Doctor Who: Version Control Part 2, The Pitch

Yesterday, the Doctor. Today, the idea.

*Version Control* is a six-part *Doctor Who* series, followed by a special.

Here's the basic idea: what happens when someone gets the power to rewrite history but hasn't got the first clue what history actually means?

Meet the Editor. He's a bored, lonely young bloke from a small town in Norfolk. During lockdown, he stumbles into time travel in much the same way people stumbled into livestreaming: by accident, with a camera pointed at himself and an audience he may or may not have. He's not planning to conquer the universe. He's a kid who's found a new toy. Unfortunately, the toy is the past.

The Editor thinks of history as footage. You can cut it, rewind it, delete it and have another go. We've all done that with a video. Most of us haven't done it to somebody's life. He starts out with malice, seeking revenge on his online tormentors, then he gets bored. There's no convenient redemption waiting for him at the end. He can have the power of a god and still think he's just messing about with his own recordings.

Standing in his way is the Doctor. I'm bringing back Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor, a man who knows perfectly well that he can change things but understands why he shouldn't do it every five minutes. He's curious, kind and stubborn, and sometimes doing the right thing means accepting that you can't put everything back the way it was.

Then there's Mia, a waitress who knows her town and the people in it. In the first episode, something happens to her that simply shouldn't be possible. She doesn't join the Doctor because she fancies a trip round the universe. She needs answers. And she understands something the Doctor can sometimes overlook: these changes aren't just dates on a timeline. They're happening to real people, in real places.

The six episodes each have their own flavour.

1. Deadstream. A livestream, a Norfolk town and something very wrong with time.

2. A Simpler Time. The Doctor finds the person behind the edits is not what he expected.

3. Pyramids. The Doctor and Mia think they've corrected things. Time for a little sightseeing, then. What could possibly go wrong?

4. Red Who? Thrown out of his own universe, the TARDIS ends up somewhere unexpected, and The Doctor meets Cloister the Stupid. Meanwhile, Mia has problems of her own.

5. Ripple Effect. Every change has consequences. The Doctor is about to discover just how far they spread.

6. Final Cut. Every edit has a cost, and this one comes due.

The Special: The Last Supper

There's one thread running through the whole thing. Every little edit creates another problem, and fixing that problem creates another. Nobody needs to set out to destroy the universe. They just need to keep pulling at the same thread.

Eventually, the rest of the universe takes notice. And somewhere in all this mess, the seeds of the Time War begin to grow.

I'll take the episodes one at a time over the coming week, starting with the story that kicks the whole thing off.

Tomorrow: Episode 1, Deadstream.