Inspirations: Midnight

Midnight is a Companion-Lite story, as opposed to a Doctor-Lite one. 

As we've mentioned before, the production team were getting better at disguising these episodes, where one of the regulars was less available due to filming another episode elsewhere. This one, however, elects not to try to hide things.

The Doctor is specifically taking a trip on his own across a hostile landscape, whilst Donna relaxes in a nearby spa resort.

Catherine Tate was given a substantial role to play in Forest of the Dead - and was going to be almost single-handedly carrying Turn Left. This story was therefore left for David Tennant to fully dominate.

The idea of doing such a "chamber piece" earlier in the series' return would have been unthinkable - potentially off-putting for the casual viewer. However, the programme was now well into its fourth popular series, and Tennant was an established star. There was little risk doing a story at this point with limited cast, confined to a single claustrophobic location. There isn't even a monster as such - something which RTD had insisted upon since 2005.

The production team also wanted to push the boundaries of what sound design could achieve.

According to RTD, Midnight was a response to Voyage of the Damned. As a "disaster movie in space", it had sought to show how people came together and co-operated in the face of adversity. This new episode would show the darker side of human nature - where people turned against each other under stress. Paranoia, violence and fear prevail here.

The story that was to have filled this slot was a Most Haunted POV spoof by Tom McRae, which was originally to have appeared in Series 3. "Century House" was put back to 2008. It would have featured the Doctor with a minimal role for new companion Penny. Realising that McRae's story would need more location filming than at first thought, it was deferred again, and would eventually be dropped all together.

RTD then had to come up with a smaller scale replacement, and he looked to the annoying children's habit of repeating a question whilst ignoring any answer given to them - a bit like "Are we there yet?". This was built upon by having the child copy everything the other person says.

He tested this out on producer Phil Collinson, who quickly found it very irritating. However, he saw how it could form the basis of a scary story if an entity stole your voice - and then your whole identity.

The Doctor could often be very arrogant, always placing himself in charge, and it would make for an interesting story to see him lose this ability.

One inspiration cited by Davies was the Star Trek: TNG episode "Darmok", in which an isolated Captain Picard has to communicate with an alien commander in order that both survive. This was pretty much lifted in its entirety from the movie Hell in the Pacific (1968) which saw lone US and Japanese soldiers stuck on a desert island together in the middle of WWII. That in turn formed the basis of Enemy Mine (1985) - which simply transplanted the action to an alien planet with a crashed human space pilot and one of his adversaries.

The tour bus setting was inspired by the third instalment of the Jeepers Creepers horror franchise, which saw a coach carrying a high school sports team break down in hostile territory. Initially, the monster is mostly heard rather than seen, prowling around the stranded vehicle.

The vehicle was called the Crusader 50, after DWM journalist Benjamin Cook pointed out to RTD that Midnight would be the 50th new story since the return of the series under his watch.

The design was inspired by the SHADO Mobiles from Gerry Anderson's UFO.

As far as the series story arc goes, Hobbes' student Dee Dee has written a paper on the Lost Moon of Poosh. 

Rose Tyler also pops up briefly on the Crusader 50's TV screens, as she had previously on the TARDIS scanner in the earlier Sontaran story.

Professor Hobbes was supposed to have been played by actor Sam Kelly, who was best known as one of the regulars on BBC sitcom 'Allo, 'Allo!. However, he broke his leg just before filming and was replaced late in the day by David Troughton, son of the Second Doctor Patrick Troughton. David had been an extra on The Enemy of the World before gaining the role of Private Moor in The War Games. He had then played the young king in The Curse of Peladon, at a time when he was sharing a flat with future Sixth Doctor Colin Baker.

Dee Dee quotes a poem by Christina Rosetti, wife of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rosetti. Goblin Market was written in 1959, and published three years later.

The "in-flight" entertainment system includes cartoon antics of Betty Boop (created by Max Fleischer in 1930) and a music performance by Italian pop star Rafaella Cara (singing Do It, Do It Again, which was a UK hit for her in 1978).