Beyond Canon and the Messy Legacy of Homestuck

 

"All those Day-Glo freaks who used to paint the face,

They've joined the human race,

Some things will never change,"

Kid Charlemagne - Steely Dan, 1976

Part One: Let Me Tell You About the Thing This Article Is About.

If there's one thing few people agree on when it comes to Homestuck is whether it was actually any good or not. This is because there isn't really another piece of art out there that we can compare it to. Nobody else has done a project quite like Homestuck, save the various fan projects that are derivative of it. As such, one can never definitively state that Homestuck 'succeeded' or 'failed' at what it was trying to do because we have no other examples of what success or failure would actually look like in this nascent genre.

Since you're already here, it is highly likely you have at least some familiarity with the format of Homestuck, but just in case you are a novice anyway, here is a brief description for the uninitiated. Created by writer and artist Andrew Hussie the plot concerns a group of teenage characters booting up a reality-altering video game which puts them on a quest to avert the destruction of reality. Homestuck is typically referred to as a Webcomic, but that isn't really an accurate descriptor.

(With that in mind, I will at times refer to Homestuck as a 'comic,' but let me be clear I'm just using that as a shorthand.)

Homestuck communicates its story through a combination of a single panel of art with text displayed underneath, usually in the style of an early internet chat log, and narrated in the second person, as though the reader were the player of some kind of text-based video game.

Sometimes there are several images. Sometimes the images are animated gifs. Sometimes there are full blown animations with sound and music. Sometimes the story breaks out into interactive segments in the style of point and click adventure games or JRPGs. Generally though, for the most part, there is a large image at the top of the page and text underneath.

If that sounds like a weirdly cumbersome way to tell a story to you then you'd probably be right, and you'd probably follow that by wondering how such an offbeat and experimental format managed to propel Homestuck to the heights of its popularity. The truth is that, as with a lot of internet phenomena, Homestuck started small and managed to worm its way, virus like, into every corner of internet culture.

I was vaguely aware of Homestuck around the early 2010s, but paid little attention to it, frequently getting it mixed up with the Webcomic Shortpacked! That was until my first visit to New York Comic Con in 2011, where, as I was leaving at the end of my second day, I found myself surrounded by hundreds of cosplayers adorned in grey body paint and wearing orange horns. Even with only vague awareness, I recognised these as Homestuck's titular Trolls.

I was astounded, that in a year of an ascendant MCU, a golden age of Doctor Who, big releases for games like Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed on the way, and with Harley Quinn at the height of her popularity, it was Homestuck fans that outnumbered them all.

I knew then that I had to check it out. I had to know what the big deal was.

That was my origin story, but for many their introduction to Homestuck was very different. Homestuck has its roots in the internet culture of the Something Awful forums. Its very foundations come from the internet attitude of 'just fucking around.' While Homestuck is the most well know of Andrew Hussie's works, they truly cut their teeth on projects like Jailbreak and Problem Sleuth, comedy stories where they would ask fellow forum users to make suggestions on where the story would go next. The fact that they crudely drew most panels in MS paint made these quick and easy to produce.

Homestuck was likewise intended to be another project for 'just fucking around.' It started with a suggestion box where users were expected to guide the actions of protagonist John Egbert through the events of the story. The suggestion box was dropped quickly, however, as Hussie soon realised it was becoming more bother than it was worth, but the 'fucking around' would persist through the early stages of the story, which is why it is considered notoriously difficult to get into. It is a long, long road of characters futzing around their households before the story gets anywhere near gray skinned aliens and time travelling robots.

For a good few years, Homestuck was mostly for the 'fucking around' audience, but eventually it would break containment, getting attention from both the shitlords of 4chan and the Social Justice Noviates of Tumblr, two audiences that would inform its direction for good or ill. Before long large amounts of fan art, fan fiction and cosplaying would start flooding the highways and byways of the internet, drawing in the curious, and eventually its own immense cult following.

Part 2: Pride Goeth Before Destruction, And a Haughty Spirit Before a Fall.

Homestuck's golden age was undeniably the years between 2010 to 2014. If I were to go into all the ways it had burst out into greater sphere of the internet we'd be here all day, but needless to say it truly made its mark as a cultural icon. Beyond convention centres being flooded with grey faced cosplayers, the internet being flooded with (frequently NSFW) shipping fanart, and the comic earning admirers in minor celebrities like Dante Blasco and Bryan Lee O'Malley, online drama was quickly becoming intertwined with the comic, and internet urban legends of fans taking things too far were a frequent topic of discussion for both fans of Homestuck and its detractors.

It is hard to pin down what, exactly, secret sauce Homestuck had, but I suspect being in the right place at the right time had a lot to do with it. Homestuck was a story that is both influenced by and a comment upon internet culture. It was one of the first large scale stories that really understood the way internet friendships, video game minutia and the prevalence of memes had changed the way we communicated.

On top of all of that, it kind of had something for everybody. Teen drama and romance for the shippers. Ironic humour and satire that fit many internet subcultures. Its visual design was easily identifiable and toyetic. Most of all it had intensely complicated and interconnected world-building that made fans of the story feel as though they were experiencing something of vast importance and to detractors it made the fandom look like a cult.

More than anything though, Homestuck just managed to fit perfectly in its place and time. Launching at the tail end of the golden age of webcomics, and concluding just as the internet was starting to consolidate into singular social media sites, it feels of a time with the popularity of works like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Adventure Time and Steven Universe, which calcified into its ultimate form with Undertale (whose creator, Toby Fox, was a frequent contributor to Homestuck.)

Is it any wonder, then, that Andrew Hussie let the success go to their head? As a writer that had always kept their personal life very separate from their public persona, they no doubt avoided some of the worst types of adoration, but still, going from an internet nobody who made funny little comics to somebody whose creations were being cosplayed in some of the biggest conventions in the world would no doubt cause them to start believing their own hype.

It didn't help that Hussie wrote themself into the comic as a full blown character. I often find that writing an exaggerated persona of oneself into a story is a dangerous thing to do. It blurs the line between the real and imagined self, as well as that between the private person and the fan perception. To a lot of fans, Hussie was internet Jesus himself, an honorific they were far from ready to shoulder the burden of.

Part 3: The Only Way They Could Make Extra Money, Real Extra Money, Was to Go Out and Cut a Few Corners.

I think I can state that without a shadow of a doubt, the Homestuck Adventure Game Kickstarter was the biggest mistake Andrew Hussie ever made.

Of course, hindsight is always 20-20, and it is easy to say that now, because at the time, it probably made perfect sense to launch the project in 2012. The comic was at its absolute height of popularity. Fans were eager to spend money on anything and everything that carried its official brand. On top of that, Kickstarter had just become the hot new thing, and each successive high-profile project was was breaking higher and higher records in total funding raised.

No wonder they wanted to strike while the iron was hot. If they waited a year or two, they ran the risk of trying to raise the funds through waning interest in Homestuck. A Kickstarter project buried under a sea of completing Kickstarter projects. In that context, I understand why they chose to launch the Kickstarter when they did.

It was still, however, their biggest mistake. Despite having some working knowledge of game development, they vastly underestimated the time and resources required to manage even a small project like a point and click adventure game. They over-promised, and got the project stuck in limbo for years. At time of writing Hiveswap, the Homestuck Adventure game, is still only partially completed.

That they had now saddled themselves with this nightmare just as Homestuck was gearing up towards its spectacular conclusion ended up being a critical blow that would kill the comic's momentum and do irreparable damage to the IP.

As Hussie's video game project quickly devolved into development hell, Homestuck would see more frequent and longer lasting hiatuses as a result. The word of mouth hype that had long maintained a lasting reader-base was starting to run out of steam. As ever more convoluted plot elements were introduced, it was becoming more and more clear that Hussie wasn't going to be able to deliver a satisfactory ending.

There is a lot of gossip and hearsay of what went on behind the scenes with both the comic and the game around this time, but I'm not here to really speculate and delve into drama. I'm just here to talk about what we do know with regards to the creative decisions in public. Even so, it is clear from this time that Hussie was beginning to lose step with their audience.

By this time the edgelord readers from 4chan had mostly abandoned the comic and the fans of edgy humour from the SomethingAwful days had long since grown up. For the most part, the reader-base had solidified around socially-consonous and progressive types from Tumblr. This backfired a couple of times on Hussie when they made a few edgy jokes at the expense of this audience, such as the introduction of 'Trickster Mode' which explicitly depicted the characters as controversially Caucasian, poking fun at readers who tended to headcanon the characters as non-white ethnicities.

This moment backfired so badly that Hussie was forced to go back and change the sequence. A humbling moment for a writer who was once seen by their audience as a great 21st Century storyteller who could do no wrong.

As Homestuck stumbled on, though hiatus after hiatus, it was clear that Hussie's heart was starting to fall out of love with the comic. Despite the run up to the conclusion being well received, and a lot of fans being won over during the final few acts, there was still doubt that Hussie would actually be able to stick the landing and deliver a satisfactory conclusion.

Part Four: The Road Goes On Forever, and the Party Never Ends

I don't think it is unfair to say that Homestuck ends more with a whimper than a bang. Despite Hussie's best efforts to bring the whole thing together, the final conclusion was felt to be greatly underwhelming. Certainly that's how I came out of it. While the story is ultimately wrapped up, and a solid conclusion given to the protagonists, too many plot threads remained unaccounted for, and too many mysteries were left without satisfactory explanations.

A final, dialogue free, animated montage assuring us that the characters were all alive and happy certainly elevated some of the negativity, but all in all Hometuck left its readers feeling a little short changed. Its conclusion felt rushed for a story that spent the better half of a year messing around in its opening act. While nobody wanted a belaboured and drawn out ending, the general consensus was that this was all over too quickly for a story of such complexity.

Fans did hold out hope, however, that something was on the way. Something that would continue the plot and serve as a proper conclusion. Many expected Hiveswap would end up exploring some of the elements unaccounted for. Others kept wondering if Hussie would go back and expand the ending, Mass Effect 3 style, to fill in some of the gaps and mysteries and give the characters more definitive closure over the animated montage.

It was clear, however, that Hussie wanted to move on from the project. They still had a video game that they needed to get out, and Kickstarter backers had more legal recourse over their time than fans of a free webcomic did.

That was that. It was assumed that Homestuck was conclusively over. Hiveswap Act 1 launched in 2017, clearly cementing itself as its own thing, and after that there was more silence for the next couple of years.

Then, out of the blue, in 2019, Hussie announced a new entry to the Homestuck canon. Titled The Homestuck Epilogues, this novel sized, prose-only story was to be the final conclusion to the epic saga that the fans had been waiting for. A definitive explanation as to what happened to John Egbert and his friends, and the world of Homestuck as a whole.

Except, that wasn't what it turned out to be. Instead, what Hussie put out ended up becoming quite different.

This is where the shit truly hit the fan.

Despite being called The Homestuck Epilogues, this story served more as a prologue to Homestuck 2, but, we're getting ahead of ourselves. The Homestuck Epilogues pick up some years after the events of the main story. John Egbert and his friends are older, if maybe not wiser, yet all of them can't shake the feeling that something wasn't quite right about where they ended up. John is then offered a choice, he can either face and finally kill Lord English, the series main villain, once and for all, or leave their doomsday monster trapped outside of time, harmless, but unaccounted for.

From here on the story branches into two timelines, which can be read in either order. In the timeline where John faces English, Meat, he is mortally wounded in the final battle and ultimately dies. Meanwhile Dirk Strider, who has always been a character of questionable morals, concludes that people like him, with now god-like superpowers, have no place living a mundane life. He chooses to become the villainous heir apparent to English, and manipulates Rose Lalonde into leaving her wife, Kanaya Maryam, and joining him for parts unknown in search of new adventures to come.

In the timeline where John refuses to face English, Candy, the story jumps forwards to many years later. The characters have all grown up, got married, had kids, some have gotten divorced, and lived a relativity normal, millennial life. That is until tensions rise due to increasing xenophobia towards the alien Trolls, and a fascist state rises around them. Our cast of characters are forced to put together a resistance to battle the rising threat, only for the story to end with Dirk from the Meat timeline arriving with intentions unknown.

What stands out to me about The Homestuck Epilogues is that they take on the now-familiar story beats of what has come to be known as the 'legacy sequel.' A story where the protagonists, now older and changed by experience, are drawn back into adventure along with a cast of new characters from the younger generation. There are references to past events and iconography, revivals of fan favourite characters, and a passing of the torch to a fresh new cast.

So, why did a large chunk of the fanbase have a problem with all of this? Well, for starters The Homestuck Epilogues are much more serious and have a far bleaker tone than that of the main comic. The violence is much more graphic and the sexual content much more adult. While the familiar ironic levity is there for those who look for it, this is a story much more about growing older and the world passing you by. It is very different than what came before.

Additionally, the Epilogues took some of its characters in very controversial directions. For starters in the Meat timeline, fan-favourite couple Rose and Kanaya end up separated, leaving a bad taste in the mouth for readers who held a torch for them and were glad to see the couple alive, well and married by the end of the main plot. This was alleviated somewhat by them staying together in the Candy timeline, though later developments in Homestuck 2 would exacerbate that.

Another point of contention was the confirmation of a rather notorious fan theory that had originally developed in the NSFW corners of the 4chan fanbase. During the events of Homestuck, Jade Harley merges her physical form with her cosmic space dog, Beq. While in the main comic very little is made of this beyond granting her space powers and cute dog ears, the Epilogues make it fundamentally clear that this merger, without beating around the bush, gave her male reproductive organs. While certainly this development was left open to be explored in a more sensitive, mature manner (and there is no doubt people out there who are more qualified to talk on the subject than I am,) the rather rancid and fetishistic origins of that particular fan theory are hard to ignore.

Without a doubt the most controversial element, however, was the treatment of Jane Crocker. A character in the original comic who was, for the most part, an optimistic and wide eyed idealist. In both timelines of the Epilogues Jane becomes the figurehead for a xenophobic movement against Trolls, and an abusive spouse to beloved character Jake English (no relation.) To fans of Jane, to those who spent years doing fan art and cosplays of the character, it was an unforgivable character assassination to turn her into what amounted to a secondary villain and indefensible abuser.

While opinion varied on the quality of the writing, which was itself done by a team of guest writers and not purely by Hussie, the direction the characters were taken in was a frequent sticking point for most readers. The fact that the happy and optimistic ending of Homestuck had now been overridden by this more nihilistic and depressing status quo was exactly the thing fans didn't want to see for the characters they had so fell in love with.

For my part, I actually really liked the Epilogues. I liked the fact that it explored the idea that there isn't such a thing as happy endings, and that you can't just roll the credits once your teenage years are over. I like the fact that it confronted the idea that a final conclusion sometimes involves sacrifice, and that a domestic happy ever after would ultimately become a breeding ground for melancholy and betrayal. While I understand the contention at some of the story decisions, I'd actually defend them for the most part. Sure it kind of sucks that Jane becomes an abusive racist, but sometimes even the brightest of kids grow up to be the shittiest of people.

Even so, I get why most of the fanbase didn't like it, and ultimately, I think using the Epilogues as a lead in to Homestuck's sequel was always going to leave a bad taste in people's mouths. To write for them something they really don't jive with, and then you expect them to turn up for the next big project right afterwards? It was always going to be a difficult proposition from the start.

I think ultimately some of this stems from the fact that Homestuck had attracted such a disparate audience over the years. The comic had always been somewhat of a highbrow exploration of narrative storytelling and the burden of the protagonist, and it had its fair share of bleak, violent and serious moments. Some of the audience were into this stuff, but a lot of them were mostly in it for the goofs, hijinks and shipping. It didn't help that the lion's share of Homesuck's audience would have been young teens when they were reading it, and were probably just old enough to look back on it with rose-tinted glasses by the time the Epilogues dropped.

Yet, the Epilogues were what they got, and there was no time to change course, because Homestuck 2 was officially round the corner. Hussie had hand-picked a new creative team to take the reins while they presumably continued work on Hiveswap, and this was touted as a new project for a new generation.

Strap yourself in, things are about to get bumpy.

Part Five: It Begins To Dawn On You That Everything You Just Did May Have Been a Colossal Waste Of Time.

Before we go any further I need to talk a bit about how Homestuck deals with the concept of 'canon' from the Epilogues onwards.

The Homestuck Epilogues open upon a page reminiscent of a fan fiction website. This cements the idea that the story is meant to be taken as more of a 'fanfic' than an official entry. I get a sense Hussie knew it was going to be controversial and took this approach to cover themselves. Likewise, Homestuck 2 would go on to give itself the subtitle Beyond Canon, hinting to audiences that the project itself could be seen more of a hypothetical continuation than a 'canon' one.

Now Homestuck has always played with the idea of meta elements, where 'the forth wall' is something that actually exits in-story. Characters can disrupt and usurp power from one another by acting with self-importance and presenting themselves as a 'protagonist.' The story frequently depicts reality as something that can be altered by acting upon pre-existing tropes. It also comments on the fact that these powers can render something 'non-canon.'

All this is to say that there was an attempt by Hussie and the new team of writers to inoculate the Epilogues and Homestuck 2 from some of the worst of the criticism on the grounds that readers are free to ignore these entries. If you don't like where the story goes then that's okay, it isn't really canon anyway.

Of course, this was well intentioned but misguided. It is true that we as audiences are free to pick and choose what we want to 'count' in our fictions. All of it is equally fictional. Just because Disney said that the Sequel Trilogy would contradict and overwrite the pre-existing Star Wars EU doesn't mean those stories went away. You can still enjoy Dark Forces all these years later.

That doesn't mean there isn't still a hierarchy to these things, however. While we are free to pick and choose what we want in our own personal Star Wars Canon, it doesn't change the fact that the Sequel Trilogy is the more legitimate entry. Most general audiences will see the Sequels as the 'legitimate' continuation of Luke and co's story over the Dark Horse comics or the Del Ray books.

Likewise, it doesn't matter how much hand-waving the writers do around Homestuck 2 to say that readers are free to disregard it if they want to. Readers know that. It doesn't change the fact that for all intents and purposes it exists as a sequel to Homestuck, and as the project given Hussie's blessing, there are no greater claimants to that title.

All this effort achieved is starting Homestuck 2 off with a lack of confidence in its own existence.

Coming off the back of the Epilogues, and indeed starting as a direct continuation, many fans were primed to hate it off the bat. Indeed, Homestuck 2 makes no effort to be accessible as a fresh start. Those hoping that they could move beyond the plot developments in the Epilogues and enjoy the sequel as a stand-alone adventure were quickly disappointed.

Even putting aside the baggage the comic already had, Homestuck 2 undoubtedly has a wonky and stilted start. Where Homestuck began with an immediate introduction to its protagonist, with a straightforward and understandable motivation, its sequel instead opens with a lengthy monologue by Dirk, waxing lyrical on the nature of storytelling and narrative, his role as either a hero or a villain, and your complicity as a passive audience. It's heavy stuff, and at times quite enthralling, but it is a bafflingly cerebral way to open this new adventure raising more questions than it has time to answer, and dumping us in the middle of a story involving branching timelines and alternate universes.

I honestly reckon the story should have started with an homage to the original Homestuck, with one of the younger generation protagonists as the point of view character, working towards a seemingly simple goal and introducing us to the status quo from there. We could then fill in the gaps via period flashbacks to bring us up to speed on what has happened in the meantime.

Instead Homestuck 2 essentially jumps back in to where we were left off in the Epilogues, with characters caught mid drama and pontificating on where they feel things all went wrong. It isn't bad storytelling. I actually found a lot of the drama and character conflict quite well executed, but, again, none of this was ever going to win over the doubters, of which there were many, and Homestuck 2 would quickly gain a reputation as a train wreck long before it left the station.

As I said earlier, I'm not here to chat about drama, but I will say that during Homestuck 2's first year there was a lot of back and forth between fans and the writers that got heated. Some of the writers took it upon themselves to push back against the criticism, and this in and of itself generated even more controversy. This obviously took a toll on the writers, and the project was paused in 2020.

For many, this was assumed to be the death of Homestuck 2. Even putting aside the behind the scenes drama, the comic continued to make creative decisions that divided the fanbase. Rose and Kanaya's relationship was further fractured with the reveal that Rose and Jade had had an affair and a baby together, who was christened the rather groan-worthy name of Yiffany. Jane would continue down the path of straightforward villainy, while the comic would heap attention on the revived Vriska Serket, a morally dubious character who was divisive even in the original Homestuck.

Homestuck 2 went on hiatus mid-story in December 2020, with no real jumping off point. If it had have died there, that would have been understandable. The comic had a thankless task of trying to win over an already sceptical audience, or survive as best it could from the small cult following of defenders it had managed to retain. The negative feedback was clearly more than what a lot of the writing team could weather.

But to the god of death, they said, not yet.

Part Six: You Have A Feeling It's Going to Be a Long Day

"Can't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can!"

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925

Homestuck 2's hiatus ended in August 2023 with a team of new writers, though beyond it dropping the 2 and officially being retitled 'Beyond Canon' you probably wouldn't notice. Reading the story continuously, the 2023 update basically picks up right where it left off in 2020. While the temptation must have been there for the new creative team, this was no soft-reboot or reintroduction. No changes were made to the ongoing plot, nor controversial elements retconned.

This, ultimately, was probably the best thing for the comic. Had the new creative team decided to throw out some of the previous writing team's work it would have been seen as an admission of failure. Instead, the new team remained stalwart and committed to Beyond Canon's original intent, whether fans of the original Homestuck liked that or not.

To be honest, in 2026, it is actually refreshing to see a creative team of a controversial work mount a spirted defence. When compared to Lucasfilm and the BBC throwing The Last Jedi and The Timeless Child under the bus, it feels almost a rare thing for an IP to stand by the work instead of desperately trying to kowtow to its most objectionable fans.

All this being said, there is a palpable improvement to Beyond Canon from 2023 onwards. The pacing is much more balanced and the direction made much more clear. Plot points begin to converge, and the overall conflict is finally set up and introduced. Controversial elements like Rose and Jade's affair are confronted with more detail and nuance, though I suspect that this was always the plan had the 2020 team been allowed more time to get there.

Still, with a new creative team and a more professional attitude towards the parasocial relationships, we're off to the races. For those Homestuck fans who stuck with Beyond Canon, this is the point at which they cite the comic 'finally getting good,' though I think that is a little unfair, as there is a lot to love about the 2020 era, but there's no denying that a lot of Beyond Canon's strongest elements start to come to the forefront, and the role each divergent timeline plays becomes clearer.

Not only that, but the greater focus on animation, music and interactive sequences gives the comic that more classic Homestuck feeling that the earlier era was sorely lacking. A long animated stretch that finally explores what it takes for Vriska to truly be redeemed, for me at least, to be one of the best moments in the Homestuck canon, paying off a decade's worth of setup and character development.

For the next few years the comic would bound forward with confidence, focussing on frequent updates and avoiding lengthy gaps where possible. By 2025 the comic would have finally got round to introducing the Nymphs and the Satyrs, two new alien species set to play the cosmic game just as Humans and Trolls had in the original Homestuck, and opening a window to more weird societies that serve as a subtle and not-so subtle commentary on contemporary online friendships just as Homestuck had originally.

In spite of all of this, Beyond Canon still hasn't won over many of its detractors. This is probably due to a multitude of factors. First and foremost is the first impression that it gave back in 2019. Already controversial on the back of the Epilogues, Beyond Canon was written off by many as a failure from the get go, and that is a hard reputation to shake.

Second is the fact that Homestuck in general is already a huge body of work to embark upon. While a new generation of readers are experiencing the comic for the very first time, in no small part because of the animated pilot produced by SpindleHorse (It is too early to speculate on what impact that will have on the future of Homestuck,) even just getting through the original Homestuck on its own is a massive undertaking that a lot of people back out from. After finishing Homestuck for the first time, I'm imagining there are many who probably want to have a break before delving into anything similar.

Thirdly, and most crucially, is the fact that Beyond Canon is being produced in a different online age and ecosystem than Homestuck was. The online communities that existed under SomethingAwful and 4chan have long receded, and even Tumblr is a shadow of its former self. The fandom of Beyond Canon is fractured and split across multiple platforms. The unification to spread word of mouth just isn't there. It probably says something that on the official Beyond Canon news post concerning fan convention NYCStuck, the creative team expressed genuine surprise to see fans cosplaying as Beyond Canon Characters.

Part Seven: THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER

So, where does Homestuck, and more pertinently, Beyond Canon go from here?

I don't know. Like I said at the start, It is almost impossible to judge if Homestuck is good or not, therefore it is almost impossible to judge if Beyond Canon is good or not.

Personally? I like it. Some of the more controversial elements do make me wince a little, but ultimately I'm game to see where the story goes and where it takes things. I'm happy to see that it is willing to take risks rather than do things for blatant nostalgia. It is possible that there are better Homestuck successors out there, I know that Vast Error has been very well regarded, but ultimately I can't fault Beyond Canon for being anything other than more Homestuck.

Ultimately that is the one thing it can't not be. The characters are there, the format is there, the sardonic humour is there, the overly complex cosmology is there. If you've been hankering for an experience like Homestuck since it finished in 2016 then I've got to be honest, you'd be hard pressed to find a more appropriate replacement than Beyond Canon.

There's a saying that has been picked up online recently that goes, "(Insert unpopular thing here,) tastes so good when you don't have a bitch in your ear telling you it's nasty," and I think that's how I feel about Beyond Canon. If you go in having heard about all the complaints beforehand then you're going to force yourself to hate it, but if you enter with an open mind, put on your good time hat, and roll with the punches, I think you'd be pleasantly surprised.

Does it have its problems? Sure, but so did Homestuck. Homestuck also had many, many problems, controversies and setbacks. In that regard Beyond Canon is in good company, and probably deserves more of a chance than it has gotten, especially considering that with Hiveswap still stuck in development hell, and the fate of the animated pilot up in the air, Beyond Canon is currently the most consistently available ongoing source of new Homestuck material out there.

Homestuck is always going to inhabit this weird point in history for internet culture. There are still people doing cosplays all these years later (shout out to the Karkat I saw at Thought Bubble 2024.) There are still people creating Fantrolls. There are people who were deep into it who now feel really embarrassed about the zodiac tattoos they got. There are people out there who are still convinced that the whole thing is a cult.

Maybe Beyond Canon was a bridge too far into an online era that doesn't really GET IT, trying to cater for a fanbase that has long since outgrown it, but it exists, it is there. It's still updating. It's still evolving. It's still Homestuck. That is fascinating to me. I can't help but find something enthralling about a project trying to keep the lights on long into an era that it doesn't belong.

Who knows what is next for the comic? If it manages to soldier on long enough to execute its big mid-story crisis event, or if it flames out into irrelevancy for the second time, but as the Byzantine Empire was to Rome, just because it is a shadow of its former glory doesn't mean it can't make its own mark on history.

And if not in this timeline, then maybe in the next.

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Jack Harvey 2026. Images used under Fair Use.

How Do You Even Do a Mass Effect TV Show Anyway?

Part One: It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.

The proposition sounds simple enough. Adapt the Mass Effect video games into a TV show.

You're already starting out with an advantage over cinema. Time. You've got a lot more time to explain backstory, go over plot points, introduce side characters and flesh out the world. The history of the video game industry is littered with the graves of adaptions that have tried to squeeze everything into a 90 minute blockbuster, but after a few high profile successes, it is now commonly accepted knowledge that, for a successful video game adaption, TV is the way.

Mass Effect even seems to fit the mould of a TV show, its story unfolding over several, somewhat linier, episodic arcs. If you squint you can almost see how the first game could slot perfectly into an 8 to 10 episode season. A couple of episodes covering the tutorial and setup. A couple of episodes for Feros, Noveria and the subsequent planets, all with a grand finale based around the battle for the Citadel.

When you think about it like that it practically writes itself!

However, once you drill down into the details, dilemmas start to appear. Contradictions begin to escalate. The inability to please everyone rears its ugly head. You thought you had a The Last of Us on your hands and it is fast turning into a Halo.

What the heck is it I am talking about, you ask? Alright, I'll break it down. The many problems you're going to run into adapting Mass Effect to the small screen, the first of which originates from the very beginning, as soon as you hit New Game.

Part Two: Your Face, is Not My Face.

Here's a question. Who is the protagonist of the first Mass Effect game?

We all know that the answer is Commander Shepard, but who is Commander Shepard? A ruthless pragmatist? A noble altruist? Do they respect or buck the chain of command? What is their breaking point?

When it comes to adapting video games, one of the most common stumbling blocks comes from the handling of the protagonist. Video game protagonists commonly tend to have looser personalities and backstories than those from other mediums. This is often to give the player some wiggle room to see themselves in the character. To feel as though it is themselves out in the game world, living the adventure.

Video game protagonists can run the gamut in this regard, some have a loose personality like Link or Master Chief, where others have a more concrete and set personality like Max Payne or Kratos, while others still are completely customisable, even down to their backstories and personal morals, like in Baldur's Gate or The Elder Scrolls. This can often make it difficult for adaptions, because one person's experience with a game might be quite different to another's. This is likely why the Fallout TV show opted to tell its own story rather than adapt that of the games.

Mass Effect occupies a weird space, however, where it simultaneously has both a set protagonist and a customisable one. Commander Shepard is a set character like Markus Fenix, and a complete blank slate like The Baalspawn. They're a Schrodinger's protagonist, if you will.

This is due to the fact that, while players are free to completely customise their own Commander Shepard, down to appearance and gender, a set, solid version of Commander Shepard has been used by Bioware from the start to advertise the game.

Based around the appearance of Dutch model Mark Vanderloo, the default appearance for Commander Shepard appeared slap bang in the middle of the Mass Effect box art. It would continue to be used all through the remainder of the trilogy. He was the first character you saw when you started a new game, presenting you with a pre-made John Shepard for those not curious enough to explore the character customisation options. A default appearance for the female option was given no such consideration until the third release in the trilogy.

From what we know from long studied gamer habits, John Shepard is likely the only version of the character a vast majority of players recognise. When they think about Mass Effect, that is who they think of as the protagonist, no different than Lara Croft or Duke Nukem.

For millions of other players, however, there are a million other permutations. To some Commander Shepard is undeniably a raven-haired Asian woman. To others they are a square jawed Latin-American man. For those who chose to take it, Mass Effect presented the option to let players make Commander Shepard entirely their own. When they think of Mass Effect, it's their own Shepard that they walked with every step of the way.

So, right from the get go we have a premise that can't please everybody. Shepard could be played by any actor, but for a great many fans they're going to be expecting a guy that looks like a Dutch model with a buzz-cut. For those who chose to customise Shepard, any casting at all is likely going to feel out of sync with their own experience.

While I think a lot of people will go in with an open mind, there's also going to be a lot of fans that'll find it difficult to get over that hurdle.

Part Three: Second Star to the Right, and Straight on Till Morning.

The first Mass Effect is, no doubt, very suited to fit the streaming TV formula. The story is broken down into a series of episodic arcs that unfolds over a small group of planets. You can see how you'd piece it all together into a solid set of episodes with each having their own little self-contained adventure that can hook casual viewers that might have missed the first few episodes.

When we get to Mass Effect 2, though, things get a little trickier. Despite being arguably more episodic than the first game, 2 has a looser grasp on its main plot that would run the risk of looking meandering to casual audiences. Most of the main plot only unfolds over a handful of levels, with much of the game's runtime being made up of side-quests concerning the game's companions. This is great for an in-the-moment experience, but it does render the second entry in the trilogy as little more than a delivery system for unrelated, self contained adventures.

Now if it were the 90s or early 2000s this wouldn't be a problem. Back when broadcast TV shows in the US used to get 15 to 20 episodes, you'd have more than enough time to delve into all those side plots. Audiences were used to filler. They'd be more than happy for the main story to take a break for an episode to delve into Jack's backstory.

However, in the modern streaming era, shows tend to have only 8 to 10 episodes, and audiences expect each to be more like the chapter of a book than a story of the week. Audiences are going to be much less tolerant of a series putting the search for The Collectors on hold to focus on an episode where Jacob has to track down his dad.

On top of all that, the story ends with a much hyped and looming 'suicide mission.' In the game, it is possible for players to get everyone through alive as long as they have done their due diligence, though a couple of easy slip ups can lead to some tragic fatalities. For a TV show, though, having everyone get out alive would feel like a cop-out, and it would risk cheapening the stakes for the rest of the series.

On the other hand, killing some of the cast would be certain to bristle players who love those characters. Killing off Jack or Samara at the end of season 2 would no doubt anger some audiences who would want to see more of them, even if their roles in Mass Effect 3 are mostly insubstantial.

To top it all off, I'd like to direct you to the late Shamus Young's point that the shift from Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2 was a jarring break that damaged the narrative flow. At the end of Mass Effect 1 we are all set to investigate the Reapers on behalf of the Council, only for Mass Effect 2 to immediately kill off Shepard, resurrect them, and have them work on behalf of a clandestine organisation investigating a mystery that, to begin with, seems completely unrelated to the Reapers.

For video game players, this type of weird narrative jump is common amongst series where changing dev teams and evolving gameplay mechanics can cause projects to end in very different places from where they began, but to audiences of a TV show this would all feel a little more jarring. Imagine if season 2 of the Sopranos featured an assassination attempt on Tony in the first five minutes and the rest of the season was about him going into hiding in Vancouver. It's not that you couldn't tell a good story about that, but after what was set up in season 1, audiences would feel like the show was going nowhere.

All of the issues above are not without their solutions, but alterations and re-writes also come with the risk alienating the game's original fanbase. It makes perfect sense to write out Cerberus to keep the flow of the story more natural, but fans of the game are going to bristle at such an iconic part of the franchise being absent.

Part Four: Have it Your Way

Mass Effect has a big LGBTQ+ following. This is undeniable. Spend five minutes on any social media platform of choice looking up Mass Effect and you will be presented with reams of fan-art and fan fiction concerning the characters in same-sex relationships. Gay players really resonated with Mass Effect and found a place for themselves within it. You can't have a conversation about Mass Effect without mentioning the strides it made.

However, unlike Mass Effect's sister series, Dragon Age, which started off with a very specific queer intent, Mass Effect's status as an iconic part of gay gaming happened almost entirely by accident. Mass Effect 1 launched in 2007, in an era where the gaming industry was almost entirely geared towards an audience of teenage boys. Booth babes were still a staple of video game conventions. Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 had just came out the previous year.

The LGBT representation in the first game is very slight. In it's totality it is made up of a brief general discussion on Asari sexuality, and an optional same-sex romance and sexual encounter exclusively available to those that created a female Commander Shepard. I don't think it is a controversial statement to say that this inclusion was driven more by titillation than representation. The depiction of the Asari as bisexual blue skinned alien space babes was almost certainly more motivated by the appeal to teenage boys than an honest exploration of sexuality in a sci-fi setting. For players who chose to play a male Shepard, and we know this was the majority, it was entirely possible to play through the game without encountering any gay representation or queer themes at all.

Many people only heard about the same-sex content thanks to a sensationalist report by Fox News that criticised the game as pornographic. This had the consequence of giving the game a Streisand Effect. Many gay players found out about the game through this controversy, and Bioware found itself with an outpouring of support, bolstered by the good will generated from gay representation in the Dragon Age series.

However, the Mass Effect team were more spooked by the Fox News reaction than they were buoyed by the outpouring of support. Multiple same-sex romances were planned for Mass Effect 2 and later cut because of this, leading to much confusion over why an explicitly bisexual character in Jack would refuse the advances of a female Shepard. On top of all this, Bioware would even put out a statement that any permutation of a male Shepard would always be explicitly straight.

It wasn't until Mass Effect 3 that Bioware took the steps to embrace their LGBTQ+ following, introducing multiple gay characters whose sexuality would be commented upon outside of the player character, and a male Shepard finally having the option to initiate a same-sex relationship himself.

So, what does all this have to do with a TV show? Well, the problem is that Mass Effect doesn't really start from a queer foundation, and it isn't until the 11th hour that a lot of the queer characters show up. A TV show is obviously going to want to keep the loyalty of the gay community that it has picked up over the years, but it is going to have to make sweeping changes if it wants to bring that representation forward.

If the show-runners choose to depict Shepard with a male actor there is the very real risk that the story could skip over what little representation there was in the opening arc. Going with a female Shepard instead could alleviate this, as her romance with Liara is going to be the most likely relationship in the show, given its popularity and centrality to the narrative.

Other than that though, you'd again have to make sweeping changes. Kaidan could come out of the closet sooner, and characters like Kelly, Steve and Sam could be introduced earlier, but this in turn comes with its own risks, like that of antagonising the vocal minority of regressive fanboys who like to claim that Mass Effect never had strong LGTBQ+ representation to begin with, and any inclusion in the TV show mocked as pandering to a different audience. Sadly, a lot of these criticisms can colour the opinion of casual audiences, as the concerted negative campaigns against Mass Effect: Andromeda and Dragon Age The Veilguard have proven.

Part Five: My Favourite Store on the Citadel.

On top of all the previously listed issues, Mass Effect is going to have one more major hurdle. Budget.

Network and streaming shows have done some impressive things in recent years. The sets and props on Game of Thrones have risen to cinematic standards. The prosthetics and makeup used on Fallout are thoroughly convincing depictions of that which we see in the games.

Mass Effect, though, is going to require a pretty hefty budget. This isn't a show you can just film on existing locations with a couple of really convincing aliens. The entire conceit of the story involves mankind as a small and almost insignificant part of a confederation of alien races. At any given time the cast will need to be made up of multiple actors in prosthetics and makeup.

Granted, there's a lot of tricks you can pull to get around it. Your groups of Turians and Krogan can all be standing around with helmets on most of the time. Large groups can be rendered with CGI. Minor races like the Elcor and the Batarians could have their roles reduced or written out entirely. A concept like Mass Effect is not immune to cost cutting.

Despite all this, the show is still going to require a lot of expensive props, sets and makeup. Characters like Garrus and Wrex require a lot of screen time. Conversations with groups made up entirely of alien characters, like the Council, make up a big chunk of the narrative. Mordin, Legion, Saren, these characters make up a lot of the emotional appeal of the story, and are going to be need to be done right.

If a decent budget can't be secured from the start, then the show may very well be dead on arrival. We only have to look at Halo, which had to start its season 1 with a human versus human conflict and have its alien faction's point of view character be a human adoptee. While the show had a plethora of problems, its lack of iconic franchise aliens was certainly something that steered fans away. Mass Effect itself comes with a similar risk.

Part Six: Something Ends, Something Begins.

Lets say you manage to pull it off though. You get the budget required. You streamline the script. You dedicate enough time to the relevant themes and ideas needed to please the existing fanbase. You thread the needle with the transition to the plot of Mass Effect 2. The audiences resonate with your Shepard.

One final question remains. What do you do about that ending?

Mass Effect 3 finishes on a famously loathed conclusion. While it has its defenders, the general consensus of the finale tends to range from 'a good idea poorly executed,' to 'an absolute betrayal of the game's world-building, backstory and themes.'

Whatever your own personal thoughts, I think we can all probably agree that, given the benefit of hindsight, the ending of Shepard's story is in need of some serious tweaking. Unfortunately, like Shepard themself, what players wanted from an ending was disparate and personal, and this is before you account for the fact that the game already has five possible endings to begin with.

Do you spend more time on setting up The Catalyst? Do you change the Reaper's motivations? Do you re-tool the ending entirely to be based on one of Bioware's unused ideas? Do you go for a more conventional outcome, having Shepard save the galaxy and live to see it?

Whichever one you go for, it is going to have its critics, and if you don't change the ending and present it as it was, it is also going to be pretty unpopular. TV shows have started getting a reputation for unsatisfying endings, and Mass Effect is starting off on the back foot for being notorious for its own.

Like the rest of my previous points, this is going to be a difficult hurdle to handle. Stray too far and you risk alienating the core audience again. Stay too close and you risk pissing off everybody. It's another lose-lose. A difficult needle that will have to be threaded.

Part Seven: This is Not My Beautiful House.

After the success of Fallout, a common suggestion for a Mass Effect TV show would be to do a self-contained story instead. A new cast of characters going on an adventure set in the world of Mass Effect, unrelated to the events of the game.

I understand this impulse, but it unfortunately misses that the Mass Effect trilogy involves Shepard living through one of the most historically important events in galactic history. So much of what unfolds over the course of the games is tied up in foundational parts of the universe. This is deliberate, as it is easy for the writers to bring the players up to speed on the backstory if the core parts of their own adventure is influenced by them.

If you set the game after the events of Mass Effect, the audience will need to have all the core elements introduced to them. The events of the games will need to be addressed, which runs the risk of audiences wondering why they're not watching a TV show about the more interesting, epic story.

If you set the series before the events of the game you've got a bit more leeway, but are going to be restricted in what kinds of stories you can tell. Wherever you take the characters, the status quo of the galaxy needs to remain as it is. Additionally, because a lot of revelations with regards to the galactic cosmology aren't discovered in-universe until the events of the games, you're going to be introducing a lot of iconic elements where the audience will never be clued in to their significance. Stuff like the Mass Relays and the Prothean Ruins will be set up but given no payoff.

There's going to be a big temptation to go the self-contained story route. It resolves a lot of the problems listed previously, but it also comes with problems of its own, the biggest of which is coming away not really feeling like Mass Effect.

Conclusion

That Mass Effect TV show is probably never going to happen.

Okay. I'll be a little fairer than that. It is more likely to happen than the Warhammer 40'000 TV show is. Even so, what form it'll arrive in is unclear, and it is more likely than not we're probably going to end up with another Halo situation on our hands.

A report from Eurogamer went up a couple weeks ago claiming that Amazon had asked for a re-write that would make the proposed show "more appealing to non-gamers." While this statement led to much catastrophising from fans, I personally found it a bit of a nothing statement. The term 'gamer,' can apply to so many disparate interests in this day and age that I have no idea what 'appealing to non-gamers,' suggests. It could mean that they're dialling back the action and putting more into world-buidling, it could mean the exact opposite. You can see the argument working either way.

What concerned me more was the statement that the show was to "take inspiration from the games without following them directly." Some folks took this to mean that the show was going the Fallout route and telling a side story, but it is clear from the casting call that the TV show is to some extent going to be about Commander Shepard and the Reapers.

The casting call asked for "a young Colin Farrell-type male (30-39) with open ethnicity;" Obviously Shepard, "a female co-lead alien character requiring prosthetics (34-39);" Obviously Liara, "a female human providing a parallel narrative from Earth;" Likely a re-worked version of Ashley, "a Doug Jones-type male villain (40-60);" Saren, "and a male wrestler-type soldier (30-49)." Kaiden, maybe, or possibly a version of James?

Either way, it sounds like the show is going to have some significant departures from the story of the games, which is a massive risk and could doom the show to failure unless it manages to be really good in its own right, or otherwise feel authentic to the game's story, even if it isn't accurate to it.

All things considered, the show is facing an uphill battle. Those who fail to learn the lessons of the Halo TV show are doomed to repeat them. Were I a betting man, I'd be putting money on it being cancelled before getting a third season, but who knows, maybe they'll thread that needle and win everyone over.

Maybe, like Commander Shepard's hopeless battle against the Reapers, they'll manage to defy the odds.

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Jack Harvey 2026. Images Used Under Fair Use. Mass Effect is (c) Bioware/EA

Alright, here's how I would reboot Doctor Who. Version Two. On a budget.

 

"Well, here we go again." - Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Planet of the Spiders, 1974.

Part One: You've Got to Walk It Like You Talk It (Or You'll Lose That Beat)

Nearly a year ago I embarked on a rather off-the-cuff and ill-conceived ramble about the direction I'd take Doctor Who with a soft reboot if I ever got a chance. It was less of a serious pitch and more of a meditation on how even self-imposed limitations can fall apart to self-indulgence no matter how careful you are. In that way, I suppose, I garnered some sympathy for the season of the show which inspired me to write it in the first place.

Since the conclusion of Doctor Who's last season more information has come to light on the behind-the-scenes dealings, though far from anything conclusive. Likewise, we've been given a more concrete idea of the show's precarity with the handling of spin-off, The War Between the Land and the Sea, which was dropped from international broadcast by Disney and has yet to find a new distributor.

What has become crystal clear in the intervening months is that the show doesn't have much of a voice in its defence outside of the BBC. The corporation claims it still wants to stick by the show, but can't afford to keep making it without a streaming partner to front some of the costs. Something that the BBC has struggled to make materialise.

Even if the upcoming Christmas special somehow manages to clean up the show's confusing and dangling plot threads to everyone's satisfaction, it is crystal clear that the show's future is going to be on a lower budget no matter how you cut it. Even with a streaming partner, it is unlikely the BBC would be able to wrest out of them the kind of expenses they'd need for a planet-hopping monster-of-the-week show that could also compete with the likes of Star Trek or Fallout.

With all that in mind, it is very clear my original pitch is now a little outdated. More and more people are coming to the conclusion that the show will need a re-launch in the style of Jon Pertwee's 70s era, using, for the most part, a single, Earth-based location and a recurring cast of characters. Recently my thoughts got whirling again on how I'd do such a relaunch, this time with greater limitations and an even more immediate thought into drawing in new audiences.

Part Two: Some Things Will Never Change.

To be clear, most of my proposals from the last time around will remain the same. Indira Varma is The Doctor. She's still an aloof, reserved and somewhat cold incarnation with elements of Mr Spock and Vampire David Bowie. We're still skewering the tone towards older audiences, though with one foot in the fantastical to keep the kids interested.

As an aside, I've given more thought to the pushback on the subject of Doctor Who aiming for older audiences. The most common argument I've heard against is is that the show will suffer if it leaves pre-teens out as a target audience. What I think this argument misses is that a lot of younger viewers actually tend to gravitate towards media that they perceive as more mature. I know when I first got into Doctor Who it was something that felt more 'serious' and 'grown up' than I was used to. Likewise, plenty of my school friends grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and The X-Files long before they were teenagers in part because those shows felt more grown up. I don't think making the show darker and more adult is necessarily going to drive away the younger viewers, but actually treating 12 year-olds as the primary audience runs the risk of driving that very audience away.

So I still want this to be a show where we do things a little more mature. As a principle, this goes hand in glove with the blueprint that the re-launch would draw upon, i.e Jon Pertwee's first few seasons. Exiled to Earth, unable to leave, with only a job at UNIT to keep them occupied and working on a solution, taking place some time in the near-future. It worked in the 70s, and it can work now, and enough things have changed that it doesn't have to feel like it is treading old ground either.

What I hope to achieve with this pitch is the to lay the groundwork for a version of Doctor Who that can not only feel like a clean break from what has become an over-convoluted and, at times, embarrassing status-quo, but also an enticing and interesting concept in its own right. A show that can bleed cool and sit on culture's razor's edge, while still being quintessentially Who.

Before we really get into it, let me make my goals clear here. This has to be a show that can be done on a shoe-string budget, but not at all feel like it. It has to feel current. It has to feel like it honours the past but also work as a brand new start with no foreknowledge of the show's canon. It has to appeal to an international audience while still retaining its British identity. There is to be no call backs, no cameos, no returning monsters or characters save the Daleks, the Cybermen and The Master.

I don't profess to know what kind of budget the BBC has access to, and what it would be able to squeeze out of a streaming deal, so all of this is purely an amateur pitch on my part, but I'm basing my estimates on the BBC's recent output.

With all that out of the way, let another needless ramble commence.

Part Three: How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?

Episode one opens on a UNIT facility, and the text communicates we are "In the near-future." We're at a clean, but very grounded and serious army base. There is no sign of any rooftop laser guns here. We hear a voice begin to speak. It is European sounding. Maybe Swiss. The voice is reciting a speech to new recruits. It is confident, rousing, but blunt. Reminiscent of Z's speech from the first Men in Black film. The recruits are being greeted as the best of the best, that they are entering an elite and prestigious organisation, but that whatever they have been told, it will not prepare them for what they are about to face. Their goals will be secretive and confidential. The enemy will not be what they expect.

As the speech continues we see the Doctor, played by Indira Varma, enter the facility's foyer. Behind the desk is a large UNIT logo, the 70s one, making it clear what era the series is harkening back to. At the front desk, The Doctor explains that they are the organisation's new scientific advisor. The clerk at the desk is unaware that they were recruiting one, only to find that The Doctor is indeed on file.

They express confusion over The Doctor's name, which The Doctor explains sarcastically as being 'old irish.' First name The, second name Doctor. With the confusion cleared up, The Doctor makes her way to her assigned station and lab. Equipment is transported by UNIT orderlies, whom The Doctor chastises for being slow and careless with her gear. Much importance is laid upon the arrival of a blue police box, but its significance is not elaborated upon. For now it is just one of many curious objects alongside near-100 year-old computers and foggy looking chemistry sets.

In the midst of their setup, The Doctor is greeted and grilled by Brigadier Maximillian "The Beancounter" Strauss, played by Daniel Brühl. Strauss might hold a military title, but his position is primarily financial. Geneva feels as though UNIT has become quite the money sink over the years, so Strauss has been sent in to cut down on the waste, and the UK branch is his current assignment (and a meta-commentary on the budget of the show.) Strauss immediately bristles against The Doctor, questioning the need for a scientific advisor, and scrutinising their past employment with UNIT, which naturally doesn't match up.

The Doctor manages to placate Stauss for now, but it is made clear he wants to keep the scientific division on a tight leash for the sake of the budget. He's not an antagonist, but he will butt heads with The Doctor at some point.

Shortly after this, we are introduced to The Doctor's new assistant. Ben Dixon, played by David Jonsson. Ben is experienced graduate in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, and a civilian contractor specifically recruited by The Doctor. Ben is competent, knowledgeable, and brave, but completely oblivious to the existence of aliens and dark science. He draws upon companions like Liz Shaw, and characters like Dana Scully. He is The Doctor's equal in many ways but a sceptic much of the time.

As The Doctor introduces a, somewhat credulous, Ben to the kinds of work he is going to be involved with, an alarm blares, and their first operation begins in earnest. Somewhere in rural Somerset there has been a string of deaths, apparently at the hands of a mysterious 'Knight' that has the power to control plant life. While the troops travel by helicopter, The Doctor explains that she'd rather travel in style, and introduces Ben to her chosen mode of transport. A cream coloured 1967 AC Cobra.

Arriving at the rural town of Potted Veil, The Doctor and Ben are met by the UNIT strike team's commanding officer. Our final main recurring character. Captain Corazon Cortez, played by Janina Gavankar. Cortez is a no-nonsense, right-to-the-action type, with a lot of characterisation crossover with Brigadier Bambera from Battlefield (and likewise, our UNIT uniforms should harken back to that take as well. Urban/Rural camo. UN Peacekeeper blue berets.) She begins the series as a shoot-first, ask-questions-later type, but over time learns to grow after leading too many soldiers to their deaths. She, like Strauss, doesn't really respect The Doctor's position to begin with.

(A note on the casting. At this point you may be thinking that my dream cast is already eating up a lot of the budget. I can't profess to know what kind of pay-checks Brühl, Jonsson and Gavankar draw at this moment in time. Brühl has obviously been on the Disney payroll in the past, though he does do plenty of TV and European productions. Jonsson is a rising star, so it is unknown if he'd be up for a joint lead. Gavankar meanwhile is mostly known for TV, video games and bit-parts. I'm not saying we'd be able to afford these three on a reduced BBC budget, but they should at least give you an idea of the types of performance I'd want for these roles.)

Over the course of the first half of our opening episode, we should have clearly communicated the new status-quo to our viewers. This, naturally, should raise some questions and mysteries for both new and returning audiences.

For newcomers, they should be immediately curious about what The Doctor's deal is, and what is up with that mysterious blue box. Obviously I know most new audiences are probably going to have some foreknowledge going in, but we'll tease it out all the same.

For returning audiences, several things will be made clear. Firstly, is that the public has no knowledge of alien races. Either time has been re-written, or our memories have been tampered with. This both wipes the continuity slate clean, makes near-future earth feel more grounded, and also sets us up with an ongoing mystery as to why mankind has no knowledge of past events like going mad in The Giggle, or nearly being wiped out in Flux.

Likewise, The Doctor is not a legendary figure. Even UNIT barely have any real knowledge of her, and (almost) none of the season's villains know who or what a Time Lord is. Like with the reason behind her tethering to Earth, this is a mystery that will be teased out in time.

For now, we have a monster to track down. Along the way Cortez's haste gets a bunch of soldiers killed confronting the mysterious 'Knight,' while Ben use their knowledge of electrochemistry to establish how the creature is controlling the vegetation. By manipulating the water within the plant life itself. Eventually they trap the 'Knight' by luring it to a field that is suffering from drought, due to near-future Earth's worsening climate crisis.

The Doctor attempts to communicate with the creature, but cannot speak their language (another mystery for returning audiences.) They do manage to establish that the creature is a lost solider in power armour, lashing out in confusion after being abandoned from some far-away war. The Doctor attempts some kind of peaceful negotiation, but in the end, the language barrier is just too large, and the creature attempts to slay The Doctor the old fashioned way, only for Cortez to arrive and kill the creature at the last minute, much to The Doctor's chagrin.

We wrap the story up with Ben's world view now expanded, Cortez's conscience weighing on her, and The Doctor pondering their next move, glancing at the blue police box. Only Strauss is truly content at a cheaply concluded operation.

Part Four: Give My Regards to Broad Street.

As the series continues, The Doctor and Ben explore relatively small-scale alien incursions and mad science gone wrong around the country. A little bit of X-Files here, a little bit of Fringe there. Along the way Cortez and Strauss soften, and we delve deeper into the ongoing mysteries. Eventually Ben gains enough of The Doctor's confidence that she reveals her origins and that of the mysterious blue box, welcoming him into a baroque control room reminiscent of the TV Movie. The Doctor is an alien. A Time Lord... sort of. A time traveller, but her time machine is grounded, for reasons she can't explain. Its chameleon circuit is broken and its translator microbes inoperative. More worryingly, she suspects that time and memory, including her own, has been re-written, and that all time travellers have been grounded, not just her. Ben, for his part, starts to suffer from an existential crisis thanks to these revelations.

Along the way we also get passing references to the political climate of the near-future. Climate change is worse than ever, though finally being taken seriously. Major corporations have been severely curtailed after multiple financial crashes and scandals. China is ascendant, and Europe is beginning to form more of a mono-culture. Additionally, and I know the BBC would probably never let me do it, but I'd also like the near-future to have a united Ireland, abolished British Monarchy, and fractured United States... and in the Doctor Who pitch too (Disclaimer: That was a joke.)

After all of this drip-feeding of information, we come to the grand finale. A two part adaption of the DWM comic The Flood. Most of you probably know that this Cyberman story has a legendary reputation, and it is well deserved. The Cybermen have constantly suffered from stories that fail to capitalise on their true strengths, sometimes being pathetic remnants of a greater civilisation, sometimes being an unstoppable assimilationist force. The Flood is one of those stories that threads the needle and manages to unite the disparate characterisations.

Of course, we'd have to bleed every penny from the budget to get those Cybermen and Cyber-sets to work, but I think it could be done. Keeping earlier episodes grounded with small scale threats, more interesting through writing and concept that bombast and spectacle, could leave you with just enough of a war chest to make the finale a cinematic event. As I've said, I don't know what kind of resources the BBC has a their disposal, but speculatively, I think it could work.

The Flood is already a story where The Doctor works alongside a government organisation to fight against a secretive invasion by far-future Cybermen. With just a few tweaks you can basically adapt it verbatim. Ben gets the opportunity to shake out of his existential crisis by figuring out the weakness in the Cyberman ship, and Cortez gets to air all her guilts and doubts at the hands of the Cybermen's psychoactive chemical.

It is also an opportunity for us to explore more of the ongoing mysteries and arcs. The Doctor expresses a feeling of deja-vu, as though she has lived this moment before, implying that the events of the comic have already happened in some pre-altered timeline. UNIT would spend a lot of time trying (and eventually succeeding) to keep the reality of the invasion secret from the public, blaming the Cybermen on an experimental drone operation gone wrong. Adding to our mystery of the time-locked Tardis is as to how our far-future Cybermen are able to travel into the past. Can the Doctor salvage some of their technology in order to end her banishment?

Alas, despite the Cybermen's defeat, The Doctor finds no solution to fixing the Tardis, and Ben gets no further answers into the truth behind their altered timeline. Still, Cortez has grown more of a conscience, and Strauss has learned to put human lives ahead of numbers on a spreadsheet, and so we end the season on a high, with greater mysteries yet to be explored.

I think that's a pretty good baseline foundation for a distinct and fresh relaunch. A new and different tone from the show's immediate past, but taking a great deal of inspiration from other parts of the show's history. A bold new status-quo, a diverse and interesting cast with a different set of dynamics than what the show has recently used, and a setting that allows some interesting hard sci-fi and topical stories to be told. You get a good writing team with some fresh and experimental ideas, and I think you'd have something that could draw in a solid new international fanbase.

Part Five: I Wish that I Knew What I Know Now

As for what comes next, I won't go into too many details. I'd envision the second season to remain on near-future earth, with a single story allowing a temporarily fixed Tardis to take The Doctor and Ben further afield, a-la Colony In Space, this time to re-introduce the Daleks in a sci-fi horror story where they stalk a ruined space base. Along the way, The Master re-emerges, played by an icy Timothy Olyphant (In this instance, I can concede there's no way our budget could afford him, but a man can dream,) to torment The Doctor and UNIT.

As for the answer behind the ongoing mysteries? We'll drip feed the details, but in time explain that the Time Lords returned (no elaboration given as to how,) and decided that the timeline of galactic history had become too chaotic in their absence. They instituted a history-wide cosmic 'pruning' to bring things back in line, grounding all time travellers for the duration. We'll keep them at arms length, used sparingly as more like the angelic god entities they were depicted as in The War Games over the squabbling bureaucrats they usually are.

Season 3, with hopefully a larger audience justifying a larger budget, would see The Doctor and Ben finally get free of Earth and give us a (mostly) full season of proper space and time travel. We'd get a second companion in the Red Sonja-inspired amphibious warrior woman I mentioned in my last pitch. Maybe she could have a funny romance with Cortez, who knows?

Long term? Eventually Varma's tenure ends and she regenerates into Benedict Wong, playing The Doctor as a more eccentric, scatter-brained professor in the style of Cushing from the 60's movies. With a fixed Tardis, The Doctor's tenure as UNIT's scientific advisor comes to an end, but I think there'd still be more fertile ground to cover with near-future Earth, so so he'd take up residence as a lecturer at Edinburgh University, as a bit of a call back to Capaldi's final season.

I think an important factor here would be setting up a new and distinct companion dynamic from one Doctor to the next. I think New Who specifically struggled over time because it kept going back to the safe and tested formula of 'quirky young British man in a will-they-won't-they relationship with an attractive young woman.' So when the newer series started to stray away from this some fans felt like it wasn't the show they fell in love with.

I think setting a clear precedent that the show can, and will, shift drastically in style and tone is crucial to its long term viability. New formulas should be adopted frequently and often.

I haven't put much thought into what I'd do with a Benedict Wong era of the show, but ideally I'd want to leave the show in a healthier place, ready to be handed off to the next show runner. No loose plot threads. A clean break once again.

As I was thinking over this pitch there were many things that I was tempted to add into it. I wanted to resolve the Timeless Child arc without retconning it, bring in Faction Paradox from the books, explore Graham's ex-companion support group from Chibnall's finale and have a multi-Doctor story with Christopher Eccleston. Yet, like I mentioned last time, It is all too easy to bog yourself down with 'Glup Shittos' and grand ideas. You lose track of what the show should be in the first place. A solid science fiction series.

Conclusion

Deep down, I know that to survive Doctor Who needs to stay lean and stay fresh. Leave convoluted lore explorations to anniversary specials and spin-off media. If RTD2 proved anything it is that there's no life-hack to getting the show a bigger audience. You can't 'fake it till you make it' with funky title cards, social media podcasts, celebrity cameos and spin-offs. Acting like you have the biggest show in the world isn't necessarily going to give you the biggest show in the world. All you end up with is a Potemkin village.

I have no idea if my above pitch would work, or if I have vastly overestimated the kind of budget the BBC has on its hands, but I hope I can give food for thought on what we as fans of the show should expect and what would probably be for the best. I think a lot of fans who joined the show in 2005 ought to understand that one day they'll face a relaunch that abandons most of their era of the show the same way the 2005 relaunch abandoned most of the classic era.

And that, I think, is the crux of the point. More than anything the show needs a completely new reinvention, whether that be in tone, setting, format or budget. The show can't survive trying to reconstruct the golden age of the 2010s Who any more than the classic series was able to reinvent the golden age of the 1970s Who.

Like the man said. Change is what makes us real. At the end of the day it's what it's all about.

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Jack Harvey 2026. Images Used Under Fair Use. Doctor Who is (c) the BBC.