Inspirations - Parting of the Ways

 

If you were coming new to Doctor Who in 2005, you would have expected the season finale to be epic in scale, with spectacular VFX. This was simply how sci-fi / fantasy TV series worked these days. Computer generated imagery had started to come in during the final years of the original series, but was now the norm for such programmes.

Those of us who had grown up with the Classic Series knew that the programme could not compete with big movies like Star Wars or Close Encounters. Apart from the odd hero model shot, Doctor Who simply didn't try to compete. It preferred the single villain to the massed ranks of monsters.

We all knew that there were only ever 4 or 6 Dalek props at any one time. The only ways you could show more would be to have photographic blow-ups, as they did in the earliest days when old 405 line TV's could let them get away with this; or use the commercially available toys, which unfortunately didn't look right. 

Another trick was to have the same 4 or 6 Daleks pass through a doorway, go quickly behind the camera and then come back round through the same door again.

If we wanted to see huge Dalek armies, flying through space, then that was reserved for the imagination or for comics and written stories.

One thing Russell T Davies could now do was finally show such images on the small screen. 

Because he could, he did.

After showing the carnage that a single Dalek could create in mid-series, it was now time to show the threat that an entire army posed.

Series such as The X-Files and Buffy The Vampire Slayer were structured to have a certain number of stand-alone "monster of the week" stories, accompanied by episodes which were part of an overarching story arc. This arc always dominated the final few episodes, and formed the main thrust of the finale.

The only comparable event to this one from the Classic Series, would be Planet of the Spiders - in that it drew together themes and incidents from earlier stories - namely The Time Monster, The Green Death and Invasion of the Dinosaurs. (Seasons 16 and 23 were specifically set up as arc seasons, with every episode related to the overall plotline - a single story played out over a full series).

It also became common in the 1990's for the season to have a resolution to the arc, but then to throw up a cliff-hanger in the last few moments, to make sure viewers came back after the lengthy break.

Doctor Who elected to do this as well, with a link to the Christmas Special, which was generally the next episode that people would see once a series had ended.

Davies was rather forced to have a major cliff-hanger at the end of his first series, as Christopher Eccleston had announced early on that he would be quitting the show after just one season.

Had Eccleston decided to do a second series, it may have been Rose Tyler who would have departed in this episode.

This series' story arc had been the frequent references to "Bad Wolf", which had culminated in the previous week's episode being set in the same location as The Long Game, but renamed the Game Station - run by the Bad Wolf Corporation.

Who or what "Bad Wolf" was we had still to learn. The trailer for Parting of the Ways featured the Doctor responding to a booming voice which claimed "THEY SURVIVED THROUGH ME!", and in the final week before broadcast speculation was rife as to who this might be. Everyone assumed that this was the voice of Bad Wolf. The main suspect was Davros, what with this being a Dalek story. Characters from the classic era such as the Black Guardian, Omega or the Valeyard were also suggested. Some people thought that it would turn out to be Adam Mitchell - that his character was also part of a long game.

It turned out to be Rose Tyler, becoming Bad Wolf after being possessed by the Space Time Vortex through exposure to the TARDIS innards.

Instead of the clues leading to Bad Wolf, Bad Wolf led to the clues.

That booming voice turned out to belong to the Emperor Dalek. There had been two previous Emperors, the first of whom had been referenced in the previous episode by the imagery of the Controller, as we mentioned last time.

This new Emperor, like its first predecessor, is much larger than a normal Dalek and is immobile, being built into its surroundings.

Captain Jack had been introduced as the series needed a soldier to fight in the finale - a role which would not have been right for either the Doctor or for Rose to have performed.

Jack's resurrection was all part of the plan, already formulated, for the Torchwood spin-off series, which would star Jack. "Torchwood" was first mentioned in Bad Wolf in one of the questions posed to Rose in The Weakest Link. The title is an anagram of "Doctor Who", and had been used as a code to disguise production materials for the 2005 series.

Inspirations - Bad Wolf

 

The first half of 2005's Series 1 finale is very much inspired by contemporary TV shows - which were highly popular in 2005. 

The episode opens with the Doctor waking up to find himself in the Big Brother House.

This reality TV series was created by John De Mol in 1997, and within a year or two there were national versions all over the globe. The UK version was screened on Channel 4 from 2000 to 2010. It was relaunched by Channel 5 in 2011. As well as the version for "ordinary" folks there is also a "celebrity" version - both finally came to an end in 2018.

The basic premise was that a disparate group of fame-hungry people would be forced to live together for a number of weeks, watched constantly by cameras. The viewers would vote out their least favourite housemates each week - with the last person winning the prize. Some winners went on to become TV presenters and / or to feature in a string of other increasingly desperate reality shows.

The original C4 version was presented by Davina McColl, who features here as the voice of the Davina-Droid. The House is based on the one seen in the series, and a new, but recognisable, arrangement of the theme music has been used.

The Doctor sits in a big red chair, of the sort usually seen in the diary room on the show.

Rose finds herself in a deadly version of The Weakest Link. This early evening quiz was hugely popular on the BBC, and in 2007 there was a Doctor Who special - which sadly did not include Billie Piper.

The presenter is former journalist and TV critic Anne Robinson. This also began in 2000, and ended in 2017. Robinson features as the voice of the Anne-Droid, which is based on her appearance - red hair and dressed in black.

Captain Jack, meanwhile, is trapped in a version of the fashion series What Not To Wear. Another BBC show, it was launched in 2001. The presenters were Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine, who appear here as androids Trin-E and Zu-zanna. They left after the fifth season, and it ended in 2007.

The premise of this show was that people would get a complete fashion make-over. As with both series above, there was the occasional celebrity version.

Two other series mentioned, but not seen, are Stars In Their Eyes and Groundforce.

In the first, members of the public got to portray their favourite pop stars, singing one of their songs whilst dressed like them. This was an ITV series, which ran from 1990 to 2006. This has just been revamped as Starstruck. Once again there was the odd celebrity special, and one for children.

Groundforce was a BBC gardening show, in which people's gardens were given a surprise makeover.

As far as Doctor Who itself is concerned, there are a couple of references to the series' past. 

When the Controller is first seen, she is linked up to various pipe or tubes, and we see that these make a hexagonal pattern after she is teleported away. These are visual references to the Dalek Emperor from The Evil of the Daleks - a hint as to its reappearance the following week.

Even before we see the reflection of a Dalek move towards the Controller, fans of the classic series know where she is just from the sound effects. We hear the "Dalek Heartbeat" sound. This has been used for Dalek control room backgrounds ever since 1963.

Bringing things up to date, the action takes place in the same location as The Long Game, and we find out that the current situation on Earth came about because of the Doctor's actions in that story.

Satellite 5 is now known as The Game Station, and it is being run by the Bad Wolf Corporation. This gives the episode its title, but it won't be until next week that we discover just who or what this is...

Inspirations - Boom Town

At one point Episode 11 was going to be a much bigger affair. Russell T Davies had an idea for a story involving the volcanic destruction of Pompeii. As the series took shape, it became apparent that this slot would have to be a cheap one, and so the Pompeii idea was put on the backburner for later use.

(You will recall that the Doctor and Captain Jack talked about "Volcano Day" in the previous story - a left-over link to what might have followed).

Writer Paul Abbott was also being considered for this slot, but it would have been unfair to limit him with a production with little money, and he was too busy working on the first series of Shameless anyway. Apparently Abbott's idea was based around the fact that the Doctor had created Rose in an experiment to make the perfect companion.

The story title is a play on the phrase relating to a place which gains some rapid financial success - such as the settlements where gold or oil are discovered. Here it is "boom" as in economic bonus, rather than the sound of an explosion - which is just what Cardiff's new mayor is planning.

This is a sequel to the Slitheen two-parter, Aliens of London / World War Three, which featured Margaret Blaine as one of the disguised alien creatures. RTD had felt bad about not fully utilising the talents of Annette Badland, and so promised her a return with a juicier role to play in the proceedings. 

When last seen, Margaret and her relatives were in Downing Street, scrambling to get back into their body suits as a missile bore down on them.

Here we learn that she was the sole survivor, having managed to teleport herself away to the nearby Isle of Dogs. It's now six months later, and she has managed to get herself elected Mayor of Cardiff.

her plan is to build a nuclear power station in the middle of the city - one deliberately designed to blow up. The Welsh title for this project is Blaidd Drwg - Bad Wolf.

It was intended, with the finale approaching, that this was the point when the Doctor would first notice this phrase - or at least verbalise that he has noticed it cropping up a lot recently. 

The story was designed to show the TARDIS crew - including Mickey - working together as a team, prior to the finale.

It also sets up the idea that the TARDIS console can be opened up and the vortex energy it contains can be manipulated into doing whatever the plot requires - another set-up for the finale.

It was also meant to remind the audience about the Cardiff Rift in time and space, which was to play a significant role later - so it is also a sequel to The Unquiet Dead, and a prequel to the whole of Torchwood.

It was also a chance to show the Doctor having to face the consequences of his actions - hence the working title "Dining With Monsters".

The sequence at the start with Margaret speaking to the journalist whilst in the toilets was inspired by Jon Pertwee's famous saying about a Yeti on your loo in Tooting Bec being scarier than meeting one in outer space.

The planet Justicia is mentioned. This was a tie-in to the first of the new series of novels featuring the Ninth Doctor and Rose which were being released in batches of three (specifically The Monsters Inside). 

In this first new series, the action did not stray far from Earth - RTD arguing that viewers would not find the Zog people of the planet Zog interesting or relatable. Alien planets like Justicia and Woman Wept are being visited, just not on screen. Despite the amount of money being thrown at the new series, this parochialism does make the 2005 series look rather cheap.

Next time - the episode is called "Bad Wolf", but we don't actually get to know who or what Bad Wolf is quite yet. Just about all the inspiration will be coming from popular TV shows - including Doctor Who...

Inspirations - The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances

 

During the classic era of the programme, a couple of writers attempted to sell stories with a World War II setting. One was Brian Hayles, and the other was Douglas Camfield. Both stories were turned down as that period of history was deemed too recent, with possibly traumatic memories for viewers, and therefore not suitable ground for a family programme like Doctor Who. (The sitcom Dad's Army almost never made it off the drawing board for similar reasons).

It wasn't until its final year that the war made it into a story, when Ian Briggs gave us The Curse of Fenric. The actual war took place well off screen, as we were on home territory and the story dealt more with the Russians and the potential aftermath of the conflict than it did with the Germans. It could just as easily have been a Cold War story as a WWII one.

The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances can only really be set in World War II, and specifically in the time of the London Blitz, as it relies so much on the imagery of the gas-masked zombies.

There had been a fear of gas attacks on civilian populations in WWI as well, as London did get attacked by early bombers and by Zeppelins.

The fact that May 2005 was the 60th anniversary of VE Day probably also suggested the WWII setting.

Gas mask imagery had featured in the show before, back in a number of stories directed by David Maloney. There's a sudden appearance of a pair of German soldiers in gas masks in Part One of The War Games, the slow-motion massacre of gas-masked Thal soldiers in the opening moments of Genesis of the Daleks, and then we have the sight of a gas-masked soldier and his gas-masked horse in the Matrix in The Deadly Assassin. Other figures in the latter wear darkened goggles which give the appearance of being gas mask-like.

The gas mask gives the appearance of a dehumanised, skull-like visage.

This is Steven Moffat's first ever story for the programme, and - as time will tell - he liked to base his monsters on things which would appear frightening to children. Children themselves can be very creepy if written and directed well.

It was inevitable that Moffat would look to a writer like Robert Holmes, master of Doctor Who Gothic Horror, for some inspiration. Holmes liked to make the everyday scary, and Moffat would pretty much build his entire Doctor Who career around this.

Setting the story entirely at night certainly helps make it spookier, the child's face remains masked, and he only ever repeats the same phrase over and over. Everyone is warned not to let him touch you.

The idea of a catchphrase - "Are you my mummy?" - may have come from writers Bob Baker and Dave Martin, who liked to give their characters such phrases - "Eldrad must live!", "Contact has been made", and "The Quest is the Quest".

Russell T Davies knew that the series was going to end with a battle. The Doctor and Rose could not fight - the former had done so recently but the experience had turned him against violence, whilst the Doctor would not have tolerated the latter had she been someone who would readily turn to violence. A soldier was therefore needed to play a part in this climactic battle - which is where the character of Captain Jack Harkness came in. Even before we start to pick up his backstory we are led to believe that he is an American citizen who has come to the UK to fight, when his own country has yet to even join the conflict. It transpires that this is just a charade, and he has only been on Earth for a short while longer than the Doctor and Rose have.

He mentions the Time Agency, and hails from the 51st Century, so we are in the period mentioned by the Doctor and Magnus Greel in The Talons of Weng-Chiang (Robert Holmes again). Greel had feared being hunted down by Time Agents. Greel was said to have travelled back in time from the year 5000, when there was both a war and another Ice Age.

"Captain Jack Harkness" isn't a million miles away from "Captain Jack Harkaway", mentioned in The Mind Robber.

Star Trek is categorically only a TV show in this universe. "Spock" is a euphemism for technology.

Talking of euphemisms, according to Moffat - and only Moffat - "dancing" equates to sex. Typical of a sitcom writer obsessed with sex to name a whole episode after it.

At the time, John Barrowman's sexuality, and his character's omnisexuality, led to accusations of a "gay agenda" being introduced to the show. This had actually been claimed by the right wing press since the day RTD was announced as the new show-runner.

The name "Chula" comes from an Indian restaurant in Hammersmith where Moffat went for a meal alongside Mark Gatiss, Paul Cornell and Robert Shearman after they got the 2005 writing gig.

This wasn't Moffat's first idea for the series. RTD didn't like the initial pitch and they came up with this story instead.

Inspirations - Father's Day

Before we proceed, it's time to mention the Virgin New Adventures novels. Billed as stories too big to tell on TV, they were a continuation of the Seventh Doctor's travels. Ace was with him initially, but later replaced with some new companions created just for the books. One of these was an archaeologist named Bernice Summerfield, and her creator was writer Paul Cornell.

Russell T Davies had written one of these books, and he looked to some of the other authors when putting together his first season of Doctor Who. Mark Gatiss, for instance, had been another NA author. (Steven Moffat had been invited to a meeting at Virgin Publishing about the books, but walked out when he discovered that they weren't interested in past Doctor stories).

As well as introducing Summerfield, Cornell had written a novel which RTD particularly liked - a story which he would see turned into a TV story for Series 3. This book was Human Nature. This and other Cornell books won him a place on the new series writing team.

Another of his books - his first for the range - was Timewyrm: Revelation. This features a wound in time relating to the companion's past, and people seeking refuge in a church.

Just before Doctor Who returned to the screens there had been a false dawn with the on-line animated "The Scream of the Shalka", written by Cornell. Was a job on the TV series a sort of apology for that series being scrapped?

Father's Day is an annual event in the UK and the USA, although on different dates. It always falls on a Sunday, and it's no coincidence that Mother's Day follows 9 months later.

Cornell adopted the title to tell a story about Rose Tyler's father - Pete - who gets an extra day of life thanks to his daughter's meddling with history.

It had already been established that Rose lived only with her mother, Jackie. Her father had not been mentioned up to now.

In the pre-title sequence of Father's Day we discover that Pete was killed when hit by a car when Rose was just a baby, so she never knew him. Jackie has painted an unrealistic picture of him to her daughter as the perfect father and husband. Apparently aspects of Pete's personality - his always trying get rich quick schemes - came from Cornell's own father.

At its heart, this episode's main inspiration is that it's a character piece - designed to deliberately tug the heartstrings and manipulate the emotions by having Rose get to meet and spend some time with the dear old dad she never got to know. He isn't the ideal father-husband, but by sacrificing himself to put history back on track he redeems himself. The Reapers and the timey-wimey stuff is all just window dressing, and there's a policy for this series that there has to be an alien / monster in every episode.

Christopher Eccleston had 'flu during the making of this episode, so getting removed from Time for a bit was probably great for him.

The idea of someone changing history, and things turning out to be a disaster in consequence, is hardly original. We all know the story of the person standing on the butterfly in prehistoric times, then returning to the 20th Century to find the Nazis won World War II, or something similar.

The idea of someone being saved from being run over by a car, who must die to maintain known history, immediately brings the Star Trek episode "City on the Edge of Forever" to mind. Car accidents have tended to resolve potential time paradoxes on many occasions.

Rose touching her younger self and causing a sort of temporal short circuit is reminiscent of the two Brigadiers meeting in Mawdryn Undead. It's the Blinovith Limitation Effect.

This week's Bad Wolf reference is graffiti on some music posters, seen in the background as the Doctor and Rose watch the scene of Pete's accident.

Inspirations - The Long Game

The Long Game sits at the mid-point of Series 1, where it has several roles to play. 

It acts as a prequel / set-up for the series finale and is designed to invite a good companion / bad companion comparison. This latter was Russell T Davies' starting point for the episode.

New companion Adam Mitchell, introduced only one episode earlier, has been brought on board purely to mess up. He does this by lying to the Doctor and Rose, but mainly by wanting to abuse the opportunity to travel through time. He intends to send information from the future (the development of the micro-processor) back to his own time. His motive for doing so isn't made explicit - is it for financial gain, or is he just such a tech nerd that he wants to develop things himself first?

Rose, on the other hand, only travels for the adventure, and for the experience. She doesn't do it to get something out of it for herself - at least not this week...

Once the Doctor knows what Adam has been trying to do, he takes him home and leaves him there. Adam now has future technology implanted into him. The Doctor uses this as a way of forcing him to keep his (augmented) head down and not do anything to be noticed. However, the Doctor runs a huge risk by not having the medical procedure undone, as Adam could easily suffer an accident or illness where discovery might be unavoidable. We'll talk about the lack of consistency on the Doctor's part when Rose does an Adam next time.

The planned finale for this series was a return to the space station and the Doctor discovering that his actions have inadvertently lead to a future disaster for Earth. By stopping the Jagrafess and its manipulation of the news to undermine galactic freedoms, the Doctor has caused Earth's history in this period to go awry. Having this story share the same setting as the final two episodes also acts a real money-saver, as the sets can simply be redressed.

This long-term planning by the as yet unknown aliens behind the Jagrafess gives this story its title.

A "long game" is a form of confidence trick, usually for much higher stakes than a simpler con. It is necessary to build up a complex backstory, perhaps involving multiple players - and multiple layers - which all takes a while to set up. The longer a situation appears to be normal, accepted by many people, the more likely it is that the victim will trust the con artists and be cheated out of their property.

The last inspiration of note is the way mass media is regarded. In the UK at least, the main newspapers and TV channels were all the property of a very small handful of men. In particular we had Robert Maxwell and the Mirror Group, and Rupert Murdoch and the Times Group, as well as his ownership of the satellite broadcaster Sky. The fear has always been that these individuals would use their newspapers and TV channels to influence politics and thus manipulate society. Maxwell died in 1991 when he went overboard off his yacht. It may have been suicide, as his company was involved in a pensions scandal, and he was not as rich as he liked to make out, or he may even have been murdered (there's a Mossad assassination theory). To the public, he was a corpulent man - the embodiment of the City Fat Cat - and this was probably the inspiration for the Jagrafess being a massive slab of fat.

Murdoch and Maxwell were nothing new in British society - newspaper proprietors were trying to influence the public since Victorian times, and even the earlier broadsheets were designed to manipulate people.

Kronkburgers, by the way, were originally to be found in the pages of the Doctor Who Weekly comic strip - namely the very first story: "The Iron Legion".

Next time: when Time - and Rose - go wrong...

Inspirations - Dalek

Dalek was written by Robert Shearman - his only contribution to the TV series. It is the first story of the revived series to properly bring back one of the series' icons. A lot of people would judge the new series by the way it employed such icons.

When it was announced that Doctor Who was coming back, everyone took this to also mean that the Daleks would be coming back. The BBC certainly thought so, and assumed that that there were no problems commissioning stories with them. This presumption was to come back and bite them.

Russell T Davies found that the BBC expected him to employ the Daleks in the opening episode. he resisted such calls and eventually won the day. He wanted them held back to the mid-point of the season.

His reasoning was that, even if the series proved popular, audiences might tail off once the novelty was out the way. Something might be needed at the mid-point to give the series "second wind" - a fresh boost. This is usually called tent-poling.

Davies was putting together a group of writers to work alongside him on the series - he would only write the opening story, the concluding one, and four middle episodes. Some of these writers were veterans of the Virgin New Adventures novels, others simply well known TV or radio drama writers, who tended also to be fans. Shearman was selected for the Dalek story on the back of him writing an audio for Big Finish called Jubilee. This had featured a captive Dalek. (It also leant its name to a fictional pizza delivery firm seen in this episode, which would go on to feature in other Doctor Who and Torchwood stories).

Davies intended to have the Daleks feature in the conclusion of the series, and the mid-point appearance would help set this up. He wanted to make the Daleks terrifying again, after many years of them being treated as a bit of a joke. Shearman's play gave the idea that a single Dalek could be as much of a global threat as an army of the creatures. 

The idea of a single alien creature, in an enclosed environment, picking people off one-by-one obviously makes us think of Alien and all its imitators. One tabloid newspaper actually picked up the plot wrong and thought that the lone Dalek was going to feature in a spaceship setting.

Shearman decided that it would be a great idea to feature some of the Daleks' design features - giving them explanations hitherto only guessed at. The sucker - often derided as being little more than a toilet plunger - became a deadly weapon which was also capable of manipulating controls. The hemispheres on the skirt became explosives for self-destruction. New attributes included the swivelling mid-section, so that the Dalek could fire in any direction, and the bullet melting forcefield.

As the Daleks had fought in the Time War, they were redesigned slightly to make them look more armoured - with big bolts and rivets. Their original designer Raymond P Cusick visited Cardiff later, and expressed his dislike of this new look. They looked man-made, and not Dalek-made.

Despite Daleks having been seen to levitate in the classic series, the general public still joked about them being defeated by stairs (as only fans had been watching when they got to fly). It was therefore decided to feature a scene where the Dalek clearly floats upstairs, after being mocked that it can't, to finally put these jokes to bed.

The attitude of the BBC, in assuming that they could use the Daleks without reference to Terry Nation's estate, led to that estate withholding permission to use them. Shearman had already written a number of drafts which featured the Dalek - only to be told he couldn't use it. Davies came up with an alternative creature - a deadly metal sphere covered in weaponry. These would be kept in reserve once the Daleks were back on again, to become Series 3's Toclafane. The Dalek-free version of the story Shearman jokingly titled "The Absence of the Daleks".

A new companion is added, in the form of Adam Mitchell. We'll talk about him more next time, as he is basically there to set something up for the following episode.

Another classic monster made its appearance in this episode. In Van Statten's museum is the head of a Cyberman. Not clearly seen on screen is the description of it having been found in the London sewers in the 1970's. This is clearly supposed to refer to The Invasion, but they have used the head from a Revenge of the Cybermen costume - and that story is set around the 30th Century.

"Bad Wolf" features as part of a radio message, as Van Statten's helicopter arrives.

Inspirations - Aliens of London / World War Three

 

Aliens of London and World War Three make up the first multi-part story of the revived series. This means we get our first proper cliff-hanger. The last Doctor Who cliff-hanger had involved Ace, apparently being taken over by the Cheetah planet, 16 years previously.

As it's the first one of the new series, writer Russell T Davies made sure that it involved more than one threat. We had the Doctor being electrocuted, after the people in charge of Downing Street had revealed themselves to be aliens in disguise. Elsewhere in the building, Rose and Harriet Jones MP were being threatened by the same creatures - the Slitheen. And Rose's mum was also about to be attacked by one.

These episodes also mark the first time that Rose has returned to her home and her family. This tethering of the companion to their home / family was something new. Previous companions had, for the most part, travelled with the Doctor and only returned home when they left the series.

By their very nature, the UNIT stories meant that the companion was based on Earth. We saw Jo Grant become a full-time TARDIS traveller for only a couple of interlinked stories, once the Doctor had his exile lifted.

Rather than simply have Rose drop in on her mother, RTD shakes things up by having the Doctor get things wrong - bringing Rose back to the Powell Estate a year late.

As this is the first time that a companion has had a featured relative, it is also the first time we get to see how traveling with the Doctor has an impact on them. The Chase (1965) concludes with Ian and Barbara getting back to London, but two years after they first left in the TARDIS. This is simply laughed off - so we don't get to see what the consequences of their travels have had on their families or colleagues.

Having Rose return home after a whole year has elapsed helps push the ongoing contemporary stories into "near future" territory - so children can watch and think this might happen.

Time to mention "Bad Wolf". These were the episodes where the phrase first came to real prominence - scrawled as it was by a boy on the side of the TARDIS as a piece of graffiti. It's usually referred to as a story arc, but technically it isn't an arc in its own right, but more emblematic of one. A real arc should have some impact on the main characters, but this phrase doesn't get noticed by the Doctor and Rose until the penultimate story, and even then they just shrug it off. 

Rose hadn't featured the words at all, and they could have been easily missed when muttered in The End of the World by the Moxx of Balhoon. It would only have perhaps triggered some interest with viewers when Gwyneth talked of seeing the "Big bad wolf" in Rose's mind in the previous story.

The Slitheen were based on the idea of big green babies. The idea of the compression units to enable them to fit into much smaller disguises derives from dissatisfaction with the Foamasi - the reptilian creatures from The Leisure Hive (1981). A big criticism of this story was how the tubby Foamasi were supposed to be able to hide inside a basic humanoid shape much smaller than themselves.

Introducing a piece of technology which allowed the huge aliens to compress their bodies to fit a human shape provided an explanation which the Foamasi lacked - as well as plenty of fart gags for the kids watching, building upon the burping wheelie bin from Rose.

The 2005 series was very much aimed at attracting the widest possible audience, to help re-establish family viewing on a Saturday evening. Children were a key demographic which was being targeted. 

One of the perceived problems of the series in its final JNT years was that it no longer catered for the children and the family, being aimed purely at older students and fans.

Part of the plot by the Slitheen was to have the humans destroy themselves. It wasn't an invasion. Rather, they wanted to turn the Earth into a radioactive slag heap which could be used as cheap fuel by other aliens. This motive mirrors that of The Dominators, and their interest in the planet Dulkis.

To achieve their aims, the Slitheen (a family name rather than a species - another step away from conventional Doctor Who aliens of the past) intend to obtain the missile codes for the UK, which are held by the UN. This set-up mirrors the way international nuclear defences are arranged in Robot.

Interim PM Joseph Green talks of "Massed Weapons of Destruction" being pointed at London, ready to be launched in 45 seconds. This derives from the circumstances which saw the UK join with the USA in the Second Iraq War. It was claimed that Iraq had "Weapons of Mass Destruction", capable of being deployed in 45 minutes.

Next time: They're back! Or at least one of them is, and one is more than enough...

Story 166 - Bad Wolf / Parting of the Ways

In which the Doctor and his companions suddenly wake to find themselves in deadly versions of TV game shows. The Doctor is in the Big Brother House - where evictees are vapourised. Jack meets robot fashionistas Trin-E and Zu-Zana, of What Not To Wear. After considering his wardrobe, they plan to use lethal weapons to refashion his physiognomy. Rose finds herself playing The Weakest Link, hosted by the Ann-Droid. Losing contestants are also vapourised. The Doctor realises that someone has removed them from the TARDIS. He deliberately has himself evicted - knowing that whoever is responsible isn't going to kill him. They could have done this before now. He takes with him another contestant - Lynda - after proving to her that she is unlikely to have survived to win the competition. He discovers that they are on Satellite 5 - now renamed the Game Station. It is run by the Bad Wolf Corporation. Lynda explains that 100 years ago, the news channels suddenly stopped broadcasting. Society on Earth collapsed. The Doctor is horrified to learn that he was responsible for this, as it is 100 years since his last visit here. Jack destroys his robot captors and joins them. They search for Rose and head for the Weakest Link studio. However, they are too late, and the Doctor sees Rose vapourised.

They are captured by security forces, who plan to imprison them in a lunar penal colony. The Doctor and Jack quickly break free and head for Floor 500, to confront whoever is in charge here. In the control room, one of the TV programmers has been detecting strange signals coming from the station. A young woman is linked to the station's computers, with all the channels being processed through her brain. She has been here since she was a child. The Doctor, Jack and Lynda arrive. Jack finds the TARDIS hidden in a side room. He goes in and checks the systems, and discovers the true nature of the signals that the programmer has been detecting. The contestants who are being vapourised are really being transmatted off the station. Rose is still alive somewhere. The programme controller tries to warn the Doctor but is transmatted away and killed. The Doctor has the station monitors focus on the region of space to where the signals are being broadcast. At first it appears to be empty, but then they see a vast fleet of saucer-like craft - Dalek spaceships. Rose is on the huge command ship, a prisoner of the Daleks. The Doctor signals to the fleet that he is coming to get her...

The Doctor pilots the TARDIS towards the Dalek command saucer. It materialises on board. Emerging, he and Jack are confronted by a vast army of Daleks, led by the Emperor. This is a massive static Dalek, with its own private guard of black-domed Daleks. It is a survivor of the Time War. It has spent centuries creating a new army, using cells from captured humans. It is quite mad, and the Daleks have been conditioned to worship it as their god. Rose is rescued, and the TARDIS returns to the Game Station where Jack begins to plan its defences. The Doctor has a scheme to destroy the entire Dalek fleet, but this will wipe out half the Earth. The fleet begins to advance on the Station. The Doctor tricks Rose into entering the TARDIS, which he has set to return her to London in 2006 by remote control. She is reunited with her mother and Mickey. The Doctor has left a hologram message that the TARDIS will simply shut down and eventually be forgotten about. Rose refuses to return to her old life and seeks a way of getting back to the Doctor. Eventually, Jackie and Mickey realise that she will never stay, so decide to help her. Recalling that the TARDIS console had opened when they were in Cardiff recently, she tries to make it open for her.

The Daleks arrive in orbit around Earth and begin devastating the planet. They invade the Game Station and begin working their way towards Floor 500. Jack and a number of station personnel try to fight them, but to no avail. Lynda is amongst those killed, along with the TV programmer. Jack is then himself killed. On Earth, Rose sees the phrase "Bad Wolf" written all over the place. She realises that this is a message to herself - that she can get back to the Doctor. Jackie borrows a tow-truck, and this is powerful enough to open the TARDIS console. The doors slam shut as Rose is filled with Vortex energy, and the ship hurtles back to the year 200,100. The Doctor is captured by the Daleks, and admits that he could never use his device to destroy the Daleks and half of the human race. He is about to be exterminated when the TARDIS materialises.

Rose emerges, now containing the entire Vortex. This makes her omnipotent. She brings Jack back to life, then takes the name of the corporation and spreads the words throughout time - as a message for herself. Finally, she removes the Daleks and their vessels from existence. The Doctor realises that she will die if she holds the energy for much longer, and so absorbs it into himself. He bundles her into the TARDIS and dematerialises. Jack arrives too late. Rose wakes to find the Doctor is seriously ill. He tells her that he is about to change, and he won't look like this anymore. The Vortex energy has triggered a regeneration. Rose sees the Doctor's body engulfed in a blaze of energy - and suddenly there is a different man standing where the Doctor had been. After a quick check on his appearance, he completes what the Doctor had been telling her. Rose looks on, dumbfounded...

Bad Wolf / Parting of the Ways were written by Russell T Davies, and were broadcast on June 11th and 18th, 2005. It marks the end of Series 1 of the revamped show, and these are the last two episodes to feature Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor. Naturally, it also features the first appearance of David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. It sees the return of the Daleks en masse, and brings the Bad Wolf story arc to a conclusion. It also lays the seeds for Captain Jack's further adventures, name-checking the new show he will soon have all to himself - which will also be Series 2's story arc.
Davies had planned a story with lethal versions of TV game shows for a while. It is a very New Adventures concept, and could easily have found a home in the show back in the McCoy / Cartmel era. Indeed, both The Happiness Patrol and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy feature deadly talent contests.
Sadly, Eccleston's departure from the series had been made public way back just after his first appearance, so viewers were denied a surprise regeneration. Tennant had been a life-long fan of the show and had just starred in RTD's Casanova, and everyone was recommending the young Scot to Davies as the next Doctor. Davies is on record as saying that had Eccleston not decided to leave at the end of the first series, he might have had Rose depart. There is a ready-made companion in waiting on show here - Lynda. Instead, she suffers a heartbreaking demise. It is a remarkable death scene. The Doctor has promised to keep her safe. She is in a sealed off room monitoring the movement of the Daleks through the station when suddenly a trio float up outside the window. We don't hear what they say, but the dome lights blink out the word "Ex-ter-mi-nate" and they shatter the glass. Poor Lynda with a Y.

In the past, Dalek stories were always hampered by the obvious lack of props available to represent armies. We had to make do with flat photo blow-ups to swell numbers, or watch as the same four Daleks went round the back of the camera a few times to make it look like there were dozens of them coming through a doorway. The paucity of Daleks is at its most extreme in the concluding episode of Day of the Daleks, when it is obvious there are just the three of them. Vast armies of Daleks were confined to our imaginations, or the pages of TV Comic. Now, finally, we get to see a huge Dalek fleet of comic-like saucers, and thousands of Daleks emerge floating through space to attack the Station. The CGI doesn't quite stretch to showing us the attack on Earth. That's dealt with on some monitors, as the continents are melted out of shape. Ironically, there are just a a few Dalek props here as well, but split screen work multiplies their numbers.
Rose's return to Earth, to have a tantrum in a fast food outlet, does rather break the flow of the final episode, but it does finally resolve the Bad Wolf story arc.
This series has had a lot of very emotional moments - which some fans have not liked as they think them manipulative. I defy anyone to watch the Doctor's hologram message to Rose and not be moved - especially when he turns and appears to look right at her.
Story Arc points: 

• As I mentioned last time, under Boom Town, this has been by far the most successful of all the story arcs - in that it gripped the wider media. It wasn't just fans who were keen to know. Turns out it's Rose herself - at least one inhabited by the Temporal Vortex. Bad Wolf Rose will be back.
• The events on Satellite 5 from The Long Game are seen to have had repercussions.
• The Daleks appear to be totally destroyed, but we know now of at least two lots that have escaped the Time War - the lone one from earlier in the series and the Emperor.
• The Extrapolator from Boom Town is used to create a force-field protecting the upper floors of the Station.
• First ever mention of a deadlock seal, which the sonic screwdriver can't open.
• One of the questions in The Weakest Link mentions Torchwood...

Overall, a remarkable conclusion to what has been a remarkable series. No-one knew just how well the revamped show might have worked. It could have been a total flop. 11 years later, we're impatiently waiting for Series 10 to begin, and the third spin-off series is just about to launch. A lot of this is down to Bad Wolf, and especially to Christopher Eccleston - who was a fantastic Doctor. Such a shame he can't be lured back.

Things you might like to know:

• Jo Stone-Fewing, who plays the male programmer, had just been in one of RTD's last series - Mine All Mine. This featured "Dalek Supreme" John Scott Martin in one of his final TV roles. Martin offered his services as a Dalek wrangler for the new series.
• Jo Joyner - the nearly companion Lynda - went on to become a mainstay of Eastenders.
• Rose's obnoxious fellow competitor Rodrick is played by Patterson Joseph, whose name continually features when new Doctors are about to be announced.
• I have always had a slight problem with the cause of the Doctor's regeneration. Rose holds the Vortex for a considerable amount of time, and is a mere human. She's up on her feet minutes later. The Doctor takes it only briefly, and is a Time Lord, yet it kills him. Doesn't seem quite right.
• There's an unseen adventure mentioned. After dropping off Margaret Slitheen's egg, the travellers have been to medieval Kyoto.
• Doctor Who novels are referenced amongst the Weakest Link questions.
• The production team managed to secure the real presenters of all three game shows featured, to provide voices. Davina McCall is the Davina-Droid for Big Brother. Ann Robinson voices the Ann-Droid, and Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine voice their robot counterparts.
• The female Controller (Martha Cope) is connected up to the Station's systems by thick piping. When she is transmatted away we see that this has a hexagonal pattern to it. This is a visual reference to the original Dalek Emperor from Evil of the Daleks. 
• Cope is the daughter of actor Kenneth Cope, who had appeared in Warrior's Gate during Tom Baker's final season, and is best known for his ghostly appearances in cult detective series Randall and Hopkirk. Tom Baker had a recurring role in its short-lived remake.
• The new Emperor - a model made by Mike Tucker's team - has black-domed bodyguards floating around it. Black domed Imperial Guards also featured in Evil of the Daleks.
• Bad Wolf attempts to keep the appearance of the Daleks a surprise - quite unsuccessfully. First of all, Daleks were shown in the "Next Time" teaser at the end of the previous episode. Then we clearly hear the Dalek Heartbeat sound effect when Rose finds herself on their ship. You can clearly see Dalek reflections on the wall when Rose wakes up, and when the Controller is killed - the extermination effect being the same as that seen in Dalek.
• The Dalek saucers are a homage to those 1960's TV Comic strips. Those who like to watch the DVDs with the new CGI effects will have seen them in action already in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Purists are weirdly content to stick with the pastry cutters dangling on strings in front of a photo of the Houses of Parliament. Sadly, the new CGI on that DVD hasn't corrected the Doctor and Ian looking at totally different parts of the sky...
• That Extrapolator will be seen again. However, it seems to get left behind on the station. There is no time for the Doctor to disconnect it and bring it onto the ship.
• Apparently it took nearly a year of negotiations to use Big Brother in this. The other two series referenced already belonged to the BBC. Once Endemol were on board, however, they were right behind it - allowing a remix of the music and the new logo with the starfield behind it. Then broadcasters, Channel 4, were referenced as this version is screening on Channel 44000. It is still struggling on in the UK, on Channel 5. The regular version is watched by no-one - so no new non-entities have been sprung on the popular media. The "celebrity" version does have a handful of viewers I'm told.

• The big red chair we see the Doctor sit in was sold to Channel 4 and used in subsequent series of Big Brother.
• It is said that Rose was going to be killed by the Vortex energy had Eccleston stayed on. However, Davies has always said that he would never kill the audience-identifying companion, and so her demise might have been a fake ending for preview versions of the finale. Had Rose been written out at the end of the first series, her departure would probably have been more akin to Donna's - in that the Vortex had damaged her and she had to lose all her memories of travelling with the Doctor to save her life.
• John Barrowman celebrated his birthday on his penultimate day of filming - with the Trin-E and Zu-Zana robots (inhabited by Paul Kasey and Alan Ruscoe, who was also inside the Ann-Droid). He was given a remote-controlled Dalek as a gift. There was much argument about whether or not to show his naked posterior on prime time telly. Barrowman and Davies wanted it to be inflicted on the nation - nay, the world. The BBC said no. Another good reason to keep paying the licence fee.

Story 165 - Boom Town

In which the Doctor takes the TARDIS to Cardiff, so that the ship can refuel. It materialises in the Bay area, in Roald Dahl Plas. Here it will be able to soak up energy from the temporal rift which runs through the city - the same phenomenon which the Gelth had tried to exploit. Rose asks Mickey to come and visit them, claiming she needs her passport. He and Captain Jack do not hit it off straight away. They all go to a cafe for breakfast, as the ship will need 24 hours to refuel. The Doctor spots a copy of the local newspaper, and is shocked to see that Margaret Blaine - Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer Day Slitheen, in other words - has become the city's new Mayor. She has initiated a new scheme to build a nuclear power station in the heart of the city - the Blaidd Drwg Project. Everyone who has threatened this project has so far met with an often bizarre fatal accident.

The Doctor and his companions go to the City Hall. On hearing that the Doctor would like to see her, Margaret tries to escape. her teleport is over-ridden by the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, and she is captured. Studying the model of the proposed power plant scheme, they discover that it hides a piece of alien technology - a tribophysical wave-form macro-kinetic extrapolator. With enough energy, this can be used as a travel device to transport its user half way across the galaxy. The Doctor notices the name of the project. Blaidd Drwg is Welsh for Bad Wolf. He points out to Rose that this phrase seems to have been haunting their recent travels. He dismisses it as coincidence, and they take Margaret to the TARDIS. The Doctor and Jack realise that the nuclear power station has been designed to fail catastrophically. Margaret was planning to harness this massive release of energy to use the extrapolator to get her off the Earth. The Doctor plans to take Margaret back to Raxacoricofallapatorius, to be judged by her own people. She tells him that her whole family were declared criminals in absentia, and she will face an automatic death sentence on her return home.

The TARDIS will not be ready to leave until morning. Jack starts experimenting with the extrapolator, whilst Rose and Mickey go for a meal. The Doctor offers to take Margaret to a restaurant. She first of all tries to kill him, but the Doctor has read up on Slitheen habits and biology. She informs him that her death will not be a quick one, but the Doctor is unmoved. She is talking to him from the mouth of a woman she killed, and her family had almost destroyed the planet. The extrapolator suddenly comes to life, and begins to tear open the Rift. Everyone hurries back to the TARDIS where Margaret reveals that the extrapolator was a trap. She knew anyone finding it would activate it and so open the Rift. As the city is threatened with destruction, the TARDIS console suddenyl opens of its own accord. A blinding light emerges. The Doctor encourages Margaret to look into the heart of the ship. She vanishes. The console - and the Rift - close. They discover that Margaret has been regressed to her egg stage. Mickey has tried to get back together with Rose, but he now knows that this will never happen, and so wanders off into the night. The Doctor decides to take the egg back to Raxacoricofallapatorius, to be left with another family. Under a different upbringing, she now has a second chance.

Boom Town was written by Russell T Davies, and was first broadcast on Saturday 4th June, 2005. The eleventh episode slot, in Davies' original plan for the season, was to have been a story with a different town going boom - namely Pompeii. As it was, this was now to be a cheaper episode, with fewer CGI needs. Davies had felt that Annette Badland had been somewhat underused in the Aliens of London two-parter, and had sounded her out for a return visit. Her Slitheen version would only be seen briefly, and this would be augmented with some CGI to make the face more animated.
Davies had also wanted to show off the programme's new home - which was also his own adopted home. He lived in a flat overlooking Cardiff Bay where the story would be filmed.

There is a lot of humour in the story - mainly down to the interplay between Margaret and the Doctor. There are farcical elements to their diner date, as well as her attempts to evade capture earlier on. Underlying this are some serious themes, however. The Doctor reminds his companions - and the audience - that the TARDIS looks like a Police Box, which could sometimes be used to incarcerate prisoners. The ship fulfills that role with the captive Slitheen. The Doctor is challenged about always leaving before facing the consequences of his actions, but Margaret forces him to think about this when she points out that he will be taking her to her death. Elsewhere, the issue of those left behind when someone travels with the Doctor is revisited, as we find out what Mickey has been up to since Rose last left the Powell Estate. He finally accepts that he can never compete with the lifestyle she enjoys with the Doctor. His initial antipathy towards Jack is as much about jealousy as his dislike for his brashness.
Story Arc items: 

• Blaidd Drwg being Welsh for Bad Wolf. This time the Doctor actually notices the phrase, only to apparently dismiss it as coincidence.
• The story is a sequel to Aliens of London / World War Three. 
• It also sees mention of The Unquiet Dead, as this is the Rift which the Gelth were using.
• In hindsight, we know that the Torchwood Hub is built directly beneath the Plas. The spot where the TARDIS parks will retain its camouflage traces, and a lift from the Hub to street level will emerge here.
• The TARDIS will park here for refueling once again in Series 3, which will tie in with the finale of Torchwood's first season.

Overall, what at first appears a slight, inconsequential adventure has a lot of serious things to say. Annette Badland is superb. You almost feel sorry for a Slitheen. Murray Gold provides a beautiful suite of music, which you can't help but think of if you ever visit Cardiff bay. Voted a lowly 179th in the DWM 50th Anniversary poll - undeservedly I think.

Things you might like to know:

• As well as Annette Badland, there are just two other significant guest artists. One is Mali Harries, who plays Cathy, a journalist who is spared by Margaret as she is pregnant. The other is William Thomas, who plays the doomed Mr Carver - yet another expert who has spotted design flaws in Margaret's power station. Thomas becomes the first actor to have appeared in both the Classic Series and the New version. He was the undertaker in Remembrance of the Daleks. We will see him again soon as Gwen Cooper's father in the second and fourth series of Torchwood.
• The Doctor Who Experience runs regular location tours, and these take in much of what you see in this story. Save your money and do your own tour. Everything's within a short distance, other than the City Hall - which you would be visiting on a day trip anyway as it is next door to the National Museum of Wales, which doubles for all the museums which you see in other episodes of Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
• The fountain of the metal water tower next to where the TARDIS is parked is designed to switch off if the temperature falls too low. This happened on the nights they were filming, and the local council had to turn it on again specially.
• What is it with the TARDIS needing to refuel? This has never been mentioned before. It has always been implied that the TARDIS has unlimited power. Some later stories say the same. Edge of Destruction had mentioned calamity if the console opened up, but other stories have seen the old console dismantled.
• The Doctor is determined to take Margaret back to her home planet. In the past, however, he has been willing to take alien criminals to uninhabited worlds.
• This story sees the first mention that the Doctor and Rose have had unseen adventures - the visit to Woman Wept for instance. Justicia is also mentioned - setting for one of the first of the Ninth Doctor novels.
• Tribophysics was previously mentioned by Sarah Jane Smith in Pyramids of Mars. It has something to do with friction, apparently.
• After asking the Doctor to give her some "Spock" in the last story, here Rose describes the Chameleon Circuit as a sort of "cloaking device". The Doctor is quick to correct her, though his Eighth incarnation seemed okay with the phrase.
• Little did we know it at the time, but there are actually three Captain Jacks around at the same time in this story. Presumably the one that runs Torchwood 3 is out of town with his team when the TARDIS arrives - probably deliberately so Jack can avoid any nastiness with the Blinovitch Limitation Effect. However, there is still the third version in cryogenic suspension in the Hub from the finale to Series 2 of Torchwood.
• The little office where Ianto Jones sometimes works will have a copy of that Western Mail front page from the top of this post hanging up, at least until the Hub gets blown up in Torchwood Series 3.
• This story was made in a recording block of its own. It was recorded between The Long Game and the two part series finale.
• The synopsis when released mentioned a returning character, and everyone at the time assumed it was someone from the Classic Series.
• As it was broadcast, media and bookmaker speculation about who or what Bad Wolf might be was at fever pitch. For some reason Adam Mitchell was quite a popular notion - out to get revenge, but the reference to a wolf also saw the return of Fenric gaining a lot of support. Once the "Next Time" teaser at the end of this episode had been shown - telling us the Daleks were back - Davros became a favourite. No story arc has gripped the wider media than this first one.

Story 164 - The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances

In which the Doctor pursues an alien object that appears to be on a collision course with Earth. The object suddenly jumps a time track, and the Doctor must land as close to where and when it landed as he can. The TARDIS materialises in an alleyway at night. The Doctor decides to break into a building to ask if anyone has seen the object fall. He is shocked to learn that this is London, in the middle of the Blitz. Metal objects have been falling from the skies every night. Rose spots a small boy on a nearby rooftop. Going to his aid, she climbs up towards him. Seizing hold of a convenient rope, she discovers too late that it is attached to a barrage balloon which has come untethered. It drifts away with her dangling below - wearing a Union Jack T-shirt in the midst of a German air raid. She is spotted by an RAF captain, an American volunteer named Jack Harkness. He rescues her using a forcefield, as he has an invisible spaceship parked next to Big Ben. The Doctor meanwhile meets a girl named Nancy. He is shocked to hear the telephone in the TARDIS door ring, as it isn't connected to anything. He hears a child's voice asking for its mummy. Nancy warns him not to go near the child, then vanishes.

The Doctor manages to follow her, and sees her enter a house after its occupants have gone down into their air-raid shelter. She opens the door to a group of children, who will feast on the family's abandoned dinner. The Doctor sneaks in and joins them. They are all orphans, who Nancy looks after and feeds every night during the raids. A small boy wearing a gas mask comes to the door, and everyone is terrified of him. The children flee out the back door. Nancy tells the Doctor that if he wants to know about the boy, he should speak to Dr Constantine at the Albion Hospital. The Doctor goes there and meets the doctor. He looks after dozens of comatose patients, all wearing gas masks, and who have identical injuries. He explains that a small boy was brought in with the same injuries, and these spread to everyone else like a contagion. The gas masks are actually fused to the face. Constantine is also afflicted, and the Doctor witnesses him transform. Meanwhile, Jack has told Rose that he is really from the 51st Century, and is responsible for the alien object which they had detected. It is a Chula warship and he wants to sell it. They trace the Doctor and go to the hospital, where all the gas masked zombies awake and lumber towards them. At the same time, Nancy has been trapped in the house with the little boy.

As the people are all repeating what the little boy had said about seeking his mummy, the Doctor orders them to their room, as though they were naughty children. The gamble works. They go to the room where the boy had first been brought to try and learn more about him. The child turns up - as this is exactly where the Doctor had told him to go. They come under attack by the rest of the zombies. Jack manages to teleport to his ship, and brings the Doctor and Rose on board soon after. The Doctor notices that the ship is full of nonogenes, which can repair injuries. Jack's ship is also Chula technology. He is convinced that Jack is responsible for what if happening, but he insists that the object was simply a Chula ambulance. They go to where it crashed - railway sidings close to the hospital. Nancy joins them. She reveals that the boy is her little brother, Jamie, and he was the victim of a bomb blast one night when he went out looking for her. The Doctor deduces that there is more to it than this. Jack's ambulance was full of nanogenes. They found the boy and brought him back to life, as they are programmed to fix soldiers and return them to the front line. Not knowing anything about human physiology, they made a mistake. They are now fixing all the humans they encounter, using the boy as their template. Nancy isn't Jamie's sister but his mother. The Doctor hopes that the nonogenes will recognise this. They restore everyone, including Jamie. Jack had been operating a con - knowing that once he had sold the ambulance it would be destroyed by a German bomb that is due to fall in a few minutes. He uses his spaceship to capture the bomb and flies into space with it. He cannot defuse it or offload it, and so prepares to face death. However, the TARDIS materialises on board and he is able to get off his ship before it is destroyed.

This two part adventure was written by Steven Moffat, and was first broadcast on 21st and 28th of May, 2005. It sees the first appearance of Captain Jack Harkness, played by John Barrowman. Moffat will, of course, go on to write one story per season for the duration of Russell T Davies' tenure as show-runner, before taking on that role himself. He is due to handover to Chris Chibnall after Series 10.
Unlike many others of the first series writers, Moffat had not been a New Adventures writer, though he had contributed short stories to anthology collections. Davies knew him from a number of successful TV shows he had written (e.g. Press Gang and Coupling), and he was known to be a massive fan of the series.
The original series had tended to shy away from World War II. It only becomes a setting in the final season. Earlier writers had tried to pitch stories set at this time, with no success - Brian Hayles, creator of the Ice Warriors, had a story proposal called "Dr Who and the Nazis" back in the 1960's, and Douglas Camfield had also tried to get a WW2 script commissioned by Philip Hinchcliffe.
With a creepy child in a gas mask, Moffat could do nothing but place his story during the London Blitz, which lasted from September 1940 through to May 1941.

Moffat was given the task of introducing a new regular character - Captain Jack. He is an ex-Time Agent, from the 51st Century, now working as a con-man. Davies knew that the season was going to end with a major battle, and so needed a soldier - to do what the Doctor could never do.
He has an American accent, and cracks bad jokes. He is also omnisexual, and talks a lot about sex. When Davies had first been announced as show-runner, certain sections of the press worried that the show might have a "gay agenda", but it is Moffat who gives us the campest character of the new series. When we first meet him, he is flirting with a British officer, and he uses this relationship to infiltrate the railway yard where the ambulance has crashed. He also makes it clear that he bedded both his male and female captors in an unseen adventure. Moffat goes further, with the revelation that it is Mr Lloyd, rather than his missus, who has been providing sexual favours to the local butcher to get their enhanced rations.
The title of the second episode puzzled everyone at the time it was announced, but we now know that "dancing" is a euphemism for sex - especially in Moffat scripts.

For a two-parter, there is actually just a relatively small cast. Main guest artist is Richard Wilson playing Constantine. He's best know for playing the curmudgeonly Victor Meldrew in One Foot In The Grave. Nancy is played by Florence Hoath - a superb performance. She often played younger than her real age.
Story Arc:

• Albion Hospital features. This was the hospital seen in Aliens of London.
• The bomb which Captain Jack diverts has "Bad Wolf" written on its side in (very bad) German.

The cliffhanger is the Doctor, Rose and Jack surrounded by gas mask zombies, whilst Nancy is trapped in the Lloyd's house with the Empty Child. The resolution is the Doctor ordering the zombies - and hence Jamie - to their room. The Doctor is relieved that his gamble worked, as "Go to your room!" would have been terrible last words.

Overall, a splendid two episodes. Great CGI, great performances and a lovely comedic streak running through what could have been an extremely dark story. Voted 7th of 241 in the DWM 50th Anniversary poll, and deservedly so.
Things you might like to know:

• The sequence with Nancy and the children with the typewriter was a late addition as the second episode was under-running. Of course it makes no sense that Jamie should be able to type remotely, as it was clearly stated he could only hack anything with a speaker. Moffat wrote the scene whilst on holiday with his wife. She had no love for the show at the time, and so he had to pretend that he was working on something else.
• The station next to Albion Hospital is named Limehouse Green. There is no such station - it being a composite name derived from Limehouse and Stepney Green in East London.
• "Everybody Lives!" exclaims the Doctor. Yes, it's one of those rare stories in which no-one dies. There are a handful in the original series (e.g. Fury From The Deep).
• Prior to production on the series commencing, a number of the writers got together in West London for an Indian meal, to celebrate their commissioning. Present were Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Rob Shearman and Paul Cornell. The restaurant was called the Chula.
• Star Trek gets referenced - Rose looking for a bit of "Spock" in terms of fancy technology - implying that it is a fictional series in the Doctor Who universe. A couple of years ago there was that comic book crossover with Star Trek, in which the Cybermen teamed up with the Borg, and the Eleventh Doctor joined forces with the crew of the Enterprise-C. The story Closing Time also indicates that Trek is a known fictional TV sci-fi show, Russell T Davies longed to have a crossover with ST: TNG, if only to see the Doctor puncture Starfleet pomposity.
• "Are you my mummy?" - this story's catchphrase - will be repeated by two later Doctors. After donning a gas mask, the Tenth Doctor says it to UNIT's Colonel Mace in The Poison Sky, and the Twelfth will ask it of the Mummy on the Orient Express.
• The exact date of this story is never specified, but we will later learn in Torchwood that Captain Jack disappeared in January 1941.
• Time Agents operating in (or from) the year 5000 AD were first mentioned by Magnus Greel in The Talons of Weng-Chiang.
• Bananas. Moffat has a thing about bananas. Bananas and "squareness" guns. See The Girl in the Fireplace and the Silence in the Library two-parter. The Doctor "dances" in the former as well.
• A quick look at Google Translate has "Bad" come out as Schlecht in German. On the bomb is "Schlechter Wolf". Is it supposed to mean it's a Badder, or More Bad Wolf?
• Jack talks about "Volcano Day" - referring to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, This would have had more significance had RTD's original outline for the series been followed, as the next story would have seen the TARDIS crew arrive in Pompeii on the eve of its destruction.
• The episode title The Doctor Dances is unusual for a couple of reasons. Historically, story titles tended to be of the Noun of the Noun variety, though verbs do feature in individual episode titles in the Hartnell era. Those early episodes also mention the Doctor in their titles - usually absent from overall story titles, but this will become common as the new series progresses - to the point that we get a run of Something of the Doctor stories.
• The bomb-site at the railway yard was filmed at Barry Island, just a few hundred yards from where the Holiday Camp in Delta and the Bannermen had been filmed.
• The show plays fast and loose with the concept of the Blackout. Jack is framed wonderfully in an open window, of a brightly lit room, when we first see him - despite that fact that an air-raid is in full swing. Limehouse Green is also lit up like a Christmas tree. No wonder the Badder Wolf bomb finds it. The production team had set up a huge floodlight to shine on the area. This kept all the locals awake with its brilliance, and producer Phil Collinson claimed that he could see it from several miles away as he drove towards the location. The floodlight was scrapped, and a number of ground level lights put in its place.
• Apparently Jack, as an American, would never have been able to be a captain in the RAF in the early part of 1941. The first squadron of US volunteers wasn't created until August of that year. Any Americans who had managed to enlist before - some coming via the Royal Canadian Air Force - would not have attained a captain rank.