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"Planet of the Dead" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who that was broadcast on 11 April 2009. It is the first of four specials to be broadcast throughout 2009 and early 2010.

Plot

Lady Christina, after stealing a valuable gold artefact from a museum, escapes the police by riding on the same London bus 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 wormhole 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 Faraday cage, and they would need to get the bus mobile to safely make the return trip. UNIT is called into the scene in London, commanded by Capt. Magambo. The Doctor is able to contact UNIT through a modified mobile phone, and learns from UNIT's scientific adviser, Dr. Malcolm Taylor, that the wormhole is growing, growing several miles wide. Carmen, an older lady with claimed psychic abilities, hears numerous voices from all around them. While the other passengers work to free the bus, the Doctor and Lady Christina scout the planet, taking a keen interest in what seems to be an incoming sandstorm.

The two encounter a Tritovore, an anthropomorphic fly species, who takes them to their wrecked spaceship. The Doctor helps to assure them of the situation, learning they were making a routine delivery to 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 but were turned to sand, their psychic memories resonating with Carmen. The probe further reveals the oncoming sandstorm is actually a large number of manta ray-like aliens, the cause of the destruction of the planet's surface. The Doctor determines the species consume the surface of each planet, and then move quickly in large numbers to create a wormhole and use it 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 will end", something that the Ood previously told the Doctor in "Planet of the Ood". She also tells him that "it is returning from the dark" and that "he will knock four times." Shortly afterwards, the Doctor releases Christina from her handcuffs by the sonic screwdriver and allows her to escape police custody in the flying bus, though she makes a point to leave the Doctor on good terms.

Production

Writing and casting

Russell T Davies co-wrote the episode with Gareth Roberts, the first writing partnership for the show since its revival. "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 Charles Dickens and ghosts appearing in "The Unquiet Dead" or Shakespeare and witches in "The Shakespeare Code"—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 Arc of Infinity as an example where such control was not enforced.

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 "The Fires of Pompeii" a bittersweet quality" and subsequent desire to avoid the recurring theme. The starting point for the story was Roberts' freshman novel The Highest Science. Davies liked the image of a London Underground train 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.

Michelle Ryan portrays Lady Christina de Souza, the daughter of a recently impoverished aristocrat and adrenaline junkie. Christina is a "typical" Doctor Who companion, Davies electing to draw parallels from the Time Lady Romana rather than new series companion Rose Tyler. Roberts described her as an "adventuress" 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 Lee Evans plays Professor Malcolm Taylor, a UNIT scientist devoted to his predecessor, the Doctor. Davies created Evans' character to serve as a foil for Noma Dumezweni's pragmatic character Captain Erisa Magambo, who previously appeared in the episode "Turn Left". Roberts noted after writing the episode that Evans' character had unintentionally become a "loving" caricature of Doctor Who fandom.

The episode was influenced by several works: Davies described "Planet of the Dead" as "a great big adventure, a little bit Indiana Jones, a little bit Flight of the Phoenix, a little bit Pitch Black."; the relationship between the Doctor and Christina was influenced by 1960s films such as Charade and Topkapi, which included Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn "being witty and sophisticated together, and then running for their lives"; and the Tritovore were influenced by 1950s and 1970s science fiction B-movies such as The Fly and Davies' habit of including recognisable aliens such as the Judoon. The Doctor's rejection of Christina at the end of the episode was influenced by his recent losses in "Journey's End": under other circumstances, Christina would travel in the TARDIS with the Doctor; and Carmen's warning was a "classical" and "chilling" science-fiction prophecy which evoked memories of the Ood's warning to the Doctor and his then-companion Donna Noble and served to foreshadow the remaining three specials.

Filming

Rumours of overseas shooting in Dubai were confirmed by Davies in interviews in late January, who indicated the need for a desert on "a proper alien planet". At the same time, reports emerged that a 1980 Bristol VR double-decker bus — previously alluded to as a major element of the story — had been substantially damaged during transport to Dubai. Subsequently, the bus was partially reconstructed and used in filming although substantial rewrites were necessary to maintain the production schedule. Russell T Davies later explained that only one page of the script had been altered to incorporate the damage, and that there was, "...no crisis. None at all."

It is the first episode of Doctor Who to be filmed in HD.

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 Shada, the season-long fourteen-part serial The Trial of a Time Lord, and the series three finale consisting of "Utopia", "The Sound of Drums" and "Last of the Time Lords". 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. Gareth Roberts inserted a reference to the landmark—specifically, the bus number is 200—and Davies emailed the show's publicity team to advertise the special as such. Doctor Who Magazine' editor Tom Spilsbury acknowledged the controversy in the magazine's 407th issue, which ran a reader survey of all 200 stories.

Reception

Overnight figures show that the special was watched by 8.41m 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.

References

1. Cook, Benjamin (11–17 April 2009), "Sands of time", Radio Times, pp. pp. 16-20 {{citation}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
2. Tribe, Steve (2009). Doctor Who: Companions and Allies. BBC Books. p. 96. ISBN 978-1-846-07749-4. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
3. "Doctor Who - The Tennant Tapes". BBC. 28 March 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2009.
4. ^ "Planet of the Dead listing". Radio Times. 11-17 April 2009 (cover date). {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
5. ^ "Series Five". BBC. 3 September 2007. Retrieved 25 January 2009.
6. "Series Five". BBC. 3 September 2007. Retrieved 25 January 2009.
7. "Series Five". BBC. 3 September 2007. Retrieved 25 January 2009.
8. "Doctor Who - Saturday 11 April - Programme Details". Radio Times. Retrieved 2009-04-04.
9. "Press Office - Network TV Programme Information BBC Week 15". BBC. 1 April 2009. Retrieved 1 April 2009.
10. "Doctor Who - Episodes - Series Four". BBC. 2008-03-28. Retrieved 2009-04-12.
11. ^ DWM 407 preview, p6-7
12. ^ Roberts, DWM406
13. ^ "All aboard for next special". BBC. 23 January 2009. Retrieved 25 January 2009.
14. Colville, Robert (11 April 2009). "Russell T Davies Doctor Who interview: full transcript". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 11 April 2009.
15. ^ "Friends and Foe". Doctor Who Confidential. Episode 12. 28 June 2008. BBC. BBC Three. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |seriesno= ignored (|series-number= suggested) (help)
16. Nick Setchfield (28 January 2009). "Doctor Whobai". SFX. Retrieved 29 January 2009.
17. Michelle Ryan Interview, "The Paul O'Grady Show" Channel 4, 5pm, 8 April 2009.
18. Ben Leach (28 January 2009). "Doctor Who filming disrupted as double decker bus wrecked". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 29 January 2009.
19. ^ Davies, Russell T (1 April 2009 (cover date)). "Production Notes". Doctor Who Magazine (406). Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent: Panini Comics: 4. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
20. DWM 405 page 12
21. "The Stolen Earth: Fact File". Doctor Who microsite. BBC. 28 June 2008.
22. DWM 407 editor's notes
23. "Television - News - Huge audiences for 'Talent', 'Who'". Digital Spy. Retrieved 2009-04-12.

External links

• Planet of the Dead (TV story) on Tardis Wiki, the Doctor Who Wiki

Template:Doctor Who (2009-10 specials)

• 2009 television episodes
• British television specials
• Screenplays by Russell T Davies
• Tenth Doctor episodes