The Three Doctors / The Aztecs (Fast Return)
“One more Christmas with you.”
On Sunday 15th February there was bad news for fans of one of the BBC’s most popular continuing drama when viewers of (checks notes) Call The Midwife were informed that beloved original character Sister Monica Joan (Judy Parfitt) was unlikely to see out the current season, being diagnosed with kidney failure.
In the first season of the series, set in 1957, Sister Monica Joan is portrayed as elderly, with advanced physical difficulties and implied incipient dementia. But the strength of Parfitt’s performance meant the character’s role expanded rather than contracted over time, particularly as other characters present in the series from the first episode began to drop out. But Call The Midwife’s internal chronology has now reached 1971. Parfitt herself is 90. You can see why this storyline is happening now. Not least because series’ creator Heidi Thomas is promising a prequel series set in WW2 and a film with the 1970s cast, with it unclear right now if there will be a 2027 made / 1972 set series at all.
But what has all this to do with Doctor Who? Other than her diagnosis being delivered by his brother?1 As I’m sure many of you are aware, Sister Monica Joan has been portrayed on the series as a keen viewer of old money Doctor Who on original transmission. Viewers have seen her comment on The Aztecs, stick with the show through the post Dalekmania ratings crash and on into the Troughton era and The Abominable Snowmen and most recently worry about missing Spearhead from Space Episode Two. A process she brought to an end by giving the reluctant television a thoroughly Doctorish whack with her cane.
She has, bless her, taken to each change of the programme’s format with the exact same delight that real-life fans don’t. (But should.) We’ve a lot to learn, as a fandom, from this elderly fictional nun.
We might also consider it a shame that we have not seen her viewing the Out of the Unknown episode Time in Advance (1 November 1965) or Adam Adamant Lives! - Black Echo (7 January 1967) and wondering who that oddly familiar young woman is. But I like that if she’s going to have some TV time it’s going to be with our show above any other. Although perhaps she should have found time for The Avengers classic Escape in Time (27 January 1967).2 (Although I’m not sure if the television at Nonnatus House can get ITV. Or if nuns would be allowed to watch it if it could.) We already have the delightful paradox of Sister Monica Joan being an avid viewer of 1960s Doctor Who while 2010s Doctor Who regular Graham (Bradly Walsh) claims to have seen every episode of Call the Midwife.3
It’s enough to make you wonder what she made of The Mind Robber. If someone could write a few lines about that into a future episode, I think we’d all sleep a bit better? Ta.
But here’s the important thing: Sister Monica Joan has so much to look forward to as a fan. There’s the repeat of Spearhead in summer 1971, where she can catch up on the episode she missed two thirds of. The Piccolo The Making of Doctor Who will be out about the same time. AND IT HAS A CHAPTER BY A VICAR.
If she lives for another year or so, she’ll be able to see The Three Doctors. All three Doctors onscreen together, in the same story. It’s what the OG fangirl deserves for a near decade of loyal viewership. Not least because she’d naturally compare them to the Holy Trinity.
Don’t tell me that isn’t Christmas Day TV magic waiting to happen.
