Aliens of London / World War 3

 

Aired on 16th April 2005 and 23rd April 2005

Written by Russell T Davies

Produced by Phil Collinson

Directed by Keith Boak

Synopsis

Coming back from their adventures, Rose is mistakenly returned home after 12 months away. In that time, her mum, Jackie, has mounted a full campaign to find her and vilified Mickey as someone who abducted her.

For a breather from the stress, the Doctor and Rose head on up to the roof of her apartment block. As they discuss their next move and the fact that nobody would believe where they'd been if they told the truth, a giant space ship zooms overhead, crashes through Big Ben and lands in the Thames.

The Doctor is fascinated with the spectacle and intends to keep out of this and watch from the side lines. As Rose's family still hark on about how she was missing, the Doctor studies the TV. It turns out the Prime Minister is missing and unusually low ranking people are being called to Downing Street.

The Doctor eventually leaves the party to get a good look at the alien that's crashed. He takes the TARDIS and lands in the mortuary. He stumbles into armed guards but thanks to his past with UNIT, he is able to get them onside quickly,  when the "alien" returns to life. It harasses the coroner but the Doctor discovers it's just a normal pig that's been augmented and bundled onto the ship. The UNIT soldiers kill it so he can't learn any more. 

He does however discover that the ship came from earth, turned around in orbit and dropped back down again. This means the crash was orchestrated.  

The Doctor returns to Rose who has meanwhile met up with Mickey, who in turn has frightened Jackie so much with stories of the Doctor that she's called the Police about him. The Doctor and co. remark that putting the world on red alert is a funny way of invading the planet. 

Inside number 10, these unimportant people are effectively given the emergency protocols in absence of the Prime Minister and head off for a secret meeting in the cabinet room. A plucky back-bencher MP Harriet Jones tries to see them (as her appointment with the PM is understandably not going to happen) but they thwart her attempts. She tries to sneak into the cabinet room to leave her agenda there and discovers the three main people involved are actually aliens using compression fields - a piece of technology that allows them to hide inside the skin of a human. The gas exchange related to this causes them to fart a lot however.

Because of Jackie's call. UNIT pick up on the Doctor and the three politicians are told about it. They summon every leading scientist to number 10 for an emergency conference.

The Doctor is caught by the Police as they go to get a look at the ship, and he and Rose are taken to Downing Street whilst Jackie and Mickey are kept at home for questioning. Once at number 10, Rose meets Harriet Jones who takes her off when she is refused entry into the conference. Harriet begins to tell Rose what she's seen. The Doctor meanwhile is taken inside the meeting room.

Back at Rose's house, the Chief Constable turns up to question Jackie, but it turns out he's one of the aliens. As Jackie is confronted by the towering monster (as it sheds it's human skin), the Doctor is electrocuted by the fake passes the trio of politicians gave them. One of the trio takes their skin off to reveal a huge green alien.  In turn, Harriet and Rose are confronted by Margaret Blaine, the female politician in the trio. She also sheds her human skin and prepares to attack.

Luckily, the Doctor manages to rip the ID badge off himself and hit the giant monster with it, causing a linked feedback through all the aliens and paralysing them, allowing Harriet and Rose to escape and Mickey to enter and save Jackie. 

The Doctor grabs the Police team and rushes back to the cabinet room, but the aliens have gotten back into their human skin and bluff their way out of it, saying the Doctor just killed the main scientists. He manages to get away by diving into a lift. The aliens order the Police to keep out of the upstairs and then they go hunting for the Doctor and co. themselves. They find Harriet and Rose but the Doctor saves them with a distraction, long enough to get to the cabinet rooms where there's a bomb proof liner to it.

Before he closes the room off, he gets the trio to admit that they are the Slitheen, a family, not a race of aliens who are here on Earth for business. 

With the bomb doors closed, the Doctor is isolated, so the Slitheen are happy with that. They call the rest of their family to them and prepare for the end of their plans.

In the room, the Doctor, Rose and Harriet find he Prime Minister's body. It's not been used as a Slitheen suit because he was too small.  

Rose asks if the emergency protocols say anything about a nuclear strike. Harriet Jones explains that the UN have to pass a vote to use them. 

Mickey gets in touch via the phone and the Doctor instructs him through the UNIT website. He finds out that the ship is pulsating an encrypted signal into space.  He doesn't get to fully decipher it then though, as the Police Inspector turns up and starts to attack. 

Rose frantically asks the Doctor to help save her mum. The Doctor takes all the information they know about the Slitheen and narrows their origin down to a planet known as Raxacoricofallapatorius.  He knows from this that their bodies will be made up of calcium and orders Jackie and Mickey to go into the kitchen and find anything with vinegar in it. They get a small bowl of it together and as the Slitheen bursts through the door, they throw the vinegar at it which kills it.

Now he can think the Doctor figures out that the Slitheen want the UN to launch a nuclear strike against others. They want World War 3 so that the earth is reduced to radioactive waste and the Slitheen can sell chunks of it off to intergalactic aliens as fuel. The signal pulsing into space is an advert.

Stuck in the room, the group despair. The Doctor says there's something he can do, but he doesn't like it because he could save the world but kill Rose doing it. Jackie protests, but Rose asks him to go ahead, and Harriet Jones MP for Flydale North, the only MP in attendance orders the Doctor to take action.

The Doctor with the help of Mickey, takes control of a Royal Navy submarine and launches a missile at 10 Downing Street. Because of the blast room, Harriet, Rose and the Doctor survive it, but the Slitheen are all blown up. 

In the aftermath, the Doctor realises that he does in fact know Harriet Jones by name. She will go on to become Prime Minister.

Rose goes home whilst the Doctor cancels the Slitheen advert. Jackie tries to be reasonable and invites the Doctor for tea. Rose passes the invite on, but the Doctor refuses, saying he's got a universe to see and gives Rose an ultimatum. She packs much to Jackie's upset and they walk down to the TARDIS.

Mickey has a quiet word with the Doctor and says the TARDIS travels isn't for him. The Doctor and Rose wave goodbye and say they'll be arriving back a few seconds after they've left and for Jackie not to worry. As the TARDIS fades however, Jackie waits a full minute in the quiet night before she turns solemnly around and goes home.

Trivia

• Interesting enough, this is the first story since Invasion of the Dinosaurs where an episode shares a different name

• The Police poster reveals more details about Rose - she lives on the Powel estate, and is 19yrs old

• The Prime Minister in this story was meant to be a Tony Blair lookalike, but the reality was disappointing so they didn't use many shots of him

• According to Russel T Davies, the episodes were meant to take place roughly a year ahead of when they were released, this would continue until the start of series 5.

• This is the last time sadly that UNIT will stand for United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. Apparently the real UN decided after all this time to have a problem, so the name would have to be changed

The Review

There's somewhat of a contradictory energy to these particular episodes. On the one hand, this is an amazing attempt to break new ground with Doctor Who and show us the impact of what happens to those left behind when a companion travels with the Doctor. It's heartfelt and emotional and works brilliantly. It also does something else - it boldly tries to tackle the touchy subject of aliens overtly showing themselves to us mere mortals. It's somewhat of an unspoken rule that the aliens won't be regarded again, so this is a huge commitment. Finally, we get the concept of skin riding aliens and the little used twist of them being business people. All of this is worthy of great praise...then we get the Slitheen.

I don't know what the designers were thinking about when they created these aliens but scary they are not. They look about as effective as anything from Warriors of the Deep and their faces are more like cute babies than aliens. Their CGI movement redeems them somewhat but they are disappointing.

Ultimately, these two episodes are definitely worth a watch but you take the good with the bad, and for that reason, I can't think why anyone would watch these more than once in a blue moon.

Rating

6 out of 10

Re-Watchability Factor

4 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• Rose (Doctor Who, Series 1)

• The Christmas Invasion (Doctor Who, Series 1 Christmas Special)

• The Sontaran Stratagem (Doctor Who, Series 4)

The Unquiet Dead

 

Aired on 9th April 2005

Written by Mark Gatiss

Produced by Phil Collinson

Directed by Euros Lyn

Synopsis

Victorian Cardiff - 1869.  In the Undertakers of Sneed and Company, an old lady who is supposed to be dead happens to re-animate with a strange blue ghostly light, kills her son and escapes the funeral home. The Undertaker calls for his servant girl, Gwyneth and moans "not again".

The Doctor, having shown Rose the far future decides to take her to the past. He tries to get her to Naples on Christmas Eve 1860, but instead she ends up in Cardiff 1869. He encourages her to change into period clothing and remarks that she looks "beautiful". He takes her off into the streets to explore. 

It's not long before the pair find people screaming. The source is a local theatre where none other than Charles Dickens is performing his tale "A Christmas Carol". It is here that the corpse of the old woman has gone. 

Not far behind them, Mr Sneed and Gwyneth turn up to grab the old woman and bring her quietly back. Rose gets too involved and panicking, Sneed chloroforms her and bundles her back to the morgue.

The Doctor hijacks a lift from a stupefied Charles Dickens' coach and off they go to find the old woman and Rose. Dickens is angry and confused but soon mellows when the Doctor tells him how brilliant he is.

Rose meanwhile wakes up in the morgue to find the old woman and now her dead son have both risen and are approaching her. 

The Doctor turns up with Charles and they barge past Sneed and Gwyneth to find the corpses risen. They speak of a need to "pity the Gelth" and leave the bodies, going into the gas lamps around the room.

The group all sit down and Sneed explains that the house has always been reported as haunted which is good for his business. The Doctor explains that this haunting is actually from the house being built upon a crack in time and space called the rift. These beings are actually aliens from another dimension. Charles cannot accept this and storms off.

After tea, Rose speaks to Gwyneth who reveals she is gifted with the "sight". She is an orphan who Sneed took in and has grown up around these strange on-goings. She knows somehow that Rose is from the future and exclaims she can see her feelings, remarking about the "big bad wolf". The Doctor, catching this, asks Gwyneth to help him contact them through a séance. 

The group all sit round and contact the Gelth. It's not long before they manifest through Gwyneth.

They explain they are a dying race - their bodies were destroyed in the last great time war and they need help to open the rift. They request the use of the dead bodies around them so they can embody the physical realm again. Rose is adamant that's wrong but the Doctor is stubborn and says he's helping save a race from extinction and using the bodies is fine. Rose protests but Gwyneth counts these things as her angels and vows to help them.

Gwyneth stands in the archway of the morgue and contacts the Gelth with her mind. They come to her and begin opening the rift. 

All of a sudden, they change from blue spectral flame to a bright orange demonic fire. They claim they number a few billion and are coming to take over the universe.

Sneed tries to stop Gwyneth but is killed by having his neck snapped. The ghosts begin to inhabit bodies and the dead begin to rise and come after them all, backing the Doctor and Rose into a corner cell. Dickens meanwhile flees in terror and incomprehension.

The Doctor apologises to Rose as the dead claw at them, and laments that after all he's seen, he's going to die in a basement in Cardiff.

Dickens outside, sees the gas lights flicker and it inspires him to have a solution. He returns to the house and turns up all the gas, filling the room with it. The Doctor catches on, telling Rose that the influx of gas will draw the Gelth out of the bodies into the air.  This is exactly what happens and together they all run out.

The Doctor hesitates and checks Gwyneth before going with him. He strikes a match and the undertakers explodes, destroying the rift opening and the bodies inside. Rose is sad that Gwyneth died inside there, but the Doctor sadly states that she died the second she opened the rift - he felt her pulse and she was gone.

Together, the Doctor, Rose and Charles Dickens walk to the TARDIS. The latter is cured of his depression and wants to go on to write again. He thanks them both and is flummoxed at them entering the Doctor's cupboard. 

He is however amazed that the thing disappears in front of his eyes.

Onboard, Rose asks the Doctor if he's concerned that Dickens will tell people, but he isn't - the following year is the year Dickens dies. He is if anything happy that he managed to inspire an old mind to new things. 

Trivia

• Originally, this story was to be somewhat darker and serious, hinting at a death of Gwyneth's younger brother but Russel T Davies asked for it to be lighter

• Although there's no official link between them, Eve Myles went on from Gwyneth to play Gwen Cooper in Torchwood. The Doctor and Rose when they meet her suggest an echo from the time rift imprinting itself on Gwen

• Mr Sneed was originally meant to be a younger character, and David Tenant was considered for the part. Luckily, that changed.

• Another change was the removal from the script a scene where the Doctor takes Rose to a devastated 2005 to show her the timeline can be re-written as a cause of their interference, just like Pyramids of Mars. It was felt that this drew too much away from the story though so it was left out

• Simon Callow is somewhat of a Dickens expert. He has played him many times on TV, has written about him and performed as him on stage. He was the perfect choice to play him in this episode.

• The mortuary is in Llandaff, which is both the area of Cardiff where the Doctor Who production offices were based, and the birthplace of Terry Nation.

The Review

This episode as with Rose, shows the true power behind the new series of Doctor Who. As this blog will show, I think there's nothing wrong with old Doctor Who, but the core beliefs and turmoil of this Doctor are all laid to bare within the story.  

The Victorian Séance and obsession with the occult are easy strings to pluck for a compelling story, and both are used to great effect to create not only a historic story, but an attempt to make a scary one too. This fits right in there with the golden age of Doctor Who with the Talons of Weng Chiang and Horror of Fang Rock, but the only difference is that where in the classic stories, the Doctor is perhaps more willing to consider (and therefore play up to the audience) the prospect of a supernatural mystery, here the Doctor from the start is confident of alien involvement. Whilst this could dampen the story, instead, the team inject an ongoing mystery into the mix to hint at a huge amount of trauma that the Doctor is undergoing.  

If I was to say anything wrong with this story, it would be that the Doctor selectively doesn't worry and is sure about Dickens keeping to his timeline but similarly seems to think that everything will work out fine in bringing over the Gelth when there's clearly no re-animated corpses in 2005. This can be put down to his guilt and shame over the Time War resulting in wishful thinking, so there's some leeway that needs to be granted.

Overall, this story after Rose is the definite point of call for the future Doctor Who stories- a must see and a pleasure to go through, told with compassion and traditional horror values.   

Rating

10 out of 10!

Re-Watchability Factor

9 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Faceless Ones 

• Talons of Weng Chiang

• The Horror of Fang Rock

• Doomsday (Doctor Who, Series 2)

• The Next Doctor (Doctor Who, The Specials)

• The Snowman (Doctor Who, Series 6)

• The Crimson Horror (Doctor Who, Series 6)