Story 296: Revolution of the Daleks

In which the Doctor languishes in prison on a remote asteroid, 79 billion miles out in space... 

Back on Earth, Graham and Ryan have been returning to their old lives, whilst Yaz remains obsessed with seeking a means to find her - making use of the TARDIS which had brought them home from Gallifrey as a base.

Shortly after the lone Reconnaissance Scout Dalek had been destroyed at GCHQ in 2019, its remains had been hijacked so that they could be reverse engineered. The man behind this scheme is millionaire businessman Jack Robertson. He is a friend of politician Jo Patterson, the Technology Minister who has designs on leading her party. Robertson presents his Defence Drones to her at a secret location, and she sees how effectively they deal with a staged civil disturbance. They are in fact purely robotic versions of the GCHQ Dalek. They are solar powered, and run on artificial intelligence, equipped with non-lethal weaponry such as tear gas and water cannons. It was Patterson who informed Robertson of the wrecked Recon Scout's transportation arrangements, enabling him to stage the hijack. He promises to have an army of Drones ready in 12 months - just in time for her to use to help win the next General Election.

Patterson goes on to win the election and commissions the Defence Drones from Robertson. Graham and Ryan have discovered footage of them being tested and identified them as Dalek-based. They notify Yaz. Robertson leaves a meeting with his technical expert, Leo Rugazzi, and is confronted by the Doctor's companions - whom he recalls from the spider incident in Sheffield. His security team chase them off. 79 billion miles away, the Doctor discovers that she has a familiar fellow inmate - Captain Jack Harkness. He had learned of her imprisonment and has allowed himself to be arrested so that he can aid her escape. The attempt succeeds and they teleport to where the TARDIS is waiting.

They materialise in Graham's house, where Yaz is upset with the Doctor for abandoning them for so long. They are shown the material relating to Robertson and Defence Drones. The Doctor and Jack will take action.

Leo informs Robertson that he found some organic material in the wrecked casing, and shows him a Dalek mutant which he has grown from it. Robertson is disgusted and orders it incinerated. However, as Leo attempts to do this, it escapes and latches on to him - mentally dominating him.

The Doctor confronts Robertson and he shows her that the Drones are entirely robotic machines, under computerised control. In Osaka, Leo discovers that the Dalek mutant has been working behind the scenes to create a whole army of its kind. When asked bout the Japanese facility, Robertson is confused and explains that he doesn't have anything in that country. Jack and Yaz travel there and discover the mutant cloning farm.

At Downing Street, PM Patterson rolls out the Defence Drones to the general public and they begin taking up positions at strategic locations around London.

The Doctor brings Robertson to the Osaka factory in the TARDIS, and find Yaz and Jack planting explosives to destroy the Daleks. Leo confronts them, revealing his Dalek master. 

The Doctor suddenly notices that the lighting has changed as they have been speaking - distracted by Leo. The mutants have been brought to life by ultra-violet light. before the facility can be blown up, they teleport away and into the waiting Drone shells. No longer needed, Leo is killed.

The new army of Daleks begin exterminating everyone - beginning with Patterson.

The Doctor is at a loss initially as to how she can stop the Daleks, but then comes up with a highly risky strategy - using fire to fight fire. She allows the Recon Scout Dalek's initial message to its own kind to be projected through the temporal vortex to a Dalek Death Squad saucer. This will bring them to Earth.

She is gambling on the new arrivals to reject the new army as they are not pure Dalek.

The Death Squad will hopefully exterminate the newcomers - but needs a second plan to deal with the victors. Otherwise she has simply replaced one invasion force with another.

The two Dalek forces confront each other and, as expected, begin to battle each other. Robertson, always seeking to ensure he is on the winning side, decides to offer his services to the Death Squad, and they transport him to their spaceship. He is going to tell them about the Doctor's presence on Earth to get on their side.

The original Dalek grown from the Recon Scout DNA attempts to ally itself with the Death Squad, but they refuse to accept it due to its lack of genetic purity. They destroy it, ending the new army. Captain Jack transports himself with Graham and Ryan to the saucer with explosives using his Vortex Manipulator. They abduct Robertson.

The Doctor, meanwhile, materialises the TARDIS above London and intentionally draws attention to herself. She then allows the Dalek force to invade her ship.

However, she proves to be a hologram. This isn't her TARDIS at all, but the other one which had brought her companions to Earth. It has been disguised as a Police Box, and its dimensional controls have been sabotaged. The entire Dalek force is trapped within as it collapses in on itself. Jack and the others transport themselves off of the saucer seconds before it explodes.

A short time later, the Doctor and her companions witness Robertson on TV, manipulating recent events to make himself out a hero and hoping that this will help his Presidential hopes. Jack has left to seek out his Torchwood colleagues. As the Doctor is about to set off, Ryan announces that he has decided to remain behind - feeling he has missed too much of day to life with his friends. Graham elects to stay with him, now that they have a healthier relationship which he does not wish to lose.

Revolution of the Daleks was written by Chris Chibnall, and was first broadcast on New Year's Day 2021. It acts as a direct sequel to the 2019 Special Resolution, and sees the departure of Bradley Walsh and Tosin Cole as regulars Graham and Ryan.

Walsh had an extremely busy career, involved in a number of prime time TV shows including The Chase, whilst Cole had the offer to make a series in the US.

Whilst Ryan's departure had been set up earlier in Series 12, Graham's departure comes out of the blue. Indeed, the character is clearly intending to travel on with the Doctor is quite surprised when his grandson makes his announcement. The impression is that he is bounced into making his own decision, and his heart isn't truly into it. As such, it's a disappointing way to write out what has inarguably been the best companion figure of the Thirteenth Doctor's run. The funniest companion, and the better actor of the trio.

We are now left solely with the frankly underwhelming Yaz, who has been the least well developed of the companions. It's very annoying to see her angry with the Doctor when we know that she has been stuck in prison and can hardly be blamed for not getting in touch.

Another annoyance is the latest example of this Doctor's impotence. If Jack hadn't shown up, she'd still be stuck in jail. No previous Doctor would ever have spent that much time locked up. The Doctor should be seen to get round any sort of obstacle, quickly, using their wits and ingenuity.

Yaz won't be travelling on her own with the Doctor, however, as we are granted a brief coda after the episode which introduces Liverpudlian comedian John Bishop as a character named Dan.

The Special also sees the return of John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, in what has been his final appearance to date. Soon after, a scandal broke relating to his outré behaviour on set during his initial run on the series and on other shows - leading to him being widely "cancelled". Despite his sexually inappropriate behaviour taking place over years, beginning a decade earlier, allegations about him only surfaced in May 2021 off the back of those regarding one-time co-star Noel Clarke.

A similar fate has befallen the actor who returns as Jack Robertson - Chris Noth - last seen in Arachnids in the UK. Despite being a very broad cartoonish parody of Donald Trump - one reason for the story to be so lowly regarded - Chibnall wanted to bring the character back. A number of women have made allegations of sexual assault against him, the first in December 2021. However, no criminal charges have ever been brought, but his career is very much dead at the moment.

The main guest artist for the story is Harriet Walter, who plays politician Jo Patterson. She is one of Britain's most accomplished actors: made Dame of the British Empire in 2011 for services to her art, member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, star of film, TV and theatre, her career goes back to 1974.

She has performed a number of traditionally male Shakespeare roles, including Henry V and Prospero.

More recent TV work includes Ted Lasso, Succession and Killing Eve. She also featured in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Leo is played by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett. Prior to getting the role he had appeared opposite Andrew Garfield in the National Theatre revival of AIDS era drama Angels in America. An early TV role for him was as a regular in Misfits.

Sharon D Clarke makes a final cameo as Grace in the closing moments of the episode as Graham and Ryan are seen to go back to where it all began - Ryan practicing his bicycle-riding.

It was always assumed that the unique Dalek design from Resolution could never be used again, being such a one-off, but Chibnall manages it by having new copies made, based on the Recon Scout.

Overall, it's not a bad episode. Always nice to see Daleks en masse, and Captain Jack getting more to do than the mere cameo he had in Fugitive of the Judoon. Even Robertson is more bearable this time round. Only those initial annoyances - and Graham's departure - mentioned above let it down.

Things you might like to know:

• The draft script was pretty close to the finished version. The Defence Drones made their debut in Russia before being brought to the UK by the politician who is already PM, and the threat was more global. The Daleks exterminated most of the world's leaders before being stopped. Graham and Ryan left the TARDIS specifically to help rebuild the Earth after the damage caused by the Daleks.
• To conceal the involvement of the Daleks, the Drones were called "Bobs" in paperwork, with the Death Squad ones called "Nigels".
• Cameo appearances by monsters in the prison include a Weeping Angel, P'ting, Silent, Sycorax, Skithra, Gathering Coil, Thijarian and a Cyberman.
• Filming was able to take place on the Clifton Suspension Bridge near Bristol as it had been temporarily closed for maintenance work.
• Graham and Ryan appear to see Grace's image in the sunlight - but the sun is clearly seen to be behind them when this happens.
• One of the prison escape scenes has obviously been flipped, as the black stripe on the outfits worn by the Doctor and Jack swap sides.
• A few plot queries exist, such as the odds on the driver just happening to stop at the roadside burger van where the hijackers are waiting. What if he had stopped earlier because he had to use the loo? Were agents placed at every potential stop on the route? Also, how does the Dalek mutant, isolated in a tank, manage to set up the whole Osaka facility? If it had been shown that Leo was taken over much earlier and done all this then that might have made more sense.
• Also - whatever happened to the future refugees who travelled back from Gallifrey in that TARDIS? They're simply forgotten about.
• The episode debuted on the BBC i-Player 10 minutes before the TV broadcast.
• It was originally intended that this festive special would move back to Christmas Day, but it was felt to be too dark and violent for that slot.
• Guest star Harriet Walter is a niece of Christopher Lee.

Story 295: Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children

In which the Doctor must face the consequences of her actions - and learns a terrible truth about herself and her people in the process...

She and her companions arrive on an alien planet in the far future, in the last days of a new Cyber-war in which the cybernetic creatures have almost entirely wiped out the human race. They have been led to victory by the partly converted Ashad, who now possesses the Cyberium artificial intelligence. He has used his remaining human aspects, combined with Cyberman logic and efficiency, to either destroy or convert the majority of the human race. Only a small group of survivors remain on this world.

Meanwhile, in Ireland of the 1940's, a young farmer named Patrick finds an abandoned baby boy. He brings it home to his wife Meg. A year later, the parents have not been identified and so Patrick and Meg adopt the child, who has been named Brendan. He will be brought up to take over the farm.

On the refugee planet, the Doctor and companions meet the human survivors - leaders Feekat and Ravio and the teenage Ethan, as well as Yedlarmi and his mute younger brother Fuskle, and a girl named Bescot.

The Doctor's attempts to defend the group fail as they come under attack by Ashad and a party of Cybermen, who are armed with Cyberdrones.

Fuskle is killed and the group is separated. Graham and Yaz make it to a spacecraft which Yedlarmi has been repairing. They are joined by Ravio and Bescot and manage to take off. Feekat is killed by Ashad, who allows Ethan to live so that he can tell the others of what happened here. The young man and Ryan accompany the Doctor to the Cybership which they manage to steal.

Yedlarmi informs Graham and Yaz of a planet named Ko Sharmus which they were making for. There is a phenomenon known as the Boundary situated there - a portal which leads to another part of the cosmos which is free of Cybermen. They decide to make for the planet, knowing that the Doctor will also go there.

She has been told about the Boundary by Ravio and has indeed decided to head there.

In 20th Century Ireland, Brendan has decided to join the local police force - the Garda - instead of taking up a career in farming.

Ashad pursues the two spacecraft.

That containing Yaz and Graham enters a debris field - result of a huge battle. They are running out of power and supplies, but spot a massive abandoned Cybership which has a docking bay open. They use the last of their power to move inside.

In Ireland, Brendan confronts an armed robber on a remote clifftop. The man shoots him and he falls to his death. However, he revives moments later. His father and commanding officer are amazed by this.

The stolen Cybership arrives on Ko Sharmus, and the Doctor discovers that this is not the planet's name at all. Ko Sharmus is actually a person - an old man who lives here alone.

On the abandoned craft, Graham, Yaz and the others discover it to have been a troop carrier and it is full of deactivated Cyber-Warriors. Ashad tracks them down and soon arrives. Bescot is killed as he begins reactivating some of the Warriors. The others seal themselves in the control room.

In Ireland, an elderly Brendan is retiring from the Garda. His father and commanding officer look exactly the same, whilst he has aged. He is taken to a back office and linked up to a machine which delivers an electric shock, removing his memories.

Ko Sharmus takes the Doctor to the Boundary, and explains that it does not always lead to the same location. He has stayed behind to assist as many refugees as possible to escape from the Cybermen. The Doctor warns him that they will be following her.

As they watch, an image of Gallifrey appears beyond the portal.

The Master suddenly emerges...

He takes the Doctor through the Boundary, whilst Ryan and Ko Sharmus must prepare for the arrival of the Cybermen. On the carrier, Yaz and Graham avoid capture by disguising themselves as Cybermen.

They witness Ashad apparently attacking one of his own kind. The craft is then guided towards the planet.

The Doctor is taken by the Master to the ruins of the Capitol where he claims he will tell her why he destroyed Gallifrey. She is trapped by a forcefield as he begins his story.

It transpires that he was able to access a hidden history of their people. The Doctor originally came from another universe. She was found as an abandoned child on a remote planet by a Gallifreyan woman named Tecteun, who witnessed her coming back to life after what should have been a fatal accident. Tecteun experimented on her and discovered that she had the ability to regenerate unlimited times.

These experiments eventually led Tecteun to isolate a genetic code that would allow her and her people to regenerate as well, albeit for a limited number of times. Thus, the Time Lords were born.

Ashad guides the carrier to the planet and Cybermen beam down to attack Ko Sharmus' camp. The old man was actually a commander in the human resistance during the last Cyber-war, and has ensured that the camp has its own defences. It was he who sent the Cyberium back through time to prevent Ashad from obtaining it.

The Cyberman invaders are held back whilst the everyone manages to escape the ship. They all flee through the Boundary to locate the Doctor. The Master, meanwhile, has contacted Ashad and offered him Gallifrey if he follows them.

The Doctor continues to learn about her own history. She was recruited to the organisation known as The Division, which sent her on various missions - which explains the version of herself who had been disguised as Ruth. After each mission, her memories had been wiped. She has lived a multitude of lives prior to what she has always thought to be her First incarnation, but these were all hidden from her.

The Master meets with Ashad after the carrier comes to rest above the Capitol ruins. He learns that Ashad intends to purge the Cybermen of the last vestiges of their previous organic existence, making them purely robotic. He has already converted some of the Cyber-Warriors on the carrier. He possesses within his body a powerful weapon - the Death Particle - capable of destroying all organic life within a wide area.

The Master kills him using his tissue compression eliminator, which leaves the Particle intact. The Cyberium is forced to abandon Ashad - and the Master takes it into himself. 

Realising how much more powerful she really is - thanks to the Master - the Doctor is able to escape from the forcefield. He appears in the Panopticon with a new army of Cybermen, created from the corpses of dead Time Lords. These are Cybermen who have the power to regenerate - CyberMasters. 

He reveals that he destroyed Gallifrey due to the fact that the Time Lords had lied about their origins, and that everything they were was due to the Doctor. That he owed his existence to her is something he cannot stand.

Learning of the Death Particle, the Doctor realises that she will have to detonate it in order to stop the Master and his CyberMasters from conquering all. This will mean her own death. The Master is almost psychotically suicidal now, urging her to do this. She has sent her companions to a TARDIS for safety. They travel to present day England, where the ship takes on the form of a suburban house.

At the last moment, Ko Sharmus elects to take the Doctor's place. She makes it to another TARDIS in time as the particle destroys the Capitol and the carrier hovering above it.

She travels to collect her own TARDIS, intent on locating the others. 

However, the ship is suddenly invaded by Judoon who arrest her - transporting her to a prison in deep space...

Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children were written by Chris Chibnall, and first broadcast on 23rd February and 1st March, 2020.

The story brings the 12th Series to a conclusion, and is arguably the most controversial story to date in the history of the show. 

Whilst stories such as The War Games and The Deadly Assassin moved the Doctor's story on, with more background about his / her people, they only introduced new concepts and did not contradict previous facts in any significant way. Each story could be accommodated in the on-going narrative of the series. What Chibnall does is add new background - but at the cost of completely undermining previously established fact.

The seeds of this damage had already been planted with the appearance of the "Fugitive Doctor" earlier in the season, though reference to the "Timeless Child" went right back to The Ghost Monument.

It's always clear that Chibnall made things up as he went along, and lacked any long-term planning (seen most obviously in the way that Yaz will be handled over the course of his remaining episodes). The idea that the rubbishy Remnants - a relatively weak weapon created by a fairly pathetic race - knew about the Doctor's past when no-one else did makes no sense whatsoever. 

How could multiple Presidents of the High Council of Time Lords not know any of this?

When Moffat introduced the War Doctor, he could be slotted into the established continuity of the Doctor - basically an incarnation he was ashamed of and sought to suppress from his memories.

Chibnall throws everything out by having the Doctor not even a Time Lord at all, and there were multiple versions prior to the old man we first met in Totter's Lane.

Whilst he could have attempted a ret-con, RTD2 has elected to go with this, so it's something we are now stuck with...

As for the story itself, we see the return of Ashad from the previous episode - making this actually the concluding chapters of a trilogy. The Master returns - how he escaped the Kasaavin dimension unspecified. We learn why he destroyed Gallifrey - but not how. This is quite frustrating as we've seen the planet come under threat before, so it would have been nice to have learned how he finally managed it. As I've mentioned Chibnall has an annoying habit of failing to show us key things.

There's a new Cyberman design, which brings back the classic earmuff design to the helmet. These are Cyber-Warriors - but aren't all Cybermen warriors?

Some of these are converted into CyberMasters, who don't look that great. Why would they retain decorated headgear and wear robes?

The Time Lords also get a subtle makeover - keeping the basic shape of their ceremonial costume but simplifying the look. Another new element, first introduced in Fugitive of the Judoon, is the Division. Again, you have to wonder where they've been throughout the whole of the series history since The War Games. If the Doctor is such a key figure in Time Lord history, why did they let him wander off, repeatedly?

It's all very clumsily tacked on, and fails to integrate in any way with what we have seen before.

Standing out like a sore thumb in the first half is the Irish interlude. It appears that this is some sort of metaphor for the Doctor's time with the Division - or so I thought. However, we then see the scenes again and they are now part of the Matrix flashback sequences, so presumably planted false memories. To be honest, they get in the way of the narrative of the first episode.

There's a large guest cast over these two episodes - but they're mostly wasted. Only Ian McElhinney, as Ko Sharmus, is given anything significant to do. Indeed, he resolves the threat at the conclusion of the story. Let's face it, the Thirteenth Doctor rarely ever actually does anything herself in any of her stories.

The actor is best known for Game of Thrones, and another genre role was the Superman prequel series Krypton.

What might have been a potential love interest for Graham is Julie Graham's Ravio. She previously played the villainous Ruby White in The Sarah Jane Adventures. Ravio is built up in the first half, only to be pretty much ignored in the second part. Indeed, the following Christmas Special will entirely neglect what happened to the refugees who made it to contemporary Earth.

Steve Toussaint's Feekat is killed off fairly quickly. He can be seen in House of the Dragon. Yedlarmi is played by Alex Austin, and Ethan by Matt Carver, who also features in the Game of Thrones prequel series. Again, little is made of their characters once introduced.

Tecteun is Seylan Baxter.

Patrick O'Kane returns as Ashad. He's also rather poorly treated in the second half as the character is very quickly and all too easily bumped off by the Master.

The Irish contingent continues with the characters who only appear in the side-step parts of the first instalment. Brendan is played by Evan McCabe (Berlin Station), and his adoptive father Patrick is Branwell Donaghey (Peaky Blinders, Alien: Prometheus). Caolan Byrne plays the Garda officer.

And Paul Kasey turns up at the end as the Judoon commander.

Overall, like most two-part series finales it kicks off well, despite the initially confusing "Irish interlude", but derails massively in the second half. The Timeless Children is a great episode for Sacha Dhawan, but Whittaker does very little. The Doctor simply spends the episode being told everything by the Master who does all the legwork. As mentioned, the Doctor doesn't even get to resolve the threat.

As for Chibnall's big revelations? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Things you might like to know:

• Ascension of the Cybermen is the seventh penultimate episode of a series to feature Cybermen. And it's the third to have the Master / Missy and Cybermen together.
• In the original draft, it was Yaz who accompanied the Doctor on the stolen Cybership, and Ryan remained with Graham of the ship with Ravio et al.
• The draft also had Ashad originally being the scientist who created the Death Particle - as a form of collective suicide for the last humans should the Cybermen win the war. Once converted, the Cyberium learned of it and sought it as a weapon.
• Apparently the trio of Time Lords we see in the Matrix flashback are supposed to represent Omega and Rassilon, along with a male incarnation of Tecteun. This comes from the 2nd assistant director, who played the Omega figure.
• And Shobogans were the original inhabitants of Gallifrey, before some became Time Lords.
• We see a large number of clips from old episodes - the Hartnell / Troughton ones being colourised. The mental duel with Morbius from The Brain of Morbius obviously plays a big part as it is confirmed on screen that these were previous Doctors.
• Classic stories we see clips from include: An Unearthly Child, The War Machines, The Moonbase, Tomb of the Cybermen, The War Games, Terror of the Autons, Day of the Daleks, The Sea Devils, Carnival of Monsters, Planet of the Spiders, Terror of the Zygons, Pyramids of Mars, The Deadly Assassin, Robots of Death, City of Death, Logopolis, Time-Flight, Arc of Infinity, The Caves of Androzani, Vengeance on Varos, Trial of a Time Lord, Time and the Rani, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy and The Curse of Fenric.
• Dhawan was credited on the official website as "Barack Stemis" to conceal his involvement - an anagram of "Master is Back". The character "Stemis" was playing was called "Fakout".
• The man who shoots Brendan is named Michael (played by Andrew Macklin). This was going to be the name of the Garda sergeant, but was then given to the criminal.
• Look closely and you can spot the actor's head when the CyberMaster that regenerates after being shot gets up again.

Story 294: The Haunting of Villa Diodati

In which the Doctor and her companions visit the Villa Diodati in June 1816 and witness the birth of Frankenstein... 

The house, situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, has been rented by Lord Byron for the summer. He is accompanied by fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his partner Mary Godwin, physician friend John Polidori, and Mary's step-sister Claire Clairmont, who has been pursuing the poet-peer across Europe. The Shelleys have their baby son William with them.

The Doctor and her friends claim to have become lost in the storm which is raging. She is disappointed at the lack of literary innovation she witnesses, having expected more from these writers and poets. This is supposed to be the night when a ghost story competition was proposed - and event that would lead to the writing of Frankenstein as well as Polidori's The Vampyre. Shelley himself isn't present - supposedly indisposed. She tries to encourage them to devise new works, gently steering them towards the story competition.

Elsewhere in the house, strange things are happening. A ghostly figure is glimpsed and objects move by themselves. Graham goes in search of a toilet and encounters a woman and young girl who he takes to be servants. A disembodied skeletal hand scuttles about in the shadows.

Dr Polidori is stressed, supposedly through lack of sleep. He is easily irritated and at one point challenges Ryan to a duel. When he goes to fetch a pair of pistols, he is attacked by the skeletal hand.

He is saved by the others, and the hand crumbles to dust. Byron explains that he has the remains of a 15th Century soldier in the house. Both hands are found to be missing. The moving hand must have belonged to them, but the Doctor scans the bones and finds that there is nothing unusual about them.

Mary admits that Shelley saw visions of a shining figure floating on the surface of the lake before he was taken ill, and that she doesn't know where he is at the moment.

Graham sees the woman and child again as he looks after the sedated Polidori. He finds that the figures are unwilling to talk to him.

The missing hand and skull, also animated, are captured and trapped under glass.

Yaz, Ryan and Mary return to the drawing room - only to find that they keep arriving at the top of the hall stairs every time.

Graham then sees Polidori sleepwalk through a wall. The Doctor realises that there are perception filters in place, hiding the real doors and preventing them all from seeing the true layout of the villa. They can find their way to the drawing room if they concentrate and believe the walls do not exist.

Reunited, they all then witness the glowing figure out on the lake. It moves closer. The Doctor deduces that it is a traveller from the future, attempting to materialise. The odd behaviour of the house is explained partly as a means to prevent the figure from getting inside.

The figure finally breaks into the house, and the Doctor is shocked to find that it is a Cyberman - one only partially converted. It has a name - Ashad - and retains human emotion. 

The Doctor realises that this is the "Lone Cyberman" whom Captain Jack Harkness had warned her about. They flee through the house. Ashad kills Byron's valet and the baby's nursemaid - but spares the life of William.

In the cellars, Shelley is found hiding. It transpires that whilst walking by the shore of the lake he discovered a strange object composed of some fluid metallic substance - like living quicksilver. When he touched it, it was immediately absorbed into his body. Since then, he has been compelled to hide. The substance has also generated the various odd phenomena around the villa as a defence mechanism. The ghostly figure seen around the villa has been him, out of synch with his surroundings due to the substance's influence.

Ashad is relentlessly seeking it, having travelled back from the far future to obtain it.

The Doctor has attempted to appeal to Ashad's remaining humanity, pointing out that he saved the baby. He counters simply that the child will be converted when old enough, and states that he killed his own sons when they opposed the Cybermen.

The substance within Shelley is actually the Cyberium - an artificial intelligence containing all of the combined knowledge and history of the Cybermen. Were Ashad to obtain it, he would become the most powerful of Cybermen.

However, its presence within the young poet is killing him. Despite Jack's warning that the Lone Cyberman be denied what he seeks, the Doctor decides that Shelley's existence is more important to human culture. The Cybermen she will have to deal with later, but for now the Cyberium must be handed over. 

Ashad takes it into himself and departs. Shelley has been made aware of his fate through telepathic contact with the Doctor, but now rejoins his friends.

Despite being told that ghosts don't exist, Graham is left wondering about the woman and child he saw, whom no-one else did.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor determines that she must travel to the future to confront the consequences of her actions. No matter what the danger, the others agree to accompany her...

The Haunting of Villa Diodati was written by Maxine Alderton, and was first broadcast on Sunday 16th February 2020.

Alderton was one of the principal writers on rural soap Emmerdale and had also written children's series The Worst Witch, and has since contributed to All Creatures Great And Small. She will return to Doctor Who as writer of Flux: Village of the Angels, its most popular segment.

It's another celebrity-historical, after the inclusion of Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage and Noor Inayat Khan in Spyfall, and a story revolving around inventors Tesla and Edison. Of course, the first of those characters links directly to this story as Lovelace was the daughter of Lord Byron. She had been born six months before the events depicted in this story.

Though she has to share the plot with a Cyberman, Byron, Polidori and Claire, the central guest figure is supposed to Mary Shelley, as parallels between her famous creation and the Cybermen have been drawn almost since the creatures from Mondas first appeared. Cybermen are basically living dead people, reanimated through science - their bodies a patchwork of organic and mechanical rather than pieces of different human cadavers.

The link had not been lost by Big Finish, who in 2011 had made Shelley a companion to the Eighth Doctor, and saving the Doctor's life through an electric shock inspired parts of Frankenstein.

Much earlier, the Gothic novel had been the inspiration for The Brain of Morbius, though perhaps more the Hammer and Universal movie cycles than the original telling.

Here, Mary comments on how Ashad appears to be composed of different bodies, and she witnesses him being revitalised by a lightning strike.

Beyond the Cyberman / Frankenstein trappings, the episode also works as a good old fashioned Gothic horror in its own right, with skeletons, disembodied hands and ghostly visions.

Cast as Mary is Gangs of London's Lili Miller. Though Mary used the name Shelley, she and Percy were not married in June 1816. He is played by Lewis Rainer, who featured in the US TV series of Dracula (which bore little relation to Bram Stoker) and also appeared in the Pride and Prejudice sequel Death Comes to Pemberley. He had previously featured in Grange Hill.

Sadly, he gets little screen time as Shelley is absent for much of the episode.

Playing Polidori is Maxim Baldry, who has been acting since childhood. I recall him as the young Caesarion, son of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony, in the second season of Rome. He has featured in cult youth drama Skins, which launched many a career, and in 2019 appeared in Russell T Davies' Years And Years.

Byron is Australian actor Jacob Collins-Levy, who has been seen in The Witcher and The White Princess. He's currently appearing in Nautilus, a version of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.

Claire Clairmont is Nadia Parkes who, at time of writing, is probably better known for her relationship with Tom Holland. Acting work includes Starstruck, The Spanish Princess and Domina.

As Ashad we have Belfast-born Patrick O'Kane. He was seen as one of the First Order officers in The Last Jedi, and featured in Game of Thrones as one of the assassin Jaqen's disguised forms.

The other performances of note are Fletcher, Byron's valet, who is played by Stefan Bednarczyk; and Elise, the baby's maid, who is played by Sarah Perles.

Overall, one of the highlights of the season. Perhaps it might have been better to have made it a standalone story, however, rather than simply providing the prologue to the two-part Cyberman finale.

A celebrity-historical ghost story would have worked on its own.

Things you might like to know:

• The weather in 1816 was so terrible that it became known as "the year without a summer". The cause wasn't known at the time, but we now know that it was due to the eruption of the volcano Tambora the year before. The eruption was so massive that the amount of ash and dust blasted into the atmosphere reduced solar radiation reaching the surface of the Earth significantly - affecting the global climate.
• Shelley finally married Mary in December 1816. He was to die in July 1822 in Italy, drowning when his boat capsized in a storm off Livorno. He was 29.
• Byron died in Greece, where he was fighting for independence alongside Greek forces against those of the Ottoman Empire. He died from a fever in April 1824, aged 36.
• Claire Clairmont lived to the age of 80, dying in Florence in March 1879. Her daughter with Byron died as a child.
• John Polidori struggled to establish his authorship of The Vampyre after it had been published without his permission under Byron's name. It features the very Byronic Lord Ruthven as its protagonist. He died, aged only 25, in August 1821. Suffering depression and struggling with gambling debts, he took his own life.
• Mary Shelley lived to the age of 53, dying in London in 1851. Sadly, baby William had died from malaria in Italy, aged 3. Her surviving son, Percy, elected not to follow her wishes and have her buried alongside her parents in the Old St Pancras churchyard, where Shelley had once wooed her. Instead he had her interred in Bournemouth near his own home, arguing that he did not like the overgrown London graveyard. Shelley had been cremated on the shore where his body had washed up, and the ashes buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.
• The ghost story competition at the villa took place over a number of nights - not just a single evening as suggested here.
• Patrick O'Kane's costume was composed of different Cyberman designs, including an arm from the recent Mondasian version, and other elements from Nightmare in Silver and Rise of the Cybermen. 
• The helmet, however, owes a lot to an unused 2006 concept design by Matthew Savage.
• Initial drafts had Ashad as a Cybersurgeon, seeking a device which would help him convert humans. He then became the Cyberzealot. To hide the fact that a Cyberman would be appearing in this episode, paperwork simply described the character as "C-zel". Giving him an actual name, to illustrate how his emotions had yet to be suppressed, only came late in the day.
• Artist Oliver Arkinstall-Jones has produced a wonderful retro-style Italian horror movie poster for this story, one of only a couple he has designed for NuWho episodes:

Story 293: Can You Hear Me?

In which the Doctor's companions are spending some time back at home in Sheffield. Each has been experiencing vivid dreams, and discover that some of those closest to them have been suffering from nightmares. Ryan's friend Tibo has become a virtual recluse through depression. Yaz has been having flashbacks to an incident in her youth - the event which inspired her to join the police force. Graham recalls his cancer treatment, and worries that it may be returning. He also sees strange, fleeting images of a young woman with long white hair, and a pair of closely orbiting planets. She appears to be imprisoned between the two worlds, and calls out to him for help.

At night, whilst people sleep, they are visited by a tall shadowy figure. His fingers detach and insert themselves into their ears.

Meanwhile, in medieval Aleppo, a young woman named Tahira is staying at a hospital for people with mental health problems. She sees a huge savage monster attack the other residents.

The shadowy figure has infiltrated the TARDIS momentarily. The Doctor decides to investigate and traces the issue to Aleppo.

She arrives in the hospital and meets Tahira, finding that she is the only person left in the compound. She then sees the monster. It runs off, and she is puzzled to find that the creature could not be scanned by the sonic screwdriver.

As Yaz dreams of the youthful incident, she wakes suddenly and sees the sinister man in her room. At Tibo's flat, Ryan also wakes to witness the figure.

The Doctor returns, having brought Tahira with her. Her companions describe their experiences and realise they have all seen the same man, who attacks their dreams.

Graham is linked up to the TARDIS telepathic circuits so that the binary planetary system he saw might be traced. 

They locate it and the TARDIS materialises in a space station in stasis between the planets - their collision frozen by a forcefield.

Yaz finds a chamber full of disembodied fingers. These are broadcasting a signal to the trapped woman.

They also find a number of comatose figures bound in alcoves - including Tibo and Tahira's friends.

The mysterious man appears, accompanied by Chagaskas - the creatures which were seen in Aleppo. His name is Zellin, and he explains that they were created from the people's worst fears.

He fires his fingers at them.

Each finds themselves dreaming. Ryan sees an elderly Tibo on a devastated future Earth as Dregs roam the desolate landscape. He accuses Ryan of abandoning him. Yaz is on a remote moorland road, having run away from home. She has been found by a WPC. Graham is back in hospital, being looked after by his late wife Grace, who accuses him of not having tried to save her.

The Doctor wakes to find they have all been bound in the alcoves, with finger tips in their ears. These are feeding on their nightmares, which are then fed to the woman. She has heard of Zellin, but knows him only as a god-like being from another dimension.

He has schemed to free the woman - Rakaya - who is even more evil than he. Centuries ago she was imprisoned by the inhabitants of this solar system after causing mass death and destruction. The Doctor and her companions have been lured into a trap.

Rakaya is freed, and Zellin takes her to Earth to feed on the fears and nightmares of the human race.

The Doctor is able to escape and frees the others. She takes them all back to medieval Aleppo.

As Rakaya elects to feed on the sleeping humans slowly, they hear the Chagaskas calling from across the centuries. They transport themselves to the hospital to find the Doctor and her friends waiting for them.

She seizes control of the imprisoning mechanism as Tahira summons a Chagaska, having overcome her fear of them. The Doctor tricks the pair of immortals into thinking of their own worst nightmares then transports them back to the prison with the creature. They will be trapped there forever with their own nightmares.

Yaz has remembered how the WPC helped her when she was feeling at her worst, and back in Sheffield decides to seek out the woman - Anita - to thank her. Tibo agrees to join a group which will help him with his mental health issues.

Graham tries to talk to the Doctor about his worries about his cancer coming back one day, but she becomes embarrassed and evades the subject - electing to talk instead about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein...

Can You Hear Me? was written by Charlene James and Chris Chibnall, and was first broadcast on Sunday 9th February 2020.

This is James' only contribution to the series. Primarily a playwright, she has also contributed to supernatural series A Discovery of Witches and The Rising.

The theme is an obvious one - mental health awareness. The episode considers the emotional wellbeing of the Doctor's companions and some of their friends. Despite having just seen her planet destroyed, what it doesn't do is look in any depth at how the Doctor is feeling right now, other than a flashback to the Timeless Child.

The episode blows it in the final reel as a story about how important it is to listen properly to what our friends are family are saying sees the Doctor deliberately evade Graham's concerns.

For the principal character not to practice what is being preached is a serious error. We're all supposed to take the lead from the Doctor. Especially ironic when one considers that Chris Chibnall had himself received a cancer diagnosis.

This scene prompted complaints to the BBC who attempted to justify it - but it demonstrates how it was misjudged in the first place.

Whilst we get to see past experiences of Graham and Yaz - especially the latter's interaction with WPC Anita - Ryan's thread in the episode concentrates instead on his friend Tibo, last seen in the opening instalment of the series.

The main guest artist, playing Zellin, is the late Ian Gelder (he passed away on 6th May 2024). He had previously featured in Torchwood: Children of Earth, as Mr Dekker. Internationally, he was best known for portraying Kevan Lannister in Game of Thrones. He had also provided the voice of the Remnants in The Ghost Monument.

Rakaya is Clare Hope-Ashitey, who featured in the 2006 sci-fi film Children of Men.

As mentioned, Tibo (Buom Tihngang) has featured previously in the series as one of Ryan's friends.

Also returning in a more prominent appearance is Bhavnisha Parmar, who plays Yaz's sister Sonya. She appears in Yaz's recollections of her youthful incident as well as in the present day.

Playing the WPC who helped her - Anita - is Nasreen Hussain. She has appeared in Emmerdale and the 2022 adaptation of The Midwich Cuckoos.

Tahira is played by Aruhan Galieva, an actor, singer and comedian who has featured in Black Mirror and the 2012 version of Anna Karenina.

Sharon D Clarke also returns, as Grace.

Overall, it's one of the more interesting episodes of Series 12, with an important subject as its background. Perhaps too many characters - a recurring problem in Chibnall episodes - and the side visit to Aleppo, whilst adding a little colour and visual interest, is superfluous to the plot. It could easily have concentrated on our modern world and its problems without the historical detour.

Things you might like to know:

• The first Doctor Who story to have a question mark in its title.
• There's an interesting animated sequence concerning the villains' history on the alien planets.
• Working titles included "Fingers" and "The Girl in the Orb".
• The Zellin character was originally envisaged as a man in a white lab coat, named Fingers, who appeared in various books and pictures throughout history. In early drafts Tibo was already receiving therapy for his mental health issues. Zellin was the name of a planet. Rakaya was Fingers' daughter.
• Instead of Tahira, the new companion-like character was a 17th century street urchin named Florence.
• The finale is set up as the Doctor is thinking about the Frankenstein novel, whilst Yaz and Ryan ponder their current lifestyle on the TARDIS and the impact it is having on themselves and their friends and family.
• Zellin namechecks the Eternals, the Guardians and the Toymaker as fellow immortal beings.
• The idea of a being feeding on nightmares had been used before in The Sarah Jane Adventures - in The Nightmare Man, where he was played by Julian Bleach. He is also ultimately trapped within nightmares himself.

Story 292: Praxeus

In which the TARDIS crew split up to investigate multiple alerts spanning the entire planet Earth.

Meanwhile, an orbiting space capsule piloted by astronaut Adam Lang is having difficulties and losing altitude.

Adam's husband is ex-police officer Jake Willis. He learns from a news bulletin that the capsule has fallen into the sea somewhere in the Far East, and sets off for Hong Kong to help in the search. 

A pair of travel vloggers - Gabriela and Jamila - visit a region of Peru renowned for its beauty, only to find it terribly polluted. They notice a large flock of birds circling above.

That night, Jamila leaves their tent and is attacked in the darkness. The following morning her friend is looking for her when she sees one of the birds drop dead at her feet. As she reaches down to touch it, she is stopped by Ryan. He bags the bird up and agrees to help Gabriela find her companion.

In Hong Kong, Jake receives a text from Adam's phone which leads him to a warehouse. In the alley outside he meets Yaz and Graham, who have been tracking strange energy signals.

The Doctor, meanwhile, is on the coast of Madagascar, where a US submarine has been reported missing. Scientist Suki Cheng and her lab assistant Aramu, see the Doctor drag a sailor out of the surf - sole survivor of the submarine. His body is rapidly being engulfed in a crystalline substance. As it totally covers him, he perishes as his body crumbles to dust.

Ryan and Gabriela discover that there had been an ambulance call-out the previous night and, assuming this involved Jamila, go to the local hospital. They find her in a quarantine section, her body being consumed like the American submariner. She dies, and Ryan alerts the Doctor who arrives by TARDIS.

She tells them of the similar death she has just witnessed. 

Graham, Yaz and Jake enter the warehouse, observed by two armed men wearing hazmat suits. They discover Adam, connected up to some medical equipment. He is showing early signs of the deadly infection. The men attack, their weaponry clearly of alien design. Worried about damaging their own equipment, they teleport away. Yaz contacts the Doctor who brings the TARDIS to them, with Ryan still accompanied by Gabriela.

A message comes through from Madagascar, and the Doctor prepares to leave when Yaz decides to remain and investigate the warehouse further. Intent on learning what happened to Jamila, Gabriela elects to stay with her.

Yaz thinks that they can get the teleport working and so follow the masked men.

At Suki's laboratory, they discover that the birds are acting just like Ryan had seen in Peru, flocking together and circling their location. The Doctor has Ryan carry out a post mortem on the dead bird he had brought, and they discover that its insides are full of plastic. 

Yaz and Gabriela use the teleport and find themselves in a strange tunnel. Yaz initially thinks they are in some alien base, until they spot parts of the missing submarine. They realise that they are in a complex deep beneath the Indian Ocean, surrounded by plastic debris. There is an alien spacecraft positioned here.

The Doctor works out that some extra-terrestrial pathogen is attacking the plastic ingested by the birds, and their natural defences are fighting this - causing their odd behaviour.

Adam is given broad-spectrum antibiotics to try to keep the infection at bay. Graham learns that he and Jake have drifted apart recently.

The Doctor becomes suspicious that Suki's laboratory appears to have exactly the types of equipment needed for them to investigate this pathogen. 

Realising that a counter virus is possible, Suki reveals that she is not what she seems. She knows the pathogen as "Praxeus", and is aware of its origins. Knowing now how to cure it, she teleports away as the birds attack - killing Aramu.

Everyone retreats to the TARDIS and the Doctor takes the ship to Yaz's location, where Suki has arrived. It transpires that she belongs to an alien race whose planet has been wrecked by Praxeus - a genetically engineered pathogen designed to destroy plastic waste, which has mutated and become uncontrollable. Suki and her people have deliberately introduced it into Earth's ecosystem to use the planet as a laboratory, to find a cure. She is already infected, and dies from it.

The Doctor creates the cure in the TARDIS, which must be introduced into the atmosphere to spread across the planet. They will use the spaceship - but discover that it can only be piloted manually. This will be a suicide mission. With Adam still recovering, Jake decides to sacrifice himself to pilot the ship.

The Doctor manages to save him at the last moment. 

Now reconciled, he and Adam decide to go travelling for a while, joined by Gabriela.

Praxeus was written by Pete McTighe, and first broadcast on Sunday 2nd February 2020.

McTighe, who now produces the trailer sequences for The Collection Blu-ray box-sets, had written Kerblam! for the previous series, which had proven popular with both fans and critics.

Prior to broadcast of Series 12, the BBC had announced that the new series would feature stories which dealt with topical concerns - specifically mentioning the pollution of the oceans by plastic waste. 

This was leading to problems further along the food chain, as birds ate fish which contained microplastics - as did human beings.

The audience will have been well aware of images of the huge gyres developing in the world's oceans - islands of floating plastic waste, created by tide and current, some of which measure miles in diameter. Picturesque beaches have also been seen to be polluted with plastics, and there have been stories about where microplastics have been turning up.

A story dealing with global concerns needed an international reach, and so it was decided to make this a globe-trotting adventure. With filming taking place in South Africa again this year, that country was able to stand in for Madagascar, Peru and parts of downtown Hong Kong.

There are no monsters this week - other than human ones. The villains are a humanoid race who are amoral scientists, using a populated planet to carry out their experiments - despite their dabbling with nature bringing about the near destruction of their own world.

The story has a significant number of additional characters, as the TARDIS team are split up and interacting with others at each location. It's always been a problem since Chibnall took over - the return of the "overcrowded TARDIS". Even an issue when you had four and six part stories, but more problematic with 50 minute stories.

This episode really has too many additional characters.

The other big problem of this era is noticeable here - the messaging. It's no problem to have a message. It's the manner in which this is delivered that too often lets the series down under Chibnall. Instead of treating viewers as clever enough to get what's going going on by themselves, we have the message wrapped around a brick and are bludgeoned with it.

It's not quite as hectoring as in Orphan 55, but the Doctor's lecture at the conclusion of the episode is annoying.

Leading the guest cast is Warren Brown, who first came to fame in C4's Shameless and soap opera Hollyoaks. He's often called upon to play police officers, judging from his CV.

Playing his husband Adam is Matthew McNulty, who was fresh from starring opposite David Tennant in the thriller Deadwater Fell. Other roles for him included soap Emmerdale and period dramas Domina, The Musketeers and Jamaica Inn.

Gabriela is Joana Borja, recently seen with Peter Capaldi in Criminal Records.

Suki is Molly Harris, of Disney's Artemis Fowl, and Aruma is played by Thapelo Maropefela. Tragically, the latter died in his sleep following a violent incident in his native South Africa in October 2021, just before his 25th birthday.

Tristan de Beer plays the US submariner, Zach Olson.

Overall, its a story that certainly looks good, with some beautiful sets and locations, but perhaps it's a little too convoluted, with too many characters. The messaging went down like a lead balloon with fans, who regularly vote this the second worst episode of the season.

Things you might like to know:

• The episode was originally called "Hush" as this was the name of the pathogen before they settled on the more exotic Praxeus.
• An original draft had Jake track Adam's phone to an apartment block in Hong Kong - home of a nurse. He then followed her to the warehouse where he met Yaz and Graham and found Adam. The hazmat-suited men were going to be plastic people - clones created by Suki and her colleague Sanya - to experiment on to find the cure they sought. The story ended with Adam sacrificing himself to use the spaceship to spread the cure, which threatened only Hong Kong.
• The Autons do get a mention by the Doctor as she speculates on the pathogen, this being a story about plastic pollution. It's surprising that they were not used as the main threat here. (As it was, Big Finish later ran a Torchwood audio story involving ocean gyres and Nestenes).
• Doctor Who is hugely popular in Brazil. (The world tour promoting Peter Capaldi's first series included the country). There was therefore much interest there at the casting of Brazilian actress Gabriela Toloi as Jamila.
• This was the final story on which Neil Gorton's Millennium FX worked as a company. Gorton himself has continued to be associated with the series individually.

Story 291: Fugitive of the Judoon

In which the Doctor discovers a terrible truth about her own past...

Ruth Clayton is starting a new career as a tour guide in the historic city of Gloucester. It's her birthday, and husband Lee will collect her cake from a local café owned by a man named Allan, who has always carried a torch for her. He is quite obsessed, and has even amassed a file on Lee in an attempt to drive a wedge between them.

Unbeknownst to all, a Judoon spaceship has arrived in orbit above Earth and its commander - Pol-Kon-Don - has targeted the city. 

In the TARDIS, the Doctor's companions are concerned about her recent subdued behaviour. As they try to get her to talk about this, an alarm sounds - warning them of the Judoon presence. They have set up a forcefield around the centre of Gloucester, but the Doctor is able to get the TARDIS through, materialising at the back of Allan's café. On learning that aliens have arrived, Lee rushes off to find his wife. 

As the Doctor, Yaz and Ryan leave the café, they fail to spot Graham being teleported away.

Ruth is confronted by a platoon of Judoon, who are searching for someone - scanning individuals in the area. She witnesses an old friend killed when they try to walk through the forcefield.

The Judoon track their fugitive to the café, where they kill Allan when he challenges them.

Ruth goes home to find a panicked Lee packing hurriedly to leave. The Judoon home in on their flat, as does the Doctor, who has identified a strange energy signal.

She uses her psychic paper to convince the Judoon that she has legal status here, ordering them to hold back whilst she investigates the property. The commander gives her a few minutes before they move in.

Graham, meanwhile, has found himself on an alien spaceship, where he is confronted by a brash American - Captain Jack Harkness. He initially thinks that Graham is the Doctor, as that was who he was trying to teleport. The spaceship comes under attack by its owners, as Jack had stolen it.

In the flat, the Doctor discovers an alien artefact hidden amongst Lee's belongings. The Doctor has scanned him and Ruth but they show as human. Everyone decides to split up, with the Doctor taking Ruth to the nearby cathedral whilst Lee keeps the Judoon busy. Yaz and Ryan go outside to further delay them - only to be teleported to Jack's ship.

Lee is left alone to confront the Judoon, who are joined by a woman named Gat. It is clear that Lee knows her. As he is not the fugitive they seek, the Judoon refuse to arrest him - but Gat shoots him dead anyway.

Jack tells the Doctor's companions that he will get them back to Earth shortly, but they must give her a warning. She is to beware a lone Cyberman and deny it something it seeks. They are then teleported back to Earth.

At the cathedral, the Doctor and Ruth are traced by the Judoon. On learning of Lee's death, Ruth suddenly attacks Pol-Kon-Don, displaying martial arts skills which surprise her, and shock the Doctor. She even snaps off the Judoon commander's horn - a mark of great disrespect.

They escape and reach Ruth's car. She is experiencing strange flashbacks to a building - a converted lighthouse on the coast where she used to live. Knowing it to be significant for what is going on, they head there.

The Doctor finds a grave belonging to Ruth's parents which she is curious about. She begins to dig down, and is shocked to discover a buried Police Public Call Box.

In the house, Ruth has been hearing voices, and is compelled to seek out a fire alarm button. She smashes it.

As the Doctor ponders the presence of what appears to be her TARDIS, Ruth emerges from the house, her personality quite changed. She announces that she is the Doctor, and this is her concealed TARDIS.

Once they have gained entry to it, the Doctor realises that she is indeed a Time Lord - her identity hidden by a Chameleon Arch. Ruth is adamant that she is the Doctor, and the pair wonder why neither can remember the other. 

Now that she is no longer protected by the Arch and the TARDIS reactivated, the Judoon identify the ship and beam it onto their craft.

The Doctor discovers from Gat that Ruth is indeed an incarnation of herself. She is also Gallifreyan - an officer with a group known as the Division. She has been hunting for the Ruth-Doctor.

From what they say, the Doctor realises that the fugitive Doctor originates from her past, rather than some future incarnation which she initially thought. This makes her existence all the more puzzling as she has no memories of her. She is able to show Gat that Gallifrey no longer exists as she shares her memories of her recent visit, though she refuses to believe this.

The Doctor then witnesses her other self seemingly trick Gat into destroying herself. She fires a weapon which has been programmed to reverse its blast. The Ruth-Doctor points that she did warn Gat not to shoot, but the Gallifreyan refused to heed her warning.

The spaceship has now moved out of Earth orbit, and the Doctors point out that the Judoon no longer have jurisdiction here. Both Doctors return to Earth in the fugitive Doctor's TARDIS, where the Doctor is reunited with her companions.

Back in her own TARDIS, they warn her of their meeting with Captain Jack and his warning. Attempts to get the Doctor to talk are thwarted by another alarm sounding - indicating multiple threats across the globe...

Fugitive of the Judoon was written by Vinay Patel and Chris Chibnall, and was first broadcast on Sunday 26th January 2020.

It's clear that the things people remember this for - Captain Jack and the Fugitive Doctor - are Chibnall's contribution, so Patel doesn't really add a great deal.

The episode introduces Jo Martin as the Fugitive Doctor - a previously unknown incarnation who predates the First Doctor as portrayed by William Hartnell.

It's hardly original, Steven Moffat having created the War Doctor for Day of the Doctor, after Christopher Eccleston refused to return to the series. He was explained as a Doctor who had gone to war, and therefore been psychologically suppressed by the Doctor as he had taken up arms. As a man of violence, he didn't even deserve the name of Doctor for what he had done.

As such, the War Doctor could be accommodated in canon by fans without too much of a fuss. It pushed all the new Doctors along, numerically, and had implications for the 12 regenerations rule, but it was always known that ways round this would be found when the time came.

Chibnall's actions were far more controversial, in that he undermines the entire history of the programme to date. The Hartnell Doctor was no longer the first. There was at least one incarnation before this - the first non-male / non-white in story-telling terms.

We are also introduced to a new Gallifreyan group called the Division, who appear to be militaristic and interventionist, coming across as some sort of security force.

The problem with creating prequels, as any fan of the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises could tell you, is that they are extremely difficult to shoe-horn into established lore. It's near impossible without breaking something somewhere else.

ST: Enterprise struggled to include fan-pleasing aliens whom we knew weren't encountered by Starfleet until ST: The Next Generation, whilst ST: Discovery shows technology far in advance of the original 1960's series. Revenge of the Sith does not provide a seamless segue into A New Hope.

Here we are expected to believe that the Division have singularly failed to identify and capture the Doctor in any of her subsequent incarnations, despite being time-travellers. (The same problem arose with Torchwood - another prequel mess-up as the organisation stupidly failed to capture the Doctor in any of his many visits to contemporary Britain, even during his lengthy exile).

How could Gat be "time-locked" to early Gallifrey and not be aware of its destruction - known to the Doctor in her "present"?.

We also have the problem of the Police Box-shaped TARDIS. It is an unquestionable fact that the TARDIS took on different shapes under the First Doctor prior to becoming stuck in its iconic form only after Totters Lane. We may not have seen this, but the Doctor and Susan clearly state it.

Are we to believe that the TARDIS became stuck as a Police Box twice?

Then there's the issue of the First Doctor and Susan leaving Gallifrey in The Name of the Doctor, in a TARDIS which is suggested by Clara - highly unlikely to be the one used by the Fugitive Doctor.

As well as Martin, who was a regular on Holby City, we have Neil Stuke playing husband Lee Clayton. He is scanned as human and was presumably the Fugitive Doctor's companion, and has been fulfilling a role similar to that held by Martha whilst the Tenth Doctor was John Smith. His origins are never fully explained - other than he was some kind of soldier.

Stuke came to fame mainly through comedy roles, the first of which was the sitcom Game On. He played boss CJ is the ill-advised remake of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.

Playing Allan is Michael Begley. He previously portrayed Mulligan, one of Captain Avery's crew in The Curse of the Black Spot.

Gat is Ritu Arya, who has appeared in Humans and The Umbrella Academy.

The lead Judoon is played by Paul Kasey, as he had done in Smith and Jones and other Judoon appearances. Nick Briggs inevitably provides the vocals.

The other significant thing about this episode is its re-introduction to the parent series of Captain Jack, as played by John Barrowman. He had not been seen since the final instalment of Torchwood: Miracle Day.

Having first appeared in a Steven Moffat story, return appearances were often expected throughout his tenure as showrunner, and indeed some stories did toy with having him back - such as him being one of the gang the Doctor put together in A Good Man Goes to War.

His mention of a lone Cyberman introduces a new element to the overall season story arc.

Overall, it's a frustrating episode. Perfectly fine as a stand-alone adventure with the Judoon, but it's the implications for the entire history of the series that cause disquiet. The feeling is that it is a seismic change which has damaged rather than enhanced the programme, and was really quite unnecessary. The War Doctor showed that you could take big risks and shake things up with the show, without unduly upsetting fans. (And it did upset fans - and has continued to do so ever since). Non-fans would have had no interest whatsoever in any of this.

Things you might like to know:

• A working title for this story was Semper Fidelis - the Latin motto of the city of Exeter, as this was its original location.
• The story was originally intended as the very first of the Jodie Whittaker / Chibnall era - meaning that the latter wasn't always intent on his first season having no continuity to previous stories.
• In this earlier version, Ruth would have been a future Doctor and instead of a husband had a grown son who knew her true identity. There were no Judoon involved. A new alien race called the Karreg took their place.
• To conceal his return, Barrowman was credited as "Roy Lester" in advance paperwork for the story. This is an anagram of "Rose Tyler".
• To explain his presence in Cardiff, he told everyone that he was carrying out renovations to his house there - work which he actually undertook in the end.
• His scenes were filmed by a different director. The spaceship location was Clifton Cathedral in Bristol, with the altar disguised.
• Whilst filming did take place in central Gloucester, the fight with the Judoon actually took place in a Cardiff church - St German's. Gloucester Cathedral has allowed filming - it features in the Harry Potter films.
• Pol-Kon-Don was named after fan Paul Condon who had recently passed away. He was a friend of Chibnall's.
• This Judoon differs from others in that it has a mohawk hairstyle, and is said to be female.
• There's a shot of the Doctors at the TARDIS which clearly shows the back of the prop - something which hadn't been seen since the days of the classic series. Not a deliberate homage.
• The West Usk Lighthouse near Newport can be hired out as accommodation and as a wedding venue. The accommodation is no longer in the lighthouse itself, but in an adjacent cabin.