Doctor Who: The Nemesis Who Stole Time-Part 4

 

Hi there! I'm Dave-El and welcome to Doctor Who Saturday here at my blog, I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You. This is where I post something every Saturday to move through the weeks until truly talented professionals can offer up true blue actual Doctor Who stuff.

And speaking of "actual Doctor Who stuff", tomorrow is the simultaneous world-wide announcement of who will be the next Doctor. I think we've done the math right so that'll be 2:00 PM on the American east coast. So far we're following the standard pattern of Doctor switch off: the agonizing wailing and gnashing of teeth over the announcement that the current Doctor is leaving. After that comes the rush of energy over who will take over the role next. This announcement will be greeted with "Wow! He's perfect!", "What the hell were they thinking?" and much more. As I said, pretty par for the course but this announcement is way off the charts. I mean, it's been turned into a Super Bowl pre-game show but for Doctor Who nerds. 

Today we are up to episode 4 of my little dog & pony show called The Nemesis Who Stole Time, my own bit of whacked outedness in celebration of Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary.

 

Here is Part One.

Here is Part Two.

Here is Part Three.

 

As you've seen so far, something is making the Doctor's regenerations reverse themselves, causing the Doctor and his TARDIS to continually revert to prior forms. As of the end of part 3, this mysterious phenomenon has brought the Doctor back to his 8th incarnation. 

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Clara Oswald are on a mission for the White Guardian to recover the shatter pieces of the Key to Time in order to stop (hopefully stop, we should say) a force known as The Great Negation.  They've been joined by Martha Jones-Smith, Jack Harkness and River Song in their dual quests to save the universe AND save the Doctor.

 

So let's get on with it, shall we. First up are recaps and then....Part 4 of the Nemesis Who Stole Time. 

Previously….

The White Guardian: The Key to Time, Doctor. Once more it is needed. I’m sure you have heard of…The Great Negation. The first planet to fall. Then the first of the stars.

11th Doctor: The good news is we have a plan.  

A red laser blast cuts through the air and slams the 11th Doctor right in the chest.  

The 11th Doctor looks down at his hand and it starts to glow. Then his whole body bursts into light.

 The regeneration glow is gone and there stands…the 10th Doctor. 

10th Doctor: Someone has changed time and it’s cost the lives of two people I held very dear. 

Clara: Doctor, what’s happened to the TARDIS? 

Martha: Not sure why it was so important (Martha pulls out a piece of broken crystal) 

The White Guardian: The Key to Time, Doctor. It is needed. I’m sure you have heard of…The Great Negation. The first planet to fall. Then the first of the stars.  

The 10th Doctor begins regenerating.

9th Doctor: The plan is that as the fragments are gathered, they begin to re-assert their power. Plugged in the TARDIS console, the coordinates immediately adapt  to bring us to the nearest location of the next piece. 

Martha: The Doctor needs our help.

River (serious): Most assuredly. The Doctor called for help…

Jack: And here we are!

Through the open doors of the TARDIS, we see from the outside a flare of blinding golden light.  

River, Jack, Martha and Clara push outside the TARDIS doors.

Martha: No, not them!

Surrounding the Doctor are Weeping Angels.

River: Weeping Angels

The 8th Doctor: Yes, I know.

_________________________________________________________________________

The Nemesis Who Stole Time

Part Four

Gallifrey

We see the capitol city surrounded by plumes of smoke and flashes of light with several wrecked Dalek casings littering the ground.

 

Our view shifts to inside the city and walking down a long, ornate corridor are two people, a man and a woman, dressed in their traditional robes and head pieces. These are Time Lords.

Lady Chancellor (angry): I can’t believe the council is actually agreeing to this insane plan.

Lord Castellan: Chancellor, our options are dwindling.

Lady Chancellor: And you, Castellan, I can’t believe you are in line with this…this mad scheme.

Lord Castellan: It IS a mad scheme. But the stakes are high…

Lady Chancellor (stops & faces the Castellan): I need no one to tell me what the stakes are.

Lord Castellan: We are not winning this war with the accursed Daleks.

Lady Chancellor: We are also not losing this war either, Castellan.

Lord Castellan: Exactly! Stalemate. Between the infinite power of the Time Lords and the infinite resources of the Daleks...

Lady Chancellor (looking up to the sky; whispers): Infinite war.

Lord Castellan: Indeed, Chancellor. Infinite war. But we can bring this war to an end if Rassilon’s plan…

Lady Chancellor (turning on the Castellan, her anger rising again): That makes me question the wisdom of this plan even more. If our Lord President has the megalomania to name himself after our founding…

Lord Castellan (interrupting): Chancellor, I need to know. Are you with me?

Lady Chancellor: To employ the Final Sanction? (sighs) And what of the off-world Time Lords who returned…

Lord Castellan: The renegades? Mostly, they have fought bravely for Gallifrey but…they have not turned the tide.

Lady Chancellor: And the Doctor?

Lord Castellan: No sign. Not since his dispute with Rassi—er, the Lord President two cycles ago.

Lady Chancellor (looking worried, she looks off): Oh, Doctor. I had hoped you could…no last minute reprieve, this time.

The scene shifts up as the Chancellor and the Castellan continue on.

Lady Chancellor: Come, Lord Castellan. There may yet be time for hope. If not…whatever greater power may be out there, may they have mercy on our souls.

The scene continues upward thru the clouds and smoke where we see the familiar shape of the blue police box, the TARDIS, hovering. Standing in the doorway is the Doctor, the 8th Doctor, clad in the dark clothes and short hair near the end of his time. We see his face is set in a stern and cold expression as he looks out at the Time War exploding around him.

The Doctor: Time’s up.  

VO of Clara (screaming): Doctor!

Cut to: outside the TARDIS, Clara, Martha, River and Jack stand in shock as the Doctor is surrounded by an army of Weeping Angels. This is also the 8th Doctor but clad in the Victorian costume and long brown hair he had earlier this incarnation.

Clara (anxiously): Doctor, come back to the TARDIS.

8th Doctor (seems almost distracted): Excellent idea. Everyone go back to the TARDIS.

Martha (relieved): Great! (They start to turn to go back in)

8th Doctor: I’ll stay out here.

Martha (rolls her eyes): Great. (Collectively groaning, they all turn back towards the Doctor)

8th Doctor: Look, it’s bright daylight out here. As long as we keep the Weeping Angels in sight…

River: …they stay quantum locked.

Jack: Makes sense to me, doc.

Clara: OK , quick rundown please for the relatively new girl. Weeping Angels?

Martha: They look like hideous statues…except when you’re not looking at them. Then they move!

River: And they kill.

Jack: The big thing is they feed off time energy. They catch you in the present, zap you into the past and feed off the time energy from the future you didn’t live through.

Clara: I’m not sure that makes sense.

Jack (quizzical expression): I said all that and I’m not sure it makes sense either.

Martha: But I think that element of the Weeping Angels --taking time energy---that may be part of what’s causing the Doctor’s regenerations to reverse.

8th Doctor (turning towards his companions): Hello, everyone. So pleased to see all of you getting along but please keep (points at Clara) your (points at River) eyes (points at Martha) open (points at Jack, then turns away and resumes walking). The sonic screwdriver has picked up something….

8th Doctor strides towards a statue.

Clara (calling out): Doctor! Wait!

8th Doctor: No worries, Clara. This actually IS a statue. A very, very ugly statue, mind you. But the screwdriver’s link to the detection apparatus in the TARDIS is…well, it's going off the scale of any of the crystal fragments we’ve found so far.

Clara: Doctor, what triggered this change? It happened so fast.

8th Doctor (looks kind of nervous): A Weeping Angel got me while I wasn’t looking at it.

Clara: Oh.

8th Doctor (sighs): Oh all right! If you’re going to be that way about it (Clara looks confused) I stumbled coming out of the TARDIS and scraped my hand against an angel. Scraped my hand, what a stupid….

Suddenly the statue begins to glow.

Clara: Doctor!

River: Is that what I think it is?

Martha:  Is what what you think is..what…oh, never mind.

Jack: It’s transforming!

The statue collapses to a crystal piece. Unlike the other pieces found so far, it is not broken but has a definite shape.

River: Oh my!

8th Doctor: Oh yes! A full segment of the Key to Time…intact! Well, virtually. There’s a small chip in one corner but still operational enough to set up a transformation matrix to…to….

Martha: Doctor?

8th Doctor: Does anyone…feel that?

Clara: Feel what?

8th Doctor aims the sonic screwdriver at the ground. Then he checks the readings.

8th Doctor: That is a most astonishing planetary rotation. (He looks up at the others, smiling) We’re on Kaledon!

Jack (worried): Did you say…Kaledon?

8th Doctor: It’s a very fast planet. The average day is just 47 minutes.

Jack: Doc, if this Kaledon...

8th Doctor: And it is, Jack! Trust the sonic screwdriver. The daytime is only an average of 23 ½ minutes long so that…means…night…

Jack: Night’s gonna fall pretty damn quick!

Everyone looks up as the bright sky is beginning to darken very quickly.

Martha: Uh oh.

8th Doctor (sudden shock of realization): It’s a trap! Back to the TARDIS!

River: A trap?

8th Doctor: Just RUN!

But the sky grows darker faster by the second. Weeping Angels surround them, still motionless for the moment.

Clara: Does anyone have a flashlight?

Martha, Jack and River each immediately produce a flashlight.

Clara: Great! What are you, space marines?

8th Doctor (waves his sonic screwdriver): Flashlights? Bah! You’ll see I have a better solution…

Complete and total darkness falls but then the screwdriver trills and the top light of the TARDIS shines so brightly that the sky is perfectly clear as if it were day time. And all the Weeping Angels, in different positions from before, are frozen once again.

8th Doctor: …in the light of day.

8th Doctor looks pretty pleased with this grand display.

Clara: Doctor? TARDIS?

8th Doctor (disappointed): Oh, I never get to enjoy my handiwork.

And everyone runs inside and the doors shut.

Interior scene: TARDIS and it has changed again to style established during the 8th Doctor’s time.

River: Cozy.

Martha: Homey.

Jack: I don’t like it.

The Doctor approaches the console and places the segment in the adapted hypecube.

Clara (touches his arm): Doctor?

8th Doctor: Hmm?

Clara: Martha has a theory about what’s happening….

8th Doctor: Oh? (turns towards Martha) Martha?

Martha: Well, when you and I…well, you then, I guess…not you now…

8th Doctor (interrupting, puts his hand on her shoulder): Martha, it’s still me. No matter the face. It’s still me.

Martha: Right. (takes deep breath) OK, when we first met the Weeping Angels and you said they steal your future by sending you to the past…

8th Doctor: And you live yourself to death, yes.

Martha: I think something like that is happening with you.

 

8th Doctor: I see. But that's not what's happening here.

 

Martha: Well, it is but not exactly. Instead of stealing your future, the Angels are stealing a moment of your past which effects your future...I mean, your present...

 

8th Doctor: It's OK. Temporal linguistics was not one my best subjects at the Academy.

Jack: But Weeping Angels don’t work that way.

River: True, but regeneration doesn’t work this way either. Doctor, I think Martha may be on to something.

8th Doctor: Fair point but we haven’t encountered any Angels until we arrived on Kaledon. 

Clara (excitedly): Wait! Doctor, I think we did!

8th Doctor (extremely puzzled): What? Where? When? How?

Clara: On Zarathustra as we raced through the battlefields, there were statues there.

(Momentary flashback to the 11th Doctor from Part 1)

8th Doctor: And…?

Clara: And there were statues in that park in Paris where we encountered the Slitheen. 

(Momentary flashback to the 10th Doctor from Part 2)

 

River: Sometimes statues are just statues.

Martha: And sometimes they’re not.

8th Doctor: Well, this isn’t good.

Jack: Why not, Doc?

8th Doctor: Because if this is true (turning to Martha) By the way, excellent thinking, Martha. Mind you, I'm not entirely convinced but....where was I?

Jack: "Because if this true..."

8th Doctor: Yes, because IF this is true, there’s someone out there who can manipulate and bend the power of the Weeping Angels to such a specific purpose. And that person is going to be very formidable.

Clara: Maybe the same person that discovered the formula to the Great Negation?

8th Doctor: Must be. Can’t be a coincidence. I don’t like coincidences.

River: Love, there’s something else…in all the excitement…we forgot…

8th Doctor: No, River, I didn’t forget. It’s just…we have a universe to save and I have more important things...

Jack: Didn’t forget what?

Clara (realizing what the Doctor and River are talking about): The moment, Jack. The moment that was stolen. Doctor, when you changed back the first two times, you said your time was being re-written, people you saved that caused your regenerations…they were now dead.

8th Doctor: Yes.

River: What changed this time?

8th Doctor (shaking his head): Nothing.

Martha: Nothing?

 

8th Doctor: Nothing. (sighs)

Scene shifts back to the Time War. The black clad 8th Doctor strides determinedly through the capital.

Lady Chancellor (happy): Doctor! You’ve returned!

8th Doctor B: Lady Chancellor!

Lady Chancellor: Please, Doctor, after all this time, all we’ve been through.

8th Doctor B (a small smile): Fine...Romana.

Romana: Doctor, I’ve tried everything. I cannot move the council from this mad course. This endless war with the Daleks…it has driven everyone mad.

8th Doctor B: The Final Sanction?

Romana: Yes, the Final Sanction: the end of time itself.

8th Doctor B: Look, I have the TARDIS connected to the force wave generator to…

Romana: Doctor, that device is untested! The chronal radiation can kill even a Time Lord!

8th Doctor B: Maybe I’ll regenerate. I’ve been fancying a new face. Romana?

Romana: Yes, Doctor?

8th Doctor B: Find a TARDIS! Get off Gallifrey!

Romana: At the Academy, we call that “The Doctor Strategem”.

8th Doctor B: Romana, seriously! If this works, you’re going to be here with all the other Time Lords, trapped forever.

Romana (smiles slyly, shakes her head): No, Doctor.

8th Doctor B: No?

Romana: Doctor, you showed me so many wonders when we travelled but my place is here. And my duty is to protect Gallifrey from all threats…

8th Doctor B: Including itself?

Romana: Especially itself.

Romana kisses the Doctor on the cheek.

Romana: Good-bye, Doctor.

8th Doctor B: Good-bye, Romana.

8th Doctor (VO): I never saw her again. Aboard the TARDIS, I readied the device I was going to use to end the Time War. The device that would send all the Daleks to hell…and regrettably, consign my people to it as well. A time lock on the entirety of space and time around Gallifrey and the war zone.

 

Scene shift back to the TARDIS: The Doctor surrounded by Clara and the others as he tells his story.

8th Doctor: Romana was right, the machine was dangerous, even more so being used on such a scale. What had happened before was…well, the machine worked. The Time War ended. But the radiation tore thru my body which led to my regeneration. But even now, as I feel the pathways of my memory being changed, that no longer happened.

Jack: Doc, you said nothing changed.

8th Doctor (looking sad & guilty): Oh, Gallifrey still winked out of existence. The Time Lords, all gone. The Daleks too. But it wasn’t me. It should’ve been but….

Clara: But if you didn’t do it, who...oh. It was...

8th Doctor (forlornly): Perhaps, Clara. I can only guess.

Scene shift back to the capitol of Gallifrey. We see Romana move slowly thru the shouting Time Lords, proclaiming the coming of the Final Sanction and victory over the Daleks. Over the tumult, we hear the President’s voice, “We will ascend! WE WILL ASCEND!!” and the crowd echoes the call.

Romana moves to a central part of the great hall. She has something in her hand.

Romana (VO): Doctor, I know you will never read these words but I owe you a debt. You opened my eyes to the wonders of the universe. With you, I learned how to live life, to experience it. For this, I will always be grateful. For this, I hold you in both my hearts with great affection.

We see the device in her hand, similar to the triggering device the Doctor had. Meanwhile, there is movement behind Romana, out of focus, voices call out as if muffled or distant, "Stop her!"

 

Romana (VO): For this, I cannot let you carry this terrible burden on your shoulders.

Romana clicks the device and everything goes to white, then grey and then black.

Out of the black, we hear a voice, a man’s voice that sounds refined and cultured but with an edge of menace. As he speaks, light slowly seeps in and shapes take form. It looks like a classic Earth study. The man is seated, there appears to be a brandy glass in his hand.

Man: Ah the tangled web we are weaving here…oh, this is such a delight. My old nemesis, the moments of his life stolen, the Doctor is unraveling thread by thread. Ha! Ha! Ha! And he has no idea. And the Great Negation, the ultimate power of destruction…in my control! Oh, I’m telling the story now, Doctor, and it will end when and how I say it ends. It will end with your death and my dominion over the universe…

The figure arises, more in the light. He has dark hair, a dark goatee beard and he’s dressed in an all black suit.

The Master: And I will be Master of All!

The Master starts to laugh and the screen shifts to black.

---To Be Continued---

 

 

The Nemesis Who Stole Time, Part 5...in two weeks!