‘ALL THE EMPTY TOWERS’

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Blackpool 2089 with the Twelfth Doctor and Clara

The ‘Part 1 – Space’ section of ‘The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who’ concludes with the story ‘All the Empty Towers’ by Jenny T. Colgan. This story features the Twelfth Doctor and Clara. Jenny T. Colgan has written a few Tenth Doctor audios for Big Finish and wrote ‘The Christmas Invasion’ novelization.

In this story, Clara asks the Doctor to take her back home to Blackpool. Instead they end up in Blackpool 2089 where it’s overgrown with jungle. The Doctor and Clara deal with hunters as they try to get out of the jungle mess they’re in. But will Blackpool be overgrown with a jungle in the future?

This was an intriguing tale going back to Clara’s roots and her witnessing what her home will be like if overgrown with a jungle in the future. Clara has nostalgic memories of Blackpool when she was young throughout this. The Doctor tells Clara that Blackpool’s jungle future isn’t a fixed point in time.

There are elements of the episode ‘In the Forest of the Night’ and Clara even asks the Doctor if the jungle is ‘the trees doing a thing again’. There are also echoes of ‘The Doctor Dances’ in the story since the Doctor’s skills as a dancer get questioned. He even dances with Clara half-way in the story.

The story also features a half robotic landlady who becomes a menace to the Doctor and Clara when she tells them that ‘no guests’ are allowed. The hunters’ leader is Triss, who seems to relish in the hunt for wild animals in the overgrown Blackpool jungle. The Doctor thoroughly disapproves of this.

‘All the Empty Towers’ is accompanied by the chapter called ‘The Future of Earth’.

‘All the Empty Towers’ rating – 7/10