Isobel and the Rani, by Matthew Clarke (my fan fiction)

This story answers the question of how the Rani knew about Mel in Time and the Rani.

Isobel Watkins appeared in The Invasion. My story Celebrity Yacht Party introduces this middle-aged version of Isobel Watkins.


St. Tropez, 2003

The Rani did not care much for going to Earth. It always meant disguising herself in local costume and adopting the primitive cultural norms of the many cultures on the wretched planet. However, she needed information badly and this was the place to go.

The Doctor had made so many visits to Earth that he had become and irregular but not unfamiliar presence to its inhabitants. In the twentieth century had emerged the peculiar phenomena of Doctor-watchers, individuals who took an obsessive interest in the person of the mysterious Doctor. Few of them had any accurate information and most of them had the most improbable theories as to the Doctor's identity. Nevertheless, the individual that the Rani was consulting had an advantage over the other Doctor-watchers- she had actually met the Doctor. Isobel Watkins was one of the many humans who had been tangled up in one of the Doctor's tiresome little adventures. Over the years she had maintained contact with the Doctor and had met every one of his incarnations. Whether the Doctor was happy about it or not, she was actually working on the first ever biography of the Time Lord. TARDISes were programmed to avoid out of sequence encounters between Time Lords and so the Rani could be sure that her TARDIS had brought her to a period in which the Doctor's current incarnation had visited most recently. All she needed to do was to charm this human woman into helping her.

The Rani's heavily shoulder-padded tunic and tight trousers were never going to look right in this particular era and so she had instead opted for a red dress. It had to be expensive-looking; the moorings of St. Tropez was the haunt of rich humans who delighted in nothing but flaunting their good fortune. These humans seemed to love money as much as her own people loved power.

When she arrived at Isobel's private yacht, the Rani was met by a member of the crew who instructed her to remove her shoes before coming on board. The Rani slipped out of her stiletto sandals and padded across the gang plank in her large bare feet. She was thankful that in this regeneration she was tall enough to manage without the added lift of her heels. Humans were so precious about their worldly goods. She cared little for the state of her own TARDIS, provided it was functional and sterile.

On the deck she was met by a middle-aged woman with fair hair. She had a healthy tan from enjoying more sun than the average human on this continent. She wore a white dress and like the Rani, was barefoot.

The Rani knew she was expected. She had contacted Isobel via the Internet and had prepared a cover story. "Isobel, I'm Melody Lakeland. I'm delighted to meet you. It was very gracious of you to invite me here," said the Rani.

"The pleasure is all mine, Melody," Isobel replied. "It really is dolly to meet somebody who knows the Doctor well." The Rani was quite unable to place Isobel's nasal accent. Still, she was hardly the expert on human accents.

The Rani handed to Isobel the suitcase she had been carrying. "A present for you," she said. "The robes the Doctor wore when he was at the Prydonian academy." Of course they were no such thing. They were in fact the robes the Rani herself had worn at the academy. How was Isobel to know that the robes had been worn by a cute little girl in pigtails and not a snotty-nosed fair-haired boy? The Rani was rather glad to be rid of the robes; she had no sentiment or nostalgia for her school days.

Isobel seemed overjoyed by the gift. "Oh, that is so dolly! How can I ever thank you. To think these are clothes worn by the Doctor in his childhood. I am being a terrible hostess. You must sit down and have a glass of wine."

The two women sat down to share a bottle of wine. The Rani hated socialising, and she was starting to hate this sentimental fool of a human, but she knew this was necessary to her mission.

"So tell me, Melody," enquired Isobel. "How did you come to know the Doctor so well?"

"It's hard to explain," replied the Rani. "You could say it's a timey wimey thing. I keep bumping into him at different stages of his life. I meet his later incarnations first then I am working my way down. Eventually I will become the Doctor's wife, but this has not actually happened yet. Timey wimey, as I said."

"You become Mrs. Doctor!" exclaimed Isobel. "That is so dolly! How lucky for you! When did the two of you get hitched?"

"It has not actually happened yet. It is part of his timestream, however. You could say we have a non-linear relationship," explained the Rani.

Isobel seemed completely baffled by this, but she was clearly quite excited about it all. This was entirely the Rani's intention. She felt quite pleased with herself for duping Isobel into believing this absurd story. 'Timey wimey non-linear relationship' indeed!

The Rani moved on to the subject of Isobel's biographical research. "Tell me about the book you are writing, Isobel."

"Yes, my biography of the Doctor. I have met all of the Doctor's incarnations- so far, I think. I have spent time with all of them. I have photos, I have interviewed some of the main people he knew on Earth. It is going to be a quite fantastic read. Some of the UNIT stuff was difficult to research, with it being a top secret security organisation. But I had a lot of help on that front from my dolly husband, Dmitri. He used to be a KGB agent, you know," said Isobel.

"I mentioned to you that I was interested in finding out a bit more about the Doctor's current incarnation. The loud one who wears that awful coat. You have met him, I trust?" asked the Rani.

"Yes, I have met him alright. I find him rather dolly. He seems to enjoy attention more than the last one, and I am only too happy to oblige. He seemed quite delighted when I told him about the biography project."

The Rani smiled at this. "I have not met this Doctor yet. I have met all the others. The thing is that I always have to tread carefully when it comes to his fellow travellers. I don't want to make them jealous. I have to keep them on side. It would really help if I could find out as much as possible about who he is travelling with currently."

"Of course. You mentioned to me that this is what you wanted and after you gave me those robes, how could I refuse? I have had several holidays with this Doctor and I spent almost a week with him and his dolly assistant Mel in Paris. I took so many photographs and videos. You can have copies."

Once the material was in the Rani's hands, she wasted little more time. After offering Isobel some pleasantries, she made a quick get-away from the boat and grabbed her shoes.

When she had returned to her TARDIS, the Rani pored over the materials. Contrary to her lies to Isobel, she could only ever meet the Doctor in linear succession. It was the built into the very nature of the Time Lord's travel machines. The last companion to come to Earth would be the one the Doctor was currently with. This Mel creature. The Rani noted her hair, her features and the clothes she wore.

In front of her audio-visual monitor, the Rani imitated the energetic power-walk of Mel. In front of her mirror, she practiced the beaming grin. Again and again she attempted to master the high-pitched nasal voice. Even alone in her TARDIS, it felt humiliating, but nobody could master time and space without tears.

Celebrity Yacht Party, by Matthew Clarke (my fan fiction)

This is my first attempt at a Fifth Doctor story. It is set between Snakedance and Mawdryn Undead.

Isobel Watkins is one of those characters who comes across like she might have become a companion. I wanted to explore what happened to her after The Invasion. I am assuming here that The Invasion is set in 1979 and the UNIT era was from 1979-1985.


St.Tropez, 2002

Tegan stood on the deck looking down at her bare feet. The guests at the boat party had all been asked to remove their shoes to protect the precious decks. Tegan hated being without a decent pair of heels. She valued the extra height and the elegance it gave her stride. She felt like a five-year old when prancing around barefoot. It was all well dressing up in a glamorous cocktail dress, but without the stilettos, the outfit was incomplete in her opinion. Perhaps the millionaires on board were used to managing the combination, but to her it seemed downright weird.

Tegan looked at Nyssa. She looked equally uncomfortable. Nyssa was not one for dressing up. She had only just managed to wean herself off that hideous puffy-sleeved Elizabethan number. Nyssa seemed as awkward in the little black dress as Tegan was feeling without her high heels. Not that Nyssa seemed all that comfortable being shoeless either. Nyssa had seemed to enjoy that masked ball at Cranleigh Hall. Maybe that was more like the kind of parties they had on Traken. Here on a yacht full of millionaires and celebrities, it seemed like she might as well have been on a planet of giant ants and butterflies. 'Then again,' Tegan thought, 'Nyssa would probably like being on a planet full of giant insects. Plenty of nerdy stuff to poke.'

Tegan looked across the deck at her fellow guests. All of them were rich and most of them were famous, or so she was told. This was over fifteen years into her future. She had never heard of most of these celebrities. There was the odd film director or actor that she recognised, but they looked frighteningly old compared to how she remembered them. Not so long ago, she would have killed to be at a function like this, shoes on or off. After travelling in time and space with the Doctor, this little bash just seemed a bit of a let down. Most of the guests that she had spoken to seemed hopelessly narcissistic.

Tegan saw the Doctor tearing himself away from some aging rock star and help himself to another mineral water. She had hoped that the Doctor might make the effort to wear something stylish and classy for this party, but as ever he was wearing that ridiculous Edwardian cricket outfit he always wore. Shuffling along the deck in his socks, Tegan thought he looked even sillier than usual.

The Doctor warmly greeted a woman who padded towards them. She was in her early forties and attractive. Her hair was blonde and she had the tanned look of somebody who spent a lot of time in a warm climate. She wore a gorgeous blue dress and like everybody else on the boat, was barefoot.

"Oh, Doctor, the woman said, "Won't you introduce me to your dolly friends?" Tegan was a little unsettled by the woman's accent. She clearly came from a very upper-middle class English family, but she seemed to put on a very affected cockney accent and there was also the hint of an American twang.

"Ah yes," the Doctor replied. "This is Tegan and this is Nyssa. Tegan, Nyssa, this is our hostess, Isobel Watkins. She and I go back a long way."

"You must meet my dolly husband, Dmitri," Isobel said, directing them towards a tall man with thinning blonde hair. He wore sunglasses and his shirt was half open. He said nothing, but smiled. "Dmitri is very quiet," explained Isobel, "But he's absolutely loaded. He owns six newspapers, woud you believe? He also used to be a KGB agent. He could tell you some stories, but he'd have to kill you!" Dmitri smiled again, causing Tegan to shiver.

"What happened to Captain Turner?" the Doctor asked.

"My dolly soldier! I do miss him. We got divorced. He was dreadfully sweet, but there was no way it could have lasted. I was becoming a world-famous photographer and he was just an army officer. He wanted to retire to some country cottage. He wasn't interested in the lifestyle I wanted. I wanted an exciting life and I wanted money. I wasn't going to get those things with him. He did give me too dolly girls though. One of them has already starred in a movie; the other is studying in America."

Tegan felt that she was bound to slap Isobel if she used the word 'dolly' one more time. She was quite surprised that the Doctor had become friends with such a person as Isobel. She did not seem at all the sort of person she had imagined to be associated with the Doctor. She decided to bring this up. "So how did you meet the Doc?" Tegan asked Isobel.

"It's a long story," Isobel replied. "The Doctor knew a friend of my uncle. He came knocking on our door and I got mixed up in this frightfully exciting adventure involving these metal men called Cybermen. I helped him save the whole planet, would you believe? Along the way I met my dolly ex-husband. Not long after, the Doctor got stranded on earth for a while and I saw quite a lot of him. Once he got back to travelling the universe, he dropped in on me once or twice."

Nyssa joined in the conversation. "You seem to have made a good life for yourself, Isobel," she said.

"Thank you, darling," Isobel replied. "I went into magazine editing in the 1990s. I edited two fashion magazines and a celebrity gossip rag. I was doing well, even before I married my dolly Dmitri." She gave her husband a big hug. He smiled again.

Tegan managed to restrain herself.

Isobel helped herself to another glass of champagne. "You know, Doctor," she said, "You look quite lovely in this body, but you seem so much more shy. You were very cute as the little dark-haired man I first met, but I liked you best as that silver-haired chap with the big nose. Back when you were stuck on earth."

"Really?" asked the Doctor, taken aback by the personal nature of this conversation.

"Oh yes," Isobel continued. "When you had silver hair and a big nose, you were so much like me. You were into exactly the same lifestyle I wanted. You used to love the fast cars, the fine wine and the high fashion. You might have been a scientist, but you loved hanging around with the glamorous people. You just couldn't keep away from rock stars, actresses and film directors. You might have been working for a secretive security organisation, but I could always spot your pictures in the glossy magazines."

The Doctor looked very uncomfortable. "I had never thought about it like that. I suppose I'm just not the man I was," he said.

"You know what, Doctor. I met your last face and I've met the person you are going to become next. He's really.."

'Dolly?' thought Tegan to herself. The Doctor cut Isobel off straight away. "Don't tell me any more! There are some things I really shouldn't know."

"I have pictures of all your faces. I'm working on writing a biography of you when I get the chance. Obviously, I can't write about some of that top secret stuff with UNIT, but I'm sure I can find plenty of other stuff about you to write about," said Isobel.

"Oh no! I'd rather you didn't, Isobel. I prefer to keep a rather lower profile than that," said the Doctor,

"I'm surprised, Doctor. Your next version seemed very enthusiastic about the idea. Anyway, when I am done, I promise I shall show you before publishing it," replied Isobel.

"Thank you. I do appreciate that, Isobel."

After the conversation with Isobel was concluded, the Doctor did not wish to stay long. The yacht party, with its celebrity guests was not at all his scene and neither Tegan nor Nyssa wished to linger.

After they had retrieved their shoes and returned to the TARDIS, the Doctor sighed and looked at his two companions. "You know, when I first met Isobel, she did not seem quite such a shallow woman. I suppose she had a point that I used to have a certain liking for glamour myself at one time. I suppose we all change as we get older. Would you believe, if she hadn't fallen for Captain Turner, I might have invited Isobel to come and travel with me in the TARDIS. Can you imagine travelling through time and space with her?" he asked.

Tegan and Nyssa gave a resounding "No!"

The Invasion

The Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe give the newly formed UNIT a helping hand dealing with the Cybermen.

Throughout the Patrick Troughton era, there are hints of what we would get in Season 7 under John Pertwee. Under Troughton, we see more monsters, more scientists, more alien invasions and more near future and contemporary settings. However, more than any of the other Troughton stories, The Invasion stands out as a prototype for the earthbound Pertwee stories. We have the near future setting, the return of Lethbridge-Stewart, the first appearance of UNIT, Benton, an alien menace, scientists, gadgetry, a dastardly tycoon and military leaders turning out to be helping the bad guys. All the vital ingredients of the earthbound Pertwee stories are present. The temptation is to evaluate it purely in terms of what the show would become rather than as a story in itself.

Two episodes of this story have been lost from the BBC archives. Thankfully, these have been reconstructed by animation for the DVD release. These animations are really quite effective, though they slip up by putting Zoe in the wrong outfit. The Invasion is a little long, but it is not too padded, compared to other Sixties and Seventies stories. The story has something of a difficulty with scale. We see a Cyberman invasion that consists of just a few Cybermen in London who do not do very much. There is a UNIT military action that rescues a significant character that takes place offscreen. We have a space battle that is created using a bit of stock footage. Still, the story does the best with what it has. Despite the limitations of what we are shown, somehow The Invasion manages to capture an epic, movie feel.

Troughton is in top form in this story, dominating every scene. One interesting thing to note is how well he gets on with the Brigadier. There is not a hint of the tension between the Third Doctor and Lethbridge-Stewart. It seems that the humble, self-effacing (but ultimately rather anarchic) Second Doctor got on much better with the Brigadier than the arrogant, haughty, but still more conservative Third Doctor.



Wendy Padbury is also marvellous as Zoe. I like the fact that as well as doing her usual clever clogs stuff, she gets to dress up in fashionable clothes and act girly. It makes something of a change for the character. This is helped along by pseudocompanion, Isobel Watkins. I love her trendy cocknified received pronunciation. It is a shame she did not become a regular, because she gets on so well with Zoe and Jamie. In fact for a few minutes, the show seems to morph into Scooby Doo with the Brigadier talking about 'those crazy kids.' Jamie, Zoe and Isobel bear a striking resemblance to Shaggy, Velma and Daphne. All we are missing is Fred and that dog! Perhaps if Zoe had been introduced to the TARDIS when Ben and Polly were around the comparison would be more apt, though what this would make the Doctor does not bear thinking about too much!

UNIT in this story seem to have pretty impressive resources at their disposal and are able to carry out effective covert operations. They are a far cry from the Dad's Army we would see in the later Pertwee years. It might be nice to see more of Benton in this story, but their are too many other prominent non-regulars for John Levene to really get the chance to shine.

Kevin Stoney is incredible as the villainous Tobias Vaughan. Although he at times rages like every other Dr. Who megalomaniac, a good deal of the time he maintains a calm demeanour. Particularly impressive is his amusement at Zoe's destruction of his computer. Stoney also shows a great chemistry with Troughton in the scenes they have together. It has been asked why a genius like Vaughan would put so much trust in the hilariously incompetent Packer. Presumably, Packer's skills had never before been sufficently tested.



The Cyberman are a bit of a let down in this story. They act like zombies, showing no real intelligence. They seem to take their orders from a computer. Their metal faces looking strangely happy. Their vulnerability of the week is to artificially induced fear.

I think it is clear that this story is not mean to be set in the Sixties. The computer technology is more advanced and there seems to be peace with Russia. The story is specifically stated by the Brigadier to have taken place four years after Web of Fear which was set in 1975, according to Professor Travers. This is clear evidence that the UNIT stories have an 80s rather than a 70s setting.