The WIDWWA Newsletter - Issue 2

DDWF’S Notes

Here we are, one month later, with the second issue of the WIDWWA Newsletter... and what a month it has been! Although we technically caught up with real time in September, this month we came to the end of the current weekly run of WIDWWA, as Season 55 concluded. Next month, we’ll look a bit more at some stuff focusing on the final 3 episodes of Season 55, but for now we’ll let the dust settle a bit. We also finished ‘Mysteriet Doktorn’ Season 2, which has been entertaining you all for about three months, straight!

The biggest thing that happened this month, apart from that, was something which came up in the previous issue, as a nice two-spread history/preview, and something which has dominated the past weekend, as this issue is release – ODWC 2021! The Official Doctor Who Convention Glasgow 2021 took place this weekend, at the SEC Centre, and for everyone not living in an alternate universe, I released full hour-by-hour coverage on the WIDWWA Discord Server, which allowed for instant discussion and reaction. Not only were some crazy things released – if you look at the cover of this issue, you might get a clue what – but also it brought the community together in discussion as a whole. If you haven’t read the coverage of ODWC, it is all on WordPress now to read.

There are two guest contributions this issue that I want to point out, the first is Tadeusz Cisłak who is previewing the ‘Doctor Who: Through Time and Space’ Christmas Special, and the second is Jamie Smith who is the first writer of this Newsletter’s new Fan Fiction segment. Details about how you can get your fan fiction in this Newsletter is included later on.

There’s some really exciting stuff coming up in the next few months, so even though WIDWWA has caught up to date, stick with us, and keep reading the Newsletter as all the key updates will be included here!

December Releases!

The only release this month is “Eve”, the Christmas Special for ‘Doctor Who: Through Time and Space’ which would have aired on BBC Two.

See page 5 for a full preview.

25 December 2021

DOCTOR WHO: THROUGH TIME AND SPACE 2021 Christmas Special

News & Announcements

Doctor Who to return for 13-episode season

2 NOVEMBER 2021

Doctor Who: Season 56 has been commissioned for a full season of 13-episodes. The season will be split into two halves, much like Season 49 and Season 50, with one half airing in 2022 and the other in 2023. According to Mal Young, this was done primarily for cost reasons, and that it wouldn’t be feasible to produce 26-episodes over two years, but 13 over two would be possible. Young insisted that there’s some very exciting plans for S56, and the future is looking bright!

Doctor Who to become Paramount+ Original

17 NOVEMBER 2021

Outside of the United Kingdom, from 2022 onwards, Doctor Who will become a Paramount+ Original series, exclusive to the planet, which has already launched in numerous countries and will continue to do so in the next few years. This will mark the first time since 1996 that Doctor Who has not been premiered on US Network Television. The decision has been endorsed by some claiming that it responds well to the changing face of television. Everything continues as normal in the UK on the BBC.

Doctor Who’s Indian Adaptation scrapped!

12 NOVEMBER 2021

The Indian adaptation from Doordarshan had been commissioned in 2019 and was heading for a 2020 premiere date – unfortunately for the adaptation, the pandemic following a series of major setbacks pushed this adaptation into a constant state of delay until very recently when Doordarshan finally decided not to go ahead with the project. Maggy Chan offered hope, as when the rights expire, there’s potential for another Indian network to pick the programme up.

Jane Espenson to step down in 2023

23 NOVEMBER 2021

Jane Espenson, the Executive Supervisor of Doctor Who’s television output, has announced her departure from the franchise, which will be in 2023. She previously held prominent creative positions on Panopticon, served as CoShowrunner and Showrunner for Doctor Who, co-created and then showran The Elysium and served as Franchise Executive. She has been consistently involved with Doctor Who since 2008, and has had a big impact on the franchise.

Announcements from ODWC!

The

Mike Flanagan to showrun

The New Renegade Season 3 Mike Flanagan, best known for films such as Oculus and Doctor Sleep, has been appointed the new showrunner of Doctor Who: The New Renegade from Season 3 onwards. Season 3 will premiere in September 2022.

Doctor Who: Adventures renewed for 4 seasons

The CBBC/Nickelodeon animated spinoff has been renewed for an additional 4 seasons, taking the total to 6, by the end of 2023. Mal Young has confirmed it was originally an order of 2x20 episode seasons, but has been split into 4x10 episodes.

Doctor Who: The Daleks’ Master Plan - Coming Soon

The first serial of Season 56, handled by Ronald D. Moore, will be a retelling of the 1960s story, The Daleks’ Master Plan. It will see the Sixteenth Doctor somehow relive the events of the original story, as time begins to fracture...

Murray Melvin to Return as The Master

Murray Melvin revealed in his ODWC panel ‘An Audience With Murray Melvin’ that he will be returning in Doctor Who: Adventures Series 3. He additionally announced he’d be in the first episode entitled “The Invaders”. The next two episodes are called “Patriot” and “Wonderland”.

60th Anniversary: Writer & Director Announced!

The 60th Anniversary film has been announced to be directed by Mick Jackson and written by Karey Kirkpatrick. Both have had extensive film experience and experience on the Doctor Who franchise. It will star Ace Bhatti as the Doctor.

Moore, Espenson and Renwick to return!

Mal Young has announced that Season 56 will be split into three induvial serials, which will be handled each by a former showrunner, in the build-up to the 60th Anniversary. Ronald D. Moore will handle the first, Jane Espenson the second and David Renwick the third.

Suranne Jones & Togo Igawa to star!

Suranne Jones and Togo Igawa have been announced as serial regulars, on The Daleks’ Master Plan, playing Sara Kingdom and Mavic Chen respectfully. Sam Claflin will also star as Bret Vyon with Tom Varey as Kert Gantry.

Doctor Misterio to return on Paramount+

Jamie Blanch, the actor behind El Doctor, has revealed that Paramount+ have reached an agreement with RTVE to purchase the full rights to Doctor Misterio and produce a new series for Paramount+, to help with its impending Spanish and Latin America launches.

The Polish Christmas... ...on N

PREVIEW BY TADEUSZ CISŁAK

It started with one image – The Doktor and Pola having Christmas dinner in some cottage. Pola disciplines The Doktor, while she asks her why there’s no meat on the table.

The national Polish trait is absurdly extensive patriotism. We just won’t shut up about how awesome we are in presence of foreigners. This is why, since Polish adaptation is exported abroad, it was ensured that it bleeds and sweats Polishness. Polish historical events, Polish locations, Polish mentality. So I asked myself – why not Polish Christmas? Doctor Who has a long history with Christmas specials – Poland does not, but this never stopped our businesses from trying to adopt foreign traditions before.

I had a gimmick, now I needed a point. Every great story has a theme, something it wants to tell. I’ve found one on my doorstep, very relevant and important, and while I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it justice, I promise to give it my best shot.

No, I won’t get less enigmatic.

Big theme requires skilled writer, and Tomasz Szafrański is just the man for the job.

A few years ago he made a Sylvester special for his medical drama Echo Serca. The show, before associated with unrivaled realism, in this episode took a 180 and presented the audience with almost fairytale-like scenario, but it was used for a deep and serious character study on par with, if not superior to the rest of the show. Szafrański brought his characters to hell to show them the way out of it.

In other words, it was like best episodes of Doctor Who.

This Christmas Day don’t expect your ordinary lecture about the Christmas spirit.

We’re gonna talk about the meaning of Christmas, but not the usual way. There will be grimness. There will be tough questions. There will be surprises (I can’t promise the five Ranis, but-). There will be a lot, and I mean a lot, of Polish culture, and it may have something to tell ya. But most importantly, there will be light.

There won’t be meat though. Merry Christmas to all of you from Poland.

WIDWWA

Mysterious time distortions in 19th Century and present day’s Poland catch The Doktor’s attention. But what she finds is completely different to any threat she has faced before. Join The Doktor and Pola on the most ordinary extraordinary Christmas dinner and discover with them why perhaps we need Christmas more than ever.

The

Written and Directed by Tomasz Szafrański

Best of

If you’re not already a member of the WIDWWA server, you’re missing out, as that is the place to be when it comes to the WIDWWA community. You can simply join this server by following the link on the @WIDWWA twitter page.

This section is a showcase of the most intelligent and entertaining contributions on the WIDWWA Discord server over the last month.

An interesting question raised this month...

The Official Doctor Who Convention: Glasgow 2021, kicked off on Friday 26 November, and full coverage was available on the WIDWWA Discord Server, during the event. That coverage can now be viewed on the WIDWWA WordPress Blog at: https://bit.ly/ODWC2021

After a year in Cyberspace, with the 2020 Convention only being virtual, ODWC was back, and it was back in style. Mal Young, the franchise’s new executive, was keen to use ODWC as a platform to make some big announcements for the show, all at once. This had been done in part, during previous years, the most recent being the announcement of ‘Doctor Who: Adventures’ at Anaheim 2019, but Young wanted to up the ante, and as you can see from page 4, the list of announcements made at ODWC 2021 was extensive.

I’m not going to talk about those announcements, as either they’re described pretty well on page 4, or I have some more extensive articles coming up later in the Newsletter. Here, we’ll overview the convention as a whole.

If we are going to talk about anything big, though, we might as well mention Mal Young’s panel, whereby he revealed the

franchise’s big 2-year plan, with the release months of everything, apart from the Foreign Adaptations. This was the first time Young had to really expose himself to Doctor Who fans, and for them to see his leadership style and his ambitions for the franchise.

In fact, the whole convention had Mal Young written all over it, while also retaining what had made ODWC so special since 2013. Unlike lots of other Doctor Who conventions, ODWC has the luxury of getting the current cast and crew of the franchise to appear and talk about the current stuff they are doing, and in true ODWC fashion, there’s a lot they can’t talk about, but the audience questions always ask for spoilers anyway – this is something, which as a tradition continued here. The only hiccup was when in Murray Melvin’s panel, he accidently fell for one of these questions, leaking, a day early, that his Master will be in ‘Doctor Who: Adventures’ third season premiere.

2-YEAR PLAN

Apart from the big announcement panels, which were ‘Doctor Who: The New Renegade’, ‘Doctor Who at the Movies’, ‘Mal Young’, ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Foreign Adaptations’ and ‘Doctor Who: Adventures’, the highlights of the convention were the panels where two or more people were just put on a sofa together and just discussed stuff. The solo panels, of which there were several, felt a bit more stilted, with most being entirely audience Q&A based and requiring the sole panellist to do a lot of work. The panels with the most fun were the ones such as ‘The Three Doctors’, ‘Ale and Cordale’, ‘Erin and Kyle’, ‘The Writers Room’ and ‘When 11 Met 14’.

Where all this didn’t work was the final panel ‘The Eight Doctors’, whereby the organisers realised just how many Doctors they had at the convention, so they stuck them all together onto a sofa, and it monumentally failed. Jamie Blanch and Hanna Śleszyńska basically got nothing to do, essentially being side-lined and not really able to get a word in. Sylvester McCoy and Colin Baker took most of the limelight during the panel, not only being the two most outgoing Doctors present, but having some of the most experience of doing conventions and panels. Samantha Bond, obviously tired from the weekend, was pretty quiet as well. The Closing Ceremony, like all ODWCs, however, remained a highlight. Since Anaheim 2014, ODWC has had a tradition of a closing ceremony whereby the guests perform little skits and routines and stuff, just to celebrate the weekend and entertain not just the fans but each other. The Glasgow 2021 Closing Ceremony included Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy singing George Formby (lyrics opposite); Murray Melvin reciting Anthony Ainley; Brian Blessed and Emma Caulfield reprising their roles as Ale and Cordale in a little sitcom sketch; John Levene appearing to complain he wasn’t on any panels; Anthony Head crossing over ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ with ‘Doctor Who’ in the form of song; Ronald D. Moore and Jane Espenson playing themselves in 2014, in a sketch about Gemma, only to be outdone by Samantha Bond and Ace Bhatti surprising everyone by dressing up as Espenson and Young and performing a sketch, as their bosses.

ODWC 2021 was a return to the ODWC’s of past, while also paving a new future, which Young had instigated, of them being used to make big headline grabbing announcements and really treat everyone watching the panels.

Where will the next ODWC be held?... That will be revealed in around May/June time, but looking at the history of ODWC locations, it seems a visit to the States is due again!

WIDWWA

WHEN I’M FIGHTING DALEKS

During the Closing Ceremony, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Peter Davison peformed a parody of ‘When I’m Cleaning Windows’ by George Formby.

All Three: Now we go fighting Daleks to earn an honest bob For us brave fellas it's an interestin' job Now it's a job that just suits us A intergalactic hero you would be If you can see what we can see When we’re fighting Daleks Sylvester McCoy: Haemovore couples too What about the Tetraps coo The red Kangs or the Blue… When I'm fighting Daleks Colin Baker: As a Doctor, I work hard I like to stop the Valeyard I’ll get rid of the Vervoids Whether it’s a war crime or not My girl companion, she looked divine With King Ycarnos, she was fine Then there was Mel, weren’t she swell When I’m fighting Daleks Peter Davison: Tegan Jovanka’s sweet name I call It's a wonder I don't fall My mind's not on my work at all When I'm Fighting Daleks Sylvester McCoy: I weren’t always a fella, can’t you tell I once was Mrs Moneypenny, as well I battled with non-other than her majesty When I'm Fighting Daleks Colin Baker: I began as a grumpy old man Nothing ever went to plan When I got that damn recorder I found myself get quite smaller The velvet jacket then came best Which covered with a thrilly vest A big long scarf hung from my shoulders When I’m fighting Daleks Peter Davison: Some celery stuck to my lapel Colin Baker: A colourful coat made me swell Sylvester McCoy: An umbrella completed my apparel All Three: When we’re Fighting Daleks Peter Davison: I was then a big old man Before dashing young trend began I fought Angels and battled the Rogue When I'm Fighting Daleks Colin Baker: I was President of Gallifrey, against my will But soon I would in fact become Will I travelled with the PM defending Earth Before I died despite my worth Sylvester McCoy: The Cybermen ended my life But my companions would pay the price I then became dashing and brave again When I’m Fighting Daleks All Three: The Doctor explores the universe, once more Despite the Restoration at his door But don’t you forget when you were us When you’re fighting Daleks When you’re fighting Daleks

BACK FOR MOORE

You didn’t expect this did you?

Yes it’s true – Ronald D. Moore, the man who was unceremoniously fired as showrunner, part way through the production of Season 52, is back! You must be wondering how this happened, and why it happened, and what it is happening for? Don’t fear, you’re answers are here!

Firstly, let’s chronicle Ronald D. Moore’s journey here. He rose to prominence originally as a writer on the ‘Star Trek’ franchise in the 1990s. In fact, his first ever professional credit was the ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ episode ‘The Bonding’ in 1989. The person who commissioned Moore’s first script was a man called Ira Steven Behr, who was one of the leading creative forces on ‘The Next Generation’ during its third season. From there, he wrote several more episodes, before the following year he managed to secure the position of Executive Story Editor on the show, within just a year of his first ever

professional writing credit. Ironically, it was Behr’s departure from the show which opened up this position for Moore. Moore only rose up and up from there and in 1994, he penned his first film, as he was commissioned to write the screenplay, with Brannon Braga for ‘Star Trek: Generations’. Around this time, Ira Steven Behr came back into the picture, as he was the showrunner of ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ and for the third season of that show, Behr hired Moore onto the writing staff. From 1994 to 1999, Moore and Behr became close collaborators, with Moore eventually writing 30 episodes of the show. During this time, Moore also wrote the screenplay for ‘Star Trek: First Contact’ which earned him a Hugo Award nomination.

After ‘Deep Space Nine’ ended, Moore and Behr parted ways – for now. Moore co-wrote the screenplay for ‘Mission: Impossible II’ before moving onto lead creative role on the sci-fi show, ‘Roswell’. It was during this time,

that Moore was approached for write a script for ‘Doctor Who’ – this would become the final serial of Season 39, ‘Shattered Lives’. Moore believed this would likely be his only contribution to ‘Doctor Who’, although as a big fan of the franchise, he hoped it wouldn’t. ‘Roswell’ came to an end, and Moore moved onto pitching a reboot of the cult 1970s sci-fi series ‘Battlestar Galactica’ to the Sci-Fi channel. He succeeded and produced a two-episode pilot season, which was then given a full series commission. What Moore didn’t expect was a calling back to ‘Doctor Who’, just as he was writing the first full season of ‘Battlestar Galactica’, as his former collaborator, Ira Steven Behr, had just been appointed as the new Showrunner and Executive Producer of ‘Doctor Who’ and had asked Moore to write a script for the new season. Moore initially said no, but Behr not only persuaded him to write a script, but also come into the writers’ room and help develop the ideas of the series. Moore agreed, and split his time, about 70-30 between ‘Battlestar Galactica’ and ‘Doctor Who’. If Ira Steven Behr hadn’t been at ‘Doctor Who’, this likely would have never happened.

Moore continued contributing about one script per season for ‘Doctor Who’ excluding Season 43, in 2006, due to his heavy commitments to ‘Battlestar Galactica’ that year. During the later years of ‘Battlestar Galactica’, Moore brought on board another writer called Jane Espenson to take more of a lead on the series, so, not only could he begin to develop a spinoff series, which Syfy wanted, but also he could continue to contribute to ‘Doctor Who’, which he was really enjoying doing. In 2009, just as all this was happening, Moore was asked by Behr to come in and take over the spinoff series ‘Panopticon’ for its third season. Moore did have to decline, had he comitted to writing the two-part Season 48 finale, with Robert Shearman, but also he was setting up his BSG spinoff ‘Caprica’. He did agree to come on board for the fourth season, as by that time, he knew he could get Jane Espenson to take over on the show. In 2011, ‘Caprica’ was cancelled, so Moore brought Espenson with him, when he took over ‘Panopticon’.

Moore’s era on ‘Panopticon’ was sought with controversary, as he and Espenson treated it with the same touch they treated ‘Battlestar Galactica’ which was a significantly more adult show. Series 4 of ‘Panopticon’ managed to earn a 15 rating when released on DVD, the highest of any ‘Doctor Who’ franchise release ever, to that point. Moore also worked with Behr closely, once more, as he enacted Behr’s Master Plan which focused on the Doctor’s death and then resurrection during ‘Panopticon’ itself. After proving himself on ‘Panopticon’, although Behr had essentially decided on him back in about 2010, Moore was appointed showrunner of ‘Doctor Who’ alongside Jane Espenson, as his co-showrunner.

The Cast of Battlestar Galactica

Season 49 was extremely successful, with Moore and Espenson praised for the season that they delivered. Behr also decided to step down, at this point, from the role which had become known as the “Franchise Executive”. Moore was appointed as Behr’s successor, now showrunner and “Franchise Executive”.

At this point, Espenson moved over to the new spinoff series ‘The Elysium’, leaving Moore as now the sole showrunner of ‘Doctor Who. Moore’s first solo season, saw him move the show over to a new Doctor, that of the Fifteenth, Adjoa Andoh, and was once again very well received. However, around this time, Moore came up with a three-season plan for the Andoh era, which would be the beginning of the end. Season 51, which included a very

Mankind’ to several different studios, most of which rejected it, due to recent events, but he was eventually given a straight-to-series order by Apple TV+. ‘For All Mankind’ premiered in late-2019.

During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Moore became involved in ‘Doctor Who’ again, for the first time in two years, through the ‘Who at Home’ tweetalongs of old episodes. In the first lockdown, Moore tweeted along with 7 of the 10 episodes. Moore also wrote several fans produced mini-episodes to go alongside these tweetalongs as well. During the second lockdown, in October, November and December 2020, Moore consistently tweeted along to every episode. Moore cited, after this, that the tweetalongs had reignited his interest in ‘Doctor Who’ and have helped him heal his relationship with the show.

Also, in 2020, the ViacomCBS report was published which expressed the view that Ronald D. Moore’s firing was a mistake, but that he should never have been appointed as Franchise Executive in the first place and that, essentially what happened, was that Moore was over overworked, and the quality of what he was producing went down as a result. It suggested that in 2017, Moore should’ve instead been deposed, from Franchise Executive, but remained as Showrunner. At least in ViacomCBS’ eyes, this report cleared Moore of the stigma he had received the past few years.

convoluted finale which tied in with ‘The Elysium’, did not go down particularly well, with anyone, and then Season 52, got so bad, that CBS and the BBC pulled the plug and sacked Moore from the show. Espenson came in as a quick replacement before Adrian Hodges took over full time from 2019.

After his sacking at the end of 2017, Moore moved on a pitched a series called ‘For All

That brings us then to 2021, when Jane Espenson and Mal Young approached Moore about returning to ‘Doctor Who’ to showrun a 6-episode serial, due for release in May 2022 – less than a years’ time. Moore initially said ‘No’, partly thinking the suggestion was a joke, but Espenson talked him round. When Moore finally agreed, he expressed that he was keen to revisit an idea he had planned on doing in Season 53. Espenson remembered this well, and with Moore, the two explained the idea to Young. Originally, the finale of Season 52, would lead to the Doctor being plunged back into old stories (most of them missing stories) in the next season, whereby they’d be able to do a modern retelling of each story. The most prominent one of these stories was to be ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’, a personal favourite of Moore, and he explained that the idea came to him when filming ‘The Martian Equinox’, which he wrote as a sequel to ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’.

The idea was refined and reformed into a BSG-ified version of ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’ by Moore, Espenson and Young, which would mainly focus on the story told in the first six parts of the original adventure, with the other half, being more original by Moore himself, expanding the story and creating a better development toward the ending. Espenson also brought in some of the ideas, Adrian Hodges had set up in Season 55, to factor a role in the serial.

The serial began filming in October 2021, with Suranne Jones cast as Sara Kingdom, Togo Igawa as Mavic Chen, Sam Claflin as Bret Vyon and Tom Varey as Kert Gantry.

All the characters’ names on the call sheets

were altered, in order to prevent leaks. One call sheet did in fact leak, via the Mirror, but thankfully, the altered names, ensured that, when revealed at ODWC 2021, it all remained as a surprised for the fans.

For WIDWWA fans, I’ll say this now, when we come to May, it doesn’t matter if you’ve seen or have not seen ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’, like in-universe, it will be written as so anyone could watch it – as Moore would be pretty stupid to rely on the audience having knowledge of a missing serial from 1965. So, if you haven’t seen it, enjoy experiencing ‘The Daleks’ Master Plan’ in a fairly unique way... the Ronald D. Moore way.

WIDWWA

FLANAGAN’S RENEGADE

At ODWC, Mike Flanagan was announced as the new showrunner of ‘Doctor Who: The New Renegade’. This might be an unfamiliar name to some, considering he has never worked on the Doctor Who franchise before in either our universe or in the WIDWWA universe, but he’s a big Doctor Who fan and an established writer, director, editor and showrunner in the film and television industry. Some of his films, such as ‘Oculus’ and ‘Doctor Sleep’ may be familiar to you, or perhaps some of his television shows such as ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ and ‘The Haunting of Bly Manor’ as well as the more recent ‘Midnight Mass’.

Although a lot of Flanagan’s work is from the horror genre, it must be noted that ‘Doctor Who: The New Renegade’ is not turning into an out-and-out horror show, as it’s still a Doctor Who show, and it’s still being overseen by Jane Espenson and Mal Young, however, Flanagan’s horror background and influences will certainly play a part in the

the future of the series.

A key theme of ‘The New Renegade’ is the idea of faith and an exploration of just what it is. Now, according to Chris Carter, this is the Keeper being evil... for reasons, and that’s what the whole concept of religion is, and where it comes from. Flanagan, like Carter, has a background in telling stories around faith, and that will influence how he handles this theme in ‘The New Renegade’ from Season 3 onwards.

Flanagan was appointed as showrunner, quite some time ago, and has spent several months working with Espenson and Young redeveloping the show from scratch. Season 3 brings ‘The New Renegade’ into a new era. It’s still distinctly the same show, but the story and themes of the show will begin to move in another direction, and a whole new set of characters will be introduced.

Not much is known about Season 3, especially as it’s still nearly a year away from

broadcast; currently scheduled to premiere in September 2022. The third season will be utilising the Pixomondo AR Wall built for the second season of ‘The New Renegade’ and ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season 4. Additionally, in the new year, production of the main show will be moving to Toronto, to use this wall, and it is expected that Anthony Head’s part in the Centenary Story will be filmed during this time as well.

As revealed at the ODWC panel, joining Mike Flanagan as an executive producer will be Anthony Head. This happened for two reasons, firstly it’s a commonly used loophole to give a show’s main star a pay-rise, without having to amend their contracts, and secondly because Head did want some sort of creative influence into how his character was handled, after Season 2, which he was a bit unhappy with.

Speculation would’ve run wild, after the announcement of Flanagan’s appointment, in the ‘Doctor Who’ fanbase, at what his version of ‘The New Renegade’ would have been like.

Flanagan himself is a self-confessed superfan of ‘Battlestar Galactica’ and so a heavy influence from Ronald D. Moore’s way of storytelling may be on the horizon. Certainly, fans speculated a lot more horror influences entering the show, with some arguing that using that to justify the TV-MA rating might be a bit more sensible than random and senseless “for-the-sakeof-it” swearing.

So, why did I choose Mike Flanagan then? Well, for pretty much the same reasons Jane Espenson would’ve in the WIDWWA universe – as I do my best to try and think like the producers and writers working on Doctor Who, in order to make these sorts of decisions.

The new showrunner needed to be someone new and fresh with a clear forwardlooking vision, but they also needed to have proven showrunning talent and experience at making popular

CHRIS CARTER’S MESSAGE

The show’s creator, Chris Carter, made a return, via Zoom, at the ODWC panel to introduce Mike Flanagan and reveal him to the world as the new showrunner.

“Hello Glasgow! Sorry, I can’t be there, but I’m working on a very exciting new project at the moment. I’m just here to give all of my luck to the new team working on The New Renegade… Who is leading that team, I hear you ask? Well I have been given permission, by the people sat just below my big face, to tell you, before I leave into the void of Hollywood red tape! The new showrunner of Doctor Who: The New Renegade is not only a genius, but a massive Doctor Who fan, who honestly is going to make such a brilliant Season 3. It is my honour to introduce you all to Mike Flanagan!”

TV-MA shows; additionally, they needed to not only like ‘Doctor Who’ but know it fairly well, ideally a fan, but not necessary, to run a show based on as much nostalgia as ‘The New Renegade’ is. When deciding all those factors, plus the added bonus of Flanagan being a fan of Jane Espenson and Moore’s work in particular, he seemed like the obvious choice.

‘The New Renegade’ is essentially a US foreign adaptation of ‘Doctor Who’, just it’s made to be the same universe as the main show, stars a Brit in the main role and is handled by Jane Espenson. Apart from that, it really does fall into all the other categories the foreign adaptations fall into. Putting such a leading American genre writer in the role makes a lot of sense and it allows ‘The New Renegade’ to be able to flourish as a big gun in Paramount+’s US TV arsenal, throughout the next few years.

The biggest hope for ‘The New Renegade’ that a lot of fans have, is essentially for it to find its purpose – find a reason for actually existing and really to find its feet. Hopefully this is something Mike Flanagan can bring.

THE COMPANION

SAMMY THOMPSON

It’s an understatement to say that Sammy Thompson is a controversial companion in the WIDWWA community. I think much of this stemmed from my original lack of proper explanation of her character in the original pre-retconathon videos, and Sammy’s original casting, which has since been changed to the fabulous, Laurie Holden. It was because of the fact that I believe is there much unsaid about Sammy, that I thought she deserved the opportunity to receive a two-page spread, explaining exactly who the character is and my thought process behind her.

Samantha Thompson is first introduced to

us as essentially the runaway daughter of a rich Colonial American landowner, who’s fled to Scotland in an effort to find adventure. In her first story, ‘The Hail Mary’, we’re presented with the harsh fact that Sammy’s household, back in America, is full of slaves which her father has purchased, as was the norm at the time, with people of such class in America, and we see this is part of the reason that Sammy ran away to Scotland. Sammy isn’t presented as being an anti-slavery activist or anything, but she is presented knowing that the environment in which she’s grown up in, is inherently wrong, and she wants an out.

COMPANION FACTOR

When she then meets the Doctor, in Scotland, and manages to get embroiled into the tragic events of the Battle of Culloden, whereby there was essentially a mass genocide of Scottish Highlanders by the English, she instantly gels with the Doctor and the two get on immediately. It’s not a coincidence that the first adventure the Doctor takes her on is to the year 5 billion, as he knows that above anything else, what Sammy craves is an escape from her life and to find adventure, whether that be across the Atlantic Ocean or the wider universe.

Sammy being an American companion comes completely out of the Paramount Deal, and the urge, from Paramount, to introduce an American companion, so when they aired it on UPN, they’d have a big selling point, to their new American audience, to watch the programme.

Sammy and the Doctor become incredibly close over the course of their time together, with a new romantic subplot being introduced in their second season, where Sammy begins to find feelings for the Doctor, which is not reciprocated. This would have been the first time in Doctor Who that anything like this was really done, and although it ends with the Doctor and Sammy just agreeing to be friends, it’s a clear statement of intent from David Renwick, showing how Doctor Who is evolving, modernising, and maybe even Americanising, as the show heads into the 21st Century.

Even though the two agree to become friends, the feelings do still stay with Sammy, and this eventually is what leads to her departure. Unusually for a companion, Sammy leaves the TARDIS in the first story of Season 38, which is Richard E. Grant’s first story as the Tenth Doctor, and Sammy’s only appearance with him. Think Clara’s reaction to the Twelfth Doctor in ‘Deep Breath’ mixed with just utter heartbreak... Sammy just can’t take the fact that her Doctor has gone and changed, alongside the rejection she received beforehand, and so she chooses to depart the TARDIS during Grant’s first story...

As Sammy does in fact depart in the present day and in a story featuring the Leftover team, there was an attempt made to bring Laurie Holden into Leftover for Series 2, however, Laurie Holden

FACT FILE

wanted to move onto bigger and better things at this point but didn’t rule out coming back in the future... as of 2021, Laurie Holden has never reappeared as Sammy on-screen, in any official capacity.

Sammy is a companion who comes from a rarely seen background and spends three seasons not only growing and becoming a better person, but also entering into territory the show has never dared enter before, with the storyline focusing on her very realistic feelings towards the Doctor. Her time as a companion was undoubtedly about adventure and fun, but, unlike many that had come before her, with her own clear character arc, which in many cases led the way for how the Ninth Doctor behaved.

At the end of the day, Sammy was the companion that helped launch Doctor Who internationally, and she’s one who would be fondly remembered by fans and perhaps WIDWWA fans should give her a second look.

BY

all about the FOREIGN ADAPTATIONS

With ‘Mysteriet Doktorn’ having just wrapped up; the impending release of the ‘Doctor Who: Through Time and Space’ Christmas Special on Christmas Day, and with ‘Dokter Wie’ Season 3 on the horizon, we’re going to take a look back at all four foreign adaptations and find out, not just how each one of them came about, but how the Foreign Adaptations in general came about.

Foreign Adaptations as a concept is not an old one. TV Shows have been franchised out to other territories for as long as TV Shows have been around. Most of the ones you’ll be familiar with, in the English-speaking world, will be to do with cultural reasons, as, if we look at programmes such as ‘The Office’ or ‘Veep’ for example, they are direct American adaptations of British shows – which were produced in the same era as the original. A programme like ‘House of Cards’ is different, as this was made over 20 years later, and is as much a foreign adaptation as a modernday remake. The second category of Foreign Adaptations is foreign language adaptations, whereby the original is in a different language to the territory a TV company wants to release it in, so, rather than simply dubbing the original, they decide to remake it in their language. This is very common around the globe, and while less so in the Englishspeaking world, it has still occasionally happened with programmes such as ‘The Good Doctor’, which was originally Korean; ‘Humans’, which was originally Swedish and essentially the whole of the ‘Power Rangers’ franchise, which was originally Japanese. The much more prevalent form of Foreign

Foreign Adaptation in the English-speaking world is for game shows, as these are pretty much universal in concept. That’s why popular game shows such as ‘Countdown’ can originate from France, ‘Deal or No Deal’ can originate from The Netherlands and there can be over 100 different versions of ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ across the globe. There’s a huge market for Foreign Adaptations across the planet, and while game shows are the most prevalent, especially in the Englishspeaking world, there are hundreds upon hundreds of dramas based upon dramas from other countries running too.

Now, in the real world, around 2015 time, BBC Worldwide did, to my knowledge, begin entering into preliminary discussions with foreign broadcasters about exporting the format of ‘Doctor Who’. This all came about, following the 2014 World Tour, where interested parties made themselves known. Eventually, this all came to nothing, but when I heard about it, I thought it made enormous sense that in a universe where ‘Doctor Who’ had chance to become significantly more successful, on a global scale, than real life, with such things as the Paramount Deal and the movies, this would be far more likely to happen.

I didn’t know any details about the real attempt to do this, past what I’ve just told you, so I essentially had to work out which countries would be most likely to make an adaptation. I ruled out France, straight away, as they simply do not make foreign adaptations of English shows – I don’t know if it’s an inherent dislike for the English, or

something similar, but it’s just not something they do. The Netherlands, I did know, had made several adaptations of English language shows before, so I put them straight onto the list first. Spain, Sweden, and Poland then made the list, with my life being then made a little easier, as my co-writer on ‘The Elysium’, Tadeusz Cisłak, is Polish, and therefore following ‘The Elysium’ finishing, I was able to get him to handle one of the four adaptations.

What some people don’t really understand about the Foreign Adaptations is that they have little to do with the main franchise at all. They are handled by BBC Studios (what was formerly BBC Worldwide) and are essentially entirely creatively controlled by the foreign production company, with them just licensing the ‘Doctor Who’ brand from the BBC and CBS. With only a little creative veto being given to the Franchise Executive, and later to the Executive Supervisor for Distribution, the foreign adaptations had little to do with the BBC and CBS at all. 30 episodes of pure foreign ‘Doctor Who’ being produced in 2019, for example, cost the BBC no money at all; it was no skin of their nose, and it in fact made them money through licensing. Treat the foreign adaptations like Big Finish if you will, they license the brand from the BBC, they make the content, they sell it and then the BBC get a tonne of money back, all the while, the BBC still have the power of veto.

‘Doctor Who: Through Time and Space’ is the only foreign adaptation that’s a bit different. During the second half of the 2010s, the BBC have been experimenting more and more with bilingual productions, where a show would be produced, natively, in two languages. Most often this had been done with Welsh and Gaelic, but the foreign adaptions provided the BBC with an opportunity to expand this experiment. BBC Two funded part of the Polish adaption, ‘Doktor – Przez Czas i Przestrzeń’, in order to have the each shot of the show, shot twice, one after another, with the actors doing the first take in Polish and the second in English – therefore two edits of the show could be made, one in Polish and the other in English, without the need for a dub. This was only ever an experiment, and although put on BBC Two and given an English title outside of Poland, the show only pulled in the same sorts of figures as BBC Four did with the

with the other adaptations, and therefore Maggy Chan decided to return the show to a traditional dub for the second season. For consistency sake, unlike the other adaptations, the show retained its English title, as not to confuse UK audiences. For the 2021 Christmas Special, after a lot of criticism, Chan decided to give the bilingual approach one more go and based on how ‘Eve’ performs on Christmas Day BBC Two, Chan will decide if Season 3 will be shot bilingually or not.

The next expansion came an Indian Adaptation, but as you can see on Page 3, after a year-and-half of the pandemic, it was scrapped, as it was deemed unfeasible. However, this adaptation did mark a distinct movement out of the confines of Europe, for the first time, and it’ll be interesting to see just where the foreign adaptions will go next, as it was revealed by Maggy Chan, at ODWC, that at least one new adaptation is currently in development.

Overall, although some fans were a bit confused to begin with, the WIDWWA community has really embraced the Foreign Adaptations and have really enjoyed seeing how each country handles Doctor Who differently. From what I’ve seen, I believe the community has enjoyed ‘Mysteriet Doktorn’ the most, the earth-bound UNIT-based adaptations, with a bunch of relationship and character drama chucked in for good measure. I expect that within the WIDWWA universe, the reaction from British and American fans would have been similar from Doctor Who fans. The only people, outside of their broadcast countries, who would have been watching the foreign adaptations would be fans, so it would be fans driving them being shown and dubbed internationally, as if it weren’t for the fans, the BBC wouldn’t bother showing them on BBC Four, and it’s the fans that afford the BBC to extend that courtesy.

As we move into the next few years, something is changing however, as Paramount+ have commissioned a second Season of ‘Doctor Misterio’ that they themselves will be making, so they can help market their streaming service towards Spain and Latin America. This is the first time where the American Paramount+ front of the foreign adaptations is taking charge, and it could, perhaps, change everything going forward...

TIME CAPSULE A CASE FOR THE BLUE BOX

In 1997, BBC Worldwide negotiated a monumental co-production deal with Paramount Television for (at that time) the next 5 seasons of ‘Doctor Who’, with BBC Wales, where, new Head of Drama Series, Mal Young, decided to move production of the show to (more on this may follow in a future Paramount Deal feature). While this was happening, during negotiations, Kerry McCluggage, who was essentially Mal Young’s opposite number at Paramount suggested that ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ could do a crossover episode with ‘Doctor Who’. Development began, just after the Paramount Deal was signed, with Joe Meonsky, a ‘Voyager’ writer who was personally interested in working on the Doctor Who project, coming up with a storyline for the ‘Voyager’ episode. It was here that Mal Young intervened, suggesting that perhaps ‘Doctor Who’ could do the episode instead of ‘Voyager’, as he wanted a big “second launch” for the programme, halfway through the upcoming season, and he thought it would be a great way to tell the British audience that “Doctor Who is a big deal now”.

One person who was rather indifferent about the whole thing was, showrunner, David Renwick, who went along with it, but didn’t really care either way. He assigned Steven Moffat, the Script Editor, to work on the

storyline further with Menosky, but while he appreciated the fact that it would be a great publicity pull for the series, he wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about it, especially as he had already been encouraged to increase the outer space “futuristic” episodes, which he’d conceded nearly half of the run to. The episode itself is all form over function. The whole thing is just look Michael French is having scenes with Kate Mulgrew, and Captain Janeway helps fly the TARDIS and isn’t this so cool! That part of the story does work and it does come across as great for fans of ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Star Trek’, and it works brilliantly for publicity, but what you get at the end of the day, at its core, is a rather bog-standard mid-season ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ episode, whereby the crew have to deal with their medical supplies transforming into a monster – which, while in this case, is because of the presence of a Time Lord... for some reason, it isn’t the most interesting or gratifying plot out there.

Some interesting notes include the fact that the character called ‘The Doctor’ on ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ played by Robert Picardo is credited as ‘The EMH’, his official title, due to obvious reasons, but in the episode, the character is just called ‘The Doctor’ and described as the ‘The EMH’ and several jokes

are made about him having the same name as our Doctor. Also, no other characters apart from the main cast of both shows actually appear, if you don’t include the monster, and on top of that only the USS Voyager sets, and the TARDIS sets appear in the episodes too. The reason why only Janeway gets to enter the TARDIS is due to the fact that only Kate Mulgrew flew to the UK to film the TARDIS scenes, and as such the next episode of Voyager produced, was a ‘Janeway-lite’ episode. For the most part, however, filming took place in Hollywood with the production crew of ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ producing it. The episode was directed by Les Landau and only credited to him, but the TARDIS scenes (which were only a small part of the episode) were actually directed by Susan Belbin, who went uncredited, although her Producer credit, as a senior position, covered this, technically.

bbc one,

Looking at my personal development of the story, all the obvious ‘in-universe’ reasons, such as the consequences of the Paramount Deal are very apparent. In addition, I’m a big ‘Star Trek’ fan, and although I’m not that much of a fan of ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ itself, for a crossover in 1998, it made logical sense. Ideally, you’d want to have had a crossover with ‘The Original Series’ with Patrick Troughton, or ‘The Next Generation’ with Richard Griffiths but ‘Voyager’ with Michael French works just fine, although Janeway vs. a female Doctor, probably would’ve been even better.

The possibility of a ‘Star Trek’ crossover is rooted in some reality, however, as Russell T. Davies was actually exploring the possibility of doing a crossover with ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’ for a potential second series of his revival of ‘Doctor Who’, but the cancellation of ‘Enterprise’ in 2005 put a stop to this. Whether or not it would’ve happened in the end, in either Series 2 or ‘Enterprise’ itself, is up to debate, especially due to the fact there would be no co-production agreement between the BBC and Paramount at this point, however, the fact that in real life, this was a distinct possibility, opens the door for French and Mulgrew, giving Season 35 a soft relaunch on the 2nd January 1999!

starring MICHAEL FRENCH and LAURIE HOLDEN with special guest star KATE MULGREW

written by JOE MENOSKY directed by LES LANDAU produced by KENNETH BILLER and SUSAN BELBIN executive producers DAVID RENWICK and RICK BERMAN

January 1999

FAN FICTION FATE FROM THE PAST

A Short Story by JAMIE SMITH

The TARDIS drifted through time & space, as the Doctor worked at the controls of the console. Zenla sits on a couch with Chris, adjusting his robotic arm. Gemma meanwhile sits comfortably on one of the Doctor’s old armchairs, reading one of the Doctor’s old paperback novels. The Doctor types a series of numbers & letters on the TARDISes controls, before pulling down a lever.

“So what’s this planet we’re heading to again?” asked Gemma to the Doctor

“Omnia 7. Home to the Omniaters, one of the most peaceful & intelligent societies in the known universe. They’re exactly the type of people who can help me with the TARDIS.”

Zenla looked up at the Doctor in curiosity. “Why? What’s wrong with the TARDIS?”

“Well, it’s the Architectural configuration circuit. Ever since our encounter with House, it’s been playing up a bit.”

“Architectural configure... what?” asked Chris

“The Architectural configuration circuit,” replied the Doctor. “It controls the TARDISes ability to move or remove rooms & I have a feeling that House may have tampered with it. What used to be my private study has now been replaced with a bathroom & the aquarium. If we don’t get this fixed now, then one of us could end up being lost in those corridors forever.”

“Wait a minute,” remarked Zenla “if you’re having TARDIS troubles, why aren’t we going to Gallifrey?”

“Because my dear Zenla, I don’t want to get wrapped into another political crisis. Every time I go home for a visit, I always end up in some kind of trouble. Besides, you know what those workshops are like. By the time I get a new circuit, I’ll be dead & you’ll probably be in your sixth regeneration.”

“Alright, you’ve made your point. We don’t

have to go to Gallifrey if you don’t want to. We can go to Omnia 7 then, it was just a suggestion.”

Chris then spoke up, saying that he has a sharp pain in his back. Gemma also remarked that she is feeling something familiar. Then simultaneously, the four travellers flinched in pain. The pain stopped, though the travellers felt as though something was still wrong. The Doctor & Zenla both became concerned & they checked their pulses. Nothing. The Doctor then ordered Chris & Gemma to check their pulses. Nothing either.

“What’s happening to us?” Gemma asked The Doctor replied with an expression of dread, “we’re dead.”

“But how? How are we dead? I exist, I’m real. We’re all real,” Chris remarked Zenla spoke up, “we’ve been killed… in our past. Presumably, someone... or something has interfered with history, which has resulted in us dying.”

By this stage, Gemma was starting to freak out, “but if we’re dead, how are we here? Why are we still existing? What’s supporting our existence?”

“Nothing. We’re just ghosts of a history that will never be.”

Zenla paused in horror, staring boldly at Chris’s human arm, “look!”

Everyone turned to look at Chris. His arm had become transparent, with part of it beginning to fade away into nothingness. Then everyone else turns to each other, and they notice that all of them are fading away.

Chris spoke up, “but how is this happening? If we exist now but die in the past? What’s changed?”

The Doctor replied, “I don’t know, Chris but whatever has happened, it’s bad news. Not just for us, but the universe. Think about it, think about what we’ve done, all the things

FAN FICTION FROM THE WIDWWA FANBASE! THIS MONTH’S FEATURES THE THIRTEENTH DOCTOR DURING SEASON 48, WITH ZENLA, CHRIS AND GEMMA

were changed. Imagine if those things never happened, imagine the consequences.”

“So what are we going to do then”, asked Gemma.

“Well first, we need to find out where & when we died,” ordered the Doctor, “Zenla, I need you to work the telepathic circuits.”

Zenla walked over to the console. She placed her hands on two dish-like circuits on the console, before closing her eyes & concentrating. As Zenla connected to the TARDIS, the Doctor began searching through the TARDIS Data Banks.

“What is it you’re doing?” asked Chris

“Well think about it, Chris. If we’re dead & history is changing around us, then somewhere out there are our new selves, our dead selves. If we can find our dead selves, we can go back in time, find out what caused our deaths & prevent them.”

The Data Bank finished compiling its data and revealed a stream of numbers & strange symbols. Space and Time coordinates.

The Doctor remarked in relief, “Space-Time coordinates 62-3-47-55:10. That’s where we die”.

The Doctor began setting the coordinates, frantically typing in the series of symbols & numbers into the console. He then pulled down the main lever & the TARDIS began to growl, as it shot off to the scene of the crime. The Doctor worked frantically at the controls, as the console began sparking.

“Hold on everyone!” he yelled. “What’s happening?!” shouted Gemma. “We’re about to cross into our own timeline, our own history, and the TARDIS doesn’t like it!”

The TARDIS shuddered violently, knocking the four travellers to the ground. Zenla helped the Doctor back to his feet before he continued to work at the controls. A red error light began flashing on one of the panels, and the Doctor growled in annoyance.

“Come on, old girl!”

By this point, Zenla herself had also started helping the Doctor at the controls. She then proceeded to pull 2 switches up, and the TARDIS settled. The Doctor looked at Zenla in astonishment.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“Disabled the safety protocols… something you probably should’ve done”

The Doctor looked slightly embarrassed,

“yes well… let’s say no more about that, shall we? Are we here?”

Zenla turned to the scanner & read out the coordinates. “62-3-47-55:10. The planet Kayste in the year 200,011. We’re here,” she affirmed.

“Right then, let’s go!”

The Doctor pulled down the main door lever, and the doors of the TARDIS swung open. Before exiting the TARDIS, he delivered a warning to his two human companions.

“Right, you two, listen to me. We are now in our own personal history, meaning there will be another version of us out there, a version of us who mustn’t know of our presence. Try to avoid interacting with others but whatever you do, do not, under any circumstances let your younger self see you.”

The four travellers exited the TARDIS and took in their surroundings. A futuristic styled town, filled with random alien architecture. The streets were as dead as a doorknob, with everyone living in fear of the unknown, with recent reports of people vanishing in the night. They explored the nearby area, looking for anything or anyone they either don’t remember or think is out of place.

“So, this is Kayste then?” Chris asked.

“Yes,” he replied “Kayste, during the time we were here. Which means that...”

Before the Doctor had the chance to finish his sentence, a screech of horror was heard in the distance. A swarm of people began heading their way, with the leader of the pact being the Doctor, an earlier version of the Doctor himself. The Doctor & his friends escaped down an alleyway, and hid out of sight, as the crowd dashed to the crime scene.

The group watched, as their younger selves investigated the body of the woman who let

They all replied with a No. Then suddenly, the four of them flinched in pain, much like they did before. More of their body is fading away, some of them no longer even visible. As the four of them got their strength back, the crowd of people dispersed. The corpse was lifted onto a carrier and taken away. Meanwhile, the younger versions of the Doctor & his friends headed to the north of town to continue their investigations. The man in the trench coat however separated himself from the crowd, walking towards the far south side of the town.

The Doctor made sure the coast was clear before he & his friends continued their work. The four of them trailed behind this mysterious man, keeping a fair distance & staying out of sight. They followed him to the edge of town, where nothing but the remains of now abandoned buildings remain. The man brought out a strange metal device from his pocket. He pushed down a button, and a battered alien ship materialised into existence. A ramp emerged from within the ship, and a door raised open. He entered the ship, while the Doctor’s group continued to observe. They quickly made a plan to stop the man as soon as he exited his ship. After waiting for about a minute, the man reemerged, now carrying a large laser rifle. He walked down the ramp, before pulling out his remote & closing the ramp behind him as well as enabling the ship’s invisibility cloak. The man holstered his weapon & began walking back to the town centre

Then suddenly, he heard the shout of the Doctor from behind him: “NOW!”

The Doctor & his companions tackled the man. Chris pinned him to the ground, while the Doctor threw his rifle away, with Zenla proceeding to stomp on the weapon, causing it to splatter into pieces. The Doctor began to integrate the man in a calm, but also demanding voice.

“Dangerous things, guns. They could go off & kill someone. Now then, I’m the Doctor & you’re clearly not supposed to be here. Why do you want to kill us?”

The man chuckled to himself, “Why?”, he said slowly, “Why should I tell you? I know you, the Doctor. The man of peace. You wouldn’t even hurt a fly!”

Chris twisted the man’s arm, causing him to scream a cry of pain, before telling the man,

“I will”

He kept his arm twisted, and proceeded to pull harder when the man refused to reveal his information. Eventually, however, the man broke & says that he’ll talk. Chris released the man and threw him to the ground. He got back on his feet and leaned on the side of his invisible ship, with Chris by his side to avoid him doing anything sudden.

“My name is Psiappa... I was sent on a mission by my people to-”

Then suddenly, Psiappa pushed Chris to the ground, before proceeding to run away from the group. A chase ensued. He rummaged through his own pockets until he pulled a medicine bottle. He opened the bottle & tipped the entire contents into his mouth. He swallowed everything down and proceeded to begin twitching violently, before collapsing to the ground. The Doctor & companions reached Psiappa’s corpse. The Doctor picked up the medicine bottle & cautiously sniffed it for clues.

“Cyanide. He’s killed himself” he concluded.

“So does that mean we’re gonna be alright then?” asked Zenla.

“We should be,” he replied with a sense of uncertainty.

The four of them checked their bodies & to their horror, they discovered that they were still vanishing.

“But why are we still vanishing?” asked Gemma. “If the killer is dead, why are we still dying?”

“I don’t know. Unless…” The Doctor was silent & thought to himself for a moment, before coming to the shocking conclusion, “He wasn’t the killer.”

“WHAT?” Chris replied in shock.

“Don’t you see, Chris? It was too easy. He wasn’t the killer, he was a distraction. No wonder this felt too easy, you wouldn’t just give up like that. We’ve been wasting our time with a distraction, while our murderer is still out in the wild.”

“So where do we go now?!” said Gemma.

“Let me think,” the Doctor replied in annoyance.

The Doctor wandered in a circle for a brief moment, thinking to himself & trying to predict what the real killer was planning. He quickly realised where the killer is & told his companions to follow him to a place he referred to as ‘The Station’.

The four of them rushed through the town, pushing past the confused & dazed inhabitants. Then suddenly, explosions are seen rising out of the nearby Underground Station entrances. The population ran screaming, as emotionless, steel figures rose from the smoke. Cybermen. The Doctor warned his friends to “stay out of sight” & “be careful” as they dashed right past the silver army. One by one, the Cybermen began attacking the locals and carrying their bodies back down to the underground.

The Doctor & his friends eventually made it past the crowd, and down an abandoned underground entrance. This entrance was different, however, no smoke, no Cybermen, no explosions. All was normal, too normal. They stumbled across a familiar door, an old rusty door with a ‘Keep out’ sign attached. The group remembered the events of this day through their younger selves. Behind that door was a cave. A cave that goes deep underground, straight to the Cybermen base, which their current selves are attempting to rig to explode. The Doctor attempted to open the door, only to discover it to be locked. He tried pushing again but to no success. Suddenly, the group flinched in pain again. More of them were fading away. Then Gemma released a blood-curdling scream. Everyone turned to look at her, as she vanished from existence. The Doctor was frozen in horror

“Gemma… I’m so sorry.”

Chris tried kicking the door open, still nothing. He sighed in frustration.

“I still don’t get it. Why would someone want to erase us from history?”

Out of nowhere, a voice emanated from behind them, “for revenge, Parsons.”

The trio turned around to see a man with purple-tinted skin in a black business suit, pointing a gun at them.

“Who are you? Why do you want us dead?” the Doctor asked as he tried to confront him.

“Oh alright, might as well tell you since you’ll all be dead soon. My name is Xrita, from the planet Mineppa.”

“Mineppa? Never heard of it”

“Oh but you will, Doctor. Or rather you would’ve. In your would-be future, you came to my planet. We were enslaved by the Blusons. You saved us from them, helped us rebel & take our land back... Only you weren’t careful, and a quarter of our people were

killed... including my family”

The Doctor paused in shame & guilt, “I’m… sorry.”

“Shut it! I’m here to save them. I’m here to kill you before you kill them. You broke me, Doctor. Now you must pay the price.”

Zenla collapsed to the ground in agony. She began to become transparent before she too faded away.

The Doctor practically began begging at this stage, “please, just listen to me. I’m sorry for what I will do, but you’ve got to save us, or else time will break on itself.”

Xrita clocked his gun & shot at the Doctor’s foot, causing him to fall to the ground. Chris rushed over to help aid the Doctor. Meanwhile, Xrita made his escape down to the underground. Chris did everything he could to cover the wound but to no avail, as the Doctor faded away into nothing.

With the Doctor gone, Chris rose to his feet & checked how he was doing. Soon, he’ll no longer exist. Chris then heard someone pounding on the other side of the locked door. The younger group. With no other options, he chased after Xrita.

He dashed through the station, manoeuvring around anything blocking his way. He catches up to Xrita at the end of a corridor, with no way out. The two paused, staring each other down before Chris attempted to fight Xrita. The two of them were in a struggle for survival. Chris got the upper hand at first but was soon thrown down by Xrita, who fired his gun directly through his prosthetic arm. The fight continued, and Chris soon got control again. He knocked Xrita to the floor, causing his gun to slide across the room. Chris quickly snatched up the gun & shot Xrita through the arm, causing him to blackout. Chris paused in shock for a moment, realising what he had done, before rummaging through Xrita’s pockets & pulling out the key to the door.

He dashed back to the door, where the pounding was still going on. Without hesitation, he pushed the key into the lock & released the latch, before hiding in cover, so as to not be spotted. His younger self burst through the door, followed by the Doctor, Gemma & Zenla. They slammed the door shut behind them & rushed upstairs, as a massive explosion was heard, and the door was blown off its hinges & smoke filled the entire room.

Chris coughed & splattered, as the smoke got in his lungs. The smoke died down, and he saw Gemma, Zenla & the Doctor fading back into existence. He ran over to them to help them & see if they’re alright.

Everyone appeared to be fine now, even the Doctor, whose foot was no longer injured. He asked Chris what happened, before asking where Xrita was “He’s… dead. I killed him. I’m sorry, Doctor. I just… I wasn’t thinking.”

“Oh I wish you hadn’t, Chris,” replied the Doctor, “but I understand why you did it. You saved us. Thank you. Now then, let’s get out of here then.”

They all made their way back to the entrance & climbed up the stairs. On the surface, they saw the people of the planet looking around in amazement & confusion, as well as piles of dead Cybermen. They also spied their younger selves making their way back to their TARDIS. The Doctor turned to the group & said, “I think we best be going. Best not let anyone see that there’s two of us.”

The four of them made their way back to their TARDIS. Onboard the ship, Zenla helped Chris remove the bullet from his arm, while Gemma brushed herself off & the Doctor set the TARDIS into flight, as they headed off back into time & space.

WIDWWA

SUBMIT YOUR FAN FICTION!

Like Jamie Smith, your fan fiction could be here next month and in future months! All you need to do, to be in with a chance of being featured, is to come up with a title, synopsis and the first 200 words of your story and then send it to widwwa1989@gmail.com, whereby if I like it, I will ask you to write a full 2500-3000 word story, which will be featured in a future issue.

If you do not receive a response, then I will have chosen not to go ahead with your story, at this present time.

Please can all stories be original, feature a WIDWWA TARDIS team and not feature any returning monsters, unless I ask you to during the writing process.

To submit a story, please email widwwa1989@gmail.com

THE DOCTOR’S QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“I thought you were just an amateur working with the Gaians for some evil scheme or plot, I thought you had just brainwashed Samantha… but no. You’re something more than that. Who are you?” - Journey into the Unknown, Part One

NEXT ISSUE

DOCTOR WHO:

WIDWWA

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The WIDWWA community has been based on Discord since May 2021, and is currently a thriving community with over 45 members. But we don’t want to stop there... as long as your a WIDWWA fan and want to contribute a positive non-toxic discussion, and follow all the rules of the server - please come along and join.

Details on how to join the Discord server can be found on the twitter account @WIDWWA. Additionally, there is some information on the YouTube community tab. If you still can’t get on, don’t be afraid to email DDWF at widwwa1989@gmail.com

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The blog with new releases can be found at widwwa.wordpress.com

INTERESTED IN PRINT COPIES?

Although this is a digital magazine, if there are people interested in receiving the WIDWWA Newsletter as a physical print magazine, I will look into this possibility. I would only be able to offer this service in the UK, but the idea would be you’d pay a 3-month, 6-month or 12-month subscription, and I’d then order in bulk lots of copies of that month’s magazine - about a week before publication - and then send each individual one, via post, to those with a subscription. If I timed it right, you’d receive your copy on the same day as digital publication for everyone else.

If this is something you’d like to have, or are interested in and want ask further questions, please let me know on Twitter, Discord or via email at widwwa1989@gmail.com