Doctor Who: The Legacy of Time: Will Charley with Six be the real Charley?
By James Aggas
Next year’s Doctor Who audio special The Legacy of Time will feature the Sixth Doctor and Charley in one of the stories. But will it be the real Charley?
There’s a lot to look forward to with Doctor Who audio special The Legacy of Time. We’ve already covered how exciting it is that Bernice and River are finally meeting. And of course Kate meeting the Third Doctor sounds like a perfect clash of eras.
One more thing I’m hugely excited about is the long-overdue return of DI Patricia Menzies. In both The Condemned and The Raincloud Man, she worked really well against the Sixth Doctor and Charley. Anna Hope always gave a great performance in the role, and she was long overdue a return. (Maybe even a spin-off series, too? Please, Big Finish?)
But then, I suddenly realized something. After relistening to The Raincloud Man to check (I take my research very seriously), it’s very strongly implied to be only the second time that they’ve met. (Well, for Charley and Menzies. For the Sixth Doctor, due to The Crimes of Thomas Brewster, it’s a little more complicated than that.)
So what makes this so important? Well, The Raincloud Man leads directly into Patient Zero. And this is the start of a very crucial arc for the Sixth Doctor and Charley. Because it’s not only when they become separated. It’s also when the real Charley gets replaced by someone else. Worse still, the Sixth Doctor has no idea about it.
Mila was first introduced in Sixth Doctor audio Patient Zero, a huge story in terms of Big Finish’s vast mythology.
(Photo credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.
Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)
Mila
You see, during the events of Patient Zero, Charley had been affected by a virus. A virus that someone else on board the TARDIS carried: Mila. For years, Mila had been hiding in the TARDIS, without form or substance. But due to Charley’s complicated timeline of travelling with a Doctor before the one she met first, the TARDIS’s defenses went down and allowed her to be infected.
Mila, meanwhile, not only gained a physical body, but it was also one that looked exactly like Charley. And by the end of Patient Zero, not only was Six none the wiser. But the real Charley was actually taken by the Viyrans, a race that are very dedicated to destroying countless viruses across time and space.
Blue Forgotten Planet, the final Six and Charley story, actually allowed for such a huge gap that Mila-Charley could have traveled with the Sixth Doctor for even longer than the real Charley did. While that story resolved the stories of both Charleys completely, there is certainly room for more tales to be told.
Charley’s and Mila’s stories were resolved in Blue Forgotten Planet. But which one will appear in The Legacy of Time?
(Photo credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.
Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)
Menzies and Mila-Charley
If I’m right, and Six and Charley’s story in The Legacy of Time does take place in the long gap between Paper Cuts and Blue Forgotten Planet, then this could be very interesting.
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Particularly between Mila and Menzies. I suspect that Menzies will be quicker to work out that something’s wrong with “Charley” than the Doctor does, in this case. It could lead to some very interesting scenes between the two, as Mila tries to hide who or what she really is. It would present a very different angle on the story.
But if it is Mila-Charley who features (and that’s a big if, considering how much explaining Mila’s story requires), will the real Charley turn up in The Legacy of Time at all? I hope so, but at the same time, I also hope it’s long after her travels with Six.
In fact, I’d love to see Charley from after the second volume of her own spin-off series, Charlotte Pollard. (Which frankly had an incredibly bleak ending, so I’d love a story that gave her something a little lighter.) Like most of The Legacy of Time, this is something that we’ll need to wait and see with.
Next. Review: Arrangements for War (Sixth Doctor audio). dark
Are you excited about the return of Charley next year? Do you think it could be interesting to bring Mila-Charley back? How do you think The Legacy of Time will handle the character? Let us know in the comments below.