Fugitive of the Judoon (TV story)
Fugitive of the Judoon was the fifth episode of series 12 of Doctor Who.
It featured the introduction of a new incarnation of the Doctor, wrapped in mystery, with her own TARDIS, though neither Doctor can remember living the life of the other. This other Doctor is said to have used a Chameleon Arch to hide on Earth in her "Ruth Clayton" identity, and has a history working for the Time Lords, in an undisclosed capacity. As a result of this revelation, Jo Martin makes history by becoming the first non-white actor to be cast in the role of the Doctor, as well as the first to receive credit in this role.
This episode also saw the return of Captain Jack Harkness, who last made a televised appearance at the end of Torchwood series 4 in 2011 with The Blood Line. This was also his first appearance in televised Doctor Who in just over a decade, last having being seen in 2010's The End of Time. Although Jack does not interact with the Thirteenth Doctor in this story, he warns her companions about the Lone Cyberman, setting up a story arc that came to fruition in The Haunting of Villa Diodati.
True to its title, this story also saw the reintroduction of the Judoon, who became the first of those monsters first introduced in the Russell T Davies era to make an appearance under new showrunner Chris Chibnall.
Synopsis
The Judoon are on the hunt for a runaway and they have narrowed their search down to modern-day Gloucester. The Thirteenth Doctor and her friends decide to step in before anyone can get hurt, but things are far more complex than they seem. A complex web is about to unfold, featuring a surprising new face and a worrying prophecy from an old friend.
Plot
While her companions try to get her to talk about her search for the Master (given her assumption that he escaped the Kasaavin), the Doctor learns that a Judoon platoon has descended upon Gloucester and put a forcefield around the city in search of a fugitive. The Doctor manages to bypass the forcefield and arrive in Gloucester. Upon landing and unbeknownst to the Doctor, Graham is teleported to a stolen spaceship piloted by Captain Jack Harkness who mistook Graham for the Doctor. The Doctor intervenes when the Judoon try to attack the apartment of Lee and Ruth Clayton, and stalls them long enough to question the couple and find a hidden box. Lee refuses to answer the Doctor's questions, but he covers the group's escape, turning himself in to the Judoon before being killed by their contractor, Gat, who recognises him as the fugitive's associate.
Whilst the Doctor flees with Ruth to Gloucester Cathedral, Ryan and Yaz are teleported to Harkness' ship, which is now being attacked by its rightful owners. When Harkness learns the Judoons' forcefield prevents him from teleporting the Doctor, he is forced to ask the Doctor's companions to tell the Doctor to beware of the "Lone Cyberman" and to not give it what it wants. He is forced to teleport due to the ship's anti-theft attack system while Graham, Ryan, and Yaz are transported back to Gloucester. The Doctor and Ruth are soon surrounded by the Judoon in the cathedral. Ruth reflexively attacks them, forcing them to retreat after ripping off their commander's horn. With Ruth unable to explain herself, she reveals Lee sent her a text before his death that leads them to a lighthouse where she grew up.
There, the Doctor finds a TARDIS buried outside under a blank gravestone. Ruth, meanwhile, enters the lighthouse and, breaking an alarm box, is engulfed in energy which restores her memory. Ruth then introducing herself as the Doctor. With neither remembering the other, the Thirteenth Doctor assumes the "Fugitive" Doctor to be an unknown past incarnation while the "Fugitive" Doctor reveals that she used a chameleon arch to hide herself from her former associate Gat. The "Fugitive" Doctor's TARDIS is then taken aboard the Judoon ship, and the two Doctors confront Gat, who is revealed to be a Time Lord with orders to retrieve the "Fugitive" Doctor. Against the "Fugitive" Doctor's orders, the Thirteenth Doctor introduces herself, and shows Gat a vision of the destroyed Gallifrey that she saw, which she attempts to dismiss as trickery. Gat is killed when she fires a sabotaged weapon confiscated from the "Fugitive" Doctor.
After the Thirteenth Doctor is dropped back to Gloucester by the "Fugitive" Doctor, she is reunited with her companions, who relay Harkness's message. Confused by these recent events, the Doctor senses that something is coming for her.
Cast
- The Doctor - Jodie Whittaker
- Graham O'Brien - Bradley Walsh
- Yasmin Khan - Mandip Gill
- Ryan Sinclair - Tosin Cole
- Ruth Clayton - Jo Martin
- Captain Jack Harkness - John Barrowman
- Lee Clayton - Neil Stuke
- Gat - Ritu Arya
- Judoon Captain Pol-Kon-Don - Paul Kasey
- All Ears Allan - Michael Begley
- Marcia - Judith Street
- Tourist - Katie Luckins
- Voice of Judoon Captain - Nicholas Briggs
- Judoon - Simon Carew, Richard Highgate, Richard Price, Matthew Rohman
- And introducing Jo Martin as The Doctor
Crew
to be added
References
Locations
- Ruth is a tour guide at Gloucester Cathedral.
- Yasmin notes that the Kasaavin trapped the Master in their world.
- The Doctor sees, and later shows Gat, a flashback of the destroyed Gallifrey.
- Lee claims to be from Stroud.
- Jack Harkness got the Quantican Scoop from a fourple on Ibiza XIII.
- Ruth owns a Lighthouse, which in reality is a hide-out for her TARDIS and the trigger for her real memories.
Events
- In 1216, Henry III was crowned at Gloucester Cathedral.
- Harry Potter was also filmed in the cathedral.
- Lee once received an army medal made of chronotelluric alloy.
- Gat cites the Blinovitch Limitation Effect as an "abomination".
- The Thirteenth Doctor remembers the Last Great Time War.
- The Ruth Doctor names the temporal feedback loop as an event happening to two TARDISes getting too close to each other.
TARDIS
- The Doctor matches the TARDIS rotation to the Judoons' zonal enforcement field's refresh rate.
- Ruth's TARDIS has a classic retro-design exterior and a modified classic interior.
Organisations
- Ruth wears an SKMEI watch.
- On reading the Doctor's psychic paper, Pol-Kon-Don assumes she is an Imperial Regulator.
- Lee worked at Bathrooms4U.
- Lee and Ruth have a Gorenje fridge.
- Jack mentions the Alliance sent something back through time across space.
- The Judoon states their contract says to hand over the fugitive at the Division.
Food and drink
- Ruth makes herself a birthday breakfast of buttered toast, an egg, and orange juice.
- Ruth buys a coffee from Allan.
- The coffee shop serves pancakes.
- Lee buys a birthday cake from Allan for Ruth, and mentions he usually comes to get a latte.
- Graham takes a muffin.
- Gat likens the Judoon's noisiness to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Jargon, slang and colloquialisms
- The Doctor calls the infiltration a "Judoon platoon near the moon" and "...near that lagoon". Yaz calls the latter "more of a canal".
- Jack calls Graham "Silver Fox".
- The Ruth Doctor calls the sonic screwdriver a "cute little gizmo".
- The Thirteenth Doctor called her ruse as an Imperial Regulator a "fib".
- The Thirteenth Doctor hatches a plan she calls "the curveball and the Judoon".
- Ryan calls Jack Harkness "kind of cheesy".
Individuals
- Ruth has a swan-friend that she calls Reggie.
- Marcia is an old lady that knits.
- Allan works at the coffee shop. He has a dossier on Lee Clayton.
- The Doctor is looking for the Master.
- The Doctor and Yaz note that the arrestee is entitled to arbitration with a third party under the "made-up" local Earth law Rule 12. They get away with it due to Yaz being a Liaison Officer.
- The Doctor flippantly says that Ruth "turned into Jackie Chan" after fighting off the Judoon.
- Jack tells Graham, Yaz and Ryan to tell the Doctor to beware the Lone Cyberman.
- The Thirteenth Doctor gets offended when the "Fugitive" Doctor gives her points, claiming it as her thing.
The Judoon
- The Doctor notes the Judoon use a Level Seven Enforcement Field.
- Judoon Captain Pol-Kon-Don cites Judoon Engagement Article 163B.
- The Judoon cite Subsection 951 when finding out both the Doctors are the same fugitive.
Species
Technology
- The Doctor mentions the Master's hologram message to her companions.
- The Judoon use a zonal enforcement field on the Earth and threaten to use a Temporal Isolator, a Temporal Blast, to capture their target.
- The Judoon launch a Final Warning Missile into Lee and Ruth's flat.
- Jack is using a ship that has movement sensors that can set off laser spikes. It also has shields, an anti-theft attack system, and nanogenes.
- Jack uses a Quantican Scoop to transport Team TARDIS to his stolen ship and back.
- Lee sends Ruth a text from his mobile phone.
- Gat arrives by matter transmitter.
- Ruth has biological shielding which later is revealed to be the use of the Chameleon Arch.
- Ruth uses a biodata module disguised as a fire alarm to reverse the effect of the Chameleon Arch.
- Ruth has a laser rifle.
- A tractor beam brings the "Fugitive" Doctor's TARDIS to the Judoon's ship, a Judoonese Talwak Freighter.
- The "Fugitive" Doctor used a Chameleon Arch to hide as a human.
Story notes
- John Barrowman had to fake a house renovation in Cardiff to keep it secret that he was filming for Doctor Who. In fact, in order to keep up the ruse, Barrowman did actually carry out this renovation.[1]
- The Judoon Captain is named Pol-Kon-Don as a tribute to late Doctor Who fan and friend of Chris Chibnall, Paul Condon.[2]
- Although Nida Manzoor directed the episode, Jamie Magnus Stone directed Captain Jack Harkness' scenes.[3]
- The events of this Earth-based story are closely followed by the next episode, Praxeus, which is set "early in the third decade of the 21st century".
- "Ruth" celebrates what she believes to be her 44th birthday. The broadcast date of this episode, January 26, 2020, marks 44 years and 2 days since the January 24, 1976 broadcast of the final episode of TV: The Brain of Morbius, the last episode to explicitly suggest pre-Hartnell incarnations of the Doctor.
- This is the first television episode of Doctor Who featuring Jack Harkness since his introduction in TV: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances to not be written by Russell T Davies.
Ratings
Filming locations
- West Usk Lighthouse served as a filming location for this story. Since 2012, this lighthouse-turned-bed and breakfast has had a Dalek in the foyer and a TARDIS as changing room for the hot tub on the roof.[6]
Production errors
- When the two Doctors exit the "Fugitive" Doctor's TARDIS, as they open the door, the backside of the police box prop is clearly visible.
- The first such error since the early days of the Classic era of the show.
- When in the "Fugitive" Doctor's TARDIS, the wide shots with the "Fugitive" and Thirteenth Doctors show that the doors in the background appear to be slightly open.
Continuity
- The Doctor has been searching for any evidence that the Spy Master may have escaped the realm of the Kasaavin. (TV: Spyfall)
- The Doctor has visited Gallifrey multiple times, alone, since first seeing her home in the aftermath of the Master's destruction. (TV: Spyfall)
- The Doctor recalls that Gallifrey has been destroyed twice, by war (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell, TV: The End of the World et al.) and then by the Master. (TV: Spyfall)
- The Doctor notes that the Judoon have no jurisdiction on Earth. (TV: Smith and Jones, Prisoner of the Judoon, PROSE: Revenge of the Judoon)
- The Judoon execute a human for a petty act of assault and hand out compensation. (TV: Smith and Jones)
- The Doctor attempts to rhyme the word Judoon with platoon, moon (TV: Smith and Jones) and lagoon.
- Jack mistakes Graham for the Doctor. (TV: Spyfall, PROSE: The Good Doctor)
- Jack kisses the man he believes to be the Doctor, as he once did with the Ninth Doctor towards the end of their initial travels. (TV: The Parting of the Ways) Before reuniting with the Tenth Doctor, (TV: Utopia) Jack once expressed his intent to first kiss the Doctor, and then "kill him", when they met again. (TV: Fragments)
- Manifesting her true identity, "Ruth" refers to the Judoon as rhinoforms. (AUDIO: Judoon in Chains)
- Captain Jack is familiar with nanogenes (TV: The Empty Child), the Judoon (WC: Monster File: Judoon) and the Cybermen. (TV: Cyberwoman, COMIC: Supremacy of the Cybermen, WC: Monster File: Cybermen)
- "Ruth" uses a Chameleon Arch to disguise herself as a human, complete with false memories and rewritten human biology. (TV: Human Nature/The Family of Blood, Utopia, AUDIO: One Life)
- The Doctor tells Team TARDIS that the Cybermen are as dangerous as the Daleks. (TV: Resolution)
- Team TARDIS notes the Doctor brought them together. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth, Arachnids in the UK)
- The Doctor picks up multiple alerts across three continents on Earth. (TV: Praxeus)
- The Doctor and Team TARDIS later learn that the thing the Lone Cyberman wants is the Cyberium, which the Doctor is forced to relinquish. (TV: The Haunting of Villa Diodati)
Home video releases
to be added
External links
- Official Fugitive of the Judoon page on the Doctor Who website
Footnotes
- ↑ https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2020-01-26/john-barrowman-fake-renovation-doctor-who/
- ↑ https://cultbox.co.uk/news/judoon-captain-named-for-doctor-who-fan-paul-condon
- ↑ https://cultbox.co.uk/news/doctor-who-fugitive-of-the-judoon-behind-the-scenes
- ↑ Fugitive of the Judoon - Overnight Viewing Figures
- ↑ Fugitive of the Judoon - Official Ratings
- ↑ http://www.westusklighthouse.co.uk/
