How Doctor Who: Redacted links with Doctor Who's 60th anniversary specials
Warning: spoilers ahead!
Doctor Who has had its fair share of spin-offs over the years, becoming the ‘Whoniverse’ with shows such as The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood. Last year, the franchise launched a podcast series tie-in – Doctor Who: Redacted.
With lead writer Juno Dawson and a stellar cast including Charlie Craggs, Louis Chimimba and Holly Quin-Ankrah, the show is now back for a second season and this time it links with its parent show, Doctor Who, even further.
The BBC Sounds show is fronted by three queer, female characters who have their very own mystery podcast all about the Doctor’s blue box - ‘The Blue Box Files’. The first season comprised 10 episodes about a deadly virus that wiped anyone and everyone who had ever known the Doctor from the universe.
Filled with Who throwbacks, Easter eggs and Whoniverse characters galore, the show even included a special appearance from the Thirteenth Doctor - Jodie Whittaker - just months before she regenerated. It ended with Cleo Proctor (Redacted’s main heroine) begging to travel in the TARDIS, but ultimately staying behind to figure her life out.
Careful, Redacted season 2 spoilers ahead!
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Season 2 of the show launched on 18th September, and although the Doctor doesn’t appear this time round, this series has a special link to the upcoming 60th anniversary episodes.
During the ‘Blue Box Files’ gang’s latest adventure, villainess Honour Brady is determined to get to the Doctor and steal their TARDIS. She is the landlord of thousands of alien refugees hidden under London’s tube network, aptly named ‘London Underground’, and also happens to be head over heels for Cleo’s love interest, Apex Costa.
Apex fails in his mission to find the Doctor for Honour and raids alien artefacts all over Earth while trying to do so. Meanwhile, Cleo also can’t seem to get in touch with the Time Lord, despite calling and leaving many voicemails.
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The series once again links to previous Who spin-offs, with Rani Chandra, Mr Smith and 13 Bannerman Road from The Sarah Jane Adventures becoming key to the storyline. It is Mr Smith, Sarah Jane’s super-computer, who mentions that the Doctor is unable to be located, delivering the chilling line: “I do not know where the Doctor is. The Doctor is missing. Something is amiss with their timeline.”
This is our first link to where the Doctor currently is within the Whoniverse narrative. We last saw them regenerate from Jodie Whittaker back into David Tennant in last year’s The Power of the Doctor. The only other in-universe story to happen between Power and this year’s new episodes is Doctor Who Magazine’s comic Liberation of the Daleks, which is yet to conclude and features the Fourteenth Doctor’s first adventure. But, according to Redacted, the Doctor is missing from our universe.
There is also a mention of 2021’s Flux event during a face-off between Cleo and Honour, who says that the aliens of ‘London Underground’ have no right to remain on Earth, adding that “after The Flux, anti-alien sentiment is higher than it has ever been” – bridging the last Who era and the next one.
It is at the very end of the season that we are treated to the biggest Easter egg, leading directly into David Tennant and Catherine Tate’s Who Return, The Star Beast, due to air this autumn.
After saving ‘London Underground’ and finally getting some more alone time with Apex Costa, Cleo and her new man finish the adventure at a rooftop date, with a ‘spectacular’ view of London.
As they romance and flirt, Apex mentions that they can see “all the way down Camden, to the river”. They kiss under the stars and a noise ripples from above them. ‘I think a spaceship just crashed!’ utters Apex. “We should do something!” replies Cleo. “We absolutely should. In a minute, yeah?” as police cars zoom by in the background. The series ends on this cliffhanger.
Saturday’s Doctor Who trailer revealed a ship crashing during scenes at Camden Market, where the Doctor, Donna Noble and her daughter Rose are present. The Doctor then says: “A spaceship crashes right in front of her, it’s like she’s drawing us in”, confirming the event in Camden.
This neat tie-in confirms the crash that Cleo and Apex witness is the same one to occur during the next TV episode of Doctor Who, making Doctor Who: Redacted another puzzle piece of the show’s canon and a nod to its 60th anniversary celebrations.
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