Somewhere I’m Needed was a late addition. The Doctor had become too much in the background with the stories swinging now towards what Chris and Davie were doing, so I wrote this one to explain The Doctor’s frustrations at not being at his fullest strength and vigour.

There are a few stories in TV and literature that deal with strong, active men reduced to inaction by illness or accidents. They make for an interesting exploration of their psyche. One of the most well drawn ones in science fiction, I think, was an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation in which the warrior Klingon security officer, Woorf, was paralysed. Of all the crew he was possibly the worst candidate for an invalid life and his frustrations were well explored in the episode.

That was in the back of my mind when I wrote about The Doctor’s frustrations. Of course, infirmity and lack of mobility was something he had faced before. His first incarnation was a very frail old man for a long time. But since then he had always been active. So pain, shortness of breath, awareness of his own limitations was something that would seriously affect the Ninth Doctor, a strong, and strong-willed man.

Being molly-coddled by his wife, mother-in-law and granddaughter would quickly lose its novelty value, too. So The Doctor breaks out of his prison of feminine love and asks his TARDIS to take him somewhere he is needed. And that turns out to be earlier in Rose’s life.

Here, one idea from the TV programme came into use. The personal perception filter. Because seriously, the idea of a man in an old leather jacket watching a kids birthday party, or surreptitiously hanging around a young girl going to school was not something to be encouraged. But he managed to be there for Rose and Jackie when they needed a helping hand. Mostly it was coming up with presents that made their life a little brighter, holidays, toys, gifts. All coming, Rose thought, from her mum’s passion for entering competitions. The red bicycle when she was twelve is an old theme. The Doctor claimed to be responsible for that as far back as The Doctor Dances, when Rose accused him of acting like Father Christmas. A few bits of fan fiction have tried to explain that, but never completely.

Then there was the big dilemma of her life. The Doctor witnessed but knew this time he COULDN’T intervene when teenage Rose had her first sexual experience. Again, Jimmy Stones is a part of her background that nobody explained. She said in her very first episode that she only left school because of him. In the Annual for that year Russell T. Davies wrote a short story about how she had left school to move in with him, and he had let her down badly so that she went back to her mum. That story would have fitted just as well. The Doctor would still have had to watch and not intervene for all the reasons given in this story. But it would have taken longer. Jimmy using her and then going back to the party to tell all his friends about it, was not only the sort of thing boys do, but a quick, simple, explanation of why Rose left school without doing her O’levels. It also introduced Mickey as the man who would take care of her in the meantime. Reliable, if unimaginative Mickey who would never knowingly harm her. The Doctor knew that she was in good hands until it was his time to know her.

Meanwhile there was Jackie to look after. And she was about to have a date with disaster. The Doctor’s discovery that her new boyfriend was an alien who wanted to get to Rose through her again echoes the series in a way. Elton Pope used Jackie to get to Rose on behalf of an alien who wanted to destroy The Doctor. This was a less sophisticated plot with the same end. Except, in fact, it was The Doctor and Rose’s son, Peter, who was destined to be an important man, who was the target in the time honoured plot from The Terminator – kill the mother before the child is born.

The last scene, in which The Doctor meets Jackie in the pub and makes her feel less rotten about being stood up wasn’t necessary, of course. His work was done. But The Doctor cares about Jackie. And he just spends that last hour or so of his ‘prison break’ making her feel less like a washed up slapper and reminding her that she IS a worthwhile Human being. Just in case any complications might arise with his further mother in law and daughter in law, his claim to having been stood up by somebody called Jack came into play.