The Doctor Dances

Continuing from the cliffhanger of "The Empty Child", the Doctor orders the beings to go back to their room - thus causing them to return to their beds and, unbeknownst to him, saving Nancy from her brother Jamie. The Doctor, Rose and Jack go to Jamie's room where the Doctor realises that the being that was Jamie is still learning what it can do and soon, will be too powerful to stop. The Doctor turns to discover Jamie waiting in the doorway. Escaping from Jamie and the other creatures (under Jamie's control), they end up trapped in a room. Jack teleports back to his ship and uses Glenn Miller's "Moonlight Serenade" to prevent Jamie using the radio to track the Doctor and Rose. Challenged by Rose to dance while they wait, the Doctor accepts but is interrupted when they are transported to Jack's Chula ship. The Doctor uses the ship's nanogenes to heal a wound while Jack explains that he went renegade on the Time Agency when they stole two years of his memories.
Meanwhile, Nancy is briefly caught by the family returning home. Managing to blackmail her way free, she returns to the railyard to tell the other children they are not safe while they are with her. Telling them of her plan to head to the bomb site, Nancy does so but is quickly captured. Despite her pleas, she is left with a guard who subsequently transforms into a gas mask-wearing zombie. The Doctor, Rose, and Jack arrive at the bomb site and realise that the contagion is now airborne as the soldiers there begin to transform. Freeing Nancy, the Doctor investigates the 'bomb' which is actually the empty shell of a Chula medical transport. Realising that the ship also contained nanogenes, the Doctor deduces that the transformations are caused by nanogenes who have used Jamie's dead body in a gas mask as a template for all humans. As they attempt to open the transport, it transmits a "call to arms" instructing all the altered humans to come to battle; as the Chula were a warrior race, the nanogenes have given the transformed beings enhanced abilities. The altered people from the hospital arrive at the railway station but stay at a distance, and the Doctor realizes that since Jamie was the template, it is his mind that drives them; his looking for his "mummy". A distraught Nancy claims that the situation is all her fault, and as the Doctor tries to reassure her, he notes her grief and deduces that she is not, as she appears, a fourteen year old girl and that Jamie was not her brother but her son.
Jamie heads through the gate and approaches Nancy, still asking if she is his mummy. The Doctor instructs Nancy to tell Jamie the truth, and she tearfully does so, embracing her son. The nanogene cloud gathers around the two, and are able to identify Nancy's DNA as being that of a parent, and they reverse the transformation on Jamie, restoring him to life. The Doctor then scatters the nanogenes over the assembled zombies and they are all restored, as he proclaims that "Just this once, everybody lives!" As the German bomb falls onto the site, Jack uses his ship to capture it and remove it to the far reaches of space; the Doctor sets the medical transport to explode, thus destroying the technology and matching the historical records of an explosion at the site. Aboard his ship, Jack finds he cannot stop the bomb from exploding or abandon his ship, but is rescued when the TARDIS materializes at the rear of his ship. Joining the TARDIS crew, Jack watches as the Doctor and Rose dance in celebration.

The Empty Child

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 materialises 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 in a gas mask alone on a nearby roof and climbs up to try to help him. Shortly, air-raid sirens begin wailing in every section, and the Doctor realises they have landed in World War II, during the The Blitz, with Nazi German planes making a bombing raid. 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 despite a young woman telling him not to, and hears 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 which has left for an air-raid 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. He learns that the young woman is called Nancy, and that they have been sustaining themselves this way with every air raid. 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 letterbox of the front door. Nancy tells the Doctor to not touch the boy, or he will become like him, "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 looted 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 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 gives 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 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 anachronistic binoculars and excuses himself. When Rose can no longer maintain her grip on the rope and falls, she is caught in a tractor beam and brought safely aboard his Chula spaceship, where she lands directly in his arms, and promptly faints. When she comes to, Jack introduces himself 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 has since gone freelance, and that he has something that the Time Agency wants and that he expects to have to negotiate with Rose for. 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 that Jack tell the truth. Jack admits it was just an ambulance, trying to bluff about 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, asking for their "mummy"; 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, also asking for his "mummy", leading to a cliffhanger ending, continued in "The Doctor Dances".

Fathers Day

The episode opens with a flashback of Jackie telling a younger Rose about her father Pete, who died on 7 November 1987, the day their friends Stuart Hoskins and Sarah Clarke got married. She tells Rose that no one was around when Pete died after being run over by a hit-and-run driver.
In the present on the TARDIS, Rose asks the Doctor if they can go back to the day her father died so that she can be there when it happens. The Doctor agrees, but cautions Rose to avoid interfering. They watch as Pete, attempting to retrieve a fallen gift for the wedding, is struck by a hit-and-run driver. Rose is unable to move when the Doctor tells her to go and be with her dad, and Pete soon dies. After Rose recovers, she asks the Doctor if she can try again with the time machine. The Doctor, against his judgement, allows for it, but warns Rose to not run until their former selves have left to prevent a paradox. As the accident is able to happen, Rose runs out and pushes Pete aside, saving his life, but causing their former selves to vanish. The Doctor angrily warns Rose about the damage to the timeline but Rose dismisses it, believing Pete to just be an average person. While Rose goes with Pete to the wedding, the Doctor storms back to the TARDIS, only to find that it is now an empty shell and realizes something is very wrong. Elsewhere, strange flying beasts start appearing and consuming people below without warning.
As Rose and Pete drive to the wedding, there is anachronistic hip-hop music ("Don't Mug Yourself" by The Streets) playing on Pete's radio, and Rose gets a unidentified voice message on her phone, "Watson, come here, I need you." At the church, the same car that nearly ran Pete over appears and threatens to run over Pete, but he dodges it, and the car disappears again. As they mill with the guests, including Jackie who has brought the infant Rose with her, young Mickey Smith runs up to the party and warns that all his friends were taken by beasts. As the same time, the Doctor reaches the church and warns everyone inside just as a one of the flying beasts appears and attacks the party. With the surviving members safely in the church, the Doctor explains to Rose that her actions have caused a time paradox, which the Time Lords, if they were still around, would be able to fix; instead, the flying creatures are like bacteria, sterilizing the wound in time by consuming everything inside it, though the age of the church will protect them. As they talk, the key to the TARDIS starts glowing and heating up, and the Doctor realizes that he can summon it and use it to fix the problem, but warns everyone to not touch it until the process is complete. The Doctor also warns Rose not to touch her younger self, as this will further damage the time stream.
As they wait for the TARDIS to fully reappear, Pete overhears the Doctor and Rose talking, and realize that Rose is his daughter. When he approaches her and asks her about how good a father he is, Rose is unable to answer truthfully. Jackie, seeing Pete talk to Rose, believes Pete is having an affair with her, but in order to show that Rose is really their daughter, he thrusts the infant Rose into Rose's arms. As the Doctor warned, this causes a paradox that allows one of the beasts to appear in the church. The Doctor, as the oldest being there, sacrifices himself as the beast rushes to the crowd, causing it, the Doctor, and the faint TARDIS image to disappear, leaving the TARDIS key cold. As the group tries to figure out what to do next, Pete watches the same car that tried to run him over appear and disappear over and over again. He comes to the conclusion that he was meant to die by that car, and determines that by letting himself die, the timeline will be repaired. He has an emotional goodbye with Jackie and Rose, and then runs out to face the car the next time it appears. Pete is fatally struck by the car, but in that instant, the timeline is restored: all those consumed by the beasts reappear, including the Doctor, while the others, save for Rose and Pete, are unaware of the events. Rose runs to Pete's side and quietly stays with him until he dies. Rose returns to the Doctor, and the two walk hand-in-hand back to the restored TARDIS.
The episode ends on a similar flashback as the opener, as Jackie explains to a young Rose that Pete didn't die alone - a young woman stayed with him until he died, leading the adult Rose to eulogise about Pete Tyler, her father, "the most wonderful man in the world."

The Long Game

The Doctor, Rose and Adam travel forward in time to the year 200,000 and land aboard Satellite 5, a space station orbiting Earth during what should be the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire, but the Doctor immediately recognizes that the activity aboard the station is not consistent with future history. The Doctor investigates the station and meets with journalists Cathica and Suki who work on Satellite 5, using his psychic paper to pose as a member of management. They tell the Doctor that Satellite 5 is a 600-channel news satellite broadcasting to the Empire, and that they hope to be promoted someday to "Floor 500", the management floor. Rose and Adam investigate food stalls near where the TARDIS landed. Adam is overwhelmed with the strangeness of the situation, so Rose lets him borrow her "superphone" to call his family in the past; but he only gets their answering machine. Adam pockets the "superphone". The Doctor and his companions are observed by the Editor, a human in a dark, icy room, watching their actions through security cameras.
The Doctor reunites with Rose and Adam, and they are invited to watch a 'broadcasting' session with Cathica and other journalists. Cathica uses a port in the centre of her forehead to process information directly into her brain, which is then transferred to chips in the other journalists' head, who then broadcast it to their appropriate stations. While Adam is amazed at the technology, the Doctor notes that humans should have surpassed it by now. However, the Editor has detected that Suki is an unauthorized intruder in the "newsroom", and announces to all that she has been promoted and should come to Floor 500. Suki says her goodbyes, as those that go to Floor 500 never come back, and departs; when she arrives, she finds Floor 500 to be cold and populated by shriveled corpses. She encounters the Editor, who exposes her as a member of the Freedom Foundation, an anarchist underground group. Suki holds the Editor at gunpoint, telling him she knows that the news reported from Satellite 5 is manipulated, and demands to know who controls the station. The Editor points her to the "Editor-in-Chief", who, unseen, descends upon the screaming Suki.
Adam excuses himself to recover his thoughts in an observation lounge, where he uses the station's computer to gain information that he relays back in time to his answering machine via the "superphone". However, the computer limits his access, and directs him to 'floor 16', the station's medical facility. He there learns that he can get a port similar to Cathica's which will link him directly to the archives, but he hesitates.
Meanwhile the Doctor and Rose try to get more information from Cathica. Cathica gives vague answers, but the Doctor deduces that something is holding the human race back, both in attitude and technology, for the last 91 years - ever since Satellite 5 started broadcasting. The Doctor hacks into the station computers and notes that a lot of heat is being vented from the top floors into the lower ones. The Editor is aware of the Doctor's actions, and allows him to gain the password to come to Floor 500. Rose and the Doctor try to convince Cathica to join them, but she wants nothing to do with it.
On floor 500, Rose and the Doctor encounter the Editor, as well as Suki's dead body and those of several others being used as slaves to the computer systems. The Editor explains that through Satellite 5, they have been able to change the Empire into a place where humans are allowed to live, using manipulated news to install fear into the human race as to keep them in a closed society. These actions have been controlled by a consortium of banks, and the "Editor-in-Chief", the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe ("Max" for short), who hangs above their heads. The Doctor notices that Cathica has had a change of heart and decided to follow them to Floor 500 as she listens in unobserved on the conversation outside the room; for her benefit, the Doctor verbally notes that the Jagrafess' metabolism generates a lot of heat, and thus the station itself is its life support system, venting the heat into the lower floors below.
Adam has the port implanted, and, after recovery, goes to the newsroom and opens his port; he calls his answering machine with the "superphone", and initiates a link with the computer. The Editor is alerted to this, and is able to learn of the TARDIS and that the Doctor is a Time Lord from Adam's mind, and now aims to get the secret of time travel from the Doctor so that he can rewrite history to prevent humans from even developing. Cathica, hearing this, goes to the newsroom on Floor 500 and uses her link to sever Adam's connection and to reverse the flow of the environmental systems, sending heat to Floor 500, causing the Jagrafess to overheat. The Doctor and Rose escape while the Editor tries to sever Cathica's connection but cannot; he then tries to escape as well but is held by Suki's corpse, and ends up caught in the explosion of the Jagrafess.
The Doctor congratulates Cathica, but is furious with Adam. The Doctor takes Adam home in the Tardis, destroys the answering machine and banishes Adam from the TARDIS, noting that Adam will have to live a quiet life so no-one discovers the port in his forehead. As the Doctor and Rose leave, Adam's mother comes home, and commenting on how time flies, snaps her fingers, causing Adam's forehead port to open, and causing his mother to stare in horror.