In 2020, Robin Bright-Thompson lived in a flat in 107 Baker Street with his father, Ken Bright-Thompson. With his parents occupied by work and often moving, London being the latest of their locations, he was a prime recruitment target for Divine Intervention.
Robin's life was upended when the Eighth Doctor, Liv Chenka, and Helen Sinclair, parted from the TARDIS as it recovered from its draining by the Ravenous, took up residence in 107 Baker Street. Learning that the Doctor was not just his father's landlord, but an alien who traveled through space and time, Robin quickly came to idolise him. He smuggled into the TARDIS just before its first trip from 2020 to a devastated, far future London, finding the Divine Intervention base known as Earth Endstation 6 and being forcibly experimented on by a machine inside. Unbeknownst to him for quite a while, his longevity had been increased to the point where it took years for him to age a day.
Upon returning to 2020 and much to his disappointment, Robin was told by his father that they would be moving to Edinburgh. He joined Divine Intervention after arriving in Edinburgh, having completed their aptitude and placement tests, and was eventually made their leader. Under his guidance, DI grew from a small-time cult into the powerful force behind Earth Empire. The Doctor, Liv, and Helen, assisted by Tania Bell and Andy Davidson, set out to stop the head of Earth Empire, who they assumed, like many its subjects, was the masked individual known only as "The Doctor". With much effort, they uncovered the truth about Robin and the barrenness of the future London. A disgusted Doctor stranded Robin in said London so he could live with the consequences of his actions.
At some point, Robin escaped his captivity and resumed his role as DI's leader. Aged over millennia into an older man, he took the title of Mr Bird and traveled back to 2020. He moved into the attic flat at 107 Baker Street and installed surveillance cameras inside the residents' televisions, earning him the Doctor's and Tania's ire. He evaded capture by the Doctor, ensured his creation by moving Robin and his father to Edinburgh, and began attempting to keep the Doctor and his companions in London.
A meeting in an alternate timeline with the Doctor, Helen, and a past version of Tania humbled Mr Bird into becoming a kinder man. He tried to save Andy from certain death in a spaceship crash, succeeding in another alternate timeline averted by Helen. His entire existence was nullified when the Doctor, trapped with a Robin not far removed from his abandonment in what remained of the overall timeline created by the crash of the TARDIS, convinced Robin to live in 107 Baker Street after returning from Edinburgh. As this ensured Robin would never grow bitter towards the Doctor, Mr Bird had no reason to exist.
Robin escaped with the Doctor to the original 2020, firmly in the throes of initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. He worked on making amends during the lockdown and its aftermath, wishing the Doctor a fond farewell when he, Liv, and Helen left the following year.
Biography[]
Childhood[]
Robin was born around 2005 (AUDIO: Divine Intervention) to Ken (AUDIO: Lost Property) and Alison Bright-Thompson. (AUDIO: The Keys of Baker Street) His father was constantly working, (AUDIO: Lost Property et al.) and his mother did not live with them. Robin often moved when his father relocated for work; as a result, he was unable to get close to anyone for long. (AUDIO: Dead Time) He resented his father for never letting him build a support network. (AUDIO: Crossed Lines, Best Year Ever)
In a version of 2020 created by the crash of the Doctor's TARDIS, Robin had recently moved into 107 Baker Street with his father. His unhappiness about the situation was inflamed when his games console stopped working. He was set on running away before the Curator convinced him to instead spend time at a nearby cafe. His father's landlord, the Eighth Doctor, fixed the console and provided him free Wi-Fi, lifting his spirits however shallowly. (AUDIO: Lost Property)
Robin was upset when his father was suddenly called to work, and was comforted by the Doctor. He asked the Doctor to examine his television after it started showing Mr Bird, whose voice he could hear in his mind despite the television being muted. (AUDIO: Must-See TV)
Whilst out shopping, Robin and Helen Sinclair, his new history tutor, met Rafaella Hicks, a recruiter for Divine Intervention. Rafaella told Robin, perhaps artificially, that he was exactly what DI was looking for. He agreed to take their placement test before a suspicious Helen led him away. He had dinner at Wakefield's with the residents of 107 Baker Street save his father, who was asked to work at the last minute. He was taken hostage by Teeja and Bourakai and later went with Liv and Tania to the pub, where Liv planned to tell them who she really was. (AUDIO: Divine Intervention)
Robin was eager to join the Doctor on his test flight of the TARDIS, stowing in a cupboard when the Doctor told him it was too dangerous for him to come. He snuck out of the TARDIS to explore the desolate London it had traveled to, finding Earth Endstation 6, a Divine Intervention base wherein he was told he would become someone important and forced into a machine which greatly slowed his ageing process. (AUDIO: Dead Time, What Just Happened?) Upon returning home, he was upset to learn that his father would be relocating to Edinburgh and that he, in turn, would lose his new friends. (AUDIO: Dead Time, The Keys of Baker Street) Just before leaving 107 Baker Street, Robin and the Doctor watched Robin's father pack essentials for their move. He blew up at his father for apologising to the Doctor for terminating their lease early, finding fault in him saying sorry for everything and despising that he did not understand he was "messing [Robin] around." He grew even more infuriated when his father lamented the loss of his mother's favourite plate, which Robin had accidentally broken. Robin's father admitted regret at moving to the house, but insisted that if he could handle constantly moving as a child, Robin could as well. Robin bitterly remarked that his father had not thought twice about doing the same to him, sarcastically approving of his father's proposal that he keep in touch with his friends online. Frustrated by his son's stonewalling his packing, Robin's father ordered him to pack his own things, backtracking when he realised he had upset Robin even more. (AUDIO: The Keys of Baker Street)
Leading DI[]
At some point between meeting Divine Intervention and boarding a train to Edinburgh, Robin took Divine Intervention's placement test. The train's poor Wi-Fi made it difficult for him to complete the follow-up aptitude test. His apparently exceptional score "earned" him an invitation to visit DI's Edinburgh office. (AUDIO: Crossed Lines)
With his increased longevity and a burning desire to be like the Doctor, (AUDIO: Crossed Lines) Robin became DI's secretive leader, ruling Earth under an iron fist and the title "the Doctor". (AUDIO: The Long Way Round, Snow) He stopped speaking to his father long before his father died. (AUDIO: Crossed Lines) In 2050 London, he revealed his identity to Gemma Houlbrooke, a member of the resistance against Divine Intervention, and ordered her arrest. (AUDIO: The Long Way Round)
Eventually, DI took to the stars. Motivated by the belief that humans deserved a better, safer future, (AUDIO: What Just Happened?, Crossed Lines) they became the enforcers of Earth Empire, which conquered much of the galaxy, forcibly spread human culture, and by the 41st century, had seriously altered recorded history. (AUDIO: Patience, Twisted Folklore) The technology stolen from the races subjugated by Earth Empire (AUDIO: Crossed Lines) allowed Robin to create the very machine in the Endstation which slowed his ageing. (AUDIO: What Just Happened?)
Robin took up residence in a space station with a staid office. He implanted a "kill switch" in all of humanity of the time, using the threat of mass death as a means of maintaining control.
The Doctor, Liv, and Helen raided the space station with Paul Quinns and his band of rebels, encountering Robin inside his office. He stunned Quinns into unconsciousness, the Doctor and Helen realising he was "the Doctor", before commenting that one's minor decisions, such as his entering the Endstation, had a bigger impact on their life. He denounced the Doctor for leaving the people he helped to clean up his messes, professing the benefits of Divine Intervention's hegemonic ideology. He begrudgingly agreed to deactivate the kill switch, relenting and triggering it when a revived Quinns ordered his spaceship flown into the space station. Made all the more furious by Robin's comparison of humans to worms, the Doctor abandoned Robin on the desolate Earth, telling Robin that however much they hurt, he had to live with the consequences of his actions. (AUDIO: What Just Happened?)
As "Mr Bird"[]
Mr Bird. (AUDIO: Must-See TV)
Millennia later, Robin, having gained the ability to travel in his own timeline via a chrono-warp engine (AUDIO: Crossed Lines, Get Andy) and developed a grudge against the Doctor for abandoning him, had escaped captivity and rejoined Divine Intervention. DI upended negotiations between Torchwood and authorities in the late 2010s for Torchwood to obtain an unidentified piece of alien technology, infiltrating the political leadership and stealing the technology for themselves. He traveled back in time to undo the subsequent war between humanity and robots. (AUDIO: Crossed Lines)
A few years hence, Robin travelled to 2020 London. Taking the alias of Mr Bird, which the Doctor would later remark hid him in plain sight, (AUDIO: Crossed Lines) he moved into the attic flat of 107 Baker Street and effectively became the other residents' live-in handyman. He placed extraterrestrial surveillance cameras inside the residents' televisions, earning him the suspicion of both the Doctor and Tania. He blew up the MedTech building and used vortex transference to evade the Doctor, leaving the Doctor with an ominous reminder that he was being watched. (AUDIO: Must-See TV)
Mr Bird arranged for his father to move to Edinburgh, ensuring Robin would grow bitter and become Mr Bird. (AUDIO: Crossed Lines) Following this, he set out to keep the Doctor and his companions at 107 Baker Street. A stasis bomb intended to contain the house landed in 1941 instead of 2020 after hitting the TARDIS's slipstream (AUDIO: Crossed Lines), and Liv and Tania's swift intervention made the field it created far smaller than planned. (AUDIO: Baker Street Irregulars) A further plan failed when a squad of Judoon sent after the TARDIS were de-aged by the Paradoxica. (AUDIO: Patience)
Despite the risks posed by the narrowing time tracks, (AUDIO: Crossed Lines) in a desperate attempt to show the Doctor he could be good, Mr Bird attempted to save Andy Davidson from a certain death in Quinns' crashing spacecraftHelen, who had traveled from Mr Bird's relative future using his chrono-warp engine, rescued Andy by bringing him into the TARDIS with the Doctor. (AUDIO: Get Andy)
Undated events[]
Robin visited Tania's flat to grouse about his father being prevented by work from taking him to a football match between Crystal Palace F.C. and West Bromwich Albion F.C. She reassured him that his father was doing his best, offering to go with him instead so he could attend the match with a "responsible adult." Though he had a spare ticket Liv could use, he scoffed at the idea of her watching a football match, believing she would find it infuriatingly boring. Tania agreed for a different reason: Liv and Helen were busy assisting Ron Winters with Tony Clare's memory issues. (AUDIO: UNIT Dating, The Keys of Baker Street)
In his father's flat, Robin, watched by a Doctor from three months in the future, played a video game involving worms. He shut down the Doctor's attempt to discuss his argument with his father; the Doctor complied, showing Robin an invisibility shield he was building and agreeing to Robin's request to examine the shield. The Doctor briefly tried the game, bemoaning how difficult video games could be. Robin snatched back the controller, pointing out that unlike in real life, one could always restart a game. (AUDIO: What Just Happened?)
Other timelines[]
Train to Edinburgh[]
In an alternate timeline consumed by the Void, Robin met the Doctor, who had traveled back a few months with Helen to prevent him from indirectly killing Andy, on the train to Edinburgh. He was excited to see the Doctor again, inviting the Doctor to visit him and his father's sleeper car.
As Mr Bird, Robin followed his younger self onto the train, being tailed by Tania and the future Helen. He "hop[ped] back [to] surprise [them]", telling them of the purpose of the surveillance cameras and the origins of his chrono-warp unit and taking them to the Doctor at gunpoint. As the timeline began to be consumed by the Void, Mr Bird ordered the others to stay put instead of looking for the driver. He noted the futility of the Doctor's previous efforts against Divine Intervention, renamed Deus Ex after the "unfortunate incident" that was humanity's extinction, and skewered the group for being "far too early to see" its impact.
Mr Bird hinted at his true identity, leaving the Doctor to spill the beans. He made a feeble attempt to shoot Helen before giving up and relating some of his story to the group. Learning that Mr Bird enacted elaborate schemes in the belief it would make him like the Doctor, the Doctor scornfully compared Mr Bird to the Time Lords and wondered how Mr Bird could have got him so wrong. He told Mr Bird about a hermit he had met on Gallifrey who made it a point to save as many stranded shimmerlings as he could by throwing them into the Untempered Schism.
Mr Bird was begged to accept his mortality, the Doctor not wanting to further break his life. He resisted, petulantly asking whether he should give up, before eventually being convinced that it was not too late and that he could make a difference. Before the Doctor could exploit his chrono-warp engine to make it easier to reach the TARDIS, he activated it and travelled elsewhere in his timeline. (AUDIO: Crossed Lines)
Saving Andy[]
In another alternate timeline whose existence was averted by Helen, Mr Bird, chastened by the Doctor's criticism of him on the train to Edinburgh, saved Andy from the crash of Quinns' spaceship. Though he got Andy to Earth, specifically Hull, his malfunctioning chrono-warp engine resulted in them being stuck between parallel timelines: the relatively normal 2020 and the 2020 ravaged by the robot war. Wary of being with authorities when reality glitched and hesitant to disrupt either timeline, they returned to London on foot. Just outside London, Mr Bird pushed Andy through a crowd crush, calling to Andy to tell the Doctor he had made a difference. (AUDIO: Get Andy)
No Robin[]
When Liv caught the eye of Robin's father outside the 107 Baker Street of the 1990s, accidentally averting Robin's birth, the Void began to consume the alternate timeline entirely. Robin was brought to the house in the Curator's TARDIS, visiting the time windows placed by the Curator inside 107 Baker Street in a failed attempt to change his past. Noticing Andy as he saw through the time window in the flat of Robin and his father, Robin left the time window with Andy. He encountered the Doctor, Liv, and Helen outside, targeting the Doctor for abandoning him on the desolate Earth. Told by the Doctor that he should not have been in the house with them, Robin observed that his situation, "having the same old arguments in the same old rooms," was the contradiction of the common saying "You can't go home again."
Tanya called the group into the attic, where she and the Curator were hiding, before they could get lost in gossiping about the Curator and be lost inside the Void as a result. Robin watched the Doctor criticise the Curator for what the Doctor alleged was meddling and the Curator considered curating, voicing his enjoyment of the situation. After the Curator explained he had chosen each of the six flats' tenants and given them a key to the house, Robin produced his own key. The Doctor questioned why he was involved, given his temporally damaging genocide of humanity, while Tania, Andy, and Helen stood up for him. The Curator voted with the majority, declaring, "The time for blame has gone."
As the house was swallowed up around the group, the Curator ushered Robin and the Doctor into the attic's kitchen, gifting the "argumentative young men" with time. Its walls lined with temporally resistant titanium, the kitchen kept them safe as it floated through the Void. Stuck with the Doctor in a cramped space and forced to survive on a diet of fig rolls and water, Robin's resentment of the Doctor bubbled to the surface. He railed at the Doctor's inability to appreciate his friends and his perceived lack of responsibility, receiving similar distaste from the Doctor for his cavalier, damaging approach to time travel and the "grotesque parody" of his adopting the name "The Doctor". Realising Robin's true desire—to stay at 107 Baker Street—the Doctor decided to change his future instead of his past. He offered Robin the key to the attic flat, allowing him to live in it after returning from Edinburgh. Robin agreed after accepting he deserved a second chance, escaping with the Doctor into the original timeline through a gateway created by the keys. The group were quickly noticed by Robin's father, who scolded them for not only spurning social distancing, but not masking while doing so.
Sitting with the Curator on a bench in Trafalgar Square, Mr Bird realised he had lost some of his memories. Not long after, he was erased from existence. (AUDIO: The Keys of Baker Street)
Original timeline[]
In the original version of 2020, a lockdown instituted to manage the initial wave of COVID-19 furloughed Robin's father and kept him, Robin, and the residents of 107 Baker Street at home. To keep busy and get to know his father better, Robin attended online fitness classes with his father. After one class, Robin's father noted how much more relaxed he seemed. Robin responded that he was trying to utilize his newfound support network at Baker Street. He defended the residents against his father's assertion that some of them seemed "awfully strange," appreciating the strength and experience they brought him.
Later in the lockdown, Robin questioned why Helen wanted to learn to play the clarinet instead of studying another language. He idly mused about turning Divine Intervention into a force for good; seizing on this desire, she rallied the other residents to make it a reality. Later still, towards Christmas, he asked Zakia Akhtar whether she would be attending his and his father's Christmas dinner, which he believed would distract her from the loneliness that followed her mother's death from COVID-19. He comforted her when she vented her frustration and guilt over allowing her mother to die.
In early 2021, the Doctor, Liv, and Helen departed in the TARDIS. Robin thanked the Doctor for giving him a second chance. (AUDIO: Best Year Ever)
Personality[]
Robin was a typically moody teenager, treating minor slights as the worst things ever. He perceived the world in a direct, concrete way, necessitating that Helen make her material for his history lessons less abstract. (AUDIO: The Keys of Baker Street) Possibly because he was an only child, (AUDIO: The Keys of Baker Street) he was upset by his parents' absence from his life. He longed for a support network, (AUDIO: Best Year Ever) telling Helen that he wished that the Doctor was his father (AUDIO: Divine Intervention) and pleading with his father not to move them to Edinburgh and separate him from his friends. (AUDIO: Crossed Lines) His longevity affected him for this reason, with him refusing to form attachments with people in fear of losing them. (AUDIO: Crossed Lines) In the original 2020, he was pleased when the initial wave of COVID-19 left his father furloughed and stuck at home with him. (AUDIO: Best Year Ever)
Much like his Time Lord idol, Robin could be irritating and charming in equal measure. He led Divine Intervention with an air of haughty smugness, comparing humanity to worms that could respawn, replying to the Doctor's desire to be neither a slave nor death with a flippant "Well, tough!", (AUDIO: What Just Happened?) and treating the time windows in 107 Baker Street far less seriously than the other residents. (AUDIO: The Keys of Baker Street) At the same time, he was genuinely resolved to make amends, invited Zakia to him and his father's Christmas dinner to soothe her loneliness after her mother's death, and comforted her when she vented her frustration and guilt. (AUDIO: Best Year Ever)
Robin was fond of his fellow residents at 107 Baker Street, enthusing to his father about the strength and experience they gave him. (AUDIO: Best Year Ever) He placed the Doctor on a immense pedestal, desperately wanting to impress him (AUDIO: Dead Time, Crossed Lines) and leading Divine Intervention with his mindset of making things better. (AUDIO: Crossed Lines) He trusted Tania enough to visit her flat to complain about his father. (AUDIO: The Keys of Baker Street) In the alternate timeline created by the Doctor's interference on the train to Edinburgh, Mr Bird struggled to execute his threats to kill Helen. The Doctor picked up on this, attributing Mr Bird's torment to "all that time [with Helen] studying Tudors and tsars". (AUDIO: Crossed Lines)
The Baker Street residents cared similarly for Robin. Tania encouraged him to complain about his father, and after being told that his father could not attend the football match, volunteered to go with him instead. (AUDIO: The Keys of Baker Street) Helen led him away from Rafaella, sensing Divine Intervention's sinister intentions, (AUDIO: Divine Intervention) and despite Mr Bird's antagonism towards her, took pity on him when he revealed why "The Doctor" wore a mask. (AUDIO: Crossed Lines) Even the Doctor, for all his loathing of Robin's actions with Divine Intervention, willingly gave him a second chance upon realising he had become evil for all too human reasons. (AUDIO: The Keys of Baker Street)
Robin liked hot chocolate (AUDIO: Lost Property) and playing creative video games—or, per Tony Clare, "thumping about upstairs making Space Invader" sounds. (AUDIO: The Keys of Baker Street) He was a fan of either Crystal Palace or West Bromwich Albion. Discussing with Tania the match his father was unable to take him to, he showed excitement that one of the teams "might even win". (AUDIO: The Keys of Baker Street)
Habits and quirks[]
As Mr Bird, Robin got a prickle on the back of his neck whenever he sensed he was being followed. (AUDIO: Crossed Lines)
Skills[]
Robin was a skilled leader, turning Divine Intervention from a small-time cult on Earth into a dominant force throughout the galaxy. He had something of an interest in tinkering, expressing a desire to examine the Doctor's invisibility shield (AUDIO: What Just Happened?) and as Mr Bird, constructing a partition wall in the attic, unblocking a sink in the downstairs flats, fixing the fuse in the Akhtars' flat, and successfully inserting alien surveillance cameras inside human televisions. (AUDIO: Must-See TV)
Behind the scenes[]
Twitter promo image
Robin Bright-Thompson was pictured with a promo image on Twitter.
