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...
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