Doctor Who: The Cancelled Years - Season 55
Season 55 of Doctor Who would’ve been the third season for Jemma Redgrave as the Doctor, the second season for Rebecca Root as Joanne Tilley, the first season for Ravin J Ganatra as Anderson Stenhouse, and the final season for Pete McTighe & Sarah Dollard as co-showrunners.
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THE PENDANT
WRITTEN BY: Pete McTighe & Sarah Dollard
DIRECTED BY: Lee Haven Jones
This would be the first story for our new companion, Anderson. Like most companion stories, the story would mostly follow around him.
We open with Anderson, where we get to learn a bit about him. We find that he’s unhappy with his life, working as a crane driver & struggling to make ends meet. We then see him getting off for the day after another long shift. He starts texting someone, before he trips & drops his phone in a shallow grid. He opens up the grid & finds his phone, however he also finds what appears to be a pendant. Realising it probably has some value, he plans to take it home to clean it up to sell on Ebay. However, as he starts walking home, he begins to hear voices in his head. He begins to question what's going on before he realises: somehow, the Pendant gives him the ability to read people’s minds.
We then see Anderson the following day, as he begins to use the Pendant to read his colleagues' minds & make things better for himself. However, we begin to see that a strange woman is watching him from afar, something Anderson doesn’t realise until his shift ends, as the woman begins to follow him home. The woman closes in on Anderson, who is cornered. However, before the woman can attack Anderson, they’re discovered by the Doctor & Joanne. Joanne helps Anderson escape while the Doctor sonics the woman. Then suddenly, the woman turns into a green-blue liquid-like alien.
It turns out that the alien, named Vircea, is after the Pendant, which is actually from an alien world. We learn that 150 years ago, Vircea was the top scientist on her planet, Nenucia. She created a device named the Altos, a machine that could control the mind of the population of any planet, which used the Pendant as its power source. She proposed the Altos to the leader of her people, however he turned it down & scattered the components to the Altos across the universe, so that Vircea could never use it. 150 years later, Vircea has everything needed to reconstruct the Altos except the Pendant, and she plans to use the Altos to conquer Earth.
Eventually however, Vircea is defeated when the Doctor & Joanne, along with Anderson, travel to Nenucia to expose Vircea’s plans to the planet’s leader, who uses his powers to capture & imprison Vircea forever.
The story ends with the Doctor & Joanne dropping Anderson back on Earth. However, before they depart, Anderson asks if he can join. At first, the Doctor is a bit unsure, however Anderson says that he needs to get away from his current life as it “reminds me of everything he’s lost”. & so, realising that Anderson is trying to escape something from his past, the Doctor invites him onboard the TARDIS
THE DALEK OCCUPATION OF WINTER
WRITTEN BY: David K Barnes
DIRECTED BY: Emma Sullivan
This would’ve been a 2-part adventure & would’ve been Anderson’s first proper adventure.
It turns out that the Daleks are responsible. We find that they’ve made an alliance with the people of Winter & in exchange for building more Daleks, the Daleks will provide constant food. The story would see our 3 regulars separated, with the Doctor trying to stop the Daleks, Anderson being forced to make Dalek casings & Joanne being forced to transfer young Dalek mutants into their casing.
Eventually a revolution against the Daleks is started after Kenrik Vost, a citizen of Winter who worked alongside Joanne, gets into an accident, which results in him becoming Dalek-like, which causes the Daleks to exterminate him out of fear & spark a revolution. However, before the end of the Daleks is guaranteed, the trio are forced off the planet by Gaius Majorian, the Grand Marshall of Winter who knew about the Daleks true intent & was originally fine with the state of affairs, before their final destruction, so they don't reveal the truth about him.
The story then ends with Gaius Majorian being killed by the Ambassador for his betrayal, before the Ambassador appoints Karna, a person who was loyal to the Daleks, as the new ambassador, & tasks her with ending the uprising & sending the people of Winter back to work.
ROSA PARKS
WRITTEN BY: Malorie Blackman
DIRECTED BY: Lee Haven Jones
THE OTHER SIDE
WRITTEN BY: Sarah Dollard
DIRECTED BY: Jennifer Perrott
A scientist named Eve is injected with poison & they die. We see through Eve’s perspective, as they yet again enter the darkness. Then suddenly, a beaming light appears before them & out of the light emerges shadows of people. They call out to her “Don’t leave us, you must release us”. She reaches out to the people until suddenly, the room around her returns to normal, as the antidote is injected & she comes back to life.
We then see the Doctor working with the scientists to find out what exactly happened, as well as what the spirits meant by “save us”. They theorise that somehow, they’ve broken the rules of death & have found a way to communicate with the dead, who wish to return to life. Despite being sceptical about the spirits, the Doctor agrees to work with the scientists to find a way to bring these spirits back to life. During these scenes, we’d have some quite heavy character stuff between Anderson & Joanne, where we learn that the spirits Anderson recognised were the woman & a young girl, who are revealed to be his wife & daughter. We’d learn that 5 years before the Doctor & Joanne entered his life, the 2 of them were taken away from him by a drunk driver & that he’s never fully recovered from their lost, which is why he wanted to get away from his old life.
Eventually, the Doctor & the scientists are able to create a machine that’ll turn the spirits into living, breathing entities. They make contact with the spirits again, where the Doctor explains their plan to them. The spirits prepare themselves & the Doctor activates the machine, as the spirits begin to turn into real people. However, after the experiment, things take a dark turn for the worse, as Eve collapses dead & the spirits reveal themselves not to be lost spirits from the dark side, but powerful entities, hell bent on bringing death to the universe.
With the lives of everyone at stake, the Doctor works with the remaining scientists to find a way to send the entities back to “the other side”. Eventually, they’re successfully able to send the spirits back when she discovers that now they’ve been given physical form, their souls are now intertwined with the image & souls of the actual dead loved ones. So the Doctor is forced to convince the scientists & Anderson to let go of their loves ones & look to the future, which destroys the new bodies & sends the spirits back into the eyes of Eve, who still remains dead.
GIRL, DECONSTRUCTED
WRITTEN BY: Lisa McMullin
DIRECTED BY: Jamie Magnus Stone
The story begins with the Doctor observing the migration of a benign race of microscopic, extremely light creatures named the Serapheem, before she receives a call for help from a teenage girl named Marnie McDonald.
It turns out that Marnie hasn’t gone anywhere, but her molecules have been broken down, essentially making her invisible. We learn that the night before she vanished, Marnie & her dad had a falling out, which resulted in Marnie wishing to run away. However, the Serapheem detected these thoughts but misinterpreted the situation as her wanting to catch a lift. They tried to bring Marnie on board, but they discovered her to be too heavy, so her molecules were broken down & they left her on Earth, only invisible to everyone.
Eventually however, the Doctor is able to bring back Marnie, as well as nearly every other missing teenager, by linking up with the Serapheem & convincing them to reassemble all the teens
KERBLAM!
WRITTEN BY: Pete McTighe
DIRECTED BY: Jennifer Perrott
This would be pretty much the same story from our own universe, as such, it doesn’t really need discussing.
INFAMY OF THE ZAROSS
WRITTEN BY: John Dorney
DIRECTED BY: Emma Sullivan
It turns out that their invasion is nothing more than an episode of an alien TV show directed by the Herazi. However, the Doctor & his companions ruin the episode & foil the invasion. The Doctor then confronts the Herazi & convinces the Forzell they were being used by the Herazi for ratings, as well as showing that they’re not the first people to be the stars of the show & reveal that all previous stars of the show were wiped out & forgotten about, which convinces them to rebel against the Herazi & put an end to their show.
THE SAVIOUR OF GALLIFREY
WRITTEN BY: Pete McTighe & Sarah Dollard
DIRECTED BY: Jamie Magnus Stone
Then a guard enters the room to give the Master some food. The Master seems unresponsive to the guard. However, as the guard turns around to exit the cell, the Master suddenly awakens, knocks out the guard & makes his escape as another guard activates an alert. We see sirens going across UNIT HQ, alerting Nicholas Lethbridge-Stewart & his team about the Master. We then see the TARDIS also getting alerted about the Master's breakout, which causes the Doctor to drop everything she's doing & pilot the TARDIS straight to UNIT HQ, just as we cut back to the Master for 1 final time, as he enters his TARDIS & laughs as it takes off.
After piloting the TARDIS for a little bit, it appears to bash into something & the console appears to freeze. Presuming something has caused this malfunction, the Doctor turns on the scanner only to discover herself... on Gallifrey. & not just any Gallifrey, the Gallifrey where her people were sent to in the Eternity War. The Doctor appears shocked & somewhat emotional & naturally tells her companions about where they are. They appear on Gallifrey for roughly 2 minutes until suddenly, they find themselves back in their universe, floating in space.
Using the scanner, the Doctor finds a small tear in reality, which she discovers to be the same tear from which Gallifrey came from in The Fall of the Doctor. Suddenly, the Doctor's face turns cold as she comes to the realisation that the Master more than likely had a similar experience & now knows that the Time Lords survived. Knowing that the Master is about to do something dangerous & deadly, the Doctor continues to follow his TARDIS' Artron trail.
Onboard the TARDIS, the Doctor plugs the Home Box into the console & brings up the log records, as well as the CCTV footage. There, she confirms that the Master was responsible for the damage. However, to her horror, she discovers that the Dalek ship contained a Time/Paradox Drive & that the Master has stolen it. She then explains to Joanne & Anderson that Time/Paradox Drives were ancient devices built by the early Time Lords which gave them the ability to travel back in time & change history without creating a paradox.
Now starting to guess as to what the Master is planning, the Doctor yet again scans the Master's artron trace &, after converting it, discovers the Master has used the Time/Paradox machine, as well as using components from his rift machine from Invasion of the Eyes to go back in time to pre Eternity War Gallifrey, something which should be impossible as a Time Lock was put into place after the War ended to prevent this. Realising the possible consequences & knowing she must stop the Master, the Doctor reveals that they have no choice but to push through the Time Lock & follow the Master back in time.
The Doctor begins to pilot the TARDIS beyond the Time Lock, which she only just manages to do by destroying some TARDIS rooms to create more energy. The TARDIS makes it to pre war history, coming out battered & bruised. Tracing the Master's TARDIS to Gallifrey, the Doctor sets the controls for materialisation & lands in the main citadel.
Suddenly, an alert is emitted across the citadel. Romana turns on her monitor & finds that the Master is massacring soldiers & is heading to the Vault of Omega, where all of Gallifrey's most powerful devices are stories. The Doctor & her group follows after him, before reaching the Vault, only to find they missed the Master. They find the vault to be a mess, however Romana notes that everything seems to be in place, before commenting "oh, no actually... The Eye is gone". Then cut to dread on the Doctor's face, as she says that there is something missing, as we turn to face a display pillar displaying nothing, with the Doctor saying "The Time Holder is gone".
Then the silence is broken by a growing beeping noise. The Doctor looks behind a statue of Rassilon & finds a stack of C4 taped to the back. She tells everyone to "RUN!" as they all dash out of the vault, just as it explodes behind them. The guards rush to the scene as the Doctor picks herself & her companions up & brushes herself off. She then tells her companions that they must return to the TARDIS & they all dash back, with Romana also choosing to tag along.
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Part 2 would then begin on Gallifrey, with Romana & Kalien calling an emergency meeting in the council chamber. We then cut to the Master landing his TARDIS on Gallifrey, before he pulls out a strange device with an eye symbol on it. He activates the device & the eye symbol begins to glow. Back on Gallifrey, we see that everyone on Gallifrey begins to turn on Romana & Kalien & they're chased out of the citadel. A group of soldiers close in on the 2 of them, before we cut to the Master, still holding The Eye, shouting "kill them". The soldiers fire their rifles when suddenly, the Doctor's TARDIS lands right in front of the soldiers. The doors open right in front of Romana & Kalien, with the Doctor yelling at them to get inside. The 2 of them enter the TARDIS, shut the doors behind them & the TARDIS shoots into space.
Cut to the planet, with a caption card reading 'Yardley 68', before we see Ace relaxing on a balcony. She then looks into the sky & sees the TARDIS crashing to Earth, before shouting "Gordon Bennett!", dashing out of her chair & heading back inside to head downstairs. We then see the TARDIS crash landing on Yardley 68. The Doctor opens to the door & finds herself face-to-face with Ace, where we get another reunion scene. The Doctor explains the situation to her, before Ace tells her that she has a spare workshop, which the Doctor can use to make any necessary repairs to the TARDIS.
We then see everyone in the workshop, with the Doctor, Romana IV & Ace working on repairing the TARDIS console, while the group begin to formulate a plan on how to stop the Master. Meanwhile, we see the Master on Gallifrey, discussing with his own personally selected council on what planets they should take over next, before he heads down to the Panopticon & plugs The Eye into his TARDIS Console, before plugging his TARDIS into the Eye of Harmony, which now allows him to control any Time Lord that isn't on Gallifrey, something with the Doctor, Kalien & both Romanas sense.
Eventually, the group are able to repair the TARDIS, before everyone hops aboard as they plan to put their plan into motion. They travel to the planet Terricks, which is one of the many planets the Master is planning on conquering using his Time Lord army. Once the Time Lords arrive, the group take down the Time Lords & bring them onboard the TARDIS, which cuts them off from the Master's control & gives Kalien an opportunity to return their freedom.
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The Doctor & Master then get into a scuffle, with the 2 fighting each other for control over the Master's TARDIS (similar to their scuffle as seen in The Deadly Assassin, Part 4). Eventually, the Master gets the upper hand & attempts to strangle the Doctor when suddenly, Romana finishes regenerating & wakes up to reveal her new incarnation, played by T'Nia Miller! She then saves the Doctor by grabbing the Master & knocking him out with a clean punch. The Doctor then stares at Romana in shock & confusion, stating that she can't be her.
Naturally, both Romana IV & Kalien are just as mind blown about this new version of Romana. However, the Doctor explains that it confirms an old Gallifreyan myth: that if a Time Lord were to somehow die earlier or later than it was intended by history, they would end up regenerating into a different person. Romana IV then questions about how this'll affect the Web of Time, and the Doctor explains that presumably the Master's Time/Paradox Drive has allowed this Romana to continue existing while also reserving the original history, with Romana II dying by having her neck snapped. We then cut to later, where we see Romana III & Kalien dragging the Master through a corridor, as he begins to wake up & demands to know what is going on. Romana IV explains that as punishment for his crimes, the Master is to be imprisoned in a stasis pod & to be frozen in time forever. We see the Master shouting at both the Doctor & Romana as he's placed into his pod, before the Doctor activates a switch & the Master is frozen.
With the Master now defeated, Romana says that she should get started on activating the Time Holder & returning to the Parallel universe. However, she & the Doctor then discover that each time the Time Holder has been used, it unsettles both realities & causes them to become more & more unstable, & if they were to use it again, both realities would begin to crack. Realising the dangers of using the Time Holder again, everyone comes to the conclusion that Gallifrey has to remain in this universe. & so, for the first time since Season 40, Gallifrey & the Time Lords are once again present in this universe. However, out of fear that the Daleks might one day discover the return of Gallifrey, a perception filter is emitted around the planet, which makes it invisible to anyone who isn't actively looking for it. With Gallifrey now back & safe, the Doctor says goodbye to Romana IV & Kalien, before she, her companions, Ace & Romana II board the TARDIS.
Finally, we end the episode with the TARDIS hanging above Gallifrey, with the Doctor sitting on the TARDIS floor, looking at the planet below her. Without any dialogue, we can see the Doctor, despite clearly being concerned about its future, is glad to see her home once again shining in her universe, as it should be. We then slowly fade to black, before entering the end credits…
CONCLUSION
That concludes Season 55 of Doctor Who. This season proved to be yet another mixed response from audiences, with viewers generally being 50/50 on this season being good or bad. However, after Season 55’s broadcast, things would become unstable for Doctor Who.
The following season was planned to air in early 2021 & would’ve marked the end of both the 15th Doctor. However, as we all know, the world was grinded to a halt & put into lockdown in early 2020, due to the Covid Pandemic, thus seemingly delaying Season 56 until much later.
Join me next time for Series 3 of The Jo Jones Chronicles
Thank you & goodbye!
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