#jon blum

It's just a delight of a story. It's political (the Doctor and crew - well, Doctors, actually - try to take down Palantir!), hilarious, kind of a Hitch Hiker's Guide crossover, and Sam is the queerest she's ever been written - And when you see who for, you'll understand why.

Remember, cuckoos are brood parasites, the parents often sneaking their young into other species nests and letting the rearing fall on the another’s shoulders, and Lungbarrow already has an interesting passage where Glospin unleashes his full hatred at the Doctor in very much that flavor.

I also think you could cover the ParkinOrmanBlum Ulysses/Joyce and Penelope angle as well, especially with The Gallifrey Chronicles firmly establishing that the child’s hybrid nature, maybe his existence entirely, was something of a guarded secret. But then even stuff like Magrs’ The Blue Angel frames the Doctor as something almost parasitic to the Time Lord “nest?” 

But now, of course, we have an even bigger taste of a “cuckoo” Doctor origin...

Today’s needless fixation brought to you by rewatching The Visitation. The sci-fi metal MacGuffin “tinclavic,” associated with the Terileptils and the Hakolians, creators of the evil Malus, is naturally secreted by the sentient spaceships used by Seeing I and The Infinity Doctor’s horrifying and monstrous race the I. It’s a really tiny continuity fluff that nevertheless gives the I a thematic tether to other really interesting Who monsters and lore, so I dunno, just really love little bits like that.

1) The way this scene is written, highlighting Joyce’s adult daughter with his second wife Anne (because remember, he’s Ulysses, so there’s Penelope to keep in mind) before he launches into a grumpy tirade about the Doctor’s companions, one can 100% read an implication that Joyce’s daughter was a TARDIS companion at some point in the past or (the Doctor’s) future. And I love that idea a lot. The Doctor traveling with a younger half-sister and showing her the universe is a really sweet idea and has so much potential to be absolutely angst ridden. 

2) The idea of Joyce needing to be a father figure, starving for that sort of relationship with someone again, actually adds such a sweet element to the Doctor asking Joyce and Anne to care for Eric, a young telepath, in Jonathan Dennis’ The Killing of a Flash Boy (an absolute forgotten gem of a story that is one of my stranger picks for top ten Eighth Doctor short stories). 

The Doctor met up with Grace for absolutely no plot related reasons only to fuck, send tweet. 

The universe getting smaller feels absolutely like a further nod to the Greyness from The Infinity Doctors mentioned earlier in the book, and Joyce’s comment can be seen as either a lovely canon-welding nod to the City of the Saved or the Post-War Universe. 

The original synopsis for Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum’s Vampire Science featuring Dr. Grace Halloway.

Depending on your reading of Rassilon’s rewriting of the Eighth Doctor’s timeline to give him Sam and rid of a companion who would “screw” him, this is the original timeline of events undone by Unnatural History’s recontextualization of The Eight Doctors.

The Doctor borrowing Fitz’s jacket. 

The Doctor’s haircut in Vampire Science. 

The Doctor making a swing for his daughter Miranda in their backyard.