Chapter the 350th, the difficult middle part of a trilogy.
Plot:
[Spoiler alert: the Circuit Breaker epic is the nearest fans will get to a new season of Doctor Who in 2026; so, if you're planning to experience any part of it, best to do so before you read this.] The quest to return time-displaced objects from UNIT's Black Archive - and thereby save the world - continues. The Fugitive Doctor returns a Time Ring to the ancient past of the planet Skaro. She finds a group of Kaleds hiding out from the Daleks, living in a vast bunker with artificial sunlight and hothouse crops. The Daleks breach the defences and attack. The Doctor helps a few Kaleds get to the safety of another bunker that's not nearly so habitable. They won't let her take them to safety, wanting to stay on their planet. The Doctor returns to the present day, sad at these events and wanting to collaborate better with UNIT. She allows Osgood and Turner to join her on the next mission, returning a Sontaran helmet to the Shadow Proclamation. The Doctor has to avoid Judoon guards and attacking Sontarans. Although it appears the Sontarans have been defeated, they leave in a jubilant mood saying to themselves that everything is going as per the Conductor's plan. Back at UNIT HQ, Osgood finds evidence of sabotage. Martha Jones arrives to help advise UNIT about another time-displaced object, the Carrionite crystal orb. In the Black Archive, a captive Weeping Angel is released by someone. The Doctor, Martha and Osgood then hear Turner entering and go to help him. Just as the Angel is about to strike him, the Doctor holds up the orb and the Angel is trapped by its own reflection. Somehow the interaction between Angel and orb causes the Doctor to be trapped inside the dimension within the orb. Martha Jones follows her in using the Project Indigo transporter device. Together they confront the Carrionites and escape, but not before the space witches have taken a lock of hair, a sample of the Doctor's DNA for their co-conspirator, the Conductor. The Black Archive's memory dampers overload and our heroes are briefly unaware who they are or what they're doing. But they get better.
To be concluded...
I have decided to experience each and every part of the extended universe epic that is Circuit Breaker. This second of three blog posts covering the epic focusses on the five parts that became available in August 2026. A Titan Comics one-shot Dawn of the Daleks came out on the 4th. Next was an in-game story within the mobile app Doctor Who Lost in Time called Castling, which was available for a few days starting from the 6th. A short story on the official UNIT website called Don't Blink followed on the 17th. Three days later, Penguin's Doctor Who Children's Books imprint published another short story The Doctor and the Three Witches. This was a new story added to the paperback version of a book that had been out in hardback for almost a decade, Time Lord Fairy Tales. It was pre-ordered and arrived on publication day, the 20th. A week later on the 27th, the second of the Doctor Who Lost in Time in-game stories Memento Mori started. Early in September, I reread the comic and the two short stories in order. It doesn't seem possible (or at least I haven't found a way) to replay the cut scenes from Lost In Time, but an online fan wiki has been updated with detailed synopses for both Castling and Memento Mori, so I read those in the correct places to plug the gaps. As before, I also read the supplementary material provided on the UNIT website; these are epistolary pieces (faux emails and mission briefings and the like) that summarise and react to the ongoing action. They were uploaded around the dates that the main parts of the epic were released.
First Time Round:
As mentioned in the last blog post, I was slow in getting to grips with Circuit Breaker, and had to scramble to collect the first four parts released in June and July 2026 after things had got underway. I managed to experience them all before the next ones started coming out in August, so I was ready to obtain then watch and/or read each of the next five parts in order as they came out. Early in August, I read Titan Comics' second publication of the epic, Dawn of the Daleks (story by Dan Watters and Dulce Montoya, art by Sami Kivelä). Then, a few days later I played for the first time ever the Doctor Who mobile game Lost in Time, gradually getting to see in cut scenes the story Castling (by Mario Mentasti). I read the short story Don't Blink (by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson) on the UNIT website the day it was published there. A few days later the next part (written by Janelle McCurdy) arrived by post. I didn't get to read it straight away as the following day, the Better Half and I with the rest of the family (boys of 20 and 17, girl of 14) went on holiday to Corfu. The Time Lord Fairy Tales book containing this story was, for I think the first time ever since the blog began, a new Doctor Who product not purchased by me. My birthday fell within the week we were away and the BH desperately needed an idea for something light she could pack that I could open on the big day. I suggested the book, hence her ordering it rather than me. Happily, this meant that I took away on vacation a story that I would later cover for the blog, something I've done as an annual tradition every year since accidentally going on holiday to a Doctor Who filming location early on in the blog's life. We were still in Corfu on the 27th, when the second of the Doctor Who Lost in Time in-game stories Memento Mori (again by Mario Mentasti) started, so that was a holiday watch too.
Reaction:
To continue my musings from last time, I found the first batch of these stories not unappetising, but each was a relatively small and simple dish. If those were the starters, I was thinking that the main course would be on its way next. The five parts released in August, though, were all still relatively petite amuse bouches: a comic book, two short stories and two comic strips (I'll get into a bit more detail about the Lost In Time stories below, but they are definitely of the order of comic strip rather than comic book). Let's then just consider the stories of Circuit Breaker from June all the way through to the end of August as a lunch of tapas or dim sum, lots of different flavours but nothing too substantial on its own. September's releases, which I'll cover in the next blog post, comprise a full-length novel and two Big Finish audios - that will be the three course evening meal. We'll see if all of these added up equals a feast. Having made myself feel a bit peckish with all this food talk, I will abandon the metaphor now. There is still lots to enjoy in these shorter pieces. The key things are the development of both the overarching plot, and the emotional through-line. The significant development related to the former is Don't Blink's first hints that there's a saboteur in UNIT assisting the mysterious antagonists. Osgood suspects Andrew Turner briefly, but dismisses the thought after talking to him. It seems likely that it will turn out to be him, though, as he's the only new regular character that's been introduced for the epic (I haven't got to the finale of the epic at time of writing, so forgive me if this turns out to be clownishly wrong). On the 'feels' side, the Fugitive Doctor is gradually acclimatising to being the hero, and realising that she might need, or even want, to have companions alongside her.
Dawn of the Daleks has great artwork (lots of lovely pictures of Dalek attacks), but its depiction of Kaleds doesn't match with anything in the history of the show, which a long-term fan may find disconcerting. The surprise in the first few pages, that the idyllic world these people are living in is actually an underground bunker, is interesting but somewhat implausible given how the rest of Skaro is depicted. The bunker in which the last survivors later find refuge is so basic by comparison that one wonders why they would want to stay there rather than accept the Doctor's offer to leave the planet (what do they hope to achieve?). Additionally, the object being returned is so specific that I think it breaks the established logic of the epic. Isn't the point that each has to be returned to exactly from when and whence it was taken, to protect the timeline? If so, the Time Ring would need to be returned to some point during Genesis of the Daleks. Instead, it is left on Skaro many years after that (it's supposed to return to the Time Lords on Gallifrey, as seen at the start of Revenge of the Cybermen). The artwork for the Lost in Time game, though stylised and cartoon-like, is rather lovely too. It's an engaging game: one collects cards for Doctor Who characters and locations enough to power them up to different levels, which then generates in-app currency to allow one to do it some more. It's a Pokemon game, in other words, but one where one gets little segments of a Doctor Who story as rewards upon reaching in-game milestones.
Connectivity:
Like in the first batch, this second set - parts five to nine of Circuit Breaker - features a short story on the UNIT website, a comic book adventure with the Daleks, and a skirmish with the Sontarans. Both also have parts where the Doctor is trapped in an alternate reality (a relived memory last time; this time, a fantasy dreamscape within a crystal ball).
Deeper Thoughts:
Back to the Wilderness - 2 of 3: Back Catalogue Blues. Fate and timing conspired to make my grumbling about Doctor Who's new wilderness years look a bit foolish. Five days after the last blog post was published, replete with such whinges, the BBC only went and put Doctor Who officially out to tender. There was a call for applications from Commissioning on the website, with a deliciously imminent deadline of the 2nd October 2026 for submissions. Even better was the comment included in there that "The contract is for a multi-episodic series (including specials) for transmission in 2028/29, with an option to extend...". It's rare nowadays for a British series to run weekly but cross from one calendar year into another. Therefore, it's likely the plan is for a Christmas special at the end of 2028 and a full series in 2029. If the winner of the tender can keep to that schedule, it would mean new Doctor Who hitting screens only two years later than expected, after the previously announced Christmas Special for 2026 was canned. As mentioned last time, I could not fathom what anyone had hoped to achieve in announcing a Christmas special they seemingly didn't intend to make. Writing this down might have given a jolt to my cognition, perhaps, as I now find I have a realistic analysis. The spotlight on the tendering process in recent weeks has made everyone focus on the question of who will replace Bad Wolf Studios, and that's sidelined the question of who will replace Disney+. At the time when it became public that there would be no budget forthcoming from Disney as streaming distributor outside of the UK, Bad Wolf Studios were still engaged as the production company making Doctor Who for the BBC; Russell T Davies was still the showrunner. Bad Wolf still had what would end up being a hit show in The War Between the Land and the Sea, ready to go. There were also rumours that it might be possible for another streamer to take over.
In October 2025 when the BBC and Bad Wolf announced the stop-gap Christmas special for 2026, there was still presumably a chance that a backer could be found to match, or at least come close to matching, the expired Disney+ investment. To keep that chance alive, and to keep Bad Wolf in the frame as current producers of the show, the announcement was made - Doctor Who was officially continuing. That also explains some of the touchiness that was seen from the Bad Wolf execs whenever it was suggested in that period that Doctor Who was dead (Jane Tranter reacting to some off-hand comments from Rob Shearman - as discussed in the Deeper Thoughts section of this blog post - is one example of this). If a deal was in the offing, though, it didn't come to fruition. I'm sure that someone will be found as a non-UK distribution partner for new episodes in future, but they doubtless won't be stumping up the kind of cash that came from the House of Mouse; and, without that sort of money, it wasn't economical for Bad Wolf Studios to make the sort of Doctor Who they were set up to make. Hence, the BBC put the show out for tender and Davies announced he was moving on (again). This might be a complete misreading, I'm aware, but it seems like the only plausible flow of events to me. We might never know for sure, but at least soon we shall have the announcement of the winner of the tender. If I'm right in one point, and there seem to be some indications that I am, that company will likely have the challenge of making Doctor Who on a more restrictive budget than from 2023 to 2025 (which might not be that bad a thing). In the meantime, though, will that reduced budget have any impact beyond any new series?
Rob Shearman's comment, as noted at the time, only referred to the scope for continuing the story of Doctor Who in other media during any hiatus. He felt the end of The Reality War was a cul-de-sac, and there couldn't be an ongoing narrative about the Doctor's adventures in the same way as the Virgin New Adventures novels carried on from Survival, or the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures novels carried on after the TV Movie. Circuit Breaker has shown that there are limited ways to progress things. UNIT Tower and all its characters (including Osgood, and even Andrew Turner if he survives the epic and doesn't turn out to be a traitor) are ripe for continuing adventures. A big UNIT spectacular was, after all, the last thing shown on TV. Kate Lethbridge-Stewart's violent litter patrol is the 21st century equivalent of Ace and the Doctor, or the Eighth Doctor, walking off into their respective metaphorical sunsets. Still, though, it does feel that it's mostly into the back catalogue that content creators will be a-dippin'. Doctor Who Magazine's long-running comic strip, usually a good bellwether, has already said goodbye to Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor. Their first post-Fifteenth strip was - rather cleverly - set between episodes during the early period of The Daleks' Master Plan, tying in to the recent recovery of a couple of its previously lost episodes. The next and latest strip at the time of writing features the popular combo of the Tenth Doctor and Rose. Circuit Breaker also has done its fair share of pilfering from the archives. As well as featuring returning foes in all of its parts, there was also an additional release in August 2026 as part of the epic that I didn't mention above. This was The Black Archive Files Blu-Ray that came out on the final day of the month.
In Summary:
Circuit running...
