Doctor Who Series 6: Pitch

These articles have been so much fun to write, but Series 6 of Doctor Who would see me hypothetically bowing out of the main series, and while I will continue to put out some spin-off ideas, we’re underway with A Charitable Earth, UNIT and Torchwood, there is also a Gallifrey series coming out on the site soon, but Series 6 will say goodbye to the Doctor and companions, George and Nate and hopefully end in a way that the series has never done before in its nearly 60-year history!

Over the course of the previous five series, that I’ve laid out, I’ve offered little breadcrumbs here and there for what is to come, though the biggest of which will be the return of the Mara. There is good Big Finish audio, called The Gathering, in which the Fifth Doctor visits an older Tegan only to find that she is possibly dying from a tumour, picked up at some point in her adventures. It isn’t explicitly said that the Mara is responsible, but it’s implied. Taking that idea, I’ve played with it and formed it into a series-long arc, which will have a big pay-off in the end.

There will also be a new companion introduced at the beginning of this series, Kelly Munroe, I’ll explain more about her character in the descriptions below, but Kelly will have a different feel to any companion, in that when we meet her, she is already nearing the end of her journey with the Doctor. I don’t think we’ve ever started a series with the companion about to leave, so hopefully, that’ll give the series a new and fresh feeling. And she’ll also serve a big role in trying to find out what George is up to.

Also appearing in the series, not in a spin-off, is the Shansheeth. These vulture-like creatures, appearing in The Sarah Jane Adventures story, Death of the Doctor, when a rogue faction tried to gain access to the TARDIS by luring Sarah Jane and Jo Grant to the Doctor’s ‘funeral’. But here though, this is a nice group of Shansheeth, who, using a machine called The Dream Weaver, give the dying individual a chance to say goodbye, before uploading the psyche of that individual to a database where they will live the life they want, to all intents and purposes, working as an ‘afterlife’.

After nearly 60 years of storytelling, I’m hoping that this series will wrap up in a way we’ve never seen before and will be memorable for that. Below is a list of characters who will play big parts in this series and what they will bring to this series of adventures! And this series will feature Part 2 of Secret Invasion, a storyline that sees the Slitheen conquer the Earth!

The Main Players

The Doctor: We’ve seen the Doctor sacrifice himself for his friends before, and this time, he’ll do it again, dying to save his old friend, George Atkins. When the series opens, we’ll see him travelling with a new companion, Kelly Munroe, but they both know their adventures will be ending soon. This time, the Doctor will be a little more broody, rather than the fun and outgoing incarnation we’ve come to know over the previous 5 series. But this Doctor is still out to save the universe, out to save individuals and fight evils and injustices. But he refuses to see how warped George has become, no matter how many times Kelly tries to show him and that will be his downfall…

George Atkins: Having called the TARDIS back to Earth in the year 2072, George isn’t the man he once was. Now well into his 70s, he’s struggling to live alone. Nate has passed away and George can’t cope. So he calls the TARDIS back to Earth and joins the Doctor again. But George has a secret. He’s got a tumour in his head that Earth-doctor’s can’t do anything about and George suspects it might be alien. Joining the TARDIS again, he hopes that the machine will fix him as the Doctor told him medical nanites once got loose and will cure anything on the TARDIS. But the tumour is from a creature that doesn’t belong in our dimension and the Mara is trying to get free, having slowly gripped George’s mind once again, and going back on the TARDIS has given the monster exactly what it wants…

Kelly Munroe: Cat Burglar extraordinaire, that’s how Kelly describes herself. She could steal anything she puts her mind too. But a heist brought her on the Doctor’s path and when her employers turn out to be truly evil, Kelly decides to betray them and help the Doctor to overthrow them. She then joins the Doctor and before this series, they have had many adventures together. When this series opens, Kelly is coming to the end of her journey but she doesn’t trust George. Being a cat-burglar has given her good senses and she knows George is up to no good, but the Doctor can’t see it. Can Kelly make the Doctor see and understand what is going on before she leaves?

Supporting Characters

Nate Wallis: Having died peacefully in his sleep, Nate appears to be alive when George wakes up in modern-day. Nate is also trying desperately to keep George around, worried that he will want to travel with the Doctor again. In reality, this aspect of Nate is the Mara trying to keep George and the Doctor separated in the world the Dream Weaver created. But will Nate pull through, and will he and George finally get their happy ending?

Elisabeth Watts: Back at the end of Series 2, Elisabeth sacrificed herself to save the entire timeline from fracturing. It turned out to be a plot by the Time Lords and the Celestial Intervention Agency to make sure that the Doctor was exactly where he needed to be. A cruel plot. But in this new plot, Elisabeth is alive and living in modern-day, not her native time of the Twentieth Century. But she is very different, outwardly kind like her old self, she is also determined to keep George away from the Doctor. But why can only George see her? And why is the Mara determined to ruin her memory by making her completely evil?

The Series

1. The New Normal

The Doctor, with a new companion, Kelly Munroe, finds themselves stranded on a spaceship in the far future. The ship, filled with refugees fleeing a horrendous war, find itself in trouble when a Krill ship comes calling. The Krill has been affected by the war too and their foodstuff has been destroyed, luckily the refugees will do quite nicely in a pinch.

The Doctor and Kelly have to find a way to get the refugees out of the way of the Krill’s unending hunger and find them somewhere safe to live, before the Krill or the war they are both fleeing finally catches up with them.

But back in the TARDIS, the homing device has been activated and the Doctor and Kelly find themselves brought to Earth in the year 2072, but why, the answer lies in a churchyard…

2. Old Friends

When the TARDIS lands in a churchyard in 2072, the Doctor and Kelly find the new grave of one of the Doctors friends. Nate Wallis passed away in his sleep a few weeks before and today was his funeral. George Watkins brought the Doctor back because he thought he’d want to be there too, in typical fashion, the TARDIS was late.

Going home, the Doctor learns what his old friends got up to after they left and the lives they left, but Kelly suspects a different reason why George called the Doctor back.

What does George want and why does he seem to be hiding something? The Doctor doesn’t seem to see it and invites him back on the TARDIS to travel with him and Kelly, was that a mistake?

3. The Satanic Rites of Christopher Marlowe

With an elderly George on board the TARDIS, the ship brings The Doctor, George and Kelly to Elizabethan England. A new play-write, named William Shakespeare has recently moved to London, but that has upset another author, a man by the name of Christopher Marlowe.

In shadowed public houses and Marlowe’s own grand home, secrets are shared and whispered, Marlowe had an interesting life, a possible secret spy, a play write, a Satanist…

Something is trying to communicate with Marlowe, ghostly messages and verses are heard throughout his home and in a secret chamber used for his satanic worship, a glowing crystal ball allows him to communicate directly with witches, but the Doctor is afraid he knows who those witches are, The Carrionites are trying to come back to our dimension before their first invasion, can the Doctor stop them before time itself is torn apart?

4. The Benefit of Hindsight

The planet Lux is a barren hellhole. But it used to be one of the greatest civilisations of all times, that is what the Doctor is expecting to find when they arrive. Instead, they are greeted by the kindly elderly Professor Vixum, a man determined to find out what happened to his homeworld while he was away.

But that story doesn’t hold up to scrutiny and Kelly discovers that Professor Vixum isn’t as kindly as he first appears, in fact, he has a lot more to do with the decimation of Lux than he is admitting. Vixum created a deadly virus that ravaged all life, including vegetation, on the planet and is now trying to correct his mistake. The virus should never have been created in the first place, and they say the power of hindsight is a powerful thing. Vixum has made a few trips back in time and interacted with his past self, trying to stop himself from creating the virus in the first place. Can the Doctor stop a paradox from destroying this sector of space?

And some of George’s secrets come out to play when Kelly confronts him about them. Why has he come back aboard the TARDIS and does the Doctor trust George as much as Kelly seems to think he does?

5.  Roanoke

When the TARDIS brings the Doctor, Kelly and George back to the Elizabethan era, the Doctor discovers they have arrived at a recently established colony in North America. But what he doesn’t realise is that this colony is the Roanoke, one of the biggest mysteries in all of history. Just what happened to all the people who lived there and why when a relief ship was sent did the crew find the word, Croatoan, carved into things?

The Doctor, Kelly and George find themselves under suspicion of witchcraft and being catholic spies attempting to stop the formation of the colony in the New World. But what is really pulling the strings and why does the new colony threaten it. With an army of Native Americans lying in wait outside the colony, the Doctor and his friends must get back to the TARDIS before they all end dead and part of the mystery of the lost colony…

6. Secret Invasion – Part 2

Following on from the discovery that the Slitheen had infiltrated Earth once again, this time using the mistakes of the past to make sure they don’t fail, the Doctor has been called to an Earth colony in the future by his old friend Ace. The Doctor, Kelly, George, Ace, Rani and Iris Wildthyme, head back to modern-day to stop the Slitheen Invasion and get aid from UNIT and Torchwood, both of whom have their suspicions about a possible invasion.

Meanwhile, left in the future, Mel, Miss. Quill, Panda and Bernice Summerfield find themselves a part of a cult who believes the timeline to be wrong and are trying to destabilise the Slitheen occupation which has lasted thousands of years. Heading to a cave system outside the colony’s main city, they discover a message from the past, something went wrong and The Doctor and their friends got into trouble. Now hope seems lost and the Slitheen have finally won…

Secret Invasion will continue with the third part in Series 2 of UNIT.

7. Time Hunter

Arriving at a party in 1792, the Doctor, Kelly and George discover a plot to kill Marie Antoinette a year early by a Time Hunter. The Doctor has heard of them, a band of bounty hunters who travel through time executing people of importance throughout time. This time, it seems the Time Hunter has infiltrated one of Antoinette’s infamous parties.

But there is a sense of revolution in the air and the Doctor and his friends know what must happen to keep time on the right course, but can they really keep Marie Antoinette alive, only to let her be killed in a few months time? And why is George having a vision of huge vulture-like aliens? Things are slowly starting to come to a-head, will the Doctor discover the truth about his old friend in time, or will it destroy them all?

8. Mad Jack

Halloween on the Earth colony world Prosperity normally passes by like Halloween on any other Earth world. But this time is different, a small village is being terrorised by a sack-faced killer who hunts down inhabitants who venture out of their homes after dark.

When the TARDIS arrives, once again, the Doctor, Kelly and George find themselves under suspicion, but when a killing happens and they are in police custody, they are proved innocent and asked to help. What evil force stalks the fields and lanes of this small village and why does it seem to inhabit the body of Scarecrow, the villagers have called Mad Jack?

But this is the end of the line for Kelly who gets an offer she can’t refuse, when she leaves the Doctor, she asks him to look into what George is hiding from him. Will the Doctor do what she wants?

9. Death and the Cybermen

The Pied Piper is an orphan ship, fleeing the Cyber-War, which is ravaging entire worlds across the universe. So many children have lost their parents and guardians that Orphan ships, sometimes the size of entire worlds were commissioned with the sole intention of protecting the children of the universe. But the Cybermen aren’t willing to let the children go, they are easier to convert into more soldiers in their war with the galaxy and when the Pied Piper finds itself under threat, the Doctor and George have to step in.

While the Doctor takes on the Cybermen threat head-on, George is tasked with helping get the children to safety, but some of the Cybermen manage to get through to the lower decks and George faces his last stand…

10. Brand New Day

When George wakes up in modern day he finds himself as his young self, not a man in his 70s. Life seems to have gone back to normal, he’s living at home, Nate is alive and living with him once again and it’s like nothing has changed at all.

But he still remembers all his journeys with the Doctor, he remembers Elisabeth, Nate, The Master and Kelly travelling in the TARDIS too. But there is something in the back of his mind, a dull ache that is telling him this world isn’t right. The Doctor is nowhere to be found but there is a strange man who seems to be following him wherever he goes. And then Elisabeth turns up at the door. But that’s impossible. Elisabeth tragically died in their travels. So how can she be here now?

11. The Dream Weaver

Still haunted by dreams of large vulture-like creatures, all of whom seem to be obsessing over machinery linked up to the TARDIS, George finds he must face another day in this strange world. Elisabeth now is living with them and it seems she has been for a long time. So why doesn’t George remember?

And when George confronts the strange man who has been following him, he discovers it’s the Doctor, who in this world has been cast out and has been living on the streets. The Doctor has been trying to reach George, trying to tell him this world isn’t right, that something happened to him far in the future but there is something in George’s head that has fought back and created this bizarre world in hopes of trapping him thereby giving him everything he wants.

But what is this creature? The Doctor is determined to find out, but when George begins to fight back against this reality, his mind feels like it’s on fire. It seems help can only come from outside, from the vulture-like creatures George has been dreaming about. The Shansheeth.

12. The TARDIS Gamble

With the reality of the situation settling in, George finds his world falling apart, only The Doctor and Elisabeth seem to be real and everything else is vanishing, leaving them alone in a dark void.

Outside in the real world, the High Dreamer of the Shansheeth is desperately trying to tether George’s mind to the real universe. He makes a desperate gamble and connects the TARDIS to the Dream Weaver, in response, the TARDIS reaches back through time, giving the older George the flashes he’s been having over the course of this series, making it so that George and the Doctor would always come here.

In the fake reality, George is dismayed when the Doctor vanishes too, leaving Elisabeth and him alone. But George is finally forced to wonder if this Elisabeth is real, or is she something playing a vile game?

13. Remember Me…

It all ends here!

With the Doctor waking up in the real universe, the Shansheeth explain what has happened. George had developed a strange tumour over the course of his journeys in time and space when he came into contact with a strange creature from another reality. Armed with this new information, the Doctor demands to be plugged back into the Dream Weaver, The High Dreamer warns him that will kill the Doctor too, and he slowly begins to regenerate, though he forces it back till he can rescue his friend.

Inside the Dream Weaver, George has discovered Elisabeth’s true nature too. The Mara is desperately trying one last time to break into the real universe and had given George a tumour when he had possessed him in the previous series. George knew about the tumour, though not the alien reality of it, and had planned to get back on board the TARDIS to find a way to make himself well again. But when that became impossible, he kept everything secret.

On a rainy London street, the Doctor finds George and Elisabeth and explains what has been happening. George must submit to the Dream Weaver and finally die in order to save the universe from the Mara. But the Mara is desperately trying to show the Doctor as the real villain. Could the Doctor have saved George if he had asked? But George knows the fate of the universe hangs in the balance and when the TARDIS materialises, surrounded by a bright white glow, George opens the door and submits to the Dream Weaver. The Mara begins to fragment and is sent back to its dark dimension and the Doctor wakes up in the real universe.

Still holding off against his upcoming regeneration, he thanks the Shansheeth for their aid, they explain how George and his sacrifice will always be remembered. Departing in the TARDIS, the Doctor finally succumbs to his regeneration, having sacrificed his life to save his friend, who in turn, saved the entire universe.

In closing

So that is the basic plan for how the final series of my time on Doctor Who would look like if I were a hypothetically show-runner. Like I said above, I don’t think that Doctor Who has ever done an exit or regeneration story like this, so hopefully it’ll be something completely brand new for the series!

The Mara has long been a favourite Doctor Who monster of mine and one that I’m surprised has never come back in the new series. The Mara will have been driven even madder by the Time Lords trying to use it as a weapon in the Time War, giving it a new reason to want universal domination, to raise an army to destroy the Time Lords and the Daleks in their entirety. The Shanseeth are another creature I’ve always thought would work well in Doctor Who proper.

But that is how I would bring my era of Doctor Who to end, the Doctor’s sacrifice completely in keeping with his character, saving his friends and the universe. George and Nate get their happy ending finally, their minds and memories uploaded to the Dream Weaver, a machine that will last until the end of time. Not a bad way for the Doctor and his companions to bow out!

If I were ever in charge of the show, I would do what Russell T. Davies did, bow out of the main series but continue with the spin-off shows. And those shows will continue, expanding the Doctor Who universe. We’ve got more UNIT, Torchwood and A Charitable Earth series to come, as well as Gallifrey getting a series that will see the birth of the Time Lord civilisation as we know it. But there will also be little series spread out through these articles. Hypothetically, these series would be aired on a channel like BBC3 and would include characters like Lytton, the Cult of Skaro and the civilisation of Peladon getting mini-series!

The action will continue in the limited series: Lytton – coming soon!