A lot of blogs have been written this year about things Russell T Davies has said and done. People are asking questions such as “What is the future of the show?” and “Why has he decided to bring Billie Piper back in an unspecified role?” These questions aren’t important to me. There’s only one question that matters to me, here, in this particular blog: “What has happened to my number 57?”

If, for some bizarre reason, you are just tuning into this particular blog series, then I’ll provide you with the briefest of recaps. In November 2023, to mark 60 years of Doctor Who, I chronicled every time that Russell T Davies used the number 57 in his Doctor Who scripts and how Steven Moffat picked up on this habit and continued it through his era. I ended this blog with a prediction that the number 57 would return in the following series. This turned out to be correct beyond my wildest dreams and so, in November 2024, I wrote a sequel blog documenting all of these new instances. Maybe 2025 will bring us even more of the number 57?

My friends, we got a single crumb.

I am outraged. Which is a pretty normal feeling among Doctor Who fans.

My outrage is tantamount to the headline of a fairly iconic fan review written by Jan Vincent-Rudzki about The Deadly Assassin in 1976, in which he proclaimed.

“WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE MAGIC OF DOCTOR WHO?”

If I were possessed by the spirit of a twenty-something Jan Vincent-Rudzki, I would probably cry out:

“WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE MAGIC OF THE NUMBER 57?”

Anyway, about that crumb.

The Reality War

I’m not ashamed to say that this was probably one of the highlights of watching The Reality War in a cinema. I had been waiting all series for a mention of the number 57. Nothing in The Robot Revolution. Nothing in Lux. Nothing in The Well. Nothing in Wish World, even as the giant clock approached midnight. And just when I thought it wasn’t going to materialise, it suddenly blurts out of the Rani’s mouth!

DOCTOR: But how did you get to Earth? I have the only Tardis in existence. Ha, ha. Time Ring. Poor baby.

RANI: It led me to you. Although that wasn’t difficult. Find a stupid blonde Earth girl, and there you are.

RUBY: Excuse me?

RANI: Oh, it was so tedious, putting up with you and your 57 mothers.

I genuinely cackled and cheered at this line. It was the most fun I had in that cinema on that evening, and I think that says more about the episode than anything else really. One more screenshot for the scrapbook, eh?

We can probably attribute the dearth of number 57s to the expanded writing team of Season Two (2025) compared to Season One (2024). Russell T Davies had ten solo writing credits for the thirteen episodes broadcast in 2023 and 2024, whereas he only had four solo writing credits (and one co-writing credit) for the eight episodes broadcast in 2025. Nevertheless, I still had higher hopes for more references to the number 57.

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This simply won’t do. I need my fix of the number 57. So I open my iPad and boot up Issue 615 of Doctor Who Magazine. Page 15 starts delivering the goods:

““We saw some great auditions for Belinda” recalls Russell, “but no-one quite clicked. Then I was sat watching edit 57 of Boom, thinking, It’s a real shame I’ll never get to work with Varada on Doctor Who again.”

I turn to the Production Notes at the back of the issue. This was originally published in DWM 343 in April 2004:

“The thing is, a lot of telly – like any job – exists in a state of flux. Each decisions depends on 57 other decisions, so it’s hard to be precise, let alone dogmatic.”

I grab my hardcopy of The Writer’s Tale off the bookshelf and turn to page 135. Look at the end of the first paragraph on the left-hand side:

“You really can’t see that in action, but it can be explained over 57 coffees.”

I’m spooked. I just turned to a random page and there it was, staring me in the face. Mocking me.

The ghostly voice of Steven Moffat whispers in my ear. “Russell always uses 57, always 57.”

Everywhere I look all I see is the number 57. How can I NOT see the number 57??

Perhaps this goes beyond Doctor Who? Perhaps every RTD show ever made features a number 57 somewhere? My mind boggles at the very thought.

I start thinking about the laugh of the Toymaker, originally heard in The Giggle, that seven-note arpeggio.

La-la-la-la-la-la laaaaaa.

Yes, I hear what you’re saying dear reader, we need fifty more la’s here! But consider this… where did that ‘la’ originally come from? Maybe it came from Russell T Davies writing It’s A Sin, a show where the main cast’s key catchphrase was indeed “La.”

I stare at this t-shirt.

It reminds me of something.

Way back from my Chemistry A-Level. The periodic table.

It’s the chemical symbol for the element Lanthanum, a silvery-white metal used in batteries.

And what’s the atomic number of Lanthanum?

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It’s 57.

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Which must mean that every time we hear the laugh of the Toymaker, we are hearing the number 57! Yes? YES????

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*takes off tin foil hat*

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and touch grass.

(And if you’re reading this on Nov 23^rd, a very happy Doctor Who Day to all of you at home.)