Yet another side blog for fandom bullshit. My main is emasperusual. My rarely used Star Trek blog is emstrekblogfun. My more commonly used Cats/Weird Musicals blog is sevenkittensinatrenchcoat
🥬🫚 fiveturlough week is 1-7 june 2026. more details below. 🫚🥬
fiveturlough week is 1-7 june 2026. use the prompts provided as inspiration (or not) and make fic, art, gifs, edits, vids, rambly headcanons... whatever you'd like!
tag your posts as #fiveturlough week or @fiveturloughweek, and they'll get reblogged here, so everyone can enjoy! works on ao3 can also be added to the fiveturlough week collection.
what can i post for this?
anything you like, as long as there's a focus on the doctor and turlough. other characters can join in the fun. from g-rated and gen/pre-slash to e-rated and kinky... content-wise, anything goes!
this blog is a choose not to warn space. while you are free to add content warnings/labels to your own posts, they are not required.
do i have to do every prompt? do i have to post things a certain date?
nope and nope. fiveturlough week is merely a way to enjoy this ship we love together, not a strict challenge. participate however you feel like, and, if you happen to stumble upon these prompts in three years time and feel compelled, feel free to use them and let us know you did!
the prompts:
pick one of two for each day, do both, swap them out for the alternates, or just do the ones that interest you on whatever day you'd like, the choice is yours.
secrets / forgiveness
"I promised you an interesting subject to paint." / "Doctor, you're showing off."
Gallifrey / Trion
"He bruises easily." / "His voice was suddenly so full of authority..."
shared experiences / alien differences
"You remember temptation, Turlough." / "I've learnt a lot from you."
first (meeting, kiss, etc.) / last
alternates: 1980s / outsider POV / post-Planet of Fire / any AU
Based on the number of screenshots I took, this analysis will probably be four parts. For a two part story. I'm funny like that. Anyway:
I really hate the bits where I just summarize what happens between screenshots. Consider that a good reason to read the transcript, or, even better, listen to the audio yourself at some point.
Tess hits on Turlough who then has some kind of PTSD flashback and passes out. 6 and Peri go looking for them and they run into Christopher Marlowe. A middle-aged Christopher Marlowe. Who should've died decades before this point. Turns out he made a deal with the devil (actually aliens) for a longer life but his borrowed time's running out and the devil (actually aliens) is coming to collect. He's got the contract with him and everything. The Doctor can't help him out of this one because it will cause a super paradox.
Also 6 and Peri met Marlowe before in a previous adventure which I don't know about. Was this a previous audio? If it is, I can follow this one fine so whatever.
Anyway, Tess took to Turlough to recover from passing out at the same tavern the Doctor and Marlowe are chatting at, and he's feeling better now.
When I found out Marlowe was gonna be in a Turlough audio I really hoped he'd flirt with him so I got something on my wish list :)
What kind of confuses me is Marlowe describing Turlough as having golden hair. Mark Strickson is naturally blond, but Turlough is very much a redhead. Did Turlough's hair change colors in the three years since we last saw him? Is it just weird worded that I'm overthinking? Probably that last one.
Turlough does know who Christopher Marlowe is and has an "I'm meeting a famous historical figure" reaction to it. Based on other continuity, Turlough doesn't like Shakespeare but he seems happy meeting one of his contemporaries.
I find this kind of funny. Marlowe was not only probably gay, but he wrote a play about Edward II, which condemns homophobia and has some lines that amount to "kings have gay lovers all the time"
Note that the examples named are all from Greek or Roman history or mythology. In the 16th century, these were really the only sources someone in Europe could find that depict homosexuality without condemning it. Gay subcultures in the west for centuries, basically the entire time between the Renaissance and the Gay Liberation movement of the mid 20th century, were heavily influenced by Ancient Greek mythology and philosophy, and by art that was also influenced by the same mythology and philosophy.
If you're wondering why I'm stopping to talk about this right now, well it's mostly cause I'm a nerd who likes talking about weird ancient gay stuff, but also because it's part of a pattern with Turlough that I'll elaborate on later.
So Marlowe hugs Turlough in a scene that is framed as flirtatious and Turlough doesn't give that much of a shit but he doesn't seem to have much of a problem with it either. The hug isn't just flirting though. It's a Plot Thing. But we'll get to that later.
Right now, it's time to talk crystals.
Peri realizes that she's gonna have to play therapist for the two idiots who won't talk about their feelings. She goes outside to talk to Turlough first. He doesn't quite explain the Black Guardian incident to her, but he does say he fucked up.
Turlough gives a good description of how 5 handled the Black Guardian situation. Peri knew 5 long enough to recognize this as something he'd do. She talks about her own experiences of dealing with 5 becoming 6. It's been at least 5 years for her since The Twin Dilemma, if not more, so she's kind of come to terms with everything.
The Reckoning sort of reinterprets That One Scene from The Twin Dilemma. 6 was subconsciously reacting to the memory of having an "alien spy" on board the TARDIS. Peri doesn't put two and two together that Turlough was the alien spy. In hindsight she's gonna have to realize that "wait when he was choking me was he thinking of Turlough when he did that?".
The thing is, 5 wasn't nice to Turlough out of a lack of suspicion. He knew that something was up with Turlough, but he let him on board anyway. There was no moment when he realized that Turlough was "an alien spy". So this "I should've been more suspicious" backlash doesn't fit.
And this isn't just a different interpretation of 5 than mine. Turlough's description of 5 waiting for him to sort himself out is the interpretation of 5 I'm getting at. Where was the subconscious ill will even coming from?
So things are a bit confusing and Turlough still has a bunch of things he's not willing to talk about, especially not with 6. So Peri goes back to 6 and tries to get him to understand Turlough's side of this.
6 has been a dick to Turlough this whole time and is surprised that Turlough doesn't trust him, but he was only being a dick to Turlough because he was frustrated that Turlough didn't trust him. 6 is being an idiot in a way that's pretty typical for him. He's a dick, doesn't know he's being a dick, so he doesn't understand why people are mad at him. Peri used to get the brunt of this, but she's known 6 for a long time and he's had a lot of character development since. They've figured each other out by now. So they can actually have a conversation about this that doesn't devolve into an argument.
Much to unpack here.
Peri sees the Doctor and Turlough's dynamic as a more paternal one apparently, but that interpretation is the one that's easiest for her to understand. Comparing this situation to having a stepfather. The "not my real dad" effect can factor into any "you're the inferior replacement for someone I liked" situation. A lot of Doctor Who fans respond to a new Doctor with a "not my real dad", especially kids.
Look, we'll get more into the "father figure" stuff when we get to Part Two. It's not that important right now.
What matters is that 6 is offended that Turlough won't except him. He's regenerated in front of companions before. Most of those companions didn't know what regeneration was, so if they treated him like an imposter, it was misunderstanding. But Turlough knew about regeneration well before he met 6, so as far as 6 knows, that shouldn't be a problem. He thought the hostility to his new incarnations was based entirely on not understanding that this was still him. Turlough logically understands what's happening here, so why isn't he just treating 6 like 5?
What 6 doesn't get is that there's an emotional understanding separate from logical understanding involved. This has happened to everybody at some point. If someone has a phobia of spiders, for example, they can see a harmless house spider, know that the spider is harmless, but they'll still feel threatened by it. They logically understand that there is no threat, but it still feels like there is one. Emotional understanding is harder to achieve. You can't talk someone into it. It can only come from experience. Turlough knows that 6 is meant to be the same person as 5, but he doesn't feel the same. And he reacts to that emotion.
As for the "you did, why can't he?", two things there. If you only count by onscreen appearances, Peri really didn't know 5 very well to begin with. They didn't have an established bond in the way Turlough had with 5. And even if you go by EU timelines and have Peri travel with 5 for a while, creating that established bond, 6 doesn't seem to realize that Peri didn't adjust to him easily. He really didn't make it easy for her. She just never said anything. In 6 and Peri's televised stories, though they bicker all the time, Peri also just sort of goes along with 6. After The Twin Dilemma, the fact that 6 is not 5 is sort of dropped. The thing is, even when 6 and Peri argued, Peri always backed down eventually, because she didn't want to piss 6 off. It's the biggest consistent problem with season 22. It's not just that 6 is an asshole, that he picks on Peri, but that Peri seems intimidated by him. If they're arguing, and 6 raises his voice, Peri will backpedal. And that's not fun to watch.
6 never realized that Peri never directly went into "not my real dad" mode with him because she was probably afraid to. Now, though 6 has been a dick to Turlough, he's never gone so far that it actually scared him. Turlough's not afraid of 6. So now 6 has to see what Peri kept from him.
twice now ppl on the big discord server have been like 'haha poor fiveturlough fans, turlough said the doctor's like a father figure to him.' sorry ig i missed the memo when father figures became unfuckable.
Okay. Obvious Here There Be Spoilers for the new Big Finish audio The Reckoning. Thank you to @vislortherizzler for transcribing everything so I can easily point to stuff. This particular post covers just the first few scenes that were released early. The rest will follow when I feel like it.
So I'm gonna post screenshots of the transcript, as well as mentioning what happens between screenshots, and do some analysis. I don't really have a theme for this beyond Interesting Blorbough Whatever. Forgive any rambling that might ensue.
So we start with Turlough, having joined 6 and Peri in the TARDIS under Mysterious Circumstances, in his room, going through his old stuff. He plans on getting rid of most of it because of the bad memories attached.
And we get to the part where one wonders why he has this stuff in the first place. Why did Turlough take a helmet from Frontios? After all the trauma he experienced there, why would he take anything from there? This helmet only exists to provide an example of Turlough's Bad Memories of TARDIS Travel.
That might be even weirder than the Frontio helmet.
Okay, in Terminus, when Turlough's first settling in to what was once Adric's room, it's full of stuff from Adric's adventures in the TARDIS. It was all a bunch of callbacks, but it made a bit more sense for Adric to have them. His early character premise was Artful Dodger in Space, so he's supposed to be something of a thief who just takes things. He's the type of person to just collect stuff if he things it looks cool or there's something interesting about it.
Turlough was never like that. If he picked up stuff on his adventures, it'd have to mean something to him. What did the helmet and gun mean to him?
So we've hit a bit of a writing issue. There's two good Doylist (why the writers wrote it) reasons for this stuff to be here, but no good Watsonian (why the character did it) reason. This is a really common writing problem, characters doing things basically because the plot needs them to, not because it's in-character for them to do it. In reality, the reasons Turlough has this stuff are:
Callback to Terminus when Turlough settled into this same room for the first time.
Establish the trauma and bad memories that come with returning to the TARDIS.
The Terminus bit is part of something I'll explain later.
Okay, we have something it makes sense for Turlough to keep that's also a callback to an episode. The sketch of the Eye of Orion. We can see him sketching it in The Five Doctors. He values his art, he probably has a whole book of sketches, it makes sense that he'd have this. It also represents a moment he was happy. At least for a little while, he went somewhere peaceful and beautiful.
And apparently Peri went there too, though that never happened onscreen. Her reaction makes her seem more adventurous than Turlough. A better fit for the Doctor. Though if you actually look at Peri's televised run as a companion she was miserable for most of it. When she wasn't bored she was either in danger or fighting with the Doctor, whom she seemed genuinely intimidated by, which made their dynamic uncomfortable to watch. Turlough also had plenty of bad days as a companion, but at least he got along with the Doctor pretty well.
Oh look another mysterious crystal. More on that in a moment.
Peri leaves Turlough to talk to the Doctor. And he's not happy.
And here's where we hit the main Why Is Anything Anything.
In Red for Danger, the story before this one, it was really frustrating how 6 didn't realize Turlough was there until he was standing right in front of him. The obvious clues, like the TARDIS key being found in Lanzarote, went completely unnoticed. Now we can see that this is yet another Doylist Reason Without Watsonian Reason issue.
Let me explain that.
Red for Danger is basically Mawdryn Undead with 6. It's basically asking "What if 6 was the Doctor who found Turlough?" In order for that to work, 6 had to be in the same place 5 was in Mawdryn Undead, not knowing much about Turlough.
Now we get a bunch of parallels to the Black Guardian trilogy. Turlough failed to hit 5 with a rock. He successfully hit 6 with a brick. Turlough wants to save a planet he won't name. Enlightenment ends with him wanting to return to a home planet he won't name. He is referring to the same planet (Trion) in both cases. 6, knowing where Turlough is from, really should be able to guess that Turlough's trying to save Trion, but 5 didn't have that information, so 6 has to conveniently forget it.
We've now got a mirror to the opening to Terminus as well. We have the established companion talk to Turlough while he settles into his room. Tegan was (rightfully) suspicious, while Peri is (rightfully) concerned. Both are sort of dismissed by the Doctor for it. And then something goes wrong with the TARDIS to kick off the plot.
The key difference is the amount of information the audience has. Mawdryn Undead showed us Turlough's deal with the Black Guardian immediately after introducing him. The audience knows at least some of what Turlough's up to the whole time. We see Turlough get the crystal to communicate with the Black Guardian. In Terminus, we see Turlough sabotaging the TARDIS on the Black Guardian's orders, so we know what's wrong with the TARDIS.
In Red for Danger, Turlough even being there is a surprise reveal and we're only given a small amount of information about what he's up to. We see that Turlough has a mysterious glowing crystal, that it's important to him, but no specific details. And the problems with the TARDIS just happen. We don't find out what caused it until the end. Big Finish has added an element of mystery.
Anyway, before things go wrong we have a little chat about PTSD.
The Doctor really shouldn't be too surprised about a companion having PTSD considering the exits of Victoria and Tegan. Especially Tegan because Turlough was there for that one.
But the Doctor's right that Turlough was always uneasy and twitchy. He was traumatized before he came into the TARDIS. His planet was fucked up in a civil war that he had to fight in. His mom died. He was branded and exiled. He was separated from the rest of his family. Brendon was nasty enough for him to make that deal with the Black Guardian to escape it. Trauma has always been a big part of Turlough's character.
Now back to things being wrong with the TARDIS:
I wanted to spotlight this interaction because it reminded me of a scene from The Two Doctors, of all things. I'm sure it was a complete coincidence, but I thought it was amusing. Here's the bit I was reminded of:
Peri and Jamie functionally say the same thing here, but Jamie gets positive attention for it, showing a double standard in how 6 treats the two. This was in the actual TV show, where 6 was a dick to Peri for most of it. Then he runs into Jamie, an old companion, and he treats him far better than he treats Peri. He's very happy to have him around.
It's also wordplay on the conspiracy being the plot of the episode.
The Reckoning basically does it in reverse. Peri makes a suggestion that the Doctor actually hadn't considered. She gets positive attention for the suggestion. Turlough shows up later, makes the same suggestion, and gets snapped at.
This doesn't mean anything significant. I just thought it was interesting.
Anyway the TARDIS is stuck in harm's way and the occupants have to go to escape pods. Turlough's lands a bit earlier than the other two and he runs into a woman named Tess.
Knowing the full story, thus knowing who Tess really is, I have no idea why she's flirting with Turlough. It's just weird. It's not comphet though because Turlough clearly doesn't give a shit.
When the other two escape pods land, the Doctor and Peri find Turlough's mysterious crystal.
Notice how the Doctor is not sure here. This story is clearly trying to invoke the Black Guardian's crystal, but being an audio story, the audience can't see it, which leaves room to set up a fake-out.
The key here, how you know it's a fake-out, is actually because the Doctor, though suspicious, isn't sure about the crystal. In Mawdryn Undead, the Doctor sees the crystal and says they need to find Turlough immediately, implying that he knows that Turlough having this crystal means Big Problem.
Other EU media actually backs this up. In the VMA novel The Well-Mannered War, 4 and Romana II have another encounter with the Black Guardian, who made a deal with some poor mortal. Said poor mortal communicated with the Black Guardian through a crystal. When 4 sees the crystal, he comments that it's made of a unique material. He can tell that the crystal is abnormal on sight. Then he learns of its connection to the Black Guardian. So, in Mawdryn Undead, 5 most likely sees the exact same distinctive crystal among Turlough's possessions. He knows The Black Guardian is involved.
But 6 isn't sure. The Black Guardian's crystals are made of a unique material that the Doctor can identify on sight. But 6 isn't sure. It can't be the same crystal. He only suspects it might be because he's already suspicious of Turlough.
So that's all I've got for now. More to come later :)
this time it’s @natequarter ’s fault (I’m sure you’ve seen it, but your post about turlough glaring like a pathetic meow meow while tied up reminded me of it yet again)
Okay, I’m not gonna go into a whole Tumblr Essay Thing, but since we’re going to see Turlough with another Doctor, I wanna talk about something in 5 and Turlough’s dynamic that’s interesting. If this is anything like an essay, it’ll hopefully be a short one.
The situation with Turlough and the Black Guardian is one of the few times 5 actually plays to his strengths. Both 3 and 4 were natural authority figures. They could show up in a situation and just sort of talk their way into being in charge. Having two authoritative Doctors in a row means that 5 doesn’t really know what to do without those vibes. He used to, because 2 didn’t have that authoritative vibe. And he knew how to handle it. He became good at staying at the sidelines, often just observing the plot for a while before getting involved. The pacing of most 2nd Doctor stories was set up for it.
Yeah, we’re gonna need to break to talk about pacing.
6-parters were very common during the era. These longer stories meant a lot of time just watching the one-off characters do their thing. This could get boring if the one-off characters weren’t interesting enough, but the overall formula of spending a lot of time with these characters is there for a reason. Because the Doctor is observing the characters. The show is inviting the audience to do the same thing.
But then we get to 3 and the longer stories started to feel more padded. Lots of long chases and fights, sneaking around, getting captured, escaping, and getting captured again. In UNIT stories, this wasn’t too much of a problem. 3 was created for the UNIT stories. But when 3 left UNIT, left the present, and went on an adventure closer to what the first two Doctors did, it started to feel weird. 3 isn’t a character he sits back and observes for long periods of time. He’s an action hero. He’s always doing something. So there always had to be something for him to do. In 4-parters, with a faster pace, this need for constant action made stories exciting. But if the stories got too long, it felt like padding.
By the time 4 came around, 6-parters were reduced to one per season. 4-parters became the norm. Though 4 wasn’t exactly an action hero, he was a dynamic, energetic character who immediately attracted attention everywhere he went, so observing from the sidelines wasn’t really an option. So you had a shorter runtime to keep that to a minimum, except for special occasions.
With 5, 6-parters had disappeared all-together. 5 is younger than previous Doctors, more physically fit, which left opportunities for action, but that’s ultimately not what they went with. Instead, the reoccurring thing with 5 was that he sucked at being 4. He’d show up somewhere, try to take charge, and be shot down. People didn’t listen to him and people died.
This actually would’ve been a good time to bring back some more 2-era storytelling. There were 4-parters during that era, so it could still work with a shorter runtime. Have the Doctor stay back, observe the situation, and figure out the best way to handle it as he goes. But most of the writers of the era either didn’t think to do that or didn’t know how. So we didn’t get much of it.
But then you look at the arc with Turlough. How does 5 handle that situation? It’s implied that he knows that something’s wrong with Turlough very early on, but he doesn’t confront him. He just watches and waits. He’s very kind to Turlough, which subtly influences him to turn away from the dark side, but it’s indirect. He lets Turlough resolve his own conflict, just providing the support he needs to do it.
And that’s what works. He observes, figures out what’s going on, and decides to let things play out, influencing things to work out how he wants them do, but remaining mostly passive. This is probably what leads to Turlough trusting him. The Doctor doesn’t judge him, doesn’t tell him what to do, he just lets him make his own choices. This lack of judgement or control makes Turlough want to make the right choice. So he does.
A more authoritative Doctor couldn’t have done this. As soon as they figured out what was going on, they’d confront Turlough, scaring him away. With so many stories where 5 fails to do what his predecessors did, you have one where he succeeds where they would’ve failed.
So going into the 6th Doctor audios with Turlough…Well, 6 is the opposite of 5. He’s active and authoritative. He has no patience for any bullshit. Turlough needs him to be patient and passive to make him trust him. If 6 pushes, Turlough will push back or run away. If 6 directly asks what’s going on with Turlough, he won’t tell him. This isn’t a situation 6 can really handle. He’ll either have to relearn the things he knew as 5, or someone else will have to take over here. I’m looking forward to seeing which way it goes.
Since we're going to get the 6/Peri/Turlough adventures soon, and there's sure to be a lot of "6 and Turlough don't trust each other" conflict, I wanna single out this line from Red for Danger. Whatever trouble Turlough's gotten himself into, which I'm sure he'll be very secretive about, you really get the vibe that if he'd run into 5 again instead of 6, he would've just told him everything, trusting him to help him.
Why do I get the feeling Older!Companions will always be depicted with a spouse of the opposite sex and kids just like...by default? Pretty much every story that brings a companion back for more than a cameo references marriage and/or kids at least in passing. It's like it's sort of assumed that it's just what happens to everybody? Young people go on adventures, and they settle down, get married, and have babies. I actually kind of want to look through every older!companion storyline and see if it's a pattern. The only ones I can thing of that don't get married and have kids are the "they live a lonely life without the Doctor" ones like Sarah Jane.
Why do I get the feeling Older!Companions will always be depicted with a spouse of the opposite sex and kids just like...by default? Pretty much every story that brings a companion back for more than a cameo references marriage and/or kids at least in passing. It's like it's sort of assumed that it's just what happens to everybody? Young people go on adventures, and they settle down, get married, and have babies. I actually kind of want to look through every older!companion storyline and see if it's a pattern. The only ones I can thing of that don't get married and have kids are the "they live a lonely life without the Doctor" ones like Sarah Jane.
Belinda: Got rewritten into a housewife by some asshole, got rewritten again into a single mom by the Doctor, so I'm pretty sure the version of Belinda we followed this whole time functionally died...
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