Doctor Who: The Cancelled Years - Season 52
Season 52 would’ve been the final season for Damien Molony as the Doctor, the first season for Joana Borja as Felicity Wilson & the final season for Toby Whithouse as showrunner.
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This season would also see the introduction of a new companion, Felicity, played by Joana Borja, a typical 21st century girl. Unlike Molony, Borja would remain on the show post-Season 52 & would be appearing in Season 53.
This season, like all since Season 50, would conclude with a Christmas Special. However, for the first time in the show's history, this would also be a 2-part story, which would air on both Christmas Day in 2016 & New Years day in 2017.
& now, let’s get to the episodes
STORY ONE: The Raven
WRITTEN BY: Toby Whithouse
DIRECTED BY: Lawrence Gough
PRODUCED BY: Nikki Wilson
This would be our first story for the new companion, Felicity Wilson, a typical 21st century girl working at a supermarket.
We initially follow Felicity through her everyday life, as she goes into work, spends her hours helping people find the dog food & having a laugh with her co-workers until her shift is over.
The Doctor tells the man that he doesn’t know who he is but that he does know he’s not from Earth, and asks him what his business is. The man replies with “She is not the one”, before releasing Felicity & turning into a Raven & flying away.
The Doctor & Felicity eventually discover that the person Voteng is hunting for is actually one of Felicity’s co-workers, Connor. We then see the Doctor & Felicity attempting to get Connor to safety & away from Voteng, though they have very little success.
Eventually however, the Doctor is able to stop Voteng by trapping him in a hard-light cage & threatening to close the cage in on itself, which would kill Voteng, unless he vows to leave Earth & never return, to which he reluctantly accepts.
The story ends with the Doctor thanking Felicity for her help, before asking if she’d like to come with him. He says that she could spend her life working & hating life or getting out there & actually living. Naturally, Felicity accepts & so the story ends with Felicity entering the TARDIS & closing the door behind her
STORY TWO: The Great Fire
WRITTEN BY: Guy Adams
DIRECTED BY: Lawrence Gough
PRODUCED BY: Nikki Wilson
The story sees the Doctor taking Felicity on her first trip in the TARDIS. He asks her where she wants to go, while suggesting all these wonderful locations, and then to his slight disappointment, she replies with “can we see Earth in future”, so the Doctor quickly flips a few switches & they find themselves in the year 2110.
However, things quickly take a turn for the worse as the Doctor is yet again thrown into another alien attack on the Earth. It turns out that 2 days before the Doctor’s arrival, a shower of tiny rocks fell into Earth’s atmosphere, and it turns out that one of these rocks contained a Sarkle, an sentient & intelligent creature made of fire.
We discover that the Sarkle was sent to Earth in an attempt to burn the planet by travelling to the planet’s core & merging itself with it, thus destroying the Earth in a massive fire. Eventually however, the Doctor is able to defeat the Sarkle by freezing it to death using the power of the TARDIS.
STORY THREE: Beneath the Ice
WRITTEN BY: Sarah Dollard
DIRECTED BY: Charles Palmer
PRODUCED BY: Peter Bennett
Other than that though, it would’ve been pretty much the same story.
STORY FOUR: Oxygen
WRITTEN BY: Jamie Mathieson
DIRECTED BY: Charles Palmer
PRODUCED BY: Peter Bennett
Other than that though, it would’ve been pretty much the same story.
STORY FIVE: We Are the Daleks
WRITTEN BY: Jonathan Morris
DIRECTED BY: Ed Bazalgette
PRODUCED BY: Nikki Wilson
This would've been the first 2-parter of the season & would've saw the return of the Daleks.
We then see Felicity infiltrating the Zenos Corporation, where she learns that the corporation is responsible for the hit new video game, Warfleet, which is way too advanced of a video game for the 1980s.
Eventually, the Doctor is briefly able to turn the tables when Felicity is able to tell the Warfleet players what was happening & convince them to help the rebels, as well learning that Alek Zenos was actually a double agent working with Thal rebels against the Daleks.
However, things turn against the Doctor when MP Celia Dunthorpe allies herself with the Daleks, believing that the economic benefits of an alliance with the Daleks were more important than the Doctor's warning about how dangerous they were.
Using the Doctor's advice, Felicity is able to reprogram the time corridor in Zenos Tower to send the entire tower to the Dalek's planet, & the continued broadcast of the "Dalek Factor" causes the Daleks on the planet to turn on each other as their natural aggression & arrogance is amplified.
With the Daleks now destroying themselves & the Warfleet players helping the rebels rescue the Thal slaves on Skaro, the Doctor then uses the building to trigger a time storm after setting up a time corridor to take himself & his allies back to Earth, with the resulting storm causing most Daleks left on the planet to age to death as their parts became too old to operate.
STORY SIX: One Mile Down
WRITTEN BY: Jenny T Colgan
DIRECTED BY: Charles Palmer
PRODUCED BY: Peter Bennett
We see the Doctor & Felicity exploring the citadel, with the Doctor moaning about how everything has changed. However we also see that the dome is starting to crack as water starts seeping in. As well as this, we also would've saw the return of the Judoon, from The Pyramid story Fugitives on the Moon, as they begin to arrest people for trying to stop the leaking.
We later see Felicity following a guided tour in one of the many attractions of the place. Then suddenly, a door closes, trapping Felicity & other tourists inside a room that’s filling with water. However the Doctor saves them by smashing the door, only to be immediately arrested by the Judoon for "vandalism" & put into custody.
Then while waiting for judgement, he was informed by Thispus, the person in charge of Vallarasee, that the dome protecting the city from the water is failing. The story then turns into something resembling an action disaster film, with Felicity helping the tourists ascend the dome in order to escape the flooding. Meanwhile we see the Doctor working with Thispus, Patricia, who was responsible for the corporate takeover & is more interested in making a profit & getting good reviews, & a Judoon recruit named Clo to find a way to save the humans. During these scenes, we'd discover that Thispus was responsible for the dome collapsing, as he used a virus to destroy the dome, as he wished to free his people.
Eventually however, after many attempts, the Doctor is able to save the humans by having Clo arrest all the tourists for various charges, an action which prompts the Judoon to raise the city over the sea to arrest everyone.
STORY SEVEN: How The Monk Got His Habit
WRITTEN BY: Peter Harness
DIRECTED BY: Wayne Yip
PRODUCED BY: Nikki Wilson
We begin the story in space, with Boney M’s Ra-Ra-Rasputin playing in the background. We then see a grey capsule appearing out of nowhere. We zoom into the Capsule as the camera pans through its walls & we see it to be a TARDIS. At the console, we see a man at the console listening to Ra-Ra-Rasputin in the background, and we see this to be the Meddling Monk, played by Matt Berry
The Monk arrives in Czarist Russia, where he has Grigori Rasputin listen to his song. However, the Monk’s amusement is short-lived, as the experience drives Rasputin completely mad. He dashes back to his TARDIS & looks up the incident on his TARDIS scanner, where he finds that this is enough to change history, which results in the Russian Revolution of 1917 being averted and consequently messes up the further course of human history. Terrified at what he has done, the Monk phones the Doctor and says: "Doctor, I've made a terrible mistake".
He quickly realises however that he has contacted the wrong Doctor as instead of calling his first incarnation, he’s accidentally called his Fourteenth incarnation. The Monk explains his situation to the Doctor, who agrees to help.
The story then sees the Doctor & Felicity working with the Monk to try & put history back on course, however they find it to be impossible to return the real Rasputin back to normal. In the end, the Monk comes up with the idea to force regenerate himself into the form of Rasputin's form and act out the rest of his "correct" lifetime. The story ends with Felicity asking if the Monk will be fine living out the rest of Rasputin’s life as “The Mad Monk”, and the Doctor says that would rub off on him.
STORY EIGHT: The Silent Scream
WRITTEN BY: James Goss
DIRECTED BY: Ed Bazalgette
PRODUCED BY: Nikki Wilson
The story sees the Doctor & Felicity travelling to Hollywood in the year 1930, where they visit the home of washed-up silent movie actress Loretta Waldorf, who believes that she is due to fall victim to a Hollywood curse after earlier auditioning for new Hammerstein Studios production, Fires of Fate, which has left all other actresses who screen-tested without a voice.
The story then sees the Doctor investigating Hammerstein Studios, where he finds studio camera technology that is way too advanced for the 1930s.
Meanwhile, back at Loretta’s house, a man named Dr. Julius arrives, who insists on taking Loretta to his clinic where he claims Loretta will get the care she needs. Felicity lets him take her, but insists on following.
We eventually discover that Julius is actually a highly amoral silent film collector from the far future & has travelled to the 1930s using time corridor technology to steal silent actors' voices & other parts of them in order to get a heavy price for them in the future, and that he now wishes to do the same with the Doctor. We also discover Julius is funding Fires of Fate to lure actresses for his collection & that part of his operation is to take voice grafts from his subjects, transferring what remains of their consciousness into the Celluform creatures, which he can control.
Eventually however, Julius is defeated when the Doctor puts Julius in the machine that he was using to steal the voices & stops his plans.
STORY NINE: Fallen Angels
WRITTEN BY: Phil Mulryne
DIRECTED BY: Wayne Yip
PRODUCED BY: Nikki Wilson
The story sees the Doctor & Felicity travelling to Rome in 1511, where they find a couple named Gabby and Joel Finch, who are clearly in the wrong time period as they appear to be from the 21st century. We see the Doctor talking to Gabby & Joel, trying to figure out how they ended up in 1511. He also visits the Sistine Chapel, where he finds that half of the roof hasn’t been painted.
The Doctor theorises that a Weeping Angel is on the loose in Rome and believes that Michelangelo must have been zapped by one. It turns out that there are 3 angels on Earth, who have been trapped in the Earth since the creation of the planet. Then years later in the 16th century, the 3 angels were found in marble blocks by a group of priests. Believing it to be a miracle, the priests formed the Order of the Three Angels & commissioned Michelangelo to “release” the angels from the marble.
Having found the three Angels in the city, he was able to stop them by working with the Finches and Michelangelo to trap them in a crypt below the chapel, using mirrors to ensure that the Angels would always be looking at each other while burying the walls of the chapel itself.
Eventually however, the Angels were defeated when the Doctor & Felicity, with help from Gabby & Joel, trick the angels into looking at each other using mirrors & lock the angels under the catacombs of the Sistine Chapel. The story would then end with the Doctor revealing to Gabby & Joel that he can’t take them home to 2015, so he is forced to leave them in 1511.
STORY TEN: The Battle of Earth
WRITTEN BY: Toby Whithouse
DIRECTED BY: Rachel Talalay
PRODUCED BY: Peter Bennett
This would’ve been the second 2-parter of the season & would’ve acted as a sequel to Season 50’s Planet of the Silurians.
We quickly discover that they’ve arrived on the 50th Anniversary of the alliance forming, and that the Human & Silurian Presidents will be delivering a speech to the world. The Doctor & Felicity therefore decide to settle in a local diner to watch the news Live.
We see the Silurian President walking onto a stage, where he begins to give a big speech. Then suddenly, *BANG*, the Silurian President is gunned down by an assassin; a human assassin, before the TV Cuts to static.
The Doctor & Felicity decide to take a stroll, with the Doctor further explaining the Silurians to Felicity. Then suddenly, a white van containing a group of Silurians pulls up alongside the 2 of them & the side door opens. A Silurian then grabs Felicity, drugs her & then knocks out the Doctor using some chemical gas, before driving off.
Plot B however focuses on the Human & Silurian Ambassadors, as the two races attempt to make peace & prevent any war from starting. We see the Silurians demand that their race be treated with more respect, as they believe that humans have been treated more importantly than Silurians. In the end, the Earth Ambassadors are able to come to an arrangement & say that they will try & make life better for Silurians.
Part one ends with another worldwide broadcast, with the human President & Silurian Vice-President making peace. The human president opens his speech, before the Silurian Vice-President walks on to the stage & punches the human President to the ground, claiming to have found out about his “fake promises”, before turning to the camera & declaring war on the human race, and Part One ends on that cliffhanger.
Part Two begins with the Doctor, Felicity & Leoguna running from safety, as riots kick off across the city. Once safe in cover, the Doctor remarks that something about what they just witnessed didn’t feel right to him, so he decides to visit the human president.
The trio then go to visit the Silurian Vice-President, which nearly costs the Doctor & Felicity their lives due to them being / appearing human. While meeting with the Vice-president, he asks to see the original document belonging to the human president, and so the Vice-president presents him with the original copy, however the original is completely different to the copy, and the Doctor discovers that the original document had been replaced with a fake. The Doctor then asks the Vice-President to call off the attack but he refuses to comply & says that he’ll need further evidence.
The Doctor then analyses some CCTV footage to see if someone had changed the original documents, and discovers a hooded figure swapping out the original document with the fake mere seconds before the Silurian president discovered them.
We then see the trio tracking down this person using more CCTV footage until they discover his current location. The Doctor then begins to question the man, who says that he was hired by an anonymous person via a private phone call to switch the documents for £100,000. The Doctor then uses his Sonic Screwdriver to trace back the location of the caller, and finds that the phone call originated from the human military base.
Watson reveals that he sent a hitman to kill the Silurian President & that he tricked the Vice-president into thinking the humans were planning on making living conditions for Silurians worse by swapping the human president’s documents with a fake. & then, when the eventual war progresses, he’ll take his place as the leader of the humans & wipe out every stinking Silurian on the planet.
Then, in a turn of rage, Leoguna pulls out a weapon & shoots Watson in the chest, causing him to collapse. & then, in his final breath, Watson activates his radio & orders the launch of a missile, before he collapses dead. Realising that Watson is planning on killing the Silurians with a missile, the Doctor, Felicity & Leoguna dash towards the Missile silo to try & stop the countdown.
They’re eventually able to save the Silurians by evacuating the Military base & reprogramming the missiles to instead hit the military base. The trio then burst back to the TARDIS & take off just as the missile hits the Military base. The Doctor then makes contact with both the Human & Silurian ambassadors & explains the situation to them.
The story then ends with the Doctor, Felicity & Leoguna being thanked by both the Human President & the Silurian Vice-President, who has now been made President. Leoguna then asks the Doctor if she can come with him & Felicity, to which he declines, as while he likes Leoguna, he can’t be travelling with a killer. We then end the episode with the Doctor & Felicity walking back to the TARDIS, with the Doctor telling Felicity about how Leoguna will eventually go down in history as the greatest Silurian of all time, before entering the TARDIS & dematerialising, as the episode ends.
XMAS + NEW YEARS SPECIAL: The Last Life
WRITTEN BY: Toby Whithouse
DIRECTED BY: Rachel Talalay
PRODUCED BY: Peter Bennett
This would’ve been a 2-part adventure, airing on Christmas Day & New Years Day & would’ve been the final story for Damien Molony as the Doctor
The Doctor enters the nearest town named Sabina, where he meets one of the locals named Kerr-Arna, played by Charlotte Ritchie, who helps him look for some spare scrap metal. Then suddenly, after the Doctor is able to find some metal, we hear the TARDIS groaning in the distance. He dashes towards the TARDIS & he sees it fading in and out of existence. & just as he’s about to reach the doors, it dematerialises, leaving him stranded & Felicity trapped in the TARDIS.
Plot A, the less interesting plot, sees Felicity working with the TARDIS’ emergency interface, which takes the form of Felicity herself, to fix the damaged circuit & getting back to the Doctor.
Plot B however is the main focus of the story. We see the Doctor setting up a workshop in Sabina, where he attempts to make a device to recall the TARDIS using the very limited resources he can find in Sabina, as well as disassembling his Sonic Screwdriver & using the TARDIS key. We also see Kerr-Arna acting as an assistant to the Doctor, as well as her & the Doctor starting a proper friendship.
We then cut to a few months later, where we see that the Doctor is still constructing his device, however he’s slowly started to focus his attention on helping the people of Sabina by making very basic devices & contraptions to improve their way of life. We also see him proper bonding with Kerr-Arna & vise versa, and the Doctor comes to realise that he really cares about her.
We then see the Doctor & Kerr-Arna helping the people of Sabina escape to the nearest neighbouring town, where the Doctor begins dismantling part of his TARDIS-summoning device in order to create an EMP emitter, which’ll wipe out all the Cybermen. The Doctor prepares to climb the local radio tower & transmit the EMP, but not before Kerr-Arna stops him & confesses her love to him. & then, unexpectedly, the Doctor also confesses his love for her, and the two share a kiss. The Doctor then climbs the tower, activates the EMP & defeats the Cybermen, as they collapse over dead.
The Doctor has saved the people of Dawnawa, but has lost all hope of ever getting his TARDIS back, as his own device has been destroyed by the EMP. & so, realising that his travels are over, the Doctor takes Kerr-Arna’s hand & asks her to marry him.
We then cut to Felicity finally managing to land the TARDIS back on Dawnawa using the telepathic circuits. However, upon exiting the TARDIS, she’s greeted by a slightly older appearing Doctor, where she discovers that she’s 11 years late. Naturally, Felicity feels guilty, but the Doctor comforts her & tells her that the fact she was able to fix the TARDIS in the first place is incredible.
However, Part 1 would end on a cliffhanger, as the camera pans into the sky from a birds-eye view until we enter space, where we see a Dalek ship in orbit. Cut to the ships interior, where we see a Dalek shouting “Alert, alert! TARDIS energy detected! The Doctor is located!”, before we cut to the Supreme Dalek stating “Excellent! Now we can begin! Begin the attack on the planet below. Find the Doctor! Seek, locate, Exterminate!” as we cut to end credits.
The Doctor then storms into the TARDIS, with Felicity & Kerr-Arna following behind. The Doctor makes contact with the Dalek Supreme, who tells the Doctor to surrender himself or else the people of Dawnawa will die. Realising the dilemma he is in, he chooses to surrender. We hear the gunfire outside the TARDIS stop as the Doctor exits the TARDIS. He looks up at the sky, before he’s teleported aboard the Dalek mothership.
Onboard the Dalek mothership, the Doctor finds himself tied up in electrical wires. He asks the Dalek Supreme why they want him, to which the Dalek Supreme says that they plan to harvest the Doctor’s regeneration energy & merge it with Dalek DNA In order to create a new race of Supreme Daleks. The Doctor initially tries to bluff his way out of the situation by saying he is on his last regeneration, but the Daleks have data of all of his previous incarnations & recognise this incarnation as the 14th. He says that he’ll never give up his regeneration energy to the Daleks, before the Supreme says that they’ll force it out of him & then proceeds to shoot the Doctor in the chest.
Meanwhile, we see Felicity & Kerr-Arna helping the people of Dawnawa to recuperate from the Dalek attack. Felicity then forms a plan with Kerr-Arna & the best soldiers of Sabina to fly the TARDIS into the Dalek mothership. With the planned form, the small army boards the TARDIS as Felicity guides them onto the Dalek mothership using the telepathic circuits.
Once onboard, the army makes their way through the ship, taking down Daleks & searching for the Doctor. They’re eventually able to find the Doctor & attempt to free him. Then, once he’s free, everyone makes their escape back to the TARDIS. However, tragedy soon strikes as Kerr-Arna is shot in the back by a Dalek. The Doctor, now a storm of emotions, carries Kerr-Arna’s body onboard the TARDIS.
Felicity brings the TARDIS back down to Dawnana, as the Doctor attempts to save Kerr-Arna. The Doctor is in tears. He tries to heal her using his regeneration energy but he can’t due to the Dalek virus. Kerr-Arna says her goodbyes to the Doctor but, before passing away, tells him 1 thing: Don’t go avenging her. Don’t go losing yourself over me. Just save the day. The TARDIS lands in the Doctor’s house as Kerr-Arna finally succumbs to death.
Meanwhile, we see that the Daleks have restarted their attack on Dawnana, and we see tons & tons of explosions. We see the Doctor hearing the explosions, as he wipes away the tears & stands up, before stating that “This ends now”. We then cut to the Doctor searching through his storage in his old workshop as he hands out old weapons from the Cyberman invasion to the townsfolk. He then searches through more of some of his old storage until he finds what he needs: A metal cartridge & an old Cyberman teleport device.
He then reunites with Felicity, who’s helping the people of Dawnana fight back against the Daleks. He tells her that it’s been fun but that it’s time for them to say goodbye, as he plans on sacrificing his life to defeat the Daleks & save Dawnana. Felicity tries to stop the Doctor, but he simply ignores her concerns, before giving her a CD & telling her to insert it into the TARDIS console & that it’ll take her home. He then hugs her one final time, before activating the teleport device & teleporting onboard the Dalek mothership
The Doctor uses the last of his energy to stand himself up & start typing on a keypad, as he sends a message to UNIT, with the message being only 1 word: Regeneration. The Doctor sends the message, before collapsing to the ground.
In his last moments of life, the Doctor comforts Felicity while also explaining regeneration to her. The Doctor rubs away a tear off Felicity before telling her to be strong & to “take good care of her new Doctor”, as the energy builds up around him & he explodes in a burst of regeneration energy.
We see Felicity observing in shock as the Doctor changes right before her eyes. Then the regeneration dies down, the new Doctor snaps awake & we’re introduced to the new Doctor, who’d be portrayed by Jemma Redgrave.
We end the episode with the new Doctor in a frenzy as the TARDIS crashes towards Earth, with Felicity watching in horror as the credits begin to play
CONCLUSION
& that concludes Season 52 of Doctor Who. Overall, this proved to be yet another successful season. Though like last season, there seemed to be a vocal part of the fan base that claimed Doctor Who was becoming too “woke”, and that voice appeared to only get louder with the announcement of the show’s first female Doctor.
& with that comes the end of the Whithouse & Molony era. This era would be fondly remembered by fans as one of the greatest eras of the show, with many people wishing that both men stayed on for at least 1 more year.
Join me next time for Season 53 of Doctor Who
Thank you for watching & goodbye!
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