Doctor Who: The Cancelled Years - The Jo Jones Chronicles: Series 3


Series 3 of The Jo Jones Chronicles would’ve starred Katy Manning, Tyger Drew-Honey, Rukku Nahar & Percelle Ascott in their third season as Jo & Jon Jones, Yasmin Garcia & Rhys Lynch. However, this was to be Percelle Ascott’s final season, with him departing mid-way through the series.

Again, very little changed between seasons. The only noteworthy thing would be Brian Minchin stepping down as producer, with Derek Ritchie replacing him.


THE LAST DALEK

WRITTEN BY: Phil Ford
DIRECTED BY: Adrian McDowall

The story begins with Rhys, as we seem him being called to a family meeting by his parents. They explain to him that the 2 of them are getting divorced, as they’ve been fighting more & more recently & have decided that breaking up would be the best thing to do. They’ve agreed that Rhys will stay with his mother, while also having the option to visit his dad on weekends, however Rhys’ dad is keeping the house, meaning Rhys will soon be moving. We then see Rhys breaking the news to Jo, Jon & Yasmin, who are all devastated.

The story then moves away from our regulars & focuses on a group of scientists, who find what appears to be alien remains in an archaeological dig. After confirming that this is alien remains, the scientists work together to try & bring the alien back to life using a lightning storm. At first, the plan appears to have failed, as the alien remains dormant. Everyone but 1 of the scientists leave for home, with the final scientist being left to lock up.

However, while preparing to leave, the scientist, named Jayne, begins to hear sounds of sinister laughter & strange sounds echoing around the room. She begins to turn & look everywhere, becoming more & more panicked. Until finally, she turns around & the alien remains jumps onto her face & forces its way down her throat. The alien is fully consumed & Jayne now appears more sinister, with evil in her eyes.

It turns out that the alien was in fact a Dalek mutant, whose casing was destroyed long ago & had been buried on Earth for centuries. Now the Dalek has a new host however, it begins to follow the main Dalek order: to destroy all life that isn’t Dalek.

The story sees Jo & her friends learning about the Dalek & putting their skills & efforts together to try & stop the Dalek from killing everyone & summoning the Dalek fleet. Eventually however, the Dalek is defeated when the trio learn that Jayne’s body is slowly falling apart due to the Daleks' control over it. Yasmin convinces the Dalek to free Jayne & take over her instead. The Dalek climbs out of Jayne’s mouth & begins to approach Yasmin, however the Dalek mutant is then defeated when Rhys knocks it dead with a frying pan, just as it leaps into the air.



FLOOR ZERO

WRITTEN BY: Pete McTighe
DIRECTED BY: Daniel O'Hara

The story sees Jon & Yasmin working part-time at the local shopping centre. At first, everything appears normal & the 2 of them get on with normal tasks. However, the 2 of them soon get wrapped up in a mystery, much to Yasmin’s annoyance, when Jon hears rumours about employees vanishing into thin air. 

It turns out that one of the staff elevators contains a hidden gateway to another galaxy which only activates when the ‘Ground Floor’ button is pressed. We see Jon & Yasmin discovering this by accident, when they enter the lift & find themselves being pulled through to the other galaxy. Arriving in the galaxy, they quickly find themselves enslaved by brute-like aliens named the Hevys, who hypnotise the duo into becoming obedient slaves who must help the rest of the kidnapped humans to construct a deadly weapon, which the Hevys plan to use to destroy Earth.

The story would be split into 2 interlinking plots. Plot A sees Jo & Rhys trying to find where Jon & Yasmin have gone. Plot B however sees Jon slowly breaking free of his hypnosis, due to the hypnosis being designed to work only on humans & Jon not being human, & escaping back to Earth. Once on Earth, he reunites with Jo & Rhys & explains everything to them.

We then see the trio travelling to the Hevy’s galaxy, where they work together to free the slaves as well as destroying the Hevy’s weapon, which they’re eventually successfully able to do.



THE THING OF NIGHTMARES

WRITTEN BY: Scott Handcock
DIRECTED BY: Adrian McDowall

This would be the final story for Percelle Ascott as Rhys.

The story would’ve saw an eternal named Morpheus coming to Earth. We see that Morpheus has the ability to enter people's dreams & turn them into nightmares, as well as feeding off the fear caused by the nightmares. However, during the waking hours, we see that his victims are still affected by the nightmares, as they either begin to hallucinate things from the nightmares or become over paranoid & obsessed with the nightmare.

The story sees Jo & her friends working together to defeat Morpheus & stop the nightmares. A lot of attention is given onto Rhys & his nightmares, which we see are about him now moving away from his friends & having to start anew with new friends, as well as not being able to spend time with his dad anymore. In the end however, Morpheus is defeated when Jo & her friends face their nightmares, & deny their existence, which causes a mental feedback on Morpheus, causing him to become weak & retreating from Earth.

The story then ends with Rhys saying his goodbyes to Jo, Jon, Cliff & Yasmin telling them that although he’s still a bit nervous about the future, he is confident that things will improve & perhaps his parents might get back together one day. We then see Rhys getting into his mum's car & being driven to his new life, with everyone waving goodbye to him.



THE RENEGADE

WRITTEN BY: Alan Barnes
DIRECTED BY: Daniel O'Hara

The story begins with Jon & Yasmin out & about one night when suddenly, they spot an alien craft crash landing in a nearby field. They rush over to the ship, where they find an alien. The alien is named Yantis & claims to be friendly. Yantis also explains that he is the last of his kind & needs help to hide from the Vedrel, a race of galactic warriors who are approaching Earth.

The story sees Jo, Jon & Yasmin helping Yantis escape the Vedrel by taking him to UNIT, where they agree to look after him. However, towards the end of part 1, Jo is kidnapped by the Vedrel & transmitted to their spacecraft. At first, Jo believes she is about to be executed however the Vedrel explain to her that they are essentially a police force & that Yantis is actually a galactical criminal who has escaped justice.

The rest of the story then sees Jo & her friends working with the Vedrel to find & capture Yantis, who has stolen technology from UNIT & plans to construct a machine that’ll teleport him to another galaxy while also destroying the Earth. Eventually however, Yantis is captured by Jon & Yasmin & the story ends with the Vedrel imprisoning Yantis & taking him to space, where he’ll stand trial for his crimes.



ERASED FROM TIME

WRITTEN BY: Matt Fitton
DIRECTED BY: Adrian McDowall

The story begins with Yasmin visiting Jo & Jon at home. Everything seems normal at first when suddenly, Yasmin flinches in extreme pain. Jo asks her what’s wrong, to which she says she doesn’t know. Jo suggests she best return home, so Yasmin grabs her coat & heads home. She arrives at her house & knocks on the door, only to be greeted with a man she’s never seen before.

She asks who this man is & why he’s in her parents house, but the man claims that he’s never heard of her parents & that he’s lived here for 8 years. Confused & scared, Yasmin runs back to Jo’s house to tell her what’s happened. Back at Jo’s house, Jo & Jon help search for Yasmin’s parents, but to no avail. It’s as if they never existed. However, after digging through an old newspaper, Jo comes across an old report stating that both of Yasmin’s parents died in the year 1995.

With this concerning discovery, Jo, Jon & Yasmin travel to UNIT HQ, where they meet with Brigadier Nicholas Stewart. There, they all come to the same conclusion: somehow, something has affected time, which has resulted in the death of Yasmin’s parents before she was born, and that sooner or later, Yasmin will fade from existence. Fearing for her life, Yasmin asks Nicholas if there’s anything UNIT can do with their “funny gadgets”, to which Nicholas says yes. He explains that UNIT have secretly been working on a prototype time machine for such emergencies. He explains that he can send their group back to 1996 to try & save Yasmin’s parents from dying. However, he also explains that the machine is still a work in development & they can only remain in the past for 48 hours, or else the machine will shut down & they’ll be stuck in the past forever. We then see Jo, Jon & Yasmin preparing themselves to travel back to 1996, while UNIT personnel begin to activate the gateway which’ll send them to 1996. Once ready, the trio step through the gateway & they find themselves in the past.

The story then sees Yasmin & Jon making friends with Yasmin’s parents, while Jo tries to figure out what causes history to change. It turns out that an alien warrior known as Crudge is responsible. We learn that in Jo’s future, Crudge attempts to invade the Earth, but is foiled by Jo & her friends. Wishing for revenge against Jo, Crudge plans to travel back in time & stop Jo & her friends from ever being born by killing their parents, with Yasmin’s being first.

In the end, Jo is able to defeat Crudge by pushing him off a bridge during a fight, Yasmin & Jon are able to keep Yasmin’s parents safe & the trio are able to return to the present day just in time.



RISE OF THE SEA DEVILS

WRITTEN BY: 
DIRECTED BY: Daniel O'Hara

This story would see the return of the Sea Devils, and would’ve acted as a sequel to their first story from 1972. It also would’ve saw the return of Gina McKee as the Master.

The story would’ve saw the Master awakening a colony of Sea Devils & gifting them a device known as an Ironsword, which would give the Sea Devils the ability to flood the Earth & take over the planet, with the Master leading them to victory. The story sees Jo, Cliff, Jon & Yasmin working with UNIT to stop the Master & the Sea Devils. As stated, the story is very much a sequel to The Sea Devils, with the story paying homage to the original story & outright referencing it. In the end however, the Sea Devils are defeated when UNIT blows up the Sea Devils lair, much to the displeasure of Jo.



CONCLUSION

That concludes Series 3 of The Jo Jones Chronicles. This was yet another successful series, which resulted in the commission of a fourth series, which was scheduled to broadcast in April 2021. However, due to the outbreak of Covid-19, production on Series 4 was delayed, resulting in the air date being moved back to October 2021 & an episode count decrease from 12 to 6.


Join me next time for Series 4 of The Jo Jones Chronicles.

Thank you & goodbye!

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