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Doomsday (Doctor Who)

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181b - Doomsday
Cast
Production
Directed byGraeme Harper
Written byRussell T. Davies
Script editorHelen Raynor
Produced byPhil Collinson
Executive producer(s)Russell T. Davies
Julie Gardner
Production codeSeries 2, Episode 13
SeriesSeries 2 (2006)
Running time2 of 2 episodes, 45 mins
First broadcast8 July, 2006
Chronology
← Preceded by
Army of Ghosts 		Followed by →
The Runaway Bride

Doomsday is an episode in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on 8 July 2006 and is the second part of a two-part story. The first part, Army of Ghosts, was broadcast on 1 July. The finale of the 2006 series, it is the final appearance of Billie Piper as companion Rose Tyler. Pete Tyler, Jackie Tyler and Mickey Smith also depart the series in this episode.

Synopsis

Humanity is caught in the crossfire as the Cybermen and the Daleks wage war against each other. When the mysterious Genesis Ark opens, the Tenth Doctor is faced with an impossible decision: saving the world could mean losing Rose Tyler forever…

Plot

Template:Spoiler

File:Doomsdaywho.jpg
"EXTERMINATE!" "DELETE!" "EXTERMINATE!" "DELETE!"
On a coastline looking at the ocean, Rose continues relating the last story she will ever tell: the story of how she died…

Dr Singh, Mickey and Rose are trapped in a sealed room within Torchwood Tower as the four Daleks who have emerged from the void ship approach them, with a vaguely Dalek-shaped artefact following. As they cry out their intent to exterminate, Rose surprises them by shouting out their name. She approaches the black Dalek and offers to tell them how she knows about the Daleks and the Time War but only if they keep them alive. The black Dalek decides that they are necessary and asks about the status of the artefact — which it calls the Genesis Ark. It orders the awakening to begin and declares that the Ark must be protected above all else.

Surrounded by Cybermen, an upset Jackie asks the Doctor what has happened to Rose. The Doctor gives Jackie his word that he will find Rose and get the two of them out. The Cyber-Leader orders Hartman to make contact with her "Central World Authority" and ask for global surrender. When Hartman snaps back that they have no such Authority, the Cyber-Leader replies that they have now. He begins to broadcast on all wavelengths, telling all humankind not to fear as the Cybermen will remove fear, sex, class, colour and creed. Humanity will be upgraded and become like them.

The Cyberman invasion is met by military resistance but continues to advance. The Cyber-Leader does not understand why mankind has not submitted to his instructions. The Doctor angrily retorts that the Cybermen have invaded their planet, taken over their homes and taken their children hostage; of course they are going to fight back.

In the Void Ship room, the black Dalek demands that the humans designate which is the "least important". Although Rose tells them that humans do not class each other like that, Singh steps forward to represent the Torchwood Institute. The Daleks wish information on Earth in this time period, and force Singh to kneel. He says he will tell them anything that does not compromise homeland security, but the black Dalek replies that speech is not necessary; rather than interrogate him, they will extract Singh's brainwaves. As three Dalek manipulator arms press against his skull, Singh screams.

The Cyber-Leader has detected alien technology in the "sphere chamber" and sends two Cybermen down to investigate. At the same time, as Singh's burned-out corpse collapses to the floor, the black Dalek has obtained the information about a second species invading Earth. It, too, sends one of the Daleks, which it calls "Dalek Thay", to investigate. Both groups are feeding video information back to their respective leaders, and so the Doctor sees the Dalek as it encounters the two Cybermen. Each side demands that the other identify itself, and the Dalek lets slip its identity when it proclaims that Daleks do not take orders. The black Dalek also notes that the steel cyborgs bear some resemblance to the "inferior species" known as Cybermen.

The Doctor surreptitiously calls Rose using Jackie's mobile phone, confirming that she is still alive when she answers the call. Rose does not speak but keeps the line open, allowing the Doctor to listen in as the Daleks mention the Genesis Ark. The Cybermen propose an alliance to the Daleks: together they could upgrade the universe, but the Daleks refuse. Declaring that "hostile elements will be deleted," the Cybermen open fire on Thay, but their beams simply bounce off its force field. Thay fires in turn, exterminating the two before him.

The Cyber-Leader speaks directly to the black Dalek, accusing him of declaring war. The black Dalek retorts that it is merely "pest control". Both sides continue to taunt each other, boasting of their military might. As the black Dalek cuts off the transmission, however, he sees the image of the Doctor in the background, identifying him as an enemy. The Daleks turn to Rose, demanding that she identify him. Rose does so, noting with satisfaction that while the Daleks are confident of taking on five million Cybermen, the thought of one Doctor frightens them more.

Requiring more troops, the Cyber-Leader orders his captives to be taken away and upgraded. Yvonne and Jackie are escorted away, but the Cyber-Leader keeps the Doctor to learn what he knows about the Daleks. As Hartman is led away to the conversion chamber, Jackie blames her and Torchwood for killing them all. Hartman tearfully repeats that she did her duty to Queen and country, then begins to scream as the sparks start flying.

The Cyber-Leader tells the Doctor that he is proof that emotions are self-destructive. The Doctor agrees, but as he hears a rising sound, states that hope is also a good emotion… and here it comes. A squad of humans pops into existence in the room and quickly fires on the Cybermen with energy weapons. The leader of the squad destroys the Cyber-Leader with a single shot before revealing himself to be Jake Simmonds. The Doctor is shocked to see Jake here.

The Cybermen sense that the Cyber-Leader has been terminated and begin to download his files into another Cyberman unit. This gives Jackie the chance to escape down the stairwell. Meanwhile, the Doctor tells Jake that they cannot just hop from one universe to another. Jake shows the Doctor the disc-shaped devices they developed with their world's version of Torchwood, and before the Doctor can stop him, Jake transports the two of them. Jake explains that they found out what the parallel Torchwood was doing and the People's Republic took control. As the Doctor asks Jake to take him back, Pete Tyler steps out of the shadows, telling the Doctor that this is their world and for once, he is going to listen.

Mickey shows Rose an identical device, but tells her it only takes one, and he will not leave her. Mickey wonders what the Daleks want with him. Rose tells him about the time she revived a Dalek with her touch. A person travelling in time soaks up harmless background radiation; however, in the Time War, the Daleks evolved to use it as a power supply. If something inside the Ark needs revival, the Daleks would need either one of them. Mickey wonders why the Daleks would build something they cannot open, but the black Dalek breaks in on the conversation, replying that the technology is not theirs, but that of the Time Lords — the last remnant of their homeworld. When Rose asks what is inside, the Daleks tell her "The future."

On the parallel Earth, Pete explains that they tried sealing up the Cybermen in the factories, but other people argued that the Cybermen were still people and needed help. As the debate went on, the Cybermen infiltrated the parallel Torchwood, found the Doctor's universe and vanished. The sheer mass of five million Cybermen is why it took them three years to cross while individuals could pop across in a second.

Pete shows off his world, where Great Britain is apparently enjoying a Golden Age, and where Harriet Jones is Prime Minister. However, ambient temperatures are rising and the ice caps are melting. Pete correctly surmises that it has to do with the breach; the Doctor confirms that every time someone crosses over damage is done, and if it keeps up both worlds will fall into the Void. Pete believes the Doctor can close the breach, but when the Doctor says that doing so will leave the Cybermen on his world, Pete replies that he is only interested in protecting his Earth. The Doctor points out there is a parallel Jackie who is still alive, but Pete says that there are more important things at stake and asks the Doctor to help them. Seeing Pete's faith in him, the Doctor agrees to help.

The Doctor, Pete and Jake cross back. The Doctor calls up Jackie on her mobile phone, telling her to keep a low profile in the stairwell. The Doctor takes Jake's rifle and modifies it so it can affect polycarbide: the skin of a Dalek. He then goes down to surrender to the Cybermen with a makeshift white flag made from a sheet of A4 paper; in particular, surrendering a very good idea…

The black Dalek demands that Rose activate the Ark, threatening Mickey's life. Rose steps forward to do so, but gleefully tells the Daleks how she met the Dalek Emperor and used the time vortex to turn him to dust. The furious black Dalek is about to exterminate her for this when the Doctor appears in the doorway.

The black Dalek asks how the Doctor survived the Time War. The Doctor says that he did that by fighting on the front lines, whereas these Daleks fled. Rose tells the Doctor that these Daleks have names, a fact which the Daleks confirm by declaring each of their names respectively: Dalek Thay, Dalek Sec, Dalek Jast, and Dalek Caan. The Doctor realises that these four Daleks are members of the Cult of Skaro, a secret order above even the Emperor. The Cult's purpose was to think as the enemy thinks, to find new ways of killing, including daring to take on individual identities. When Mickey asks the Doctor about the Ark, the Doctor replies that he does not know what it does; both sides had secrets.

The black Dalek — Dalek Sec — gloats that Time Lord science will ensure the supremacy of the Daleks, and orders the Doctor to open the Ark. The Doctor laughs off the suggestion and produces his sonic screwdriver. He explains that, while it cannot kill, wound, or maim, it is very good for opening doors — a fact he demonstrates by using it to open explosively all the doors leading into the sphere chamber. Jake's squad, side by side with Cybermen, enter and open fire on the Daleks using the modified energy rifles, temporarily disrupting the Daleks' shields and weapons, giving the Doctor and the humans time to escape. However, the Daleks quickly regain control of their weapons. The Cybermen are still no match for the Daleks and are all swiftly exterminated. As the Doctor and the humans rush out of the chamber, Mickey is knocked into the Ark by a damaged Cyberman and his hand presses against its surface. The Ark is primed, steam gushing from the bottom vents, but Dalek Sec says that it needs a space of thirty square miles to activate. The Daleks begin to escort it out of the chamber.

The Doctor and the humans retreat towards the stairwell. Mickey apologises for his slip-up, but the Doctor tells him that he did them a favour because the Daleks would have destroyed the Sun in an attempt to open the Ark. He gives Mickey an affectionate kiss on the head.

Meanwhile, Jackie is found by two Cybermen who lurch forward to capture her for upgrading. However, the Cybermen are shot from behind by Pete, with the Doctor, Rose and Mickey following him. Jackie and Pete see each other for the first time and have an awkward exchange as their parallel counterparts are dead. Although Pete tries to rationalise that Jackie is not really his wife, the two end up running into each other's arms and embracing.

The Daleks and the Ark move into the Torchwood storage area, battling another force of Cybermen. Some human soldiers break in and add to the chaos. The Doctor stumbles into the area as well, grabbing two magnetic clamps before leaving. As the Daleks blast their way through all opposition, the new Cyber-Leader calls for reinforcements. Sec opens the roof, and elevates upward with the Ark. As the Doctor and the others watch, the Ark opens above London and starts spinning, disgorging Dalek after Dalek. The Doctor realises that the "Time Lord science" Sec referred to was the fact that the Ark is bigger inside than outside: the Ark is a prison ship, containing millions of Daleks. As hundreds of Daleks line up in aerial formation, Sec orders them to exterminate all life forms below. The Daleks and Cybermen begin fighting all over the planet, with humans caught in the crossfire.

Pete believes the situation to be hopeless, and prepares to escape back to his world while offering to take Jackie along with him. The Doctor, however, is more optimistic. Wearing his 3-D glasses, he explains that it allows him to see that everything that has crossed the Void between universes has picked up background radiation from it: "void stuff". Since the Daleks and Cybermen have been hiding in the void, they will be saturated in it and will be pulled back into the Void if he re-opens the rift then seals it again.

Rose, however, points out that they are covered in "void stuff" too. The Doctor explains that he will open the breach here, but if Rose and the others go back to Pete's world, they will be safe. The Doctor will hang on to the magnetic clamps so he will not be pulled in. Rose realises that if the breach seals she will never be able to return, and refuses to leave the Doctor despite the prospect of never seeing her mother again. While Rose and Jackie argue about who is leaving, the Doctor and Pete slip the devices around their necks and Pete transports them all across. However, Rose reactivates her device and returns, telling the Doctor she will never leave him.

Rose sets all the coordinates on the Void controls to six on the Doctor's instructions. As the Cybermen climb the stairs, intending to escape back to the parallel Earth, they are met by a Cyberman with a female-sounding voice, that of Yvonne Hartman. She declares that they shall not pass and shoots them with an energy rifle. As she repeats that she did her duty for Queen and country, a tear of oil leaks from the duct below her left eye.

The Doctor and Rose fix the magnetic clamps on the walls. They pull the levers, activating the breach then hold on tightly to the clamps. Outside, millions of Daleks, including the Ark, are drawn towards Torchwood Tower and are rapidly sucked into the breach as the Cybermen are also pulled upward into the sky. However, Sec initiates an "emergency temporal shift" and vanishes.

The power lever on Rose's side begins to shift to the offline position, and the breach starts to close. Heroically, Rose lets go of her clamp and pushes the lever back up, restoring power.

As the last of the Daleks falls into the breach, Rose can no longer hold on. The Doctor yells helplessly as he watches her fall towards the breach, but at the last moment, Pete pops in with two devices, grabs Rose, and vanishes again. The breach ripples, and seals itself. On the parallel world, Rose beats the wall, sobbing hysterically as Pete notes that his device no longer works. On his side of the breach, the Doctor leans against the wall, resting his cheek against it for a moment and then walks away sadly, alone.

Some time later, Rose has a dream where she hears the Doctor's voice calling her. Rose, Jackie, Pete and Mickey follow the voice to fifty miles outside Bergen, Norway, on the coastline of Dårlig Ulv Stranden — Bad Wolf Bay. There, an image of the Doctor appears; he tells her that he found the last of the breaches, and is transmitting the signal by using the TARDIS to harness the power of a supernova, commenting that he is burning up a sun to say good-bye. With only two minutes, the two share their final farewell. Rose tells the Doctor that her mother is three months pregnant. At first, Rose jokes that she is now back working as a shop girl, but then reveals that she is with the parallel Torchwood, which has re-opened, as they could use her expertise with aliens. The Doctor smiles proudly and says, "Rose Tyler: Defender of the Earth."

The Doctor tells Rose that she is officially listed among those that died on that day. Breaking down, Rose asks what the Doctor will do, and he simply says he will go on, alone. Weeping, Rose tells the Doctor she loves him. He begins to reply, but only manages to get out her name before his image fades. Rose, still in tears, turns and runs back into Jackie's arms.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor stands for a minute, lips still parted as if in the middle of a sentence. Wiping his own tears from his eyes, he starts to work the console. Suddenly, he looks up to see a woman in a wedding dress standing in the console room. Dumbfounded, all the Doctor can repeat is "What?" as the bride demands sharply that he tell her where she is…

Cast

Trivia

  • Doomsday is the first episode in the history of Doctor Who in which the Cybermen and the Daleks appear together on screen. Both Cybermen and Daleks were featured in The Five Doctors and Army of Ghosts, but in separate scenes. Daleks and Cybermen also appeared together in the 1989 stage show Doctor Who - The Ultimate Adventure. A Cyberman's head appeared in the episode Dalek. A Dalek is seen in flashback at the end of the Cyberman-involved Second Doctor serial The Wheel in Space. In The War Games, the Second Doctor shows the Time Lords images of the Cybermen and the Daleks on the screen near the end of Episode 10.
  • As with The Parting of the Ways, the concluding episode to the 2005 series, teaser trailers for this episode were aired every day until the evening of the episode's premiere.
  • According to Russell T. Davies in the downloadable commentary, killing off Rose was never an option in his opinion, due to the overall optimism of the show.
  • To protect as much information concerning the episode as possible, the BBC website's Fear Forecasters were not allowed to see the episode before its airing.[1] The scripts for the final scenes involving Rose saying goodbye to the Doctor were withheld from most of the production team until the last minute.
  • The Daleks' method of "suckering" people to death is used again, having been originally referred to and seen in Dalek (2005). Footage of Rose with the Dalek from Dalek is also used in this episode.
  • When viewing the Doctor on the communications screen, a Dalek orders that the picture be rewound "nine rels". A "rel" is a Dalek unit of time, first used in the 1960s Dalek movies (Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD) and subsequently used in the Dalek comic strips and in the Big Finish Productions audio plays. This is its first use in the television series.
  • Rise of the Cybermen was established as taking place in 2007, but it took the Cybermen three years to pass through the breach, so from the parallel Pete's perspective it is around 2010. However, Jackie says twice that it has been twenty years since her Pete died, so in her world the year is 2007. Whether this means the breach also traverses time or that time passes at different rates in different universes is unclear.
  • The Doctor states that travel between universes was impossible until the Daleks broke down the walls between worlds with the void ship. This may explain the crack in time that the TARDIS fell through in Rise of the Cybermen to reach the parallel Earth in the first place.
  • In the end of The Parting of the Ways, Rose did not remember anything of what happened when she absorbed the Time Vortex, but in this episode she says she met the Dalek Emperor, turned him to dust and destroyed him.
  • A Dalek's armour being composed of polycarbide was first mentioned in 1988 in Remembrance of the Daleks. The material was dubbed "dalekenium" by a human rebel in The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964).
  • Rose tells Mickey that the Daleks evolved to use radiation picked up by time travellers as a power source and refers back to the events of Dalek. However, in Dalek, the Dalek said that it used the "DNA" of a time traveller, not radiation, to regenerate itself.
  • The Black Dalek asks the Doctor, "How did you survive the Time War?" This echoes the Doctor's question to the Daleks in The Parting of the Ways.
  • The Doctor mentions being on the front lines of the Time War when Arcadia fell. The planet Arcadia was mentioned in the novel Deceit by Peter Darvill-Evans. Like all spin-off media, its canonicity in relation to the television series is unclear.
  • This episode marks the first time in the new series that the planet Skaro is mentioned. The Dalek homeworld was alluded to, but not named, in The Parting of the Ways.
  • The purpose of the Cult of Skaro, to think as the enemy thinks, is part of the Daleks' recognition of the limits of their logic dating back to The Evil of the Daleks (1967), where the Daleks wanted to insert the "Human Factor" into Daleks to make them more effective conquerors. In Destiny of the Daleks (1979) they revived their creator Davros to make use of his creativity, and in Remembrance of the Daleks (1988) they used a young girl as their battle computer.
  • The concept of Daleks with personal names was also featured in The Evil of the Daleks. There, the Second Doctor implanted his own version of the "Human Factor" in three Daleks (whom he christened Alpha, Beta and Omega), who developed more human-like and benign personalities as a result.
  • The Daleks recognise the similarities between the parallel Cybermen and their Cybermen of their own universe, suggesting an earlier, unseen encounter between the two races. Alternately, it could simply be that the Daleks know of the Cybermen without having encountered them.
  • The fires across London, caused by battles with the Cybermen, seen earlier in a view out of a window in Canary Wharf are all missing when the Daleks fly out of the Genesis Ark.
  • This story is set before Dalek, which takes place in 2012. However, in that episode, Henry van Statten dubbed his captive Dalek a "Metaltron". On the other hand, the Daleks are not publicly called "Daleks" during the brief invasion seen in this episode.
  • The Doctor tells Rose to set all the void control coordinates to "6". The number 6 featured prominently in the The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit as allusions to the Number of the Beast. Appropriately, the Doctor also refers to the Void as "Hell".
  • All the Daleks and Cybermen that had travelled through the Void were sucked back into it. However, no Cybermen are seen being pulled through the breach in Torchwood Tower despite shots of them rising into the air. The commentary explains that the Daleks were sucked through the main breach while the Cybermen were pulled through the smaller fault lines.
  • There was some discussion among the production team about whether Rose would be saved by Mickey or Pete. According to the downloadable commentary, Pete was chosen to show that he finally embraced her as his daughter.
  • Rose's joke regarding being "back working in the shop" refers to the job she had at Henrik's when she first appeared in Rose.
  • In the commentary for this episode, Russell T. Davies gives the Bride's name as Donna.
  • The first cut of this episode was six minutes too long. Most of the removed scenes came from the Cybermen's attack on the bridge.
  • The incidental music that plays at the end of the episode on the beach was first heard, without the percussive bass line, when Rose first entered the TARDIS in Rose. After Doomsday aired, similar music was used on the home page of the BBC Doctor Who website.
  • In both the 2005 and 2006 series finales, Rose cries "Take me back! Take me back!" as she is separated from the Doctor, seemingly forever. She also sees a hologram of the Doctor and cannot embrace him in their goodbye scenes.
  • There are a number of similarities between this plot and the plot of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. These include an alternative universe where airships are commonplace, the existence of rips between the universes having a negative effect and having to be closed, and the climate on Earth being affected by the rips between the universes. The ending is also similar. Coincidentally, Billie Piper will be starring in the film adaptation of Pullman's The Ruby in the Smoke.
  • Peter Hawkins, one of the original Dalek and Cyberman voice actors, died on the same day that this episode was first broadcast.
  • Although many Cybermen were seen being pulled into the Void, it is not clear if that includes the humans that were converted on Earth.
  • Overnight ratings showed that 7.72 million people watched Doomsday with a 43% share. The episode peaked at 8.58 million viewers in the last five minutes of the episode. Overall, Doomsday was the fourth most watched television programme of the week.[1] Doomsday's final viewing figures were 8.22 million, making it the eighth most watched programme of the week on UK television. Doctor Who Confidential got its best ratings yet, with just over one million viewers, making it the second most watched programme on a non-terrestrial channel that week.[2]
  • According to Doctor Who Magazine #366, this episode will be released together with Fear Her and Army of Ghosts as a basic DVD with no special features.

References

  1. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/episodes/2006/fear/f-armyofghosts.shtml

Reviews

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