DOCTOR WHO springs shocking season cliffhanger

NOTE: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE MOST RECENT EPISODE AND SEASON OF DOCTOR WHO

Doctor Who - more or less - sprung a surprise regeneration on viewers at the conclusion of tonight's episode, The Reality War. Ncuti Gatwa bowed out as the Fifteenth Doctor after just two seasons and eighteen episodes (and the end of a nineteenth) in the role, one-and-a-half years after his first appearance, marking the shortest tenure for a Doctor since Christopher Eccleston departed in 2005 after just one season, thirteen episodes and three months. This is also the first time that a regeneration was not heavily-trailed in the media beforehand, though several spoiler sites did leak the news a few weeks before broadcast.

Gatwa joined the show in 2023, marking the first time Doctor was regularly played by a black actor, although Jo Martin has made several appearances as the mysterious "Fugitive Doctor," an incarnation of debateable provenance, since 2020 (including in this current season). Gatwa's time in the TARDIS has been steered by returning showrunner Russell T. Davies, who brought the show back from a long hiatus in 2005 and took it to immense success before leaving in 2010. He returned in 2023 to help see the show through its 60th anniversary celebrations, initially with a returning David Tennant playing the Fourteenth Doctor for three specials before regenerating into Gatwa's Fifteenth. This era has also been co-produced with Disney+, resulting in impressive production values and international distribution.

However, this move has had questionable success, with mixed reactions to episodes. Episodes like Space Babies and Empire of Death have been castigated, whilst Dot & Bubble, 73 Yards and The Well have enjoyed critical acclaim. More worrying has been a ratings drop the show has been dealing with for the better part of a decade becoming more of a ratings deluge, with only 2.7 million viewers tuning in for the first-run airings of some episodes, the lowest in its history. Adjusted ratings for catchup and BBC iPlayer are coming more regularly in the 4 million range, not counting Disney+, and the show has been maintaining an average position as the 9th or 10th most-watched programme of the week, which is what it actually enjoyed back in the Tennant and Smith glory years, so the BBC has been less panicky about this than might be imagined, but certainly the hope that Davies could make the show appointment TV and bring it back to the forefront of the cultural conversation has been dashed.

Disney would also only commit to finding the show's performance for them on streaming to be "okay," for the relatively limited outlay (one rumour is that Disney is contributing about $3.5 million per episode, half or less of the total compared to the BBC, which is almost a tenth of what some of Disney's own headline shows are costing).

Neither the BBC nor Disney have committed to a further season of Doctor Who. The current series was the fifteenth since its return in 2005, but only the fifth since 2017, with lengthy gaps between seasons caused by COVID, production and scheduling problems. Davies had promised to end this with a return to the one season a year schedule popularised in 2005, but that plan failed at some point, with neither the BBC nor Disney willing to commit to a third series under their contract, possibly after Series 14 launched to only moderate success. Plans to start shooting Series 16 in March 2025 had been made, with Gatwa confirming his involvement on a talk show and Davies confirming four or more scripts had been written, but clearly plans changed.

More notable is that set leaks confirmed that Series 15 was due to end with the Doctor, Ruby and Belinda celebrating at a nightclub, then a face from the Doctor's past showing up, leading to a cliffhanger with Gatwa firmly still in the role for the following series. German Disney+ leaked an image from this version of the ending, confirming at least some aspects of it. However, the cast and crew apparently reconvened in February 2025 to reshoot the ending to the episode, with Gatwa now regenerating. Rumours speak of other filming opportunities opening up that would tie Gatwa to other projects for an uncomfortably long time (so don't be surprised to see an announcement in the near future of him joining another TV show or movie in a major role) and, with the BBC and Disney unable to commit to filming dates for the next series, he had to move on. What is true and what is speculation will only become clear with time.

Enhancing the surprise (for those not tuned into the spoiler sites) was the return of Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor, who made a surprise visit to help the Doctor through his regeneration. But the biggest shock was left for the very end: the Fifteenth Doctor apparently regenerated into a new form identical to that of his former companion Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper. Rose appeared as a regular companion in 2005 and 2006 before making a return appearance in 2008. Piper reappeared during the 50th Anniversary Special in 2013 to play "The Moment," a sentient Time Lord weapon that takes on familiar forms. Whilst the Doctor has been played by actors with Doctor Who form before - Sixth Doctor Colin Baker had previously played a Time Lord military commander, whilst Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi had previously played a Roman and a Whitehall bureaucrat - they've never been played by an actor who had previously played one of their companions before.

More curiously the credits only said "introducing Billie Piper," without the usual tagline of "as the Doctor," or "as Doctor Who," which almost every previous Doctor has enjoyed. The BBC's accompanying press release and comments by Davies and Piper also only avoided directly saying she is playing the Sixteenth Doctor, despite the clear implication on-screen. The press release also said that Piper was planning to return to Doctor Who for "one last time," hinting that this might only be for one special or series rather than a long-term commitment. Of course, with no new season commissioned, there is the possibility (however slim) that she might not even get that.

The move is certainly interesting, with fandom predictably divided on the response, some pondering if this kind of stunt-casting is the only thing that can get eyeballs back on the show, or if it feels increasingly desperate. As usual, time will tell.

The Reality War, and all of Doctor Who's 14th and 15th series, are available to watch now on BBC iPlayer in the UK, and on Disney+ worldwide.

RIP Peter David

News has sadly broken of the passing of Star Trek, Babylon 5 and comic book writer Peter David, at the age of 68.

Born in Fort Meade, Maryland in 1956, David became interested in comic books at a young age, through comics left in a local barbershop and TV shows like the Adventures of Superman. David's parents did not approve of his interest in superheroes, especially Marvel, forcing him to read them in secret. David stopped reading comics in his teens feeling he'd outgrown them, but was drawn back in by the Chris Claremont run on X-Men in the 1970s. David also developed a fandom of novels and short stories from reading Harlan Ellison, Arthur Conan Doyle, Stephen King and Edgar Rice Burroughs.

David started his writing career by covering the Washington WorldCon in 1974 for The Philadelphia Bulletin, and then started writing shot fiction in the 1980s which appeared in venues such as Asimov's. He switched to working in publishing, making his way into working for Marvel in the sales department. Switching to editorial was unconventional, but David managed to do it and his first Spider-Man story was published in 1985.

Peter David made his name with his 11-year run on The Incredible Hulk, starting in May 1987 and continuing to August 1998. David's run on the title was acclaimed, with him introducing or popularising many concepts, including the Grey Hulk.

David was keen to keep a toe in the book publishing world and published his first novel, Knight Life, in 1987. David wrote both original series under his own name and the pen-name David Peters, and tie-in fiction. He eventually wrote 101 novels in total, a colossal figure.

Outside of his Marvel association, David was best-known for his work on the Star Trek franchise. In 1988 he started writing the DC Comics Star Trek series (meaning he was working for Marvel and DC simultaneously) and also penned his first Star Trek: The Next Generation novel, Strike Zone, for publication the following year. He eventually wrote 41 issues of Star Trek comics and 48 Star Trek novels.

He was particularly acclaimed for his nailing of the voices of the different Star Trek crews, and his sense of action and humour, as well as paying attention to continuity. His most beloved Trek novels were Strike Zone, Q-in-Law, Imzadi and the Borg epic Vendetta, which a lot of fans believed should have been made into a movie. Some of his later novels were more daft, including at one stage having a Borg "supercube" consumed Pluto "ending the debate once and for all." David was also notable for creating the New Frontier series and penning a remarkable 27 books in the series.

In 1994 David was contacted by J. Michael Straczynski, a fan of his comics work, and invited to work on his television series Babylon 5. David penned the episodes Soul Mates and There All the Honour Lies for Season 2, the former notable for introducing Londo's three wives and the latter for mocking Star Trek's focus on merchandising. The latter episode also sparked a friendly war with Straczynski after he pretended to get annoyed by a teddy bear David's wife bought for him and had the bear blasted into space in the final edit. David, who was friends with B5 actor Bill Mumy, collaborated with him on a TV show called Space Cases, in which the bear is recovered from deep space. David later wrote an episode of the ill-fated Babylon 5 spin-off show, Crusade. He later diversified into video games, working on Shadow Complex and Spider-Man: Edge of Time.

David later returned to the franchise to pen the very well-received Legions of. Fire novel trilogy (which tells the story of the fall of the Centauri Republic after the events of the show) and adaptations of the TV movie In the Beginning and Thirdspace.

Through the 1990s, David worked on other comic series including Aquaman, Supergirl and Young Justice, as well as his own original properties Soulsearchers and Company, and Sachs and Violens. In the 2000s he returned to Marvel to pen Captain Marvel, She-Hulk and Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man, as well as working on comics for other franchises including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as Marvel's adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower.

David would eventually win a whole slew of awards for his comics work, including a much-coveted Eisner for his Hulk run.

David started suffering from ill health in 2010 when he suffered a herniated disc. In 2012 he suffered a stroke but made almost a full recovery. He was subsequently diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. In 2022 he suffered an additional series of strokes, a kidney failure and a mild heart attack. These complications contributed to his sad passing away at too young an age.

Peter David was an exceptionally prolific writer, simultaneously juggling multiple comic book series and penning multiple novels a year. What was remarkable was that he combined a prolific output with a strong sense of quality control and sly humour. His Star Trek novels are among the very best ever published for that franchise, his contributions to Babylon 5 may be third only in importance to Straczynski and Larry DiTillio, and he was a noted supported of many charities and good causes. He could be irascible and opinionated, and a lot of his time in the comics field was spent arguing with other writers and creators (including Todd MacFarlane) over various issues.

Peter David's popularity wasn't just down to his work, but also his attitude, constantly giving the impression that he was a massive fan of science fiction, fantasy and superheroes and constantly showing enthusiasm for the field, its writers and its fans. He will be immensely missed.

Andor: Season 2

The Rebel Alliance is starting to take shape. Senator Mon Mothma and her allies are gathering political backing in the Galactic Senate, whilst Luthen Rael is getting his hands dirty with scheming and planning. The Empire itself is working in secret on a project of tremendous scale, requiring immense resources, including the strip-mining of the planet Ghorman, which becomes an early flashpoint in this struggle. Rebel operative Cassian Andor finds himself drawn back into Luthen's schemes, as he charts his course towards his ultimate fate.

The first season of Star Wars: Andor was a surprise, an adult and intelligent take on the Star Wars mythos that emphasised intelligent characters, interesting storytelling and a vibe that was more 1970s thriller than colourful space opera. "Star Wars as a premium HBO show from their golden age," was a common description. It was also designed to set up a planned five-year arc. Due to variable streaming figures, a significant budget and an immense production timeline, showrunner Tony Gilroy and star Diego Luna agreed to wrap the show up with the second season instead.

Compressing four seasons of television into one is a tough job, but here Gilroy and his writers make a virtue of it. The twelve-episode season (and it's an unalloyed joy to have a decent-length season of television again) is divided into four arcs of three episodes each, effectively meaning four movies back-to-back getting us from the end of the first season to the events of Rogue One. The result is focused and disciplined, with us seeing four important snapshots showing the evolution of the Galactic Empire into a fully repressive fascist state, and the Rebel Alliance into a viable military threat.

There's so much going on in Andor between these four arcs that it can be hard to pare it down. We have Cassian and Bix's domestic life, constantly interrupted by missions for Luthen. There's Luthen and Kleya's intelligence operations (Elizabeth Dulau emerges as the season's MVP, especially in the closing episodes), and Mon Mothma's politicking in the Senate. There's internal politics as the Imperial Security Bureau. There's the slowly-gathering rebels on Ghorman, who don't have a clue about what they're doing. There's Director Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn chewing the scenery with aplomb) throwing around his authority to get his secret project made. But the show moves between these different storylines with skill. There's also little filler or flab. To quote another show, all the pieces matter.

That's not to say it's completely golden perfection. Cassian spends a chunk of the first two episodes bogged down with some would-be rebels who seem to have learned everything from Keystone Cops, in a storyline that drags a little. The time jumps between each set of episodes can leave a bunch of storylines feeling unresolved. Mon Mothma's domestic life with her husband and daughter early on is left dangling in the breeze (with a coda showing her husband re-married feeling like an apologetic sop to viewers invested in that story). A major speech Mon Mothma makes is hyped but we never hear it, because it was already made on animated series Rebels and they didn't want to repeat themselves.

But such quibbles are overshadowed by everything it does right. Luthen's increasingly ruthless scheming (Stellan Skarsgard should walk away with every award going), Dedra and Syril's bizarrely watchable relationship and Major Partagaz's troubles managing the semi-incompetent ISB (Anton Lesser an under-sung hero of the show, as he was in Game of Thrones, The Crown and Wolf Hall). Partagaz lecturing underlings to "calibrate their enthusiasm," is one of the most amusing scenes in Star Wars history, and Director Krennic's weird interrogation tactics are very entertaining. The show also fulfils its potential as an epic tragedy, with heroes dying unmourned in the dark, and the clock ticking with palpable doom towards Rogue One where we know many of these characters will meet their fate. When several of them do survive (at least the end of this series), there's a feeling of relief. The show also delivers good action, not as much as you'd expect from Star Wars, but it instead builds tension and dread like nothing else in the franchise before finally pushing the button.

Andor tells a story of authoritarianism becoming ever more arbitrary, incoherent and violent, and the yearning of people for freedom and expression rising to meet it. It is a heavy story, but one that is also run through with signs of hope. A better tomorrow is possible, if people are willing to work and fight for it.

Star Wars: Andor's second season (*****) is not quite as tight as the first season, but it's bigger, more epic and more emotionally powerful, steered by outstanding actors working with excellent scripts. It's one of the best slices of Star Wars produced since 1977 and restores some faith in a franchise that has faltered too much recently. The season is available to watch now on Disney+.

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WHEEL OF TIME TV series cancelled after three seasons

Amazon has decided not to proceed with a fourth season of its fantasy adaptation, The Wheel of Time. The decision came after significant deliberations at the streamer, as the show's commercial performance had left it right on the edge of being cancelled or renewed.

The Wheel of Time TV series adapts Robert Jordan's immense, 14-volume fantasy series of the same name, published between 1990 and 2013 (with Brandon Sanderson completing the series after Jordan's untimely passing in 2007). The books have sold over 100 million copies and for many years, until the success of Game of Thrones, were the biggest-selling epic fantasy series after only J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth books. The series had been optioned for both television and film several times, by NBC, Universal and Warner Brothers, before Sony Television and Amazon finally got the project across the line.

The show aired its first season in 2021 and subsequent seasons in 2023 and 2025. The show initially attracted mixed reviews from newcomers due to its exposition and lore-heavy approach to storytelling, and from book fans for the large number of changes and compressions from the books, particularly the decision to give one of the characters a wife (who doesn't exist in the books) and immediately killing her to engender sympathy. Despite a strong cast, led by Rosamund Pike as Moiraine, the first season suffered significant production problems resulting from COVID (including one castmember not returning after lockdown and severe limitations on production due to social distancing) and the finale was heavily criticised for not being very clear in its storytelling and an overuse of unconvincing CGI.

The second season saw a marked improvement in critical reception, mainly due to the addition of compelling new actors including Ceara Coveney as Elayne and Natasha O'Keeffe as Lanfear, and a more successful adaptation of the Seanchan storyline from the second novel. Again, a muddled finale attracted criticism.

This year's third season saw a large improvement in the critical reception, particularly the fourth episode which was able to hyper-focus on just a few crucial chapters from the book and delivered them on-screen with skill. The seventh episode was also well-received for concentrating on a single huge battle sequence.

The show's commercial fortunes were more mixed, with Season 1 seeing a very strong performance that dropped off for Season 2. Season 3's performance seemed to be on the level of Season 2's, with a slight dip but then signs of a longer tail developing (the show returned to the Top 10 streaming charts this week, almost two months after the season had concluded). Pre-release commentary suggested that a renewal for Season 4 would be dependent on a marked improvement of the show's Season 2 performance, which did not happen. This is ironic as Amazon apparently considered renewing the show for Seasons 3 and 4 together, but ultimately decided not to proceed.

Even without that, it appears that Amazon were still looking for ways to renew the show. There seems to have been creative affection for the project inhouse at Amazon, and it is a significantly cheaper investment than The Rings of Power, whose second season drop-off in viewers seem to have carried it below Wheel of Time's level, which may spell uncertainty for that show's future after the forthcoming third season (despite an expensive pre-purchasing of the rights to make five seasons). The show also seemed to be a solid performer in several overseas territories, including India (likely thanks to the presence of Indian actress Priyanka Bose in a key role). It appears that Amazon held discussions with Sony on paying a lower licencing fee or reducing the show's budget. However, the show was already seen as a relatively low-budget project shot with fiscal efficiency in custom-built studio facilities in Prague. Lowering the budget further was likely not deemed possible without compromising the show's production value and making it impossible to deliver the massive battles and magical displays from later books.

Sony will also be ruing the cancellation, having paid eight figures to secure the television rights in a 2016 deal with Radar Pictures and iwot (a rebranded Red Eagle Entertainment, who secured the Wheel of Time TV rights in a 2004 deal with Robert Jordan). Sony may shop around the project to other venues but it's very unlikely to find a new home in the current, more fiscally conservative TV environment. Additional Wheel of Time projects including a proposed prequel feature film and video game are in development from iwot, but the cancellation of the TV show is not likely to help their prospects either.

Some may celebrate the end of the TV show as it means a future adaptation can be more faithful to the source material. However, with streamers and studios looking to cut costs and reduce episode counts further in the future, and a faithful Wheel of Time adaptation requiring a much higher number of episodes (at a much greater cost overall), this is an unlikely outcome.

One good piece of news is that the TV show resulted in improved sales of the novels, with more than five million additional copies of the books being shifted since 2021.

Doctor Who: Series 12 (Season 38)

The Doctor continues her adventures through time and space with her new companions, Ryan, Graham and Yasmin. But the return of both an old enemy and an old friend sparks new question: who is the Timeless Child, and what is the threat posed by the Lone Cyberman?

The twelfth series of the revitalised Doctor Who aired in 2020, and saw showrunner Chris Chibnall taking stock after his debut season, which could be called the very definition of a mixed bag. On the one hand, Series 11 had shown that a woman playing the role of the Doctor could be successful, and had several solid stories. Unfortunately, it also had several very poor ones, and arguably the lowest consistent quality since the show had returned in 2005. The season was also the first since then not to have any kind of over-arcing story, with Chibnall instead focusing on mysteries and monsters of the week. The fan response to this approach had been muted, so for Series 12, he decided to return to featuring some kind of season-spanning mystery, as well as fully embracing the show's history by bringing back fan-favourite villains including the Master, the Daleks, the Cybermen and the Judoon. The result is a busy season, and a better one that its immediate forebear, but one that is overshadowed by the clunky and decidedly divisive finale which tries to do nothing less than retcon the entire history of the franchise in the most boring way possible.

Before we get there, the season gets off to an epic start with Spyfall, an elaborate two-part story in which the Doctor gets drawn into an alien incursion on Earth that starts off by targeting the planet's intelligence agencies. This is an interesting idea, buoyed by the enjoyable casting of Stephen Fry as the head of MI6 and by Lenny Henry as a corporate billionaire who, obviously, is in league with the bad guys. A promising opening part is subverted by the unexpected return of the Master, played here with charismatic relish by Sacha Dhawan (fresh from The Punisher), and who shifts the second part into a time-travelling thriller where the Doctor has to team up with Ada Lovelace (Sylvie Biggs) and Noor Inayat Khan (Shobna Gulati) to halt the Master's evil plans. To be honest, the main plot is gubbins and a potentially fascinating interdimensional alien threat in the form of the Kasaavins is under-utilised, but the two-parter succeeds thanks to its splendid guest cast. Fans may also bemoan a lack of any explanation for how the Master (last seen only in Series 10, apparently dying for good - twice!) has returned with no trace of the "goodness" the Doctor helped impart to them in that storyline. Still, as a statement of intent, this is a solid start.

Orphan 55 starts off as Doctor Who-by-the-numbers, with our heroes visiting an idyllic holiday resort which - shockingly! - becomes less idyllic as it comes under attack by aliens. Again, a solid supporting cast (including the always-splendid Laura Fraser) prop up a pedestrian script, but the story struggles with pacing (a perennial problem of the Chibnall era) and the ending is decided woeful, with a "twist" that you can spot coming a mile away.

Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror gets bonus points for a great title, and it's mildly surprising that this is the Doctor's first on-screen encounter with both Nikola Tesla (a charismatic and tragic Goran Višnjić) and Thomas Edison (a bumblingly malevolent Robert Glenister). It's a fine slice of sci-fi pulp, though perhaps the alien threat underwhelms. The Skithra feel like a redo of the Racnoss, to the point of pondering why they didn't just bring the Racnoss back. Still, a firmly enjoyable episode.

Things take an upwards turn with arguably the highlight of the entire Chibnall era. Fugitive of the Judoon sets up a straightforward-looking story, with a disguised alien who many not even know their own identity being hunted down by the Judoon whilst hiding in Cheltenham. The Doctor has to work out who the alien is and how to save them. What feels like a breezily solid mid-Russell T. Davies tier episode abruptly shifts tone and direction three-quarters of the way through and executes a mind-boggling twist that elevates the whole episode. The episode hinges on outstanding guest performances by Jo Martin and Ritu Arya, and a doom-laden cameo from Captain Jack (a returning John Barrowman after a near-decade's absence). I think this episode has been downgraded a bit because of how incredibly well it sets up a compelling mystery that the season finale totally fails to deliver on, but in isolation it's an outstanding slice of Doctor Who.

Unfortunately the season can't really sustain that level of interest. Praxeus starts off "big," with the Doctor and her companions splitting into multiple teams to deal with a threat to Earth that simultaneously unfolds in Peru, Hong Kong and Madagascar. The episode's huge scope and fun dialogue (Bradley Walsh is on fine form here) can are let down by a late-episode turn into a lecture on microplastics. A reasonable cause, but it feels like this saps the drama from the resolution of the story.

Can You Hear Me? has huge potential, featuring two ultra-powerful beings inadvertently unleashed from their prisons to rain terror on the universe. The epic scale of the story and compelling performances by Ian Gelder and Clare-Hope Ashitey, as well as Aruhan Galieva as Tahira, is very impressive, as well as featuring an intriguing setting with medieval Aleppo. Unfortunately, the episode feels a bit short-changed. The story is so epic that its resolution after just 50 minutes only feels perfunctory. This at least is the reverse of most Chibnall stories, which often feel like a great 30-minute idea stretched to almost an hour with filler. Unfortunately, the episode also features one of the most reviled scenes in the show's history, as Graham comes clean to the Doctor on his battle with cancer only for the Doctor to really not show much interest or empathy, which was certainly a choice.

The Haunting of Villa Diodati is another good one, with the Doctor and her companions stuck in the famous house where Mary Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein. A haunted house tale turns into a surprisingly effective horror story as the house is invaded by the foretold Lone Cyberman (a formidable performance by Patrick O'Kane). This episode succeeds thanks to a very fine guest cast (Lili Miller as Mary Shelley, Jacob Collins-Levy as Byron, Nadia Parkes as Claire Clairmont and Maxim Baldry as Dr. Polidori) and a rich atmosphere.

Ascension of the Cyberman is effectively a modern remake of classic Doctor Who episode Earthshock, where the Cybermen, driven to the brink of extinction, recover an army of Cyber-warriors from a spaceship and prepare to conquer the universe. The episode does a lot with not too many resources, achieving a surprisingly epic scale at times, and a foreboding sense of the distant future where all hope is lost, reminiscent of Series 3's Utopia. A subplot in which we follow a young boy growing up in Ireland to become a policeman is well-made, but feels disconnected from the rest of the plot (at least until the following episode). The episode is great right up until the cliffhanger, when you can feel everything is about to go wrong.

That cliffhanger ending takes us into The Timeless Children, easily the most controversial episode since the show's return in 2005. This is also possibly the most awkwardly-structured and paced episode of the entire franchise, with the episode being part standard run-around-and-blow-things-up romp (complete with regenerating Cyber-Time Lords, a brilliant concept here mostly wasted) and part massive TED Talk about the Doctor's backstory. The running-around bit is mostly okay (livened up by a splendid guest turn by Game of Thrones' Ian McElhinney) but the scenes of the Master lecturing the Doctor on her hitherto unknown backstory drag on, as well as being somewhat eyebrow-raising in its connotations.

The Doctor being a super special Time Lord destined for greatness was always a hokey and cliched idea, her just being a rebel who ran away and got into hijinks after being bored was more entertaining (helping the idea that anybody can be a hero in the right circumstances). Not only does the retcon itself feel unconvincing, it's also portrayed in a redundant manner: the Master has - somehow - destroyed Gallifrey and wiped out the Time Lords again, making the entire Time Lord arc in the Steven Moffat period feel like a complete waste of time. The Doctor also already had one secret incarnation she didn't want anyone to know about, so giving her a bunch more here is just the same idea repeated. It also doesn't help that the Doctor here is written in an incredibly passive way, not asking questions or shouting out observations, just staring dumbly as the Master (hardly a trustworthy character) unloads the mother of all infodumps on her. I wouldn't mind so much if this massive backstory revelation actually leads anywhere but, over five years on, it hasn't, making the exercise feel pointless. Babylon 5's second season episode In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum shows how to make a massive backstory revelation story really work in a clever way, which Doctor Who (and Battlestar Galactica's No Exit, for that matter) fails to match here.

Still, watching Barristan Selmy fight Cybermen is undeniably a lot of fun, so it has that going for it.

After that confusing morass, the New Year's special Revolution of the Daleks throws subtlety out of the window and opts to have some laughs. Captain Jack returns (again) and teams up with the Doctor and the gang to fight a Dalek incursion on Earth. The entertaining bit here is that these are actually human-built Dalek drones that aren't too much of a problem until an overeager employee clones some of the surviving Dalek DNA from the previous year's Resolution, which is of course a Very Bad Idea. The episode improves further when the real Daleks show up, disgusted with these Dalek-human-robot hybrids, and set out to annihilate them (which is great) as a prelude to annihilating Earth (not so great). The escalating threat levels are well-handled, there's a lot of explosive action and the episode sets up the possibility of future troubles with amoral American businessman (and possible future President) Robertson. Any plans in that direction were thrown out by subsequent misconduct allegations levelled against actor Chris Noth. Still, the episode is a strong, if inconsequential, action piece with a surprisingly emotional ending.

Series 12 of Doctor Who (***½) is a significant improvement over the previous season in terms of general and individual episode quality. There is more action, more humour, some great guest stars, and some very solid ideas. Some of the hallmark problems of the Chibnall era remain: the TARDIS is too crowded with too many storylines for each episode for any to land extremely well (and by trying to further the characterisation of four regulars at once, it doesn't do a great job of any). It's notable the best episode of the season basically sidelines Yaz, Ryan and Graham for most of its going whilst the Doctor is confronted by a genuinely mind-blowing mystery with a great resolution. Otherwise pacing remains an issue, with Chibnall being given generally more time than either Davies or Moffat had (with several episodes clocking in at 60 minutes and most over 50, compared to the stricter 45-ish minutes of previous eras) and not knowing what to do with it.

The season also highlights what is Chibnall's key weakness: he seems to find it very difficult to write for Jodie Whittaker's Doctor. The Doctor is at her best when she storms into a situation, takes over and uses her natural authority and intelligence to investigate a problem and come up with a solution, overcoming rising complications along the way. When the script allows her to do that here (particularly against the Judoon and Cybermen, known threats she is confident of handling), the episode sings. When the script fails to do that, the episode turns into a leaden mess. This is particularly notable whenever Chibnall pairs Whittaker's Doctor with Dhawan's Master. Chibnall has a great handle on this Master's voice, his viciousness and evil really coming through in a chilling way. But the Doctor can't afford to let the Master run roughshod over her as happens in all four episodes of the season here where they face off. The Doctor standing mutely whilst the Master outlines her revised backstory is deeply bizarre, and leaves the audience losing respect for the character, which the show can never afford to happen.

But still, outside of those moments there is a feeling here that things are, if not back on track, at least sidling in that direction. Fugitive of the Judoon is a great episode, and The Haunting of Villa Diodati is almost as good, whilst Revolution of the Daleks, Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror and Ascension of the Cybermen are all very solid romps. But you'll probably never feel an urge to revisit Orphan 55 or Praxeus ever again. And The Timeless Children remains a deeply odd idea, strangely-executed and, so far, totally unresolved.

12.1: Spyfall, Part 1 (***½)

12.2: Spyfall, Part 2 (***½)

12.3: Orphan 55 (**½)

12.4: Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror (****)

12.5: Fugitive of the Judoon (*****)

12.6: Praxeus (***)

12.7: Can You Hear Me? (****)

12.8: The Haunting of Villa Diodati (****½)
12.9: Ascension of the Cybermen (****)

12.10: The Timeless Children (**½)

12X: Revolution of the Daleks (****)

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JV Jones to answer fan questions on Reddit tomorrow

Fantasy author J.V. Jones will be answering reader questions on Reddit, at the r/fantasy community, tomorrow. Jones is the author of The Book of Words trilogy, the standalone The Barbed Coil, and the excellent Sword of Shadows series. She recently completed the penultimate Sword of Shadows novel, Endlords, after a delay, and is about to start work on the final book in the series, A Sword Named Loss.

I expect Jones will be answering questions about worldbuilding, juggling a massive epic fantasy series with other obligations and why there was a significant mid-series gap in publication. Also expect her to get into the weeds of the engines of editing and publishing.

The AMA starts tomorrow at 7am PST and goes on until midday (2pm - 7pm GMT).

YELLOWJACKETS renewed for Season 4

Showtime have renewed their hit TV show Yellowjackets for a fourth and potentially penultimate season.

The renewal had not really been in doubt, with the show's third season debuting with significantly higher ratings on Showtime than the second and picking up a lot of streams via its international distribution on Paramount+ (including setting record viewership for its finale). However, the third season had been renewed ahead of the second, whilst this time around Showtime made fans wait until six weeks after the third season had wrapped up.

The show has a planned five-year story arc, but Showtime declined to renew the show for its final two seasons in one go, suggesting they still want to see how Season 4 does in viewership before ordering the finale.

The show tells a story divided into two time periods. In 1996 a high school soccer team are marooned in a remote part of Canada by a freak plane crash, and have to survive in the wilderness for almost two years before they are rescued. Twenty-five years later, the few now-adult survivors are trying to get on with their lives and forget the trauma they experienced, but the past has a nasty way of constantly coming back into their lives.

The show stars Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, Tawny Cypress, Sophie Nélisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher, Samantha Hanratty, Courtney Eaton, Liv Hewson, Warren Kole, Sarah Desjardins, Elijah Wood and Hilary Swank. Season 4 is expected to go into production later this year for a potential late 2026 debut.

Updated version of original STALKER trilogy to be released next week

Fresh from the success of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, GSC Game World are re-releasing enhanced editions of the original three games in the series next week.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chornobyl (2007), S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky (2008) and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (2009) were seminal first-person shooter games with RPG elements. Each game is set in a different time period and explores a different part of the Zone, a mysterious area of nuclear and paranormal contamination surrounding the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone in northern Ukraine, after a second accident at the site in an alternate 2006. The player has to follow a mysterious story whilst recovering artifacts, building up an arsenal of weapons and deciding which factions to support.

The new versions of the game have revamped lighting, new skyboxes and upgraded graphics, as well as improved support for modern resolutions and hardware, and a revamped UI. The games have also been optimised for Steam Deck. Impressively, GSC Game World are giving away the updated editions free for owners of the original versions of the game, so even if you have a Steam version of Shadow of Chornobyl from eighteen years ago, you'll still get the new "enhanced edition" for no further outlay. If you don't own any of the games and purchase the new "enhanced edition" of any of the games, you'll also get the original version of the game as well.

If you don't own any of the games, you can purchase the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone - Enhanced Edition bundle to get all three new versions of the game, and the originals.

The new versions of the games will be available on 20 May on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

The Rose in Darkness by Danie Ware

Opal, a gleaming beacon of the civilisation of the Imperium of Man. A peaceful world deep within the Imperium, where vast crowds pay homage to the Emperor and his great hero, Saint Veres, in a glorious celebration held once every eight hundred years. The Skull of Saint Veres is a great relic, one which has been ordered to be moved to a shrine world, but the local leaders are reluctant to part with it. Sister Superior Augusta of the Order of the Bloody Rose arrives to expedite the process, only to find bubbling cauldrons of discontent and heresy waiting for her. She realises that Opal's opulence and tranquillity is a facade, one that is dangerously close to breaking.

My prior explorations of the Warhammer 40,000 universe have mostly been through the works of Dan Abnett and Sandy Mitchell, not to mention Paul Kearney's two books in the setting, which have meant reading a lot about Space Marines, Imperial Guard and Inquisitors. The Rose in Darkness was an appealing read as it meant switching focus to another one of the Imperium's orders, the Adepta Sororitas or the Sisters of Battle. The belligerent death-nuns of the Emperor, the Sisters step in to situations which local militias can't handle but sending in the Space Marines would be massive overkill, with the addition that their religious rites and devotion to the Emperor give them an insight that some of the other orders lack.

This book is a good exploration of what kind of situation requires the Sisters' attention, as they have to respect local traditions, honour the local Saint's day but also be firm in their objective of removing the planet's most holy relic, which the local leaders are understandably upset about. The negotiations are interrupted when it becomes clear that some outside force is stirring up trouble on Opal, and it's up to the Sisters to identify the threat. When it is identified, all hell breaks loose, resulting in lots of crunchy battle sequences of the kind that make up the backbone of most Warhammer 40,000 fiction.

Danie Ware paints Opal in all its Imperial splendor. Most 40K fiction takes place on the ragged frontier, where the Imperium is fighting some kind of conflict against an exterior threat, but here the trouble is much harder to pin down. Unleashing a storm of bolter fire to take care of an Ork invader is one thing, but when the threat is more insidious and you cannot tell friend from foe, it's a more nuanced challenge, something that Augusta and her troops struggle to initially engage with. The author is operating with a constrained page count here but deftly characterises figures so even briefly-appearing players (like the planet's governor and military commander) are given at least some depth and flavour.

The book's main success is this idea of a world deep inside Imperial space, blessed by the Emperor, relatively rich and opulent, but whose workers are poor and downtrodden, sometimes even starving when the rich nobility sits in comfort just a few miles away, creating a sense of natural anger and resentment even without strange cults or xenos interference. The feeling of tension ramping up through the book is remarkably successful. It also helps the book gives us POV characters both in the Sororitas and in the local population, so we get both an insider and outsider's perspectives as events on Opal reach breaking point.

It is worth saying that The Rose in Darkness is bleak as hell, even by 40K standards. Most other 40K fiction I've read takes the view that, sure, things are bad, people die, a lot of things blow up, but the most positive - or least-negative, anyway - outcome is infinitely preferable to the worst-case scenario. The Rose in Darkness instead evokes the idea of fighting against the dying of the light, of fighting a long defeat for the sake of fighting it, and true heroism is counted by people making a stand for the right reasons in the dark, where nobody will ever see or hear.

The Rose in Darkness (****) does what good 40K fiction does well - chunky action sequences, mixed in with moments of supernatural horror - but it does it with an air of melancholy and futility that I had not previously encountered in the setting (despite its reputation), which is interesting, but I suspect won't quite be for everybody.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

GRAND THEFT AUTO VI delayed to May 2026, as was foretold in the ancient texts

Surprising exactly nobody, the most eagerly-awaited video game of the year (if not all time), Grand Theft Auto VI, has been delayed until 26 May 2026. Developers Rockstar Games and publisher Take Two Interactive confirmed the game needed more time in the oven to ensure a smooth release.

The Grand Theft Auto series is one of the most successful in all of video gaming. Since its launch in 1997, the series has sold just under half a billion copies, almost half of those coming from its previous instalment, Grand Theft Auto V, released in 2013, by itself. The series has been consistently praised for its sprawling, crime-fuelled narratives, action and player freedom. Its early years were blighted by controversies over its depiction of violence, drug use, prostitution and swearing, at a time when video games were believed to only played by children.

Grand Theft Auto V has sold over 210 million copies, making it the second-biggest-selling video game in history (behind only Minecraft). The game was packaged with Grand Theft Auto Online, and it's the latter mode which has helped propel the game's longevity (and immense revenues). However, Rockstar were criticised for not releasing further single-player story expansions to the game, as they had originally promised. The company was also fiercely criticised for not developing Grand Theft Auto VI with greater speed, instead focusing on Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) first. RDR2's overwhelmingly impressive quality did alleviate some of those concerns, however.

Grand Theft Auto VI will be the fourth game in the series to be set in the city of Vice City, Leonida, based on Miami, Florida. The player will control two characters in a Bonnie-and-Clyde-inspired tale of crime, revenge and mayhem. This will also be the first game in the series since the original to feature a female protagonist. Relatively little other information about the game has been provided. This will also be the first game in the series without long-time producer Leslie Benzies (who left before development began) and writer-producer Dan Houser (who left in 2020, early in development); his brother Sam Houser remains in charge of Rockstar and the game overall.