The Parting of the Ways
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| 170b - Parting of the Ways | ||||
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| Doctor | Christopher Eccleston (Ninth Doctor) David Tennant (Tenth Doctor) |
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| Writer | Russell T Davies | |||
| Director | Joe Ahearne | |||
| Script editor | Helen Raynor | |||
| Producer | Phil Collinson | |||
| Executive producer(s) | Russell T. Davies Julie Gardner Mal Young |
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| Production code | 1.13 | |||
| Length | 2 of 2 episodes, 45 mins | |||
| Transmission date | June 18, 2005 | |||
| Preceded by | Bad Wolf | |||
| Followed by | Doctor Who: Children in Need (next scene) The Christmas Invasion (next episode) |
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| IMDb profile | ||||
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The Parting of the Ways is an episode in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast on June 18, 2005. It is the second of a two-part story. The first part, Bad Wolf, was broadcast on June 11. It was Christopher Eccleston's last story as the Doctor and David Tennant's first appearance in the role, as well as the last story to date to feature Jack Harkness, played by John Barrowman, as a companion. The episode also revealed the significance of the words Bad Wolf, which had been inserted throughout that season's episodes.
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[edit] Synopsis
The Ninth Doctor fights to save both Rose and Earth as the invasion begins. However, the Doctor may have to sacrifice everything as he faces the saviour of his oldest enemies.
[edit] Plot
Following on from the end of Bad Wolf, the Daleks turn on Rose and demand that she predict the Doctor's actions, but she refuses. The Daleks detect the TARDIS flying in real space towards the saucer, and launch missiles against it. The missiles detonate, but thanks to the tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator taken from Margaret Blaine, Jack has rigged up a force field around the TARDIS that protects it. The TARDIS materialises on board the Dalek saucer, around Rose and a single Dalek guarding her, which Jack destroys with the gun he improvised on the Game Station. As the Doctor examines the wreckage of the Dalek, he muses that since it is now apparent that the Daleks survived the Time War, the Time Lords died for nothing.
The travellers exit the TARDIS, and are immediately fired on by the surrounding Daleks, but the extrapolator's force field continues to protect them. The Doctor taunts the Daleks, reminding them that Dalek legends call him "The Oncoming Storm", and even though they claim to have eliminated all emotion, he is sure that, deep inside, the Daleks still feel fear when faced with him. He asks how they survived the Time War, and is answered by a low, grating voice, "They survived… through me." The voice is that of the Dalek Emperor, a Dalek mutant suspended in a transparent tank of fluid, flanked by panels of armour and topped by an equally gargantuan Dalek domed head. Around it floats an entourage of black-domed Daleks.
The Emperor explains that even though the Doctor destroyed all the Daleks in the War, its own ship survived, falling through time crippled but alive. The surviving Daleks spent centuries hiding in "the dark spaces", silently rebuilding, infiltrating Earth's systems, harvesting humans and converting the genetic material into an army of Daleks. When Rose suggests that makes the Daleks half-human, the Daleks cry out that the remark is blasphemy. The Doctor is surprised that the Daleks even have such a concept. The Emperor considers itself, as the creator of the new Dalek race, to be its god. Even though it used human genetic material, only one cell in a billion was fit to be nurtured, and the Emperor insists that its manipulation resulted in the cultivation of "pure and blessed Dalek".
Horrified, the Doctor realises that the Daleks have been driven insane by the human values they have absorbed, becoming self-loathing fanatics who hate their own genetic makeup, which makes them deadlier than ever. The travellers re-enter the TARDIS, and the Doctor returns them to Floor 500 of the Game Station.
The Doctor orders the two remaining programmers to turn up the transmitters so the Daleks cannot transmat aboard the station. Earth is ignoring the Station's warnings since it stopped transmitting and is simply sitting there defenceless. Despite the Doctor's earlier orders, Lynda Moss is still on board, unwilling to leave him. In any case, there were not enough shuttles, and there are still about a hundred people on board, on Floor Zero, including Rodrick, Rose's main opponent in The Weakest Link, who is still looking for his prize money. The Dalek fleet begins to move towards Earth, the Emperor giving orders to purify the planet with fire and turn it into its temple.
The Doctor begins dismantling the panels in the control room. The Daleks have left him an enormous transmitter, and to Jack's disbelief, the Doctor is proposing to build and transmit a Delta Wave, an energy wave that will fry every brain in its path. Unfortunately, a wave of this magnitude would require three days to build up. The Dalek fleet will be on them in twenty-two minutes. The Doctor has to work fast.
Jack attaches the extrapolator to the Station's systems so the Daleks cannot just blast the Station out of the sky, but it will not prevent them from physically invading to stop the Wave. Jack concentrates the force field on the top six levels of the Station, so the Daleks will have to enter at Floor 494 and work their way up to Floor 500. Rose stays behind to help the Doctor build the Wave while the others, armed with bastic bullets which can breach Dalek casings, go down to Floor Zero to try and scare up volunteers to help hold back the Daleks. Jack kisses both Rose and the Doctor good-bye.
On Floor Zero, only a few join the defenders. Others, like Rodrick, do not believe that the Daleks still exist. Jack warns them all to stay on Floor Zero and keep quiet, even if they start to hear the sounds of battle above; if they do, hopefully the non-existent Daleks will not notice them. On Floor 500, the Delta Wave starts its build-up, but when the Doctor checks to see how long it will need to build, he hangs his head in dismay. When Rose asks how bad it is, the Doctor brightens up and says it can work if he can use the TARDIS to cross his own timeline. He ushers her into the TARDIS and tells her to stay there while he powers up the Station. Once he exits the TARDIS, however, his expression turns sombre, and he points the sonic screwdriver at the ship, making it dematerialise with Rose on board.
Rose finds the TARDIS doors locked, and a hologram of the Doctor appears, explaining to Rose that if she is receiving this message, then the Doctor is either dead, or about to die with no chance of escape. This emergency programme will take her home, and the TARDIS will not return for him for fear that its technology will fall into the wrong hands. He asks her to just let the TARDIS moulder away and die, and, in remembrance of him, to have a fantastic life. The TARDIS lands Rose at her council estate in the 21st century, and despite her near hysterical jiggling of the controls, she cannot get it to work again. Outside, Mickey comes running down the street, having heard the distinctive sound of the TARDIS engines, and Rose hugs him, weeping.
When Jack contacts Floor 500, he finds that the Doctor has sent Rose away. When Jack asks if the Delta Wave will be ready, the Dalek Emperor breaks in on the transmission, noting that the Wave can possibly be completed in time, but it will not be able to discriminate between human and Dalek; it will wipe out the Earth as well as the Dalek fleet. The Doctor replies that there are colonies in space and the human race will survive, but the whole universe is in danger if he lets the Daleks live. Jack tells the Doctor to keep working, and defiantly tells the Emperor that he will never doubt the Doctor. The Doctor questions the Emperor on how it managed to scatter the words "Bad Wolf" through history, but the Emperor replies that it was not part of its design.
Jack places Lynda in an observation deck which has a heavy door that will hopefully hold the Daleks out for a time. From the deck, Lynda will monitor the Station's sensors and update the rest of the humans on the Daleks' progress. Through the window, they see the fleet decelerate into Earth orbit, and thousands of Daleks begin to stream out from the saucers towards the Station. The Daleks force the airlock on Floor 494, and begin to work their way up, taking the internal lasers off-line and making short work of the first batch of defenders, their bastic bullets having no effect as they melt against the Dalek force-fields.
In the 21st century, Jackie and Mickey try to persuade Rose to just get on with her life. Rose tells them that she cannot, because the Doctor showed her a better way to live, just like he showed Mickey: you do not just give up; you make a stand and fight for what is right. As Mickey tries to reason with her, Rose notices the words "Bad Wolf" scrawled in six-foot high letters on a paved public area of the estate, and also in the form of graffiti on the surrounding walls. Rose realises that the words are not a warning, but a message, telling her that she can still get back to the Doctor. She runs for the TARDIS, hoping at least to help the Doctor escape. She tells Mickey that the TARDIS is telepathic, and to make contact, they need to get inside it, open the console to get at the "heart" of the TARDIS they last saw in Cardiff. However, their first attempt to pry the console open by hooking a chain to Mickey's car is unsuccessful.
On Floor 495, the Daleks encounter the Anne Droid from The Weakest Link, but it only manages to dispose of three Daleks before another one shoots it's head off. To Lynda's horror, instead of flying up to 496, the Daleks travel down to Floor Zero, exterminating everyone left there. In the TARDIS, Jackie tries her hand at persuading Rose to give up, but Rose tells her that Pete, her father, would not have given up; she knows this because she met him. Jackie does not believe this, until Rose reminds her that a blonde girl was there holding Pete's hand when he died and Jackie saw her from a distance — that girl was Rose. Shaken, Jackie rushes out of the TARDIS.
On 2002nd century Earth, the fleet descends, bombarding the planet, the outlines of the continents distorting on Lynda's screen as they are devastated by the Dalek bombing. The Emperor proclaims that it has created Heaven on Earth. On Floor 499, Jack organises the last stand against the Daleks, telling the defenders to concentrate fire on the Dalek eyestalks. This works against one Dalek, but the others overwhelm the barricades, killing everyone but Jack, who retreats towards Floor 500, still firing vainly at the oncoming Dalek squads. As a Dalek squad begins to cut through the doors to Lynda's position, another floats in space outside the window of the observation deck and fires at it, shattering the glass and subjecting Lynda to explosive decompression.
Back in the 21st century, Jackie returns to the TARDIS with a heavy-duty recovery vehicle. She tells Rose that she was right — this would have been the sort of mad thing Pete would have done. The heavier chain of the recovery vehicle holds, and the console tears open. Rose stares into the heart of the TARDIS, and energy from within the console flows into her eyes. The TARDIS doors close of their own accord, shutting Jackie and Mickey out, and the TARDIS dematerialises, intense light visibly streaming out of the police box windows.
Jack runs out of ammunition and is exterminated at the doorway to Floor 500 just as the Doctor finishes readying the Delta Wave. The Daleks roll into the control room, and when the Doctor threatens to activate the Wave, the Emperor dares him to do so, to become like it — the Great Exterminator, to make the choice between coward and killer. The Doctor hesitates, and then says he would be a coward any day. As the Doctor prepares for extermination, the TARDIS materialises behind him. The doors open, the light from the TARDIS's heart spilling out into the control room, and in the middle of it all is Rose, glowing brightly. In answer to the Doctor, Rose tells him she looked into the TARDIS and it into her. The Doctor tells her that she looked into the time vortex, something no one is supposed to see.
Suffused with power, Rose easily stops a Dalek blast dead, and forces the destructive beam back. She seems to be controlled by some incredible — almost godlike — force. As the Emperor calls her "the abomination", Rose explains that she is the Bad Wolf and proceeds to scatter the name of the Game Station's owners through time and space, to lead herself to this point. She can now see all of time and space: the past, present and possible future; all she wants is the Doctor to be safe and protected from the Daleks. The Emperor declares that she cannot hurt it as it is immortal, but Rose proves the Emperor wrong by waving her hand, dividing the Daleks and their fleet into atoms, thus ending both the Dalek threat and, finally, the Time War. However, the power continues to stream through Rose, and she is unwilling to let go of the power of life and death, a power demonstrated when — outside the room and unseen by the Doctor — Jack suddenly returns to life. The Doctor tries desperately to get her to relinquish what she has been given, but Rose weeps that she cannot cope with the power coursing through her body.
The Doctor knows that the power will kill her, so pulls her close and kisses her, drawing the energy into himself. As Rose falls unconscious, the Doctor releases the vortex energies back into the TARDIS. Jack makes it to the control room only to see the TARDIS dematerialise without him.
On board, Rose awakens, remembering little of what has transpired. As she tries to figure out what happened, the Doctor notices a small ripple of energy sweeping across the back of his hand and his expression clouds momentarily. Turning back to Rose, he tells her that he was going to take her to so many places, like Barcelona — the planet, not the city — and perhaps he will, just not as he is now. Rose does not understand what the Doctor is talking about, until he buckles over in pain. The Doctor tells her that the vortex energy is destroying every cell in his body. He will regenerate, but this incarnation will not see her again. The Ninth Doctor's last words to Rose are, "Before I go, I just want to tell you: you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And you know what? So was I."
With that, blazing energy courses through his body, and before Rose's astonished eyes, his features shift and change, his hair becoming longer and his general appearance becoming younger. The new Doctor says "Hello," swallows, and adds, "New teeth. That's weird. Now, where was I?"
"Oh, that's right," grins the Tenth Doctor, "Barcelona!"
[edit] Cast
- Doctor Who — Christopher Eccleston
- Rose Tyler — Billie Piper
- Captain Jack — John Barrowman
- Male Programmer — Jo Stone-Fewings
- Lynda — Jo Joyner
- Rodrick — Paterson Joseph
- Female Programmer — Nisha Nayar
- Mickey — Noel Clarke
- Jackie — Camille Coduri
- Voice of Anne Droid — Anne Robinson
- Dalek Voice — Nicholas Briggs
- Dalek Operators — Barnaby Edwards, Nicholas Pegg, David Hankinson
- Android — Alan Ruscoe
- And introducing David Tennant as Doctor Who
[edit] Cast notes
- Jenna Russell appears as the Floor Manager, who also appeared in the previous episode. However, she is not listed in the end credits.
[edit] Continuity
- Rose absorbing the energy of the time vortex and destroying the Daleks is similar to the resolution of the last regular Eighth Doctor comic strip story in Doctor Who Magazine. In The Flood, the Doctor is thrown into the vortex by the Cybermen, and emerges suffused with enough power to deliberately trigger a "temporal meltdown" which destroys them. He relinquishes the power to rescue Destrii, his companion at the time (DWM #346-#353).
- This was the only story to feature the Doctor regenerating while standing up, and the fourth time that he has been seen to regenerate inside the TARDIS console room; the other stories being The Tenth Planet (1966), The Caves of Androzani (1984) and Time and the Rani (1987).
- A musical cue with eerie sounding vocals is heard when Rose sees the graffiti and later after she has absorbed the energy of the time vortex. On the DVD commentary of Rose, Russell T. Davies and Phil Collinson jokingly call this voice "President Flavia", a reference to a Time Lady character from The Five Doctors. On the soundtrack released in 2006, it was known as "The Doctor's Theme". Davies says that this voice is heard "whenever it gets too Time Lord-y". It was also heard in the 2005 series episodes The End of the World, Boom Town, Bad Wolf and in the 2005 Children in Need special.
- In The Age of Steel, Mickey tells Jake "I once saved the universe in a big yellow truck".
- Jack's temporary death marks the first time since Adric's death in 1982's Earthshock that a companion has been killed on-screen in the television series, although Grace Holloway and disputed companion Chang Lee are also killed (and revived) in the 1996 telefilm.
[edit] The TARDIS
- The idea that the TARDIS console directly harnesses the energies which drive the ship (the "heart of the TARDIS"), and is at least in some sense "alive" and self-aware, dates back to The Edge of Destruction (1964). It was re-introduced in Boom Town, which also established some of the uses to which those energies could be put in extremis.[1] This is a concept which has also been explored in a number of spin-offs, particularly in the Big Finish Productions audio play, Zagreus.
- The depiction of the Vortex energy Rose uses to defeat the Daleks and revive Captain Jack is superficially similar to the energy used by the TARDIS to revive Grace and Chang Lee in the 1996 television movie.
- Rose claims that the TARDIS has no defences. However, earlier stories in the original series have established that the TARDIS is protected by a force field generator of considerable strength (The Armageddon Factor, 1979, among others). In addition, the TARDIS has a Hostile Action Displacement System (HADS), seen in The Krotons (1969), which teleports it away from potentially devastating attacks. In The Curse of Peladon (1972), after the TARDIS tumbled down the side of a mountain, the Third Doctor assured Jo Grant that the ship was indestructible.
- The TARDIS's ability to materialise around an object and have that object appear in the Console Room was previously demonstrated in The Time Monster (1972) and Logopolis (1981). Although both instances involved the Doctor's TARDIS materialising around the Master's TARDIS and creating a recursive loop, the second showed the Master's TARDIS materialising around a real police box. This is the first time on television that a Dalek has been seen inside the TARDIS.
- Jack destroys the Dalek in the TARDIS with his one-shot weapon. In The Hand of Fear (1976) the Doctor claims that the inside of the TARDIS exists in a state of "temporal grace" which prevents weapons from being fired inside it, although the circuit was not working by the time of Earthshock (1982).
[edit] Daleks
- The last Dalek story to feature an Emperor — who was the Daleks' creator, Davros — was Remembrance of the Daleks (1988). The Emperor in this episode represents a return to an earlier concept of the Daleks' leader, seen in The Evil of the Daleks (1967); whenever the Daleks had an on-screen leader in later appearances, it was a Dalek Supreme or Davros.
- The use of human genetic material or body parts in the creation of new Daleks was pioneered by Davros in the Sixth Doctor serial Revelation of the Daleks (1985) but without the problems associated with the "human factor" in the Second Doctor story The Evil of the Daleks (1967). The idea that the genetic material alone is responsible for the "human" values is a feature of biological determinism, an element of the nature versus nurture debate.
- This episode shows the Daleks not only hovering, but flying through the vacuum of space.
- Jack tells his defenders that their ammunition consist of bastic bullets, which can penetrate Dalek casings. Bastic bullets were first mentioned as having this property in Revelation of the Daleks.
- The Doctor claims that he is known in Dalek legend as "The Oncoming Storm", a title that first appeared in the Virgin New Adventures novel Love and War by Paul Cornell (who wrote the episode Father's Day). In the novel, the title was applied to the Doctor by the Draconians, although it is possible either they or the Daleks appropriated the title from one another. In the spin-off media, the better known title of the Doctor in Dalek lore is the Ka Faraq Gatri, the "Bringer of Darkness" or "Destroyer of Worlds", first used in Ben Aaronovitch's novelisation of his serial Remembrance of the Daleks.
- The Emperor refers to the TARDIS-infused Rose as the "Abomination". In Ben Aaronovitch's novelisation of his story Remembrance of the Daleks, the same term is applied to the Special Weapons Dalek.
- The Emperor Dalek's final words are, "I cannot die!", the same words said by Davros at the conclusion of Resurrection of the Daleks (1984) when he is apparently dying from a virus. In Davros's case, he survived to return another day, but whether this Emperor does remains to be seen.
- Just before Lynda's death, the lead Dalek outside the window's lights silently blink in synchronisation with the syllables of the word "Exterminate".
- Several new Dalek phrases were heard this episode, in addition to Bad Wolf's "Alert, alert! We are detected!" These were "Worship him!" and "Do not blaspheme!" These seem to be strictly limited to the followers of the god-complex Emperor Dalek, however.
- The Daleks remain the only Doctor Who villains to have faced every incarnation of the Doctor. With the exception of Paul McGann, the Daleks have been seen in the televised stories of all of the Doctors. The voices of the Daleks were heard when they "exterminated" the Gordon Tipple incarnation of the Master at the beginning of the Doctor Who television movie (1996). The Eighth Doctor has also faced the Daleks in several Big Finish Productions (as voiced by McGann) audio plays and BBC books, and the Tenth Doctor made his debut at the end of this story before facing the Daleks in the 2006 Season finale Doomsday.
[edit] Production
- This was the first episode in this series which was not given a press screening prior to the broadcast. The Radio Times said "no preview tape was available for this episode". The episode was, however, screened for BAFTA on June 15, 2005.
- A hoax entry perpetrated on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) led many to believe that Norman Lovett (best known for playing Holly on Red Dwarf) was to appear in the two-part finale as Davros. The hoaxer confessed to the deed on Observation Dome (now named Ganymede & Titan), a group blog discussing Red Dwarf.[2]
- A similar IMDb hoax was the casting of "James Melody" as "the Watcher", leading to further speculation about the regeneration. The Watcher was a transitional form between the Fourth and Fifth seen in Logopolis (1981).
- Endemol and Channel 4 are thanked in the end credits for the use of the Big Brother format and logo respectively, though these are featured only in the opening recap and not in the episode itself.
- According to Russell T. Davies in Doctor Who Magazine, Jack was left behind because they wanted to explore the effects of the regeneration on Rose (noting that Jack would have taken the regeneration "in his stride"). Jack returned in the Doctor Who spin-off series Torchwood, which began broadcast in October 2006.
- In an interview in Doctor Who Magazine, Russell T. Davies stated that an alternate ending for this episode was written and filmed, with the intention that it would be shown to press previewers to hide the secret of the regeneration. This idea was abandoned when Eccleston's departure was revealed earlier than planned. The "false" ending would have featured similar dialogue to the televised final scene, but the TARDIS would have scanned Rose and the viewers would have seen the display read: "LIFEFORM DYING". Davies considered this scene inferior to the one actually shown, but suggested that it might be suitable as an extra on a DVD some day. On the DVD commentary, executive producer Julie Gardner and Billie Piper briefly discuss this ending, which Gardner describes as featuring Rose's death; unlike Davies, Gardner expresses doubts that it will be issued on DVD (it was not included in the Series 1 DVD set).
- David Tennant's portion of the regeneration scene was actually filmed much later than Eccleston's, and without the presence of Billie Piper. Tennant's segment was recorded with him speaking to a piece of sticky tape indicating Piper's eyeline and then edited into the broadcast version.
- Upon translation into Italian, this episode was renamed Padroni dell'universo (Masters of the Universe) [1].
[edit] Outside references
- Rose says that she looked into the heart of the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into her, a possible allusion to philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's advice from Beyond Good and Evil: "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
- As Rose's godlike abilities are granted to her via the TARDIS, her rescue of the Doctor is, like the end of Boom Town, another literal deus ex machina.
- Rose's actions create a predestination paradox. The words "Bad Wolf" tell her to try to get back to the Doctor, and her doing so gives her the ability to leave the words through time as messages to herself, which she then does. Although it can be argued that the phrase "Bad Wolf" originates with the Badwolf Corporation, it can also be argued that she somehow prompted the creation of the phrase through her powers in the first place, thereby also introducing an ontological paradox. (However, it should be noted that these paradoxes have been formulated from our standard view of space-time: three spatial dimensions with one, one-way temporal dimensional. The Doctor moves in a fictitious five-dimensional setting (The Space Museum, 1964) or perhaps a six-dimensional setting (Inferno, 1970). Not only does he have two or three temporal dimensions in which to travel, he is not limited to one direction. Thus it is possible that these events are not paradoxical within their fictional setting.)
[edit] References
- ^ Levine, Ian (Producer). Over the Edge (the making of The Edge of Destruction) [DVD documentary].
- ^ http://www.ganymede.tv/atspeed/2005/06/my-hands-are-up-oop-my-hand-is-up
[edit] External links
- The Parting of the Ways episode guide on the BBC website
- Bad Wolf / The Parting Of The Ways at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
- Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- The Parting of the Ways at Outpost Gallifrey
- "The Parting of the Ways" at TV.com
- Doctor Who Confidential — Episode 13: The Final Battle
- "They survived through me." — Episode trailer for The Parting of the Ways
- Watch the regeneration at the BBC website
[edit] Reviews
- The Parting of the Ways reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
- Bad Wolf & The Parting of the Ways reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
- The Parting of the Ways reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
- Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
| Television stories dealing with Regeneration | |
|---|---|
| First Doctor: | The Tenth Planet |
| Second Doctor: | The Power of the Daleks • The War Games |
| Third Doctor: | Spearhead from Space • Planet of the Spiders |
| Fourth Doctor: | Robot • Logopolis |
| Fifth Doctor: | Castrovalva • The Caves of Androzani |
| Sixth Doctor: | The Twin Dilemma |
| Seventh Doctor: | Time and the Rani |
| Eighth Doctor: | Doctor Who (1996) |
| Ninth Doctor: | The Parting of the Ways |
| Tenth Doctor: | Children in Need special • The Christmas Invasion |
| See also: | Destiny of the Daleks • The Ultimate Foe • The Curse of Fatal Death |
