Where I live on the South Coast, Hayling Island to be precise, there aren’t a lot of Doctor Who locations nearby. So it’s very nice to occasionally find locations that were filmed near me. There have only been a few: The Sea Devils, Terror of the Zygons, Revelation of the Daleks, and The Mysterious Planet. Unfortunately, much of Revelation of the Daleks and The Mysterious Planet were filmed in Queen Elizabeth Country Park, and would be very, very hard to find the actual locations. Of course, The Mysterious Planet was also filmed at Butser Hill, so you can visit where the Tribe of the Free lived. And I don’t much fancy getting arrested trying to get into the Naval bases they used in The Sea Devils! But I was really surprised to find that Terror of the Zygons was filmed only a couple of bus journeys away from me…

Tulloch Moor is a pretty iconic village in Doctor Who; Terror of the Zygons was made during the time of Phillip Hinchcliffe’s horror influenced era and so the location of Charlton in Chichester makes a perfect location. There’s a country road you have to walk or drive down to get there and it’s nestled between two big hills. For people using the bus, if you get the bus to Chichester, then take the 60 to Midhurst and get off at the stop after Weald and Downland Museum, it’s about a 20-minute walk from the nearest bus stop. Don’t let that worry you though: you actually get there pretty quickly and as you get closer, and the silence encroaches around you, it’s not hard to imagine why this area was chosen as the perfect creepy village.

When you arrive, you’ll first notice the distinctive road that Zygon-Harry tries to run down, away from UNIT and Sarah Jane. I was astonished to find that virtually nothing had changed; it was made even better by the fact that the roads were still wet from the previous day’s rain and I had arrived early enough, at about 10am, that there was still a little mist on the ground and in the hills. It was like I had stepped back through time, exited in 1975, and filming was still underway. So much hadn’t changed that it wasn’t hard to imagine evil-Harry legging it towards me.

If you follow that road on down, and you’re really familiar with the story, you can also identify where the cameras would have been placed to capture the action, including a little nook between a house and a wall where the camera pans to the left to watch evil-Harry pelting down the lane; and where you first come into the village, is where evil-Harry would be charging at you. I believe the house on the left-hand side of the screen, with its distinctive white doors and boarded up windows is the back of a hotel. In 1975, this could have been a couple of houses and according to a photo on the Doctor Who Locations Guide website, a photo taken in 2008 has a hotel sign hanging overhead. That sign is gone now but the distinctive white doorways are still there.

A little further on down that road is the Fox Inn. In real life, it’s called The Fox Goes Free pub. In the programme, there is a wall wrapped around the outside with a entrance to the car park which we still the Duke of Forgill pull into when he drops the Fourth Doctor, Sarah, and the real Harry Sullivan off to meet up with UNIT and the Brigadier. Nowadays, the wall and the grass verge behind it have gone to allow for more seating space but it’s still easy to see all the different spaces used for filming, including the door that evil-Harry escapes out of when he scares Sarah. I wanted to go in and ask them if they knew anything about the filming, or indeed had kept any knick-knacks, but due to the early time I was there and the fact the pub was closed in the morning, I didn’t get the chance. I may make a trek there again in the new year so I’m planning on asking around!

If you stand on the opposite side of the road facing the pub, you can get a feel for where more scenes were shot. You can see the corner that Sarah and UNIT run past to follow the evil-Harry, though the wooden bus stop is gone, replaced by a metal pole with the travel information. If you are travelling by bus around there, I suggest taking the 20-minute walk back to the nearest bus stop as a small bus from the town only goes about every hour-and-a-half and looked so old and rickety that it really doesn’t look safe!

Also, opposite the pub is another area that was extensively used in the filming. That’s the side of the barns that we will see later. You can also see you’re in the right area thanks to the red phone box at the end of the road, also seen in the episode. But the dilapidated side door on the street side of the barn is still as visible now as it was in the television episode. It’s on the left-hand side of that road, almost next to the barn that we first see UNIT soldier’s marching past as the Duke of Forgill with his three passengers drives past.

On the opposite side of that road is a wall with a gate, which is where, after she meets evil-Harry, Sarah runs to get help, to a parked UNIT jeep with soldiers playing cards on the bonnet. They then run back up that road, past the pub and the area we see Harry leg it past with the two buildings on the side. This is where the location gets quite complicated because Charlton literally goes round in a loop, so if evil-Harry kept on following that loop, he would very quickly run up behind Sarah and UNIT who had only just taken off after him; he’d have very quickly bumped into them again!

Had evil-Harry kept on running in a straight line, he’d have found himself heading out of the village and away to freedom as the direction he runs is the way in and out of the area. However, he would turn immediately left and then left again, which allows us the view of the corner of a front garden. In 1975, it was a wooden fence that helps guide us to the proper location; nowadays, it’s a small wooden fence that allows us a better look at the corner that Sarah turns down and chases Harry.

Follow that road on down and turn around to look at where you’ve just come from: you’ll see the line of cottages with their chimneys in the background. This is the road where Sarah and UNIT stop to catch their breath before deciding to split up. The road that UNIT takes does still exist but, as no scenes were shot there, I didn’t follow it down — I think it also goes in a loop and joins back up onto the main road a little down the way. Sarah takes the right way through and turns left, following the route Harry has taken. This takes her past another field and, letting out another shout, she follows him towards the barns.

Harry stops by the field to look back at his pursuers and this allows us a chance to see where this small scene was filmed. The field behind him hasn’t changed too much, but you can pretty much get an exact spot thanks to a farmhouse with a distinctive chimney stack in the background. In the episode, Harry stops in front of a wooden fence and a small barn. Neither of them exists anymore; instead it’s been replaced with a metal fence and allows a view out onto the field that once stood behind the Zygon-Harry.

Harry would then continue down that road heading towards the barns. This where the infamous scene of him attacking Sarah with a pitchfork was filmed. Unfortunately, I don’t think you’re allowed inside as it’s a business now and there didn’t seem to be anyone else around. But I was able to walk into the courtyard area, which has had some restoration done to make them all habitable, so I was able to grab a photo of the outside of the barn Sarah follows Harry into.

Unfortunately, that’s all that was filmed in Charlton for Terror of the Zygons. It’s not a very large place at all and if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was taking plenty of pictures and filming a location tour for my YouTube channel, Who’s Watching, then I would have probably just done the one trip around. But I actually did quite a few loops around the village. Interacting with people I saw was quite amusing because they didn’t ask me what I was doing; they seemed to notice my Marvel bag and my camera in my hand and just sort of roll their eyes with an air of “Oh, it’s another one!” And it was so quiet everywhere; you couldn’t even hear the birds tweeting! It was literally like somewhere from a Hammer Horror film…

There are other locations around West Sussex that played host to filming Terror of the Zygons; unfortunately they were a little too far away and, on the day I went, there were dark clouds rolling in and I didn’t fancy getting stuck in the woods and hills in rain and wind — I didn’t fancy being the main star of my own horror film! But Charlton is the main location for the story anyway, so it was brilliant that it stayed nice and dry for me; someone must have been looking after me!

If you fancy taking in Charlton and then some other nearby locations then I would suggest Arundel, which stood in for Windsor in the Seventh Doctor story, Silver Nemesis, which is eight miles from Charlton.

Filming for Terror of the Zygons took place there for one day, 25th March 1975, but everything looks exactly as it did back then. If you were ever looking for a picture-postcard, quintessentially sleepy English village, then Charlton certainly ticks all those boxes. Walking around in the peace and quiet, it’s not hard to see why the BBC production team chose the area to become Tulloch Moor; and it’s certainly not hard to imagine the Zygons plotting their takeover of our world here. In fact, who’s to say I am actually Jordan writing this now? I might have been taken and swapped with a Zygon…

Chris Hadfield, the retired astronaut who spent 166 days in space, is one of the best ambassadors for space travel. He’s friendly, fun, authoritative, and knowledgeable — essentially, he’s the science teacher we all wish we had. Plus, he played the guitar on the International Space Station; a fantastic claim to fame!

And while Doctor Who has all of time and space to explore, it’s quite rare that the show looks at space itself. You get the occasional episode like Oxygen, which tells you what outer space can be like, i.e. it’s out to kill us because it’s an environment we’re just not properly equipped to delve into.

So in the below video, Hadfield addresses some of the common myths about space, including:

• If you get sucked out of an airlock, you’ll get burnt up.
• Space smells like a BBQ.
• When something explodes in space, it makes no sound.
• You need to enter cryosleep (i.e. freeze your body) in order to accomplish interstellar travel.

Some of those may remind you of serials like The Daleks’ Master Plan, The Ark in Space, and Smile.

And if you’d like to learn more from Hadfield, check out his books, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes, and his new novel, The Apollo Murders.

The war rooms, the secret underground passages concealed beneath London and used extensively by Winston Churchill and his staff during World War II, form one of the most incredible historical sites I’ve ever visited. Paired with explanatory videos, the rooms themselves transport you back to that terrible era — indeed, they’re both awful and amazing.

Victory of the Daleks, of course, took us back to 1941 and delved deep into the war rooms. They shook as the bombing went on overhead, dust brought loose by the horrifying blitz above; nonetheless, it’s difficult to properly convey how dangerous the war rooms feel in real life. We think of them like a bunker, but such heavy bombardments must still have been unimaginably scary.

Here’s a fascinating tour of Churchill’s war rooms, and if you’re in the vicinity, it’s well worth checking them out in person.

Rosa Parks, the civil rights activist, took centre stage in the first historical adventure featuring Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor, back in Series 11 (2018).

Rosa, written by Malorie Blackman and then-showrunner Chris Chiball, showed the events leading up to Parks’ refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, and her subsequent arrest for violating segregation laws. In the TV story, she was played by Vinette Robinson (42; Sherlock), while the episode itself won the BAFTA for Visionary Arts Organisation Award for Television Show of the Year.

But what do you actually know about her life? Here’s a fascinating short biography about Rosa, detailing what actually happened and how a simple act helped to change history.

Everyone really knows that the Terileptils were responsible for the Great Fire of London, after all that messy business in 1666 involving rats, Pudding Lane, and the Fifth Doctor’s sonic screwdriver going kablooey (not to mention the gun that actually started the blaze).

That is, according to The Visitation. But we’ve got historians who disagree with those accounts and instead blame the fire on… well, let’s find out, shall we?

The blaze lasted from 2nd to 6th September, and gutted the city of London, but it’s generally believed that comparatively few died — although the social ramifications were massive.

So while Peter Davison’s Doctor seemed rather pleased with himself, he might just have been perpetuating the idea that the Great Fire of London helped stop the spread of Bubonic plague, the city having suffered a particularly devastating outbreak in 1665. In fact, it’s estimated that one outbreak alone killed around a sixth of London’s 80,000 population.

The Museum of London actually considers the effect on the plague to be one of the biggest myths about the Great Fire.

I find that Doctor Who fans tend to be an inquisitive bunch. With all of time and space as its scope, the show means we learn about all sorts of fascinating topics — but chiefly history and science. And no, Doctor Who doesn’t always get them right, but it makes a great effort to educate (as per its original mission).

With that in mind, we want to explore wider space-time a bit on the DWC, and so, following on from Jordan’s piece about Mary Seacole, the All of Time and Space section of the site is being expanded more. That’ll mean your regular fix of Doctor Who content, but also some side meanderings down different paths.

Today, we’re pondering what came before the Big Bang with this excellent video from the BBC Earth Lab. And by “the Big Bang”, we don’t mean the eponymous Series 5 finale from 2010. Because if we did, “what came before” would include everything from An Unearthly Child to The Pandorica Opens.

If you have a spare 10 minutes, why not discover theories about where everything around us and inside us came from…?

This is a topic close to my heart: for my book, The Black Archive #44: The Pandorica Opens/ The Big Bang, I looked into various ideas about the beginning and the end of our universe, the very notion of “nothing”, and black holes. There’s one particular observation that I find fascinating. Here’s a brief extract from the monograph:

“[W]e must question using the Big Bang as the basis for creation, because, quite simply, it doesn’t explain a lot of our observations, or lack of them. The size of space, for example, is troublesome. Richard Brent Tully, astronomer at the Institute for Astronomy in Honolulu, Hawaii, found galaxy clusters 300 million light-years long and 100 million light years across, stretched over some billion light years with voids around 300 million light years wide.

“Because galaxies are moving away from each other at regular speeds, ‘which is how we calculate the origin of the Big Bang, and at the speed galaxies are moving, these things wouldn’t have had time to be created since the Big Bang 10 to 20 billion years ago. They would have needed at least 80 billion years to have got to this size.’ [Taken from The Universe: Explained, Condensed And Exploded.]

“Astonishingly, they’re too big to be explained by the Big Bang.”

Pretty astonishing and mind-boggling, huh?

(And if that whets your appetite, The Black Archive #44: The Pandorica Opens/ The Big Bang is available from Obverse Books.)

The second episode of Doctor Who Series 13 (aka Flux), War of the Sontarans, sees the Sontarans as an opposing faction in the Crimean War fighting against the British army. One of the guest characters is a lady called Mary Seacole.

While for some that name isn’t well known, for others Mary Seacole is just as important as the other famous nurse of the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale. In this article (hopefully the first of many that will look at all real life aspects — historical, scientific, and everything in between — so long as it relates to Doctor Who), we’ll be looking at the life of the extraordinary Mary Seacole.

Born in Jamaica on the 23rd November 1805, Seacole was born a ‘Free Person’. This meant that, although Jamaica was owned by the British and many of its inhabitants were cruelly being sold as slaves around the world, Seacole and her mother were spared this cruel and unjustifiable life because her father was a member of the English army.

Although being born a ‘free person’, her family wasn’t afforded many of the same rights as others. Mary’s mother was also a nurse and this is where Seacole’s love for medicine and helping others came from. Her mother also ran a lodging house, called Blundell Hall, and was highly regarded in Kingston, Jamaica’s Capital. While running Blundell, she would teach Mary all about traditional medicine.

Mary would then take what she had learnt and practice on her dolls, the family pets, and on herself.

In her autobiography, Seacole recalled:

“It was very natural that I should inherit her tastes; and so, I had from early youth a yearning for medical knowledge and practice which never deserted me…. And I was very young when I began to make use of the little knowledge I had acquired from watching my mother, upon great sufferer – my doll… and whatever disease was most prevalent in Kingston, be sure my poor doll soon contracted it.”

As Mary grew up, she would visit London for extended periods of time, either staying with family or with friends and while she experienced some racist comments (Mary just ignored), her friends were quite hot tempered. She describes some incidents would “get quite eventful”, especially when there weren’t policemen around.

Mary loved to travel and saw a lot of the Caribbean and England before eventually getting married to Edwin Horatio Hamilton Seacole on 10th November 1836. Sadly, this marriage wouldn’t last long as Edwin became ill and passed away in 1844, which was followed closely by the death of her beloved mother. Both these tragedies absolutely devastated Mary and she threw herself into working in the field of medicine where she felt the safest.

In 1850, an outbreak of Cholera hit Kingston and she stepped out to nurse all those afflicted. Then, a year later, another outbreak of Cholera hit the town of Cruces. She managed to deal with the outbreak, with a mixture of her own medicines including mustard and mercury chloride to help ease suffering while she caught a mild case of the illness. She would also help ease an outbreak of Yellow Fever in Kingston in 1853.

When Blundell Hall burned down, she would oversee a new hall, simply named New Blundell Hall being built, which she converted into a hospital for soldiers in the nearby British Army. Seacole never had any children, so it’s believed that the maternal feelings she nurtured with the soldiers who stayed at her hospital is what eventually drove her to help in the Crimean War.

When that war began in October 1953, Mary quickly stepped up to help, travelling to England to offer her services, but she was refused, despite having letters of recommendation from many high ranking senior officials of the time. She was told that all the nursing positions had already been filled and that she wouldn’t be chosen even if a position became available. She ignored the racist connotations from some officials, though she would later bring them up on their refusals and actions; instead, she funded her own trip to Crimea with her friend, Thomas Day. There, they would open The British Hotel, a hotel and store for the soldiers, situated just two miles from where the British Coalition was stationed.

The British Coalition was made up of soldiers from England, France, and the Kingdom of Sardinia, fighting against the Ottoman Empire. As far as we know, no actual Sontarans were involved in the fighting, though given how the Sontarans are a war mongering species, it’s surprising Doctor Who has never involved them in a proper war in the past!

Why might the Doctor, Yaz and Dan be meeting Mary Seacole instead of Florence Nightingale? Well, we’ll get to that in a little bit, but the Seventh Doctor, Ace, and Hex did meet The Lady With The Lamp in the Big Finish audio adventure, The Angel of Scutari. Nightingale and Seacole did actually know each other and Seacole found herself being put up for a night’s rest on her way to the Crimean Front in Nightingale’s hospital, which was found a long way from the front.

Mary would very often travel to the front treating any wounded soldiers she found along the way, including those from the Ottoman Empire. Even though they were technically the enemy, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn’t help anyone on a battlefield when they were seriously injured if they could (especially abiding under the Hippocratic Oath). It was this kindness that would earn her the name Mother Seacole.

The only wound she sustained would be a dislocated thumb when she had to throw herself from her horse onto the ground when gunfire flew overhead!

Whether she would help the Sontarans is yet to be seen, but given how she was helping the Russian soldiers, as well as those she was allied too, it wouldn’t surprise me.

As well as earning the name Mother Seacole, Mary would visit the battlefield in bright colours so that the soldiers, on both sides, would know she was there, to tend to their wounds if she was able. After the war ended in 1856, Mary was one of the last to leave the battlefields, but she sadly returned to Britain, almost destitute having spent almost all of her money on supplies for her hospital. Many newspapers, though, were filled with kind messages and well wishes from many of those she had helped to save and nursed back to health.

Mary wasn’t just a nurse: she was also a business woman and attempted to open a canteen in the UK, though lack of funds and interest meant that it didn’t happen, despite many similar business ventures having been successful for her in Jamaica. When she was able, she attended many celebratory dinners for soldiers of the Crimea, one of which saw both her and Florence Nightingale needing bodyguards to hold back the crowds of those wishing to express their thanks. Imagine having over 2000 people clamouring for you’re attention. I think I’d be more afraid of that many people than of the Sontarans!

Luckily, those she had helped or had admired her came to her aid once her financial situation became public knowledge, including soldiers, generals, and members of the Royal Family. In 1857, a fundraising gala took place over four days to raise money for her; over 80,000 people were in attendance. That same year she published her autobiography, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands — it was to become a huge success and bestseller (though she skillfully omitted the involvement of a certain time-travelling Doctor).

Mary Seacole passed away in May 1881 at her home in London; the cause of death was listed as Apoplexy, then thought to be the rupturing of an internal organ, now known as a stroke. Her story was largely forgotten back then, mainly due to politics and social outlook of the time — until 1980 when her involvement and account of her time in Crimea was rediscovered. And just like then, people still argue that she was a copy of Nightingale, or stole some of her ideas, while others argue the opposite.

But why can’t they both be held in high regard and rewarded for their successes? They both accomplished and saved hundreds of lives in wartime, so they both deserve to be remembered for their accomplishments.

Her legacy is certainly a complicated one for many historians or budding amateurs. While I certainly think she more than deserves to be recognised, it still took until 2016 for a statue to be built and unveiled of her at the St. Thomas’ Hospital on London’s Southbank. Her grave was rediscovered in 1973 and a re-consecration was held the same year. Her grave is now looked after by the Mary Seacole Memorial Association. She has been better remembered in Jamaica where many buildings and initiatives have been named after her.

Sadly, thanks to the weight of history, the social outlook of Victorian England and even modern times, and the world’s focus on Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole could be consigned to history once again. That would be a shame, as I would argue that she is just as important as The Lady With the Lamp. Maybe she should be remembered as The Lady With A Heart?

The first Chemistry we were set (in about 1975) was to explain how the universe came into being. We were not allowed to cite Genesis Chapter 1. In those days, ‘universe’ meant all of creation: today, we would say ‘cosmos’. I turned in a short paragraph about the Big Bang and earned the comment “where did the first particle come from?” Scientific thinking (at least at pre-O level standard) had only just started to move beyond the ‘there was a massive explosion’ level. Only one pupil passed that homework and he had written that he could not answer the question within the parameters allowed. A few weeks later, a local astronomer came to speak to the school. The teacher asked him the same question. His reply was that the only satisfactory explanation of which he was aware was found in Genesis Chapter 1.

The teacher was a Christian and wasn’t necessarily dismissing 6-day creationism. The homework was designed to encourage us to think further.

What came first, the chicken or the egg? This is a question about creation or evolution. So, for Doctor Who, what came first?

How does Doctor Who resolve the creation/evolution question? Perhaps we should be asking, does Doctor Who answer the question?

Not very often, as it turns out.

There is surprisingly little about it in the programme itself (leaving aside tie-in media).

In The Edge of Destruction, a broken spring holds the fast return switch in place and sends the TARDIS hurtling back to the ‘beginning of time’. The big question is, what is the TARDIS doing with a fast return switch in the first place? Of secondary importance is the issue of whether this is a reference to the Big Bang. The question is not specifically addressed in the show. It is a character-driven story and the dramatic tension derives from the interaction of the TARDIS crew. Indeed, this is the point that they become a team as opposed to two pairs. But ‘beginning of time’ implies that there is nothing before it. Score one for evolution.

Our next port of call is Castrovalva. A trap instigated by the Master sends the TARDIS heading toward the hydrogen inrush known as Event One. Again, the question du jour is whether they met the earlier TARDIS trying to fix the fast return switch. Again, the story does not dwell on the question. It concentrates on the inescapable trap the Master has sprung for them. Inescapable unless they jettison rooms: like they did in the previous story.

So that’s: Evolution 2 — Creation 0.

A brief visit to Deva Loka, not because it contributes to the debate, but because the planet is compared to Paradise. It is a rare and tenuous reference to religion. The subject of spirituality in Doctor Who is another article entirely, and possibly another writer.

The Terminus in Enlightenment — kidding, it’s in Terminus — is used to treat the nothing-like-leprosy Lazar’s disease. The Vanir organise sufferers to receive treatment from Super Fido, who basically exposes them to a dose of radiation from the station’s engines. Terminus is the wreck of a nuclear-powered spaceship with a dead, humongous pilot. (That is, a dead pilot who is humongous. I was not quantifying its humungosity.) Many millennia ago, the ship’s engines developed a potentially life-threatening fault. The ship had time travel capability, so the then-not-dead-but-still-humongous pilot travelled back in time. Pausing only to ponder why it had passed two blue police boxes travelling in the same direction, the pilot jettisoned the unstable fuel and got out of there. The fuel exploded in the void and life was created.

This creates a paradox. The bootstrap paradox is when an object or piece of information is sent back in time and creates the conditions necessary for its own existence. The “who composed Beethoven’s Fifth?” dilemma.

For those keeping count, that’s 3-0 to Evolution. It is also the most direct statement of the Big Bang theory (at least until the finale to Series 5). Doctor Who comes out in favour of evolution.

As an aside, in Paul Cornell’s Father’s Day, the Doctor calls the hopefully-soon-to-be-married couple as the most important thing in all creation. This is not a vote for Creationism. But it is an interesting choice of words.

The whole Creation/Evolution issue raised its head in my Church a few years ago. Strong opinions were expressed, covering both poles of the issue. I myself took (and take) a middle view. I tell people that I am a “God did it and I don’t need to know how-ist”.

I like to tell a story of a group of ardent 14 billion year evolutionists in Heaven after the final judgment. They have perfect freedom to come into God’s presence and ask Him anything. So they approach Him full of humility and a genuine desire to know and ask God whether it was 14 billion years. God’s heart fills with delight and love and He says this:

“My dear, dear children, I did it in six days. And, by the way, the Earth was flat.”

My reason for telling the story is to get a laugh. But I also have a serious purpose too. I had a reputation for a while as a six-day Creationist and a flat Earther. I believe that God could have created everything in six days. I do not necessarily believe that He did. A six-day Creation and a flat Earth, however, would be cool. Given a choice between correct and cool, I would choose ‘cool’ any time.

My serious reason for the story is that the question is the wrong one. Don’t ask whether it was six days or 14 billion years. Instead ask, what have we done to the planet and what must we do to rectify the damage? Praxeus may have used a sledgehammer to deliver its message. But the message needs to be heard and received.

I’ve never found it easy to be a Christian and a Doctor Who fan. In the past, the show was pretty irreligious, despite having the odd story set in church (here’s looking at you, The Daemons). There used to be a marked ‘neutrality’ to Who; it seldom ventured towards anything even remotely contentious. But it’s been a bit more vocal since 2005, at times suggesting that I’m a bit stupid for believing in an almighty God, and on other occasions going so far as to saying that my faith should be banned…!

I should say, before I unpack this – I don’t really mind. I don’t need Doctor Who to ‘represent’ me as a Christian, or a man, or anything. Actually, I probably watch Who as an escapism from real life!

But the relationship between Doctor Who and Christianity does interest me, particularly in the way it has evolved over the years. And as I watch Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor dash around the TARDIS console with a ‘fam’ that represents an impressively diverse range of homo sapiens, I can’t help but wonder if a follower of Jesus would fit into that setup. And would the producers even consider it?

I ask this because the show’s relationship with Christianity has been a bumpy one since 2005. Is ‘bumpy’ too strong a word? Maybe. But Doctor Who certainly has had no compunction in poking gentle fun at the Jesus fans under the guidance of Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat (two writers who I greatly admire, by the way).

Religion should be banned?

Immediately I think of the crucifix-shaped Platform One in the opening frames of The End of the World. The host greets space shuttles as they dock, reminding them that “Platform One forbids the use of weapons, teleportation, and religion.” Russell T expanded on this point in an interview for Doctor Who Magazine, saying that “if they haven’t reached [the point of banning religion] by the year five billion then I give up!” Now, why Platform One was shaped like a crucifix is beyond my powers of deduction, so I will need to refer this one to a higher intelligence.

Which brings me to Richard Dawkins. For those of you who don’t know, Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist and outspoken atheist, perhaps best known for his book The God Delusion in 2006. More excitingly, he was married to Lalla Ward who played the Fourth Doctor’s companion Romana, so do line up for a photo (preferably in an 18 ft. long Fourth Doctor scarf. Marvellous. Absolutely.)

The voice of reason?

But Dawkins also made a guest appearance in Doctor Who, playing himself as an interviewee on Newsnight to provide the voice of reason in the midst of mass hysteria. The episode was The Stolen Earth and everyone was going nuts because a new system of planets had appeared in the night sky. “But it’s an empirical fact,” Dawkins insists. “The planets didn’t come to us, we came to them. Just look at the stars – we’re in an entirely new region of space. We’ve travelled.”

Later, he’s referenced in the Series 5 episode, The Big Bang, apparently as one of the few people who still believes in the existence of stars. (It’ll make sense when you watch the episode.) Anyway, the role Dawkins plays in these two episodes is clear: he’s the man of observation, of reason. He’s able to establish the truth of the matter in the midst of everyone’s misguided beliefs – just by using his eyes and his intelligence.

Indeed, this a theme of many a Russell T episode – the idea that people would much rather ‘just believe in something’ than actually use their eyes or their brains. We see this in Army of Ghosts when Jackie Tyler is prepared to believe that a grey, ghostly shape is her dead father just because she “wants it” badly enough. Until, of course, the Doctor comes along and corrects her. Using the magic of sight.

And I could be wrong, but this seems to be the point that RTD is constantly trying to hammer home: ‘don’t believe in anything until you’ve seen it.’ He even toys with the idea of ‘debunking’ Jesus’ resurrection altogether in Planet of the Dead when he tells the Lady Christina that he remembers “the original” Easter. “Between you and me, what really happened was-” And then he’s suddenly cut off.

(At least Mark Gatiss’ The Unquiet Dead hints that there is something beyond the grave, and that even the Doctor doesn’t have all the answers.)

It’s better to believe in science?

As such, I think it’s fair to say that you’re going to have a much smoother ride through the Whoniverse if you’re an atheist. Or, for that matter, a scientist. Which makes sense, as this is science fiction after all, not Jesus fiction (we have The God Delusion for that, ahaha…!).

I can’t lay all this on Russell T Davies’ door though; Terrance Dicks gave the subject a wink in Horror of Fang Rock when the Doctor’s companion Leela declares that “it is better to believe in science”. I guess this was less clear-cut though, as (strictly speaking) she was comparing science to magic, not Christianity. And then we have Steven Moffat, who makes playful (almost Douglas Adams-esque) jokes about religion in many of his stories, such as when the two Sontarans are blown up in The Time of the Doctor. “The relevant afterlives have been informed,” they’re told. Which is nonsense. Albeit amusing nonsense.

But I do need to be fair to the show; there have been times when it has taken a much more sympathetic stance on religion. The Thirteenth Doctor’s companion Yaz is a practicing Muslim, and nobody bats an eyelid at this. Then there is The Satan Pit from Series 2, and even though it comes down on the idea that the Christian concept of the Devil is incorrect, the Doctor is forced to concede that there are many things about the Universe that he doesn’t understand. He’s faced with a creature who existed “before the Universe” – a concept that, by his own admission, doesn’t fit “his rule,” and one that it is too hard for him to wrap his head around. The Doctor is forced to accept that he has reached the limits of his powers as a scientist. He cannot observe something that came “before time and light and space and matter.” This problem is left open-ended and unresolved, forcing the viewer to accept that there are some things they will never know.

Space for all?

Despite all this, I can’t help but notice that whilst we’ve had some good airtime for atheists and agnostics since Who returned in 2005, there haven’t been too many Christian companions wandering around the TARDIS console, quoting joyously from the book of Psalms. Now again, I must stress – this doesn’t hugely bother me. Not really. I’m not accusing Who of being ‘Jesuphobic,’ or even insisting that it represents me in the show that claims to have ‘space for all.’ But nonetheless I wonder if there is some reluctance to venture into Christian territory? And if so, I’d be curious to know why.

Or heck, I can just wait until I’m the showrunner and then have lots and lots of stories set in 1st Century Jerusalem with Paul of Tarsus as the companion. You have been warned, Twitter.

What do you think? Is there an opportunity for Doctor Who to broaden its reach and introduce some new faiths into the TARDIS team? Or do you think Doctor Who should avoid any kind of representation of religion altogether, and focus more heavily on its stories? Let me know in the comments below.

If one ignores the invisible Krayfish and all that stuff about hair colour and accents, Vincent and the Doctor is about the genius of Vincent Van Gogh: a man so in tune with the world that he could hear colours sing to him; yet a man who struggled with his mental health. The Doctor, at this stage of his timeline, is the ultimate optimist. Vincent was chronically, and terminally, depressed. Try as he might to sympathise with Vincent, the Doctor could only understand on a very limited level what the painter had to endure. The Doctor’s response to Graham’s attempt to share in Can You Hear Me? is not so out of character after all – notwithstanding the latter scene was handled in such a heavy-handed manner. Matt Smith’s Doctor tries to understand what drove Vincent. He is unable to help, but at least he tries.

Mental health issues affect much of humankind, including several contributors to The Doctor Who Companion. Including me.

Mental health issues affect each of us differently. I could not and would not attempt to write about how it affects everyone; I can try to explain how it affects me. Let’s hope this can help someone.

First some background: I am 58 years old and a Licensed Conveyancer. I have been a Doctor Who fan since at least 1966. Last May, I was encouraged (read ‘coerced’) to take early retirement on health grounds. These grounds were not specified and were not the real story. I have not worked since early September. I had a relationship break up about a month ago. I also drink too much.

I have not been diagnosed with depression. Nevertheless, I do suffer from depression.

Not every day. Some days are fine. Some days, I am able to function normally.

Some days are very much not fine. Some days, I do not want to wake up. It can be a real struggle to get out of bed and leave my flat. Some days, I do not manage it. I can be surrounded by people, friends even, and feel totally alone. Like being in a box or the First Doctor inside the Animus’ hair-dryer/communication tube.

Sometimes, it seems as if there is no future or, if there is, there is no place in it for me, or I have no wish to be part of it.

I have not sought medical help. At the moment, I would rather not.

It must be really difficult for onlookers to know what to do to help. Thankfully, no one has asked me what I have to be depressed about (it is often not ‘about’ anything). Neither has anyone told me to get over it, to pull myself together or that many people are going through worse.

Spending too much time online is a very solitary lifestyle. Real relationships can grow online but they are usually somewhat limited in their scope. Solitude is a curse.

So what does help? For me, people help. Being among people. Chatting with friends. I am a Christian. My faith sometimes helps. Sometimes it doesn’t. But two things specifically work: being able to chat to fellow Christians and the knowledge that there is better to come.

Selfishly, it helps to know that others go through this. Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t want anyone to feel how I do. But it grounds me to know that I chat with people who will believe that I am not making it up.

A A Milne is reputed to have described two ways of assisting someone who is sat in the mud. Either help them stand up or sit down next to them.

Which brings me to The Doctor Who Companion. Despite what I said about the limited nature of online relationships, I do regard you all as my fam…ily. The love and support I have received from you has got me through some very difficult times. I am really grateful to you for it.

Best way to help this particular depressive? Be a friend.

I hope that the above has not been either: a) too depressing; or b) self-indulgent. If you suffer from any mental health issue, I cannot promise to know what you are going through. I probably won’t. But I will at least know that you are going through something. If you are sitting in the mud, budge up and I will sit next to you.

If you identify with any of the issues raised in this article, please don’t be afraid to speak out. The NHS has a great list of mental health charities that may be able to help too, as does CALM, for international readers.