Story 312: Joy to the World

In which the Doctor travels through history to deliver a ham and cheese toastie and a pumpkin latte - including the 1953 Everest Expedition, the Orient Express in 1926 and an elderly couple in war torn Manchester. No-one he approaches is the right person, however.

Meanwhile, a young woman named Joy Almondo arrives at the Sandringham Hotel in London, asking receptionist Anita for a room for the week. It is Christmas 2024. Joy notices a locked door in her room, and assumes that most hotel rooms have one of these. It opens and a Silurian in a business suit emerges, with a briefcase chained to his wrist.

The Doctor then appears with his drink and snack...

London in the year 4202, and the TARDIS materialises in the Time Hotel so that the Doctor can get some milk. He is challenged by employee Trev Simpkins after spotting a man approach the reception desk and request a room on the third floor. He has a briefcase chained to his wrist.

The hotel allows guests to visit any period in Earth's history.

The Doctor tells Trev that he is suspicious about the briefcase man as he hasn't reacted at all to anything going on around him - despite guests dressed in various historical costumes.

The Doctor has deduced that the reason hotels always have a locked door in each room is because it links to this place. He leads Trev to believe that he is a special investigator, and co-opts him onto his mission.

The man with the briefcase, meanwhile, has gone into the bar. Approaching the barman, his eyes glow and he makes a cryptic comment: "The star seed will bloom and the flesh will rise".

He passes the case to the barman, whose eyes react in the same way - the chain transferring itself to the new carrier by itself. The first man becomes confused, as though freed of some hypnotic influence. The barman tells him not to worry as he will be dead soon. He now repeats the cryptic phrase.

The barman goes outside and meets Trev, and the case is then passed on to him. The original man dies - his body disintegrating -  and then the barman perishes in the same manner.

Trev approaches the manager of the hotel, Melnak, who is a Silurian. He is looking for someone who has access to all the rooms and their various time portals. Stating the cryptic phrase, Trev passes on the briefcase to Melnak then disintegrates.

The Doctor, who had ordered a ham and cheese toastie and pumpkin latte for lunch, follows Melnak - and this is how he comes to find himself in the Sandringham Hotel facing Joy and a Silurian...

Anita walks into the room, and is surprised to see the group - though not unduly so, considering one of them is a reptile man. The Doctor attempts to question Melnak, but he will only say that if the Doctor takes the briefcase then he will learn what he wants to know.

Fed up with everyone ignoring her, Joy grabs the case - and it transfers itself to her. She now states the phrase about the star seed. 

The Doctor tries to save Melnak - hearing of how he found himself in the far future after stumbling across a doorway in a cave - but the Silurian dies like the others.

The Doctor decides to open the case, and sees inside an orb emitting an intense light. An automated message warns them to close the case within 20 seconds or its current holder will be disintegrated. The Doctor notes that Joy appears not to be too troubled about dying.

They then get a second announcement that a four digit code must be entered within the next 15 seconds or the same fate will befall Joy. The Doctor claims that he cannot use the TARDIS again as it will split the causal nexus but before they run out of time a second version of the Doctor rushes in and tells them the code - 7214. The second Doctor - who hails from the future - leads Joy away into the Time Hotel, leaving the original in 2024. 

He is told that he will have to get to his future the long way round - by spending the next year here until he can complete the time loop.

With nowhere to go, the Doctor asks Anita for a room for 12 months. As he cannot pay for it, he agrees to work at the Sandringham.

As the months go by, he and Anita become good friends. She has developed a crush on him even though she knows he cannot reciprocate. Soon Christmas comes round again and the Doctor must depart. 

The loop is completed and it is he who now turns up and takes Joy to the Time Hotel.

He tells her that he has had the time to work out what the star seed might be, and why its owners need the Time Hotel. Joy is compelled by the briefcase to find a particular door, leading to a specific time zone. The Doctor tells her that the star seed is just that - a single atom which will detonate to create a sun. Someone wishes to harness the energy of a star by creating one of their own, but to do this they need to begin the process in the distant past so that it is ready for them to exploit in the future. This can only be some very large and powerful business.

The Doctor learns that Joy has been depressed following the death of her mother at Christmas during the COVID-19 pandemic, unable to visit the hospital and say goodbye - which is why she almost allowed herself to be killed by the case.

Such strong emotions allow her to free herself from the case.

The Doctor wants answers and takes Joy and the case into a room which appears to lead to a treetop lodge, overlooking a jungle environment. He opens the case and triggers an information interface. All the carriers have had their consciousness uploaded to it, and a hologram of Melnak appears to answer their questions.

The corporation behind the star seed proves to be Villengard, the weapons manufacturers. The Doctor realises that it would take some 65 million years for the star to be ready to exploit - and they are suddenly attacked by a Tyrannosaurus Rex. It swallows the case.

Trev then appears in hologram form, able to communicate with the Doctor through a psychic graft implant. He tells him that the star seed is about to detonate and must be taken off-world. 

He and Joy go to another room in which there is an ancient temple. The star seed has now found its way here The Doctor realises that he will have to use the TARDIS to throw the device into space, and so visits some of the other time zones to get equipment he can use - such as ropes from the Everest campsite. This he feeds through the Orient Express to link the case to his TARDIS.

By the time he is ready and gets back to the temple, he finds the briefcase empty.

Joy is outside, her body beginning to glow as she has absorbed the star seed into herself, along with the consciousnesses of all the people who carried it.

She reveals that she will not die - merely change - and that Villengard will not be able to get what they want. She soars into the sky and a new star is born. This is witnessed by people throughout history, including Anita and Ruby Sunday. Anita is then surprised to be approached by someone from the Time Hotel, offering her a new job.

Joy's mother also sees it from her hospital bed, before she too is absorbed into the star as she dies.

The Doctor then travels back over 2000 years to see the star shining in the sky above the city of Bethlehem...

Joy to the World was written by Steven Moffat, and first broadcast on Wednesday 25th December 2024. Festive Specials were always the work of the current showrunner, but in this case Russell T Davies was too busy writing the next series. Moffat had returned to the series to write Boom, and was approached to help with the Christmas episode.

Moffat claimed that one of his inspirations was the fact that most hotel rooms had a locked door in them. (Not in any I've ever stayed in, but then I'm more of a B&B person myself).

I'll state it now, right at the start, that this is probably my least favourite festive special. Even Chibnall gave us Daleks at New Year, but this story makes the unpardonable sin of being really rather dull.

It looks good, and is full of Moffat's clever-clever touches and timey-wimey stuff, but it's totally lacking in incident. It's noticeable that the clip used to plug it was the sequence with the dinosaur attack - and that's about the only exciting thing that happens in the entire episode.

Something which I really don't like is schmaltz, and this has it in abundance. I know it's Christmas, and non-fans are watching postprandial, but the ending to this is so saccharine I'm surprised dentists and diet-planners weren't inundated with new patients and customers straight after the hols. 

Bringing the biblical nativity story into it really was the waffer-thin mint for me.

The episode takes ages to get started and another of the issues with it is that extended sojourn at the hotel with Anita. As well as taking up a huge chunk of the running time, as though there wasn't actually enough plot for an hour long special, it made no sense. The Doctor has UNIT and lots of companions kicking around in 2024. His previous incarnation might still be hanging out at Donna Noble-Temple's house. Why not go spend the time with any of them? The idea that he honestly has nowhere to go in contemporary London for an entire year is a nonsense.

The main guest artist is Nicola Coughlan, of Derry Girls and Bridgerton fame. She plays Joy Almondo - that surname being Italian for "in the Earth" or "in the world". She also played Queen Victoria as a bit of a spoiled brat in CBBC's Dodger, which had starred Christopher Eccleston as Fagin and Billy Jenkins as the titular character.

Melnak is played by Jonathan Aris, who is best known for playing Anderson in Sherlock, but who has also featured in the Moffat / Gatiss Dracula and Good Omens. He also makes an appearance in Rogue One.

Playing Anita is Steph de Whalley, who had mostly worked in theatre up to this point. We'll see her again.

From Game of Thrones and a number of comedy shows (Plebs, Twenty Twelve, W1A and Trollied) we also have Joel Fry, who plays Trev.

Millie Gibson gets a brief cameo at the end, as Ruby Sunday.

See below for some other incidental characters.

Overall, more a Hallmark Christmas themed TV movie with sci-fi trappings than an episode of Doctor Who. 14 months after the event I still have no urge to watch this again.

Things you might like to know:

• The working title for this episode came from a song - "Christmas, Everywhere, All At Once".
• When he wrote this, Moffat hadn't read the Series 14 finale - but had already read the Series 15 one...
• One of the doors in the Time Hotel appears to belong to the Hobbits from the Lord of the Rings movies.
• Another cultural reference is the Hotel's clothes store, which supplies the guests with suitable historical outfits. It's called "Mr Benn's". The cartoon series Mr Benn (1970 - 71) featured a character who visited a fancy dress shop and ended up in whatever era matched the outfit he selected. The mysterious shopkeeper wore a fez. The Loch Ness Monster one was my favourite instalment.
• And Benn is Anita's surname.
• The Hotel bar is called DeTamble's - from the novel The Time Travellers Wife, which Moffat adapted, not terribly successfully, for the screen.
• A woman on the Orient Express is named Sylvia Trench (Niamh Marie Smith). That's the name of James Bond's lady friend in the films Dr No and From Russia With Love, played by Eunice Gayson.
• The 1953 Everest Expedition is the one which first reached the summit of the world's highest mountain, on 29th May of that year - the news getting back to Britain in time for the Coronation. Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay appear in these sequences - played by Phil Baxter and Samuel Sherpa-Moore respectively. The latter is actually the great-great-grand-nephew of Tenzing Norgay.
• Another of the Time Hotel doors is said to lead to the Fall of Troy, which would have been interesting to see as the First Doctor was there (The Myth Makers).
• You can also visit the Gunfight at the OK Corral (The Gunfighters) and the destruction of Pompeii (The Fires of Pompeii) - so lots of opportunities for the Doctor to meet an earlier incarnation.
• Guests can also take a trip with Nostalgia Tours (Delta and the Bannermen).
• That whole hotel interlude was a late addition as the script progressed. The Doctor was originally to have globe-trotted for the year - cut for budget reasons. The character of Anita was expanded from less than a dozen lines on the strength of Steph de Whalley's audition.

Story 311: The Legend of Ruby Sunday / Empire of Death

In which the Doctor finally discovers the truth about Ruby's heritage, and encounters an old foe he thought long destroyed...

The Doctor and Ruby arrive at UNIT HQ in order to seek help in investigating the woman whom they have been seeing throughout time and space in recent weeks. She exists in the present day as well - a philanthropic tech mogul named Susan Triad. However, UNIT have been investigating her for some time and Kate Stewart has already placed an operative within her organisation - his one-time companion Melanie Bush. She is working as a media assistant to Triad. So far she has found nothing to be concerned about. She is a pleasant individual who cares for her employees and who wishes to make affordable IT available to the masses.

And yet the same face keeps appearing on different planets and in different time-zones.

At the same time, the Doctor wishes to investigate Ruby's origins and discover the identity of the hooded woman who abandoned her at the church on Ruby Road - which may go some way to explaining the odd phenomena which surround her, such as snow falling where it should be impossible to do so.

The TARDIS cannot revisit the moment of her abandonment again but Ruby has an old CCTV tape which her foster mother Carla has kept all these years. New scientific adviser Morris explains that this can be adapted using UNIT tech to create a 3-D image of the event, which might identify the woman.

As Triad prepares for a press conference in which she will announce giving away free technology, Mel takes the opportunity to obtain a DNA sample from her, then makes for UNIT HQ where she is reunited with the Doctor. She explains that she was able to return to Earth following the death of Sabalom Glitz.

Carla accompanies Ruby to the HQ, leaving Cherry in the care of neighbour Mrs Flood. After they have gone, Flood begins to act coldly towards the old woman and a storm begins to gather as she indicates that something is coming...

Triad's DNA sample comes up as human. Ruby arrives with her mother and Morris prepares a Time Window, which will create the three dimensional virtual reality simulation of what the VHS depicts.

As Ruby repeats the story she was told of that Christmas Day, snow begins to fall - even though the program is not yet running.

They witness the event, including the arrival of the Doctor. He notices that unlike the rest of the imagery, which is grainy and shadowy, the TARDIS looks solid, as though it is in the chamber with them. Attempts to identify the hooded woman fail as the image glitches at the key moment when her face might be seen.

He is then surprised to see something which doesn't match his memory of the event - the woman stopping to point towards him before turning away.

The Doctor realises that time is shifting and the event is changing. He deduces that the woman may not be pointing at him at all - but something behind him. This is the TARDIS. A UNIT officer named Winston is sent to look behind the TARDIS and see if anything is there. A strange black shadow is seen momentarily. They hear him call out then contact is lost. The entire image then breaks down, and they discover Winston's body - aged to death and crumbling into a sand-like powder.

The Doctor insists on meeting Triad, after beginning to suspect that she may actually be his granddaughter Susan, perhaps unaware of her true identity. When he meets her in person, however, he cannot sense any Time Lord presence. On hearing that she hasn't been sleeping well due to vivid dreams, he mentions the names of some of the people he has recently encountered who look just like her and this seems to trigger some vague recollection.
At UNIT HQ team member Harriet suggests running the 3-D model again but this time in reverse, to try to identify the black shape. It now appears to emanate from the TARDIS itself, as though wrapped around it.

Kate worries that the entity might surround the actual TARDIS in their main control room. Harriet begins to speak oddly, and at the same time Triad interrupts her press announcement to make similar remarks about the coming of the "God of Death". Harriet points out her full name - H. Arbinger - the harbinger for the entity. Kate demands that it show itself. The features of Harriet and Triad are transformed into skull-like visions and it is revealed that the name of the IT company, S Triad Technology, has hidden a terrible secret in plain sight. Sue Tech - Sutekh.

A huge black jackal-like creature is revealed, wrapped around the TARDIS, announcing that it will bring death to the entire Universe...

Triad begins reducing people to dust as the Doctor and Mel flee the building on her moped. At UNIT HQ, weapons prove ineffective against Sutekh and his harbinger.

Triad has released Sutekh's dust of death, which destroys every living thing which it touches. Harriet does the same at UNIT HQ, killing everyone there. Mrs Flood, Carla and Cherry all perish as the dust cloud spreads through London and beyond.

The Doctor and Mel arrive at the HQ and join Ruby in the Time Window chamber where they enter the TARDIS - which proves to be quite unlike the real one. It contains a jumble of elements associated with all the incarnations of the Doctor, who explains that it is created from memories.

Sutekh then materialises with the real TARDIS and explains how he saved himself when they last met by seizing hold of the ship. Ever since then he has been attached to it, travelling through the Vortex and growing in strength. Having once been mistaken for a god by ancient Egyptians, he now has the powers of one.

Knowing of his granddaughter, Sutekh then laid a trap for him using Susan Triad, creating copies of her throughout his travels.

With Harriet in control of the real TARDIS, the Doctor, Ruby and Mel take to the Memory TARDIS and flee Earth.

From space they see the planet consumed by the dust, and the Doctor explains that it will be spreading across the entire universe to every planet and every time the TARDIS has visited.

Sutekh is joined by his servants and informs them that the Doctor and his companions must be tracked down, as the mystery of Ruby's parentage must be known.

Weeks pass and the Doctor discovers that the Time Window is still active, and he explains to his companions Sutekh's obsession with Ruby. He can see every moment in time and space, but this one fact eludes him and it is driving him insane. The Doctor and Ruby are unaware that Mel is beginning to hear the voice of Sutekh in her mind.

Accessing the Time Window through the Memory TARDIS, the Doctor is puzzled to see events from Ruby's future - when she encountered politician Roger Ap Gwilliam in 2046. They see him announcing the creation of a national DNA database. The Doctor realises that they can use this to check Ruby's DNA.

They travel to the Department of Health in 2046 and a blood sample is taken from Ruby which should provide the identity of her mother. Sutekh has been monitoring all of this through Mel, and he now orders her to bring the Memory TARDIS to him.

Mel transforms into one of Sutekh's servants and Harriet brings them all back to UNIT HQ. Here, the Doctor tells Sutekh that he now knows the name of Ruby's mother. He tries to bargain with him, even promising to worship him. Ruby then steps forward to say that she will reveal the name if Sutekh frees the Doctor. She will give him the name, which is recorded on a tablet screen. Sutekh climbs down from the TARDIS. Just as she is about to hand it over, Ruby drops and smashes the screen. It has all been a diversion, giving the Doctor time to uncoil a length of "intelligent rope" which he has taken from the Memory TARDIS. He uses this to ensnare Sutekh then takes to the real TARDIS with Ruby. He had known that Mel was possessed for some time due to her lack of empathy, and so had prepared this trap for Sutekh. The being is then dragged through the Vortex at the end of the rope, the Doctor arguing that if you bring death to death then the outcome is life. Life is restored to the Universe as they travel.

Once completed, Sutekh is cast adrift to disintegrate in the Vortex.

The TARDIS then returns to UNIT HQ in 2024. Susan Triad is there, now a normal human being with only the memories of this particular version of her - brought properly into being by Sutekh's demise. With her great technical knowledge, Kate offers her a role with UNIT.

Morris is able to use Ruby's DNA sample to find out the identity of her mother. She is Louise Alison Miller, a 35 year old nurse from Coventry. She had fallen pregnant at 15 with a troublesome teenage boyfriend, and this is why she had elected to abandon the baby at the church on Ruby Road. The reason for the hooded woman pointing in the Time Window reconstruction was to indicate the street name, and nothing to do with the TARDIS.

Some time later, Ruby has decided to go and see her mother and the Doctor transports her to Coventry in the TARDIS. Ruby elects to speak to Louise and reveal who she is. The pair are reconciled, and soon after Louise is making friends with Ruby's foster family as well. They all meet up at Christmas at Carla's home.

Ruby then decides to give up travelling with the Doctor to concentrate on family.

Neighbour Mrs Flood is on the roof of the building, and comments that only one chapter of Ruby's story is over - and greater terror awaits...

The Legend of Ruby Song and Empire of Death were written by Russell T Davies, and were first broadcast on Saturdays 14th and 21st of June, 2024.

They form the two part finale to Series 14, bringing to a close the first full seasons for Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor and Davies as returning showrunner. It also marks the end of Millie Gibson's run as a full-time companion, though Ruby will guest in some episodes of the next series. The story also sees the proper return of a classic companion in Mel, after her cameo in The Power of the Doctor as one of the companion support group.

The mystery of Mrs Flood, who knows what a TARDIS is and can seemingly communicate directly with the audience, is prolonged, whilst a popular villain from the classic series returns - only to be badly mishandled.

It's not a bad first half, but the pay-off is atrocious...

Sutekh was created by Robert Holmes after he took over the writing of what would become Pyramids of Mars from Lewis Griefer. An inhabitant of Phaester Osiris, Sutekh had decided to wage war against all living things and embarked on a crusade to achieve this with a band of zealous followers. The other Osirans, under the leadership of Horus, tracked him down on Earth - in ancient Egypt, where the animal headed aliens had been taken for gods. Sutekh himself had the head of a jackal. Unable to kill him, as that would make them no better than he, Horus elected to imprison Sutekh in an underground chamber, held immobile by a forcefield generated from a complex on the planet Mars.

His escape in 1911 coincided with the arrival of the Doctor, in his fourth incarnation, and Sarah Jane Smith. On gaining his freedom, the Doctor had trapped him in a time corridor, shifting the exit point so far into the future that he aged to death before he could ever reach it.

So Sutekh was simply a mortal, though long-lived, alien, who was killed whilst trapped in a time tunnel. Whilst the superstitious Egyptians believed him a god, he wasn't one. He just had some superior mental powers. Physically, he was humanoid but with a jackal-like head mostly concealed beneath a helmet. 
Rather than employ a mask to cover the actor's head, the production team opted to use a model head on a mannequin body, to give him a more alien appearance.

The new Sutekh is a massive CGI entity who looks more canine than humanoid, and has gained extra eyes. We are led to believe that he somehow escaped the time corridor - despite what was seen on screen in 1975 - and managed to hitch a ride on the outside of the TARDIS - a feat achieved, presumably, by suddenly managing to make himself invisible.

We are then compelled to accept that he has been hanging on to the TARDIS from Part Four of Pyramids of Mars throughout every single story up to this point... Instead of merely being thought to be a god, he somehow now is a god.

I've always argued that if you are going to bring something back in Doctor Who, then you should bring it back - i.e. as the thing that you actually liked and thought worth bringing back. If you plan to change it too much, why not just create something new? There should always be good reason for bringing anything back, not just ticking a nostalgia box. Sutekh was a fantastic stand-alone villain, in an era of the show that featured many other memorable foes. He should have stayed that way, as RTD2's story does nothing positive to add to the mythos - only to diminish it.

And the CGI's rubbish as well.

The other big disappointment about Empire of Death is the wrapping up of the Ruby's Mother story arc. Fan speculation ran wild on this, with many believing her to be the Doctor's granddaughter - even though RTD2 was attempting to steer them towards Triad for this. Even though no-one could agree who she might be, everyone felt that the character had to be significant and there had to be a pay-off.

But then it turns out she was just a normal teenage human. Nothing wrong with that, but to build up a mystery in the way that this season had done, the audience expected better. It's an anti-climax, and the end of the episode is dragged out to incorporate it. Looking back now, I don't feel the whole snow-falling business was ever properly explained, especially if neither Ruby nor her mother where anything special.

One further issue was Gibson's departure. Unfortunately, the shortness of this season, including a companion-lite episode, meant that we never really got to know Ruby and so never quite invested in her emotionally. Also, fans are becoming increasingly bored with companions who are defined purely by some big secret. They long for the days when the companion was simply an ordinary person like them, given the opportunity to embark on extraordinary adventures.

Fans were also looking to have Mrs Flood explained, but that was at least held back for a later date.

The only pay-off we got was Sutekh - and that was disappointing.

My criticism of this story is mostly reserved - deservedly - for the second half and I did like The Legend of Ruby Sunday, especially the whole "Sue-Tech" reveal, but even it had problems. I simply do not like what they have done with UNIT nowadays. Any notion that this might be a realistic scientific-military organisation of the 2020's is totally out the (Time)window. We have yet another scientific adviser who comes and goes and never gets another mention. What is the point of the Vlinxx? Even more pointless, what was Rose Noble doing in this? Things will get much worse when they are able to knock up a Zero Room in half an hour, but the rot is evident here.

Then there's the return of Mel - one of the positives, as the character was so badly developed back in the 1980's. Bonnie Langford always was a much better actress than people gave her credit for, and it's great that she gets to play a significant role here. If there's a problem, it's a minor one - the lack of any proper explanation as to how she got back to Earth in the present day.

Another positive is Susan Twist as Triad. Not only do we get an explanation for the recurring characters looking like her, but she is also well integrated into the story and delivers an engaging performance as both the likeable Susan and the evil "angel of death" version. That make-up is very good - which makes the use of CGI for Sutekh all the more frustrating.

Gabriel Woolf at least gets to voice the character once again, after originating him in Pyramids of Mars. He had, of course, already bridged the two iterations of the series by voicing the Beast in The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit.

Anita Dobson features only briefly as Mrs Flood - her mystery reserved for another time - and the story concludes with her once again breaking the fourth wall, dressed in white furs and holding a parasol on a rooftop. Fans had speculated about her as well - and this time they would be correct.

The latest scientific adviser is Morris Gibbons, played by Lenny Rush. He had been due to voice Space Baby Eric but the production team thought he deserved a much better role, and one on screen.

The only other new characters whom we haven't seen before are Ruby's birth mother Louise, played by Faye McKeever, and Harriet Arbinger, played by Genesis Lynea.

McKeever appeared in Sky One supermarket comedy Trollied, as well as real life crime drama serials Des (which starred David Tennant) and Little Boy Blue.

Lynea has appeared in Casualty and Silent Witness, but on stage she originated the role of Anne of Cleves in the musical Six, based around the wives of Henry VIII.

Overall, it gets off to a good start but begins to go off the rails the instant you see that Sutekh now looks like a big computer-animated dog...

Things you might like to know:

• The appearance of the Memory TARDIS would clearly be an attempt to canonise the Tales from the TARDIS, which first appeared for the 60th Anniversary as a framing device to get old companion actors to reprise their roles and introduce one of their classic era stories - a way to repackage repeats, basically.
• Apparently RTD2 was inspired to make Ruby's mother an ordinary human after watching The Last Jedi. And look how that turned out...
• Mel was originally to have perished with all the other UNIT characters at the start of the second episode.
• The Doctor claims never to have seen Susan since the day he left her behind in 22nd Century London. How that fits with all that spin-off material is anyone's guess - and what about The Five Doctors?
• He also claims to be able to recognise another Time Lord simply by looking into their eyes - even though he failed to recognise Missy and "O" as incarnations of the Master.
• Triad's little dance as she came on stage was a reference to one given by PM Theresa May during the 2018 Conservative Party conference.
• Other versions of Triad were to have featured in a longer pre-credits sequence, including one involving Zarbi.
• The Memory TARDIS was to have vanished once the Doctor regained his real one, but RTD2 decided to keep it for potential future appearances.
• Bonnie Langford's reaction to the Sixth Doctor's coat was a genuine one, as the actress recalled her time working on the show with Colin Baker.
• Some fans thought Mrs Flood might be Romana, purely because the final wintry outfit hinted at the one she had worn on the planet Ribos.
• Bizarrely, RTD2 introduces the concept that a Time Lord can have a grandchild before they have a child, being "non-linear" beings.
• But then he also came up with the concept of "the death of death means life" as a means of hitting his boringly predictable big reset button, and "intelligent rope" just to add to the cop-out ending.
• Finally, a good cartoon is worth repeating:

Story 310: Rogue

In which the Doctor and Ruby attend a lavish Regency ball at the home of the Duchess of Pemberton, located in the countryside near Bath. The year is 1813.

Alien technology has been detected here, and as the Doctor looks around he spots a man watching the proceedings from the balcony.

Outside, two of the male guests are arguing. Lord Galpin is accusing Lord Barton of damaging his sister's reputation. Galpin suddenly realises that he envies Barton's reputation as an adventurer and womaniser and tells him that he wishes to be him. He seizes his rival and there is a fierce electrical discharge. Barton lies dead, his body charred beyond recognition - but Galpin now looks exactly like him.

The Doctor and the handsome stranger flirt with each other, by way of trying to work out what each is doing here.

The false Lord Barton returns to the dance and attempts to seduce Ruby but she instantly dislikes him. She spots a portrait of an elderly lady and recognises it as the woman whom she and the Doctor have been seeing a lot of lately - most recently the mother of Lindy Pepper-Bean. The Duchess explains that it is an image of the mother of the Duke who once owned this property.

Barton moves his attentions to another female guest - Lady Emily Beckett - and they withdraw to the library. Wishing to protect her, Ruby decides to follow.

The Doctor has discovered that the man on the balcony is named Rogue, and who invites him outside.

The Duchess is elsewhere in the grounds and comes upon one of her servants. She is annoyed by her presence so close to the house during a function, but the servant tells her that she wants to be her. She seizes hold of the Duchess and soon looks exactly like her - the real Duchess now a charred corpse.

Ruby prevents Barton from seducing Lady Emily when she knocks over a book - alerting him to her presence.

The Doctor finds the body of the Duchess and, noting that this is the work of extra-terrestrial technology, is surprised to see that Rogue agrees. Both reveal to each other that they do not come from Earth - and both try to convince the other that they are not responsible for the death. Rogue explains that this is the work of the Chuldur, who are able to shape-shift - and he believes the Doctor to be one of their number. He has been paid to come here and kill the creature, so draws a gun on the Doctor and marches him to his spaceship, which is cloaked and lies only a short distance from the TARDIS.

Rogue is on the point of incinerating the Doctor using a Triform device when he is able to convince him that he is not a Chuldur but a Time Lord of Gallifrey. Impressed, Rogue releases him.

The copies of the Duchess and Barton meet and discuss their scheme. They had hoped that members of the royal family might have attended the function, but the Duchess says she will make do with Ruby, who intrigues her.

The Doctor takes Rogue to see the TARDIS. They plan to adapt Rogue's Triform to imprison the Chuldur in a pocket dimension, rather than kill them.

Ruby and Lady Emily discover one of the corpses and go in search of the Doctor.

They are reunited in the ballroom where the Doctor has worked out that the Chuldur are social parasites. They take on other forms purely for the thrill of it, likening them to cosplayers. They home in on individuals whom they find exciting and different, and so he and Rogue decide to dance together - such a scandalous act surely tempting them to reveal themselves.

They then deliberately manufacture a scene together and storm off, causing four of the guests to reveal their true Chuldur form and follow them. They appear to be bird-like humanoids. Rogue had thought that there might only be a single specimen present, and so the Triform must be reconfigured to capture a larger number. He and the Doctor realise that, unchecked, they will work their way through society until they achieve their goal of taking over the throne.

Ruby is comforting Lady Emily, only to discover that she too is a Chuldur.

The Doctor and Rogue then witness the Duchess announcing a wedding - between Lord Barton and Ruby. The Doctor fears that his companion has been killed and copied.

The wedding party at least concentrates all the Chuldur in one place, to be captured by the Triform. Ruby reveals that she hasn't been copied as Lady Emily appears in Chuldur form.

Rogue seizes her and pulls her into the Triform field, which now holds the five Chuldur and he captive - its maximum capacity. He activates the device - even though it will mean his own imprisonment with the creatures. He asks the Doctor to come and find him.

The following morning the Doctor has Rogue's ship placed in a hidden orbit around the Moon. He is heartbroken at having lost Rogue as the pair had fallen in love, and tells Ruby that with multiple dimensions he may never find him again...

Rogue was written by Kate Herron and Briony Redman, and was first broadcast on Saturday 8th June 2024. 

Herron was best known for directing episodes of Sex Education, which co-starred Ncuti Gatwa, and Marvel / Disney's Loki, though she also wrote. Redman had mainly written shortform films before this, prior to collaborating with Herron on Sex Education.

If there is one obvious inspiration for their story, it is the popular historical drama Bridgerton. This Netflix series, which began at Christmas 2020, is set in the Regency period and follows the romantic adventures of the wealthy Bridgerton siblings. Not only does Ruby specifically state that the ball reminds her of the TV series, but the choreography was arranged by Jack Murphy, who also choreographs Bridgerton, and the music comprises string quartet versions of contemporary pop tunes in both cases.

The other inspiration is cosplay. This phenomena originated with fans of manga, anime and gaming and quickly extended into the realms of general science-fiction and fantasy - beginning with the Star Trek franchise. Once conventions took off, some fans would turn up dressed as their favourite characters.

Cosplayers not only wish to look like their favourites, down to highly detailed costumes, accessories and make-ups, but will often play out their mannerisms and characteristics as well.

The Chuldur like to look like people they are fascinated by and want to become, but in an extreme form as they actually kill the subject of their interest and physically transform into their likeness so that they can enjoy their lifestyle.

They are possibly the most shallow villains the Doctor has ever encountered, so particularly apt for this particular incarnation in my view.

Rogue is also, at heart, a gay romance - but one in which the two protagonists fall in love over surface charm alone. Events take place over the course of a single evening, and the Doctor and Rogue suspect each other of being alien killers for much of the time they are together. Despite this, they flirt, and once they have worked out who each really is they seemingly fall madly in love. Since they can't possibly know each other, it can only be about surface infatuation.

And the romance appears to consist of a single dance, which is actually designed to get the Chuldur to expose themselves. It's a shallow relationship, which is impossible to invest in emotionally.

Rogue is played by musical theatre star Jonathon Groff, who first came to my notice in the TV series Glee and has since gone on to feature in musicals such as Hamilton (playing King George III - whose illness was the very reason for the Regency). He had never seen Doctor Who before, so RTD2 lent him some DVD's, resulting in him becoming a big fan.

A big problem with the character is that he comes across as a surrogate Captain Jack Harkness, and you have to wonder if this wasn't originally intended as a story in which the Fifteenth Doctor and Jack met up. The fact that it is 1813 and Rogue's favourite song is one of Kylie's means that he has to be a time-traveller - and Jack was a Time Agent. Compare also the scene between the Doctor and Rogue in the latter's spaceship with the one between Rose and Jack in The Empty Child.

We have reason to believe that Vinder in Flux was created to fill Captain Jack's role in events, and that's the same feeling here. Even if not intended, this is what it looks like.

The other main guest artist this week is Indira Varma, playing the Duchess and her Chuldur duplicate. Varma had previously played Suzie Costello in two episodes of the first series of Torchwood. Other roles of note include appearances in Rome, Game of Thrones, Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Night Manager. She also featured in the BBC4 live remake of The Quatermass Experiment as astronaut Victor Carroon's wife Judith.

She's really rather wasted here.

The rakish Lord Barton is Anglo-French actor Paul Forman, sometimes better known for his modelling career, but who recently came to prominence in Emily in Paris. He's very good looking, probably, so why hardly use him and stick him in a mask when you do? Ditto Indira Varma.

The only other actor of note here is Camilla Aiko, who plays Lady Emily. She featured in 2024's Kraven the Hunter.

Susan Twist's appearance this week is confined to the portrait seen by Ruby.

Overall, how much you like this episode depends entirely on how much you buy into the Doctor's romance with Rogue. Personally, I don't at all, so really can't be bothered with this. The idea that the Doctor can fall hopelessly in love with someone he's spent only an hour or two with - half of that thinking he's an alien killer - is unrealistic. Had the relationship been developed properly, over a longer period of time, then we might have invested in it emotionally, but it's all too brief and only roughly sketched in.

Beyond the romance, what does the Doctor actually do in this episode? Nothing at all.

And you can't help but feel that Rogue is simply a Captain Jack clone.

Things you might like to know:

• The UK broadcast had a dedication to William Russell who had died earlier that week.
• RTD had previously complained about Herron's Loki episode as a "feeble gesture" towards queer representation.
• The Doctor works out that "Rogue" is an alias as he spots some dice on his spaceship - deducing that he took his name from the role-playing Dungeons & Dragons game.
• The Regency period describes the years 1811 - 1820. It came about through an act of parliament when King George III was deemed too ill to rule. His eldest son - George, Prince of Wales - acted as Regent in his place. The King had suffered periodic bouts of ill health - the "Madness of King George" - since the late 1780's but the Regency was only formalised with the Act of 1811. The period ended in 1820 with the death of George III and Prince George assuming the throne as King George IV.
• Jonathan Groff filmed his cameo for Wish World during the making of this episode.
• Had Gatwa not jumped ship early, would Rogue have figured more prominently in a later series? Would anyone have actually cared?
• One of the incarnations of the Doctor produced in hologram form by Rogue's computer is the "Shalka Doctor", played by Richard E Grant. This animated on-line series was produced as a means of bringing back the series - only to be scuppered by the 2003 announcement that it was returning to television under RTD. Few regard it as canon, but RTD2 now claims his inclusion here makes it so. Few still regard it as canon...

Story 309: Dot and Bubble

In which the Doctor and Ruby attempt to save a society which is obsessed with social media... 

The population of a colony known as Finetime has a unique demographic, comprising only young adults. They have been sent here from Homeworld to work in a variety of mundane administrative tasks but spend their entire lives, from waking to sleeping, engaging with their social network Bubbles. These are literal bubbles of audio-video links with their particular circle of friends and favourites whom they follow. They are constantly enveloped by small screens, generated by tiny machines known as Dots.

Finetime is surrounded by a densely forested region known as the Wild Woods, in which there are many dangers, but the colonists have no reason to ever venture from their regulated domain.

One morning a young woman named Lindy Pepper-Bean notices that some of her friends are missing from her Bubble, and others report experiencing the same thing. 

She then sees a stranger, who tries to warn her of danger. This is the Doctor. He claims that Finetime has become infested with monsters. Not knowing him at all and annoyed at his intrusion, she ignores the warning.

As the day progresses she finds more friends going off-line. Another stranger appears whilst she is at work, this time a young woman - Ruby. She claims to work for the company she is employed by and wishes her to confirm that all of her colleagues are at work today. She advises her to deactivate her Bubble, at least momentarily, so she can check this. Loathe to do so, she looks through a gap in her screens - and witnesses one of her colleagues being consumed by a huge slug-like creature.

The Doctor joins Ruby on screen to reiterate his warning about the monsters. Lindy must turn off her Bubble and leave her office. She assumes that the creatures must have invaded from the Wild Woods. At one point the Doctor and Ruby see her review a message from her mother, Penny, and both recognise the woman - but not from the same place. The Doctor knows her as the face of the Ambulances on Kastarion 3, whilst Ruby is reminded of a hiker encountered in Wales.

Unfortunately, the inhabitants of Finetime have become so addicted to their Bubbles that they can hardly function without them - reliant on the Dots telling them what to do. Lindy can't walk in a straight line without them.

The Doctor is puzzled when Lindy comes face to face with one of the creatures - a Mantrap - but it ignores her.

Once outside in the street, Lindy witnesses other people being devoured. She tries contacting the authorities, but no-one answers. Looking to her friends for help, she sees one of them attacked by a Mantrap.

Someone then calls out to her, and she recognises him as Ricky September - a popular influencer whom she follows. He reveals that, despite being a huge social media star, he hardly ever uses it himself. He is therefore not reliant on the Dots and knows of a way out of the colony, via the underground infrastructure. He leads her to a conduit where he tries to contact Homeworld. He learns that it too has fallen victim to the Mantraps, but decides not to tell Lindy of this - trying to reassure her that help will soon come from there. There is a series of locked doors to get through before they can reach safety through a water course out of the colony.

The Doctor gets back in contact and reveals that he worked out why the Mantrap earlier failed to attack Lindy. They are killing people in alphabetical order - and have now reached the letter "P". 

As there is some intelligence behind their actions, the Doctor realises that they have not come from the Wild Woods at all. They have actually been created by the Dots, which have come to detest the society which they are forced to serve. Next in line to die, Lindy's Dot attacks her but she is defended by Ricky. 

She suddenly announces that she knows that "September" is not his real name. It is really Coombs, and he only changed it as part of his plan to become famous.

The Dot therefore kills him. Lindy has intentionally sacrificed him to give her enough time to escape into a tunnel beyond the conduit.

At the end of this she finds a small group of fellow survivors, who are preparing to leave by boat for the Wild Woods. The Doctor and Ruby are here with the TARDIS.

He offers to take them all to safety, arguing that they will never be able to survive on their own.

However, Lindy and the others reject his help outright as he is not like them. His skin is the wrong colour.

The Doctor is shocked and frustrated but can do nothing to help the group as they sail away...

Dot and Bubble was written by Russell T Davies and was first broadcast on Saturday 1st June 2024.

It's the second episode in a row to feature only minimal involvement from the Doctor. Apart from the final sequence, Gatwa only ever appears in brief messages within Lindy's Bubble. The same applies to Ruby this time. Like Blink in 2007, this episode elects to concentrate on the guest character of Lindy.

Initially she comes across as a shallow, social media-obsessed individual - though no different from anyone else in this society. We then see that she isn't simply naïve to the point of uselessness, but has a really nasty streak. First she deliberately causes the death of the person who has tried to save her - someone she has been a great admirer of - but then we see that she, like everyone in Finetime, is an out and out racist. The signs were there to see if you had paid attention from the start, as there hadn't been a single non-white face in her Bubble. It's only the second time we've seen the Doctor actively discriminated against - the first being in The Witchfinders, when it was on the grounds of gender.

He's obviously horrified and saddened when his help is rejected - knowing full well that the survivors don't stand a chance outside their ordered colony - but the bottom line is that this lot don't deserve to survive. Perhaps the ending might have had more impact had they been worth saving - but still refused his help.

Mentioned in reviews at the time was the fact that this story was akin to an episode of Black Mirror. As the name suggests, it's a series which holds a mirror up to current society and, like all good sci-fi, extrapolates some aspect of it - taking it to the extreme. In this instance it is the increasing obsession with social media. The inhabitants of Finetime are so reliant on their Bubbles that they can't function on even the most basic level without their Dots. We see that Lindy relies on them even to walk in a straight line without knocking into the furniture. I'm sure I'm not the only person who has seen someone almost knocked over by a car when they've stepped out onto a road whilst staring at their mobile phone, or witnessed a similar near miss. You hardly ever see anyone these days with a good old-fashioned book on public transport, and even toddlers are given screens to watch to keep them quiet.

Then we have Ricky the influencer, who doesn't actually use social media all that much but exploits it for fame. I doubt very much that any real influencers are so disciplined as to pay little attention to their "likes". The way in which Lindy sacrifices him so easily isn't just there to show us what a horrible person she is, but to also show that such people are not real friends at all when it comes down to it.

Lindy is played by Callie Cooke, best known for series such as Cheaters, Henpocalyse! and Rules of the Game. Ricky is Tom Rhys Harries. He featured in the second Inbetweeners movie as well as Britannia and Love Actually, and has recently been cast as comic book character Clayface, part of the DC Universe.

Playing Lindy's mother Penny, seen only in a video message, is Susan Twist. This marks the first time in the season that the Doctor and Ruby notice that they have seen this woman's face before somewhere else.

Overall, it is one of the better episodes of this first Gatwa / RTD2 season, with a fairly traditional monster of the week feel whilst the ending does pack an emotional punch. Gatwa's unavailability in such a short season is beginning to tell, however, as there's only three more episodes to go and we've hardly had time to get to know this incarnation of the Doctor.

Things you might like to know:

• There is a specific Black Mirror episode which RTD2 has said acted as an inspiration for this, both in terms of plot and overall look. This is "Nosedive", first shown on Netflix in October 2016. This is set in a society where people have implants which monitor how everyone interacts with each other, giving them ratings out of five. A woman notices that her ratings are falling and becomes obsessed by this, as low ratings can lead to becoming a social outcast. The colour palette for the episode was mostly bright pastel shades, whereas most episodes of the series went for darker tones. 
• Another inspiration for this episode might possibly be The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, as there is a definite sense of the Golgafrinchan B-Ark about the society of Finetime. Have the adults of Homeworld simply gotten rid of their social media-obsessed youths to this colony to carry out meaningless jobs because they served no other purpose?
• Davies had briefly pitched the idea for this story to Steven Moffat as an Eleventh Doctor story for Series 5. At the time it was felt impossible to make.
• With Gatwa's casting it had been suggested that the Doctor could experience racism when he visited Earth history, but Davies realised that racism might not just be confined to the past - and so had him confront it here in the far future. The character of Krasko in Rosa had already shown that racism still persisted in the 52nd Century.
• Homeworld appears to be an Earth colony as Ricky is seen performing a cover of Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, made famous by Brian Hyland in 1960. It was repopularised, if such a thing is possible, in 1990 when covered by novelty act Bombalurina (aka supremely annoying TV "personality" Timmy Mallett).
• The inhabitants of Finetime are said to all be aged between 17 - 27. Callie Cooke was 29 at the time, whilst Tom Rhys Harries was 32.
• When location photographs first appeared online, many fans thought that the monsters were Tractators, as seen in Frontios.

Story 308: 73 Yards

In which the TARDIS materialises on a bleak, windswept headland on the Welsh coast. It is the present day, and on leaving the ship the Doctor and Ruby spot something unusual on the ground - a pattern of string and various oddments known as a "fairy ring".

The Doctor tells Ruby of a particularly dangerous Welshman named Roger ap Gwilliam who, as Prime Minister in 2046, would bring the world to the brink of nuclear war. He declines to say any more as this is in his companion's future.

Ruby is reading some notes attached to the ring, including one referencing a "Mad Jack". The Doctor accidentally disturbs the ring, and Ruby suddenly finds herself alone on the clifftop. She is unable to get back inside the TARDIS.

On the horizon she spots a female figure who appears to be speaking and gesticulating towards her, though she is too far away to hear. As she approaches, the woman always seems to be the same distance away from her.

Deciding to go in search of the Doctor and seek shelter, she finds that the woman is following her - but always at a distance.

A hiker then appears, who acknowledges the woman. Ruby asks her to speak to the figure and find out what she wants. She then sees the hiker approach the woman - and run off as if she has seen or heard something horrifying, first staring back at Ruby.

Ruby eventually comes to a small village and goes to the inn to spend the night - despite the locals being far from welcoming. They too can see the woman, now standing in a lane near the inn. Ruby tells them that she fears that by disturbing the ring she has unleashed some supernatural power - that of "Mad Jack" - and is horrified when they agree with her. However, it quickly transpires that they are simply pulling her leg. One of the customers, Josh, goes to speak with the woman - and he too rushes away in a panic after turning to stare at Ruby.

The next day Ruby returns to London by train, and continues to see the woman along the journey. The figure follows her home. Her mother, Carla, goes to confront the woman - but suffers the same reaction as the hiker and Josh. She refuses any further contact with Ruby.

She decides to call upon UNIT for help and arranges a meeting with Kate Stewart to tell her of what has been happening. UNIT troops surround the figure and Kate approaches - and she too appears horrified by what she sees and hears. She immediately withdraws her personnel and leaves.

The years pass and Ruby has to live with the figure constantly in attendance, always the same distance away from her. She has worked this out as exactly 73 yards.

She then spots a news item about an up-coming populist politician - Roger ap Gwilliam, of the Albion Party. Recalling how the Doctor had mentioned him just before vanishing, she realises that he may be the key to what has been happening and determines to get to know more about him. Her suspicions are confirmed when he mentions in an interview that he used to have the nickname "Mad Jack", as when younger he was regarded as a jack-of-all-trades.

Ruby is able to become a volunteer on his election campaign team, and sees immediately that he has extreme right-wing views. She also learns that he sexually exploits some of the female members of his team. He wins the 2046 election by a landslide and becomes Prime Minister, and arranges a huge press event at Cardiff Stadium. Knowing of future events, Ruby has a way of stopping him. At the stadium she positions herself exactly 73 yards away from Roger, so that the woman is standing right beside him. He flees in terror, and the next day it is announced that he has resigned - his party collapsing in his absence.

Forty years later, the elderly Ruby revisits the TARDIS landing site - the mysterious woman still 73 yards away as she leaves flowers beside the abandoned Police Box.

In 2089, Ruby is in hospital nearing the end of her life. One night she is awoken by whispering and sees the woman now standing in the room. She approaches closer and as she does so Ruby dies - only to find herself back in 2024 and observing events from the viewpoint of the woman. 

The Doctor identifies the fairy ring as something to be respected and advises Ruby not to read any of the notes people have left at it.

This time they do not disturb it - and the mysterious woman vanishes from the horizon...

73 Yards was written by Russell T Davies and was first broadcast on Saturday 24th May 2024.

On being cast as the Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa already had commitments to the TV series Sex Education and so it was known that at least one of the eight new episodes would have to be "Doctor-lite" - a set-up which had been common practice ever since 2006, when a regular Christmas Special was added to the annual production schedule. These episodes allowed the companion to take centre stage so had a narrative usefulness as well as a practical side. The Doctor would appear at some point - usually just topping and tailing the instalment as they were trapped, or off somewhere else for the majority of the running time. Often the Doctor-lite episode was planned to allow for an episode which featured the lead actor prominently, and this time the companion might not feature much.

Bearing in mind that he had spent the previous episode stuck on a landmine, unable to do more than talk, there was some concern that having a Doctor-lite episode so early in his first run - one of only eight episodes - might be damaging towards getting Gatwa established. In hindsight this concern proved to be well-founded, as the Doctor would have very little input into the next episode as well, featuring only briefly until a major scene at the conclusion.

So, it is very much Millie Gibson's episode this one, and starts off as a nice bit of "folk horror". This genre has seen an upsurge of popularity in recent years after a boom in the 1970's - the "Haunted Generation as Fortean Times calls it - though it has its modern roots in the works of MR James amongst others. There is a rural setting, and generally some ancient superstition unique to a small community, with events often triggered by some incomer to the area, ignorant of local ways. A trio of movies are said to epitomise the genre - Witchfinder General, Blood on Satan's Claw, and The Wicker Man.

On TV we had The Children of the Stones and the Ghost Stories For Christmas.

Back in 1970's Doctor Who we were presented with some stereotypical renditions of regional locations - especially in stories such as The Green Death and Terror of the Zygons. 

Here, a Welshman presents us with a less than charming representation of the rural Welsh. The staff and customers of the inn are rude and sarcastic and make fun of the visiting Londoner. The locals do point out that they are not village idiots, but Ruby isn't assuming that they are - and do they have to behave in such a negative fashion?

Apart from potential damage to the Welsh tourism industry, this is also where the episode begins to go awry. Had it remained a good, spooky folk horror, it might have gone down a lot better - but instead it suddenly dog-legs into a political thriller which is more than a little derivative of Stephen King's The Dead Zone (1979). This features someone who has future knowledge that a politician will go on to cause a nuclear war and so sets out to stop them before this can come to pass. Instead of assassinating ap Gwilliam, Ruby simply sets her spectre on them by cleverly positioning herself 73 yards away from him.

There are two big Welsh actors in the episode, though by splitting the narrative in two and having each in only their half, they come across as somewhat underused - especially Sian Phillips who plays Enid Meadows, a customer of the inn who at first appears to be knowledgeable about Mad Jack and the fairy ring. This proves to be little more than a cameo for Phillips, who is probably best known for her portrayal of the Empress Livia in I, Claudius.

Having a bit more to do is Aneurin Barnard as Roger ap Gwilliam. RTD2 is clearly having a go at the rise of populist politicians on either side of the Atlantic, who exploit societal fault-lines to advance extremist, usually right-wing, policies.

Barnard had played Richard III in the TV drama The White Queen, and portrayed photographer David bailey, opposite Karen Gillan as model Jean Shrimpton in We'll Take Manhattan (2012).

Jemma Redgrave makes another appearance as Kate Stewart of UNIT, and also returning briefly are Anita Dobson as Mrs Flood, Michelle Greenidge as Carla, and Angela Wynter as Ruby's grandma Cherry.

The BBC's Amol Rajan, who currently hosts University Challenge, plays himself. interviewing ap Gwilliam for Newsnight.

Susan Twist plays the hiker, and for the first time Ruby acknowledges that she has seen this woman's face before.

Overall, it was very popular - but I would have preferred it to have either been a folk-horror story throughout, or a political thriller (preferably the former) and not attempted to smash the two genres together. Did Davies have two story idea that he simply couldn't develop into full episodes? That's how it feels.

Things you might like to know:

• Exactly what the woman says or does to terrify people is never explained, and RTD2 said he wouldn't be telling. All we know is that magic is involved as the fairy ring's disturbance is the cause of the Doctor's disappearance, and Ruby then has to live her life full circle to bring him back.
• Some prehistoric structures such as roundhouses or barrows had been thought of as fairy circles in the past, though the most common form is a natural one - a ring of fungi. The ring here appears to be inspired more by The Blair Witch Project (1999).
• We will later learn that 73 yards just happens to be the extent of a TARDIS perception filter's effects. People don't seem to notice the strange woman until Ruby points her out to them.
• Kate Stewart states that this is now an alternate timeline, one in which magic exists and more supernatural events take place. UNIT troops are said to carry both salt and silver as defences against witchcraft.
• When Ruby approaches UNIT for help, Kate states that the organisation is now actively recruiting former companions of the Doctor.
• This was the first episode of the 14th series to be recorded, and the very first scene shot was one of a 30 year old Ruby.
• At one point Ruby thinks that the "Mad Jack" mentioned in a poem on the note might be a dog. Davies later admitted that it was, but the reference was enough to trigger her memory of the warning the Doctor had given about ap Gwilliam.
• This is the fourth episode to launch directly into the narrative and dispense with opening titles / music.
• There is a Virgin New Adventures reference for fans of those books. One of the inn customers drinks a beer called Llanfer Ceiriog. This was the name of a Welsh village which appeared in the novel Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark (Andrew Hunt, 1992).
• Sian Phillips is the daughter-in-law of actor Leonard Sachs, best known as the Master of Ceremonies of music hall variety show The Good Old Days, but who also played Admiral de Coligny in The Massacre, and President Borusa in Arc of Infinity.