It's late 2012, and the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who is less than a year away. The fifth Doctor actor Peter Davison is concerned that the planned TV special will only feature new series Doctors, and starts a campaign for old Doctors to be included too. He recruits sixth and seventh Doctor actors Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy (eighth Doctor actor Paul McGann could only promise to be involved subject to work commitments, and fourth Doctor actor Tom Baker doesn't answer his phone). The three of them protest outside Television Centre; a passing John Barrowman informs them that the special is being filmed in Cardiff. They get a lift with Barrowman, sneak into the studios via the Doctor Who Experience exhibition, and end up performing in the special inside three Dalek props. They celebrate while ignoring a phone call from Russell T Davies, who's also desperate to be involved. In post-production, the scene with the three Daleks is cut, but luckily they were also filmed for a scene where they hide under dustsheets (as the Zygons do in The Day of the Doctor), which makes it to the finished programme.

Context:

At the time of writing, the most recent Blu-ray season box set from the Doctor Who collection has been out about a month; this one showcases the 21st season of the series, first broadcast in 1984. I've been watching the episodes and extras on it continuously since it came out, and I'm only halfway through - it is a very comprehensive ten disc set. One of the extras I have watched already was The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, Peter Davison's comic short film made for Doctor Who 50th anniversary in 2013. I did touch on this story in passing in the Deeper Thoughts section of the post on The Five Doctors, which I blogged in 2020. Seeing it again on Blu-ray, and listening to the newly recorded commentary on the set, I feared I hadn't done it justice with that fleeting reference, so am covering it as another unexpected extra for the blog in April 2026 (following the two episodes of Dalek Master Plan covered last time).

First Time Round:

One could argue forever about what's the worst or the best Doctor Who story. The Season 21 Blu-ray season box set contains one story (The Caves of Androzani) that has topped polls, and one (The Twin Dilemma) that has languished at the bottom of the same polls. A good few fans, though, find the former a bit overrated and the latter unfairly maligned. Official Doctor Who skits are much less numerous, of course; with less competition, I think there's a good argument to be made that The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot is the best Doctor Who skit. It was probably given a boost on my first watch from coming hard and fast after what is indisputably the worst Doctor Who entertainment show. Again these are few and far between, so there's never been a poll. If there were, Doctor Who The Afterparty would almost certainly come last. On the evening of 23rd November 2013, after having enormously enjoyed The Day of the Doctor anniversary story (another poll-topping story), I switched over to BBC3 to watch the Afterparty. This was a shambolic live show attempting to celebrate 50 years of a television show by being dismissive of most of its stars and interviewing pop band One Direction over the worst satellite link-up ever seen on live television. It did do a good service in featuring the three stars of the comedy skit that was to land on the red button service immediately after the live show, something that might not have been known about by many viewers. To say that the following 30 minutes of comedy were better than the Afterparty is like saying that chocolate is better than a tracheotomy.

Reaction:

Elsewhere on the aforementioned Season 21 Blu-ray box set, there is an interview with companion actor Mark Strickson (who played Turlough in the 1980s) recorded at the Doctor Who 50th Celebration at the ExCeL in London, the day after The Day of the Doctor's transmission. Strickson is a little grumpy from being in the middle of travel to and from his home in New Zealand (and - who knows?! - maybe from being at the Afterparty the previous evening too). Asked what he thought of The Day of the Doctor, he tells the interviewer that it was a good story, but maybe not that great as a celebration of 50 years of Doctor Who. Featuring all the old Doctors just with archive clips clearly wasn't celebratory enough for Strickson, and perhaps many other viewers. What's fun, though, is that - by extending a gag about his taking mock umbrage at this very idea - Peter Davison ends up creating exactly the celebration required. Stuffing The Day of the Doctor with all the surviving classic Doctor actors, many looking markedly different to how they did back in their day, could have been made to work (The Power of the Doctor has a good stab at it a few years later), but it would have been contrived and cluttered. Steven Moffat made the right choice; his insurance, of course, was providing production funding to Davison's comic short; he'd clearly seen that Davison had stumbled across an original and effective way to complement the main anniversary special. It's not just a clever name - the Reboot acts as a nice comic sequel to The Five Doctors, and has the same intent: to showcase as many Doctors, companions, guest stars and monsters as possible. It even has some call backs - the use of Shada footage to explain away Tom Baker's lack of involvement, and Davison getting to say "Sorry - must dash!" at one point.

It's funny too. Though Davison had long displayed comic chops as a performer, he was untested as either a comedy writer or director, but does both extremely well. His co-stars Sylvester McCoy and Colin Baker have also both demonstrated over the years that they can handle humorous material, and with their director they each form distinct and heightened comic personae as themselves (in inverted commas): Peter is a bit grumpy and at odds with the world, Colin is the slightly brash voice of common sense, and Sylvester - in a sweet performance - is permanently bemused. McCoy's delivery of "He probably won't", after talking of famous Hollywood director Peter Jackson's tendency to keep his cast hanging around until he gets a moment of inspiration, is worth the entrance fee on its own. Then there's his almost thrown-away "Got it a bit wrong actually" when he and Baker are both quoting their best Doctor Who lines. This is prompted by McCoy being asked by baker whether he wants sugar in his tea, calling to mind a famous scene in Remembrance of the Daleks ("Every great decision creates ripples" / "In your tea?"). McCoy was filming the Hobbit trilogy with Jackson around this time, which forms a running gag. Watching all these mentions of the director and his work, one doesn't think for a moment that Jackson would actually appear, but then amazingly he does, and even more amazingly we get Ian McKellen in costume as Gandalf too. It's the biggest but not the only casting coup. Getting Olivia Coleman was impressive enough - as is mentioned on the Blu-ray commentary, the joke about Coleman's ubiquity ("I'm usually in everything") has become even more relevant in the years between then and now.

One shouldn't underestimate the casting coups that came from inside the world of Doctor Who, of course. From the commentary, it's clear that a certain guerrilla style was required, with Davison grabbing any opportunities when he could (filming at a real-life convention allowed him to get a very funny scene with Paul McGann, short notice arrangements nabbed a quick scene with Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman, a sheer fluke led to an appearance from Dan Starkey in costume as a Sontaran). A sequence inspired by Davison's regeneration sees Steven Moffat haunted by floating heads of many, many companion actors from Doctor Who's long history whizzing around him. Most are accounted for, though it's a shame that Mark Strickson didn't get to take part in this very celebratory moment. He was in New Zealand during filming, of course, but then so were Peter Jackson and Ian Mckellen! John Barrowman gets a bigger cameo. The revelation of the personal secrets of "Barrowman" ("Don't tell anyone - please") is such an insanely good gag that I won't spoil it for the uninitiated by spelling it out here. It's undoubtedly coincidence, but the action meshes perfectly with the real world of Day's production: Tom Baker doesn't need to join the classic Doctors' protest as he's been cast in the 50th anniversary show already; Paul McGann is up for it but then drops out, off filming The Night of the Doctor. Davison, Colin Baker and McCoy appear in the sets used for Day, and interact with many of the real life production crew playing themselves.

It was only when Russell T Davies appeared right at the end of this story that I realised he had otherwise kept himself completely out of the 50th anniversary hoopla. Maybe he didn't want to steal any of his friend Steven Moffat's thunder. Or maybe he was just saving himself for this triumphant moment ("Quel dommage Davros!"). Everyone is more than happy to send themselves up, and it's all very good natured and fun. Doctor Who's a family show, and the stars and fans alike all talk about the Doctor family; as such, it's appropriate that this is a family affair. Davison's wife, sons and grandson appear in the story. His daughter appears too as well as producing the short, and she ropes in his son-in-law. Georgia Moffat and David Tennant are both hilarious, acting out being put-upon by Davison and reluctantly helping him with his crusade. Colin Baker's family are all present and correct and contribute to another funny scene. The sons of Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee are in small roles within the piece too. It's like the most expensive home movie ever, but is always entertaining enough to justify its existence (rather like the show that inspired it). It truly is the perfect celebration of Doctor Who's history in all its quirky glory.

Connectivity:

The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, like the two recently found episodes of The Daleks Master Plan, features Daleks and journeys between different locations within one story. If one were to cheat just a tiny bit and include Day of Armageddon (the episode in between the newly found episodes, discovered a couple of decades earlier) they both feature human characters disguising themselves as aliens (the three heroes of the Reboot pretend to be Daleks and Zygons, the first Doctor dons the garb of alien delegate Zephon).

Deeper Thoughts:

More new old Who. After nearly a year of no Doctor Who on TV, spring 2026 brought not only a couple of found episodes, but three stories newly available in novelised form. These new Target paperbacks are clad in the usual stylish design, with evocative cover illustrations by Dan Liles. It may be my imagination, but the paper stock being used feels a little bit nicer than for previous books in the range too. Unlike the last few batches which concentrated on recently broadcast tales, these three adapt stories from 2005 to 2010. The first, Aliens of London, is a version of a story from the earliest season of the relaunched series. It's adapted by long-term Doctor Who extended universe creative Joseph Lidster. In an author's note, he celebrates ticking off a bucket list achievement in writing a Target novelisation. It surprised me that he'd not done one before now, to be honest. He's a good fit for the material (a favourite story of mine, by the way, though many wouldn't share my opinion). Like many a long-term fan, he comes to this book primed with approaches that have been used before for such adaptations. He chooses what I'll call the Malcolm Hulke method: finding or inventing POV characters within the story to expand on the events they witness. This undercuts just one moment: there's a great throw-away line on TV about a character having a "wife, a mistress and a young farmer" that doesn't work as well here because we've had a preceding scene where we've met all three at length. The rest of the time it works. I enjoyed sequences from the perspective of Barry (I'll give nothing more away - it's better to go in unspoiled) and Tosh (Torchwood's part of the action is somewhat expanded from the original). The strictness shown in avoiding any omniscient narration, and some nips and tucks for better flow, mean some details are lost, for example the rising hysteria about aliens that gives context to Jackie's reporting the Doctor and Rose to the authorities.

The inner life of characters like Mickey, Jackie and Harriet Jones brings out the melancholy in the story that TV viewers might have missed. Lidster's work also nicely dovetails with Russell T Davies's short story prequel "Where Did They Get the Pig?" from a Doctor Who Magazine special in 2025. There's some nods to future stories, like a scene of Captain Jack watching Margaret Blaine escape to the Isle of Dogs at the end. Jenny T Colgan gets to pull the same trick in her adaptation of the Weeping Angel 2-parter from Matt Smith's first season, The Time of Angels. River Song's inner thoughts are informed by the knowledge she has that Amy is her mother, even though that wasn't revealed to the audience back in 2010 (presumably the writer of the TV version Steven Moffat already had it in mind back then). With the full details of River, Amy and the eleventh Doctor's character arcs (which Moffat probably hadn't fully worked out this early) known to her, Colgan is able to be add many nice touches, and she captures all the characters well. There's also a - very nerdy, but nonetheless welcome - reference to Amy somehow being linked to the Pompeiian character also played by Karen Gillan in earlier story The Fires of Pompeii. All the stories adapted this time are 2-parters, so there isn't the need to put in much extra material to fill the page count. Colgan adds an opening section introducing the person that wrote the journals about the Weeping Angels referenced by River and the Doctor; amusingly, this is a person from our present who romanticised the past and sought the Angels out to send him there. He finds once he's living in it that it's very far from being a golden age.

If you want more radical new material, then the final one of the three books is for you. This is Matt Jones's The Satan Pit, based on his own scripts for the 2006 David Tennant story. If Lidster took the Malcolm Hulke approach, then Jones does it like Donald Cotton: he reshapes the material using a framing device where his characters tell the tale in their own words. We join the story after the events depicted on TV have taken place, and the rest of the book is formed of first-person testimonies from the three survivors, Ida, Danny and Zack, to authorities that disbelieve their talk of a magic man in a flying box that saved them. The book acts therefore as both novelisation of and sequel to the TV version. Like Lidster, Jones is rigorous about limiting the action to what these three characters' experience, though at the end there's a clever way of covering the climactic events for which none of them are present. Like Colgan, he makes use of future developments in the series after this story - by the end of the book, the Ood have been liberated (as shown in TV in Planet of the Odd, a couple of years on from The Satan Pit), and there's an addendum connecting to The End of Time. Jones tweaks the characterisations of the guest cast to make them more distinct from one another. Danny becomes a hopeless romantic who rapidly develops a somewhat creepy crush on Rose. Having this as Danny's emotional starting point gives more room for him to mature into as the story progresses. I don't rate the TV version of this story that highly (though many wouldn't share my opinion), but this prose version is much better. The book ends with a courtroom drama climax, the resolution of which will be new to anyone reading, For this reason, and for its more original structure, it's probably my favourite of these latest three books, but all of them are definitely worth a read.

In Summary:

A very expensive home video, but much better than that sounds!

Monday, 13 October 2025

Torchwood: Children of Earth

Chapter the 339th, where other members of Torchwood discover they don't know Jack.

Plot:

One day, across the world, all children suddenly stop moving for a few minutes. Later, they do the same again, but this time they go on to speak, in unison. This keeps happening; each message they speak is eerier and eerier, warning that something is returning. Some force is controlling them, and a branch of the UK government (represented by civil servant John Frobisher and technician Dekker) seems very clued up on it. They start making preparations for a visit by aliens known to them as the 456 (a number relating to the frequency they broadcast on). The government did a deal with the aliens in the 1960s, giving them twelve children under threat of the release of a virus that would have wiped out millions. One adult is also controlled by this unseen force, and speaks along with the children. This is Clem McDonald. He was the only one of the twelve who managed to escape. Captain Jack was one of the handlers delivering the children back then. An order is given by Frobisher to kill him and the rest of Torchwood as part of a cover-up. Gwen and Ianto manage to get away before the Torchwood Hub in Cardiff is destroyed. Jack is blown up, but his remains are taken away, as his death-defying abilities cause him to slowly reform. Gwen and Ianto (assisted by Rhys) break his rebuilt self out of where he was being held, and (assisted by PC Andy) they collect Clem too. In hiding, they work with a political aide Lois Habiba whom they've recruited to use Torchwood tech to infiltrate and record the government's dealings with the 456. The aliens demand ten percent of the world population of children. Lois records discussions between politicians on how to choose which children to be handed over.

As part of negotiations, it is revealed that the 456 hook themselves up to the children to imbibe certain chemicals from them, for their narcotic effects. Using the threat to release the recordings as a bargaining chip, Jack and Ianto talk their way into the room in Thames House where an ambassador of the 456 is based: they confront the alien and it releases a lethal virus. Jack is resurrected, but Ianto is dead. The 456 also kill Clem, who they refer to as the Remnant, by remote control with a sonic signal. The government starts to round up children from poorer families, with a cover story of a mass inoculation programme to stop the children from coming under alien control. Gwen, Rhys and Ianto's sister and brother-in-law help some children to evade the army who are gathering up the kids. The Prime Minister informs Frobisher that his children are also to be given to the 456 to demonstrate that it is not just ordinary families that are making the sacrifice. To avoid this, Frobisher shoots his wife, two children and then himself dead. Jack realises that the 456 killed Clem as otherwise he might have provided an opportunity for them to be killed. He needs to send a signal but needs a child that's hooked in to the 456's control. He uses his grandson, the child of a mother who was herself the issue from a decades old dalliance. The solution works, and the 456 leave Earth, but Jack's grandson is killed and his mother swears she will never see Jack again. Consumed by guilt, Jack decides to leave Earth and travel the galaxy.

Context:

It was mid-September 2025, and my eldest (young man of 19) was a week away from returning to university for his second year. He's a huge Peter Capaldi fan, mainly from his work in The Thick of It, but from his performance as the Doctor too. I mentioned that I was about to blog a story that featured Capaldi and that the actor was very good in it; he was persuaded to join me. The two of us watched the five episodes stripped across a week, one episode per evening, just as it was originally broadcast. I'd wanted to blog a Torchwood story (and thought I may as well blog the indisputably best one) as I'd covered at least one story from all other Doctor Who spin-off series. The only issue was that it failed the very first of my canon test questions: Does it star the Doctor? It stars an actor that would later go on to play the Doctor, but that doesn't cut it. Given that I will in future, just for completeness, cover the as yet unaired spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea - which now looks to be coming in 2026 rather than 2025 - and that won't feature the Doctor either, I will have to tolerate a very occasional relaxing of this rule. The character anyway has something of a presence in Children of Earth just because of his absence. The rest of the canon questions were fine. Was it released as an official Doctor Who or official spin-off story (i.e. its not an unofficial fan-made proposition)? Yes. Is there a dramatic context to the story (i.e. it's not just a skit)? Yes. Was it released with the intention of being the main attraction for audience engagement (i.e. it's not just an extra on a DVD or Blu-ray)? Yes. Have I already covered it in passing with another connected story? No.

Milestone watch: I've been blogging new and classic Doctor Who stories in random order since 2015, and I'm now approaching the point where I catch up. Aside from spin-offs like Torchwood: Children of Earth, the tally stands at 12 Doctors' televisual eras completed (Doctors 1-4, 6-9 and 11-14), and 38 out of the 41 seasons completed to date (classic seasons 1-18, 20-26, and new series 1, 2, and 4-14). Of the 892 episodes of Doctor Who from An Unearthly Child up to The Reality War, 10 now remain.

First Time Round:

As I've mentioned when covering stories from 2009 for the blog before, Doctor Who's so-called 'gap year' (2009 was the first year since the 21st century return of the show that a full series was not broadcast) was really nothing of the sort: there were several goodies for Doctor Who fans spread across the year that meant only ever a few months' at a maximum elapsed before one could see something new. In July, this Torchwood story was one such goodie, broadcast an episode per night across a week (matching the narrative structure of each episode being set over the course of a single one of five consecutive days). I watched each one live as they went out on BBC1. I think it's fair to say that the strength of reaction surprised a lot of people; the story was a steep step-up in quality from the previous two seasons, and it attracted a reasonably large audience. That was nothing, though, compared to the size and surprise of the fan backlash regarding the death of series regular Ianto Jones; the main memory I have from first time around is, alas, all of that nonsense (more details in the Deeper Thoughts section below).

Reaction:

Let's start with Peter Capaldi, whose presence in the cast was one of the major reasons I picked this story to watch. His performance as John Frobisher - an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary situations, a man who goes to extraordinary lengths for somewhat tawdry aims; a man who's ruthless and determined but weak, and yet aware of his own weakness - is not just the best performance he's ever given in any 'Whoniverse' story, but might also be Capaldi's best work in anything ever. I know this is a bold claim, but just watch him over the course of these five episodes. Every expression, every twitch, every tiny movement of a muscle, all are completely under his control and finely calibrated. Sometimes he's giving this acting masterclass without even appearing to be moving; it's like his skin is able to act independently of any other body part. He embodies the role, in every sense of that word. It's not as showy as this sounds. The prevailing tone of the piece is fairly realistic, but this is no kitchen-sink drama. It's Torchwood: there are pyrotechnics and car chases and aliens. Capaldi's aligned with that overall tone, but grounded enough that one never sees - not from his first appearance all the way up to the character's devastatingly tragic final moments - any Capaldi on screen, only John Frobisher, worrying himself to death as he tries to do his job while gradually running out of options. This wasn't a rehearsal for playing the Doctor (no doubt there are some fan-fics out there that posit it, but its very hard to reconcile that final scene with John Frobisher being the twelfth Doctor in disguise); the actor had already played a guest character in the main show, and now was doing the same in a Who spin-off, he probably thought this was his last roll of the dice. It was lucky that the show carried on long enough that he could play the main role eventually.

With such a powerhouse performance from one member of the cast, it's perhaps surprising that Capaldi doesn't stand out that much. He's just one of an incredibly strong guest cast, none of whom equal him, but many come close. There's too many to mention them all but a few to pick out: Nicholas Farrell as slippery Prime Minister Brian Green, the real villain of the piece; Ian Gelder as Dekker, the amoral techie with a keen sense of self-preservation; Paul Copley bringing the pathos, as well as the humanity, as Clem McDonald, the only adult affected by the 456's control; Cush Jumbo as Lois Habiba, the slightly unwilling rookie recruit to Torchwood. Then there's a pre-Ghosts Katy Wix as Rhiannon Davies, Ianto's sister. The scenes of Ianto and his family are some of the funniest and most real that Torchwood ever had. Every member of the guest cast in whatever role, big or small, is taking the excellent material in the script and making it even better. A good example of this is the chilling COBRA scenes, where politicians and civil servants sit in Cabinet Office Briefing Room A and discuss the vast Trolley problem scenario with which they are confronted. Nicholas Briggs, who's usually heard but not seen on Doctor Who as he voices Daleks, Cybermen and many other creatures, has a rare in-camera role, and shines with only a few lines of dialogue. All this talent is a good buffer protecting the regular cast. The narrative sees the Torchwood team isolated and mainly working on their own (they barely interact with Capladi's Frobisher, for example). Without meaning to be too negative, this is possibly a reason why this story tends to be more well thought of than other Torchwood tales. The - somewhat arch and fabricated - dramatic world of the regular characters does not dominate the running time, and we continually cut to other characters to keep the action grounded in reality.

With no offence meant to them or any of their fans, the actors playing the surviving members of Torchwood (John Barrowman as Captain Jack, Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper and Gareth David-Lloyd as Ianto) don't have great range. What they can do they do well: they can do action, they can do sass, they can do standing and staring mysteriously into the middle-distance as they contemplate what action or sass is just about to happen. It's a stretch to expect much more than that (and it is generally enough, to be fair). There's a couple of times that Barrowman is asked to go beyond this into grief and anguish, and the moments don't quite convince; neither do Myles and David-Lloyd's depictions of the betrayal of Jack turning out to have been involved with an earlier grubby scheme to placate the 456 from decades before (but this shouldn't have come as much of a surprise to them if they stopped to think about it - why else would the government want him killed?). Doing much better are the semi-regulars of Torchwood, Kai Owen as Rhys Williams and Tom Price as PC Andy, who both get given softball comedy material (and - to give both of them their due - knock it out of the park). It doesn't really matter too much, as the story has so many groups of characters to cut to, all of them being put through the ultimate in dramatic twists and turns. Kudos is deserved for Russell T Davies and the other writers: what's on the page is so strong that any cast would have looked good delivering it; that it's a top drawer guest cast, and pretty likeable set of regulars, elevates this to a special level.

One of the key strengths of the script is the simple but effective ideas that drive it: every scene of the possessed kids acting and talking in sync is instantly and eerily effective, and doesn't trouble the effects budget. Apart from some body horror based on the indestructible Jack reforming after being blown to bits, the terrors of Children of Earth are pretty low tech, and all the more striking because of that. This extends to the conception of baddies the 456 on page and on screen. It's a straightforward analogue: they are gangsters who deal in drugs pulling a protection racket; unknowably more powerful than the human race, they have us at their mercy. The visuals of the creatures are also perfect: shrouded and mysterious in clouds of vapour, expressing themselves with thrashing alien limbs and splats of expectorated goo. That motivation for an adversary, and the scary visuals, would not have been possible to do in the more family-friendly main show; with this story, Torchwood is finally utilising its post-watershed status effectively to work for the drama, rather than just add sex and swearing to sci-fi tales. Children of Earth is bleak, with many reprehensible characters surviving to the end without any comeuppance. Ideas and visuals are perfectly framed by the structure, the relentless nature of each episode covering a day brings the audience in inevitable increments, closer and closer, to the dilemmas and compromises inherent in the story's basic premise: what would - what could - any of us sacrifice for the greater good? Ultimately, Frobisher and Jack are shown as the only ones brave or ruthless enough to sacrifice their own progeny, the former to escape a terrible fate for his family, the latter to save the world at an awful cost.

The devastating ending somewhat makes up for the only weak point of the narrative, the ending of the fourth episode. The violent retribution of the 456, including Ianto's death, is effective at upping the ante, but it involves both him and Jack acting out of character: they meticulously plan infiltrating the government meetings using all technology they have to use; but, they abandon all that once they get into a room with the 456; it seems suicidally remiss of them to have given no thought to what they would do once they have confronted the baddies. The shock of a regular character getting killed off covers this up on first watch, but with each repeat viewing this gap in character logic makes the event seem more and more pointless. It is most uncharacteristic of Torchwood of all teams to go off half-cocked. This is a minor flaw in the scheme of things, though, and the rest of the story stands up there with the best that Doctor Who and all its spin-offs have to offer. It's certainly odd, though: one of the greatest stories in the Whoniverse is a Torchwood story; who would have guessed that before the story aired? It seems unbelievable even at the time of writing, 16 years on.

Connectivity:

Both Torchwood: Children of Earth and Exploration Earth: The Time Machine are Doctor Who spin-offs with the word Earth somewhere in the title.

Deeper Thoughts:

Ianto, we hardly knew ye. At the time of writing this (2025), the internet is ever prone to go into meltdown; it barely takes a whisper. In 2009, before the mass adoption of social media, it was less common; nonetheless, 2009 saw a meltdown take place related to the events at the end of part four of Torchwood Children of Earth. I could have put lots of spoiler warnings above about Ianto's death at that point in the narrative, but it would have been pointless. There's a shrine. There's a f**king shrine, for chrissakes. Almost immediately after the broadcast of the episode, fans started to leave flowers, photos and messages in the Cardiff Bay location where the entrance to the underground Torchwood Hub was fictionally based. And they haven't really stopped since. The shrine is still there after all these years; it's become a tourist attraction of sorts and has its own Tripadvisor entry and wikipedia page. It is one of the manifestations of fandom mentality that I most struggle to understand. For a start, these offerings aren't being placed at the site of the character's demise - he dies in Thames House in London, so really the shrine should be there. Wherever these fans choose to do it, though, they are paying tribute to a person who doesn't exist. Clearly, the character meant a lot more to many than he did to me; he must have meant more to people than the characters of Tosh and Owen (regulars who were killed off in the series the year before Children of Earth and got not even a single bloom left for them anywhere in the Cardiff area). People buy or pick flowers, write or draw, bring photos and even merch and go some distance out of their way to travel to a dockside wall, all to commemorate the life and death of someone who doesn't exist. Believe it or not, though, this is not the strangest reaction people had to Ianto's passing.

In 2009, I knew James Moran - co-writer of one of the episodes of Children of Earth - a tiny bit. He was the most successful of a group of screenwriting bloggers, of whom I was also a (much less successful) member, a friend of a friend, and I'd socialised with him briefly in person at a screenwriting festival in 2008. He was not a bosom buddy, nor even much of an acquaintance; so, perhaps it was presumptuous of me to take a tiny bit of personal offence at the torrent of hate that was directed at him online after Children of Earth's fourth episode aired. Given that Moran is a real human being, and the people directing hate at him were taking a huge chunk of personal offence about the fate of an entirely fictional person, I feel I should be forgiven for my presumption in this instance. It was just horrible. As I said at the start of these thoughts, there's been many a virtual pile-on in the years since, some of which probably make 'Ianto-gate' look like a tea party; nonetheless, it was the worst I'd witnessed up to that point (I was a web savvy Doctor Who fan too, so I wasn't unaccustomed, alas, to online bile). To summarise for those unaware of the history: immediately after the tragic end of Ianto aired, Moran was bombarded on twitter and in the comments section of his blog by fans expressing in strong terms their unhappiness at the events of the episode. He was accused of misleading, manipulating and mocking fandom, and much else besides. He had to suspend comments on the blog and disappear from the web for a while. If the shrine was the more positive side of the overreaction, this was the ugly side. It's worth pointing out that Moran didn't write the fourth episode, he co-wrote the third in which no beloved characters die. He just happened to be the only one of the writers with an online presence, and hence was the only person available to whom the baying mob could vent their ire.

There was more activity beyond the shrine and the online whine; there was a Save Ianto Jones campaign that demanded that the character be brought back somehow and encouraged readers of its website to inundate the BBC with complaints (they also raised a large amount of money for charity, let it be noted). Why was it Ianto that inspired such feeling? He had something of a status as an LGBTQ+ Who icon, because of the plot arc threaded through Torchwood before and including Children of Earth about his attraction for and relationship with Captain Jack. A number of commentators in the immediate aftermath of the character's death mentioned that destroying a same sex relationship in such a dramatic way was disappointingly heteronormative (some even reportedly said is was homophobic / biphobic). I've got a small amount of sympathy with this point of view, but as mentioned it wasn't exactly rare for Torchwood to kill characters off. From its very first episode, it was made very clear that Torchwood operated in a part of the Whoniverse that was a lot more dangerous and less cuddly than Doctor Who's snug corner; people - off all ages, colours, creeds and orientations - were likely to die. Nobody was calling for the old guy or the young lad killed off by the 456 to be brought back (and nobody knew anything definitive about their sexuality). No, I suspect the concerns about Ianto's status as an LGBTQ+ icon were a post facto rationalisation; the disproportionate reaction came first. It's a mystery. Torchwood fans obviously adored him, and maybe even they themselves didn't fully know why. That's no excuse for attacking people online, of course. Ianto was never 'saved' but he'll never be forgotten: the shrine remains as an enduring reminder of the character and that moment of fan excess.

In Summary:

One of the greatest stories in the Whoniverse is a Torchwood story - go figure.

Tuesday, 3 June 2025

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Death of the Doctor

Chapter the 330th, in which Doctor Who appears to be dead, but returns before you know it (let's hope life imitates art).

Plot:

Sarah Jane, Clyde and Rani are invited to the funeral of the Doctor, held in a UNIT base within Mount Snowdon. Sarah Jane does not believe the Doctor is dead, which the others put down to denial. Another old friend of the Doctor, Jo Jones, attends with her grandson Santiago. She also doesn't believe the Doctor is dead. The funeral is arranged by the Shansheeth, an alien race that look a bit like vultures who act as undertakers across the galaxy. Clyde's body keeps crackling with energy that he absorbed from the TARDIS when he last met the Doctor: suddenly, he changes into Matt Smith. The Doctor has been stranded without the TARDIS on a planet, but has constructed a gizmo to let him switch places with Clyde temporarily. He takes Sarah Jane and Jo with him when he goes back to the planet, and they help him to cross back permanently. The Shansheeth and UNIT Colonel Karim conspired to strand the Doctor and steal his TARDIS, but they don't have the key. They capture Sarah Jane and Jo and wire them up to a device that will create a new key from their memories. The Doctor, the kids and a Groske that works for UNIT are trapped outside of the room when this is happening. Through the door, the Doctor encourages his two ex-companions to remember everything of their adventures. This overloads the machine. It explodes, killing the villains.

Context:

I gave this spin-off a pre-screening screening by asking the usual set of questions. Does it star the Doctor? Yes. Was it released as an official Doctor Who or spin-off story (i.e. its not an unofficial fan-made proposition)? Yes. Is there a dramatic context to the story (i.e. it's not just a skit)? Yes. Was it released with the intention of being the main attraction for audience engagement (i.e. it's not just an extra on a DVD or Blu-ray)? Yes (it did end up being an extra on the Blu-ray collection season 10 box set disc, from where I viewed it this time, but it wasn't created to be so). Have I already covered it in passing with another connected story? No. A full house of correct answers means that the story adheres to the - somewhat arbitrary, I grant you - rules of suitability for inclusion in this blog. I watched the episodes one a day on the last two days of May 2025.

Milestone watch: I've been blogging new and classic Doctor Who stories in random order since 2015, and I'm now closing in on the point where I finish everything and catch up with the current stories being broadcast serially. When not going off piste with stories like Death of the Doctor, I have completed 11 Doctor's televisual eras, Doctors 1-4, 7-9 and 11-14, which entailed completing 37 out of the 41 seasons to date (at the time of writing): classic seasons 1-18, 20, 21, 23-26, and new series 1, 2, and 4-14.

First Time Round:

I can't remember the details, but I remember the feels. I watched this when it was first shown in October 2010, probably from a recording on the PVR later on each of the days of transmission. I was probably accompanied by the Better Half, but not by either of our only two children at the time as they were still a little too young. I enjoyed it immensely, as I did again on this recent watch, and for the same reasons: it's fun, well paced and celebratory. Whisper it, but it was probably the most enjoyable Matt Smith story of 2010 for me (I'm not as keen on Matt Smith's first season as many are).

Reaction:

What a difference a year makes. Death of the Doctor is a loose 2010 sequel to the last Sarah Jane Adventures story that featured a guest appearance from the Doctor in 2009. In that instance, as I mentioned when I blogged it in January 2025, the story scaffolding surrounding the guest casting was pretty flimsy. Just having David Tennant appear seemed enough, without having to construct a strong story in which he could feature. The writer of Death of the Doctor Russell T Davies puts a lot more into this and it's therefore much more rewarding to watch. The masterstroke is to have another guest star appear as well as Matt Smith. This is Katy Manning as Jo Jones née Grant, another companion from the same era as Sarah Jane. Manning gives every scene she's in a lift; Lis Sladen is very good within a narrow range, and can do the dynamic moments, but she's not so good at emotion. Manning can handle the emotional moments perfectly: witness the scene where she asks the Doctor why he never came back to see her again. This then leads into a wonderful revelation that Tennant's pre-regeneration victory lap towards the end of his last episode, where he visited lots of new series companions - which would have been relatively fresh in the audience's memory after its original broadcast on the 1st January of 2010 - extended to his catching up with every one of his companions. Obviously, on one level it's fanwank, but it's also lovely. The little moments talking about other companions (Liz Shaw working on a moonbase, Ian and Barbara having got married, Ace setting up her own charity, etc.) are also great. The story then climaxes with loads and loads of archive clips. What more could one ask for? Davies might never have written for the Doctor again after this story, and he clearly wants it to be a celebration of Doctor Who and the Doctor's positive impact on people.

Matt Smith gets some great gags, but also some more melancholy material like the line about regeneration "It always hurts" that he almost throws away, making it all the more powerful by doing so. The younger regulars are their usual good value. You could lift the Santiago Jones character out of proceedings and not impact the plot one jot, but it's great to have Rani and Clyde with their own sort-of companion, comparing their adventures with his life supporting family members in environmental protesting. Rani and Clyde have the benefit of always going back home after their escapades to normality and safety (a metaphor perhaps for the enjoyable but safe escapism of Doctor Who and associated Whoniverse shows). There's even time for the script to say a few simple but nonetheless true things about grief and loss. There's fun villains and monsters to provide some salt and avoid things becoming too saccharine. The Groske, friendly aliens who look like nastier cousins that the Bannerman Road gang have encountered before, are also pretty superfluous to proceedings; they do, though, provide a few nice moments of comic relief that it would be a shame to lose. For example, there's the sequence where a Groske encourages Rani, Clyde and Santiago to hurry along to its hidden sanctuary, only to reveal that it has no plan beyond hiding, and just wanted to hurry so its pizza wouldn't go cold. Laila Rouass has a lot of fun playing a UNIT officer gone rogue, tempted with the chance to leave Earth behind. The sneering delivery of her put-downs directed at Sarah Jane ("Frankly, I've never met anyone so staggeringly pious in all my life") are worth the price of admission on their own.

The Shansheeth are also a fun enemy race, if a little bit too Jim Henson in their look to be truly scary. Their motivation, though, is nicely original; tired of the ravages of mortality witnessed in their work as space undertakers, they want to prevent death in the universe. Davies mentioned in the commentary for the story that the Shansheeth's nefarious plan to nab the TARDIS broke his rule that the Doctor's time machine should never be the antagonists' prize (drawing attention to the power of the TARDIS too much would invite audiences to wonder why the villain every week didn't abandon whatever plan they had on hearing about it, as it would be more valuable than anything they'd previously had in their sights). It does help to up the ante at the end, though. The effects work to visualise a base in Mount Snowdon and a rocket ready for blast off are pretty good for the minimal budget of a CBBC show. There's great voice work from Jon Glover and David Bradley as the Shansheeth (the latter would be invited back a few times to appear in person in the main show). There's lots of fun continuity references for those that like that sort of thing (Jo mentions Karfel, tying up a loose end of continuity from the Sixth Doctor story Timelash, which sees the Doctor return to a planet that he'd previously visited with Jo in an unseen Jon Pertwee adventure). Beyond all of that, this is the story that depicts the first ever meeting of Sarah Jane and Jo Grant, and for that it gains special status and should always have a place in fans' hearts.

Connectivity:

Both Death of the Doctor and The Story and the Engine feature the Doctor as played by Matt Smith (he's in a blink and you'd miss it clip in the Ncuti Gatwa tale). Both stories involve the antagonists trapping the Doctor in another time- and space-zone away from other characters, but in both his companion(s) eventually join him to help him escape the trap. In a reasonably sizeable coincidence - Doctor Who doesn't do such a thing that often - both stories climax with a sequence featuring lots of clips of Doctor Who representing the memories of characters being used to overload a machine.

Deeper Thoughts:

The Story is the Engine: Anniversaries and Endings - 2. [Spoilers follow for the end of Ncuti Gatwa's second season - don't read unless you've watched The Reality War.] In the first part of this musing in the Deeper Thoughts section of the previous blog post, I talked about blogging all remaining classic and new series stories before the end of year; but, of course, anything could happen between now and the end of the year. The world could end. There might suddenly and unexpectedly be so many new Doctor Who stories created and broadcast on TV in late 2025 that I couldn't possibly write them all up before the 31st December (sadly, the world ending seems more likely as things stand). As mentioned above, when Russell T Davies wrote Death of the Doctor it probably seemed to him that he was writing for the Doctor for the very last time. In the end, that didn't turn out to be the case. As I write this in early June 2025, in the twentieth anniversary year of the new series launch, the time has come again when Davies may have reached the end of his time writing for the Doctor. All is uncertainty as we wait for news. Stories are a tool that humans have created to help them deal with the uncertainties of the world. It therefore feels a little unfair that Doctor Who fans' favourite coping mechanism has been taken away, just as the world for us has got just a little bit less good. We've been lucky up to now, though: through those twenty years, there's never before been a period when a Doctor Who season ended before the next one had been commissioned (and usually had started production). We now have that situation, and don't know exactly how long it will endure. Things could change before these words are even read. After I publish, Disney+ could confirm funding for another season the next day, the next week, the next month. The smart money (with the caveat that there is no smart way to make such a prediction) is on it taking longer than that, though: to my mind, this explains decisions taken with The Reality War's ending.

There are two facts that are certain. First, Ncuti Gatwa decided to move on from the role of the Doctor. Second, Disney+ had not made a decision about continuing to fund the series - and therefore it was not known exactly how the series would continue - before Gatwa's last episode was due to be broadcast. We don't know exactly when the decision about Gatwa's departure took place. A large amount of material towards the end of The Reality War looks to be constructed around his self-sacrifice. Too much to have been created with hasty pick-up shots? Maybe. My feeling is that he probably would have done a third year if Disney+ had not prevaricated, but we'll probably never know for sure. However it came about, the situation created a challenge for Davies in the writing of the final seconds of The Reality War. Ncuti has to be seen to regenerate, or else he'll still be associated with the role while trying to make a name for himself with other work. This would probably be true even if the regeneration was seen to start but not finish: it would leave open the possibility that he could continue (as David Tennant did after seeming to regenerate at the end of The Stolen Earth, for example). Someone brand new couldn't appear at the end without the guarantee of future work, for the same reason of unfair association with and responsibility for the show. So, it had to be someone already associated with the show in a big enough capacity that further association would not hurt the brand, and successful enough in their own right that the association wouldn't hurt their career. Any of the actors who'd played the Doctor before could have been candidates, but unfortunately Davies had already pulled that trick when David Tennant took over from Jodie Whittaker in 2023. It therefore would have to be a companion actor.

Of the small number of candidates that fit the bill, the ones with a previous working relationship with Davies probably boiled down to two, Catherine Tate and Billie Piper. As Tate had already returned in 2023 too, there was only really one choice. This doesn't mean it's not genius, though: Piper's presence harks back to the relaunch, when she was arguably the most crucial cast member of the first two years of the new series. The credits of The Reality War and the BBC's press release are careful never to refer to Piper as playing the Doctor. This leaves Davies's (or someone else's?) options open for when (if?) things resume. A quick decision on the future of Doctor Who could just about make a Christmas special for December 25th 2025 a possibility; what's more likely is a special or specials in 2026, with Piper handing over to someone else to do a series in 2027. Or it could be the end of Doctor Who altogether. It would be a shame as there are lots of ends left deliberately loose still to be tied up (who exactly is "the Boss"?) and scripts have been written for the next season and beyond. Also, the last ever image of Doctor Who being Ncuti Gatwa turning into Billie Piper is not as fitting as the Doctor and Ace walking off into the sunset (which served as the final image from 1989 to 1996). It certainly feels like there's confidence that the wait won't be too long (but then, one might have thought that about a newly regenerated Paul McGann flying his TARDIS off to adventures new, which served as the final image from 1996 to 2005). We'll have to wait and see (just as we did, for quite lengthy periods after 1989 and 1996). If news does come, I might miss it, at least for a while. I went into my viewing of The Reality War knowing the rumours about Ncuti leaving and regenerating into Piper, and it would have been much better not to have known.

As I've mentioned on the blog before, I don't engage with any social media any more, and I get all my news (except Doctor Who news) offline. I'm much happier for doing this, and I would recommend the approach to anyone. The fear of missing out, though, tempts me to regularly google 'Doctor Who' and look at news articles. I'm going to stop that too now. With no stories being made I'm not likely to see any spoilers, but there are other dangers. Stories are ways to help us manage the uncertainty of life, but there's a different and uglier type of storytelling too. Whether just for clicks (negative stories attracting more attention), or as a stick with which certain other media outlets can beat the BBC, or because of a more general anti-woke agenda, whatever that means exactly, a narrative is already being pushed that Ncuti Gatwa's time as the Doctor was a "flop" with "plummeting" ratings. I'd just like to use a few words here to show how that's complete bollocks. The average consolidated 7-day ratings figure for the first six episodes of the second Gatwa season is 3.18 million viewers. This is a slight drop on the average for last year's season of 3.71 million, but it's a very small drop (not a plummet or a "nosedive"). It's likely that when the final two stories' figures are included, the drop will be even smaller, possibly non-existent. The figure of 3.71 is down on the average figure for Jodie Whittaker's last season too, but then almost every year since 2005 has seen Doctor Who's average ratings go down compared to the previous year. The only exceptions were David Tennant's final season and Jodie Whittaker's first, the averages for both of which were buoyed up by a single outlier rating, because an aspect of that episode snagged on to the public's curiosity (what's the first female Doctor going to be like, and is Tennant going to regenerate earlier than we thought?).

This year-on-year decline is no surprise as it's happened across the board to all other programmes too. As such, Doctor Who is holding its own, particularly when one considers that each episode is usually available to stream before it is broadcast on TV, meaning that overnight and even 7-day figures will never give the whole picture. As was seen with the bump in viewing figures for the 2025 Eurovision-themed episode - which formed part of a live viewing experience with the contest itself for those at home making a night of it - people will tune in live when there's a hook (this is also borne out for special episodes, which tend to perform better than episodes that form part of seasons, and always have). If people aren't motivated to watch live, they will still catch up with the story at some point, Doctor Who episodes on the iplayer have a 'long tail'. Isn't the point of the streaming age that people can watch whenever they want? I'm sure there will be many people who held off from watching any of the season until it was complete, so they could binge it as a box set. I will not be sorry to miss tabloid newspapers misreporting such statistics, and then assigning spurious explanations tied to their own agenda. None of this means that Doctor Who will necessarily come back to TV anytime soon, of course. If I'm disciplined and stick to avoiding any online Who news, the next I know about the future of Doctor Who will be in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine. For example, it will be interesting to see whether Billie Piper starts to appear in the magazine's comic strip, or whether they stick with Ncuti, or indeed do something different altogether. There will still be Big Finish audios too, of course, and probably some more original novels as well. What did I foolishly say earlier about losing our coping mechanism? You don't get rid of Doctor Who stories so easily: they'll likely run and run - and be a force of positivity, unlike some other stories out there - forever.

In Summary:

A very enjoyable story that works as a celebration of the Whoniverse.

Doctor Who - Done To Death

Friday, 7 August 2026

Index: Jodie Whittaker

Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor Stories ...

Wednesday, 22 July 2026

Index: Peter Capaldi

Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor Stories ...

Monday, 6 July 2026

Index: Matt Smith

Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor Stories ...

Thursday, 30 April 2026

The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot

Chapter the 347th, one of the two best things made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.

Monday, 13 October 2025

Torchwood: Children of Earth

Chapter the 339th, where other members of Torchwood discover they don't know Jack.

Tuesday, 3 June 2025

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Death of the Doctor

Chapter the 330th, in which Doctor Who appears to be dead, but returns before you know it (let's hope life imitates art).