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armageddon-generation · 1 year

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Rewriting The Power of the Doctor as a finale to the 13th Doctor’s Era instead of an Anniversary Special

PotD's best parts were all 80s fanservice. It resolved none of Chibnall's plot threads, nor did it celebrate 13’s era overall. I’m not fully resolving the Timeless Child as that would need a different plot. But by adding more callbacks and payoffs I hope to strengthen this era overall as a worthwhile investment

International broadcasters split PotD into 2 episodes, and its first edit was 2 hours long. I’m thus splitting it from 1 85-min special to 2 60-min specials

Forgive my cringe attempts at dialogue.

What changes would you make to the story?

PART 1

The Thijarian Assassins from 11x6 Demons of the Punjab appear in the background throughout the episode, like the Ood in the buildup to The End of Time,

Karvanista & Tie-ins to The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos

Swap the space train in the opening for Karvanista, Bel & Vinder from Flux, transporting cargo for the Coalition of Galaxies from 11x10 The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos

Bel: Being boarded by Cybermen once was more than enough for me, thank you very much.

Karvanista recognises the Cybermasters’ regeneration.

When 13 sends Dan to stop the ship crashing he spars with Karvanista again:

Dan: Hello Muttley my son, it's been a while

Karvanista: Just what I need. Leave, you'll only make everything worse-

Dan: Rubbish, I just need to wave my space wand and-

[the ship accelerates]

Karvanista: 'Space wand'? Bloody useless! In my day she didn't need that rubbish.

Dan: Eh?

He is still bitter- he doesn't want to be saved by 13 and when she fails to stop the Cybermasters he rips into her.

13: You lot are working for the Coalition of Galaxies now? Why?

Karvanista: Because two-thirds of the universe got destroyed and then suddenly reappeared after weeks of chaos. They need all the help they can get, and you certainly weren't offering, were you?

The cargo they carried isn’t the alien made of pure energy. Instead it’s the young Ux from 11x10 The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, an omnipotent species who followed 13's advice to ‘travel hopefully’ and was using its abilities to help rebuild the universe

Karvanista has a heart-to-heart with Dan after his near-death experience, encouraging him to leave 13 before she leaves him. Closure for their relationship.

Afterwards, Yaz asks why Karvanista was so angry. 13 finally opens up to her, last-minute character growth to make her regen more tragic:

13: We used to travel together. When I was Ruth. Remember her?

Yaz: Of course.

13: We were... sort of time spies together. For Division.

Yaz: The people who sent the Weeping Angels after you?

13: And the Judoon after Ruth. But my memory of that time was taken and I don't want it back. I want to focus on now. On our moment. On you. And Dan-

Dan, from the doors: You don't have to come back for me.

13, closing her eyes. Taking a steadying breath: Oh. Right then. OK.

13 REPLACES DAN'S HOUSE because leaving him homeless is careless and callous.

13: I get it. Life's important. Home's important. Speaking of…

[She produces Dan's miniaturized house on a little metal disc]

13: Just press the button and this should take care of itself. That, or you'll be transported to the moon. Worth a shot though, eh?

Dan: You just had that in your pocket ready to go?

13: I knew you'd ask to go back eventually, Dan. When you did... I didn't want to be holding you hostage.

After Dan leaves, instead of an out-of-nowhere rogue Dalek, 13 is contacted by the Order of the Custodians, the group from 11x11 Resolution, who guarded the divided pieces of a Dalek Scout for centuries. Being dedicated to fighting Daleks, they're investigating an incursion on Earth

The Cyber-planet is a dead, Cyber-converted Gallifrey, after 12x10 The Timeless Children

The Ux is hooked up to the planet in the same lab Tecteun experimented on the Timeless Child in

The Master is using the Ux to maintain his cyber-constructs like Tim Shaw did his fortress. By saving the Ux again 13 comes full circle from her first series.

As a young, omnipotent alien all-but alone in the universe, the Ux is a direct parallel to the Timeless Child. In a way, 13 is saving her younger self

Once they've found the Ux, 13 calls Karvanista & co to retrieve him. Karavanista comes alone (Karvanista > Vinder). After crashing he reports to Mark Addy’s character from 11x10 The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, via video screen. He promised to keep the Ux safe after that episode

Karvanista recognises the Master’s perverted TARDIS exterior. It brings back bad memories.

The Master & Nikola Tesla

Ra-Ra-Rasputin is great, but I’m swapping the Master taking over the Winter Palace for Wardenclyffe, the power station from 12x4 Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror

We open on Tesla, years after we met him, stumbling out of the realtor’s into the rain. Wardenclyffe is being foreclosed and he is penniless

Tesla walks down an alley and in a flash of light is transported to the Kassavin’s dimension from 12x1-2 Spyfall.

Tesla: What- where am I? Fascinating. What manner of construction is this? [hears rustling] Who’s there? Did you build this place? Please… you should know this isn’t my first time meeting creatures from beyond. If… If you want my help, my skills… perhaps a deal could be negotiated.

Distorted voice: Want your help? No no, I am going to help you, Nikola Tesla. With my help, your skills will change the universe.

Tesla: This place… did you build it?

Voice: No. But I was once trapped here, for an eternity or two. I picked up a few things.

Tesla: Who are you?

Voice: I am the Doctor.

Tesla: Doctor?! You’ve come back for me- Is being trapped here why you never came back? [the Master appears] ...You are not the Doctor

Master: Not yet. But you’re going to help me with that.

He hypnotizes Tesla into building the cages that will force 13 to regenerate.

13’s favorite historical figure making the thing that kills her is a huge personal blow. The Master rubs in 13’s face that by ‘abandoning’ Tesla & letting history take its course, she let this happen.

Ryan & Graham replace Ace & Tegan

Ace & Tegan were the best parts of PotD imo, but bringing in Classic companions last-minute doesn’t help tie up 13’s era

Because I cut Rasputin, swap the missing paintings for tech-savvy Ryan investigating a sudden acceleration in Earth's technology.

He tours VOR (Daniel Barton’s Google stand-in tech company from 12x1 Spyfall). At the end of that story Barton went on the run, so without him the company should have collapsed. Instead it’s leading a worldwide tech revolution.

It’s not just VOR; history itself is changing. Technological advancement is accelerating decade by decade. The microchip was invented 30 years early etc

After leaving, Ryan hosts a group video-call: Graham is investigating the missing Seismologists with the Three Idiots Roaming from 12x6 Praxeus. At the end of that story they left to travel the world and protect it from environmental disaster, so they fit well for the volcano subplot

Travel-vlogger Gabrielle is with Graham (she and Ryan are dating, building on the suggestion of flirtation in Praxeus, and Graham jokes about it) while couple Jake and Adam are investigating elsewhere.

Reuniting with the Fam & the Daleks’ trap

13 remarks on Earth’s accelerating technology seeing UNIT’s new building. It’s part of a chain of cutting-edge facilities across the globe, designed as refuges for humanity in the event of another disaster like the Flux

13 & Yaz awkwardly reunite with Ryan, who has traced the acceleration of Earth’s technology back to a now super-successful Nikola Tesla in the 1920s. He shows them several newspaper articles, starting with NIKOLA TESLA’S NIGHT OF TERROR!, that show Tesla’s fall into ruin after they left him. A somber moment. But then Tesla re-emerges with a new ‘business partner’; the Master. The final article shows them taking over Thomas Edison’s factory

Graham contacts Ryan; he and Gabrielle have followed their lead on the Seismologists to a university; we watch them enter via Gabrielle’s camera, when they’re captured by the waiting Master

13 books it over there, high-tension, but the Master is just waiting for her to arrive.

UNIT arrives from another of their brand new facilities

Graham goes to UNIT with the Fam and the captured Master, but Gabrielle stays behind to help UNIT with the dead seismologists. She gives Ryan a parting kiss that Yaz makes fun of. He notes how much closer she and 13 are, which shuts her up

At UNIT, the Order of the Custodians call 13: They’ve infiltrated the Dalek base in the Bolivian volcano, unaware the Daleks are using them as bait.

In the Volcano, the Order try to give 13 a Dalek-killing chemical weapon they developed testing tiny samples of the Recon Scout mutant, when the trap is sprung

The Order are killed. Instead of trapping 13 in a Dalek casing a mutant puppeteers her, one of Chibnall’s best gimmicks

13 gets the Order’s Dalek-killing weapon to Yaz as she’s captured, and Yaz flees to the TARDIS as the Daleks open fire. The Order’s weapon will replace Ace’s Nitro-999 later

Cyber-Attack & the Master in Wardenclyffe

No miniature Ashad: Instead the Cybermen appear like the Kassavin did in 12x1 Spyfall, in a blaze of white light, and invade from that pocket-dimension

This is how they appear on every floor at once: Army of Ghosts callback!

The Master escapes and travels to 1920s Wardenclyffe, where 13 is held captive

On using Tesla:

13: You’re telling me our Great and Powerful Master needs a lowly human inventor to work on his machines?

Master: Of course not.

13: Then why go to all the trouble of enslaving Tesla?

Master: Why? Why use one of your favorite scientists? The inventor after your own hearts, who you fought side-by-side with before abandoning him to the cruel fate history dictated? I found him penniless and alone! Your fault. You had the power to step in, the power to save anyone. Everyone! But you never had the vision to.

Like international broadcasts, the forced regeneration is the cliffhanger for Part 1

PART 2

The Master-Doctor

The Master possesses 13’s body, calling back to the TV Movie. This is so Jodie can play the evil Master-Doctor, showing off her range and giving her more screentime in her final story (plus Sexual Tension with Yaz)

Expand the Master-Doctor’s rampage. The Master brings the hypnotized Tesla along to restrain Yaz.

She leads a jailbreak, blowing a hole in the Judoon prison from 12x11 Revolution of the Daleks. Angela the Angel abducts a Judoon through the flickering lights; the P'Ting eats one of the guard's guns.

Master: This is payback for locking me up! [to the escaping prisoners] when you're out there spreading chaos through the universe, tell them the Doctor sent you!

Then, the twin planets he visits are the ones from 12x7 Can You Hear Me?

Yaz watches helplessly as the Master introduces the planet’s peoples to the two evil gods- the enemies who affected Yaz most- and promises they will be just and noble rulers. She then encourages the gods to 'play' with her gift.

The TARDIS jumps forward in time to show the planets a war.

Yaz overpowers Tesla to lock the Master out

Fugitive Doctor: Guardian of the Edge

The Classic Doctor cameos were great but I’m cutting them for the same reason as Tegan & Ace.

13’s personality has been buried deep in the Doctor’s subconscious, where she meets the Fugitive Doctor, also repressed long ago. The Fugitive is our Guardian of the Edge, trying to save 13 from the same fate that befell her

The Fugitive shows 13 a flashback of the ‘reality’ behind the last part of the Brendan visions in 12x9 Ascension of the Cybermen- namely his memory being wiped, which wasn’t covered in 12x10 The Timeless Children

The Fugitive has her regenerations reset by Tecteun, in the same lab she experimented on her in as a child, the same one the Ux is being held in on cyber-Gallifrey

Tying up more of the loose ends from the Timeless Child arc leaves a blank slate for the next era. I don’t like the arc but the least Chibs could do is clean up his own mess before leaving.

Fugitive: And now the Master has stolen Mother’s favorite punishment-

13: Don’t call her that.

Fugitive: She might be dead and she might’ve been a monster, but Tecteun is all we had. Now he’s out there making a monster out of us too, just like she always wanted-

13: Tecteun was not my family. We make our own family, you and me. Everywhere we go. Speaking of which…

Cybermen and Daleks

Keep the hologram implants, letting 13 have final moments with Ryan & Graham

Graham gets Tegan’s job helping Kate fight the Cybermen at UNIT.

It'd be cool if Ashad confronted Graham about his cancer

Ashad: You think you are rid of it but the traces linger. The ultimate betrayal of the flesh. Does the thought of it returning keep you up at night? We can free you from that fear!

Graham: Fear of death is what makes us human. It's what makes us value our time. Sure I suffered. But I found meaning in it too. I fell in love. You'll never know what that's like. And I feel sorry for you.

I was always bothered by the contradiction of the Daleks trying to destroy Earth when the Cybermen want to convert it. So, my adjusted Cyber-plan is to take over the new UNIT strongholds across the globe. When the Daleks blow the volcanoes, people will evacuate to the UNIT strongholds where the Cybermen will be waiting to convert them

(I basically stole Harmony Shoal’s plan from The Return of Doctor Mysterio but shhhh)

Meanwhile, the Three Idiots Roaming feel the volcanoes start to activate, and lead the evacuation of people living nearby to the UNIT strongholds, but the Cybermen are waiting and trap them

Ryan gets Ace’s role, parachuting off the roof (a big moment highlighting his dyspraxia).

Yaz collects him and they save the Three Idiots from the UNIT stronghold, letting the evacuees flee.

Yaz drops Ryan and the Idiots under the volcanoes, using the Order of the Custodians’ anti-Dalek weapon to fight them as Ace did

Meanwhile, once Graham saves Kate from conversion she self-destructs all the UNIT strongholds around the globe, stopping the Cybermen

Saving the Doctor

Karvanista gets Vinder’s role shooting the Master. He also comes face-to-face with the hologram of the Fugitive, his Doctor.

THASMIN KISS immediately after Yaz saves 13, when her guard is down in her post-regeneration haze, overcome with joy at being alive again. This makes their parting more tragic, but 13 doesn't look cruel like she would for initiating that intimacy when she knows she's dying, opening a door she knows she can't go through

After 13 has been saved, the Fugitive-hologram and Karvanista have a heart-to-heart like 5 & 7 do with Ace & Tegan in the original, giving him closure & resolving his bitterness.

Once freed from the Master's hypnotism, Tesla goes in the TARDIS and helps fix Karvanista's ship while 13 deals with the Master's TARDIS.

Once free, the Ux destroys the Cyber-constructs grafted onto Gallifrey’s architecture

Instead of the ‘what a universe. I’ll never understand it’ line, 13 looks back: We get brief flashes of Tecteun's experimentation on the Child and the Fugitive's forced regen, which both took place here. 13 finally makes peace with that loss and leaves it behind

The lasting effects of the forced regeneration are what kill 13. Like slow radiation poisoning.

Thasmin & Demons of the Punjab Callbacks

THASMIN HUG. 13 removes the hologram implant from Yaz, but then gifts it back to her as she leaves- the same projector she had in 13x5 Survivors of the Flux.

She says "This is us. Our moment in time.", calling back to the watch from 11x6 Demons of the Punjab

It'd also be nice to call back to 13’s speech on her family from 11x1 The Woman Who Fell to Earth:

Yaz: I'm not sure I can do this without you. You helped me.. helped me learn who I am-

13: And now you know. You don't need me, Yaz. I needed you in the end. Look at everything you did today, on your own. You saved me. You led everyone. Just- carry me with you, if you can. Just do that. What I would've thought and said and done. Make that a part of you. So I might be going from the universe, but I'll never be gone from you, eh?

Yaz, huffing through tears: What would the Doctor do?

13: What would you do?

As I’ve cut the Classic Companions, I’m replacing the Companion support Group with Yaz’s anniversary dinner with her sister Sonya from 12x7 Can You Hear Me, commemorating when she ran away as a teen.

In contrast to the lonely, somber affair of that episode, this time Yaz has invited Ryan, Graham, Dan and Diane round, as well as her parents and grandmother

Ryan's dad Aaron could also show up since he never appeared again after Resolution

13’s ‘Fam’ has become Yaz’s extended family and support network, highlighting how much she’s grown

We leave the companions with a similar sentiment to Graham’s idea of telling stories from the original. Yaz is ready to open up to her family and tell them about her time with the Doctor.

Intercut 13 leaving the TARDIS with Yaz calling back to Ryan’s opening line from 11x1 The Woman Who Fell To Earth:

Yaz: So tonight, we want to tell you about the greatest woman we ever met. Smart. Funny. Caring… Special. Proper special.

The Thijarians are there to witness 13’s regeneration. They exchange a look of understanding with her before she goes

The story now ties in plot-threads from Series 11 (Demons of the Punjab, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos & Resolution), Series 12 (Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror, Praxeus, Can You Hear Me? & Revolution of the Daleks, as well as The Timeless Children) and Flux (Karvanista). Paying these plot threads off retroactively gives the era thematic unity, validating viewers’ investment.

As it was, PotD’s refusal to resolve anything made the whole thing weaker and less worth investing in overall.

art credit to @lostcosmos and @softest-butch!

EDIT: I have now written a fic exploring some of these ideas, linking the Chibnall era together and giving the characters more closure. Check it out if you'd like!

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