Former showrunner Steven Moffat has penned a Doctor Who short story featuring Jodie Whittaker - after a fashion. The coronavirus pandemic may have brought the world screeching to a halt, but the Doctor Who fandom is refusing to stop traveling through time and space.
Doctor Who Magazine's Emily Cook has been organizing mass-rewatch events, and she's been working with writers and actors to produce original content in order to make them a real success. So far, she's been responsible for the release of an entertaining Sontaran short video, the unveiling of Russell T. Davies' original plans for the Time War, and an enchanting animated retelling of companion Amy Pond's origin. The BBC has been delighted to get involved, publishing some original content as well as a video in which the Doctor responds to the coronavirus panic. This is fandom at its best, only encouraged by the BBC themselves.
The BBC website published another Doctor Who short story by a former showrunner. Called "The Terror of the Umpty Ums," this story is set inside a children's hospital, and features Karpagnon - a savage alien who has apparently infiltrated Earth, but who was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Furious at how he's been treated, Karpagnon intends to escape and exact brutal revenge upon humanity. Fortunately for everybody else in the building, Karpagnon's data stream is interrupted by a very familiar voice - Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor has hacked into his systems, and is attempting to persuade Karpagnon to not wreak havoc.
This is the first time Moffat has written for Whittaker's incarnation of the Doctor, and he captures her voice effectively. Some of the initial dialogue is off-putting, but he soon comes to grips with the character and her distinctive vocabulary, including one particularly entertaining line where the Doctor excitedly offers to help Karpagnon escape. "We’re doing an escape, right? I’m top at escaping," she observes, dialogue that sounds perfect for Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor. Naturally, there's a twist at the end - this is a story written by Moffat, after all - and it subtly reinterprets the entire story, surely prompting many readers to go back and read again in light of the twist.
This is the kind of Doctor Who short story that used to be published in the anthologies, or else in an issue of Doctor Who Magazine. Now, in the age of coronavirus, it's been published online, free for everybody to read. Hopefully there will be many more to come.
Source: BBC