Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler), Noel Clarke (Mickey Smith), Mark Benton (Clive), Elli Garnett (Caroline), Adam McCoy (Clive’s Son), Alan Ruscoe, Paul Kasey, David Sant, Elizabeth Fost, Helen Otway (Autons), Nicholas Briggs (Nestene Voice).
CREW
Written by
Russell T. Davies
Directed by
Keith Boak
Produced by
Julie Garner and Phil Colinson
SYPNOSIS
When Rose Tyler meets a mysterious stranger called The Doctor, her life will never be the same again. Soon, she realises that her mum, her boyfriend, and the whole of Planet Earth are in danger.
The only hope for salvation lies inside a strange blue box..
NOTES
The Doctor is travelling alone and already in his ninth incarnation as the story begins, although his remarks about his appearance as he looks in the mirror in Rose’s flat imply that the regeneration was a very recent one. Jon Pertwee’s debut as the Third Doctor in Spearhead from Space also began with him already regenerated and without a companion.
This is the first (and only) occasion, however, in which the series does not explain the circumstances behind the regeneration.
The photographs in Clive’s shed show that the Ninth Doctor has travelled to Krakatoa, the Kennedy assassination and Southampton on the eve of the Titanic’s voyage. These adventures were never featured on screen and when they take place is not clear. The Doctor was present at Kennedy’s assassination however in the novel Who Killed Kennedy and the Third Doctor mentions being at the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa in Inferno.
The Doctor refers to an untelevised encounter with, “the assembled hordes of Genghis Khan.” He also encountered Kublai Khan in Marco Polo (1964), and Batu and Möngke Khan in the spin- off novel Bunker Soldiers by Martin Day. In The TV Movie, The Master tells Chang Lee that The Doctor was Genghis Khan.
As Rose enters the TARDIS, a coat stand can be seen by the side of the doors, a piece of furniture that graced the console room in the original series.
The materialisation and dematerialisation of the TARDIS is accompanied by a flurry of wind, as it was in the The TV Movie. The TARDIS console room and sonic screwdriver have also been redesigned.
This story also sees the first mention of the Shadow Proclamation, an intergalactic police force mentioned several times in the revived series and eventually seen in “The Stolen Earth” (2008).
