Dan Lewis
Name:
Dan Lewis
Species:
Human
First Seen In:
Welcome to the TARDIS…
Latest Appearance:
Legend of the Sea Devils
Main Actor:
John Bishop
click on images to enlarge
Daniel “Dan” Lewis was a companion of the Thirteenth Doctor. He joined Yasmin Khan in The Doctor’s TARDIS as they faced the Flux, an unforeseen threat to the very structure of the cosmos.
Dan lived a simple life in Liverpool before being thrust into The Doctor’s world. He remained open and inquisitive, and challenged Karvanista when he was taken away from home, to outer space. He was interested, most of all, in other people. On the other hand, he could be a little bit careless. For example, Diane obviously expected him to be late for a date, calling him the “late Dan”.
LIFE IN LIVERPOOL
Dan was born an Aries, (Welcome to the TARDIS…) to Eileen and Neville Lewis. (War of the Sontarans), in 1980. (Legend of the Sea Devils)
As an adult, Dan lived in the Anfield district of Liverpool at 37 Granger Street and supported Liverpool F.C.. (The Halloween Apocalypse)
Around 2006, Dan was engaged and due to be married. However, two days before the wedding, his fiancée changed her mind. She informed him that she “couldn’t bear spending the rest of her life with [him]” and “thought she could do better”. Dan had truly loved her. (Once, Upon Time)
Following the 2021 Dalek civil war, Dan’s friend read out Dan’s horoscope, which foretold that he would find surprises later that year, that the colour blue and the letter D would be important and that thirteen would be his lucky number. He was told to be prepared for action and to remember that, no matter what, it would not be the end of the world. After his friend finished, Dan closed the rear doors of his Ford Transit, turned, and smiled. (Welcome to the TARDIS…)
Dan volunteered at Jenning Street Food Bank, but refused to take home soup for himself when offered, even though he had no food at home. (The Halloween Apocalypse)
Dan surprised his friend Diane with a skinny latte as she was leaving work. The pair went on a walk around Liverpool. When she asked him why he wasn’t married, he told her about what had happened with his fiancee. (Once, Upon Time)
Dan regularly took groups round the Museum of Liverpool in an un official capacity, against the wishes of Museum management. Though Diane had a close personal relationship with Dan, Alan threatened to ban him from the site permanently. (The Halloween Apocalypse)
MEETING THE DOCTOR
On Halloween night, 2021, Dan was in his home on Granger Street in Anfield, when three children came to his house, trick-or-treating. He gave them the last of his sweets, and they left. A few seconds later, a man came to Dan’s home, asking for sweets; Dan turned him away, both because he was an adult, and because he was not even dressed up.
Later that night, Dan was kidnapped by Karvanista, who intended to rescue him from the Flux. He found himself on Karvanista’s ship.
Meanwhile, the Thirteenth Doctor and Yasmin Khan followed Karvanista’s trail to Dan’s house, which was miniaturised when they triggered technology he had planted there.
The Doctor and Yaz came to rescue him, confronted Karvanista, and took Dan aboard The Doctor’s TARDIS. (The Halloween Apocalypse)
TRAVELS IN THE TARDIS
Dan and Karvanista later teamed up together to destroy the Sontaran fleet of timeships that were posed to invade all of Earth’s history. The two managed to escape using a waste chute. When The Doctor returned, Dan accepted heroffer to join her as she departed for the planet Time. On Time, Swarm was waiting for them in the Temple of Atropos. He had put Yaz and Inston-Vee Vinder in the places of two Mouri, and prepared to expose them to the full force of time. (War of the Sontarans)
The Doctor shoved Dan onto a Mouri pedestal, while she leapt onto another and used her sonic screwdriver, trapping Dan, Yaz, Vinder and herself in a time storm. Protected in his time stream by The Doctor, Dan relived a day he went on a walk with Diane, and discussed his past relationships. However, Dan noticed some inconsistencies, such as time passing in the blink of an eye. Fidgeting out of his time stream, Dan found himself somewhere else. He ran into Joseph Williamson while running away, though he wasn’t quite sure from what he was running.
While Dan was safe, trapped in a memory, The Doctor replaced the missing Mouri and safely returned Dan to the temple. Swarm showed Dan a glimpse of Diane, who he had kidnapped and imprisoned in a Passenger form. Vinder and later The Doctor promised to help Dan save her. (Once, Upon Time)
Both Dan and Yaz were studiously operating the TARDIS when the Thirteenth Doctor sent a distress call about the arrival of the Flux. Dan then called out to The Doctor, saying that he and Yaz needed her help. (The Flux is Coming…) Dan later watched in horror as a Weeping Angel came out of Yaz’s phone and took control of the Tardis. (Once, Upon Time)
After The Doctor rebooted the Tardis to get rid of the Weeping Angel, she, Dan and Yaz arrived at the village of Medderton on 21 November 1967. Whilst helping to look for a missing girl named Peggy, Dan and Yaz were touched by another Weeping Angel and were sent back in time to Medderton in 1901. They were later joined by Professor Eustacius Jericho, who had also been touched by a Weeping Angel. Dan and Yaz, via an energy barrier showing what was happening in 1967, witnessed The Doctor being surrounded by Weeping Angels and turned into one after being recalled to the Division. Dan had to stop Yaz from going through the energy barrier to get to The Doctor as doing so would have resulted in her death. (Village of the Angels)
Dan, Yaz and Jericho spent three years in the 1900s following instructions from The Doctor, who had left a holographic message in Yaz’s pocket in case they were separated, to find clues to a potential coming battle for Earth. In 1904 they learnt the date of the future event was 5 December and consulted a seer for further details, who advised them to “fetch their dog”. Taking that as a clue to contact Karvanista they travelled to the Great Wall of China where they painted a message large enough for the Lupar to see from space in 2021, asking him to come rescue Dan.
Aboard a ship leaving China, they were attacked by a man, who committed suicide rather than be interrogated by them, and encountered Joseph Williamson briefly, who Dan had previously met during the time storm. Realising Williamson’s tunnels might be a way of moving through time, they travelled to Liverpool and entered them, finding Williamson again who explained his tunnels went throughout history. To their shock, a group of Sontarans suddenly invaded the Tunnels. (Survivors of the Flux).
When Yaz is able to defeat the Sontarans by opening one of the other doorways, which unleash death rays that kill the Sontarans. Dan, Yaz, Jericho and Williamson then met Kate Stewart, who scans Dan and Yaz and discovers that they have been in the Tardis. Just then The Doctor appears and learns from the others about the Sontarans. Dan aids The Doctor with Yaz and Jericho in travelling back to 1967 to recruit Claire Brown to help them defeat the Sontarans. Dan and Yaz go with The Doctor to a Sontaran ship in Chile where they find another version of the Doctor being interrogated by theGrand Serpent and save her. Dan also rescues Karvanista and learns that the Sontarans had killed the other Lupari, leaving Karvanista as the last of his kind. Dan later reunites with Diane after The Doctor saves her and Vinder after that had been placed inside a Passenger. After the Sontarans are consumed by the Flux, which is then placed inside the Passenger, Dan, Yaz and the Doctor bid Karvanista, who has teamed up with Vinder his life partner Bel. They also drop off Kate and Claire on present day Earth. Sometime later, Dan is seen again pretending to be a tour guide at the Museum of Liverpool. Dan then meets with Diane and says that they can make up for the drink they missed because of what happened. However, Diane, because of the experiences, turns down the offer. Dan then leaves the museum where he meets The Doctor and Yaz, who offer him to join them officially, which he happily accepts. (The Vanquishers).
AFTER THE FLUX
After being trapped in a time loop created by the TARDIS along with the Thirteenth Doctor, Yaz an ELF Storage employee named Sarah and a storage unit renter named Nick, Dan discovered that Yaz had romantic feelings for The Doctor. (Eve of the Daleks)
Now travelling for pleasure as a trio, Dan, the Thirteenth Doctor and Yaz went to see a pantomime of Cinderella, which took a turn for the adventurous after The Doctor tried something during the interval to make the show more exciting, only to accidentally summon real versions of various pantomime characters to the theater. Though Dan had to duel Captain Hook (While Yaz fought off the Crocodile), The Doctor was able to put things to right using one of the three wishes from a magic lamp, and things returned to normal, allowing the time travellers to witness the second half of the real show. Dan suggested that The Doctor use the second one of her three wishes to give ice cream to all the children in the audience. (It’s Behind You!)
A week after Dan began travelling with her and Yaz, The Doctor engaged a self-reset process that rendered her TARDIS temporarily unusable in order to purge it of the Flux’s residue. As an unintended side-effect, she and her companions, now including Dan, became trapped in a time loop at ELF Storage in Manchester, alongside the building’s owner Sarah and her eventual love interest Nick. A small Dalek execution squad infiltrated the building, trying to find and exterminate The Doctor, leading to the group being exterminated over and over again, resetting the time loop each time. During these loops, Dan had a soulful conversation with Yaz, revealing that he had noticed that she had romantic feelings for The Doctor. When she confirmed it and told that she “didn’t know what to do”, he urged her to speak her mind to The Doctor, also advising The Doctor — who he knew was aware of these feelings — to stop avoiding the conversation and feigning obliviousness. Eventually they devised a way to escape the building before midnight while destroying The Daleks with explosives in the storage.
Afterwards The Doctor set the trio on a quest for the lost treasure of the Flor de la Mar (Eve of the Daleks) which took them to 1807 China, where a coastal village was being attacked by a crew of pirate Sea Devils. Dan wandered off with Ying Ki and ended up recruited at sword-point by pirate queen Madam Ching to temporarily become part of her crew. Eventually, Dan, Ki and Ching were reunited with The Doctor and Yaz as they foiled the Chief Sea Devil’s mad scheme to flood the entire Earth, with Dan using a Sea Devil sword to kill half a dozen Sea Devil pirates in one blow. After the adventure wrapped up, Dan worked up the courage to call Diane, who confessed that she’d been missing him too. (Legend of the Sea Devils)
Landing in 2022, The Doctor, Yaz, and Dan investigated a series of disappearances, seemingly centring on ghost tours at Hydra Hall. The Doctor and Dan visited the hall, meeting its owner, Vera Parker, while Yaz went ghost party hunting. Dan took a phone call from Yaz who said she’d found a Roman legionary party at the hall, so they hurried to the hall, finding it seemingly restored to top condition with apparitions of Roman soldiers nearby. As they approached, the hall returned to normal, with them finding Yaz’s smashed phone on the ground and a young boy, Sidney Bird, from 1942. Whilst The Doctor kept looking round, Dan took Sid to Vera and deduced from the boy’s recollections of the Hall that the cellar may be holding some kind of portal and went to investigate alone. He found the portal with The Doctor, Yaz, and the missing people on the other side. With The Doctor sonicking the portal open, Dan and Yaz help her get everyone across, however the portal closed before she could join them. The Doctor managed to reopen it and reunited with them. (Hydra’s Gate)
The Doctor took her friends to visit the edge of reality, however, there she became infected with a psychic virus which erased them. After restoring the people erased by the virus with the help of Cleo Proctor, The Doctor planned to find her friends. (Salvation)
Upon landing at a beach for a picnic with The Doctor and Yaz, Dan picked up a pairof Preventacles from The Doctor’s TARDIS, mistaking them for regular sunglasses. These future-predicting glasses caused him to first witness Yaz supposedly drowning, when in reality she would be attempting to swat some wasps a few minutes later. Dan then a man nearly falling off a cliff, which was an event he went on cause when racing up to the man on the cliff’s edge. After The Doctor explained what the glasses were doing Dan discarded them on the beach, unaware they were predicting that the time travellers would soon battle a giant wasp. (Fear of the Future)
Afterwards, the group investigated the Gardens of Everlasting Summeron a hunch of the Doctor. When escaping a group of giant wasps as the Preventacles predicted, Dan briefly took protection of a beeling he nicknamed Stripe, but was partially aged in a time storm when returning him to the TARDIS. The Doctor later discovered that the gardens’ custodian, Jinpar, was artificially rewinding time to keep the long-lived residents living in a perpetual state of summer, and convinced him to stop and revert Dan, where he left Stripe with the now-placated wasps. (The Everlasting Summer)
At some point, the TARDIS made an emergency landing in the Third Doctor’s old UNIT HQ laboratory. Dan initially stayed inside the TARDIS while The Doctor and Yaz investigated, but later got out in time to be present when The Doctor, who was suffering from memory troubles due to the temporal crisis, remembered where she’d seen the room before and figured out the cause of her memory troubles. (Lost in Time)
DEPARTURE
Following his near-death experience during an encounter with the CyberMasters, Dan felt unsafe travelling in the TARDIS and chose to remain in Liverpool. He met with another former companion, Graham O’Brien, where they joined a support group forother people who had travelled with The Doctor, including Yaz, Ian Chesterton, Jo Jones, Tegan Jovanka, Melanie Bush, Ace and Kate Stewart. (The Power of the Doctor)
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE
PERSONALITY
Dan considered others’ needs often before his own, volunteering at his local food bank and giving out treats for Halloween while he did not have food for himself at home. According to Wilma, whom he volunteered with, his continued refusal to take food home was a matter of pride. (The Halloween Apocalypse)
Liverpool was central to Dan’s identity. He knew much about the city, and felt strongly about its rivalry with Leeds. He even distrusted Yasmin Khan, at least in jest, for her association with Sheffield, which was “too close to Leeds”. (The Halloween Apocalypse) He had a similar reaction, when he found out that he arrived in Manchester. (Eve of the Daleks)
When faced with the unknown, Dan tended towards quick, rational conclusions, and had no trouble asserting his reality. He reasoned that an adult trick-or-treater should not be given candy, that Karvanista must have been play-acting in costume, and should leave his home, and later, when faced with the reality of Karvanista’s spaceship, that he must have captured Dan in particular for a reason. (The Halloween Apocalypse)
Nonetheless, he remained open to new possibilities, and adapted quickly, even joking that he had a friend with a TARDIS which was even “bigger”, moments into first encountering dimensional transcendentalism. (The Halloween Apocalypse)
SKILLS
As part of the crew, Dan knew how to operate the controls of the TARDIS control console, at least to some extent. (The Flux is Coming…)
BEHIND THE SCENES
John Bishop considered his casting to “be a dream come true”, as he would have never believed it when he was younger.[1]
As Dan Lewis is said to be an Aries, this would place the character’s date of birth from 20 March to 21 April, if the Zodiac of the real world holds true in The Doctor Who universe.
Dan appeared in the invalid webcast A Message.
An art card of Dan Lewis was included in DWM 570.
Dan Lewis’ apparent dislike for Leeds, and nearby Sheffield, in The Halloween Apocalypse is most likely banter, stemming from the historic rivalry between Lancashire and Yorkshire. Dan is a born Liverpudlian, and Scouse and the city of Liverpool was historically part of Lancashire before the reform of county boundaries in 1974; both Leeds and Sheffield are typical Yorkshire cities. In Eve of the Daleks, he reacted in a similar manner, when he found out that he was in Manchester, due to the historic rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester.
After The Halloween Apocalypse first aired, “Evil Dan”, an internet meme humorously depicting Dan as a nihilistic, gluttonous villain in fan-edited videos, rapidly became popularon YouTube and Twitter.[2] In the week following the broadcast of War of the Sontarans, Bishop retweeted one of the videos and said that he loved it.[3]
It’s Behind You!, published on 9 December 2021, was the first appearance of Dan in both a non-televisual story and in the comic medium. It was also his second full story, following the serial Flux.