the voyage of the damned doctor who

Specials 2007 | EP 1

Voyage of the Damned

Written by russell t davies.

"I'm nine hundred and three years old and I'm the man who's going to save your lives and all six billion people on the planet below. You got a problem with that?"

The RMS Titanic crashes into the TARDIS on Christmas Eve 2007. When disaster strikes, plucky waitress Astrid joins forces with the Doctor to do battle with a host of homicidal angels. But who will survive the voyage?

Cast & Crew

The Doctor: David Tennant

Astrid Peth: Kylie Minogue

Captain Hardaker: Geoffrey Palmer

Midshipman Frame: Russell Tovey

Max Capricorn: George Costigan

Rickston Slade: Gray O'Brien

Chief Steward: Andrew Havill

Engineer: Bruce Lawrence

Foon Van Hoff: Debbie Chazen

Morvin Van Hoff: Clive Rowe

Mr Copper: Clive Swift

Bannakaffalatta: Jimmy Vee

Wilfred Mott: Bernard Cribbins

Himself: Nicholas Witchell

The Host: Paul Kasey

Kitchen Hand: Stefan Davis

Newsreader: Jason Mohammad

Writer: Russell T Davies

Producer: Phil Collinson

Director: James Strong

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Voyage of the Damned

Average audience: 13.31 million   average ai: 85, associated products.

The BBC has confirmed that Kylie Minogue will be joining the Doctor Who cast in a major lead role in an hour-long Christmas special to be broadcast in December 2007 on BBC One.

Kylie will be joining David Tennant for the episode, Voyage Of The Damned, which starts filming in July in Cardiff.

The production team has also confirmed that the storyline will follow on directly from the ending of series three where viewers witnessed The Titanic crash through the Tardis walls…

The episode has been written by Doctor Who's Executive Producer and Head Writer Russell T Davies .

He says: "We are delighted and excited to announce that Kylie Minogue will be joining the Doctor.

"Doctor Who Christmas specials are always a joy and we feel very confident that this will be the most ambitious and best Christmas episode yet."

Kylie says: "It is an incredible thrill to be joining David and the entire Doctor Who production for this year's Christmas special.

"Doctor Who enjoys a unique history and it is going to be very exciting to be a part of that."

Full details are currently under wraps with more information to be announced shortly.

The fourth series of Doctor Who will be back in Spring 2008.

The Doctor gets up close and personal with his Christmas companion, Astrid Peth, in the long-awaited Doctor Who Christmas special, Voyage Of The Damned, on BBC One.

The Doctor, played by David Tennant, wastes no time in getting acquainted with Kylie Minogue's Astrid in the drama which goes out at 6.50pm on Christmas Day.

Kylie will star as Astrid, a waitress on The Titanic, alongside David Tennant in a story that follows on directly from the ending of series three where viewers witnessed The Titanic crash through the Tardis walls...

The episode has been written by Doctor Who's Executive Producer and head writer Russell T Davies.

Kylie Minogue comments: "It is an incredible thrill to be joining David and the entire Doctor Who production for this year's Christmas special.

Voyage Of The Damned launched last night (Tuesday 18 December) with a celebrity-packed gala premiere at the Science Museum in London.

Celebrity fans in attendance included Jo Whiley , John Simm , Tamsin Greig , Nick Cave and Richard Curtis .

In the Christmas Doctor Who two of Britain's best-loved actors, Geoffrey Palmer and Clive Swift , will also play lead roles.

Geoffrey Palmer, perhaps most famous for his role in the BBC comedies Butterflies and As Time Goes By, will play the Captain of the Titanic.

Voyage Of The Damned will also feature Coronation Street star, Debbie Chazen , who also starred in BBC Three comedy series The Smoking Room; Olivier Award-winner Clive Rowe ; Russell Tovey from the smash hit film The History Boys; Jimmy Vee , who has previously been in Doctor Who as the Moxx of Balhoon; and George Costigan who starred in BBC drama The Long Firm and the acclaimed film Rita Sue And Bob Too.

The Producer is Phil Collinson ; Executive Producers are Head of Drama Wales and Drama Commissioning Julie Gardner and Russell T Davies.

Doctor Who: Voyage Of The Damned, BBC One, Christmas Day, Tuesday 25 December 2007, 6.50pm

Voyage of the Damned

PRODUCTION INFO

First Transmitted

25 December 2007

Final Ratings

BOXSET RELEASE

Dvd release.

Privacy Overview

Doctor Who : "Voyage Of The Damned"

Up until a couple of years ago, my exposure to Doctor Who was limited to a few perplexing minutes spent channel-surfing in high school and a college roommate who had seemingly every episode on videotape and who promised to someday introduce me to the series. That never happened and I went through the next decade or so thinking about Doctor Who not one bit. That was pretty easy to do, too, especially in the U.S. where the series has always been, at best, a cult item. It was probably fairly easy to do in the U.K., too, since the franchise lay dormant for much of the '90s, apart from a brief revival in 1996. But I kept hearing great things about the 2005 relaunch starring Christopher Eccleston under the guidance of writer/producer Russell T. Davies (previously best know for creating Queer As Folk .) And when I got a DVD set of the Eccleston season I found out all those rumors were true. This was a big-hearted show filled with cool science fiction concepts, strong acting from the leads (Eccleston and the sweet Billie Piper as his smitten companion Rose), and clever writing. It also kept alive what I understood to be the traditions of the original show: Keeping it friendly to kids and adults (hence the not-so-subtle sexual tension between Eccleston and Piper) and making sure there was room for plenty of rubber-suited grotesques. I stayed with the show through a change of Doctors as Eccleston gave way to wild-eyed Scottish actor David Tennant in season two. Tennant threw out Eccleston's subtlety in favor of manic energy but he quickly made the character his own and now when I think of The Doctor it's Tennant who first comes to mind. I stuck around through a change of companions after the fairly heartbreaking departure of Piper at the end of the second season. Though I liked Freema Agyeman as Tennant's once, and apparently future, companion Martha Jones the character's hopeless crush on The Doctor made her seem much weaker by the end of the season than at the beginning. After the nearly flawless first season, the second and third seasons had their ups and downs, generally beginning on high notes then delivering a string of mediocre to questionable episodes, then finishing with a run as powerful as science fiction television gets. So those are my bona fides, such as they are, heading into this fourth season premiere. I've still never seen a full episode of any of the 20th century versions of Doctor Who (I know, "boo, hiss") but I'm fully on board with this century's. So, on to season four. Actually, we're not quite there yet. Last night's Davies-penned season premiere on the Sci-Fi channel aired months ago in the UK and elsewhere as the now-traditional 90-minute Christmas special. (Hence all the references to Christmas.) As Christmas specials go I'd rank it below "The Christmas Invasion," which introduced Tennant in swashbuckling style, but above last year's "The Runaway Bride," which depended largely on the elusive comedic charms of Cahtherine Tate. Apparently she's a) slated to return as one of The Doctor's companions this seasons and b) quite popular in the U.K. British readers, please tell me what I'm missing. We first find The Doctor alone after parting ways with poor, lovestruck Martha at the end of last season. But he doesn't have long to reflect on his solitude once the Tardis crashes into The Titanic . Only it's not the famous cruise ship, it's a Titanic -themed spaceship filled with tourists visiting Earth, as The Doctor quickly discovers. The robots made up as angels are something of a tip-off. Everything proceeds in good fun as The Doctor aids some slobbish contest winners in getting the better of some snobbish full-fare tourists and strikes up a flirtation with a pretty waitress (Kylie Minogue). (The man has a thing for blondes.) But all is not as it seems. Turns out that sinister forces have plan to crash the Titanic into the Earth in order to kill everyone on the ship and the planet for reasons that will be revealed later. After a catastrophic collision with some meteors, the episode essentially turns into a Doctor Who version of The Poseidon Adventure as The Doctor leads a bunch of squabbling survivors to the bridge of the ship. There's even a self-sacrificing fattie, ala Shelley Winters most memorable Poseidon moment. It's not quite enough plot to fill 90 minutes and much of the episode switches between good padding (an excursion to London where all but The Queen have abandoned the city after the catastrophic events of the last two Christmases) and bad padding (one encounter after another with those killer robo-angels). But all in all this was a solid outing that makes me happy to have the show back and eager to move on to the season proper. Grade: B Stray Observations: — While the robo-angels seem like a weak reprise of the Weeping Angels from last season's great "Blink" episode, I was sorry that Bannakaffalatta didn't make it out of this episode alive. He had tremendous dignity for a dwarfish cyborg and I think he and Kylie would have made a lovely couple. — Always awesome: Tennant striking a heroic pose and laying down his Time Lord credentials. Unnecessary: That moment when the robo-angels lifted him up as if taking him to heaven. Save some of that special effects budget for the traditional mid-season slump, why don't you? — Yes, it makes sense for the Tardis, when set adrift, to gravitate to the nearest large body and drift down to Earth. Does it make sense for it to land in London. — Aliens: They think Europeans go to war with Turkey every year and eat the Turkish for Christmas dinner. Wah-wah. — "Take me to your leader. [. . .] I've always wanted to say that." — Yes, I know that image isn't from this episode but Sci-Fi hasn't updated the press site yet. Hey, get with it! — The slightly more rocking theme song: Are we fans? Is this evidence of the "new attitude" promised in the Sci-Fi promos? Because it's basically the only evidence of an attitude change that I can find.

Related Content

Doctor Who ’s worst Christmas special is also its best showcase for David Tennant

"Voyage of the Damned" perfectly represents what is both great and tricky about the over-the-top nature of Who .

Realism has nothing to do with the success and brilliance of Doctor Who . From the show’s debut in 1963, the adventures of the Doctor have relied on hyperbole to power the TARDIS through all of time and space. And, on December 25, 2007, Doctor Who pushed the limits of its own hyperbolic format, nearly to the breaking point.

Fifteen years later, the Christmas special “Voyage of the Damned” is the best and worst of times for Who and the perfect showcase for why we still love David Tennant .

In the recent history of Who , the context in which “Voyage of the Damned” aired is worth mentioning. The fact that the Doctor would crash into some version of the Titanic had been teased in the Season 3 finale “The Last of the Time Lords,” on June 30, 2007. David Tennant was riding high on the end of his second full season as the Doctor, while then-showrunner Russell T. Davies had successfully expanded the TV Whoniverse into not one but two spinoff series, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. While American TV science fiction was mostly dominated by Battlestar Galactica , the years 2007 to 2008 proved that the biggest sci-fi show in the world was shaping up to be British stalwart, Doctor Who .

David Tennant, the king of the sci-fi world, in 2007.

The Tennant and Davies vision for Who wasn’t just huge in the U.K. In 2007, Doctor Who, as a franchise, had firmly arrived as a global phenomenon. Need proof? “Voyage of the Damned” was watched by at least 13.31 million people on the night it aired on the BBC, which was the biggest viewership the show had ever had since 1979. Notably, this number doesn’t include all the American fans, many of who almost certainly, watched the special through *ahem* other channels.

The point is, this is a moment when Who took to the global stage. And to celebrate, the Doctor (Tennant) teamed up with Kylie Minogue on a doomed starship version of the Titanic in a kitschy adventure that, in many ways, is the quintessential David Tennant performance.

The gist of “Voyage of the Damned” is this: The Doctor is alone, bumps into a weird situation, befriends and inspires people on said crashing starship, gives one series-defining speech, loses some good friends along the way, and in the end, is literally carried by robot angels because on Christmas, the universe will deliver us our Time Lord and savior, the Doctor.

The Doctor (David Tennant) is armed with a frying pan.

The set-up of “Voyage of the Damned” clearly references older ship disaster movies, specifically the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure. But, from a sci-fi world-building point-of-view, the flavor and warped logic of the basic status quo, feels ripped straight from pages of Douglas Adams. The outer space version of the Titanic that the Doctor finds himself in isn’t from the future, but rather, from the present. The fact that most of the people onboard look human, and behave like contemporary people from the U.K. is simply never explained. Again, this kind of thing exists in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , and in older episodes of Who which were written by Douglas Adams. Of all the contemporary Doctors, Tennant is perhaps the most influenced by the writings of Adams; he even name-checked Arthur Dent in his first episode ever, “The Christmas Invasion.”

Today, we might say this was all a weird flex for Doctor Who , but the truth is, in terms of the campy history of the series in the 20th century, “Voyage of the Damned” fits in perfectly with the sensibilities of the older Doctors, while perfectly showcasing why David Tennant is so beloved as the character. His boundless optimism and charisma are on full display, and to this day, his monologue about who he is, defines the character like no other speech in the entire series:

“I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the Constellation of Kasterborous. I'm 903 years old and I'm the man who is gonna save your lives and all 6 billion people on the planet below. You got a problem with that?”

This unblinking, heroic moment is probably the best thing about the episode, but it also reveals a clever quirk of this era of Doctor Who . The Doctor promises to save all the lives of the people gathered, but in the end ... he doesn’t. Bannakaffalatta (Jimmy Vee) sacrifices himself to save the Doctor. The innocent Morvin (Clive Rowe) dies, too, as does Astrid Peth (Kylie Minogue), which is the first time in the new Who revival (post-2005) that the Doctor’s “companion” died on screen.

For all of its corniness, “Voyage of the Damned,” lives up to its name. Most of the characters are cursed. The Doctor’s presence does save the ship and does save the Earth, but every individual he befriends early in the episode is, basically, marked for death. This is the slightly macabre theme that runs through the entirety of Tennant’s first Doctor Who run: The Doctor gets “ordinary” people to do amazing things for him, which nearly half the time, results in their death. Is it his fault? Foon (Debbie Chazen), certainly thinks so, and clearly blames the Doctor for the death of her husband, Morvin.

This kind of pattern would repeat itself in the 2009 special “The Waters of Mars,” in which the Doctor again encourages a group of seemingly doomed people to rally behind him, only to partially be the cause of their woes. After that, in the 2009-2010 two-parter, “The End of Time,” David Tennant’s Doctor regenerates, amid swirling angst, guilt, and bittersweet triumph.

“Voyage of the Damned,” paradoxically ranks among some of Tennant’s best performances in the role, while the episode itself is clearly one of the worst of the series . The science-fiction aspects of this episode are riddled with tired tropes, the action has a start-and-stop quality to it, and the overall feeling one gets is that Doctor Who is just kind of killing time until the next great season begins. In fact, early in the episode, the Doctor encounters Donna Noble’s (Catherine Tate) grandfather, Wilf (Bernard Cribbins), foreshadowing the next step the show would take in Season 4.

The Doctor (David Tennant) and Astrid (Kylie Minogue) in “Voyage of the Damned.”

After “Voyage of the Damned,” Tennant returned in “Partners in Crime,” on April 5, 2008. This re-teamed the Doctor with Donna and resulted in perhaps one of the best run of Who episodes ever. The confidence and inner conflict that defined Tennant’s Doctor was firmly cemented by “Voyage of the Damned,” but everything that happened before, and everything that happened later, were his best adventures. Today, “Voyage of the Damned,” is the perfect episode to make a newcomer fall in love with David Tennant himself. But, if a newbie fan is worried that the rest of the series is like this, luckily, it’s not.

Doctor Who , “Voyage of the Damned,” is streaming on HBO Max . David Tennant returns as the Doctor in late 2033 on Disney+.

This article was originally published on Dec. 25, 2022

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Recap / Doctor Who 2007 CS "Voyage of the Damned"

Edit locked, voyage of the damned.

Heavenly Host: Information: the Titanic is en route from the planet Sto in the Cassavalian Belt. The purpose of the cruise is to experience primitive cultures. The Doctor: Titanic . Um... who... thought of the name? Heavenly Host: Information: it was chosen as the most famous vessel of the planet Earth. The Doctor: ... Did they tell you why it was famous?

The One With… the cyborg cactus. Ohh... sorry, that's racist . Let's try again.

The one where if Jack was around when the ship went down, we wouldn't have to worry about him freezing to death. ...No? Hey, at least this Jack can come back to life! And he wouldn't drown in the cold vacuum of space, either! He'd just... die repeatedly and come back to life... each time with his blood freezing in his veins and the fluids in his eyes boiling... This is getting us nowhere.

*sigh* ... Okay. One last time. The one with the Titanic . IN SPACE! There we go! note  Also known as the one where the Doctor makes a fabulous speech and Kylie Minogue gets burned alive.

Just as Earth exoticises other cultures, apparently, aliens exoticise Earth culture. Or the parts of Earth culture they like, stuck together willy-nilly so that the end result is a charming Earth Christmas pleasure cruise... set aboard a spaceship recreation of Earth's most famous ship, the RMS Titanic .

The Doctor, who's appeared aboard after his TARDIS accidentally crashed into it at the end of the last episode , can recognize a dire portent when he sees one. He quickly repairs the damage to the TARDIS' interior and then properly materializes on board the ship, donning his tuxedo (in spite of his bad luck with wearing them) to blend in with the crowd. He befriends several of the guests on the ship, including the lovely Astrid Peth , a waitress that has taken this job to further her dream of travelling through space and seeing the stars. Although he's a stowaway, the Doctor dons his best tuxedo and poses as a passenger with privilege... Now if only his tuxedo weren't a calling card for bad luck...

The ship's historian, Mr. Copper, offers to show a group of people on board the Titanic a tour of Earth, using a teleporter system and matching bracelets for those who want to explore the planet as the ship orbits the pretty blue world. Except, Mr. Copper has very little accurate knowledge about the Earth after spending his life on Sto (it later being revealed he got his degree from a diploma mill). The Doctor goes down with the party to London, and is concerned when he finds the normally packed streets are totally deserted. Except for the newsstand vendor on the street where they've landed, Wilfred Mott , who tells them that after two prior Christmases with alien invasions , the populace of central London has chosen to flee to the adjacent home counties, leaving the shopping district a ghost town. A newscaster is reporting that the Queen is also staying put in Buckingham Palace this year to show the public that there's no reason to fear, and Wilf is probably the only other person besides her willing to take a chance. The Doctor assures him, " Far as I know, this year, nothing to worry about-" only for him and the rest of the landing party to be instantly teleported back to the Titanic . "Then again..." Wilf mutters.

Just when the Doctor and company return to the Titanic and are all set to enjoy a relaxing cruise around the Earth, the ship's captain, Hardaker, sets the trouble into motion. He deactivates the spaceship's shields, then magnetizes the hull to purposely attract three blazing meteors so they crash against the ship, in league with his boss' evil plan to destroy the Titanic . The captain is bound and determined to kill himself ; he's already terminally ill , and because of the life insurance being offered for his family as compensation, that's all it takes to extinguish whatever hope is left for him to keep on living and carry out this kamikaze mission. The Doctor notices the meteors and tries to alert the captain, but a steward forces him away from a system he isn't authorized to use. He rushes over to a singer's microphone and at least manages to make a few heads turn with the warning they're in danger. These smart few people follow him to safety. Midshipman Alonso Frame tries to stop the captain from destroying the Titanic , but gets shot for his efforts. The captain reaps his death wish, while many, many more people are decimated by both the resultant meteor rain creaming sections of the ship... and the once-docile Heavenly Host carrying out orders to kill off everyone on the Titanic . From this point on, all hell breaks loose. The Doctor tries to mount a rescue operation, but the damage to the Titanic jars his TARDIS loose from the wreckage, where it follows its programming to head towards the nearest source of gravity, in this case Earth. Now, he has to do things the hard way and navigate everyone through the forsaken vessel while Heavenly Hosts are running amok.

The Doctor has the usual motley collection of eccentrics around him: Astrid, Happily Married contest winners Morvin and Foon van Hoff, Jerkass Rickston Slade, Mr. Copper the alleged Earth expert, and Bannakaffalatta, the spiny red cyborg ( though don't tell anyone ). They first try to make their way to the bridge, which is now under the inexpert, if enthusiastic, command of one Midshipman Frame, after the captain's untimely death. But one of the rogue Heavenly Hosts is coaxed by the Doctor into revealing that the real source of evil leadership is on Deck 31. Now they must defy the dying ship and the creepy angel robots to get there.

And creepy they are. When a pocket of survivors comes to Midshipman Frame's attention, he can't do much more than listen helplessly as the angels kill them.

Still, they haven't spotted the Doctor et al yet, as the motley crew sneaks through the ship's secret passages.

Of his bunch, they are quickly picked off. Morvin falls to his death in a reactor, followed by Foon, who refuses to survive without her husband and decides to take the plunge, too, taking a Heavenly Host with her . Bannakaffalatta gets over the cyborg prejudice he faced and makes a Heroic Sacrifice by using his power core to disable the Heavenly Host, which drains it and causes him to perish only minutes later, saying goodbye to his crush Astrid. Mr. Copper takes Bannakaffalatta's core to use as a weapon against the Heavenly Host. Rickston continues to bitch and moan and get in the way , being insufferably selfish. The Doctor discovers that he gets to ask the Host three questions by prodding around and discovering a protocol loophole that forces them to reveal information at his request, but, he wastes two of them. Eventually, Deck 31 is reached and proves to contain the Titanic 's ludicrously wealthy yet cyborgified and unhappy owner, Max Capricorn, who is bent on crashing it into Earth and riding out the collision in an impact-proof chamber, in a complicated revenge scheme against his company's board of directors who cast him out. And the Doctor is powerless in the arms of the robot angels, so Astrid has to take the Heroic Sacrifice on herself.

With Capricorn dead, the Doctor now has full command of the Host, who have defaulted to the next highest authority, and messianically spreads his arms to have the angels carry him up to... the bridge. It's time to stop the Titanic from crashing. The Doctor comforts the wounded Midshipman Frame and asks what his name is... to his wonderful delight , it's Alonso . With an " Allons-y , Alonzo!", the Doctor does everything he can with Alonzo to regain control of the rapidly crashing starliner before it creates a nuclear catastrophe, while the surviving passengers — and Rickston — hang on for dear life. The Doctor really knuckles down when the ship crosses through Earth's atmosphere. He calls Buckingham Palace to have it evacuated and even manages to keep the Titanic from crashing into London. The Queen waves at him as he sails past, thanks him, and wishes him a "Happy Christmas". Poor Wilfred Mott, who still remembers what his granddaughter went through last year, shouts in outrage at the sight of the ship as those aliens threaten to antagonize the third Christmas in a row.

After the storm has been weathered, the Doctor learns that Astrid still has a chance of survival . The teleporter system has a safety feature. In case of an accident, it stores a passenger's molecules safely. Astrid was wearing a teleporter bracelet when she fell to her doom. The Doctor desperately sonics the teleport system, but the disaster that befell the ship has severely damaged the system and it isn't responding. Unfortunately, when the Doctor tries to recover Astrid to a physical body, she gets stuck in between life and death. Mr. Copper has to make the Doctor stop trying in vain to get Astrid back as she was — the system is just too far gone to make it possible. All that's left is an echo of Astrid with the ghost of consciousness. Astrid gets a final kiss from the Doctor and becomes stardust as he scatters her remnants into space, so Astrid can enjoy her dream of seeing the stars and traveling the universe for eternity.

Rickston, being an opportunistic slimeball, has pulled up his stakes in Max Capricorn Cruiseliners. Instead, it turns out he invested all his shares in Capricorn's rivals, who have seen their stock prices go up in the wake of this incident, making the ungrateful turd filthy rich . Luckily, Rickston takes the best course of action in the whole time we've known him — he leaves . Mr. Copper tells the Doctor that although people like Rickston may survive, it would be wrong to decide who lived and died . Such power would make somebody a monster. If only the Doctor didn't forget so easily.

The Doctor and Mr. Copper finally walk away from the crash and step onto Earth, gazing at the site of London by the water. As luck would have it, the TARDIS knew where to land, too. It is right there, waiting for the Doctor. Once again, it is not snowing on Christmas. That's the ballast from the Titanic 's water tanks. The Doctor properly educates Mr. Copper on Earth knowledge, this time letting him stay in a place where he's sure to get it right. Mr. Copper asks if he can come along in the TARDIS as the next companion, but the Doctor really doesn't want any more companions right now, after having all the of the previous ones either lost forever or in love with him or both. However, Mr. Copper also happens to have £1,000,000 in his bank account, so he probably won't be struggling in the future. It's the end result of a life as a travelling salesman and lying about a degree in "Earthonomics" that netted him the job of Ship Historian and a credit card that would pay for anything the passengers wanted when they teleported onto Earth. In fact, he's jumping for joy. See? Karma works both ways. But neither Mr. Copper nor the Doctor will ever forget Astrid. The Doctor goes on his merry way, wishing, "Merry Christmas, Mister Copper."

Information: This episode contains examples of the following tropes:

• Actually Pretty Funny : Max can't help himself but approve of the Doctor's puns.
• Anyone Can Die : Many of the Doctor's new friends die in this episode, including Astrid, who appears to be the next Companion. Slade and Midshipman Frame surprisingly survive despite having Asshole Victim and Red Shirt , respectively, written all over them.
• Apocalypse How : The Doctor indicates that if the Titanic crashing on Earth detonates its alien "nuclear storm engines", then the resulting explosion will kill off a mass extinction-sized chunk of life on Earth including all of humanity, making it at least a Class 4 to a Class 5 . "Turn Left" would later downgrade this to a Class 0 by showing an Alternate Timeline where the Titanic does crash without the Doctor to stop it, but the nuclear explosion only obliterates London (and causes a Chernobyl-esque radiation contamination across England).
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence : At the end, Astrid becomes stardust to travel the universe.
• Asshole Victim : Averted: the liar who conned his way into a job note  who, to be fair, isn't really that bad a guy and the callous, self-centered businessman not only survive, but they are the only survivors in the Doctor's party. The other, mostly decent, people all perish. It's discussed: "Of all the people to survive, he's not the one you would have chosen, is he? But if you could choose, Doctor, if you could decide who lives and who dies... that would make you a monster."
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas : Naturally. The Doctor lampshades it.
• Audible Gleam : The Doctor is astonished to learn that Max Capricorn's tooth really does glint every time he smiles.
• Badass Boast : "I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I am 903 years old, and I'm the man who's gonna save your lives and all six billion people on the planet below. You got a problem with that?"
• Badass in a Nice Suit : The Doctor is up to his usual exploits running around trying to save people while wearing a "bad luck tuxedo".
• Big Bad : Max Capricorn, the Hidden Villain who reprogrammed the Host and masterminded the plan to crash the Titanic into Earth.
• The Big Damn Kiss : Astrid surprises the Doctor with her knowledge of Earth Christmas traditions.
• Bittersweet Ending : Even moreso than most of the other Christmas specials in the Tenth Doctor's era. The Titanic doesn't crash, and there are no fatalities on Earth — the Doctor even manages to avoid the ship damaging Buckingham Palace — and Mr. Copper gets a rich and wonderful retirement on Earth for the last years of his life. However, thousands of the Titanic 's crew and passengers have died, including most of the Doctor's group — his soon-to-be companion Astrid in particular dies making a Heroic Sacrifice in front of him after the Doctor vowed he wouldn't let anybody else die, and the Doctor only manages to half-resurrect her as a half-conscious cloud of "stardust" roaming the universe that she wanted to see. The Doctor puts on a brave face at the episode's closing, but he's clearly been crushed by how cruelly he lost a new friend just before she could travel with him.
• Black Dude Dies First : Morvin is the first in the Doctor's group to be killed.
• After having wanted to since " Army of Ghosts ", the Doctor finally gets the chance to say "Allons-y, Alonzo!"
• Max's advertisement has a Twinkle Smile . When the Doctor gets to meet Max for real, the same tooth twinkles with the "my name is Max" bit. The Doctor: It really does that?
• Cast from Lifespan : Bannakaffalatta produces an EMP which disables the Heavenly Host, but that act drains his power core and causes him to perish only minutes later.
• The Captain : Captain Hardaker is the authority on the ship and gives leave to the other crewmen. He has also been paid off to wreck the Titanic .
• Captain Obvious : "Silent night... I believe they call it... ...'a silent night'."
• Celebrity Paradox : The Doctor had mentioned Kylie and her song "Never Too Late" two seasons earlier in " The Idiot's Lantern ", before she appeared here as a guest star.
• Cheer Them Up with Laughter : The Doctor makes the two bullied passengers laugh by exploding the champagne bottle of their tormentors.
• Chest Blaster : Bannakaffalatta produces an EMP from his chest to take out several Host at the cost of his life.
• Creator Cameo : Composer Murray Gold can be seen as a guitarist in the Titanic band playing "The Stowaway" early on in the episode.
• Christmas Episode : "Christmas is a time of peace and thanksgiving and... what am I on about, my Christmases are always like this."
• Bannakaffalatta had an accident, and his chest reveals cyborg parts.
• Max Capricorn is nothing but a head on wheels. He mentions that at one-hundred-and-sixty-odd years, it's to keep him alive.
• Damage Control : Frame does what he can from the bridge to keep the Titanic in orbit and to keep the power up.
• Deadpan Snarker : Rickston definitely has his moments. The Doctor: Are you alright? Rickston: No thanks to that idiot. Astrid: The steward just died! Rickston: Then he's a dead idiot.
• Dead Star Walking : Let's face it, Kylie Minogue probably wasn't going to become a full-time companion.
• Despair Event Horizon : When Morvin falls into the engines, his wife Foon doesn't see much to live for and does a Taking You with Me with a Host as she jumps into the engines herself.
• Disappointed by the Motive : The Doctor's reaction to Capricorn's "retirement plan" is to call it petty and unoriginal. The Doctor: So that's the plan? A retirement plan? Two thousand people on board this ship, six billion underneath us, all of them slaughtered, and why? Because Max Capricorn is a loser! Max Capricorn: I never lose! The Doctor: You can't even sink the Titanic !
• Disorganized Outline Speech : The Doctor's rescue plan can't decide whether to use letters or numbers.
• Disproportionate Retribution : Max Capricorn gets ousted by his own board of trustees and blamed for the company's failure, so he contrives to crash the Titanic (2000 killed) into Earth (6 billion killed) and get the trustees jailed for mass murder. Wow.
• Distressed Dude : David Tennant gets manhandled a lot in this episode.
• At the same time, it's not as though he deserved comeuppance for anything . His only "crime" was being greedy and rude, and by all indication, he was just an average wealthy socialite, just like almost everyone else on the ship. He didn't deserve to die any more than anyone else on board (well, except Capricorn , arguably). It is the fact that the Doctor wishes he died instead of some of the others that serves as an early indication as to how dark he can get when left alone , and shows that many of the audience would fall into the same traps he does later on .
• Hardaker, who has six months left and is payed by Max to go out with a bang.
• Poor Foon jumps into the engine because her husband already fell into it.
• Early-Bird Cameo : Bernard Cribbins as the unidentified newspaper vendor who is revealed in the next series to be Donna Noble's grandfather, Wilfred Mott. note  This was a totally unintentional example; originally Howard Attfield was meant to reprise his role as Donna's father Geoff, but he passed away after filming his scenes for "Partners in Crime". Russell T Davies decided to retroactively make Wilfred Donna's grandfather so he could take over Geoff's role.
• EMP : Used to take out the robot angels by Bannakaffalatta, and then with the piece salvaged from his cyborg body.
• "Everybody Dies" Ending : Of everyone aboard the ship, the only survivors are the Doctor, Mr. Copper, Alonso, and Rickston.
• Evil Cripple : Max Capricorn is now just a head attached to a life-support machine.
• Exact Words : Used by the Doctor to save himself when caught by the Host, and find out who's in charge. They're programmed to kill all Titanic staff and passengers, and as a stowaway he's neither. Ergo, they're required to take him to the nearest authority figure, the one they answer to. Or, in other words, " Take Me to Your Leader ".
• The Hosts look and act like the antagonists of a serial from the Tom Baker years, " The Robots of Death ".
• The Hosts also resemble the "pilot fish" from the previous Christmas specials .
• Rickston Slade serves as one for Cal Hockley from Titanic .
• Fake Shemp : Queen Elizabeth II appears running through Buckingham Palace, with corgis in tow, and waving at the Titanic after it flies past. Her face is never seen as she's played by a double.
• Fallen Angel : When the Host remove their haloes to use as weapons, the posts that held them remain, looking like devil horns.
• Fantastic Racism : Sto has a thing against cyborgs. At least they're allowed to marry now.
• Fascinating Eyebrow : The Doctor, during Mr. Copper's "lecture" on Earth history .
• Flat "What" : In the Cold Open , the Doctor's trademark escalating " What? WHAT? WHAT?! " ends with a life preserver rolling into his hands with the word "TITANIC" written on it. Cue this.
• Foregone Conclusion : It's a ship called the Titanic , surely this will be a smooth voyage with absolutely no danger at all. It even hits something in the very first scene of the episode — the TARDIS!
• It's stated early on that Max Capricorn is the one who chose the Titanic 's name. He later turns out to be the one trying to sink it. Presumably the reason he decided on that name for the ship he was planning on sinking was as a twisted Historical In-Joke .
• At the end, Mr. Copper says if the Doctor could choose who lives and dies, he'd be a monster. A while down the line , the Doctor does try to choose who lives and dies...
• Forklift Fu : Astrid uses a forklift to lift up Max Capricorn and throw him to his death.
• A God Am I : The Doctor's anguished cry of "I can do anything !" Then he must confront the fact that for how often he's ranked himself with gods, he really isn't, and really can't.
• Genre Savvy : After two prior alien invasions at Christmastime, the populace of Central London has wised up and chosen to flee to the countryside.
• Going Native : The Doctor indirectly admits that Earth is the closest thing to a home he's got without Gallifrey.
• Gory Discretion Shot : It's only assumed — but with very good reason — that the trapped technician is decapitated by the Host's halo.
• Without engine power, the Titanic will crash into Earth because of its gravity. Mind you, given that this is an act of deliberate sabotage...
• The TARDIS is an aversion. It's not being sucked in; it's programmed to descend to the nearest planet if set adrift.
• Happily Married : Morvin and Foon don't let a little outer space trouble or a 5,000-credit phone bill break their marriage.
• Heroic Sacrifice : Lots of these. Poor Foon ( Taking You with Me on a Host), Bannakaffalatta ( Cast From Life Span ) and Astrid ( Taking You with Me on the Big Bad ).
• Hidden Villain : The unseen mastermind trying to down the Titanic so it crashes into Earth and who hacked the Host to kill all the passengers on board. The climax reveals the mastermind is Max Capricorn, the owner of the cruise ship company the Titanic belongs to.
• Hope Spot : Astrid was wearing a teleporter bracelet! Surely those must have some kind of safety feature! They do, but it got broken in the chaos and the Doctor only can reassemble half of her, leaving her as a ghost. He's forced to Mercy Kill her, turning her into stardust so she could fly through the universe as she always wanted to.
• Human Aliens : If it weren't for Bannakaffalatta or the dialogue, no one on board really looks like they're from another planet. Many of them even have human-sounding names like Astrid, Max and Alonzo. But then there are ones like Foon .
• Humans Through Alien Eyes : New Zealand may be beautiful, but this is just a street, in London. And it's empty (and it stinks ). Astrid thinks it's riveting.
• I Always Wanted to Say That : Twice, with "Allons-y, Alonzo!" and " Take Me to Your Leader ".
• Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance : While Mr. Copper is mostly aware that so much of his "facts" of Earth are wrong, it takes the Doctor spelling it out for Copper to realize that what, to him, was just "walking around money" makes him a millionaire on Earth.
• "Now, spending money. I have a credit card in Earth currency if you want to buy trinkets, or stockings, or the local delicacy, which is known as beef. But don't stray too far, it could be dangerous. Any day now they start boxing."
• All this a fine product of the education provided by Mrs. Golightly's Happy Travelling University and Dry Cleaners.
• Inconvenient Summons : The Doctor is teleported back to the ship while in the middle of a conversation with Wilfred. Right while he's trying to reassure the man nothing weird will happen, even. (What are the odds....)
• Insistent Terminology : Bannakaffalatta takes it personally when the Doctor tries to call him "Banna".
• It's a Costume Party, I Swear! : The higher-class passengers told Morvin and Foon the Christmas party was Fancy Dress. Hence the tacky Western outfits.
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet : The Doctor knows something's off when Mr. Copper's party lands on what is meant to be a crowded London street to find it eerily deserted. Then he finds from Wilf that the populace has fled because they don't want to risk a third alien invasion at Christmas.
• Jerkass : Rickston spends the entire episode with one Kick the Dog moment after another, such as insulting people and insisting that he be the first one to get out of danger. However, even he gets a Pet the Dog moment witnessing the death/recording of Astrid. Then he spoils it at the end by talking about how much richer he is. Jerk. If nothing else, part of the reason he seems happy is because it screwed over Max Capricorn's Board of Directors , who share responsibility for the disaster.
• Jerkass Has a Point : Rickston declaring the officer who opens a dead airlock, despite the Doctor's warnings, and insists everything will be alright, an idiot. Also, while it's mean-spirited and in bad taste, he's right to insist that Morvin and Foon, the two heaviest members of the group, should go last across the precarious bridge, and even Morvin winds up agreeing with him (with what turned into his last words). Finally, he's right-on when he mentions that Foon's request for the Doctor to come back across the bridge to her will just get everyone killed, and even the Doctor realizes he has to leave her to save everyone else.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk : Rickston solemnly thanks the Doctor and hugs Copper tightly, then undermines this by cheerily talking about how rich the disaster has made him, right before he leaves.
• Killed Mid-Sentence : Morvin Van Hoff falls to his death just as he's agreeing that he and his wife should go last across the rickety bridge across the chasm, because the floor he was standing on gave way under his weight.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All : Mr. Copper, the "Earth Expert", is either totally misinformed or just making it up as he goes along . It turns out later his "degree" was from the equivalent of a night-school (and dry-cleaning service ), and he lied just to get away from Sto. invoked
• Leave No Witnesses : Max has the Host kill the survivors, just so no one can find out if the shields were deliberately taken down before the impact.
• Legacy Vessel Naming : The cruise liner is called the Titanic in honour of the most famous vessel in Earth's history. The Doctor and Max are the only people to understand the significance of the name.
• Light Is Not Good : Shiny white-and-gold angels! Creepy shiny white-and-gold robot angels that decapitate people with their halos.
• Literal Genie : Information: The angels will answer three questions. Any three questions? Wait, I didn't mean to do that, can I take it back? What do you mean, "No"?
• Mauve Shirt : The group of people with the Doctor are not quickly killed off. We learn about their personal backgrounds and get to feel for them. Sadly, that's what makes the deaths of several of those sympathetic people even harder to stomach. The one ingrate who we don't learn or witness anything meaningful, sympathetic, or redeeming about their character survives and makes all of the above all the more painful.
• Played straight with the Titanic . The Doctor knows that this will be bad immediately.
• Averted with Astrid, whose name is an anagram of TARDIS (causing much speculation online), but nothing comes of it. On the other hand, although its etymology is different, the name Astrid evokes the Latin word aster , meaning "star", while "peth" is Welsh for "thing"; therefore "Astrid Peth" could be taken to mean "star thing", which is highly plot-relevant.
• Mecha-Mooks : The Host, who start off as service robots but are hacked into trying to eliminate all of the passengers on board.
• Meido : Astrid wears a little apron and a short skirt.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender : Averted. The four Titanic survivors (including the Doctor) are all male, in stark contrast to the actual Titanic . note  On the real Titanic , female survivors outnumbered male survivors by a wide margin, due to the evacuation of women and children first. Indeed, nobody in-universe makes any distinction.
• Mood Whiplash : Mere minutes after Astrid's death, the Doctor is making "Alonsy, Alonso!" jokes and cheering joyfully at avoiding the crash, then abruptly goes back to being sad for Astrid to get a Deader than Dead coda.
• Moral Myopia : Captain Hardaker, while upset that he was given a young man on the crew, still seems to think that the money for his family is worth killing all of the passengers, as well as the billions of people who live on Earth.
• No OSHA Compliance : This is a Zigzagged Trope . Long two-foot-wide metal bridges as the only way over a nuclear reactor engine, but the area was damaged by the meteors striking the ship. Then again, Max did want the thing to fail.
• "Not So Different" Remark : The Doctor and Astrid have a conversation about why she decided to sign up on the cruise, wanting to see different skies, rather than stay on her own boring planet, much like the Doctor did.
• Oh, Crap! : Information: You are all going to die.
• Only a Flesh Wound : Midshipman Frame does rather well for having been shot early in the episode, albeit spending most of his time painfully clutching a stomach wound.
• Overly Long Name : Bannakaffalatta. The Doctor: Look, can I just call you Banna? It's going to save a lot of time. Bannakaffalatta: No! Bannakaffalatta!
• Pet the Dog : Rickston may be a selfish Jerkass , but once the day is saved, he at least has the decency to be solemn during Astrid's botched resurrection and departure, and to thank the Doctor for saving his life.
• Pun : The Doctor's joke about "How to get ahead in business" does not go over well.
• Phony Degree : Mr Copper's degree in Earthonomics, which he eventually admits came from Mrs. Golightly's Happy Travelling University and Dry Cleaners (aka a diploma mill).
• Plucky Middie : Midshipman Frame just qualified and he's very happy to be on the voyage. This is much to the displeasure of Captain Hardaker, who was promised he'd have no young officers on this voyage . Frame ends up holed up on the bridge trying to help where he can.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner : A couple of awesome occasions. Too bad they both precede a Heroic Sacrifice . Bannakaffalatta: Bannakaffalatta stop! Bannakaffalatta proud! Bannakaffalatta CYBORG! Astrid: Mr. Capricorn... I resign.
• Rapid-Fire "No!" : Alonso, when Max Capricorn shuts down the ship's engines.
• Red Herring Shirt : Midshipman Alonzo Frame is shot in the first act to reveal the captain's treachery, but he hangs on and survives to the end of the episode.
• Ridiculous Exchange Rates : Not knowing the local exchange rates and apparently expecting something like this, Mr. Copper typed what he thought was a low amount of one of the local currencies into the computer programming the credit card to give his tourist party enough to buy some souvenirs. It's subverted, however, since it turns out to be worth a lot more than he was expecting: The Doctor: A million ? Pounds ?! Mr. Copper: Enough for trinkets? The Doctor: Mr. Copper, a million pounds is worth fifty million credits. Mr. Copper: [utterly flabbergasted] ... H-how much? The Doctor: Fifty million and... fifty-six. Mr. Copper: I-I've... got... money ... The Doctor: [handing the card back] Yes, you have.
• Rings of Death : The Heavenly Host's haloes.
• Another Christmas, another disaster menacing London. This time the citizens have become smart and evacuated the city to stay safe of whatever could happen. Once again, the "snow" falling during Christmas is actually from a damaged spaceship.
• Geoffrey Palmer makes his third appearance in Doctor Who and, as in the previous two, gets killed very quickly.
• Scully Box : Deployed in-universe. Astrid pulls up a box and stands up on it in order to give the Doctor a goodbye kiss.
• To Starship Titanic . Russell T Davies stated this was unintentional in The Writer's Tale as he actually was not aware of its existence until legal told him that his working title for the episode was the same as the game and Davies would have to change the episode title.
• The penultimate security protocol number the Doctor tries on the Host before settling on 1 and getting a result is 42 .
• The story contains a number of Shout-Outs to the work of Doctor Who scriptwriter and later Blake's 7 script editor Chris Boucher . The look and personality of the Hosts is based on the killer robots in Boucher's Fourth Doctor story " The Robots of Death ". The damaged Host repeating "Kill... kill", the Host's hand stuck in the door, and the secret room full of Hosts on stretchers are also direct copies of moments from the same story. The teleport bracelets are from Blake's 7 , and the Angels' "Information: ..." catchphrase is from Zen, the Liberator computer in Blake's 7 .
• The damaged cruiseliner and passengers having to make their way through precarious, badly damaged, collapse-at-any-moment, tilted areas and makeshift catwalks references The Poseidon Adventure and its numerous remakes.
• Slow-Motion Fall : Any time someone falls to their death, which happens frequently and to people you like.
• Sorting Algorithm of Mortality : Subverted. Everything says that Rickston will have a bridge dropped on him early on, while Astrid will survive and leave with the Doctor; no such luck .
• Space Is an Ocean : This spaceship Titanic even has a life preserver . Not an escape capsule, but a floatation device.
• Space Sailing : The space Titanic was built to look just like the original, complete with fake smokestacks.
• Stellar Name : Astrid was named as a more subtle version of "Astra". The anagram is apparently a coincidence.
• Stupid Sacrifice : Foon really didn't need to throw herself off the bridge with the Host once she roped it. It's implied she was Driven to Suicide .
• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids : Information: The Hosts are meant to be servants and decorations, yet their halos can decapitate people and they have the strength of ten. It's justified in that they were installed because the owner was planning to use them to kill everyone.
• Suspiciously Apropos Music : At the Titanic 's Christmas party, there's a band playing a song called "The Stowaway", all about a man who's lost a lover sneaking aboard a ship and has been found by someone.
• Taking You with Me : Foon takes a Host with her when she decides to kill herself after her husband's death.
• Teleportation : Through the bracelets they give to the passengers. It can also theoretically restore a killed passenger, but when the Doctor tries this with Astrid, the system is too badly damaged.
• Temporary Love Interest : Astrid quickly bonds with the Doctor and made plans to become his next companion. They even share a kiss (she said it was a "tradition", echoing the fact that him getting surprise-snogged is a Running Gag ). Then she dies.
• The Doctor tries to tell Wilf the newsvendor that this year, nothing disastrous is going happen. He gets teleported mid-sentence, and almost immediately after, disaster strikes.
• The Doctor mocks Capricorn for being too incompetent to sink the Titanic . Capricorn responds by shutting down the ship's engines.
• Terminally-Ill Criminal : The Captain of the Titanic is dying from an illness, so he helps Max Capricorn sabotage the ship in exchange for money for his family.
• Third-Person Person : Bannakaffalatta, though wouldn't you be if you had a name like that?
• Throw the Dog a Bone : After swearing to save the entire group, and failing all but two, the Doctor is horrified that Rickston proves to be the Jerkass he appeared to be. Copper reassures the Doctor, however, and proves himself worthy of the Doctor's good graces.
• Together in Death : Morvin and Foon — Invoked by Foon , who takes one of the Host with her .
• Triumphant Reprise : After the Doctor successfully manages to stop the Titanic crashing onto Buckingham Palace, an instrumental version of "The Stowaway", which had played during the party, starts playing.
• Twinkle Smile : Max Capricorn's repeating advertisement has a tooth that does this when he says, "My name is Maaaxxx ". And when the Doctor meets Capricorn in person: The Doctor: [surprised] It really does that?
• Unflinching Walk : The Doctor does this after Astrid's death with the ship's debris falling around him.
• Up, Up and Away! : The two Hosts carrying the Doctor takes this pose with their free arms to crash through the deck.
• The Upper Crass : The rest of the first class passengers disdain the lower-class contest winners, the van Hoffs.
• Verbal Tic : Information: The Host cannot begin a single sentence without first saying: "Information".
• Wealthy Ever After : Mr. Copper, having no idea about Earth culture or currency, loaded a pre-paid card with "a million" thinking it was only good for trinkets. The Doctor tells him that he now has fifty-six million and fifty six credits. He just has to be careful with it.
• What Did You Expect When You Named It ____? : A ship called the Titanic ! What Could Possibly Go Wrong? is invoked — it was named after the "most famous ship of Earth" — they just didn't know what it was famous for . The passengers, having no idea of Earth culture, had no idea of the original ship's history. It's further justified in that, given Max's plans and depending on when the ship was built, it could've been a sick joke on his part.
• Whole-Plot Reference : The Poseidon Adventure IN SPACE!
• Writers Cannot Do Math : If £1 Million is roughly 50 million credits, that means that the 5000-credit phone bill that Foon and Morvin were lamenting and talking about never being able to pay was roughly... £100.
• The X of Y : "Voyage of the Damned".
• Yank the Dog's Chain : The Doctor swears he's going to save everyone. One by one, he fails all but two of them.
• Midshipman Frame ends up being the only officer on the bridge after Captain Hardaker gets the ship rammed by meteors and is also killed.
• After Astrid kills Max, the Hosts latch onto the nearest authority figure and that would be the Doctor.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame : Played with, as "Saving Your Life Fills Me With Shame". Rickston thanks the Doctor for saving his life, and then he goes on to say how much money he made off this venture and goes back to ordering around his employees. This brings the Doctor no joy.
• You See, I'm Dying : The Captain is dying, and scuppers his own ship in exchange for his family being looked after.
• Doctor Who 2007 CiNS "Time Crash"
• Recap/Doctor Who
• Doctor Who S30 E1 "Partners in Crime"

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Theory : Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/Voyage of the Damned

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Remember, this is a forum , so civil discussion is encouraged. However, please do not sign your posts . Also, keep all posts about the same continuity error under the same bullet point. You can add a new point by typing:

• How is it that there are humans on board the ship but they have no idea about earth or the fact that it has there ancestors! i mean no where in the episode does it state that the ship can travel through time?
• Max was afraid of witneses, who can survive a crash like that?
• The Doctor later explains that the Hosts flew him up to the flight deck because with Max dead the androids were programmed to obey the next highest figure of authority, The Doctor. However the Doctor had just been acknowledged by their previous master as a stowaway and a criminal, and there was still at least one crewmember alive (Frame).
• After the Doctor says, "Take me to your leader", he remarks on how he's always wanted to say that sentence, even though his ninth incarnation said it in TV : Aliens of London , as had his fourth incarnation .
• Although the evacuation of London renders the Doctor's concern moot, the question is left unanswered as to how Bannakaffalatta was expected to remain incognito during the shore party excursion to Earth. It doesn't appear that Mr. Copper expected the evacuation to have taken place, given that he expected the passengers to go shopping upon arrival.
• When the Doctor tries to warn the fellow passengers by grabbing the microphone the singer was using, it is branded Magpie electricals; why would a Sto microphone be branded Magpie Electricals?
• The opening collision between the TARDIS and the ship raises several questions: Why would a space-going vessel have a foghorn? How could a vessel in space expel a life preserver (and why would one even be needed?) And how was the captain of the ship not aware that it had not only collided with another craft, but had briefly embedded itself within it?
• Rickston Slade is seen using a mobile phone (or something similar) both before and after the crash, why couldn't he have used it to send an SOS, the survivors didn't need to get to the Main Deck at all.
• Related to the above, the Doctor is seen using a telephone on the bridge to contact Buckingham Palace. Couldn't Frame have been instructed relay the message?
• Why was there an English flag in the room where the TARDIS landed?
• The Doctor claims that he is 903 years old. This contradicts TV : Time and the Rani , in which the Doctor's age is given as 953.
• When Mr Copper is talking about Great Britain in the final scene, why doesn't the Doctor correct him that the country is actually called the United Kingdom, especially considering that Mr Copper actually referred to the country as the UK earlier in the episode?
• The Doctor explained that the exchange rate from credits to pounds is 50 million to 1 million, respectively. This means that Foon Van Hoff's 5000 credit debt is only 100 pounds, or $147. How is it that they'll never be able to pay off 100 pounds?
• In what way is Cardiff the nearest centre of gravity?
• If Host have the strength of 10 why does one struggle to strangle Morvin.
• Just before the meteoroids are about to hit, the alert system says "Red Alert" despite the Doctor saying in TV : The Empty Child that mauve is the universally recognised color for danger (except on Earth).
• Midshipman Frame says meteors are coming yet the meteors do not have tails as is shown, further if they are comets as indicted by the tails the tails should not move with a change in direction as the tail always moves away from the sun regardless of direction of travel.
• The Titanic crashed through the interior of the TARDIS. If the outside of the TARDIS is smaller what would it have looked like when a much larger ship was "inside" it?
• When hitting the Hosts' rings the Doctor gets hit in the arm, he doesn't respond until 1 or 2 seconds later
• Since the Titanic is shaped like a boat, Couldn't The Doctor have instructed frame to fly the ship into the sea, therefore allowing it to float until they are rescued?
• When the co-pilot gets shot in the stomach at the beginning of the episode, why is he all better at the end?
• Why would a starship on the Earth orbit outside the atmosphere require engines to stay on that orbit?
• the Doctor says "the TARDIS is programmed to lock onto the nearest centre of gravity, which is earth". But, technically everything has some gravitational pull, albeit many things have such littlep pull it isnt noticed.
• as the Titanic turns to face earth, it creaks, but the entire thing moves, not just some parts
• When the Doctor shouted into the mic "Get to the lifebo—" and a Host puts its metal hand over his mouth, why would there be lifeboats in the first place? The crew, passengers and stowaways might as well have jumped out the freaking ship. There would be no air and lifeboats are on water. What gives?
• Why is the Doctor concerned with the Tardis flying away ? He can clearly command the Tardis to jump to him.
• Why is it earlier in the episode, when the host throw their halo at people, it kills them in one shot, but later when the Doctor and the others get hit by the halos, it only seems to cause them mild pain?
• Why was Wilf out selling papers on Christmas day when places like that would be closed? ( Turn Left confirms that was, indeed, what he was doing)

8 essential changes Russell T Davies made when rebooting Doctor Who

The showrunner has definitely made his mark on the series.

• Olivia Garrett
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When Doctor Who returned in 2005, it was anyone’s guess what a rebooted version of the show would look and feel like.

The sci-fi series had been gone from our screens for a long time, as generally had the trend for mild mannered TV dramas with a happy-go-lucky lead. Think shows like The Wire, 24, and the Sopranos – it was clear that the world of television Doctor Who was coming back into was altogether darker and grittier than the one it left.

So, with that huge question mark hanging over it, it was down to the showrunners (or showrunner) to update it for the modern audience. Enter Russell T Davies .

When the Queer as Folk writer took over, he made plenty of tweaks to the show’s format and style. From changing the basic episode structure to having the first Doctor without an RP accent, the series received a shake-up from top to bottom, while still remaining Doctor Who of course.

There’s sure to be plenty more changes to come in RTD’s second reign, but today – the writer’s 61st birthday, in fact – it’s time to look at those that made his original relaunch work so well.

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It was pretty hard to narrow down, but here’s eight essential changes Russell T Davies made when bringing back Doctor Who.

1. The Time War

Kicking things off with the writer’s biggest and boldest move of them all: killing off The Doctor’s entire species, and not just that, killing them off-screen.

In just the second episode of RTD’s tenure, we get our first introduction to the Time War – at that time, a great unknown event that resulted in the destruction of Gallifrey and every single Time Lord – now of course, we know differently.

In the classic series, the Time Lords had been a constant presence in The Doctor’s life, as friend and, more often, foe. To many, the axing of such an essential part of the lore must have seemed insane, but thankfully, not to Russell T Davies. It has to be said that Doctor Who just thrived without the weight of these stuffy senators; the status of last-of-his-kind gave The Doctor new and exciting emotional depths that were beautifully played out by Eccleston, Tennant and Smith. It elevated the character into something huge and mythic and well, alien, in a way we’d never seen before.

2. One word: "ELE-VATE"

There’s no denying that the Daleks, while iconic, had become slightly ludicrous over the final years of the classic series. No disrespect to Ace, but the moment you see one getting battered with a baseball bat, all credibility flies out the window. Worst of all, however, was seeing these great masters of time and space be foiled time and again, not by the Doctor, but by stairs.

Thankfully, Robert Shearman’s Dalek changed that all in a single, blood-curdling moment. From the second that Dalek started to "ELE-VATE" towards Rose and Adam in Van Statten’s museum, we knew these villains were back in a big way, and it was terrifying.

3. The Psychic Paper

Another shall we say… quirk, of the classic series was that the Doctor frequently found himself having or break his way out of prison cells thanks to suspicious humans or silly misunderstandings. The stories would always seem to start the same way: he lands, people get angry, the Doctor ends up in prison or sentenced to death until the real baddie turns up and they let him out.

So with a shorter time spend on each story, we really needed something like the Psychic Paper to move past all that. This handy, ever-changing ID card was the perfect McGuffin to get The Doctor into stories quickly and easily. No more wasting time on executioners blocks, just show the psychic, have a quick laugh about what it says and on you go.

4. Bringing back the greatest companion

It’s fair to say that the first few seasons of the RTD reboot tended to shy away from making too many classic era references. In-jokes were rare and flash backs were seemingly banned. In fact, we didn’t actually get a glimpse at any of the Doctor’s previous faces until The Next Doctor in 2008.

But the one, frankly glorious, exception was bringing back Sarah Jane Smith. When Elisabeth Sladen appeared in School Reunion, it was everything. For older viewers, it was the chance to do what so many fans wish they could: to reconnect with their favourite character. For children, it was the chance to bring this incredibly special person to a whole new generation.

5. Family drama

The introduction of the companions’ families marked another major shift. Suddenly the previously insular dynamic of Doctor and friends opened up to include mums, siblings, boyfriends, and even parallel universe fathers. With this change, the series became that little bit more real and grounded and gave us a much-needed human dynamic.

Plus, and this cannot be overstated, it gave us some of the best performances in the entire show, thanks to Camille Coduri, Jacqueline King and, of course, Bernard Cribbins. And really, who wouldn’t want to try Sylvia Noble’s tuna madras?

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6. The five billion trilogy

Perhaps a controversial choice, but if you ever wanted to give a Doctor Who novice a summary of the show, I’d suggest showing them the five billion trilogy: End of the World, New Earth and Gridlock.

On one side, you’d really be throwing the new viewer in at the deep end, so at least they’d know if they liked it, on the other, they would get an instant idea of what the essence of the show is: a camp, crazy, sci-fi romp with nurse cat nuns and Zoe Wanamaker’s moisturiser.

But seriously, when you look past all the insanity, these episodes have real human stories at their core. Think about Gridlock, it may have cartoon crabs and Aardal O’Hanlon’s cat babies, but it’s also got a hymn slap bang in the middle of it and some pretty serious character beats for the Doctor and Martha.

7. Christmas specials

We take it for granted now that Doctor Who has a Christmas (or New Year’s) special, but getting one in the first place can’t have been an easy task.

Giving that mad man and his box (The Doctor, not RTD) the prime slot on BBC One on Christmas Day, turned the series from Saturday night sci-fi to full-on family event. It also gave the showrunners the chance to tell bolder and downright whackier stories than ever before. By the fourth special we’d had robot Santas, Kylie Minogue and evil Christmas trees… and it only got stranger during the Moffat era.

8. Murray Gold

Lastly, Murray Gold why do you hurt us?

While the composer’s indelible presence on the show is a credit to no one but himself, we have to thank RTD and co for putting the composer there in the first place.

Without him, we would never have got tracks like Doomsday, Martha’s Theme, or I Am The Doctor. We would never have felt that sucker-punch when Rose and the Doctor said goodbye or when David Tennant uttered “I don’t want to go,” or at least, not in the same way.

What sets Murray Gold’s music apart is the energy and life he brings to even the quietest moments, the way he lets us fall in love with characters before they speak and the way he makes us feel danger before we even know why. Without him, well, let’s be honest, I definitely wouldn’t have spent as much money on tissues, but also it simply wouldn’t have worked the same.

Doctor Who will return on Saturday 11th May on BBC iPlayer and BBC One. Previous seasons are available to stream on BBC iPlayer with episodes of the classic series also available on BritBox – you can sign up for a 7-day free trial here .

Check out more of our Sci-Fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to see what's on tonight. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast .

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Den of Geek

‘I Was There at the Fall of Arcadia’ and Other Throwaway Lines that Transformed Doctor Who

These inconsequential bits of dialogue evolved into whole stories on Doctor Who.

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Doctor Who has a habit of taking a throwaway line and making it into a big deal.

In 60 th anniversary special “ Wild Blue Yonder ”, Russell T. Davies wrote what seemed like a passing joke about Isaac Newton mishearing the word ″gravity″ as “ mavity ” before committing to the bit and changing the word in the timeline from that point onwards, making the gag not so inconsequential after all.

Mavity isn’t alone in the show’s history. Throwaway lines have been seized upon and expanded over the years, some by the show’s fandom, but also by its writers. What started as world-building, texture or a dramatic beat has become the foundation for a whole new level of storytelling.

Lines like these…

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“The heart of the machine is under the column”

The Edge of Destruction (1964), written by David Whitaker

In this First Doctor story, set almost entirely inside the TARDIS , a series of strange events makes everyone tense and agitated. Come the finale, as the Doctor announces they’re on the brink of destruction, Barbara realises something. The ship, the TARDIS itself, has been giving them clues. That’s what the strange events have been.

The Doctor, interestingly, insists that the TARDIS cannot think, but states that its power source is beneath the central column on the console. The idea of the TARDIS being sentient, and the importance of its power source beneath the console, are developed further in the post-2005 series (especially Neil Gaiman’s ‘ The Doctor’s Wife ’) and becomes a crucial plot point at the end of series one (in both ‘Boom Town’ and ‘ The Parting of the Ways ’).

“No, they have been recognised on Planet 14”

The Invasion (1968), written by Derrick Sherwin

Tobias Vaughn, head of an electronics company, is helping the Cybermen invade Earth. Talking to a Cyber-Planner (a computer-brain with a gift for strategy), they look at security photos of the Second Doctor and Jamie. The Planner recognises them from “Planet 14”, which makes Vaughn question how they could have been on another planet.

Viewers with good memories might have been watching this in 1968 and thinking ‘Hang on…when were they on Planet 14?’, because this was the first anyone had heard of it. Given the Doctor and Jamie had met the Cybermen onscreen three times at this point, the fact that Derrick Sherwin gave them another encounter has led writers to try to fill in the gaps, notably Grant Morrison in their 1987 comic strip ‘The World Shapers’ and Steven Moffat in ‘The Doctor Falls’, where he suggests parallel evolution of different Cybermen, making them adherents of a repeated meme .

“I was there at the fall of Arcadia”

Doomsday (2006), written by Russell T. Davies

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The Time War was, of course, much more interesting as an imagined horror than as depicted events. Now we have endless reiterations of the story structure ‘I’m Not the Doctor > Meets Surrogate Companion > The Time Lords are Dicks > Surrogate Companion Dies > I’m Not the Doctor Really I Hate War’ across different mediums. Before this, though, we had Russell T. Davies dropping in colossal-sounding events and concepts without offering any details. The Time War was in the mind’s eye of the beholder. What was “The Could’ve Been King”? The “Horde of Travesties”? The “Skaro Degradations”?

When the Tenth Doctor says he fought on the front lines and was present at the fall of Arcadia, we didn’t know what that truly meant until ‘ The Day of the Doctor ’ in 2013: Arcadia is Gallifrey’s second city. Steven Moffat took Davies’ line and built on it: if Gallifrey is destroyed, what does that mean beyond some dusty archivists in stupid collars disappearing from the show? Arcadia is Gallifrey’s second city. We get more of a sense of the planet, rather than just the Capitol. And this allows Moffat to show the people of Gallifrey, notably the children. Billions of lives, rather than a small group of politicians, are at stake.

“And didn’t we have trouble with the prototype?”

Remembrance of the Daleks (1988), written by Ben Aaronovitch

This is disguised as a throwaway line, but was meant to be the start of an exploration of the Doctor’s identity that culminated in a retcon revealing the Doctor to be an influential figure in the origins of Gallifrey ( if you can imagine such a thing ).

Barring a few hints, this never made it onscreen, but it was occasionally dabbled in during the New Adventures book line in the Nineties. The final Seventh Doctor novel was ‘Lungbarrow’ by Marc Platt, originally pitched for television: a mix of Mervyn Peake and Lewis Carroll set in the Doctor’s family home which, despite being disregarded in terms of canon, looms over the series as a spectral alternative history.

“Ah, that’s the Blinovitch limitation effect”

Day of the Daleks (1973), written by Louis Marks

A story featuring a temporal paradox, as a group of guerillas from the future try to travel back in time to prevent World War Three from happening and thus making the Earth susceptible to Dalek invasion. Unfortunately their presence reinforces the original timeline rather than altering it, until Jon Pertwee’s Doctor intervenes.

‘The Blinovitch Limitation Effect’ dialogue was added – with no further explanatory dialogue – to quickly establish that the guerillas couldn’t just keep travelling back in time to have another go at changing history. This quick handwaving away of a potential plot hole was taken up by the series, being directly referenced again in ‘Mawdryn Undead’ and ‘ Kill the Moon ’, and so it explains why time travellers don’t simply just travel back to the same spot over and over again to solve things and why two versions of the same person shouldn’t touch (except when characters do do these things, in which case presumably there’s another phenomena called The Blinovitch Limitation Effect Limitation Effect).

“It can’t be. I’m from 1980”

Pyramids of Mars (1975), written by Robert Holmes

The Fourth Doctor and Sarah are fighting Sutekh, a godlike being of immense power, in 1911. Sarah points out that they could just leave, because they know the world doesn’t end in 1911. The Doctor takes her to 1980 and shows her “a desolate planet circling a dead sun”.

This detour not only shows us the consequences of the Doctor failing to save the day (and the fluidity of time away from fixed points) it also plays a small but potent role in that great clusterfuck of nonsense: The UNIT Dating Controversy .

Essentially, UNIT seemed to be from the late Seventies. The Doctor meets the Brigadier in 1975 at the earliest, and then their next meeting is – from the Brig’s point of view – four years later. This means ‘The Invasion’ takes place in 1979 at the earliest.

Then we have the five series with the Third Doctor where UNIT feature regularly, with Sarah Jane arriving during the last of these (although wisely Script Editor Terrance Dicks doesn’t offer any indication of dates or timeframe during these stories to avoid precisely this sort of thing from happening). Sarah stating that she’s from 1980 implies that everything we see in the Pertwee era takes place in less than a year in real time. In which case, what a year.

The best bit is this isn’t even the biggest problem with the UNIT timeline! If you want to know more, go and watch ‘Mawdryn Undead’ and get back to me.

“You can’t kill illusions”

The Five Doctors (1983), written by Terrance Dicks

On the face of it, this is a haunting scene where the Second Doctor and the Brigadier meet phantom versions of companions Jamie and Zoe. The Doctor realises they’re illusions because they’re older than when we last saw them, and Jamie and Zoe had their minds wiped of their time on board the TARDIS, right before the Second Doctor was forced to regenerate (all in 1969’s ‘ The War Games ’). How, then, is the Second Doctor here with this knowledge? There is no obvious onscreen gap where he could disappear off to visit the Brigadier (as he does at the start of ‘The Five Doctors’) before ending up back on Gallifrey.

This, and other continuity problems, inspired the ‘Season 6B’ theory in the book The Dis Continuity Guide by Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping: that the Second Doctor doesn’t regenerate at the end of the War Games, but instead ended up working for the…

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The Deadly Assassin (1976), written by Robert Holmes

The Doctor returns to Gallifrey and the guards immediately try to arrest him. The Castellan (essentially the head of police) asks for more information on the Doctor, and is told about his previous trial in ‘ The War Games ’:

Co-ordinator Engin: I see there is an addendum. Ah, yes. The sentence was subsequently remitted at the intercession of the CIA. Castellan: Celestial Intervention Agency. They get their fingers into everything. Is he mixed up with them? Engin: There’s nothing further on the file. Castellan: Oh yes, they’d see to it that there wouldn’t be.

Robert Holmes wrote this as a gag, and nothing more. And yet the CIA has endured as a concept, even if it is a little busy in the secret Gallifreyan interventionist group arena these days, to the extent that it was included as a key part of the Season 6B explanation that appeared on the (now archived) Doctor Who website .

“Even the silent gas dirigibles of the Hoothi are felt in our bones while still a million miles distant”

The Brain of Morbius (1976), written by Robert Holmes and Terrance Dicks

Robert Holmes rewrote Terrance Dicks’ scripts for this story , demonstrating his ability to expand universes with apparently throwaway dialogue. Holmes’ worldbuilding was peerless, slipping enough details into dialogue to suggest something much larger than what we saw or focussed on onscreen. This example – spoken by Maren, the leader of the Sisterhood of Karn, in response to news that the Doctor and Sarah have arrived on the planet without their knowledge – is in the script simply to demonstrate the Sisterhood’s power, but it would be built on years later by Paul Cornell in his 1992 novel ‘Love and War’.

In the novel, Cornell takes this line and turns the Hoothi into a formidable monster: a fungal hive-mind who could infect life-forms with their spores and absorb them into their consciousness. To counteract this, the Doctor has to be at his most ruthless. From this one line Cornell gives a cause for the darker characterisation of the Doctor, established during the final season of the original run, to go as far as it possibly can.

“The point is not whether you understand. What is going to happen to you, hmm? They’ll tell everybody about the ship now.”

An Unearthly Child (1963), written by Anthony Coburn

Less a throwaway line picked up in later stories, this one transformed the Doctor’s character right from the off. Back in Doctor Who ’s very first episode, schoolteachers Ian and Barbara are unnerved and intrigued by their pupil Susan Foreman and, er, follow her home. No getting around it, that’s a strange choice. They see her enter a junkyard, and find a strange old man with a strange blue box. Hearing Susan’s voice they barge in, and discover an impossibly large white control room. The Doctor, for it is he, mocks their lack of comprehension and then asks the most important question in the show’s history – not ‘Doctor Who?’, but ‘What is going to happen to you?’

In context it’s more of a threat, a worry. The Doctor doesn’t want to be discovered, and realises that if he lets the teachers go he and Susan will have to leave. So, establishing a character trait early, he makes a decision for everyone else without telling them and sets the ship in flight, kidnapping Ian and Barbara.

And thus, everyone’s favourite family TV show was born.

Andrew Blair

Andrew Blair is a writer and performer from Scotland. He also writes poetry, including a pamphlet of poems about a fictional version of Robert Pattinson. He…