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Overview of Season 31 of Doctor Who​

“It’s been a while!”​

“It has, Doctor. I see you’ve picked up some new friends.”​

“You know me, I like to keep company. I see you’re a woman again, Minister.”​

“Ever observant, Doctor.”​

Upon catching up with the Master’s TARDIS, Lucie and Kahn-Tineta find it hanging dead in the time vortex. The doors have been blown out and neither Time Lord is anywhere to be found. The TARDIS picks up on a faint artron energy signature and follows it to the planet Terra Alpha. A miserable place to live, Terra Alpha is the isolated black sheep of its system and former seat of the Terra Alphan Empire. The current ruler, Helen A., is obsessive about happiness. She has outlawed all negative emotional expression, dubbing those who feel such things “killjoys” and driving them literally underground into the planet’s vast sewers. The keys to her rule are the garishly pink-and-pastel Gestapo force known as “the Happiness Patrol” and her private executioner the Kandyman, a psychopathic robot made of liquorice allsorts and boiled sweets.​

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Escaping the Happiness Patrol, the companions finally locate the Doctor… or, rather, they locate John S., head of the Happiness Patrol and Helen A.’s right-hand man. The Doctor has been brainwashed. It’s now up to Lucie and Kahn-Tineta, with the help of their new friend Earl Sigma, to figure out how to restore the Doctor’s memory and take down Helen A.’s fascist regime.​

Guest Stars: Sheila Hancock as Helen A., Rob Paulsen as the voice of the Kandyman, and Paul Winfield as Earl Sigma​

The Doctor’s memory on how to fly the TARDIS is rusty after his brainwashing on Terra Alpha. So much so that he ends up being unable to escape when a giant, wriggling red hand lurches into the vortex and plucks the TARDIS out. The travelers find themselves in a strange museum devoted to one-of-a-kind time machines. The TARDIS is the last Mark I Type 40 Time Capsule left in existence, and the owner of the museum, Mr. Crimson, “simply must have it.”​

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The TARDIS crew is informed by the docent, Wells, that Crimson is far too busy to deal with their protests. His need to own one-of-a-kind time machines outweighs their need to have home and transport. Outraged, the travelers set about trying to meet Crimson, only to find the museum is laced with traps. Additionally, most of its exhibits are replicas except for a few. Grabbing onto one as it’s taken for “restoration,” the travelers find that the time machines are being eaten by Mr. Crimson. In actuality, there is no “mister,” just Colony Crimson – a gestalt mind comprised of trillions upon trillions of tiny, red, wriggling creatures. The same ones that plucked the TARDIS from the vortex. They feed on artron energy, which kills the drained time machines. Worse, they aren’t above trying to eat the time travelers to gain their artron energy, too!​

Special Guest Star: James Earl Jones as the voice of Colony Crimson​

Guest Star: John Posey as Docent Wells​

Attempting to recover the lost TARDIS from the fourth moon of Shempexel Grenexel, the crew hitches a ride aboard the Master of Luxor, a planet-hopper owned and operated by Gerard Luxor. Luxor is a well-to-do businessman who prefers to do things on his own rather than employ servants. While en route to the moon, the Master of Luxor accidentally becomes embroiled in a vicious dogfight and is damaged. It plummets to the uncharted, autumnal planet below. The stranded crew ekes out a living amidst the ruins of a once-great civilization.​

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Soon, a strange pair arrives. They are enormous, lumbering creatures draped in pelts of numerous species with skulls for heads and an ever-present stench of ammonia and formaldehyde. Dar Traders is what they call themselves. They harvest the dead and give knowledge in exchange. On this occasion, they’re here for the Doctor and Lucie. Sensors aboard their ship indicate that she has never been alive in the first place, yet she demonstrates quite the opposite. The Doctor has died nine times before and lived to tell every tale. The Traders believe them to be essential to their species-wide endeavor of achieving a state of existence teetering on the precipice of life and death. In exchange for those two, they will save Kahn-Tineta and Luxor.​

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Luxor hates this, but suggests that it may be their only way offworld. Lucie is even willing to go with them, but only if the Doctor goes free. She has faith in the Doctor’s ability to save her once he has the TARDIS back, and this may uncover the mysteries surrounding her very existence. However, the Doctor and Kahn-Tineta are quite opposed to the idea. The Traders inform them that they will remain around for several days… but even if they leave, they’ll be back one way or another. Everyone dies, and the Traders are very, very patient.​

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With the offer hanging like a bad stench in the air, tempers begin to flare as the survivors argue over what the best course of action is.​

Guest Stars: James Avery as Gerard Luxor, Richard Cetrone and Doug Jones as the Dar Traders, and Dee Bradley Baker as the voice of the Dar Traders​

The Doctor realizes that to get back to the TARDIS at any sort of good clip, the travelers are going to have to use 51st Century rail travel… Well, “rail” is perhaps an archaic holdover. This train simply sails through the stars along a general course. Leaving Luxor to get his own train home, the TARDIS crew purchase tickets for the Outer Rim Limited, which ought to get them to the same system as the fourth moon of Shempexel Grenexel. As they wait, they overhear a porter discussing with the driver, Fraxol, if “it will happen again.” Fraxol assures him with her in charge, it won’t. With Trains-Galactic, Inc.’s reputation and the stability of the entire galaxy on the line, she can’t afford to say otherwise.​

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Investigating, the crew finds that many people – including several prominent politicians, scientists, athletes, and performers – have left the ORL with large chunks of their memories missing. At least one important galactic power, the Si’ilgaana Confederacy, has fallen as a direct result of this. The Doctor is intrigued and perturbed. This has to be looked into.​

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Aboard the train, a bevy of bizarre characters all make themselves known. The extravagant and somewhat androgynous Monsieur Roué along with his meek, abused houseboy Malcolm Aguirre with their special coach at the end of the train. The conductor, Ratalogge, who is actually a Quintelaracc (a barnacle-like hive mind) secret agent attached to the back of a cloned humanoid conveyance looking for information on the missing UEFS Lashley. Fraxol herself, a Petruchion who is immune to memory wipes due to her complex brain structure. The pièce de résistance, however, is Na’a’auch – a female Arbusa, a hairy, ten-foot-long lobster with a wolf spider’s face, scythed mantis-like forelimbs, and a voracious appetite. She is relentlessly searching for Kliyrcu’uhz, a male that spontaneously regenerated himself from the soft spot on her groin, becoming a renegade hermaphrodite.​

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When the train enters the Outer Rim’s highlight, the Revelation System’s wormhole, it stops dead in the middle, which shouldn’t be possible. Looking outside drives most people except the Doctor, Roué, and Malcolm mad. But there are strange, hagfish-like mouths sucking the glass from the windows, and tendrils wrapping around people’s heads… Whatever is happening, it seems that only Fraxol has an inkling to the secret, and she’s vanished along with Kahn-Tineta.​

Special Guest Star: Eddie Izzard as Monsieur Roué​

Guest Stars: Dante Basco as Malcolm Aguirre, Anjelica Huston as Fraxol, Colin Salmon as Ratalogge, Beatrice Arthur as the voice of Na’a’auch, and David Warner as the voice of Usilarax Prime​

Having solved the mystery of the Outer Rim Limited, rescued the stranded crew of the UEFS Lashley, and recovered the TARDIS, the travelers find it immediately ensnared by another TARDIS’s tractor beam. This TARDIS belongs to Monsieur Roué - who is really the renegade Time Lord known as the Libertine, one of Azmael’s contemporaries, and a former Prydonian Academy instructor. It had been his “luxury coach” at the end of the train. His TARDIS is towing theirs through time to an uncertain destination. With both Lucie and Kahn-Tineta’s help, the Doctor tries to sever the link, but fails.​

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The Libertine begins to drag them close enough that the tractor beam will be inescapable, so the Doctor tries an admittedly risky manoeuvre involving the fuel cells, attempting to overload the Libertine’s TARDIS. This fails spectacularly. The Doctor’s TARDIS is drained of all power, while the console in the Libertine’s explodes, killing him. Due to a medical condition, his body doesn’t regenerate immediately. Malcolm is rescued by the Doctor and the girls, only for the Libertine’s TARDIS to be drawn to a massive extra-temporal bastion (a conglomeration of TARDISes suspended outside of time) via recall signal.​

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The Libertine’s body vanishes and upon exiting the TARDIS, an immense man levels a laser machine gun at the Doctor’s head and informs them that they will follow his orders or the Doctor’s brains will be pulped. The man - another renegade Time Lord known as the Veteran - takes one look at Malcolm, sneers, then tells him to go find the Libertine in the med-bay. Malcolm’s shoulders slump, defeated, and he obeys. Lucie and Kahn-Tineta are to follow him. The Doctor is taken away by the Veteran.​

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As the Doctor comes to find out, this is the base of a shadowy cabal which has dubbed itself the League of Extraordinary Time Lords. “How extraordinary can your little club be? I’m not a member,” the Doctor snarks. The Veteran introduces the Doctor to their new leader… the Monk, freshly regenerated into a new incarnation. This is actually where the Master was bringing him. The Monk invites the Doctor to join the League, replacing the Master, and preventing “a horrible future where death comes to time,” as predicted by the group’s supercomputer, the Ingenium. The offer is tantalizing, almost too good to be true….​

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The question is: what’s the catch?​

Special Guest Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Veteran and Willie Rushton as the Monk​

Guest Stars: Leslie Jordan as the Libertine, Dante Basco as Malcolm Aguirre, Adjoa Andoh as the Clinician, Anne Haney as Hylavivandess AKA “Vivian” AKA the Bibliognost, and Josette Simon as the voice of the Ingenium​

The Tardis lands in a vast casino in the hope of some rest and relaxation. While there, they befriend a strange woman. The Doctor realizes she is the Corsiar, an old freind of his from back home who has had multiple incarnations. A group of hired thugs storm into the casino looking for the Corsair, she's stolen artifacts from a holy Draconian temple and their owner wants them back. Now the Doctor and freinds must help the Corsair evade capture while discovering the dark secret behind the object that she has stolen.​

Guest Stars: Claudia Black as the Corsair, Michael Dorn as Ajax, Ron Perlman as Jedrek.​

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“Even waiting to see who will blink first can be an enjoyable game, my dear Doctor.”​

Lucie has been becoming more distant and spacey lately. Malcolm wonders if this is somehow his fault, but the Doctor and Kahn-Tineta assure him otherwise. Taking a holiday at the Eye of Orion, the crew attempts to decompress after their marathon ordeal as of late. Lucie still is out of sorts. In fact, she descends into a trance and attempts to hijack the TARDIS. By the time the others notice and pull her away from the console, the course is already laid in and they’ve taken off. They leave time and space, ending up in the Celestial Toyroom.​

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The Doctor demands to know what the Toymaker wants and how he took control of Lucie. “It was simple enough,” the Toymaker explains, “considering I’m the one who made her. I merely called her back home.” With that truth laid bare, the Toymaker continues: he’s dying, and he’s convinced the Doctor is the only suitable replacement. He challenges the Doctor to best each of his companions in a game, then triumph over the Toymaker himself. If he doesn’t comply… well, he and his companions will simply be held captive until the Toyroom ceases to exist upon the Toymaker’s ultimate demise, taking them with him.​

Special Guest Star: Michael Gough as the Celestial Toymaker​

The TARDIS lands on a completely dark space station. There is no clear indication of what has happened to the station, but it appears to be uninhabited. As the Doctor goes to activate the auxiliary power, they find warnings written on the wall to “stay out of the light”. They try to find any information as to what happened, but any object that could emit light, computer monitors, logging devices, seem to have been destroyed. Kahn-Tineta becomes paranoid that something is following them, and as the group round a corner, she is attacked by an unknown force.​

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The Doctor, Lucie, and Malcolm realise she is gone all too late, but the space station is vast, and splitting up to find her would only endanger each of them even more. Kahn-Tineta comes to, being attended to by Violet, who explains that she is the last survivor. She refuses to go into any further detail, simply saying that “the light is hungry”. The Doctor continues his search for answers, deciding that they need to go to the central computer core, to get clear answers as to what has happened. What little signs can be seen with the Doctor’s torch do lead the way to the core, but as they continue, they start to find bodies in various states of decomposition.​

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Upon reaching the core, the Doctor is able to reactivate the main computer with what little auxiliary power remains. A log plays explaining that this is the Wendus V Research Station. The Doctor instantly recoils; Wendus V was a famous unsolved mystery, a station mysteriously goes silent, then two days later, explodes with no explanation, and they’re in the middle of it. Another log plays, referring to a “lumix crystal” they have mined, that seems to have special properties. Yet another log follows, saying that the light from the crystal was “hungry”, causing those in its light to rapidly decompose. Worse, anything the light touched was “infected”, and if an infected object emitted light, that light was infected too. The researcher explains that as far as he can tell, all light on the station is infected. To their horror, the Doctor, Lucie, and Malcolm realise that they are in the light of a surviving computer monitor that has been activated. And Malcolm is a hologram projector.​

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As Violet and Kahn-Tineta begin to search for the Doctor and the rest of the companions, lights begin to activate across the station, as the auxiliary power comes back online…​

Guest Cast: Kate Winslet as Violet​

The Doctor, Lucie, Malcolm, and Kahn-Tineta land on a space ship carrying a cargo through a section of the galaxy that is home to a black hole. They are introduced to Captian Joelle Kagin and her crew, including her half alien daughter, Allana. The crew claim to see ghosts every night, Allana speaks of an imaginary friend who plays games with her, and the Doctor can't help but shake the feeling he's been here before. As the ship begins to fall into disarray, the Doctor will discover the secret of the black hole, and the beings sealed there by his people long ago.​

Guest Stars: Terry Farrell as Captain Joelle Kagin, Scarlett Johansson as Allana.​

The Doctor is stopped by Iris Wildthyme, self-proclaimed “trans-temporal adventuress, righter of wrongs, wronger of rights, five-time winner of the coveted Perkiest Bosom Award from the Chestulators of Ansmers D, and all-around glamorpuss.” The Doctor knows her as another renegade Time Lord who’s a major pain in his backside and the epitome of an abhorrent admirer. To his companions’ bemusement, Iris insists that the Doctor has to help her. She’s gotten into some trouble with interdimensional debt collectors and due to the bizarre laws on their side of reality, she can get out of this if she’s married to a rich significant other. The catch is that they want to observe her and the Doctor being domestic with “their adopted kids and servant Claudine” (Malcolm, Kahn-Tineta, and Lucie, respectively) for a few days. The Doctor very reluctantly agrees and a comedy of manners and errors ensues, ending with the debt collectors revealed to be transdimensional scam artists in human skin-suits.​

Special Guest Star: Rue McClanahan as Iris Wildthyme​

Guest Stars: Mark Gatiss and John Goodman as the Debt Collectors​

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The TARDIS is sucked into a “temporal fissure” originating from the planet Oseidon. The Doctor, Lucie, Kahn-Tineta, and Malcolm exit the TARDIS, finding the landscape shifting between a harsh irradiated desert and a lush forest. They walk for a little while, finding a Kraal settlement, where the Doctor encounters the Minister. After a short while catching up, the Minister explains what is going on.​

The Minister explains that she is trying to help the Kraal recover by restoring their planet’s ecological system, but that her attempts to change the planet’s history so far have been hit-and-miss. The Doctor reveals that they have had major effects throughout the local star systems, and that any further meddling with the timeline could have devastating repercussions. The Minister agrees to end her experiments if the Doctor helps her to stabilise the timeline.​

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They find a particularly good branch, where Oseidon’s ecosystem is largely restored, and damage to local space is negligible. The ecosystem will collapse if the Kraal do not intervene withing the next century or so, but overall, it is a major improvement. The Doctor and the Minister use their TARDISes to “fuse” the timeline, so that it cannot change. However, what actually happens is that the timeline branches, with the Doctor, Kahn-Tineta and Malcolm in the “fixed” timeline, and the Minister and Lucie stuck in the “barren” timeline.​

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The Minister and the Doctor are able to communicate in a limited form, as their TARDISes are still linked from the fusing. The Minister calculates that she and Lucie have about three days before the radiation kills them, and the temporal fissure, which has still not been resolved, is preventing either TARDIS from leaving or entering the other timeline. The Minister and Lucie shelter in the Minister’s TARDIS while the Doctor tries to find a way to reconverge the timelines.​

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The Doctor comes to the realisation that the only way to reunite with the Minister and Lucie is to “revert” the planet to how it was before the Minister interfered. His TARDIS is still able to perform some small time jumps, in part due to its outdated architecture lacking particular safety features. He, Kahn-Tineta, and Malcolm travel back to when the Minister had initally altered the planet’s ecosystem, reverting the changes.​

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The timelines are re-integrated successfully, though Oseidon is barren once more. The Doctor reunites with Lucie and the Minister, giving the latter a brief lecture on the Laws of Time. Before the Doctor leaves, the Minister gives him one last message.​

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“The Web of Time is weakening. I’ve been trying to strengthen it here and there, but I’m not sure if I can stop it from collapsing entirely. Most of the time, I just make it worse.”​

“How do you know this?”​

“I’ve been back home. There’s panic. People are starting to remember things that haven’t happened yet. A war is coming, and it could be the end of Gallifrey.”​

“A war?”​

“A terrible war. Of unfathomable scope. I’ve seen it too. They’re sending back many of the young to earlier in our history, to keep them safe.”​

“But doesn’t that-”​

“Contravene the First Law of Time, yes. The Web is breaking down, and so too are the laws. But people are getting desperate. Nothing’s more terrifying than the unknown. And hey, Doc?”​

“Yeah?”​

“Do me a favour, would you? Pay the family a visit. We may not have long left, and they all deserve to see you again before whatever is coming is here.”​

“I, uh, will do. Thank you for telling me.”​

"It’s the least I could do for you. I’ll see you soon Doctor. Well, soon for me at least.”​

“Any details?”​

“We meet when death comes to time, Doctor. Until then.”​

“Until then.”​

Guest Star: Catherine Zeta-Jones as the Minister​

To the locals of Great Bookham, the Falsham Manor is the place that nobody ever goes. It is allegedly the most haunted building in Britain, and there are no shortage of stories about the house within the village. An expert on hauntings, Professor Raleigh (though what he is a professor of he refuses to disclose), visits the village to see if there is any truth to the hauntings. He is accompanied by his assistant, Katie.​

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Before they enter the house in the evening, they meet with many of the locals, hearing stories of ghosts of the last owners of the house, from 1908, and their mysterious visitor known only as “the Doctor” that disappeared under mysterious circumstances. As twilight falls, they travel into Falsham Manor and set up their equipment. As night falls, they start to hear voices, and Katie searches through the house for more information on the Doctor. She finds the diary of one of the scullery maids, which mentions the Doctor staying after he was stranded.​

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As the night goes on, the voices become louder, and pale figures begin to manifest. One of the figures seems particularly interested in Katie, and it begins gesturing to the diary she is holding. New writing appears at the end of the book, saying “Hello, I’m the Doctor.” Unfortunately, communication is not possible in both directions, and as a result, many of Raleigh’s questions go unanswered. As the clock strikes 11PM, the voices become clearer and louder again, and the figures come further into focus.​

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The Doctor explains through the diary that his “vehicle” is stuck further in time that he is, and that using their equipment, they will be able to pull him through at midnight, when the “convergence” is at its peak. He gives them the details to alter Raleigh’s equipment, and the two rush to apply them before the chimes of midnight.​

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As the clock strikes midnight, they finish the modifications, and Raleigh activates the equipment. The figures come fully into focus, and they are able to converse completely. The Doctor instructs Katie to hold onto him, and as midnight passes, the figures dissipate, but the Doctor remains. He leads the confused Raleigh and Katie down to one of the basement rooms, where he finds the TARDIS. He explains his side of the story.​

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The Doctor: “This house, time runs thin here. The boundaries between the past, present, and future are weak. Your equipment projected you back in time, and pulled me forward. Believe it or not, but you’re the cause of all the ghost stories here.”​

Katie: “Why did you need to come to now? Aren’t your family and friends still in 1908?”​

The Doctor: “Not really. I’m something of a wanderer. I thought I’d pay a visit to see if the ghost stories were true, while my friends have a bit of R&R. I landed, stepped out of the TARDIS, and then your equipment started interfering with it. Something of a perfect storm to be honest.”​

Raleigh: “I’m sorry we caused you so much trouble.”​

The Doctor: “Oh, not at all. Something of a bootstrap paradox, really. By going to investigate the ghost stories, we became them. You know, Professor, you remind me a lot of me. I don’t generally go looking for trouble, but it does seem to find me.”​

Katie: “What will you do now?​

The Doctor: “I’ll probably go back to check on my friends. Tell you what, though, should I have any ghosts that need busting, you’ll be my first port of call.”​

Guest Cast: Kenneth Branagh as Professor Raleigh, Kate Beckinsale as Katie​

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“Tomorrow belongs to us, not you. If you were really from the future, Miss Miller, you would be a proud Nazi.”​

March 1941: Britain’s darkest hour. The Nazis have taken over the Channel Islands and British citizens are being deported to European concentration camps. Those who do not cooperate with the Germans are shot without a second thought. Six thousand people a month are dying in air raids on London. The United States show no sign of entering the war.​

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According to the Doctor, this isn’t a parallel universe, this isn’t an alternate timeline. The Nazis really did occupy Guernsey and, in fact, everything is running according to schedule. But now something, somewhere, has gone wrong. The Nazis are building a secret weapon, one that will have a decisive effect on the outcome of the War. Khan-Tineta thinks it’s a captured UFO, while Malcolm believes that the Luftwaffe have developed the largest bomber ever built. Only Lucie may have seen the mysterious craft — but she’s disappeared off the face of the Earth. The Doctor must save his companions and put the timeline to rights, but that may be easier said than done.​

Special Guest Stars: Angela Lansbury as Ma Doras and Udo Kier as Oberst Oskar Steinmann​

Guest Stars: Zach Grenier as Standartenführer Joachim Wolff and Stephanie Beacham as Nurse Rosa Kitzel​

The TARDIS arrives on a temperate moon, with a huge planet hanging in the sky. The instrument panel has gone haywire, leaving the crew with no idea where they are. This isn’t a huge deal for them. As Malcolm puts it, “As long as there aren’t any Nazis, I’m sure we’ll all be happy!”​

While exploring, the group meets Doctor Ramla Cheboi, a stately archaeologist who is investigating the local ruins with her team from Ventamba University. None of the TARDIS crew has heard of it. Dr. Cheboi is shocked - it’s only the most prestigious and exclusive university on Minerva. The Doctor suddenly becomes very concerned, even more so when he learns this is Hestia, moon of Minerva. Realizing where they are, the Doctor tries to usher his companions and the team back to the TARDIS, but only succeeds in getting them locked up under suspicion of being a rival team from Creshpil Polytechnic.​

The Doctor explains that this can only mean one thing: the time loop containing the fifth planet of the Solar System - that is, Minerva - has been broken. But by whom, and for what reason? Who would release the Fendahl from their prison? As the archaeology team begin to vanish one-by-one, the Doctor begs to be released. Only he can save them now, but they won’t listen….​

Guest Stars: Janet Hubert-Whitten as Doctor Ramla Cheboi and Maggie Cheung as Mirrell Brannet/the Prime Fendahl Core​