In response to all this, Doctor Who Magazine's editorial assistant, Emily Cook, devised the idea for Doctor Who: Lockdown, a series of planned simultaneous viewings of particular episodes, where people could respond to each other via Twitter as they watched it (what's known as a Tweetalong). And while this was the initial motivation for Lockdown, they quickly realized they could do more with this.
And so we got a bunch of short stories to enjoy, and, relevant to our purposes, a series of special videos, posted to YouTube, that flesh out some of the details and provide follow-ups to the original episodes -- in many cases written by writers of the episodes in question (Steven Moffat, for instance, wrote five of these, while Russell T Davies wrote three). And so the Lockdown Season, as Doctor Who Magazine #554 called it, was born.
The first of these, "Strax Saves the Day", is basically just an excuse for Steven Moffat to write a bunch of Strax jokes for Dan Starkey to perform as he introduces the Tweetalong for "The Day of the Doctor". It's quick, it's appropriately silly, and it gets the job done.
The next video, on the other hand, is a bit more ambitious. "Revenge of the Nestene" is an immediate sequel to "Rose", written by Russell T Davies and read by Jacob Dudman, providing us with a look at a surviving remnant of the Nestene Consciousness in the aftermath of the destruction of the Nestene's Thames base. It's the sort of short story that would feel right at home in 2019's The Target Storybook, a short story collection which also expands various Doctor Who episodes. Jacob Dudman (someone, I have to confess, who, although I was aware of who they were, I hadn't actually seen any of their work before this -- but I now understand why people were praising him) does a great job reading Davies's prose, while Davies himself seems to have quite a bit of fun fleshing out some of the backstory of the Nestene. Thus we're told how the Nestene had ended their planet-invading ways and were in fact quite peaceful and content until the Time War arrived and basically destroyed everything -- in a single second. It's nice to be reminded of how good Davies is at this world-building, and at providing off-hand remarks about aliens and events, with mentions of the Crownworld and the Maternity Reefs that were part of the Plastic Conjunction. And it ends with a sly suggestion that current UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson may in fact be an Auton. It's good, cheeky fun, wonderfully read by Dudman.
After that we get a quick little insight into Amy's childhood in "The Raggedy Doctor by Amelia Pond", where Amelia writes a little story about how the raggedy Doctor is her friend, and that she's only told her best friend Mels (and Rory) about him, and that she hopes she doesn't have to wait too long before she sees him again. It's not the most substantive piece ever, but it is rather sweet, and that's sufficient.
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| Rory records a video diary for his son. ("Rory's Story") |
"Farewell, Sarah Jane" is a beautiful coda to The Sarah Jane Adventures. While the show ended on an optimistic, hopeful note, Russell T Davies noted that it also froze things slightly, and he wanted to move the characters on, to give them the opportunity to continue to grow and develop. So, released on the ninth anniversary of Elisabeth Sladen's death, Davies gives us a gorgeous little tag to the show, as the friends and family of Sarah Jane meet at her funeral to remember her. Once again this is narrated by Jacob Dudman, but the difference here is that all the dialogue is by the actors who played those parts -- and so we get Katy Manning as Jo Jones, scatterbrained but remembering her friend; Mina Anwar as Rani's mum Gita, reminiscing about how much they all loved Sarah Jane; Sophie Aldred as Dorothy McShane, recalling how the Doctor had once mentioned how he missed Sarah, and how when Dorothy met Sarah Jane during a run-in with the Diamond Wolf Clan (again, Davies is great at throwaway references), she understood why the Doctor had missed her; and, most wonderfully of all, Daniel Anthony as Clyde, Tommy Knight at Luke, and Anjli Mohindra as Rani, all remembering the positive impact Sarah Jane had on their lives. It's really lovely and sweet and a beautiful epilogue, with Rani wondering if the reason the Doctor wasn't at Sarah Jane's funeral was because he whisked away before she died to have more adventures with him. "Farewell, Sarah Jane" is a very heartfelt, touching story.
Next we get two quick little episodes from Paul Cornell, following up on "Human Nature". "Shadow of a Doubt" brings Benny Summerfield (played by her long-time Big Finish voice actress Lisa Bowerman) to an archaeological dig where a mirror shows a girl with a red balloon seemingly trapped in it. When I covered the "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" two-parter, I mentioned that the Doctor's punishments for the Family of Blood seemed a bit harsh and out of keeping with how we usually think of him, and it seems that Paul Cornell ultimately agrees. This first one describes Benny having a conversation with the girl, about how the Doctor visits the girl once a month to see if she's sorry for all the people she killed. We also get some sly references to multiple versions of events (Benny, who was present for the novel version of Human Nature, notes that "I'd been hunted by a girl like that; but, this wasn't quite her") and various other versions of the Doctor, including a red-haired version who "thought he was the last". Benny ultimately leaves the mirror where she found it, and then the second half of the story, "The Shadow in the Mirror", continues later on, with the thirteenth Doctor having crossed her own timelines to set Daughter of Mine free, having decided that mercy is more important than fairness or vengeance. These two stories serve as a nice little coda to "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood", softening the Doctor's punishment and bringing her actions more in line with how we like to think the Doctor behaves. It may not be the most important Who story ever, but if you're going to retcon your own works, there are definitely less satisfying ways to do so than this.
The final video for today is 30 April 2020's "Sven and the Scarf", which is a quick, silly little skit about one of Henry van Statten ("Dalek")'s researchers discovering a strange multi-colored scarf and examining the bits attached to it, including the wires from Genesis of the Daleks and a piece of Eldrad from The Hand of Fear. It's quick and it's silly, but it also doesn't outstay its welcome.
So far the Lockdown Season, despite the inherent limitations involved, is a lovely delight, full of ingenuity and feeling. We'll have to see if the second half maintains this sense of optimism and charm.