Gallifrey/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alas, Poor Villain: Darkel's death. Sure, they were an utter monster, but it was just such a brutal and vicious way to die.
  • Angst? What Angst?: Romana spent twenty years in a Dalek prison cell. This is never mentioned again.
  • Complete Monster: Pandora. Darkel gets her moments.
    • Also pretty much any antagonist in any alternate Gallifrey in Series 4. Even Chancellor Narvin, though slightly redeemable by the end, slams into the Moral Event Horizon when he "encourages" Romana to work harder by telling her that he'll start killing slaves if she doesn't, and is happy to prove that he's being serious.
  • Designated Protagonist Syndrome: A side effect of Romana getting saddled with the plotlines.
    • Probably doesn't help that Brax keeps pushing everything on her.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Narvin, who begins as an unsympathetic beaurcrat and ends as one of the only consistently good characters in the series. His general snarkiness helps quite a bit too.
  • Ho Yay: Narvin misses Brax. They even manage to NOT argue for a split second when Narvin comments on Brax's trick with the impulse laser.
    • Many, many fans see this with Leela and Romana, particularly when they go on their honeymoon visit a relaxation planet together in series two and end up temporarily swapping bodies.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Romana, surprisingly. She's been canonically paired with the Doctor, some variant on Romana/Brax is quite popular and a one-sided Pygmalion Plot actually becomes canon, Romana/Leela was one of the first ships to surface in the fandom, and Romana/Narvin has a growing contingent of supporters. Somehow, 'The Ice Maiden' has ended up as the fandom bicycle.
  • Magnificent Bastard: In his first appearance Mephistopheles Arkadian, a simple human con-man and arms dealer, manages to outwit all the Temporal Powers and walk away whistling. However, he later tries for a repeat performance and is outfoxed by Braxiatel[1]
  • Pandering to the Base: How the series got started.
  • Ship Mates: Brax feels this way about himself/Romana and Leela/Narvin. In Brax's daydream at the start of Reborn, Leela and Narvin conveniently pair off before he proposes to Romana.
  • Stoic Woobie: Almost everyone qualifies.
  • Straw Man Has a Point: Narvin, and to a lesser extent Darkel, who are lampooned for saying that Romana is an ineffectual leader whose presidency will lead to disaster. It does, with the planet in ruins and overrun by zombies.
  1. Who is easily either this or a Guile Hero, depending on the mood he's in.