Previously: Charles Dickens helped Rose and the Doctor stop gassy ghost aliens.
—
Aliens of London
Marines: The TARDIS appears in front of Rose’s less than fancy looking apartment complex. (K: For the Americans among us, allow me to teach you about council estates, otherwise known as “where Rose Tyler lives.”) Rose and the Doctor get out and her first question is how long she’s been gone. Only about 12 hours. Rose laughs and promises not to take long, as she just wants to check on her mother. She tells the Doctor not to disappear on her. He gives her a cute little smile in return.
Cute in a, “yeah, yeah, whatever you say,” way.
Sweeney: I mentioned this last time, but to reiterate: while I’m still not really enjoying this show, these bits are cute. Basically, I’d like it a lot more if we’d scrap the 85% of each of the last 3 episodes dedicated to these weird approximations of “plots” and just have them sit around talking and occasionally being snarky to each other.
Mari: It may not feel that way now, friend, but that’s a promising beginning.
Rose rushes up to her apartment while the Doctor almost immediately sees something that catches his attention: a MISSING flier on a post nearby. He straightens it out so we can see that the girl pictured is Rose. Upstairs, Rose’s mom is more than a little shocked to see her daughter. She hugs her tightly as we see those same MISSING fliers in neat piles all over the house. The Doctor runs into the apartment and clarifies: it’s been 12 months, not 12 hours. Rose has been gone for a whole year.
And the Doctor should really get into the habit of double checking his work.
Kirsti: Where’s the fun in that, Mari?!
Mari: DOO WEEE OOOOH. (Yeah, I changed that. Lurker and friend Stacey showed me this gif on Facebook, so now, “DOOO WEEE OOOOH.”)
Sweeney: It’s magical and this gif has won me over on the toddler noises. This is just so delightful. Maybe in part because the music is the thing I like most about the show right now. Also because oddly enough, the exceptionally weird effect of the TARDIs whirling through space is also probably the best display of special effects on the show! All-around excellence.
Mari: After the credits, a little kid tags BAD WOLF in white paint on the outside of the TARDIS. BAD WOLF SHOTS!
Upstairs, Jackie is yelling at Rose, who has apparently told her that she was gone without a trace for a year, “traveling,” but like without her passport. Jackie doesn’t believe it for one second, especially as Rose continues to give terrible excuses like, “I forgot to phone for a year.” The Doctor tries to help and say it was his fault for employing Rose as his companion, but the officer who is there asks if that’s something sexual. Jackie is pissed.
K: IN THE FACE!! Okay, it’s a slap and not a punch, but I still think it counts.
Sweeney: It does! The award is “Best Punch or Slap IN THE FACE” and last year’s winner Tyrion Lannister won with a slap.. This category is going to have a lot of viable contenders, though, so it’ll be hard just narrow down the nominees.
Mari: I’m going to put in a good word for Jackie because she just slapped the Doctor. All the giggles.
We cut to Jackie and Rose hugging in the kitchen and in a softer way says it would’ve only taken one phone call. Rose apologizes, tears streaming down her face. Jackie says the worst part is that Rose still won’t say where she was or what she was doing.
Later, up on the Roof of Bad Green Screening, (S: SO TERRIBLE. I made a green screen in a spare bedroom out of green fabric and duct tape. Quality level is comparable.) Rose realizes she can’t tell her mother the truth. She asks the Doctor if the year she missed was good. He says it was “middling.” Since he’s caused a lot of trouble, he asks if Rose is going to stay with her mom again. She can’t say, but does know she can’t run out on her mother again. Probably wouldn’t be an issue if the Doctor double checked his work, is all I’m saying.
Rose marvels at how Jackie smacked him. “900 years of time and space and I’ve never been slapped by someone’s mother.” I find that hard to believe. Maybe he’s just been slapped by childless women. (K: A+.) Rose laughs and calls him so gay but I’m guessing in the good way… (?) She backtracks though and asks about that 900 year thing. Turns out, that’s how old the Doctor is.
K: I’m pretty sure at some point in the Buffy/Angel relationship, I made a comment about how their age gap had nothing on Doctor Who. I rest my case (that I’m pretty sure I made).
Sweeney: “I probably made this case and even if I didn’t I’m making it now and also resting it. Behold my resting case.”
Also, though, I really appreciate that it’s acknowledged (mostly by Jackie’s comments) that these actual humans are 20 years apart, rather than pretending they’re the same age, which is the usual TV/movie approach to age/gender. Good job, show.
Mari: Rose says that even though every conversation with him veers into the crazy, she can’t talk to anyone else after seeing everything she’s seen in 3.25 episodes. She’s the only person on Earth who knows aliens and spaceships exist.
Cue a big alien spaceship flying above their head. We follow the spaceship until it side swipes Big Ben and crash lands in the Thames. Rose says this is not fair and the Doctor giggles, pulling her in the direction of this episode’s adventure.
In the streets, soldiers are blocking off the roads and people in their cars are very angry all, “BUGGER A UFO MATE, I HAVE A BLOODY APPOINTMENT.” (How did I do?) (K: Not bad!) (S: I CAN’T WAIT TO PLAY THIS GAME!) Rose wants to use the TARDIS to fly closer to the crash, but the Doctor says no way, since there will be lots of people on the look out for alien things.
The Doctor excitedly says that this is why he travels, to see history in the making. Except, they are stuck in the gridlock. Rose says they could do what everyone else does and watch it on TV. The Doctor looks slightly confused.
Cut to the news coverage of the crash. It flips between the UK news which is all, “here is what happened. Don’t panic!” and some US news which is all, “GO STAND OUTSIDE AND WATCH FOR MORE ATTACKS.” Well played. (S: #accurate. I had an actual conversation yesterday with two co-workers who were genuinely very afraid that their personal case of Ebola is imminent. ‘MURICA.)
The Doctor is trying to watch while Jackie keeps chatting with her friends in the living room. He later has to wrestle the remote away from a kid. (K: A kid who changed the channel to Blue Peter! I STILL say “Here’s one I prepared earlier” at regular intervals, y’all.) Through all this we glean that they found an alien body amongst the crash and took it to Albion Hospital where they kicked out all the human patients. Rude.
We follow a General Asquith inside the Seriously Rude Hospital. He checks out the alien body, which we don’t see, but causes him to give an OMG! Asquith tells a medical professional who is also a doctor but who I won’t be calling doctor to stash the body for now. Medical Professional does as she’s asked but then runs out after the general to ask if the rumors about the Prime Minister are true. She receives no answer.
K: I flail a lot because Medical Professional is TOSH!! Which means precisely nothing to anyone who hasn’t seen Torchwood. But whatever. It’s canon and I’m flailing, because I’d totally forgotten about this.
Sweeney: This talk of Torchwood is making me antsy. The last time we recapped a thing which meant we had to recap another thing, the other thing didn’t turn out well for us. (I mean, IDK, I guess in the end we were able to part peacefully, but I don’t know how much of that was it being OK in the end and how much of it was just the sweet endorphin rush of freedom.)
Mari: If it makes you feel better we watch Pretty Little Liars and skipped out on Ravenswood. I’m just saying there’s a precedence for both.
The Doctor is still watching the news, this time about how the Prime Minister has not been seen since the emergency began. A gathered crowd outside of 10 Downing Street starts to bustle as someone new arrives, but turns out it is just the MP in charge of sugar standards. MP Sugar is greeted inside by a fidgety liaison and whisked away to speak in private. En route, they are interrupted by a woman who introduces herself as Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North. (K: I love her so much.) She had an appointment at 3:15 and Fidgety Liaison tells her that was before a spaceship crashed in London.
Fidgety and MP Sugar walk on as they exposit that the Prime Minister is missing, the city is gridlocked and the cabinet is stranded, making Sugar the acting Prime Minister. Sugar nervously farts. I wish I were making that up. (S: As do I.) Fidgety introduces Sugar to two other people– Margaret who is with MI5 and Oliver who is the transport liaison. They are both kind of porcine looking. Oliver says that the Prime Minister’s car disappeared while Fidgety hands them the emergency government protocols for alien attack. MP Sugar corals the Porcine Posse into a room. Once behind closed doors, they look at each other and start laughing creepily.
The Doctor sneaks out of Jackie’s flat but Rose follows quickly behind him, asking where he thinks he’s headed. He says it’s a bit too human in the flat at the moment, what with an alien crash landing and them not caring about it. He claims to be just off to wander but Rose, in a shot that reveals her own missing poster behind her head, doesn’t believe it. The Doctor babbles about how this is first contact, the day mankind grows up and realizes there are aliens. His excitement is really adorable and reminds me why I’m such a sucker for Nine.
Also, he does this:
K: Nine is like an adorable puppy. An adorable and incredibly sassy puppy.
Sweeney: He is pretty adorable. It’s a damn good thing too, because the fart jokes are not a cute way to follow the zombie grandma situation.
Mari: He tells Rose to go back and spend time with her mother. She wants a promise that he won’t disappear so he hands her a key to the TARDIS.
The Doctor leaves and passes by some people having a THE ALIENS HAVE LANDED party. Would you be partying? Would you be the one trying to find out more information? Would you be ignoring it? I’d like to think I’d be trying to find out more with wine. Like, both those things.
K: I’d probably be building a bunker in my back garden because I’ve seen Independence Day.
Sweeney: Definitely Google and wine. Maybe a Google Hangout with people smarter than me. We have a friend who is a robot and he might be able to acquire the information faster. So yeah, casual information seeking. With wine.
Mari: Mickey spots the Doctor walking away from Rose’s complex to the TARDIS. He runs out there but by the time he makes it, the TARDIS has left.
Downing Street. Harriet Jones brings Fidgety Liaison a cup of coffee, but he still won’t let her in to see MP Sugar. (K: I laugh and laugh when she talks about her particular cause being cottage hospitals, because Harriet Jones is also Isobel Crawley from Downton Abbey, who’s always sticking her nose in at the cottage hospital.) Luckily for Harriet, Sugar exits the cabinet room at that precise moment with his Porcine Posse in tow. She pounces and tries to quickly tell him about the cottage hospitals. He shuts her down pretty quickly on account of how they are still dealing with aliens and stuff. Harriet looks quite put out, but also, Sugar left the door to the cabinet room open. She sneaks in there and leaves her proposal in what she assumes is Sugar’s briefcase but actually contains the emergency alien protocol. As she reads one of the papers the music gets all DUN DUN DUN. Not really. The music in this episode so far has be really cartoonish. So it’s like doooo doooo wooweewooo. Something like that. I’m sure Sweeney will appreciate all the additional toddler sounds.
Sweeney: As long as I don’t have to try to remember them.
Mari: Seriously Rude Hospital. Tosh is working when she hears a loud thud coming from the locker where they stashed the alien body. She stands to investigate and does not in fact run the other way, maybe because she wants to die.
The Doctor exits the TARDIS and is in a supply closet. He uses his sonic screwdriver to unlock the door, but finds himself looking in on a room full of red berets who all pull their guns on him
Thankfully for the Doctor, Tosh screams. He runs in front of the soldiers who follow him into the lab where they find Tosh cowering. The Doctor helps her while instructing the soldiers to put the place on lockdown. They hesitate but the Doctor yells louder, so then they believe his authority.
Sweeney: I would buy this in a very, “OK FINE STOP YELLING AT ME!” sort of way, but then I also know that this trait makes me unqualified for soldier life.
Mari: Total +1.
The Doctor hears a noise and realizes that the alien is still in the room. He creeps up on it carefully, but the alien still freaks and squeals, for it is indeed a big pig in a spacesuit. Imagine how pissed humans would actually be if our first aliens turned out to be giant pigs. REFUND! REFUND! REFUND!
K: As long as they’re not giant cockroaches.
Mari: The PigAlien goes running out into the hall where he is promptly shot by one of the soldiers, despite the Doctor screaming, “DON’T SHOOT.” The Doctor yells that the PigAlien was just scared. The PigAlien’s wet snout twitches its last twitches. (S: I HATE WHEN SHOWS KILL THE HELPLESS ANIMAL CHARACTERS.)
Harriet Jones is still snooping in the cabinet room when she hears voices. She hides in a closet as General Asquith enters with the Porcine Posse. The General accuses MP Sugar of doing nothing, to which he responds by giggling about how fun it is to be acting Prime Minister. And farting. They all start farting with glee and I really still wish I were making this up. (K: It’s moments like this that it’s really obvious that Doctor Who is technically family/children’s television…) (S: YOU GUYS I’M TRYING SO HARD TO GET WHY YOU LOVE THIS SHOW BUT THE FART JOKES ARE MAKING ME QUESTION EVERYONE’S JUDGMENT.) Margaret even says she’s “shaking [her] booty” before letting it rip. Asquith announces that he’s relieving MP Sugar of his command and in response, MP Sugar unzips his forehead. Margaret and Oliver do the same and blue Bad Special Effects light fills the room. We cut inside the closet where Harriet Jones is watching. She closes her eyes as we hear Asquith’s screams.
Lab. Tosh is all, “I thought that’s what an alien looked like!” The Doctor explains that the PigAlien wasn’t really an alien. Apparently, a real alien hotwired a normal pig’s brain, put it in a spacesuit, strapped in an spaceship and made it crash. Medical Professional puts together that some aliens are faking aliens. She turns to ask the Doctor why they would do that but he’s already gone and we hear the whooshing of the TARDIS.
Jackie is toasting to “the Martians” in her living room when Mickey busts in. It hadn’t occurred to me when we first saw him that he didn’t know Rose was back. Rose awkwardly opens with a, “I was gonna go see you…” (K: Uh huh. A likely story, Rose.) (S: Whatever, I don’t blame her.) A random person says someone owes Mickey an apology. Rose apologizes but the random person actually meant Jackie. She defends herself and asks what she was supposed to think.
In the kitchen, Mickey explains his trouble during the year Rose was gone: when a girl disappears, who do the police turn to? The boyfriend. They found no evidence, of course, but it didn’t stop people, even Jackie, from pointing the finger. Mickey waited for her to come back for twelve months.
K: “I was a murder suspect because of you” isn’t something anyone should have to say.
Mari: Jackie is surprised Mickey knows about the Doctor and never said a thing. Jackie demands to be told where Rose was, and Mickey says she might as well spill because the Doctor is gone. Rose grabs her jacket and runs out of the apartment.
In the alley, Rose and Mickey stand where the TARDIS was parked, Mickey gloating about how the Doctor up and left her. Jackie shows up too as Rose tries to explain that the Doctor is not her boyfriend. He’s much more important that that (which is probably not comforting to anyone present). Just then, the TARDIS key starts glowing in her hand and we hear the TARDIS. Rose tries to push her mom away, but she won’t budge. Jackie watches as the TARDIS materializes.
Rose rushes inside first as the Doctor admits that he lied and did go check out the alien thing. The crash landing was all a fake. Rose interrupts him to announce that her mom is there, which is exactly what the Doctor didn’t want. This is all too much for Jackie who runs out of the TARDIS. Rose follows, but then double backs because she has to hear more about the aliens. She asks the Doctor if this means aliens are invading and Mickey makes the good point that it’s a funny way to invade, putting the country on red alert.
Jackie is freaking out in her room, watching more news coverage. They announce an alien emergency hotline for people with information, and Jackie calls and tells them about the Doctor and a blue box called the TARDIS. Those buzzwords send the system over at Downing Street into red alert.
TARDIS. Mickey asks the Doctor what he’s tinkering with and the Doctor rudely tells him he wouldn’t understand. Mickey goes over to Rose and she apologizes again for disappearing. She explains that it was only a few days gone for her.
Mari: Mickey tries to ride that romantic wave straight into a kiss, but the Doctor interrupts because he’s got whatever he was tinkering with working now. It’s a radar feed of when the spaceship crashed. The spaceship took off from Earth, made a loop and crashed back on Earth, meaning that aliens in charge had already been on Earth.
Cabinet Room. Alien!Asquith drops Oliver’s skin over a chair and farts as Margaret comments on their need to fix the “gas exchange.” See Russell T Davies trying to give a reason for all his fart jokes there? Nice try.
Sweeney: Damage control unsuccessful.
Mari: Alien!Asquith stashes Oliver’s skin in Harriet’s closet. As they leave, Fidgety tells them they have a code nine. Asquith has no idea what that means, what with being an alien now, so Fidgety explains that they’ve found the Doctor, the ultimate expert in extra terrestrials.
TARDIS. There’s a TV screen on the console and the Doctor is channel surfing until he spots a group of people he recognizes as UNIT: United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. (K: Fun fact? They had to stop calling it that a couple of seasons later because the UN got all uppity about it.) Mickey knows the Doctor has worked with them because he’s been doing some internet research on the Doctor during that year everyone thought he murdered his girlfriend. Rose asks why the Doctor doesn’t just go and join them, so he explains that 1- they wouldn’t recognize him and 2- what with the real aliens and fake aliens, he’d feel better keeping his alien self on the DL. Something like that.
So, of course when they step out of the TARDIS, they are surrounded. Mickey runs and hides.
We cut to Rose and the Doctor climbing into a nice car. Rose thinks she’s being arrested, so the Doctor clarifies that they are being escorted to Downing Street. He is, after all, the leading expert in extra terrestrials. Apparently, after Patrick Moore.
Downing Street. The Doctor waves cheerily to the paparazzi who are gathered.
K: It’s oddly adorable.
Mari: At the Tyler’s place, an officer with a suspiciously rumble-y stomach says he’d like to speak to Jackie alone.
Downing Street. Fidgety tells the group of alien experts that they need to wear their ID cards at all times. He hands the Doctor an ID, but doesn’t have one for Rose. The Doctor insists that Rose goes everywhere with him. Harriet Jones comes over and tries to get a word with the Doctor. Rose tells the Doctor she’ll wait for him outside, and Harriet quickly offers to look after Rose. Once alone, Harriet asks Rose if the Doctor is really an alien expert and starts sobbing.
Briefing Room. Asquith starts by saying that the ship had one porcine occupant. The Doctor quickly scans the briefing documents and interrupts. It appears that three days ago, a satellite detected something in the North Sea. An investigation was going to be launched and then BAM. Alien crash. Everyone in the room is really considerate and lets him take over this meeting with no interruptions.
Cabinet Room. Harriet shows Rose Oliver’s skin. Rose, of course, believes Harriet’s story and starts searching the room. She opens a cupboard and a man’s body falls out. Fidgety comes in to yell at Harriet but he sees the body and identifies it as the Prime Minister.
In the briefing room, the Doctor has finally made his way to the realization that this is all a trap.
Margaret saunters into the Cabinet Room, smiling evilly.
Tyler Apartment. Jackie tells the Suspiciously Gassy Policeman that the TARDIS was bigger on the inside (SHOTS!). SGP says that the Doctor is trouble and anyone associated with him is also trouble. His job is to eliminate trouble. He removes his hat, revealing a forehead zipper and starts to unzip.
Briefing Room. The Doctor says that this is all about gathering the alien experts, the people capable of saving the world, in one room. MP Sugar farts.
K: Hands down, one of my favourite Nine quotes. The sass is strong with this one.
Mari: His face is so great. However, the problem with all of these jokes is that they aren’t funny. (S: YUP. They fail at the fundamental requirement of being “jokes.”) We get one great Nine line and one of the Porcine Posse reply, “would you rather silent but deadly?” I’m sure you can feel my heavy eye roll.
Alien!Asquith removes his hat and starts unzipping his forehead as Margaret does the same in the Cabinet Room and Suspiciously Gassy Policeman does the same in the Tyler Apartment. The Briefing Room alien helpfully announces that they are the Slitheen.
In the Cabinet Room, the Slitheen attacks Fidgety while Rose and Harriet stand and watch.
In the Tyler Apartment, the Slitheen advances on Jackie, who cowers.
In the Briefing Room, MP Sugar hits a button that acts as some sort of wireless taser on everyone in the room.
Everyone seems doomed.
Also, the Slitheen look like this:
K: And yet we’re still a long way from The Most Ridiculous Thing You Will Ever See On Doctor Who…
Mari: And this is also the first part of a two part episode, so that’s something to look forward to next week. If you can’t tell, this is not my favorite episode. It’s rather a shame, too because the premise (away from the Slitheen) isn’t bad. In “The End of the World,” we briefly saw Rose start to ask herself what she’d gotten herself into and here we start to ask, “what happens to those she left behind?” Rose running into the TARDIS seemed rash and reckless and it’s nice to have the show, at least in some way say, “yes. Yes it was.”
It’s clever to get all, “Rose is the only one who knows about aliens!” and then suddenly introduce the world to aliens. We see, though, through the PigAlien the idea of humans fumbling their first contact, shooting the scared hot wired pig. (I continue to write sentences I never imagined I would.)
The bottom line, though, is that the humor falls flat. It isn’t even that it’s “family programming” humor but that it isn’t funny.
Sweeney: Yeah, I appreciate all the big symbolic stuff you just drove home but all of that was completely lost in how utterly stupid this episode was. I couldn’t appreciate any of those little moments because they were sandwiched between so much awful. I’m struggling to appreciate this show and this episode did not do that struggle any favors.
This episode literally ended on an apocalyptic cliff hanger and my desire to move on to the next episode is about as high as it was on a mid-season 4 episode of Angel. This show: I’m still not getting it.
Next time on Doctor Who: Will everyone be eaten by farting aliens? Find out in S01 E05 – World War Three.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
