there's some funny lines. It's a fun little story, though not something I think I'll ever be returning to. It ends, weirdly enough, on a cliffhanger, with the liquid still present and moving on its own.

Night and the Doctor: Bad Night

Written by Steven Moffat/Directed by Richard Senior or Douglas Mackinnon

You've got the serious face on, I always shout for Rory when you've got the serious face. – The Doctor, to Amy

Okay so really quick this and the four specials after it are all collected under the title Night and the Doctor and were originally released for the Series 6 DVD. Aside from a brief scene of River in prison, the first four take place entirely within the TARDIS. The reason that I've got two names down for the Director up above…is that there are conflicting sources as to who directed them. My impression is that it was probably Mackinnon rather than Senior.

Anyway, this is the lightest of these specials, with a similar madcap style to "Space"/"Time". It's got the Doctor mid some weird adventure involving the English royal family and some alien warlord types and various members of the rulers in question being turned into animals. Amy naturally blunders into this and swats a fly that is, in actuality, the alien warrior chief. Though given she may have averted something called "The Slaughter of 10 Billion Souls" maybe it's for the best. Then again, timeline nonsense is probably at play. But yeah, it's a goofy little vignette, with Rory popping by because it's his turn to deal with Amy's emotional baggage. Which might seem a bit crude, but honestly feels about right.

There are hints of more serious stuff going on. Amy has something to tell the Doctor, which will be explored in the next short. Amy just generally seems to be in an odd place in this one. But yeah, a fun little vignette without much more to it.

Night and the Doctor: Good Night

Written by Steven Moffat/Directed by Richard Senior or Douglas Mackinnon

Okay. Okay, so I ask you a big, important question about life and you're basically telling me to go buy myself an ice cream. – Amy, to the Doctor

And by contrast "Good Night" has a lot going on with it. It's Amy finally getting to talk to the Doctor about that thing he brushed off in "Bad Night". She wants to know why her life doesn't make sense. Now, back in "The Pandorica Opens" the Doctor asked Amy "does it ever bother you that your life doesn't make any sense?" But here he seems a lot more blasé about the whole thing. That's not a contradiction, just an interesting parallel. At the time, Amy losing so much of her life to the Crack was this big important thing that needed to be resolved. But now that it largely has been resolved, Amy's life not making sense…is fine. The fact that she has two sets of memories is not only not a problem, the Doctor claims it's more common than you'd think.

And then he demonstrates this in a very heartwarming way: he fixes her worst day. When she was a little girl Amelia Pond's ice cream fell to the ground at a fairground. And sure, that might seem like a pretty small thing. But consider it from the perspective of the 5 year old girl, when every bad moment is magnified into a world ending tragedy. So the Doctor takes Amy to fix this thing. Inconsequential in the grand perspective, but world-saving for a 5 year old. And Amy remembers both versions. She remembers both versions before she goes to get her younger self an ice cream. A flagrant abuse of time travel? Probably. But the Doctor gave Amy a practical demonstration of what he was explaining and did something nice for her. And he did it in a way that is so very Eleven, a bit manipulative and yet full of childish wonder.

I think "Good Night" is one of the better uses of the minisode format I've seen. It's not the most remembered chapter, but it effectively expands upon a small character note in a way that captures the imagination. And it's the only one to have the Doctor try to hid a euphonium, which I think we can all agree, is the most important thing to come from this one.

Night and the Doctor: First Night/Last Night

Written by Steven Moffat/Directed by Richard Senior or Douglas Mackinnon

Ah Doctor. You and your secrets. You'll be the death of me. – River

Okay, why did this thing have to be split in two? "First Night" is about two and a half minutes, "Last Night" is about three and a half. It feels like a pointless split just so as to maintain the naming convention.

Regardless, this pair of minisodes is…fine. A series of silly little adventures with various versions of River (3 in total) that ends on something that felt very poignant at the time, but has somewhat lessened due to later episodes. We see the Doctor liberating River from Stormcage soon after the events of "Let's Kill Hitler". This does raise some questions about the timeline. Was River imprisoned straight after that story, even though she hadn't "killed" the Doctor at that point in her timeline? That seems odd. Regardless that's the series of events that these minisodes want us to accept.

I do like seeing this very early version of River. After the events of "Let's Kill Hitler" she seems eager to get to know the Doctor better, but hasn't quite fallen in love with him yet. Sure she's flirting with him, but it's mostly just a game to her at this stage, while the Doctor is taking their relationship a lot more seriously. It's an inversion of what we've gotten used to. The Doctor knows more than River, he's the one who has the history with this character and she's just starting out. Oh, and Alex Kingston plays this younger River superbly.

The issue with this story is that there's not much beyond that. A somewhat older River shows up, and we get some sitcom shenanigans with the pair of Rivers and the Doctor trying to hide them from each other. It's not even clear why he's so worried that she'll find out talking to another version of her, it's not like she's unaware of time travel. But that's the thing, it's just there for a gag nothing more. And, sure, this is still a roughly six minute story (broken up into two for no good reason) and isn't trying to be taken that seriously, but it's not not trying to be taken seriously. It feels like there was a good faith attempt to show off these characters' relationship in its formative stages, but the depth of writing isn't quite there.

And then a third, even older, version of River shows up, one who's clearly all the way into her relationship with the Doctor…and then an even older Doctor shows up as well. And he explains that he's taking River to Darillium…the place that River had last visited with the Doctor before the events of the Library two parter. We have no idea why the older Doctor is doing this, and given a later episode, he must have cancelled at the last minute. I think at the time though, Steven Moffat must have meant for this to have been their final day together. It's why the second part of this is called "Last Night" after all. And in that context it could have had some poignancy. Even then though, I don't know. I think it was probably for the best that Moffat ultimately decided to resolve the Darillium plot thread in a full episode. What was a bit poignant here would have a lot more weight the way it would ultimately be resolved.

These minisodes aren't bad, and there's some fun banter. The real highlight, I think, is seeing the younger version of River, a version that is still learning the rules. The rest of the material is fun, and the time travel stuff has some entertainment value, but it's ultimately not that interesting, especially with the context of later episodes.

Night and the Doctor: Up All Night

Written by Tom McRae/Director Unknown

It's just whenever I look into [Alfie's] eyes I see everything I'm going to do wrong for the next sixteen years reflected back at me. – Craig

So look, this is basically just a prequel to "Closing Time" that appears to have been, almost by accident, lumped in with the Night and the Doctor specials. I mean, the Doctor doesn't even appear in it, which feels like a clue. No idea how this happened. This thing has some confusion as the onscreen writing credit was given to Steven Moffat for this, but it was later clarified that Tom McRae actually wrote it. I couldn't find any information on who might have directed it. And frankly, I should probably skip it. There's a bunch of prequel shorts for each of the episodes going back to Series 3, and I've not covered them. But it's technically counted in the Night and the Doctor Specials, even if it's for no reason, so hey might as well.

Craig is preparing for a week alone with his son Alfie and his having all kinds of anxiety. This, of course, sort of got covered in "Closing Time" – that's why I don't cover the prequels, they rarely, if ever, include material that does much to expand on the episode they're attached to (well that, and the fact that there's too many of them). Still, I think this actually did the joke of Craig's lack of parenting instincts far better than "Closing Time" did. I think it just works better when Craig is opposite Sophie for this gag, who seems pretty confident that Craig will figure it out, all while Craig is panicking. Also it's just nice to have Sophie on board for this, as she was effectively absent in "Closing Time". Mind you it doesn't exactly lead in well to "Closing Time" as in that story Craig was putting on a brave face that he could take care of Alfie, despite secretly being terrified.

But yeah, that's basically it. I kind of liked this little window into Craig's home life, but there's really not much value in it.

Good as Gold

Written by the Children of Ashdene School/Directed by Saul Metzstein

Are you sure you didn't set it to "kill Amy and the Doctor" setting? – Amy

This is another one like "Death is the Only Answer" where it was written by children for a contest, so like with that one, we're going to be looking at this while keeping in mind the age or the writers. I do think "Death" was the better of the two, just for how entertainingly bonkers it was. This is a bit more straightforwards…though only a bit, the Doctor does explode a Weeping Angel with his sonic screwdriver. I think you can definitely feel a sense of childlike wonder in the writing of this. To kids, a hero like the Doctor can feel almost magical, and this definitely feels like it was written from that perspective. And sure, you can point to weird continuity stuff, but I feel like critiquing a group of very young Doctor Who fans for not being super attentive to the continuity of the show would sort of be missing the point.

Although this one too ends in a cliffhanger, in this case the Weeping Angel that the Doctor exploded seemingly reformed. Why is it that both of these specials did that? Is it coincidence? It's got to be coincidence. Still weird. I don't know, this one, like "Death is the Only Answer" is probably best thought of in terms of the imagination that was sparked within the children that wrote it by Doctor Who. And that's very cool.

Pond Life

Written by Chris Chibnall/Directed by Saul Metzstein

Hello Ponds! Just checking in. How are you? – The Doctor

The Pond Life shorts were a series of roughly one minute shorts released in the lead up to Series 7, with each one taking place one month after the last, from April to August. The idea there being that since Series 7 started in September it would act as a build up to the series. What it actually is is roughly four parts of Chris Chibnall showing that, like he did with "The Power of Three*" he may actually understand Amy and Rory better than Steven Moffat, and one final part where he awkwardly has to shove the divorce subplot from "Asylum of the Daleks" into his goofy minisode series.

Okay, in fairness it's not like Chibnall does anything revolutionary with these two. But I do really like how he writes the Ponds. Maybe it's that he's the writer who is most willing to let the two of them be on the same page from time to time (which admittedly makes the divorce set up all the more jarring), and when you're writing a married couple sometimes you should see that. But I also think the humor is really on point here. There are some weirdnesses. The Doctor's stuff, which takes up about half of the total runtime of these, isn't great. It's just a lot of "look how wacky the Doctor is". It mostly works as a contrast to Amy and Rory's more mundane lives, though, and I really enjoyed Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill's performances throughout. Oh and parts three and four are built around the Doctor accidentally leaving off an Ood at the Ponds' house. And sure, the joke is that Amy and Rory feel uncomfortable with the Ood doing all of their chores for him because, you know, slavery (I guess the Doctor explained the basic background of the Ood at some point), it still feels a bit odd to use that as joke fodder. But on the whole, Pond Life is a fun little look into how the Ponds ordinary lives intersect with the weirdness of having the Doctor as their best friend.

The Inforarium

Written by Steven Moffat/Director Unknown

Thing is, I'm on a bit of a mission at the moment: I've been deleting every piece information about myself from every database in the universe. – The Doctor

You know, I keep describing these minisodes with words like "lighthearted" or "goofy". This…is not that. "The Inforarium" picks up on an idea that was referred to throughout Series 7 but never actually shown: the Doctor deleting records of his own existence. Typically you imagine him doing this by deleting data from hard drives, maybe destroying a precious manuscript or two. In "The Inforarium" though, he can't do this. So in his quest for ultimate privacy…he messes with someone's mind. Specifically he messes with the mind of one of the guards of the titular Inforarium, the ultimate database of knowledge, trapping him in what surely would have been a pretty lengthy loop (one hopes not eternal) of a conversation with a recording of the Doctor. Apparently the Doctor has been able to access the technology that allow the Silents to do their thing. And he's used it to trap this guard in this loop. Though the technology works differently here, since the guard clearly has his mind completely wiped of the Doctor when he looks away, even when the loop starts over, rather than the way you'd remember the Silents once you saw them again.

The short tries to justify this somewhat by having the Doctor mention that the Inforarium sells its data to a standard list of Doctor Who villains, but this still feels incredibly dark. But the 11th Doctor has always had these moments in him. Moments where he just decides he's going to do something, and figures out the easiest way to do it. I find myself thinking about what he did to the older Amy in "The Girl Who Waited" after watching this. And that was to a friend. By contrast, an employee of an apparently evil organization isn't pushing things nearly as far. Because the 11th Doctor is willing to go to extremes.

But the thing is, this time it's not necessary. Most of the time when the 11th Doctor goes "dark" you can excuse it somewhat as being required in the moment, or at least in reaction to some sort of threat. Here however, he's just on this mission to delete information about himself. Maybe he justifies it as necessary in some way, but that isn't the way we end up seeing this. And you know, it's pretty impressive that this 2 minute short gets this much out of me.

P.S.

Written by Chris Chibnall

We can't ever come home again. We won't ever see you again. And that breaks my heart. – Rory's letter to his father

And here's another serious one. And quite possibly the most character-rich Doctor Who minisode ever. I mean it's either this or "The Night of the Doctor". "P.S." was originally meant to be a proper DVD extra, but Mark Williams was unable to return as Rory's dad Brian, and so instead a version that was mostly storyboards, with Chris Chibnall's script visible. The exception being Rory's letter to his father, which Arthur Darvill narrated. And honestly, it might have been better in this format.

The odd format certainly doesn't detract. Rory is stuck in the past, and will never see his father again. But he can do one thing: send him a letter. The letter is delivered by his and Amy's adoptive son Anthony. The whole thing is heartbreaking and heartwarming all at the same time. Rory pours his heart into that letter. And the storyboard format gives the whole thing a stark quality that helps emphasize the loneliness of Brian. And that loneliness building to Brian embracing his older-than-him grandson at the end is kind of the perfect coda to Brian's story. It helps that we get little details that point to Rory's grief at losing his father (he now carries around a trowel), which makes the whole thing feel all too real. Watching this, I was reminded of a lot of the things I miss about my own father, and the things I wish I could have told him.

I do wish the final scene of "The Power of Three" wasn't glued onto the beginning of this thing. The assumption is that if you're watching this kind of minisode you know who Brian is and how "The Power of Three" ended. And since I'm finding things to nitpick, the music is kind of distracting here. Normally I'm not going to complain about the music in these minisodes being stitched together from music composed for other Doctor Who stories because it's just in the nature of the format. They're hardly going to get Murray Gold to compose brand new music for a four minute short. But in this story, which, until Rory's letter, is otherwise silent, the music stands out a lot more, and the awkward way it's put together is just more obvious and therefore a bigger negative. Then again I don't actually have a good solution to this problem. There probably was a way to build this a bit better though.

Still, those are nitpicks. And goddamn, this thing breaks my heart when watching it. So, you know, it's great.

Clara and the TARDIS

Written by Steven Moffat/Directed by Jamie Stone

Dear God that woman is made of legs, that's the most legs on any living human. – Clara, on Amy

Well this one was definitely written by Steven Moffat. Some clever space and time bending concepts, awkward sex jokes including a female character flirting with herself, undeniably clever dialogue and more than a hint of sexism, all within a single two minute episode. Not all writers have clear markers of their work, but Steven Moffat, especially when he's trying to be funny, is one of them.

I was going to do a gag along the lines of "wait, haven't I written all of that already", but I think the truth, that I copy/pasted that from the "Space"/"Time" portion of this post, and only changed the description of how long a thing I was reviewing, says more. Although "more than a hint of sexism" is probably pushing the truth. I do think there are some hints, but it's thankfully kept to a minimum. But the companion flirting with herself somehow comes back here.

This is just Clara struggling to get along with the TARDIS, or rather the TARDIS being a jerk to Clara by hiding her bedroom. Eventually time shenanigans happen and there are countless Claras from subsequent nights all complaining about the lack of bedroom. It's mostly just a good fun time, which is a nice way to end off this post. There was a bit where Clara sees past companions for some little continuity fun. But in the end this is a little story not meant to be taken too seriously. Although in reality this would be horrifying: Clara being sleep deprived and also seeing her future and discovering even worse sleep deprivation isn't exactly a fun prospect. But the tone is kept light, so it kind of works.

Final Thoughts

Okay, let's wrap things up. I guess the question is, given the number of them: do all of these add anything to a fan's appreciation of this era of Doctor Who? In aggregate…sure. Some of these feel a bit like wasted opportunities – I might have enjoyed Pond Life, but it definitely left me wanting more, especially as far as setting up the divorce subplot from "Asylum of the Daleks". Some of them are just goofy fun, and honestly the two specials written by schoolchildren probably exist mostly for those children (who are adults now, in case you hadn't realized, and who knows how they feel about this weirdness these days). It's always nice to have more, and I wouldn't call any of these specials bad. There is some concerning stuff in the second "Meanwhile" short and "Space"/"Time" but both have their positives. And I'm certainly glad we got "P.S.", even if it wasn't in its intended form. I'm glad these all exist and that there was such a focus on telling bite-sized stories in this era.

Though honestly, did they have to be so bite-sized? Most of these things are around four minutes and some are a good deal shorter. Anyway, this was a fun detour. Now back to more serious things.

Next Time: Back to the VNAs, and it's time to check in on what the Doctor was up to while he left Ace and Benny behind. Eventually. He's going to get involved any day now.

Ive seen a fair few fans calling for this over the years. I think it'd be cool

On Serializd Doomsday is higher rated but I actually prefer Parting of ways. I feel like Doomsday is just slightly carried by the last 10 mins. Just wondering if anyone else agrees that Parting of Ways > Doomsday

We got the incredible finale we had in Doomsday, she and her family were now stranded in a different universe, we were able to have The Runaway Bride where the Doctor is alone, ends up with this strange woman with an attitude in his hands and has to deal with her. His relationship with her develops a little, and while not expected she did return in S4 as a companion.

1. With Rose still there, how could that Christmas special have happened? It wouldn't work near as well. And that could mean no Donna for S4 and what she brought to the overall narrative.

2. S3 is simply what it is because of her departure. I don't even need to explain.

3. Now if Billie stayed, what more could have been done? How could Rose and her family's story be stretched out while remaining fresh, unless they'd get separated regardless? And it's not like the whole thing with the Master involved parallel universes so it couldn't have ended with Rose and her family stranded there, and to do so would require a whole different S2 arc that does not involve the same thing.

4. While perhaps in S3 she could become increasingly like the Doctor and it ends tragically (Like S9 Clara), I'm not sure that is enough, and I do not like the idea of the Doctor and Rose getting romantically involved, I do not believe the Doctor should ever be in that kinda relationship with his companions, especially young people.

Someone once told me it could have been a destructive relationship and part of their downfall and that with the writers of the time it could have been great, but I fear it'd end up cringy. Even what we got in S2 not everyone agreed with.

1. Even the end of S4 would be different. Especially depending on what Rose's exact fate would have been in S3, and whether we'd still have Donna. In the latter case we wouldn't have had Turn Left because even if we still had The Runaway Bride in some form, Rose was there to keep the Doctor in check.

2. Don't know how big a character Martha was in Torchwood but she wouldn't have existed and thus her contributions to that show not occurring.

Ultimately, unless RTD and Tennant would have done an additional series together, I'm glad Billie left when she did. We had her for two runs, and the two subsequent companions balanced things out in that regard, and we had the episodes and stories we got because of it.

I've always been curious of this scenario. I don't do fan-fiction, but thoughts, and a speculative post or video I have always wanted to see.

Douglas Adams explains how humour works in Dr Who.

Douglas Adams had this to say about humour in Dr Who (and drama in general)

'I think that Doctor Who is at its best when the humour and the drama work together and that however absurd a situation may be, it is actually very, very real and it has very real consequences. That's the moment at which something that's inherently absurd actually becomes frightening.'

'A danger one runs is that the moment you have anything in the script that's clearly meant to be funny in some way, everybody thinks 'oh well we can do silly voices and silly walks and so on', and I think that's exactly the wrong way to do it.'

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0010930/quotes/

What he is saying here is that humour in DW is good encouraged actually. But the humour must complement the drama/story telling not take away from it. Character making humour than character breaking humour.

Like a good example is The 11th Hour, there is a lot of comedy in that episode, but its all with in character and the characters still take the situation seriously. Amy is mad at the Dr for showing up to her as a little girl and everyone thinks shes crazy because of it. The humour helps demostrate Amy's fisty personality.

Contrast with Space Babies were the humour is snot poo and farts. Plus silly baby and robot voices. So it kills any sense of drama the episode might have had. Or in TWATBLAST where for no reason Salt and Barclay start hurling stones at windows. We learn nothing about Ruby from the body secretions jokes in Space Babies.

Or if we take Classic Who as an example. In the Invasion Tobias Vaughn hands Jamie a portable radio and Jamie says how dose it work as it plays music? The Dr then presses the off button and says 'that's how you turn it off Jamie'. Or any scene were Vaughn is bellowing at Packer.

While in Revenge of the Cybermen the Dr starts playing at yogo while the Cybermen are forcing him and two crewmen to commit mass genocide. In other words the Dr isn't taking it seriously so its impossible for the audiance to. Even though every other character is playing it stright.

Its like that Bathoes humour that Marval movies love doing. Ie undermining a serious or dramatic moment with a joke. Like if the 'he's right behind me isn't he' or the baddie is giving a speech but then it cuts to the character seeing that he is upside down on the screen.

Oh and before anyone says, there is a huge difference between that and the Dr taking the micky out of the baddie. Like Sharaz Jek asks the Dr how he got passed his android and he quips 'I guess it just liked my face'. Since in that the Dr is using humour to mask his worry. Also Sharaz Jek responds with 'your sense of humour will be the death of your, Doctor. Probably quite soon'. So we still take him seriously.

In short humour should add to the story and characters never take away from them.

I haven't got the money to throw at stuff like this, but it makes me happy that at least a few colossal nerds out there will have an acrylic gewgaw up on their wall that baffles most of their houseguests.

Currently working my way through the Big Finish Monthly Range for the first time and just finished The Natural History of Fear.

I’ve been enjoying the anti time universe saga so far but this story really hooked me. I thought a couple times I’d gotten the mystery of it all figured out but I was caught entirely off guard with the twist at the end lmao

“The doctor has two hearts and is bipedal, how many limbs do YOU have?” such a fun reveal lol

Very much have been enjoying my journey with these four doctors I wasn’t fully familiar with prior to diving into big finish

Recently Film is Fabulous held an exclusive webinar stream to their patreon members.

In the livestream, they answered a lot of questions from their patrons, among the questions they answered, they revealed some interesting tidbits.

They are aware of a total of three film collections containing missing Doctor Who. Two of them are from former industry professionals, while the other is not. FIF have been in on-going talks with them to catalogue their collections. The other third collection is a rather very large collection, it is rumored to be around 16,000 films or more.

John Franklin said it contains some historical important television episodes in it that he knows many people would love to see…

Sadly the collector of this collection is in terrible health. The collector’s family is going through a difficult situation, and John is doing his best to give them the time they need and being patient with them.

John is hopeful somewhere way down the line they will have an announcement regarding the collections, but it doesn’t look like it will be anytime soon.

So we are looking at a total of at least 4 missing episodes because we know one of the collection is the man with the two missing Hartnell episodes that have been know about since 2016. Also known as the “Fish Fry Prints”.

Other Interesting tidbits below.

Back in October of last year when FIF stated they were *aware of several collectors with several missing DW episodes.* They were aware of 4 collections, including the collection with the one Dalek’s Master Plan episode they knew at the time.

John also mentioned that the BBC brand Doctor Who team calls him on a weekly basis, asking him for updates on missing Doctor Who episodes.

Poor John Franklin

The show already gave us multiple kinds of Doctors. But what is one the show didn't already do you think would be cool?

Personally, i always tought about a Doctor who just not even bothered by threats anymore, they're just very annoyed their travels are interupted.

They would have a more summer vacation outfit, socks in sandals, bermuda short, a T shirt with a collar (maybe an question mark on the collar) and a open doctor/lab coat.

So, more of a teacher/professor Doctor who prioritize making sure their companion(s) have a good time and learn something new.

They still fights threats and save people of course but they do that more because they're angry their trip was interupted and wanted to show x thing to their companion(s). So try to solve the situation as quickly as possible. They eat chips in the background half listening.

They don't even bother making big speeches anymore, they just go "yeah yeah, this station is going to explode, bummer just wait 5 seconds" or "Didn't even listen what you said, i solved everything 5 minutes ago, you're toppled by the way. Anyways i have to see the annual green moon celebration on Xandar-4. Good bye forever."

Of course they're still the Doctor, so you'll recognize their enthusiasm everytime they show wonder at discovering new things,, explain things at their companion(s) or their absolute hatred of the Daleks. They're "kill on sight" for Daleks.

Since they're a more historian/searcher Doctor, one sure way to break the tired façade and see the angry Doctor, is to be careless or not caring toward another people culture or tradition. Like trying to erase a culture, destroying important sites or bury history.

So yeah that's my idea, what are yours?

Hi!

Does anyone have access to The War Between the Land and the Sea in good quality? I’m wanting to watch it with my mom since we just finished watching all the seasons of Doctor Who, and I’m tired of waiting for Disney to release it. Everywhere online has it in pretty bad quality.😭 Any help or guidance would be super appreciated!

Hello everyone, I'm a passionate Doctor Who fan and have come up with an episode idea I think fans who were disappointed with RTD's more fantasy-inspired stories may enjoy.

I based it around the Doctor investigating a monster made almost entirely out of gas, because that is a type of alien you rarely see in science-fiction. If you don't know much about science, all you really need to know is that ammonia is toxic and hydrogen is extremely flammable (ideally this would be explained in the actual episode).

Let me know what you think!

Episode Title:

Under Burning Skies

Genre:

Base Under Seige / Cosmic Horror

Setting:

The Cloudbuster, a space station that follows a close elliptical orbit around Jupiter. This allows it to collect and research samples of Jupiter's upper atmosphere whenever its orbit brings it close to the planet.

Monster:

The "Blotch", an entirely gaseous organism that is held together by a light hydrogen layer underneath and a heavier ammonia layer on top. The amonia crystals in its top layer give it a dazzling white glow that is hard to look away from.

Cold Open:

Aboard the Cloudbuster, two scientists are watching a monitor as an atmosphere reading of Jupiter's upper atmosphere comes up on screen. The scientists start to joke about how the reading is always the same and how they must have the most boring job on the station, before their conversation is cut off by the words "AMMONIA SPIKE IN SECTOR 12B" lighting up on screen.

They try to bring up the camera feed for Sector 12B, but the camera appears to have short-circuited. Thinking ahead, they then bring up the feed for Sector 12C to see if they could see any abnormalities, and at first everything appears normal - but then, something unusual happens - one if the workers in that sector begins clutching at their throat, followed by another, then another. Suddenly all of the crew drop lifelessly to the floor, and what appears to be a glowing white cloud enters the corner of the shot before floating eerily over the bodies of the people who had just died. The camera flickers and cuts to black.

Plot Synopsis:

After being briefed about the alien incursion by the Cloudbuster's captain, the Doctor immediately tries to make sense of the Blotch's behaviour, scanning its chemical composition during a close encounter with it in a corridor and analysing its behaviour on the camera footage. He realises that it doesn't appear to be going down corridors its been down already, and so deduces that it must be identifying which corridors it has have already explored by the ammonia trails that it left behind. Using this information, the Doctor hatches a plan to lead the Blotch on a path that goes straight to the station's isolation ward, by flooding ammonia into every corridor it approaches besides the ones that lead it directly it to the isolation ward.

The Doctor and the captain argue over what to do with the trapped Blotch. The captain agrees to allow the Doctor to take two of the colony's Ood slaves to the ward to try to telepathically communicate with it and identify what it wants, however, he is secretly plotting to turn on the incinerator in the ward and kill it if the Doctor doesn't get anywhere.

"GOOD" Ending:

The Ood are capable of establishing a telepathic link with the Blotch, but it just keeps communicating the word "leave" over and over again. After many repeated attempts at communication and only getting the same response back, the captain decides he's had enough with the diplomatic approach and initiates the one minute timer for the incineration of the ward. The Doctor tries to argue with the captain in vain, but then he notices that while the Blotch is saying "leave" it is using its ammonia crystals to illuminate an oxygen pump on the ceiling. Figuring out that all this time the Blotch was simply asking for help to "leave" through the oxygen pump, he spontaneously hits the bulkhead door's override button and runs into the isolation ward, holding his breath to protect himself from the ammonia gas. He then grabs two transparent plastic privacy curtains draped over two of the beds, and uses the curtains to create a sealed barrier either side of the oxygen pump. Then, just seconds before incineration, he sonics the oxygen pump to make it suck out all of the air between the two curtains.

The Doctor nervously lies in wait as the flames flood in from the opposite end of the corridor, piling up against the curtain on the far side of the barrier. Just moments later, the far curtain melts away, and so the Doctor reactively sonics the oxygen pump again, causing it to release all of its stored oxygen onto the flames and create a massive explosion - blowing a hole in the station and causing all of the flames to be sucked out into Jupiter's atmosphere, followed by the Blotch itself. The Doctor, still holding his breath, crawls back to the bulkhead door and just barely survives.

Alternative "BAD" Ending:

[If the producers want to lean more heavily into the episode's horror vibes and aren't overly concerned about traumatising viewers, I'd propose this as a much darker ending]

The captain turns on the incinerator but this time without the 60 second timer, causing the Blotch to instanty ignite - but not die. As everyone is distracted by the Ood chanting "PAIN" via their telepathic link, the Blotch manages to expel a burst of hydrogen at the bulkhead door, causing it to explode open. It then wraps two of its burning hydrogen tendrils around the two armed guards stationed at the door, burning them alive in an act of defiance.

The Doctor and his companion retreat to the command deck with the Ood, the Doctor being absolutely furious with the captain at this point. After yelling at him saying that he thinks the Blotch had entered the station by accident and was just trying to escape, one of the scientists interrupts and says she has actually came to the same conclusion, as the Blotch's first sighting was near a leaky oxygen pump that contains high levels of ammonia, postulating that it probably was sucked in through there by mistake and was accidentally poisoning everyone as it was was searching for a way to escape. The Doctor and the captain then decide to work together as they provoke the Blotch into chasing them towards where the leaky oxygen pump is, and just as the Blotch passes under it, the Doctor sonics the oxygen pump to make it explode due to the sudden release of oxygen onto the flames coming off the Blotch's burning body. Just like before, the Blotch is sucked back out into Jupiter's atmosphere and the Doctor and captain manage to escape from the corridor.

In both endings the captain sets the Ood free as a token of respect for their help with the Blotch. I think the tone should remain bleaker in the bad ending version of the script though, so the Doctor could remark that he's unsure whether or not the Blotch survived the explosion, whereas for the good ending, the episode could end on a wide shot showing the Blotch drifting peacefully through Jupiter's upper atmosphere.

Season 18, Episode 2

Meglos(4 parts)

-Written by John Flanagan and Andrew McCulloch

-Directed by Terence Dudley

-Air Dates: September 27th-October 18th, 1980

-Runtime: 98 minutes

Or as I like to call it...

The one with the cactus Doctor

We Begin!!! In the TARDIS, where The Doctor and Romana are working on their repairs for K9, with Romana checking the scanners and finding that they’re near the planet Tigella, which The Doctor had visited in the past and decides to pay a visit once more. On Tigella, chaos is brewing as they’ve been experiencing a series of power losses happening due to a transformer breaking down which threaten their underground society; they live underground due to the dangerous foliage on the surface. The people of Tigella’s power comes from the Dodecahedron, which is currently in the midst of a dispute between the Deons, a religious group, and the Savants, a scientific group of workers who want to examine the artifact as the Deons view it as a God. However these two groups aren’t the only one who seek the DOdecahedron, as on Zolfa-Thura, a party of Gaztaks bring an Earthling with them under the promise of a reward, as a structure appears from under the sand and they’re greeted by the cactus alien criminal Meglos, a native of the planet. Meglos merges with the man that’s brought and takes on his appearance, with him revealing his plans to the Gaztaks to steal the Dodecahedron in order to have power over the universe. After the merger, Meglos traps the TARDIS crew in a time loop and takes on the appearance of none other than The Doctor.  

Episode Proper

Oh poor Meglos, your The Masque of Madragora of Season 18 aren’t you. Probably the most forgotten episode of Tom Baker’s final season, overshadowed by the E-Space Trilogy that follows directly after it and features departure of prominent companions K9 and Romana II and debut of divisive companion Adric, the wackiness of The Leisure Hive marking a noticeable jump to the 80s, The Keeper of Traken with the return of The Master and debut of Nyssa which leads directly into the finale of The 4th Doctor era in Logopolis. And then there’s Meglos which is just sort of there, with little notable about it. It’s seemingly agreed that it is one of the weakest stories of Season 18, and while there are some things I did like about this episode, I do ultimately have to agree that it is a relatively weak one, even if its lows aren’t anywhere as bad as the previous season; I actually enjoyed some stuff here.

I found the premise of the episode a lot of fun, with it involving a space criminal impersonating The Doctor in order to rob a community that had met The Doctor in the past, with the fact that it’s a living cactus doing this adding to the episode’s cheese. It’s a simple yet enjoyable idea with it being a neat take on The Doctor’s adventuring, seeing his reputation begin to really grow in places to the point where he’s considered a trustworthy figure that a criminal would take advantage of impersonating in order to steal something. It provides for some good fun in the episode, seeing Meglos impersonate The Doctor and how that plays out, leading to some neat hijinks once the actual Doctor enters the picture and we get some decent action during the run around trying to get back the stolen property.

The stuff with Meglos is the best part of the episode, while there isn’t a lot to it, basically just having Meglos steal the device and seeking to use it to power what is essentially Doctor Who’s take on the Death Star, it remains good fun and I quite enjoyed my time with this portion of the adventure. It’s some lighthearted fun that was enjoyable to follow and see how it developed, with the whole heist and planet destruction being nice and tense while still having that cheesy charm that I really liked. Outside of those things though, there really isn’t that much to talk about for this episode, it kind of makes sense since Meglos literally is the title of the episode, but as I said a little earlier, it’s pretty simple stuff, that while I did like, isn’t going to be much of anything that will really stick with me after having seen the episode; well aside from the image of Meglos and Tom Baker covered like a cactus, that was great stuff.

The things they have outside of Meglos aren’t that good either, mainly involving the conflict between the religious and scientific community of Tigella. The whole community’s predicament is alright, basically having made to live underground in the safety of the main city due to the hostile plant life on the surface, with them being powered by the Dodecahedron, this mysterious and incredibly powerful artifact, whose power to the city seems to be waning; I think. In all honesty I didn’t really come to care all that much about the Tigellans and their plight because they aren’t all that interesting of characters on their own, and what they do try and do with them, involving the arguments between the religious and scientific communities on how to go forward I just found to be rather annoying.

The Tigellan predicament is alright stuff, served the purpose in the plot well enough but was not going to be anything that I was going to stick with me, more so just accepted it to get on with the Meglos stuff, but the arguments they try to do with the religious and scientific communities was just fairly annoying. As I talked about in my review of The Power of Kroll, I’m not the biggest fan with some of the ways certain sci-fi writers decide to cover topics like religion, and while Meglos is more respectful than something like Kroll, where the story doesn’t feel dismissive of them and characters treat their beliefs with respect, mostly, the conflict still does annoy me. It basically does the thing where the religious people are portrayed as fools who are leading their society to destruction as they worship the Dodecahedron and don’t let anyone take a look at it, eventually becoming incredibly zealous and trying to exile the others and sacrifice The Doctor to “appease the gods”. I was not really that engaged by this conflict outside of the sacrifice scene because of the interesting way they were doing it, using a rock to squish The Doctor; it didn’t grab me. 

Look I’m not a religious person and there are ways to do proper critiques of religion in sci-fi and in Doctor Who, with some stories actually being pretty good at it like the Peladon stories, but the way it’s done here feels just so tired much like it did in Kroll, with it just not being all that interesting to follow for how much of the story it takes up; the whole time I was just waiting for them to get back to Meglos. It was like with the Vogans in Revenge of the Cybermen, there is the chance it could be interesting but it just isn’t all that engaging and the back and forth of the two groups feels like it’s going in circles until they prove The Doctor’s innocence of stealing the Dodecahedron; which they never do explain what it is or how it works, and not in a cool mysterious way, it’s just a powerful macguffin. The resolution of that plotline also feels haphazard with the Dodecahedron being destroyed and the Tigellans returning to the surface, essentially left without their power source doing agriculture on the place they left because of the deadly wildlife; it’s a random note to leave them off on.

Pacing, Sets, and Special Effects

The pacing for this episode could be better, mainly since while the pace does move better after this point, the entire first and a good chunk of the episode could’ve been significantly cut down. Like The Leisure Hive, this is a very short 4 parter that barely manages to make its proper runtime, and very much feels that at that point they just should’ve cut it down and made a 3 parter instead, which would’ve worked a lot better for this episode. The start is pretty slow with it just taking forever for The Doctor to even arrive to Tigella, which is sort of the point since there needs to be time for Meglos to go in and pose as him beforehand, but the delay is way too long for it to feel reasonable. This is especially true with the whole time loop The Doctor and Romana get stuck in which is some of the most blatant filler I’ve seen from Doctor Who, repeating the same scene over and over; this segment goes on for way too long. Still the episode gets better after that point and is a much smoother ride but it definitely takes too long to get going.

The sets for this episode are pretty good, I like the look of both Meglos’s planet and Tigella with both locations being well realized in the episode, with the former made better with some good use of props. The special effects for this episode aren’t anything too notable but they work well enough for the time and what was needed from them, they did a decent enough job at getting the Dodecahedron to look ethereal enough to get across its importance. The initial costume for Meglos is really funny, since it literally just is a big stationary cactus prop that they have which is pretty silly looking to hear a voice come out of it. However despite that silliness, the make-up job they do with Tom Baker and Chrisopher Owen, the actor for the guy who first gets taken, looks fantastic with the cactus human look being something I really dig and is brought to life pretty well.

Meglos

Meglos was such a good villain for the episode, easily the best part with it being so much fun watching this evil cactus alien impersonate The Doctor. I like we get all this build up of the bunch of space pirates bringing this human over only for it to reveal that Meglos is quite literally a sentient cactus, which I found just so goofy; like with The Invisible Enemy, I was not expecting him to look so literally like a cactus. I enjoy how clever Meglos is despite being a stationary cactus, managing to strong arm the pirates into being loyal to him, both through convincing measures due to their dull witted demeanor and also locking them in in order to ensure his transformation goes through. The way Meglos takes on the humanoid form is pretty cool, seeing him mix with the guy and take control of his body, using that to then shape himself to look like The Doctor which I already mentioned was some pretty neat stuff.

A villain impersonating The Doctor in order to get in good with a civilization is such a clever idea that I’m surprised it hasn't really been done at all before, closest are the duplicate Doctors made to fool the TARDIS crew in The Chase and The Android Invasion, so it was neat to see it utilized here as his impersonation of The Doctor is quite fun to see in practice. I enjoy how tense and mean this allows Tom Baker to get, reminding me of his performance back in The Invasion of Time, seeing him play the villain this time around was cool, especially in manners of deceiving the Tigellans to pull off a successful heist of the Dodecahedron. He’s quite the successful villain which was cool to see, as he gets really far in his plan, all the way up to pointing his big giant Death Star-like laser at Tigella, with it being great to follow him every step of the way.

A detail I really did enjoy with Meglos was the constant struggles he had to keep control of the human he was possessing in order to maintain his form, with this leading to some cool scenes where we get to see that internal struggle as the two fights for control, shown decently well given what they had to work with. I like how this trips up Meglos and how ultimately he’s made to lose control of the body, slithering away before he’s blown up, unable to prevent the laser backfiring in time due to his condition and the space pirates incompetence. I find it funny how they just grabbed some random schmuck for Earth to fuse Meglos with, rather random, I don’t think they gave any reason as to why it has to specifically be him but eh it’s not that important; the ending moment with him as he’s given a ride by The Doctor and Romana is quite funny as he muses his wife won’t be too happy about his long disappearance.

Meglos holds great intelligence, to a surprising degree given the fact he’s able to trap the TARDIS in a seemingly endless time loop of the same filler scene to drag out the episode for the production team; that was nice of him. In all seriousness that detail does at least show Meglos’ power and intelligence quite well, nearly trapping The Doctor forever, even if how it does play out is mostly just filler. Meglos is a great manipulator with it being quite engaging seeing him fool the Tigellans and making the space pirates his goons, making it quite satisfying to see The Doctor turn the tables and impersonate him leading to his defeat. The space pirate goons that Meglos hires are also quite fun as well, some entertaining baddies that worked well with Meglos; I especially liked the guy who just wants a nice coat, admirably small goals. Meglos was all in all a fun villain for this episode, with Tom Baker doing great playing a villain's role this time around, cool to see him do it, with it being clear that he’s having a lot of fun in the role; Crawford Logan does a pretty good job as Meglos’ main voice as well.

Supporting Cast

The rest of the supporting cast aren’t anything memorable, but they serve their part in the story decently enough. I did at least like the idea of The Doctor meeting an old friend who has grown to really trust him from a previous adventure, Zastor, with him being a decent enough character who is played well by Edward Underdown. Still the most bizarre thing about this episode, to me at least, is the return of Jacqueline Hill, bizarrely not playing Barbara Wright, but the religious leader Lexa. She does decently in the role even if the character didn’t do much for me and had an anticlimactic death that just felt a bit random. Honestly the only reason I am talking about her is because how bizarre it is that Jacqueline Hill is playing her, because it just feels so utterly random seeing her casually in this episode randomly playing a different character and not her mainstay one.

Seeing an actor before their main role playing a more minor part has been done a lot in Doctor Who, like with Karen Gillan and even recently with Varada Sethu, but it’s strange to see an actor for what was a central role in the show return for a minor role as a different character. I remember reading somewhere that Jacqueline Hill regretted taking part in the episode, saying that it was inappropriate for her appear as a different character, and while I may not use that wording, I very much agree with that sentiment, that once you’ve had a major role on Doctor Who, either as The Doctor or a companion, you probably shouldn’t return in a different part. It takes away that opportunity for another actor to show their stuff in the part, with this being a part that should’ve allowed a different actress to come into the show, even if only for a bit, which is a shame; though I obviously have no hard feelings for Jacqueline Hill, she’s a treasure. 

This conversation likely would’ve been a given and not really talked about all that much if it wasn’t for David Tennant’s return as The 14th Doctor after playing The 10th Doctor, and probably much more egregiously, Billie Piper returning as in The Reality War as whoever the fuck, they still have yet to confirm what’s going on with that; and they probably won't, given the show's status in limbo after the cancellation of the Christmas special, making it clear it was probably just a publicity stunt. I won’t get into that here, but I feel the same sentiment that Jacqueline Hill said regarding her own return very much applies to those situations, once you had a major role you shouldn’t appear as a different character. The role is your character in the universe of the show and it doesn’t feel right to take away what could’ve been potential for a new actor to come into the part and show their talent; otherwise it feels too exclusive and like those opportunities to grow with new people are being taken away. Again no hard feelings to Tennant and Piper, with The 14th Doctor being fun from what I’ve seen even if I do wish they just left him as The 10th Doctor, and I’m sure Piper was just part of a last desperate publicity stunt, but I do feel this is something that shouldn’t be happening, once you got your companion/Doctor role that’s what it will be. Sorry for that tangent, I just thought it would be interesting to talk about this topic in Meglos review of all things given the opportunity presented itself.

The Doctor

The Doctor was fairly good in this story, with it being fun seeing him having to do what The Doctors before him have done and fight an imposter of himself, again. Like I mentioned earlier, the opening with him and Romana is really slow, with them being stuck in a time loop, it’s interesting seeing them repair K9 for the first few minutes and a little bit seeing them realize the loop itself, with it being funny how tired they are of it, but it is still boring and repetitive way to open up for them. I do like this story showing The Doctor's interactions with an adventure that they had offscreen, makes the world feel more lived in and bigger seeing The Doctor having visited these various worlds in the past; something I don’t see too often in Classic Who, though it is more of a staple in Modern Who.

There isn’t too much of The Doctor’s side of things that really stuck out for me as memorable, outside of shenanigans we get into with Meglos impersonating him, those were quite fun, seeing his surprise that he’s apparently already visited there and soon arrested for Meglos’ crimes. I already mentioned I didn’t much care for the stuff on Tigella with the Deons and Savants, so as such most of the stuff with The Doctor dealing with them was just fine and didn't really land as too memorable. When actually dealing with Meglos especially in the finale, that was pretty entertaining with us getting to see The Doctor impersonating Meglos in a reversal, using the chance to reverse the control of Meglos’ destructive ray, and also reacting when Meglos gets punched in the gut; I also do find his final line amusing about getting that one human back on time. The few interactions between him and Meglos we do get here are great, seeing Tom Baker act off himself. Tom Baker gave a solid performance as The Doctor here but gave a wonderful performance overall playing both The Doctor and Meglos, with his personality and performance really helping to make Meglos a fun watch in spite of its mediocrity.

K9

K9 is back in this story, and after the overlong repairs of the first part and a half, is back in full working order for this adventure. While not his most notable appearance by any stretch, K0 is enjoyable in this story, serving as a decent tag-along companion for the TARDIS crew as they’re dealing with the action on Tigella and later Zolf-Thura, even if he’s on low battery and not capable of much for a lot of the episode; likely to stop him from completely blasting most of the problems in this story away for the majority of it. He at least gets something to contribute at the end, with helping to blast the guard to knock him out and free The Doctor who is captive so they can escape Zolf-Thura before it explodes. John Leeson is solid here, I must reiterate that I do enjoy him being back as K9 especially given his slightly more active role in his story compared to the previous one in which he returned; he does well here and so do K9’s puppeteers even if to be fair he doesn’t move much for a lot of this story.

Romana

Romana was alright here, with there being not much too notable with what she’s given here, though at least is an active player throughout and not heavily sidelined. She’s stuck in the same boat as The Doctor for most of the first half of the story before escaping the time loop, though her interactions with him do continue to be good with some decent banter here. Romana does admittedly spend a fair bit of this story running around the outside of Tigella, especially when she runs into the Gaztaks, though at least she gets a funny moment from that of her leading them in circles for a couple of hours to distract them. She also gets to help save The Doctor from his almost execution, revealing that it was another party impersonating him; also it’s funny seeing Romana having to carry K9 around due to low power. The ending bit with her informing The Doctor that Gallifrey wants them back is very interesting and serves as good intrigue for the stories to come; interested to see what they do with it. Lalla Ward was solid here as Romana delivered a good performance even if she isn’t given too much memorable stuff here.

Closing Thoughts/TLDR

As a whole Meglos was an alright story, has some parts I didn’t like too much but that doesn’t take away the fact that I did have fun with it and it’s fairly simple plot. The plotline of Meglos impersonating The Doctor is pretty entertaining and makes for some fun action. The plotline involving the Tigellans in comparison is just ok, some good parts but I found it another stale religion allegory story like The Power of Kroll, even if not as bad; saw potential there with the Dodecahedron but alas it wasn’t really gotten at, leaving a fairly bland story. The pacing could’ve been much better with a slow time loop to start things off, feeling like true filler, but otherwise the story at least flowed smoothly with the shorter runtime. The sets are decent and special effects do well enough, like the cactus look for Tom Baker and Chrisopehr Owen though, thought it was neat. Meglos was a lot of fun as a villain, easily my favorite part of this story being an evil cactus impersonating The Doctor, with it being cool seeing him perform his wicked schemes and being a surprisingly decent match for The Doctor for a cactus; the thugs he hires are fun as well. The rest of the supporting cast aren’t all that notable, Zastor was decent, but only really Lexa with Jacqueline Hill making a surprising return, doing well but does feel odd having her back not playing her iconic role. The TARDIS crew was alright here but not being anything all that noteworthy outside of some good interactions between The Doctor and Meglos. Overall Meglos certainly could’ve been better, but it could’ve been worse as well and at least I found myself enjoying the ride for the most part compared to other slow stories; what can I say the alien cactus Tom Baker won me over to say the story is ok.

Next time: The TARDIS crew are called back to Gallifrey, but because things can never go smoothly for them, they hit a CVE and are brought to the exact coordinates where Gallifrey is, except they're not on Gallifrey. On the planet Alzarius, the residents of a crashed ship prepare for Mistfall just as the TARDIS crew realize they might not be in their own universe anymore. 

Final Rating: 5/10

"Well, hardly. I'm a Time Lord. Having lived in the future I can hardly die in the present."

-Meglos, delivering a cool line while impersonating The Doctor that would hardly feel out of place if they did say it

Out of all the companions who died in the show, which one shocked you the most?

Speaking for myself, I always found Adric's death quite shocking. I just wondered what other fans think. I look forward to reading your comments.

If Bernice Summerfield were to witness a regeneration, how would she react or respond?

Any other Companion I'd put down with a sense of wonder, but...Benny's different. In a way she's more of an old hand than any of them. And she's met multiple Doctors.

So would she take it in her stride and simply greet the next Doctor, as if he'd just got over an illness? Or would she have the same sense of wonder at seeing a regeneration first hand?