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New Earth
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"New Earth" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who which was first broadcast on April 15 2006. It is the first episode of Series 2 of the revived Doctor Who series.
he year five billion and twenty-three, after the destruction of the Earth, the Doctor takes Rose to the New Earth. There, he meets an old friend in a mysterious hospital where the Sisters of Plenitude have a cure for everything.
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"New Earth" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who which was first broadcast on April 15 2006. It is the first episode of Series 2 of the revived Doctor Who series.
Synopsis
In the year five billion and twenty-three, after the destruction of the Earth, the Doctor takes Rose to the New Earth. There, he meets an old friend in a mysterious hospital where the Sisters of Plenitude have a cure for everything. But who is lurking in the basement of the hospital? And what has she done with Rose?
Plot
The Doctor uses the TARDIS to take Rose to the farthest point he's ever taken her, to the year five billion and twenty-three in the M87 galaxy. Humanity, after the destruction of the Earth, settled onto a very Earth-like world, called "New Earth", and Rose admires its beauty. The Doctor is summoned to "Ward 26" in a hospital in New New York through his psychic paper, and while he travels to the Ward, gets separated from Rose. In the Ward, the Doctor meets several humanoid feline nuns of the Sisters of Plenitude who are overseeing the patients, all who have incurable maladies but are somehow being cured by the Sisters. The Doctor recognizes the Face of Boe, who reached out to "the Lonely God" in order to give him a message before he died of old age.
Meanwhile, Rose is brought to the basement of the hospital, where she is escorted by Chip to meet Lady Cassandra, who has survived from her previous encounter with the Doctor and has been watching the two since they arrived. Chip has been using the hospital facility to care for Cassandra, but Cassandra is suspicious of the methods used in the hospital and requires Rose's help. Rose tricked into stepping into a "psychograft" machine that allows Cassandra to implant her mind into Rose's, leaving her old "body" to die. Cassandra can read Rose's thoughts, and knowing of the Doctor's new form, goes to meet him as "Rose". The Doctor is suspicious of "Rose"'s actions, such as kissing him passionately or having knowledge of the advanced computer systems, but is more concerned on how the hospital can cure the incurable. He and "Rose" discover that the hospital houses hundreds of pods containing artificially-grown humans, forcibly inflicted with numerous diseases, such that the Sisters can discover their cures. The Doctor accuses the Sisters of the atrocity, though they insist it was necessary to deal with the influx of patients. The Doctor, believing that Rose's current actions are also a result of being a test subject, is suddenly knocked out by "Rose" using a perfume gas, and locks him in one of the pods. "Rose" then approaches the lead Sister, Matron Casp, demanding payment for her to keep quiet about the hospital secrets, and when she is refused and threatened physically, releases the Doctor and some of the humans as a distraction, but the infected humans further release the others, and a zombie-like attack begins, with those infected trying to attack anyone healthy.
The hospital is put into quarantine as the Doctor, "Rose", and the remaining Sisters try to flee the lower levels. To help their escape, Cassandra is able to jump her mind between other bodies, including one of the infected humans, before jumping back to Rose, and learns that those humans feel a strong sense of loneliness of not being able to touch or be touched. Eventually, the Doctor and "Rose" reach Ward 26, and grab all the intravenous medical solutions; emptying them into a disinfectant shower, they are able to spray the mixture onto a group of the infected humans, who within moments become cured of their diseases. The Doctor encourages them to go and spread the cure to the other infected people, and soon, the attack is over. The police arrest the surviving Sisters, while the Face of Boe, who has also been cured, tells the Doctor that the message for him can wait until their third and final meeting, and then teleports away.
The Doctor now orders Cassandra out of Rose's body. Cassandra transfers her consciousness to a willing Chip instead, but his cloned body begins to fail, and Cassandra accepts her impending, true death; the New Earth has no place for people like her and Chip. The Doctor does one last thing for Cassandra, taking her back to see herself on the last night someone had called her beautiful. "Chip" approaches the Cassandra of the past and tells her just that, and collapses into the younger Cassandra's arms as she comforts "him". As the older Cassandra finally dies, the Doctor and Rose silently leave in the TARDIS.
Cast notes
- Adjoa Andoh returned to Doctor Who in five episodes of Series 3 and the final two episodes of Series 4, as Francine Jones, mother of Martha Jones.
Continuity
- Excluding the interactive episode "Attack of the Graske", "New Earth" is the first episode of the revival of Doctor Who to be set on a planet other than Earth (although references to adventures on other planets had been made previously).
- There have been several planets called "New Earth" in Doctor Who: the planet where Sarah was told she was being taken to in a spaceship in the serial Invasion of the Dinosaurs; a planet from the Fourth Doctor comic strip story Doctor Who and the Iron Legion (Doctor Who Weekly #1-#8); a planet in the New Earth system colonised by humans in the year 2380 in the comic strip story Doctor Who and the Dogs of Doom (DWW #27-#34); the homeworld of the Sixth Doctor novel companion Grant Markham and the setting of the Virgin Missing Adventures novel Time of Your Life by Steve Lyons; and the "New Earth Republic", a future Earth colony and the setting of the Past Doctor Adventures spin-off novel Synthespians™ by Craig Hinton.
- The Sisters of Plenitude are not the first feline aliens to feature in the series. Feline aliens were seen in the Fourth Doctor serial Warrior's Gate and the Seventh Doctor serial Survival.
- This episode is set twenty-three years after the events of the 2005 episode "The End of the World", and thirty years prior to the events of the 2007 episode "Gridlock".
- Originally, Davies intended the Face of Boe to empart his message upon the Doctor in this episode; when he discovered that a third series was definitely to occur, Davies quickly decided to delay Boe's message for a year. This is one of several plot and thematic details (including whole episodes) that Davies chose at a rather late stage of development to move from series two to three, also including the 2006 Christmas special, "The Runaway Bride".
- The giant "BAD WOLF" graffiti written on a paved public area of Rose's estate (seen in "The Parting Of The Ways") is still visible, though faded, at the start of the episode.
- The ailment that the Duke of Manhattan is dying from, Petrifold Regression — a disease that turns its victims to stone — is also mentioned in the Tenth Doctor Adventures novel The Stone Rose by Jacqueline Rayner.
- A phrase the Doctor says to a diseased 'New Human' — "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." — would go on to become his catchphrase.
- Despite the Doctor's mention that the elevators had been deactivated as a precaution during quarantine, an external shot of the building during this time clearly shows the elevators in motion.
- According to Russell T Davies on the episode commentary, Cassandra's earlier self bases Chip on the man who had praised her beauty at the party — Chip himself. Where the "pattern" for Chip comes from in the first instance is thus unclear, creating an ontological paradox.
- Also in the commentary, Tennant noted that the TARDIS has moved since "The Christmas Invasion". He speculates that there might have been many off-screen adventures, or (observing that it no longer seems like Christmas in the introduction) perhaps that the Doctor "lived there for a bit". DWM Comic strip "The Lodger" seems to lead into the story as it has the Tenth Doctor and Rose returning to Earth and living with Mickey for a weekend.
Production
- In a feature in the Radio Times (issue dated 8 April-14 April), Russell T Davies said of "New Earth", "I promised Billie [Piper] an episode in which she'd be funny. So episode one of the new series is very much based around comedy for Billie."
- The exterior scenes on New Earth were shot on the Gower peninsula. The hospital basement scenes were recorded at Tredegar House in Newport. The location for the pods containing the human specimens was a disused paper mill previously used as the base of the Nestene Consciousness in "Rose".
- The hospital scenes were filmed inside the Wales Millennium Centre, which appeared in the previous series episode "Boom Town" and is a common fixture in the spin-off series Torchwood. When the Doctor asks about the shop and points to where he would put it, he points to the location of the centre's own Portmeirion shop.
- The exterior shots of the lift car as Rose descends to the basement are reused footage from "Rose".
- The producer's and director's credits have been amended slightly since "The Christmas Invasion", so that now the credit is in lower case and the name of the crewmember is in capitals. This was the result of a suggestion from Doctor Who Magazine editor Clayton Hickman, who felt the previous arrangement had made the job seem more important than the crewmember.
- The theme music in the closing credits features the reinstated bridge, or "middle 8", which was absent from the 2005 season and last heard in "The Christmas Invasion". The "middle 8" would continue to play over the closing credits from this episode on.
Outside references
- New New York is also the name of the city in the animated series Futurama. This is one of the two Futurama 'similarities' in Doctor Who, the other being the space replica of the Titanic, which appeared in Voyage of the Damned.
- The "universal hospital symbol" is a green crescent strongly reminiscent of traditional Islamic symbols, but the Sisters of Plenitude wear uniforms drawn from Roman Catholic nuns.
- Cassandra uses the UK slang term chav, although she is unable to mimic Rose's accent properly, instead making attempts at Cockney rhyming slang.
- Rose refers to Cassandra as "Michael Jackson" as she did in "The End of the World". She refers to Chip as "Gollum".
Broadcast and DVD release
- Overnight ratings for the episode peaked at 8.3 million viewers in the UK, with a final rating of 8.62 million, making it the ninth most watched programme of the week. The episode achieved an audience Appreciation Index of 85.
- Immediately after the episode, a commentary for the episode, featuring David Tennant, Russell T Davies and Phil Collinson, was made available on the official website for viewers to download and listen to alongside the repeat, as it was for "The Christmas Invasion".
- This is the first Doctor Who episode to have an accompanying TARDISODE.
- The Canadian English-language premiere of Series 2 on CBC, consisting of this episode, took place on October 9, 2006. It concluded with an extended version of the "Tooth and Claw" trailer from the BBC broadcast; the revised closing theme was not heard in the broadcast and it was also the first episode to be broadcast without a specially taped introduction featuring one of the lead actors. The episode had previously aired on August 29, 2006 in translation on the French-language broadcaster Ztélé, under the title Une nouvelle Terre.
- This episode was released together with "The Christmas Invasion" as a basic DVD with no special features on 1 May 2006, and as part of a second series boxset on 20 November 2006. This release included an audio commentary by Julie Gardner (Head of Drama for BBC Wales), director James Hawes and visual effects producer Will Cohen, recorded before the story aired. This commentary was also made available as an MP3 on the BBC Doctor Who website.
- Copies of the DVD from the complete Series 2 set distributed to Netflix customers contained an error: at the 32-minute mark, the playback switched abruptly to a scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Netflix has pulled the disc from their inventory while they work out the issue with the BBC; this only seems to have affected Netflix copies.
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