At a press conference, Ace's pointed hint of a youthful period of emotional abuse draws a visit from the Eleven, whose aim to unearth a Time Lord artefact will constitute brutal revenge on the Doctor.
Ace plays along, and, with licensed guide Gabriel Parrera, they visit Brazil’s Vale do Javari, where lies a concealed Time Lord artefact: the Dark Gate. Open it, and the universe is over…
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: The Eleven’s imprisonment of the Doctor as a jester recalls Sylvester McCoy’s role in King Lear.
- After the End: Following the release of the Dark Citizens, Ace, on the desolate planet Rox, meets Cardinal Ollistra, last surviving member of the High Council of Time Lords, and Captain Rasmus. With much of the cosmos in ruins, the Eleven rules with an army of robotic self-duplicates.
- Canon Immigrant: The play explores The Sarah Jane Adventures' revelation of Ace’s post-TARDIS career.
- Continuity Nod: The Dark Citizens, with their power to manipulate time by force of will, recall the Gods of the Fourth.
- Deadpan Snarker: Cardinal Ollistra, dryer than the soles of Ace’s boots.
- Deal with the Devil: In exchange for reversing most of their cosmic damage, the Doctor makes the Dark Citizens an offer implied to involve his anticipated dying day.
- Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: In apparent aid of the Eleven’s aim to mimic via the Matrix the timeline manipulation of the Dark Citizens, the Doctor traps him in it.
- Dissonant Serenity: The eerily soft-voiced Dark Citizens.
- Eldritch Location: A region of forest in Brazil’s Vale do Javari holds a prehistoric tree, whose interdimensional interior leads to a guarded volcanic wasteland.
- ET Gave Us Wifi: A local tribe, equipped with ray guns, guard an artefact hidden by the Time Lords in Vale do Javari.
- Evil Overlord: The Eleven, via a deal with the Dark Citizens, reduces much of the universe to a chaotic wreck. Out of spite, he keeps the Doctor as his “fool.”The Doctor: I prefer the term “jester”.
The Eleven: I insist on the term “fool.” - For the Evulz: The Doctor notes that the Eleven is more dangerous than the likes of the Master and the Rani because their evil acts are always committed in the name of some grander plan, whereas the Eleven causes chaos for the sake of it.
- Hellgate: The Dark Gate, which resembles “a mirror the size of a cliff,” leads to a ruined cosmos inhabited solely by beings whose power enabled them to destroy all other forms of life.
- Hired Guns: Gabriel Perrera, whose unscrupulous field Ace condemns, is nevertheless enlisted as a guide.
- The Infiltration: The Eleven, in offer of revenge for the Doctor’s “emotional abuse”, enlists Ace to help find the Dark Gate. Beforehand, the Doctor asked her to.
- Literal Split Personality: After gaining the power of the Dark Citizens, the Eleven is able to extract his past selves from his mind and put them in various robot drones, such as forcing the Eight to be his cleaners.
- Omnicidal Maniac: A successful example in the Dark Citizens.
- Out-of-Character Alert: The Eleven realises that he's in an illusion when his other selves- currently in robots rather than his mind- all agree with him.
- Reality Warping: By force of will, the Dark Citizens are able to alter timelines, and thereby weave any arrangement of all matter.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: An ethical example; from the Minister for Indigenous Rights, Ace obtains clearance to the relevant region of Vale do Javari.
- Talking to Themself: The Eleven, a Time Lord whose Regenerations vie with one another for influence of their shared body.
- Time Lords Are the Real Monsters: The Dark Citizens, seemingly their universe’s equivalent of the Time Lords, gained, by such technology as the Matrix, the ability to warp space/time by force of will.
- Token Good Teammate: The Eleven’s eighth incarnation is actually quite a nice chap.
- Universal Remote Control: To divert the Eleven from releasing on a whim the confined Dark Citizens, the Doctor ventures the Time Lord Matrix, if used to process the huge amounts of data, could be used for limitless manipulation.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Ace angrily laments the Doctor’s alliance with omnipotent sickos.
- Where Are They Now: Ace, twenty years after leaving the TARDIS, is now CEO of A Charitable Earth, and lectures in ecology and sociology.
- You're Insane!: The Doctor rails at the lunatic implausibility of the Eleven’s desires, and later rather gently ponders the mania induced by housing several incarnations.
