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| The Doctor receives a disturbing phone call... |
2 episodes: The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances. Approx. 84 minutes. Written by: Steven Moffat. Directed by: James Hawes. Produced by: Phil Collinson.
THE PLOT
The TARDIS locks onto a dangerous object hurtling through the Time Vortex. Because the object is "jumping Time Tracks," the closest the Doctor is able to materialize is about a month after the object hits with a bang... Right in the center of London during the 1941 blitz!
This is the work of Capt. Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), a former Time Agent who now gets by as a con artist. He finds bits of space junk and uses them to attract the attention of time travelers, sending the debris back in time to coordinates where the objects will be destroyed by bombs or natural disasters. "The perfect, self-cleaning con," Jack boasts smugly. This object was an abandoned Chula hospital ship - completely harmless, Jack assures the Doctor.
But Jack has miscalculated, as the Doctor realizes when he meets Nancy (Florence Hoath), a young woman who does her best to look after the city's street orphans. Nancy lost her young brother, Jamie, the night the object fell to Earth. He was killed by a bomb, his skull so fractured that it was impossible to tell where the gas mask he was wearing ended and his face began.
Somehow, the ship has reanimated the dead child. Now he is "empty," wandering through the streets of London, asking one question endlessly: "Are you my mummy?" Everyone he touches is infected, doomed to become just like him - right down to the injuries, the gas mask, and the demand for "mummy." "Physical injury as plague," observes Dr. Constantine (Richard Wilson), the local physician.
As this plague spreads, the Doctor, Jack, and Rose find themselves on the run from an increasing horde of what could very accurately be labeled the undead. It's a race not only for their survival, but for the entire future of humanity!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: As soon as he realizes that the device was a Chula hospital ship, he has a pretty good idea of what happened - as demonstrated by his line, "Human DNA is being rewritten by an idiot. When he meets Jack, the disapproval radiates from him with almost physical force, and he responds to every one of Jack's protestations that this could not be his fault by tuning him out and ignoring him. Eccleston has fully found his Doctor by this point, and is simply superb, whether delivering an inspiration speech to Nancy about "one tiny, damp little island (that) says no" to the German war machine or snapping and glowering at Jack. Particularly good is the near-desperation at the end, that little crack of pure need that breaks through his self-confidence as he attempts to fix the problem, simultaneously pleading with the universe: "Give me a day like this. Give me this one!"
Rose: Is smitten with Jack right away - Which, given that Jack makes his entrance by saving her life, beaming her literally into his arms, is likely not surprising. She spends their entire first conversation so flustered that she only half-grasps what he's saying to her. Even so, she does not reveal the Doctor's background to him, instead bringing Jack to meet her associate, "Mr. Spock." Once Jack leaves, Rose's attraction to him is tied right back into her relationship with the Doctor, as she tells the Time Lord: "I trust him because he's like you. Except with dating and dancing."
Capt. Jack Harkness: The Empty Child introduces Capt. Jack Harkness, who would be a companion for the remainder of the season before being attached to the spinoff Torchwood. We get the information we need to make him an intriguing character: He's more morally gray than the Doctor, but attempts to avoid doing anything harmful. He is a con artist, but his primary goal isn't to make money - What he wants is to recover two years of missing memories. Barrowman is a strong enough screen presence to hold hiw own opposite Eccleston, and their banter over sonic guns vs. sonic screwdrivers or the Doctor's destruction of Jack's favorite weapons factory is enjoyable even as it points to the differences between the two characters.
THOUGHTS
"I need more days like this!"
-The Doctor, after one of his greatest triumphs, in one of his greatest stories.
The Empty Child is a big story for the new Doctor Who series: It introduced Captain Jack Harkness. It was the first story written by Steven Moffat, who would write several of the best stories of the Russell T. Davies era before taking over as showrunner for Series Five. It was the first Doctor Who story to win a Hugo Award, and has been at or near the top of several "best story" polls of not only the new series, but of the now more than half a century of Doctor Who, ever since its airdate.
This is an outstanding piece of television, one of those magical moments in which everything comes together exactly right. Steven Moffat's first script for the series remains, in my opinion, his best, making good use of the extra space afforded by two episodes to make the setting feel authentic and lived-in. Details such as the black market food on one homeowner's table, or the people enjoying themselves at a nightclub just before the air raid siren sounds, simply wouldn't be possible if the same story had to be squeezed into 45 minutes... And it's those moments of absolute authenticity that make this so very effective.
The ending is nothing short of extraordinary. I would say is the moment at which the battle-scarred Ninth Doctor truly becomes "The Doctor" again. Standing in the middle of a hopeless situation, a bomb about to drop from the sky and hordes of what can only be described as Undead approaching from all directions, it's clear that it's The End. "Nothing can stop it!" the Doctor has said, just a few minutes before.
But that was the shell-shocked Doctor, the one who has kept looking at the universe through the battered, blood-soaked haze of the Time War. As his eyes fall on the sobbing Nancy, as his ears take in the refrain of "Are you my mummy?", something in his mind wakes up, puts it all together, and snatches salvation from desolation - not just for himself and his companions, but for everybody present. In this moment, an exultant Doctor rediscovers himself. He stops insulting those around him and celebrates them instead, becoming the hero he used to be. In effect, as he cries out in the tag:
"I just remembered - I can dance!"
Overall Rating: 10/10.
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