The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot

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

Plot:

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!

The War Between the Land and the Sea

Chapter the 345th, serves up a generous portion of Surf and Turf.

Plot:

[This is a brand new spin-off at time of writing, so beware spoilers ahead.] Present day. The aquatic earth reptiles from prehistoric times, who humans now erroneously refer to as Homo Aqua, are no longer dormant. They're pissed off at all the pollution humans have created in the sea. A UNIT mission investigates the initial signs that they've awakened, before their full appearance to the people of the world. The team includes a UNIT desk jockey, Barclay, because of an HR error. When he shows respect to a dead earth reptile that the team find, he is selected to be ambassador in peace negotiations on behalf of the Land. The ambassador for the Sea is Salt, a Homo Amphibia. Barclays and Salt are attracted to each other. Negotiations initially take place in a special water tank in a building in London, then in an environment created by the earth reptiles deep underwater. A show of strength early on by the forces of the Sea causes all the detritus from the oceans to be pulled up into the sky and rain down onto the land. This, plus threats to lose access to sea crossings, makes a shadowy cabal of rich businessmen, politicians and military folks hatch a plan codenamed Severance. One of the party who has descended to the deeps is part of the Severance conspiracy and lets off a sonic bomb, killing himself as well as the rest of the Land party and many of the earth reptiles. Only Barclay is saved, by Salt.

Severance conspirators try to assassinate Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. She is saved by her lover Colonel Ibrahim, who shields her from the bullet and is killed. A deepfake of Salt claiming responsibility for the underwater bombing goes viral, meaning she is enemy number one on the Land; she's also disowned by her people in the Sea too, branded as a traitor for saving Barclay. Barclay and Salt go on the run, and have an intimate moment when alone together. Soon, though, they are cornered by UNIT on a bridge. Salt escapes into the water. Over the next while, Barclay regularly tries to find her by calling out for her on the shore. When he finally finds her he's been secretly dosed with a virus engineered by the Severance conspirators. She is immune and survives, but most of the earth reptiles are killed. The survivors accept terms that they will restrict themselves to the deepest parts of the ocean and not threaten humans again (though it is shown in flashforwards that they will have revenge on the leaders of the Severance conspiracy). Kate drives Barclay to the sea where he is reunited with Salt and grows gills (yes, really); the two swim off together. Kate sees someone on the beach drop a plastic bottle, and pulls a gun on him.

Context:

My rewatch of the episodes of this spin-off from the iplayer over a few days during the Chrimbo limbo period between the 25th and 31st December 2025 marked the point when, after having been blogging new and classic Doctor Who stories in random order since 2015, I finally caught up. I have covered all series and specials of 15 Doctors across 41 seasons, plus at least one story from every official spin-off like TWBTLATS. Doctor Who will return to TV for Christmas 2026, so this is a pause rather than an end.

First Time Round:

I watched both the new omnibus of The Sea Devils as a lead-in, and then the first two episodes of the spin-off, live on the BBC iplayer as they went out on Sunday 7th December 2025. The omnibus was fine, if a bit pointless as the creatures were so different in it that it didn't really work as backstory for the new show. Still, it flowed nicely and didn't have any excessively choppy moments. I felt a bit gaslighted when a line of 1972 dialogue was altered. A Sea Devil says "We shall be the victors in the war between the land and the sea" in the new omnibus, making it look like the cumbersome title (more whinging about that in the Reaction section below, by the way) is a quotation from classic Who. But in the original, the underwater reptile man is confident of winning a "war against mankind". It's seamlessly done, which seems to make it worse somehow. Anyway, the next two episodes episodes I caught up with on the Monday following the Sunday 14th broadcast as I'd been out the night before. Finally, I watched the fifth episode live again on the 21st December, when I was accompanied by the eldest, young man of 19 years of age. He'd watched the previous episodes of the series at university, but was back home for his Christmas hols by the time of the finale. Nobody else in the household could be tempted to watch, not even middle child, boy of 16, who's the biggest Who fan bar me in the family. He's much more interested in the final season of Stranger Things at the moment.

Reaction:

A note before I begin to cover this story proper: I'm sick to death of typing the overlong title in full, so will be abbreviating it as TWBTLATS throughout. Even that initialism is a bit cumbersome, mind (and somehow a bit rude-looking). In the Doctor Who Magazine that previewed the story and featured many interviews and articles about it, they used TWB. When you get the official magazine having to abbreviate the abbreviation, you'd think someone might have twigged that the title was too long. Sheesh! Having got that off my chest, I think the rest of this review will not veer too far into the negative. TWBTLATS was not without flaws, but was broadly very enjoyable, and in many places magnificent. It was also a relaxing watch as whether it was good or bad made not a jot of difference to the Whoniverse. Okay, tiny additional moan before I'm done: I know people wanting online engagement for their content have got to get their clicks somehow; but, if that's by going down the route 666 of devilish exaggeration or downright lying, it does tend to get on my wick. I saw many an article online around the broadcast of this spin-off talking about how it represented 'make or break time' for Doctor Who and the Whoniverse. Such bollocks! TWBTLATS represented the least consequential Whoniverse story ever in terms of its performance with an audience. It was made with funding from a coproduction partner who has already pulled out of making any more Doctor Who or spin-offs. Disney+ wouldn't really care about how it performed on their own platform (if they ever release it there) let alone how it fared on the BBC. And the Beeb had already decided to make more Doctor Who plus at least one more spin-off and announced both a good while before TWBTLATS aired.

It didn't matter how well it did, but in the end it did rather well. The overnight rating for the first episode did better than every episode of Ncuti Gatwa's two series, and its final consolidated rating was only beaten by one ep from them (2024 opener Space Babies). The final rating for the second episode beat most of those for Ncuti's most recent series too. It was on in a later slot at a different time of the year, and was released differently (premiering on TV and streaming simultaneously). On the other hand, the initial episodes held their own against stiff competition (the live final of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, one of  ITV's biggest hitters). The BBC will be pleased with that, and the makers should take a little pride in it too. It might have had something to do with having a lovable leading man in Russell Tovey, who is excellent throughout. Ncuti Gatwa is sexy and charismatic for sure, but maybe doesn't have the lovable quality that Tovey, or David Tennant say, bring to the screen. I have seen some fans online reporting that they find Gatwa's screen presence a little off-putting. In a mass audience there are probably also some people who sadly won't watch a programme with a black or gay lead character, which will also have impacted Gatwa's figures. I don't condone such small-mindedness of course, and hope that future casting of the Doctor continues to challenge those viewers - hopefully, they can be won round eventually. If not, fuck 'em quite frankly. Anyway, other than the white male cishet (or should that be fishhet) lead character, the rest of the spin-off story is populated by a diverse set of characters and actors. Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Salt, and Colin McFarlane as General Austin Pierce were both particular standouts for me.

UNIT regulars of recent years are present and correct, but more in the background. From commentary around the time of its broadcast, I sense that some fans were disappointed that this was not the pilot for a full UNIT spin-off series, but it should have been clear from all pre-publicity and trailers that this was more the story of Barclay and Salt. The only UNIT regular with a significant role is Jemma Redgrave as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. She gets some great material. Obviously, there are the harrowing scenes of her grief at the loss of Colonel Ibrahim; presumably neither of the characters are aware of the events of Torchwood's Children of Earth or Ibrahim would have taken a holiday: don't be the lover of the highest credited regular in a five-part Doctor Who spin-off, you'll never make it to part five alive! My favourite Kate moment is in the first episode when she's in the back of a car with Barclay. She jokes about having forgotten her gun before turning serious and revealing that she's done no such thing. Nice. Alexander Devrient as Ibrahim and Ruth Madeley as Shirley Bingham don't have as much to do, but get a few nice moments (not least being Devrient's self-sacrifice). Some actors in the large ensemble seem a bit wasted without much screen time (Vincent Franklin, for example), and some (like McFarlane or Patrick Baladi as the villainous Spears) feel like they're killed off too soon. Nonetheless, all performances are strong throughout whether small or larger role, regular or guest. Props to director Dylan Holmes Williams and the whole crew for that, and for the handsome, expensive look of the piece throughout.

The scripts by Russell T Davies and Pete McTighe are not subtle (the greedy villains are seen greedily tucking into a lavish spread in one early scene) but we've probably passed the point of subtlety for any story with an ecological theme. The environmental situation is such that some things need to be hammered home, as they are in well-visualised set pieces like the sequence of chaos where trash rains down on London. Foreign filming adds global scale to proceedings; as does Davies's standard approach, which McTighe adopts too as he did in Lucky Day, of cutting to various examples of world media during the action. This means that we get more scenes of Lachele Carl as Trinity Wells appearing in yet another Whoniverse show (she's appeared in almost every 21st century spin-off as well as the main show). Obviously TWBTLATS wasn't going to end with everyone living together in harmony, and neither was it going to solve the world's ecological problems at a stroke. It was therefore clear that at some point it would morph from eco thriller to love story. Though the romantic subplot is seeded in from the beginning and highlighted throughout, the gear change towards the end still feels clunky. I think it boils down to minor mistakes in the pacing of the last couple of episodes. If the earth reptiles are powerful enough to create the trash rain, which looms large in the imagination because of the impressive visuals achieved, why don't they retaliate quicker to the sonic bomb? Why piss about with stuff like kidnapping and eating pet dogs, leaving the humans time to develop their virus? A few script changes could have created more urgency. It's nonetheless a good fun story, and though it wasn't a UNIT series per se, it could lead to more spin-offs featuring UNIT in future. That's of course assuming that Kate Lethbridge-Stewart gets away with pulling a gun on a civilian for littering.

Connectivity:

Both The War between the Land and the Sea and Kinda feature reptilian adversaries that have something of a moment of intimacy with a lead character (if kissing was allowed on screen in Doctor Who in 1980s, I can definitely envisage the Mara being passed from victim to victim that way rather than by holding hands).

Deeper Thoughts:

Predictions for the gap year. It's been a tradition here in the last few years for the Deeper Thoughts of posts around New Year's to make predictions, and review how well - or how clownishly - the last ones panned out. My predictions for 2025 can be found in the Deeper Thoughts of the Joy to the World post from December 2024. Starting with my one prediction that was not about Doctor Who, I'm a tiny bit disappointed that Wham's Last Christmas hasn't proved to be the UK's Christmas number one forever. I thought it would take "a change in how the chart is put together" to stop it. In the end, it just took Amazon slightly gaming the system by pushing Kylie Minogue's song XMAS to anybody asking their Alexa to play Christmas music during the festive period. Still, XMAS is a good song, and Kylie's both a Doctor Who star and an (inter)national treasure, so it was a worthy winner. Last Christmas came very close to beating XMAS despite all that, so will probably achieve its hat trick of Yuletide top spots in 2026. Sticking with festive predictions, at the end of 2024 I believed that regardless of coproduction decisions Doctor Who would be on at least at Christmas every year including 2025. I was only a year out: without Disney money, the BBC have confirmed a Christmas special for 2026. TWBTLATS had a slightly odd compressed scheduling (two times two episodes per week, with a fifth and final episode on its own in a third and final week). I get the feeling that it was intended to air weekly in 2026. Its being somewhat tossed away in three short weeks may be because it was pulled forward to plug the Christmas 2025 gap.

It's hard to predict anything about the content of the 2026 Christmas special; Billie Piper will be in it, but maybe not as the Doctor. It's also rumoured that David Tennant could make an appearance. His fourteenth Doctor is still hanging around on Earth following the bi-generation, so I can definitely see a possible plot of him helping out Billie with some regeneration weirdness that's turned the Doctor temporarily into a Bad Wolf form. At the end of the special, he can send this interim Doctor on her way to regenerate into the new incumbent. Plus Daleks and/or Cybermen. Come back in a year to see if any of that is even remotely correct. Talking of those two august enemies, I predicted a year ago that at least one of them would feature in the show in 2025, "probably Skaro's finest". I was technically correct - the Daleks featured briefly in a flashback scene in The Reality War - but full deployment of those 'big guns' still feels overdue (and will feel even more so by December 2026). With Doctor Who absent from TV until Christmas, home video and other extended universe will have to suffice for eager fans. My predictions about Blu-ray box sets proved correct for the second year running (a sign, I think, of the ever dwindling number of choices rather than any increase in my powers of prognostication). In December 2024, the season 7 box set had already been announced. I guessed, and it so transpired, that season 13 would be next and that there wouldn't be another Doctor Who set in 2025, only Blakes 7 series B.

The first Blu-ray box set for 2026 has also already been announced. It's season 21 (where Peter Davison bows out and Colin Baker debuts). It's slated for March following a release of TWBTLATS on Blu-Ray in February. There will almost certainly be one more Doctor Who set released around six months later, with Blakes 7 series C then arriving towards the end of the year. The gap in Summer where a new series box set would normally be scheduled might mean that second set comes a little earlier, but I doubt it will mean an additional classic Doctor Who box set is squeezed in. The reason for that is the previously mentioned dwindling number of seasons to choose from, many with challenges around restoration or missing episodes. Once season 21 is released, there will be seven seasons of classic Who left, only two of them in colour. The biggest question when trying to predict which season will be next is whether it will be a black and white set. I think not, for the same reasons I touched on last year: it would be too messy to have a mixture of reconstruction and animation to replace missing episodes on any one set, so I think there will be a wait for the monochrome sets while their final story or stories are animated. As such, I predict that the second box set of 2026 will be the final Jon Pertwee set, season 11. I do think that there will be another animation released during the year too; my money's on The Space Pirates, as it would complete animation of the missing parts of season 6 and make that a contender for release in 2027.

What of the blog in 2026? I've covered all 15 Doctors' stories in random order now, so I can and will add in some indexes of the posts per Doctor in broadcast order (we Doctor Who fans love a list, after all). That'll keep me busy for a while. Then, when it gets closer to Doctor Who's December return - which I'm going to go out on a limb and say will not be a one-off, I predict an announcement about Doctor Who's future to be made before the end of the year - I will probably start blogging a few other bits and bobs. I've done every official spin-off, but there are many unofficial fan-made efforts out there. For now though, like for the show, there will be something of a hiatus... but we Doctor Who fans are used to such things.

In Summary:

Very enjoyable, but I'm glad it isn't the last Doctor Who-related story on the BBC, as it would have been an odd note to end on. Wishing you a Happy 2026 (with some Happy New Who at the end of it)! 

Doctor Who: Redacted (series 2)

Chapter the 342nd, which poses the question 'Is Apex a predator?'. 

Plot:

The Blue Box Podcast is still going strong, but there's conflict within the three woman team who run it (and who recently saved the world from the Redacted virus). Ally and Shawna are now an (imperfect) couple; Cleo feels a bit isolated: she's sad that she didn't get to travel the universe with the Doctor, and feels that the other two are not taking her seriously. Ally and Shawna are investigating a spate of burglaries of alien tech from different locations across the country; Cleo is looking into mutant rats in Docklands; she's almost attacked by these, but is rescued by Apex. He is an alien who protects endangered species across the universe, and is looking for the Doctor. He has brought various aliens to sanctuary in an underground shanty town hidden somewhere on the Bakerloo line in London. But Apex isn't as nice as he's making out. He's the one behind the thefts, and the aliens living underground are being charged for the privilege by the avaricious landlord, and Apex's ex, Honour Bray. Honour wants to own the TARDIS, and Apex has been trying to get to the Doctor through Cleo to obtain it. When Honour tries to evict all the underground dwellers, Cleo stands in her way. With the help of Rani Chandra, Abby and Shawna use computer Mr Smith to fight off Honour's robots. Apex sort-of redeems himself, and Cleo manages to persuade Honour to do the right thing. 

Context:

As covered in more detail in the Deeper Thoughts section below, not only am I reaching the end of any official stuff to blog, I've also now run out of things I haven't ever watched (or in the case of Redacted, listened to). Redacted series 2 is - at least until something new is broadcast after the time of writing - the final Whoniverse story previously unexperienced by me that also qualifies as per my standard canon questions. Does it feature the Doctor or key characters that have appeared in Doctor Who? 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. Have I already covered it in passing with another connected story? No. With all that confirmed, I listened to the six episodes of the story from the BBC Sounds app over the course of approximately a week in November 2025, finishing on what some brand manager somewhere and a lot of excitable fans call Doctor Who Day (i.e. the 23rd November, the anniversary of Doctor Who's BBC1 debut in 1963).

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 occasional side trips into spin-offs like Redacted, the blog has seen 13 Doctors' televisual eras completed (Doctors 1-4, 6-14), and 39 out of the 41 seasons completed to date (classic seasons 1-18, 20-26, and new series 1-14). Of the 892 episodes of Doctor Who from An Unearthly Child up to The Reality War, six now remain.

First Time Round:

This is my first listen to the second series of Redacted. It was originally made available to stream on BBC Sounds from the 18th September 2023, a couple of months before the Doctor returned to TV screens after a short gap between The Power of the Doctor in 2022 and the 60th anniversary specials with David Tennant and Catherine Tate in November and December 2023. I am sure I knew that it had become available at the time, but I hadn't then caught up with series 1 (which I finally listened to earlier in 2025), so wouldn't have been in a position to jump to the second run anyway.

Reaction:

The second Redacted series is markedly different to the first. My main reservation about the former was that - at 10 episodes - it was too long, and the action to fill up that lengthy running time got repetitive. The second series comprises a comparatively svelte six x 30 minute episodes. One of the things that has been jettisoned to get the overall running time down is baggage from the history of Doctor Who and its spin-offs. That first run was crammed with many different surprise cameo appearances from across the Whoniverse, including ultimately the Doctor herself. It was fun, but I'm glad not to have so many distractions this time. Only Rani Chandra (in the universe of Redacted, Rani is a rival investigative podcaster looking into weird phenomena) and computer Mr. Smith appear to assist the Blue Box Podcast team towards the end. There's no Doctor - it would have been difficult as this was broadcast before the 14th Doctor (and second David Tennant Doctor) had been properly featured onscreen. The script suggests there's something wrong with the Doctor's timeline, but this is never resolved and doesn't seem to relate to anything from the TV. Maybe it was planned to be the lead-in to the plot of a Redacted series 3 that hasn't come to pass. Even without recurring elements, though, the series still manages to weave itself into the Doctor Who tapestry with throwaway continuity gags. Cleo's pollution-affected, oversized rats in Docklands are linked in dialogue to similar cases of Spiders (from Arachnids in the UK) and maggots (from The Green Death), and would also have echoes to any fan in the know of the giant rats in the same London location as featured in The Talons of Weng-Chiang.

The three central characters of Redacted are now firmly established, and it's much more interesting to focus on them. The structure of the narrative means that the three aren't all together much across the six parts; in the tradition of many a Doctor Who story, they are split up early on, and occupy parallel plots - the action intercutting between them - that gradually come together. The reason Cleo is off on her own, and Abby and Shawna are investigating separately, is because of intra-team conflict. This is a dangerously difficult line to tread in an adventure drama. The key conflict should be between the team and external forces; the longer they don't cohere into a single unit, the longer they bicker at one another, the less effective it is. There should have been the satisfying (and maybe hackneyed, but clichés are clichés because they work) story beat where all three forgive one another, put their differences behind them, and unite to fight the real enemy. It doesn't happen quite that neatly. Even Abby and Shawna have some moments where they argue - at humorously inappropriate points - about their relationship. It would be fine if it was all ironed out by the end of the penultimate episode, but it continues into the climactic action. Obviously someone was thinking along the lines that 'conflict = drama' but there is more than enough conflict already without putting in material that might make it more difficult for an audience to warm to the central characters. For example, Cleo is paired throughout with the slippery character of Apex, and their interactions keep listeners on their toes for all that running time: how trustworthy or not is Apex? How much does he care for Cleo, or is he just using her? We see him doing seemingly altruistic acts, but how much is that for money or expediency, rather than heroism? The series comes to an end with these questions still not 100% answered, which I think is a strength.

The other villain of the piece is similarly painted in shades of grey rather than black and white. This is Honour Bray, played with relish by Dervla Kirwan (in fact, all the voice cast delivers the goods, particular Charlie Craggs as Cleo). Characterising a villain as a slum landlord who exploits refugees is something new for the world of Who, and is sadly very relevant to the real world. The relationship triangle between Honour, Cleo and Apex is a nice way for the script to frame the scenes between the three: that this tale of intergalactic refugees ends up with three characters discussing the vicissitudes of love while eating vegan nuggets in a fried chicken shop is so Doctor Who (in the best possible way). As the main show often does, Redacted samples existing texts to great effect: aliens living amongst humans unnoticed, forming their own communities in an urban space, and the existence of covert authorities and commerce connected to this secret world; it's all very Men in Black. This allows for some colourful characters appearing for a scene or two (a sentient room, a time-travelling black marketeer that links the supply and demand of different historical periods). There's some laugh out loud dialogue too. The only issue is that it ends leaving lots of potential unrealised. It doesn't look like there is going to be a Redacted series 3, which is a shame.

Connectivity:

Both Redacted series 2 and The Well feature a guest appearance from a Whoniverse character that first appeared in 2008 (Rani Chandra in the audio story, the Midnight entity on TV).

Deeper Thoughts:

All Ticked Off. So, this is it. Now I've listened to the second series of Redacted, I have seen and heard it all, every official piece of Doctor Who entertainment produced by the BBC. I am something of a completist Doctor Who fan (had you noticed?!); as such, reaching this milestone is bittersweet, but nonetheless an achievement that is worth stepping back and reflecting upon briefly. I have watched every available main series Doctor Who episode from 1963 to 2025, and listened to every audio for those where the pictures are not known to exist; I’ve watched the animated or reconstructed versions of all of those that have had official imagery made to accompany those audios (and I’ve watched quite a lot of the unofficial versions out there too). I have watched all the webcasts that debuted online in the early 2000s, including the fully-animated Scream of the Shalka. I have watched the two David Tennant animations made at the height of his ‘rock star’ pomp in the late 2000s. I’ve listened to all the Doctor Who stories like Redacted made for BBC radio or audio. Of the spin-offs, I’ve watched every episode of Torchwood, Class and The Sarah Jane Adventures. I’ve also watched every episode of K9 and Company, but that only takes 50 minutes so isn’t as impressive. I've watched every Doctor Who charity quickie made for Children In Need or Comic Relief. I've watched every episode of tie-in factual shows Doctor Who Confidential, Totally Doctor Who and Doctor Who Unleashed. I’ve watched every special feature on every BBC DVD and Blu-ray (there was the odd extra on videos on occasion, and I watched all of them too). I even watched or listened to a couple of BBC educational shows, and an online video recording of a theatre production. All of these have been covered on the blog in some form or other, some in depth, some just in passing.

This is all evidence of my being something of a completist. If I were a true completist, I'd have listened to all the Doctor Who Big Finish audios, and all the many Big Finish spin-offs that feature characters from the Whoniverse; I'd have read all the 1990s New Adventures and Missing Adventures, read all the BBC Doctor Who books, and all the books by any publishers featuring characters from Doctor Who. Maybe some fans out there have found time for such a rigorous endeavour, but I doubt they'd have found time to do much else. For the blog, I've again covered a little of these surrounding texts, again some in more depth, some more in passing. I've sent the odd probe out into the extended universe, but not attempted to start a colony there. At the time of writing, I have two more stories to blog before I have done everything that's available according to the remit I set myself. There's also spin-off series The War Between the Land and the Sea; it is still in the future as I write this, but it will be broadcast in December 2025: not too soon in my opinion, as it's got an overlong title that I've had to type quite a few times as I've anticipated its arrival in blog posts during 2025. I'm tried of typing all that, and am lobbying all fans to start using the initialism TWBTLATS, even though it looks a bit rude somehow. Anyway, I should be able to post about all three before the end of 2025, and then I will be done. Or will I? Even if I were to use the year long gap to cover all the books and audios mentioned above (and I'm not going to, don't worry, life's too short), more would be made. Then there's comic strips. I forgot the comic strips - there are so many comic strips (at least one publication, and often more, has been publishing a Doctor Who comic strip since 1964, only a year into the life of the TV series, and continuously thereafter - they didn't even stop during the wilderness years).

There's also The Daleks and The War Games in Colour. I wrestled with whether they count as versions different enough to be covered separately to their originals here, and eventually decided they didn't. I'll mention them in passing on the blog now, so we can consider them done: they're fun enough as alternate versions, and its neat to have things like the Daleks' Exterminate catch phrase retroactively added to their debut, a Troughton Pertwee regeneration, and fan in-jokes about the War Chief being an incarnation of the Master; what they most demonstrate to me, though, is that what might be considered padding by some is to others vital character and colour. The range is sort-of continuing with a new updated omnibus of The Sea Devils having been made for broadcast before TWBTLATS. It suggests that it was the editing more than the colourisation that was perhaps the motivating factor. It would get quite boring quite quickly to cover every alternate cut of a Doctor Who story, as there have been quite a few and there will likely be more in future. So, the definition of 'done' is only ever going to be where one chooses to draw a line. Even, then, though, one can't define away the future. And why would one want to, given that - for the Doctor Who fan at least - the future's looking brighter. New Doctor Who will be back on TV a year after I reach my imminent temporary pause, and then the whole shebang should get going again. There's even the very real possibility of new old Doctor Who turning up in that time too. The pre-announcements from the Film is Fabulous organisation (see here) are suggesting it's not an if but a when for that good news. Who knows, I could be doing a new blog post for [insert your favourite missing story here, if I name one hypothetically it will only spark speculation] in 2026. I'll never be done, but on some level I'd be sad, maybe even a little ticked off, if it were any other way...

In Summary:

I want more Redacted (and not to have more stuff to blog, just because these characters have more to give)!

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.