The Runaway Bride

A bride-to-be, Donna Noble, vanishes while walking up the aisle and materialises in the TARDIS just after The Doctor has made his farewells to Rose Tyler. Both are astounded by this event. Donna, thinking he has somehow kidnapped her, demands the Doctor return her to the church in Chiswick but he accidentally lands the TARDIS near Oxford Street instead.
Donna storms out of the TARDIS and tries to contact her family through a public telephone, while the Doctor wonders how she could have got aboard. He then recognises masked Santas nearby as the robotic scavengers from the previous year's Christmas, levelling their weapons disguised as musical instruments at him. He distracts them by using his sonic screwdriver on a nearby ATM to make it spit out money and causing a crazed rush from the nearby crowd, and then goes off in search of Donna. She has managed to collect some money and is taking off in a cab, but its driver turns out to be another one of the robotic Santas. The Doctor gives chase by flying the TARDIS directly over the motorway and rescues her. However, such an endeavour has put a strain on the TARDIS, and he cannot use it for some time. The Doctor gives Donna a ring to prevent the Santas from tracking her and tries to figure out why she was targeted earlier. He learns that she works at a security firm called H.C. Clements, where she met her husband-to-be, Lance Bennett.
The Doctor takes Donna to her reception, to the relief of Lance, her family and their friends. The Doctor learns that H.C. Clements is owned by the Torchwood Institute, and, through footage taken by the photographer at the wedding earlier, that Donna was turned into Huon particles, a source of energy that hasn't existed for billions of years. This cannot be masked by the ring he gave her earlier, and the reception hall is surrounded by the Santas, who have also rigged a Christmas tree with explosive ornaments. Using the sound system at the reception and his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor is able to shake apart the robots, and trace the source of their control to a star-shaped spaceship hanging above the city, but shortly loses its signal.
The Doctor asks Lance to take him and Donna to H.C. Clements, wondering who controls the firm since Torchwood One's dissolution in the Battle of Canary Wharf. He discovers a secret basement level and the three of them travel to it, finding themselves in a long tunnel that eventually leads to the Thames Barrier. There, the Doctor discovers a laboratory where Huon particles have been manufactured and stored in liquid form. The Doctor determines that Donna was saturated in them so that due to the stress of her wedding day, she would cause the particles to catalyse and activate for an unknown purpose. However, the process pulled her into the TARDIS's own source of Huon particles.
A large hole also extends across the room, the Doctor surmising that it was dug out by Torchwood's laser technology and extending to the centre of the Earth. As they explore, a half-humanoid, half-spider creature teleports, which the Doctor identifies as one of the Racnoss, an alien race thought to have been wiped out billions of years ago. The Racnoss, which calls itself the Empress, has fashioned a large web above the pit, where the body of H.C. Clements still hangs. Lance reveals that he has been working for the Racness and that he was the one who saturated Donna with Huon particles by serving her spiked coffee in the office - unintentionally causing Donna to fall in love with him and bully him into proposing. When the Doctor and a heart-broken Donna escape with the TARDIS, the Empress decides to use Lance as she intended to use Donna, and begins force-feeding him the particles.
The Doctor takes the TARDIS back in time to the creation of the Earth to discover the final piece of the puzzle: the planet actually formed around a Racnoss spaceship which is still in its core. The Empress's goal is to use the Huon particles to reawaken those still on board and devour the human race. The Doctor and Donna, who has been lifted out of her gloom by the majestic spectacle, return to the laboratory where Donna is immediately captured into the Empress's web, while the Doctor is held at gunpoint. The Empress begins to activate the Huon particles and drops Lance into the pit as food for her fellow Racnoss, who have awoken and are beginning to ascend to the surface.
Meanwhile, her ship begins to descend and attacks London. The Doctor manages to sneak back into the laboratory and issues the Racnoss a final offer, to take her and her kind to a planet where they will not threaten anyone. When she refuses, having not realised that the Doctor is a Time Lord, he identifies himself as from Gallifrey (gaining a reaction of outrage and fear from the Empress, who accuses the Time Lords of having murdered the Racnoss) and uses some of the explosive Christmas ornaments to burst apart the walls. Water from the River Thames bursts into the building and floods the well, drowning the Racnoss at the Earth's centre. Donna urges a vengeful Doctor to leave and they escape into the TARDIS once more. The Empress teleports back to her now defenceless ship, shortly before it gets blown out of the sky by the army.
The Doctor returns Donna home but she is desolate, having lost her job and her fiancé the same evening. She declines an invitation to join him in the TARDIS but suggests he find someone else to calm him down, as she did earlier in battle. The Doctor tells her briefly about Rose, and then disappears back into the TARDIS.

Doomsday

The episode's opening continues from the final scene of "Army of Ghosts"; Dr Singh, Mickey Smith and Rose Tyler are trapped in a sealed room within Torchwood Tower. Four Daleks, accompanied by a device known as the "Genesis Ark", have emerged from the void ship. A Dalek Supreme called Dalek Sec extracts information about Earth from Singh, killing him in the process. He discovers that a separate invasion is in progress, and sends Dalek Thay out to investigate. The Cybermen, who took control of Torchwood, detect the Dalek technology and offer an alliance. The Daleks decline, and the two species declare war on each other.
While discussing humanity with the Doctor, the Cyber Leader is destroyed by a strike team led by Jake Simmonds, from the same universe as the Cybermen. Jake takes the Doctor to his universe and a parallel Torchwood. Pete Tyler tells him that the Cybermen vanished and they have followed them. But the breach is causing the parallel Earth to boil and must be closed, before the damage destroys both worlds. They return to Earth and approach the Cybermen with a truce against the Daleks.
Meanwhile, Rose tells Mickey they were kept alive because, as time travellers, their touch would activate the Ark. Sec explains that the Cult cannot open the Ark because it is stolen Time Lord technology. He demands that Rose open it, but she refuses, and goads the Daleks with her knowledge of the Time War's conclusion and the fact she annihilated their Emperor until the Doctor appears. Upon realising that the Daleks are the Cult of Skaro, he uses his sonic screwdriver to allow the Cybermen to attack the Daleks, letting the humans escape. Mickey accidentally activates the Ark when escaping, and the Daleks, after fighting off the Cybermen, travel to the exterior of Canary Wharf to release the Ark's contents: millions of Daleks who were imprisoned during the Time War. The Daleks descend on London, killing all in their path.
The Doctor and his companions flee into the tower. En route, Pete rescues Jackie from upgrading and the couple are reunited. As the Dalek-Cyberman war rages outside with humans getting massacred in the crossfire, the Doctor brings everyone to the breach room. He explains that crossing the Void causes a traveller to become saturated in Void material. If he opens the breach to the void, any being saturated will be pulled in. He will then close the breach forever. However, Rose and Mickey have crossed the Void and are contaminated and vulnerable.
The Tylers and Mickey cross into the parallel universe, but Rose decides she would rather be with the Doctor than her family and jumps back to help him. They open the breach and hold onto a pair of magnetic clamps as the Cybermen and Daleks are pulled in, though Dalek Sec and the Cult of Skaro escape via an "emergency temporal shift". Rose's lever slips. She pushes it back into position but loses her grip. Before she falls into the Void, Pete reappears, catches her and jumps back to his world. Moments later, the breach slams shut forever, leaving a devastated Rose trapped in the other world.
Some time later, Rose has a dream where she hears the Doctor's voice calling her. The Tyler family follow the voice to a remote bay in Norway called Bad Wolf Bay, where an image of the Doctor appears, which he is harnessing the power of a supernova to transmit through one of the final breaches. Because the breach is to close permanently in two minutes, the pair share one last conversation. Rose breaks down in tears and tells him that she loves him, but as the Doctor starts to reply, the breach closes. In the TARDIS, a tearful Doctor regains his composure and sets a new course. He looks up to see a woman in a wedding dress, who demands to know where she is.

Army of Ghosts

The episode begins with Rose Tyler narrating how her life changed when she met the Doctor, and that she thought it would last forever. But then came the ghosts, Torchwood, and the war, and begins to tell how her travels ended.
The TARDIS materialises on the Powell Estate so Rose can visit her mother, Jackie Tyler. Jackie shows the Doctor and Rose, to their surprise, that ghosts have been regularly visiting since they last left. After watching various television programmes, the Doctor and Rose find out that the ghosts started visiting several months before, and over time humanity accepted them. Disturbed by both the ghosts and their appearances being scheduled, the Doctor traces the "ghost shift" to One Canada Square, the secret base of the Torchwood Institute.
Torchwood are shown to be, along with causing the ghosts to appear, experimenting on a sphere, which arrived concurrently with the ghosts. The sphere is commented to be without mass or a gravitation field – physically, it does not exist. The cause of all these is shown to be a breach between universes caused by the sphere, allowing Cybermen from a parallel universe to filter through, and slowly infiltrate Torchwood's ranks.
Upon arriving at Torchwood, the Doctor is taken prisoner, along with Jackie, who Yvonne Hartman, director of Torchwood, believes to be Rose. The Doctor is told that his encounter with Queen Victoria made him an enemy of the state, and was the catalyst for the creation of Torchwood. He is then shown the sphere, which he identifies as a "void ship", and the experiments on the breach, which the Doctor strongly disapproving of both practices, noting that experimenting with the breach will only cause it to fracture more.
Rose, free from detection, masquerades as an employee, and explores Torchwood. She is able to get into the chamber where the void ship is located, but is immediately questioned by Dr Singh, who is in charge of experimenting upon the sphere. He discovers that Rose is an imposter, and asks his colleague Samuel, who Rose recognises as Mickey Smith, to seal the doors.At the end of the episode, the breach is fully opened, and the multitude of Cybermen are able to cross the Void and take over the Earth. At the same time, the void ship begins to open, and Mickey produces a gun to fight the Cybermen he expects to find inside. But the Cybermen tell the Doctor that they merely followed the sphere across worlds and do not know its origin. When it opens fully, four Daleks emerge, identify the Earth and vow to exterminate its lifeforms.

Fear Her

The TARDIS materialises on Dame Kelly Holmes Close on the day of the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games. The neighbourhood is preparing for the passing of the Olympic torchbearer, but the mood has been destroyed by the inexplicable disappearances of several local children. A council worker, Kel, also mentions that cars have been breaking down momentarily all day. The Doctor and Rose investigate and realise that the source of the problems is a solitary 12-year old girl, Chloe Webber, who is able to cause people to disappear by drawing them. The Doctor hypnotises Chloe and finds that she is possessed by an immature Isolus, an alien life-form used to traveling through space with a family of billions and which has crashed its pod to Earth due to a solar flare. The Isolus has befriended Chloe as she had a troubled childhood and it relates to her loneliness. Besides snatching people, this has also caused Chloe to draw a life-sized, exaggerated figure of her late violate father, which briefly has become animated.
The Doctor explains that if they can find the Isolus pod and provide it power, the alien will leave Chloe. A frantic Chloe draws the Doctor into one of her paintings, forcing Rose to try to find the pod herself. She rationalizes that the pod is located on the spot on the street where cars have been breaking down, and is able to dig it up with the council worker's help. With Chloe having already caused the entire crowd at the Olympic stadium to disappear and now intent on making everyone in the world disappear, Rose tries to find out how to power the pod. Thanks to visual indications from the Doctor's "picture", Rose understands that she needs to offer the pod heat mixed with emotional strength, which she does by throwing the pod towards the Olympic Torch. As the missing children start to reappear, Rose realises that so will the demon-like drawing that Chloe had made of her father. Rose and Chloe's mother are able, though, to calm Chloe enough and the - unseen - monster disappears.
As the torch-bearer approaches the Olympic Stadium, he staggers, but the Doctor completes the run and lights the Olympic Flame, allowing the Isolus to peacefully leave Chloe's body and return home. As the Doctor and Rose walk off to watch the Games, Rose remarks that however hard they attempt, nothing will ever split the two of them up. However, the Doctor becomes uneasy and surmises that a storm is approaching.

Love & Monsters

"Love & Monsters" is presented as an excerpt from the video diary of Elton Pope, a young ELO fan, describing his encounters with The Doctor. Elton's on-camera narration forms a present-day frame story to a series of flashbacks related to his investigation of the Doctor. Elton recounts a chance meeting with the Doctor, and recalls having seen the same man as a young child. Searching the Internet, he discovers others, including Ursula Blake, who have also reported similar experiences with the Doctor. Elton and Ursula form LINDA—"London Investigation 'N' Detective Agency"—with three others, Bridget, Bliss, and Mr. Skinner, and meet in a library basement to discuss their experiences, but soon their activities become more social in nature. Elton and Ursula become closer through these meetings.
One day, LINDA finds its meeting interrupted by the portly Victor Kennedy, who points out that LINDA has lost its cause and reinvigorates the group to seek out the Doctor's location. Elton is given the task of getting close to Jackie Tyler, Rose's mum. Elton manages to find Jackie but when he starts asking too many questions about Rose, Jackie shoos him off. Meanwhile, two of LINDA's members, Bridget and Bliss, appear to have left the group, Victor explaining their absence as having decided to move on in their lives. After one meeting, Elton and Ursula depart, while Mr. Skinner remains at Victor's request. When Ursula realizes she had forgotten her phone, the two return, and discover that Victor is really a grotesque alien being (later named an "Abzorbaloff" by Elton), with the faces of the former LINDA members and others protruding from his body, still conscious of themselves. Elton is unable to stop the Abzorbaloff from absorbing Ursula, but makes for his own escape.
As the Abzorbaloff chases him, Elton is forced down a dead-end alley. However, moments before the Abzorbaloff can touch him, the TARDIS appears and the Doctor and Rose step out; Rose angrily confronts Elton for upsetting her mom. The Abzorbaloff, now with the Doctor in range, tries to absorb the Time Lord, but the absorbed members of LINDA use their willpower to hold back the Abzorbaloff's body, forcing it to drop its cane. The Doctor realizes that the cane contains a field generator that keeps the Abzorbaloff in control of its body, and Elton smashes the cane apart. The Abzorbaloff and the absorbed people begin to dissolve, and while the Doctor realizes it is too late to save the others, he manages to use his sonic screwdriver to keep Ursula's essence alive in a piece of cement tile, which Elton has kept in his room. The Doctor realizes that he has seen Elton before as a young child, and apologizes to him for the death of his mother at the hands of an elemental shade he had been chases years ago.
In the conclusion of Elton's narrative, he demonstrates that he and Ursula still have a romantic, if not unconventional, relationship. He further postulates that while one could have a conventional life, "the real world is much stranger than that; it is so much darker, madder, and so much better."

The Satan Pit

While the Doctor and archelogist Ida investigate the strange door deep in the planet Krop Tor, Rose and the rest of the human crew flee from the advancing Ood, all possessed by The Beast and regroup to come up with a plan. The group initially believe Toby to be possessed by The Beast, but when they observe a force leaving his body and return to the Ood, they conclude that he has regained his own will. The Doctor makes contact with the crew, revealing that while the door had opened, nothing came out of it. He offers to rappel down the sides to explore further.
As the crew struggles to fight against the advancing horde, attempting to free Captain Zack who is trapped inside the control room and making their way to an escape rocket, the Doctor descends into the open door into a seemingly bottomless pit. The Beast communicates with the Doctor and the rest of the crew through the Ood; the Beast explains he is the epitome of evil across many different religions, as he had been sealed in the planet's Pit since the creation of the universe by the Disciples of the Light, and is seeking to escape. When the Doctor runs out of rope, he opts to drop down, causing Rose to be distressed over his fate. Ida finds herself unable to return to the surface and running short on air. As the Ood continue their attack, the crew is whittled down to just Zack, Rose, Danny and Toby, who board and launch the escape rocket.
The Doctor finds himself in a cave depicting the capture of The Beast, and discovers two jars on pedestals a few feet from each other. Touching them causes the cavern to fill with light, revealing the giant physical form of The Beast, complete with caprine head and humanoid body, chained to the walls of the cavern. The Doctor quickly deduces from the unintelligible grunts coming from The Beast that the consciousness of The Beast has already managed to escape. He also comes to understand that Krop Tor was a perfect prison for The Beast, as should he escape, the gravity field keeping the planet in orbit about the black hole would collapse, taking The Beast with it. The Doctor, aware that Rose will be put in danger by destroying the gravity field, proceeds to smash the jars, destroying the generators and causing the planet to fall into the event horizon, The Beast's physical form writhing in pain. The Doctor, though willing to sacrifice himself, manages to come across his TARDIS in another part of the cavern.Meanwhile, the escape rocket struggles against the black hole's gravity with the energy source now destroyed. The Beast repossesses Toby, defiant from being killed. Rose takes a yellow-stripped Boltgun and shoots out the rocket's viewscreen and disengages Toby's harness, causing the possessed being to be sucked out into space and into the black hole. The cabin is shortly sealed by automatic shields, but the rocket is still lacks the power to escape the gravity well. They suddenly find their ride has smoothed out and are being moved far away from the black hole; the Doctor, over a communications channel, reveals that he and Ida are both safe, and that he is using the TARDIS to tow the rocket to safety. However, the Doctor reports he did not have time to go back and save the Ood, innocent victims of the Beast's possession. Once safe, the respective crews regroup and then depart to go their separate ways. As they return to Earth, Zack reads off the list of personnel that died, including the Ood.

The Impossible Planet

The TARDIS arrives inside a "Sanctuary Base" used for deep-space expeditions; as Doctor and Rose explore it, they discover strange alien writing that the TARDIS is unable to translate. After a slight misunderstanding when first meeting the Ood, a docile race of empathic servants who work on the station, the travelers meet the crew of the base, led by acting Captain Zachary Cross Flane. The crew, which includes Science Officer Ida Scott, Head of Security Mr Jefferson, and archaeologist Toby Zed, are on an expedition on an anomalous planet, named "Krop Tor", in orbit around a black hole. Zack explains that a gravity well exists around the planet, allowing them to safely enter or leave the event horizon of the black hole, and that it is generated by an immense energy force ten miles within it, which they are drilling towards to understand its power. As the Doctor and Rose are acquainting themselves with the crew, the base is struck by a planet-quake, causing the section of the base containing the TARDIS to fall into the planet, and the two become resigned to help out the crew.
As the drill nears its target, a malevolent presence begins to make itself known; the Ood's translation spheres reveal messages about the Beast awaking, while Toby is unknowingly possessed by the Beast and kills a crew member. When drilling is complete, the Doctor offers to go with Ida into the bowels of the planet. After travelling down the shaft, the Doctor and Ida find a large circular disk, inscribed with more undecipherable markings, which the Doctor believes is a door. As they watch, the door begins to open; simultaneously, the Beast repossesses Toby and the Ood. The possessed Toby warns Rose and the remaining crew that the planet is now falling towards the black hole, and that the Beast is free, while the Ood, now claiming to be the Legion of the Beast, begin to close in on them.

The Idiot's Lantern

The Doctor, intending to take Rose to an Elvis Presley concert in New York City, mislands the TARDIS in Muswell Hill, London on the day before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The Doctor's curiosity is piqued when they see people, their faces covered by sheets, being taken away by police. The Doctor befriends teenaged Tommy Connolly who shows him his grandmother, devoid of any facial features and lacking any brain activity. Tommy admits the problems started when they all started buying inexpensive television sets in preparation for the coronation from Mr Magpie. The Doctor follows where the police are taking the faceless people while Rose investigates Magpie's shop. There, she discovers an entity calling itself the Wire, an alien being that managed to escape execution by its people by turning itself into an electrical form, and now presents its as a spokeswoman on Magpie's television sets, seeking to consume enough minds to recreate its own body and planning on using the wide broadcast of the coronation to do so. Rose is unable to flee before the Wire steals her face as well.As the Doctor is studying the other victims, the faceless Rose is brought in by the police. The Doctor races back to Tommy to enlist his help as they go to Magpie's store and confront its owner. The Wire reveals its plans to the Doctor and tries to consume him and Tommy, but the Doctor fights back with his sonic screwdriver. The Wire retreats into a portable television Mr. Magpie created, and he escapes, intent on reaching the Alexandra Palace transmitter. The Doctor, with Tommy's help, uses equipment from Magpie's shop and his TARDIS to create a device to capture the Wire, and shortly follow Mr. Magpie. As Magpie connects the portable device to the tower, allowing the Wire to start to draw in the viewers' minds while killing Magpie in the process, the Doctor is able to connect his device to the transmitter. The Wire is pulled into the device, and viewers continue to safely watch the coronation; similarly, the minds and faces of those consumed by the Wire are returned to normal. The Doctor shows Tommy that he has captured the Wire on a Betamax cassette, which he will have Rose remind him later to tape over in order to destroy the entity. Rose is reunited with the Doctor, and the two celebrate the coronation with the rest of London.

The Age of Steel

Having escaped from the alternate universe's Pete Tyler's home from an army of Cybermen, the Doctor is able to disable the robots, saving his group. Insisting to Pete that everyone inside his home, including his wife Jackie, is likely dead, the Doctor directs Pete, Rose, Mickey, and the Preachers, including Mickey's alternate universe counterpart Ricky. Jake, and Mrs. Moore, to get back to London to warn the authorities. As they flee, Pete explains that he was working with Lumic, the man that has created the Cybermen, only to learn of his plans and provide that information to the Preachers. Meanwhile, Lumic orders the Cybermen to bring those humans under control of his EarPods to the Battersea Power Station for conversion.
When they reach the city, the group discovers Lumic's zeppelin moored near the power station and make towards it; Ricky is killed by the Cybermen during their incursion. After inspection the station, the Doctor determines they must destroy the EarPod transmitter, located on the zeppelin. The group splits up: Mickey and Jake to board the zeppelin, Pete and Rose to pose as affected humans to try to disrupt the conversion process, and the Doctor and Mrs. Moore to find their way to Lumic. Pete and Rose are captured by the Cybermen when one, the converted Jackie, catches sight of them. Though Mrs. Moore is killed by a Cyberman, the Doctor discovers that each unit contains an inhibitor signal to prevent their human side from taking over, and determines that if he can disable the signal, the converted Cybermen will likely kill themselves over their moral dilemma. However, he is captured by the Cybermen before implementing his plan.
Taken to Lumic's office, the Doctor discovers the Cybermen have captured Pete and Rose, and they have forcefully converted Lumic into their leader. When Mickey and Jake successfully disable the transmitter, Lumic reveals they will simply take the humans by force. The Doctor, aware that Lumic's office is under surveillance by Mickey and Jake, subtly attempts to ask for the inhibitor code. Mickey eventually recognizes the Doctor's plan, locates the code in the zeppelin computers, and sends it to Rose's phone. The Doctor plugs the phone into the computer systems, causing the inhibitor signal to drop and sending the army of Cybermen into despair. As the conversion facility begins to go up in flames, the group escapes to the zeppelin, leaving Lumic to die.As the city recovers, the Doctor, Rose, and Mickey return with Jake and Pete to the TARDIS, the power cell sufficiently charged to allow the TARDIS to return to the proper dimension. However, Mickey reveals that he plans to stay with Jake and Pete in the alternate universe, as to take care of Ricky's grandmother and continue the Preacher's fight and destroy Lumic's other factories. After the TARDIS' departure, Mickey recounts to Jake how he once "saved the universe with a big yellow truck".

Rise of the Cybermen

As the Doctor and Rose reminisce about a past adventure while the TARDIS is in-flight, Mickey begins to feel upset that the two take him for granted. However, before they can comment, the TARDIS is rocked by a huge explosion and goes dark. The Doctor determines that they have fallen out of the time vortex into the void, and have landed somewhere, but that the TARDIS appears dead. They find themselves on Earth in London, but in a parallel universe. Zeppelins fly in the skies and Rose spots an advertisement featuring her father Pete Tyler as a successful business leader, when in her own universe Pete has died. The Doctor notes that the TARDIS can only operate on power from its own universe, and spots a dim but glowing power cell in the bowels of the ship. The Doctor breathes into it, giving away 10 years of his life but allowing the cell to start recharging, a process that will take about 24 hours after which they should be able to return to their universe. Given the wait, Rose and Mickey decide to go and check on respectively Pete and Mickey's grandmother, both alive in this universe. The Doctor, worried for both, ends up chasing after Rose.
The Doctor and Rose discover that most of the population of this universe wear special "EarPods", devices that, when activated by a signal, download massive amounts of news and information directly to the wearer's brain, information that is also received by Rose's mobile phone. They learn that the EarPods as well as Pete's company are owned by the powerful John Lumic, owner of Cybus Industries, who is presently failing to gain approval from the Ethics Committee of Great Britain for his "ultimate upgrade": a method of sustaining the human brain indefinitely within a cradle of copyrighted chemicals and allowing its impulses to be bonded onto a metal exoskeleton. Lumic secretly has been capturing homeless people and putting them to work in his Battersea Power Station factory using the EarPods as methods to control the homeless. Having been denied permission by the President of Great Britain, Lumic tells his right-hand man Mr Crane to begin the upgrade process. Crane drives an International Electromatics lorry and kidnaps more homeless people, but instead of just fitting them with EarPods, he orders them into a room filled with cutting and other machinery which transforms them into the new prototypes.
Mickey arrives at his grandmother's house to find her still alive, but before he can get acquainted with her, he is grabbed by people in an unmarked van and taken to a country house. One of his abductors, Jake, who calls him "Ricky", tells him that he is the most wanted person in Great Britain, and that they have evidence of Lumic's dealing with the homeless people. When they arrive at the base, the real Ricky, Mickey's counterpart in this universe, is there, and explains he is the leader of the "Preachers" who reject the EarPods and have been tracking Lumic's actions. After clearing the confusion between the existence of Ricky and Mickey, the group learns of pending action by Lumic and, with Mickey in tow, make towards Pete Tyler's estate.
The Doctor and Rose arrive at Pete's estate and learn that there is a large party there that night, where the President of Great Britain and Lumic will be present. The Doctor and Rose pose as part of the serving staff to investigate, and learn that this Pete and Jackie Tyler are childless but have a pet terrier called Rose. Rose meets both Pete and Jackie and learns that they have just separated secretly. As the party gets underway, Lumic presents his plans for his prototype, which the Doctor recognises right away. Before he can act, the partygoers hear the sound of troops surrounding the building, an army of metal men, which the Doctor tells Rose are Cybermen. As the Cybermen break through the windows, Lumic explains that they have been selected to be upgraded to "Human.2", and that every human will receive a compulsory free upgrade. The President resists, and is electrocuted by a Cyberman who informs them that this is the only alternative to conversion. As Jackie flees into the basement with a Cyberman in pursuit, the Doctor, Rose, and Pete jump out a window and find the Preachers there, firing their ineffective weapons at the Cybermen. As the episode closes in a cliffhanger, the Doctor, Rose, Pete, Mickey, Ricky, and Jake are surrounded by the Cybermen who, deeming them incompatible for upgrading, announce they will be deleted and move in for the kill.

The Girl in The Fireplace

The TARDIS arrives in a derelict spaceship, which is fully functional yet motionless and without a crew. The travellers —the Doctor, Rose Tyler, and Mickey Smith— are further baffled to find an 18th century French fireplace. Looking through the fireplace, the Doctor sees a young girl. He asks who she is, and she replies that her name is Reinette, and that she lives in Paris in the year 1727. The fireplace is a "time window", allowing direct access to another time and place; passing through the window, the Doctor arrives in Reinette's bedroom, although months have passed here, rather than mere seconds in the Doctor's time. Examining the room, the Doctor discovers a nightmarish ticking humanoid under Reinette's bed. The Doctor tricks the creature back through the time window to the spacecraft, where he and his companions learn that it is actually an android made of intricate, beautiful clockwork. Returning to Reinette's bedroom, the Doctor finds that she is now a young woman. She remembers him, and her charm and intelligence entrances the Doctor; they kiss, but she runs off to answer a summons for "Mademoiselle Poisson". The Doctor realises she is Madame de Pompadour (the mistress of King Louis XV), a historic figure he admires greatly.
Returning to the ship, the Doctor and his companions find several additional time windows at various locations throughout the ship, each leading to a different moment from the life of Madame de Pompadour. In one of them, the Doctor sees another clockwork creature menacing her. Stepping through the time window, he defends Reinette. Obeying her orders to explain itself, the clockwork creature tells her that the spaceship was damaged in an ion storm; the maintenance androids did not have the parts necessary to repair the ship, and killed the crew to use their organs for parts. One more part is required for the ship to be fully functional: Reinette's brain. Seeking more information on the motivation of the clockwork androids, the Doctor reads Reinette's mind, but is startled to find that she can read his as well, and has enormous empathy for his loneliness. Rose and Mickey are taken captive by the androids, but rescued by the Doctor (who returns blind-drunk from a party Reinette took him to, claiming to have invented the banana daquiri), who has discovered that the creatures are trying to open a time window into Reinette's life at the age of 37. At that age, the literal-minded androids believe Reinette's brain will be compatible with the ship's 37-year-old systems. The clockwork androids appear at a costume ball, forcing Reinette and the rest of the guests into the ballroom. At one end of the room is an enormous mirror, which is actually a time window; the Doctor and his companions can see through it, but cannot pass through without smashing the window; this would break the connection.The creatures threaten to decapitate Reinette, but the Doctor crashes through the mirror to save her, although he believes he has stranded himself in Versailles in the year 1758. The clockwork androids give up and shut down when the Doctor tells them that they have no way to return to the ship to carry out their mission. Reinette reveals that she had her fireplace moved to Versailles, hoping that the Doctor would return; the Doctor uses the window to return to the ship, and tells Reinette to pack a bag and choose a constellation to visit with him. When the Doctor returns to the fireplace, however, he finds Reinette is not there to meet him, having died in the six years since the Doctor's last visit. King Louis XV gives the Doctor a parting letter from Reinette, and the Doctor returns alone to the TARDIS. In the letter, Reinette expresses her hopes that the Doctor will return quickly, asking him to hurry as her days grow short, referring to him as "my love" and her "lonely angel". The Doctor returns the letter to his pocket, watching on the TARDIS screen as the fireplace goes dark and the time window is closed forever. The TARDIS vanishes from the derelict spaceship with the companions perplexed as to why the ship wanted the brain of Madame de Pompadour over anyone else's to complete its repairs; the Doctor puts this down to damaged and garbled memory banks. However, as the now-lifeless ship drifts through space, the camera reveals that the ship's name is the SS Madame de Pompadour.

School Reunion

Mr. Finch, the headmaster of Deffry Vale School, has been changing the school to improve the students' performance; his changes include free lunches with special chips. The Doctor, under the alias "John Smith", is undercover as a science teacher in the school and is shocked by the uncommon intelligence of the students. His companion, Rose Tyler, is working undercover in the school's cafeteria. Both the Doctor and Rose relate the mysterious events around the school to the chips: Rose observes that the chip oil has an adverse effect on the other kitchen staff, while the Doctor notes that the chips themselves are making children more intelligent.
The higher-than-average intelligence of the children has aroused media attention - in particular, the attention of investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith. While at first the Doctor feigns ignorance, when Sarah Jane discovers the TARDIS during the night, he is forced to admit his identity. Sarah Jane meets Rose and Mickey, much to the chagrin of Rose. As they search the school, they find thirteen bat-like creatures asleep in Finch's office. Sarah Jane reveals a battered, inactive version of K-9, which - once repaired - identifies the chip oil as Krillitane oil. Rose, who was unaware he had past travelling companions and thought that she had "something special" with the Doctor, confronts him; he replies sadly that, while she can spend the rest of her life with him, he cannot spend the rest of his life with her.
The following day, the group returns to the school to investigate further. The Doctor confronts Mr. Finch, who confirms that he and the others are Krillitanes - a composite species that takes desirable attributes of the species they conquer. He attempts to subvert the Doctor, without success. Meanwhile, Sarah Jane and Rose try to unlock the programming on the school's computers; Mickey and K-9 remain in Sarah Jane's car for surveillance. With the Doctor's help, they discover that the computers - bolstered by the students' enhanced intelligence - are part of a Krillitane effort to solve the "Skasis Paradigm", a theory of everything. As the paradigm is nearly solved - which would allow the Krillitanes full control over time and space - the Krillitanes seal the school. Mr. Finch propositions the Doctor a second time, tempting him with the ability to save the Time Lords and override human mortality. With Sarah Jane's counseling, the Doctor refuses, and they run from Mr. Finch. Mickey crashes Sarah Jane's car through the school's doors and unplugs the computers, allowing the children to flee. The Doctor leads the Krillitanes to the kitchen; upon their arrival, K-9 opens fire on the oil barrels, destroying the Krillitanes, the school, and himself.
At episode's end, Rose, Sarah Jane, Mickey, and the Doctor are standing in the TARDIS. Sarah Jane declines a second chance of travelling in the TARDIS. Mickey says he would like to travel in the TARDIS instead, a suggestion of which Sarah Jane approves, much to the chagrin of Rose. She then asks Rose to stay with the Doctor and - if she needs help - to find her. Sarah Jane then gets a chance to part properly with the Doctor, who leaves her with a brand new K-9 as a parting gift.

Tooth and Claw

The Doctor attempts to take Rose to Sheffield in 1979 to see Ian Dury in concert, but ends up in the Scottish moors in 1879. They encounter a carriage carrying Queen Victoria, who has been forced to travel by roads to Balmoral Castle as a fallen tree has blocked the train line to Aberdeen, feared to be a potential assassination attempt. The Doctor poses as Dr. James McCrimmon using his psychic paper, and the Queen invites him and Rose to join her as they travel to the Torchwood Estate, a favourite of her late consort Prince Albert, to spend the night. The royal party is unaware that the Torchwood Estate has been captured by a group of monks from a monastery in St. Catherine's Glen led by Father Angelo, forcing its owner, Sir Robert MacLeish, to play into their ruse as they take the place of the house's servants and guards. The monks, having arranged for the fallen tree to force the Queen to the estate, have brought a man inflicted with a form of lycanthropy, hoping to pass its nature to the Queen and create a new "Empire of the Wolf".
The Doctor soon realizes the trap they have fallen into, and helps to save Rose, the Queen, and Sir Robert from Father Angelo's men and the werewolf by taking shelter in the estate's library, its wood coated with oil of mistletoe wood to stave off the beast. They study the library and discover evidence collected by Sir Robert's father, a polymath, and Prince Albert that indicate the werewolf is really the current form of an alien species that fell to earth in 1540 near the monastery, surviving by passing its lycanthropic form from human to human. The Doctor also realizes that the estate was designed as a trap for the werewolf, as by use of its strange telescope along with the Queen's Koh-i-Noor diamond, its cut fashioned by Prince Albert, they can force the werewolf to revert to human form and destroy the alien lifeform.Sir Robert sacrifices himself to allow the Doctor, Rose, and the Queen to prepare the telescope in the Observatory. They are able to trap the werewolf in the concentrated light of the full moon collected by the diamond. The transformed human being begs for the Doctor to kill him by increasing the power of the light concentration, which he obliges. As they recover, the Queen finds a small cut she believes came from a wood splinter, but the Doctor remarks to Rose that all her children will carry a form of haemophilia, and that perhaps this was simply a Victorian euphemism for lycanthropy. The next day, the Queen dubs the Doctor and Rose with royal titles before banishing them from the British Empire. The Queen is appalled and outraged by the unholy sort of lifestyle the Doctor and Rose share. In honor of Sir Robert's sacrifice and his father's ingenuity, she orders the creation of the Torchwood Institute to help defend England from further alien attacks.

New Earth

The Doctor uses the TARDIS to take Rose to the farthest point he's ever taken her, to the year five billion and twenty-three in the M87 galaxy. Humanity, after the destruction of the Earth, settled onto a very Earth-like world, called "New Earth", and Rose admires its beauty. The Doctor is summoned to "Ward 26" in a hospital in New New York through his psychic paper, and while he travels to the Ward, gets separated from Rose. In the Ward, the Doctor meets several humanoid feline nuns of the Sisters of Plenitude who are overseeing the patients, all who have incurable maladies but are somehow being cured by the Sisters. The Doctor recognises the Face of Boe, who reached out to "the Lonely God" in order to give him a message before he dies of old age. Meanwhile, Rose is brought to the basement of the hospital, where she is escorted by Chip to meet Lady Cassandra, who has survived from her previous encounter with the Doctor and has been watching the two since they arrived. Chip has been using the hospital facility to care for Cassandra, but Cassandra is suspicious of the methods used in the hospital and requires Rose's help. Rose tricked into stepping into a "psychograft" machine that allows Cassandra to implant her mind into Rose's, leaving her old "body" to die. Cassandra can read Rose's thoughts, and knowing of the Doctor's new form, goes to meet him as "Rose". The Doctor is suspicious of "Rose"'s actions, such as kissing him passionately or having knowledge of the advanced computer systems, but is more concerned on how the hospital can cure the incurable. He and "Rose" discover that the hospital houses hundreds of pods containing artificially-grown humans, forcibly inflicted with numerous diseases, such that the Sisters can discover their cures. The Doctor accuses the Sisters of the atrocity, though they insist it was necessary to deal with the influx of patients. The Doctor, believing that Rose's current actions are also a result of being a test subject, is suddenly knocked unconscious by a perfume gas and wakes up locked in one of the pods. "Rose" then approaches the lead Sister, Matron Casp, demanding payment for her to keep quiet about the hospital secrets, and when she is refused and threatened physically, releases the Doctor and some of the humans as a distraction, but the infected humans further release the others, and a zombie-like attack begins, with those infected trying to attack anyone healthy.
The hospital is put into quarantine as the Doctor, "Rose", and the remaining Sisters try to flee the lower levels. To help their escape, Cassandra is able to jump her mind between other bodies, including one of the infected humans, before jumping back to Rose, and learns that those humans feel a strong sense of loneliness of not being able to touch or be touched. Eventually, the Doctor and "Rose" reach Ward 26, and grab all the intravenous medical solutions; emptying them into a disinfectant shower, they are able to spray the mixture onto a group of the infected humans, who within moments become cured of their diseases. The Doctor encourages them to go and spread the cure to the other infected people, and soon, the attack is over. The police arrest the surviving Sisters, while the Face of Boe, who has also been cured, tells the Doctor that the message for him can wait until they meet for the third and final time, and then teleports away.The Doctor now orders Cassandra out of Rose's body. Cassandra transfers her consciousness to a willing Chip instead, but his cloned body begins to fail, and Cassandra accepts her impending, true death; the New Earth has no place for people like her and Chip. The Doctor does one last thing for Cassandra, taking her back to see herself on the last night someone had called her beautiful. "Chip" approaches the Cassandra of the past and tells her just that, and collapses into the younger Cassandra's arms as she comforts "him". As the older Cassandra finally dies, the Doctor and Rose silently leave in the TARDIS.