Guide:Plot summary for those who left with Smith
Are you one of the viewers who left as Smith did? Are you looking for a refresher as to what happened after? Have no fear, that's precisely what this guide is for. We'll try to get you up to speed to the current era since the departure of the 11th Doctor.
Series 8
After his regeneration into a starker, slightly more alien incarnation, Clara finds herself questioning her continued journeys with the Doctor. The problem is compounded as she finds it difficult to keep a healthy balance between her travels and her personal life, a new boyfriend. These issues come to a head when her boyfriend dies, and she begins to unravel. At the same time, The Master returns, in a female incarnation, Missy, and tries to convert all of the world's dead into Cybermen as a way to hold the earth hostage and force the Doctor to conquer the universe. Ultimately the crisis is averted by those same Cybermen, some of which didn't fully shut off their emotions.
Series 9
The Doctor and Clara continue on their adventures, with Clara stepping up and taking a more active role, and the Doctor becoming more protective of her. This culminates when Clara dies, and the Doctor becomes trapped in a time loop for billions of years, killing himself over and over again to find a way out. When he does so, he finds himself on Gallifrey, freed from the bubble universe where they were trapped, and uses the technology present to extract Clara from right before her death. The two steal another TARDIS and fly away. But during their flight it becomes clear that Clara's death isn't being reversed, and the Doctor decides that to prevent the Time Lords from tracking her through their memories he'll erase hers. Clara refuses, insisting that her past is her own, and instead randomizes the device that the Doctor would use to do this. the Doctor instead erases his own memory, and Clara flies away in the new TARDIS, leaving him on Earth.
Series 10
Years later, the Doctor finds himself lecturing at St Luke's University, and notices a young woman who audits a class of his without being enrolled, Bill Potts, played by Pearl Mackie. He offers to tutor her, and she finds herself drawn into his world slowly but surely. the Doctor, for his part, has been guarding a vault with Nardole, played by Matt Lucas, and uses trips with Bill as an excuse to travel discretely off world, shirking his duty. In the end it's revealed that the vault contains Missy, and the Doctor has sworn to guard her for one hundred years, slowly trying to reform her, little by little. She finally accompanies Bill, Nardole, and the Doctor on a test run - an adventure on a colony ship, and everything goes wrong. Another incarnation of The Master is present, as are Cybermen, and while Bill ultimately manages to make it off the ship the group is on, Missy and her earlier self wound each other lethally, and the Doctor forces himself to the brink of regeneration saving the colonists. He insists, however, back inside his TARDIS, that he won't change again. He's done becoming someone else, and just wants it to end. His TARDIS takes him back to meet his first incarnation who's wrestling with much the same dilemma. Eventually, they both decide to take one step more. And the Doctor regenerates into the Thirteenth Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker.
Series 11
Starting this new era of Doctor Who, this new Doctor falls out of her TARDIS, as it has been destroyed by regenerative energy, and lands on a train in Sheffield, where she meets Yasmin Khan, a police officer, played by Mandip Gill, Ryan Sinclair, played by Tosin Cole, Grace O'Brien, Ryan's grandmother, played by Sharon D Clarke, and Graham O'Brien, Grace's husband and Ryan's step-granddad. Together, they form an alliance, and fight Tzim-Sha of the Stenza, a mighty warrior race whose sole purpose is to hunt human beings. Together, they manage to save the planet, but tragically Grace dies in the process, leaving Graham a widow. the Doctor then attempts to return to the TARDIS, but accidentally takes her new companions with her, and they begin to travel alongside her. After many exciting adventures, they once more face Tzim-Sha, and end up by locking him in his temple, ending the character arcs of Graham and Ryan that began with the death of Grace.
Series 12
They continue with their travels, fighting a new incarnation of the Master, robotic postmen and Judoon. The Master reveals to the Doctor that he has destroyed Gallifrey once more, and the Doctor discovers that this is true. Heartbroken, the Doctor nonetheless continues on her travels, and she meets an earlier incarnation of herself, one she has no memory of, and one who has no memory of her. This mysterious incarnation, known retroactively as the Fugitive Doctor, works for shadowy organisation Division, but has run away and become a human on Earth. The Thirteenth Doctor helps her escape from Division, and carries on her way across the universe. Later, she comes across a lone Cyberman by the name of Ashad. She manages to temporarily defeat him, but must now face of hundreds of Cybermen in an epic battle. Alone with the last of humanity, she must battle the Cybermen and the Master, who had allied himself with the Cybermen. The Master takes her aside to Gallifrey and reveals to her that she is, in fact, no Time Lord, and that everything that she has ever been told about the Time Lords is a lie. She was discovered by a wormhole by the early Time Lords, and from her biology they discovered the secret to regeneration. This was the reason that there Master has destroyed Gallifrey. This was the explanation for the mysterious earlier incarnation of herself. This was a very contentious and controversial retcon alongside Doctor Who fans, who are mostly idiots. The Doctor manages to save her companions and the rest of the universe from the Cybermen, but is captured by the Judoon and trapped in prison.
