All of Time and Space

The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles #4.1

Released: 21 February 2023

Listened: 3/18/23

This is the start of a new box, with both the set and this story called “All of Time and Space,” which is an Eleventh Doctor catchphrase, but I think there could’ve been better titles for this one. The last story ended with the TARDIS exploding, and this one picks up there, except it doesn’t, because this story is all about meta. It’s so meta, in fact, that one of the characters provides the theme music. Tim Foley is turning it up to 11 for this one. The main character, more or less, is one Ellery Quest (any resemblance to Ellery Queen completely intentional), a writer from London, 1956, who’s trying to sell his idea for a story called Doctor Who. He knows all about the Doctor and Valerie, who eventually start talking to him from…a variety of places, really. Which makes the story rather tricky to follow, even for Ellery. Fortunately, Valerie seems to be establishing herself as the empathy conduit. She’s willing to talk to the bystanders, and willing to call the Doctor out on his crap. In a lot of ways, she’s the companion that Clara should have been, before Clara started trying to take control. All of this culminates in a discussion about the Web of Time, and how some points are fixed and others aren’t. Valerie really isn’t happy with the amount of “because the Doctor says so” involved here, but claims that she understands.