Eve (episode)


*The following article is written from an Out of Universe perspective.*

Eve was 2021 Christmas Special of Doctor Who: Through Time and Space. It was written and directed by Tomasz Szafrański and starred Hanna Śleszyńska as the Doktor and Paulina Walendziak as Pola Pisarek.

Synopsis

Mysterious time distortions in 19th Century and present day’s Poland catch The Doktor’s attention. But what she finds is completely different to any threat she has faced before. Join The Doktor and Pola on the most ordinary extraordinary Christmas dinner and discover with them why perhaps we need Christmas more than ever.

Plot

Something is still missing.

This thought wakes Pola up on the board of a TARDIS. The Doktor is hyperactive, rambling and touching literally everything around. It’s only after a moment that she notices Pola’s awakening and asks her if she’s alright, only to start ranting how she herself is very confused by her first ever regeneration. Just as she wonders where to head next, an alarm goes off in the TARDIS. The Doktor reads the report to find out that a time distortions have been detected somewhere around Warsaw in 1871 and in 2021. The Doktor suggest that they investigate both of those. She’ll check the 19th Century, while Pola will take care of her time – The Doktor knows she can trust her with this. Pola agrees.

Pola gets dropped in December 2021 and searches the area, but for several days in a row finds nothing suspicious. Since the TARDIS did not reappear during this time, Pola figures that it will take a bit and spends her waiting time with her family, which prepares for the upcoming Christmas. While the montage showing these preparations brings us all the way to 24th December, we get an insight into Pola’s thoughts – she contemplates the problems of her generation. Every generation, she points out, has their problems; some manage to solve them, some don’t. Afterwards the new generation takes its place and needs to live in the world shaped by them. Her generation inherited the world full of wonders – technological, cultural, even societal. But something has been lost as well; they’re called Generation Why, cause they question everything: why dedicate so much life to work, why follow traditions that are centuries old, why keep ties with disliked family members. Stuff that was obvious for past generations isn’t for them. That’s progress, they know better now – or do they? She had no idea where to go next with her life until she met The Doktor. He… she… they reminded her of the miracles of the world worth fighting for. Her generation knows about them and fights – for the climate, for equality… But do they have enough strength? Life is brutal and full of zasadzkas. They’re afraid… doubtful… They hide behind the memes and infobubbles. Some of them just can’t bear it, abandon their life or take it away. Their parents don’t get it – and vice versa. Don’t they see all this aggression and injustice? But that’s not quite fair – their generation also faced huge problems in their time. Like Benek – he lived under Russian occupation, earned worthless money and traded coupons for the food that was barely in the shops. How did he have strength while they don’t?

For Christmas Eve, Pola’s family comes to Bronisławka, a small village near Warsaw where her grandparents live. We get to meet not just them, but also her uncles and aunts, as well as three cousins – two kindergarteners Kajtek and Ula and 17 year old Krystian, who Pola knows as shy and insecure kid that finds it particularly hard to get along with all gathered relatives, and this time it seems even worse, as he’s unapologetically rude to them. Pola exchanges hugs with everyone and engages in conversations while they all prepare Christmas dinner. Eventually, she gets tired and goes outside to catch a breath.

On Christmas Eve in 1871’s Bronisławka, The Doktor vocally tries to convince herself that she feels very confident. She defeated her own fears, and The Cybermen as the added bonus, she’s now perfectly comfortable with the new body and she’s not bothered at all by the fact that she’ll never look at her home planet with the eyes she used to have or that Pola still gives her weird looks sometimes, or that she literally died before she had achieved her goal… Ok, why in the world did she split up with Pola? Now there’s no one here who can detract her from confronting herself! Fortunately, she spots a cottage that gives out an unusual temporal signature. The Doktor knocks the door and easily gets invited inside, as the house masters assume her to be unexpected guest that came for Christmas Dinner. We meet the peasant family of Piecek: a couple in their late 40s, the elderly mother of the house master and the three kids. The oldest son, Antek, is married and plans to move to Warsaw, where she hopes to find a better life as a worker. The Doktor doesn’t pay much attention to these eight or a dinner and instead looks for anything resembling temporal anomaly, only to fail at doing so. Disappointed, she pretends that she needs to pee and gets out to take additional equipment from The TARDIS. However, when she opens the TARDIS door, all she finds is an inside of a casual police box. The Doktor falls into panic and runs back to the cottage, nervously technobabbling to herself.

She doesn’t reach it though, because she bumps at Pola.

They’re both very surprised to see each other and The Doktor asks what Pola’s doing in 1871. Pola objects that they’re not in 1871, they’re in 2021. The Doktor laughs off this claim, but stops right in her tracks when she looks around and realises that they are indeed in 2021. She concludes that she must have fallen into some kind of paradox connecting both time periods, hence TARDIS got cut off. Since she doesn’t know when – and if – she gets returned to 1871, so she may as well help Pola out with her part. Pola explains that she’s kinda stuck and she’s just having a Christmas dinner with her family. The Doktor disagrees; she’s doing great, she subconsciously located the area of the paradox. Perhaps her household has more to do with it than it seems. Time to go investigating.

The Doktor again becomes unexpected visitor, this time on Pisarek family Christmas dinner, which she’s slightly baffled by. She quickly becomes the main attraction of the evening, as her natural charisma mesmerises the family, despite them getting nothing from her technobabble. Only Krystian seems to dislike her and loudly makes some rude comments about her, but The Doktor laughs them off. Pola tries her best to explain who The Doktor is without coming around as loony, which talking about time travel and aliens would certainly result with, so she compares her to Mr. Blot and Mr. Twardowski. A smell of scorch suddenly comes from the kitchen, distracting everyone, which gives The Doktor the time to scan the room for temporal anomalies – with no success – and to ask Pola who are Mr. Blot and Mr. Twardowski. Pola explains that these are childrens’ book character and legendary character respectively – both known from their quorky personalities, wide knowledge and astonishing supernatural powers. She tried to find the closest archetype – something that would help describe the Doktor – and those two came to her mind. The Doktor, embarrassed, protests that she doesn’t see herself as all that wonderful – she barely graduated Time Lord Academy, and now she can’t even pinpoint the anomaly.

Ula and Kajtek, bored by adults’ conversations they can’t really understand, start grieving. Since the work in the kitchen is still ongoing, Kajtek’s dad decides to play them the cartoon on Blu-Ray – and not just any cartoon, but a classic from their infant years, “Weird Adventures of Matołek the Billy-Goat”. The cartoon quickly absorbs the kids’ attention, but it also catches an interest of The Doktor. Pola explains to her that the cartoon is based on the oldest Polish comic book by Kornel Makuszyński and Marian Walentynowicz. The concept is very simple – Matołek is looking for Pacanów, a town where goats can get shoed like horses. However, his wandering brings him everywhere but Pacanów and he constantly falls into trouble. “That’s me” comments The Doktor, and then elaborates to confused Pola „My archetype. Forget Mr. Blot, I’m like Matołek the Billy-Goat. I wander through all of existence in search of something ridiculous”.

Pola tries and fails to cheer The Doktor up, while another call for help comes from the kitchen. Pola goes there, but instead finds herself inside Pieceks’ cottage in 1871. Both Pola and the peasant family are pretty confused, fortunately The Doktor comes along to introduce Pola as her niece. Pola plays along, saying that she doesn’t need a seat at dinner table, just a shelter from cold night, but due to Polish hospitality she gets treated with a dish anyway. Rozalia spots the first star on the night sky, which means the two came right on time for the Christmas dinner to start. The Doktor and Pola negotiate their standing; apparently the paradox entrapped not just The Doktor, but Pola too, likely due to Time Vortex particles remaining on them from their travels. Both the cottage and Pisareks’ household are connected to paradox, since they’re driven to them after each time jump. Can they be the same building? Worth verifying. Their priority is to find the source of this anomaly and shut it down at all cost. Pola disagrees – not at all cost. Two families are having a Christmas dinner here and paradox or not, they can’t ruin their day. Christmas used to be the time of family and communion, the constant moment of safety and warmth in the uncertain life, its preservation matters. The Doktor picks up on the ‘used to’ part and Pola admits that nowadays it doesn’t quite work out; the marketing act cheapened the event and the family meetings became awkward, as people separated by generations, worldviews and temperaments are afraid of talking to each other – but this is nothing that cannot be fixed, and would be stupid to give up so easily on such important concept like Christmas. The Doktor remarks that they’ll do it Pola’s way then, but she still doesn’t quite get this Christmas thing. Pola points a Christmas wafer at her and says that in this case, she wishes her to discover what she seeks to know. We then get a funny scene as Pola instructs The Doktor how to share a Christmas wafer.

The twelve dishes enter the table. The Doktor, still looking for anomalies, quickly notices that all of them are completely vegetarian – don’t humans eat meat when they feast? Pola quietly explains that this is exclusively Polish tradition – a remnant of times when every eve of important celebration was a time of fasting. When Christmas Eve became part of Christmas around XVIth century, this caused a paradox, as the dinner for this day should be both special and vegetarian. So they came up with the most delicious and remarkable dishes without an ounce of meat. The Doktor gets handed a bowl of borsch with ravioli and Pola tells her to eat up. As The Doktor enjoys the meal, Pola gets to talk with Antek, who is happy to outline his life plans to her. Pola is shocked that he just casually gives such information to a complete stranger. She points out that his plan is a big risk; he knows nothing about living in the city and he has no friends there. How can he be so confident that he succeeds? Antek says that he isn’t; he may end up failing, but he’ll never know if he doesn’t try. He’s gonna prepare the best he can and give it his best shot. Pola drills further; is that enough of the reassurance? What is he going to do if he fails? Antek responds that in this case he likely comes back to his family, helping them in all they need till he sees the path the good God chose for him. He has faith, hope and people who love him; that’s his courage. Pola contemplates this statement.

The next five minutes see a montage of The Doktor and Pola going back and forth between 1871 and 2021, finding out that no one notices their absence – it’s almost like they exist in both times simultaneously. The Doktor theories that they do, and their minds simply can’t perceive it. They quickly confirm that cottage and Pisarek house aren’t the same location or even occupy the same ground – the source of paradox must be something else. Meanwhile, they engage in all kinds of holiday hijinks – an argument whether to watch Home Alone or Die Hard (abruptly ended when Krystian almost drops the radio on himself), singing carols (with Pola unexpectedly turning out to be quite a singer) and, of course, unpacking gifts from Gwiazdor… sorry, Santa, as younger Pisareks quickly correct grandma Krystyna. The Doktor is surprised to find the present for herself as well – The Young Chemist set, which she’s almost childishly excited with. Eventually, midnight approaches, and both Pisarek and Piecek families prepare to go to their respective Midnight Masses. Only Pola and Krystian pass on going, which is accepted without further questions. This allows Pola to stay with The Doktor, who thanks to hosts’ absence can check her grandparents’ house plank by plank. She still can’t find anything that could be the cause of anomalies though, which drives her crazy. They repeat the procedure in 1871, no results either. Furious, The Doktor exclaims that she’s out of ideas; there is no place nor thing here that can possibly cause this paradox, and yet it happens! Are they both completely useless?

“Yeah, what are we doing with our lives?”

Pola freezes. This is Krystian’s voice, but they’re in 1871 right now, Krystian can’t be here. Unless… “The Doktor”, Pola asks slowly, „what if the source of the anomalies isn’t a place or thing, but a person? The Doktor contemplates this; that is theoretically possible, for example if person gets stuck between two points in time. Defective time travel technology, not half as advanced as the TARDIS, can cause it. But does Pola see anyone but them who looks like time traveller around him? Not her family, certainly not those eight sweet peasants- “EIGHT?!”, Pola interrupts, and The Doktor confirms; not counting them, there were eight people on the dinner. Pola counts; master of the house, his wife, his mother, Antek, his wife and his two younger siblings – that’s seven. Who is the eighth person? The Doktor doesn’t notice that question and keeps babbling about possibilities of paradox linked to person and why she finds them unlikely. Pola intuitively turns back and finds Krystian there, frightened. She asks him what’s going on here, but instead of responding, he runs out of the cottage. Pola chases after him, leaving The Doktor there.

Pola only catches up with Krystian well away from the cottage, on the edge of the village. Krystian insists to be left alone, to which Pola objects that he wouldn’t have spoken up if he had actually wanted that. He very clearly asked for attention all evening, and now she knows that he had a good reason; so what’s going on? Now she noticed, Krystian snarks, pity that it’s already too late. Pola tries to get the details; what’s happening? Some evil plan? Krystian confirms that it could be called that way – it’s a paradox that will get rid of humanity, and The Doktor as an added bonus. Pola asks if he knows who’s behind it, and Krystian says it’s some aliens really pissed at The Doktor and Pola. Since this is a long list of suspects, Pola wants to go back and consult the Doktor, but Krystian stops her – she’s not going anywhere, not this time. This time she’s their special guest, and they’re gonna teach her an overdue lesson on why she shouldn’t sneak into other peoples’ basements. Pola’s confused face turns into grimly annoyed, as she spills „Not you again” and Krystian smiles coldly before shapeshifting into Andrzej Mastalerz, the Zygon engineer from the very first episode of Through Time And Space. He’s flattered that Pola remembers him and she wants to know how he’s even still alive after she blew The Basilisk in his face. The Zygon is glad she asked; since they last saw each other, he got a sponsor. This is possibly the only person who hates them two as much as him, the only person to actually appreciate his genius inventions and most importantly the person who was so kind to get him away from the explosion, in order to enlist his help in a little plot that will deal with them once and for all. The paradox, Pola figures, and the engineer confirms – the paradox, generated by the machine they constructed together, connecting 2021 and 1871. Pola asks where it is and the Zygon responds that he’s not that dumb to tell her that – but he will let her in on what it’s about to do, because he wants to see the horror on her face, so she better listens carefully.

Tonight, at midnight of Greenwich time – so 1 o’clock in Poland – her little cousin is going to commit suicide. He was calling for help all evening, but just as he predicted, they were too dumb to notice. Just like them two, Krystian coexisted in two points in time simultaneously – and so will his death. The same event happening twice in a time-stream, in very similar circumstances, will supercharge the machine, which will merge two events into one. The time loop will be created; of course, 21st century won’t be 19th overnight; the machine will start, subtly, but effectively, substituting the old solutions for the new problems. High technology will get abandoned, societies will revert to more traditional norms and people will believe it’s just another of 21st century disasters. Krystian’s hopelessness will empower their own – instead of resisting, they’ll just surrender to the regressive flow, eventually taking roles of their ancestors. Finally, the calendar will be changed – and just like that, 2022 will become 1872. Humanity will relive all of the XXth century with its ups and downs, then enter XXIst, until finally on Christmas Eve 2021 Krystian will commit suicide – and it all repeats. But here’s the catch; the time loop doesn’t have to play out exactly the same each time, it only has to play out similarly. You won’t just become your great-grandparents; you’ll take their place, but all of your emotional baggage will stay with you. XIXth century was the era of positivism, but are you capable of staying positive? Are you sure you won’t give up before scientific breakthrough? Yield in the time of need? How many times World War Two and the Cold War will be reenacted before someone snaps and presses the red button? The Earth is going to go round and round in circles till the end of the universe – or till it destroys itself.

And the best part? The Doktor and Pola won’t even live to see it all, because the moment they entered the anomaly, the machine recognised them as power source! When the suicide happens, all the power will be transferred to the machine to trigger the loop, and that includes all the temporally displaced objects – like time travellers. Pola points out that in this case Zygons will be vaporised too, but the engineer tells her not to be concerned – they have teleporters, they’ll leave the area of effect before it happens. The anomalies cut out the technology allowing time-space travel, but not casual space travel, and the paradox will only affect The Earth. Not to mention that advanced civilisations, like The Zygons, will be able to detect the time loop and stay away from the planet – so his disastrous mission from 2019 won’t even happen and he will instead test the Basilisk elsewhere – and conquer some star systems with it. Aren’t paradoxes great?! Pola says that if he thinks she and The Doktor will let them do all that, his mind must have melted in that explosion, but the Zygon says that she has no say – they’ll keep her prisoner until seconds before the paradox occurs, and they keep an eye on The Doktor as well – that’s why they’re still here, to make sure nothing goes wrong. Pola responds that they went wrong the moment they told her all this and puts up a fight to escape.

The Doktor finally finishes his speech about how she has no idea whatsoever what causes the anomaly, but it’s NOT a person – it would have been a miracle if it was. Then she realises that Pola is no longer here and immediately loses her confidence. She comes out of the cottage, looking and crying for Pola, but she finds nothing. Again. She’s powerless. Stuck in distortion of time she was supposed to be the lady of, with no way out, and without her companion. The Doktor has failed.

She sits down where she is, in the middle of who-knows-where-and-when, and starts weeping.

A homeless man comes around, carrying a bundle on the stick. Seeing The Doktor in sorry state, he asks her if she’s OK. The Doktor denies and the man asks if he can help. The Doktor doubts it, unless he knows where to look for the source of time anomaly or her friend. The man baas and says that he actually knows a lot about looking for things – all he does is looking for town where he can get horseshoes. Speaking of which, does she know where to find Pacanów? As far as The Doktor knows, it’s actually quite close – in the neighbouring voivodeship, south-west from here. The man is ecstatic to hear that – he went through Russia, China, even Afghanistan to get to Pacanów, but it actually paid off! The Doktor makes big eyes to this statement and says that he wandered way off-course in this case; is he sure he’s able to find Pacanów? And even if, what if they actually don’t shoe goats there? The man says that a lot has happened to him on his journey; he was caught in tornado, chased by bandits, he even died. But for every bad thing he faced, he also met a person willing to help him, like that nice shoemaker who sewed his head back in its place, people who showed him the right way to Pacanów, and that journalist who made a book about him. If so many people stood by his side, then there has to be something in these rumours about Pacanów, doesn’t it? Or it’s just a lemming rush, a crowd mentality, argues the Doktor, but her interlocutor states he’s just a silly goat and he doesn’t understand what she’s talking about. But here’s what he understands – after falling into trouble time after time, he’s still able to travel further, he made friends all around the world and he saw the wonders of the world. After experiencing such a mind-blowing miracle, why would he doubt that goats can be shoed in Pacanów? Miracles happen every day – that’s his proof they can happen. Smile lightens up The Doktor’s face, as she says that he’s indeed a very, very silly goat – and she wishes him best of luck on his quest. But she must leave him now, as she has a friend to find.

This doesn’t take long, as Pola runs into her, happy to see her. She explains that The Zygons are behind all this, she barely escaped them and they need to find the paradox machine quickly. Good thing that I can recognise the Zygon then, The Doktor comments and orders her to lead the way, but Pola objects that the Doktor’s smarter and she’ll trust her judgement. The Doktor throws some dust from Little Chemist set in her face and tells the emerging Zygon that Pola would either jump at opportunity or lecture her how it’s her responsibility – definitely not humbly admit her own vulnerability or shortcomings, at least not on the spot. Not that it matters, because she REALLY can recognise the Zygon, which Pola knows since their first meeting. And now The Zygon is going to tell her where to find the real Pola or he’ll discover what else he doesn’t know about her. The Doktor smiles terrifyingly.

The Zygons are busy taunting Pola bound to a tree, so the Doktor’s entrance catches them off-guard. Using only her Little Chemist set she completely obliterates them, very much enjoying herself in the process. Pola is happy to see The Doktor, but doesn’t show it, instead greeting the Doktor with „About time” and then collecting her apologies for dismissing a human-based source theory. The Doktor is pleased to have the actual Pola back by her side, but Pola cuts her off saying that they don’t have time for this – they only have about 10 minutes left until her cousin’s suicide attempt, they need to find him. They run down the list of potential methods – nothing existing in just one of the times will work, it’s also likely to be something public, in contrast to his shy nature. The river to drown is too far, the trees to strangle could have been cut, perhaps his going to jump from some high place, like… oh God.

Krystian is on the roof of the village’s church, looking down. When the mass ends, his parents will go outside and see his dead body on the ground. Perhaps it’s bad on his part to expose them to such pain, but this is the only suitable place around and… at least once his cry will be heard… hopefully. As he contemplates his life for the last time, he hears Pola from the distance telling him to stop, wait. It’s been a while since someone asked him to do something so personal, so he stops and waits. What’s the last thing this world wants from him? Pola, and The Doktor after her, get on the roof. Pola apologises to Krystian; she should have spoken with him outright when he gave her a question in a cottage, and not address the Doktor like he wasn’t there. Krystian’s not offended; everyone does that, there must be a good reason. Is that all? Pola denies; he wanted to talk with her. Krystian tries to dismiss it, but Pola cuts it and orders him to talk. She’ll listen.

Krystian starts talking, rambling in fact; he’s talking about his fear, his pain, his loneliness, how lost he is. Finally he talks about how suddenly he started being in two places at once, but neither of them noticed him. Pola says they know what caused it and they can reverse it, but Krystian’s not interested; there’s no point… once he jumps, there’ll no longer be a problem; he’ll no longer be a problem. You’re not a problem, Pola says, but Krystian says there’s a problem somewhere. He can’t live on the world, the world can’t live with him, one of them is broken or something is missing. Either way, he’ll perish eventually; why not make it simpler? Pola takes a breath and tells Krystian that he’s not alone; she too struggled with her day-to-day life, she too couldn’t get along with her family and she too thinks something is missing. Krystian offers in this case that she jumps with him, but Pola refuses and tells him to not give up yet. Easy to say, Krystian remarks, but where’s the light?

The Doktor joins the conversation, saying that there’s always light. She’s traveled all around the universe and she saw a lot of light; some of it in places she would never expect to find it. Mankind impressed her with the light they possessed: their imaginative thinking, their ability to find mundane in extraordinary and vice versa, finally their strive for becoming better. Those unique traits allowed them to achieve remarkable feats; one could see history of Earth as a chain of disasters, but in her mind it’s a story of how humans were able to overcome them. Harnessed the elements, survived the plagues, got back up from the heaviest blows and rebuilt their lives; faced their own demons and many times managed to defeat them. Despite centuries of hatred, suffering and injustice, today there are more humans than ever before, more peace than ever before and they even reached the moon! That’s a mid-blowing miracle, and they stand in the light of it. Yes, humanity still has huge problems to face and it’s gonna take a miracle to solve some of them, but this planet has taught her a valuable lesson tonight; miracles happen every day, and that’s great proof they can happen. It’s her honour that she, The Doktor, can wander through their planet and she’ll happily continue to do so many more times in her future.

Krystian is unimpressed, There’s truth to what The Doktor said, but he’s not „mankind”, he’s a weak 17 year old with no stability or safety in his life, scared to death. „Don’t give up”, „don’t be scared” „face the circumstances” are empty words. They won’t make him a titan comparable to those that freed Jews from concentration camps or defeated communism, won’t give him their strength or courage. At the end of the day, he’ll have to fight all his nightmares as he is now, with all his pitifulness, alone.

But it doesn’t have to be this way, Pola says. He is not the only one who lacks the courage, a lot of people nowadays are scared. It’s the curse of their generation – the world’s progress out-sped their own and they got lost. But it can be fixed – let’s start with the basics. Krystian’s wrong to think that people of the past were superhuman; both of them got to meet some of them tonight, and despite differences in culture and mentality, it’s clear they’re just as ordinary as them. She asked them where they draw courage from – the answer was faith, hope and people who love them. That’s the the three things they have to look for if they want to have courage of their ancestors. Right now, Krystian has no faith and barely any hope, but he does have people who love him. His parents, grandparents and other relatives may have trouble showing this to him, but they love him and want the best for him. Ula, his little sister, loves him with all her heart and she needs the big brother to stand by her side as she’s going to discover this mysterious world. Finally, Pola herself loves him very much – and that’s why he is gonna leave this roof, come down safe and sound and help her with very important task. People are afraid of each other – they need to show them that they don’t have to be. Most of them are good, reasonable and would love to have some new bonds – one just has to kindly start a talk with them. Others would initiate conversation themselves and need someone to simply listen to them. Not everyone will befriend everyone, but with 8 billion people on the planet, there’s a good chance some true friends can be found among them. If they convince people of the world to just give each other fair chance and their best effort, it’ll turn out that no one has to be alone. Humanity will find its courage again – and then, they’ll figure out together what is the thing that’s missing from their world. Pola knows that this is more a concept than a plan and it’s rather ambitious. Fixing global problems generally isn’t easy – but it’s doable, because as The Doktor mentioned, miracles happen every day. This knowledge gives Pola the necessary courage; as for Krystian, she is gonna be his courage – if he lets her.

Pola stretches her hand to Krystian – and he takes it. They leave the roof – as they go downstairs, the bell rings, announced that one o’ clock has arrived. Against odds and logic, the demise of humanity has been prevented, and the good triumphed over evil once again. The Doktor is struck by the revelation; while it’s probably still a long way before she finds out what causes the good to prevail in the universe, that thing, whatever it is, has just been right there before her eyes. She got a glimpse of her Pacanów.

Once they’re on the ground, The Doktor points out that they still have one more thing to do – destroy the paradox machine before The Zygons find another depression victim that it can feed on. There’s only one person that can lead them to it – Krystian, because the machine is hidden via their link. Encouraged by The Doktor and Pola, Krystian focuses and leads them to the hill outside the village. There, we get a climactic resolution in form of the battle with Zygons, caught halfway through preparing evacuation. The Doktor and her amazing Little Chemist set preoccupy them, while Pola armed with broomstick from the church sneaks to the machine (because paradox machines are highly unstable, even primitive weaponry can destroy them). However, she’s spotted and overpowered by Zygon engineer himself, who states that her planet will have to wait – but at least he’ll take her head. Pola asks him if he didn’t forget about someone; after momentary confusion, the engineer turns around just in time to shout „Don’t!” to Krystian, who shoots the purple rubber bracelet he was wearing through the whole episode at the machine. Krystian apologises, but now he knows what he’s doing with life. The machine explodes, not causing any harm, and Zygon teleports automatically activate. Before he’s taken away, the engineer manages to cry the obligatory „I’m not done with you two yet! Until next time!”.

“Now with that out of the way”, Krystian asks The Doktor and Pola, “who the hell are you two, guys?”

The episode slowly wraps up, as the time restores and all go back to points in time they originally were in. The TARDIS returns as well, much to The Doktor’s joy; with its help, she joins Pola and Krystian in 2021, where they come back to Pisareks household – the rest of the family is already there and clearly worried about them. Pola takes Krystian’s parents to the side and explains them stuff – we don’t hear the details, but we can assume they got simplified version and some clues what NOT to do – after which they hug him and say how glad they are that he’s safe and back with them. Later, The Doktor and Pola discuss the events of the night; Pola was serious when talking to Krystian; she wants to spread the knowledge where to look for strength to live everywhere the wind takes her, whether its here or on their travels through the universe. It’s up to Krystian if he wants to assist her on the latter; she doubts he’ll want to, being trapped between two ages by cosmic shapeshifters is enough of supernatural adventures for one lifetime, as far as most of people is concerned. But in regards to Earth, he won’t go off her radar that easily, they have a job to do. Of course, convincing people to believe in miracles when you don’t have an intergalactic police box at your disposal is quite a challenging task. So that’s the point of Christmas, The Doctor figures out – to keep the faith, hope and the love between people strong. One day every year, the family gathers to share their love, to see a beacon of light in the uncertain world, to remember that miracles can happen. So many cultures gather in celebration during winter season, believing, hoping and loving different things, but they come together to make the miracle happen – a day of warmth in the time of cold – and to find in it the proof that miracles exist. „You nailed it”, Pola compliments the Doktor and explains that this is why they need to restore Christmas to its former glory – it can provide humanity with what it needs in this and every age. Inside the house, grandfather Ignacy intonates Bóg Się Rodzi, and they both decide to go back inside they can’t miss it. As all of Pisarek family joins on the carol, we get Pola’s closing monologue.

Every generation has their quests; some manage to accomplish them, some don’t. Afterwards the new generation takes its place and needs to live in the world shaped by them. With past generations abandoning the injustices of old, beating the mischievous ideologies threatening to enslave them and building the modern world, their generation was given an important task – to figure out how to live in this world, develop new ideas, new systems and new norms. This is an extremely difficult task, and Pola herself doesn’t know how well they will do at it. But they have a courage to try, they can find it in faith of the past, in hope for the future and in billions of people worth loving surrounding them right now. They’re better that they themselves think, a it’s a good day to think about it. The shape of tomorrow depends on whether they can recognise the good in each other and, together, make a victory every day over evil in each other. Terrifying responsibility? Perhaps. But as a friend showed her, miracles happen every day, and that’s the best proof they can happen. Now, her friend has her own quest – to get to the bottom of all this. How long and what will it take? Pola has no idea. But it seems that The Doktor found her own courage to continue her search – and maybe even an important clue. Perhaps Pola will never find out what it is, as she can’t make sense of The Doktor’s gibberish – what does it mean that it’s all thanks to her, Krystian and a stupid goat?

Intercut with this monologue, we once again see a cottage of Pieceks. Someone knocks; the householder opens and finds a piece of paper that he can’t read on the doorstep – alongside fresh bread, a can of salt and a pouch, containing 80 roubles. He calls Antek to read the paper; Antek reads „For your hospitality, God bless you. The Doktor and Pola”. As happy noises starts coming from all inside the cottage, a camera turns back to show the TARDIS disappearing on the horizon, and then closes up on the night sky. A shiny caption in English appears on it, and the narrator of Weird Adventures of Matołek The Billy-Goat speaks once again, repeating the words from the caption in Polish – a short rhyme…

And so, our poor billy-goat

Further in his journey goes

To look all around the world for

What’s, actually, very close.

Cast

The Doktor - Hanna Śleszyńska
Pola - Paulina Walendziak
Mirosław Pisarek – Piotr Grabowski
Ewa Pisarek – Magdalena Walach
Mariusz Pisarek – Marcin Rogacewicz
Elżbieta Pisarek – Anita Sokołowska
Ludmiła Węgorzewska – Joanna Trzepiecińska
Aldona Pisarek-Pieńkowska – Paulina Chapko
Bohdan Pieńkowski – Wojciech Błach
Ignacy Pisarek – Jerzy Skolimowski
Krystyna Pisarek – Ewa Złotowska
Kajetan Pisarek – Jakub Males
Urszula Pieńkowska - Klaudia Kurak
Krystian Pieńkowski – Nicolas Przygoda
Antonina Piecek – Ewa Dałkowska
Włodzimierz Piecek – Konrad Imiela
Bożena Piecek – Dominika Ostałowska
Antoni Piecek – Grzegorz Palkowski
Jagna Piecek – Dominika Kryszczyńska
Maciej Piecek – Krystian Kostow
Rozalia Piecek – Matylda Ignasiak
Zygon Engineer - Andrzej Mastalerz
Matołek the Billy-Goat - Łukasz Lewandowski

Crew

Created by Sydney Newman, Donald Wilson and C.E. Webber

Developed by Patrick Yoka

Writer and Director - Tomasz Szafrański

Original Theme Music - Ron Grainer

Special Thanks to Wytwórnia Filmów Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych and the estates of Wiesław Michnikowski

Memorable Quotes

To be added.

Background Information

Production History

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Development

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Production

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Post-Production

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Release

This episode was simulcast on TVN, in the Polish version, and on BBC Two in the bilingually filmed English version. Paramount+ made the episode available at midnight, on Boxing Day, in the United States.

Reaction

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Story Notes

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Continuity

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Home Video Releases

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