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The Empty Child

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168a – "The Empty Child"
Doctor Who episode
File:Doctor Who The Empty Child.jpg
Doctor Constantine succumbs to the same symptoms his patients exhibit.
Cast
Guest
Production
Directed byJames Hawes
Written bySteven Moffat
Script editorElwen Rowlands
Produced byPhil Collinson
Executive producer(s)Russell T. Davies
Julie Gardner
Mal Young
Production code1.9
SeriesSeries 1
Running time1 of 2 episodes, 45 mins
First broadcastMay 21, 2005
Chronology
← Preceded by
"Father's Day" 		Followed by →
"The Doctor Dances"
List of episodes (2005–present)

"The Empty Child" is an episode in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast on May 21, 2005. It is the first of a two-part story. The concluding episode, "The Doctor Dances", was broadcast on May 28. The two-part story won the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.[1]

This episode marked the first appearance of John Barrowman as Jack Harkness, a mysterious "Time Agent", who was the first character in the show's history who was explicitly not a strict heterosexual.

Synopsis

Chasing a metallic object through the vortex, the Ninth Doctor and Rose arrive in London during the Blitz. There, they find homeless children being terrorised, dead bodies with unexplained marks on their hands, a strange cylinder guarded by the army, and the dashing Captain Jack Harkness.

Plot

The Doctor and Rose Tyler are travelling in the TARDIS, chasing a metal cylinder that is marked as dangerous through the time vortex; the cylinder skips and leaves the vortex, traveling to London some time in the past. The TARDIS materializes at night, within a month of when the cylinder should have arrived. The Doctor investigates a nearby cabaret to try to find word of the cylinder, while Rose spots a young boy, alone, in a gas mask on a nearby roof and climbs up to it to try to help him. Shortly, air-raid sirens begin to go off, and the Doctor realizes they have landed during the London Blitz of World War II, with German planes making a bombing run. The Doctor runs back to the TARDIS but cannot find Rose; however, he is very puzzled when the telephone of his police box starts ringing as it is not a real phone but part of the TARDIS's disguise. He goes to answer when a young woman tells him not to answer it, though he still does, only to hear a young boy asking for his mummy over the phone. The Doctor turns back to the woman to find she has left and gone to raid the house of a family that has left for a bomb shelter for food, and goes to follow her.

The Doctor watches the young woman, who has now brought several other homeless children to enjoy the abandoned meal in the home, and decides to introduce himself to them. He learns that the young woman is called Nancy, and that they have been sustaining themselves this way with every bombing run. However, the group is startled to find a young boy in a gas mask knocking on a window; Nancy and the other children bar the house even as the child tries to stick his hand through the mail slot of the front door. Nancy tells the Doctor to not touch the boy, or he will become like the boy, "empty". The boy is able to control the electronic devices in the home, pleading for his mummy through the phone, radio, and a toy clapping monkey. As Nancy and the other child leave with the ransacked food, the Doctor opens the front door, only to find the boy gone. The Doctor follows Nancy to an abandoned rail yard where she has made her home, and tells her that he's made the connection between the cylinder that fell and the "empty" boy. Realizing the connection, Nancy tells him about a bomb falling near the Limehouse Green station "that was not a bomb". As they investigate the site, protected by a fence and armed troops, Nancy suggests the Doctor talk to Doctor Constantine. The Doctor remarks that Nancy is looking after the children to make up for something, and she admits that it is because her brother Jamie died during an air raid. The Doctor tells Nancy encouragement that everything will be all right before he leaves her for the hospital.

Inside the hospital, the Doctor finds Dr. Constantine who stands watch over several beds filled with corpses, each still but wearing a gas mask. Dr. Constantine points out to the Doctor that the masks are not physical but appear to be part of the body, and they all share the exact same scars and external injuries. Dr. Constantine explains that when the "bomb" fell, it claimed one victim, but those that came into contact with him began to show the same effects, and the symptoms spread from there. Dr. Constantine reveals that the corpses react simultaneously to a large rap of his cane on the floor, or, possibly, him hitting the metal can, and that the first victim was Nancy's brother. Before he can explain more, however, Dr. Constantine is changed in front of the Doctor's eyes into a similar gas mask-wearing zombie, asking for his "mummy".

Meanwhile, as Rose attempts to use a rope to climb up to the boy, she discovers the rope is actually a line hanging from a barrage balloon above, and it lifts her up and off the roof. Captain Jack Harkness of the RAF, participating in a function in a nearby building, spots Rose's plight using anachronstic binoculars and excuses himself. Shortly thereafter. Two scenes later, Rose can no longer hold her grip on the rope and falls, but is caught in a tractor beam and brought safely aboard a Chula spaceship manned by Jack, whereupon she faints. When she recovers, Jack identifies her as a "Time Agent", and treats her rope-burnt hands using the ship's "nanogenes". Both Jack and Rose appear to find the other attractive, and Jack invites Rose to the top of the ship, tethered to Big Ben. As they continue to flirt, Jack explains to Rose that he used to be a Time Agent and since has gone freelance, and that he has something that the Time Agency wants and that he expects to have to negotiate with Rose for it. Rose bluffs and tells him she would need to consult with her companion first, though she needs to find him first. Jack uses the ship to find the Doctor's location as he explains that the object is a fully equipped Chula warship, and that he knows that in two hours it will be destroyed by another bombing raid.

Finding the Doctor's location, Jack and Rose join up with the Doctor at the hospital shortly after Dr. Constantine's transformation. The Doctor learns of the situation from Rose, but hearing about the Chula warship, demands Jack to tell the truth. Jack admits it was just an "ambulance", trying to bluff its value, but argues that it has nothing to do with the infection. As they argue, the corpses all rise and start to approach the trio; simultaneously, Nancy, who has returned to the house to collect more food, is also trapped and approached by the young boy, who she knows is Jamie, still asking for his "mummy", leading to a cliffhanger ending, continued in The Doctor Dances.

Cast notes

Continuity

  • The Doctor notes when the TARDIS lands how they always bump into Earth. Many fans noted that during this and the 2006 series, most of the stories were set on Earth or on a space station nearby.
  • This episode is the first to feature the character of Captain Jack Harkness as portrayed by John Barrowman, who recurs in the remainder of the episodes of the 2005 series. He also appears in the New Series Adventures novels and his own series, Torchwood. He then reappeared in the Series 3 finale, Utopia, The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords
  • As the Chula ship jumps the time track, on the console screen it is shown to be in the time vortex as seen in the credits. The TARDIS jumped a time track in the First Doctor serial The Space Museum (1965), giving the Doctor and his then companions a glimpse into their apparent future.
  • The Doctor is surprised to hear the police box telephone on the TARDIS ringing. In the animated webcast Scream of the Shalka, the unofficial "Ninth Doctor" (voiced by Richard E. Grant) uses a mobile phone that is detached from the telephone compartment of the TARDIS exterior. A fake police box telephone was seen in Logopolis, although that particular one belonged to the Master's TARDIS, which had adopted a police box disguise for the start of that story. At the end of "World War Three", the Doctor uses a fixed telephone inside the TARDIS console room.
  • According to a police officer in the Torchwood episode "Everything Changes", Captain Jack Harkness failed to report for duty and disappeared on 21 January 1941. This would suggest that this story takes place in January 1941.
  • A later episode of Torchwood, "Captain Jack Harkness" is set not long before this episode.
  • There is no explicit reference to "Bad Wolf" in this episode, but there is one in "The Doctor Dances", similar to there being only one explicit reference in the two-part "Aliens of London"/"World War Three" story. Nancy does comment on the size of the Doctor's ears and nose, as Little Red Riding Hood does to the Big Bad Wolf. Also as of this week, the UNIT website changed its secure password from "buffalo" to "badwolf".[2] See Bad Wolf references in Doctor Who.
  • Albion Hospital, in reality the Cardiff Royal Infirmary, also appears in the episode "Aliens of London".
  • "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances" are the only Doctor Who stories strongly connected with an alien race in which none of its members or representatives are actually seen.
  • The Doctor Who Confidential for this episode describes Jack as a former Time Agent from the 51st century. In The Talons of Weng-Chiang, the villainous Magnus Greel is a time traveller from the 51st century who fears pursuit from Time Agents. The Time Agents appear in the spin-off novels Eater of Wasps by Trevor Baxendale and Trading Futures by Lance Parkin, and their origins in the aftermath of the wars of the 51st century are described in Emotional Chemistry by Simon A. Forward.
  • The Doctor's use of the alias "John Smith" (with or without the title "Doctor") is a longstanding one, first appearing in The Wheel in Space and then several times during the course of the series, in particular the Third Doctor's time with UNIT.
  • At one point, frustrated at not knowing his real name, Rose asks, "Doctor who?" The Doctor's actual name has been a running gag in the series since the very first serial. Examples include The Curse of Peladon and The Five Doctors (and later "Boom Town"). For other aliases used by the Doctor, see "Doctor who?".
  • During the scene in the nightclub, the actor Jamie Foreman who played the character of Eddie Connoly in "The Idiot's Lantern" can be glimpsed. As the two stories take place only 11 years apart, this may be a cameo by the same character.
  • Dr. Constantine remarks that before the war, he was a father and a grandfather, and now he is neither - but is still a doctor. The Doctor says "I know the feeling", a reference to his granddaughter Susan Foreman (and her unnamed father or mother), who is implied to have died in the Time War along with the rest of the Doctor's family.
  • Captain Jack states that he is a conman in this episode, and one of his scams involves an event known as "volcano day". In episode 2 of Doctor Who series 4, the episode "Fires of Pompeii" the Doctor uses the same phrase, "We're in Pompeii, and it's volcano day!".
  • In a recent episode, "The Poison Sky", the Doctor is wearing a gas mask and says "Are you my mummy?", in reference to The Empty Child.

Production

  • This episode had the working title "World War II".[3] In the French language version of the show, this episode has the title Drôle de mort ("Strange/Funny Death"), referring to the Drôle de guerre (Phoney War).
  • Early versions of this script quoted this episode's title as being "An Empty Child". This is a reference to "An Unearthly Child", the very first episode of Doctor Who. The episode's television listings information and the DVD cover also mention that "London is being terrorised by an unearthly child".
  • The sound of Dr Constantine's skull cracking as his face changes into a gas mask was considered too horrific in its full form by the production team and was cut before broadcast. However, writer Steven Moffat claims on the DVD commentary to this episode that the sound was discussed but never put on. According to the Doctor Who Confidential episode "Fear Factor", the effect was added in the version of the episode presented on the The Complete First Series box set.
  • Unlike previous episodes, the "next episode" trailers were shown after the end credits instead of immediately preceding them, possibly in reaction to comments after "Aliens of London" about having the cliff-hanger for that episode spoiled.
  • Captain Jack's line explaining the nanogenes was not audible in either the original or repeat broadcasts on CBC Television in Canada. It was also removed from the UKTV Gold and US Sci Fi Channel broadcasts, although the lines were still present in the subtitles. This adds some confusion to Rose's next line, "Well, tell them thanks!" The cause for this change is unknown.

Outside references

  • Frequently in this episode, Rose makes references to the Star Trek character Mr. Spock. This is the first televised Doctor Who story to make a direct reference to Star Trek, although there had been previous references in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and original novels.
  • Writer Steven Moffat says in the DVD commentary for this episode that the Doctor's reply to Rose asking him what she should call him ("Doctor who?") was originally going to be, "I'd rather have Doctor Who than Star Trek," a metafictional dig at the latter programme.
  • The Chula ships are named after Chula, an Indian/Bangladeshi fusion restaurant in Hammersmith, London where the writers celebrated and discussed their briefs on the scripts they were to write for the season after being commissioned by Russell T. Davies.[4] This meeting was videotaped, and is available on the DVD release of Doctor Who - The Complete First Series.

Historical details

  • Rose is carried away on a rope attached to a barrage balloon. World War II barrage balloons were actually tethered by steel cables to winches anchored to the ground and not by ropes. They were operated by RAF and WAAF Balloon Command personnel.
  • Jack Harkness claims to be an American volunteer with 133 Squadron. Group 12, No. 133 Squadron RAF — one of the "Eagle squadrons", so-called because of their American complement — was formed in July 1941, but was not based in the London area and disbanded in September 1942. He holds the rank of "Captain" (wearing the four band insignia of a Group Captain). This would have been equivalent to a USAAF (full) colonel and would be unusual since The Eagle squadrons were commanded by British or Commonwealth squadron leaders (eqivalent to a USAAF major) with volunteers not holding a rank any higher than a flight lieutenant which is equivalent to a USAAF captain.
  • The gas masks shown in the programme are not normal civilian-issue masks, which had a single wide "window". They are closer to the Special Air Service mask, but lack the slightly conical rubber valve at the "nose". In Doctor Who Confidential it was stated that these were custom masks specially designed by the production team and not replicas of any period equipment.

References

  1. ^ "Hugo and Campbell Awards Winners". Locus Online. 2006-08-26. Retrieved 2006-08-27. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ Top Secret: Unit
  3. ^ A Brief History Of Time (Travel): The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances
  4. ^ London Restaurants | Chula
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