Tag: The Ninth Doctor

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Doctor Who New Series Season 01

Rose

Doctor Who19-year-old Rose Tyler has a boyfriend, a department store job, and just enough curiosity to put her in harm’s way. When she finds herself trapped in the basement level at work, surrounded by moving shop window mannequins who seem determined to crush her, she’s snatched out of danger by a total stranger who calls himself the Doctor. While he saves her life, he doesn’t do much to help her job when he completely destroys the department store, claiming that he’s trying to halt an invasion by a force that can possess and control anything made of plastic – such as the mannequins. Rose is surprised when the Doctor reappears the next day at her home, looking for any of the plastic creatures that may have survived the explosion at the store, and she’s even more surprised when he actually finds precisely that, namely a mannequin arm which tries to kill both of them before the Doctor disables it. Rose follows him, persistently trying to find out who he is, but the Doctor isn’t inclined to give straight answers about his own identity; indeed, at her home, he seemed to be surprised by his own reflection. Rose walks away as the Doctor marches into an incongruous 1950s police call box in the middle of London and then turns around to find that the box has disappeared.

In an attempt to find out more about the Doctor, Rose winds up meeting with an internet conspiracy theorist who says that the Doctor has been spotted throughout Earth’s history. Waiting for her in a car outside, Rose’s boyfriend is curious about a dustbin that seems to move on its own, but his curiosity turns into sheer terror as the bin engulfs him completely without a trace. When Rose returns to the car, her boyfriend has been replaced by a duplicate who seems unusually curious about her contact with the Doctor. When the duplicate becomes more aggressive in his line of questioning, the Doctor once again comes to the rescue, and the duplicate is exposed as yet another plastic creature, an Auton. The Auton attacks ferociously, but this time the Doctor is ready for it, disconnecting its head from its body. The headless Auton body still pursues the Doctor and Rose back to the police call box, and Rose is stunned to find that it’s not a call box at all, but the TARDIS – the Doctor’s time machine, bigger inside than outside and definitely not from Earth, not unlike the Doctor himself. Using the Auton’s head, the Doctor follows the signal controlling the Autons to their source, and a confrontation with the Nestene Consciousness masterminding the Auton assault. But the Doctor alone can’t prevent them from invading Earth.

Season 1 Regular Cast: Christopher Eccleston (The Doctor), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler)

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by Keith Boak
music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler), Noel Clarke (Mickey), Mark Benton (Clive), Elli Garnett (Caroline), Adam McCoy (Clive’s son), Alan Ruscoe (Auton), Paul Kasey (Auton), David Sant (Auton), Elizabeth Fost (Auton), Helen Otway (Auton), Nicholas Briggs (Nestene voice)

Reviews by Philip R. Frey & Earl Green
LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 01

The End Of The World

Doctor WhoTo do away with Rose’s skepticism about the TARDIS’ ability to travel through time, the Doctor takes his new companion to the year 5,000,000,000 – on the very day that the Sun expands into a red giant and swallows its innermost planets, including Earth. The TARDIS lands aboard Platform One, a shielded space station placed in a temporary orbit around Earth so special guests may bear witness to the planet’s demise in complete safety. Rose isn’t prepared for the guests to be alien though – from the enormous Face of Boe, which has to be kept in a protective tank, to the hooded Adherence of the Repeated Meme, to the sentient tree people represented by the lovely Jabe, to a being claiming to be “the last pure human” – in reality a face and a brain connected to a flat membrance of skin after hundreds of plastic surgeries to remove the rest of her “imperfect” body. But as the moment of Earth’s death draws near, things begin to go wrong aboard Platform One – the Doctor discovers that a killer is slowly wiping out the guests and hospitality staff alike…and that someone else knows who he really is.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by Euros Lyn
music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Simon Day (The Steward), Yasmin Bannerman (Jabe), Jimmy Vee (The Moxx of Balhoon), Zoe Wanamaker (Cassandra), Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler), Beccy Armory (Raffalo), Sara Stewart (Computer Voice), Silas Carson (Alien Voices)

Notes: Red Dwarf fans may recognize Yasmin Bannerman (Jabe) as the air traffic controller who witnesses the Cat’s amazing dancing feats in the final season’s three-parter Back In The Red. Voice artist Silas Carson has been heard and seen in all three of the Star Wars prequels, portraying both Jedi Master Ki-Adi Mundi and the treacherous Nute Gunray. In Star Wars Episode I, he also portrayed Senator Lott Dodd.

Reviews by Philip R. Frey & Earl Green
LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 01

The Unquiet Dead

Doctor WhoHaving demonstrated the TARDIS’ ability to fast-forward through the pages of future history, the Doctor takes Rose into the past – Cardiff, Wales, on Christmas Eve, 1869 to be precise. Before the time travelers can immerse themselves in this time period, however, they encounter something very much out of place – a sign of alien interference in Earth’s history. A recital of “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens himself is brought to a halt by a walking corpse who exhales some kind of gaseous being into the theater. While the Doctor tries to make contact with the gas creature, Rose follows a local undertaker who retrieves the corpse – and winds up being kidnapped in the process. The Doctor and Charles Dickens give chase, eventually finding the undertaker’s place of business and discovering that he is doing his best to contain the alien threat with the help of a psychic girl. The Doctor suggests establishing a more firm contact with these beings, but doing so could unravel Earth’s timeline.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Mark Gatiss
directed by Euros Lyn
music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Alan David (Gabriel Sneed), Huw Rhys (Redpath), Jennifer Hill (Mrs. Peace), Eve Myles (Gwyneth), Simon Callow (Charles Dickens), Wayne Cater (Stage Manager), Meic Povey (Driver), Zoe Thorne (The Gelth)

Notes: Writer Mark Gatiss was one of the driving forces behind the popular comedy series The League Of Gentlemen, but also wrote several Doctor Who novels, starting with the New Adventures book “Nightshade” in 1992. As an actor, Gatiss has also gotten in on the Time Lord’s travels (sort of) – he took the part of an old enemy with a new disguise in the Doctor Who Unbound audio play Sympathy For The Devil in 2003, acting under the anagrammatical pseudonym of “Sam Kisgart”. With his League of Gentlement cohorts, Gatiss also provided “additional Vogon voices” for the feature film version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.

Reviews by Philip R. Frey & Earl Green
LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 01

Aliens Of London

Doctor WhoThe Doctor brings Rose back to Earth, promising that as far as anyone there is concerned, she’s only been gone for 12 hours. As it turns out, though, the Doctor’s control of the TARDIS is somewhat erratic – Rose has, in fact, been gone for 12 months, making her mother’s life a living hell and making her boyfriend Mickey a murder suspect. Just as things seem to calm down after her arrival, an alien spaceship plummets through the skies over London, crashing right through Big Ben and coming to rest in the Thames. The Doctor seems optimistic at first that perhaps this is humanity’s first contact with aliens, but his curiosity takes him to a hospital near the crash site, where the body of the ship’s pilot is being kept. He quickly discovers that all is not as it seems, and that aliens have, in fact, been on Earth for some time, but even the Doctor doesn’t suspect how deeply they’ve entrenched themselves into society until the Slitheen reveal themselves.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by Keith Boak
music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler), Corey Doabe (Spray Painter), Ceris Jones (Policeman), Jack Barlton (Reporter), Lachele Carl (Reporter), Fiesta Mei Ling (Ru), Basil Chung (Bau), Matt Baker (himself), Andrew Marr (himself), Rupert Vansittart (General Asquith), David Verrey (Joseph Green), Navin Chowdhry (Indra Ganesh), Penelope Wilton (Harriet Jones), Annette Badland (Margaret Blaine), Naoko Mori (Doctor Sato), Eric Potts (Oliver Charles), Noel Clarke (Mickey Smith), Jimmy Vee (Alien), Steve Spiers (Strickland), Elizabeth Fost (Slitheen), Paul Kasey (Slitheen), Alan Ruscoe (Slitheen)

Reviews by Philip R. Frey & Earl Green
LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 01

World War Three

Doctor WhoThe Doctor escapes the Slitheen, but of all the experts on alien life forms called to 10 Downing Street, only he survives. Rose and Harriet Jones, an MP who was among the first to witness the aliens’ true nature and survive, also barely escape the Slitheen, while Rose’s connection to the Doctor even makes her mother and Mickey targets for Slitheen elimination. Unable to escape 10 Downing Street, the Doctor, Rose and Harriet manage to fight their way to the most secure room in the building and lock the Slitheen out – but that also means that help can’t reach them. And when Mickey and Rose’s mother manage to kill their own Slitheen pursuer with advice phoned in by the Doctor, humankind’s first contact situation may become its last.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by Keith Boak
music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: David Verrey (Joseph Green), Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler), Penelope Wilton (Harriet Jones), Noel Clarke (Mickey Smith), Rupert Vansittart (General Asquith), Morgan Hopkins (Sergeant Price), Andrew Marr (himself), Annette Badland (Margaret Blaine), Steve Spiers (Strickland), Jack Tarlton (Reporter), Lachele Carl (Reporter), Corey Doabe (Spray Painter), Elizabeth Fost (Slitheen), Paul Kasey (Slitheen), Alan Ruscoe (Slitheen)

Reviews by Philip R. Frey & Earl Green
LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 01

Dalek

Doctor WhoIn a well-guarded underground complex in Utah, billionaire Henry Van Statten collects every type of alien artifact he can get his hands on, and money is no object: the head of a Cyberman from the 1968 invasion of London, the arm of a Slitheen, pieces of the alien ship crashed in Roswell, and more. Unknown to Van Statten, though, there’s a new alien arrival in his hidden museum: the TARDIS arrives, and the Doctor’s curiosity gets the best of him, setting off the security alarms. He and Rose are quickly rounded up and taken to Van Statten. Furious about the intrusion, Van Statten is at least impressed with the Doctor’s knowledge of alien artifacts, and decides to show the Doctor his most prized exhibit. As Rose gets to know Adam, Van Statten’s acquisition expert, the Doctor is locked into a dark room with the only living specimen of Van Statten’s menagerie: a live Dalek, possibly the last one in the universe. When the Doctor discovers that the Dalek’s weapon no longer works, he taunts his old enemy, reminding the Dalek that the Doctor destroyed the rest of its race even as the Daleks were laying waste to Gallifrey in the Time War. But the conversation quickly reveals that the Doctor is an alien as well, and Van Statten has the last Time Lord hauled off for examination. Rose visits the helpless Dalek, but when she touches its casing, it seems to draw strength from that contact, reactivating its weapon – and its murderous urges to exterminate every non-Dalek in sight. But even when the Doctor takes measures to stop the Dalek by any means necessary, Rose won’t let him.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Robert Shearman
directed by Joe Ahearne
music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Steven Beckingham (Polkowski), Corey Johnson (Henry Van Statten), Anna-Louise Plowman (Goddard), Bruno Langley (Adam), Nigel Whitmey (Simmons), John Schwab (Bywater), Jana Carpenter (DeMaggio), Joe Montana (Commander), Barnaby Edwards (Dalek operator), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek voice)

Reviews by Philip R. Frey & Earl Green
LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 01

The Long Game

Doctor WhoThe Doctor, Rose and Adam, a brilliant young computer whiz rescued from Van Statten’s underground stronghold, arrive in the year 200,000 aboard Earth-orbiting Satellite 5. But from the moment they step out of the TARDIS, the Doctor begins to suspect that something is wrong: human technology hasn’t advanced to the level he would have expected, and he begins to suspect that someone’s interfering in human history. The technology is more than enough to impress Adam, though, but his fascination takes a self-serving turn as he decides to take advantage of the opportunity to take knowledge of future history home – and cash in. The Doctor and Rose investigate the unusual buildup of heat within Satellite 5, following the trail to Floor 500, a closely-guarded secret rumored to be the headquarters of Satellite 5’s best and brightest. In reality, it’s the lair of an alien intelligence that has humanity in its thrall. It wants the secrets of time travel from the Doctor – and if the Doctor won’t surrender those secrets, perhaps Adam will…

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by Brian Grant
music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Bruno Langley (Adam), Colin Prockter (Head Chef), Christine Adams (Cathica), Anna Maxwell-Martin (Suki), Simon Pegg (The Editor), Tamsin Greig (Nurse), Judy Holt (Adam’s Mum)

Reviews by Philip R. Frey & Earl Green
LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 01

Father’s Day

Doctor WhoRose persuades the Doctor to take her back to 1987 to witness her father’s death; disturbed by stories that her father died alone, she wants to be with him, even if he doesn’t know who she is. But when the time comes, she’s paralyzed with emotion, and asks the Doctor to take her back again – only now, not only does she only have one more shot at being with her father when he dies, she has to avoid being seen by the versions of herself and the Doctor from mere moments ago. But instead of comforting her father as he dies, this time Rose leaps out and pulls him out of the ray of an oncoming car, saving his life and completely changing the timeline. The changes in time ripple forward, turning the TARDIS into nothing more than an empty Police Box and gradually decimating the population in the surrounding area. Enormous black dragon-like creatures – reapers – appear, consuming people one by one, beginning with the oldest they can find. The Doctor races to the church where Rose’s feuding parents were attending a friend’s wedding, where Rose’s father was supposed to have died, and hustles everyone inside, hoping the old church will be at least a temporary safe haven. Outside the church’s doors, the reapers destroy everything, attempting to rectify the divergent timeline that Rose has created. Only one reminder of the outside world remains – the car that should have hit Rose’s father still circles the church at high speed, its driver still reacting to an unseen obstacle, an obvious clue as to what must happen to set time right.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Paul Cornell
directed by Joe Ahearne
music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler), Shaun Dingwall (Pete Tyler), Robert Barton (Registrar), Julia Joyce (young Rose), Christopher Llewellyn (Stuart), Frank Rozelaar-Green (Sonny), Natalie Jones (Sarah), Eirlys Bellin (Bev), Rhian James (Suzie), Casey Dyer (young Mickey)

Reviews by Philip R. Frey & Earl Green
LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 01

The Empty Child

Doctor WhoTracking a space vehicle that’s capable of limited time travel as it plummets toward Earth, the Doctor and Rose are unaware at first that they’ve arrived in Britain during the Blitz. The Doctor begins looking for the crashed spacecraft, while Rose, trying to reach a child she sees dangerously close to the edge of a tall building, puts herself in danger and is rescued by the handsome Captain Jack Harkness. Supposedly an American advisor to the Royal Air Force, Jack reveals himself to be a rogue former “time agent,” and assumes from such things as Rose’s cell phone that she is too. In the meantime, the Doctor has also encountered the mysterious child Rose saw earlier, wandering around London even in the midst of bombing raids and asking for his mother. He seems to be following a group of homeless children led by a young woman named Nancy, who fears the child and tells the Doctor to keep his distance from him. The Doctor discovers that the child isn’t the only person in London asking for his mother. A plague has begun creeping through the population, especially close to the crash site of the spacecraft, disfiguring its victims with wounds identical to the little boy’s and literally molding the flesh of their faces into the shape of a gas mask – just like the one the child wears. The Doctor catches up with Rose and Jack and discovers that Jack is responsible for bringing the alien ship – a Chula combat ambulance vessel – to Earth, and is thus responsible for the spreading plague.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Steven Moffat
directed by James Hawes
music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Albert Valentine (The Child), Kate Harvey (Night Club Singer), Florence Hoath (Nancy), Cheryl Fergison (Mrs. Lloyd), Damian Samuels (Mr. Lloyd), John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Robert Hands (Algy), Joseph Tremain (Jim), Jordan Murphy (Ernie), Brandon Miller (Alf), Richard Wilson (Dr. Constantine), Zoe Thorne (voice of the Empty Child), Dian Perry (Computer voice)

Note: Along with The Doctor Dances, The Empty Child won the Best Dramatic Presentation (Shortform) Hugo Award in 2006.

Reviews by Philip R. Frey & Earl Green
LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 01

The Doctor Dances

Doctor WhoCornered by gas-masked mutants all asking “Have you seen my mummy?”, the Doctor manages to bluff his way out of danger and, with the help of Rose and the still somewhat suspect Captain Jack, begins to learn the nature of the spreading plague. Jack’s stolen Chula ship carried a cargo of highly adaptable sentient nano-genes, capable of performing instant surgery on an injured person to heal their wounds at the genetic level. But the nano-genes’ first contact with a human – the dying little boy, mortally wounded in a bomb blast – left them with confused information as to what humans look like and how their bodies work. So now the genetic changes are remaking everyone in the dead boy’s image, from the gas masks to his frantic search for his mother…and the changes will spread across the entire Earth as an unstoppable plague, unless the Doctor can somehow provide the nano-genes with more accurate information.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Steven Moffat
directed by James Hawes
music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Albert Valentine (The Child), Florence Hoath (Nancy), John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Luke Perry (Timothy Lloyd), Damian Samuels (Mr. Lloyd), Cheryl Fergison (Mrs. Lloyd), Joseph Tremain (Jim), Robert Hands (Algy), Jordan Murphy (Ernie), Brandon Miller (Alf), Richard Wilson (Dr. Constantine), Zoe Thorne (voice of the Empty Child), Dian Perry (Computer voice)

Note: Along with The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances won the Best Dramatic Presentation (Shortform) Hugo Award in 2006.

Reviews by Philip R. Frey & Earl Green
LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 01

Boom Town

Doctor WhoThe Doctor parks the TARDIS in Cardiff, Wales, to recharge the ship via the residual energy remaining from the death of the Gelth. They meet up with Mickey, but the reunion is interrupted when the Doctor learns that Margaret Blaine, the Slitheen in human disguise who survived the attack on 10 Downing Street, is also in Cardiff – as its mayor. Margaret has apparently convinced her constituents to let her build a massive nuclear reactor in the heart of Cardiff. The Doctor, Rose, Jack and Mickey try to corner Margaret at her office, but Mickey accidentally lets her escape until the Doctor thwarts her attempts to teleport herself to safety. After discovering that the reactor project is simply a cover story for a device that will help Margaret escape the solar system (at the cost of destroying Earth), the Doctor plans to return her to her home planet as soon as the TARDIS is ready to travel again, even if it means that she’ll face the death penalty for crimes she committed there.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by Joe Ahearne
music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: William Cleaver (Mr. Thomas), Annette Badland (Margaret), John Barrowman (Captain Jack), Noel Clarke (Mickey), Mali Harries (Cathy), Aled Pedrick (Idris Hopper), Alan Ruscoe (Slitheen)

Reviews by Philip R. Frey & Earl Green
LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 01

Bad Wolf

Doctor WhoThe Doctor awakens to find himself in the Big Brother house, in a future where reality television has become a law unto itself. His “house mates” can provide no clues as to how he has arrived here, or what happened to the TARDIS or his companions. Jack similarly awakens as a contestant in a makeover show whose robotic glamour experts seem to have fatal designs on his body. Rose finds herself in a similar predicament, playing a version of The Weakest Link where those eliminated from play are also summarily executed. The Doctor also learns that those evicted from the Big Brother house are done away with as well, and fights his way out of the house, discovering that it – and all the other games – are played out in enclosed studio environments aboard Satellite 5, a hundred years after his last visit. The Bad Wolf Corporation is behind the games, and the Doctor and Jack team up to save Rose from The Weakest Link’s “Anne Droid,” only to see the robotic host fire a beam of energy at Rose, leaving no trace. Furious, the Doctor and Jack fight their way to Floor 500, where the Doctor discovers three things. Rose is still alive and in the hands of Bad Wolf Corporation. The Bad Wolf Corporation is a front for the Daleks, who seem to have escaped the destruction of Gallifrey and now once again number in the millions. And the Daleks have Earth, and the Doctor, in their sights.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by Joe Ahearne
music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: John Barrowman (Captain Jack), Jo Joyner (Lynda), Jamie Bradley (Strood), Abi Enjola (Crosbie), Davina McCall (voice of Davina Droid), Paterson Joseph (Rodrick), Jenna Russell (Floor Manager), Anne Robinson (voice of Anne Droid), Trinny Woodall (voice of Trine-E), Susannah Constantine (voice of Zu-Zana), Jo Stone-Fewings (Male Programmer), Nisha Nayar (Female Programmer), Dominic Burgess (Agorax), Karen Winchester (Fitch), Kate Loustau (Colleen), Sebastian Armesto (Broff), Martha Cope (Controller), Sam Callis (Security Guard), Alan Ruscoe (Android), Paul Kasey (Android), Barnaby Edwards (Dalek operator), Nicholas Pegg (Dalek operator), David Hankinson (Dalek operator), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek voices)

Reviews by Philip R. Frey & Earl Green
LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 01

The Parting Of The Ways

Doctor WhoWith the help of the terrified (and mostly unarmed) broadcasters and civilians of Satellite 5, the Doctor and Jack mount what appears to be a frontal attack on the Dalek command saucer via the TARDIS, but then the Doctor feigns the TARDIS’ destruction from a Dalek missile attack and materializes in the heart of the Daleks’ command center, saving Rose. With the TARDIS projecting a shield around him, the Doctor emerges and finds that the Daleks have recovered their Emperor – an enormous mastermind Dalek the Doctor thought he had destroyed in the final battle of the Time War. The damaged Emperor escaped the carnage, however, and rebuilt the Dalek race – using dead humans as a replacement for now-extinct Kaled mutants. The Emperor has also risen to prophetic heights of megalomania, declaring itself the god of the Daleks and vowing to attack Earth and turn its population into billions more Daleks. The Doctor vows to stop the Emperor at any cost, though he discovers that the cost is horrific: his own defense could destroy humanity as thoroughly as the Daleks will.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by Joe Ahearne
music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: John Barrowman (Captain Jack), Jo Joyner (Lynda), Paterson Joseph (Rodrick), Nisha Nayar (Female Programmer), Noel Clarke (Mickey), Camille Coduri (Jackie), Anne Robinson (voice of Anne Droid), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek voices), Barnaby Edwards (Dalek operator), Nicholas Pegg (Dalek operator), David Hankinson (Dalek operator), Alan Ruscoe (Android), David Tennant (The Doctor)

Reviews by Philip R. Frey & Earl Green
LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 07

The Day Of The Doctor

Doctor WhoIn the waning days of the Time War, the Doctor tires of the constant fighting and bloodshed. He breaks into the Time Lords’ Omega Archives, containing forbidden Gallifreyan superweapons (most of which have already been unsuccessfully deployed against the Daleks). He takes the Moment, a galaxy-devouring weapon of mass destruction which has never been used because its sentient operating system has developed its own conscience, and will stand in judgement over whoever might try to use it. The Doctor abandons his TARDIS and sets off on foot to a bombed-out structure in the wastelands of outer Gallifrey, fully intending to activate the Moment and end the war. He’s puzzled when a young woman appears suddenly and refuses to leave: this is the Moment’s conscience, ready to try to dissuade its operator. It has chosen the appearance and voice of one of the Doctor’s companions, but has gotten past and future mixed up. The Moment offers to show the Doctor what will happen to him after he destroys Gallifrey…

Clara, having taken a job at Coal Hill School, gets a message from the Doctor and sets out to find the TARDIS. Moments after the time travelers are reunited, the TARDIS lurches unexpectedly, thanks to the UNIT helicopter that has grappled it and is hauling it toward the center of London. With the TARDIS now relocated to the National Gallery, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart shows the Doctor why UNIT need his expertise: a number of paintings, exhibiting an unusual three-dimensional effect, have had their glass frames broken from within; all of the paintings also once had humanoid figures in them, but those figures are now missing. Before the Doctor can investigate, a time fissure appears in mid-air in the Gallery, and he leaps through it, finding himself face-to-face with his tenth incarnation, who is dealing with a shapeshifting Zygon attempting to impersonate Queen Elizabeth I. And moments later, both Doctors are stunned – and alarmed – when another of their incarnations emerges from the fissure: an older man who does not regard himself as the Doctor. This is the incarnation of the Doctor who fought in the Time War, ending it in a pyrrhic stalemate that wiped out both the Time Lords and the Daleks, the incarnation that the later Doctors refuse to acknowledge; the Doctor’s true ninth life. The Queen orders all three of them taken away to the Tower of London.

In the modern day, the Tower is now UNIT’s headquarters, and the home of the Black Archive, a top secret repository of captured alien technology that would rival Torchwood’s collection. Kate and Clara return to the Tower, but it’s not until she is trapped in the Archive that Clara realizes that Kate has already been kidnapped and replaced by a Zygon. Grabbing a portable time manipulator that UNIT once took off of the briefly-dead body of a man named Captain Jack Harkness, Clara makes her escape, travels back to the past and rescues the three Doctors as well. The Doctors manage to thwart the Zygon invasion, but then the Doctor from the Time War vanishes. The tenth and eleventh Doctors follow him back to Gallifrey’s past – a place and time that the TARDIS shouldn’t be able to visit – and offer to help him activate the Moment so he doesn’t have to bear the consequences alone.

But the Doctor’s later incarnations, having struggled with the remorse of this act for hundreds of years, take the unprecedented decision to change history: save Gallifrey while allowing the Daleks to be destroyed, without interrupting their own timeline. But to save the Time Lords, more Doctors will be required – perhaps even Doctors who have yet to exist – and Gallifrey will have to be forcibly relocated, possibly into a parallel universe, leading to the impression that it has been destroyed. And even the Doctors’ attempt to save their home planet may still lead to its destruction.

Order the DVDwritten by Steven Moffat
directed by Nick Hurran
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), David Tennant (The Doctor), Christopher Eccleston (The Doctor), John Hurt (The Doctor), Paul McGann (The Doctor), Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Colin Baker (The Doctor), Peter Davison (The Doctor), Tom Baker (The Doctor), Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Patrick Troughton (The Doctor), William Hartnell (The Doctor), Jenna Coleman (Clara), Billie Piper (Rose), Tristan Beint (Tom), Jemma Redgrave (Kate Stewart), Ingrid Oliver (Osgood), Chris Finch (Time Lord Soldier), Peter de Jersey (Androgar), Ken Bones (The General), Philip Buck (Arcadia Father), Sophie Morgan-Price (Time Lord), Joanna Page (Elizabeth I), Orlando James (Lord Bentham), Jonjo O’Neill (McGillop), Tom Keller (Atkins), Aidan Cook (Zygon), Paul Kasey (Zygon), Nicholas Briggs (voices of the Daleks and Zygons), Barnaby Edwards (Dalek 1), Nicholas Pegg (Dalek 2), John Guilor (Voice Over Artist)

Doctor WhoNotes: The War Council shouldn’t be surprised at all that the Doctor can access the Omega Archives; his seventh incarnation was shown to be in possession of Time Lord superweapons that had presumably been with him for quite some time (Remembrance Of The Daleks‘ Hand of Omega and the living metal validium from Silver Nemesis, both aired in 1988). The Moment, first mentioned in The End Of Time Part 2 (2010), most closely resembles validium, but the Nemesis statue carved from validium had no obvious sign of a conscience, but did show signs of sentience.

The Zygons, though a popular monster in Doctor Who fandom, have only been seen in one prior television adventure, the Tom Baker era four-parter Terror Of The Zygons Doctor Who(1975), though they have reappeared in novels and numerous times in the eighth Doctor’s audio adventures, and even have their own action figure – not bad for a one-off villain.

This story seems to necessitate a reshuffling of the Doctor’s playlist: the incarnation commonly believed to be the ninth Doctor is actually the tenth, the tenth Doctor is actually the eleventh, and the current incarnation played by Matt Smith is actually the twelfth. This means that the incarnation to be portrayed by Peter Capaldi – glimpsed very briefly in the scene in which all of the Doctors rush to Gallifrey’s rescue – is the Doctor’s thirteenth and final life… unless, of course, the Doctor has somehow used up another regeneration somehow.

Asthmatic UNIT scientist Osgood may or may not be related to Sergeant Osgood, who served under Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in The Daemons (1971). UNIT’s Black Archive was Doctor Whoestablished in the Brigadier’s final televised appearance, in the Sarah Jane Adventures two-parter Enemy Of The Bane, though it was not in the Tower of London at that time, meaning that the Black Archive has either been moved, or has a decentralized series of locations. Voice artist John Guilor, who had already provided the voice of the first Doctor in bonus features for the DVD release of 1964’s Planet Of Giants, reprised that voice for the every-incarnation-of-the-Doctor climax.

Whether you consider his final appearance to have occurred in 1981’s Logopolis or the 1993 charity special Dimensions In Time, this episode marks Tom Baker’s first appearance in new footage in Doctor Whotelevised Doctor Who in a very long time; the exact nature of his character is left extremely vague.

One day after its premiere unfolded simultaneously in 94 countries, The Day Of The Doctor and its production team were awarded the Guinness World Record for the most widely watched non-news, non-sports drama presentation in the history of the medium of television.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green