Story 276: Twice Upon A Time

In which the Doctor, refusing to regenerate after being mortally wounded by Cybermen, finds himself at the South Pole. It is December 1986, and out of the icy fog emerges one of his earlier selves - his first incarnation. He has just come from his first encounter with the Cybermen, and is battling against his own impending regeneration.

Whilst the two argue over what they are doing here, time seems to stand still as they see snowflakes suspended in the air. A British Army Captain of the First World War then wanders towards them, unaware of how he came to be here. The last he remembers was being trapped with a German soldier in a foxhole - about to kill each other - when time had stood still for him as well. He had then been approached by a bizarre female figure who appeared to be composed of glass.

The Doctor takes them both into his TARDIS. The First Doctor is not impressed with it, or with the fact that this is his future incarnation.

A gigantic spacecraft appears overhead and it lowers a huge hydraulic claw which seizes the TARDIS and pulls it aboard.

They hear a voice asking them to come outside to the Chamber of the Dead.

The Doctors are offered a gift in return for handing over the Captain - Bill Potts. The Doctor knows that she cannot be real, but she insists that it is the real her.

The Doctors discover time-travel technology of advanced design.

The glass woman appears and explains that the Captain must be returned to the time and place of his death. The First Doctor is given a glimpse of his future selves, learning that he will be known as the "War Doctor", which appals him.

The Doctor manages to open the hatch through which they were brought on board and they use the claw cable to descend to the ice beneath. They take to the First Doctor's TARDIS and dematerialise.

The Doctors wish to know who this glass woman is and what her motives might be. She looked like she was based on a humanoid original so the Doctor decides they must seek out the greatest database in the universe - and he knows where to find it.

The ship arrives on the planet of Villengard, amongst the ruins of its famous weapons factories. A ruined tower is under attack from Daleks, many of which have lost their casings. The Doctor will go there himself as he knows the occupant. In the TARDIS, it is revealed that Bill is really the glass female in disguise.

At the top of the tower the Doctor finds the Dalek which he had previously nicknamed "Rusty".

It has carried on its campaign against its own kind and has amassed a huge databank of knowledge in the meantime. It is able to identify the woman they seek as Professor Helen Clay. She helped found the Testimony Foundation which collects the memories of the dead and allows them to speak again through glass avatars. In this way, everyone has a chance to live on after death.

There is nothing evil behind what she seeks with the Captain.

Time is made to stand still once again, and the two Doctors travel with the Captain to the WWI battlefield. Here the Doctor learns that the man is a member of the Lethbridge-Stewart family - the Brigadier's grandfather.

He has returned to his foxhole, resigned to die, but the Doctor has nudged time on a few minutes. It is Christmas 1914, and the fighting stops for the festive armistice. The Captain is saved.

The First Doctor departs, ready now to face his regeneration after seeing a glimpse of his future.

Before "Bill" departs, she gives the Doctor a final gift. He sees Nardole - and Clara, memories of whom are returned to him.

He, too, is now ready to face his regeneration. With the TARDIS in flight he regenerates into a female form. The ship goes out of control and the new Doctor falls out of the open doors...

Twice Upon A Time was written by Steven Moffat - his final contribution to the series at time of writing - and was first broadcast on Monday 25th December 2017.

Moffat had thought that his final story, and that of Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor, was to be The Doctor Falls. This was the second half of an epic series finale featuring the return of the Mondasian Cybermen and of the Harold Saxon incarnation of the Master, with the Doctor repeatedly blasted by Cybermen, Bill Potts transformation and departure, and the two incarnations of the Master killing one another. Ordinarily, this would have been an ending, but it would prove to be just a step towards the final end for actor and writer, which would be prolonged until Christmas.

Moffat had expected his successor, Chris Chibnall, to launch his iteration of the series, with the new female Doctor, at Christmas 2017. Christmas night was the prime time of prime time, a slot which the series had won back in 2005 and held onto ever since - even when there hadn't even been a normal series that year.

However, Chibnall simply wasn't ready to produce a Christmas Special, and was contemplating doing away with them altogether anyway. Ratings for Christmas night were falling across the board, not just for Doctor Who. The soaps and the sitcom Mrs Brown's Boys were also seeing lower viewing figures, despite still maintaining good percentage scores.

In order to keep the slot, Moffat agreed to write one more story, and since the Doctor was already dying, he would prolong the regeneration for one more adventure and build an episode around this.

Moffat had earlier been asked about returning characters during a Comic-Con panel, when he stated that a meeting between the first and last Doctors - both famed for their grumpiness - would be a great idea.

Peter Capaldi then said that he knew who they could get to play him... This was David Bradley, who in 2013 had portrayed William Hartnell / the First Doctor in An Adventure in Space and Time.

The First Doctor had already been played by another actor, when Richard Hurndall had taken on the role for The Five Doctors. With the theme of regeneration already in place, the obvious storyline of two Doctors each facing their impending regenerations, but refusing to accept them, presented itself. This in turn led to the setting of the South Pole (scene of the Doctor's first regeneration at the conclusion of The Tenth Planet, which coincidentally featured the Cybermen). The meeting of the two Doctors would make for a special end of series cliff-hanger, and material was prepared to top and tail the Series 10 finale. The moment chosen was the sequence at the end of the fourth episode when the Doctor wanders off alone to the TARDIS before companions Ben and Polly can catch up with him, once he's already in the ship. Having just brought back the Mondasian Cybermen, the costumes existed to allow a recreation of scenes from the 1966 story, similar to those staged for the 50th Anniversary drama.

Several scenes were filmed, but few made it to the final episode. These were the introductory sequence where Hartnell's features blend into Bradley's, following the "Have you no emotions?" speech; and the regeneration itself, which existed as some 8mm off-air material and a clip preserved through inclusion in Blue Peter's coverage of Doctor Who's 10th Anniversary in 1973.

As a swansong for writer and actor, the episode was to include references to earlier stories. 

The episode opens with the caption "Previously on Doctor Who... 709 episodes ago", and we see footage from The Tenth Planet.

Other than those relating to the First Doctor, the biggest nod to the more recent past was the inclusion of "Rusty" - the Good Dalek - which had featured right at the start of Capaldi's tenure in the TARDIS, Inside the Dalek being only his second story. The location of Villengard went back to Moffat's very first story for the series in 2005. 

In The Doctor Dances the Doctor and Captain Jack discuss its weapon factories and their destruction.

Thanks to cuts we hardly see Ben (Jared Garfield) or Polly (Lily Travers).

On a personal note, two of Moffat's friends and fellow writers - the most prolific - just happened to also act. Mark Gatiss featured as the Captain, who we would subsequently learn is an ancestor of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart; and Toby Whithouse played his German army opponent.

Captain Lethbridge-Stewart lives in Cromer, the Norfolk town which his grandson will think UNIT HQ has been transported to in The Three Doctors.

The idea of the glass avatar (Testimony / Helen Clay being played by Nikki Amuka-Bird, who had featured in the Torchwood episode Sleeper) allowed for a reappearance of Pearl Mackie as Bill, and we also saw an image of Clara, with the Doctor regaining his memories of her. To round off the season, Nardole also appears to say goodbye to the Doctor, bringing all of their stories to a conclusion. It should be remembered that the Doctor was unconscious when taken into the TARDIS at the end of The Doctor Falls, so won't have been aware of the fates of Bill and Nardole. 

The Testimony Foundation is said to have been formed on New Earth. The Chamber of the Dead is able to show the First Doctor his future selves, allowing for clips of other Doctors.

One criticism of the story was the realisation of the First Doctor in terms of his old-fashioned attitudes. Bradley is given words which the First Doctor would never have uttered - but which the actor who played him might have done (e.g. the sexist remarks). It does seem as though Moffat has confused actor with character.

The series had been struggling to include festive components in its Christmas Specials, but the 1914 WWI armistice at Ypres, when troops from both sides ceased hostilities to party together and play football, hadn't been used so far. 

Overall, a nostalgic end to the Moffat / Capaldi eras. The actual story is quite weak, but that doesn't really matter. It's a farewell story in more ways than one, the end of an era. There are many who dislike (indeed, hated) what happened next, and this episode is now seen by some as the last of its particular line.

Things you might like to know:

• Peter Capaldi was invited to stay on when he learned that Moffat was leaving. It was only coincidence that the two left together. Capaldi decided that his three series were enough, and wanted to move on to other projects.
• This episode was so unplanned that both Pearl Mackie and Matt Lucas believed they had finished on the series and were pleasantly surprised to be invited back. Mackie was on holiday in the US when asked to return, and Lucas in Rome writing his autobiography.
• Rachel Talalay had already directed the Series 10 finale and was keen to get home, but Moffat and Capaldi together talked her into remaining in the UK to direct this story.
• Sadly, this was the final Doctor Who story to be designed by Michael Pickwoad. He passed away in August 2018.
• We see a ring drop from the new Doctor's hand just after she has regenerated - a nod to the same thing happening in Power of the Daleks.
• Unlike when Ten became Eleven, it isn't the regeneration which wrecks the TARDIS. It's only afterwards when the Doctor presses a button that the console explodes and it goes out of control - Chibnall intending, like Moffat before him, to have his own new console room.
• In the first draft there's a funny reference to Episode 3 of The Tenth Planet when the First Doctor seems to brag about his actions at Snowcap Base, to which the current Doctor remarks that all he did was have a big nap - Hartnell having fallen ill and the Doctor been written out of that episode, stuck unconscious in bed.
• As the Doctor sends a message to his future self, he quotes Terrance Dicks' famous words about the Doctor never being cruel or cowardly. He also advises never eating pears, which was on Ten's recorded to-do list in Human Nature.
• The Testimony Foundation was formed in the year 5 Billion and 12, which is before the events seen in either of the televised stories set on New Earth - so before the population was decimated by the mood virus.
• The difference in facial features of the First Doctor is put down to the early effects of the regeneration process. Their timelines being "out of synch" is the excuse why the Second Doctor will not remember any of these events.
• Testimony gives some of the titles which have been given to the Doctor, most of which we know of ("Destroyer of Worlds" was given him by Davros, for instance). However, two titles refer to stories we have never seen - "The Last Tree of Garsenon" and "The Butcher of Skull Moon".
• BBC VFX pioneer Bernard Wilkie's name appears on a label on the TARDIS console.
• Some of the set elements, like the brass columns, seen in the First Doctor's TARDIS are the original ones from 1963.
• Jon Pertwee's purple jacket from Planet of the Spiders is seen in the TARDIS. Capaldi was photographed by Mark Gatiss (who now owns it) wearing it in his trailer: