Little Storping-in-the-Swuff

Thanks to my cousin I shall be unable to even use the internet for 24 hours from 7 o’clock tomorrow for fear of spoilers, let alone post.

But in anticipation of the big event, here’s a quick guide to types of Dalek. To recap, four Daleks appeared from the void craft, but what kind of Daleks were they?

“Original” or “Standard” or “Renegade” Daleks were the Daleks originally created by Davros from genetically modified Kaleds who invaded Earth (in their original timeline, before being wiped out of history). They rebelled against Davros, and tried to put him on trial.

The black “Supreme” Daleks were commanders, subordinator only to the emperor Dalek.

“Imperial” Daleks were the new “improved” loyal Daleks created by Davros after the original Daleks turned against him, not necessarily formed of Kaled tissue and regarded as genetically impure due to their additions and mutations.

The scientist Davros, creator of the Daleks, later styled himself as the emperor of the Imperial Daleks.

The bronze reconstructed Daleks, survivors of the time war, recreated by the new emperor Dalek who hid in the void.

It seems likely the Daleks in the void craft also hid after the time war, but are they reconstructed or did they stay hiding while the new emperor rebuilt the race, only for it to be destroyed by Bad Wolf Rose? It looks like one is a supreme Dalek.

One wish for the finale (that won’t happen): flashback to the eighth Doctor regenerating into the ninth, at the conclusion of the time war. Well, if we’ve been given Daleks vs. Cybermen, surely anything’s possible?

Before this series started, I posed a few questions I thought might be answered. With only one more episode to go, it’s time to check back, see if they’ve been answered, and maybe ask a few more.

1. What has happened to Captain Jack (not to mention the lovely Lynda-with-a-y)? Will we have to wait until Torchwood airs to find out? Will we find out even then?

Can’t say for certain until Doomsday airs, but it looks like we will have to wait for the Torchwood series until we find this out. Although we’ve seen Torchwood tower in Army of Ghosts, we haven’t seen “the Hub” of Torchwood in Cardiff Bay, (on the Rift of The Unquiet Dead and Boomtown). So we probably won’t see Captain Jack.

2. Is the Doctor personally aquainted with Arthur Dent?

I now think I have enough to take a position on this, which I will put in another post.

3. What is the connection between C19 and Torchwood and UNIT?

What with all the Torchwood references, the question has now become far more complicated. How come Torchwood was known to uniform plods in the ’50s (The Idiot’s Lantern) and yet the Prime Minister in 2005 was not supposed to know about it (The Christmas Invasion)? If Torchwood was waiting for the Doctor (Army of Ghosts) since it was founded (Tooth and Claw), why didn’t they click when a man calling himself the Doctor with a blue Police Box worked for UNIT for 3 years in the 1970s? This one really poses more questions than it answers… Another Torchwood question.

4. How is Torchwood’s Gwen related (if at all) to Gwyneth of The Unquiet Dead (both played by Eva Myles)?

And another Torchwood question (but I bet it has something to do with the Rift!).

5. Will there really be another K9 spinoff (K9 and Company is the only television spinoff so far) and will this be set up in School Reunion?

This has been answered: yes and no. Disappointing on both counts.

6. Most importantly, what are we to call the new series? Is it Series 2 (and how is that to be distinguished from the Season 2 with William Hartnell?) Is it Season 28 (as if we’re carrying on from the original series) or should we call it (to avoid this whole dispute) the 1st Tenth Doctor series?

Well, I’ve been using Season 28 and I think there’s good reason. There has been more overt continuity with the original series this season – now it’s found its new viewers, it doesn’t have to worry about scaring them off. So K9 and Sarah-Jane link back to the Fourth Doctor days, Graeme “Androzani” Harper directs all the Cybermen episodes, there’s the Cybermen themselves, all sorts of little nods to the original show (such as the sarcophagus from Pyramids of Mars seen in the Torchwood Institute) and of course the “I was a father” line linking straight back to An Unearthly Child.

But to neatly sidestep the whole issue, we could just refer to Series 1/Season 27 as “Season Bad Wolf” and Series 2/Season 28 as “Season Torchwood”. I wonder what it will be next time?

But there are now a few new questions needing answers…

1. Firstly, why didn’t the Doctor go back for Sarah-Jane after dumping her in Aberdeen and scooting off to Gallifrey? I don’t believe the answer he gives her in School Reunion at all (and if he did, he wouldn’t have invited her to join him again). He must have gone back to ’80s Croydon to leave her K9, so why didn’t he even go and see her then?
2. Then, there’s the question of why Sarah-Jane didn’t take up the Doctor’s invite to join him again. If she’d been waiting so long, what was there to keep her? I’d have happily swapped her for Rose…
3. We finally saw the Doctor getting some action in The Girl In the Fireplace. How many centuries since he last got laid (as far back as Romana? or even Susan’s grandmother?)
4. How old, actually, is the Doctor?

These are in addition to the unanswered Torchwood questions… I don’t think we’ll get all (or indeed any) of the answers on Saturday’s episode. But we might get some of them from the Torchwood trailer that I’m betting will follow on from it.

They’re on the website if you don’t catch them on TV.