WHO REVIEW: The War Games in Colour

 

As part of the 60^th anniversary celebrations, the Beeb released The Daleks in Colour, an edited down, colourised omnibus of the second Doctor Who serial (and the earliest one they can currently show, due to an absurd copyright dispute). It wasn't terribly good. So I greeted the news of The War Games in Colour with cautious interest. The War Games is one of the best 60s serials, and while it's overlong, it's entertaining across all ten episodes, which is no mean feat.

Cutting a story down from four hours to ninety minutes means a lot has to go in the bin, even more so when new footage has been generated to swish things up. Still, The War Games is a story with plenty that can be chopped; while the padding is all enjoyable, it's still padding, put in to stretch out a story that had to fill the gap of two late in the day. It's an important story, though: Patrick Troughton's final story; the last of the monochrome era; the introduction of the Time Lords and the Doctor's exile to Earth.

The War Games in Colour, fortunately, works. It's a vast improvement on The Daleks in spite of taking more liberties with the original material. Visually, it's a massive step-up from The Daleks; part of this is down to better quality of the original footage, but a lot of it is down to more consistent and logical colouring work. A large chunk of the story being set in familiar historical locations means that there are realistic colours to try to recreate, but even the alien locales, in the War Games headquarters and Time Lords' capital, a less over-the-top than the Dalek cities while still making the most of the incredibly late-60s psychodelic design.

The music is also an improvement on whatever was going on in The Daleks, with much of the original score surviving, albeit somewhat remixed, although there's still a weird tendency to make some scenes sound like the worst excesses of 80s Who. (This sort of thing has been happening since the 90s patchwork release of Shada.) Musical cues are also used to highlight story connections, in a cheeky but obvious retcon: it's made abundantly clear that the War Chief is now meant to be considered an earlier incarnation of the Master. While the use of both the original Master theme and the Murray Gold one are obtrusive, due to being entirely out of keeping with the rest of the score, I'm completely in favour of the idea. I've always been in the War Chief = Master camp, so it's nice to have some validation of this on screen (with plausible deniability if you don't like the idea).

It's certainly a pacier version of the story, and while this means you can comfortably enjoy it all in one sitting, it also means the story loses a great deal of its original atmosphere. The original serial had a slow build-up of foreboding as the extent of what was happening was revealed, while here everything is explained at breakneck speed. Whole chunks of the story are excised, and while a lot of this is just capture-escape-capture stuff used to bulk the original serial out, it also makes the story and the Aliens' plot seem a lot smaller. Lady Jennifer is scarcely in it now, which is frankly a crime.

The most notable changes come at the story's climax, highlighting an old issue with how The War Games is viewed by fans. We tend to treat the first nine episodes as an extended prologue for the last one, when the Time Lords show up, put the Doctor on trial and sentence him to exile and a change of appearance. With so much of the preceding plot removed, the focus is even more heavily on the ending, with the majority of extra material added here. There's new CGI material throughout, most strikingly a outside look at the Aliens' base, and while it all looks great, it's so clearly of a different style and grade to the original footage that it sticks out like the proverbial tender thumb. This is ratcheted up a notch when we're approaching Gallifrey, making the final scenes feel even more separate to the rest of the story.

The biggest change, of course, is the addition of the regeneration. Originally, all we got was Troughton spinning away into blackness, pulling faces until his image was obscured completely. The net time we saw the Doctor, he was played by Jon Pertwee, tumbling out of the TARDIS at the beginning of Spearhead from Space. Now the entire trial is rejigged – much more effectively, in fact – and the story ends with a full regeneration sequence, put together using archive footage, rendering and new effects. On the whole, it works, and gives the Second Doctor a rather more dignified send-off than he got before. Where this leaves the old “Season 6B” theory is anyone's guess, as there appears to be even less of a gap for the Doctor to nip off for some extra adventuring than there used to be, but entire eras have been shoehorned into less feasible places. The only thing I'm not keen on is the substitution of the Tenth to Thirteenth Doctors for the Doctor's parade of possible faces. Something like it has been done before by fans, of course, but in an official story it's a bit too knowing. (It would have been more fun to stick in photos of some of the actors who were considered to take over from Troughton.)

At the end of the day, though, whether you want to consider this the “real” events of The War Games or ignore it completely is up to you. As an alternative version of the story it works, providing a punchier, far shorter yet still effective adventure, while the 1969 original still sits there, untouched and ready to watch.

Mike and Angelo

Some perfect COVID-19 isolation viewing: the regeneration episode of Mike and Angelo from 1990, where Tim Whitnall takes over from Tyler Butterworth. Angelo contracts some kind of extraterrestrial illness and changes his appearance, in a scene not remotely inspired by Doctor Who, honest.



Fun fact: Tyler Butterworth is the son of Peter Butterworth, who played the Meddling Monk on Doctor Who in 1966. Given that Angelo here regenerates, and arrives on Earth in a spaceship which disguises itself as a wardrobe, it's pretty clear he's part Time Lord. Blatantly, the Monk is Angelo's dad (he must have settled on the extradimensional planet Ptarg for a time). Angelo's dad actually turns up in a later episode, played by Ron Moody, so he is obviously another incarnation of the Monk, somewhere amongst Peter Butterworth, Graeme Garden and Rufus Hound.

On the Origins of the Doctor

There is a ridiculous amount of ire being directed at the most recent episode of Doctor Who for its latest retcon. Some idiots have even complained to the BBC because they didn't like this latest work of fiction. Look, we fans are all invested in this show, and there's no obligation to like any particular element of it, but seriously?

The daftest thing is that's there was never a sacrosanct background for the Doctor. The ideas that fans are holding onto as the core mythology came in gradually, over years and years, and are in flagrant contradiction to many elements that came before, or even at the same time. Dozens of writers have twisted Doctor Who into different shapes and it's absurd to attack this latest revamp as if it's somehow cultural offensive.

Back when Doctor Who started, there was no series bible. The original character outlines suggested the Doctor was from the far future and was fleeing a galactic war, but none of this even made it into the final script for the pilot episode. In this, which you can easily see on The Beginnings DVD box set, the Doctor and Susan are a bit more concrete about their origins than in the broadcast version of An Unearthly Child. Susan specifically says she's from the 49th century, rather than just "another time, another world." There's nothing in either version to say that she and the Doctor are aliens, they could be humans from an advanced future civilisation. Indeed, the Doctor's line, "I tolerate this century but I don't enjoy it" suggests the latter.

Different episodes throughout the Hartnell era give hints that they are alien beings, but others suggest they are merely humans. The Doctor explicitly refers to himself as human more than once. Examinations only suggest one heart in his body, which continues through the Troughton years. On the other hand, the Daleks, in The Dalek Masterplan, when the Doctor is referred to as human, say "that is how he appears to you." In The Evil of the Daleks, they say his travels through time are what have made him "more than human." This is after his first change of appearance - not yet called a regeneration - which the Doctor says is "part of the TARDIS." In the original script for The Destiny of Doctor Who, which would evolve into The Power of the Daleks, the Doctor makes it clear he has changed before, but this doesn't make it to the broadcast version.

It's very clear in the earliest episodes that the Doctor built the TARDIS, and Susan evens states that she came up with the name. It's not until The Time Meddler in 1965 that we meet another member of their people, the Meddling Monk, and while retroactively he's been considered a Time Lord, there's nothing here that suggests he's not another advanced future human. It isn't until The War Games in 1969 that the Doctor gets an official backstory, and we learn that he is a Time Lord. He says the Time Lords are "immortal, barring accidents," but there's no hint that they can all change appearance like he has.

The shift into colour brings the Doctor down to Earth, but in retaliation to this, his background is now much more explicitly alien. The Pertwee Doctor has two hearts and inhuman blood, and displays numerous biological oddities throughout his tenure. We learn a lot more about the Time Lords during his era, meeting the Master, his one-time school chum, now best enemy, and later Omega, the founder of Time Lord society. The Three Doctors brings different Doctors together for the first time, with Hartnell's version called the earliest by the Time Lords, so that seems pretty clear cut. We hear the name Gallifrey for the first time in 1973. In Pertwee's final story, we get the first use of the word regeneration to describe the Doctor's transformations, and learn that it's something all Time Lords can do. We also learn that more accomplished Time Lords like K'anpo can project their own future incarnations for a little help around the house.

Tom baker's era is one of dark and mysterious forces from the dawn of time. Robert Holmes rewrote The Brain of Morbius, which provides a great deal of new Time Lord mythology, such as the war criminal Morbius and the Sisterhood of Karn, who assist the Time Lords when regeneration fails. The Doctor loses his mind battle with Morbius, being pushed "back - back to (his) very beginnings!" The eight faces seen after Pertwee, Troughton and Hartnell are very clearly intended to be earlier versions of the Doctor. This was explicitly the production team's intent, and they should know, they were those faces. However, the scene is ambiguous enough that fans have been able to interpret it other ways over the year.

Not much later, the same writer would give us The Deadly Assassin, a story that reworked the omnipotent Time Lords as stuffy old space dons and the Master as a cadaverous ghoul. Now it's Rassilon who founded Time Lord society; the black hole that powered it in The Three Doctors is called the Eye of Harmony and kept hidden under the Capitol. We get a limit on Time Lord regenerations - twelve regenerations, thus thirteen lives, in order to give the Master a mission. Even here when the limit is introduced, it's clear it can be overcome with enough power. Going by Morbius, it looks like Tom Baker must be the penultimate Doctor, barring a reprieve.

We see other versions of regenerations over the next few years. The Minyans rejuvenate thousands of times, Mawdryn and the mutants suffer endless mutation, both using Time Lord technology. The Master is able to steal an alien body, rejuvenating it in the process, using the power of the Source of Traken, and is offered a new set of regenerations in The Five Doctors. Oddly enough, he's offered this by Borusa, who is searching for the secret of immortality when he seems to already have it at his fingertips. This story has the Hartnell Doctor concretely state he is "the original," even though he's been recast, and when he meets Davison he exclaims, "Ah! So there are five of me now!" Mawdryn Undead also backs this up and states the Doctor has eight more regenerations left from his original twelve. So the Davison Doctor is the fifth.

Come Remembrance of the Daleks in 1988, and the new production team are sowing seeds of a new backstory, with the Doctor hinting that he was around when the first time travel experiments were happening on ancient Gallifrey. Oh, and Rassilon and Omega were contemporaries, so that solves that one. Lady Peinforte is ready to reveal the Doctor's secrets from the old time, but he doesn't seem to care. Over the years, the Docotr has suggested he left his home out of fear, or boredom, or a desire to be part of the universe, not just watch it. Here, though, he's been laying traps for deadly aliens, fighting Fenric and the Gods of Ragnarok "all through time!" and even took the Hand of Omega to London in 1963.

These developments continues in the New Adventures novels, culminating in Lungbarrow, which created an entirely new backstory for the Doctor. In this telling, Time Lords are woven from genetic looms in families of "cousins," a response to a curse of sterility in the ancient times of Gallifrey. Regeneration was created as part of this. The Doctor is, in fact, the reincarnation of the Other, the mysterious third architect alongside Rassilon and Omega, who was among the last of the womb-born. He through himself into the first Loom and was rewoven, centuries later, as the First Doctor. This makes Susan a bit of an anomaly, so it's revealed she's not the Doctor's granddaughter, but the Other's, and the Doctor went back and rescued her from ancient Gallifrey. The suggestion is that the faces seen in Morbius are the faces of the Other, although he explicitly can't regenerate.

The TV Movie comes along in 1996, revealing that the Doctor is half-human on his mother's side, and Lungbarrow gamely lays a few hints to this. The movie also moves the Eye of Harmony into the TARDIS, makes it operable by humans only, and also has the Master exterminated and turned into a body-snatching slug. This is all considerably upsetting to some fans, but the original treatments would have had the Doctor and the Master as half-brothers, sons of the Time Lord explorer Ulysses.

Just because this never makes it to the screen doesn't mean it doesn't factor into the novels. Lance Parkin had already suggested the Doctor was much older than he seemed in the Missing Adventure Cold Fusion, where he meets his million-year-old Gallifreyan wife and shares memories of an earlier incarnation who looks rather like one of the Morbius faces. He follows this up with The Infinity Doctors, a Past Doctor Adventures novel that takes all the lore about Gallifrey and the Time Lords from years of material and tries to weave it together, in spite of the contradictions. The Doctor involved sounds like he might be played by Paul McGann like in the movie, but he might not, and the story is notoriously impossible to place in location with others. Characters from this are mentioned in Blum and Orman's Unnatural History, an Eighth Doctor Adventure that sees the Doctor meet someone who might be his father, while also revealing that the Doctor's biodata - kind of temporal DNA - has been altered dozens of times, rewriting his history. According to this, he's always been half-human, but only since he regenerated into the McGann model. This isn't even the last of it.

The destruction of Gallifrey by the Doctor in a great Time War happens twice, first in the EDAs and then as part of the backstory of the revived TV series. As part of this, some authors work on the idea that Gallifrey was merely blown up, and others than it was erased from history. To resolve the paradox of the latter idea, Justin Richards rewrites reality so that the Doctor is actually a crystalline skeleton man from the end of the universe, who eventually turned into the First Doctor and landed in London, 1963. This does not stick. Parkin follows it up with the final novel in the range, which actually brings Ulysses and Penelope - a human character from the New Adventures - in for a flashback as the Doctor's parents. The Master's dad is in it too. At least, all this is heavily implied.

Doctor Who returns to the screen after a couple of false starts as animated webcasts, one of which brings back the McCoy Doctor, makes him the last of the godlike Time Lords, then kills him off, and another which makes Richard E. Grant the official Ninth Doctor before he's overwritten completely. Russel T. Davies avoids much continuity in the Christopher Eccleston series, although he states he's a Time Lord and we learn all the others were wiped out in a Time War. There's no Eye of Harmony at the heart of the TARDIS, but looking into it can grant superpowers and/or kill you. The next Doctor is played by David Tennant, and the references to classic material creep in. The Master is resurrected, the Doctor regenerates into himself, and a handy spare hand is grown into a new Doctor, who is half-human. The new Doctor doesn't like being half-human at all, so it certainly doesn't seem like his mum was human.

The Next Doctor plays with the idea of Tennant leaving by having a decoy next incarnation - "or next but one, a future Doctor anyway" - and there's no suggestion the Doctor is running low on bodies. He's not keen to regenerate when it comes, although the Master has apparently cracked immortality at last. The Time Lords return from the last day of the Time War, where the Doctor destroyed them to prevent them from unleashing hell and destroying the universe. They're led by Rassilon, who's looking decidedly more active these days.

Moffat takes over and Matt Smith becomes the Doctor. The sixth series sees the Doctor apparently die, but also shows he's clearly got some regenerations left. But the death is a ruse so perhaps the regenerations are too. However, Eccleston's reluctance to return for the 50th anniversary special sees Moffat create an entirely new version of the Doctor, played by the great John Hurt, only he doesn't call himself the Doctor so the numbering is maintained, arguably. We finally see McGann regenerate into a new Doctor, but not the one we were expecting. Time travel shenanigans mean that Gallifrey was never destroyed at all, as "all thirteen" Doctors, including the next one, hide it in a pocket universe from which there may be no return.

The next episode, it returns, speaking through a crack in time and almost triggering another Time War. The Matt Smith Doctor, who even calls himself the Eleventh, reveals he's actually the last, since John Hurt and the double-Tennant both use up a regeneration. The Time Lords give the Doctor a whole new bunch of regenerations. Regeneration number thirteen turns him into Peter Capaldi, and he wonders if he may ever stop regenerating. We've also learned in Moffat's tenure that Time Lords can change gender when they regenerate, something we've only seen in semi-official comedy stories before. Missy is revealed as the new Master. Gallifrey is moved out of its pocket universe to the end of time, the Doctor discovers the secret of immortality in two very different ways, and eventually, he is mortally wounded fighting the Cybermen.

He meets the First Doctor again, recast but still calling himself the original. The First Doctor reveals he actually left Gallfrey to explore the problem of good and evil in the universe. We learn that he refused to regenerate at first, which we certainly never saw in 1966, and he's a lot more sexist than we remember too. The two Doctors regenerate after giving each other a pep talk, and the Doctor finally becomes a woman, which makes a certain type of fan very angry.

Given all of that, getting upset about the Timeless Child seems a bit silly, really.

Regeneration Rundown - 2nd update!

With a new Doctor come a new update on the list of regenerations, first and last lines.

To clarify my attempt to clearly number the Doctors:

To begin with, it's easy: same number for the Doctor, life and incarnation. Now it's fiddlier, but hopefully this rundown makes it clear. The Doctors are numbered one to thirteen, with the War Doctor, unnumbered, between the eighth and ninth. Incarnations refer to distinct faces, while lives refer to how many times the Doctor has regenerated. So, Peter Capaldi is the twelfth Doctor, but the thirteenth distinct incarnation. Smith to Capaldi was “regeneration number thirteen,” so he is on his fourteenth life. (I choose to use incarnation to refer to a form, not a lifespan; others disagree. It's really a matter of semantics, there's no right or wrong.) Thus Jodie Whittaker is the thirteenth Doctor, but the fourteenth incarnation and fifteenth life.

WHO REVIEW: 2017 Christmas Special - "Twice Upon a Time"

That was a very unusual Christmas special. Over the years we've had OTT Christmassy trimmings, explosions and bombast, and comedy silliness, often all three. This year, after the extraordinary two parter that ended series ten, we have a much gentler, much quieter affair that acts as an epilogue more than a story in its own right. I might question the wisdom of making the Christmas Day episode - the episode most likely to attract casual viewers - a follow-on from the previous episode and a sequel to 51-year-old black-and-white story, but Moffat seems to have pulled it off. I have to say seems to, because I can only view this from the perspective of someone who's steeped in this stuff. Of course I loved it, and most of my friends who are fans but not diehard Who nuts enjoyed it too. What it must have meant to someone who's taking a punt and has never seen the show before is beyond me.

In spite of the risk of starting something with a flashback to 1966, the opening is one of the best things about the episode. "709 episodes earlier..." states the caption, and shows us a scratchy bit of black-and-white footage of William Hartnell. This is a tricky thing to pull off, not least because you're about to see someone else take on the same role, but the segue from Hartnell to Bradley works beautifully. The move from lo-res monochrome to HD colour makes the differences in their appearance and voice less obvious, not more. It's almost saying, "and here's how it really looked." It also provides context for the fannish indulgence that helps makes sense for newer viewers. Most people who've heard of Doctor Who will know that the actor changes once in a while, so the obvious inference was that there was a first. This is his special comeback.

It's perhaps a little unfair on Capaldi to have him share his swansong with another actor in the same role. He's already going to face the inevitable overshadowing the moment his successor appears, so to have a guest star come in and pretty much steal every scene he's in is a bit harsh. But, we know he's enjoying this. It was Capaldi's idea to bring the Mondasian Cybermen back, and it was apparently his idea to get Bradley to play the first Doctor. This is as much an exercise in indulgence for Capaldi as it is for Moffat, two overexcited fanboys giving themselves one last treat before they go.

What did I love? Capaldi's was excellent throughout, as always. He brings any material up a notch. Rachel Talalay's direction was superb, as it always is, really lifting the scenes which could have dragged as just a bunch of people talking isn't the most visually exciting spectacle.Murray Gold's music was especially good, full of little callbacks to his earlier episodes (the Eccleston theme was a lovely touch). Seeing that he's going as well, it's only right that he should get to give himself a little send-off after twelve years of composing for the series.

Bringing Bill back was the right move. It's slightly baffling that Moffat creates one way to bring her back from the dead, has the character reference it, and then creates a completely different way to bring her back again. No character's safe now, the Testimony could bring anyone back for a cameo. It works though, because not only does Bill really need to be on hand to wave the twelfth Doctor goodbye, she also provides a perfect illustration of how times have changed since the series started, which is what this episode is all about. There barely were any black actors working for the BBC in the 60s, we certainly wouldn't have got an openly gay character, and it the contrast feels right. The little cameos from Nardole ("Aw, cuddle,") and Clara worked well too, although they probably would have played better reversed.

Mark Gatiss was absolutely perfect. Casting his buddy in a major guest role smacks of Moffat indulgence again, but he's so excellent as the war-fatigued Captain that it's entirely forgiveable. Gatiss really is astonishingly good at these "stiff-upper-lip" roles, bringing enormous pathos to a character that in other hands could have fallen very flat, in spite of the fine dialogue. I was waiting for him to be revealed as a Lethbridge-Stewart, and it was a moment that brought a little cheer when it came. Again, more fannish indulgence, but it's such a little thing that it didn't seem intrusive.

But yes, the big star of the episode was David Bradley. His version of the first Doctor is quite different in many ways from the original, but it's an interpretation of a character that convinces and Bradley becomes his own Doctor, much as Richard Hurndell did when they tried something similar back with The Five Doctors. He has just the right mix of grumpiness, compassion and humour, and for all the retconning, it's a fine exploration of the character. It makes perfect sense that the Doctor would resist his first regeneration - the idea would be terrifying! It was even part of earlier drafts of the script for The Tenth Planet. On the other hand, Hartnell's Doctor was never that sexist or pig-headedly old-fashioned. I understand why some fans are put out by this, but I see it as more of a comment on the time the series was created than the character itself. Sexist old first Doctor illustrates that yes, times have changed - after all, it doesn't make much sense that a time-travelling alien would reflect the mores of contemporary Western society, but he always has, so why not lampshade it? It works well, mainly because Bradley's performance of the lines, and Capaldi's cringing reaction to them, makes it so funny. And the "jolly good smacked bottom" line is a direct quote. We should probably be grateful he didn't start going on about Arabs.

For fans, the stronger contrast is between the "early days" first Doctor, who still wasn't quite the heroic figure we now know, even in his final few stories, and the brash superhero that the Doctor has become. Since David Tennant's first episode, the Doctor has been proclaiming that he's the protector of the Earth and threatening aliens with how awesome he is, and it's good to see this approach taken down a peg a little. Moffat is well aware of what works in the modern series, but isn't afraid to send up his own material and call back wistfully to times gone by. It's a tricky balance, but it works.

I love the idea of making the seemingly alien threat a very human, compassionate scheme, especially as the twelfth Doctor is left at a loss when there's no evil plan to defeat. Indeed, everything that happens in this episode is the Doctor's (and the TARDIS'), fault. The most powerful and affecting part of the episode, though, was the Christmas Day armstice. It would have been bizarre not to visit this, if we're doing a Christmas story involving WWI, and it's somewhat surprising that the series hasn't done so in the past, because it seems like such a perfectly Doctorish moment in history. I'm very glad they resisted any temptation to make the Doctor responsible for it, though. It's a truly wonderful moment in our history that needs to be treated with reverence.

The not-so-good? Well, the diversion to see Rusty the Dalek was a bit of an oddity, even though I guessed it was him pretty early on. It's an effective sequence, but it feels out of place in the episode and messes with the, already languid, pacing. Overall, it's a very talky episode and that's perhaps not the best idea for a Christmas extravaganza, so at least the Dalek mutants and laser blasts should have regained some of the kids' attention. As previously said, Capaldi misses out by having to share the limelight here, so it's only fair that he gets a long monologue to say goodbye to the character. That's what these farewell speeches are, of course - it's the actor's chance to say goodbye, not the Doctor's. It's beautifully performed, but my, it does go on a bit, doesn't it? I kind of miss the days when it was all over in a flash.

Altogether, though, this was just lovely, a cosy, reassuring little adventure for a winter's day that bids a fond farewell to Capaldi, Moffat and Gold. It's the biggest shake up since 2010, and even then, the music was still consistent. I'm a big fan of Moffat, but he's been running the show for seven years now - a couple of years longer than he even wanted to do - and it's time for a change. Speaking of which...

Number Thirteen:

I love regeneration episodes. The feeling of sadness as a Doctor leaves moving to excitement for the first few moments of the new Doctor. I have no time for people bitching about Jodie Whittaker's performance because of thinly-veiled reactionary sexism, and nor do I have much time for people gushing over here saying "OMG she's gonna be my favourite!" She has said two words. As with all the Doctors after their first few seconds, it's too early to judge her performance. Calm down! That said, I like her delivery of those two words, I love her smile, and I'm pleased she's kept her West Yorkshire accent.

WHO REVIEW: The Sixth Doctor - The Last Adventure

THE END OF THE LINE 

THE RED HOUSE 

STAGE FRIGHT 

THE BRINK OF DEATH

Colin Baker's made himself something of a controversial figure in the last month or so, predominantly with comments made in an interview intended to publicise this very release. Frankly, this isn't terribly important, and will be forgotten about soon enough. Mr C. Baker has never been shy when voicing his opinion, and more power to him. It's something he has in common with the incarnation of the Doctor he portrayed. The Last Adventure is a celebration of Baker and Doctor, a combination of actor and character that have stood against disproportionate criticism since their debut, over thirty years ago. It's time to celebrate all that's loved about Doctor no. 6, from his not-so-humble beginnings to his domination of Big Finish's audio series today.


A box set comprising four hour-long stories, The Last Adventure is rather like BF's earlier celebratory anthology releases, writ large. The stories span the Doctor's post-Trial period of adventures, which is entirely appropriate – it's this part of his history that is wholly missing from the TV series. The only problem with this is that Peri has no part to play, which is a pity, seeing that she was the sixth Doctor's main companion on TV. Still, we have a broad array of adventures here with many of the Doctor's friends from his sixth life taking part, in a series of adventures that are linked by the presence of the Valeyard. Caution – by necessity, this review contains significant SPOILERS.

Regeneration Rundown - updated!

With the release of Big Finish's sixth Doctor boxset The Last Adventure, now would seem to be the time to update the list of regenerations, first and last lines.

This has been somewhat complicated of late, with the numbering of the most recent few Doctors being called into question. To begin with, it's easy: same number for the Doctor, life and incarnation. Now it's fiddlier, but hopefully this rundown makes it clear. The Doctors are numbered one to twelve, with the War Doctor, unnumbered, between the eighth and ninth. Incarnations refer to distinct faces, while lives refer to how many times the Doctor has regenerated. So, Peter Capaldi is the twelfth Doctor, but the thirteenth distinct incarnation. Smith to Capaldi was “regeneration number thirteen,” so he is on his fourteenth life. (I choose to use incarnation to refer to a form, not a lifespan; others disagree. It's really a matter of semantics, there's no right or wrong.)

Iris Wildthyme, throughout time

Iris Wildthyme will shortly be with us once more, in the latest anthology from Obverse Books, The Perennial Miss Wildthyme (available for pre-order now). But who is this mysterious woman, who travels the multiverse in an interdimensional double-decker bus, seemingly a TARDIS that happens to be smaller on the inside than the outside? This self-described "Trans-Temporal Adventuress," a batty old mare who's centuries old even when she's young, unstoppably youthful when she's already old and who's best friend is a talking stuffed panda? A woman who has had many faces, who claims to be a Time Lord and yet says she's nothing of the sort. She knows she's a parody of the Doctor and this just makes her love him more. An old, mad fag hag who can't be trusted, who steals others' adventures and rewrites history to make them her own. A character with as many origin stories as she can think of on the spot, who loves a bit of splishy-splashy and is never without a cigarette?

Trying to make sense of Iris's many lives is a fool's errand, as she'd be the first to tell you. And she might warn you about the spoilers, but I doubt it. Here we go anyway...

The First Iris: Iris was (probably) born on the outskirts of Saga City in the Clockworks of the Obverse, and was christened Lilith. She lived with her aunts until she found the wreckage of her magical bus, which she piloted out of the Obverse and into universes new. (Iris's origins were seen in the novel Wildthyme Beyond!) Other origin stories suggest she actually grew up in similar circumstances in the wilds of Gallifrey, but this may be a retelling of her origins fitted to suit the history of the primary Doctor Who universe. Or perhaps the Clockworks and Gallifrey are nothing other than reflections of the same realm.


Much, much later in her first life she resembled the poet Edith Sitwell (whose look was not entirely unlike a female version of the first Doctor). She has been described as “a very old, imperious Iris... a grand dame glittering in a carapace of ebon pearls,” (from the DWM article “Bafflement and Devotion”). This version of Iris appeared, briefly, at the end of the story “Came to Believe” in the anthology Wildthyme on Top, and in the later collection Iris: Fifteen.

The Second Iris: This incarnation usually goes by the name Brenda Soobie, and is described as a Scots-Caribbean songstress. She appears physically to resemble Shirley Bassey, only with a different regional accent, of course. This version of Iris appeared in the novel Mad Dogs and Englishmen (with the eighth Doctor, after one of the destructions of Gallifrey), and the multi-Iris story “The Golden Hendecahedron” in Iris: Fifteen.


The Third Iris: The most frequently encountered version of Iris in the BBC books range, this incarnation is said to look like Beryl Reid. A long-lived, perpetually middle-aged incarnation, this Iris smokes like a chimney and carries a laser pistol. It was during this lifespan that Iris first met her travelling companions Tom, Jenny and Captain Turner, all of whom she'll travel with again in later life (or lives). This Iris first appeared in print opposite the fourth Doctor in “Old Flames” (in the collection Short Trips), and later the third Doctor in the novel Verdigris and the eighth Doctor in The Scarlet Empress. It was after this adventure that she regenerated, with the help of some Hysperon honey, into her fourth self, having previously been poisoned by toxic Dalek meat.

The Fourth Iris: One of Iris's younger incarnations, something she at first enjoyed but later came to dislike, missing the clout and authority of an older body. She looks uncannily like Jane Fonda in Barbarella, often wearing catsuits and twirling laser pistols about. This Iris made her first full appearance in the short story “Femme Fatale” (in More Short Trips), where she described herself as “Iris Mark Six,” but it's now clear that she is the fourth Iris. She was the heroine of the collection Iris Wildthyme of Mars, also appearing in the novel The Blue Angel, the charity short story “Iris Explains” and a few others. She has worked both for UNIT (briefly) and its Darlington-based rival, MIAOW. “The Golden Hendecahedron” makes it apparent that this Iris is the same as the occasionally mentioned “Iris with a long white braid,” who is simply a much older version of this body. She later had her appearance changed by the Clockwork canons for selling fake exercise videos.


The Fifth Iris: A very little seen incarnation who has so far only appeared in “The Golden Hendecahedron.” Initially red-haired, into 70s fashions and with brown eyes, she later started to go grey, and one eye turned blue after she peaked at a space explosion. She didn't mind, since it made her look like David Bowie.

The Sixth Iris: Nowadays the best known Iris, this is the version who appears in Big Finish's productions and the bulk of those from Obverse Books. This version of Iris was first described as looking like Gracie Fields, but since she is voiced in all her audio appearances by Katie Manning, she has been illustrated like that as well. Flamboyant and a heavy drinker, this is Iris's most famous and incorrigible self. She has appeared with the fifth Doctor in Excelis Dawns, the sixth in The Wormery and bumped into the third and eighth in the Companion Chronicles, where she also teamed up with Jo Jones (nee Grant). Yes, they're both played by Katy Manning, and no, Iris's previous encounter with Jo in Verdigris was not mentioned once. You can't expect that kind of consistency from Iris.


This Iris has starred in five series of audios for Big Finish (so far), travelling with Tom, Captain Turner and Panda at different stages. She's also the main character of the bulk of the short story collections. She's most commonly associated with Panda, and supposedly met him in this lifespan, via Tom. However, he's also been seen to travel with her fourth self, and was present at her very first encounter with the bus. It's possible Iris's adventures with Panda form one big temporal loop. She's been married, had children and grandchildren, but this was merely the flicker of an eyelash in her long life.

Possible Future Irises:


We've had several brushes with Iris's future selves, and while it must be stressed that these are only potential futures, these are the Irises we've met so far, including several from “The Golden Hendecahedron”:


The possible seventh Iris looks like Phyllis Diller, never stops talking and has the loudest, most abrasive laugh of any woman in the cosmos. She's physically elderly but doesn't dress like it.



The following Iris is nothing more than a ventriloquist's puppet, cursed to spend this entire lifespan in this reduced form by the Gamesmaster.


The next Iris after this had the physical form of a statuesque black man in drag, and wore a long, honey-coloured wig. As she said, she may sometimes be a man, but she's “always a lady.”


The final future Iris we met in this story was a tall, lisping incarnation who looked like Carol Channing. She smoked a pipe, wore a floral suit and was quite commanding.


The collection Iris: Fifteen included many stories featuring other versions of Iris. One such Iris, in the story “Gimme Shelter,” had recently regenerated into a teenaged form with frizzy blonde hair. She wasn't happy about this as she couldn't get served.


The story “God Engine Rhapsody” featured an Iris with an American accent and crimson-and-platinum hair.


A very sexy version of Iris became involved with MIAOW in “Our Tune.” She had jet black hair, and ruby red lips that matched her figure-hugging outfit. This Iris might be the same as one who featured in a later story, “Ouroboros,” with so-black-it's-purple hair, a trim figure and green eyes.


“The Wildthyme Effect” featured an Iris who was based in the sixties, owned a shop and was “proud to be a woman of means.” I have a suspicion that this is the same version of Iris who later became a star making televised recreations of her adventures, and dropped Panda in favour of the more marketable kangaroo, Hoppy.


The story “Samsāra” sees a new Iris, of Indian looks and accent, born from fire in front of her startled companion.


It's possible further incarnations feature in this collection, although some are given scant description and might be ones we know already. The piece “Iris at the V&A” describes images of Iris from various points in her timestream, including some of those above and more, such as an Iris with bright red hair with the look of, according to Panda, “a lesbian space pirate," (possibly the fifth Iris, possibly not).


Beyond this book, we know that seven of Iris's incarnations were present in the Death Zone due to a plot by the mad Time Lord Morbius. We have also met two future Irises on audio, although neither is quite the Iris we know and love.


Dan Hogarth played a male Iris in the audio adventure The Two Irises. He looked rather dashing in a velvet jacket, and shunned alcohol. This should've been the first clue: this wasn't really Iris at all, but a projection by her TARDIS-bus to stand in her place while she was away. This faux Iris took the name Hillary and settled down to life as a barkeep in Spain.



Finally, there's Bianca, voiced by Maria McErlane. Encountered as the villain of The Wormery, this is Iris's final form, her equivalent of the Valeyard. Bianca guts her bus and turns it into a transdimensional cabaret club, intending to forcibly bring peace to the universe. She tried to steal Iris's remaining lives but was defeated, and seemingly faded from existence.

The Original Iris:

Iris made her first ever appearance in the novel Marked for Life, part of a run of works set in and around the fictional Phoenix Court. These novels aren't sci-fi or fantasy per se, but working class, queer fiction with a dollop of magical realism. The original Iris Wildthyme was an elderly lesbian in a relationship with the main character's mother. She had a double-decker bus, of course, but this one was resolutely fixed to one spot. However, this Iris claimed to have lived for hundreds of years, and at the climax of the story, seemingly met her death, only to transform into a baby in what was very clearly a Doctor Who-inspired regeneration. Baby Iris continued to appear in the Phoenix Court novels, and after many years, the adult Iris appeared in her original universe in the short story "Hospitality" in the collection Iris: Abroad.

The original Iris was described by other characters as overweight, but was in fact quite tiny, merely swaddled in many, many layers of clothing. The image conjured is of the grandmother in the Giles cartoons, but with more glamour. Not a Time Lord or a Clockworker, she's earthly but seemingly immortal, compared to Orlando. Is this Iris the version who appears in the Obverse segments of the Doctor Who novel The Blue Angel, on a version of Earth that seems at once closer to our own and further away than the one regularly saved by the Doctor? In a strand of the novel that may be less or more real than the Doctor's adventures? And how does she relate to the temporal adventuress who put the Doctor there, living a life in a single old house from which various lodgers come and go?

Who knows who Iris really is. All we know is that there's no point asking her; you can't trust her answers anyway...


With thanks to Paul Magrs, the creator of Iris Wildthyme all those years ago. What wonderful lunacy you started!

The Many Regenerations of the Doctor

Had to share this piece of work by Stratos06th aka South Park Taoist. I'd fancied making something like this myself, but I could never have made something as good as this. While there are plenty more Doctors who could have been included on here, I think the artist has drawn the line at the right place. Any more would make the chart too busy, and I love the little inclusions of pastiche characters and mythic equivalents of the Doctor that wouldn't fit if, say, all the Morbius Doctors had been included separately. It's a great piece of work. Click to embiggen.

Re-Lego-ration

This must be watched by all. It's the cutest thing. (I don't know where the chicken leg comes from.)

Regeneration Rundown

So, with all the 'Doctor by Doctor' articles done, I thought it was time for a round-up of that most important element for list-making nerd-fans: the regenerations.


This has been somewhat complicated of late, with the numbering of the most recent few Doctors being called into question. To begin with, it's easy: same number for the Doctor, life and incarnation. Now it's fiddlier, but hopefully this rundown makes it clear. The Doctors are numbered one to twelve, with the War Doctor, unnumbered, between the eighth and ninth. Incarnations refer to distinct faces, while lives refer to how many times the Doctor has regenerated. So, Peter Capaldi is the twelfth Doctor, but the thirteenth distinct incarnation. Smith to Capaldi was “regeneration number thirteen,” so he is on his fourteenth life. Simple really.


Since the anniversary celebrations, we have a pretty full rundown of all the Doctor's regenerations, the reasons for them, and most of his selves' first and last lines. Even this is a bit complicated, though, with expanded universe media muddying the waters a bit. Still, here's my attempt to clear everything up. Wish me luck...