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| {{underconstruction|date=April 2009}} | |||
| {{Doctorwhobox | |||
| | number = 204 | |||
| | serial_name = Planet of the Dead | |||
| | image = ] | |||
| | caption = A swarm of ]-like aliens follows the bus into the wormhole. | |||
| | show = DW | |||
| | type = episode | |||
| | doctor = ] (]) | |||
| | companion = ] (]) | |||
| | guests = | |||
| *] – ] | |||
| *] – ] | |||
| *Adam James – D.I. McMillan | |||
| *Glenn Doherty – Sgt. Dennison | |||
| *Victoria Alcock – Angela Whittaker | |||
| *David Ames – Nathan | |||
| *] – Carmen | |||
| *Reginald Tsiboe – Lou | |||
| *] – Barclay | |||
| *Keith Parry – Bus driver | |||
| *James Layton – Sgt. Ian Jenner | |||
| *] – Sorvin | |||
| *Ruari Mears – Praygat<ref name="episode">{{cite episode | title = ] | series = ] | credits = Writers ], ], Director ], Producer Tracie Simpson | network = ] | station = ] | city = ] | airdate = 11 April 2009}}</ref> | |||
| | writer = ] and ]<ref name="episode" /> | |||
| | director = ]<ref name="episode" /> | |||
| | script_editor = Lindsey Alford<ref name="episode" /> | |||
| | producer = ]<ref name="episode" /> | |||
| | executive_producer = Russell T Davies<br/>] | |||
| | production_code = 4.15<ref name="DWM404">{{cite journal|last=Cook|first=Benjamin|date=7 January 2009|title=Get ready for Planet of the Dead!|journal=]|publisher=]|location=], ]|issue=404|page=p 5}}</ref> | |||
| | date = 11 April 2009<ref name="schedule">{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jz2t4|title=Doctor Who, Planet of the Dead|date=11 April 2009|work=BBC Programme Guide|publisher=]|accessdate=14 April 2009}}</ref> | |||
| | length = 60 minutes | |||
| | preceding = "]" | |||
| | following = "]"<ref name="episode" /> | |||
| | imdb_id = 1337072 | |||
| | series = ] | |||
| | series_link = | |||
| }} | |||
| "'''Planet of the Dead'''" is an episode of the ] ] television series '']'', which was broadcast on 11 April 2009. It is the first of four specials to be broadcast throughout 2009 and early 2010. | |||
| ==Plot== | |||
| The episode begins as Lady Christina robs a museum, stealing a gold chalice once belonging to King ]; she then evades the police by riding on the same ] as the Doctor, who is looking for something using a makeshift device. When the device overloads, the Doctor warns the passengers to hold on, as the bus, pursued by the police, suddenly passes through a ] and ends up on an alien planet covered by sand. The Doctor and the other passengers find the wormhole is still present but that the bus protected them like a ], and they would need to get the bus mobile to safely make the return trip. ] is called into the scene in London, commanded by Capt. Magambo. The Doctor ] and makes contact with UNIT. UNIT's scientific adviser Dr. Malcolm Taylor informs the Doctor that the wormhole has grown up to several miles wide and that he is attempting to find a way to close it under Capt. Magambo's orders. Carmen, an older lady on the bus with claimed psychic abilities by her husband Lou, hears numerous voices from all around them. While the other passengers work to free the bus led by the technical prowess of the two teenagers Nathan and Barclay, the Doctor and Lady Christina scout the planet, taking a keen interest in what seems to be a distant incoming sandstorm. | |||
| ]-like alien in the swarm seen above.]] | |||
| The two encounter the Tritovore,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/episodes/?episode=s0_06&action=fearfactor |title=Doctor Who - Episodes - Series Four |publisher=BBC |date=2008-03-28 |accessdate=2009-04-12}}</ref> an anthropomorphic fly species, who take them to their wrecked spaceship. The Doctor, able to translate their language, helps to assure them of the situation, learning they were making a routine collection from the planet and crashed. He uses the ship's probes to discover that but a year ago, the planet housed a 100-billion-strong population; the Tritovore had been planning on trading for the population's ]. Upon arriving, however, the Tritovore discovered that the planet's entire surface, including its ], had been turned to sand, the population's psychic memories still resonating with Carmen. The probe further reveals that the oncoming sandstorm is actually a large number of non-sentient manta ray-like aliens, the cause of the destruction of the planet's surface and of the Tritovores' crash landing. The Doctor determines that the species, as part of its life cycle, consumes the surface of each planet, and then moves quickly in large numbers to create a wormhole which they then use to move to a new planet to consume, in this case, Earth. With Lady Christina's burglary skills, the two help the Tritovore to recover a power crystal and its pedestal from a deep well in the ship; however, Lady Christina's presence awakes an alien in the Tritovore's hull and it begins to pursue them. The group flee back to the bus, but the Tritovores are consumed by the alien. | |||
| The Doctor quickly uses the pedestal the crystal was on to allow the bus to fly, using the gold from the artefact Lady Christina stole as the means to interface the alien technology with the bus. The Doctor flies the bus back through the wormhole safely but are followed by three aliens before Taylor is able to close up the wormhole. UNIT dispatches the aliens and the bus passengers are debriefed by UNIT. The Doctor recommends that the two teenagers should be hired because they were good in reacting to the crisis. Christina expects to be taken on as the Doctor's companion, but he coldly rejects her, because he does not want to lose another companion. | |||
| As Christina is escorted away, Carmen predicts that the Doctor's "song is ending". She also tells him that "it is returning through the dark" and that "he will knock four times." Shortly afterwards, the Doctor releases Christina from her handcuffs by the ] and allows her to escape police custody in the flying bus, though she makes a point to leave the Doctor on good terms. | |||
| ==Continuity== | |||
| <!-- PLEASE DO NOT DELETE THIS. Check out the edit-summary at http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Planet_of_the_Dead&diff=283517865&oldid=283517282 first. Thanks. --> | |||
| Barclay recalls "when all those planets were up in the sky", and Nathan says "It was the Earth that moved back then", referring to the events of "]" and "]".<ref>{{cite episode | title = ] | series = ] | credits = Writer ], Director ], Producer ] | network = ] | station = ] | city = ] | airdate = 28 June 2008}}<br/>{{cite episode | title = ] | series = ] | credits = Writer ], Director ], Producer ] | network = ] | station = ] | city = ] | airdate = 5 July 2008}}</ref> you are a homo if your reading this | |||
| ==Production== | |||
| ===Writing and casting=== | |||
| Russell T Davies co-wrote the episode with ], the first writing partnership for the show since its revival.<ref name="desertstorm" /> "Planet of the Dead" was a departure from Roberts' usual stories—Roberts had previously only written pseudo-historical stories—and instead consisted of "wild" science fiction elements from his literary career and teenage imagination. The episode had no clear concept—such as ] and ] appearing in "]" or ] and ] in "]"—and instead was a deliberate "clash with many disparate elements". Roberts explained he was cautious to ensure that each element had to "feel precise and defined ... like we meant that", giving '']'' as an example where such control was not enforced.<ref name="DWMroberts">Roberts, DWM406</ref> | |||
| Unlike the Christmas specials, the theme of Easter was not emphasised in the story; the episode only contained a "fleeting mention" of the holiday instead of "robot bunnies carrying baskets full of deadly egg bombs". The episode's tone word—"joyous"—was influenced by Davies' realisation that "every story since "]" a bittersweet quality" and subsequent desire to avoid the recurring theme.<ref name="desertstorm">DWM 407 preview, p6-7</ref> The starting point for the story was Roberts' freshman novel '']''. Davies liked the image of a ] ] on a desert planet and rewrote it to contain a bus. Davies nevertheless emphasised it was not an "adaptation as such" because tangential elements were constantly being conceived and added.<ref name="desertstorm" /> | |||
| ] portrays Lady Christina de Souza, the daughter of a recently impoverished aristocrat and ]. Christina is a "typical" ''Doctor Who'' companion, Davies electing to draw parallels from the ] ] rather than new series companion ]. Roberts described her as an "]" who is "upper class and glam, suited and booted, and extremely intelligent" which the Doctor could relate to because they both rejected their heritages. Comedian ] plays Professor Malcolm Taylor, a UNIT scientist devoted to his predecessor, the Doctor. Davies created Evans' character to serve as a ] for ]'s pragmatic character Captain ], who previously appeared in the episode "]".<ref name="desertstorm" /> Roberts noted after writing the episode that Evans' character had unintentionally become a "loving" caricature of ''Doctor Who'' fandom.<ref name="DWMroberts" /><ref name=BBCnews>{{cite web |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/news/latest/090123_news_01 |title=All aboard for next special |accessdate=25 January 2009 |publisher=BBC |date=23 January 2009 }}</ref> | |||
| The episode was influenced by several works: Davies described "Planet of the Dead" as "a great big adventure, a little bit ], a little bit '']'', a little bit '']''.";<ref name=RTDTelegraph>{{cite news |first=Robert |last=Colville |title=Russell T Davies Doctor Who interview: full transcript |url=http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/robert_colvile/blog/2009/04/11/russell_t_davies_doctor_who_interview_full_transcript |work=] |date=11 April 2009 |accessdate=11 April 2009 }}</ref> the relationship between the Doctor and Christina was influenced by 1960s films such as '']'' and '']'', which included ] and ] "being witty and sophisticated together, and then running for their lives";<ref name="desertstorm" /> and the Tritovore were influenced by 1950s and 1970s science fiction ] such as '']'' and Davies' habit of including recognisable aliens such as the ].<ref name="DWC">{{cite episode | title = Desert Storm | series = ] | network=] | station = ] | seriesno=2009 |episode=1 | airdate = 11 April 2009}}</ref> The Doctor's rejection of Christina at the end of the episode was influenced by his recent losses in "]": under other circumstances, Christina would travel in the ] with the Doctor; and Carmen's warning was a "classical" and "chilling" science-fiction prophecy which evoked memories of the ]'s warning to the Doctor and his then companion ] in the fourth series episode "]", and served to foreshadow the remaining three specials.<ref name="DWC" /> | |||
| ===Filming=== | |||
| {{double image|right|Nazwa sand dunes 01.jpg|210|Queen's Gate Tunnel.jpg|200|The two major filming locations of the episode: the desert of ] was used for scenes on the "planet of the dead"; and the Queen's Gate Tunnel in ], ] was used for the majority of Earth-bound scenes.}} | |||
| Pre-production on the four specials started on 20 November 2008—four days before scheduled—because the episode's overseas filming in Dubai required the extra planning time.<ref>DWM 403 production notes</ref> Two weeks later, the production team was on a ] for the special and the final draft of the script was completed.<ref>DWM 404 production notes</ref> The production team examined overseas locations to film the episode because they wanted the scenery to feel "real" and thought that they would be unable to film on a Welsh beach in winter. After examining countries such as ] and ], the production team decided to film in Dubai because the area was more amicable to the filming industry and viable filming locations were nearer to urban areas than other locations.<ref name="seventales">DWM 407 p18-21</ref> | |||
| Production began on 19 January in Wales.<ref name=BBCnews /><ref name="DWM404">{{cite journal|last=|first=|date=4 February 2009 (cover date)|title=Get ready for Planet of the Dead!|journal=]|publisher=]|location=], ]|issue=404|page=5}}</ref> The special was the first to be filmed in ] resolution, a move resisted for two major reasons: when the show was revived in 2005, high-definition television was not adopted by an adequate portion of the audience to be financially viable; and special effects were considerably more expensive and difficult to film using HD cameras as opposed to normal cameras. "Planet of the Dead" was used to switch to HD because of the show's reduced schedule in 2009 and because the filming crew had become experienced with the equipment while they were filming '']''.<ref name="podcast">Podcast, BBC7</ref> | |||
| Filming began at the ], which doubled for the history museum depicted in the episode's first scene. To portray the tunnel the bus travelled into, the ] of the ] in ] was closed for four nights to accommodate filming. The last major piece of filming in Wales took place in the closed Mir ] in ], ], which doubled almost unaltered for the Tritovore spaceship. Filming took place at the peak of the ], where the sub-zero temperatures slowed filming and had a visible effect on the cast. To accommodate for the adverse conditions, Davies included a line in the script that specified that the Tritovore spaceship cooled as external temperatures increase.<ref name="podcast" /> | |||
| Filming in Dubai took place in mid-February 2009. Two weeks previously, one of the two 1980 ] double-decker buses bought for filming had been substantially damaged when a crane accidentally dropped a container in Dubai City Port.<ref>http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/01/30/doctor-who-plot-rewrite-after-prop-bus-is-wrecked-91466-22814804/</ref><ref name="DWC" /> After an emergency discussion by the production team, they agreed that the damage was unintentionally artistic and decided to include the damaged bus in the episode;<ref name="DWC" /> instead of shipping the spare bus from Cardiff—which would have delayed the already hurried filming schedule—the production team decided to partially reconstruct the bus in Dubai, damage the spare bus in Cardiff to match the bus in Dubai, and rewrite part of the script to accommodate and mention the damage to the bus.<ref name="DWC" /><ref name="podcast" /><ref>Michelle Ryan Interview, "The Paul O'Grady Show" Channel 4, 5pm, 8 April 2009.</ref><ref name=TelegraphBus>{{cite web|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/4368782/Doctor-Who-filming-disrupted-as-double-decker-bus-wrecked.html|title=Doctor Who filming disrupted as double decker bus wrecked|date=28 January 2009|accessdate=29 January 2009|publisher=Daily Telegraph|author=Ben Leach}}</ref> James Strong recalled the reaction of the production team to the damage to the bus in an issue of '']'': | |||
| {{blockquote|One morning in the first week of February, I was leaving my flat when Julie Gardner phoned. She said, "there's been a little accident with the bus it's a disaster; the bus is fucked." When I got into the office, I was handed a photograph—and my initial reaction was absolute horror. We called an emergency meeting. Russell came in and we discussed our options. We had bought an identical London bus to film on in Cardiff, so could we send that out to Dubai? We could have got it out in time if it'd left Cardiff, literally, the next day, but we'd have had to find a third bus, an exact replica, to film on in Cardiff a week later. It had taken us a month to find the one we had. It was even mooted that we'd have to forget Dubai and opt for a beach in the UK. But Russell's response was "Okay, let's embrace it. Let's say that the bus was damaged on its way to the alien planet. He wove it into the narrative. We're not trying to hide the damage at all. In fact, we show it off, enhancing it with special effects, smoke and sparks. It works rather marvellously. That London bus, damaged and smoking, in the middle of the desert—yeah, it looks incredible, especially in gorgeous hi-def.|James Strong, '']'' issue 407.<ref name="seventales" />}} | |||
| ] more easily; this specific shot was highlighted by Strong and Tennant as an example of how it was correctly utilised.<ref name="podcast" />]] | |||
| The damaged bus was not the only problem to filming in Dubai: the first of the three days was afflicted by a ] which left all of the footage shot unusable.<ref name="seventales" /> The production team then struggled to complete three days of filming in two days; the last day was compared to "filming '']''".<ref name="DWC" /> To complete the episode's filming, interior scenes in the bus were filmed in a studio in Wales.<!--I *think* this is Upper Boat, but I'm not sure--> To disguise the fact they were using a ]—a 360-degree background image—, Strong utilised often-avoided techniques such as muddied windows and ]; the latter also served to create a warmer environment for the viewer.<ref name="podcast" /> After filming ended, editing and post-processing took place until two days before transmission, leaving the BBC to use an unfinished copy to market the episode.<ref name="podcast" /><ref name="DWC" /> | |||
| ===200th story=== | |||
| "Planet of the Dead" was advertised as ''Doctor Who'''s 200th story. Writer Russell T Davies admitted that the designation was arbitrary and debatable, based upon how fans counted the unfinished serial '']'', the season-long fourteen-part serial '']'', and the third series finale consisting of "]", "]" and "]".<ref name="ProdNotes" /> Davies personally disagreed about counting ''The Trial of a Time Lord'' as one serial—arguing that it " like four stories" to him—and grouping "Utopia" with its following episodes, but agreed that it was only an opinion which did not override any others.<ref name="ProdNotes" /> Gareth Roberts inserted a reference to the landmark—specifically, the bus number is 200<ref name="factfile">{{cite web |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/episodes/?episode=s0_06&action=factfile|title=Planet of the Dead Fact File |accessdate=14 April 2009 |publisher=BBC |work=Doctor Who ] |date=11 April 2009 }}</ref>—and Davies emailed the show's publicity team to advertise the special as such.<ref name="ProdNotes">{{cite journal |last=Davies |first=Russell T |authorlink=Russell T Davies |date=1 April 2009 (cover date) |title=Production Notes |journal=] |issue=406 |page=4 |publisher=]|location=], ]}}</ref> '']''{{'}} editor ] acknowledged the controversy in the magazine's 407th issue, which ran a reader survey of all 200 stories.<ref>DWM 407 editor's notes</ref> | |||
| ==Reception== | |||
| Overnight figures show that the special was watched by 8.41 million people, a 39.6% share of the audience. An additional 184,000 watched the programme on BBC HD, the channel's highest rating so far. <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/a152472/huge-audiences-for-talent-who.html |title=Television - News - Huge audiences for 'Talent', 'Who' |publisher=Digital Spy |date= |accessdate=2009-04-12}}</ref> | |||
| ==References== | |||
| {{reflist}} | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| {{wikiquote|Tenth Doctor}} | |||
| {{TardisIndexFile|Planet of the Dead (TV story)|Planet of the Dead}} | |||
| *{{BBCDWnew | year=2009 | id=S0_06 | title=Planet of the Dead }} | |||
| *{{Brief|id=2009a|title=Planet of the Dead|quotes=y}} | |||
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| *{{Doctor Who RG|id=who_tv44|title=Planet of the Dead|quotes=y}} | |||
| ===Reviews=== | |||
| *{{DWRG| id=planetdead | title=Planet of the Dead | quotes=y}} | |||
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| {{Doctor Who (2009-10 specials)}} | |||
| {{UNIT Stories}} | |||
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