New Earth
The Doctor and Rose leave present-day Earth behind for adventures on a new Earth – namely, a planet called New Earth that the human race colonized following the destruction of humanity’s homeworld. A mysterious message has brought the Doctor to ward 26 of a hospital operated by the catlike Sisters of Plentitude, but along the way he is separated from Rose. She is diverted to an underground hideaway, where she is subjected to a psychograft by none other than Cassandra, who she thought had died on Platform One. Cassandra is indeed still alive, but wants to resume life in a human body, even if Rose’s is the best she can manage. The Doctor becomes suspicious about the hospital’s seeming ability to conquer any disease, and with the strangely-behaving Rose back at his side, he discovers that the Sisters of Plentitude have bred a new kind of lab rat to help them cultivate and devise cures to these diseases. But the Doctor knows these unfortunate, caged creatures by another name: homo sapiens.
written by Russell T. Davies
directed by James Hawes
music by Murray GoldGuest Cast: Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler), Noel Clarke (Mickey Smith), Zoe Wanamaker (Cassandra), Sean Gallagher (Chip), Dona Croll (Matron Casp), Michael Fitzgerald (Duke of Manhattan), Lucy Robinson (Frau Clovis), Adjoa Andoh (Sister Jatt), Anna Hope (Novice Hame), Simon Ludders (Patient), Struan Rodger (Face of Boe)
LogBook entry & review by Earl Green
The Doctor finds himself unexpectedly saddled with a new companion, the aacerbic Lucie Miller, who’s not too happy to be with the Doctor, either. Unable to return her to her own time, the two mismatched companions find themselves on the planet Red Rocket Rising, where a natural catastrophe has pretty much destroyed the society. But hope seems to arrive in the form of friendly aliens called the Daleks, who ally themselves with Acting President Klint. The Doctor tries to stop the Daleks, but when they realize he is on Red Rocket Rising, they set a price for their cooperation: the Doctor.
Cast: Nick Frost (Henderson), Kevin Eldon (York / False York), Miranda Hart (Teal), Dan Antopolski (Jeffers), Stephen Evans (Vine), Petra Massey (Sandstrom), Stephen Mangan (Mason), Paterson Joseph (Space Marshal), Marek Larwood (Amorf Spets), Toby Park (McCluskey), Robert Galas (Teenager), Maggie Service (Voices), Ewan Bailey (Voices)
Notes: The Camden Lock is an Andover-class ship. By the end of the episode, the Camden Lock is an Andover-class ship with lots and lots of heavy damage. We also find out that Andover-class ships with lots and lots of heavy damage can land, at least in low-gravity environments such as Earth’s moon. Guest star Stephen Mangan would later take on the title role of the BBC’s TV adaptation of Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently books.
On the backwater planet of Talis Minor, Salus Kade has a decent life; he helps to bring home the food that feeds his people, he has a wife and daughter – and he wants absolutely nothing to do with the war raging between the Earth Alliance and the Dalek Empire. When he finds Earth soldiers holding a recruitment drive in the middle of his home town, he’s not pleased, and he’s not afraid of them until he discovers that the “recruiting” is just for show and it’s actually a forced conscription drive. Even as he rallies his own people around him by denouncing the Earth Alliance’s tyranny, the Daleks themselves arrive – and a catastrophic attack helps to change Kade’s mind. He enlists, along with many other men from his community, and ends up leading a battallion of Earth and allied soldiers in the Alliance’s newest gear: a sealed, self-contained armored spacesuit which is practically its own interstellar vehicle and weapons platform built around one man. Designed specifically to combat the Daleks, these suits are worn only by the Earth Alliance’s elite troopers, code named the Fearless. But Kade’s latest mission into the teeth of the Dalek war machine is enough to strike at least a little fear into his heart…