World War Three

Doctor Who (2005)

Classic Doctor Who was, of course, a serial show, each story stretched across several episodes, with only extremely rare exceptions (Mission to the Unknown and The Five Doctors to be precise.) Since the show's return in 2005, it has adopted a more conventional approach, generally confining the main narrative to a single episode. There have been exceptions (Flux comes to mind) and ongoing plot arcs. There have also been a number of more conventional two or three part stories and this episode and its predecessor, Aliens of London, are the first of those.

It's not quite the same as the old serial format, but it does show us that the show isn't going to confine itself to a single episode when the story requires more time to tell.

Summary

Picking up from the previous episode's cliffhangers, the Doctor's alien constitution allows him to survive the Slitheen's attempt to electrocute him. He attaches his electrofied namebadge to one of the Slitheen which, in turn affects all of them, allowing for Rose and Harriet Jones to escape the Slitheen menacing them. The same is true of Jackie who had been saved by the arrival of Mickey. The still disguised Slitheen who has taken the form of Joseph Green manages to deactivate the badge and accuses the Doctor of murdering his fellow experts on aliens. This prompts a chase through 10 Downing Street, the Doctor escaping the military by fleeing to the upper floors where he rescues the terrified Rose and Harriet with a fire extinguisher.

The Doctor, Rose and Harriet flee into the Cabinet Room where the Doctor confronts the aliens, learning that the the Slitheen are not a species but a family and that their interest in the Earth is business-related. Before he can learn more he is forced to make use of the three-inch thick steel walls that can be used to shield the Cabinet Room, locking the Slitheen out but themselves in.

The Slitheen summon the rest of their family, all hidden in large humans, to Downing Street with the exception of the one who is chasing Jackie disguised as a policeman. The Doctor, Rose and Harriet discuss what to do. They are contacted by Mickey from his apartment, where he and Jackie have fled, and the Doctor has him access the UNIT website with his computer, giving him the password that he needs to do so. As Jackie asks the Doctor to guarantee her daughter's safety, the Slitheen that is hunting her arrives and starts to batter down the door.

The Doctor, Rose and Harriet desperately run through everything they know from their observations of the Slitheen, eventually identifying them as creatures of living calcium coming from the planet Raxacoricofallipatorius. With that knowledge the Doctor tells Jackie and Mickey to douse the Slitheen with as much vinegar as possible. Jackie gathers up as many vinegar-related substances from Mickey's kitchen as she can while he prepares to hold it off with his baseball bat and the resulting mixture causes the Slitheen to explode...something the other Slitheen seem to feel.

"Green" asks the United Nations to release the codes for Nuclear Weapons in order to strike at the supposed alien threat to the UK but the Doctor and his friends see through this. The Doctor unseals the Cabinet Room long enough to confront "Margaret" Slitheen, getting her to confirm that their plan is to unleash the weapons on the rest of the world, triggering World War Three. They will then sell the radioactive chunks of Earth to others in the galaxy as fuel. When "Margaret" refuses to back down, the Doctor tells her he will stop her.

The Doctor has a plan to stop the Slitheen but can not guarantee Rose's safety. Rose supports him without even knowing the details. Jackie objects. Harriet breaks the stalemate by pointing out that she's the only elected representative in the situation and ordering the Doctor to proceed. The Doctor then has Mickey hack into a submarine and launch a non-nuclear missile, firing it at Downing Street. Rose suggests they "ride out" the blast in the Cabinet Room closet. The missile strikes just as the UN was about to release the codes to the Slitheen. Luckily the Downing Street guard commander evacuates the building in time (and also sees the Slitheen in their true form before escaping himself.) In the aftermath, Harriet steps forward to check the situation and the Doctor realizes he recognizes her name as an important future Prime Minister.

Jackie attempts to see Rose's point of view, inviting the Doctor to eat with them but the Doctor rejects the idea, resisting the idea of the "domestic" again and tempts Rose to leave with him again. Rose packs her bags and leaves with the Doctor. Mickey turns down the Doctor's offer to go with them as well and, when Jackie objects to her leaving, Rose says she'll back in "10 seconds" from Jackie's point of view.

But when they leave, 10 seconds come and go without their return...

Crew Credits

Writer: Russell T Davies

Director: Keith Boak

Producer: Phil Collinson

Overview

As I've mentioned in a few posts now, it's not my inclination to focus on the negative when I examine stories. At the same time, I don't like to pretend I enjoy everything, because, well, I don't. I try to be honest about what things I think worked in a given story and what things didn't and this episode actually provides some fairly good examples of both.

This starts right from the beginning of the episode with the resolution to the previous episode's cliffhanger...well, triple cliffhanger.

On the one hand, I really like that the opening teaser of this episode is not just a repeat of the previous episode's cliffhangers but does actually stretch beyond that. To me, it would feel like a waste of storytelling time to take the pre-credits sequence of every two-parter and just make it a reprise of what we already know. (It is, unfortunately in my opinion, an that some later multi-part stories will take.)

On the less impressive side, there is the fact that there is effectively one resolution for all three cliffhangers. The Doctor sticks his electrified namebadge on one of the Slitheen menacing him (specifically on what seems to be his compression field generator) and, for some reason, this electrifies all the Slitheen on Earth, rendering them all temporarily helpless. It's all a bit too Phantom Menace for my tastes.

And, really, this is emblematic of the episode as a whole, with the entire piece being a mix of good and bad, things that work and things that don't.

Things That Work

Flying in the face of much of the conventional fan wisdom about them, I think the Slitheen work pretty well as villains. Indeed there are several things about them that I think are quite appealing.

To start with, there's the simple fact that we learn the Slitheen aren't a species but rather a family. This is a nice subversion of the tendency of Doctor Who (and sci fi in general) to treat species as if they are monolithically uniform, the "planet of hats" effect. Here we have a family that are acting as an independent entity from their species, rather than as a representative of it. If one flips this around and looks at the human species, this is much more realistic. Humans don't act as a uniform group so why would we think other sentient species' would? Humans act in smaller groups, or even as individuals, so it's refreshing to see the show allow for other species to act in that fashion as well.

As an aside, this feels like an extension of something I've always rather liked about Doctor Who. Doctor Who, unlike lots of sci fi franchises, doesn't tend to name its species after their planets. If you watch Star Trek Romulans are from Romulas. In Babylon 5, Minbari are from Minbar (and Narn from...well, Narn.) But in Doctor Who? Well, Daleks are from Skaro, Time Lords from Gallifrey, Cybermen from Mondas, Ice Warriors from Mars, etc. There are exceptions (Sontarans are from Sontar, for instance) but, in general, species don't get named after their planet.

Because, why would they? We humans come from Earth but we don't call ourselves "Earthians," do we? The closest we come to such a thing is that sci fi will sometimes refer to us as "Terrans" because we come from "Terra." But we don't tend to refer to ourselves as such.

To me, it often feels like sci fi took the idea of nationality and extrapolated its naming conventions out to a planetary scale but I like the idea of leaving that behind. The concept of nationality is, in itself, a way of self-defining in a world where everyone is the "same" species." Being, say, Irish is a way of distinguishing oneself from someone of the same species who's from Canada or Russia or Egypt. (Whether it's a good way of differentiating oneself is a whole different conversation.) But in a world where one is interacting with 8 foot tall green people or 3 foot robots, the need to define oneself by simple place of origin or residence feels less necessary. The distinction is built-in at that point.

Another way in which I think the Slitheen work pretty well in the subtle ways in which we get glimpses into their culture. We learn that the Slitheen have a fascination with "the hunt", seeing the tracking and killing of other (lesser?) sentient species as an enjoyable game, one they seem to value greatly. We see that their senses are especially acute, giving them a distinct edge for hunting. There are also several references to feeling a "need" to be naked, treating nudity as their natural/desirable state. We also see that they have some sort of symbiotic connection with one another, that they "feel" when one of them dies, even from across London.

Given the family/species distinction I mentioned above, it's also interesting to contemplate how many of these things are wider cultural traits and how many are family-specific. While the enhanced senses are likely a species-wide ability, do all Raxacoricofallapatorians love the hunt, or is that something the Slitheen have specifically embraced? Is nudity the norm amongst all Raxacoricofallapatorians or are the Slitheen just nudists? Can all the entire species feel the death of a single individual? Or is it that the members of a single family can feel the deaths of those related to them? For that matter, what is the range of that sense? We see it work across a city but across a planet? Between planets? Galaxies? What are its limits?

Mind you, I don't expect or need the episode (or even the series) to answer those questions. Rather I applaud these tiny hints about a larger culture, allowing the viewers' imaginations to fill in the blanks. Firing the imagination is, after all, one of the things that makes science fiction so appealing. It reminds me a bit of some of the things that Robert Holmes wrote for Classic Doctor Who, dropping hints about how Sontaran biology works or off-handedly mentioning little tidbits about the 51st century in The Talons of Weng-Chiang but leaving us to imagine the rest of it on our own. Russell T Davies has mentioned his admiration for Holmes' writing and you can definitely see the influence here.

I also think the physicality of the Slitheen works pretty well. To start with, this episode gives us the information that they are calcium-based creatures, which effectively means they are made of tooth or bone. Considering teeth are some of the hardest parts of the human body, that implies that Slitheen are extremely physically durable (well, unless doused with vinegar, anyway.)

I think their "look" works pretty well too. Like the farting established in the previous episode, there appears to be a deliberate disconnect between their appearance and their threat level. They have little pot-bellies. They have adorable baby faces. They're "cute" even as they hunt you down to kill you. I said, in regards to the first episode of this story, that evil is an act, not an attitude. Here we're reminded that evil isn't an appearance either. Monsters (and people, for that matter) are truly scary because of what they do, not what they look like.

Moving away from the Slitheen a bit, one of the other things that I think really works well in this episode is the dialogue, specifically inter-character banter.

The Doctor's little joke as he escapes into the lift is actually pretty funny but the snappy conversations between the Doctor, Rose and Harriet are absolutely priceless. Perhaps the best bit is when they are confronting the Slitheen through the door into the Cabinet Room, with little quips about which way to pass the sherry interspersed with more serious conversation but pitched at just the right level so as to not make a joke of the whole conversation. It's the very definition of people trying to make jokes to keep themselves calm in an impossible situation and I think it works perfectly, Both the writing and the actors have a gift for handling the tonal shifts in the conversation brilliantly. In particular, I always like the look on Annette Badland's face as the Doctor closes the door during their second confrontation. She goes from amusement to genuine worry in the blink of an eye and it works really well.

Kudos also go to the "Narrows it down" conversation as they try to figure out how to save Jackie and Mickey. Again, there's just the right amount of humor ("You kiss this man?") to keep it entertaining for the audience without tipping over into farce.

Like the fart jokes, the humor works as a subversion, reminding us that all is not well just because someone is putting on a brave face and making a joke to ease the tension. You only have to "Keep Calm and Carry On" when something's going on that would cause you not to be calm in the first place.

Things That Don't Work

Ok, so now the tougher stuff.

First, the CGI.

In terms of the Slitheen, it's not that I have an issue with using CGI monsters, or even that I'm that concerned about how realistic the CGI looks. (If unrealistic monsters were enough to turn me off of Doctor Who, I'd have quit watching long before 2005.) No, the issue I have is more that there's a massive disparity between the Slitheen as represented in CGI form and in physical costume form. They display a smoothness and economy of movement when computer generated that the live-action costumes don't just fail to match, but can't even come close to approaching. This draws the viewers attention directly to the failure of these two realizations to match up.

The shots of the missile toward the end of the episode are also a bit inconsistent, with the long shots looking fine but the closeups looking very video-gamelike.

Those are just effects issues, though. Doctor Who has always struggled with its effects. More problematic for me is the inconsistency of tone.

When I say inconsistency of tone, I'm not simply talking about the presence of humor. When discussing the last episode, I made a point of saying I'm not bothered by the presence of humor in this story or really in Doctor Who at all. Flippant jokes in the face of danger are a staple of Doctor Who and many other stories I like. I don't mind when Doctor Who gets silly.

When I discussed the Slitheen in the previous episode, I mentioned that their farting and general silliness actually made them scarier because it accentuates the idea that evil can hide within less-than-intimidating frames and because the very idea that someone might sadistically enjoy murdering you is scary.

But, in order to sell that, the story itself must be presented in such a way as to make it clear that the danger is real, even if it comes wrapped in a humorous form. It's ok to vary the tone a bit but doing so means you need to pick the correct tones for the correct moments and, if I'm honest, I'm not sure the director makes the best judgments along those lines.

For example, the only "fart joke" in this two-parter that I genuinely don't like is the farting sound right before the Slitheen in Mickey's kitchen explodes. Why? Because I feel like the tone of the scene needed to be about whether or not the vinegar thrown on it was going to work or not. The humor was already taken care of by the fact that it then exploded all over Mickey. It was the tension that needed emphasis.

There's also the bit where Jackie and Mickey are sneaking around, trying to avoid the police outside. This is accompanied by light-hearted music from composer Murray Gold that wouldn't be out of place in an old Peter Sellars Pink Panther film. This sets the whole bit up as if it's some sort of slapstick comedy about trying to avoid getting caught when...it's not. It's about trying to stay alive because one of the police is a homicidal alien. Again, I don't have a problem with humor (even slapstick humor, I love The Pink Panther movies) but I feel like it runs counter to the story the script is trying to tell. The story is telling us that we should be worried for these people's survival and the music is telling us we should be laughing at them.

As I think about it, Gold's music choices across the episode may be a bit of the issue for me in general. They're frequently comedic and goofy in moments that, to me, seem like they should be scary or dramatic. Even the more heroic-themed moments toward the end sound a bit tinny and trite to me.

The irony of this is that I know I've come to absolutely adore Gold's music over the years he's worked on the show, but this is early days and he's still finding his feet.

This dichotomy of tone does extend beyond the music, though. At the climax of the episode, we get a great deal of tension built out of the fact that the Doctor's plan can't guarantee Rose's safety...and then, once the plan is enacted, there doesn't actually seem to be much in the way of tension over her survival. This isn't just true of the audience but also of the characters themselves. Rose decides to treat a missile strike like it's just an earthquake and the narrative just rolls with that, allowing them to escape not just alive but basically unharmed entirely. From the moment Rose says "we're gonna ride this out" there's no question that's just what they'll do.

If I am remembering correctly, this two-parter was actually the first story to be recorded for the 2005 series and, in a sense, that explains some of the issues above. I don't blame them for still being in the process of figuring out the balance between practical and CGI effects, for taking a while to suss out the show's musical soundscape or for needing a few episodes to figure out where to draw the danger/humor line. It's teething troubles for a new production.

Does the Good Outweight the Bad?

On the whole? Yes.

Now, I'm biased in that assessment, of course, because I honestly think there's a nugget of goodness to be found in pretty much any episode of Doctor Who.

But more than that, this episode, indeed this whole two-parter, is filled with interesting ideas. It's failures are ones of execution, not inspiration. And I'd rather watch a good story with some clunky execution over the polished production of a bad story any day. I'll take World War Three over Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in a heartbeat.

Plus, even in the midst of all this tonal whiplash, the episode does have some interesting character stuff.

Characters

Harriet Jones comes into her own. Some of that is the script. Some of it is Penelope Wilton's perfectly judged performance. Both show her slowly overcoming her fears to stand brave and resolute, rising above her personal danger to take charge of the crisis to the entire world. When we reach the point where she "commands" the Doctor to stop worrying about the safety of his plan and get on with it, she'd reached the pinnacle of that character evolution. That she goes and takes charge of the relief efforts afterword (and will go on to be Prime Minister) is almost an afterthought, at least in this story.

But even before we get that far, we can see her rising to the occasion in earlier, smaller situations. She steps in to try and prevent the Slitheen from killing Rose. She interrupts the Doctor's confrontation to tell him which way to pass the sherry. She feels confident enough to offer her opinion on how Rose's friendship with the Doctor seems to have made her quick to violence. When she finally takes full charge of the situation, it feels like a natural outgrowth of the character who did all these things and who was still fighting for cottage hospitals in the face of of an alien invasion in the last episode.

As usual, I present my Mickey disclaimer...

I analyze fictional narratives. That's what I do. When those narratives involve actors, the analysis must, necessarily, involve discussion of the actors' performances. When I'm discussing Mickey, I'm talking about the character and the actor's performance of the character. I'm not discussing Noel Clarke, the actor who plays him, outside of that context. Sometimes talking about the character necessitates talking about the Clarke's performance and will include the occasional comment about when I think his performance was particularly well judged (or if it wasn't.) But this is entirely within the context of the performance and is not meant to be, nor should it ever be interpreted to be, an endorsement or defense of Noel Clarke's behavior outside of the context of his performance as Mickey. I find the actions he is alleged to have taken absolutely deplorable and representative of the worst kind of abuses of power. (And that "alleged" is only in there because there hasn't been a court case.)

Mickey was already portrayed more sympathetically in the last episode and, in this one, he gets to be actually heroic. Because of this, the Doctor's mockery of him feels less deserved and, honestly, a bit cruel. (From the Doctor's point of view, all the reasons he runs Mickey down in the previous episode still apply, though. This story just goes even further in making it clear the Doctor's being a bit unreasonable.)

We see that Mickey has unexpected depths to his character here. He saves Jackie twice (and is pointedly ready to sacrifice himself to save her the second time.) He then tops this off by saving the world.

We also see that he hasn't just sat around for the past year. He's been exploring who the Doctor is and what he's about (at least as much as he can from his computer.) When we get a look at his apartment, we seen that it's filled with bits information, drawings and scribbles about the Doctor. Indeed, if I remember correctly, the BBC floated the extra-fictional notion that Mickey was keeping up the website of the deceased Clive from Rose.

Mickey is also honest about who he is, both to others and to himself. When given the opportunity to travel with the Doctor and Rose at the end of the episode he turns it down, specifically because he is self-aware enough to know he can't handle that lifestyle. Is it because he's scared? Is it because his ideal life is more quiet? Is it because he knows that, if confronted with the dangers the Doctor encounters he'll have to keep stepping up the way he did in this story and he doesn't want to? Or that he knows he will even if he'd rather not? The episode doesn't delve deep enough into Mickey's motivations to answer these questions but, given his general honesty with himself, I'm reasonably sure Mickey himself knows the answers, even if he can't articulate them. The sole exception to Mickey's honesty is that he doesn't want Rose herself to know he turned down the trip. This is likely a matter of pride about how he appears in Rose's eyes and the Doctor obliges him.

This candor about oneself is a trait that might not be true of any of the other regular characters in the series at this point, not Jackie, Rose or the Doctor himself. (How honest can a man who's spent the majority of his life hiding his own name really be?) It is, however, a trait the Doctor clearly respects, even if it isn't one he personally embraces. This respect leads him to cover for Mickey with Rose, blaming his own prejudice for Mickey not coming with them, rather than admitting it's Mickey's own choice. With this switch it becomes clear that any later mockery of Mickey from the Doctor will be in fun or for another purpose but no longer be malicious.

This is actually a rather big (if underplayed) moment from a character perspective. The Doctor has always been a person who needs others to earn his respect. More than that, he usually makes a snap judgment about people and rolls with it from that point onward. (Given how many close-minded jerks the Doctor's run into over the centuries, it's hardly surprising, really.) The number of characters that the Doctor initially dislikes but later comes around to respect in the series is quite small and Mickey has just been added to its modest number.

Jackie...I'll be honest. I don't think Jackie gets anywhere as much redemption out of this story as Mickey does. Indeed, I found it an odd choice that she is effectively placed in the "damsel in distress" role in this story as she seems like an odd choice for drawing audience sympathy with her peril at this point. She still remains overbearing, unpleasant, a bit pathetic and still has her priorities all skewed. To me, that makes it hard for me to work up a lot of worry when she's placed in peril.

Mind you, I'm not saying that death is the deserved fate of unpleasant people in real life or anything but rather that, in this narrative, it feels as though the story is expecting me to be much more invested in whether Jackie survives the Slitheen attack than the character has earned. It almost feels as though we're expected to have that investment based purely on her being Rose's mom.

But Jackie remains, just as in her first appearance, not a very good mom. She's still got her priorities all skewed. Her big question of the episode, whether or not the Doctor can guarantee her daughter's safety, is a completely unreasonable one. No one can ever fully guarantee someone else's safety and treating that inability like it's a disqualification for associating with your child is ridiculous. Safety is never guaranteed.

Further, putting all of this on the Doctor denies Rose herself any agency in the decision-making. It's placing the Doctor in an in loco parentis role where Rose herself gets no say in her own life despite having reached the age where she should be allowed to do so.

Further, unlike Mickey and her daughter, Jackie doesn't have the courage to act on her own convictions. She mentions that she could act to stop Mickey from launching the missile and Mickey even gives her the opportunity to do so but she doesn't. Not only won't she allow her daughter agency but she won't even seize it for herself. Jackie's all talk.

Later on, when commenting on the situation, Jackie also wants to tear down Harriet's (not inconsiderable) contribution to the resolution of the crisis. This reminds me vaguely of the "putting on airs" thing she had going on back in Rose, the idea that she sees someone taking on any sort of role of authority, deserved or not, as bad.

Mind you, none of these things seem out of character for Jackie and Camille Coduri plays them well. I'm just noting that Jackie's character development is slower than Mickey's.

It's not non-existent, though. She does at least credit Rose and, begrudgingly, the Doctor for their parts in resolving the crisis. She also reaches out, offering to cook a family meal in an attempt to get to know the Doctor. That last one's a little selfish, as it involves trying to drag the Doctor into her world rather than understand his, but it's some progress. (I'd add that she allows Rose to leave in the end but, honestly, I don't think she has much choice in that. The thing about Rose is that she actually doesn't need her mom's permission to exercise her agency.)

And Rose knows this but still strives to avoid the confrontation with her mom itself. Note her line on the phone about "Is she alright? Don't put her on. Just tell me." But then, who among us wouldn't prefer to avoid confrontation with our parents?

What's interesting about the question of Rose's agency is that, just as she's exercising it with or without her mom's permission, she's also voluntarily giving some of it up where the Doctor is concerned. When Jackie questions the Doctor's plan and her daughter's safety, Rose's reaction is tell the Doctor to do what he has to regardless of the consequences to herself. Rose has effectively reached the point of absolute trust in the Doctor.

That's an interesting development, considering that just one adventure ago, she was actively against one of his plans (and turned out to be right about it.) Even an episode before that, she had to pry the most basic information about the Doctor's background out of him. Given those things, this seems like a significant jump in the level of trust she has in the Doctor. It's enough to make one wonder if there have been intervening adventures between their trip to see Charles Dickens and their arrival back at the Powell Estate. I know there were certainly Who novels published around this time, set during this season, so I suppose it's possible some of them take place during that gap. (Although I recall at least one of them being a rematch with the Slitheen so it must come after this story.)

Or it could just be that, as Jackie says, Rose is "infatuated" with the Doctor and it's getting the better of her. No, I don't believe their relationship is a romantic/sexual one (at last not at this point) but that doesn't preclude Rose mooning over the Doctor a bit from her side of things. Rose had a line way back in the first episode about having "left school" because of a relationship with a "Jimmy Stearns" so there may actually be a precedent for Rose giving up agency because of attraction to someone.

Regardless of how Rose arrived at this increased, nay complete, trust in the Doctor, it's interesting to note that it may not be a good thing. Rose may have convinced herself that the Doctor is always right but he's not...and he knows it. He may know it better than anyone else, really. You can see that knowledge in Eccleston's performance when he can't answer Jackie's question about whether Rose will be safe with him. Unfair question or not, he knows the answer to it is "no." The moment is made all the more entertainingly uncomfortable by the fact that Rose is looking him and clearly expecting a "yes."

Because the Doctor knows better than anyone else that he can't save everyone. Indeed, we open the episode with him having failed to save all the other alien experts from being killed by the Slitheen. He survives but is surrounded by the bodies of people not so lucky. It's the story of his life, in one sense. Worse, he gets blamed for their murders. (Something else that seems to happen to him a lot.)

That beginning, where the Doctor's potential (if unnamed) allies are killed sets up a situation where the Doctor has no allies amongst the human authorities in this story. This is not going to be the first modern era UNIT story. The Brigadier neither appears nor is mentioned, indeed, at this point, those of us who knew the character didn't even know if he was meant to still be alive.

No, this story make a point of emphasizing how alone the Doctor is in his responsibilities. He's tasked with saving the world by default, because he's the only one left who can. The burden of how to do so is on him alone. As he says, that's what his life is: "Just standing up and making a choice." It's an awesome responsibility and makes for an exceedingly lonely life. It's no wonder he's a bit prickly when questioned and seeks out companionship when he can find it.

And yet, when he saves the world this time, it's by reaching out to the small group of allies that he does have. Rose. Mickey. Harriet. Sort of Jackie. They're not UNIT but they're backing him up, helping him to implement his plan. Even as the Doctor sees himself as carrying the burden of choice on his own, they step up to bolster him. Mickey actually carries out the plan, Rose makes it clear that she'll support his decision and Harriet formally takes the burden of responsibility off of his shoulders by ordering him to do it. The Doctor's not really as alone as he thinks.

But I think he still sees himself that way. (Honestly, I think, on some level the Doctor always sees himself as alone.) When he talks to Mickey at the end of the episode about erasing all records of him, it becomes clear that he still views himself as dangerous, as something people need to be protected from. Better to be alone and lonely than dangerous to others.

Except...

He still needs Rose as a buffer between himself and that loneliness. This makes for an interesting flaw in the Doctor's character: He believes he's dangerous to be around but simply cannot bear to be completely alone. He tries to offer Mickey the role of accompanying them and keeping Rose "safe" but we know that, of course, it'd just end up being the Doctor having to do so for both of them. It's almost like the offer is, in a small sense, just a way of telling himself he's not risking Rose's life.

As I said, it's an interesting flaw for the Doctor, not least of which is because it's one that's consistent for nearly the entire run of the show, certainly one that's present for any time he actively asks someone to travel with him. The Doctor's life is dangerous. The Doctor knows his life is dangerous. People die around him virtually everywhere he goes. But, despite that, he simply can't resist the urge to ask someone along for the ride, no matter the risk. Indeed, the TARDIS' failure to return in "10 seconds" at the end of the episode only emphasizes that Rose is in more potential danger than she thinks.

Still, long-running character flaws aside, the Doctor's lifestyle does bring advantages with it. Certainly the time travel aspect of his life allows him access to knowledge that gives him an edge, such as his knowledge of the armor plating around the Cabinet Room. I suppose that it's how he knows about the password to get into the defense system and launch the missile as well.

Speaking of that missile, I'm always amused when the Doctor's solution to a problem effectively just amounts to "blow it up." It's more common than his general anti-violence rhetoric would lead you to believe. The end of this story tends to remind me of the classic story The Seeds of Doom where, again, the Doctor and his allies are under siege and solve the issue by calling in a whacking great assault from the air to blow up the antagonists. I suppose mild hypocrisy about violence is yet another of the Doctor's consistent flaws.

And since I'm on a bit of a tear about the Doctor's flaws, let's talk about the choice he forces on Rose at the end of the episode. Jackie is reaching out to Rose with a meal as a peace offering and Rose reaches out to the Doctor with the same offer. For Rose, this would be the best of both worlds. She gets to keep a tie to her domestic life and, indeed, draw the Doctor into it a bit, while still having access to the wonderful world of travel and adventure that he represents.

But the Doctor doesn't do domestic. That's hardly surprising. This is a man who left Gallifrey because he was bored by its version of domestic life. In comparison, human domestic life must feel even more mind-numbingly tedious. The Doctor's life is dangerous and potentially fatal but it's never boring. Clearly he's not willing to make even a small concession toward domesticity at this point.

More than that, as I said, he forces that choice on Rose as well. As I mentioned above, he clearly feels the need for a companion to alleviate the loneliness he feels and he's not willing to give an inch on that. He wants Rose to choose his world, not hover between the two, something she is clearly trying to do.

In a certain sense, he's right. We've seen, ever since way back in the days of Ian and Barbara, that once the Doctor's world has you, it never really lets you go. You can't really have a normal life again, at least not without entirely ejecting the Doctor from your life. (And, as seen in School Reunion and The Power of the Doctor, his world seems to have a lingering effect on former companions even then.)

But, on the other hand, it's not like the Doctor plays fair about the choice. He doesn't just leave her to make her decision. No, he "sells" his side, describing a magnificent sight he could show her. (And ignoring the likely possibility that they'll get involved in something dangerous in the process because when don't they?) It's not as blatantly sinister, but really, this is just a variant on what he did way back in The Dead Planet with the fluid link: He's stacking the odds of the decision so that the companion will feel obliged to come with him,

I do rather enjoy Eccleston's performance of that scene, particularly as the look on his face makes it clear that the Doctor isn't entirely sure that it will work, that he's worried that he might be pushing Rose away. Now we in the audience likely don't feel that worry. As soon as he presented the choice we knew Rose was going to pick traveling with the Doctor over dinner with Jackie but then we know the storytelling conventions of Doctor Who and television in general. Further, we can see that Rose is infatuated with the Doctor, even if both she and he can't see/don't want to admit it. (Finally, something I agree with Jackie about.)

The scene in question, though, also highlights that the situation works in reverse. The Doctor is infatuated with Rose as well. It's tough to say exactly what form that infatuation takes, whether it's conventional attraction, love or something else. Certainly I think a case can be made that the Doctor is more in love with what Rose represents than Rose herself. I mean Rose is great and all, but I don't know that she's especially more impressive than most of his previous companions, the ones who didn't try to drag him into their domestic lives.

But, as I mentioned when discussing the previous episode, I suspect that, to the Doctor, Rose represents a bygone era, that pre-Time War part of his life when he could travel around with a companion or two, having fun escapades and it was all a bit of a jolly romp. Sure there was danger and death, but that was all part of the adventure. Despite how crazy it was, it was a more "innocent" time for him, one that he idealizes and thinks he might be able to recreate with Rose at his side. Indeed, he's already done so a bit. The first three episodes are really not far off from the kind of adventures he had in the classic series. They're just told in a more modern style.

To be clear, while I've gone on a bit about the flaws in the Doctor's perspective above, I don't see those as flaws in the writing of the character. I've always found the Doctor a fascinating character because of his flaws, not in spite of them. One of the things I was very happy to see when the series started up again was that Russell T Davies clearly shares that perspective on the character.

Little Tidbits

-I said above that I think some of the humorous tone of the episode is "off." But it's worth mentioning the bits of humor I think do work well in the episode. As I mentioned above, The Doctor/Rose/Harriet banter is priceless, particularly when they're confronting the Slitheen in the doorway of the Cabinet Room. The Doctor turning to the lead guard after trying to convince him that the Prime Minister is an alien and saying "That was never gonna work, was it?" is very funny. The guard commander opening the door to the Prime Minister's office, seeing a bunch of Slitheen and closing the door again is a wonderfully awkward physical gag (and I'm not really that big on awkwardness-based humor so it's saying something that I liked it.)

Humor is an essential part of Doctor Who. I would never want to see it abandoned entirely or even ejected just to keep things tense or scary. I just think they were still working out the general tone in this episode.

-This is the second episode where the villains' plot is centered around a profit motive, Cassandra having had money in mind in The End of the World. When I first watched this season, on broadcast, I remember not being too thrilled with these motivations. They seemed a bit mundane to me. I wanted something more "sci fi." In the intervening years, I've contemplated it a bit (and become a bit less enamored of capitalism as a whole) and I'm more on board. I still wouldn't want it to be the overwhelming motivation of every villain in the series (that might be a bit too realistic for me) but it cropping up now and then in the modern series, as it did in the classic, doesn't bother me.

-The idea that you could hack into the defense system with a single "Buffalo" password seems pretty unrealistic...or does it? Crappy cyber security for the government? Yeah, I can buy that.

-I like the rising level of agency the unnamed guard commander of Downing Street has in this episode. He goes from just following orders, to questioning them, to seeing the Slitheen, to fully taking charge of the evacuation in and out of the building. Hopefully Harriet keeps him on when she's Prime Minister.

-I liked that they highlighted the fact that no one, not even Harriet, learned the name of the secretary killed by "Margaret" Slitheen. Science fiction, and action narrative in general, is very prone to the "red shirt" thing where characters exist only to die and prove the situation is serious. The "red shirt" name may have come from Star Trek but it pervades a lot of popular sci fi and Doctor Who has never been an exception to it. Lampshading the effect in this way, noting that every person has a name, a story, a life even if it only tangentially touches that of the main characters, is a nice way of cushioning that effect.

His name was Indra Ganesh, by the way.

-"Raxacoricofallipatorius." RTD really likes his long names, doesn't he?

-Like the profit-motive thing, I wasn't big on the "Massive Weapons of Destruction, capable of being deployed in 45 seconds," line when I first saw this. I thought it was far too blatant.

And, again, I've come around on this a bit. Subtlety has its place in storytelling but I think, too often, we treat subtlety like it's a goal in and of itself, as if being blatant is somehow inherently bad. There's a time for subtlety and there's a time for the big unsubtle brick to the head. If the metaphor in a story is so subtle it can be ignored, that's not a virtue. Metaphor is supposed to make us think about the things it's standing in for, not allow us to conveniently ignore them.

-RTD definitely had his pulse on the way the news worked in 2005...which makes it a bit interesting to look at this story again in late 2024. The television landscape has changed a lot in the intervening years, particularly in that it is a less collective experience than it was. I can't imagine people being packed into a single apartment, watching the events unfold via newscasts the way they do in this two-parter now. More likely everyone would just be checking their individual devices. On the other hand, in the spirit of Doctor Who, time has effectively taken what was a "modern" episode and turned it into a period piece. (To an extent, I suppose that happens to all Doctor Who stories set in "modern" times.)

That said, I'm not sure that "countdown to the release of the nuclear codes" thing RTD has the news do would have flown even in 2005. That feels very much like just trying to add a ticking clock to the story.

-"Voicemail dooms us all" is a great line...and probably true.

-The TARDIS has a phone! I like that the Doctor laughs off the idea that Rose thought it might not...because neither did the audience, mostly because we didn't see one in 26 seasons of Classic Who. (But then, none of his companions had a cell phone in those days so how often would it have come up?) I do rather like that the TARDIS phone looks like a normal terrestrial phone the Doctor's grafted into the TARDIS systems. Maybe that's exactly what it is.

-We get another ever-so-brief "Bad Wolf" reference when the Doctor makes the kid who graffitied it onto the TARDIS clean it off.

-Mickey expresses disappointment at humanity's reaction to the whole situation, namely writing it all off as a hoax. This is effectively just a continuation of a theme from Classic Who. As the 7th Doctor put is "Humanity has the most amazing capacity for self-deception."

We see what we want to see and pointedly don't see what we don't wish to acknowledge. The past few years of real life have certainly proven the Doctor right in that regard.

"See you in 10 seconds."

It's not quite a cliffhanger. We don't end with the Doctor and Rose in immediate danger. But it is portentous. Arriving a year late at the beginning of this story should have impressed upon Rose that her ability to return happily (and immediately) to her normal life is gone...but she still clings to it.

Mickey and Jackie, though? Well, they know she's wrong...

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