Doctor Who Series 12: Ten Huge Questions After Praxeus
9. Who Sent Jake The Help Me Text?
Ex-police officer, Jake, is drinking a microplastic-filled whisky in a Manchester bar when he hears the shocking report of his husband’s accident. Adam Lang, an astronaut, has crash landed in the Indian Ocean and is missing presumed dead. With perfect timing, just as Jake is digesting the awful news he receives a text purportedly from Adam asking for help.
Once again then, a mobile phone has taken a prominent role in series 12. Maybe this is because, in real life, the devices have become an essential for many of us, a constant companion we feel lost without. But this is the first year in which the series has really gone to town with the accessory and it would not be a surprise if it later transpires that something more is going on.
But how exactly did Adam send the call for help? When we first see him, already succumbing to praxeus he is in no fit state to operate his phone. Even if he was still in good health, remarkable in itself given the crash, Adam had been locked up and bound like a lab rat. But if he was in no position to make contact, then who did? There is no logical explanation, making us wonder if it was down to poor editing.
There is always the possibility that the Doctor, or one of her companions, send it with the aid of some time-travelling, which would tie in to our suspicions that there is something odd and significant about mobile phones this year, something yet to be revealed.