The capitalist weapons factory at Villengard produced many sophisticated technological weapons in the 51st Century. However, the factory is now gone and in its place is a banana grove, according to the Ninth Doctor in The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. The weapons factory business at Villengard was later supplying weapons (including landmines) to an endless war on the planet Kastarion III, in the Doctor Who episode Boom. Villengard selfishly fooled the Anglican Army into thinking that their war with the fictional Kastarions wasn’t over in order to keep the price of their weapons high so that they could continue to profit off of the conflict. Villengard also planned to detonate a “star seed” (contained in a briefcase) to use as an energy source, using the Time Hotel to allow it to grow 65 million years in the past (Joy to the World). The Villengard weapons factory was in ruins by the time of the events of Twice Upon a Time.
The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
★★★★★
TX: 21/05/2005 – 28/05/2005
Written by Steven Moffat Directed by James Hawes
One of the scariest monsters encountered by the Doctor in Doctor Who was the terrifying Empty Child. The Empty Child was the product of some confused nanogenes – a bacterial form of medical repair found inside a Chula ambulance warship. The Ninth Doctor and Rose chased the Chula ambulance warship through the time vortex to London 1941, baited by con man and ex 51st Century Time Agent Captain Jack Harkness. The nanogenes escaped the capsule and began repairing the body of a 5-year old boy called Jamie who was wearing a gas mask – he becomes the Empty Child. The confused nanogenes begin transforming humans in WWII London into gas mask zombies, believing that this is how human beings are supposed to look like. The net result is a plague of creepy gas mask zombies across the Blitzed London. The Empty Child is lost and looking for his mother, so he repeats a chilling phrase: “Are you my mummy?” The Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack eventually make it to the crash site of the chula ambulance warship, which the army believe to be an unexploded German bomb. The Doctor manages to reunite the Empty Child with his real mother Nancy, a young teenage woman who pretended to be Jamie’s brother and also looked after homeless kids during the bombings on war-torn London. The clever nanogenes deduce that this is the mother that the Child was searching for and recognise that they share the same genetic information. The nanogenes then put the child and all the other gas mask zombies back to normal so that “everybody lives”! The Doctor and Rose leave in the TARDIS before rescuing Captain Jack whose invisible spaceship is destroyed by an onboard unexploded German bomb. It would be a good idea to bring back the Empty Child to Doctor Who after 20 years, possibly in a Maze of the Doctor’s worst nightmares!
Boom
★★★★★
TX: 18/05/2024
Written by Steven Moffat Directed by Julie Anne Robinson
In this elite episode, the Doctor accidentally steps on a landmine in a battlefield on a distant planet in the far future. Ruby comes to the Doctor’s aid but immediately realises that he cannot move at all otherwise he will set off the sophisticated landmine, which is triggered by affecting the DNA of whoever steps on it and turns them into an explosive. The time travellers have arrived in the middle of a war on Kastarion III, and that the sophisticated weapons are supplied by the Villengard weapons manufacturing company, first mentioned in The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. An injured soldier, John Francis Vater, a member of the Anglican Army, has been captured by a robotic ambulance, killed by it and turned into a cylinder containing an AI with his personality. Rather than having to continue standing on one leg, the Doctor takes Vater’s cylinder to counterbalance himself. Vater’s daughter Splice arrives, looking for her father. Ruby is forced to keep Splice away from the Doctor and the cylinder so she won’t trigger the landmine. The trio are then joined by soldier, Mundy Flynn (Varada Sethu), also a part of the Anglican Army, who explains they are fighting Kastarions, aliens thought to live underground making it Varada to kill them. Mundy shoots the Doctor, which attracts another ambulance. Ruby and Mundy are forced to distract it with combat so that it doesn’t “treat” the Doctor. Before Ruby can shoot Mundy in the arm, soldier Canterbury James Olliphant (known as Canto), who harbours a crush on Mundy, arrives. Unaware of their plan, Canto shoots Ruby instead, leaving her severely injured. The Doctor knows that his Time Lord DNA would cause an explosion that would destroy half the planet. The Doctor realises that there are no Kastarions and that the capitalist Villengard is making money simply off the soldiers’ presence there. Boom is one of a number of Doctor Who episodes that contains an anti-capitalist message, other examples include Oxygen and Vengeance on Varos. Capitalism is completely unfair and exploitative and it makes people selfish, greedy, manipulative, fake, privileged, narcissistic, uncaring, cruel, un-empathetic, entitled and arrogant. I really HATE capitalism! This is the most anti-capitalist, pro-socialism website ever! I am glad to see that Steven Moffat agrees with me that capitalism is unfair and wrong. Why does money have to make the world go round? I have also seen for myself that there is a link between capitalism and racism. Socialism DOES work! Communism will win! #ChristheCommunist! Communism wasn’t implemented correctly back in the 20th Century. I have met Jeremy Corbyn and he was very popular at Bristol University when I was a postgraduate student there. Jeremy Corbyn and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez are my political leaders. For me, meeting Jeremy Corbyn was a middle finger from me to so many people! To stop the landmine, as well as the ambulances arriving en masse, the Anglican Army need to surrender. As neither Mundy nor Canto have the authority to do so, the Doctor convinces Vater’s AI to go into Villengard’s databases to find proof that there are no Kastarions in order to convince the Anglicans to surrender. While trying to reconfigure an ambulance treating Ruby, Canto is killed. In his cylinder, Canto admits to Mundy how much he loves her. Villengard’s ambulances attempt to stop Vater, but he succeeds in shutting off the landmine, thus allowing the Doctor to step off it. This also shuts down all of Villengard, ending the war, and allowing the ambulance to actually treat Ruby. Mundy takes Splice in, having previously promised Vater she would, as a relieved Doctor and Ruby depart, little knowing that they will Sethu her later as Belinda Chandra. Steven Moffat revealed that the inspiration for Boom was from a scene in Genesis of the Daleks where the Fourth Doctor is standing on a landmine and he can’t move without Harry’s help.
Joy to the World
★★★☆☆
TX: 25/12/2024
Written by Steven Moffat Directed by Alex Sanjiv Pillai
The Fifteenth Doctor decides to check into the Time Hotel, which has rooms linked to all of time and space. This includes Mount Everest in 1953, the London Blitz 1940 and the Orient Express in 1962. Guests can spend Christmas everywhere all at once! The Doctor goes through one of the doors to a hotel on present day Earth. The Doctor meets a woman called Joy who is being controlled by a briefcase that contains a bomb. The briefcase has also taken over other guests at the Time Hotel including a Silurian and a man called Trev. The briefcase ticks down to detonation, but thankfully a future Doctor bursts into Joy’s hotel room and tells them the correct pin to disarm the bomb. The Doctor spends a year in the hotel on Earth, where he befriends the receptionist and works inside the hotel. The Doctor makes it back to the Time Hotel and is able to give his younger self and Joy the pin to the suitcase, using the bootstrap paradox. The Doctor breaks the suitcase’s hold over Joy by making her upset about the death of her mother during COVID-19 at Christmas whilst Partygate was happening. Joy and the Doctor open a door to 65 million years ago, where the briefcase reveals itself to be made by Villengard, a weapons manufacturing company with plans to detonate a “star seed” to use as an energy source, using the hotel’s time travel to allow it to grow 65 million years in the past. The briefcase is eaten by a T-Rex, and the Doctor and Joy flee. Trev, who connected psychically to Villengard’s system before he died, contacts the Doctor. Trev reveals the briefcase’s location, and the Doctor finds it sealed in a shrine. The Doctor opens it, but Joy takes the briefcase outside, and lets the star seed enter her. She and the other people killed by the seed pilot it safely into space to detonate, becoming the Star of Bethlehem. At various points in time, the star gives hope and comfort to those who see it and saves Joy’s mother.
Chris Olsen's TARDIS 