Lucy T Davis: Fill & Download for Free

No god superheroes huh?First things first, standing out isn’t going to help. If I gain the power of say, Iceman, it will be pretty obvious and the governments of the world will be after me.So… first superhero choice…isn’t a superhero at all. He is a hero, just not super…sort of.The DoctorYou might think “Wait why? You can be Superman!”. Well yeah, but think about it. Superman lives in a universe with super threats that need to be fought. In real life, it would be boring to punch thugs.The Doctor is a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He’s the main protagonist of the television show Doctor Who and has sufficient powers.Firstly, Time Lords are in general, more physically skilled and durable than normal humans. Not as strong as the really buff people, but a strength boost is great.The Doctor is skilled with any weapon, including a sword, a spoon, and a swordfish.Yes, a swordfish.He’s fast enough to easily keep up with a trained security guard.He also survived falling from over a hundred metres onto solid marble, but that’s actually just bad writing by Russell T. Davies.The Doctor can easily disable any human with his advanced knowledge of pressure points on many humanoid species. He’s also an excellent football player.The helicopter turned, almost lazily. The door at the side was open, an old man was crouched there, a rifle in his lap."Do you recognize him?" the Doctor asked.She did. "Jonah Cosgrove.""Give me your gun.""It doesn't have the range.""The gun," the Doctor hissed.Malady handed it over. The Doctor passed it from hand to hand, as if deciding whether to fire left- or right-handed.Cosgrove had his rifle on his shoulder, and was carefully aiming it. They were sixty feet apart - possibly less. His gun did have the range. It also had computer-assisted scopes, but Malady suspected Cosgrove wouldn't need them.The rifle muzzle flashed, just as the Doctor fired the pistol.Two seconds later, Cosgrove, the Doctor and Malady were all still alive, which surprised her.The Doctor fired again. The first time, Malady had thought she'd imagined it, but she saw it again: a smear of a spark in the air between them and the helicopter.Cosgrove fired, so did the Doctor. The third time, the third spark, and Malady realized what the Doctor was doing.He was shooting Cosgrove's bullets out of the air.And he’s precise and quick enough to shoot bullets out of the air. As revealed in Heaven Sent, Time Lords think and move on a whole ‘nother level compared to humans, and the Doctor is pretty stupid amongst the Time Lord society.‘Doctor!’ Compassion yelled, leaping to her feet. ‘You’re alive!’She ran to him and hugged him.The Doctor grabbed her head to his chest and breathed a deep sigh of relief. ‘I thought it was you out there,’ he murmured. ‘But I didn’t know how it could be. Wow.’ He suddenly realised, and held her at arm’s length. ‘You’re hugging me. You’re happy to see me!’He felt her freeze in his arms. ‘It’s to do with my changing,’ she whispered. ‘This big change that wants to happen to me. It expresses its feelings. It wants me to be like that. But it’s so big –’There came a croak of warning from the far wall.The Doctor looked up in time to pluck the speeding knife out of the air between his thumb and forefinger.Fast enough to catch a knife out of the air. I can outperform practically the entire human race.Furthermore, the Doctor MacGyvers better than MacGyver.That weird thing he built can disrupt temporal machines.The Doctor is smart enough to outsmart alien races like Judoon and even the Beast, which claimed to be the Devil.He also scrapped together a Delta Wave Generator that could potentially wipe out all life on Earth, and take down a nearly destroyed Dalek fleet. Oh and speaks 5 billion languages. I can go anywhere.He invented a device that changes dimensions of objects, so you can turn a train into a picture of a train on the wall.With prep time, the Doctor can beat nearly everyone. But he jumps into dangerous situations without prep, and still improvises a solution on the fly, while dealing with powerful empires like the Sontarans.LUCIE MILLER: (gasp) It all really happened, then? Oh, thank God. I thought I'd imagined it all, with the Daleks and the Tomorrow Twins and Phobos and all that.THE DOCTOR: Yes, you were brainwashed.LUCIE MILLER: What is that thing?THE DOCTOR: This? It's just something I put together out of some odds and ends and the sonic screwdriver. A sort of sensory shake-up to bring you back to reality.LUCIE MILLER: Oh, this is so weird. You know how before the Time Lords snatched me away, I'd just got a new job, yeah?Well…he rigged up an anti-brainwashing device.The Doctor is actually a doctor of medicine, and has more medical knowledge than nearly every person on Earth. I could cure many, many diseases, improve millions of lives.Oh and casinos? Pfftt!I’ll get banned from every casino in the galaxy.I also have a sonic screwdriver. Basically a magic wand, but cannot kill or curse, but can do a heck lot more.To see all the uses, go here: Sonic screwdriverIt’s really insane.Oh, and the freaking TARDIS. Well except, it’s a Type 40 TARDIS, meaning it’s super outdated by Time Lord standards. But considering you’re talking about a race that bent physics, imposed the Web of Time over the Multiverse, and removed magic because it ‘bothered’ them, outdated tech is still OP as hell.The TARDIS is an eleven-dimensional Lovecraftian entity grown inside an organic shell and controlled by the Time Lords. It’s completely unaffected by gravity and black holes (Time Lords invented black holes), and tanked planet busters and star busting weaponry.Hanging barely a foot from the Doctor's head was the bomb. A large, ugly heap of metal engulfed in a static ball of energy, white hot fire frozen abruptly at its highest velocity, halted only a few centimeters from his upturned face. Behind the bubble, its reflection in the metal ripples that arced away from the central column cast a thousand tiny suns around the control room.He stared in wonderment at the object for a moment, then a slow grin spread across his face. 'I did it,' he said to himself. 'I only went and did it!'There it is freezing a nuke.This time they emerged into an enormous conservatory, crowded with lush green vegetation and bright with tropical plants. The air was warm and humid, and they seemed to be under an enormous glass dome beneath a blazing sun.And it contains several stars.There’s psychic paper, which shows whatever I want people to see. I could waltz into places by showing proof that I am actually under the orders of Queen Elizabeth II. And yes, it works on machines and animals.(Matt is at his computer, wearing two earpieces. Now there are three busily typing.Rose follows another scientist along a corridor to a sign saying Torchwood Institute, Reception, Lever Room, Maintenance. She kisses the psychic paper then puts it against the entry reader for the door the scientist has just gone through.)(Rose enters, and is transfixed by the sphere. Rajesh comes over to her.)Oh what else? Telepathy and psychic abilities?The gold disc flashed as bright as the sun for a fraction of a second. Jeffip staggered one step back, then stumbled over. Smoke was pouring from his mouth and nostrils. He tried to pull himself up, tried to cough, but instead all he did was die....The Eyelesss raised its right hand, held it straight out, pointing at the Doctor, palm flat. There was a gold disc embedded there. It flashed with the light of the sun.The Doctor shrugged when nothing happened. He tapped his lip with the sonic screwdriver, which he'd just taken from his coat pocket. 'A weapon which literally burns out the neurons. Smoke pours out of the nose and mouth. Doesn't work on me just like your telepathy doesn't work on me. Now...you killed Jall and I made a promise about Jall, and I will honour it.'A machine that fries neurons is essentially outmatched by a Time Lord brain. The Doctor also manages to glitch a machine that can coordinate millions if not billions of minds at once.I will also gain his ruthless tenacity and grip on sanity. He remembers reliving the same events for 4.5 billions years and stays sane.DOCTOR: (angry) That's when I remember! Always then. Always then. Always exactly then! I can't keep doing this, Clara! I can't! Why is it always me? Why is it never anybody else's turn?BLACKBOARD: How are you going to win?? (seven underlines.)The Doctor is also a master manipulator, even manipulating a computer programmed not to underestimate him, into underestimating him.The Fortress strategy computer recognized that it was about to be deactivated, knew it had no options remaining It drew all its strength from the weapon, and the Doctor was well on the way to disconnecting it.A thousand subroutines had warned it not to underestimate the Doctor from the moment he'd been identified, yet it had done just thatThe Doctor is so random and unpredictable, that the Time Lord Possibility Engine, which can see infinite futures immediately could not see the future the moment the Doctor made his move.And yes, it’s confirmed he has canon plot shields from Multiversal entities. Basically shit like Contessa’s Path to Victory will simply fail to apply to the Doctor, due to his manipulations and plot shields."You're not going to....You're not planning to keep on until the ball goes through the wall, are you?""Well," said the Doctor, "I thought I might.""You're going to stand here for zillions of years?""That wouldn't work. I'd be long dead.""Well, you'll be long dead before the odds come up anyway, wont you? Not to mention me. Not to mention probably the whole universe.""Mm." Thump. Thwack. Pause. "We've talked about probability.""Yeah. Well, you have. I've listened mostly.""Well, as long as probability is functioning, then yes, both of us will likely be long dead before this ball could ever go through the wall. We can't physically wait long enough for the odds to come up. But if the wave function collapses, if "long enough" becomes "now"....""But what could make that happen?""That's the question."Fitz looked closely at the Doctor's face, trying to discern whether he was having him on. The Doctor turned to meet his gaze. His eyes had that flat, faraway look that always gave Fitz a tiny shiver."Well," Fitz said, "I'll leave you to it."The Doctor nodded and turned back to the ball. Fitz returned to the kitchen.Thump. Thwack. Pause."But if the wave function collapses...." The Doctor murmured.The ball went through the wall."Ouch!" said Fitz.Basically, he’s testing his own plot shields, and how probability bends to him. He decides to bounce a wall until the ball goes through the wall, a possibility so remote that it would never pop up in a trillion years, yet he succeeds.He’s met the Wasp and Doctor Doom.He gave Reed Richards dimensional tech to help him.So, insane mental abilities, hyper intelligence, a police box that can travel anywhere in time and space, master manipulations, and even plot shields.Oh and regeneration after death.No dying for me, it seems.

Way back when Doctor Who was created, its remit was to be educational as well as entertaining. Roughly speaking, stories set in Earth’s history, which generally had no science-fiction elements at all, apart from the fact of the presence of the TARDIS crew, alternated with science-fiction stories. Viewers could see adventures taking place in ancient Rome, ancient Greece, during the Reign of Terror, and (rather tediously) at the dawn of humanity.Gradually, it became clear that the science-fiction stories, specifically the monster stories, were much more popular, and so after Troughton’s second story, The Highlanders, historical stories were pretty much retired. When they did return, in tales such as Pertwee’s The Time Warrior or Tom Baker’s The Masque of Mandragora, they tended to be science-fiction tales in a historical setting.Under Russell T Davies, the historicals evolved again. Now, the celebrity historical was the order of the day. Going back to Elizabethan London, and meeting science fiction witches, wasn’t enough. Now they have to meet Shakespeare too. Or Dickens. Or Queen Victoria. And it’s this template which Chris Chibnall is working from. Sounds like a good pitch, doesn’t it? Doctor Who meets Rosa Parks. But is fast-moving, adventure series Doctor Who really the right forum to explore the American civil rights movement? Might we not prefer a home grown series like Quantum Leap, whose episode set in this time period is a fan favourite?Or, I wonder if any other readers have seen the current American sci-fi series Timeless? In this pleasantly jolly adventure series, a small team has to pursue evil-doers bent on changing history through time, trying to make sure that none of their meddling alters the present in any meaningful way. It’s only rarely what Doctor Who has as its mission. The Doctor’s remit is usually to try and alter things for the better. Timeless bakes the need to preserve the status quo into its format.It also works with a small team (the time ship only has three seats), all of whom have clearly-defined qualities and skills. Abigail Spencer is Lucy, the historian with a personal connection to the evil-doers. Matt Lanter is Wyatt, the army guy who can keep them safe and who is handy with his fists, and comfortable with firearms. And Malcolm Barrett is Rufus, the engineer who knows how the time ship works, and who also is black, which is consistently an issue as they travel into America’s racist past. All three are charming and funny, and the tone is usually fairly irreverent and fun, even as they tackle important issues.Bluntly, Rosa wasn’t half as much fun, half as interesting, or half as well judged as even a pretty poor episode of Timeless.Now, before I go on, let me take in a bit of the wider context.I finished watching this episode with a heavy sigh, and had a quick look online, expecting to see a general chorus of “What the hell was that?” “How clumsy, trite and uninteresting!” and “Chibnall must go now!” And there were some.But there was also a preponderance of lavish praise. “Beautiful”, “moving”, “best episode for years” and so on. This gives me pause.I was already pretty familiar with the story of Rosa Parks, and from my brief research since the episode aired, it seems as if writers Chibnall and Malorie Blackman have rendered it pretty faithfully. Could it be that what people are responding to is the power of Rosa Parks’ story, rather than any particular imaginative leap on the part of the writing and production team? Does that matter? Is the fact the Doctor Who is returning to its educational roots a good thing? If more 11 year olds are inspired to Google “Rosa Parks” who would otherwise not have heard of her, isn’t that a huge benefit? Must I really give Doctor Who no credit at all for rendering the story accurately - even the bits which sound made-up, like the fact that Parks was refused entry eleven years earlier by the same bus driver on which she made her stand?Well… okay. I’ll tell you what. I’ll give all of the historical aspects of this story a pass. I do this with some misgivings, because I don’t know that Doctor Who should be just retelling stories from history, with no twist, fillip or imaginative leap (I didn’t like Vincent and the Doctor much, but at least it tried to show us a famous figure from history from a new angle). But okay.That leaves two other elements - the time travel story (our twenty-first century heroes interacting with 1955 Alabama) and the science fiction story (the need to foil the evil exploits of one “Krasko”).Sorry, but both of these I thought were sorely wanting. The time travel story needed much stronger characters than it has at this point. When Rufus (of Timeless) goes back in time to America’s racist past, he’s smart and primed and ready for the attitudes of the people he’s going to meet. He doesn’t like it, and when people are super-racist, there’s often a moment for him to take mild revenge, but he gets it - it’s part of the territory.Ryan, on the other hand, just blunders into racist white folks’ way, without a second thought. What are we supposed to make of him as a character now? Has he never cracked a book? Has he never experienced racism in his personal life? Maybe he has led a life of relative privilege and always thought that people who bang on about civil rights are exaggerating? Could be interesting. I still wouldn’t think that he had managed to earn his place on board the TARDIS, but I might be engaged in watching him slowly grow up. Alas, a later scene makes it very clear that he has experienced racism, so he’s just a dummy then?Bradley Walsh, the most experienced actor of the three, just about manages to cling on to something resembling a character, but Yaz again is just a blank. Neither black nor white, neither brave nor cowardly, neither smart nor naive, she’s engaging because Mandip Gill plays her with spirit, but I have no idea what drives her or what she adds to the team.That brings us to the science-fiction element of the story. With a script credited to two writers, it’s impossible to say who worked on what, and it’s likely that they both worked on everything to a large extent, but it might be a reasonable assumption that Blackman was researching Rosa Parks while Chibnall devised Krasko with his call-backs to Doctor Who stories of the recent past. All of the bad habits which have been on display in the last two stories are here again.The whole team trailing behind while the Doctor does all the actual story? Check. The long conversation with the bizarrely impotent villain? Check - two of them this time. The threat just vanishes at the 42 minute mark? Check. The Doctor professes not to use guns, but the enemy is dispatched with lethal force in any event? Check.And much else besides just doesn’t make sense. In the motel, there’s an attempt to provide a sense of the whole team working together, as if they all had Timeless-style complimentary skills. But the scene is pointlessly interrupted for an intrusion by a cop which goes nowhere before I think the Doctor actually says “Right, where were we?” And, as the final scene of the episode shows, the Doctor has a wonderful device which can tell them everything they want to know about Rosa Parks and which would also provide an entirely safe place to hide. It’s the conveniently located, but also quite well-hidden TARDIS. Still, nice Banksy gag.And what’s all this about limiting the villain? First he can’t shoot straight. Fair enough, neither can anyone in a science-fiction adventure story. Then it turns out, he’s incapable of killing anyone. Way to raise the stakes, Chibnall! So, does the fact that his gun is a time disruptor mean that he could have shot the Doctor and he just missed? Or does the gun not count as lethal force? Who cares, before long it’s out of batteries and the villain is deprived of it. He basically just stands there and lets the Doctor take the vortex manipulator off his wrist. Now all the team needs to do is keep an eye on him, or preferably lock him up somewhere, and the story is over. Instead, like children playing hide-and-seek, the Doctor turns her back and obediently lets him put his evil plan into action.And what is his plan exactly? To keep parts of America racist, even though those parts of America are centuries in his past. Even if we buy that that would be desirable to a man from so far in the future - would it even work? To give Rosa Parks essentially all of the credit for the American Civil Rights movement isn’t very flattering to the rest of America, nor is it particularly accurate. Rosa Parks was not the only person to stand up to (or sit down to) segregated buses in Alabama, it’s just that her case was the one chosen by the NAACP. If she hadn’t ridden on that bus that day, then - given that none of the other meddling by either side seems to make a difference - chances are that America would be just the same today.And it doesn’t help that all of the nonsense with tailoring, fishing, bus timetables and so on is incredibly, ball-achingly, mind-numbingly boring and stupid. The fact that it finally, improbably, builds to a single scene in which the time travel plot, science fiction plot and history lesson actually combine with some semblance of power, is unexpected to say the least. Making Graham, Yas and Ryan have to keep their seats and refuse to help Parks is genuinely arresting. It hasn’t been built up to, it’s almost immediately laughed off, and it doesn’t reverberate beyond the couple of minutes for which it lasts, but it does work.While I’m grumbling, I hate everything about Krasko from his stupid penny-dreadful name to his sub-Fonzie costume to his “I’m-so-evil” delivery. And although Jodie Whittaker continues to do decent work with the thin material given her, this incarnation of the Doctor is turning into a pretty bland David Tennant impersonation. After the genuinely bold Capaldi incarnation, this is very disappointing.So, it’s a write-off then? Yeah, pretty much. I was underwhelmed by The Ghost Monument, but gutted at Rosa’s lack of ambition, scope, threat, adventure or sensitivity. It told me nothing I didn’t already know about the Civil Rights Movement or contemporary racism in Britain or America, and it failed to be an entertaining adventure story. Did you like it? Great - I’m honestly super happy for you, and I really hope that reading all this hasn’t put you off it. Does it help if you don’t know the story of Rosa Parks? Maybe. Does that make all the problems I’ve identified vanish? No.So, here’s what I’m looking for in the rest of the season.The characters have to be sharpened up. I need to know what makes Ryan different from the teenager sitting next to him on the school bus. I need Yas to show a bit more of that ambition and bravery from episode one. I need Graham to want to be charging around the universe with the Doctor. And I need stories which are designed to let these character traits get them into trouble or get them out of it. I need to know why this story with these characters. This, of course, is drama 101.I also need proper adventures with proper threats. Not races to the death which turn into a stroll across a desert. Not a vile white supremacist who it’s revealed can’t kill anyone and who has to be left alone to do his evil deeds to give him a chance. The Doctor’s mad jump from crane to crane in episode one was really exciting. Nothing’s matched it since or even come close. This, of course, is adventure 101.This desperately thin, remorselessly uninvolving stuff really isn’t worth more than one star, but I’ll give it two on the basis that Rosa Parks’s story needs telling, and it was told here with clarity, taste and accuracy. That’s just not what I turn on Doctor Who for.

The Meta-Crisis Doctor was left on the parallel world with Rose Tyler during Journey’s End.In a deleted scene Russel T Davies states can be interpreted as canon, the Doctor gives the Meta-Crisis Doctor a lump of TARDIS in order for him to grow his own. The Meta-Crisis Doctor says that it will take thousands of years to grow, but the Doctor-Donna explains to him how to make the process faster.If you take this deleted scene as canon, it implies that The Meta-Crisis Doctor and Rose will resume their travels in the TARDIS in the parallel universe.Of course, it’s entirely possible that the Meta-Crisis Doctor would take this as a chance to settle down and enjoy ordinary life for once, or that he’ll settle down with Rose once they both get too old to travel.It’s likely Rose would stop the Meta-Crisis Doctor working for Torchwood or UNIT until he’d gotten over his genocidal tendencies. I could also see the Meta-Crisis Doctor becoming a teacher or a scientist, or just looking after any kids him and Rose have.In short, we don’t really know, but we know he’s with Rose, so he’s happy.