With a new era fast approaching and the last still hot on our lips, now feels good a time as any to do like the Fourteenth Doctor and take the time to think some of that through. The last month has seen something truly ground-breaking for Doctor Who by having a production team that started a whole phase of the show’s history return to bookend it and launch something considered separate and new to what came before. It would be the equivalent of Verity Lambert returning to write the coda on classic Who with her take on Survival before sitting down to work on The TV Movie the following month. Some may disagree with the idea of another new Season 1 as a matter of principle. They would be right to say that, unlike the end of the McCoy Years and the Wilderness Years that followed, there is no true gap between the two as there certainly was when Series 1 launched in 2005. The format this time also appears to be largely the same, albeit with fewer episodes each season and a determination not seen before to ensure regular outings each year. But what is abundantly clear both from the statements of the new team and what we saw narratively towards the end of The Giggle is that this is a new era by design.

The Third Great and Bountiful Doctor Who Empire begins here, like it or lump it.

The Giggle ended the ‘Nu Who’ era of the show with bombast and, once again under the stewardship of Russell T Davies, no shortage of controversy. The tone of a 21st Century show written by Russell T Davies (It’s a Sin) shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone paying attention but his journey from ‘Doctor Who Saviour’ to ‘Doctor Who Destroyer’ amongst the darker and more embarrassing members of our fandom has been particularly quick and decisive this time around. The trio of Tennant-led specials en masse proved to be a smorgasbord of tastes with both fans and general audiences too. Critical reviews, discourse on Twitter, lengthy debates on The Doctor Who Companion itself (my email notifications continued for days after I’d chosen to exit the discourse) and from viewers I know personally seem to provide a consensus that most have liked at least one of them, and that many have strongly disliked at least one of them too. There seems to be a fairly even distribution of which individuals consider to be the good episodes, which tells us a lot about them by itself.

Lucky enough to avoid any feeling that could described as strong dislike or anger thus far, I’m pleased to say that I found enjoyment within each of them to different degrees. That’s not to suggest I can’t see where those that do find things to dislike are coming from though. Gratefully, unlike the previous era where quality often felt far from assured, the standard of these was largely high from a production and writing point of view. Other than some criticisms of deux ex machinas (nothing particularly new from Davies or Doctor Who in general there, it must be said), clunkiness in The Star Beast, and some (unjustified in my opinion) unkindness about the quality of the CGI in Doctor Who’s first wholly green screen endeavour in Wild Blue Yonder (did they not see the 1970s blue screen equivalent to compare?), most of the polarisation has appeared to come from what the stories did wrong narratively rather than the style and finesse by which they went about it. Russell has of course been far from subtle with his messaging early on and far from hiding from controversy (as many hoped he would) has appeared to gleefully flirt with it at every turn, both socially and in the way he addresses and changes Doctor Who lore. My initial reaction following the conclusion of The Giggle was that it had more to say than the other two combined. The depth of ideas and themes made it a real thinker and also the most worthy of the mantle of the 60th anniversary banner.

That’s not to say that any of the three were perfect or even good storytelling at times. Whilst the nuance seen early in The Star Beast was beautifully done and will hopefully educate many on what trans experience must be like, the later stages of the episode did occasionally creak under the weight of the message which was being delivered. We’re fairly used to on-the-nose storytelling on the back of the Chibnall era but the ending of this story would have made even him blush at times. But that’s not enough to make it a bad thing. It was a discussion starter. Many will have discussed it since — people who may have either disliked or felt alienated by the idea of trans identity for fear of the unknown or who may have been scared to discuss it for fear of rebuttal. Mothers and fathers will have seen the acceptance offered to Rose from her loving family. It may have shown them the way to be in those situations. It may save lives. It’s sometimes easier to remain silent on things which we don’t fully understand for fear of getting it wrong or sounding silly or stupid. It’s important for these stories to be told to allow these discussions and to find ways for society to move forward. The fact is that the first mainstream ‘issue’ stories most often are on the nose. When Cathy Come Home came out in the 1960s, it was hardly subtle about addressing the welfare state. EastEnders, which has usually existed somewhere between the deplorable and the exquisite throughout its long history (often in the same episodes), has tackled gay relationships, teenage pregnancies, historical child abuse, rape, HIV, stillbirth, and dozens of other challenging topics over the decades and almost always with broad, obvious, and performative (though occasionally incredibly well researched) storylines. They don’t have to be delicate to be important or powerful. They exist to break the ceiling on what can be done or said and to allow more nuanced stories to run where they initially stomped. None of those stories had Twitter (or X, if we must) to contend with, and largely they all benefited from that. It will be hard to put that particular genie back in the bottle unfortunately.

The Star Beast and The Giggle were strong modern-day parables about the way that we treat each other. The first dealt with what it felt like to be different in the 21^st Century, while the latter addressed how difficult it has become to have challenging conversations within the last few years. I found myself in a self-reflective state on upon the conclusion of the latter, asking myself why the potential backlash to the first should worry me more than the other. For those still who somehow missed it, The Star Beast dared to take on the complex as you care to make it issue of trans existence. Visiting my in-laws in Northern Ireland between specials one and two, it didn’t take so much as the car journey from the airport to hear remarks about the wokeness of a trans character appearing in ‘even Doctor Who’. It made waves and I’ve no doubt that was completely the intention. If RTD is reporting correctly and the story has so far been seen by over 9 million worldwide since broadcast, then it’s done the show no harm at all and may well have had many of those viewers and more talking.

While there’s a perhaps a nuanced discussion to be had on when or even if sci-fi should be the medium for such home based discussions, I’d be quick to call such thinking out on a base level at least. Sci-fi exists as a medium on the backs of those who wanted to teach modern lessons to societies without threat of abuse, punishment, or imprisonment from their governments. Animal Farm, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein, Brave New World, and The Handmaid’s Tale would never have flown over the heads of those they satired and critiqued if they had been told in common terms. They would never have been successful and so, we would never have learnt from them. While traditionally sci-fi has admittedly handled the outstanding and large while soapboxes handle the minutiae, it was Doctor Who and Davies himself, following the strong example of the USA’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who in 2005 realised that the most effective way to make sci-fi saleable to mid-noughties British audiences was to make them more human and family-driven. It really shouldn’t have come as a surprise that he’d continue where he left off when he came back.

The second special was more traditional Doctor Who fare than the others and mirrored well against past adventures like Midnight and to a lesser extent Heaven Sent. It will both live and die by those comparisons, and by how one felt about the larger-than-life special effects. In it, we saw an open and closed monster story which allowed both the Doctor and Donna to exorcise some personal demons. The excellently performed short scenes where the Doctor acknowledged the harm of the Flux and the Timeless Child may have been as meta as it gets for critics of the previous era, though I do think their inclusion helped give weight to the bygone narrative somewhat as well.

It was otherwise completely inoffen… you what? They cast a person of colour as Isaac Newton, a historically confirmed pasty Caucasian? Get my lawyer on the phone! I jest of course. They had to do something to raise Tory blood pressures that week and I’m glad it did the trick. I’ve asked Isaac about it, and he said he was fine with artistic interpretation but wanted the record correcting on one or two matters: he was 44 at the time he discovered mavity and felt that Curtis was far too young for the part. And at a whopping 6’5 he felt that he was far, far too tall. ‘Well, Isaac’, I said. ‘Don’t you worry. You know what they say? What goes up must come down!’ I’ll get my coat.

In the hours and days that followed the third special, I had a few questions to consider about myself too. Why did I allow my enjoyment of the first episode to be affected more by what people may have thought than I did the third? Both had very strong things to say and the latter is, if anything, more direct with its criticism of so many of us. The revelations ‘in Whoniverse’ are arguably even more disagreeable for some. To address the societal implications first, I think it comes down to this. Sad though it is, everyone will take some positivity from The Giggle’s message about society, even if they differ on what they feel that message was. At the present time, as the episode satires, many do take up regular battle stations about ‘big issues’ saying the unsayable without regard (usually from behind a screen). And society does feel divided by buzz issues that would not have been as inflammatory as they are now a few years ago. Amongst the many hateful anonymous keyboard warriors, there are noteworthy examples of public figures and politicians who make the anger feel far worse and who normalise it. The rabbit hole of the now repetitive and well-publicised discourses that dominate the national consciousness (but seemingly very few of our actual lives) appears to be all consuming for many and the ‘issues’ seemingly grow to define those that spend so much time in a fury about them.

Regardless of what side of angry debates these incredibly dedicated few decide to spend so much of their spare time fighting for, they, as the episode portrayed so correctly, do indeed believe that they are absolutely right and that the ‘other side’ is absolutely wrong. Both will likely take a false solace from the episode’s message against cancel culture and a world where nobody will listen to them. Those of us in the middle will sadly nod at the accuracy of the statement. I realised that criticising a fundamental issue of 2020s life and our seeming inability to have grownup discussions anymore is a less controversial thing to talk about than the first special’s stance that trans existence is valid. That’s a hell of a thing.

Acknowledging that cancel culture and mob rule are a symptom of both extreme sides’ inability to listen should tell us that we’d be more sensible to take a more nuanced and calm view of the things that make them so angry. And that we shouldn’t let them dominate our airwaves or discourse. Unwrapping it too much and too openly, however, can place one directly in the firing line and few want to risk entering these battle zones. Very few are brave enough to be the first out of the trenches. Many have jobs which would make doing so a significant risk. That is, unfortunately, where we are. Most seem to share a good understanding of the problem but are afraid and frustrated about how to combat a discourse so openly hostile. Sadly, we don’t have a UNIT-sanctioned laser beam to magically solve the issue for us in real life. But in both cases, at least Doctor Who has given us a reason to think and talk about it.

The story of The Giggle itself is hurt most by an overabundance of ideas that I don’t think necessarily played well together on first viewing. In that respect, it’s arguably the closest thing to a Moffat script that RTD has ever delivered and, like with a lot of the Moffat’s best work, it often serves the viewer better on repeat watches. It was fantastically written, produced, scored and, especially, shot and directed. The emotional scenes all hit, the transitions were excellent, and the scary scenes in the Toymaker’s realm were the first thing my partner felt the need to shield our young daughter’s eyes from in her short, but inevitable, journey as a Doctor Who fan (or Doctor Do as she currently calls him). The story was well paced and the special effects were all excellently rendered. The Toymaker scenes in the second act are potentially the most out-there Who has ever been, as was the Spice Girls dance sequence. I’d compare the design flourishes in places to the beautiful artistic direction of Star Wars‘ The Last Jedi compared to the rest of that series, though thankfully the story beats and pacing were far less contentious.

If The Giggle’s initial threat was a parable for society, the conclusion (and specifically the Fourteenth Doctor’s ending) may have been a one aimed squarely at fans of the show. The message would appear to acknowledge how difficult things have been lately and kindly suggests that we find time to process our own strong feelings about the series. It works to an extent because we do appear to have ‘suffered’ for our love of Doctor Who for a long time. I’ve never been active within a Doctor Who fanbase that hasn’t been fiercely divided about what makes the show good or important. Footage of Panopticon conventions in the ’80s and ’90s and negative quotes in fanzines about 1976’s The Deadly Assassin would seem to prove this has gone back much further.

The idea that the Doctor has been through so much and never allowed himself to look back offers an interesting contrast to the fanbase too as we rarely appear wholly happy in the moment watching the show and often feel the need to look back to what has been for validation on what it should be now. Often, this even extends to how fans view themselves as well. ‘Who am I without the toys?’ the Doctor says. Who would we be without Doctor Who? I admit I find fixation on how good it used to be particularly self-defeating. I can reflect on how the 13th and 14th Seasons of Classic Doctor Who and the 4th and 5th Series of Nu Who were the best the show has ever been until the cows come home, but it’s only to my benefit and to those my who my view equally validates.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t talk about or remember our favourite stories. Far from it — if it brings us joy, and it often does, then there’s no problem with it. But if it’s getting in the way of how we or others enjoy what’s coming out now then I think it’s far from helpful. Nothing will bring those times back and neither will new stories stop them existing. It’s why I continue to refuse to get hung up on the Timeless Child. The older stories are not under threat. They’re mine and yours (if you want them), unedited and unchanged, and they will be forever. This story seems to want to persuade us to take the time to digest our memories and, like the Doctor, deal with our feelings to allow ourselves to move forward. The alternative is fixating and allowing it to define who we are today. It’s a healthy message for both those looking ever forward for fear of looking back and for those stuck in the past that made them. Its most potently a fundamental reflection on who the Doctor has been since 2005, with the ever-present desire to hold onto the past while creating new relevance often stopping Doctor Who from being as creative as it was in the long gone past.

In 2007, Spider-Man was in a place so continuity bound that the executives at Marvel felt it had lost much of what had made it the sensation it had become. For this reason, they gave the series a soft reboot with a story called One More Day. The story was known internally to be so controversial a concept in its inception that the chief editor, who wrote irregularly at the time, wrote it himself in order to take the flack. It was widely panned by critics and caused absolute uproar within the Marvel fanbase. A deal with Mephisto saved Peter’s Aunt May after she had been shot and restored his secret identity at the cost of… pretty much everything else. Spider-Man, long married to Mary Jane would now be single. How dare they? Decades of storylines were thrown under the bus. How abhorrent. The creative team apparently considered it a necessary move as it allowed them to trim all of that baggage (not just Mary Jane for the record; she returned in due course) to tell more exciting stories moving forward. The ending of The Giggle will certainly prove divisive too, and I’m still unclear about how a feel about the Fourteenth Doctor remaining on modern day Earth (more on that later), but Ncuti will be a more level, more balanced, less tortured — in other words a more ‘classic’ Doctor than he’s been allowed to be in the last 20-odd years due to this decision. I think it will be a good move. Just as RTD once invented a trauma through the Time War to allow his new Doctor to display pain and angst, this will do well to allow his current Doctor to exist without it for a while. Once again Tennant can be the Doctor who regrets while this new one can, more fairly this time, afford to forget.

If I had one major issue with The Giggle when it aired, it was how much it left unexplained. I shouldn’t need to refer to commentary tracks, regardless of how well sign posted they are, to fully understand a new concept which should have been explained on screen. Just as RTD’s comments on Davros were more difficult for many of us to process than the recent Davros appearance was itself, his words here will likely cause many more ripples than the episode itself going forward. I think this is perhaps done on purpose, but that’s not a great excuse in terms of effective storytelling. I wasn’t left with the impression that these will be things particularly addressed immediately (if ever) on screen. Leaving gaps for others to fill or reinterpret along the line may well be the smarter move long term, when compared to something overtly clear and difficult to misunderstand or rewrite, like the Timeless Child. The implication of his words outside of the episode itself will allow fans room to reconsider continuity. We were the target of his words and we’re the only ones who care about making things work or fit. But I like my stories to speak for themselves and I do see it as a negative for the episode itself.

For casual viewers who don’t care about pesky timeline alterations, it must be said that bi-regeneration doesn’t require a lot of further examination to allow them to continue to enjoy the story into the new era. It happened; it, we were told, had been a mythical something the Doctor already knew about that then happened to have happen to him. Is this, like the Toymaker’s appearance here, something that was allowed to happen due to the invocation of salts on the edge of space and time? Would this have happened differently otherwise? What other doors may have been opened this way if so? All are good talking points but straightforwardly, it doesn’t break any rules or contradict anything. Bi-regeneration was always there, we just hadn’t heard about it before, like so many things before. Sure. Let’s roll with it. It was nice to meet the Fifteenth Doctor a little early and it, in a way, maintained the ‘multi-Doctor in an anniversary’ theme well, while offering a vastly different take on it.

The specials went to great lengths to introduce us to what would appear to be an ongoing supportive cast. I found comparisons to the introduction of this new UNIT reminiscent of their initial introductions in The Web of Fear and The Invasion back in the 1960s. We had a couple of notable but effectively nameless soldiers in the shape of a Benton or a Yates as well as meeting our new central team. Kate Stewart, back once again, was joined in these specials by new Scientific Advisor Shirley Anne Bingham and her alternate universe bestie Mel Bush, or Melanie-Mel for all of you Hebe Harrison stans out there. No, I’m not going to explain it. You all have Google and Big Finish accounts, right?

Kate was great in this story. Arguably as great as she’s been since her 2013 introductions in The Power of Three and The Day of the Doctor and at least since her Cyberman mic drop in Death in Heaven, Jemma Redgrave was finally allowed to perform in the way we know she is capable. Kate’s slowly equalling her father’s tally for Doctor collecting (The Brig met Doctors One to Nine if you include expanded media) and she’s now met Doctors Eleven through Fifteen face-to-face. Her best moment here was the brief but powerful moment that she wasn’t herself. The hate and evil that she spouted while out of control should reground us somewhat when we’re thinking our wildest thoughts, or assume prejudice is something that only other people possess.  If that’s a negativity that can be unleashed in an unthinking Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, immaculately raised, and educated, and one who’s dedicated her life solely to the protection of others, what atrocious behaviour must we all be capable of when we abandon thought and decency? She became the person The Daily Mail, The Sun, and The Telegraph want us to be in that moment, and it reminds us why it’s important for someone in her position of power to be so reserved and considered in their approach.

Shirley and Mel were welcome additions for different reasons. Even after two specials, I feel we’ve barely scratched the surface of Shirley. Her display of Bond-esque heroics in episode one was matched by her savviness and resolution in episode three. Mel’s return admittedly felt rather more shoehorned in. I’ve found little valid story reason to why she of all companions should or could be there, nor anything within her onscreen back catalogue which would make fans desire her of all companions to return. Furthermore, while the intentionally simplistic ‘just because’ reason we received on screen did, at least, do well to remember that Mel wasn’t initially dropped in 20th Century Earth when she left, it becomes more confusing when you know that she returned to travel with the Doctor after she left us on screen. She had many further adventures in books and on audio, the last of that long arc coming out as recently in 2018. Her most recent work with Big Finish came out this year, albeit stories set in an earlier place in Mel’s personal timeline. It’s nothing new for TV to ignore expanded media of course but does bear particular mention in this case as those stories (and Bonnie’s performances in them particularly) are what endeared Mel to us and made her likable, or at the very least bearable, in the first place. My reception to her coming back was infinitely softened by these stories to the point of being glad to see her return again in The Power of the Doctor last year, so it seems a little strange considering how much Langford has put into to rehabilitating the character in the last 23 years to so freely cast that all away. Like with many aspects of this story, little thought will have been given to expanded media, and that is a shame even if I do realise how few people it will relatively affect.

Further cluster bombs to the non-existent Doctor Who canon includes the entire history of The Toymaker, who had previously returned to face the Doctor quite a few times before The Giggle. They met in Endgame and Relative Dimensions in the comics, Divided Loyalties in the books, and, despite missing the TV rematch they were promised thanks to Michael Grade, made the audio and novel cuts of The Nightmare Fair. On top of those, and perhaps the most grievously, is the early John Dorney Big Finish masterpiece Solitaire featuring the Eighth Doctor and Charley as well as the Seventh Doctor adventure The Magic Mousetrap. The Giggle promptly and firmly insists that only The Celestial Toymaker can possibly have taken place, effectively wiping all those stories off the board regardless of how much one bends over backwards. Unless they happened after. They could have happened after, right? He escapes the case and goes back on the Doctor’s timeline to cause havoc. The Doctor doesn’t remember for… reasons. That works… Right!?

On top of that, despite giving due credit to the creators, The Star Beast makes no attempt to help include the original The Star Beast comic within continuity, arguably wiping the first black companion Sharon from the archives. Not so much as a nod to ripples or history repeating itself. I am, of course, on the whole, being flippant and insincere when it comes to Russell’s wanton destruction of Doctor Who continuity. As I said earlier, nothing actually changes those stories. We still have them and we always will. But these are the things we do undoubtedly allow ourselves to get hung up on. Why do I waste so much time worrying about how a current story affects what’s gone before? I suppose it’s because I care about them. But common sense does interject occasionally.

It should come as no surprise, then, and getting back to the point at hand, that one needs to stretch a little harder to remember the numerous adventures that a younger Mel, having already parted ways with Glitz, travelled for some time with the Seventh Doctor and Ace before finally being dropped off once again in the audio medium. Can it be that after her soft betrayal of the Doctor backfired she, sadly, in a down and out state decided to chance herself on ‘sleazy even for the ’80s’ Sabalom Glitz once again? Oh, how sad and how hard that must have been for her to go through. At least she was able to laugh at his alcoholic death in the long run. Bless. And how old is she supposed to be now if he died at 101?!?

Her baffling return not withstanding, and canon moan over for now, I enjoyed seeing her again. With her computing skills finally put to some use, she was arguably more Mel than she’s ever been on screen before. She had good chemistry with both Doctors, and I expect RTD will look to her EastEnders work more than her first Who TV stint to work out how to best use her going forward. Why did he choose her though? Well, one may look to the first Doctor Who story RTD wrote. No, not Rose — no, not even Damaged Goods, but Mind of the Hodiac, a story he wrote and submitted to then producer John Nathan-Turner as an 18-year-old. The non-commissioned script, recently adapted by Big Finish, featured Mel and the Sixth Doctor. It may well be that Russell has a sweet spot for the character for that reason alone. As with many others in this new ongoing line-up I look forward to seeing more of her, particularly with her status as an orphan being pushed. Will we somehow finally get elaboration on that unseen TV story which depicted her first adventure with the Doctor? It’s a story already told in novel form but as I’ve gone to great pains to point out, I don’t suspect that will get in the way too much. Okay, I’ll stop,

Our new Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa, was spectacular from the off. When the regeneration started, I was thrilled. Finally, a Doctor regenerating halfway through a story, I thought. Who would we credit this story to in the future? And you thought Colin Baker leading the last serial of Season 21 was confusing… Whose face will go on The Collection set?! The weirdness of the initial imagery of the bi-regeneration aside (Ncuti becomes the first Doctor to defeat a villain in his pants), it was a lovely surprise to see the two in action together, sharing the stage. Every line Ncuti delivered was assured and he was as much the Doctor in his opening moments as any has been before, even beating Matt Smith to the punch, despite Smith’s first episode being (in my opinion) the best of all time for proof of concept. He was funny, sassy, emotional, beautiful, giving, and strong, and I cannot wait for another dose.

The bi-regeneration. Right. As I previously noted, I am very happy with the decision to ‘move on’ the Fifteenth Doctor to a fresh start. The consequence of this however is the Fourteenth Doctor’s continued existence. If The Giggle annoyed you, this will probably be the reason why. Not only are there two separate David Tennant Doctors now among us (albeit in different realities) but one is now on present day Earth. Furthermore, if the commentary is to be believed, there are now several other Doctors now roaming around (different realities? Pocket dimensions? Who knows?) due to all the Doctors allegedly now doing the same thing. In other words, RTD has suggested, when the Fourteenth Doctor bi-regenerated, all the Doctors did. So, a Hartnell who didn’t regenerate exists after the Second Doctor now bi-regenerated from him. Versions of Tom and Colin Baker are bashing around somewhere too, post-demise. And a Matt Smith, maybe not for long in that case given that he aged to death. It’s a good get out of jail card for any future appearances but does it make even a shred of sense? It needs a lot of continued thought if you want to be too literal with it. The Doctors we saw in Tales of the TARDIS — yeah, they’re bi-regenerated Doctors. Okay, sure, but hold on, does that mean there were two Doctors at the conclusion of The Caves of Androzani now? That certainly wasn’t within the text of this story or of that all time classic. He (the Fifth Doctor) may have had some words to say about the Sixth’s negative words about him, the treatment of the companion for whom he had just died, and almost definitely about Six’s choice of attire. And which one got to keep the celery when they split in half?

It’s very convoluted and it’s not an idea I like thinking about too much for fear of risking headaches. Also, if that happened every time does that mean that there is not one (Ten), not two (Ten 2, of the hand), not three (actual metacrisis Ten), not four (Ten 3 of his actual regeneration) but five (Fourteen) David Tennants roaming about time and space? Surely that would push even Ten’s ego too far? The world would implode purely from the self-interest! No, it doesn’t bear thinking about. But I doubt it was meant to be. As with The Star Beast’s Donna ‘let it go’ reasoning, and like One More Day, I don’t think creators want us to think too much about these contrived things, but for us to just go with it for the freedom it will allow us to enjoy going forward. Fair enough. Let’s deal with it internally and move forward. Allons y! I’m sure such sound logic will be enough to put the issue to bed for the fandom once and for all.

I wouldn’t spend too much time worrying about whether this new version, being considered separate as it is, will be disrespectful of what’s come before. The third special gave us many Easter eggs and references for us to nerd out over if we chose to, and with Mel continuing into the Gatwa era its very clear that this isn’t simply about saying goodbye to the past. Along with classic references to Mavic Chen and obviously the Toymaker himself from the First Doctor’s era, the trial of the Second (or perhaps the Sixth?) Doctor, exile on Earth, the eyebrow communicating Delphons and ‘Here we go again!’ from the Third Doctor, Sarah, the Key to Time, and Logopolis (the Fourth Doctor), Adric (the Fifth Doctor), Mel (the Sixth Doctor), and the Gods of Ragnorak (the Seventh Doctor), we also received mentions of the Time War (the Eighth/War Doctors), Mel’s delivery of the word ‘Fantastic!’, and Fifteenth’s reference to Rose (the Ninth Doctor), Allons-y, Trinity Wells, the Archangel Network, the essence of the Master in an object picked up by a woman and a sort of regen fakeout (the Tenth Doctor), the Pandorica, The Giggle serving as a subliminal message similar to the Silence in Day of the Moon, and River Song (the Eleventh Doctor), an indirect reference to the Doctor being President of Earth when he granted permission to use the weapon (the Twelfth Doctor) and the Flux (the Thirteenth Doctor). On top of that, we had an on-the-nose (and totally valid) criticism of the Moffat companions’ non-deaths through the art of puppetry. I’m sure it wasn’t ill meant but you can admit to yourselves now that those were unsatisfactory endings. Enough time has passed. You can do it. We’re all here for you.

Right. To finally address the elephant in the room. Should there ever be two concurrent Doctors and should the Doctor ever settle down? Firstly, I think you could argue that all the Doctors are existing concurrently all the time anyway. They travel time and happen upon places. They never check in advance to make sure they won’t bump into each other, do they? The reason given for Amy and Rory being irretrievable from the 1940s was that there was too much time travel there in that time and place; at least a decent amount of that is due to the Doctor alone in stories that we’ve already seen. The real issue in this arises through Tennant being a ‘grounded’ Doctor akin to the Third, living in one era consecutively albeit in possession of a working TARDIS this time out. He can use the TARDIS as a holiday home and make short trips but what happens when, as it so often does, Earth is invaded the next time? You get this contrivance in comics and spinoffs all the time. How can we justify the main protagonist not stepping in when the stakes are so high? Where are the Avengers or the Fantastic Four when the Sinister Six have destroyed half of New York with only young Peter Parker to stand in their way? Furthermore, it’s possible that his ‘niece’ (lovely touch by the way) Rose will be returning in the future to star alongside Ncuti and yet is also taking trips to Mars with the Fourteenth Doctor. And Donna may be joining UNIT, should Kate get her way. Why wouldn’t she call on her bestie when the dung hits the fan? Surely the logic of his staying in sub-retirement to process things won’t stand up to the potential destruction of Earth. The main question is will all of this not potentially overshadow the Fifteenth Doctor? I’ll put it this way. We’re all fans of Ncuti and want him to stand by himself. He will. He’s amazing; I’ve never loved a Doctor this early. That’s a fact. I’m itching for more of him and he has nothing to worry about when it comes to being overshadowed. He is magnetic. The potential problems within the story will have answers. Just trust RTD not to be an idiot. He’s done alright so far.

But should the Doctor ever settle down? Probably not. It would be a terrible ending for the show if it were being rested, for example. Different question: should the Doctor ever take some time? I’d refer to a certain Sherlock Holmes spending time with his bees or an Alain Quartermain on his ranch in Africa. They always come back for another story when we need them. The Doctor already has; we’re seeing him: Ncuti Gatwa is that Doctor. I think RTD makes a valid point with his message about the Fourteenth Doctor. The Doctor, and we, have been through so much. The last 18 years have been hard going for a variety of reasons. Many wish the last five of those hadn’t even happened. The Moffat years dragged us through a rollercoaster of barbed wire fences. Some Classic Who fans still don’t see Davies’ relaunch as the same show. It’s time to draw a line. Stop suffering with the Doctor. Stop, as I alluded to earlier, comparing the apparent failures of the present to the past. Nothing will ever beat nostalgia. Just relearn how to enjoy your favourite show again or pick an opportune time to jump off. None of us will ever see the ending, after all. Nor should we. Doctor Who will and should last forever. RTD has given us a perfect excuse, should we need it. Retire with your memories. Retire with your Doctor, even. Nothing will change them or what they mean to you. Doctor Who will never end, but Davis has given the show another very good semi colon with this ‘ending’. The next few episodes will represent a whole new chapter.

Questions for the future include… (deep breath) who the Toymakers legions are, who the lady who took the gold tooth/Master is, which Master is it anyway, why does it absolutely have to be Ryan Gosling and how devastated will I be if it’s literally anyone else, who is the Meep’s boss, who else did the Toymaker battle and will they return now he’s locked away, who is The One Who Waits, will the 14th Doctor eventually actually regenerate into the Fifteenth Doctor who will then be cast back in time (rehab in the wrong order) or will he be go onto the become The Curator, are there now two different TARDISes or is the jukebox version with wheelchair accessibility just a future version, how do the Guardians and the Eternals fit in to all this, do they even, why are the Goblins singing exposition at us, when will they release The Meep plush toy, how long will the Fifteenth Doctor have been the Doctor when we meet him again, how many outfits will he have in episode one alone and by how much will he beat Pertwee’s costume record by the time Season 1 is all said and done, is Doctor Who a musical now, who is Ruby Sunday, who is Anita Dobson’s character? Okay. Enough to keep us going then. I cannot wait for The Church on Ruby Road!

The advent of this particular series of Doctor Who has been an interesting one to follow and experience. In a time where the fanbase has arguably never been so divided, the announcement that Russell T. Davies will be returning to run the show he once brought back to life has provided a certain level of calm and unity. When it relates to the current series however one could be forgiven for thinking that this is perhaps one of the lowest stakes in the show’s long history for fans as a direct result. For example, we are no longer worried about ratings failures. Its cancellation is out of the question for now without regard to how this series performs. We know this isn’t the end for this particular Doctor either, or in fact any of the companions. They’re all confirmed for three specials next year.

The knowledge that Russell is returning has had an impact on the perception of the long-term narrative health of the series too. Whatever RTD eventually brings to the show, the perception of the damage which this era may or may not have done has been very much dampened to all those who were concerned by Series 12’s conclusion, as they believe that Davies will just retcon any damage done. Finally, this series suffers from what all third series of Doctor Who these days do, in that by the time we get the final of the now all but mandated three series an actor will do, most opinions are steadfast, whether loved it or hated. I wasn’t as worried as I was going into Series 12, because I liked it, and I’m sure others were far less optimistic than they would have dared to be before Series 12, because they really didn’t.

Having said all of that, the publicity this year has been very good. They may well have left it too late as some have said but the last two weeks or so have given us lots to chew on, an excellent trailer, some good interviews by many of the cast and crew, interesting new cast and character reveals and enough to begin to speculate, without really having a clue. A perfect balance, and something which both this and other eras have struggled with one way or the other. I’ll conclude my preamble by saying that personally I was positive and excited to see what this first episode would bring to us going into it.

What struck me almost immediately while watching the episode we were greeted with was exactly how much there was to undress. We experienced many disparate scenes and met many characters at a break-neck pace, and I was left feeling that we were experiencing something much larger in scale compared to previous years. Long form storytelling has often been considered Chris Chibnall’s best style, as the incredibly popular Broadchurch which got him the job attests, and my early impression of this story is that it will follow that pattern. Despite the vast display of ideas thrown at us, I never felt that the pacing was off and in fact I felt we somehow got to know the players much better here than we have in the previous years of this era during standalone episodes. This can only bode well as we get to know them even better in the coming weeks. 

The episode begins with a breathless action sequence which is, to put it mildly, absolutely ridiculous. We find The Doctor and Yaz in a situation straight out of a 1980s James Bond film, in deep trouble and no way to escape. Aside from the killer sharks all the hallmarks are here. The villain telling you his plan and leaving before he knows it’s worked, the acid water below them, and the timer-based device ready to plunge them into it. Chibnall uses this scene to catch us up with what’s been going on. It’s a little wordy in places but it gets a lot out of the way for later and it was a fun action sequence to cold open us into the episode itself before the real story began.   

The remainder of the episode takes itself much more seriously. We start in 1820 and meet Joseph Williamson, a real-life tobacco merchant and philanthropist best known for a series of excavations which to this day we have no real answer to the motivation of. He provided work for many in the Liverpool area but was widely questioned by his contemporaries over the purpose of the work and as the digging stopped after he died, we may never know if there ever was one. With a bio like that its more of a wonder that Doctor Who hasn’t done this story already and even before the episode dropped speculation was rife that we may get a fun answer to the question of his work in this series. This week we received a short scene which neatly established much of that and, already knowing that new companion Dan Lewis is also of Merseyside origin, how important Liverpool will be to this story overall.

A short 201 years later we meet the aforementioned Dan and if he didn’t immediately enter your heart with that speech about Liverpool, you’re of sterner stuff than I am. With Dan we quickly get something that’s been severely lacking from Chibnall’s Doctor Who. An unassailable criticism of the show as it has been, is that we just don’t know the companions in the way that we were used to under previous regimes. It can be argued that we knew Donna, Rose, Martha, Amy, and Bill for example by the time their first episode had concluded, while it can also be argued that we still didn’t really know Ryan before he left. The same cannot be said for Dan Lewis.

We spend important time with him before he’s introduced to The Doctor’s world to know who he is and what he’s about. John Bishop delivers an earnest and enthusiastic performance that lets him directly into your heart. Dan, who we know from the preview clip earlier this year is a plasterer by trade, is struggling for money and yet dedicates time to other people rather than looking after himself. He volunteers at his local food bank but is too proud to take from it himself despite his fridge and cupboards being bare. He’s a proud Scouser and Liverpool fan and along with the beautiful spanning shots of the city we receive and a few lines of dialogue from The Doctor (Liverpool? Anfield! Klopp era! Classic!) the show has really delivered a love letter to the city this week.

We also learn Dan is hopeless in love (with another winning performance, this time from Nadia Albina as Diane) and doesn’t have time for grifters. All of this we know about him before he even sees an alien. It’s a whole other level, a major step up for Chibnall in that regard, and it helps the rest of the episode immeasurably when you actually care about what’s happening to him. Considering Bishop is a stand-up comic in his day job its no surprise that he’s also very funny and gets many of the best laughs this week.

Karvanista is in the very opening scene though few will have anticipated what we had in store for us from him at that point. From the moment he carves through Dan’s back door and removes his helmet the performance and character are nothing but a delight and exactly the sort of alien the show needs to be creating. He’s funny, interesting, and layered with what looks like a well-developed back story and culture (all whilst looking like a dog: bonus) and I hope we see a lot more of him over the next few episodes. In fact, with the design and delivery as excellent as it is, I wouldn’t mind the Lupari becoming a recurrent species. Karvanista also contains a key to the deeper mystery on The Doctor’s mind about her past and he along with the other members of The Division certainly have me intrigued where the show is heading with this. Also, does Karvanista in helmet not look a bit like the Kassavin in Series 12? Let the alternate universe speculation begin now.

Early on we are introduced to who appears to be this series big bad, to steal a line from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and we follow his progress throughout the episode. From the credits and a blink and you’ll miss it namedrop in his first scene, we know his name is Swarm. There were lots of theories about who or what Swarm could have been after Chris Chibnall dropped the word at Comic Con. Was it going to be a combination of Sontarans, Weeping Angels, Ravagers and The Master? Turns out no: it’s this guy. He certainly looks the part of a principal villain and how you feel about his place and gravitas will likely initially hinge on how you feel about The Timeless Child arc.

He is an adversary from The Doctor’s past, from the time before they wiped her memory, who claims to have battled her through many ages. He starts off imprisoned, where we’re told he’s been since the dawn of time, on the site of the ‘Burnished Rage battleground’ where he was, we can speculate, presumably defeated by The Doctor. We have some fun sci-fi tropes at play here with his senior jailer (again of The Division) briefing her junior on what not to do before immediately doing it herself, which leads neatly to her untimely demise. To counter the heroic levels of cheese in this scene we do have some great special effects and costuming and a decidedly gruesome death for 18.25 on a Sunday. It is Halloween after all and Doctor Who should be at least a bit scary for its primary intended audience.

Swarm appears to be a parasite of sorts (and don’t write off his ability not being potentially linked to regeneration in some way) and returns himself to his prime by absorbing their energy or lifeforce. Swarm is played by two different actors here and Old Swarm (as he’s described in the credits) was the one teased in the short teaser a few months ago who many misdiagnosed as a Sontaran. The younger Swarm, who we saw more prominently in the trailer, is the one we spend most of our time with. He comes across (for lack of better description) as part Master, part Joker, part Lord Voldemort, part David Bowie and part Paul Bettany while looking quite a lot like The Red Skull. Sam Spurell is clearly having the time of his life here and he pulls it off with the time he’s given in this episode. He may well go onto be the best thing about this six-episode run and I honestly hope so. I enjoyed what I saw from him this week, but time will tell. His companion Azure was similarly creepy and charismatic in the limited screen time she received and could be interesting and dangerous. I wonder how Neil Gaiman feels about no longer creating the most Gaiman-esque ever villains in Doctor Who.

The core TARDIS team of The Doctor and Yaz have proven a lot of people right this week. It’s a win and a loss for Chibnall in that they are great to watch and both have lots to do but on the other hand it makes you question why it hasn’t always been this way. Having the time to fully establish Dan while still giving The Doctor and Yaz a more interesting dynamic than they’ve had in the last two years may just be another win for longform storytelling but whatever it is, it’s very welcome and I’m pleased to see it. Yaz shows that she’s come on some way since we last saw her and is now more able (which she always had potential of, albeit it more tell than show most of the time), but also continues to doubt both herself and The Doctor, which is true and fair to her backstory. The Doctor continues to lie and hide things from Yaz, which we can speculate may prove to be the undoing of the two in the long run. I personally find the idea of Thasmin a little hard to see, despite indication in one way in The Haunting of Villa Diodatti and I find it even harder following this episode. The Doctor appears far too preoccupied to consider a new romance though if done well I’ve no quarms with it if I’m proven wrong.

The Doctor’s scenes with Karvanista and Swarm were much more Doctor than we’re used to from her which was a joy to see. I’m hoping this becomes her defining series and that we get much more of the same before all is said and done. The TARDIS doesn’t look well this year. Cloister bells, slime, moving doors and fungus style rot do not bode well for her. Let’s hope Russell gets her contract locked in early.

Along the way we also met a few other interesting faces. We meet Claire from the future/past – who uses the interesting turn of phrase ‘taking the long way home’ (we’ve heard something very similar to that before somewhere – too similar to be a coincidence perhaps?), knows about the Weeping Angels and is thankfully able to talk newer audiences through how they operate. We meet Vinder on Outpost Rose (nice touch) who witnesses the start of the Flux. We meet our new Sontarans who seem to be a nice mix of old and new and we spot our first Weeping Angel who immediately gets to work. I won’t say too much more about them all here because we will certainly know and see much more of them over the next few weeks, but I enjoyed what I saw of them. We also get some cool call backs to classic and new Who, with mentions or displays of Nitro-9, Scottish Doctors, Sontaran tongues, the previously mentioned Outpost Rose and my personal favourite: ‘Nice to meet you Dan. Run for your life!’

The direction from Jamie Magnus Stone here was crisp, entertaining, and coherent and kept the show moving exactly as it needed to. This is a particularly impressive feat in post-covid settings and with such a lot to introduce. The stage design was also excellent, and we didn’t miss those international location filming days too much this episode. Special effects were great, even if the opening sequence didn’t quite pull it off to the level we’ve grown to expect. The remainder of the episode more than made up for it. Chris Chibnall’s writing was the very best we’ve seen from him. I’m not going to pretend it was never clunky, but it was certainly diminished or better hidden here and there was a lot to enjoy. The performances of the actors were all superb. The music or mix has come under some criticism in some quarters. Watching on my basic setup with no true sound system but decently sized television, I didn’t once notice any problems hearing either dialogue or music and truly enjoyed my experience with Segum Akinola’s mix, but feel I should acknowledge that some people did report problems.

Overall, I felt we were given an excellent episode of Doctor Who. The joyous nature of the programme and the sheer amount of fresh and positive ideas within this episode make it more than worth a watch for those sceptical. Many will raise the same criticisms that were raised during last series’ Fugitive of the Judoon and The Haunting of Villa Diodati, that it is much easier to ask entertaining questions than it is to provide entertaining answers. That remains absolutely true. Unlike those episodes however this is a decisive part one to a singular story. Its job is to ask the questions. We would be ill-served to not be left with more questions than we entered with. Can the rest of the series let us down? Of course. But The Halloween Apocalypse delivered on the hype of the trailer, its title, and media attention and I’m very pleased about that. Bring on the next five weeks!

The Doctor Who Target novelisations hold a very special and specific place in my heart. I’ve long been aware of what they mean to us as a community, especially to the contemporary fans of the classic series for whom they filled in the blanks, either by committing the stories to the memory banks of history or by introducing them to fans who joined the series along the way. For many, without readily available VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray releases, they were in fact the definite article, you might say.

For me as a fan visiting these stories for the first time when delving into the classic series, they were a great written or audio form for me to tuck into, to make sure my long journeys into work weren’t wasted. Later, even more importantly, they’ve been a great aid to go to sleep to (as a scandalous as it may at first sound) in times when that wasn’t (and sometimes isn’t) an easy thing to do when working irregular hours. It’s a habit my partner has developed too and we both owe many hours of rest to Terrance Dicks’ calming prose. 

For Terrance Dicks, who is the central subject of the series of reviews the Doctor Who Companion is providing, these books may well be his crowning glory. For the man who wrote and produced many of the Second, Third, and Fourth Doctor’s greatest adventures and even brought us Doctor Who’s glorious multi-Doctor 20th anniversary special, this is saying something. But Dicks’ prolific spell of Target writing projects not only provided these notable long-lasting accounts which mean so much to so many, but, in the process, also introduced many young and previously reluctant fans to reading for the first time and arguably inspired so many of them to go into writing themselves, influencing so much of what the show means right up until the present day. 

Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang was written at the peak of this flurry of creativity, with the great man producing multiple year on year at this stage. Based on Dicks’ close friend Robert Holmes’ Season 14 finale, and placed directly within arguably the most successful run of the show’s long history, it can be suggested that Dicks’ didn’t have a too much to do to make this an excellent story in novel form. While it’s true that the dialogue is very similar to what we see on screen and that the plot rarely deviates either, this is no bad thing. The dialogue is exactly what makes that story work best in its original form and to take the view that this is a fault on Uncle Terrance’s part would be terribly unfair. To ignore the importance of Dicks’ deceptively straightforward and incredibly readable prose’s impact on making the story work within the change of medium would also be a huge mistake. 

He throws you deep into the story from the off at breakneck pace and highlights every fantastic character, as well as their voices, beautifully and with impeccable ease. Many characters jump to life including Chang, Mr. Sin, Casey, Magnus Greel, PC Quick, and, of course, the real stars of the story, Henry Gordon Jago and Professor George Litefoot, as fully formed here as they were in the tenth or eleventh series of their successful and prolific spin off. The Doctor and Leela are both keenly realised and written too. You laugh with them, are scared with them, and excited to see what will happen next, as much as you’d ever want from any Doctor Who adventure.

Recent years have led to a reappraisal of this story in some quarters due to perceived stereotyping and for casting a Caucasian in an Asian role. While I don’t want to take the poisoned chalice which comes with this unwinnable debate, I would be remiss to not at least discuss how this may affect the book or perception of it. If you take issue with the serial, you’ll most likely have similar grievances with the book. Written in the same calendar year the serial aired, it is as unaware of the issues raised against it many years later as its source material is. As in the original story, most of the verbal indiscretion comes from the perceptions of the Victorian characters, which Chang sends up similarly dryly. I’ve always had a soft spot for Chang in this story, more sympathetic than I feel he’s been appreciated for and usually the most intelligent person in the room, as well as being one of the most three-dimensional characters of the piece. Unfortunately, the other Asian characters are far less fleshed out and the book doesn’t attempt to rectify this either. A more contemporary adaption may attempt to juxtapose favourable Asian characters into the story for balance which this certainly does not, and some of the prose falls into similar trappings of the time through some outdated language. If you’re looking for antidote to 1970s accepted norms against modern 21st Century values, you won’t find it here, though for obvious reasons ‘yellow face’ at least is not a factor. 

On screen The Talons of Weng-Chiang is held by its fans in high regard and the book deserves its place as an equally well-regarded adaption of it. Without needing to improve or adapt the story as dramatically to make the pages turn as he does elsewhere, this was perhaps an easier project for Dicks to complete than one of the less exciting TV adventures but that certainly didn’t stop him providing us with something special here. At 140 pages, there’s more than enough material to hold the interest and keep the story going and he clearly enjoys himself as he does so. 

In 2021, this novel has been long out of print in paperback. However, due to numerous historical printings, it is usually fairly readily available on eBay at competitive prices. It was also published as a limited-edition hardcover, reportedly just printing 3,500 copies, though for obvious reasons this will set you back a fair bit more, if you ever in fact find one. It’s been republished as part of a hardcover anthology, The Essential Terrance Dicks: Volume 2, which is certainly more affordable and less limited. It was recorded for audiobook in 2013, read excellently by the excellent Henry Gordon Jago himself, Christopher Benjamin. It’s available in this format on CD or on Audible, both individually and as part of ‘The Second History Collection’, along with similar gems like Doctor Who and the War Games, The Highlanders, Black Orchid, and The Gunfighters.

Entering a new phase of our lives, my partner and I still listen to a good old Target of a night when going to sleep. When pregnant women listen to white noise, classical music, or whale song, it is thought to have positive effects on the infant inside of them. Whether my partner has considered the positive or negative effects of listening to a Target novel on our unborn child as she rests, I’m not sure, but from my perspective, I can only see it as being a very good thing.

Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang is available to read as part of the anthology title, The Essential Terrance Dicks: Volume Two.

We science fiction fans are a weird bunch really. We enjoy the worlds of fiction we visit more than the normal folk out there. Potentially it’s because our worlds are ‘other’, which is pretty cool when you think about it. Perhaps it’s just our coping mechanism. We put more time in and very arguably get a lot more out of it too. We form moral codes and world views on the beautifully simple, good, and powerful heroes we grow to love and then aspire to be or emulate. So, it’s no surprise that we spend so much of our time debating what a show like Doctor Who should and shouldn’t be. Who he or she is. Where they started. Where they’re going. And where they’ve been. And of course, what all that means.

An unfortunate side effect of approaching your 60^th birthday is that not everything always seems to add up. Something you said when you were 23 might seem garish to you on your 50^th birthday. This of course doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen and wasn’t valid to you at the time. And just because you’ve changed your mind now, does that mean that what you said isn’t still valid to somebody? And reflectively should or could it still be to you? And when it comes to it, some people even liked you best when you were 23. Or 24 even. Or even as a spotty 15-year-old! Apply this to a television show of a similar age and the answer is that it absolutely is still valid to somebody and when you’ve a following the size that a certain Time Lord does then they will have something to say about it if you think otherwise.

Thus evolves, in one so long lived, the need for consistency: a Bible of sorts, a list of dos and do nots. And a recorded history. It’s especially important to be grounded in a world without limits.

But it’s not easy, is it? Doctor Who has had more fathers and mothers than any other major sci-fi property combined and that’s without even stepping away from your television set. Think of the books and audio books. The audio dramas and comic books. The Weetabix packets. Not to mention the short stories and annuals. From 1964 onwards, there’s always been some extended fiction and it didn’t so much slow down when the show left our screens in 1989 as it dramatically exploded.

And these stories don’t even have the common decency to be in sequence most of the time. No, they expect us to work out where or how or even if they fit in. The depth of options to pick for a Doctor Who fan is something to be celebrated but the more stories and authors you add, the more difficult it becomes to work out how they could all work as a whole.

So here are your options, Doctor Who fans. You can enjoy each story, or not, on its own merits assuming it just is, or obsess over how the next blasted story works when William Hartnell said it was impossible in 1965. It was always going to be a bit of a no-brainer, wasn’t it?

It All Started Out as a Mild Curiosity in a Junkyard…

To discuss what Doctor Who canon has and does mean to me, I feel I should explain where my journey began.

I was born in 1987 which made me two when the show got cancelled. You won’t hear any memories of my first sighting of a Dalek on screen here because even if it were on, I was far too preoccupied working out what my feet tasted like to take it in. For those of us growing up in the dark times, the experience is different to that of both the older generation who knew what that meant and the younger generation who can’t imagine the show not being there. I was more aware of Tom Baker for his role as Puddleglum in the BBC’s adaptions of The Chronicles of Narnia through hand-me-down VHS tapes as a child than as Doctor Who because the show was popularly known by those around me as an embarrassing relic of old TV — with those wobbly sets. Whenever I hear that often-repeated expression, I still get flashes of my childhood imagining of a painted wooden slab representing a bush, twanging as it wobbled in the wind behind the Doctor on an otherwise bare set: the show itself could never be anywhere close to as badly designed as my imagination told me it must be, based on the insults of common conjecture. Equally, my first encounter with Christopher Eccleston, my default first Doctor, was through Religious and Social Education classes when watching him play developmentally delayed Derek Bentley, in the dark and tragic Let Him Have It, far flung from the confident grin, leather jacket, and booming laugh we all grew to know and love him for.

I was 18 when Doctor Who came back, and it was more through coercion from my mum with tales of Daleks and hiding behind the sofa in the ’60s that I even gave it a go. I dutifully bought the stupidly bulky Series 1 TARDIS boxset when it came out in Woolworths and much later picked up the Series 1- 4 DVD boxset. But I wasn’t in love. I liked it but it wasn’t ‘must watch TV’ for me, like it was for much of the nation at the time.

It was only when Matt Smith arrived on the scene that I became the obsessive Doctor Who fan that I am today. He was more alien, more exciting, more off the wall. I bought my first classic Who, the first of Tom Baker’s stories somewhere around 2011. But I didn’t watch it at first. The idea of those wobbly sets still haunted me, and 26 seasons and a movie are a lot to take on board.

The fever continued to grow, however, as Series 6 and then 7 were released and across the following two years I not only watched Season 12 but enjoyed it immensely and began what has become an incredibly cost- and space-consuming hobby.

I first looked to complete the series on TV. The classic show was canon (otherwise why did they call Eccleston the Ninth Doctor?); I had to have all the chapters, it stood to reason. I gradually made my way through the various singular and boxset releases of the DVD collection, picking up bargains where I could as I went. The lore of the classic show is well known by most fans. The mystery of the Doctor unravelled completely organically as a succession of individual ideas. The Doctor was a time traveller, always, with a blue box, always. But he became a Gallifreyan, a Time Lord, and the Champion of Time through different authors. He was a crotchety old man, then a tramp. Then James Bond, an authoritative child, everyone’s big brother, and a master manipulator. From a probable human from the year 3000, to a definitive alien, to a 50/50 split and back again. Most of these ideas have no right to work together but they do. We as fans have made sure of that and a picture of Sylvester McCoy is synonymous with one of William Hartnell. We understand, accept, and celebrate them as the same character. I completed my Who pilgrimage in 2019, determined to make a good use of another year without a new series. I filled in gaps, rewatched classics and forced myself through some difficult seasons. It was an experience. I learnt lots and enjoyed more.

But I won’t pretend my eye didn’t begin to wander before I finished the main series. No. Expanded media had beckoned some years before and my views on many of those Doctors had already been strongly forged.

Do You Know, I Once Traveled for Centuries Without Ever Knowing Where I’d Materialise Next?

I became aware of Big Finish around the same time my interest peaked with Series 5 and started listening to a few of the Paul McGann audios. I wasn’t sold at first and certainly missed the visuals. Big Finish wasn’t canon anyway, I had read, so why bother?

The Light at the End in 2013 changed this. Not only was it the first I actually bought on CD (having things in hand has always made a difference to me) but it was fantastic. Paul McGann meeting Tom Baker? Where else would this be possible? Like most of Doctor Who, Big Finish just took a bit of getting used to, to really enjoy it and suffice to say those original McGann tales took on a whole new life when I had an ear for them. Big Finish was canon — after all it had to be: otherwise, why would the actors have so universally flooded back to make them? It gave Colin Baker the incredible run he never got on TV and it gave McGann a run full stop, upgrading him considerably on the dot of material he had so long had, and to some still has.

It’s my favourite arena of Doctor Who continuity. They’ve made more Doctor Who at this stage than has ever been made on television, and in my opinion, it’s been more consistent, more rewarding, and more exciting than any other output. And largely it all adds up inside the main continuity of the show. There are some wobbles I’ll allude to later and the most recent TV series featured a story which could arguably overwrite the McGann classic The Silver Turk (don’t worry, fan theory has it covered on this occasion at least) but overall, the output has remained respectful to the show throughout it’s 20+ year existence, and until recently at least, the show has returned the favour.

Okay Kid, This is Where It Gets Complicated!

Doctor Who was quickly overtaking most and then all of my previous fictional passions. Star Wars had been in ascendance with “The Rise of Disney” in 2015 and for a couple of films at least it held mutual status with Who before “The Last Disney Star Wars Film I Will Ever Buy” came out and Doctor Who became undisputed champion by a spectacular self TKO.

As I garnered a better understanding of the continuity of the audios, including the original BBC ones, and my collection continued to grow (bolstered by funds and space created by selling off the Dark Side of my collectibles), I turned my attention to the biggest, most difficult, and contradictory area of canon. The books had given me pause up until this point. Not only were they known to have intimidating and divisive continuities; they even argued with each other about it from range to range. The Eighth Doctor Adventures were a particularly frustrating range to get my head around at first. While the earliest Eighth Doctor stories for Big Finish were respectful of the previously released material, even referencing early book companion Sam on one occasion, by the 50th release, they were fully looking to assert the idea of separate timelines and realities.

Sam was retconned as a completely different (and utterly underutilized thereafter) earlier companion, Samson, and Zagreus leaves distinct impressions that multiple universes definitely exist between mediums. This assertion has cooled in the years following Gary Russell’s departure as producer and proportionately affects very little of what they’ve done but the references within do remain a frustrating blow to anyone trying to piece together the notion that everything exists within the same continuity.

The decision at the time to view the two mediums as separate arguably affects the Sixth Doctor even more. Between Big Finish and the Past Doctor Adventures, we have two separate and contradictory first meetings of Big Finish creation Evelyn and much-loved TV companion Mel. And while the Big Finish story The Wrong Doctors carefully tries to not step on the toes of the PDA Business Unusual in depicting Mel’s first story, earlier audio adventure The Spectre of Lanyon Moore didn’t take the same care in depicting the Brigadier’s first meeting with the Sixth Doctor which was contrastingly depicted in the same book.

The Eighth Doctor meets Romana in her third incarnation in the books but later in his timeline in the audios meets Romana II with no acknowledgement or reference to timeline disorder.

And the EDAs end with the Eighth Doctor alive but Gallifrey destroyed, something not mentioned or explained in the audios and directly contradicted later when the show came back. In The Night of the Doctor, McGann mentions his companions for Big Finish up until Molly (no love for the yet-to-exist Liv, Helen, Tania, and Bliss) with no mention of the book companions whatsoever, and in the novelisation of The Day of the Doctor, Moffat mentions all of those mentioned in the episode and a singular book companion, Fitz. Which was obviously really helpful for those trying to make sense of things. It’s all a bit of a mess really.

The earlier released Virgin New Adventures predictably don’t simplify things in any way. Not only is the tone different to anything we saw before or indeed after, featuring on occasion explicit violence, sex, swearing, and drug use, but even aside from the style it was contradictory. It’s unique in Doctor Who expanded media for having a heavy direct influence from people who had previously worked on the show in the form of Andrew Cartmel, Marc Platt, and Ben Aaronovitch who had all worked on the acclaimed Seasons 25 and 26. They all wrote individual books (to varying success) and wrote a guideline and overarching story which was similar to what they felt could have happened should it have remained on the air. Most of the famous or infamous story decisions within this are widely known by much of the fandom whether they’ve read Lungbarrow or not. The Doctor was loomed, not born, an asexual form of reproduction devised due to Time Lords being made infertile by a curse. Oh and he was reincarnated from a being called ‘The Other’ who was there at the foundation of Gallifrey, as important an individual to its origin as Omega or even Rassilon. It’s a wild and ambitious twist that I’m sure would never be attempted today, although I’m sure if a showrunner tried something like it, fans would at least give it a chance. As the VNAs concluded, out came the TV Movie with its assertion of the Doctor being half human so the ideas didn’t last long (and certainly weren’t upheld when the show finally returned).

So I certainly wasn’t going to get into that. With books from those ranges combining to make a library of more than 200 that couldn’t even agree with one another and prices for some of the scarcer VNAs spiking at over £100 for a paperback which sold originally at £4.99, it was a fool’s game.

So, what changed? Big Finish of course.

They chose to adapt some VMAs and VNAs. I thought, ‘I’ll get the ones they adapt and leave it there.’ They weren’t supposed to be good, but unfortunately for me they were. I now own a full set of VNAs and VMAs and an exceptionally good chunk of the PDAs and EDAs. A fool’s game.

My latest endeavour, the comics, are arguably even more problematic, the perhaps most famous example being the death of a 20-something Ace, meeting her demise some 30 years before she set up A Charitable Earth in her 50s. And there’s a shape shifting PI who most prefers living out his time as a penguin while travelling with the Sixth Doctor. And the Eighth Doctor absorbs the time vortex at one point and doesn’t have the good manners to even regenerate like the Ninth Doctor. It’s early days but I can’t see too many issues so far.

We’re All Stories in the End. Just Make It a Good One, Eh?

What all of this has taught me so far, other than the fact that I could have paid for the therapy I need to avoid making such rash purchases with the money I’ve spent acquiring it, is that trying to make sense of where things fit in, as fun as it is, is nowhere near as important as finding out how fun those things can be by themselves. And that the quality of stories isn’t in anyway limited to the medium in which it’s told. Despite how much of a mind-probe it is to try to understand how it can work, the far more enjoyable path is working out what you enjoy for yourself within those different mediums. I’ve gone from a new Who fan, to one who then preferred classic Who before deciding that Big Finish was his favourite version. In the past, I’ve despaired of talking penguins and deaths that make no sense, but the lesson I’ve learnt time and time again is that it’s the path of discovery that makes up more than half the fun. Those stories that pain you in principle are sometimes the best.

I mean, just look at Frobisher! He’s got no right to be but he’s great!

I discovered that regardless of medium there are as many Human Nature instalments as there are Fear Hers in terms of quality and while contradictions are frustrating, we do at least have one advantage over other franchises. Time travel is a great excuse for pretty much anything. If Russell T Davies taught us anything, it must be that.

Allow yourself to enjoy things in isolation and don’t let a fascination with a bigger picture drag you down. Don’t bemoan the current show being something that’s not for you, because there are thousands or stories already out there that probably are exactly what you want that you’ve never read or listened to or even heard of. Don’t get caught up in the how or the why. Don’t let a bad story or twist affect your love of a good one. Don’t gate keep. Enjoy. Let others enjoy what you don’t. That’s the kind of series the Doctor would want to collect and follow.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to organise my collection into chronological order. My journey’s not done yet.