I'd grown accustomed to your walk
The silly way you'd talk;
Your eyes, your nose,
Your voice, your clothes
Became familiar through the years -
I can't begin to tell you how.
The other men of my acquaintance
Only wear a single phiz;
Yours is always changing,
And I guess that's how it is.
I'd grown accustomed to that air
Of careless savoir-faire;
Accustomed to your face...
The Doctor had known his life was coming to an end. It had, as they say, been on the cards, for quite a while. Since before he had met Christine at Drakmoore he had sensed the grand finale was approaching quickly, haunted by the thought more than he was comfortable to admit.
The question wasn’t when, it was where.
He’d tried to act nonchalant as he’d tried to cram in all the adventure he could into his remaining time, determined not to miss a single second, no matter how exhausting it had been. But so many of places he wanted to see were still on the list.
And as the wounded, battered TARDIS painfully shifted through time and space, the Doctor felt it. Sensed it. They’d survived the Chronic Rift and its related chaos, but he hadn’t escaped his finale, his demise, his... end. There was no way to escape what was coming.
Another decade would have been nice. Another day would have been nice.
Christine’s voice cut through the blur. "The console!" she exclaimed, rushing over the blackened and warped panels in a rough mushroom shape at the centre of the room. "What has happened?!"
The Doctor peered down at the console whose edge he was clinging to. "Between the damage done... by the Razorback... and the buffeting it took during time in the Rift... this console has seen better days... I've tried to repair what I could... just so that we could make... one... last trip..."
"'Last'?" Christine echoed, frowning. "Doctor, what are you saying?"
The Doctor watched the cracked, fogged up time rotor as it painfully rose and fell. Up and down. Up and down. A metronome marking the time he had left. "Tel was right, Christine..." he breathed. "I'm afraid..." He shook his head, struggling to keep his train of thought. "... afraid... that I'm more beat up than I've let on," he finished quietly. An understatement, he mused. He could feel the cells of his body dying off, one by one giving up and ceasing to function. That funny, gangly body of his was failing just when he was getting used to it.
He dragged his mind back to the present and found the strength to turn his head to look at Christine. "There's nothing... that can be done for me... any more..."
"No!" Christine wailed.
Pain ghosted through him as another organ gave up the fight. His body was almost begging to let him die so he could be remade, so the change could begin, so he could escape this pain. "Don’t be upset, Christine..." he gasped, each word a collosal effort.
A hazy memory came to him, in his childhood on Gallifrey, of how he’d been briefly fascinated in the legends of phoenixes, birds that could regenerate themselves when they were burned. He’d lost interest when he learned they couldn’t change their faces, but he had always wondered if the process of burning and resurrection had hurt. If it didn’t, the phoenix had the edge. Regeneration always hurt. And it would hurt again, even though he’d been through it so many times he should be used to the pain by now.
"I... uh..." he began, but almost immediately forgot what he was going to say.
Something was wrong, he realized.
The Doctor’s legs suddenly gave way under his weight and he fell painfully with a undignified yelp. His remaining strength was not enough to let him get back up again, so he lay on the floor, the outer doors behind his aching head. This is going to hurt, he thought groggily, his mind unraveling.
"Doctor!"
She sounded so far away.
"Christine, listen..." he hissed, shocked at how soft and weak his voice had become. She'd have to listen carefully to make out his words over the whining of the time rotor, the threadbare hum of the temporal drives and that horrible pounding noise in his head.
"I've set the coordinates..." he explained breathlessly, wondering if it was it was a fault in the TARDIS or his eyes making everything so dim and blurry. "The old girl..." he continued, "will take you home..."
"'Home'?" She was always repeating things, it was an irritating habit. Still, it was too late to complain about it now. "But I want to stay here with you," she was telling him.
Just like Dara had.
Like Susan had.
Was the universe perhaps trying to tell him something?
No, he decided. He wasn't going to spend his last few moments chickening out of his last grand gesture.
"Not possible, Christine..." he wheezed. "You must leave the TARDIS... as soon as the journey is finished... there's nothing more to keep you here." He didn’t want her to have to see what happened next, and it would happen next. He could feel his skin tightening around him as his hearts began to beat faster and faster, threatening to explode out of his chest. He’d taught her so much, she could cope on her own.
"But you can't die! It is impossible!" She was getting hysterical. The Doctor could hear it in her voice and knew she was just about as close to having a breakdown as she’d ever had in her entire life.
"No, Christine... I too can die..." he mused sadly, realizing he was now lying flat on his back, looking at the cieling.
Oh no. This was it.
"No one lives forever..."
He was dying so fast, there wasn’t enough time...
He was a Time Lord, and he’d run out of time.
"... not... even..."
Christine’s lost, confused face receded into darkness as his eyes rolled back.
And so, he let go.
Fierce pain shot through his body, slowly burning ripping through his veins as he was torn apart from the inside out, an internal nuclear explosion. Unbearably bright light burst from every pore, every cell was ripped away and replaced, skin shrinking, muscles compressing, bones expanding in places and constricting in others as all his senses scrambled, then were gone as his complete physical being was reborn.
The Doctor felt his new form arriving, pushing him out as his mind and body were cast out into the darkness to fade to black, jumping into oblivion, diving into nothingness, to leave Christine forever...
...leaving her with him.
The new Doctor - coming to replace the one that had just died.
Christine looked down at the Doctor's body as his scarred face stared blankly up at the ceiling. He wasn't dead yet, his chest weakly rising and falling as he continued to breathe.
How many times had he put his life in danger, Christine wondered. And this time, it had happened and he was going to die. He'd always seem so indestructible, like an aura around him. But she looked at his charred body, suddenly looking so small, and knew it could snap as easily as anyone.
"Doctor?" she asked hopefully.
He did not reply, but continued to stare unblinkingly at the shadows above him. It was then Christine realized he wasn't breathing any more.
"Doctor?" she cried, louder in the hope he might hear her. "Doctor!"
Nothing.
Suddenly, the Doctor's face twisted in a grimace of pain as a violent jolt seemed to run through his body. For a moment, Christine thought she saw something strange happen to his skin - like some strange, hot, noiling white energy rippled all over his exposed flesh, but the shimmering was gone in an instant. Every muscle seemed to tense, his head jerking and his arms splayed out. His eyes were closed now as his lips parted and he inhaled deeply.
"Doctor!" Christine cried, suddenly feeling giddy. "You still live..." she breathed.
The Doctor's face was no longer scarred. The wounds were healed, the skin unmarked. The energy had seemingly repaired all the damage.
It was a miracle...
Suddenly, the Doctor's skin was glowing.
A burst of brilliant white lit up the confines of the control chamber.
Inside his tattered clothes, the Doctor's whole body was engulfed in what seemed to be flames, but couldn't be - because there was no heat, just light. Light funnelling out of his untouched clothes, from his sleeves and collar and the numerous tears in his once smart outfit. Like a blast of steam, the energy was exploding out of him in a fountain pouring upwards and outwards. Particles of light were swirling and dancing, spinning and spilling around him, energy that was dispersing like mist but was continuing to flow out of the Time Lord, a never-ending volcanic outrush.
"What is happening?" Christine cried.
Through that blinding light Christine could just make out the Doctor's eyes were blinking uncontrollably.
"What is happening?!" she screamed, but there was no answer. "Doctor, what is happening to you?!"
Because something was happening to him, but it was hard to tell through the strange brightness. And it was getting brighter still, brighter than brighter, jointed by a high-pitched, distinctive sound that got louder and louder as the light intensified.
He was stretching yet shrinking, elongating in all directions yet throwing off the weight of another's form, bones lengthening and skin stretching to cover them as curves turned to angles and lined smoothed themselves away.
Bigger, small, thinner, finer, pulled this way, that way, upside down inside out. No longer old, worn out and tired but but new, never seen before, never existed before! He wasn't just any new model, he was as fresh as tomorrow morning. He was ready for beginnings, unexpected adventure, innocence, exhuberance, no longer hurt by countless years of regrets and joys and sorrows.
Who would he be this time?
Christine was unable to look away from the glowing figure, despite the searing glare it was leaving in her eyes. She could just make out that the light was starting to affect him. His hair was changing colour, turning from chestnut to jet black, growing longer and curlier. Not just his hair, his arms, his legs, his whole body seemed to becoming larger, taller, wider, his once loose and baggy clothes tightening around his torso. Every second brought another change.
The burning golden light continued to surge through the Doctor, enveloping every inch. The transformation continued, and Christine could see his face, framed by what was now a mane of dark curls, softening and filling out. The features was shifting, contorting and reforming, settling in a new pattern, re-sculptured. The shapes of his face, his nose and ears and mouth were blurring like melting wax, becoming a blank canvas that became something else.
The shifting strands of light finally faded, the energy dispersed, the flames died down, the sound streamed away...
...and the Doctor was gone.
Lying where he'd been was someone else. The man before her was totally different - but he wore the Doctor's clothes, but they were slightly too small for him. The newcomer was breathing deeply, head jerking up towards her. The eyes popped opened, no longer dark brown but a deep ocean green. He looked around the TARDIS and his eyes fell on Christine. "I..." he gasped.
The voice was different. Older, sharper, with every syllable chewed with relish. A fruity, pompous voice.
"Christine!" he exclaimed in what could have been surprise or relief.
Eyes, nose, ears, body... Different eyes. Different nose. Different ears.
It was wrong. He was wrong.
Different, the Doctor thought groggily. Everything was different - in ways he couldn't define, and he was capable of defining things with incredible speed. But everything seemed slightly out of synch, from the way the air filled his lungs and the beatings of his hearts, to the horrible scorches and burns on the walls of the control room and the damaged console.
But most of all was Christine, pressed back against the ruined console as if trapped with a Dalek, staring at him with an expression he could define but didn't feel inclined to do so. There was anger in her gaze, anger and fear and no sign of trust at all.
It hurt him more than the residual ache that made his body feel like it didn't quite belong to him.
"Who art thou?" she demanded, cutting into his thoughts. "What hast thou done with my lord Doctor?"
"Christine, what are you talking about?" he asked, taken aback. "I am the Doctor!"
Her eyes widened further. "The Doctor?" she repeated, sounding lost.
"Yes, exactly! I am the Doctor." He looked at her disbelieving expression and felt a pang of doubt. "I think," he added, and regretted it right away.
Christine moved around the console, shaking her head in disbelief but careful not to take her eyes off him as she put as much distance as she could between them. "This is impossible," she whispered to herself. "Thou looks nothing like the appearance of my lord Doctor!" she complained.
The Doctor blinked. He hadn't expected that. "'Looks nothing like...'?"
The penny dropped. The strange disorientation, the ache in his muscles and bones, and the rapidly-returning memory of falling to the ground dying moments before. The memories fell like snowflakes and locked together like lego. "Oh yes, of course, regeneration!" he concluded, smiling in delight as it all made sense again. "I regenerated - that explains the weakness in the knees, and here I was thinking we were in for some bad weather!"
Christine didn't smile, but instead backed further away. "'Regeneration'?" she said, repeating him yet again. "What sorcery is that?"
"'Sorcery'?" the Doctor sneered, feeling a strange sensation of contempt rising up in him. He fought it down. No way to start his second last chance by forgetting his manners. "Oh, yes, it would seem like that to you," he said in what he trusted was a soothing tone. "What is that? Well, it's a little difficult to explain. You see, whenever I become too old or my body is badly damaged, I die. With a little luck, I can come back to life in a new form."
"In a new form?" Christine repeated.
The Doctor fought down a stab of annoyance. "Yes!" he said, forcing more jollyness into his voice. "I've lost count how many I've had," he lied. One more to go and then it really will be the end, he thought bleakly, before shrugging the thought off.
In the back of Christine's mind something whispered that it was real, that it was happening.She leaned against the wall, suddenly very weak in the legs. Her head was pounding, threatening to spill open its contents at any moment, she was sure of it. This was what it felt like to die inside.
"This is but a fairy tale thou art weaving," she accused the newcomer as he hauled himself to his feet, putting all his weight on the wrecked console. "Where is my lord Doctor?"
"It is the truth, Christine," the man said, swaying unsteadily. "I am the Doctor. Now, I know it's going to take a little bit of getting used to and all, but..."
"No," she shouted, cutting across his voice. He was acting like she had agreed with him, as if it didn't matter, as if she didn't matter. It was easier to be angry than sad, than to think about the loss she was feeling, unlike anything she had ever known before in her entire life.
"Thou art not the Doctor!" she snapped. "I know not what thou hast done with him but I shall not listen no more! Begone, Demon!"
She was not particularly surprised when, instead of vanishing in a puff of smoke, he stayed where he was.
"'Demon'?" he echoed, sounding almost embarassed. Not scared, not angry, not hurt. Not like it mattered. "Oh dear, this isn't going well," he sighed. "How can I prove to you I am who I say I am?"
He pushed away from the console and strode towards her.
"Come no closer, Demon," Christine warned, moving quickly over the broken glass and shrapnel, putting the console between them again. "I shall have nay to do with thee," she swore.
The man ran a hand through his hair with frustration. "Oh, what can I do to convince you?" His pained expression turned to surprise and his eyes narrowed. He looked at the hair around his hand suspiciously, as if it should not have been as long and tangled as it was. He shrugged, and turned his attention on her again, eyes suddenly wide. He grinned vividly. "I know!" he boomed. "When we first met, you..."
"Say not another word!" Christine shouted, blocking out the pompous voice. "Thou could hast easily plucked that memories from my lord Doctor's mind," she accused.
"It's not that simple to pluck memories from my mind, and you know that," the man reminded her, folding his arms. He thought she was stupid. "Please, I..." He broke off and swallowed. "Oh my," he said faintly, staring blankly at the air in front of him.
Christine tensed. "What?" she asked, risking a quick glance around the console room. They were alone, and there was nothing obvious to have grabbed the man's attention.
She looked back and realized he was staring at the grubby, fogged up glass column as it painfully rose and fell at the heart of the console. "Have you a mirror?" he asked politely, not taking his unblinking eyes from the column. "I'm just catching my reflection in the time rotor here and I can't believe what I'm seeing!" he gasped.
Christine wasn't sure what to say. Demons feared mirrors, didn't they? And he was asking for one from her? It seemed a reasonable request... "There be a mirror within the trunk near the door," she explained, waving a hand in the direction of chest, now with chunks of masonry and girder fallen atop it.
The man smiled, nodded and eagerly crossed to the chest.
"But I warn thee, no tricks!" she snapped.
The man froze and then turned to look at her. "I've no need for tricks, Christine," he pointed out simply, "and why would I trick you?"
She didn't answer, and he was already too busy sweeping the debris off the top of the chest. Lifting the lid, he reached inside and pulled up the mirror Christine had referred to. It was cracked badly from all the turbulence, but more or less intact. The reflection was clear and sharp.
"Ah, here it is," the man said with approval, as if he hadn't quite believed her.
The man's mouth opened in awe as he stared at the mirror, as if he had never seen his face before. "What a noble gaze!" he whispered, impressed. He was smiling. "My face exudes nothing but warmth and wisdom! I've often found myself lacking this in some form or another in my previous incarnations," he admitted over his shoulder, towards her, "but I do believe I've finally achieved perfection!"
He was almost shouting with glee now. A manic, almost deranged love for himself. The Doctor had never spoken like that, even in jest. He was always telling her that he was nothing special. That everyone was the same and it was what you did that mattered, not who you were, where you came from or what you looked like. He was never so worried about his face or his clothes.
She wasn't stupid and had considered carefully the idea that this man could be the Doctor brought back to life in a different body. But it wasn't just a different body, it was a different man altogether. The Doctor, the man she would have gladly laid down her life for... was... gone...
The Doctor was dead, and she was alone with a stranger.
"Perhaps if Tom Baker had only himself stayed in the part for three years, and started his run with a mediocre story, then been given a season consisting of stinkers to work with and then had a splendid season such cancelled, only to return to do a very short, low-budget, interlinked season that always fatigues the viewers, and I think we probably would have all pretty much forgotten about Tom Baker by now!"
So speaketh Ron "RTD Must Die!" Mallet, the most rabid of Sixth Doctor/Colin Baker supporters, and while my instinctive gut reaction is to point out that we'd still love this hypothetical Tom Baker era (because it's Tom BAKER, dude! Normal rules do not apply to the Toothy One), the basic message is sound: Colin Baker was given a rough deal and is in no way 'the crap Doctor'.
It'd be fair to say that the Sixth Doctor could have been brilliant, despite the coat, and companion, and format, and the continuity, and the rubbish stories, the apathatic script editor, the exhausted producer and the hateful BBC Controller. Any single one of them could have been overcome, but all of them together and the Sixth Doctor era never stood a chance. Just over two seasons of unsatisfying and highly irritating introverted crap - entertaining at best, annoying at worst.
The Sixth Doctor certainly has gotten a better deal off the screen than on it. His comic strip adventures easily overclipsed the TV version (Exodus, in particular, where Peri lectures the Doctor on his morality is worth a look) while the Missing Adventure novels painted him as a tragic figure, doomed to be killed before his time, the future hanging over him and cramping his lifestyle. In 1999, Big Finish took the Sixth Doctor in their sights and with all those inhibitions of TV removed, created the New Sixth Doctor, who is now so popular that only Paul McGann stands a chance of beating him in the polls (New TV series notwithstanding). Nowadays, a story with the Old Sixth Doctor is an event in itself - The Sandman was dubbed 'radical' for portraying the Doctor we saw in The Twin Dilemma and Mindwarp.
The Sixth Doctor and Colin Baker were screwed over in the 1980s, but they won out in the end, and out of the old Doctors, more people are statistically likely to have seen (and enjoyed) the Sixth Doctor in the Real Time webcast than any of his predecessors. Justice has finally arrived.
During the late 1990s, the niave innocent Eighth Doctor triggered a string of uncanonical Ninth Doctors (from Nicholas Briggs to Steve Johnson) who contrasted with their predecessors by being overbearing, arrogant, aloof and smug. It is therefore no real surprise that the DWADs (as psychotically happy with the TV Sixth Doctor as Ron Mallet) would choose their next incarnation to follow the same lines. After all, Jeff Coburn's Doctor started from the same spot as Peter Davison and ended up incredibly different, so maybe lightening could strike twice? Certainly, the new incarnation was a more subtle copy of the Sixth Doctor and not the Talking Quote Dispenser of David Segal's tenure, where even an original line of dialogue was worthy of celebration.
So... where did it all go so horribly wrong?
Actually, it's the other way round. And they hate each other, actually...
The Sixth Doctor boasted thirteen stories. The Seventh had fifteen. The Ninth Doctor ten (books not included). This Doctor managed seven. He had only one companion, no either memorable or returning enemies, and stories were unhealthily fixated on Gallifrey and the TARDIS. The plots took forever to get going and ended up going nowhere. His companion was horrible, stupid and annoying. He was boring, pompous and annoying. The TV Movie theme music was never meant to be wrapped around 25 minute episodes. Characters and situations don't have to be sympathetic to be entertaining, but they do have to be interesting. The Sixth Doctor always gave the impression of a nice guy having a bad day, who in other circumstances you'd like to get to know. The Twelfth Doctor is a windbag, easily punctured and with little under the surface.Jym de Natale was a logical choice for the next Doctor - an old DWAD regular likely to stay on longer than Coburn, a decent actor with varying range, and a diehard Who fan, you can't fault the choice. At first. It appears that after recording his last story, his increasing unprofessionalism forced the production team to cut their losses and recast (though I should say Jym and the production team made peace). Unless the DWADs are deliberately following the events on the parent TV show, this is one creepy coincidence.
So, since there is a fresh drought of Chatham material, the rest of the month will be devoted to the de Natale era, and arguably the most forgettable era of Doctor Who ever.
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The Twelfth Doctor (Jym de Natale) Program Guide
The Chronic Rift (Eleventh Doctor regenerates)
Season A
The Perfection Society **
The Soulstealers
Past Imperfect
The Chimera's Game
Memorium
Season B
The Webs of Time **
Time's Champions 1/2 *
Object Permanence (Twelfth Doctor regenerates)
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Rating Scale
***** - get RTD on the phone, this is gonna be bigger than Dalek!
**** - go out of your way to listen to
*** - if it's there, listen to it, it's not so bad
** - on second thoughts, that DVD of Timelash looks mighty pretty today
* - abandon the review, switch off your computer and run out of the house screaming
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