Season 29 - 1992/93

With the success of Season 28, Doctor Who had been saved from cancellation, Fraser and Aaronovitch planned the next season of Doctor Who and this year some changes were made.

Due to the success of Doctor Who, the BBC extended the episode count from 14 episodes to 22 episodes so that meant there would be now six stories instead of four and the show was now moved back to it’s original Saturday night tea time slot after being up against Coronation Street for a couple of years.

With the story count being extended Fraser and Aaronovitch found themselves with more stories to make, several newcomers to the show would contribute to writing for this season including Mark Gatiss and Paul Cornell, Kevin Clarke and Gareth Roberts would also write a story which left the remaining writers to be Ben Aaronovitch and Marc Platt.

It was announced early in the year that Elizabeth Hurley would be moving on at the end of the series, Aaronovitch tasked Paul Cornell to write a three-parter that would write out Kate and also introduce the new companion. Cornell wrote the resulting story titled ‘Love and War’, the new companion was created by Paul Cornell and several people were listed for the role of Bernice Summerfield, an archaeologist from the 26th century on a human colony planet named Heaven before Fraser settled on Lisa Bowerman to take on the role. Bowerman had played a role in Doctor Who before, first being in Season 26's Survival, playing Karra.

Due to more stories being produced, it meant that this season of Doctor Who would begin in September 1992 and end in January 1993, Fraser and Aaronovitch weren't to happy about it, but they understood and made sure that the next season would begin and end in 1993.

Nightshade

By Mark Gatiss

Aired: 5th September - 26th September

This story would see the Doctor considering to retire as he believes he’s done enough, he and Kate travel to the village of Crook Marsham in 1968, they soon discover that the villagers are being killed and they discover that the killer is an alien sentience, trapped within the Earth since it’s formation that feeds off nostalgia that is produced from an old TV show called ‘Nightshade’.

The Doctor and Kate team up with Edward Trevithick, who played Professor Nightshade in the old TV show to defeat the sentience. Eventually the Doctor tricks the sentience into feeding off a supernova and traps it in a black hole it created, and after being convinced by Kate and hallucinations created by the sentience, the Doctor decides not to retire and he and Kate go into the TARDIS for a new adventure.

The Angels of Mons

By Kevin Clarke

Aired: 3rd October - 17th October

This story would’ve been set in World War One and cover the legend of the angels of Mons, when the British forces were protected by figures dressed in white and fought off the Germans with bow and arrows, however the Doctor and Kate learn that they are a race of aliens known as
the Kalron, who are a war race and only wish to cause war and in this case they wish to cause one with Earth, but the Doctor uses the angels of mons legend as a mission for the Kalron and after they’ve completed it the Doctor banishes them from Earth.

The Nefarious Castle

By Gareth Roberts

Aired: 24th October - 7th November

This story would see the Doctor and Kate land on a woodland planet housing nothing but a castle, we see them exploring the long abandoned castle until they find an expedition crew who’s ship crashed on the planet. We see everyone explore the house and Kate opens a chest with nothing inside, we soon see the Castle become haunted with spirits and paranormal activities take place. We learn that this castle was visited by three priests who gave the house an exorcism and trapped the spirits in a chest and the Doctor realises that no matter what the ghosts will always be a threat, throughout the story we see the crew being taken over by the ghosts and we see the ghosts kill the possessed crew members but in the end the Doctor uses an ancient Gallifreyan ritual to banish the ghosts forevermore.

The Returned Lives

By Marc Platt

Aired: 14th November - 28th November

This story would see the Doctor and Kate land in seaside town in 1965, the soon discover that all the graves in the graveyard are empty and so they investigate, it turns out that an alien race known as the Zangrox are responsible as they feed off madness as an energy source and they love seeing the town’s people go insane by seeing their dead loved ones roam the streets, eventually the Doctor defeats the Zangrox by blowing up their main ship which also kills the deceased who were brought back to life.

Transit

By Ben Aaronovitch

Aired: 5th December - 19th December

This story would’ve been set set on Earth in the 22nd Century, the story would see the Doctor and Kate with a woman named Kadiatu to stop an entity from another universe entering theirs
using the Sol Transit System, a big interstellar transport system linked to multiple planets and worlds. The story would’ve had a lot of references to the show’s past with the Sol Transit System being created after the failure of T-Mat from the Seeds of Death, a reference to the Ice Warriors and Kadiatu being a descendent of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

Love and War

By Paul Cornell

Aired: 26th December - 16th January

The story would’ve been set in the 26th Century on a colony world named Heaven, home to both Humans and Draconians. The Doctor and Kate arrive on Heaven where they make friends with a group of travellers and we see Kate form a bond with one of the travellers named Jan, we would’ve seen them fall for each other throughout the story.

The Doctor meets Bernice Summerfield and helps her open a way to the Heavenite observatory, and translate some writing they found to discover a plot by the race named the Hoothi as they want to use Heaven to create an army of the dead. 

Knowing the danger they can cause, the Doctor orders Bernice to quickly unearth the observatory, which can detect otherwise invisible Hoothi spheres and knowing Kate’s friend Jan had been infected by a fibre, the Doctor orders him to the sphere

After using Brother Pheadras of the vacuum church to summon the sphere to Puterspace, the Doctor sends a message to Jan to ignite the sphere killing him and saving Heaven, after finding Kate he discovers that she's furious with him after his actions, and he refuses to go with him.

The Doctor and Kate have a large argument, Bernice helps settle the tension and after she’s calmed down Kate orders the Doctor to take her home, he drops Kate back in her time and her final words to the Doctor are “You're not the Doctor I knew.” The story ends with the Doctor offering Bernice the chance to travel with him to which she accepts.

And that concludes Season 29 of Doctor Who, overall this season was quite good and showed signs that Doctor Who was rising in popularity once again, the next season is Season 30 and until then thank you for reading and goodbye.

Thank you to:

Our Holy Leader Sylvester McCoy

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