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Celebrating 20 years of New Who with the New Who Doctors - 9th Doctor

“AULD LANG SYNE: A HAUNTINGLY BEAUTIFUL NEW YEAR'S REFLECTION”

Closing out Back to Earth, Auld Lang Syne delivers an emotionally resonant and timey-wimey character study, blending ghostly mystery with a heartfelt exploration of grief and memory. Set within the shifting timelines of a New Year’s Eve gathering, it offers a poignant farewell to this set of Ninth Doctor adventures, reminding us that while time moves forward, the past is never truly gone.

A HOUSE FULL OF MEMORIES

The story centres on Mandy Litherland, a woman who has made it a tradition to reunite her family at an old manor house every year to celebrate New Year's Eve. This time, the turn of the decade from the 1980s to the 1990s should be a special occasion, but there’s a lingering sense of melancholy. Not everyone in the family shares Mandy’s enthusiasm, and an eerie presence lurks beneath the festivities.

The Doctor is present in an unusual role—as the house’s caretaker. But as we soon learn, he’s not just here to keep the pipes from freezing. Time is behaving strangely within the manor, jumbling events and pulling Mandy into an unsettling web of past and present. The Doctor himself seems to be meeting her out of order, their conversations unfolding at different points in their respective timelines.

It’s a wonderfully eerie setup, slowly unravelling the mystery of why the house—and Mandy herself—seems trapped in a loop of celebrations past. With each shift in time, more pieces of the puzzle fall into place, drawing Mandy and the Doctor toward the truth.

A CHARACTER-DRIVEN MYSTERY

At its heart, Auld Lang Syne is a deeply personal tale. While there’s a ghostly monster lurking in the shadows—the elusive Lady of the House—the real focus is on Mandy’s emotional journey. Played with warmth and depth by Leah Brotherhead, Mandy is a sympathetic and well-realised character, and her chemistry with Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor makes their interactions particularly engaging.

She’s determined and resourceful, taking the strange temporal anomalies in stride. Where another character might have panicked, Mandy instead chooses to trust the Doctor, leaning into the mystery rather than running from it. This makes her a compelling protagonist, one who carries much of the story’s emotional weight.

Eccleston’s Doctor, meanwhile, is in fine form—eccentric, enigmatic, but always deeply compassionate. He clearly knows more than he’s letting on, guiding Mandy toward answers while still respecting the weight of her personal struggles. His presence never overpowers the narrative; instead, he acts as a catalyst, nudging Mandy toward realisations she might not have reached on her own.

A TIMEY-WIMEY TAPESTRY

The structure of the story is one of its greatest strengths. Rather than unfolding in a straightforward manner, the narrative jumps between different New Year’s Eves, showing us fragments of Mandy’s past while keeping the mystery alive.

Despite this non-linear approach, the story remains easy to follow, thanks to strong character writing and clear storytelling. The pacing is brisk, but every moment feels deliberate, allowing for emotional beats to land without ever slowing down the momentum.

One of the most impressive elements is how many New Year’s Eve celebrations the story manages to incorporate without feeling cluttered. Each one serves a purpose, gradually peeling back the layers of Mandy’s history and her connection to the house. Through this, we get a sense of how time is folding in on itself, making the setting feel almost alive—a place caught between past and present, unwilling to let go.

A HAUNTING REVELATION

As the second half of the story unfolds, the emotional stakes rise. The Lady of the House, previously glimpsed only in shadow, begins to take a more prominent role. But this isn’t a simple ghost story—there’s something deeper at play.

Without delving into heavy spoilers, Auld Lang Syne ultimately becomes a meditation on grief, memory, and the struggle to move forward. Mandy’s connection to the house runs deeper than she realises, and her repeated New Year’s celebrations aren’t just a tradition—they’re a way of holding on.

The story’s climax is both haunting and deeply moving, as Mandy is forced to confront the ghosts of her past—both literal and metaphorical. The resolution is bittersweet, offering closure while acknowledging that loss never truly disappears. Instead, it becomes a part of us, woven into the fabric of who we are.

SOUND DESIGN AND ATMOSPHERE

The atmosphere of Auld Lang Syne is beautifully realised, thanks to stellar sound design. The shifting timelines are seamlessly conveyed through audio cues, ensuring that the listener always understands when and where they are. The eerie, echoing quality of the manor house enhances the sense of unease, while the celebratory New Year’s scenes contrast this with warmth and nostalgia.

The score is subtle but effective, heightening both the mystery and the emotional weight of the story. The Lady of the House’s presence is underscored by chilling sound effects that make her feel genuinely unsettling, even when she’s not directly seen.

📝VERDICT: 8/10

Auld Lang Syne is a beautifully crafted, emotionally rich story that serves as a fitting conclusion to Back to Earth. It blends classic Doctor Who time-travel trickery with a deeply human exploration of grief and memory, resulting in a tale that lingers long after the final moments.

Leah Brotherhead shines as Mandy, delivering a performance full of warmth and quiet sorrow, while Christopher Eccleston is at his best—both playful and profound. The non-linear structure keeps the mystery engaging, and the final revelation delivers a heartfelt gut punch.

A touching and atmospheric tale, Auld Lang Syne reminds us that time moves on, but the past is never truly lost.

Auld Lang Syne, the third and final episode of the Ninth Doctor's "Back to Earth" boxset, dug into an element of time that Doctor Who, despite being all about time, hardly ever explores. Specifically: the way families build meaning across time with traditions kept.

Leah Brotherhead's Mandy Litherland meets up with the Doctor once a year for, IIRC, basically four years running, which seems like a short time to get to know someone and a short time to form such a friendly bond. But as her sister points out toward the end of the episode, that can be enough when the people are right. It strikes me that this is also how well a lot of us know our families, especially extended family. We meet up for the holidays, having grown or suffered an entire year in the interim. It creates a rift to be sure. Your family doesn't know you the way your day-to-day friends and acquaintances might. But there's also something deeper about seeing someone once a year through a large chunk (or all) of their life. So structuring a story around these time windows that have the Doctor popping into our hero's life year after year is a neat way to explore that.

Mandy is a great one-off companion, too. Interested (maybe in love) without being starstruck. Really enjoyed the way Brotherhead played off of Eccleston. And her reason for not traveling with the Doctor at the end of the episode makes sense: it would preclude her from visiting this family we have seen she loves. Sometimes, companion exits feel cheap (Really? You're not going to travel in SPACE and TIME so that you can go do [insert mundane thing you could also do in 10,000 BCE or on Mars just as easily]. Looking at you Dan.) so it was nice that her exit didn't.

Enjoyed this. Would recommend. Going to keep listening to the Ninth Doctor audios.

This final story of the box set means the 9DAs continue the trend of having one “fantastic” story per set. Not the ratio I like, but it was a relief to be swept away with Tim Foley’s beautiful story.

Plot wise it has touches of The Girl in the Fireplace (doors into different times within a house) and A Christmas Carol (The Doctor revisiting the same person at New Year’s Eve each year) but these elements work to good effect.

Daring to give Eccleston a love interest was a strong move and completely era appropriate - a good way of differentiating this Doctor from the classic cohort. It’s a crying shame though that she doesn’t jump in the TARDIS with him at the end of the story - it just seems like a wasted opportunity for him to not share his adventures with someone else.