Recap / Past Doctor Adventures Matrix

Published 1998; written by Robert Perry and Mike Tucker, featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace.

When a sinister disembodied voice invades the TARDIS, the Doctor takes Ace to 1963 Shoreditch, to leave her in the care of his first incarnation - whose TARDIS isn't there. From streets stalked by feral, deathly wraiths, they take shelter with Coal Hill School teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright - who have no pupil named Susan Foreman.

Having learned a sixth Jack the Ripper murder to have gendered a near century of impoverished fear and violence, the Doctor and Ace hasten to 1888 Whitechapel. Briefly possessed by a murderous force, the Doctor, with the detached TARDIS telepathic circuit, erases his own memory, and is sheltered by mysterious wanderer Joseph Liebermann.

After several days’ struggle on the streets of Whitechapel, Ace briefly succumbs to the dormant, mutagenic virus retained from the Cheetah planet. Imprisoned in the circus of Jacques Malacroix with several deformed human exhibits, she seeks to retrieve the telepathic circuit from Malacroix’s henchman Jed Barrow.

In the crypt of a local church lies the diabolical force behind this nightmare - and at its helm, a familiar face…

Tropes

• Abusive Parents: In 1888, elderly Jane Treddle, aunt to mentally disturbed semi-vagrant Jed Barrow, scratches, chokes and burns him with fire-irons.
• The Atoner:
  • Peter Ackroyd, having been coerced at an early age by Malacroix into setting fire to a synagogue, is now friend to and keeper of the deformed inmates of Malacroix’s circus. Inspired by a telepathic vision of a potentially benevolent future, he vows to lead them to freedom.
• Axe-Crazy: A hooded coven, each of whom are corrupted versions of the Doctor’s incarnations, having been infected by the Dark Matrix, are wildly, indiscriminately murderous. With the TARDIS’s detached telepathic circuit, the Seventh Doctor manages to evade this - but briefly succumbs.
• Bad Ass Longcoat: For 1888, the Doctor dons a near floor-length black overcoat. While Ace thinks it looks almost comical, it acquires a highly sinister badassery when the Doctor is possessed by the Dark Matrix.
• Battle in the Rain: Having fled the crypt, the Valeyard, amidst a pouring thunderstorm, pursues the Doctor to the top of Christ Church.
• Beastly Bloodsports: In a back room of the Angel and Harp, cockerels with metal-tipped claws fight to the death.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • With the Doctor cornered in a lighthouse, Ace, with a can of Nitro Nine, makes short work of the murderous Golem.
  • Having sheltered in amnesiac seclusion as confused, frightened "Johnny," the Doctor’s businesslike arrival at Christ Church conveys a rather splendid instance of this.
• Big Damn Kiss: On release from her cage, Ace shares a brief, tender snog with Ackroyd.
• The Big Guy: Circus performer Saul, exhibited for having been born without legs, puts his massively strong arms to good use in breaking open Ace’s cage.
• The Brute: Circus strongman De Vries, Malacroix’s heavily muscled henchman.
• Callback:
  • For their deadly trip to 1888, the Doctor insists Ace don her dress from Ghostlight.
  • In the TARDIS Cloisters, a foliage-surrounded pond briefly conjures the beast into which the Cheetah planet nearly transformed Ace in Survival. In 1888 Whitechapel, the Dark Matrix briefly rouses Ace’s dormant Cheetah Virus.
• Call-Forward:
  • In search of an intangible intruder, the Doctor flees to the heart of the TARDIS. Although it seems not to be the Cloister Room shown in the TV Movie, there is a marked resemblance - its “nexus point” is described as some kind of well, in which cosmic forces merge.
  • On reunion with the TARDIS telepathic circuit, the Doctor is flooded by memories - including a glimpse of his eventual inadvertent infiltration of a San Francisco gang war, followed by a glimpse of his next incarnation.
• The Caretaker: Joseph Liebermann shelters the amnesiac, traumatised Doctor, currently known as Johnny, and attempts to jog his memory.
• Collapsing Lair: Beneath Christ Church, a crypt houses the Valeyard’s TARDIS - which, host to the Dark Matrix, starts, atom by atom, to implode.
• Collector of the Strange: In 1888, thirty-three-year-old Jed Barrow, known locally as Jed the Idiot Boy, obsessively collects miscellaneous curios for storage in the church crypt.
• Cope by Creating: Unfathomably world-weary Joseph Liebermann and amnesiac “Johnny” become happily absorbed in repairing the former’s clock collection.
• The Corruptor: The Valeyard, having taken control of the Matrix, uses it, via moments of pivotal temptation, to create depraved alternates of most of the Doctor’s incarnations.
• Crapsack World: The alternate 1963 - poverty; brutally crazed gangs, and zombies who like, quite literally, to rip people apart with their bare hands.
• Crazy Homeless People: In the alternate 1963, homeless Londoners live in the underground tube network; naked and conditioned to constant violence.
• Darker and Edgier: Let’s see… an Alternate History in which extra Whitechapel murders drove Britain to militia-ruled chaos and a near-century of brutalised poverty; a malign gestalt entity possesses the Doctor into committing one of the Ripper murders, and then drives Ace, via her dormant Cheetah virus, to, albeit in self-defence, kill elderly Jane Treddle. Definitely one of Doctor Who’s darker stories.
• Dark Is Evil: In the alternate timeline, a vast concentration of airborne shadow - the Dark Matrix - feeds on the ruination it sows.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance:
  • Mentally disturbed Jed Barrow is known locally as Jed the Idiot Boy.
  • At Malacroix’s circus, neither the deformed human exhibitions nor their friend and keeper Peter Ackroyd seem to object to the term “freak.”
• Dramatic Thunder: As befits being chased across a church tower by a madman with a detached giant clock hand.
• Eldritch Location: Deep in the TARDIS, the nexus point plays havoc with its visitors’ minds.
• Emotion Eater: The shadowy gestalt entity, being a distillation of the malign thoughts of deceased Time Lords, thrives on fear and misery.
• Enemy Without: Since The Ultimate Foe, the Valeyard, now keeper of the Matrix, has awaited a chance to ensnare his earlier self.
• Faux Affably Evil: Malacroix: cordial, genial - and a callous, gloating, controlling brute.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Played for Drama. On the 1888 streets of Whitechapel, Ace’s struggle for food and shelter is quite harrowing.
• Forced into Evil:
  • Via the Dark Matrix, the Valeyard pushed twelve of the Doctor’s incarnations into evil; the Seventh Doctor escapes by erasing his own memory.
  • Whether accidentally or just for the hell of it, the Valeyard rouses Ace’s dormant Cheetah Virus, which, albeit in self-defence, drives her to kill.
• Genius Loci: The telepathic circuit, an ethereal white glow contained in a small glass cylinder, transfers the Doctor’s thoughts to the fabric of the TARDIS.
• Greed: Ringmaster Jacques Malacroix, with ruthless fixation, seeks curios for exhibition in his circus.
• Golem: A hulking clay automaton rises from the sea to chase the Doctor and Ace.
• The Grotesque: The Circus of Jacques Malacroix hosts and exhibits several people with bodily deformities. While their appearance causes alarm - someone even wonders if one of them is behind the Ripper murders - they’re a perfectly reasonable bunch.
• Haunted Technology: The TARDIS telepathic circuit, a transparent cylinder, holds an ethereal white glow, which may erase or impart memories. In the church crypt, the Valeyard has a similar device - in the form of a crystal skull.
• Heel–Face Turn: De Vries decides he’s had enough of being Malacroix’s heavy.
• Heroic BSoD: Since Illegal Alien, the Doctor has grown wearily, melancholically reflective of his long-lived, omnipresent detachment from the lives he touches.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Having lifted a fallen pillar from Ace, De Vries is torn apart by the evil Doctors.
• In the Hood: A twelve-strong coven; each a corrupted version of one of the Doctor’s incarnations, waits beneath the crypt for the Doctor to join them…
• Holy Burns Evil: The ethereal glow of the TARDIS telepathic circuit repels the malign, semi-formed shades of the Dark Matrix.
• Hope Bringer: In the brutalised alternate 1963, Ian and Barbara find themselves curiously encouraged by the nightly arrival of a strange man and his teenage friend.
  The Doctor: If it helps, just remember, there are alternatives. Life doesn’t have to be like this.
• Improvised Lightning Rod: Unintentionally, the Valeyard’s Improvised Weapon of a church clock hand.
• Improvised Weapon: From the clock tower of Christ Church, the Valeyard wrenches a hand, and chases the Doctor with it.
• Kaiju: In a telepathic vision of the prospective perverted timeline, airborne amassed shadows coalesce into a “spectral giant.”
• The Kindness of Strangers:
  • Horse-slaughterer Henry Tomkins and wife Martha briefly take in and feed Ace.
  • Gloria, landlady of the Angel and Harp, readily shelters withdrawn, amnesiac “Johnny.”
• King of Thieves: Through bribery and incriminating knowledge, Malacroix wields influence throughout criminal society.
• Kryptonite-Proof Suit: The telepathic circuits basically serve as this for the Doctor, as he seals his conscious mind in the circuits to protect himself from the Dark Matrix's influence.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Self-inflicted by the Doctor with the TARDIS telepathic circuit.
• Light Is Good: A glass cylinder holds an ethereal white glow, the TARDIS telepathic circuit, which shields the Doctor from psychic attack.
• Little People Are Surreal: Inverted with Tiny Ron, who befriends a lost, circus-imprisoned Ace.
• Long Game: Surrounded by semi-corporeal sentient shadows, the Valeyard, via a crystal skull, has, for years, observed the Doctor…
• Manipulative Bastard: Ringmaster Jacques Malacroix, having learned from Jed of Ace’s brief transformation into a Cheetah Person, imprisons her for exhibition in his circus. To enforce another transformation, he sets a lion on Tiny Ron.
• Mind Control: Via the Dark Matrix, the Valeyard, by pivotal moments of temptation, steers each of the Doctor’s incarnations to acts of brutality.
• Merger of Souls: The Matrix, having stored the minds of numerous deceased Time Lords, was purged, early on, of destructive thoughts. Beneath the Capitol, these manifest as an amorphous coalescence of malign shadows - the Dark Matrix.
• Miss Exposition: On a nightly visit from a strange man and his seventeen-year-old companion, who seem to have no grasp of post-1888 history, history teacher Barbara fills them in.
• Monster Clown: Downplayed. The clowns of Malacroix’s circus, “killers to a man,” offer no threat beyond their turbulent backgrounds.
• Nice Guy: Orphan Peter Ackroyd, coerced as a young boy into setting fire to a synagogue, is mellow, reflective, and aspires to atonement.
• Ominous Fog: In the alternate 1963.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: The malign elements of Matrix-preserved Time Lord minds appear as blood-crazed, semi-corporeal shadows.
• Our Zombies Are Different: The alternate post-1888 is plagued by wraiths: deathly pale, wizened, blood-crazed agents of the Dark Matrix.
• Point of Divergence:
  • In 1888, a sixth Whitechapel murder sparked violent unrest, which in turn gendered decades of brutalised poverty.
  • The Valeyard, in each of the Doctor’s incarnations, found critical points at which to corrupt them; alternate versions of each succumbed to such temptations as the Fifth keeping the last of the Spectrox antitoxin for himself or the Fourth destroying the Daleks at their birth.
• Puppeteer Parasite: Throughout the perverted post-1888 timeline, a malign coalescence of airborne shadows projects its murderous will into animate corpses.
• Red Filter of Doom: The emergency lighting of the Valeyard’s TARDIS.
• Really 700 Years Old: Joseph Liebermann, strongly implied to be the "Wandering Jew" of legend.
• Repulsive Ringmaster: Callously acquisitive Jacques Malacroix.
• The Renfield: Reverend Jefford becomes subservient to the Valeyard; carrying Ace into the crypt.
• Rivers of Blood: In a telepathic vision of the prospective perverted timeline, a gigantic flow of blood swamps the streets.
• Shout-Out:
  • A visiting Yorkshireman who challenged Malacroix over some missing chickens is rumoured to have met a similar fate to Freaks's Cleopatra.
  • Circus-hand Peter Ackroyd seems to be named after the historical writer.
  • Ace addresses De Vries as Arnie, and refers to him as the Incredible Hulk.
• Sinister Minister: Downplayed with Reverend Jefford, whose religiosity veers more to respectability than charity. While he generally holds in brusque contempt the mentally disturbed Jed, he says the odd prayer for the kid.
• Slasher Smile: The Doctor, when possessed by the Dark Matrix.
• The Strongman: De Vries, for his boss Malacroix, lifts the TARDIS.
• Swallowed Whole: In a telepathic vision of the prospective perverted timeline, the airborne cloud of shadows coalesce into a “spectral giant” which plucks people from the streets to swallow them whole.
• Sword Cane: Malacroix.
• Talking the Monster to Death: In the Cloisters of the Valeyard’s TARDIS, the Doctor, on encounter with a shadowy coalescence of the Dark Matrix, manages to persuade it that subservience to the Valeyard will only trap it further.
• Teens Are Monsters: In the alternate 1963, drug-crazed, murderous Jacksprites hail the spectral Ripper as a vengeful deity.
• Time Stands Still: On implosion of the Valeyard’s crypt-embedded TARDIS, time around each side of the church building respectively slows, freezes and reverses.
• Tranquil Fury: The Doctor, on confrontation in the crypt of the Valeyard.
• True Companions: The deformed human exhibits of Malacroix’s circus, and Peter Ackroyd, their keeper.
• Turned Against Their Masters:
  • Shortly after inception, the Time Lord Matrix, comprised of the memories of deceased Time Lords, began to resent posthumous confinement, and rebel. In retaliation, filters were installed to remove destructive thoughts, which resulted in the Dark Matrix.
  • Challenged by his underworld cronies, the fleeing circus personnel overthrow Malacroix. On next appearance, the ringmaster has become a limbless torso, supported on reticulated wooden limbs, for exhibition in the ring.
• Vigilante Execution: In the Angel and Harp, the amnesiac Doctor, believed to be the Ripper, is thrown to the fighting cocks - and is narrowly saved by Joseph Liebermann.
• Vigilante Militia: In response to the anomalously extended reign of Jack the Ripper.
• Villainous Rescue: More like an AntivillainousRescue, as he simply wants reunion with the soothing touch of the telepathic circuit. In the Valeyard’s TARDIS, Jed Barrow finds the crystal skull which contains the murky glow of the Dark Matrix, and, at the cost of his own life, absorbs it, severing its influence on Whitechapel.
• Walking the Earth: Joseph Liebermann is strongly implied to be the “Wandering Jew” of legend.
• Wham Shot: A prose variant, on revelation of the possessed, murderously leering Seventh Doctor.