Planet of the Dead
Encyclopedia
"Planet of the Dead" is the first 2009 special of the British
science fiction
television series Doctor Who
that was simultaneously broadcast
on BBC One
and BBC HD
on 11 April 2009. It was the second of five special episodes (including Dreamland
) broadcast throughout 2009 and early 2010, which served as lead actor David Tennant
's denouement as the Tenth Doctor
. He is joined in the episode by actress Michelle Ryan
, who plays Lady Christina de Souza, a one-off companion
to the Doctor. The episode was co-written by Russell T Davies and Gareth Roberts
, the first writing partnership since the show's revival in 2005.
The episode depicts Christina fleeing the police from a museum robbery by boarding a bus that accidentally travels from London
to the desert planet of San Helios, trapping her, the Doctor, and several passengers on board the damaged vehicle. After the bus driver dies trying to return to Earth, the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, headed by Captain Erisa Magambo (Noma Dumezweni
) and scientific advisor Malcolm Taylor (Lee Evans
), attempt to return the bus while preventing a race of metallic stingray
aliens from posing a threat to Earth. At the end of the episode, one of the passengers delivers a warning to the Doctor which foreshadow
s the remaining three specials.
"Planet of the Dead" is the first Doctor Who episode to be filmed in high definition
, after a positive reaction to the visual quality of spin-off series Torchwood
and the financial viability of HDTV convinced the production team to switch formats. To ensure that the desert scenes looked as realistic as possible, the production team filmed in Dubai
for three days, sending several props—most notably, a 1980 double-decker Bristol VR
bus—to the United Arab Emirates
for filming. After the bus was unintentionally damaged in Dubai by a shipping container, Davies rewrote the script to explain the damage in the narrative.
The audience gave the episode an Appreciation Index
of 88—considered excellent.
from a London museum and narrowly evades the police by hopping on a 200 bus
. The Doctor (Tennant), who is tracking down a wormhole, joins her shortly before the bus suddenly passes through the wormhole
and arrives on the desert planet of San Helios. The Doctor and the other passengers find that the wormhole is still present, but returning on foot is impossible after the bus driver is killed trying to cross back; the passengers deduce that the bus protected them like a Faraday cage. Seeing the driver's skeleton coming out on the other side of the portal, the police call in UNIT
, commanded by Captain Erisa Magambo (Dumezweni) and aided by scientific adviser Malcolm Taylor (Evans). The Doctor manages to contact UNIT on his mobile phone and builds a rapport with Malcolm, who impresses him with his understanding of the wormhole.
The Doctor and Christina quickly get to know the handful of other passengers on the bus: Angela (Victoria Alcock), Barclay (Daniel Kaluuya
), Nathan (David Ames), Lou (Reginald Tsiboe) and Carmen (Ellen Thomas) who has low-level psychic abilities. The Doctor and Christina decide to scout the planet, spotting an approaching storm, while Nathan and Barclay try to fix the bus. The Doctor and Christina encounter a couple of Tritovores, a species resembling anthropomorphic flies
, who take them to their wrecked spaceship.
The Tritovores explain that they were making a routine goods collection with San Helios when they crashed, and that the planet very recently housed a hundred billion inhabitants and a thriving ecosystem. The Tritovores send out a probe to investigate the cause, and discover a large swarm of metallic stingray
-like aliens who routinely create wormholes to travel between planets, destroying their ecospheres as their biological imperative. The Doctor suspects that Earth may be the stingrays' next target due to the wormhole they passed through before, and makes to hasten their return to Earth. Captain Magambo, who has also worked out that the earth is threatened, orders Malcolm to close the wormhole but he refuses even at gunpoint to sacrifice the Doctor.
Christina uses her burglary skills to retrieve a crystal which powers the spaceship, together with the pedestal it is located on. This awakens the stingrays that had caused the ship to crash in the first place, costing the life of the two Tritovores. The Doctor attaches parts of the pedestal to the bus and uses the chalice of Athelstan as an interface to the technology. This allows the bus to fly through the wormhole, with the stingrays in hot pursuit. Taylor closes the wormhole but not before three of the stingrays pass through it. After UNIT shoots down the stingrays and the passengers have been debriefed, Christina pleads with the Doctor to let her travel with him, but he coldly rejects her because he has no wish to lose another companion.
The characters part ways again. The Doctor recommends that UNIT hire Barclay and Nathan. Christina is arrested by the police for the theft and Carmen has a premonition that visibly unnerves the Doctor:
As a final act of kindness, the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver
to release Christina from her handcuffs, allowing her to escape. The pair part on good terms as she flies away in the bus and the Doctor leaves in his TARDIS
.
, the first writing partnership for the show since its 2005 revival. "Planet of the Dead" was a departure from Roberts' usual stories—Roberts had previously only written pseudo-historical stories—and instead consisted of wild science fiction elements from his literary career and teenage imagination. The episode had no clear concept—such as Shakespeare and witches in "The Shakespeare Code
" or Agatha Christie
and a murder mystery in "The Unicorn and the Wasp
"—and instead was a deliberate "clash [of concepts] with many disparate elements". Roberts explained he was cautious to ensure that each element had to "feel precise and defined ... like we meant that", citing the serial Arc of Infinity
as an example where such control was not enforced. The episode includes a common feature of Davies' writing in that there is no clear antagonist: the Tritovore are eventually sympathetic to the protagonists and the stingrays are only following their biological imperative.
Unlike the Christmas specials, the theme of Easter was not emphasised in the story; the episode only contained a "fleeting mention" of the holiday instead of "robot bunnies carrying baskets full of deadly egg bombs". The episode's tone word—"joyous"—was influenced by Davies' realisation that "every story since 'The Fires of Pompeii
' [had] a bittersweet quality" and his subsequent desire to avoid the recurring theme. The starting point for the story was Roberts' first novel The Highest Science
. Davies liked the image of a train on a desert planet and rewrote the train as a bus. Davies nevertheless emphasised it was not an "adaptation as such" because tangential elements were constantly being
conceived and added.
Michelle Ryan's casting as Lady Christina de Souza was confirmed by the BBC
on 23 January 2009 and attracted media attention owing to Ryan's recent relatively high-profile roles in EastEnders
, Jekyll, Bionic Woman
and Merlin
. Ryan stated that she is "a huge fan of Doctor Who and [was] very excited to be joining David Tennant and the Doctor Who team." Davies commented that "Michelle is one of the most sought after young actors in the country" and that they were "delighted to announce that she [would] be joining the team." Ryan described her casting as a "real honour", noting that she "love[s] the character".
Ryan was rumoured to be in line for a role as full-time companion to the incoming Eleventh Doctor
(Matt Smith
) and her casting in "Planet of the Dead", combined with her previous working history with incoming Executive Producer Steven Moffat
- the two working together on Jekyll, fuelled speculation that she might return to Doctor Who accompanying the Eleventh Doctor in Series 5. Ryan herself has said that she is open for a return to the character, however, stating that she is a commitment phobe at the moment and with regards to her character she views her as "someone who is around for this one-time adventure"." It had been reported that Ryan auditioned to replace Billie Piper
in the companion role when her character, Rose Tyler, left in 2006
, but was unsuccessful. Ryan subsequently stated that this was false.
Ryan was interviewed by BBC News
about her role as Lady Christina. Ryan praised her colleagues and the "family atmosphere" on set and described Doctor Who as "really something special to do". On 9 April 2009, Ryan guested on Steve Wright in the Afternoon
on BBC Radio 2
and on The Justin Lee Collins Show
on ITV2
to promote "Planet of the Dead". After a showing of a trailer
for the episode on The Justin Lee Collins Show, Ryan described the "fantastic" time she had filming in Cardiff
and in Dubai
.
Ryan's character Lady Christina de Souza is an adrenaline junkie and thief. Christina is a typical Doctor Who companion, Davies electing to draw parallels from the Time Lady
Romana
rather than new series companion Rose Tyler
. Roberts described her as an "adventuress" who is "upper class and glam, suited and booted, and extremely intelligent" which the Doctor could relate to because they both rejected their heritages. The episode's director James Strong described the character as reverting to a traditional romantic-based companionship—rather than the platonic companionship of Donna Noble
(Catherine Tate
) in the fourth series
—while still being a unique companion:
Comedian Lee Evans
plays Professor Malcolm Taylor, a UNIT scientist devoted to his predecessor, the Doctor. Davies created Evans' character to serve as a foil
for Noma Dumezweni
's pragmatic character Captain Erisa Magambo, who previously appeared in the episode "Turn Left
". Roberts noted after writing the episode that Evans' character had unintentionally become a "loving" caricature of Doctor Who fandom.
The episode was influenced by several works: Davies described "Planet of the Dead" as "a great big adventure, a little bit Indiana Jones
, a little bit Flight of the Phoenix
, a little bit Pitch Black."; the relationship between the Doctor and Christina was influenced by 1960s films such as Charade and Topkapi
, which included Cary Grant
and Audrey Hepburn
"being witty and sophisticated together, and then running for their lives"; and the Tritovore were influenced by 1950s and 1970s science fiction B-movies such as The Fly
and
Davies' habit of including aliens that were recognisable to the audience as animals from Earth, such as the Judoon
. Carmen's warning evoked memories of the Ood
's warning to the Doctor and Donna in the fourth series episode "Planet of the Ood
". Tennant explained the prophecy meant that the Doctor's "card [had become] marked" and the three specials would thus be darker—characterising "Planet of the Dead" as the "last time the Doctor gets to have any fun"—and that the subject of the prophecy was not the obvious answer:
for the special and the final draft of the script was completed. The production team examined overseas locations to film the episode because they wanted the scenery to feel "real" and thought that they would be unable to film on a Welsh beach in winter. After examining countries such as Morocco
and Tunisia
, the production
team decided to film in Dubai because the area was more amicable to the filming industry and viable filming locations were nearer to urban areas than other locations.
Production began on 19 January in Wales. The special was the first Doctor Who episode to be filmed in high-definition television resolution. The move to HD had previously been resisted for two major reasons: when the show was revived in 2005, high-definition television had not been adopted by an adequate portion of the audience to be financially viable; and special effects were considerably more expensive to create in high-definition than in standard-definition. "Planet of the Dead" was
used as a switch to HD because of the show's reduced schedule in 2009 and because the filming crew had become experienced with the equipment while they were filming Torchwood
.
Filming began at the National Museum Cardiff
,National Museum Cardiff (International Gallery): 51.4866°N 3.1709°W which doubled for the history museum depicted in the episode's first scene. To portray the tunnel the bus travelled into, the Queen's Gate Tunnel of the A4232 road
in Butetown
Queen's Gate Tunnel (Gladwall Tunnel): 51.4622°N 3.1708°W was closed for four nights to accommodate filming. The last major piece of filming in Wales took place in the closed Mir (formerly Alphasteel) steelworks in Newport
,Mir Steelworks (Tritovore Spaceship): 51.5578°N 2.9628°W which doubled almost unaltered for the Tritovore spaceship. Scenes set in London's Oxford Street where filmed at St Mary Street, Cardiff. Filming took place at the peak of the February 2009 Great Britain snowfall
, where the sub-zero temperatures slowed filming and had a visible effect on the cast. To accommodate for the adverse conditions, Davies included a line in the script that specified that the Tritovore spaceship cooled as external temperatures increase.
Filming in DubaiDubai Desert (The Planet of the Dead): 24.919°N 55.624°W took place in mid-February 2009. Two weeks previously, one of the two 1980 Bristol VR
double-decker buses bought for filming had been substantially damaged when a crane accidentally dropped a container in Dubai City Port. After an emergency discussion by the production team, they agreed that the damage was unintentionally artistic and decided to include the damaged bus in the episode; instead of shipping the spare bus from Cardiff—which would have delayed the already hurried filming
schedule—the production team decided to partially reconstruct the bus in Dubai, damage the spare bus in Cardiff to match the bus in Dubai, and rewrite part of the script to accommodate and mention the damage to the bus. James Strong recalled the reaction of the production team to the damage to the bus in an issue of Doctor Who Magazine
:
The damaged bus was not the only problem to filming in Dubai: the first of the three days was afflicted by a sandstorm
which left most of the footage shot unusable. The production team then struggled to complete three days of filming in two days; the last day was compared to "filming Lawrence of Arabia
". To complete the episode's filming, interior scenes in the bus were filmed in a studio in Wales. To disguise the fact they were using a translite
, a 360-degree background image, Strong utilised often-avoided techniques such as muddied windows and lens flares; the latter also served to create a warmer environment for the viewer. After filming ended, editing and post-processing took place until two days before transmission, leaving the BBC to resort to using an unfinished copy to market the episode.
, the season-long fourteen-part serial The Trial of a Time Lord
, and the third series finale consisting of "Utopia
", "The Sound of Drums
" and "Last of the Time Lords
". Davies personally disagreed about counting The Trial of a Time Lord as one serial—arguing that it "felt like four stories" to him—and grouping "Utopia" with its following episodes, but agreed that it was only an opinion which did not override any others. Gareth Roberts inserted a reference to the landmark—specifically, the bus number is 200—and Davies emailed the show's publicity team to advertise the special as such. Doctor Who Magazine
s editor Tom Spilsbury
acknowledged the controversy in the magazine's 407th issue, which ran a reader survey of all 200 stories.
of 88: considered excellent. A BBC One repeat, two days later, gained an overnight figure of 1.8 million viewers. The special was therefore the second most watched programme of the day, beaten only by the premiere of the new series of Britain's Got Talent
. The final viewing figure
for the initial broadcast was 9.54 million viewers on BBC One and 200,000 viewers on BBC HD, making it the fifth most watched programme of the week and the most watched programme aired on BBC HD at that time. Including repeats in the following week and viewings on the BBC iPlayer
, 13.89 million viewers watched the episode in total.
The episode received average critical reviews. Simon Brew of science fiction blog Den of Geek said the episode was "by turns ambitious and predictable" but "still quite entertaining". The first part of the review mentioned an objection from his wife that the bus trapped in the sand "[looked] really fake", despite the episode being actually filmed in Dubai, and then mentioned Brew's appreciation of the concept of people stranded in the desert and concluded that "made a fair fist of it". Brew positively reviewed Michelle Ryan's performance—comparing her performance to be on par to her role in Bionic Woman
rather than her role as Zoe Slater
in Eastenders
—and Lee Evans' performance as Malcolm Taylor, calling him the highlight of the episode because of his dialogue. He closed his review by saying that "'Planet of the Dead' was passable enough": he thought it "never really gelled" for him; but he thought it was overall entertaining and was excited
for the remaining three specials as a result of Carmen's prophecy.
Charlie Jane Anders of io9
"mostly loved 'Planet Of The Dead'", commenting that it was a standard Russell T Davies script that had the "elements of a cracking good story":
She compared it to two previous episodes, "The Impossible Planet
" and "Midnight
", both of which she enjoyed. She criticised three aspects of the episode: Lady Christina, who was the "first RTD heroine who actually filled [her] with revulsion", leaving her hoping that the character would be killed off-screen, Malcolm's reluctance to close the wormhole and the implausibility of only three stingrays travelling through it. She thought that the episode was "a pretty solid adventure with a cool set of monsters".
Ben Rawson-Jones of entertainment website Digital Spy
gave the episode two stars out of five. He characterised the episode as being "as hollow as a big chocolate Easter egg" because it was "lacking in the enthralling drama and compelling characterisation that has been the lynchpin of the Russell T Davies era". His main criticism was towards Ryan's character, describing the romantic tension between Christina and the Doctor as "feeling forced" and arguing that Ryan was "utterly unconvincing" as Christina. Conversely, he was appreciative of Strong's direction and the UNIT subplot. Specifically, he approved of Evans' performance, noting that "the fact that Malcolm names a unit of measurement after himself is both inspired and hilarious". His review ended by describing the episode as "lifeless for much of the hour" and expressing his hope that the ambiguous entity from Carmen's premonition would "hurry up".
Orlando Parfitt of IGN
gave the episode a 7.1 (Good) rating out of ten. Parfitt called it a "straightforward story" that did not elevate to the level of excitement typically seen in Doctor Who until the episode's climax, instead describing the majority of the story as being "taken up with Tennant and Ryan standing in the desert, swapping flirtatious banter in between proclaiming how dire their situation in between", and criticised the writing of the part of the episode where the bus was on San Helios, claiming that plot devices such as the Tritovore or Taylor being held at gunpoint and ordered to close the wormhole as "feel[ing] forced and unnaturally shoe-horned into the script". His praise of the episode went to Ryan and Evans: although he thought of Christina as a "shameless Lara Croft
ripoff", he said that the character "still proves a sexy and wise-cracking counterpart to the Doctor"; and Evans' acting alongside Dumezweni highlighted his "undeniably great comic acting" as opposed to his
"love-it-or-hate-it" stand-up comedy
. The last paragraph of his review focused on the climax, which he thought was "a cracker [that] just-about makes up for the previously plodding plot", and described the entire episode as having "enough enjoyable moments" to entertain fans before the transmission of "The Waters of Mars".
on 26 July 2009. In Australia, the Special aired May 31, 2009, on ABC1. In South Africa, the Special aired on October 18, 2010, on BBC Entertainment
.
, were included in the specials soundtrack on 4 October 2010, released by Silva Screen Records.
".
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
television series Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
that was simultaneously broadcast
Simulcast
Simulcast, shorthand for "simultaneous broadcast", refers to programs or events broadcast across more than one medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at the same time. For example, Absolute Radio is simulcast on both AM and on satellite radio, and the BBC's Prom concerts are often...
on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
and BBC HD
BBC HD
BBC HD is a high-definition television network provided by the BBC. The service was initially run as a trial from 15 May 2006 until becoming a full service on 1 December 2007...
on 11 April 2009. It was the second of five special episodes (including Dreamland
Dreamland (Doctor Who)
Dreamland is the second animated Doctor Who serial to air on television...
) broadcast throughout 2009 and early 2010, which served as lead actor David Tennant
David Tennant
David Tennant is a Scottish actor. In addition to his work in theatre, including a widely praised Hamlet, Tennant is best known for his role as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, along with the title role in the 2005 TV serial Casanova and as Barty Crouch, Jr...
's denouement as the Tenth Doctor
Tenth Doctor
The Tenth Doctor is the tenth incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He is played by David Tennant, who appears in three series, as well as eight specials...
. He is joined in the episode by actress Michelle Ryan
Michelle Ryan
Michelle Claire Ryan is an English actress.She is best known for portraying the role of Zoe Slater on BBC soap opera EastEnders. In 2007, she starred in the short lived American television series Bionic Woman...
, who plays Lady Christina de Souza, a one-off companion
Companion (Doctor Who)
In the long-running BBC television science fiction programme Doctor Who and related works, the term "companion" refers to a character who travels with, and shares the adventures of the Doctor. In most Doctor Who stories, the primary companion acts as both deuteragonist and audience surrogate...
to the Doctor. The episode was co-written by Russell T Davies and Gareth Roberts
Gareth Roberts (writer)
Gareth John Pritchard Roberts is a British television screenwriter and novelist, best known for his work related to the science-fiction television series Doctor Who...
, the first writing partnership since the show's revival in 2005.
The episode depicts Christina fleeing the police from a museum robbery by boarding a bus that accidentally travels from London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to the desert planet of San Helios, trapping her, the Doctor, and several passengers on board the damaged vehicle. After the bus driver dies trying to return to Earth, the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, headed by Captain Erisa Magambo (Noma Dumezweni
Noma Dumezweni
Noma Dumezweni is a Laurence Olivier Award-winning English actress based in London.-Personal life:Born in Swaziland, of South African parents, Dumenzweni came to England with her family as a child, first living in Suffolk, where she was educated, before moving to London.-Theatre:Dumezweni's work in...
) and scientific advisor Malcolm Taylor (Lee Evans
Lee Evans (comedian)
Lee Evans is an English comedian, writer, actor and musician.-Personal life:Lee Evans was born in Avonmouth, Bristol, England to an Irish mother and a Welsh father, Dave Evans, a nightclub performer. He left Bristol at the age of 13 and then went to The Billericay School in Billericay, Essex...
), attempt to return the bus while preventing a race of metallic stingray
Stingray
The stingrays are a group of rays, which are cartilaginous fishes related to sharks. They are classified in the suborder Myliobatoidei of the order Myliobatiformes, and consist of eight families: Hexatrygonidae , Plesiobatidae , Urolophidae , Urotrygonidae , Dasyatidae , Potamotrygonidae The...
aliens from posing a threat to Earth. At the end of the episode, one of the passengers delivers a warning to the Doctor which foreshadow
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing or adumbrating is a literary device in which an author indistinctly suggests certain plot developments that might come later in the story.-Repetitive designation and Chekhov's gun:...
s the remaining three specials.
"Planet of the Dead" is the first Doctor Who episode to be filmed in high definition
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
, after a positive reaction to the visual quality of spin-off series Torchwood
Torchwood
Torchwood is a British science fiction television programme created by Russell T Davies. The series is a spin-off from Davies's 2005 revival of the long-running science fiction programme Doctor Who. The show has shifted its broadcast channel each series to reflect its growing audience, moving from...
and the financial viability of HDTV convinced the production team to switch formats. To ensure that the desert scenes looked as realistic as possible, the production team filmed in Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
for three days, sending several props—most notably, a 1980 double-decker Bristol VR
Bristol VR
The Bristol VR was Bristol's rear-engined bus chassis, designed as a competitor to the Leyland Atlantean and Daimler Fleetline.-Development:...
bus—to the United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...
for filming. After the bus was unintentionally damaged in Dubai by a shipping container, Davies rewrote the script to explain the damage in the narrative.
The audience gave the episode an Appreciation Index
Appreciation Index
The Audience Appreciation Index is a score out of 100 which is used as an indicator of the public's appreciation for a television or radio programme, or broadcast service, in the United Kingdom. Until 2002, the AI of a programme was calculated by BARB, the organisation that compiles television...
of 88—considered excellent.
Plot
A young thrill-seeking burglar, Lady Christina de Souza (Ryan), steals a gold chalice once belonging to King AthelstanAthelstan of England
Athelstan , called the Glorious, was the King of England from 924 or 925 to 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder, grandson of Alfred the Great and nephew of Æthelflæd of Mercia...
from a London museum and narrowly evades the police by hopping on a 200 bus
Buses in London
The London Bus is one of London's principal icons, the archetypal red rear-entrance double-deck Routemaster being recognised worldwide. Although the Routemaster has now been largely phased out of service, with only two heritage routes still using the vehicles, the majority of buses in London are...
. The Doctor (Tennant), who is tracking down a wormhole, joins her shortly before the bus suddenly passes through the wormhole
Wormhole
In physics, a wormhole is a hypothetical topological feature of spacetime that would be, fundamentally, a "shortcut" through spacetime. For a simple visual explanation of a wormhole, consider spacetime visualized as a two-dimensional surface. If this surface is folded along a third dimension, it...
and arrives on the desert planet of San Helios. The Doctor and the other passengers find that the wormhole is still present, but returning on foot is impossible after the bus driver is killed trying to cross back; the passengers deduce that the bus protected them like a Faraday cage. Seeing the driver's skeleton coming out on the other side of the portal, the police call in UNIT
UNIT
UNIT is a fictional military organisation from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures...
, commanded by Captain Erisa Magambo (Dumezweni) and aided by scientific adviser Malcolm Taylor (Evans). The Doctor manages to contact UNIT on his mobile phone and builds a rapport with Malcolm, who impresses him with his understanding of the wormhole.
The Doctor and Christina quickly get to know the handful of other passengers on the bus: Angela (Victoria Alcock), Barclay (Daniel Kaluuya
Daniel Kaluuya
Daniel Kaluuya is an English actor, comedian and writer, who is best known for playing Posh Kenneth in the E4 teen-drama Skins. He has most recently been seen starring in the BBC dark comedy series Psychoville playing Michael Fry and Mac in the new BBC 3's horror drama The Fades.-Biography:Kaluuya...
), Nathan (David Ames), Lou (Reginald Tsiboe) and Carmen (Ellen Thomas) who has low-level psychic abilities. The Doctor and Christina decide to scout the planet, spotting an approaching storm, while Nathan and Barclay try to fix the bus. The Doctor and Christina encounter a couple of Tritovores, a species resembling anthropomorphic flies
Fly
True flies are insects of the order Diptera . They possess a pair of wings on the mesothorax and a pair of halteres, derived from the hind wings, on the metathorax...
, who take them to their wrecked spaceship.
The Tritovores explain that they were making a routine goods collection with San Helios when they crashed, and that the planet very recently housed a hundred billion inhabitants and a thriving ecosystem. The Tritovores send out a probe to investigate the cause, and discover a large swarm of metallic stingray
Stingray
The stingrays are a group of rays, which are cartilaginous fishes related to sharks. They are classified in the suborder Myliobatoidei of the order Myliobatiformes, and consist of eight families: Hexatrygonidae , Plesiobatidae , Urolophidae , Urotrygonidae , Dasyatidae , Potamotrygonidae The...
-like aliens who routinely create wormholes to travel between planets, destroying their ecospheres as their biological imperative. The Doctor suspects that Earth may be the stingrays' next target due to the wormhole they passed through before, and makes to hasten their return to Earth. Captain Magambo, who has also worked out that the earth is threatened, orders Malcolm to close the wormhole but he refuses even at gunpoint to sacrifice the Doctor.
Christina uses her burglary skills to retrieve a crystal which powers the spaceship, together with the pedestal it is located on. This awakens the stingrays that had caused the ship to crash in the first place, costing the life of the two Tritovores. The Doctor attaches parts of the pedestal to the bus and uses the chalice of Athelstan as an interface to the technology. This allows the bus to fly through the wormhole, with the stingrays in hot pursuit. Taylor closes the wormhole but not before three of the stingrays pass through it. After UNIT shoots down the stingrays and the passengers have been debriefed, Christina pleads with the Doctor to let her travel with him, but he coldly rejects her because he has no wish to lose another companion.
The characters part ways again. The Doctor recommends that UNIT hire Barclay and Nathan. Christina is arrested by the police for the theft and Carmen has a premonition that visibly unnerves the Doctor:
As a final act of kindness, the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver
Sonic screwdriver
The sonic screwdriver is a fictional tool in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its spinoffs. It is a multifunctional tool used by The Doctor. Its most common function is that of a lockpick, but can be used to perform other operations such as performing medical scans,...
to release Christina from her handcuffs, allowing her to escape. The pair part on good terms as she flies away in the bus and the Doctor leaves in his TARDIS
TARDIS
The TARDISGenerally, TARDIS is written in all upper case letters—this convention was popularised by the Target novelisations of the 1970s...
.
Writing and casting
Russell T Davies co-wrote the episode with Gareth RobertsGareth Roberts (writer)
Gareth John Pritchard Roberts is a British television screenwriter and novelist, best known for his work related to the science-fiction television series Doctor Who...
, the first writing partnership for the show since its 2005 revival. "Planet of the Dead" was a departure from Roberts' usual stories—Roberts had previously only written pseudo-historical stories—and instead consisted of wild science fiction elements from his literary career and teenage imagination. The episode had no clear concept—such as Shakespeare and witches in "The Shakespeare Code
The Shakespeare Code
"The Shakespeare Code" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 7 April 2007, and is the second episode of Series 3 of the revived Doctor Who series. According to the BARB figures this episode was seen by 7.23 million viewers and was...
" or Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
and a murder mystery in "The Unicorn and the Wasp
The Unicorn and the Wasp
"The Unicorn and the Wasp" is the 7th episode in the revised fourth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was aired by BBC One on 17 May 2008 at 19:00. Perhaps due to its later broadcast, it received an overnight audience rating of 7.7 million, making it the...
"—and instead was a deliberate "clash [of concepts] with many disparate elements". Roberts explained he was cautious to ensure that each element had to "feel precise and defined ... like we meant that", citing the serial Arc of Infinity
Arc of Infinity
Arc of Infinity is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four twice-weekly parts from 3 January to 12 January 1983...
as an example where such control was not enforced. The episode includes a common feature of Davies' writing in that there is no clear antagonist: the Tritovore are eventually sympathetic to the protagonists and the stingrays are only following their biological imperative.
Unlike the Christmas specials, the theme of Easter was not emphasised in the story; the episode only contained a "fleeting mention" of the holiday instead of "robot bunnies carrying baskets full of deadly egg bombs". The episode's tone word—"joyous"—was influenced by Davies' realisation that "every story since 'The Fires of Pompeii
The Fires of Pompeii
"The Fires of Pompeii" is the second episode of the fourth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 12 April 2008....
' [had] a bittersweet quality" and his subsequent desire to avoid the recurring theme. The starting point for the story was Roberts' first novel The Highest Science
The Highest Science
The Highest Science is an original novel written by Gareth Roberts and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Seventh Doctor and Bernice and the first appearance of the recurring monsters, the Chelonians...
. Davies liked the image of a train on a desert planet and rewrote the train as a bus. Davies nevertheless emphasised it was not an "adaptation as such" because tangential elements were constantly being
conceived and added.
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
on 23 January 2009 and attracted media attention owing to Ryan's recent relatively high-profile roles in EastEnders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
, Jekyll, Bionic Woman
Bionic Woman (2007 TV series)
Bionic Woman is an American science fiction television drama created by David Eick, under NBC Universal Television Group, GEP Productions and David Eick Productions that aired in 2007...
and Merlin
Merlin (TV series)
Merlin is a British fantasy-adventure television programme by Julian Jones, Jake Michie, Julian Murphy and Johnny Capps. It began broadcasting on BBC One on 20 September 2008. The show is based on the Arthurian legends of the wizard Merlin and his relationship with Prince Arthur but differs from...
. Ryan stated that she is "a huge fan of Doctor Who and [was] very excited to be joining David Tennant and the Doctor Who team." Davies commented that "Michelle is one of the most sought after young actors in the country" and that they were "delighted to announce that she [would] be joining the team." Ryan described her casting as a "real honour", noting that she "love[s] the character".
Ryan was rumoured to be in line for a role as full-time companion to the incoming Eleventh Doctor
Eleventh Doctor
The Eleventh Doctor is the eleventh incarnation of the protagonist of the BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. Matt Smith plays this incarnation, replacing David Tennant's Tenth Doctor in the 2010 episode "The End of Time, Part Two"...
(Matt Smith
Matt Smith (British actor)
Matthew Robert Smith is an English stage and television actor. He is known for his role as the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor in the British television series Doctor Who, for which he received a BAFTA Award nomination in 2011....
) and her casting in "Planet of the Dead", combined with her previous working history with incoming Executive Producer Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat is a Scottish television writer and producer.Moffat's first television work was the teen drama series Press Gang. His first sitcom, Joking Apart, was inspired by the breakdown of his first marriage; conversely, his later sitcom Coupling was based upon the development of his...
- the two working together on Jekyll, fuelled speculation that she might return to Doctor Who accompanying the Eleventh Doctor in Series 5. Ryan herself has said that she is open for a return to the character, however, stating that she is a commitment phobe at the moment and with regards to her character she views her as "someone who is around for this one-time adventure"." It had been reported that Ryan auditioned to replace Billie Piper
Billie Piper
Billie Paul Piper is an English singer and actress.She began her career in the late 1990s as a pop singer and then switched to acting. She started in acting and dancing and was talent spotted at the Sylvia Young stage school by Smash Hits magazine who wanted a "face" for their magazine...
in the companion role when her character, Rose Tyler, left in 2006
2006 in television
2006 in television may refer to:*2006 in American television*2006 in Australian television*2006 in British television*2006 in Canadian television*2006 in Japanese television...
, but was unsuccessful. Ryan subsequently stated that this was false.
Ryan was interviewed by BBC News
BBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
about her role as Lady Christina. Ryan praised her colleagues and the "family atmosphere" on set and described Doctor Who as "really something special to do". On 9 April 2009, Ryan guested on Steve Wright in the Afternoon
Steve Wright In The Afternoon
Steve Wright in the Afternoon is the name of the current afternoon show on BBC Radio 2, hosted by Steve Wright. The show is one of the most popular on the station, and is often referred to as The Big Show...
on BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
and on The Justin Lee Collins Show
The Justin Lee Collins Show
The Justin Lee Collins Show is a British television talk show recently aired Thursday nights on the digital channel ITV2 starring Justin Lee Collins. Justin has a small band on the show and a continuing theme is to mention Labi Siffre as part of a joke. The series ended after one series after...
on ITV2
ITV2
ITV2 is a 24 hour, free-to-air entertainment television channel in the United Kingdom owned by ITV Digital Channels Ltd, a division of ITV plc. It was launched on 7 December 1998, and is available on digital television via satellite, cable, IPTV and terrestrial platforms. The channel has the...
to promote "Planet of the Dead". After a showing of a trailer
Trailer (film)
A trailer or preview is an advertisement or a commercial for a feature film that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema. The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a feature film screening. That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to leave the...
for the episode on The Justin Lee Collins Show, Ryan described the "fantastic" time she had filming in Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...
and in Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...
.
Ryan's character Lady Christina de Souza is an adrenaline junkie and thief. Christina is a typical Doctor Who companion, Davies electing to draw parallels from the Time Lady
Time lady
Time lady may refer to:*Female Time Lord in the UK television series Doctor Who*Female voice heard on speaking clock...
Romana
Romana
Romana, short for Romanadvoratrelundar, is a fictional character in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...
rather than new series companion Rose Tyler
Rose Tyler
Rose Marion Tyler is a fictional character portrayed by Billie Piper in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was created by series producer Russell T Davies...
. Roberts described her as an "adventuress" who is "upper class and glam, suited and booted, and extremely intelligent" which the Doctor could relate to because they both rejected their heritages. The episode's director James Strong described the character as reverting to a traditional romantic-based companionship—rather than the platonic companionship of Donna Noble
Donna Noble
Donna Noble is a fictional character played by Catherine Tate in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. A secretary from Chiswick, London, she is a companion of the Tenth Doctor, appearing in one scene at the end of the final episode of the 2006 series,...
(Catherine Tate
Catherine Tate
Catherine Tate is an English actress, writer, and comedian. She has won numerous awards for her work on the sketch comedy series The Catherine Tate Show as well as being nominated for an International Emmy Award and four BAFTA Awards...
) in the fourth series
Doctor Who (series 4)
The fourth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 25 December 2007 with the Christmas special "Voyage of the Damned". Following the special, a regular series of thirteen episodes aired, starting with "Partners in Crime" on 5 April 2008 and ending with "Journey's End"...
—while still being a unique companion:
Comedian Lee Evans
Lee Evans (comedian)
Lee Evans is an English comedian, writer, actor and musician.-Personal life:Lee Evans was born in Avonmouth, Bristol, England to an Irish mother and a Welsh father, Dave Evans, a nightclub performer. He left Bristol at the age of 13 and then went to The Billericay School in Billericay, Essex...
plays Professor Malcolm Taylor, a UNIT scientist devoted to his predecessor, the Doctor. Davies created Evans' character to serve as a foil
Foil (literature)
In fiction, a foil is a character who contrasts with another character in order to highlight particular qualities of another character....
for Noma Dumezweni
Noma Dumezweni
Noma Dumezweni is a Laurence Olivier Award-winning English actress based in London.-Personal life:Born in Swaziland, of South African parents, Dumenzweni came to England with her family as a child, first living in Suffolk, where she was educated, before moving to London.-Theatre:Dumezweni's work in...
's pragmatic character Captain Erisa Magambo, who previously appeared in the episode "Turn Left
Turn Left (Doctor Who)
"Turn Left" is the eleventh episode of the fourth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was written by showrunner Russell T Davies and broadcast on BBC One on 21 June 2008....
". Roberts noted after writing the episode that Evans' character had unintentionally become a "loving" caricature of Doctor Who fandom.
The episode was influenced by several works: Davies described "Planet of the Dead" as "a great big adventure, a little bit Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones
Colonel Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials...
, a little bit Flight of the Phoenix
The Flight of the Phoenix
The Flight of the Phoenix is a 1964 novel by Elleston Trevor. The plot involves the crash of a transport aircraft in the middle of a desert and the survivors' desperate attempt to save themselves...
, a little bit Pitch Black."; the relationship between the Doctor and Christina was influenced by 1960s films such as Charade and Topkapi
Topkapi (film)
Topkapi is a heist film made by Filmways Pictures and distributed by United Artists. It was produced and directed by the emigre American film director, Jules Dassin...
, which included Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
and Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
"being witty and sophisticated together, and then running for their lives"; and the Tritovore were influenced by 1950s and 1970s science fiction B-movies such as The Fly
The Fly (1958 film)
The Fly is a 1958 American science-fiction horror film, directed by Kurt Neumann. The screenplay was written by James Clavell , from the short story "The Fly" by George Langelaan...
and
Davies' habit of including aliens that were recognisable to the audience as animals from Earth, such as the Judoon
Judoon
The Judoon are a fictional extraterrestrial species of mercenary police from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its spin-offs. They first appeared in the episode Smith and Jones in 2007....
. Carmen's warning evoked memories of the Ood
Ood
The Ood are a fictional alien species with telepathic abilities from the long running science fiction series Doctor Who. In the series' narrative, they live in the distant future ....
's warning to the Doctor and Donna in the fourth series episode "Planet of the Ood
Planet of the Ood
"Planet of the Ood" is the third episode of the fourth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 19 April 2008. It features the return of the Ood, who appeared in the second series episodes "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit".The episode...
". Tennant explained the prophecy meant that the Doctor's "card [had become] marked" and the three specials would thus be darker—characterising "Planet of the Dead" as the "last time the Doctor gets to have any fun"—and that the subject of the prophecy was not the obvious answer:
Filming
Pre-production on the four specials started on 20 November 2008—four days before scheduled—because the episode's overseas filming in Dubai required the extra planning time. Two weeks later, the production team was on a recceRecce (film)
Recce is a military term that has been borrowed by media production in the United Kingdom, derived from "reconnoiter"...
for the special and the final draft of the script was completed. The production team examined overseas locations to film the episode because they wanted the scenery to feel "real" and thought that they would be unable to film on a Welsh beach in winter. After examining countries such as Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
and Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
, the production
team decided to film in Dubai because the area was more amicable to the filming industry and viable filming locations were nearer to urban areas than other locations.
Production began on 19 January in Wales. The special was the first Doctor Who episode to be filmed in high-definition television resolution. The move to HD had previously been resisted for two major reasons: when the show was revived in 2005, high-definition television had not been adopted by an adequate portion of the audience to be financially viable; and special effects were considerably more expensive to create in high-definition than in standard-definition. "Planet of the Dead" was
used as a switch to HD because of the show's reduced schedule in 2009 and because the filming crew had become experienced with the equipment while they were filming Torchwood
Torchwood
Torchwood is a British science fiction television programme created by Russell T Davies. The series is a spin-off from Davies's 2005 revival of the long-running science fiction programme Doctor Who. The show has shifted its broadcast channel each series to reflect its growing audience, moving from...
.
Filming began at the National Museum Cardiff
National Museum Cardiff
National Museum Cardiff is a museum and art gallery in Cardiff, Wales. The museum is part of the wider network of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales...
,National Museum Cardiff (International Gallery): 51.4866°N 3.1709°W which doubled for the history museum depicted in the episode's first scene. To portray the tunnel the bus travelled into, the Queen's Gate Tunnel of the A4232 road
A4232 road
The A4232, which is also known either as the Peripheral Distributor Road or the Cardiff Link Road , is a distributor road in Cardiff, the capital of Wales....
in Butetown
Butetown
Butetown is a community in the south of the city of Cardiff, the capital of Wales. It was originally a model housing estate built in the early nineteenth century by John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute, for whose title the area was named...
Queen's Gate Tunnel (Gladwall Tunnel): 51.4622°N 3.1708°W was closed for four nights to accommodate filming. The last major piece of filming in Wales took place in the closed Mir (formerly Alphasteel) steelworks in Newport
Newport
Newport is a city and unitary authority area in Wales. Standing on the banks of the River Usk, it is located about east of Cardiff and is the largest urban area within the historic county boundaries of Monmouthshire and the preserved county of Gwent...
,Mir Steelworks (Tritovore Spaceship): 51.5578°N 2.9628°W which doubled almost unaltered for the Tritovore spaceship. Scenes set in London's Oxford Street where filmed at St Mary Street, Cardiff. Filming took place at the peak of the February 2009 Great Britain snowfall
February 2009 Great Britain and Ireland snowfall
The snowfall across the British Isles in February 2009 was a prolonged period of snowfall that began on 1 February 2009. Some areas experienced their largest snowfall levels in 18 years. Snow fell over much of Western Europe. The United Kingdom's Met Office and Ireland's Met Éireann issued severe...
, where the sub-zero temperatures slowed filming and had a visible effect on the cast. To accommodate for the adverse conditions, Davies included a line in the script that specified that the Tritovore spaceship cooled as external temperatures increase.
Filming in DubaiDubai Desert (The Planet of the Dead): 24.919°N 55.624°W took place in mid-February 2009. Two weeks previously, one of the two 1980 Bristol VR
Bristol VR
The Bristol VR was Bristol's rear-engined bus chassis, designed as a competitor to the Leyland Atlantean and Daimler Fleetline.-Development:...
double-decker buses bought for filming had been substantially damaged when a crane accidentally dropped a container in Dubai City Port. After an emergency discussion by the production team, they agreed that the damage was unintentionally artistic and decided to include the damaged bus in the episode; instead of shipping the spare bus from Cardiff—which would have delayed the already hurried filming
schedule—the production team decided to partially reconstruct the bus in Dubai, damage the spare bus in Cardiff to match the bus in Dubai, and rewrite part of the script to accommodate and mention the damage to the bus. James Strong recalled the reaction of the production team to the damage to the bus in an issue of Doctor Who Magazine
Doctor Who Magazine
Doctor Who Magazine is a magazine devoted to the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...
:
The damaged bus was not the only problem to filming in Dubai: the first of the three days was afflicted by a sandstorm
Dust storm
A dust / sand storm is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. Dust storms arise when a gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand and dirt from a dry surface. Particles are transported by saltation and suspension, causing soil to move from one place and deposition...
which left most of the footage shot unusable. The production team then struggled to complete three days of filming in two days; the last day was compared to "filming Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia (film)
Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company, Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O'Toole in the title role. It is widely...
". To complete the episode's filming, interior scenes in the bus were filmed in a studio in Wales. To disguise the fact they were using a translite
Duratrans
A duratrans is an element used in some television news sets and theater designs. Duratrans are most often used to create the backgrounds that appear behind news presenters or anchors. If it is used in a theatre the backgrounds would appear behind the actors, actresses, and other talent respectively...
, a 360-degree background image, Strong utilised often-avoided techniques such as muddied windows and lens flares; the latter also served to create a warmer environment for the viewer. After filming ended, editing and post-processing took place until two days before transmission, leaving the BBC to resort to using an unfinished copy to market the episode.
200th story
"Planet of the Dead" was advertised as Doctor Whos 200th story. Writer Russell T Davies admitted that the designation was arbitrary and debatable, based upon how fans counted the unfinished serial ShadaShada
Shada is an unaired serial of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was intended to be the final serial of the 1979-80 season , but was never completed due to a strike at the BBC during filming...
, the season-long fourteen-part serial The Trial of a Time Lord
The Trial of a Time Lord
The Trial of a Time Lord is a fourteen-part British science fiction serial of the long running BBC series Doctor Who. The serial, produced as the twenty-third season of the Doctor Who television series, aired in weekly episodes from 6 September to 6 December 1986...
, and the third series finale consisting of "Utopia
Utopia (Doctor Who)
"Utopia" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 16 June 2007 and is the eleventh episode of series three of the revived Doctor Who series...
", "The Sound of Drums
The Sound of Drums
"The Sound of Drums" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 23 June 2007, and is the twelfth episode of Series 3 of the revived Doctor Who series...
" and "Last of the Time Lords
Last of the Time Lords
"Last of the Time Lords" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 30 June 2007, and is the thirteenth and final episode of Series 3 of the revived Doctor Who series...
". Davies personally disagreed about counting The Trial of a Time Lord as one serial—arguing that it "felt like four stories" to him—and grouping "Utopia" with its following episodes, but agreed that it was only an opinion which did not override any others. Gareth Roberts inserted a reference to the landmark—specifically, the bus number is 200—and Davies emailed the show's publicity team to advertise the special as such. Doctor Who Magazine
Doctor Who Magazine
Doctor Who Magazine is a magazine devoted to the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...
s editor Tom Spilsbury
Tom Spilsbury
Tom Spilsbury is a British writer, magazine editor and journalist. He is the editor of Doctor Who Magazine, having taken over from previous editor Clayton Hickman in August 2007, with Issue 387...
acknowledged the controversy in the magazine's 407th issue, which ran a reader survey of all 200 stories.
Broadcast and reception
Overnight figures estimated that the special was watched by 8.41 million people, a 39.6% share of the audience. An additional 184,000 watched the programme on BBC HD, the channel's highest rating at that time. The initial showing had an Appreciation IndexAppreciation Index
The Audience Appreciation Index is a score out of 100 which is used as an indicator of the public's appreciation for a television or radio programme, or broadcast service, in the United Kingdom. Until 2002, the AI of a programme was calculated by BARB, the organisation that compiles television...
of 88: considered excellent. A BBC One repeat, two days later, gained an overnight figure of 1.8 million viewers. The special was therefore the second most watched programme of the day, beaten only by the premiere of the new series of Britain's Got Talent
Britain's Got Talent
Britain's Got Talent is a British television talent show competition which started in June 2007 and originated from the Got Talent series. The show is produced by FremantleMedia's TalkbackThames and Simon Cowell's production company SYCOtv. The show is broadcast on ITV in Britain and TV3 in Ireland...
. The final viewing figure
for the initial broadcast was 9.54 million viewers on BBC One and 200,000 viewers on BBC HD, making it the fifth most watched programme of the week and the most watched programme aired on BBC HD at that time. Including repeats in the following week and viewings on the BBC iPlayer
BBC iPlayer
BBC iPlayer, commonly shortened to iPlayer, is an internet television and radio service, developed by the BBC to extend its former RealPlayer-based and other streamed video clip content to include whole TV shows....
, 13.89 million viewers watched the episode in total.
The episode received average critical reviews. Simon Brew of science fiction blog Den of Geek said the episode was "by turns ambitious and predictable" but "still quite entertaining". The first part of the review mentioned an objection from his wife that the bus trapped in the sand "[looked] really fake", despite the episode being actually filmed in Dubai, and then mentioned Brew's appreciation of the concept of people stranded in the desert and concluded that "made a fair fist of it". Brew positively reviewed Michelle Ryan's performance—comparing her performance to be on par to her role in Bionic Woman
Bionic Woman (2007 TV series)
Bionic Woman is an American science fiction television drama created by David Eick, under NBC Universal Television Group, GEP Productions and David Eick Productions that aired in 2007...
rather than her role as Zoe Slater
Zoe Slater
Zoe Slater is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Michelle Ryan. She made her first appearance on the 18 September 2000...
in Eastenders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
—and Lee Evans' performance as Malcolm Taylor, calling him the highlight of the episode because of his dialogue. He closed his review by saying that "'Planet of the Dead' was passable enough": he thought it "never really gelled" for him; but he thought it was overall entertaining and was excited
for the remaining three specials as a result of Carmen's prophecy.
Charlie Jane Anders of io9
Io9
io9 is a blog launched in 2008 by Gawker Media. The blog focuses on the subjects of science fiction, futurism, and advancements in the fields of science and technology....
"mostly loved 'Planet Of The Dead'", commenting that it was a standard Russell T Davies script that had the "elements of a cracking good story":
She compared it to two previous episodes, "The Impossible Planet
The Impossible Planet
"The Impossible Planet" is an episode in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It is the first part of a two-part story, followed by "The Satan Pit". The TARDIS lands in a base on a planet orbiting a black hole, an allegedly impossible situation that stumps even the Doctor...
" and "Midnight
Midnight (Doctor Who)
"Midnight" is the tenth episode of the fourth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 14 June 2008. The episode placed much more emphasis on the role of David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor than in the rest of the fourth series, with the...
", both of which she enjoyed. She criticised three aspects of the episode: Lady Christina, who was the "first RTD heroine who actually filled [her] with revulsion", leaving her hoping that the character would be killed off-screen, Malcolm's reluctance to close the wormhole and the implausibility of only three stingrays travelling through it. She thought that the episode was "a pretty solid adventure with a cool set of monsters".
Ben Rawson-Jones of entertainment website Digital Spy
Digital Spy
Digital Spy is a British entertainment and media news website. According to Alexa Internet traffic statistics, as of February 2011, Digital Spy is the 93rd most popular website in the United Kingdom, with an overall Alexa ranking of 2,088....
gave the episode two stars out of five. He characterised the episode as being "as hollow as a big chocolate Easter egg" because it was "lacking in the enthralling drama and compelling characterisation that has been the lynchpin of the Russell T Davies era". His main criticism was towards Ryan's character, describing the romantic tension between Christina and the Doctor as "feeling forced" and arguing that Ryan was "utterly unconvincing" as Christina. Conversely, he was appreciative of Strong's direction and the UNIT subplot. Specifically, he approved of Evans' performance, noting that "the fact that Malcolm names a unit of measurement after himself is both inspired and hilarious". His review ended by describing the episode as "lifeless for much of the hour" and expressing his hope that the ambiguous entity from Carmen's premonition would "hurry up".
Orlando Parfitt of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
gave the episode a 7.1 (Good) rating out of ten. Parfitt called it a "straightforward story" that did not elevate to the level of excitement typically seen in Doctor Who until the episode's climax, instead describing the majority of the story as being "taken up with Tennant and Ryan standing in the desert, swapping flirtatious banter in between proclaiming how dire their situation in between", and criticised the writing of the part of the episode where the bus was on San Helios, claiming that plot devices such as the Tritovore or Taylor being held at gunpoint and ordered to close the wormhole as "feel[ing] forced and unnaturally shoe-horned into the script". His praise of the episode went to Ryan and Evans: although he thought of Christina as a "shameless Lara Croft
Lara Croft
Lara Croft is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Square Enix video game series Tomb Raider. She is presented as a beautiful, intelligent, and athletic British archaeologist-adventurer who ventures into ancient, hazardous tombs and ruins around the world...
ripoff", he said that the character "still proves a sexy and wise-cracking counterpart to the Doctor"; and Evans' acting alongside Dumezweni highlighted his "undeniably great comic acting" as opposed to his
"love-it-or-hate-it" stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
. The last paragraph of his review focused on the climax, which he thought was "a cracker [that] just-about makes up for the previously plodding plot", and described the entire episode as having "enough enjoyable moments" to entertain fans before the transmission of "The Waters of Mars".
International broadcast
The special aired in Canada in July on Space, and in the US on BBC AmericaBBC America
BBC America is an American television network, owned and operated by BBC Worldwide, and available on both cable and satellite.-History:The channel launched on March 29, 1998, broadcasting comedy, drama and lifestyle programs from BBC Television and other British television broadcasters like ITV and...
on 26 July 2009. In Australia, the Special aired May 31, 2009, on ABC1. In South Africa, the Special aired on October 18, 2010, on BBC Entertainment
BBC Entertainment
BBC Entertainment is an international television channel showcasing comedy, drama, light entertainment and children's programming from the BBC and other UK production houses...
.
Soundtrack
Selected pieces of score from this special, as composed by Murray GoldMurray Gold
Murray Gold is an English composer for stage, film, and television and a dramatist for both theatre and radio.-Television:Gold has been nominated for a BAFTA four times in the category Best Original Television Music, for Vanity Fair , Queer as Folk , Casanova and Doctor Who...
, were included in the specials soundtrack on 4 October 2010, released by Silva Screen Records.
Awards
In April 2010, it was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form; it lost to "The Waters of MarsThe Waters of Mars
"The Waters of Mars" is the second 2009 special of British science fiction television series Doctor Who, broadcast on BBC One on 15 November 2009. It aired on BBC America on 19 December 2009 and was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK on 11 January 2010 and in the US on 2 February 2010...
".