Doctor Who: The Cancelled Years - Season 51

Season 51 would’ve been the second season for Damien Molony as the Doctor, the final season for Kate Bracken as Heather McKenzie & the second season for Toby Whithouse as showrunner.

This would’ve been the final season for Kate Bracken as Heather McKenzie, who decided to move on after 2 years. Molony & Whithouse however would remain on. For this season, it was decided to bring back an old companion, much like Bernice Summerfield in Season 37, however unlike Bernice Summerfield, this companion would actually join the TARDIS team for a few episodes.

A few names were considered to bring back however the one Whithouse ended up deciding on was Jo Grant, played by Katy Manning. Therefore, Jo Grant would be returning as a companion for the final 4 episodes of the season, which was a big selling point for this season & created a big buzz for old fans of the show.

Like last season, this season would’ve consisted of 12 45 minute episodes split across 10 stories with the Season concluding with an xmas special

STORY ONE: Under the Lake 

WRITTEN BY: Toby Whithouse
DIRECTED BY: Daniel O'Hara
PRODUCED BY: Nikki Wilson

This would’ve been pretty much the same story as it is in our own universe. As such, I don't really need to discuss this one.

STORY TWO: Technophobia

WRITTEN BY: Matt Fitton
DIRECTED BY: Philip John
PRODUCED BY: Peter Bennett

The story sees the Doctor and Heather visiting the London Technology Museum in the year 2015, where they find that people are becoming scared of their technology, with people becoming terrified of simple things such as coffee machines, lifts & hoovers. & then they discover it’s happening all across London, as people are terrified of things such as card machines & begin throwing their phones & bank cards away.

It turns out that a race of aliens known as the Koggnossenti are hiding within the London underground & are using an alien machine to reduce the intelligence of humans so that they are frightened of their own technology and thus be unable to fight back so that the Koggnossenti can enslave the planet.

We find that the machine takes longer to affect the minds of people who have been travelling longer & haven’t been exposed to technology that much, which gives Heather more time to save the day. However, it doesn’t help the Doctor as his mind soon becomes affected, which renders him unable to use the sonic screwdriver or TARDIS.

Eventually however, Heather, with help from a local train driver named Kevin, are able to defeat the Koggnossenti when Heather gets purposely captured to distract the Koggnossenti so that Kevin can ram into the aliens machine with a train, which forces it to turn off. With the Doctor back to normal, he is given a brief moment to tamper with the Koggnossenti's machine so it would affect them. He then gives them a chance to leave however the Koggnossenti reactivate the machine regardless & rush to escape after realising they were now being affected, only to perish when they accidentally blow up their ship.

STORY THREE: The Sword of the Chevalier

WRITTEN BY: Guy Adams
DIRECTED BY: Ed Bazalgette
PRODUCED BY: Peter Bennett

This would’ve been a pseudo historical & would’ve covered the Chevalier d’Eon.

The story sees the Doctor taking Heather to Slough in 1791 to see the local telescope, where they meet the Chevalier d’Eon. Heather then tricks him into a duel against the Chevalier, which the Doctor loses. After this, the Doctor finds the famous telescope. However, upon looking into the telescope, he finds a ship belonging to the Karmeters, who first appeared in Season 46’s The Human Market, heading towards Earth.

 Together with Heather & the Chevalier, the Doctor tracks the ship down to Christopher Dalliard's house party, which he gains access to by pretending to be a famous Italian tenor. The trio eventually track down the group of Karmeters, who they find to be collecting humans to sell into slavery.

However, in the end, the Karmeters are defeated & sent away when the Doctor forces them to recognise him as a Time Lord, a superior being who they must obey, and he then orders them to go and release every single slave they ever sold.

STORY FOUR: Night of the Vashta Nerada

WRITTEN BY: John Dorney
DIRECTED BY: Philip John
PRODUCED BY: Peter Bennett

The story sees the Doctor & Heather arriving on Funworld, a planet-sized theme park. However, to their misfortune, they’ve arrived at night where everything is off. They soon discover a team of soldiers, led by a woman named Amanda Steele, who are hunting a predator who’s killed all the planet’s workers.

After the group's psychic, Phelan, makes contact with the predator, the Doctor identifies the predator as Vashta Nerada and he realises that they’ve been antagonised after the park’s owner, Donnelley, reveals that the world used to be filled with forests, that have been cleared for the park’s construction.

The Doctor urges the team to abandon the park, which they finally agree to after Phelan is killed. After the last member of her team dies, Steele is left trapped, however the Doctor saves her using the TARDIS. They then realise that Donnelley was returning to Earth in her spaceship, which was likely contaminated with Vashta Nerada. Landing onboard her ship, they found her dead, and the trio manage to return the ship to orbit over Funworld, though Steele ends up dying in the process by saving the Doctor & Heather from Vashta Nerada onboard by poisoning herself and letting them consume her.

The story then ends with the Doctor sending a broadcast from the ship warning that Funworld was unsafe and left, while also feeling ashamed that he was unable to save anyone.

STORY FIVE: Death and the Queen

WRITTEN BY: James Goss
DIRECTED BY: Daniel O'Hara
PRODUCED BY: Nikki Wilson

The story sees the Doctor & Heather travelling to the French Riviera in the 1780s, where Heather meets Rudolph, the crown prince of Goritania, a place that the Doctor has never heard of. Rudolph & Heather become very close, and Heather ends up running away with him to Goritania, where Rudolph asks her to marry him.

The Doctor ends up tracking Heather down to Goritania, where he learns about what life has been like for Heather & that she’s due to be married. Then suddenly, a cloud of darkness overshadows the castle, where a figure claiming to be Death emerges, who says that the price must be paid. The Doctor then sets about attempting to defend the castle from death & his army of skeletons with the help from the local maids, while Heather prepares to get ready for her wedding, which is still going ahead. During which, the Doctor is able to protect the castle by covering it with banners of the Goritania flag, which the skeletons refuse to damage.

It eventually gets revealed in the church that Heather isn’t getting married to Rupert but in fact Death itself, which the Doctor reveals to be an avatar for the Mefistoleans, a race of con-men. We learn that over 500 years ago, the people of Goritania signed a deal with the Mefistoleans where in exchange for keeping Goritania free of war, plague & famine, as well as making their country invisible, they would demand a sacrifice every 500 years, with Heather being the sacrifice. We also learn that the contract is a part of the Goritania flag, which is why the skeletons refuse to damage it.

The Doctor tries to stop Heather from being surrendered to Death, but she rejects his help and dances with Death. Death attempts to stab Heather however Death ends up being defeated as it turns out that part of Heather’s wedding dress was made of the Goritania flag. & so, with Death damaging the contract within the flag, the Mefistoleans contract is destroyed, the deal is broken & Heather is saved, as well as Goritania becoming visible

STORY SIX: Flatline

WRITTEN BY: Jamie Mathieson
DIRECTED BY: Justin Molotnikov
PRODUCED BY: Nikki Wilson

This would’ve been pretty much the same story as it is in our own universe. As such, I don't really need to discuss this one.

STORY SEVEN: A Green Future

WRITTEN BY: Sarah Dollard
DIRECTED BY: Justin Molotnikov
PRODUCED BY: Nikki Wilson

The story begins with the Doctor & Heather attending a press tour at Green Future, a company which specialises in eco-friendly technology & plants. We learn from the CEO of the company, Jonathan Merchant, that the company has grown a genetically engineered named Greeneedle which has the ability to eat the pollution out of the air & produce clean chemicals in return, while also revealing that Greeneedle is starting to appear all across the UK.

We mostly follow the Doctor & Heather as they take notes & discuss their thoughts with the other Journalists. However, we also begin to follow another party. An elderly woman & a young adult male, who is quickly revealed to be one of the Doctor’s previous companions, Jo Jones, & her grandson, Jon, played by Tyger Drew-Honey. We see the Doctor getting close to discovering Jo but always being called away at the last second.

We then cut to night time, where we see both the Doctor & Heather & Jo & Jon breaking into the greenhouse, where both groups begin to take samples of the Greeneedle plant & search for anything suspicious. We see Jo & Jon going down into what they believe to be the basement, only to find an underground lair containing a gigantic plant-like creature plugged into the facility.

The creature shrieks as Jo & Jon dash out of the lair. We then see the Doctor & Heather also hearing the shriek as they dash towards it. We see the 2 groups running closer & closer to each other until finally, they bump into each other.

The Doctor is gobsmacked to see Jo & tries to convince her that he is the Doctor, but to no avail. The group then begins to hear human voices & footsteps, before they decide to make their escape together.

Once the group are out of the facility & are no longer being hunted, the Doctor tries again to convince Jo about his identity, but she refuses to believe it. The Doctor then tells her to follow him, where he takes her to the nearby park where the TARDIS is parked. The Doctor unlocks the door & invites Jo inside, where she finally learns that this man really is the Doctor she knew & loved.

We’d then have a touching reunion scene between the Doctor & Jo, as Jo explains what she’s been doing with her life, such as travelling the world with Cliff, fighting for the good of the world. She then introduces the Doctor to Jon, who previously never believed Jo’s stories about the Doctor but now does.

After this reunion, we’d see the group compiling their findings together concerning Green Future & their Greeneedle plant together. The Doctor then comes to the conclusion that this is the work of the Ghrotus, a race of sentient plants.

We then cut to the next day, where we see the group sneaking back into the facility to confront Jonathan Merchant, who the Doctor realises is being controlled by the Ghrotus. We learn that all of the Greeneedle plants are actually Ghrotus & are being controlled by the Mother Ghrotus, which was the creature Jo found in the underground lair. They plan to spread the Ghrotus around the world until the entire human race is consumed by the Ghrotus.

The story then sees the Ghrotus beginning their spread across the UK, as the plants begin to rapidly grow & spread across London & people begin to be eaten by the plants. Eventually however, the Doctor & Jo are able to defeat the Ghrotus by killing the Mother Ghrotus using an enhanced weed killer, thus killing all the Ghrotus’ around the world.

The story then ends with everyone outside with the TARDIS, and the Doctor offers Jo the chance to come & travel with him again. & while she’s a bit reluctant at first, she agrees to come along, but only for a little while. & so the story ends with Jon waving goodbye to the TARDIS as it begins to dematerialise

STORY EIGHT: The Eternity Planet 

WRITTEN BY: Pete McTighe
DIRECTED BY: Philip John
PRODUCED BY: Peter Bennett

The story sees the Doctor taking Heather & Jo to a random planet in the very far future, where they discover a civilization of highly intelligent humans who have discovered immortality. The Doctor is naturally curious about their discovery & attempts to try & figure out how the humans have developed immortality.

It turns out that the planet is home to a very dark secret, as the Doctor discovers a prison cell deep below the planet containing a race of aliens appearing to be on the verge of death. However upon examining the aliens, the Doctor discovers that these aliens are immortal & that the people of this planet are using their powers for themselves.

It turns out that the planet used to belong to these aliens named the Zekomors until the Human Elders arrived, imprisoned the Zekomors & began harvesting their powers of immortality for themselves, while the Zekomors are thrown in eternal torture & pain.

The story sees the Doctor working to free the Zekomors & defeat the Elders of the Planet.

Eventually however, the Doctor, along with the Zekomors, is able to devise a system where everyone wins, with the Elders of the planet being overthrown & exiled from the planet & the Zekomors agreeing to share the planet with the humans, as only the elders knew about the Zekomors, on the understanding that the humans must cease harvesting their powers.

STORY NINE: Veritas

WRITTEN BY: Peter Harness
DIRECTED BY: Ed Bazalgette
PRODUCED BY: Peter Bennett

This story would’ve been set in the year 1966 & would’ve saw a group of aliens named the Meddox trying to wipe out the human race through television.

The Meddox possesses a film that is forbidden throughout the entire cosmos named ‘Veritas’, which causes whoever watches it to die in 24 hours of viewing. The aliens plan to hijack the broadcasting of the 1966 FIFA world cup final between England & West Germany, which had around 32 million people watching, and intercut it with footage of Veritas.

Eventually however the Meddox's plans are defeated when the Doctor manages to stop the Meddox’ hijacking & instead transmits the Veritas signal into the Meddox’s spaceship as the Meddox are about to leave, which causes the ship to shut down in space & self-destruct.

STORY TEN: The Rise of Cybus

WRITTEN BY: Toby Whithouse
DIRECTED BY: Rachel Talalay
PRODUCED BY: Nikki Wilson

This would’ve been the second 2-parter of the season & would’ve been the final story for both Jo & Heather.

The story begins with the TARDIS landing in Jo’s house, where we see Jon waiting for her. Everyone steps outside where they greet Jon. Jon then shows the Doctor a clip from BBC News on his phone, showing that Jonathan Merchant from A Green Future has been arrested. Everything seems normal at first, until the Doctor notices that Jon’s phone is very advanced for its time. He asks what model he has & Jon responds with “It’s Cybus. Y’know, the Cybus Mobile. Why?”

The Doctor then takes the phone off Jon & scans it with his sonic screwdriver, before asking Jon what Cybus is. Jon looks baffled & explains that they’re the biggest tech company in the world. The Doctor then researches Cybus on Jon’s laptop & discovers that Cybus is actually being controlled by the Cybermen.

Knowing that the Cybermen are about to conquer Earth, the Doctor makes contact with Nicholas Lethbridge-Stewart to warn him about Cybus & the Cybermen, however Nicholas says that he’s never heard of the Cybermen, and that Cybus has been investigated in the past & has come up clean.

Part one then sees the Doctor, Heather, Jo & Jon posing as developers for Cybus & infiltrating their factories, where they try to figure out what Cybus are doing & how they’ve seemingly brainwashed the world into not seeing them as a threat. Heather eventually discovers from a co-worker that Cybus have started to enter the Medical world & are about to start offering people the chance to replace their body parts with Prosthetic pieces. She also learns that the CEO of the company, Venecia Stone, will be announcing this to the world tonight from her mansion, where she plans to host a party for the launch of the Cyber implants.

The story then sees our cast going to this party, with the Doctor planning to hijack the announcement & attempt to convince the world that they’re being lied to. Eventually, the lights dim & everyone goes silent as the cameras turn Venecia, where she gives a big speech about how the human race needs to survive, before she reveals 3 fully converted cybermen. The Doctor then takes this moment to rush the stage & convince the viewers that Cybus is dangerous, but this fails as he’s pulled down from the stage by a Cybermen.

A Cyberman tells Venecia that the Doctor will be killed. Venecia tells the Cybermen not to but the Cybermen tell her that “your usefulness has ended, now our plans must go ahead”. The Cyberman then makes contact with a Cyberman at Cybus, telling them to begin transmission. We see the Cyberman in Cybus flipping a big lever, & we see everyone except the Doctor, Heather, Jo, Jon & Venecia turning towards the exit & walking towards the Cybus factories.

Part one would then end with the Doctor’s group being cornered by the Cybermen, as they prepare to execute them, with Venecia protesting to the Cybermen by saying “you are my creations! you will obey me!” before a Cyberman turns & shoots off Venecia’s arm to reveal electrical wires before stating “no. you are our creation” & we end with the Cybermen about to shoot the Doctor’s party.

Part two then picks up with the Doctor’s party escaping from the Cybermen & taking Venecia back to UNIT HQ with them, where they find that Nicholas & everyone preparing to leave & go for augmentation. The Doctor then learns from Venecia that all of Cybus’ technology is constantly transmitting a perception filter that stops people from suspecting Cybus as a threat. The Doctor then uses his Sonic to overload UNIT’s facilities & blowing up their computers, thus turning off the perception filter & making everyone at UNIT remember the Cybermen & them being a threat.

The Doctor then forms a plan with Heather, Jo, Nicholas, Ellen Yorke, Florence Benton & Venecia. Venecia reveals that the giant dish on top of the main Cybus factory is broadcasting the perception filter to all of Cybus’ technology & that if they can destroy the transmitter, the perception filter will be turned off for everyone.

We then see the Doctor, Heather, Florence & Venecia breaking into the Cybus Factory to shut down the transmitter, with Heather hacking into Cybus & guiding the Doctor through the complex through CCTV & hacking open doors. Meanwhile, we see Jo, Nicholas & Ellen as they’re preparing weaponry to destroy Cybus once the transmitter is down. However, UNIT HQ is soon under attack from Cybermen. We see a massive fight break out throughout UNIT HQ, as the Cybermen close in on our 3 regulars until eventually, they’re caught, knocked out & taken away.

Eventually, the Doctor is able to locate & deactivate the transmitter, which causes all of the humans to see & fear the Cybermen as they run away screaming from the Cybus Factories. The Doctor thinks that the day is saved, however he hears a broadcast being transmitted across the factory from the newly appointed Cyberleader, telling the Doctor to stand down & surrender or else Jo, Nicholas & Ellen will die.

We then see the Doctor telling his group that he has a plan, before we cut to him entering the main control room to surrender, where he finds the Cyberleader, as well as Jo, Nicholas & Ellen being held in conversion chambers, though all chambers are offline. He then gives a big speech to the Cyberleader about how in their attempt to survive from the Monsters, the Cybermen became the monsters themselves by replacing all that was human about them with cold, metal machinery.

Meanwhile, we see Venecia accessing her old computers, where we see her reprogramming the transmitter to instead order all Cybermen to return to the factory. We also see Heather & Florence working together to overload the main reactor. During these scenes, we’d have some real character drama, where we see both Heather & Florence admitting to each other that they both had a crush on the other, thus making Heather the first openly LGBT companion (Note: Although many believed Sally Ryder to be the first LGBT companion with Nikki Williams, this was always left up to viewers interpretation by former showrunner Steven Moffat. Heather however is the first companion to be confirmed as Bisexual)

We then see the Cybermen returning to the Cybus factories, much to the confusement of the Cyberleader. The Doctor then sonics a nearby control panel & the facility begins to explode. We then see Heather & Florence bursting into the room holding Cyber-guns, as they shoot down Cybermen & cover the Doctor as he frees Jo, Nicholas & Ellen.

We then see the group make their escape, however the Doctor runs back to try & save Venecia. He finds Venecia however she seals herself in her office & accepts her fate, as she believes being an android created by the Cybermen, she’s too advanced for this time & must be destroyed. The Doctor says he’s sorry before he dashes off to the exit & escapes the factory just as it blows up behind him.

We then cut to 12 hours later in UNIT HQ, where we see The Doctor talking with Jo, Jon & Ellen about what’ll happen now. However we mostly focus on Heather & Florence, as they talked about what happened back in the factory, before Nicholas approaches the 2 of them. He tells Heather that she did amazing in her part of taking down the Cybermen, and that UNIT would like to offer her a job.

We then cut to the same day but now at night, where we see everyone outside the TARDIS in the street. We see the Doctor, Jo & Jon saying their goodbyes. We then see Heather telling the Doctor that she’s decided to stop travelling with the Doctor. She tells him about the offer she received from UNIT & that she’s decided to join up.

We then end with the Doctor & Heather hugging each other goodbye, with the Doctor telling her to take care, before he returns to the TARDIS & takes off, as Heather watches & takes Florence's hand. & on that shot, the episode ends…

XMAS SPECIAL: The Ghosts of Christmas Past

WRITTEN BY: Toby Whithouse
DIRECTED BY: Ed Bazalgette
PRODUCED BY: Peter Bennett

The story would’ve seen the Doctor arriving on a mining base located on a random planet, where he discovers that the crew are using a drill to mine for rare resources. He also discovers the date to be the 24th of December, Christmas eve.

We would’ve begun with the whole traditional routine of the Doctor meeting the crew, the crew being baffled as to how he’s here & the Doctor clearing his name with the Psychic Paper. However, it’s not long after this introduction where things start to go wrong.

We see that the drill has mined its way into what appears to be fossilised remains, which unleashes strange gases into the base, which begin to take shape & turn into ghosts. We see that the ghosts can take the form of friends & family who are related to the crew. The crew plan to dispose of the ghosts by filling the base with a chemical that’ll wipe out any threats, however the ghosts are able to guilt trip the crew into not killing them, while also attempting to make the Doctor look guilty.

The story then sees the Doctor trying to clear his name while also trying to make the crew of the base see them as a threat. We also see that the ghosts are attempting to sabotage the base by slowly killing off the crew.

Eventually however, the Doctor is able to expose the ghosts after they attempt to drain the base out of its oxygen. The crew are then able to defeat the ghosts by filling the base with the chemical that kills off the ghosts.

& so, with the day saved, the Doctor returns to the TARDIS & heads back off into space.

CONCLUSION:

And that concludes Season 51 of Doctor Who. This season did about as well as last season, however there was a notable increase from more right-wing fans who’d started to complain that the show was starting to become “too PC” & “woke”, with the most obvious example being the decision to make Heather bisexual. But ignoring them, Season 51 would’ve been a well received season.

Join me next time for Season 52

Thank you & goodbye!