Season 36 - 1999

 

Season 36 would be the first season for the new companion Alison Harding, an Investigator from

1962, played by Jaye Griffiths, she would be the first actress of colour to play a companion, this season would also be the last season for Nick Berry as the Doctor with Berry leaving at the end of the season, Paul Cornell took over a script editor after Colin Brake departed last season.

The writers include this season were Lance Parkin, Russell T Davies, Mark Wright and Cavan Scott, Rona Munro, Stephen Cole, Nicholas Pegg and Paul Cornell and the stories included this season were the return of the Master, the end of the world, a casino killer, the land of fiction, puppets, the return of the Brigadier, and Nine’s regeneration.

The Spy Master

By Lance Parkin

Aired: 25th September

This story would introduce Alison Harding, the story would be set in 1962 London and we see Alison investigate and try and discover who ‘the Spy Master’ is and she would have help from the Doctor, halfway through the episode we would discover that the spy master is in fact and new

regeneration of the Master, now played by Terrance Hardiman. We would discover the Master trying to heat up the cold war and create a nuclear crisis, in the end the Master is defeated when the Doctor uncovers his plot to the government but he escapes in his TARDIS and Alison becomes the Doctor’s  companion.

The End of The World

By Russell T Davies

Aired: 2nd October

This episode would have shown the TARDIS landing on the station Platform One in the year Five Billion which is set above the Earth to watch the sun expand and destroy the Earth. This story

also would’ve seen The Doctor save the other sightseers from Lady Cassandra's plot to burn them alive for insurance money, at the cost of Jabe's life. He let Cassandra's frame of skin dry out and explode as punishment when he foiled her plan, ignoring her cries for help.

Project: Twilight

By Mark Wright and Cavan Scott

Aired: 9th October - 23rd October

This story would see the Doctor and Alison met Amelia Doory and Reggie Mead, a couple apparently experimenting with finding a cure to their contamination with vampire DNA. On their trail was a vampire named Nimrod, head of a secret Black Ops organisation called the Forge, who managed to hunt the pair down in an effort to correct the failed experiment he had conducted decades earlier, code-named Project: Twilight. Alison befriends a young mother named Cassie Schofield, while the Doctor helped Amelia perfect a cure to stop their mutation, only for Amelia to betray the Doctor and turn the cure into a superior virus, first infecting Cassie, before fleeing to infect the rest of the world. Nimrod teamed up with the Doctor to stop Amelia, blowing up Amelia's blood bank, while the Doctor pursued her, knocking the virus into the water of the River Thames, prompting her to dive for it and drown. The Doctor took Cassie to Norway to live in secret while he developed a cure for her condition.

The Warrior

By Rona Munro

Aired: 30th October

This story would focus on the Doctor learning that the inhabitants of a village are being killed by

a monstrous creature and he offers to help the villagers stop it, we would eventually realise that this is the Land of Fiction and all this was set up by the Master of the Land of Fiction.

The Puppet Night

By Steven Moffat

Aired: 6th November - 13th November

This story would see the Doctor and Alison investigating people going missing and whilst investigating Alison thinks she’s seeing puppets roaming the streets but she and the Doctor soon encounter one, whilst investigating they meet a woman named Pauline and discover her child went missing and left a note saying the puppets told him to leave. We discover that the puppets are from a TV show named ‘Smiley Village’ and they go to the TV studio at night to try and rescue

the children but they are captured, we learn that the puppets are controlled by an entity named ‘The Chuckle’ and we discover that at 8AM in the morning the ‘Smiley Village’ TV show will air and will play a song which will make every child in Britain laugh as laughter gives the Chuckle power. In the end the Doctor frees the children and defeats the Chuckle by causing a fire in the TV studio which kills the Chuckle and destroys the puppets.

Overall this Would’ve been considered as one of the best stories in the Nick Berry era.

The Spectre of Lanyon Moor

By Nicholas Pegg

Aired: 20th November - 27th November

Arriving in Lanyon Moor, the Doctor once again meets his old friend the Brigadier and uncovered a slew of unsolved mysteries that centred around the malevolent work of a stranded Tregannan named Sancreda. Sancreda had been trapped on Earth for many millennia, and, upon

awakening, tortured and destroyed several humans with his psionic powers. Discovering that he had not been abandoned as he had believed, and that instead he had caused his brother's accidental death, Sancreda threatened to destroy the Earth in a fit of rage, prompting the Brigadier to trick him into causing his own demise before he enacted his wrath on the entire planet.

The Serious House

By Robert Shearman

Aired: 4th December - 18th December

This would’ve been the final story for Nick Berry as the Doctor.

The story would see the The TARDIS malfunctions, leading the Doctor and Alison to Ebonwood House.

Seeking help, they enter the mansion, which appears abandoned but soon encounter several inhabitants, including the seemingly mad Geraldine and the lord of the house, Hugh Barrington-Thorpe. The Doctor and Alison are told about the house's dark legend—that it drives people mad by confronting them with their deepest fears. They witness bizarre occurrences, like Geraldine's madness and the disappearance of Mary.

The house begins affecting the Doctor, dredging up his fears and memories. As they explore further, they find themselves haunted by visions and spectres from the Doctor's past. The Doctor starts losing himself to the house's power but resolves to fight it.

Guided by the taunting voices of the Barrington-Thorpe family, the Doctor and Alison reach a chamber where they find an unconscious young woman named Lily. Alison gets pulled into a nightmarish landscape where she learns Lily's tragic story—her death and the entity that brought her back, driving her family mad.

The Doctor realizes that the ancient entity, the Dreadwraith, is feeding on fear and despair. He confronts Lily, uncovering that she is using a perception filter to hide the deaths of her family. The house is essentially a prison for the souls trapped by the entity.

The Doctor decides to sacrifice himself to free everyone. He drinks poison, which causes Lily to fade away, and the house to begin collapsing. Alison, managing to escape the creatures and chaos, finds the Doctor in the snow outside.

As the house falls apart, the Doctor, in severe pain, reaches the TARDIS with Alison's help. Inside, he collapses and begins to regenerate. In his last moments, he tells Alison to protect the new Doctor. The room fills with golden light, and the Doctor transforms into a new incarnation, leaving Alison to cope with the change and the promise to remember him and we see the Tenth Doctor - Trevor Eve.

And that concludes Season 36 of Doctor Who, overall this season was quite good though with some floors, before we go a massive thank you to Our Holy Leader Sylvester McCoy for helping me with this series and the regeneration story, the next season is Season 37 of Doctor Who until thank you for watching and goodbye.

Thank You To:

Our Holy Leader Sylvester McCoy

Opticalspectre

Conbow

Knottyorchid

DonNeutron

Toffa

The Name's Jim