heartbreakingtennant
The Doctor and Harriet Jones + Actions and Consequences
Messing up with time always brings consequences. Harriet Jones was supposed to be Prime Minister for three sucessive terms and the Doctor knew that. By bringing her down, he made it possible for Harold Saxon (a.k.a. the Master) to be elected.
burntlikethesun
“For example, way back in Series One, in the episode World War Three, The Ninth Doctor said that Harriet Jones was destined for three terms as Prime Minister. “Britain’s Golden Age!”. But then, in The Christmas Invasion, he toppled her, after only one term. And that, in my mind, allowed a gap in which the Master could enter history and subvert it, as Harry Saxon. Just a little schism in that neverending flux of Time, ready to be exploited by his Mastery. Except, I never said any of this.
Why? Well, as the scripts of The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords took shape, they became packed, both with new things happening, and an unusually high number of references to the past. Something had to go. I mean, imagine the end of Episode 3.12, the Master killing the President, then revealing the Toclafane, the laser screwdriver, the Doctor’s hand, the decimation of Earth…it really wasn’t the right moment for him to say, “Oh, by the way, Doctor, about that Golden Age…” Or in Episode 3.13, when he’s musing to the parrot-cage-Doctor about Utopia, the end of the Universe, poor Lucy, the Paradox Machine, etc…Hardly the right time to throw in, “Oh yes, I forgot! Remember Harriet Jones? Well, it turns out…” Not exactly top of his list, and therefore, not top of mine.
And on a more serious level, the events of 3.13 were so brutal, I felt, deeply, that all those speeches I’d planned - “You brought down Harriet Jones and allowed this change in history!” and crucially, “That makes all of this your fault” - would make things way too dark. As if the Doctor hasn’t suffered enough! Let alone that, on a simpler level, you can be too self-referential. Would an awful lot of viewers have been left scratching their heads, thinking “Harriet who? Golden what??” So, all of those concerns led to the speeches being abandoned. Literally, never written, not in any shape or form, in any draft. I’d been planning them in my head for over two years, ever since writting The Christmas Invasion, I’d thought they’d be a glorious moral victory for the Master, tying up complex events across three seasons, making the whole thing look, oh, so bloody well planned! But I never wrote a word of it, and I think that descision was right.
So the thing I wonder is, and I wonder it often…Are those speeches still true? Do they stand? Are they valid? Are they real?
They are in my mind. I could argue that the Doctor suffered the consequences of his treatment of Harriet, because that brought about, directly or indirectly, the whole nightmarish Reign of the Master. But…I’m just the writer! And once a script has been made, and transmitted, I honestly believe that it belongs equally to those who watch it. Don’t like the Golden Age theory? Then discard it. I’ve got no more authority over the text than you! I really believe that; it’s a great pleasure, believing that.“ - RTD [x]
(I should add, that he does actually sneak in a reference to her, when Vivian Rook is talking to Lucy, she tells her that ’Eighteen months ago, he became real. This is his first, honest to God appearance, just after the downfall of Harriet Jones. And at the exact same time, they launched the Archangel Network’)
