19 Years Ago Today, Doctor Who Killed Off 1 of Its Most Mysterious Characters & Completed a Secret Trilogy

The Doctor may be able to travel throughout time and space, but Doctor Who often tends to visit the same eras. The show visits the present day quite a bit, which makes sense from an out of universe perspective, even if it does lead to the irony of one decade being visited a lot by the Third Doctor and another by the Tenth. The Doctor’s also visited several historic events a few times; there have been several different accounts of his involvement in the sinking of the Titanic, for example.

It’s rather more unusual for Doctor Who to revisit the same period in the future, though. It has been known to happen a few times – the William Hartnell story “The Ark” saw the TARDIS land twice on the same cosmic refugee ship leaving Earth after the planet was destroyed by the sun’s expansion. Surprisingly, though, Russell T. Davies launched a loose trilogy that dovetails around this, even featuring a recurring character who was finally killed off 19 years ago today.

Doctor Who’s Future Story Was All About the End of the World

Russell T. Davies relaunched Doctor Who back in 2005, and he quickly established the show’s potential; Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor picked up a new companion, Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler, and swiftly spirited her away to “The End of the World.” It seems the Doctor’s idea of a first date involved showing Rose how her entire planet was destined to die, as they watched the sun expand to consume the Earth. There, they met future beings such as Cassandra the last human, the Face of Boe, and the Moxx of Balhoun – and, of course, it didn’t take long for disaster to ensue.

“The End of the World” was really about establishing an empathic, relatable connection between the Doctor and Rose; the story ended with the Doctor admitting his own homeworld of Gallifrey had been destroyed in a Time War. Doctor Who Season 2 returned to this future setting, though, when the Face of Boe sent the Doctor a telepathic summons to bring new Tenth Doctor David Tennant and Rose to New Earth for another run-in with Cassandra. Again, it was a smart narrative trick, a way of reassuring audiences there was continuity even though the Doctors had changed.

Nineteen years ago today, Doctor Who revisited this future timeline one last time. Now traveling with Freema Agyeman’s Martha Jones, the Doctor visited New Earth to discover New New York had become plagued by monsters known as the Macra. There was a subtle difference here, though; although the Doctor showed Martha humanity’s future on another world, this time he chose to lie and not tell his companion that Gallifrey had been destroyed – at least at first. That changed after another encounter with the Face of Boe, who was now dying and delivered one last warning.

The Face of Boe’s Arc Set Up the Master’s Return

The Face of Boe was an interesting recurring character, a mysterious entity who was name-dropped in other stories that established him as being truly ancient. His last words to the Doctor were both a warning and a prophecy; “You are not alone.” He was speaking of the classic Doctor Who villain the Master, who the Doctor believed died during the Time War – but who had really hidden himself away courtesy of a chameleon arch. Amusingly, the Master had even taken up the identity of Professor Yana (“You Are Not Alone”).

The Face of Boe remained something of an enigma until the end of Doctor Who Season 3, when the show revealed his true identity in a rather surreal way. “The Last of the Time Lords” saw the Doctor, Martha, and John Barrowman’s Captain Jack team up against the Master, eventually defeating the villain once again in a rather timey-wimey plot. As they parted ways, Captain Jack – whose body had been irradiated with temporal energy – revealed he used to go by an alias. “The Face of Boe.”

This is one of the delights of a time travel series; arcs don’t always have to be linear. The Face of Boe knew about the Master because he had been on Earth helping fight against him, albeit under a different identity. That temporal energy must have gradually mutated him, as well as granting him a five-billion-year lifespan. And so, as the Face of Boe, Captain Jack did what he was always destined to do; in doing so, he brought a wonderful trilogy an end while setting up something even bigger.

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