In Survival, the last regular serial of Classic Doctor Who, the Doctor and Ace visit a planet of humanoid cats called âCheetah Peopleâ. The Cheetah People are highly telepathic: they can mentally control and inhabit their pet cats, and they can even teleport between planets. Most notably, one of them is played by Lisa Barrowman, better known as Bernice Summerfield.
But this wasnât actually the first time that humanoid cats had been set to appear in Doctor Who. In 1977, script editor Anthony Read commissioned his former collaborator David Weir to write the Season 15 finale, a four-part serial set on Gallifrey. The request was to explore society outside the Capitol with an emphasis on morality, a theme which Weir had written well in the past. So he pitched a story about Gallifreyan civilization of humanoid cats.
The Gallifreyan cat-people would have mirrored real-world catsâ dual penchant for both sophistication and savagery: they would appear advanced and civilized until the Doctor wound up in one of their elaborate gladiatorial displays! Weir delivered his scripts on time, and production proceeded to the point that Dee Robson designed costumes for the cat actors.
Ultimately the story was cancelled: Weir, by all accounts an excellent screenwriter, dramatically overestimated the showâs VFX capabilities and budget. But executive producer Graham Williams later mentioned the idea at a fan convention, so it became well-known in fandom (albeit under the false name The Killer Cats of Geng Singh). As a result, when Survival finally brought cat people to screens, fans naturally canonwelded the two.
One of these fans was Adrian Middleton, editor of the Apocrypha fanzine. Hereâs how Apocrypha issue 1 covered the cats:
Apocrypha on the Killer Cats
THE GIANT CATS Â Â -16,000,000
The first intelligent mammalians on Gallifrey evolved from its version of the sabre-toothed Tiger. These giant cats developed a rudimentary form of empathic communication, which allowed them to influence the actions of their prey.
Over an extended period of time, the cats developed a finer telepathic ability, allowing them to actually control other species. This became a necessity as feline culture grew, as their physiological form prevented the use of tools to build or write with. Thus, in spite of their intelligence, the cats could not establish a true civilisation without anthropoid assistance.
FELINOID CIVILISATION Â Â -14,000,000
Early Gallifreyan hominids soon became the tools of feline culture. The first buildings on the planet were built by hominids but designed by cats, taking the form of vast stone arenas, in which the cats would use lesser species for sport - hunting and killing for pleasure rather than survival.
HOMINIDS Â Â -14,000,000/-13,980,000
Forced to live alongside saurian and feline predators, Gallifrey's first hominid tribes evolved as creatures of guile and stealth. Communities were established using primitive communications. These hominids were the cave-people, the tree-people, and the river-people.
THE FALL OF THE GIANT CATS Â Â -13,980,000
The hominid tribes had at first been easy prey for the cats, easily manipulated as a supply of muscle and food. Ultimately, however, the development of feline culture accelerated the development of hominid culture. Being made to use their hands and having the telepathic parts of their minds manipulated awakened a new sense of purpose within them. Seeing the cats as their slavers, they rebelled, exposing the cats to a coup so bloody that the species was all but wiped from the face of the planet.
THE LEGEND OF THE VANISHING CATS Â Â -13,800,000
It is rumoured that, after their defeat by the hominids, the giant cats fled to the mountains, where they hoped to restore their numbers (perhaps in an effort to restore their power over the hominids). Often hunting parties would venture into these mountains, bringing back the occasional cat. It seemed that the mental strength of the hominids had come to match their feline contemporaries.
Other psychic powers were attributed to the cats, including the power of teleportation. In Gallifrey's southern hemisphere, atop one of its highest mountains, there stands a crudely erected stone circle. Gallifreyan archaeologists determined that this was built by the cats themselves. Legend states that the giant cats emigrated by mass teleportation to another worlds. Few giant cats were seen from this time on, and those that did appear bore no telepathic powers. However, smaller domestic cats, or Kitlings, retained this ability.
WHY LINK THE KITLINGS FROM 'SURVIVAL' WITH THE KILLER CATS OF GALLIFREY?
The 'cat' theme is one that has been expanded on greatly in recent years. Colin Baker's cat motif and 'I am the cat that walks alone' slogan, followed by Eric Saward's novelisation of 'Slipback', set a pace followed by 'Survival' and the 'Cat's Cradle' trilogy.
Upon learning about 'The Killer Cats of Ginseng' by David Weir, everything seemed to fit into place. Cats can't exist everywhere in the universe, they have to come from somewhere - we have Earth cats, and Gallifrey has telepathic or empathic cats, just like the Kitlings.
Commentary
Since the 90s, a few stories have referenced the killer cats idea. Gary Russellâs VMA Invasion of the Cat-People mentions âmercenaries of Gin-Sengâ alongside the Cheetah People in a list of felinoid species (hence the âcanonicalâ spelling); thereâs a similar offhand mention in Big Finishâs Erasure. But thereâs only been one actual appearance of one of the cats: Daniel OâMahonyâs Faction Paradox short story âThe Return of the Kingâ (pdf).
âThe Return of the Kingâ is a prelude to the authorâs 2008 novel Newtons Sleep. In that book thereâs a glimpse of âthe nocturnal delegations of the wild things, whose sharp bright teeth and claws gleamed in the dark of their robes.â The prelude elaborates,
[Time Lord Thessaliaâs] oracle stays at the window, seething playfully below his hood. He has fiercely intelligent eyes, neither as sharp nor as bright as his scar. His mouth is a succulent white smile in a lightless face. His people have nothing but contempt for the rituals of the Great Houses. Sheâs little better than prey to him, a bloodless snack for his long teeth and hungry mind. He breathes, honeyed air purring out of the cavities of his body.
A killer cat kept as a Time Lordâs personal oracle ⌠as @rassilon-imprimaturâ once noted, a funny recontextualization of The Mark of the Raniâs reference to the Lord Presidentâs âpet catâ!
This was my first exposure to the killer cats, so I always took it for granted that theyâd always had psychic or oracular abilities. But in fact, as best as I can tell, there was zero hint of this in the original serial. I tracked down every published description of the story, and they all amount to the same few repeated bits of information: Gallifrey, humanoid cats, and a gladiatorial arena. Richard Bignell ultimately told me, âNo summary of Killers of the Dark exists. Even David Weir couldnât recall anything about it when I spoke to him.â
So when âThe Return of the Kingâ features an oracular cat-man, itâs not just a reference to the unmade Classic serial. Itâs a reference to fan interpretations like Middletonâs which canonweld that serial with the psychic Cheetah People.
And in some ways, it seems to be referencing Middletonâs version specifically! In âThe Return of the Kingâ, the above quoted memory is interrupted by commentary:
Your first oracle?
âMy last.â
You think? But his kind were vanishing from the world.
âThey were escaping the War. They could see it coming.â
Compare:
Legend states that the giant cats emigrated by mass teleportation to another worlds. Few giant cats were seen from this time on, and those that did appear bore no telepathic powers.
And so Middleton explains how the cats vanished in OâMahonyâs telling, and OâMahony explains why they vanished.
Afterword
While weâre on the topic of why, why did OâMahony choose to revive this specific idea in âThe Return of the Kingâ?
One of the places I checked for Killers of the Dark details was issue 336 of Doctor Who Magazine. Imagine how thrilled I was to find that the relevant âAccidental Touristâ piece, located one page after a Faction Paradox ad, was written by none other than OâMahony himself!
Part of his reflection was particularly striking. He recaps the wild undefinedness of the Doctorâs backstory, a topic Iâve discussed before on this blog. But in his telling, the uncertainty extends past The War Games all the way to The Deadly Assassin.
After all, The War Games declared that âthe Doctorâs people are the Time Lordsâ, but âwho are the Time Lords?â was still left undefined. In the Time Lordsâ many subsequent appearances, they were simply walking plot devices, and lore details were left to the wayside. Contradictions were rife. Who was Rassilon to Omega? Is their planet called âGallifreyâ or âJewelâ? Who or what on earth are the âFirstâ, âSecondâ, and âThird Time Lordâ who exiled the Doctor?
It was The Deadly Assassin which first dove into the details by featuring the Time Lords like they were any other of the showâs alien cultures. And for this, it was widely panned: âthe fans had voted it the worst story of Season Fourteen and published reviews vociferously attacking its âbetrayalâ of the Time Lords. The BBC practically disowned it, physically vandalising the master tape to placate Mary Whitehouse.â In other words, the stage was all set for a discarding of Holmesâ Time Lords.
OâMahony writes in his conclusion,
The Deadly Assassin could have remained a one-off, its vision of the Doctorâs homeworld set at odds not just with the Gallifrey stories of the past but also those of the future. The Killer Cats of Geng Singh was the last chance to slip the leash. Williams loved the Time Lords but he had a raft of other ideas he could have put into play, not least the frustratingly deferred Guardians who were clearly intended as a new rung of the series cosmology above and beyond the Time Lords. The premise of Killer Cats was also to counterpoint the Time Lords with another Gallifreyan species â a race of humanoid cats that delighted in bloodthirsty gladiatorial contests alongside a highly refined culture. This wasnât cribbing from The Deadly Assassin, this was building something new that would expand the newly-forged mythology of the series. In fact, with the cat-people on board and the Guardians waiting in the wings, the possibilities for Time Lord mythology were fluid. It might be possible to return to Gallifrey and find something new and exciting each time, different Gallifreys, with a mutable and ever-expanding history.
However, thanks to Killers of the Darkâs cancellation, Williams and Read were left with a slot to fill on short notice, and for The Invasion of Time they ultimately turned back to Holmesâ ideas. The Deadly Assassin wasnât discarded or undermined, it was reentrenched.
This was the real moment that the Time Lords as we know them were crystallized: a real-world anchoring of the thread. This was when the whimsically-named planet âGallifreyâ definitively transformed into the rationalistic, stagnant, bureaucratic Homeworld that would feature in the Faction Paradox series.
Because in FP, by the time Grandfather Paradox enters the scene, the Great Houses are total strangers to whismy. Itâs only through the course of the War that their understanding of the cosmos is broadened and stranger things begin to return to the Homeworld (with great vengeance).
By showing us a cat in the flesh, OâMahony is finishing the housekeeping: just as the Intuitive Revelation banished the Pythia, the Eremites, and the Carnival Queen; just as the Grey Eminence unwrote Gallifreyâs first childbirth; and just as the Eternals âdespaired of this reality, and fled their hallowed hallsâ at first hint of conflict â the Killer Cats have to leave to set the scene for the War to come.
P.S.
In Bakerâs End, Tom Baker wound up âthe King of Catsâ. What does this imply about the Other?!?
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Tom Baker as the Master of Baker's End/The King of Cats
Back in 2009, Tom Baker returned to the role of the Doctor for the first time in years, for the audio series Hornet's Nest, written by Paul Magrs. This was the first of three series known as the Nest Cottage Chronicles, where the Doctor was living semi-retired in the eponymous cottage in Sussex.
Later, Magrs and Baker continued the story with Baker's End for Bafflegab Productions, changing the name of the cottage and characters and making the Doctor into a version of Tom Baker himself.
So who was he really? Officially the Nest Cottage Chronicles feature the Fourth Doctor, but he is written as transcending continuity and often sounds to be older. Perhaps this is a version of the Fourth Doctor who never regenerated. Or perhaps he's the Curator. Or perhaps Tom Baker was the Doctor all along...
Hello Mr Well Of Knowledge Sir! I have a question for you! Well two in fact... As I have recent purchased several Time Hunter books I would love your help on a bit of context... is it mean to be a Doctor Who AU orrr? and what exactly is The King of the Cats/ Bakers End deal... I've had the suspicion that's linked to DW as well! I'm just so confused !!
1) So! Time Hunter could arguably be an AU since the incarnation of the Doctor that appears in the first (The Cabinet of Light) and the last (Child of Time) is an unknown future (?) incarnation. And despite return appearances from some familiar Doctor Who villains, we donât get much of a glimpse at the universe as a whole, just Earth and where HonorĂŠ and Emily can reach.Â
However.Â
One of the key themes of the novel series is that something really is not quite right with Time anymore. Time is a bit of a mess, and the universe is suffering for it. Time Hunter itself is actually far more fantasy than science-fiction in my opinion, with telepaths, physics, magic, ritualistic cultists, and demons. In fact, the tone of the entire series is almost exactly like the post-Ancestor Cell EDAs, especially the likes of The Burning, City of the Dead, The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, Camera Obscura. But you can (and should) draw numerous parallels to the Faction Paradox comic, and the lore and history surrounding Father Time and Miranda.
Amidst the tone (a broken universe, Time in shambles, magic slipping through the cracks in established order) there is certainly a recurring theme of the villains of the series (even from the very first book!) trying to gain mastery over Time. Which of course, like the late EDAs, seems to imply there are no more Time Lords.Â
Add to the fact that the Time Hunter Doctor, in a complete coincidence, looks exactly like a young Richard E. Grant, and you more or less have a series that fits in perfectly with the post-War universe of the Eighth Doctor novels, where Gallifrey has been destroyed and wiped from history at the Warâs end, leaving the Doctor a walking paradox and the universe a mess of everything the Time Lords locked away.Â
(I actually argue there are several intentional links to this idea too, such as a group of monsters putting on Time Lord regalia for a ritual to control Time with the TARDIS in a similar manner to the Onhir in Trading FuturesâŚ)
2) Bakerâs End is the single most Paul Magrs thing to ever Paul Magrs. Basically, a fictionalized Tom Baker, played by Tom Baker, portrayed as a larger-than-life âKing of Cats,â lives in a fictional English village, dies, and catapults the whole village into a fantasy that only Paul Magrs could create.Â
⌠really all there is to that one, really. Apparently, like everything Magrs writes, there are so many connections and references that link to his EDAs and Iris novels/stories that one could absolutely sit down and try to figure out how the fuck it fits into the Whoniverse.Â
One further mystery: in the fourth and final release of Baker's End, Tom Baker died and returned as Colin Baker. The Curator was also played by both Tom and Colin Baker...
Wait so Baker's End is about the Bakers as themselves but it's connected to the Whoniverse?
From 2009 to 2011, Paul Magrs wrote The Nest Cottage Chronicles, a series of fifteen Fourth Doctor audio stories released by BBC Audio. This is how he described the series in a blog post:
But that winter and spring I was secretly writing this strange adventure that he [Tom Baker] had partially suggested himself, in a lunch meeting with my editor and producer. What if⌠he wondered expansively⌠what if his Doctor Who hadnât regenerated after all? What if he had quietly retired to a village somewhere deep in the English countryside, rather like Sherlock Holmes had? What if he had a dog and a tetchy housekeeper? What if he had a companion come to visit him during the long winter nights? Someone for him to share spooky stories with..?
What if that was the way he could return to Doctor Who? As a storyteller sitting comfortably by the fire..? Unwinding macabre tales of terror like infinite strings of multi-coloured wool�
Anyway, as you might guess, theyâre completely lovely audios. After they were all done, Paul Magrs wanted to write some more, but the contract was over and he didnât have the BBCâs permission to use the Doctor. So naturally he got the actors together anyway and gave them all slightly different names. Like Louise Jameson is Fenella Frimbly rather than Fenella Wibbsey, and the Fourth Doctor is ⌠well, âTom Bakerâ.
Since thereâs no BBC constraints, everything is even more Magrsian and whimsical, and thereâs tons of crossovers with his Iris Wildthyme stories (eg Vince Cosmos shows up). And then yes, at one point Tom Baker regenerates into Colin Baker. Highly recommended!
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BAKER'S END EPIC SALE, EVERYTHING'S ÂŁ5 TO DOWNLOAD
In preparation for the upcoming release in Paul Magrâs insanely wonderful âBakerâs Endâ series, all the previous ones are on sale for just ÂŁ7 on CD and ÂŁ5 to download!
