Loose Ends 3: The Regency (short story)
Loose Ends 3: The Regency was the third short story in the Loose Ends segment of Doctor Who Magazine, depicting "what really happened" during unseen gaps in the televised Doctor Who stories.
Plot
Scenes We Never Saw
- A Good Man Goes to War [+]Loading...["A Good Man Goes to War (TV story)"]
Stevie Wonder exits the Doctor's TARDIS onto the ice of the River Thames during the 1814 frost fair. The Eleventh Doctor follows behind with an electric keyboard, ready for him to perform for River Song. Realising that he needs electricity, the Doctor takes Stevie's advice and plugs it into an extension lead running from the TARDIS. Stevie begins to play but admits that his music will sound empty without any other instruments - the Doctor believed that he played all his parts at the same time.
An hour later, River listens to the final performance as five Stevie Wonders play "Happy Birthday" together. She tells the Doctor that she likes her surprise but did not realise this is what he meant by showing her the "wonders" of the universe. Later, when being returned to his own time, Innervisions-era Stevie asks the Doctor if River knows about the adventures they have had together. The Doctor admits that she does not and that he wants her to keep thinking that she is the only person he keeps meeting out of order.
Where Are They Now?
- Mary Shelley from The Haunting of Villa Diodati [+]Loading...["The Haunting of Villa Diodati (TV story)"]
Mary explains that her novel, Frankenstein, has finally been published, and she realises how much of it was inspired by her lakeside stay in Geneva, especially the unexpected visits by "Mrs Doctor", her friends, and the "Cyber-Man". She thinks about how inspiring seeing a modern Prometheus in the flesh was but wonders about how it travelled in time. Mary questions whether she would still have had the idea for the book if she was not visited that night, and admits that she has a feeling of another life not lived: "where things would have been the same, and yet different...".
Characters
Worldbuilding
- Stevie Wonder describes the 1814 frost fair as being as cold as Minneapolis.
- Stevie is able to play the keyboard, drums, Moog synthesizer bass, percussion, and clavinet, and records all of the instruments on his songs solo.
Notes
- This instalment was released to commemorate the upcoming airing of TV: Rogue [+]Loading...["Rogue (TV story)"].
- In this instalment, the Scenes Unseen segment is retitled to Scenes We Never Saw.
- This is the first instalment of Loose Ends to feature a scene that does not explicitly take place during or after a TV story; instead, Scenes We Never Saw is a depiction of a previously unseen but mentioned adventure.
- This short story also features a short non-fiction article titled The Unexplained, asking "When did the Doctor try to visit the Brighton Pavilion?", referencing the events of TV: The Leisure Hive [+]Loading...["The Leisure Hive (TV story)"].
Continuity
- The Eleventh Doctor's birthday surprise for River Song in 1814 which was previously referenced in TV: A Good Man Goes to War [+]Loading...["A Good Man Goes to War (TV story)"] is depicted, revealing more details that River was unaware of.
- Mary Shelley recaps the events of TV: The Haunting of Villa Diodati [+]Loading...["The Haunting of Villa Diodati (TV story)"].
- Mary displays feelings of having lived another, similar, life involving monsters that inspired Frankenstein. She was also depicted as being a companion of the Eighth Doctor from AUDIO: Mary's Story [+]Loading...["Mary's Story (audio story)"] onwards, which was set at the same time as The Haunting of Villa Diodati and was notably also written by Jonathan Morris.
