Season 50 of Doctor Who would have been the second season of Chapter Four, as well as the second season for showrunner, Ronald D. Moore; Doctor, Samantha Bond and Companion, Erin Stevenson. Unlike Season 49, Jane Espenson would not be a co-showrunner with Moore, as she had decided to work full time show running the new spinoff series, The Elysium. Therefore, Ronald D. Moore had become the sole showrunner on the season, but Espenson stayed on as an Executive Producer. Ira Steven Behr, an Executive Producer of the show from 2004, decided to move on after Season 49, leaving the franchise and moving onto other things, mainly focusing his time on producing a documentary about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In Behr’s absence, Ronald D. Moore was granted the position of Franchise Executive by the BBC and CBS, looking after Doctor Who, The Elysium as well as any future spinoff projects or movies in the works. Ken MacQuarie stayed on as an Executive Producer for BBC Scotland, where the show had been since the beginning of Season 49.
Like Season 49, the season was split into two parts of 8 episodes each, with the first airing from 19th September until 7 November 2015 and the second half airing from 23rd January until 12th March 2016. Although the Elysium had been airing on Sunday nights, and had been a large success, BBC One chose to keep Doctor Who on Saturday nights, in its traditional slot. The same decision was made with the show’s aspect ratio, which remained in 16:9 despite the Elysium being produced and transmitted in 2.35:1.
The title sequence for Season 50 remained the same as Season 49, with just many of the shots being swapped out for shots from Season 50. The most striking difference was the fact that Ronald D. Moore’s name stood alone at the end, instead of sharing the screen with Jane Espenson, due to the fact that Moore was now the sole showrunner.
In addition to Erin Stevenson as the companion, Kyle Harrison, who had been introduced in the first episode of Season 49, as Erin’s boyfriend, would join the TARDIS at the end of the first episode of Season 50, as another companion for the Doctor. Hogan Cox, who had been a companion to the Doctor in the latter half of Season 49, would not be making a return as a companion in the series, due to the fact that Hogan was only ever supposed to be in just 9 episodes. Two new companions Raleigh Baker-Mitchell (played by Sarah Winter) and Pete Fletcher (played by Daniel Adegboyega) would make their first appearances later in the season.
QUEEN OF THE DALEKS
Season 50, Episode 1
Written by MATTHEW B. ROBERTS
Directed by JOHN DAHL
TX Date – 19 September 2015
This episode reintroduces Erin as the Fourteenth Doctor’s companion, after she left the TARDIS in the previous episode, and it also introduces Kyle, who was previously just a recurring character, as a companion too. The first act of the episode revolves around the funeral of Erin’s uncle, Reg, (who was seen in At the Tip of Your Fingers). The actor of Uncle Reg, David Ryall, died just before this episode was written so the writer, Matthew B Roberts, included the characters death as part of the plot. For Erin, it’s been about six months since she last saw the Doctor and in the opening scene she telephones the Doctor asking her to come along to the service. However, during the service the Doctor gets on Erin’s nerves as she notices something is wrong with the vicar, saying she thinks he’s a Zygon.
It turns out, when the Doctor does some investigating later on, at the wake, that the vicar was actually being controlled by a Dalek mutant leaching onto its back: the last survivor of the Daleks, after their mass ascension in the Panopticon episode: Vexteriminate. It initially pretends to want help from the Doctor, being a refugee, the only survivor, promising not to kill anything – naturally the Dalek was lying and hijacks the TARDIS, giving us a segment of the episode where the Doctor and Erin are locked in the TARDIS, being stalked by the Dalek mutant. The Doctor manages to lock the TARDIS controls to Earth in 1978, so the Dalek can’t escape before they get out through the makeshift TARDIS (from Bigger on the Inside) that the Doctor kept in storage. During this time, we get a few scenes of Kyle with Danielle and Roger, as they develop the tricky relationship between the three of them, especially as we find out that he and Erin have got engaged. During these scenes, Roger says that he’s happy for Kyle to marry his daughter, as long as they get to spend some more time together before the wedding, so that he can train him up at being a good husband.
The plot climaxes as the Dalek travels to Buckingham Palace (because he saw the portrait of the Queen on the wall of the Stevensons’ house and assumed she was the most powerful person in the world), after taking a pit stop at UNIT and managing to steal a Dalek casing they had in storage. The Dalek then sieges Buckingham Palace, rolling in through the front door and exterminating everyone in sight before the Dalek takes over the Queen (played by Michelle Gomez) as it plans to repopulate the Dalek race by turning humans into Daleks and using the ‘most powerful person on the planet’ as its voice, would make it easier. The Doctor confronts the Dalek-controlled-Queen, but it goes wrong as the SAS end up tackling the Doctor to the ground and arresting her. The day is saved when Erin tricks the Dalek into taking over her, as she gambles that the Dalek would be too weak to do so without the life support of its casing. It turns out she’s right before Kyle finishes of the Dalek with a nearby sword from a display.
After it’s all over the Queen offers Erin a damehood in gratitude but Erin politely declines saying that she’s a bit of a republican, much to Roger and Danielle’s displeasure. The episode ends with the Doctor and Erin departing in the TARDIS, outside the Stevensons’ home, but Kyle asks whether he can come. He tells the Doctor that he and Erin have got engaged and he’d hate to see her leave to god-knows-what-planet without him. Erin says that she’d love him to come and the Doctor says it’s alright before the TARDIS takes off and Danielle and Roger wave them goodbye. The episode finally finishes with a caption just before the end credits reading “In Loving Memory of David Ryall.”
THE GOD COMPLEX
Season 50, Episode 2
Written by TOBY WHITHOUSE
Directed by NICK HURRAN
TX Date – 26 September 2015
This episode sees Kyle’s first adventure in the TARDIS. Although the Doctor tries to take them to the galaxy’s highest-rated restaurant, they end up trapped in a seemingly 1980s hotel. When they ring the bell at the check-in counter, they find themselves confronted by three others, none of whom know how they got there. They do not know that the others who were with have seemingly gone mad and are now dead. Those who remain describe the hotel as having no exits with corridors and walls that are forever changing. As well, each room is occupied by someone or something representing their greatest fear. To top things off, the TARDIS seems to have disappeared. It turns out that a Nimon is stalking the halls of the hotel and that the hotel isn’t even real but a projection onto the Nimon’s prison cell. The Nimon was in fact dying and brought people there to feed upon their fears as a way of keeping itself alive. With nothing to feed on, with the illusion broken, by the Doctor, the Nimon dies, before the trio leave. This episode really focus on the characters of Erin and Kyle and their relationship as their deepest and darkest fears are explored. There’s also a scene where the Doctor has to make Erin lose her faith in her, which really effects Erin psychologically.
THE POISIONED SEA, PART I
Season 50, Episode 3
Written by NICHOLAS BRIGGS
Directed by JOHN DAHL
TX Date – 3 October 2015
This episode sees the return of Caitrin Ryan and the modern-day UNIT team, introduced in Doctor Who: Genesis. It’s an Auton story that focuses mainly upon the plastic in the ocean and specifically the Nestene using it to weaponize the great pacific garbage patch.
The episode also focuses on a new character, Oliver Griffiths (played by David Thewlis), who is the Home Secretary (at least in the Doctor Who Universe’s 2015) and is an advent climate change denier. He is kidnapped by an Auton, at the beginning of the episode, which is the reason why Caitrin calls the Doctor for help.
The episode mainly plays out as a slow-build scandi-drama like police procedural as the Doctor, Erin and Kyle try and find Oliver Griffiths and rescue him, all the while they discover what’s going on with the great pacific garbage patch.
The episode builds up to the Doctor and Kyle (Erin is with Caitrin investigating the plastic in the ocean) finding Oliver Griffiths in an underground base of the Nestene. However, when the Doctor asks to speak to the Nestene consciousness a familiar voice sounds as the Master reveals himself to be the mastermind behind the whole operation, as it cuts to closing titles.
THE POISIONED SEA, PART II
Season 50, Episode 4
Written by NICHOLAS BRIGGS
Directed by JOHN DAHL
TX Date – 10 October 2015
The second part of the Poisoned Sea picks up directly where the last one left off. It mainly consists of four plot threads: The Doctor and the Master – at the beginning of the episode, and again at the end as they confront each other and the Doctor manages to foil his plan; the activation of the plastic in the ocean, as it increases to encompass the entire ocean, and before long it will starts making its way onto land and consuming it; an all-out Auton attack (Spearhead from Space style, mannikins and everything); finally, the Oliver Griffiths storyline, whereby he accepts that climate change exists and vows to work as part of the government to stop it, the best he can. It’s revealed that the Master wanted to replace Griffiths with an Auton duplicate so he could lower all the security in the country, as the Home Secretary is in charge of the police service, national security and MI5, so he could, as the Master, make everyone part of his dominion. Obviously, the Doctor foils this, and he manages to, with the help of Erin, Kyle, Caitrin and the rest of UNIT, stop the Master and defeat the Autons.
However, in the last 10 minutes of the episode, everything goes haywire, as it’s revealed that Caitrin is under the control of the Master and he has hypnotised her. Caitrin knocks the Doctor and her companion’s unconscious, before they find themselves waking up in a woodland area, with no sign of the TARDIS. The Doctor, Erin and Kyle explore a little, realising that there in the middle of the American Civil War, before we cut to end credits and leave it on that cliff-hanger.
THE BATTLE OF FISHER’S HILL
Season 50, Episode 5
Written by SARAH DOLLARD
Directed by METIN HÜSEYIN
TX Date – 17 October 2015
This episode picks off directly where the last one left of and sees the Doctor, Erin and Kyle stranded in September 1864, during the American Civil War. The episode mainly focuses around the real-life Battle of Fisher’s Hill. Early in the run time, the Doctor is split up from Erin and Kyle, with her finding herself on the Confederate side and Erin and Kyle finding themselves on the Union side. The episode plays out as an intense war movie, teaching the audience about the events of the Battle and the American Civil War in general. The Doctor acts as a healer for the Confederate side, as early in the episode their actual doctor gets shot. Kyle ends up fighting for the Union side, while Erin helps as a nurse for the Union. Kyle ends up being wounded and Erin has to try her best to save his life, in a dramatic and tense scene, but she, with the help of the Union doctor manage it. On the opposite side, however, the Doctor uses a wide-range of tools she has in her pockets, from the future, to save many of the patients, and it works. However, this begins to raise some suspicions, although none as directly raised, at this point as the battle is still going on. The battle ends with the union winning and their soldiers march into the medical tent and find the Doctor and a few nurses. The nurses, in fear of dying and paranoia, tell them that they think the Doctor is a witch and explain their reasonings, hoping that their lives will be spared as a result. The unionist soldiers arrest the Doctor and lock her in the back of a cart on transport to be trialled as a witch. We see Erin and Kyle look on from the distance as they see the Doctor taken away… to her death, as it cuts to end credits.
THE TRIAL OF THE DAMNED
Season 50, Episode 6
Written by TONI GRAPHIA
Directed by METIN HÜSEYIN
TX Date – 24 October 2015
This episode again picks up from where the last one left of… kinda. It in fact opens with a caption saying: Three Days Later (the time the journey took by horse and cart). When the Doctor arrives there, she is spoken to by the sheriff of the town before she is thrown in the thieves’ hole – a damp, dark, isolated prison cell underground, especially made for witches. In there, she meets a girl called Raleigh (played by Sarah Winter) who has also been accused of witchcraft, because she apparently apparated out of nowhere. A trial takes place and both the Doctor and Raleigh are found to be guilty. They are returned to the thieves’ hole, before their burning is to take place, whereby the Doctor finds that Raleigh really did apparate out of nowhere as she is a time traveller and she landed in the middle of the village after her vortex manipulated malfunctioned. The Doctor manages to get the vortex manipulated working again, and when they are on the fire, with it about to be lit by an angry mob, the Doctor manages to activate the vortex manipulator sending the two of them to safety.
Meanwhile, the episode also focuses upon Erin and Kyle as they firstly try and find the Doctor. They find out the town she was taken to and the episode sees them trying to get there. However, even after they barter for transportation, they are robbed on the journey, holding them back. They have to spend a few nights at an inn along the way and basically everything goes wrong. By the time they do reach the town, it’s a whole day late and the villagers say that they already burnt the witches… However, they tell them that some of the villagers, not many but some, are claiming that they saw the witches de-apparate and escape the flames. We finish the episode with the Doctor and Raleigh materialising on a spaceship.
THE ECHO FROM TOMORROW
Season 50, Episode 7
Written by RONALD D. MOORE & JANE ESPENSON
Directed by METIN HÜSEYIN
TX Date – 31 October 2015
This episode, like the last, splits up the action between two plotlines: firstly, the Doctor and Raleigh, and secondly Erin and Kyle. The plotline with the Doctor and Raleigh sees the two of them teleported to Raleigh’s ship in orbit of Earth, but still in the same time zone. We find out that the crew of the time ship were all killed by some sort of monster attacking them and Raleigh only managed to escape and get out at the last moment. They soon realise that the monster, which the Doctor calls a Blaziel, is still on board the ship, and much of the episode sees the two of them fight it off in a standard base under siege way. The episode also reveals a lot about Raleigh’s backstory: she explains that she’s from the far future, and that her ship was sent back in time to record and investigate history accurately, and that they originally had a crew of 30, but the Blaziel found its way onto the ship somehow and attacked them. They end up defeating the Blaziel and flushing it out into space.
Erin and Kyle’s plot sees them settling down in 1864 over the course of many months, as they come to accept the fact that the Doctor is dead, and they are going to have to live there for the rest of their lives. They start off by investigating the reports of the Doctor perhaps teleporting away, but it all comes to nothing and eventually they accept it’s a lost cause. The Civil War affects them as they find somewhere to settle, but it just becomes a fact of life and it becomes normal. In January 1865, the two of the finally marry, and Kyle does joke that they got engaged in 1978 and married in 1865. By April 1865, they know the Civil War is coming to a close, and yet the both of them are settled down as a married couple in a nice little house in a little town, when a Slave Trader, from the confederacy, comes into town, much to the horrors of everyone, as slavery is certainly illegal in the United States by this point. When Erin and Kyle get a good look at him, they see that it’s none other than – the Master.
Meanwhile, the Doctor and Raleigh land in Washington D.C., many months later than they had planned (as the vortex manipulator isn’t quite up to scratch).
THE SLAVE MASTER
Season 50, Episode 8
Written by RONALD D. MOORE
Directed by METIN HÜSEYIN
TX Date – 7 November 2015
This episode is the big mid-season finale… and a lot of stuff kicks off. Mainly, this episode continues to split Erin and Kyle up with the Doctor and Raleigh, with the two teams following two different plot threads, they do join forces in the middle of the episode, so I’ll detail each thread separately up until that point.
So, the Doctor and Raleigh land in Washington D.C. on the 13th April 1865 just as the Civil War ends and it follows them stumbling into the historical event of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. A lot of this part of the episode sees them getting used to their surroundings and meeting various players in the assassination including the assassin, John Booth, as well as conspirators Lewis Powell and David Herold. It’s revealed during this segment of the episode that the reason that Raleigh was sent back in time was to change history so that the assassination failed, to which the Doctor is appalled by and they have a large argument.
Meanwhile, Erin and Kyle deal with the Master, who they confront, and they find out that the events of Destiny of the Gaians happened after The Poisoned Sea and the Master’s TARDIS in that story was actually the Doctor’s TARDIS which he stole. He is still illegally selling slaves as the Civil War ends, but he’s hypnotising people not to care and to buy them. Erin and Kyle learn that the Master is planning to change history so that the plot to assassinate several senior figures in the United States government is successful and restarts the Confederate campaign. The two plotlines merge when Erin and Kyle follow the Master to D.C. where they run into the Doctor and Raleigh. After a touching reunion scene and both pairs getting each other up to speed – the third act ensues as the race is on to foil the Master’s plan, all the while Raleigh has an ulterior-motive to save Abraham Lincoln as well, despite her promising that she wouldn’t do such a thing to the Doctor.
The rest of the episodes sees the quartet foil the Master’s plan and the Doctor takes him prisoner on the TARDIS, locking him away in a cell deep inside the ship. Raleigh tries to save Abraham Lincoln, but Erin speaks to her telling her about what Hogan did in the Waters of Mars, the previous season, and persuades her not to. Raleigh then decides that to do such a thing is wrong much to the Doctor’s delight and history goes as planned. At the end, the Doctor invites Raleigh to join her, Erin and Kyle in the TARDIS and while she accepts, with great delight, Erin and Kyle tell the Doctor that they wish to remain here, in 1865. The Doctor is confused as to why, but Erin explains that over the past few months they’ve built a life for themselves, got married and she says that there’s a baby on the way (which even Kyle is shocked about as he didn’t know!) … The Doctor accepts this and gives them a mobile phone, telling them that if they ever need her, or if she ever needs them, that will ring. The Doctor says her goodbyes to Erin and Kyle in a very emotional scene before she and Raleigh depart in the TARDIS. Finally, we see the Master in his cell on the TARDIS, screaming, before cutting to end credits.
This would be the final story before the mid-season break and it would therefore end with a 60 second trailer for the second half of the season starting on the 23 January 2016.
Even though Raleigh is a companion, she isn’t credited as one until the second half of the season, as with Hogan in Those Who Lead, Part I, Raleigh is just credited as a normal guest star in Episodes 6 through 8. Also, notable is that the ‘Stranded’ arc, lasting from Episode 4 to Episode 8 is the longest amount of serialisation since the Season (45) of Fear.
In the next instalment of What if Doctor Who Wasn’t Axed, I’ll be going through Season 50: Part Two, Episodes 9 through 16, so until then – goodbye!
WIDWWA 