Story arcs in Doctor Who

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


In both the original run and since the 2005 revival, long-running British science fiction television programme Doctor Who has featured a number of story arcs. A story arc is an extended story which takes place over a larger number of episodes or serials, characterised by a gradual unfolding of plot points and introduction of narrative devices which come together in the arc's climax and dénouement. While character arcs exist over the course of many stories, they do not necessarily take the shape of an expanded story arc. A number of smaller arcs in the programme have taken the form of trilogies.

References to these arcs have since been made in both Doctor Who and its spin-offs such as Torchwood. Early seasons would feature story arcs which made up extended serials such as The Trial of a Time Lord but also loose umbrella titles such as The Key to Time. The new series has continued this trend with the introduction of "arc words" which are recognisable to the larger viewing audience such as "Bad Wolf", "Torchwood" and "Mr Saxon", which also constitute the story arcs for individual seasons.

Contents

[edit] The Master

See also: Terror of the Autons
See also: The Mind of Evil
See also: The Claws of Axos
See also: Colony in Space
See also: The Dæmons

Season 8 of Doctor Who involved the first appearance of the Doctor's arch enemy, the Master, portrayed then by Roger Delgado. Every story in the season involved the Master. At the very beginning, the Doctor is warned by a Time Lord that the Master, a convicted criminal and enemy of the Doctor's, has escaped from Gallifrey and may come to Earth seeking revenge, as proves to be the case. During this first story, the Doctor sabotages the Master's TARDIS and so traps the Master, as he is, on Earth in the 20th century. At the denouement of the subsequent story, however, the Master retrieves a missing component and escapes – only to return subsequently as a prisoner of Axos. He is next encountered in the future on an alien world and finally returns to Earth; in both these last two adventures his intention is to subvert an ancient power source having previously stolen secret files on such things from the Time Lords. At the very end of the season (in The Dæmons), UNIT finally captures the Master and takes him into custody.

[edit] The Key to Time

See also: The Ribos Operation
See also: The Pirate Planet
See also: The Stones of Blood
See also: The Androids of Tara
See also: The Power of Kroll
See also: The Armageddon Factor

The Key to Time is the umbrella title that links all six serials of Season 16 of Doctor Who. The arc was originally conceived of by producer Graham Williams, who had proposed it as part of his application for the producer's job in 1976.[1] The name refers to the powerful artifact whose segments the Doctor, Romana and K-9 are searching for during the season.

A figure presenting himself as the White Guardian commissions the Doctor, Romana and K-9 to find all six segments of the Key to Time, a cosmic artifact resembling a perfect cube that maintains the equilibrium of the universe. Too powerful for any single being to possess, it has been split into six different segments and scattered across space and time, disguised by the raw elemental power within them into any shape or size. However, the Guardian claims that the forces balancing the universe are so upset that the segments of the Key must be found and assembled, to stop the universe so that he can restore the balance.

The first segment is disguised as a lump of Jethryk on the planet Ribos. The second is actually the planet Callufrax, but that planet has been shrunk by the space-hopping pirate planet Zanak. The third is the Great Seal of Diplos, having been stolen by a criminal of that planet. The fourth is part of a statue on the planet Tara. The fifth has been consumed by the monster squid Kroll, causing it to grow to gigantic proportions. The final segment is in fact a female humanoid — Princess Astra.

In the final episode, the purported White Guardian attempts to take the Key from the Doctor. However, the Doctor sees through the figure's charade, reveals him as the Black Guardian in disguise, and once again scatters the segments of the Key across time and space.

The Key to Time is available on DVD in North America and was released on region 2 (Europe) DVD on September 24, 2007[2].

[edit] Entropy

See also: The Leisure Hive
See also: Meglos
See also: Full Circle
See also: State of Decay
See also: Warriors' Gate
See also: The Keeper of Traken
See also: Logopolis

All serials of season 18 are linked together by the central theme of entropy. Within the season, the stories Full Circle, State of Decay and Warriors' Gate are also known as The E-Space Trilogy.[3] The trilogy saw the TARDIS accidentally pass through a Charged Vacuum Emboitment (CVE) from its normal universe, N-Space, into a smaller one called E-Space. The trilogy served to introduce Adric as a companion in the first story Full Circle and marked the departure of companions Romana and K-9 Mark II in the final story Warriors' Gate. The season culminated in Logopolis where we learn that the CVEs were created by the Logopolitans to combat an Entropy field that ends up growing out of control and threatens to destroy the entire universe.

[edit] The Return of the Master / New Beginnings

See also: The Keeper of Traken
See also: Logopolis
See also: Castrovalva

Overlapping the entropy arc is the The Return of the Master trilogy. The trilogy, which also covers the regeneration into Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor, chronicles the Master as he attempts to procure a new body, and return to his old patterns of trying to conquer the universe and defeat the Doctor. The trilogy was also used to introduce Nyssa of Traken and Tegan Jovanka as the Doctor's new companions. It was released on DVD in 2007 under the title New Beginnings.

[edit] The Trial of a Time Lord

See also: The Mysterious Planet
See also: Mindwarp
See also: Terror of the Vervoids
See also: The Ultimate Foe

The Trial of a Time Lord is the title of the fourteen-part serial that encompasses the entirety of Season 23. In the serial, the Doctor stands accused of transgressing the First Law of Time, with adventures from his past, present, and future examined and used as evidence of guilt or innocence.

[edit] The Cartmel Masterplan

Main article: Cartmel Masterplan

The Cartmell Masterplan a was a loose story-arc started in 1986 for the Seventh Doctor's era by sript editor, Andrew Cartmel. The 'masterplan' was to add subtle hints to the dialogue that there was some dark secret behind the Doctor. This was to add some mystery to the Doctor, since Andrew reckoned that all the mystery of the Doctor had been lost due to the information given on Gallifrey and Time Lords. The arc was to be concluded in a story called Lungbarrow by Marc Platt, but it was originally rejected and replaced in 1989, and the cancellation of Doctor Who after 1989 meant the arc was never resolved. However, the novel Lungbarrow and other novels from the New Adventures novels by Virgin Publishing were made to show how the arc would have been concluded.

[edit] Bad Wolf

The words Bad Wolf as aerosol graffiti on the TARDIS in "Aliens of London"
The words Bad Wolf as aerosol graffiti on the TARDIS in "Aliens of London"

The first arc word of the new series, "Bad Wolf", began to crop up in subtle ways starting from the second episode, "The End of the World", and then grew in prominence, leading to much fan speculation over the course of the series as to what the phrase referred to and what its ultimate significance would be. In this respect, the phrase was also a form of viral marketing.

There was little clue to the meaning of the phrase until "The Parting of the Ways", where it was revealed to be a message spread by Rose Tyler throughout time after infusing herself with the power of the heart of the TARDIS. Having infused herself with the power of the time vortex, Rose gained seemingly infinite reality warping abilities with which she obliterated a Dalek fleet, before this fatal energy was removed from her by the Doctor. Describing herself as "see[ing] the whole of time and space", the extent of Rose's actions remains unclear. She revived Jack Harkness, an event which made him immortal, perhaps purposefully, and also acted as the catalyst for the Ninth Doctor's regeneration into the Tenth.

I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words. I scatter them ... in time, and space. A message to lead myself here.

—Rose Tyler in "The Parting of the Ways".

[edit] Bad Wolf arc

The phrase first appeared in the second episode of the 2005 series, and then in every story of that series thereafter. It also occasionally appeared in the 2006 and 2007 series.

Within the 2005 series of Doctor Who, the arc comprised the following episodes:

  • "The Long Game": One of the several thousand television channels being broadcast from Satellite Five is BAD WOLFTV.
  • "Father's Day": A poster advertising a rave in 1987 has the words "BAD WOLF" defacing it.
  • "Boom Town": A nuclear power plant is dubbed the Blaidd Drwg project, which is Welsh for "Bad Wolf". The Doctor also mentions for the first time that the phrase had been following them around.
  • "Bad Wolf"/"The Parting of the Ways": The corporation that runs the Game Station (formerly Satellite Five) is called the Badwolf Corporation. It is from this corporation's logo that Rose "takes the words" to scatter throughout Time and Space, resulting in the other appearances of the phrase. It is also in scattered graffiti around Rose's council estate, including on a poster tacked to the wall behind Rose's head in the café scene and in giant letters on a paved recreation ground. The latter is faded, but still visible, in "New Earth".

Since the initial arc, the phrase Bad Wolf has reappeared in the background of many other scenes. 2007 series episode "Gridlock" features the Japanese word Akurō, Japanese for "evil wolf", labelled on poster in a car. Torchwood episode "Captain Jack Harkness" featured the phrase as graffiti in a Welsh dance hall, and in Torchwood book Another Life by Peter Anghelides, a large part of the plot revolves around the Blaidd Drwg nuclear power station. In a recreation of classic Second Doctor serial The Invasion , the animators slipped a Bad Wolf on the wall where Zoe scribbled the phone number. Other allusions since "The Parting of the Ways" include the 2006 series episode "Tooth and Claw", the Host mentions that Rose has "seen [the wolf] too", and that there is "something of the wolf about [her]".

The phrase was similarly used as a precursor explanation of possible inconsistencies, such as in "Love & Monsters",[4] effectively attributing them to the actions of Rose as the Bad Wolf during "The Parting of the Ways". As the phrase is a reminder of the connection between the Doctor and Rose, it appears explicitly in their final farewell; in "Doomsday", the Doctor projects an image to say goodbye to Rose on a beach in the Norway of the parallel Earth called "Dårlig ulv stranden", which she translates as "Bad Wolf Bay". (In actuality, it translates somewhat nonsensically to "Unwell wolf the beach"). Lachele Carl appears in four episodes of Doctor Who and one of The Sarah Jane Adventures as an American newsreader called Mal Loup, which is an incorrect translation in French for "bad wolf" (The correct translation being "mauvais loup" or "méchant loup" (nasty wolf) like the french dubbing).

Also on the Doctor Who website, the Captain Jack moster file for Judoon. There is a advert for good wolf insurance.

[edit] Other media

The tie-in websites set up by the BBC to accompany the series also featured appearances of the phrase. The "Who is Doctor Who?" site featured a clip from "World War Three" with an American newsreader. This clip differed from the one shown in the broadcast version in only one respect: the newsreader was identified as "Mal Loup", French for "bad wolf". At one point, the Doctor is described as being off "making another decision for us, all 'I'm the big bad wolf and it's way past your bedtime.'"

The UNIT website also used "badwolf" as a password to enter the "secure" areas of the website. The Geocomtex website's support page has BADWOLF transcribed in Morse Code, and its products page make mention of Lupus and Nocens variants for their "node stabilisers" (lupus nocens is Latin for "wolf who harms"). They also offered "Argentum Ordnance", argentum being Latin for "silver" — silver bullets being traditionally used for killing werewolves.

In the background image of the BBC Doctor Who website's TARDISODE page, the words "BAD WOLF" can be seen scrawled behind Mickey Smith.[5] The graffiti can also be seen in the background of Rose Tyler's character page.[6]

In one of the areas in the Ghostwatch game, "BAD WOLF" is written as graffiti on a wall.

The phrase occurs in some of the New Series Adventures, the BBC Books range of spin-off novels based on the new series. The Ninth Doctor Adventures run concurrently with the 2005 series.

  • In The Deviant Strain, also by Richards, a psychic character tells Rose that he fears "The bad wolf... The man with the wolf on his arm." Later, this character is indirectly killed by another character who has a tattoo of a wolf on his arm.

The phrase also appears in later Tenth Doctor novels, such as Peacemaker a character says the Doctor is 'the man who defeated the Bad Wolf'.

There were two "Bad Wolf" references in the Doctor Who Magazine Ninth Doctor comic strips. In Part Two of The Love Invasion (DWM #356, May 2005), there is a poster on the wall of a pub reading "Bad Wolf". In Part One of A Groatsworth of Wit (DWM #363, December 2005), a tavern sign in Elizabethan London features a picture of a wolf's head and the initials "B.W."

A motorcycle gang in the Torchwood Magazine comic Jetsam is named Blaid Drwg.

[edit] Torchwood

Main article: Torchwood Institute

The 2006 series featured "Torchwood" as its arc word, an anagram of "Doctor Who" that was used as the codename for the new series of Doctor Who while filming its first few episodes and on the 'rushes' tapes to ensure they were not intercepted.[7]

The word had first appeared in Doctor Who in the 2005 series episode "'Bad Wolf", as an answer during The Weakest Link game show scenes (the Great Cobalt Pyramid was built on the ruins of the famous Old Earth Torchwood Institute). The word's seeding throughout the 2006 series allowed the BBC to introduce its viewing audience to a concept which would eventually form the basis of a spin-off series, Torchwood, set in modern-day Cardiff and involving a mysterious organisation which investigates alien activities and crime. The series features John Barrowman as former companion Jack Harkness and premiered in October 2006.

[edit] Torchwood arc

The actual "Torchwood" arc of Doctor Who spanned from "The Christmas Invasion" to "Doomsday", although the phrase had appeared before in "Bad Wolf".[8] After the Torchwood Institute had been established as an element of the Doctor Who universe, it has naturally reappeared in Doctor Who since and has been an integral feature of spin-off Torchwood.

  • In "The Christmas Invasion", Prime Minister Harriet Jones asks Major Blake of UNIT to contact Torchwood for aid in defending Earth from the Sycorax. Jones claims she is not supposed to know about them and that not even the United Nations is aware of their existence, though they have ties to the British military. Jones takes responsibility for authorising Torchwood and eventually gives the final command for them to fire on and destroy the Sycorax ship; they have access to an enormously powerful energy weapon adapted from alien technology found ten years ago in a spaceship crash. The nature and normal authority of Torchwood are left vague.
  • "Tooth and Claw" takes place in a Scottish house named "Torchwood House", and at the end of the episode Queen Victoria announces the foundation of an institution known as the Torchwood Institute to research and fight threats to Britain "beyond imagination" as well as to watch for the return of the Doctor.
  • In the episode "School Reunion", when Mickey is telling Rose on the telephone how he keeps being blocked while doing research on military websites, the viewer sees the words "TORCHWOOD ACCESS DENIED" flashing across his computer screen. The episode's TARDISODE details Mickey hacking into these websites, and him being blocked by Torchwood.
  • In "Rise of the Cybermen", a news broadcast on Rose's mobile phone refers to a survey carried out by the Torchwood Institute, and Pete Tyler asks his friend Stevie about his work at Torchwood (implying that in this parallel and Republican Britain, Torchwood is not as much of a secret as it is in ours).
  • In "The Idiot's Lantern", the possibility of Torchwood getting involved is mentioned by police officers while discussing the people affected by The Wire. In a deleted scene, available on the Season Two DVD, Detective Inspector Bishop is shown having a phone conversation about Torchwood.
  • In "The Satan Pit", it becomes clear that the crew are "representing" 'The Torchwood Archive'.
  • In "Love & Monsters", Victor Kennedy has access to and mentions the Torchwood files. However, evidence of Rose has been corrupted by a "Bad Wolf virus".
  • In "Fear Her", part of the plot centres on the Olympic Torch. Commentator Huw Edwards can just be heard mentioning Torchwood after the Olympic crowd disappears just before Chloe tears down her posters.
  • The episodes "Army of Ghosts" and "Doomsday" include Torchwood as an integral part of the plot. The TARDISODE for "Army of Ghosts" features a journalist investigating Torchwood. These episodes conclude the arc and set up plot points for the spin-off series, Torchwood.

Online appearances include the Doctor Who homepage for the week preceding, one of the contestants (Strood) is said to be from "Torchwood",[9] and on the fictitious Torchwood House website set up by the BBC where it states the name "Torchwood" was derived from the wood from which the staircase was made. [10] In a concurrent 2006 adventure, the organisation was mentioned by a senior officer in the U.S. Navy in the Tenth Doctor story, New Series Adventures novel The Feast of the Drowned.

[edit] Mr Saxon

The political poster used by Saxon during his Prime Ministerial campaign.
The political poster used by Saxon during his Prime Ministerial campaign.

The name "Mr Saxon" has appeared several times, beginning with a newspaper headline in "Love & Monsters" in Series 2 (2006), and continuing in "The Runaway Bride" (2006), where it was established as the new arc word for Series 3 (2007). The arc was more thoroughly explained in "The Sound of Drums" (2007), which connected the rise of the mysterious Mr Saxon as a new Prime Minister, to an old enemy of the Doctor's, as well as the fall of Harriet Jones from office at the Doctor's own hands after she ordered Torchwood to shoot down the Sycorax spaceship during "The Christmas Invasion".

In "Utopia", when the resurrected Master attempted to steal the TARDIS, the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to lock the TARDIS to no more than 18 months prior to its last location, which was February 2007. Arriving in Britain during the power vacuum left by Harriet Jones' departure, the Master created a complete alias for himself as "Mr Harold Saxon", and quickly rose to prominence as Secretary of State for Defence; he redesigned the cabinet rooms destroyed during "World War Three", as well as creating a new "Archangel network" of satellites, and the Valiant UNIT aircraft carrier.

Using the Archangel network, Saxon sent subliminal messages encoded in the sound of drums to enable the British people to trust him and ultimately vote for him. The satellite signals also drowned out the Doctor's telepathic ability to sense the presence of another Time Lord on Earth.

The Master began setting traps for the Doctor through his companion Martha and her family. He funded Professor Lazarus's genetic aging experiments in "The Lazarus Experiment", and ensured that Lazarus hired Martha's sister Tish to lure the Doctor. Using the events at LazLabs as a catalyst, he ensured Martha's mother Francine's distrust of the Doctor, and manipulated her to trace Martha's phone calls on her superphone. By the time the Doctor, Martha and Jack finally return to Earth in 2008, the Master had established his identity as Mr Saxon, acquiring a wife and companion in Lucy Saxon. He ruled Earth for a year, but was eventually defeated when the world's remaining population - united by Martha's tales of their exploits - psychically connected to the Doctor, enhancing his psychic abilities to the extent that the Doctor could de-age himself and overpower the Master.

[edit] Saxon arc

  • In "The Runaway Bride", the tank commander opens fire on the Empress of the Racnoss' ship under order from "Mr Saxon". The online commentary track for the episode specifically calls attention to this reference, as David Tennant remarks "Who was that? Orders from Mr who? Saxon?"
  • In "Smith and Jones", during a news report about the events in the episode, an interviewee says "All this just goes to prove Mr Saxon right." Later, as Martha Jones meets the Doctor in an alley, a poster displaying the slogan "Vote Saxon" is prominently displayed behind her.
  • In "Gridlock", the Face of Boe tells the Doctor "You are not alone". The message's meaning would be later revealed in "Utopia" to be a foreshadow of the Master's return. You Are Not Alone is revealed to stand for Y.A.N.A. - Professor Yana being the Master in human form.
  • "The Lazarus Experiment" reveals Mr Saxon's full name. Martha's sister, Tish Jones works as Lazarus' assistant, who in turn is working upon the technology at the behest of Saxon. Lazarus' technology reappears in "The Sound of Drums" and "Last of the Time Lords" as a function of the laser screwdriver. Also present is a shady Man in Black, who warns Martha's mother of the Doctor and tells her something terrifying about him, resulting in her making a phone call to Martha warning her and saying that "this information comes from Harold Saxon himself!".
  • In "42", agents of Mr Saxon trace Francine's call to Martha's superphone. One of Saxon's agents had appeared in the previous episode to warn Martha's mother about the Doctor's reputation for danger. Archangel is also seen on Martha's mobile display, while the mysterious Man In Black from the previous episode, "The Lazarus Experiment" is replaced with Miss Dexter, a Woman In Black who works for Mr Saxon. She is played by Elize Du Toit, and appears up to The Sound of Drums. Her fate after this episode is unknown.
  • The episodes "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood" contributed towards the arc by introducing the concept of the Chameleon arch, which provides a plausible explanation for the Master's return in "Utopia". Also at the beginning of the episode the song "He Who Would Valiant Be" can be heard being sung, the next line of which would be "follow the master".
  • In "Utopia", Professor Yana opens his own Chameleon Arch fob watch, returning the Master's Time Lord configuration to his body. The Master later regenerates into the form of Mr Saxon, and Martha recognises his voice. The conclusion of the arc continues in "The Sound of Drums" and "Last of the Time Lords", where the human population empower the Doctor to defeat the Master through focused psychic connection.

Martha Jones' MySpace blog refers to Saxon, indicating that he has been interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight and was born in 1969. The same posters appearing in "Smith and Jones" were seen in "Captain Jack Harkness", an episode of Torchwood, on the door of the derelict dance hall in Cardiff, and a cover of a newspaper called The Examiner stuck on the wall inside the hall has a headline mentioning Saxon. In "The Sound of Drums", the website http://www.haroldsaxon.co.uk was shown and launched officially following the episode's official airing.

The name Mister Saxon is an anagram of the words "Master No. Six" ("No." standing for "Number"), an unintentional reference to Simm portraying the sixth version/incarnation of The Master. This was significant in that it fueled rumors surrounding the Saxon arc, however, Russell T Davies has said that the anagram was purely unintentional. According to Doctor Who Magazine, Russell T. Davies said he chose the name Harold Saxon to sound very British-sounding and Conservative.[citation needed]

Also of note is the fact that episodes of series 3 were used to set up other elements of the final episodes, beyond the main "Mr Saxon" arc. Both Smith and Jones and Blink show how time travel can complicate the order of cause and effect, laying the foundations of the Master's presence in present day London before he has been released from his "Professor Yana" identity in the far future. The Shakespeare Code shows how words can be given magic-like power, foreshadowing the Doctor's return in Last of the Time Lords.

[edit] Series Four arc

Russell T. Davies hinted in Doctor Who Magazine that the next arc word for Doctor Who was something said by The Master in the final two episodes of Series 3 - "The Sound of Drums" and "Last of the Time Lords". [11] He has since stated that there is no specific arc word, but each episode of series four will have an element of the arc theme, which will carry through to the finale.

Four takes a somewhat different approach to the previous series. There are no big binding words like 'Bad Wolf', 'Torchwood', or 'Mr Saxon'. This time, it's cumulative: an element from every episode — whether it's a person, a phrase, a question, a planet, or a mystery — builds up to the grand finale. Russell T Davies says: "You've got to watch and listen closely. It's been seeded for a long time, with small but vital references going all the way back to series one. And remember the Master, in "Last of the Time Lords", mentioning the Medusa Cascade? Oh, that's going to come back to haunt us..." (Doctor Who Magazine Issue 394)

The Medusa Cascade has been mentioned in three episodes thus far in Series Four: "Partners in Crime", "The Fires of Pompeii", and "The Sontaran Stratagem".

[edit] Other arcs

Other story and character arcs comprise a number of smaller ones across the programme's history:

[edit] References

  1. ^ Season 16. Doctor Who Classic Episode Guide:. BBC. Retrieved on 2007-08-10.
  2. ^ "DVD News", BBC, 18 May 2007. 
  3. ^ Doctor Who Episode Guide - The E-Space Trilogy. BBC.
  4. ^ A line referring to the "Bad Wolf" virus was included to establish why the Torchwood Institute does not know what Rose looks like in "Army of Ghosts", as explained by writer Russell T. Davies on the MP3 audio commentary available on the bbc.co.uk website for "Love & Monsters".
  5. ^ BBC - Doctor Who - The Official Site
  6. ^ BBC - Doctor Who - Characters - Rose Tyler
  7. ^ "Doctor Who spin-off made in Wales", BBC News, 17 October 2005. 
  8. ^ All televised Torchwood sightings were confirmed in the "Welcome to Torchwood" episode of Doctor Who Confidential.
  9. ^ BBC - Doctor Who - Homepage for "Bad Wolf". BBC Doctor Who website. BBC (6 June 2006). Retrieved on 2006-03-22.
  10. ^ Welcome to Torchwood House. BBC. Retrieved on 2006-04-23.
  11. ^ "Interview with Russell T Davies" (2007-09-19) (386): 13. Doctor Who Magazine. 

[edit] External links