Coda: The Final Act

Once and Future #8

Released: 22 November 2024

Listened: 3/15/26

For reasons I never really understood, the last part of "Once and Future" was released a full year after "The Union." However, as the title suggests, it's not the finale, but rather a coda. It picks up with the War Doctor immediately after leaving River and Susan, still suffering from the effects of the degenerative weapon. But the main attraction here is this was the first appearance of Jo Martin as the Fugitive Doctor. She'd get her own series shortly, but this is the beginning. She's pretty much the version of the character seen in Flux, preferring to act alone, generally being short with people, and definitively willing to use violence. Which is probably why she's matched up with the War Doctor in this story, except, as often seems to happen in their stories, we don't see either of them do anything all that terrible. And because this miniseries always brings in random other characters, we get a short visit from Vienna Salvatore, and a longer one from Bernice Summerfield. Why Benny didn't turn up in "Time Lord Immemorial," where she was specifically mentioned, is anybody's guess, but she's here now. She's met her share of Doctors, but doesn't know these two. What she does know is that neither of them are acting Doctor-ish, and that bothers her. For his part, the War Doctor is unusually reckless; he needs an army, so he ends up recruiting Queen Elizabeth's (not his first choice, but it's what he got). Elizabeth remembers the War Doctor, as he attended her wedding, but for him, that hasn't happened yet. There's a lot of mistaken identity and people being lied to in this story, possibly to set up a new big bad, but if that's the case, they haven't reappeared as of this writing.