Doctor Who – Season 54

Season 54 was treated as Series 2, and although it doesn’t actually feature any of the TARDIS team from Series 1, it does pick up, airing wise, just a week after Series 1, and features exactly the same production team, as well as the same look and feel as the previous season.

Season 54, therefore, was mostly the same, and just another planned 13 episodes, apart from the fact it was a new Doctor, played by Ace Bhatti, and the fact there was a new companion played by Jayd Johnson. Alex Jennings was set to reappear as Bertie, in a recurring capacity, beginning in the season finale, as Alex Jennings didn’t wish to continue playing the role as a regular.

The titles and theme music remained the same as the previous season, apart from some of the clips being swapped out for new ones from the early episodes of Season 54.

Hodges viewed Season 54 as the one where the show could really get going, as he said that Series 1 was about gaining the audience’s trust, with familiar elements and returning villains, whereas Series 2 was about getting into the meat of good quality Doctor Who.

Like Season 53, the broadcast format of this season was maintained, with a premiere on January 1st and the finale on December 25th. However, unfortunate unplanned events took effect, as after only 6 full episodes had been shot, with about 50% of the seventh in production, the BBC made the decision to suspend production of Doctor Who due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, which would later become the worldwide pandemic, throughout 2020 and 2021. It wasn’t until late August that production was resumed again, with Episode Seven being completed, and a new re-written Episode 8 being shot, to act as the season finale.

During the hiatus in production, Episode 3’s broadcast was pushed back a month to May 2020, with Episode 4 now airing a month, not a week, afterwards, with it’s own individual episode title. This continued for the second serial, The Age of Discovery, with it’s first episode airing in August and it’s second in September. As the year closed, the newly shot final story was broadcast, the first part being in November and the concluding episode on Christmas Day.

At the start of the year, ViacomCBS, who had just formed, from Viacom and CBS in December, and now the owners of 50% of the Franchise commissioned a report into it’s future. The full summary of the report can be read here. The main takeaways were that the logo was changed once again, this time to the 1970 logo, to act as a unified brand logo, the Chapter system was overhauled and a new Franchise Executive, Mal Young, was appointed, although Jane Espenson remained on as the Exec Supervisor of Doctor Who’s Television Output.

THE SCREAMS OF TERROR, PART ONE

Season 54, Episode 1

Written by ADRIAN HODGES

Directed by Metin Hüseyin

TX Date – 1 January 2020

The episode begins with a shot of the Scottish highlands, as a group of soldiers walk across the landscape and a caption reads “Alba, 1054”, before the troops begin singing in unison and another caption appears reading “27 July”. And then, out of nowhere, the sound of a roaring engine is heard, as the troops look up into the sky and see a Police Box roaring through the sky, smoke crashing out of it, before it falls to the ground, creating a crater, as the troops steadily make their way towards it. One of the doors falls open, as a man climbs his way out of the box, before exclaiming “I’m the Doctor, and you are…. The huscarls of… King Edward, by the looks of it” … The soldiers look astonished, and confused, before the Doctor brightly smiles and says, “you’re wasting your time, y’know”, as the camera crash zooms on his smile and we cut to the opening titles.

The episode is set just before the Battle of Dunsinane, the 1054 English invasion of Scotland, and features the welcome return of Ian Gelder, as Edward the Confessor (from Season 45), although this episode is set a year earlier. The episode ‘fights’ on many fronts, with quite a few storylines it’s telling – firstly, what appears to be a pure historical about the Battle of Dusinane, as the story of the real King Macbeth (covering simillar ground to Crookback); secondly, it’s a post-regeneration episode, as the Sixteenth Doctor comes to find himself throughout; finally, this episode introduces new companion, Christane Finch. So – let’s break down these one by one.

The pure historical side of the story accounts a version of the final act of the Shakespeare play, Macbeth, but following actual history and not just appealing to James I’s ego. It is grand in scale, as the epic battle is fought between the English and the Scots, resulting in the famous English victory. Edward the Confessor does appear at the battle, even though this didn’t actually happen, as Hodges wanted to bring back Gelder, and to play on the dynamic of the 16^th Doctor meeting someone he’s met before. Most of the episode is the lead-up and preparation to the battle, with it beginning in the final few minutes of the episode.

The Sixteenth Doctor uses this episode to slowly find himself, in much the same way as we saw in ‘Masters of All’, as his thoughts are scrambled and a bit unorganised, and as such he begins to get extremely muddled up, as he gets Shakespeare’s fictional story of Macbeth confused with the real life events, he is experiencing, and it’s actually his meeting of a familiar face in Edward the Confessor, coupled with meeting Chrissie (which I’ll cover in a bit), which grounds the Doctor and orientates him.

We are introduced to Christane Finch, the young wife of an innkeeper, which English soldiers pass through. They kidnap her (with their future intentions only implied) and she ends up at the Battle of Dusinane. The Doctor meets her, as they are both prisoners of the English army, and they break out together, and form an intense bond, especially as Christane begins to imprint on the Doctor as he finds herself. The Doctor, much to Christane’s initial dislike, nicknames her Chrissie, but by the end of Part Two, she warms to this and begins to take to the name.

Finally, as the Battle begins, the Doctor and Chrissie find themselves stood watching as in the middle of the fighting and all the bloodshed, they follow a smoky path into the woods nearby and see a little girl, standing their (almost in a trance) as she begins reciting “when shall we three meet again, in thunder, lighting or in rain” … We crash zoom on the Doctor’s face, almost horrified as we cut to the end credits.

THE SCREAMS OF TERROR, PART TWO

Season 54, Episode 2

Written by ADRIAN HODGES

Directed by Metin Hüseyin

TX Date – 5 January 2020

The second episode of this epic New Year’s opener pushes the audience straight into the battle, while the Doctor and Chrissie wonder off and try to get through to this mysterious girl, but as soon as they turn their heads away, she disappears. The Doctor tries to explain who he is (almost as he himself is realising) to Chrissie, as he tells her just why that girl couldn’t have existed. Chrissie is extremely confused, but figures she should go along with the Doctor, as she could be facing all sorts of horrors with the English army.

We split into two plots, firstly the battle – which remains still historically accurate, showing the true story of King Macbeth… (for now). In addition, we get more stuff with Edward the Confessor, who mainly takes the role that Siward took in real life, although Siward still appears. The Doctor and Chrissie on the other hand, find themselves blurted back in time to the beginning of Part One, whereby they experience the events of the story so far, again (but knowingly) in a strange Groundhog day style scenario. This happens four times, across the first half of the episode, with the fourth time, resulting in the Doctor and Chrissie finding themselves in cave full of witch’s, led by the little girl, who all say that Macbeth must fall at Dunsinane, and that Macduff must slay him – before the Doctor and Chrissie fall into the normal time stream again.

The race is on, in the second half, to essentially stop the events of the play Macbeth from actually taking place. All the while the Doctor, uses clues he’s picked up from the events of the past episode, to piece together just why this is all happening, and the Doctor fears that it not anyone person trying to mess up history, for fun, or anything like that… instead the Doctor theorises that time itself has broken down, and emotional imprints have led time’s natural healer, from being led astray. Chrissie is undoubtedly ridiculously confused, so the Doctor takes her back to the TARDIS, so the two can come up with a strategy and so the Doctor can take Chrissie into the early 17^th Century, whereby he shows her a performance of Macbeth in the Globe Theatre. The Doctor says that something happened to the universe, not long ago, and a void was left, where there was once a guiding hand. The Doctor tries to explain that time, itself, began to fall apart, and the universe naturally has been trying to fix it. Just then – Macbeth is slain in the play and the Witches come on stage, the audience scream in terror… and then the Doctor tells Chrissie that the emotional reaction from this play, a play that has been performed a million times and will be performed a million times for all of history, has caused such an emotional imprint in the universe from a million million screams of terror is what the universe thinks is the solution to heal a piece of wounded time… but instead everything will descend into a paradox.

Chrissie, beginning to understand, tells the Doctor that Macduff isn’t someone who existed, to her knowledge, and now he does. Using this information, the Doctor concludes that Macduff has been animated into history, and stopping him from slaying Macbeth at the battle, is what will set history onto its right course – and that’s what we see in the final 15 minutes. The Doctor and Chrissie stop Macbeth from being slain, history goes back onto course, and the strange little girl witches all disappear in a puff of smoke and a scream of terror.

At the end of the episode, Chrissie asks the Doctor if this is what he always does, fixing time and fighting off monsters. The Doctor asks her if she’s inviting herself along… before Chrissie pauses, smiles, and then says: “please”. The Doctor grabs her hand as the two of them run along the empty battlefield to the TARDIS and we cut to the end credits.

VAJAHNARI’S CURSE

Season 54, Episode 3

Written by PETE McTIGHE

Directed by MICK JACKSON

TX Date – 10 May 2020

This episode begins with a scene in the TARDIS with the Doctor asking Chrissie where she wants to go, but she’s so overwhelmed she says she doesn’t know. The Doctor says that they can always try the randomiser and engages it – hurtling the TARDIS through the vortex to a random destination.

The TARDIS lands in a run-down housing estate in 2120. It echoes the housing estates of the North in the late-1980s in look and feel, but also with distinctly futuristic elements. As the Doctor and Chrissie walk through it, the Doctor tries to explain what housing estates are to Chrissie, and why they tend to become ‘forgotten’ by those in power. Soon, however, the plot is jilted into focus as an explosion goes off, just left of the Doctor and Chrissie, in one of the flat blocks. Alarms go off, people run out, all into the central square. The Doctor tries to find out what’s going on and all he is told, by lots of the people is “Vajahnari has been angered”.  

The next half-an-hour of the episode sees the Doctor and Chrissie investigate the area, asking around and eventually piecing together the story behind the explosion. It appeared to simply be an accident, due to faulty electronics in the flat, but there’s a wide-held belief around the residents that the resident of the flat was responsible themselves due to them angering this ‘Vajahnari’. However, during this, the Doctor and Chrissie meet a 16-year-old girl called Robbie who seems to be the only person that doesn’t believe this stuff about ‘Vajahnari’ and explains to the Doctor and Chrissie who exactly ‘Vajahnari’ is – a God, of a new religion, created about 50 years ago, amongst the working classes. She says that Vajahnari has now become so engrained in the beliefs of the less fortunate in society, everything odd is attributed to him.

The group then run into an older woman called Simone, who essentially holds all the power in their little community and is one of Vajahnari’s most devout believers. The Doctor, clocking onto his suspicion about the coincidence of “Vajahnari” and his last few adventures, asks Simone if there’s a way to commune with this Vajahnari, but Simone says Vajahnari is not a verbal god, but is alive through faith, and detriment to that faith results in your flat blowing up. Seeing that as a threat, the Doctor decides they need to set to work, because he doesn’t believe that the explosion was just an accident…

But the second Simone walks out of shot, another explosion occurs, in a house at the end of the estate. Very simillar to the first, and chaos erupts. Before long, Simone emerges in front of the crowd and says “Vajahnari is responsible!”, as the crowd begins to prey. Chrissie lets loose, and stumbles through the preying crowd, going full Scottish on Simone and telling her that they know what she’s up to and she’s got blood on her hand, before slapping Simone around the face. The Doctor watches from behind, trying to look like he’s disapproving but while he can’t help but smiling.

Robbie addresses the shock crowd explaining that Vajahnari is a lie, surely everyone can see that it’s just a way of controlling those in society who are the “least important”. The crowd begin to murmur, but Simone interrupts saying that Robbie is an agent of Vajahnari sent to test them. Some of the crowd take to this, but others see it for what it is – a lie. Robbie says that the two people who died today, were not bad people, they were not evil – but they did have one thing in common. The Doctor intercedes and says that he believes they both got on the wrong side of one Simone. Simone looks like fury, as she looses the support of the crowd, many of them friends with at least one of the victims.

As the crowd leave Simone, bar her inner circle, she begins to tear up and says that Vajahnari will punish them, but as the episode brings itself towards it’s cliffhanger, the whole group: Simone, Robbie, Chrissie and the Doctor are moved through reality, into another domain… as they come face to face with an old bony bald man identifying himself as Vajahnari. The cliffhanger drums begin as the Doctor looks horrified.

COUNTDOWN

Season 54, Episode 4

Written by PETE McTIGHE

Directed by MICK JACKSON

TX Date – 14 June 2020

After a much longer previously recap than usual, the episode begins with Vajahnari introducing himself. He comments that Simone has done a good job as a disciple, but her services are no longer required, as he needs other disciples to anchor, and with a swish of his hand, Simone dies. The Doctor, Chrissie and Robbie look horrified, as Vajahnari continues. We find out that Vajahnari feeds on faith, and its essence keeps him alive, but Vajahnari says that he can no longer continue because he has left them. The Doctor spikes up and takes an immediate interest, remembering the words of the Toymaker – but before the Doctor can say a word, Vajahnari says “Doctor, I humbly request your help” as we cut to the opening credits.

After the credits we find the Doctor in the TARDIS looking at the monitors, viewing patterns correlating with a graph. The Doctor turns around whereby Chrissie and Robbie are awaitedly standing as he begins to explain. The Doctor says that somehow the universe has been disrupted, he says that some sort of overarching presence has gone, left the universe void, but the universe is broken, it’s trying to repair itself and some elements of it’s original self-have slipped through the cracks. The Doctor explains to Chrissie that their adventure at the Battle of Dunsinane, is what he believes was the universe using its binding force to try and repair the lack of this “presence”. The Doctor also says that he recently encountered a simillar situation to this with a being called the Toymaker, and the Doctor theorises that he and Vajahnari are somehow connected to each other. After all of that, Chrissie gasps and says, “What do we do, then”. The Doctor says like with Dunsinane, the universe is slowly repairing itself, but it’s doing some things wrong and somethings right. He says that Vajahnari is dying because his very existence is a paradox, and he wants their help. Robbie says that they don’t need to help him because he is only a force of evil and cites his killing of those two-innocent people. The three of them discuss their options, deciding to let the universe put Vajahnari into “retirement” like it did with the Toymaker – however, as they decide this the Doctor seems to become fatigued as if something is happening to him. The Doctor is horrified as he says that he theorises if they don’t save Vajahanari, then the universe will also put him into “retirement” as the Doctor says his very existence is a paradox too, and that he should’ve perished some time ago.

The three of them exit the TARDIS and face Vajahnari whereby they declare their intentions to help. Vajahnari says they only have 30 minutes until both he and the Doctor will become “retired”. He then opens up three portals and says they need to work quickly, and they must each find a disciple of the others to help anchor the universe. And with that the next 30 minutes of runtime follow the Doctor, Chrissie, and Robbie in their own little subplots, as we intercut in between.

The Doctor finds himself on a harsh dark planet. There are hundreds are guards marching, as the Doctor tries to keep himself discreet but as he walks away from a group of them, he walks into another. They hold out a device, and look sharp, grabbing the Doctor and arresting him. They make a comment saying, “Some more Time Lord scum here”. As the Doctor rides along in a prison van, there’s an attack on it made by a group of rebels and the Doctor finds himself saved. They take off their masks and the Doctor sees the leader of the group: The Keeper. The Keeper says that he detected the signature of “The Doctor” and he tells the Doctor it’s truly nice to see him again. Over the course of the episode as the Doctor acquaints himself with this version of the Keeper, the Doctor manages to work out that this is not his Keeper, and this Keeper is one of the three ‘disciples’ Vajahnari spoke of. The Doctor manages to persuade the Keeper to come back with him, but it is unknown who the Keeper is a disciple for.

Chrissie finds herself back home in Scotland, at her husband’s inn. It turns out she’s arrived about a day after she was taken. Her husband, Angus, greets her with joy, thinking she was dead. Chrissie stays on task though, and goes to the church, and meeting with Ciarán, the priest. She explains to him that she is looking for a disciple of god, and he says that he’d describe himself that way, and Ciarán agrees to come with her. However, at that point Angus holds a sword up to the two of them and says that he wants his wife back at home with him, and not galivanting off with others. Ciarán tries to calm him down, but it turns into a fight, which becomes a village brawl. Fighting her way off, with Ciarán, Chrissie kisses Angus before punching him in the face and leaving.

Finally, Robbie finds herself at a creepy abandoned orphanage. She goes in and finds a group of children sitting in a circle, crying. Robbie recognises the face of one of them, confused but sure… one of them is Simone, only about 9 or 10 years old. She looks around at the others, noting what Vajahnari said earlier. She speaks to them and says that one of them needs to come with her, but they need to decide which one. Robbie, thinking her on her feet, asks who they all believe in and worship. The children say several different names, Simone says “Vajahnari”, two others say random names she didn’t understand, but one little boy says, “The Doctor”. Robbie stands still and says that he needs to come with her. The other children kick off, saying that he can’t, they can’t go, but Robbie basically kidnaps the boy, saying a lot is at stake.

The Doctor and the Keeper emerge out of the portal first, followed by Chrissie and Ciarán and then Robbie and the little boy. Vajahnari thanks them and places the three disciples into a status booth, saying that their divine energies should stabilise the universe for now, and allow both him and the Doctor to live. When the Doctor enters the TARDIS, Robbie has a word with Chrissie telling her what she found out about the Doctor. Chrissie looks worried and says Robbie must keep this a secret. The three of them return to 2120, and Robbie leaves the Doctor and Chrissie bidding them goodbye. The Doctor breathes heavily as his dematerialises the TARDIS as he says he has a lot of unanswered questions – Chrissie quietly says, under her breath “So do I…” as we cut to end credits.

THE AGE OF DISCOVERY

Season 54, Episode 5

Written by SIMON TYRRELL

Directed by AISLING WALSH

TX Date – 9 August 2020

This episode takes place some time, for the Doctor and Chrissie, after the previous one and we get the sense, they’ve been travelling around for a bit together and have become closer friends, yet we still see that Chrissie is intrinsically suspicious of the Doctor, after the last episode. The TARDIS lands on a ship at sea in about 1507, which is still firmly in Chrissie’s future, and we see Chrissie react to lots of things as someone from the past would. The two of them are soon captured by the crew of the ship and we go down the standard Doctor and Companion are imprisoned as stowaways and have to prove themselves to get out.

Although it’s not specifically important to the plot of this episode, the crew, who are all Portuguese, are deeply Catholic and are constantly praying to god for their safety. The Doctor and Chrissie both spot this and tense up, as any indication of religious activity puts them on edge, following their recent adventure.

We find out that they are on a ship sailing to ‘The New World’, led by Amerigo Vespucci and Juan de la Cosa on their sixth voyage, which the Doctor instantly knows is wrong, because history records only four. Chrissie asks if this could be to do with history falling apart, as it had in Dunsinane, and the Doctor says that’s what he’s scared of. Chrissie is also shocked to discover that there is even a ‘New World’ as she was not aware of the existence of what would become to be known as ‘The Americas’. The Doctor finds this amusing to which he and Chrissie exchange banterous remarks.

The core of this episode’s story however goes to the generic plot of members of the crew mysteriously dying throughout the voyage, and the Doctor and Chrissie helping out. It turns out that there’s a space and time hopping monster called Vlienex, which feeds upon temporal disruptions and knows that if Vespucci’s discovery is averted then it’ll gain a significant amount of energy for itself. While the Doctor works out its sentient, it’s not very intelligent and even if it killed Vespucci now, in 1507 not much would change – however the Vlienex needs to be stopped, as it’s just killing now, and it won’t stop until it gets its fix. So, the Doctor and Chrissie fight off and defeat the Vlienex – but just after they do, and they are about to depart, the ship makes it to harbour, and everyone onboard is arrested and taken onto the mainland – the Fourth Continent, to await trial – as we cut to the end credits.

THE FOURTH CONTINENT

Season 54, Episode 6

Written by SIMON TYRRELL

Directed by AISLING WALSH

TX Date – 6 September 2020

While the first episode of this serial was a pseudo-historical base-under-siege story, this second part brings us our first pure-historical episode in a few years. It focuses on the Doctor, Chrissie and Vespucci’s crew arriving in, what would soon become known as South America, where a couple of small settlements had formed.

The main crux of this story is the mystery of why this voyage had been forgotten, as Vespucci only, as history records, been present on four voyages, all integral to finding out new information on the New World. The Doctor and Chrissie are of the opinion that a “wider presence” is responsible for this glitch in time. In addition, the first half of the story sees the entire surviving crew, essentially on trial for the murders of the other crew members, with the authorities seeing little truth in the story they tell.

The story also plays with the idea of accidental historical bootstrap paradoxes, which the Hartnell pure-historicals were so fond of, with the Doctor accidentally naming America, America. While talking to Vespucci and some others in the latter end of the episode, the Doctor calls the continent America, accidentally, leading them to question him, whereby the Doctor says, “The New World is a bit of a tiresome name, America – like Amerigo, don’t you think it’s rather fitting?”, to which he gets eyebrow raises and laughter, as the others say “It’ll never catch on”.

The episode, while a lot of which deals with the aftermath of the previous episode, is more of a fun run around with Vespucci as they must prove their innocence in the early days of the continent. It also acts as an educational episode for many who haven’t recognised Vespucci’s importance in history.

Finally, the episode deals with the plot strand of how Vespucci and his voyage even took place, to which it’s life in mystery with the Doctor and Chrissie just pondering it as they leave in the TARDIS – saying that the anchor points, from Countdown, are evidently failing and not stabilising history. It’s implied that this will all be answered in the future, as the episode ends, and Vespucci waves goodbye to the TARDIS, as it dematerialises.

THE LAST SUPPER

Season 54, Episode 7

Written by SIMON ALLEN & ADRIAN HODGES

Directed by JAMIE MAGNUS STONE

TX Date – 29 November 2020

The TARDIS lands in 21^st Century London, as the Doctor takes Chrissie sight-seeing. A lot of the first 5 minutes sees Chrissie taking everything in, seeing Big Ben, the London Eye, all the landmarks, having a really good time – but then, they both hear a sudden chime – lots of chimes, all at once, at one moment, in sync – very loud, yet very quiet. They look all around and every person they can see is opening their phone – everyone has received a text message. The Doctor runs across to one random person and tries to look over their shoulder, but the Doctor gets told to get lost, he continues until an old lady shows him the text message she’s received: “3,002 days”. The two of them are confused, as the Doctor manages to see someone else’s text message, a younger man: “17,589 days”. People start to talk to each other, and show each other their texts, as the moments go on, with suddenly everything becoming very loud. The Doctor and Chrissie keep on walking, getting to Piccadilly Circus and seeing on the big screen: “Breaking News: The Text Messages are the Days Left Until You Die – Scientists Say” – as we, 8 minutes in, finally cut to the opening titles.

The Doctor and Chrissie arrive at UNIT HQ, whereby they meet with Wilson, who has now been promoted to Deputy Director-General of UK Operations. Wilson briefs the pair saying that from what they can gather, at 10:54am every single person in possession of a mobile phone across the planet was sent an SMS giving a number of days, according to the scientists, based upon the average lifespans many individuals they’ve asked, the number of days also correlates with that. Wilson also says that there’s a few people, who were texted things like “Ten Minutes” or “Thirty Minutes” who have passed away right on schedule, most of them accidents. The Doctor asks about the ones which weren’t accidents, and Wilson says that some killed themselves based on the information, creating a pre-destination paradox, if you like.

The Doctor asks Wilson if he knows what force was behind these SMS messages, but Wilson says he just wish he knew, and he was hoping the Doctor could help. Wilson says it must be aliens and it must be a “sick” one, so their mission is to stop them. The Doctor concours and says no-one should know when they’re going to die and that for a time, he did, and it nearly drove him mad. Chrissie looks confused but Wilson moves the subject on and says that UNIT are currently trying to trace back the signal of the SMS messages, and asks if the Doctor could take a look.

Chrissie leaves for some air, finding UNIT HQ a bit overwhelming, especially as she’s no at all used to modern technology and finds it all a bit freaky. Outside, Chrissie watches over the Thames, and sees in the distance, several people jumping from Tower Bridge – to their deaths. She is horrified. A voice says, “Such a shame, isn’t it?” – Chrissie turns to her side to see an older man standing next to her, Bertie Reynolds. He shows Chrissie his phone and his text message and it says, “4 hours”. Chrissie looks at Bertie, with sympathy and says how sorry she is. Bertie says he doesn’t need her sympathy because they are going to find the cause of all this and stop it, within the next 4 hours.

The episode then splits into two plots, the A-plot following the Doctor and UNIT and the B-plot following Chrissie and Bertie.

So, the A-plot, sees the Doctor and UNIT investigating the SMS messages and eventually managing to triangulate the signal back to an origin point. The origin point being 24 light years away from Earth. The Doctor, Wilson, and a squadron of UNIT personnel pile into the TARDIS and follow the signal, arriving in an abandoned space station. They play cat and mouse with a load of booby-traps for a while, before they manage to make their way to the central command centre, whereby they find a shadowy figure standing there, before turning around and making himself known – The Rogue. The Doctor sighs and rolls his eyes.

The Doctor and the Rogue face off, speech-making against each other, spouting insults at each other. The Rogue says that he was contacted by another version of himself, one which went mad and shot himself in the head – the Rogue says that he began investigating, as time seemed to begin falling apart. The Doctor says that the Toymaker was involved. The Rogue continues saying as he investigated and investigated, he managed to find the one at the heart of the issue – the one behind it all. The Doctor asks who, but the Rogue just laughs and saying, “that would be telling”.

The B-plot sees Chrissie and Bertie investigating events on Earth, trying to work out just how many of these deaths are happening on schedule with the text messages. They plot together the times of the messages and actual times of deaths and find a variance, a few which are a few seconds out, based upon their location – suggesting a point of origin, not to messages but the actual deaths themselves – as if they’ve been designed.

They continue investigating this, but while they have evidence to say there is a design to it and that there is a point of origin, but they can’t get any further – they know it’s a sham, but there’s little they can do. However, Bertie has an idea. He says that if they went to a Faraday Cage or somewhere similar and let events play out, past the 4 hours, they could see whether he would die. Chrissie is nervous and unsure, but they go there.

Back in the A plot, and the Rogue pulls up a live feed of Bertie and Chrissie in a faraday cage, eating… what looks like dinner, as Bertie says “If this is gonna be my last night, better eat”. The two laugh and joke on the feed, while the Doctor watches. The Rogue says that Bertie is due to die in just a few minutes, now, and there is nothing the Doctor can do to save him. The moments go on excruciatingly long, before, Bertie begins to choke on his food. Events go crazy, as Chrissie tries to help him, but he continues to choke. The Doctor watches on, horrified, knowing there’s little he can do.

Bertie falls to the ground, continuing to choke as he begins to die. Chrissie tells him he’s not dying, it’s all a mistake, none of it’s real, in attempt to get Bertie to ‘survive’. Bertie strengthens up and begins to speak through the chokes “I am not dying”. “this is all fake”. He keeps muttering these words with Chrissie. The Rogue just laughs, the Doctor is furious. UNTIL – as the countdown reaches zero, Bertie manages to spit the food out, clearing his throat – having survived. The Rogue looks in confusion and says it can’t be. Bertie stands up and says “I am not dead” – as we cut to the closing credits.

Originally, as this episode was partially completed before the lockdown, and partially filmed afterwards, Bertie was not going to be in it, and just a new male side character, called Daniel, was going to be there instead, taking his role. Only one of Daniel’s scenes had been filmed, which was scrapped when the character was replaced with Bertie.

NO GOOD DEED

Season 54, Episode 8

Written by ADRIAN HODGES

Directed by JAMIE MAGNUS STONE

TX Date – 25 December 2020

After a previously segment, as this is Christmas Day and could grab more casual audiences, recaps not just the events of The Last Supper, but also bits of every episode of Season 54 and Her Final Stand, we go into the episode itself – which was entirely filmed in Autumn 2020, months after the rest of the season. It was entirely written from top to bottom by Adrian Hodges, with little resemblance to the original version which would’ve aired had COVID-19 not happened.

We begin with a “One Month Later” card, as we see Glasgow at Christmastime. Through the snow and the carol singers, Bertie and Chrissie walk down the street, talking to one another. We get a bit of background here how everything has become normalised now, everyone is used to their number of days counting down and everyone has become quite horrifically contempt with this matter. We find out Bertie and Chrissie have spent the last few weeks on the run from UNIT, who want to lock Bertie up and dissect him.

We then cut to the space station, where the Doctor and the UNIT squadron have been locked up by the Rogue, trapped there for a month. The Rogue comes to visit them all saying that the Doctor’s “little friends” just can’t stop meddling, but then goes onto say that he’s slowly working out a plausible solution. The Doctor looks in tiresome confusion and yet again asks the Rogue what the point of this is and asks him why he’s even doing it – but the Rogue says that the entire fabric of the universe has been threatened because of one little idiot’s mistake and everything is folding in on itself… unless everything can be fixed – the Rogue then chuckles before saying, that ‘for now’ he is going to be ‘the Doctor’ and put everything to rights. The Doctor argues saying that he shouldn’t be locked up then, and instead should be helping – but the Rogue laughs again before stating coldly that the Doctor was the one who messed everything up in the first place. The Doctor looks confused, not understanding, as the Rogue continues to laugh.

The Rogue enters a room where he meets with Vajahnari who tells him that the anchor points are breaking down, but the Rogue says they won’t need anchor points when his plan is completed. Vajahnari argues with the Rogue, expressing his concern. The Rogue shouts back.

On Earth, Bertie and Chrissie are finally captured by UNIT, led by Caitrin Ryan, who says that it’s time they helped out. Caitrin explains that they want to understand how they can block off the signals which are causing all these deaths, to which Bertie and Chrissie are relieved, expecting something far worse… but after they are brought into UNIT HQ and lulled into a sense of security, Bertie is tied up and taken to an operating room.  

On the station, the Doctor and the others attempt to escape, making it to the TARDIS, but inside finding the Rogue standing by the console waiting for them. He says they are right where he wants him. The Rogue sets the controls, and the TARDIS enters into flight. The Rogue says that events have been sped up, the anchor points have fallen, and they don’t have long until the universe collapses completely, and another timeline takes its place. The Doctor steps up and says that if he’s allowed to help, he will do willingly, but the Rogue says that the Doctor’s presence is help enough, now he just needs to keep quiet and behave properly.

At UNIT, Chrissie nervously awaits outside the operating room, Caitrin exits and says that Bertie is an alien. Chrissie looks surprised, not quite taking it in. Caitrin says that simply he managed to survive to because the process was designed for humans. Bertie exists, looking out of sorts, in a hospital gown. Chrissie gives him a hug, to which Bertie gently smiles.

The TARDIS arrives in a dark room, as the Rogue brings just the Doctor out. The Rogue enables a beam of light, which encompasses the Doctor in a force field. He then tells the Doctor a story, a story of how a god came to be, the original god, the one everything came out of – he then tells the Doctor how a second generation were born, some the Doctor might know already: the Toymaker, Vajahnari, the Black and White Guardians – and then he adds, the Doctor as well. The Doctor’s face looks in horror and confusion, but the Doctor says that he’s not one of them – the Rogue clarifies saying that he was loomed from the original, “The Other” as the Doctor might know him as – a firm member of the second generation, created by God. The Doctor asks why this is important, and the Rogue says that despite the fact the Doctor caused all this, if the universe collapses a paradox will be created, because the second generation would never have been created, causing the Doctor to have never lived, causing the universe to never collapse – causing everything to reset back to normal. The Doctor has one final question – what the point of the events on Earth was – the Rogue laughs and says that it was simply a lure… and that it was fun.

Earthquakes start to occur on Earth, as UNIT get everyone into a bunker. Bertie and Chrissie try and ask what’s going on, but Caitrin says that there seems to be some alien interference causing seismic disruption.

The Doctor feels the earthquake too, wherever he is. The Rogue says that the lifeforce is being drained out of the Doctor, by the field, and channelled into the time stream itself. The Rogue speaks to the Doctor, taunting him as he seemingly dies – and then. Blackness, the Rogue looks around, he’s elsewhere in another place. Bertie is on Erstden, Chrissie is back in the past. And then blackness, and we’re back to normal. Everyone is where they should be – the Doctor is alive again. The Doctor asks what happened, and the Rogue says everything went as planned – the universe is back to normal. The Doctor looks weary, mistrusting of events.

In the bunker, whereby Bertie and Chrissie are, as well as lots of UNIT personal, the TARDIS lands. Bertie can’t believe it, as he excitedly gets up anticipating the Doctor’s arrival. The Doctor steps out of the TARDIS and the Doctor gives Bertie a hug – Bertie asks who he is, and the Doctor says that it’s him – the Doctor. Bertie doesn’t understand but the Doctor tries to explain – Bertie tentatively says, “You’re my Doctor”, to which the Doctor says “Yes” and hugs him again.

Sometime later the Doctor, Bertie and Chrissie are talking in the TARDIS as the Doctor tries to explain everything to them – but the Doctor says that he doesn’t really understand it himself. He says that somewhere down the line, he must’ve messed up the universe, but he isn’t in possession of such a memory – so it must have happened in his personal future, meaning that it’ll be a lot of fun finding out. The Doctor asks the other two if they’d like to hop along for the adventure and they oblige, as the TARDIS takes off and the season ends.