Saturday 28 June 2008

The Stolen Earth

At the start of the episode—which immediately follows "Turn Left"—the Earth is teleported out of its spatial location shortly after the Doctor and his companion Donna Noble arrive to investigate Rose Tyler's warning. The Doctor contacts the Shadow Proclamation, a universal police force, to find Earth. They determine that twenty seven missing worlds including Earth, Adipose III, Pyrovillia and the Lost Moon of Poosh reorganise when placed near each other. Donna mentions the disappearance of bees on contemporary Earth; this allows the Doctor to trace the planets to the Medusa Cascade, an inter-universal rift.On Earth, a Dalek force, led by their creator Davros and the red Supreme Dalek, quickly subjugate Earth. Military bases, including UNIT's headquarters in New York City and their aircraft carrier Valiant, are destroyed. Davros, who was thought to have perished at the beginning of the Time War, was saved by Dalek Caan, who entered the conflict after performing an emergency temporal shift. The power needed to enter the Time War which is "time locked", preventing time travellers entering the conflict caused Caan to become precognitive, but at the cost of his sanity.The Doctor's former companions Captain Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, and Rose Tyler who have all encountered the Daleks before hide in various places: Jack takes refuge in the Torchwood Hub with his team Ianto Jones and Gwen Cooper; Martha uses Project Indigo an experimental teleport device scavenged from the Sontarans to escape UNIT with the "Osterhagen Key", a device designed to be used as a last resort; Sarah stays in her home with her son Luke Smith and supercomputer Mr Smith; and Rose tracks down Donna's mother Sylvia Noble and grandfather Wilfred Mott. They are contacted by former Prime Minister Harriet Jones through a secret "sub-wave network" designed by Mr Copper a humanoid alien who met the Doctor in "Voyage of the Damned" to contact the Doctor's companions in an emergency. They attempt to contact the Doctor by amplifying the sub wave signal; Sarah uses Mr Smith's computing power and Torchwood manipulates the spatio-temporal rift in Cardiff. The Doctor and the Daleks receive the transmission and trace the signal: the Daleks exterminate Harriet Jones; and the Doctor is able to locate Earth in a temporally desynchronised pocket universe.At the end of the episode, the Doctor travels into the pocket universe and receives transmitted images of his companions in the subwave signal. After Davros hijacks the signal and taunts the Doctor about his resurrection and seeming victory, the Doctor breaks communication and attempts to convene with his companions, landing on a street where Rose is waiting for the Doctor. He runs to embrace her, but is shot by a Dalek. Jack promptly destroys the Dalek and helps Rose and Donna carry the Doctor into the TARDIS, where the Doctor begins to regenerate.

Saturday 21 June 2008

Turn Left

The episode begins with the Doctor and his companion Donna Noble strolling through a market place on the "Chino-planet of Shan Shen". Donna is persuaded by a fortune teller (Chipo Chung) to examine her past: specifically, the first event that led to her encounter with the Doctor. Donna recalls an argument with her mother Sylvia at a road junction: Donna wishes to turn left to become a temporary employee at the security firm H. C. Clements; her mother wishes for her to turn right to apply for a secretarial job at a local photocopying business. The fortune teller gives her another chance and persuades her to turn right; as she does, a large beetle crawls onto her back.The narrative focuses on an alternate history where Donna never met the Doctor and recalls several previous episodes: the Doctor dies during the events of "The Runaway Bride", leading to the deaths of his companions during the events of "Smith and Jones" and "The Poison Sky", the nuclear destruction of London during "Voyage of the Damned" and resulting dystopia, and deaths of millions in the United States during "Partners in Crime". Throughout the episode, several characters, most notably Rose Tyler, take an interest in the invisible beetle on her back.After the events of "The Poison Sky", Rose tells Donna of their comparable roles in the Doctor's life and explains that Donna is instrumental to saving the universe. When Donna's grandfather Wilfred Mott sees the stars go out, Donna acquiesces to Rose's request: she must travel back in time and ensure her past self turns left at the junction. With the help of a UNIT detachment who have been analyzing the crippled TARDIS, Donna is shown the creature on her back and told how to intervene once in the past. After Donna materialises in Sutton Court, Chiswick, she realises she cannot directly influence herself at the junction; instead, she causes a traffic jam by stepping in front of a haulage truck. As Donna is dying, Rose whispers two words for Donna to relay to the Doctor.The episode's final scene takes place on Shan Shen, where Donna's actions cause the beetle to fall off her back and the fortune teller to flee in fear. The Doctor appears and inspects the beetle: he says that it is part of the "Trickster's brigade", creatures that change timelines in small ways. He comments that Donna's actions inadvertently created a parallel universe and compliments her unusualness; she replies by mentioning Rose and repeating her final words: "Bad Wolf". A panicking Doctor exits the fortune teller's room and sees all text rendered as "Bad Wolf". He enters the TARDIS, and after hearing its cloister bell ringing, realises the end of the universe is imminent.

Saturday 14 June 2008

Midnight

While visiting the crystalline resort planet of Midnight, the exposed surface of which is bathed in xtonic radiation due to its close orbit around its sun, The Doctor is unable to persuade the spa-going Donna from joining him on a long shuttle bus trip to see the Sapphire Waterfall. Alone, The Doctor joins the other passengers on the shuttle—Professor Hobbes and his assistant Dee Dee, the Kane family of Biff, Val, and Jethro, and businesswoman Sky Silvestry—as it sets out; when the hostess attempts to start the cacophony of en route entertainment, The Doctor disables the system, and the rest of the passengers readily join him in casual conversation.
The bus stops mid-route, the pilots citing a problem with its micropetrol engines and sending a request for help. The Doctor insists they raise the radiation shields briefly to see if there's anything outside that caused the problem, but they see nothing; however, as they close the shields, one pilot claims to have spotted something moving outside. Soon, a rhythmic knocking starts on the hull of the shuttle, mimicking the patterns that the passengers make on the walls. The knocking moves around the hull to where Sky is cowering; the shuttle is rocked briefly, causing the lights to fail, but when they return, they find that the pilot cabin has been torn away, killing the pilots, and that Sky appears to be possessed amid an array of damaged seats.The Doctor talks to Sky, but she can only repeat the words he or the other passengers say. However, as he talks to her more, the delay in her repetition decreases, and soon is repeating whatever anyone says simultaneously. The other passengers fear for what has possessed Sky, and cabin fever sets in; they start to accuse The Doctor, distrusting him for not revealing who he truly is. The Doctor realises Sky is now repeating only his words, and turns back to Sky to try to help her. Soon, it is the Doctor that is now repeating Sky's words, causing the other passengers to think the possession has moved onto the Doctor. Though Sky tries to encourage the other passengers to throw The Doctor out of one of the airlocks, both the hostess and Dee Dee, and later, Jethro, believe this to be the next stage of Sky's possession. When Sky uses archaic phrases that The Doctor had used at the start of the trip, the hostess realises Sky is still possessed and sacrifices herself to drag Sky out of the other airlock. With Sky gone, the Doctor regains his normal self while the other passengers come to grips with what happens. As they wait out for rescue, The Doctor realises that no one knew the hostess's real name. At the spa, a mournful Doctor reunites with Donna. When she tries to imitate one of the Doctor's phrases, he quickly tells her not to.

Saturday 7 June 2008

Forest of The Dead

The Doctor, Strackman Lux, Prof. River Song and the rest of her group successfully flee from the Vashta Nerada that were pursuing them at the end of "Silence in the Library". As the group light up the room to dispel the shadows the Vashta Nerada may hide in, the Doctor finds that the Library's moon is sending out electromagnetic signals that interfere with his sonic screwdriver. Lux explains that the moon acts as a virus checker on the Library's computer core, causing the Doctor to recognise that Donna and the other 4022 people who were "saved" according to the Library were actually stored in the data core. The group make for the access point to the computer core, still pursued by the spacesuits of Song's former team-mates possessed by the Vashta Nerada. The Doctor pauses a moment to try to reason with the Vashta Nerada, and learns that the books in the Library were made from the trees in which their species had laid its eggs. The Vashta Nerada awoke in the Library and now take it as their own forest to defend.
Meanwhile, Donna wakes up in the care of Dr. Moon inside the Earth-like computer simulation, though Dr. Moon as well as the little girl who watches Donna from her television attempt to prevent Donna from recognising it as such. Dr. Moon introduces Donna to a man called Lee, and the two become lovers, marry and have two children in a quick succession of vignettes. One day, Donna is met by Miss Evangelista, who explains that the Library had stored her persona when she was attacked by the Vashta Nerada, but due to corruption, her face has become severely deformed, although she has become more intelligent. She explains to Donna that she is no longer in the real world and proves it by pointing out that all the children around them including Donna's are the same boy and girl duplicated many times. The little girl causes a distraction to prevent Donna from learning the full truth, but Donna's confidence is shaken, and when her children doubt their existence, they disappear. Donna desperately seeks out Lee. The little girl, fearing that the truth may be known, "deletes" her father and Dr. Moon, and descends into further despair.
To convince the Doctor that he will one day trust her absolutely, River Song murmurs in his ear something which shocks him. The Doctor and his group reach the core as Lux explains that "CAL", the name they have been seeing associated with the core, is the girl who is watching them through her television. She is really his aunt Charlotte Abigail Lux. As a child, she suffered from an incurable disease and Lux's grandfather paid for the construction of the Library, hooking Charlotte to its computer to allow her to spend eternity surrounded by humanity's literature. However, now that over four thousand other persons are in the core with her, even the "doctor" moon cannot help to keep the computer systems going. The Doctor plans to connect himself into the core to provide the stability to allow the rescued patrons to be reconstituted, and has Lux prepare for their arrival. When the Vashta Nerada threaten to attack them, the Doctor negotiates a deal—that once he frees the people from the core, he will have humanity leave the Library to them forever. The Vashta Nerada initially refuse, but when the Doctor tells them to look him up in the Library, they fearfully accept, giving him one day to clear the Library.
River Song recognises that the Doctor will die if he attempts to put himself in the data core, and knocks him out, taking his place instead. When he comes to, she has handcuffed him so he does not stop her, and she points out that if he dies before meeting her a paradox will be created. As Song connects herself to the system, Donna attempts to reach her husband Lee in the simulation before it whites out.
The Doctor's plan works as expected as all the stored humans, including Donna, are returned to corporeal form, and Lux begins to transport the humans off the planet. Donna attempts to find Lee but just misses him before he is transported away. The Doctor mournfully leaves Song's diary and sonic screwdriver to the Library, but suddenly questions why he would have given her the screwdriver in his future. He discovers that the screwdriver has a Data Ghost device in it, and races to the computer core to transfer its data into the computer. River Song awakens in the computer simulation, greeted by Charlotte, Dr. Moon, Evangelista and the rest of her team, and thanks the Doctor.