Previously: A creepy child makes for an episode that didn’t totally suck.
—
The Doctor Dances
Marines: We pick up right where we left off, with the Empty People closing in around the Doctor, Rose and Jack. The Doctor yells at them all to go to their room. They pause. With more conviction and a hand point, the Doctor says he’s very cross and again orders them to their room. We cut between him and the Empty Child who was closing in on Nancy. The Empty Child hangs his head, chastised, turns around and leaves. All of the Empty People do the exact same.
The Doctor says he’s really glad that worked because those would’ve been terrible last words.
Kirsti: This was pretty great. There’s no doubt in my mind that I, if confronted with a band of gas mask wearing murderers would be unable to think on my feet that quickly and would therefore die.
Sweeney: Great quick thinking. Questionable plot device.
Mari:
After the credits, Nancy is sadly watching as her brother Jamie leaves. She turns away, slides down the wall and cries.
Back at the hospital, Rose is staring at one of the Empty People. She asks why they are all wearing gas masks. Jack says they aren’t– those masks are flesh and bone. Clearly unimpressed by anything he has to say, the Doctor wants more detail on how his con was supposed to work. The plan was to simply throw out a piece of space junk, lure the nearest time agent to Earth, name a price, and once the 50% upfront was paid, WHOOPS a German bomb would fall on the space junk. He calls it a “self-cleaning con” and jokes that Pompeii is also good for that but you have to set your alarm for volcano day. He giggles to himself and the Doctor glares.
K: Jack probably giggles to himself because he’s been to 2014 and seen that movie that was created solely around Kit Harington’s abs…
Sweeney: Which is contrivance I can get behind. Or on top of. Or adjacent to. Just, you know, near.
Mari: Amen.
The glaring stops the giggles. Jack swears that he checked out the space junk and all these Empty People are not his fault. The Doctor calls Rose and starts walking. He tells Jack that it is volcano day and alarms start blaring outside. Jack thinks it’s the all clear, but the Doctor seems to know better. Rose gives Jack a bit of a look before she takes off after the Doctor. Jack follows as well.
Nancy hears the alarms as well and gets up from where she was just sitting on the floor, brooding. She makes for the back door but runs right into a little kid in a gas mask. She thinks it’s Jamie, but instead, it’s just the kid who lives in the house she was Goldilocks-ing. Nancy tries to run out of the house, but Papa Bear catches her and shoves her inside.
Sweeney: LEAVE NANCY ALOOOONE
Mari: Jack and Rose are trying to catch up to the Doctor who apparently has a long stride? Runs real fast? The Doctor asks Jack if he has a blaster and he’s happy to report that he does indeed. The Doctor thinks that when Jack’s space junk landed, it hurt someone and that someone was brought to the locked room in front of him. Jack takes out his blaster and Rose, in a whisper, asks the Doctor what’s wrong with his sonic screwdriver. “Nothing,” he responds, and watches as Jack blasts a square into the door. Now, the Doctor has more nifty information about Jack and identifies his gun as one from the Factories of Villengard, where nothing remains but a banana grove.
K: Can we make Banana Shots a thing? Because there are semi-regular mentions of bananas throughout the series from memory.
Sweeney: Are you trying to ply me with shots to make me like this show more? If so, it’s working. A+ strategy.
Mari: One it looks like we may have to rely on heavily.
It’s a mess in room 802. There are papers and broken glass everywhere. Jack theorizes that something very angry and very powerful made it out of there.
Probably not him.
It was a child, in fact, as Jack quickly realizes. The Doctor hits play on a tape of Dr. Constantine interviewing Jamie. To every question, the kid responds, “are you my mummy?” or else, “I want my mummy,” because it’s real important to clarify that he’s asking for his mummy because he wants his mummy. The Doctor is busy staring at things and having a lot of thoughts.
K: Isn’t that what Doctors do best?!
Mari: Mr. Lloyd tells Nancy that he’s called the cops. He starts giving her a lecture about how he pays for the food on his table with the sweat from his brow. He sarcastically asks if Nancy would like to help herself to anything else in his house and she’s all, “now that you mention it…” She wants wire cutters, a torch and some more food. And he’s going to give it to her because she knows that he’s scoring so much food by messing around with the butcher. That’s definitely a meat joke in here I’m not making. Nancy tells Lloyd that there is definitely sweat on his brow now, and smiles triumphantly.
Sweeney: HEY-O. There’s Nancy, continuing to be a badass. I’m really sad we’re probably not going to see Nancy again after this episode.
Mari: Hospital. The Doctor starts thinking out loud: suppose these scavenger kids came out when Jack’s space junk landed. Jack protests. It was just a med ship. Totally harmless except for all of those people with the bone masks downstairs, dude. The Doctor ignores him and asks what if one of those children were altered. The Empty Child shouts, “I’m here!” The Doctor giggles a little crazy like because the altered child has the power of a god and he just sent it to his room. There is a clacking, whirring noise in the background and Rose nervously asks what it is. The Doctor isn’t laughing as he says it’s the end of the tape. We’ve been hearing the child, but the tape stopped playing 30 seconds ago. The Doctor spins around and there is the kid.
K: NYARGH. But also, you didn’t think that plan through particularly well, Doctor…
Mari: Jack tells Doctor and Rose to make for the door on his signal. He jumps forward but all he has in his hand is a banana.
Jack reacted, ready to point the gun at the child. The Doctor stole the gun, and made a way out, see?
As they jump through the hole in the wall, the Doctor tells Jack not to drop the banana because it’s a good source of potassium. Jack grabs back his blaster and closes the hole in the wall. It’s all jokes and banter about bananas until the Empty Child starts busting through the wall and the gang takes off running. They run straight into a group of Empty People all calling out for their mummy. They are surrounded and Jack asks the Doctor what kind of weapons he has. He pulls out his screwdriver, a bit embarrassed to admit what it is.
Rose thinks on her feet and points Jack’s blaster down. They open a square beneath them and fall to the ground below. Jack closes the hole and quickly asks who the heck has a sonic screw driver. “Who looks at a screwdriver and thinks ‘Oo hoo, this could be a little more sonic’?” The Doctor asks, “what, you’ve never been bored? Never had a long night?” Rose starts looking for a light switch. She finds it and all the Empty People in their beds spring up. They run to the exit, but Jack’s gun isn’t working. The batteries have run out. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT IS WORKING? The screwdriver the Doctor has worked on during long, lonely nights.
K: And thus commence the “Moffat uses the sonic screwdriver as a penis metaphor” jokes. SIGH.
Mari: Bad, but still not as bad as farting aliens….
In the next room, the Doctor asks for a list of assets. “Well, I’ve got a banana, and a in a pinch you could put up some shelves…” They’ve got nothing else and the windows are barred. The Doctor lays out the facts: they want to get out but don’t have a way out. “Have I missed anything?” he asks. Only the fact that Jack has now disappeared.
Nancy returns to her Lost Boys and scolds them lightly for returning to a house where they’ve already been. Little Jim is writing a letter to his dad and one of the older kids points out that he doesn’t even know how to write. Nancy snaps and tells him to quit it, but instantly regrets it. She tells the rest of the Lost Boys that they need to think smarter because one day she might go out and never come back. And also, by the way, she’s planning on going to the hospital where the bomb dropped. The Empty Child is after her so as long as she’s with them, they are in danger. Little Jim is now sitting on the bed with the other kids, but the typewriter is still going. Nancy leaves. The possessed typewriter was of course spelling out ARE YOU MY MUMMY?
K: For a very small person, the Empty Child has EXCELLENT spelling and typing abilities.
Sweeney: 10/10 could decipher! Well done, terrifying small child!
Mari: Rose is a little mopey, wondering why the great looking ones always vanish. The Doctor is all, “HEY!” but he has an entire vanishing into thin air box, so maybe he should take it as a compliment.
From a radio in the room, Jack calls out to Rose and the Doctor. He’s back on his ship but couldn’t bring them along with him. He’s working on a way to get them out now. The Doctor notices that the radio’s not actually connected to anything and asks how Jack is communicating to them. He calls it “om com,” and basically he can tap into anything with a speaker grille. Doctor’s all, “funny, SO CAN THE CREEPY CHILD.” Speaking of, the Empty Child says he can hear them and is coming to find them. Jack tries to block the signal by playing the song he and Rose danced to. The Doctor gives her a long stare.
K: Okay, so according to Wikipedia, Moffat was using the word “dance” to mean “sex” as a “should the show explore the Doctor’s canonical asexuality in more detail?”. Because nothing says quality children’s television like the addition of sex! *headdesk*
Mari: Well that’s why he used super secret code word dance, see?
Nancy makes it to the bomb site and it’s crawling with soldiers. She uses the wire cutters to break in.
Rose is playing around in an old wheelchair while the Doctor appears to be sonic-ing the wall. Rose asks what he’s doing. “Trying to set up a resonation pattern in the concrete, loosen the bars.” So basically, he’s dicking around too. He asks why Rose trusts Jack and she replies simply that he saved her life. “Bloke-wise, that’s up there with flossing.” The Doctor doesn’t answer so she gets a bit more serious when she says that she trusts Jack because he’s like the Doctor. “Except with dating and dancing.”
Oooh, she’s good.
Taking the bait, the Doctor ruffles. She’s assuming he doesn’t dance. He’s been around 900 years so it’s safe to assume that at some point, he’s danced. He’s got moves, he claims, he just doesn’t like to boast. Rose smiles and turns up the radio. She holds out her arm and tells him the world doesn’t end because the Doctor dances.
Hey, Rose. I know you’re all fancy with space and time travel, but check this bad boy out:
Sweeney: LOOK HOW IT SPARKLES!
Mari: The Doctor looks at her seriously and hops down to where she is. He grabs her hands with clearly no intention of dancing. He asks her again about hanging from a barrage balloon, thousands of feet above London. She confirms the story.
K: Also because if you don’t call him a captain, you end up with a situation like this on your hands:
Sweeney:
THIS IS THE TALE OF CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW!
Mari: Second time in as many episodes. I hope you make this a thing.
The Doctor says that if Jack was a Captain, he’s been defrocked. Rose thinks it’s just a shamed she missed that. “Actually, I quit,” says Captain Jack. “Nobody takes my frock.” When Rose and the Doctor look up, they are in Captain Jack’s ship. Jack quips that most people notice when they teleport, but Rose and the Doctor were busy being super sweet. The Doctor wonders at it taking Jack so long to override the protocols, probably meaning this isn’t his ship. It isn’t. He took it off some gorgeous woman or other, promising to return it in five minutes. Rose smiles at him like that’s the sweetest thing she’s ever heard.
The Doctor recognizes the ship as a Chula ship, just like the medical transport Jack threw at them. The Doctor snaps his fingers (a click of the fingers!) and a bunch of the nanogenes surround him. The Doctor says they fix flaws and waves them away. He tells Jack to take them to the crash site. “I need to see your space-junk,” he says and in the background somewhere, Rose is thinking, “AMEN.”
K: Just wait a couple of episodes, Rose.
Mari: Nancy reaches the bomb site but she’s quickly spotted and surrounded.
On the Chula ship, Jack fills in a bit more of his backstory: he was a Time Agent until they went and stole two years of his memories. He wants them back. He knows the Doctor doesn’t trust him and for all he knows, he’s right not to.
Nancy is being dragged into a room where a sick soldier is to keep an eye on her. Nancy knows what’s going on, spotting the X wound on the soldiers hand. She begs not to be left in there with him, but the other soldiers do not understand. They leave to check the perimeter and Nancy tries to reason with the Sick Soldier. She begs, pleads, describes what’s going to happen to him, but it’s no use. It’s too late. Nancy looks away.
Sweeney: NOOOO! NOT NANCY!
Mari: Jack, the Doctor and Rose have arrived at the crash site. Jack spots a soldier he knows and says they have to distract him. Rose thinks this is being directed at her, but Jack says he’s already gotten to know Algy. She isn’t his type. He jogs away happily, calling for them not to wait up. Rose is a bit shocked and the Doctor tells her to can it. Jack’s a 51st Century guy. “He’s just a bit more flexible when it comes to dancing.” He explains that by his time, humans have spread out all over the galaxy. Lots of species, so little time. Rose is still weirded out. (K: GIRL. You’re from 2005. They’re both human. What’s the problem here?!)
Jack approaches Algy, but things are not right. Algy cocks his head and asks Jack, “are you my mummy?” Algy falls to his knees and out grows his gas mask. The Doctor and Rose come running, telling everyone to stay back. The Doctor guesses that the altering agent is airborne now, which is a huge leap, especially considering that (1) – This soldier is at the crash site and could’ve come in contact with any number of infected and (2) – he was just in contact with Sick Soldier. But OKAY. AIRBORNE. (S: THANK YOU FOR POINTING OUT HOW BULLSHIT THIS LEAP WAS.) And now the danger is all accelerated, just in time for the climax of the episode. Alarms start sounding again and the Doctor asks if anyone hears singing.
It’s Nancy, singing a lullaby to Sick Soldier, who has taken a little nap on the table. And once again, a nap saves the day. The Doctor finds her and waves her along, but she shows him her handcuffs. He releases her with the help of his sonic screwdriver and they get out.
Next, they finally get a look at the space junk. Jack is punching a code into the front of the transport, saying that as soon as the Doctor sees that it’s empty, the sooner he’ll stopped getting blamed. The thing sparks at them and another alarm starts up. The Doctor explains that since it crashed, those’ll be the emergency protocols. Inside, all of the Empty People are called to action. The Doctor sends Jack to secure the gates and sends Rose with the screwdriver to patch up the hole Nancy cut to get in. The Empty People march on.
Nancy helps Rose sonic the fence back together and asks who the heck she is. Rose doubts she’ll believe it, but Nancy is all, “girl. War, bombs AND CREEPY CHILDREN. I’ll believe anything.” So, Rose tells her that they are time travelers from the future. Nancy believes the time travel bit fine, but asks exactly what future they are talking about, as she looks up at the sky lit up by the air raid. Rose assures Nancy that the world doesn’t end here. The Germans don’t invade. They win. Nancy is so shocked. It’s a really touching moment and I can’t say why exactly, but I love it.
K: I think it’s because it’s such a simple thing for Rose to say – “oh, yeah, right, we win the war. Learnt that in primary school” – and she’s almost flippant about it. But to Nancy? It’s a HUGE deal because this is what she’s been living through for the past two years, with no idea of when the end would come. To know that there IS an end to it and that the Allies win? Enormous. And feelsy.
Sweeney: It didn’t play quite as well as the Doctor speech in the previous episode in terms of serving a clear purpose, but I still appreciated it because again, the way Rose said it in the end wasn’t just “the Allies win” it was “you win,” which is still something Nancy needs to hear.
Mari: Jack opens the hatch to the space junk and says it’s empty like he said all along. The Doctor asks what he was expecting inside. Bandages? Cough drops? Nope. Nanogenes. Jack realizes what’s happened. The ship crashed and the nanogenes escaped, ready to fix an entire world. Problem was that the first thing they found was a dead child, still wearing a gas mask. The nanogenes had never met a human and didn’t know what it was supposed to look like.
“They do what they’re programmed to do: they patch it up. Can’t tell what’s gas mask and what’s skull, but they do their best. Then off they fly, off they go, work to be done. Now, they think they know what people should look like — and it’s time to fix all the rest. And they won’t ever stop. They won’t ever, ever stop. The entire human race is gonna be torn down and rebuilt in the form of one terrified child looking for its mother, and nothing in the world can stop it!”
Super dramatic but still terrifying. Harm done by good intentions, not too much unlike Jack himself. His intentions weren’t honorable, but they definitely weren’t to cause this much harm.
K: I think “harm done by good intentions” is a close second to “the monsters are human” in terms of terror level for me.
Mari: Jack says he didn’t know and everyone kind of walks away from the tension. It’s Nancy who spots the army of Empty People approaching. The ship is calling them because the space junk isn’t just a medical transport ship, it’s a battlefield ambulance. The nanogenes rebuild things and gets them ready for the front lines, explaining why the Empty Child is so strong and able to om-com. It’s a full Chula warrior and now it has an army. Jack asks why they aren’t attacking and the Doctor says they are waiting for their commander. “The child?” Jack asks and Nancy corrects him: Not “the child.” Jamie. The Doctor appraises her.
Jack is getting more and more worried because there’s a bomb about to land on them. Nancy cries that Jamie is just a little boy looking for his mummy. The Doctor agrees. “There isn’t a little boy born who wouldn’t tear the world apart to save his mummy.” Nancy starts to sob that it’s all her fault and the Empty People all start calling, “mummy?”
The Doctor asks Nancy how old she is. 20? 21? Older than she looks. Jack says they have seconds before the bomb drops and the Doctor tells him to do what he must. Jack teleports to his ship, leaving a very dejected Rose. He keeps talking to Nancy. She’s old enough to have had a child five years ago. A teen, single mom in the 1940s. She hid and lied, even to Jamie himself. The gates swing open and there is Jamie, still asking, “are you my mummy?” The Doctor says he’s going to keep asking. Nancy has to trust him and tell Jamie the truth.
Sweeney: This bit was waaaay too long. There was an unnecessarily long series of questioning to get to, “Nancy is his mother.”
Mari: Nancy walks toward her son and answers, “yes. I am your mummy.” The child keeps asking and she repeats herself, lowering herself to her knees to meet his eyes. “I am your mummy. I will always be your mummy. I’m so sorry.” Nancy hugs him and suddenly they are surrounded by nanogenes.
The Doctor urges the nanogenes to figure it out. They glow bright and Nancy falls back as they disappear. The Doctor comes close to them, whispering to himself, “Give me a day like this. Give me this one.” (K: FEELS.) He reaches out to Jamie’s mask and pulls it off. It’s him. It’s child and not an empty child. The Doctor shouts and picks Jamie up happily, telling him, “Welcome back! Twenty years ’til pop music — you’re gonna love it.” The Doctor explains that the nanogenes didn’t change Nancy because she changed them. They recognized her “superior” information. Her parent DNA. Rose reminds the happy Doctor about the approaching bomb, but he’s already taken care of it. How? Psychology.
The bomb is headed towards them but it’s stopped in mid-air by Jack. It’s the same science-future-tech that he used to save Rose. Jack can’t hold it forever so the Doctor tells him to get rid of it as safely as possible.
K: Juuuuuuuuuuuuust stopping by to point out that the bomb has “Schlechter Wolf” stencilled on the side of it. Or, for those of us who aren’t Willie, BAD WOLF.
Mari: Jack shouts goodbye down to Rose and he’s gone so quickly. She looks sad. He reappears a second later to add that he loves her shirt. She smiles brightly and he’s gone again.
Next up, the Doctor summons the nanogenes. He’s so happy. He sends them out toward the Empty People, and they all fall, fixed. Healed.
Mari: The Doctor rushes toward Dr. Constantine who is getting up on his feet again. The Doctor tells the other doctor that all his patients are better now. If anyone asks, he should just say that’s he’s a great doctor and not make a big deal out of it. A elderly woman comes hobbling over to Dr. Constantine.
Sweeney: LOL, I was super checked out due to the last few minutes, but this was chuckle worthy.
Mari: The Doctor is back at the space junk and calls out to the newly full, no longer empty people: Right, you lot! Lots to do! Beat the Germans, save the world! Don’t forget the Welfare State! They all head off back toward the hospital and the Doctor sets the space junk to self destruct. History says an explosion happened at that site, and who is he to argue with history? “Usually the first in line,” Rose says with an admiring smile. His happiness is contagious.
We cut to the TARDIS with the Doctor still ecstatic. The nanogenes will fix everyone and switch off, because the Doctor told them to, Nancy and Jamie will go to Dr. Constantine and everything is #fantastic. Rose says he’s beaming away like Father Christmas. “Who says I’m not? Red bicycle when you were twelve.”
The Doctor says he needs more days like this, not noticing that Rose’s face is sobering. He tells her to go ahead and ask him anything. So she does. “What about Captain Jack?” The Doctor keeps working at the console silently.
Space. Jack’s ship. He talks to the computer about different options for getting rid of the bomb, but nothing is viable. Jack asks the ship how dead he is, and it responds that termination of Jack Harkness in under two minutes is 100% likely. Jack is resigned. He says it’s time for emergency protocol 417 and a drink appears. If you weren’t sure how you felt about Jack (like I am) you just saw that and warmed a bit to him. Excellent emergency protocol. Will borrow. Jack starts babbling to the computer about the last time he was sentenced to death and it’s sad.
K: Sad, but typically Jack-esque given that he woke up in bed with both his executioners.
Mari: But today, everybody lives. We pan back and Moonlight Serenade plays again. The TARDIS is suddenly on board Jack’s ship and Rose and the Doctor are dancing up by the console. Rose calls out to Jack to hurry along.
He runs inside, impressed by his surroundings. Rose is giving the Doctor dancing tips and he swears he used to know how to do this. The Doctor tells Jack to close the door and welcomes him to the TARDIS. Jack says it’s bigger on the inside (SHOT!) and the Doctor says he better be. He’d better be a Rose and not an Adam. Rose smiles at him and says he may cut in. In the Mood starts to play and the Doctor says he’s just remembered he can dance. He starts dancing alone and Rose says Jack wants to dance. The Doctor says that’s for sure, but who does he want to dance with? Jack clears his throat. Rose jumps up and starts dancing with the Doctor. The world doesn’t end.
Next time: The Slitheen are back and the Doctor struggles with mercy in Doctor Who S01 E11 – Boom Town.
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.
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