It’s Christmas time, and Jackie is busy hanging up decorations in her flat, while Mickey is busy working in a car workshop which presumably is close by. Both of them hear the “vworp” of the TARDIS’s engines and go running off looking for it.
While they’re looking for it, the TARDIS appears in mid-air and crashes into a few buildings before settling out. The Doctor stumbles out at wishes Jackie and Mickey a Merry Christmas before collapsing. They’re understandably confused, as this is the first time they’ve met the Doctor in his new guise.
They take the Doctor back to the flat where they put him in a bed. He’s now wearing a pair of men’s pyjamas which Rose learns belong to Howard, Jackie’s new boyfriend. While Rose and Jackie are talking, unnoticed by them, the Doctor breathes out a piece of the Time Vortex which floats out of the window and into space.
Rose catches sight of Harriet Jones on TV, and Jackie tells her that Harriet’s now Prime Minister. Harriet is speaking at a press conference on Guinevere One, a British space probe that has been sent to Mars.
Out in space, Guinevere One crashes into what appears to be an asteroid. It’s actually a spaceship though, and a door opens in the side of the ship and the probe is drawn in.
Back on Earth, Mickey and Rose are Christmas shopping. While they browse market stalls, a brass band made up of masked Santas plays in the background.
Rose stares at the Santas, as if perceiving that there’s something wrong. There is indeed something wrong, as the instruments turn out to be flame throwers, and the Santas fire them at Rose and Mickey.
Of course, it wouldn’t be much of a story if the two of them didn’t get away, and they manage to make to a taxi which they take back to the flat. Rose tells Jackie that they’re in danger and need to leave, but then she notices a new Christmas tree in the lounge. Jackie says that it just appeared at the door, and she’d assumed Rose had had it delivered.
The tree then lights up and begins to spin very fast. A killer Christmas tree may seem like a bit of a lame idea, but it actually works pretty well here.
The three of them retreat from the Christmas tree into the room where the Doctor is sleeping. Rose puts the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver in his hand and after her initial attempts at waking him fail, she leans down close to his ear and says, “Help me.”
As the Christmas tree bursts through the door, the Doctor wakes up and uses the screwdriver to make it explode. Grabbing a dressing gown, he heads out of the flat to try and find whoever was controlling the tree.
Standing in the courtyard are the masked Santas. The Doctor points his sonic screwdriver at them and they teleport away.
He says that they were pilot fish who sensed the Time Vortex energy and were hoping to use it to power their batteries. But as they’re gone now, they’re clearly not the main villains of the episode.
The Doctor collapses in pain, saying that Rose woke him up too soon and the regeneration is still happening. His writhing in agony is interrupted briefly by the discovery of an apple in his dressing gown pocket, which Jackie says is there because Howard sometimes gets hungry. Before passing out completely, the Doctor tells them that the presence of the pilot fish mean that something’s coming.
Mickey goes online to try and find out what the Doctor’s comment about pilot fish meant. Instead of using Wikipedia or Google like most people would, he finds a site with fancy animated graphics that also happens to explain what a pilot fish is, namely a small scavenger fish that hands around bigger predators, like sharks. So if the Doctor’s pilot fish assessment was correct, there’s another alien threat on its way.
We don’t have to wait for too long to find out what that threat is. The TV coverage of Guinevere One is about to show the first pictures from what is believed to have been a successful landing on Mars. As is to be expected as a result of the earlier scene of Guinevere One being, the pictures aren’t that of a Martian landscape, but rather that of a lifeform which clearly isn’t terrestrial.
The scene changes to the Tower of London, where the head of the Gunivere One project, Daniel Llewellyn, meets a Major Blake, who takes him to a UNIT control centre. There Llewellyn meets Harriet Jones, who introduces herself by holding up an ID card in the same way she did when she appeared in the Slytheen story, only this time she’s introducing herself as Prime Minister. Llewellyn’s response is that he knows who she is, and this joke will occur a few times more in the episode, even though it’s not really that funny in the first place.
A transmission from the alien ship appears on the control centre screen and on also Mickey’s computer, presumably as a result of him still having access to the UNIT website. The aliens aren’t speaking in English, and Harriet asks Alex, her aide, to run the translation software. In the flat, Rose comments that the TARDIS usually translates alien languages, and the fact that it’s not happening now is a sign that something’s wrong.
While waiting for the translation, Harriet asks Blake if there’s been a Code Nine, but Blake replies that there’s been no sign of the Doctor. She then asks him about Torchwood, and tells Blake she’ll take the responsibility.
Torchwood is going to be the recurring theme for the second season, in a similar way that “Bad Wolf” was for the first season. It will also come to be the name of the spin-off show starring John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, but at the time this episode was originally broadcast, that still lay in the future.
Alex returns with the translated message which reads, “All your base are People/cattle you belong to us. To the Sycorax. We own you. We now possess your land, your minerals, your precious stones. You will surrender or they will die. Sycorax strong, Sycorax mighty, Sycorax rock.” In the message “rock” is used in the modern sense, as in “You rock”, which shows that the Sycorax have been brushing up on changes in the English language. While Llewellyn wonders about “they will die” instead of “you will die”, Harriet tells Alex to send a message back saying that they do not surrender.
The Sycorax response comes in the form of a strange blue light which surrounds certain members of the UNIT team. Those affected start heading up the stairs to the roof, not responding to anything done by those unaffected. Once on the roof they walk to edge and stop.
This isn’t happening at UNIT, as Rose and Mickey see some of their neighbours doing the same thing, and reports come in that it’s not just happening countrywide, it’s happening worldwide. Scenes of people from countries all standing on top of high-rise buildings are shown.
Two of those countries can be identified as France and Rome. Presumably those scenes weren’t shot on location – Photoshop is a very useful tool.
At UNIT, reports come in that about a third of the world’s population have been affected, and Llewellyn realises what “they will die” means. Alex says that a pattern has identified in that it seems to be family groups such as fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and brothers and sisters, but not husbands and wives.
Llewellyn realises what has happened. Onboard Guinevere One had been a “message to the stars” which included things like maps and music. Quite why they’d include those things on a probe to Mars, I’m not sure.
Also on Guinevere One was a vial of human blood, namely A Positive. A review of the medical files of the UNIT staff affected shows that they were all A Positive. I did some checking, and it seems that about a third of the world’s population has A Positive blood, so the research was clearly done on that point.
Harriet says that at this point there’s only one thing she can do, and she makes a live TV broadcast urging the public to remain calm. She also makes an appeal for the Doctor to help them, which must seem a bit strange to most people watching, although a lot of people have probably met the Doctor by now, so they might have an idea as to what she’s referring to.
Rose and Jackie see Harriet’s speech and lament that there’s nothing they can do. Their lamenting is interrupted as the ground starts to shake and their windows shatter.
It’s the Sycorax spaceship, which has entered the Earth’s atmosphere and taken up position over Central London. Upon seeing the spaceship, Rose tells Mickey and Jackie to pack some stuff and head to the TARDIS, which is likely to be the only safe place on Earth.
The Sycorax send another transmission to UNIT asking the leader of the world to step forward. Harriet does so, and it would probably annoy the American president a bit if he were to find out that Harriet is claiming to be the leader.
The Sycorax tell Harriet to come aboard and she, Llewellyn, Blake, and Alex are teleported aboard the Sycorax ship. The four of them find themselves in a large chamber, surrounded by lots of Sycorax, with the Sycorax leader standing in the middle.
Llewellyn steps forward, trying to reason with with the Leader. The Leader’s response is to lash a whip at Llewellyn, which reduces him to a smouldering pile of bones. Blake protests, and gets the same treatment.
The Leader tells Harriet that she has two choices. She can surrender or one third of mankind will die. However, if she surrenders than half will be sold into slavery, which doesn’t seem like a great incentive for surrender to me.
We don’t get to see Harriet’s response, as the scene changes to the TARDIS interior. Rose and Mickey bring the Doctor inside, followed by Jackie who opens a flask of tea and sets it down on the TARDIS console before heading back to flat to get more food.
While Jackie’s gone, Mickey tries to activate the screens in the TARDIS so that they can get an idea of what’s going on outside. His actions cause something to happen which is picked up by the Sycorax, who teleport the TARDIS on to their ship.
Frustrated at not getting any decent response from the TARDIS, Rose leaves it to go to look for Jackie. As the TARDIS is no longer on Earth, she obviously doesn’t find her mother, and both Rose and Mickey are captured by the Sycorax.
Back inside the TARDIS, tea drips from the console on to some machinery close to where the Doctor is lying. Either smoke or steam starts to come from the machinery, and it looks as though the tea is going to be able to revive the Doctor. The Earth being saved by a cup of tea is certainly a very British resolution to the problem.
As Rose appears to be in charge of the TARDIS, the Leader declares that she will be the one who can speak for the human race. A very nervous Rose tries to tell the Sycorax to leave the planet, throwing in the names of the Gelth, the Slytheen, the Jagrafess and the Daleks (Word’s spellcheck had a lot of fun with that last sentence).
The Leader laughs at her, and makes a grandiose speech about how mighty the Sycorax are and how they’re going to destroy the Earth and enslave all mankind. Alex is translating as the speech goes on, but breaks off when the Leader suddenly appears to switch to English.
The Leader denies that he’s speaking English, even though everyone is definitely hearing English. Rose realises what has happened, and turns to the TARDIS where the doors open to reveal the Doctor. Doctor Who is probably the only show on TV that would be prepared to have its hero save the world while dressed in pyjamas and a dressing gown.
The Leader clearly does not approve of the pyjamas and dressing gown, and lashes his whip at the Doctor. Fortunately for the Doctor (and I guess the Earth as well), the whip doesn’t work on Time Lords otherwise that would have been his shortest ever regeneration.
The Leader then tries to attack the Doctor with his staff, but the Doctor grabs it and breaks it over his leg, remarking that you just can’t get the staff. I know that was a really bad pun (although are their ever any good puns?), but I liked it which is why I’m including it in this recap.
The Doctor then goes on a monologue about how he doesn’t know what sort of man he is: he could be a coward, a fighter, a nervous wreck. Although he does point out that the evidence suggests that he can talk a lot.
He notices the button which the Leader has been using to control the people standing of the building roofs, calling it “A Great Big Threatening Button Which Must Not Be Pressed Under Any Circumstances”. He examines the button and find a compartment below it, which contains a red liquid. Tasting the liquid he discovers that it’s human blood, A Positive.
He then says that not knowing who he is means he doesn’t know when to stop. Which means that when he sees “A Great Big Threatening Button Which Should Never Ever Be Pressed” there’s only one thing he wants to do, and demonstrates what it is by pressing the button.
Rose and Harriet out in dismay. However, on Earth the A Positives come to their senses and step away from the roof edges where they had been standing.
On the Sycorax ship, the Doctor explains that blood control is like hypnotism in that it can control people to a certain extent, but it can’t force someone to kill themselves. So the A Positives were never actually in any danger. Which makes me wonder what would have happened if Harriet had decided that it was better for a third of the human race to die rather than a half live in slavery.
The Doctor then makes my favourite comment of the episode (see the second-last quote below), before grabbing a sword from a Sycorax and challenging the Leader to fight for the planet.
The swordfight begins, and eventually makes its way out on to a platform on the outside of the spaceship. The Leader manages to knock the Doctor to the ground, and cuts off the Doctor’s sword hand, which falls off the side of the spaceship all the way to the ground below.
The Leader then tells the Doctor that Obi-Wan never told him what happened to his father, and that he is the Doctor’s father. Actually he doesn’t, and so Russell T. Davies avoids a lawsuit from George Lucas.
Instead the Doctor stands up and says that he now knows what sort of man he is. He’s a lucky man, because he’s still within the first fifteen hours of regeneration, and so he still has enough residual energy left to do something. That something is regrow his hand, a trick which I’m sure Luke Skywalker wishes the Jedi had mastered.
Time to nitpick again. Mickey was still at work when the TARDIS arrived. If we assume that it was five o’clock, then fifteen hours later is eight o’clock in the morning.
That causes a bit of a problem, because it’s presently very sunny. I’m not absolutely certain, but I’m pretty sure that it’s not very light at eight o’clock in the morning during an English winter.
Mickey could have been working late, but the daylight problem still applies albeit in the other direction, as once again I’m pretty sure that it’s beginning to get dark at five o’clock and the TARDIS arrived in daylight. So I suppose that the best thing to do is ignore the exact time and just accept that it’s sufficiently close to the Doctor’s regeneration for him to be able to heal any major injuries.
Rose grabs a sword from a nearby Sycorax and tosses it to the Doctor. The Doctor catches it cleanly, thereby not needing to grow another hand.
The fight continues for a little while, but the Doctor eventually triumphs. With the Leader lying on the ground and the Doctor’s sword at his throat, he agrees to leave Earth and never return.
The Doctor retrieves his dressing gown, which he had taken off in order to fight, and finds a satsuma in a pocket. Behind him, the Leader picks up his sword and charges at the Doctor, who throws the satsuma at a nearby switch, which has the effect of making the surface beneath the Leader’s feet disappear, and he falls to his death.
Before heading off in the TARDIS, the Doctor addresses the Sycorax. He tells them to leave the planet and to spread the word that it is defended.
The TARDIS materialises on Earth, and everyone heads outside to watch the Sycorax ship fly away. Jackie comes running up, and she, Rose, Mickey and the Doctor celebrate their success and safe return.
Meanwhile, Alex has received a message from Torchwood that they’re ready, and he relays it to Harriet. Harriet orders them to fire, and five green beams shoot up in the air from various parts of London before merging and hitting the Sycorax ship, destroying it.
The Doctor becomes angry and confronts Harriet, accusing her of murder. Harriet defends her actions by saying that the Doctor isn’t always around, and they need to be able to protect themselves.
The Doctor responds by saying that he should have told the Sycorax to run and hide because the monsters are coming, in the form of the human race. He then tells Harriet that he can bring down her government with just six words.
Harriet scoffs at his claim, and the Doctor walks over to Alex and whispers, “Don’t you think she looks tired?” before leaving with Rose, Jackie and Mickey.
The Doctor stands in the wardrobe room of the TARDIS, looking through some clothes. The props department had a little bit of fun there, as they apparently included costumes worn by the Fourth and Sixth Doctors, as well as the outfit Tennant wore in the mini-series Casanova. Eventually the Doctor chooses a brown suit and a lighter brown jacket.
The Doctor returns to the Tyler’s flat, where he joins them for Christmas dinner. On TV they notice Harriet Jones being questioned by reporters, denying rumours that there’s anything wrong with her health and stating that a vote of no confidence is completely unjustified. It looks like the Doctor’s six words are working.
Jackie receives a phone call from a friend who tells her to go and look outside. They all do so, and they see that it’s snowing.
Or at least everyone thinks it’s snowing. The Doctor says that it’s actually ash from the Sycorax ship. That’s a bit puzzling, as you would have thought that there would be major noticeable differences between the two substances.
Rose asks what the Doctor’s going to do now, and he tells her that he’s going to go travelling again and asks if she still wants to come with him. She agrees, and he says that there’s plenty to see out there and that it’s going to be fantastic.
Quotes
Mickey: But who is he? Where's the Doctor?
Rose: That's him. Right in front of you. That's the Doctor.
Jackie: What do you mean, "That's the Doctor"? Doctor who?
Rose: Both working.
Jackie: What do you mean “both”?
Rose: Well, he's got two hearts.
Jackie: Oh, don't be stupid.
Rose: He has!
Jackie: Anything else he's got two of?
The Doctor: I'm having a neuron implosion. I need—
Jackie: What do you need?
The Doctor: I need—
Jackie: Say it, tell me, tell me—
The Doctor: I need—
Jackie: Painkillers?
The Doctor: I need—
Jackie: Do you need aspirin?
The Doctor: I—
Jackie: Codeine? Paracetamol? Oh, I dunno-- Pepto-Bismol?
The Doctor: I need—
Jackie: Liquid paraffin? Vitamin C? Vitamin D? Vitamin E?
The Doctor: I need—
Jackie: Is it food? Something simple? Uh— a bowl of soup? A nice bowl of soup? Soup and a sandwich? Soup and a little ham sandwich?
The Doctor: I need you to shut up.
Jackie: Oh, he hasn't changed that much, has he?
Harriet Jones: But, no - the transmission was genuine. And this seems to be a new species of alien. At least, not one we've encountered before.
Daniel Llewellyn: You seem to be talking about aliens as a matter of fact.
Harriet Jones: There's an act of parliament banning my autobiography.
Daniel Llewellyn: But if they're not from the surface, then... they might not be from Mars itself. Maybe they're not actual Martians.
Major Blake: Of course not, Martians look completely different.
The Doctor: Am I... ginger?
Rose: No, you're just sort of brown.
The Doctor: Ah, I wanted to be ginger. I've never been ginger.
The Doctor: These human beings. Consider their potential. From the day they arrive on the planet and blinking step into the sun. There is more to see than can ever be seen. More to do than— no, hold on…
…Sorry, that's “The Lion King”. But the point still stands. Leave them alone!
The Doctor: Don't challenge me, Harriet Jones. 'Cause I'm a completely new man. I could bring down your Government with a single word.
Harriet: You're the most remarkable man I've ever met. But I don't think you're quite capable of that.
The Doctor: No, you're right. Not a single word. Just six.
Harriet: I don't think so.
The Doctor: Six words.
Harriet: Stop it!
The Doctor: Six.
The Doctor: [Whispers to Alex] Don't you think she looks tired?