It is expected that the villains in The Name of the Doctor, the season finale, are a group known as the Whisperman (or perhaps Whisper Men, I’ve seen it written both ways). They have a distinct look and feel quite Steven Moffat in style.
My first thought was that they reminded me of the Gentlemen from the Buffy episode called Hush.
The question some fans are asking is – have we seen them before? We might have. They certainly look very similar to a baddie from The Sarah Jane Adventures called The Trickster.
The Trickster would manipulate time in order to cause trouble for Sarah Jane. He was so successful that in a “crossover episode” the Tenth Doctor even got involved.
It isn’t just that The Trickster looks a lot like the Whispermen; we also have the Trickster’s Brigade. This time meddling foe leads a group of people.
The Tenth Doctor suggest that the Trickster and the Trickster’s Brigade were responsible for the Time Beetle being put on the back of Donna Noble on the planet Shan Shen. This was an attempt to stop The Doctor ever meeting Noble.
In the Torchwood episode “Immortal Sins” (part of Miracle Day) Captain Jack mentions the Trickster’s Brigade too. It was in conjunction with an attempt to use a brain parasite to infect US President Franklin D. Roosevelt so that he would be unable to help stop the Nazis.
This makes the Trickster, via the Trickster’s Brigade, one of the only (perhaps the only) enemy to be faced by Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
In the Sarah Jane Adventures episode “The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith” the Doctor said the Trickster might once have been part of the Pantheon of Discord. The only other known member of the Pantheon is an entity known as Krampus who appeared in a story printed in the 445th issue of the Doctor Who Magazine which featured Amy and Rory but not the Doctor.
What’s the brief background on the Trickster. The question is: is he related to the Whispermen? Do they look the same? And could this messing with the past involve Clara Oswald in anyway?
What do you think?
That’s Trickster’s ‘Brigade’…really, ya didn’t get that?
Ahem. Good spot. Who would have believed spellcheck wasn’t a magical solution?
Fixed.
I noticed immediately that the Whispermen looked the same as the Trickster. These characters ruin the sci-fi by going into the realm of magic. Dr Who was never about magic. Episodes that invoke magic are always stupid and childish.
Agree – way too much magical nonsense under Moffat. The stuff about the Doctor’s timeline was pure magic.
Isn’t magic just science that we have yet to comprehend. In the Whoverse, and even other fandoms such as Marvel, science and magic are interchangeable. There is no line between them. It’s what I love about the show.