Meta: The Fifth Doctor on the Therapy Couch

[circular_time]

originally posted on Tumblr Dec 2014

Circular Time contains four mini-stories tracing the arc of the Fifth Doctor’s friendship with Nyssa. The last one, “Winter” by Paul Cornell, is my all-time favorite Big Finish audio. It’s a touching, bittersweet half-hour that makes my eyes water, but more than that, it’s a powerful, sensitive character study.

Most classic Doctors keep their true feelings well-hidden. This story lets us peel away that mask and dive inside his head during a moment of extreme crisis.

MEGA SPOILERS warning.

 

“Winter” is a hallucination in the Doctor’s mind as he’s dying in Caves of Androzani. There’s a lot of callbacks to Castrovalva, cleverly linking the two episodes together. The Master’s once again created a virtual environment— a dream, this time— to ensnare the Doctor and interfere with his regeneration. Kamelion fills Adric’s shoes, maintaining the environment and sabotaging the Doctor’s escape.

(Yes, I know: isn’t Kamelion dead? Either it left a mental trace, or the hallucination starts after the Doctor dematerializes the TARDIS. The vortex transcends time).

“Winter” is also our only glimpse of Nyssa’s married life with her likable husband. Lasarti is a dream research scientist and analyst who’s developed a machine for lucid dreaming. That’s not a random detail; it’s a clue that helped me understand this story. When Nyssa mentioned her “unconscious,” my ears pricked. Most people say “subconscious.” “The unconscious” is a term from analytical psychology, which I had to study for my mythology M.A.

(Yes, there’s a connection: “Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.” — Joseph Campbell)

According to analytical psychology, dreams are the unconscious mind’s way of processing and integrating the day’s experiences and/or lingering, unresolved issues. Dreams imaginatively blend elements of experience, memories, fears, free associations, impulses and desires. While the rational, judgmental, conscious “ego” is asleep, the unconscious mind can fully experience these things, digest them, and make emotional connections with them without our ego-critic butting in to say, “That doesn’t make sense.” “What is wrong with you? You shouldn’t be thinking that!” “That’s not important.” In lucid dreaming, the ego remains conscious. In most dreams, our self-awareness is more or less asleep.

In “Winter,” the Doctor is not only processing the day’s experiences, but his entire life. Unfortunately, he’s got an Evil Therapist aboard, whose job is to make sure his ego doesn’t wake up.

So, let’s analyze Five! One of his unresolved issues is how he can’t take his companions anywhere without endangering them. This audio starts:

Doctor: You stay there. I’ll get it.

Within the dream, he’s telling his companion to stay in the TARDIS home where it’s safe, while he takes the risks. Barn door, horse, exhibit A. In the real world, he’s led Peri into trouble, and she’s staying behind while he gets the antidote.

Kamelion, like any Five companion, starts grousing:

Kamelion: Oh, can’t it wait? We’ve just got the fire going. Well, at least put your jumper on.
Doctor: Don’t fuss… always talking about jumpers— I don’t think I’ve seen you in the same one twice.
Kamelion: Well, at least I have more than one color.

(She’s obviously a spy. Nobody in Team Five changes their wardrobe more than once or twice a year.)

Sometimes a jumper is just a jumper. Metaphorically, however, they’re arguing about change vs. stagnation. The Doctor doesn’t realize that he’ll live or die in the next few seconds depending on which he chooses.

Incidentally, color keeps coming up in this story as a symbol for Six.

Kamelion: …you’ll catch your death.

Real subtle there, Kamelion. The irony is that the Doctor needs to “catch his death” to escape this trap.

Doctor: If that [barn] door keeps slamming around, it’ll wake Adric and Tegan.

The Doctor keeps projecting his thoughts onto others, typical of dream-logic. If he answers the knocking, he will wake up.

The door is a chink in the Master’s prison. It’s the crack through which the Doctor is sending a telepathic SOS. He needs his companions to wake up and answer.

Evil Therapist jumps in.

Kamelion: You’re getting old, you know. You can’t do everything like you used to.

She’s probably plastered the farmhouse with Demotivational Posters. She’s right, though. Five’s cursed with sadistic scriptwriters saying, “Hey, let’s make this Doctor different by taking away his superhero power ‘pull rabbit out of hat and save the day’!”

Doctor: Yes I can! Or I will until I can’t.

Story of Five’s life. “I must save Adric!” *BOOM* Too late.

This dream’s setting is a snug farmhouse encircled by a raging blizzard, which acts as a barrier to keep him cocooned in a cozy fantasy. But he’s fighting it. Now and again, self-awareness seeps in:

Doctor: It almost feels like I’m carrying someone.

Ouch.

Resisting Kamelion’s coaxing, the Doctor braves the blizzard. There he spots the Watcher, that delightfully inexplicable enigma: white “like a chrysalis,” wearing bright colors inside its mummy wrappings. (Egyptian mummy = vessel to carry the soul to the afterlife.)

Over Kamelion’s protests, the Doctor checks on whatever’s going bump in the barn. Later, we learn it’s a coffin.

Doctor: I’m tempted to stay out here with it [the coffin] rather than go back through that lot [the blizzard]. N-no, no, I said I’m tempted. I’m not going to stay.

Some part of the Doctor’s mind senses the Master’s trap, but the way out is death, and he’s not ready to face it. As “Winter” unfolds, the Doctor follows the five stages of loss (not necessarily in order): denial, anger, depression, bargaining, acceptance. Right now he’s stuck in denial.

Doctor: There’s a nice fire back in the house… now, don’t be scared just because I mentioned fire.

Projecting his own fear again. But why would the Doctor associate a coffin (death) with fire? Gee, I wonder…

(Reminder that the Master put himself in that fire. He was going to use it for rebirth, like a phoenix.)

I thought the Doctor was telling Kamelion “don’t be scared,” but apparently he’s addressing the coffin. As one does.

Kamelion: It, scared of you? That’s a laugh.
Doctor: I’m not scared of you at all, you know. I’ve got you here. You’re not following me.

Oh, Doctor. He’s terrified.

Doctor: I’m listening to my wife for once. I’m closing the door behind me and locking it this time, so you can’t knock it open again.

Yet another allusion to closing the barn door after it’s too late. For once, he’s heeding a companion, the one time when he shouldn’t.

Doctor: A nice fire back home, something to look forward to.

Fire is also a symbol of hearth & home. Stay home. Don’t go outside. Don’t have adventures. It’s the philosophy of Gallifrey, the culture in which the Doctor was raised. “Winter” suggests that he hasn’t entirely shaken off that upbringing, even if he consciously rebels against it.

Kamelion: You work so hard, and you’re getting forgetful these days.

Undermining his self-confidence, she lets slip the truth: He’s forgotten himeself.

Doctor: Is this what I asked for? A wife who points out my mistakes?
Kamelion: I do have a mind of my own. You seem to like that.

Yes, dear Doctor, that is exactly what your companions are for. (Also, he prefers Kamelion as an independent entity, not a slave to a Time Lord’s will — even his own.)

Back in the farmhouse, the Doctor settles down in his cozy noose.

Doctor: I want to be here. I want to stay here.
Kamelion: Well, that’s nice, dear. Why…is something going to come and haul you away? That thing out there in the barn? I don’t think that’s going to happen unless you want it to.

Kamelion’s trapped, too. She’s doing her Master’s bidding, but like Dobby, she’s trying to nudge the Doctor into discovering the truth and saving himself.

Doctor: It was just… a stray thought, that’s all.
Kamelion: You’ve been saying you’ll have to oil your bat, to keep it from warping over winter… Doing that usually banishes all stray thoughts— including me, calling for you. [Mentions more chores.]
Doctor: No. No, I’ll leave that until tomorrow.

"Well, you know how it is. You put things off for a day…" — Arc of Infinity

She’s nagging him about maintenance, just like Nyssa used to.

Doctor: And I’m not going near the bat now. Too old to play.
Kamelion: You won’t be saying that come summer… Come to bed.

There’s the depression/defeatism stage kicking in.

I love how Circular Time riffs on the seasons-as-stages-of-life metaphor. By extension, “Play” means the Doctor’s adventures. Kamelion starts to encourage him, then remembers her job and tells him to sleep.

If he goes to bed right now, he’s not going to wake up. He almost gives in, but then he struggles awake…

Doctor: *gasp* A nightmare. It was a nightmare.
Kamelion: Go back to sleep.

Evil Therapist attempts to administer the psychological coup de grace. Nyssa picks a good time to interrupt!

Nyssa: Doctor?
Doctor: Who are you? What are you doing in my house?!

Here we go again. All the Fifth Doctor’s companions arrived by barging in. (Except Nyssa, until now.)

Nyssa: Doctor, it’s me, Nyssa. This is a dream I’m having.
Doctor: It most certainly is not your dream I’m having!

Is this a butterfly dreaming of a Time Lord, or a Time Lord dreaming of a butterfly? In fact, both are dreaming of one another, and they are the only real things in the dream. (Except not really, because they’re fictional.) I love stories that toy with subjective realities.

Doctor: You…remind me of someone. Oh, no. I know who you remind me of. My daughter. The daughter I… lost.

Ow. His voice just breaks. An obscure reference to Susan’s mother?

Or maybe he’s just thinking of Nyssa. When he first took her in, she was essentially his foster-daughter. Apparently he still feels that way about her, sometimes. Her departure hit him hard. (Terminus, when this audio was written… and you know how I’m dreading Entropy Plague.)

Doctor: One.. two… three… four… five… what comes after five? How many children have I lost?

OUCH, ouch, ouch. In one breath he’s counting his incarnations, in the next his companions. It’s a poignant callback to Castrovalva:

DOCTOR: One, two. Good day. One, two. No, no, no, no.

DOCTOR: One, two.
CHILD: Three, sir.
DOCTOR: What?
CHILD: Three, sir, is what comes after two.
DOCTOR: Do you know, that’s exactly what I thought.
CHILD: And then four and then five and then six and then seven
DOCTOR: Stop, please. You’re making me dizzy. We’ll have to give you a badge for mathematical excellence. Adric. Adric!

Adric was still alive… then. :(

The Doctor has come full circle. Once again, regeneration sickness and the Master’s manipulation have conspired to make the Doctor forget vital companions, but he’s fighting to remember.

Still befuddled, he invites Nyssa into the console room parlour. She’s not the first intruder he’s welcomed, after all. She recognizes at once that it’s drawing on memories of the TARDIS, the Doctor’s real home. After a bit more talking at cross-purposes, he falls back on good manners:

Doctor: Would you care for some tea? Oh. No, only enough milk for one. You should have it.

AUGH.

After Nyssa's arrival, he starts worrying about his companions. He’s coming back to himself.

Nyssa still thinks this is her dream, revealing what she keeps bottled up:

Nyssa: Do you have a message for me? About my father? Or about…the Master?
Doctor: The Master? Do you follow him, then?
Nyssa: Absolutely not! Is this about guilt? Why do you think I would follow him?!

If it’s guilt, it’s their shared guilt. But the Doctor is back in the land of De Nile:

Doctor: I mean, follow his adventures, twice a week, on the telly! Rather thin stuff for me, but the children seem to enjoy him… [sound of tea kettle whistling louder and louder, like a signal he’s trying to ignore.] And there’s a certain comedy in the way he always trips over himself…

So we’re listening to an audio play about a Time Lord who dreams that he’s been watching a TV children’s show about a Time Lord.

Or…

…never mind.

Doctor: Why does a dream want to ask me such odd questions?
Nyssa: I’m not the dream, you are!
Doctor: This is all getting rather philosophical. Would you perhaps care for some cheese? Then at least we could both dream on the same wavelength. Tell you what. Why don’t we agree to treat each other like we’re real? Far less tiresome, and much less like something out of Lewis Carroll.

Cheese, rats, maze. Nyssa’s trapped in the same lab experiment, although neither’s aware of it. It’s Castrovalva all over again. (Or Alice in Wonderland, Sarah Sutton’s first TV role. The Doctor is very much her White Knight, forever falling off his horse.)

At this point, the Doctor’s awareness is beginning to stir, thanks to Nyssa’s influence. He starts babbling. A habit of his, when nervous or trying to work something out.

Doctor: [natter, natter] …and on the other side of the road, there’s a cricket pitch! I play for one team against another…

His life as a series of cricket matches, interfering on world after world, choosing one side and helping them against their opponents.

Doctor: …and of course, in the old barn out the back, we have a coffin.
Nyssa: I’m sorry?
Doctor: A coffin! A machine for exploring the forest. You know, go softly on…

[Left: a machine for exploring the forest. Right: “Go softly on!”]

Ah, tasty angst. This sentence starts with Castrovalva and ends with Caves of Androzani. You can hear the sudden dread in his voice as he finally names his fear.

Doctor: …the way one’s whole life flashes before one, just before one… dies.

Are your eyes watering yet?

But again, he backpedals.

Doctor: No, that can’t be right. I need to be carried in that coffin… but… but… perhaps you could explain this… I keep feeling as if I’m carrying someone myself…

Oho. He began his life with his companions carrying him, and he ends it by carrying one of them. More circular time.

At that point there’s an awful crash. He’s definitely dying now.

Nyssa: Doctor!
Doctor: Now, you mustn’t be alarmed. This is just me having one of my turns, getting old… my speech center gets confused… but there’s still a mind in here, you know… we mustn’t wake her upstairs, she’s quite sensitive to change… we mustn’t let her be frightened… If she realizes I’m frightened, she’ll be frightened too…

Aww. He admits to Nyssa that he’s afraid. He really trusts her. Normally, he never lets on (“if they realize I’m frightened, they’ll be frightened too.”)

He’s dimly aware that Kamelion’s “upstairs” in his mind. The Doctor doesn’t want Kamelion to realize he’s waking up.

Nyssa: You do look old.
Doctor: Well, thank you for that. I am old. It’s very comfortable. They always used to say that I was old before my time, an old man in a young man’s body. Now I am what I am. And I intend to stay that way.

Old in the sense of a Time Lord at the end of an incarnation. Old in the sense that he finally looks old, even though Five was one of the younger-looking Doctors. Old in an OOC sense; this is Peter’s voice breaking through. Old because this Doctor started out so young, innocent, eager, but after failing Adric and so many others, he’s aged, concealing grief and self-doubt behind a mask of stoicism and sarcasm.

Bumping noises signal another intruder.

Doctor: It’s coming down the stairs. Well, Nyssa, are you ready to meet a ghost?

He’s suddenly treating her as his companion again, bracing her for the monster they’re about to face. It reminds me of his telling Adric, “Jamie, when I say run, run!” I wish he’d called her Zoe. But he’s starting to wake up, so he lets slip Nyssa’s real name, although he isn’t aware of it.

Lasarti barges in. Comparing notes, he and Nyssa figure out this really is the Doctor’s dream they’ve stumbled into, not Nyssa’s. They start trying to snap him out of it.

After an amusing miscommunication in which the Doctor says Tegan and Adric are sleeping together, he mentions his wife. Nyssa knows the Doctor well enough to be startled; she’s seen how ace/aro (or demi?) he is.

Nyssa: I don’t know why, but I could never imagine you having a wife. What’s her name?
Doctor: It’s… wait a moment. This is ridiculous. Oh, there you are! It’s Peri.

In the Doctor’s unconscious, “wife” and “companion” are interchangeable. But that doesn’t necessarily imply sexual or romantic feelings. The Doctor’s interactions with his “wife” Kamelion are affectionate, but not romantic. It’s a window on how he feels about many of his companions, I think.

Nyssa’s asking the right questions. Step by step, he edges closer to the truth— then shies like a horse.

Doctor: …or is it… Kamelion? That’s an important name, a frightening name. These… names… mean nothing to me. Excuse me! Must dash! I must make sure Peri’s all right!

He dashes upstairs. Which is the wrong direction, deeper into the farmhouse, but at least now he’s remembering his companions.

Doctor: Shhh. Adric and Tegan.
(sound of babies gurgling)
Nyssa: They’re lovely.
Lasarti: That gold star looks a bit sharp.

Adric passed his star to the Doctor when they parted, and the Doctor tried to use it as a weapon to save him, but he wasn’t fast enough. That star is a reminder of the boy’s potential and the Doctor’s failure.

Nyssa speaks gently, but she won’t let the Doctor retreat into fantasy.

Nyssa: But that’s not how Adric and Tegan were. Not when you met them or when you left them. They were adults.
Doctor: Well, they still have a lot of growing to do. Not coming through strongly enough yet. Something’s getting in the way, of… of… of me being born… or dying… I mean… what do I mean?

He’s nearly there. And there’s another buried regret. Companions leave when they’re young, so he never sees what they make of their lives.

A very Ainley-esque laugh rings out.

Doctor: What is that outside? It mustn’t come in here.
Nyssa: Doctor, where are you going?
Doctor: Mustn’t let it in!

Galvanized into protecting his companions, he forgets his fear and rushes out into the blizzard to confront the source of the laugh.

But what he finds is not the Master.

Doctor: I can see you! Why are you standing way out there? Why won’t you come any closer?

More projection. He’s afraid to get any closer to The Watcher. Of course, the Master’s interference (the blizzard) is also keeping it away.

Nyssa takes charge as a psychopomp. (Psyche, ”soul,” pompos, ”guide,” in Greek mythology a guide who leads the souls of the dead to the afterlife.)

Nyssa: Doctor, you know who that was. And you know I know. You know I was there. You know what I’m talking about. I can see it in your face.

The Doctor falls back into his most childlike, frightened, petulant voice.

Doctor: I don’t want any trouble. I have a life here, a proper existence. I’ve stopped. I don’t have to run from place to place now. This is the kind of time I always wanted… isn’t it?

Now he’s hit the bargaining/pleading stage. Nyssa is relentless:

Nyssa: What’s your name? You can see this is wrong— this is an illusion!
Doctor: Do you know how often I got to play cricket? Hardly at all, a few seasons. Not what you might call a career, not long enough to build a decent average, one that meant something.

Awww. I keep wanting to hug him. There may also be some OOC meta-commentary here. Peter sometimes regrets not playing for one more season, once he started getting better scripts and directors.

Next stop on the stages of grief: Anger (with a side helping of Regret). At least now he’s fixated on “I” and who he really is.

Doctor: I… this me, me… I-I was made for an existence in linear time, for births, marriages and deaths… for domestic bliss! I was made to be at rest. And I have been denied this!

That’s the exact opposite of how he lived. He never stuck around, he avoided attachment, and he’d never settle for domestic bliss. Yet he had a young man’s body, who appeared to be the right age for starting a family.

Nyssa won’t let him sulk.

Nyssa: That doesn’t sound like you. When were you ever petulant?

Oh, Nyssa. You’ve got your own blind spots, don’t you? She always sees the best in her TARDIS family.

The Doctor’s still bargaining and pleading.

Doctor: This is everything I ever wanted… here. A-a wife, children, a home based in time surrounded by seasons, cut off from… from bigger things.

Again, there’s a part of him that longs for a stable, Gallifreyan life away from adventures and pain and loss, a family that doesn’t die or leave traumatically.

The Master’s laugh gets louder and louder, mocking the Doctor’s self-pity:

Nyssa: I know that voice, too… this is a trap!
Doctor: Real life…is a trap.

Boom. The Doctor’s voice changes. You can hear the lightbulb click on. But he can’t quite shake whatever’s blocking his memory, so he asks for her help— consciously, this time:

Doctor: What an extraordinary thought. You know, I’m not going to sort this out on my own. You’re going to have to tell me…
Nyssa: When you regenerated, you called it a Watcher.
Doctor: A Watcher?
Nyssa: I was there when you became you. Adric was there, and Tegan. The real Adric and Tegan. Say it to yourself. Adric, Tegan, and…?
Doctor: N… Nyssa. You must be Nyssa. You’re not one of my family.
Nyssa: Not in the way you mean, Doctor.

Awww, there’s my shipper heart melting. (I love close friendships that are Family with a capital F). He’s recognized her. Next step, forcing him to remember himself.

Doctor: We…travelled together… in the…TARDIS.
Lasarti: Now you’re getting it.
Doctor: Don’t speak so soon. I’m not out of the caves yet.

(Lasarti cheers them on; he’s the therapist, but Nyssa knows this patient better.) The Doctor’s still speaking in metaphors, but at least they’re now grounded in the real world.

Nyssa reminds him about the coffin he mentioned earlier. Finally, he’s ready to face it. What a creepy image: a coffin floating in mid-air, thumping horribly.

Nyssa: It’s like something’s trying to get out.
Doctor: Or it’s beating like a heart. The heart of the storm.

The Doctor’s nerve quails one last time, but unlike Kamelion, Nyssa won’t let him turn back. He cycles through all five stages of grief rapid-fire: bargaining, denial, depression, anger, and at last…acceptance.

(This exchange makes me wince, thinking of the older!Nyssa stories yet to come.)

Doctor: Would you give up what you have now? Would you be a wanderer again?
Nyssa: No.
Doctor: Would you want me to give this up?
Nyssa: Because it’s not real!
Doctor: No. No, I suppose it isn’t. For me, it seems real life is a trap. How dare anyone assume I’d fall for it, how dare anyone try to catch me with something so simple, so trite… Give me that coffin!

There's the courageous Doctor we've been missing. As soon as they help him into the coffin, his mind clears, and the coffin becomes a Zero Cabinet.

(Which Nyssa once built to midwife him; now she has to help him die. More circular time, more tasty angst.)

Restored to his confident, authoritative self, he apologizes for the delusions and tells them about the spectrox poison that’s killing him. No more shying away from the fact of his own death. I imagine it’s hard for Nyssa to listen; she might’ve been able to synthesize the antitoxin if she’d been there.

Doctor: All you’ve seen and heard here has taken place in seconds in my brain as it dies.

It’s common wisdom that dreams take place in only a few seconds of realtime. I thought it’d been proven, but when I looked, I couldn’t find any studies to back this up. Only this…

"The brain seems to replay memories at close to normal speed in REM sleep, but it can run them speeded up 100-fold during non-REM sleep" —Dr. Robert Stickgold, Harvard psychiatry professor, Director of Center for Studies of Sleep and Cognition

The Doctor certainly isn’t in REM sleep, so he really could be dreaming in faster than realtime.

Their conversation turns to the Master:

Doctor: He underestimates how much I’ve got used to the life of a wanderer. How much that’s home to me now. Just because he hates being alone so much.

Oho. Nice bit of psychoanalysis, Doc. NuWho’s taken that idea and run with it.

Mind you, I think the Doctor’s fibbing. He was seduced by the fantasy of hearth and home. I don’t think he could’ve broken free without Nyssa’s intervention. Then again, he did call for help.

So, finale and mop-up. The Doctor orders Lasarti to burn down the farmhouse and dismantle the trap. Lasarti bumps into Kamelion, who confirms what we guessed:

Kamelion: Whatever he may have told you, these moments of illusion were precious to him. He may fight the idea of living in time, but he does live in it. It does claim a part of him. Every time he regenerates, he dies.

Ouch. A story about overcoming fear of death is all very well, but if the patient can regenerate, does it still matter? Yes, Kamelion says. It does. Death is death, and he loses a piece of himself every time.

Another brief tangent: regeneration and world myths of reincarnation.

One of those myths is Zagreus… ring a bell? In the Orphic religion, Zagreus is the son of Zeus and Persephone, killed and devoured by the Titans assigned to guard him. Angered, Zeus kills the Titans with a thunderbolt, but Athena saves Zagreus’ heart from the ashes. Humanity arises from the ashes of the Titans, who were mortal but had eaten divine flesh. The cult of Orpheus was designed to purify the initiate’s soul so that when he or she dies, the mortal dross is burned away, while the immortal soul inherited from Zagreus reincarnates.

Translation: the real-world person with his quirks and flaws, the mortal who lived in "linear time" dies; the mythic, divine part of the soul survives.

There’s a lot of resurrection/reincarnation traditions arising in the Fertile Crescent region. Orphism is one of the western offshoots; further east, these ideas matured into Hinduism and Buddhism.

Doctor: There was a moment there when it actually looked like I was going to get off the Wheel of Life, wasn’t there? And it looked like I might have found my Nirvana. But you were here to put a stop to that. To be the grit in the wheel. Or should I say, the grain.
Nyssa: I’m very proud to have been a part of your family, Doctor.
Doctor: The most vital part, at the end.

I adore this exchange, a tacit acknowledgement of the special bond between Five and Nyssa, which isn’t really romantic love (even if I sometimes ship it that way) but something else equally powerful. “Grit in the wheel” isn’t flattering, but he’s thanking her for all the times she’s nagged him onto the right track. Grain is more flattering: a symbol of nourishment, nurture and rebirth. Meanwhile, Nyssa sweetly reminds him that even though he gave up the illusion of family, he really does have a family, his TARDIS family. She obliquely tells him how much she values and admires him.

At last, the Doctor kisses her forehead in a deliberate echo of her Terminus farewell, says goodbye and thanks all his companions, and runs forward into death. He dies to save another, in atonement for the companion he couldn’t save.

Then Nyssa delivers a clear-eyed eulogy in the epilogue, and her mythologizing makes my heart go pit-a-pat.

“Winter” is hardly the first story to dramatize someone working through fear of death, but it’s subtly and beautifully rendered. While NuWho tends to spell things out, sometimes to the point of exaggeration (The Three Words, “Don’t cremate me!”), in “Winter,” the Doctor never actually says, “I don’t want to die.” Show, not tell.

One final point of fascination for me: there’s parallels with Planet of the Spiders, which affected me very strongly as a child. Pertwee’s Doctor was my childhood hero. I was impressed by how he chose to face his fear, even if it meant his death. But he went to face death alone, and his psychological struggle happened offscreen.

“Winter” takes us inside the Doctor’s mind for that journey. Nor does he go it alone. He calls to his companions for help, and he needs his Jo to lean on. He’s more flawed, more vulnerable, and in the end, more human.

Illustration for Circular Time by Martin Geraghty in Doctor Who Magazine.

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, 
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!  — Hamlet, IV.2