In which the newly regenerated Fourteenth incarnation of the Doctor arrives at Camden Market, where he runs into an old friend...
It is the winter of 2023 and the market is getting ready to close up when he meets a young woman named Rose. She turns out to be the daughter of Donna Noble, who is also here. Nearby is husband Shaun, who is a cab driver.
Following the shock of his return to an earlier incarnation, the Doctor is intrigued by the coincidence of meeting Donna again - especially after the events of their last meeting. They suddenly see an object pass overhead, which crashes somewhere in the London suburbs. The Doctor recognises it as an alien spaceship. He sets out to find it.
It has come down on a steelworks, which has already been locked down by UNIT. He is able to break in, but encounters their new scientific adviser, Shirley Bingham. She declines to give his presence away to the UNIT troops, who report that an escape pod was seen to detach before the crash and they are still looking for it. The Doctor departs to try to find it first.
Wheelchair bound, Shirley is unable to ascend to the entry port of the spaceship, which is relatively undamaged. AS the hatch opens, a strange light emerges which affects the soldiers.
A friend of Rose named Fudge tells her that he has seen the pod in a field nearby - a small spherical craft - and soldiers have now arrived at the scene.
When she goes into her shed, she discovers a white furry creature hiding inside. When Donna comes out to speak to her, she also sees the creature.
The Doctor arrives, shocking Donna's mother Sylvia who knows that her daughter will die if she recalls her time with him.
UNIT troops arrive on the street, just as it comes under attack by huge green-skinned insectoid creatures - Wrarth Warriors.
The Doctor meets the creature from the pod - the Meep - and he and Donna's family are forced to flee with it as the Warriors appear to be hunting for it. They battle the UNIT soldiers.
Everyone escapes in Shaun's taxi, and they take refuge in an underground car park.
Here the Doctor announces that he knows that things aren't what they seem. He summons two of the Warriors, who reveal that they have come to arrest the Meep. It is a notorious criminal, its entire race turned homicidal after exposure to a psychedelic sun. They were once a meek, gentle race. It is light from this sun which has affected the UNIT soldiers who accessed the spaceship.
Its secret exposed, the Meep shows its true colours by killing the Warriors and taking everyone hostage.
They are taken to the steelworks where affected soldiers are preparing the ship.
The Meep reveals that its engines employ a Dagger Drive, which will destroy London when activated. Shirley helps free them.
The Doctor and Donna escape into the ship, where he is forced to make her remember their travels together, even though it will kill her. He is surprised when this does not happen.
It transpires that the meta-crisis was shared with Rose, which has diluted its effects.
The Meep activates the ship's engines, which cause fiery cracks to spread out across the city. Donna is able to recall when she was part Time Lord and can use the ship's technology to disable its drive, whilst Rose is able nullify the effects of the psychedelic sun on the UNIT soldiers - having inherited the Time Lord knowledge through her mother.
The Wrarth Warriors turn up and arrest the Meep. It will be sentenced to thousands of years imprisonment. Before departing, it warns the Doctor that someone known as "the Boss" will hear of these events.
Rose and Donna eject the meta-crisis energy. Donna is invited to see the newly regenerated TARDIS, which now has a vast multi-level outlay.
Unfortunately she spills coffee into the console and the TARDIS dematerialises, out of control...
The Star Beast was written by Russell T Davies and first broadcast on Saturday 25th November 2023. It is the first of a trilogy of episodes which make up Doctor Who's 60th Anniversary.
To say "written" isn't entirely accurate, as he actually adapted an old Doctor Who Weekly comic strip written by Pat Mills and John Wagner, with art by Dave Gibbons. This ran in the magazine from issue 19 to 26 in early 1980.
On his return to the show-runner role, RTD (who will henceforth be called RTD2, since this was his second time in charge) elected to do something different with the anniversary. Most fans had been expecting another multi-Doctor story, as with the 10th, 20th and 50th celebrations. RTD2 opted for a trio of linked episodes which would see the return to the show of fan favourites David Tennant and Catherine Tate.
The origins for this lay in the COVID pandemic. A series of Twitter watch-along's were held, one of which was a Tennant-Tate story. She enjoyed the experience so much that she suggested a return, and RTD2 ran with the idea. Tennant was happy to reprise the Doctor, if only for a short time.
RTD2 would be preparing for his next full series, which would see a brand new Doctor in the TARDIS, to be introduced at the conclusion of the anniversary trilogy.
Tennant agreed to play a new incarnation of the Doctor who just happened to look and behave like the Tenth, but was actually the standalone Fourteenth.
With the return of Donna, we would also be seeing her mother Sylvia (played by Jacqueline King) and husband Shaun Temple (Karl Collins). He had been introduced in The End of Time.
An addition to the family would be Rose - their trans daughter. She is played by Yasmin Finney who came to fame through the Netflix series Heartstopper. Obviously Rose got her name through the Doctor's memories of Rose Tyler, bleeding through the meta-crisis mental barrier. She makes crochet toys, which on closer inspection appear to be versions of Doctor Who aliens.
It would be revealed that Donna and Shaun had given away all the money they had won on the Lottery (the Doctor having giving them a winning ticket as a wedding present, paid for by her late father Geoff).
Again this is due to the meta-crisis leakage, as this was doing something that the Doctor would have done.
Joining the cast are Ruth Madeley, who plays UNIT's latest scientific adviser Shirley Bingham. She had featured in Davies' Years and Years.
The lead UNIT soldier is Colonel Chan, played by Jamie Cho. He has Batman connections, having featured in Batman Begins in 2005 and The Dark Knight in 2008.
Fudge is played by Dara Lall.
The Meep is realised partly as a CGI creation, and partly as an actor in a costume - Cecily Fay. It is voiced by Miriam Morgolyes. She previously voiced a Blathereen in The Sarah Jane Adventures, but her link to Doctor Who goes back to the late 1970's when Tom Baker stated that she would make a great new companion.
Overall - hardly original since it's an adaptation, and RTD2 doesn't make any major structural changes. We all liked the comic, so pretty much like this. Tennant and Tate slip effortlessly into their old roles, as though they'd never been away.
- The episode aired 13 months after The Power of the Doctor - the longest ever gap between episodes since the relaunch.
- This is the first episode to fall under the new co-production deal with Disney+.
- The steelworks is named "Millson Wagner", after the writers of the comic strip. Mills and Dave Gibbons visited the set during production.
- Mills and Wagner came close to writing for the series in the 1980's, with a story known as "The Song of the Space Whale", which involved a group of people who lived inside the titular creature. It would have introduced the character who became Turlough.
- The comic ran for 8 issues, so had a lot more room to develop characters and sub-plots. The spaceship lands in a northern town named Blackcastle, and the Meep is discovered by a schoolgirl named Sharon and her friend Fudge. The latter has more of a part to play than in the TV adaptation. The main plot beats are there, but the comic finds time to visit the Wrarth Warrior spaceship and the creatures at one point plant a bomb inside the Doctor to kill the Meep. Sharon would become the first Marvel comic strip companion - the Doctor's first black companion in any media (though the Pertwee Doctor had a young black man helping him, but just for a single story).
- The Wrarth Warriors are really underused compared to the comic strip, and the costumes have a rather plasticky appearance.
- Foreign dubs of the episode call him the 10th Doctor rather than the 14th.
- The Doctor produces a barrister's wig from his pocket - just as the Fourth had done in The Stones of Blood.
- The Doctor and Donna being separated by a glass screen is designed to mirror the Tenth Doctor and Wilf at the climax to The End of Time.
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