Doctor Who: The Cancelled Years - Season 53

Season 53 of Doctor Who would’ve been the first season for Jemma Redgrave as the Doctor, the last season for Joana Borja as Felicity Wilson & the first season for Pete McTighe & Sarah Dollard as showrunners.

Season 53 marked something of a soft reboot for the show while also continuing things on from Season 52. This season marked the debut of Jemma Redgrave as the Fifteenth Doctor, the first time the Doctor had been played by a female. The casting of Redgrave proved to be a very controversial move. Some saw the casting as a breath of fresh air & an inspired move, while others saw this move as the Death of Doctor Who & claimed that the show died in 2016.

As well as a new Doctor came not 1 but 2 new showrunners, those being Pete McTighe & Sarah Dollard, who’d previously been writing Doctor Who nearly every year since Season 48. While McTighe wasn’t a favourite among the fans, with most of his previous stories receiving mixed responses, he was the favourite among the BBC to take over from Toby Whithouse, with even Whithouse seeing him as a worthy successor. However, when he was asked to take over from Whithouse, McTighe had cold feet about taking on such a mammoth task, and asked the BBC about the possibility of bringing in a co-showrunner, someone who could both help him manage Doctor Who, as well as bringing in a second voice of creativity. Being friends with Sarah Dollard, McTighe hoped to bring her onboard &, surely enough, she agreed to join on as a co-showrunner to help McTighe out, thus forming what would be nicknamed by fans as the McTillard era.

Despite a change in Doctor & Showrunner, many elements from the Whithouse era were to remain in the McTighe era, the most notable of which being Joana Borja as Felicity Wilson, however it was announced that she would be leaving at the end of this season. The new era would also inherit the previous Doctor Who logo, which the BBC were eager to keep, as well as keeping the TARDIS Interior & Exterior.

With this being a new era, there were still changes to the show. The first & most striking change would be the aspect ratio. Since 2000, the show had been presented in 16:9. For this season, it was decided to move the show to the more cinematic 2:35:1 aspect ratio. To go with this new aspect ratio, a new title sequence was commissioned, along with a new theme tune, which would again be composed by Blair Mowat. This time, Mowat offered the show a less bombastic rendition & something which he described as more of a journey.

(To view this new title sequence, CLICK ME to view on YouTube)

Another striking change would be a decrease in the episode count, with there now only being 10 episodes per season, which resulted in 6 single-parters & 2 double-parters. As well as this, it was decided to move Doctor Who to a Sunday Night schedule, which marked the first time Doctor Who hadn’t aired on a Saturday since Season 27.

Like any time there’s a change in hands, there would be the usual change to the production team. Both McTighe & Dollard would be credited as Executive Producers, with Matt Strevens, producer of 2013s An Adventure in Space and Time, also joining on. Peter Bennett left Doctor Who at the end of Season 52, however Nikki Wilson would remain on & would now be the Series Producer, with Ken Horn acting as Producer.

Finally, a special announcement would’ve been made during the build up to this season, which would be the news of a new Spin-off airing on CBBC named The Jo Jones Chronicles, starring Katy Manning & Tyger Drew-Honey. The Series would premiere in Early 2018 & will be the next thing we cover in this Series.

STORY ONE: New World

WRITTEN BY: Pete McTighe & Sarah Dollard
DIRECTED BY: Jamie Childs

This would be the first story for the new Doctor, which is a more traditional post-regeneration story.

We begin with a pre-title sequence at UNIT HQ, where we see Nicholas in the war room, talking about a random off-screen alien encounter. Then suddenly, the doors bursts open & in enters former companion Heather McKenzie, now a fully formed member of UNIT, saying she’s received a message from the Doctor. She hands over a mobile device to Nicholas & we see a 1 word message from the Doctor on the phone: Regeneration.

Heather asks what the message means as Nicholas runs outside, with Heather following behind. Nicholas looks up into the sky where he sees the TARDIS, bumping around & falling to Earth. He then turns to Heather & tells her to tell Ellen to activate Project Pulldown. Cut to Heather running into Ellen’s lab, where she tells her to activate Project Pulldown. She activates a monitor in her lab & sees the TARDIS falling to Earth. She then rapidly types on her keyboard & then suddenly, a blue beam shoots into the sky, which traps the TARDIS & slowly pulls it down to Earth just outside UNIT HQ.

We see Nicholas, Heather, Ellen & Florence gather waiting outside the TARDIS, before Nicholas tells Heather to knock on the door, but be prepared for a shock as the Doctor she knew might be a lot different. She approaches the door & knocks on it, while calling out for the Doctor & saying “It’s me Heather”. Then suddenly, the door swings open & out steps the new Doctor who is over the moon to see Heather & hugs her, much to her confusion about who this strange woman is.

The Doctor then properly steps outside to greet the rest of the UNIT regulars, with a cautious Felicity following behind & trying to calm the Doctor down. Then suddenly, the Doctor flinches in pain while saying that the regeneration is going wrong. Nicholas & Felicity try to keep her balanced but she ends up falling to the ground. We then cut to Heather stating “can someone explain to me what the hell is going on?! Who’s she, and where’s the Doctor”, before Felicity confirms that this is the Doctor, before Nicholas states “Well, here we go again” as we cut to the opening titles.

After the titles, we’d see the Doctor being taken to the medical wing, where she’s placed in bed to rest. Meanwhile we see Felicity explaining the events of The Last Life to Nicholas & getting him up to speed. Nicholas then attempts to settle Felicity about the whole regeneration situation & says that right now, the Doctor needs her at her side now more than ever. After this, Felicity is taken to the local bunk room by Heather. Once there, we see Heather & Felicity getting to properly know each other as they reminisce about their travels with the previous Doctor, with Heather reminding Felicity that the woman in the medical wing is the same man they both knew.

Then suddenly, the lights go off. But not just the lights, as we see Heather & Felicity making their way back to Nicholas & they see that all of the electricity in UNIT HQ has gone. But it’s not just UNIT HQ, as we see cities around the world without any power. UNIT suspects an alien attack but they have no way of scanning for alien crafts. However, Felicity tells Nicholas that maybe they can use the TARDIS. So He, Felicity & Heather make their way into the TARDIS to use the scanner, where they detect an alien ship descending into Earth’s atmosphere.

The story then plays out like a very bog-standard Alien invasion story. A race of aliens known as the Tuq'iek have disabled all of Earth’s power, which means all of their defence systems are down. They demand that the humans surrender their planet to the Tuq'iek or else they will wipe out 1⁄2 of the population. The story sees the New Doctor, who quickly recovers from her post-regeneration sleep not long after the power goes out, working with Felicity & UNIT to defeat the Tuq'iek, while also figuring out her new personality.

Eventually however, the Doctor is able to defeat the Tuq'iek by challenging the leader of the Tuq'iek to a mind battle, which the leader loses, and so the Tuq'iek are forced to retreat in shame & embarrassment.

The final few minutes of the story sees the Doctor in the TARDIS wardrobe picking out her new outfit. She eventually settles on a light brown coat with a dark navy blue blazer & trousers, a light blue t-shirt, a patterned scarf & black shoes. She then heads back to the Console Room, where the console gifts her with a new Sonic Screwdriver. She then heads outside to say her goodbyes to Nicholas, Florence, Ellen & Heather, before she & Felicity enter the TARDIS.

Onboard the TARDIS, the Doctor checks in with Felicity & asks if she still wants to travel with her. & while Felicity admits that the regeneration is still a shock to her, she believes she can get used to it over time. & so the story ends with the Doctor pulling down the main flight lever as the TARDIS begins to dematerialise. 

STORY TWO: The Beast of Shoal

WRITTEN BY: Guy Adams
DIRECTED BY: Jamie Childs

The story would’ve been set in a small mediaeval village, where the Doctor & Felicity are attempting to hunt down an egg containing an alien wolf-like creature from the planet Shoal which fell to Earth in the 12th Century. However, they end up failing to find the egg in time & the wolf creature, known as an Uzok, ends up hatching & it begins to terrorise the town. The Doctor tells the townsfolk that the Uzok are usually non-hostile creatures when it is among its own. But this Uzok has no other family, which is causing it to lash out.

The story would play much more like a horror film, as we see the Doctor & Felicity working with the townsfolk to simply survive & capture the Uzok. It’d be quite a horror focused episode which involves quite a good few people being eaten alive by the Uzok. We also see the Doctor attempting to trap the Uzok & hopefully be able to return it to Shoal. In the end however, the Uzok is killed by the hunter of the town, who shoots the Uzok through the head with his rifle.

The story ends with the Doctor being forced to destroy the Uzok’s corpse by melting with a special acid, before departing in the TARDIS without saying goodbye to anyone.

STORY THREE: The Mind of the Surron

WRITTEN BY: Phil Mulryne
DIRECTED BY: Wayne Yip

The story sees the Doctor & Felicity arriving on a colony planet in the future, where they find that the population are being monitored 24/7 by a creature that takes the form of a snake known as the Surron. However, the Doctor also quickly discovers that the Surron has the ability to alter & manipulate a person’s mind after she feels the Surron attempting to alter her brain waves.

The story would’ve saw the Doctor & Felicity working with a group of humans & scientists who have developed the technology to stop the Surron from interfering with their brains to take down the Surron & free their planet. However, the Surron quickly finds out about this movement, thanks to an inside agent, and so the Surron sends everything it has at its disposal to take down the movement. Eventually however, the Doctor is able to defeat the Surron by tricking it into controlling its own mind & convincing itself to kill itself.

The story ends with the Doctor & Felicity returning to the TARDIS & taking off. We then see one of the resistance members preparing to burn the Surron in a furnace, however he’s attacked from behind & knocked out. We then see this person to be a strange man, played by Mark Bonnar. He picks up the Surron, places it into a casket & leaves the scene while giving an evil laugh, as we cut to the credits

STORY FOUR: Lightstrike

WRITTEN BY: Matt Fitton
DIRECTED BY: Daniel Nettheim

This would be a 2-part story & would essentially be ‘Doctor Who does James Bond’

The story begins with the Doctor & Felicity on a day out in London, before they receive a phone call from Heather McKenzie, summoning them to UNIT HQ. There, they meet with Nicholas Lethbridge-Stewart, who reveals that Sgt. Sean Pelham (from War of the Sontarans) was killed while out in France, and asks the Doctor to find out why. The Doctor & Felicity head to the TARDIS to travel to France while also being joined by Heather, who wishes to come along, since the Doctor never took her to France.

The trio locate Sean’s private home, where they find his laptop remaining. Heather hacks into Sean’s laptop & discovers that Sean was actually working for a secret organization named Lightstrike. The information on Lightstrike is very vague, however the trio work out that Lightstrike presumably killed Sean due to, according to Sean’s own words, him “breaking free”. They also discover that Sean was due to attend a gathering in a big mansion the following night.

Intrigued by this mysterious organization, the trio decide to infiltrate this party, with the Doctor & Felicity getting dressed in black-tie & using the psychic paper to sneak their way in while Heather attempts to hack into the mansion’s network from outside. Upon entering the mansion, the Doctor & Felicity are gifted with a strange wooden box & an earpiece. Upon opening the wooden box, they find it to be containing glass bottles containing weird chemicals.

We then see the Doctor & Felicity playing a game of poker with some Lightstrike members, trying to get some information from the members while not giving their identity away. This scene takes inspiration from the James Bond films itself, with the Doctor playing Poker, however unlike in the Bond films, we discover the Doctor to be a rubbish poker player, despite her claiming to have once been the universal champion of Poker.

We then cut to Heather, who’s still hacking into Lightstrikes’ network, where she uncovers a list of everyone associated with Lightstrike. Then suddenly, she’s grabbed from behind, captured & taken away to an interrogation room. There, she comes face-to-face with the head of Lightstrike, Phantom, who is very much inspired by a typical Bond film villain. Phantom begins to question Heather, though she tries to not give anything away. However this ends up failing when Phantom’s wife, Rose, who is clearly inspired by a typical Bond film Femme Fatale, searches her purse & finds a UNIT badge as well as a picture of her, the Doctor & Felicity.

This ends up affecting the Doctor & Heather’s plans, as they’re forced to hide behind some curtains from a group of heavies who begin to search for the 2. Then a few minutes later, the lights dim & Phantom & Rose take to the stage. Phantom then proceeds to give a very generic villain speech before telling his agents to open the wooden boxes. He says that they will return to their country of origin & when he gives the word, they will activate the box.

With the heavies distracted by Phantom’s speech, the Doctor & Felicity slip away downstairs to Phantom’s private laboratory, where the Doctor begins to analyse the chemicals in the box. To her shock, she discovers that the chemicals are a virus & theories that Phantom is about to wipe out the population of Earth.

Heather then radios in to the Doctor, who reveals that she was captured but has escaped & that they must leave now. So the Doctor & Felicity make their way back upstairs, exit the mansion & dash outside, where they’re reunited with Heather.

Part 1 would then end on a cliffhanger. We see the Doctor explaining everything she knows to Heather. Then suddenly, the trio are ambushed by a party of Lightstrike members. & to the Doctor’s horror, Heather then points a gun at her & Felicity. Phantom then reveals himself from out of the shadows & reveals that thanks to his skill as a hypnosis, Heather now works for Lighstrike.

Part 2 picks up with the Doctor & Felicity being knocked out & imprisoned by Phantom, while Heather is sent to the UK. Once reaching the UK, Heather reports into Nicholas & states that the Doctor & Felicity are dead, after being drowned by an unknown assailant. We then cut to the Doctor tied down to a table in Phantom’s interrogation room. Here, Phantom reveals that the chemical gas is actually alien. He also reveals that he knows that the Doctor is an alien & that he plans to cut her open to examine her.

We then have a direct homage to the film Goldfinger, with the Doctor tied down to the table as a laser slowly approaches her. Felicity, who was being held back by Rose, attempts to break free of her grip & save the Doctor, however Rose drugs her & takes her away to a nearby clock tower, where she throws a molotov in with her as Felicity awakens to the clock tower burning down around her.

We then cut back to the Doctor, as the laser closes in on her. Then, without Phantom realizing, she’s able to slip her Sonic Screwdriver out of her pocket & free herself, before using the Sonic to overload a nearby computer, which explodes in Phanom’s face & knocks him. The Doctor then dashes out of the room, but not before another nod to the Goldfinger film as she states “shocking”.

Once free, she dashes into the TARDIS, where she radios in to Nicholas, warning him about Heather, while also piloting the TARDIS to the clock tower to rescue Felicity. We then cut to Nicholas attempting to capture Heather but to his shock, she has escaped from UNIT & is preparing to activate her box. We then see Nicholas & Ellen Yorke hacking into local CCTV cameras to track down Heather. He’s then able to locate Heather & capture her mere moments before she unleashes the virus. She’s then taken back to UNIT HQ, where Nicholas & Ellen work on un-hypnotising her. Meanwhile, back in France, the Doctor finds the list of Lightstrike agents that Heather acquired & sent it to every major government around the world.

Then back at UNIT, with Heather now free from Lightstrike’s control, she reveals to the Doctor that the ear pieces every Lightstrike member received are used to communicate with Phantom. With this knowledge, the Doctor proceeds to hack her & Felicity’s own ear devices & uses them to make contact with every Lightstrike member, hypnotizing them into standing down. This plan works & we see Lightstrike members around the world giving themselves up to the authorities.

Realizing that his plans are rumbled, we then see Phantom & Rose escaping in a private plane. We then see the Doctor & Felicity using the TARDIS to travel through the air & catch up with the plane. & then, once the TARDIS is directly above it, we get a homage to the opening of the Bond film Licence to Kill, with the Doctor using a giant hook from within the base of the TARDIS exterior to hook Phantom’s plane & take him to the authorities.

The story ends with Phantom & Rose being arrested, while every Lightstrike member is rounded up & arrested. The Doctor then gathers up all of the chemical boxes & tells Nicholas that she’ll throw them into a black hole. We then end with Nicholas & Heather waving goodbye to the Doctor as the TARDIS begins to dematerialise.

STORY FIVE: Soul Searcher

WRITTEN BY: Sarah Dollard
DIRECTED BY: Mark Tonderai

The story sees the Doctor & Felicity arriving in London in the year 2055, where they discover reports about people mysteriously falling over dead, despite their being no sign of injury or even without their bodies shutting down. The Doctor decides to investigate to see if there’s any link between the victims. She eventually finds one, if very vague connection: They all had an app named ‘Soul Searcher’ installed on their phone, which markets itself as something similar to Tinder.

It turns out that the app is being run by a computer entity named Ziffy, who uses the app to absorb & consume the souls of those who use it. We learn that Ziffy has control over the original app’s developer, Jacob, and is planning on having Jacob upload itself to the internet & onto every website, so that it can consume nearly everyone on Earth

Eventually however, the Doctor is able to defeat Ziffy by tricking it into installing itself onto a USB stick that contains a deadly computer virus, which wipes out Ziffy. The Doctor then installs the virus onto the Soul Searcher app & releases the update, thus removing any trace of Ziffy

STORY SIX: The Time Machine

WRITTEN BY: James Goss
DIRECTED BY: Daniel Nettheim

The story begins with the Doctor receiving a distress signal from a space station & answering it. We see the Doctor arriving on the station, where he meets the crew & their captain, Miss Carpenter, who tells the Doctor that there is a creature crawling through the vents & killing off her crew. She also reveals that the ship is containing a material named Rihlo & the creature has damaged the main flight program, which is causing the ship to travel into a nearby sun, and if the Rihlo is absorbed by the sun, then ½ of this galaxy will be destroyed.

The Doctor tells the crew to get onboard the TARDIS, as the Doctor & Felicity go ahead to attempt to fix the flight deck, while also being cautious of the creature onboard. The Doctor reaches the flight deck but to her confusement, she finds everything to be in working order & that the ship isn’t heading into the sun. But then suddenly, a loud rattling noise is heard in the vents, and it’s closing in on the Doctor. We see through the POV of the creature in the vent as it gets closer & closer to the Doctor. Then we see the Doctor witnessing the creature, and we see it to be… a mouse; a remote controlled mouse.

It turns out that all of this is a deliberate distraction for the Doctor, as we discover that the crew of the ship are actually a part of the Time-Fighters organization, a group of people who believe that the Time Lords enslaved their TARDISes. They plan to rip open the TARDIS’s Eye of Harmony to release the TARDIS’s soul & free it from captivity.

As soon as the Doctor realizes what is going on, she dashes back to the TARDIS, only to discover that the Time-Fighters have set up booby traps which she must avoid. All the while, we see the Time-Fighters attempting to open the Eye of Harmony & we Time & Space distorting around the spaceship, as it falls through Time & Space. Eventually however, the Doctor is able to reach the cloister room & close the Eye of Harmony before Time & Space is destroyed.

The story ends with the Doctor kicking the Time-Fighters from the TARDIS & leaving them stranded on their ship which, due to the Time & Space distortions, is now stranded on a desert planet without any fuel.

STORY SEVEN: The Perfect World

WRITTEN BY: John Dorney
DIRECTED BY: Mark Tonderai

The story begins with the Doctor taking Felicity to what she initially believed to be Alenession, a planet which is one giant party. However, upon arriving, she finds that the entire planet has completely changed into nothing but factories & luxurious places. Furthermore, she also discovers that the planet is now owned by a wealthy businessman, who claims to have bought the planet & designed it to his own desire.

We then come to learn about an organization named PlanetPerfect, a major galactic corporation that takes a planet, kicks the population off it, tears whatever is on it down & then sells it to a wealthy person, with PlanetPerfect reshaping & redesigning the planet to be the perfect world for their clients. Naturally, the Doctor is beyond furious, mortified & disgusted at this corporation, especially after she discovers that PlanetPerfect are technically responsible for the extinction of many forms of life.

The story sees the Doctor finding & working with the people who lost their planets to PlanetPerfect to take down the corporation & claim back their planets. The Doctor ends up taking the CEO of PlanetPerfect to court & provides enough evidence of the company wiping out innocent life which’ll never be seen again to create their luxury planets.

In the end, the CEO is found Guilty & arrested, with PlanetPerfect being shut down for good & the Doctor making a deal with the Shadow Proclamation, who’ll now help the aliens rebuild their planets.

STORY EIGHT: Invasion of the Eyes

WRITTEN BY: Pete McTighe & Sarah Dollard
DIRECTED BY: Jamie Childs

This would’ve been a 2-part finale & would’ve been the final story for Felicity Wilson.

The story begins with the Doctor arriving at UNIT HQ to meet with Nicholas, where she discovers that the UK is living in a golden age, with things changing for the positive & that UNIT’s funding has skyrocketed. The Doctor asks how this is possible & Nicholas says that it’s all thanks to the new Prime Minister, Tresam Turner, played by Mark Bonnar. Having never heard of Tresam, the Doctor decides to look her up & finds him to be a well-respected man & well liked by the population, yet no one can give any definitive answer as to WHY they like him.

Then suddenly, a broadcast from Tresam is transmitted across the UK, where Tresam announces that his government has made contact with alien life. The camera cuts to one of these aliens, which we see to be a floating eye creature named an Ilygad. The Ilygad say that they are willing to work with the human race & wish to form an alliance with them, before Tresam announces that the first meeting will be broadcast from a disclosed location in 24 hours. Most people seem unphased about the idea of making an alliance of aliens, but naturally the Doctor suspects something bigger to be at work.

We then see the Doctor & Felicity researching deeper into Tresam & discovering that up until last year, he never existed, yet everyone is convinced that he has been around for as long as they can remember.

We then cut to the day of the meeting, where UNIT has received intel that the meeting will be taking place in an underwater military base. With the location identified, the Doctor & Felicity take the TARDIS to the base, where the Doctor begins to scan for alien tech with the Sonic.

She traces alien technology to a lower lever, which leads her to an old vending machine. However, upon inspecting the vending machine, she discovers the front of it to be a door. & upon opening the door, she discovers the vending machine to actually be a TARDIS. Now concerned, the Doctor scans this TARDIS & discovers that it’s been programmed to rip a tear in reality into another universe. Suddenly, a voice is heard behind the Doctor & Felicity. They turn around & they see Tresam standing right behind them. & that’s when it hits the Doctor… she knows who Tresam is. The Doctor asks how he survived, before Tresam states that the Wise Ones were able to bring him back. Tresam stares the Doctor dead in the eye & says “Hello, Doctor. My, it’s been a while”, to which the Doctor coldly replies with “...Master”

The Doctor asks the Master what he’s doing & how he’s managed to cover up his tracks so well, and the Master explains that his TARDIS is not only creating a perception filter around him thanks to the use of Surron DNA (as teased in the end of Story 3) but is also being used to open a tear into a pocket universe & let the Ilygad invade Earth.

The Master then says that he’s said all that he wishes to say, before his guards appear & grab the Doctor & Felicity. Felicity is taken away to a prison cell, while the Doctor is dragged closer to the Master. He then proceeds to force a strange green liquid down the Doctor’s throat, before she appears to be unconscious & then reawakening with green eyes, with the Master stating that the Doctor is now under Ilygad control.

Part 1 then ends with the Doctor, now possessed by an Ilygad, being ordered to infiltrate UNIT & shut them down. We end the episode with the Master going live on TV & revealing to the population that they’ve lost. Then suddenly, a massive tear in the sky appears & a swarm of Ilygad fly out & begin shooting up the Earth with lasers out of their eyes.

Part 2 then begins with the Doctor arriving at UNIT HQ, where she reveals to our UNIT regulars that Tresam is the Master & that Felicity is dead. She then attempts to trick UNIT into activating a 2nd tear, which she claims will kill the Ilygad, but in reality would destroy the Earth. As this is going on however, we see inside the Doctor’s mind, where we see the Doctor confronting an evil version of herself for control over their body. They decide to settle their fight over a game of Snakes & Ladders, with the winner gaining 100% control & the loser being erased. Naturally, the Doctor wins, takes back control of her body & stops UNIT from creating a 2nd tear just in time.

Meanwhile, this would be intercut with footage of Felicity, as she works with other prisoners, who were the TV presenters, to try & escape their prison & take control of the situation. This ends up failing however, with the Camera men being slaughtered right in front of Felicity by the Ilygad. Felicity however is spared by the Master & is taken back to her cell.

Back at UNIT HQ, we see that the group have killed & captured an Ilygad, so the Doctor decides to inspect it, where she discovers that every Ilygad is covered in an invisible chemical, which does not originate from this universe. Meanwhile, we see the Master meeting with the head Ilygad, who reveals that they sensed the death of the Ilygad & theorise that the Doctor is back, so they need to try & stop her.

We then see the Master making a broadcast, which is aimed directly at the Doctor, where he tells her to stand down or else Felicity will die. Knowing that the Master is deadly serious & that time is probably running out until the Earth is wiped out, the Doctor forms a plan with UNIT, which we don’t hear or see, before she uses a Vortex Manipulator to teleport to the underwater base.

Once in the base, she begins to set up some sort of device, before she surrenders herself to a nearby guard, who takes her directly to the Master. The Master orders the Doctor to give him her TARDIS key, but the Doctor refuses. The Master then uses the power of the Surron to attack Felicity’s brain, before telling the Doctor that if she doesn’t Felicity will die. The Doctor then begins to hand over the key, before she pulls out a device from her coat pocket & activates it. Suddenly, the base is swarming with UNIT personnel, who begin to take care of the Master’s security, as the Master dashes off for safety.

We then see the Doctor running into the Master’s TARDIS & begins to close the rift, while also pulling the Ilygad back through. Then suddenly, she’s attacked by the Master, who attempts to stop the Doctor’s meddling. However, after some further struggle, the Doctor gives the Master the elbow & closes the void for good. Then suddenly, every warning light & siren begins playing, as the TARDIS begins to self destruct. The Doctor grabs the Master, drags her & himself out & closes the door as the Master’s TARDIS interior explodes into pieces. We then fade to later, where we see the Master’s TARDIS being taken away & the Master himself being arrested by UNIT.

We then end the episode outside UNIT HQ, with the Doctor & Felicity saying their goodbyes to the UNIT regulars outside the TARDIS, before the 2 of them re-enter the TARDIS. We then see the Doctor asking Felicity where she wishes to go next, before she reveals that she wishes to stop travelling. What she’s seen today was too much for her & she doesn’t think she’ll be the same again, so she’s decided to pack it in. The Doctor & Felicity then give each other a hug, before Felicity waves goodbye & exits the TARDIS. We follow her outside, as we feel her returning to normality as the TARDIS dematerialising behind her. & with that, we cut to the end credits.

XMAS SPECIAL: Night of the Krampus

WRITTEN BY: Pete McTighe
DIRECTED BY: Wayne Yip

The story sees the Doctor in Victorian London, where she discovers reports about people vanishing in the night, only to turn up the following day with their bodies shred to pieces. The story sees the Doctor working with a local barmaid named Jeanette & a detective named Gilbert to find out who is responsible for these murders

It turns out that the killer is actually a creature from another world. The Doctor doesn’t know what the creature is, however Jeanette & Gilbert believe it to be the Krampus, given how they’re currently in December. We discover that the Krampus can sense guilt within people & is killing people it believes to be criminals. However, it turns out that the Krampus is killing anyone who has done anything bad in their lives, no matter how minute that bad thing was.

Eventually however, the Doctor is able to defeat the Krampus by tricking it into moving into daylight, which causes the creature to ignite in flames & sizzle away into nothing

CONCLUSION

That concludes Season 53 of Doctor Who. This season was described as a mixed bag at best. While the season wasn’t outright bad & contained its own highlights, it was felt that something was missing in this season, though no one could put their finger on it.

What did work about this season however was Jemma Redgrave, who proved a lot of the naysayers wrong about her. & while there definitely was a loud & big majority who viewed the show as dead in their eyes & would do nothing but moan about how the show was progressing with the times, Redgrave was well accepted by the public.

Join me next time for Series 1 of The Jo Jones Chronicles

Thank you & goodbye!