When you’re travelling in the TARDIS, it’s not all about quick trips and getting back for tea! Some Doctor Who storylines have spanned months, and even years. Let’s take a look back at some of the best stories from Doctor Who‘s 60 year history…
The Key to Time
Long-spanning Doctor Who storylines were less commonplace during the classic era, but Doctor Who Season 16 took a different approach. Every single story in this series was linked by an overall theme – that is, the Doctor and his new companion Romana searching for the six segments of the Key to Time. Each story focussed on a particular segment, with the two Time Lords journeying to different points in time and space trying to locate the hidden pieces.
It was a strong idea, even if it did reach a somewhat anti-climactic conclusion; the Doctor assembled all of the pieces, only to throw them away again. They were scattered and hidden in time and space once more – but at least the Black Guardian was defeated. (He had been trying to locate the pieces for himself.)
Interestingly, the idea of having longer Doctor Who storylines was something that incoming producer Graham Williams always wanted to do. In fact, he hoped to use the Key to Time concept for his very first season, but much of the series had already been planned by the time he took over the reins.
To this day, Doctor Who Season 16 remains a popular one among fans, particularly as it saw the Doctor Who debut of popular writer Douglas Adams, who would go on to pen ‘City of Death,’ and a little show about a hitchhiker.
The cracks in the skin of the universe
This was one of the over-arching Doctor Who storylines that Steven Moffat introduced in his first season as showrunner. In fact, the plot if his first episode ‘The Eleventh Hour‘ hinged on it; a young girl called Amelia Pond had a crack in her wall, and it was through this crack that the dreaded Prisoner Zero escaped before wreaking havoc in Leadworth.
As it turned out, this wall crack was actually a crack in the skin of the universe, and as Series Five progressed it became clear that there were more of them. Ultimately, it was revealed that the cracks were caused by an exploding TARDIS – the Doctor’s, to be precise – and it blew up in the closing moments of ‘The Pandorica Opens.’
We should point out, though, that this was one of the more complicated Doctor Who storylines and the cracks were only part of it, because there was also the aforementioned Pandorica which the Time Lord had been warned about in ‘The Eleventh Hour,’ plus the promise that “silence would fall” when it opened…
Silence will fall when the question is asked
This was the prophecy that underpinned one of the farthest-reaching Doctor Who storylines in history. In fact, these words followed the Eleventh Doctor around for the entirety of his run, with everything coming to a head in his final episode.
“On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature may speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked,” said the prophecy. “A question that must never, ever be answered. The first question – the oldest question in the universe, hidden in plain sight… Doctor who?”
And the Eleventh Doctor saw this prophecy unfold in his final episode. The Time Lords were calling through a crack in the skin of the universe, and they are asking him to confirm his identity so that they could come through the breach and return to this universe. They also projected a truth field so that the Doctor couldn’t lie.
As Doctor Who storylines go, it was a complicated one, because there were was also a religious order called The Silence which was determined to ensure the Doctor never reached Trenzalore. It transpired that they were the ones who blew up his TARDIS, and they engineered a psychopath in the form of River Song in an attempt to bring him down.
And as with all ‘timey wimey’ Doctor Who storylines, this was a tough one to follow for viewers who periodically dipped in and out of the show – but it was brilliant.
Bad Wolf
Bad Wolf was perhaps the “O.G.” of the Doctor Who storylines. Yes, there was the Key to Time and other Doctor Who storylines such as the E-Space trilogy and the Black Guardian trilogy, but this was the first one to introduce the concept of a drip-fed running theme, contributing to an ongoing mystery.
This occurred during the first series of the 2005 reboot when Russell T Davies was at the helm, and saw the Ninth Doctor and Rose being constantly followed by the words ‘bad wolf’ as they travelled through time and space. The words appeared in graffiti, pieces of dialogue, and as the names of institutions like a nuclear reactor in Cardiff, and a TV station in the year 100,000.
Like all good Doctor Who storylines, this was resolved in the season finale. Rose absorbed all the energy of the time vortex in order to pilot the TARDIS and save the Doctor. She then scattered the words ‘bad wolf’ throughout time and space as a message to herself, telling her what she had to do in order to rescue her friend.
But unlike other Doctor Who storylines, this particular plot arc is one that has passed into legend. In fact, the production team that now makes the current version of Doctor Who is called Bad Wolf Productions!
Which is your favourite of the Doctor Who storylines? And which ones would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments below.
I love the eleventh Doctor storyline in series 5 and 6! It’s my favorite to this day.