Season 9 titles????

What is with the beautiful, spooky, vaguely literary Doctor Who episode titles this season?

The Magician's Apprentice
Reminded me immediately of Narnia, but that's the Magician's Nephew. It's not quite the Sorcerer's Apprentice either (you know, with Mickey Mouse)

The Witch's Familiar
Doesn't remind me of anything, but it's beautiful. And what bearing does either have on the episode????

The Girl Who Died/The Woman Who Lived
Is, of course, from Harry Potter: The Boy Who Lived 

Sleep No More
Is the title of the Punchdrunk Macbeth production in New York;  the full quote is 

I thought I heard a voice cry, “Sleep no more! Macbeth is murdering sleep.”

Face the Raven
Poe, obvs. For the rest of time, there can be no other raven which won't remind someone of Edgar Allen Poe's poem.

They also seem to be really into their clever pairs:

The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar
Under the Lake; Before the Flood
The Girl Who Died; The Woman Who Lived
The Zygon Invasion; The Zygon Inversion
Hell Bent; Heaven Sent

Look, I know fans can build a theory out of old string and something Christopher Tolkien found on the back of a fag packet, but...

This is unusual and new. Is it meaningful?

"Peri, pass me the ming mongs..."

So, what was going on with the Doctor montage in The Lodger?

Preface: fans are bloody nuts, are sad, should have better things to do than pausing through television and then debating about it.

I'm just very sensitive to anything diminishing Colin Baker's marvellous Sixth Doctor - it happens a lot, and always raises my hackles like hairs prickling on a cat's back.

In The Next Doctor, they had their first proper past-Doctor montage - One, Two, Three, Four - and then they cut back to the Doctor and Jackson Lake talking, and I felt this little catch in my throat, because cinematic language and sense informed me that while they talked the 80s were being screened on the wall behind us. But, joy of joys, even if it didn't make sense, they faithfully returned to the wall and did all ten. Even Paul McGann, who no one was expecting to see but were happy to get.

But there was a moment when I thought "they are about to omit the 80s!" I still refuse to have a favourite Doctor, but if I had to pick an era over the others it would be an easy choice. The most challenging, the most creative, and the most bravely, gloriously flawed decade of Doctor Who. Of course, it can only be creative because it is building on a solid and familiar foundation. Just as 5, 6 and 7 are only fascinating deconstructions of the Doctor because we are so aware of the journey represented by 1, 2, 3 and 4.

So when The Lodger showed a past-doctor montage, I knew at once who was definitely missing. And pausing through I discovered that actually, there were three Doctors missing. My era.

The gremlins on Gallifrey Base have worked out exactly the sequence of shots:

• Nine from Parting of the Ways
  
• with cybermen
  
• Ten from Family of Blood
  
• with the Racnoss
• Eight
  
• with ten and rose from the Impossible Planet
• Four with Ood
  
• Three
• with A Weeping Angel from Blink
• Two
• Hartnell is with a dalek that fades off to his right
• Eleven with Amy

I also link you to the complete screenshot map produced by Lilo-booter.

So, why? I'm going to ultimately explain why this isn't an overreaction, so bear with me.

It's prejudice.
Everyone thinks the 80s are shit. A reasonable theory except: Peter Davison is Steve Moffat's favourite doctor, and this is very much on record - a beautiful essay he wrote for a fanzine, Time Crash, and his recent gushing in The Eleventh Doctor confidential. And if you were going to take a canon hammer to Doctor Who, surely Paul McGann would be first to go.

"That's Not Prejudice It's Racism"
Academics use racism and prejudice as two seperate terms. Prejudice is hating one group, but racism = prejudice + power - rather closer how you might use the phrase "institutional racism". It's a useful and interesting distinction.

So maybe it's not just disliking a set of Doctors, but part of a move to remove them from canon - prejudice, and the power to act on it. Flesh and Stone already hinted that the crack is responsible for deleting bits of RTD's world, such as the CyberKing in The Next Doctor.

I don't think this can be true. The fandom would explode and become nasty, and it seems like a rather mean and mad bridge-burning thing to do. Like it or not, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy are the three most dedicated living ex-Doctors (arguably, McGann as well). They regularly work with Big Finish to record new audio plays.

It's weird:
There has never been an old-doctor appearance like this before. To start with, it's out of order (Nine then Ten). Other references have always been strictly fair to all, and uneven appearances have been in context. A good example is in Vincent, where the printout shows One, then Two - and then the story finds more interesting things to do, but we can assume the rest would have followed.

Even in this very season, we started with a perfectly even montage. And it's not like they didn't have time to make it six seconds longer, or replace some of the Ood and Racnoss.

Amateur day at the office?
In Resurrection of the Daleks, there is a montage counting back every single Doctor and companion. It omits Leela, because someone forgot. A spin-off novel has been written to explain the mistake. All the same, I think it's unrealistic that someone would accidentally forget three.

It's plot
Moff has said everything in this season has a purpose, no matter how small. "We" have already identified several "continuity errors" which, "We" are certain, are not errors at all but hints at a Blinklike master plan weaving through the season. Because you are not a super-geek, and have better things to do with your time, you probably haven't noticed them yet. It's just part of Our campaign to make Ourselves feel superior to you. The finale is going to unravel beautifully, changing what we already know about many of the episodes we have already seen.

A crack which removes things from time: why could it not affect the Doctor, not just as prejudice level but as a brilliant story twist? It's been done before, in Interferance - and that's the key to my disbelief here. Interfereance is a dense spin-off novel, written by and for fans. Why would they tie the season arc to such heavy continuity? And if they did want to, then why target three doctors nobody likes anyway?

If it was truly part of a season arc, it would make better sense if the missing Doctor was:

• Tom Baker. Everyone would notice and care.
  
• Peter Davison. If you wanted to go with an old Doctor, then pick one who the "not-We" know about.
  
• Patrick Troughton. Almost as popular as Tom Baker, and then the crack could explain his missing episodes.
  
• Nine/Ten. Everyone - and I mean absolutely everyone - would notice and care.
  

A lot of forum folk are speculating - as always - that a true multi-doctor special is on the horizon. I still think this - as always - is a stupid idea. But I did earlier comment that the three missing Doctors are those most open to the idea of involvement in the show, so perhaps there is an avenue there.

Neither of those ideas satisfy me; but the lack of any other reason bothers me deeply.

It's a red herring.
Moff knows what fans are like, and knows the controversy it'd cause, and is laughing at me from on high, for writing this post.

THE ULTIMATE DW THEORY

Friend 4 and developed this, quite by accident, in a very frenetic 15 minutes. As a canon Nazi, I'm not usually prone to developing new swathes of mythology all on my own, but this strikes me as justifiable on three counts:

a) Doctor Who is a huge beast, worked on for 45 years by thousands of people. Every actor, writer and director had their own things which they gave to the series. Inventing your own part is, then, quite a different affair to screwing around with Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, each of which had One Creator and one unified vision. Hell, nowadays the show is being run by the fanboys - you can look in back issues of Doctor Who Magazine to find fan-rants written by RTD, the Moff and the rest. Therefore, my contribution is no less valid than anyone else's. It wouldn't be the first time I've remoulded canon in my own image. I have not one but two of my own superior Valeyard origin theories, as well as a grisly theory about the fates of ex-companions and a private version of what happened to Turlough on Trion. Also, in my canon Caves of Androzani goes by its original name, Chain Reaction.

b) the area I'm covering has been deliberately not touched on - it's practically an invitation. It has only ever been explored in audios/novels (in Master and The Dark Path, and also in Lungbarrow and the rest), and therefore of questionable canonicity anyway.

c) And it's always been crappy. This makes far more sense.

The super-mega theory about why the Doctor and Master stopped being friends, and why the Doctor got exiled, and also why he won't tell anyone his name. And some other stuff.

Key: things in red and bold are canonical facts, accompanied by where they come from. Things in green are reasonable extrapolations based on facts, accompanied by square brackets and italics explaining things. Everything else is me, and statements not at all backed up by anything in the show are in blue. Colour scheme completely accidental, but a nice coincidence nontheless.

So it started from me asking how someone as fundamentally evil as the Master and as good as the Doctor could ever have seen eye to eye. It's well established that they used to be friends at the Academy, and it's clear from every on screen encounter that they get on really well when they are not facing their ideological differences [every time Delgado'n'Pertwee team up; also how pally the Doctor is with the Portreve (Castrovalva) and Yana (Utopia) when he doesn't realise their identity]. The chemistry is so there, but they can't help but argue when it comes to ethics.

However, when we first meet the Doctor he is not good or heroic, at least not how we expect. He kidnaps his first companions against their will, lies to them, and even attempts murder to get out of a tight spot. It's through contact with the humans Ian and Barbera that he learns the value of compassion and valiance, and with each successive companion he becomes more and more like the figure we recognise. Even the Third Doctor still has to be talked into heroics by UNIT - he'd much rather be back on a cosmic joyride. You don't really see the Doctor landing and attempting to help until the Fifth - it's not until his Sixth regeneration that he starts actively looking for trouble and thinking of himself as a Doer-Of-Good.

So we can suppose that the Doctor of Gallifrey was even less well behaved, at least in human terms. In other words, he was thinking like a Timelord - superior to everyone, not caring about lesser species [reasonable guess based on the first few episodes, and every Timelord we've ever met]. Yet there was one fundemental difference - he was not content to sit and just watch the universe go past. He wants to travel and he wants to get involved. [obvious, really, from his later behavior] Not necessarily "involved" as how you'd imagine the Doctor to get involved nowadays - saving people, hunting things - but still, he was thinking BIG. Every non-renegade Timelord we've ever seen has been completely tedious and law-abiding, so you can imagine how a rebellious Doctor would bond with the only other person in his class [probably] who also had big ideas. Loneliness does strange things to people ("Such a lonely little boy...", Girl in the Fireplace), so the Doctor's enthusiasm at meeting a fellow mind would naturally lead him to overlook the Master's flaws. The pair become completely wrapped up in one another* - they neglect their studies [numerous references to the Doctor failing his exams - Deadly Assassin and Ribos Operation are two], but have some very big plans of their own.

[*you've met people like that, right? Also, see later episodes - the Doctor and Master seem to care about only each other when they meet, and seem to regard one another on another plane of existance. Nothing else seems to matter. See: every time the Master abandons his meticulous plan, and instead chooses to reveal his identity so he can gloat, particularly Kings Demons. See the Doctor's refusal to bring the Master to justice, even when he should know better - letting him escape in Deadly Assassin despite an attempt to detonate a black hole at the heart of Gallifrey; letting him live in Castrovalva despite the fact he murdered Tegan's aunt, destroyed Nyssa's home planet and pinched her dead father's corpse, tortured Adric for a few days and accidently blew up a third of the universe. Do I really need to defend the statement that they have an unhealthy obsession with one another?]

Now comes the theorising. Together, they did something they secretly knew to be wrong, but were arrogant enough to assume the results would justify it. It starts small, but then it goes too far - and even though their aims seemed the same with the blindness of enthusiasm, when put to the test it turns out the Master's core motivation (power!) and the Doctor's (more hard to define at this point of his life) are quite different. They start to disagree about the basic nature of what they are doing, it gets completely out of hand, and then the Timelords catch up with them.

I hope that doesn't seem too much of a jump of logic. To my mind, it makes sense that their mutual desire for something would get larger and larger, especially because no one else would be invited to join their little friendship [see: obsession in every other Master episode ever]. Also that they wouldn't be content with merely theorising [later episodes; this is what sets them apart from other Timelords - action, change, actually putting things in motion], and they wouldn't be too worried about the consequences [later episodes]. Finally, this is when my question - "how someone as fundamentally evil as the Master and as good as the Doctor could ever have seen eye to eye" - gets answered. It is not until now they have realised that their basic aims are different.

Of course, the problem is of defining exactly what they were up to. At that point, the theory turns into pure invention. Both want to travel, to make change and to think outside the small-mindedness of the Timelords - I'll leave it at that. For non-fans, I want to make it absolutely clear - this "event" is never referred to on screen, on audio or in the books, there is no canonical substantiation for it except that it seems to make a lot of sense. So we have to ask ourselves what do the Timelords percieve as crime. The answer is interferance, along with non-conformity. It is clear, from Deadly Assassin and Trial of a Timelord, that the Timelords pretty much regard the Doctor and Master as as bad as one another. Neither want to stay on Gallifrey, both want to go out and change things. The distinction between one's "good" and the other's "evil" would be quite lost on them.

What happens is something like this: the Master is caught, and the Doctor isn't. Or possibly (but less likely IMO) the Doctor decides things have gone too far and hands the Master in, or even both get caught but the Doctor escapes. Infinite permutations of this exist - I like the first one best - but all are equally theoretical.

For this crime, both are stripped of their names.

[this is pure fabrication on my part, but seems to make sense. The Timelords are obviously into their ritual, and the Doctor obviously has a hangup about his. It is my belief that when a serious crime is comitted a Timelord no longer has any right to his name. Evidence? The renegade Timelords we meet are: the Doctor, the Master, the Rani, the Meddling Monk - also, if you accept them as Timelords, the Celestial Toymaker, the War Chief and the Valeyard. No exceptions, unless you count Omega - and he isn't strictly a renegade, merely a villain who happens to be Timelord. Also Morbius, but again that's complicated, and Drax - but I haven't seen his episode, so I can't come up with a smart answer. But everyone we meet on Gallifrey has a name - Borusa, Maxil, Flavia, Andred and so on. There are exceptions - the Inquisitor is one, so is the Castellan and Lord President - but those are all ceremonial Gallifreyan titles, so maybe there's a custom whereby you can surrender your name (therfore also your dynastic responsibilities) for the greater cause of Gallifrey itself.], and hence must choose new ones.

The Master is put on trial - the Doctor is not [in the interests of telling a good story, evidence for this follows]. But obviously, peeved about being abandoned, and also prone to panic as we see in later episodes, the Master has no qualms about revealing the Doctor's part in it. The gravity of what they have done not only endangers them, but also their families [reasonable guess - the Timelords are evidently very dynastic, and the the Doctor's family is all dead. We are presumably meant to think they are Time War references, but this works just as well] Instead of standing by his buddy and admitting to his part, the Doctor uses his freedom to rescue his family. Possibly arriving to find them all dead, possibly they have merely vanished and been imprisoned/exiled [based on half-garbled memories of Cold Fusion. Death seems violent and sudden for the Timelords - maybe imprisonment makes more sense, because pre-Doctor would not necessarily want to take the huge risk of a prison break. Perhaps the best answer is he simply cannot find them, and doesn't have time to risk Susan's life to save them all. Something tragic definitely has happened, even before the Time War - in Tomb of the Cybermen, he claims his grief about them "sleeps in his head" -but in Curse of Fenric he claims he doesn't know whether or not he has a family, suggesting maybe he never found out where they got to.]

In any case, he does find his granddaughter Susan [no time here to discuss whether she's actually his grandchild - I hate the Cartmel Masterplan, I don't know why collective Fandom has such a hernia about "the Menoptra and Vespiforms" and I don't know why it's necessary to invent a huge mythos about pre-Doctors, the Other and parallel timelines to explain away a simple fact like the Doctor having screwed someone once. While I like the idea that "Grandfather" could be a Gallifreyan term of respect, she is so obviously his that this whole argument is rendered null. Too cute to be anything but.] and the pair of them hastily escape in a stolen TARDIS. When we first meet Susan and the Doctor, they are definitely in danger and on the run. The way to make someone behave like a criminal is to treat him like one. The idea that Susan might be in danger also explains why he kidnaps Ian and Barbera - their knowledge might prove an anomaly which would alert the Timelords.

The Doctor is eventualy put on trial in The War Games - proof that he wasn't put on trial first time around, and evidence that only the Master was caught for whatever-it-was. His punishment is one forced regeneration - we can also presume that's what the Master got. As we have no idea what regeneration Delgado!Master is actually on, he could have recieved an even more severe penalty ["I have wasted all my lives on you!" - TV Movie], given that by the time the Second Doctor was put on trial he had saved the universe once or twice and maybe had some mitigating arguments. I haven't actually seen The War Games, which naturally hampers the argument, but I can't handle more than one regeneration in a year.

Here ends the theory: from now on, I'm merely justifying using Master episodes. The following is more spoilerific, if anyone actually cares, but not so much it'll spoil anyone's fun.


This non-canonical event is reflected in all the subsiquent meetings between the Master and the Doctor. In his first appearance in Terror of the Autons, the Timelords warn the Doctor that the Master is on the way - ergo their history is known, and the Timelords are keeping tabs on both of them. The Master's first action is to attempt to kill the Doctor, ergo he's still cross about something. But when he's not crazy with vengeance, the Master is really keen to team up with the Doctor. It happens automatically - even in Terror of the Autons, it takes only five words for the Master to have a complete change of heart, and for both to efficiently solve the problem and save the world. Ditto in Sea Devils, in Claws of Axos. Not only does the Master want him to help, he actually expects him to. On several occasions, he genuinely believes the Doctor is going to leave with him. It suggests they did once have a very healthy working relationship, and the Master expects that to still be there - not understanding that in the interim, the Doctor has become a Good Guy. It also explains why the Master has such LOLage at the Doctor's pretensions to goodness, because the Doctor he knew was far more flexible in the morality department.

[I'm no longer a fan of my Doctor/Master alien-concept-of-marriage theory, but those who like the idea may want to fner over Terror of the Autons working title: The Spray of Death.]

Similarly, the Doctor seems to feel he owes the Master something. It's more than the Doctor's regular refusal to let villains die - the Doctor is actually pretty flexible on that front. It does genuinely seem as if he has something to make up. The Sea Devils is a particular example of this, with him going to visit the Master in prison to check he's OK, and having fought extra hard to prevent the government from having him killed. It's a very telling episode - the moment the Doctor agrees to help the Master build his super-device to awaken the Sea Devils and Enslave The Universe, his guard just evaporates. He doesn't even suspect the Doctor will sabotage it - it's all "here are the blueprints, please rebuild it and lets conquer Earth together".

Of course by the time you get to the end of the Third Doctor's run, the Master is beginning to get the idea. The next time you see him is Deadly Assassin, where his plan involves sacrificing the Doctor - although it's a matter of survival, which is always of a slightly different priority for the Master.

[For the record, I rank the Master's motivation as 1) Survival, 2) Winding the Doctor Up and Attempting To Kill Him, In A Good Natured Fashion, 3) Universal Domination. I base this on what he is willing to abandon, i.e. he will always abandon a plan or the Doctor to save his life, but he will also always abandon a plan to save and/or annoy the Doctor.]

After that, Logopolis - and mk.2 Ainley!Master is a different kettle of gumblejacks. His actions are no longer governed by my Non Canonical Event, so much as events we've seen on screen. And he is very, very different. The chumminess goes away after Castrovalva. Five and the Master never once team up the way Three inevitably would. The Master still puts him in fatal scenarios which are deliberately easy to escape - it's like the unwritten rules of the game - but at the same time he genuinely wants to hurt him. Kings Demons - all of it - is my evidence. I think he's finally got the message.


So what do you think? Any plot holes? Any inconsistancies? I'd love a chance to defend and make my argument better. And look at me, all grown up: I've managed to write an essay about the Master without mentioning Planet of Fire once. Hurrah for me!

Time for a new Master boxed set?

I'm thinking Terror of the Autons, as the character's first appearance, really deserves to be on DVD. Right now, Delgado fans only have Claws of Axos, and I'm not sure anyone has much love for that as a Master story.

The Deadly Assassin is also a prime candidate for release, being that it's a great and noisy classic. So make that the second disk of the set - obviously, this is also a key Master episode and an interesting one for his character.

Plus, like with Beneath the Surface box, they seem keen to package a non classic in with classics to make them sell. In this case, The King's Demons is my vote for a third disk. At only two parts, and supposedly trite ones at that, it'd be hard to sell it any other way. It balances the Masters, and gives you three different Doctors in one box. I've always considered their conversation over Kamelion to be one of the most telling in their relationship, anyway, and thus important for a boxed set about the Master's character.

Add a few nice special features. Serve with red wine. Sorted. Christmas, please?

I've heard rumours that a Planet of Fire commentary has been recorded. I'm also sure that one day, someone who isn't me will realise the commercial brilliance of releasing a Black Guardian boxed set...

Scary Moments: The Valeyard

But first, I want to talk about Through the Dragon's Eye - an adventure from the Look and Read team that's traumatised me for life ever since we were shown it at primary school. It was good sub-Narnia stuff - children are taken to save a fantasy world because (and here's the education) they can read and the locals aren't, and they need to read the book of the Veetacore to put some big mystical McGuffin back together before the world disintigrates. Or something. I watched this when I was 8 or 9, and remember it with the terrifying clarity which you might recall your first Dalek, or The Singing Ringing Tree or something. Things which scare you in your youth never really go away.

As I discovered when, miraculously, one of my senior school friends not only remembered it, she had it on video. Coming back to face a childhood nightmare is the type of thing recommended by sadistic shrinks only in the most tedious movies; and yet there we were, on a sweet sixteen sleepover, reliving one of the most brilliant and terrifying experiences of my youthful years.

You can tell by body language when someone is scared. I generally curl up and try to vanish into the sofa. The reappearance of Charn, Dragon's Eye's villain, had me behind a cushion. And that's nothing on my friend's reaction.

The Valeyard has exactly the same effect on me, and he hasn't been lodged in my subconscious for 10 years. Is it the chilling delivery? His implacable expression? Or just the discovery that part of the Doctor's mind is given to wearing black, saying "my dear" and chuckling after all? Even the Trial of a Timelord theme tune gives me a little thrill.


That he presents a genuine threat to the Doctor helps - Trial-Doctor is completely powerless to influence the events on screen, producing a sense of helpless onlooking the entire way through - like watching the ship crash in Earthshock, or the TARDIS fry in Journey's End - but worse, because it's already happened.


The threat of a council of Timelords is also far scarier than any number of armed opponents. There's no way he can talk his way out of this one, make a quick escape, happen upon a ventilation duct or make a break for it. The immediate danger is less - but there's no point at which he is entirely safe.

He manages to actually reduce the Doctor to a stunned silence for most of Mindwarp - the number of people who've ever succeeded in shutting him up this completely can surely be counted on the fingers of one hand? And Six is meant to be the belligerent one. He knows more than the Doctor too, another unusual situation - his true identity, for one thing; all the Gallifrey background; what's really going on in the Matrix. The revelation in Ultimate Foe makes it all twice as bad - the endless fun of multi-Doctor squabbling takes on a sinister turn, as the Valeyard looks on his former self with icy distaste, and knows exactly how to make him bleed. Peri is case in point. And after 90 minutes of "I have to save Peri!" in Caves, the Doctor's total indifference and declaration that he values his own life over hers becomes even harder to watch (incidentally, Mindwarp along with Curse of Fenric are eligible for the Planet of Fire award: when good Doctors turn bad)

He's everything the Doctor isn't. Still, calm, capable of staying in the same place for more than half a minute. Cold and unemotional - pick your favourite Doctor rant on the values of love and compassion, any of them will do. I'm sure the Valeyard has no more appreciation for a well cooked meal than the Cybermen do. Evil, of course. But also a Gallifreyan toady - happy to abide by their rules, and agreeing with their way of doing things. At the same time, little touches - like the fact his Matrix is pinched straight from Dickens - prove he's still our guy.

I haven't read any of the Sixth Doctor novels, but what I know of them has "not becoming the Valeyard" turn into a major part of his agenda. Regressing to Fiveish dilemmas again, not wanting to do morally bad things for good reasons because the last thing he wants turn out this rotten. I like that idea a lot. Its also nice to know he evidently scares the Doctor about as much as he scares me.

Its a tragedy for everyone that the Valeyard will never be addressed in the new series. Eventually, we'll get to a point between the 12th and 13th regenerations. No one is going to want to address something this continuity heavy, especially because Trial is widely regarded as the worst bit of Who ever, and everyone seems to want to forgot the 80s even happened. But I found an internet theory that is a genuinely exciting idea.

Just like odd bits of the Doctor's past have been covered up by the Other (Cold Fusion seems to suggest Susan is his granddaughter, which clears that matter up tidily), I like the suggestion that sex-doll-Doctor in the parallel universe from Journey's End is going to turn into the Valeyard. It makes a sort of sense. He's still the Doctor, but isn't quite (cf: the Other). It removes the need for a canonsqudging McGuffin which magically glues his dark side together - he's already the Doctor. And it also makes sense that he would get twisted...

The Doctor effectively tells Rose that what she's got is the Ninth Doctor all over again - murderous and pissed off. Its a cute idea that she'll make him better for a second time.

But I don't think Doctor Mk2 and Rose are going to have a married bliss. Stranded on Earth? Without a time machine? Filling in tax returns and arguing over curtains. I know its what the Doctor's kind of always wanted - an ordinary life - but he doesn't want it really. It's an ideal, not a practical idea. And if you don't believe me, watch anything with the Third Doctor in. Nine's always reminded me of Three anyway, so dumping him in the same timezone for good sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. And what's he going to do when there's a war on, or an earthquake, or an alien invasion but Rose is at her mum's for the weekend and he's got to mind the kids, and the limitations of Earth transport mean he can't possibly go and help. Somehow I don't think subscribing to Amnesty International would keep him happy. Both he and RTD spend two whole seasons pointing how much more fun they're having in outerspace than her old TV-n-chips lifestyle. From Rose's point of view, she looked mighty disappointed when Doctor Mk1 left - not to mention the fact she's as much married to Donna Noble than she is our favourite Timelord. And he's adorable yes, but surely she's in love with the lifestyle too.

And before you say "yes but the unfilmed script or deleted scenes had him handing over a grow-yer-own TARDIS", my response is a) I think it makes a bizzare sequence where RTD pleases both camps by fobbing Rose off with a ripoff-Doctor even more bizzare to add a ripoff TARDIS b) surely it can't be that easy? What about growing them out in deep space so accidental leakage doesn't accidently blow up any planets or destroy the vortex? Where's he going to keep it, the shed? and c) even with a time machine, there will still come a point when Rose wants to settle down for something tangible in her life. With 50% of marriages ending in divorce, how do you think they'll do with all the added complications? Even if he is human.

The human thing is a problem in my theory, but if the Master can extend his life by nefarious means, then the Doctor's certainly smart enough to. Especially (grumble) if he's managed to grow his own TARDIS in a shoebox behind the fridge.

So here's what I'm saying - the idea was someone elses, but this is my projection:

Things with Rose sooner or later inevitably go sour. Maybe it's being irreversably alien in personality, even if not physically. Maybe it's thinking Cyber ships are a great tourist destination for the kids. Maybe he just gets terribly bored. Even if he loves her enough to want to stay for the rest of his life, the responsibility of having to stay will drive him nuts. Domestic anguish ensues. Falling out with your true love can screw anyone up. Doctor Mk1's plan for Rose's healing touch to redeem Mk2 backfires. Especially because it's not simply coaxing the Doctor back to his natural self - she's dealing with 50% Donna, who maybe is irreversably murderous. Mk2 retains the Dalek-killing-for-the-greater-good streak*. It's only a small step from that to deciding the destruction of all life on Earth is a good idea to hide Timelord paperwork.

*a key trait I've identified in Nine is the tendency to think like a Gallifreyan at first. Contact with Rose (young, compassionate, instead of ancient and cold) is what turns him back into the "everybody lives" guy (see his cool dismissal of Mickey's death in Rose).

Too outlandish? If you ask me, it's an awesome theory. We've got two doctors to go before they have to deal with it, but this is a brilliant idea if they don't.


So here I am, watching Trial of a Timelord, and I find myself moving further and further back into my chair, and increasingly I'm not drying my hair with that towel, I'm actually hiding behind it. Its no secret that I'm easily scared, but the Valeyard is a special case. He even manages to pull off the chilling final shot of the whole sequence without it seeming cheap.

Fenric is the Black Guardian!

In my recently published introductory post, I list this statement among more conventional wisdom about what does and doesn't make it into my version of canon.

Doctor Who must necessarily pretend every weekly monster is the worst ever, otherwise the tension dissipates. He can't stride in to the Slitheen and point out what we all know - that compared to the Daleks, they're wimps. This occasionally leads to horrible cliffhangers such as "it means the Master has finally defeated me!" from Time Flight, when confronted with a wall.

It also means the Doc ends up facing off Eternal Evil From The Dawn of Time quite a lot. I've never been into "lets make canon straight" - because you can't tie up all the loose ends in a program that big and long running, with so many different influences. But I do genuinely believe Fenric and the Black Guardian are the same character - they occupy the same role, and work in the same way. It wasn't meant to be like this, of course - just a coincidence. But lets look at the evidence...

• The Doctor explains that Fenric isn't his real name, it's just a name for him - he's really just a personification of all that is bad. Similarly, the Black Guardian is a personification of malice with a grudge against the Doctor. When he gives his potted history to Ace, his descriptions "evil since the dawn of time" and "two forces, only good and evil" could equally apply to both characters. In mythology, it is the wolf Fenric which will consume king of the gods Odin (who, with a bit of imagination, we could liken to the powers of good, or the White Guardian).
• They have history - they've fought each other before. For Fenric, he ends up trapped in a pot. For the Black Guardian, this is the Key to Time lark, but the White Guardian assures the Doctor after Enlightenment that he will be back. But he never is, not on screen - so lets argue that the Fenric backstory happened sometime after this, making Curse of Fenric the promised showdown?
• Both manipulate humans instead of challenging the Doctor directly (Turlough vs Fenric's wolves). You can also argue that both stories boil down to the actions and decisions of a tainted companion.
• Chess metaphors! Quite aside from the whole Black vs White Guardian thing, Enlightenment begins with Turlough and Tegan playing chess; the chess connection in Curse of Fenric is obvious.
• "I control the game, the Doctor's destiny!" - The Black Guardian. Compare to "We play the contest again", "It's like it's some kind of game and only you know the rules" and numerous other references of this type in Curse of Fenric

I'm not suggesting any of this is deliberate - it's just tempting to see them as the same person instead of allowing two very similar character concepts to coexist. It also provides a proper resolution for the Black Guardian story.

Now, Sutekh and the Beast is a different story. Not only do I believe they are the same character in essence, I also believe it to be deliberate. Lets look at the facts:

• Pyramids of Mars is a popular, memorable episode, and Sutekh a very iconic villain (also, incidentally, my favourite). This makes him a natural choice to bring back, much as the Cybermen, Master, Daleks and Davros were.
• In the middle of series 2, the show was a lot more wary about referencing its own history. We hadn't even had the word "Gallifrey" yet. If someone did want to return a classic, they'd be wary about diving straight for their video collection.
• "Your name is abhorred by all civilisations in the galaxy!" Or words to that effect from Mr Baker. He certainly gives the impression that Sutekh is the archetypal devil figure which, lookie do, so is the Beast.
• Both characters are imprisoned; both work through other operatives - the Robot Mummies are replaced by the Ood, and Toby (I suppose) can replace a Scarman. If you look for less obvious similarities, both involve a small human group trapped in an isolated area, and both are shitscary.
• They're both played by Gabriel Woolfe, and in both cases the monster can't move, it's just his voice that does the dirty work.

It's a good theory, right up until Gabriel Woolfe shows up, at which point it is a great theory. Like drafting in real-life-Doctor-daughter Georgia Moffat as in-story-Doctor's-Daughter, it's stunt casting too obvious to miss. Now apparently, the story was already in the can before he was cast; but hell, I think this theory's watertight!
While tidying up the loose ends, the Ood claim another name for the Beast is Abbadon - who you'll know turns up at the end of Torchwood series one, and spoils a rather complex, interesting and creepy episode by attempting to destroy Cardiff with the unholy powers of CGI. Even though there's more textual evidence here than anywhere else (it also says he too has been locked away), quite frankly neither Sutekh nor the Beast would ever behave so crassly as Abbadon does, nor be defeated by Captain Jack crying at it. Or whatever he does. What does he do again?
Of course, with Sutekh and the Beast both evil-destroying devil figures, and Fenric and the Black Guardian also being chaotic-evil-destroying figures, maybe there's an argument to be made that they're all the same thing? Ignoring the Guardian, Sutekh, the Beast, Fenric and Abbadon all end up sealed in rifts, black holes, curtained chambers, or whatever bricabrac the Doc had lying around at the time. But I think this is taking it too far...