Voyage of the Damned (Doctor Who)

For the 1976 film of the same title, see Voyage of the Damned.

192 – "Voyage of the Damned"
Doctor Who episode
File:Dr who christmas 07.jpg David Tennant and Kylie Minogue in a promotional photo for the episode.
Cast
Doctor David Tennant (Tenth Doctor)
Companion Kylie Minogue (Astrid Peth)
Production
Directed by	James Strong
Written by	Russell T. Davies
Executive producer(s)	Russell T. Davies Julie Gardner
Production code	4.X
Series	Christmas Special (2007)
Running time	60 mins
First broadcast	25 December, 2007
Chronology
← Preceded by "Last of the Time Lords" (episode) "Time Crash" (special) Followed by → Series 4 premiere

"Voyage of the Damned" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It is scheduled to be broadcast on BBC One on 25 December, 2007, and is the third Christmas special of the revived Doctor Who series by Russell T. Davies.

Synopsis

This story continues from the final scene in "Last of the Time Lords", also reprised in "Time Crash", in which the Titanic breaches the walls of the TARDIS console room. In 1912, an alien menace infiltrates the launch party for the famous ship.

Cast

• The Doctor — David Tennant
• Astrid Peth — Kylie Minogue
• Captain — Geoffrey Palmer
• Singer — Yamit Mamo
• TBA — Clive Swift
• TBA — Debbie Chazen
• TBA — Clive Rowe
• TBA — Gray O'Brien
• TBA — Russell Tovey
• TBA — George Costigan
• TBA — Bernard Cribbins
• TBA — Jimmy Vee

Cast notes

• Clive Swift previously appeared as Jobel in Revelation of the Daleks.
• Geoffrey Palmer previously appeared in Doctor Who and the Silurians and The Mutants. His son, Charles Palmer, directed four episodes of Series 3.
• Bernard Cribbins previously appeared in the 1966 film Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD, based on the 6-part TV story The Dalek Invasion of Earth shown 2 years previously. He also appeared in the Big Finish Productions story Horror of Glam Rock.
• Jimmy Vee previously appeared as the Moxx of Balhoon in "The End of the World", the Space Pig in "Aliens of London" and the Graske in the interactive special "Attack of the Graske". In The Sarah Jane Adventures he appeared as the Child Slitheen in Revenge of the Slitheen and The Lost Boy and reappeared as the Graske in Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?.
• Yamit Mamo performed the songs "My Angel Put the Devil in me" and "The Stowaway" on the series 3 soundtrack, the latter being specially composed for this episode.
• Kylie Minogue has previously been referenced as a real person in the Doctor Who universe, in "The Idiot's Lantern" (2006) - with the Doctor exclaiming that '"It's never too late, as a wise person once said... Kylie, I think!"', in reference to her 1989 hit single "Never Too Late".

Continuity

The Titanic and Doctor Who

The RMS Titanic has been mentioned a number of times previously, but this marks its first actual appearance.

• In the Fourth Doctor story The Invasion of Time (1978), the Doctor claims that he "wasn't responsible" for the disaster. He also expresses a dislike for the term "impregnable" in Robot, comparing it to "unsinkable". When asked "What's wrong with unsinkable?", the Doctor says, "Nothing, as the iceberg said to the Titanic, 'Glug Glug Glug Glug'."
• In "Rose", the Ninth Doctor is shown in an old photograph with "the Daniels family of Southampton" on the eve of their scheduled voyage aboard the Titanic. For an unspecified reason, they cancelled their trip, escaping the ship's fate. In "The End of the World", the Doctor himself makes reference to the Titanic, mentioning that he "was on board another ship once. They said that was unsinkable. I ended up clinging to an iceberg, it wasn't half cold."
• The Titanic appeared in the Virgin New Adventures book The Left-Handed Hummingbird, written by Kate Orman. As with all spin-off media, the canonicity of this appearance is unclear.
• The 1989 Doctor Who Magazine comic strip Follow That TARDIS! includes a sequence in which the Titanic is deliberately rammed into the iceberg in the mistaken belief that it is the Meddling Monk's TARDIS.

Pre-broadcast publicity

• Kylie Minogue was initially reported by tabloid newspapers to be appearing in this episode. Russell T Davies dismissed this story, but a statement by Minogue indicated that she would be in the episode. The BBC officially confirmed her role in early July.
• On 19 July 2007, The Sun published a photograph of an actor on set in Wales, in make-up, supposedly playing a red, spiky creature called "Porg".
• On 20 July 2007, the Paisley Daily Express reported that David Tennant's mother, Helen McDonald, had died from cancer, and SyFy Portal noted that filming had been delayed by one week so Tennant could attend his mother's funeral.
• The Series 3 Doctor Who soundtrack includes a track named "The Stowaway", which Amazon.co.uk have confirmed is a song appearing in this episode, in the same vein as "Song for Ten" and "Love Don't Roam" in previous Christmas specials (both of which were on the original soundtrack). The full song was released online at SilvaScreen Records' MySpace page.