Previously: EVERYBODY LIVED! JUST THAT ONCE.
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Boom Town
Kirsti: After a bunch of previouslies reminding us about the Slitheen, a worried man tells someone off screen that he’s looked at the plans for something and they’re unsafe. He pleads with Mystery Person to put a stop to it immediately before millions of people die. The camera pans around to show us Margaret, now in some position of authority. After establishing that he hasn’t shared this information with anyone else, he turns away and says that the plans are almost as if someone wants the project to go wrong, wants to wipe the entire city off the map. He turns and screams because Margaret has taken off her skin suit and is all Slitheen-y. She attacks and we throw to the credits.
Sweeney: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, SHOW? Here I was, thinking we were turning a corner. Not only did you decided to give the goddamned farting aliens a two-parter, they seemed worthy of revisiting this close to the finale.
K: Sorry, Sweens. At least it’s not a two-parter this time?
After the credits, Mickey arrives at Cardiff Central station. He heads to Roald Dahl Plass, walking past the Wales Millennium Centre to the TARDIS, which is parked next to the Water Tower. He knocks on the door, and Jack opens it. “Who the hell are you?” he asks. Mickey feels the same way and shoves past him into the TARDIS. He and Rose hug, and Jack bemoans his lack of such attention. The Doctor, tinkering with some wires and wearing a snazzy headtorch, sasses “Buy me a drink first.”
Mickey hands over Rose’s passport and the Doctor scoffs a little. But she insists that if they end up in Brazil, she might need it. Oh, honey. The BBC’s budget barely stretches past the M25… Mickey’s a little disappointed to hear that she’s staying, and asks for more info on Jack. He calls the Doctor “big ears,” then sasses “Look in a mirror!” when the Doctor’s all “Uh, rude…” Have I mentioned that I kind of love Mickey? Because I kind of love Mickey. Anyway, there’s some back and forth about whether or not Jack’s handsome, and Rose says that they’re in Cardiff to refuel. They just need to park on top of the Rift (remember that?) for a few days, and then they’ll be back off into time and space.
Mari: The Doctor, Rose and Jack really lay it on heavy with the whole COOL KIDS CLUB vibe they are giving off here. I mean, there is synchronized exposition and high fiving and just a touch of a menage a trois vibe. Calm it down, folks. Mickey doesn’t deserve it!
Sweeney: I’m torn because I agree that they look like they’re filming the title sequence for the Cool Kids Club mid-90’s after school special, you lost me at “Mickey doesn’t deserve it,” on account of how I’ve never fully forgiven him for that trash can thing.
K: You bite your tongue about Mickey Smith. He’s fabulous. Despite the awkward rubbish bin thing…
Back out in Roald Dahl Plass, the Doctor says they’ve got 24 hours to kill. Mickey says there’s an old lady staring at them, and Jack makes a slightly smutty comment. “What are you captain of? The Innuendo Squad?” Mickey asks. Jack provides one of my favourite season 1 gifs in response:
Mari: For someone who didn’t know what cheesy meant, he at least has that down!
K: Then we get some convenient backstory on why the TARDIS looks like a police box: it has a chameleon circuit and is supposed to change into something generic wherever it lands so that it blends in. But the Doctor went to the 1960s, it turned into a police box, and then got stuck that way. He could fix it, but he likes it the way it is. Mickey worries about leaving the TARDIS in the middle of Roald Dahl Plass, but the Doctor assures him there’s no place safer than 21st century Cardiff. Having seen Torchwood, allow me to say “LOL.”
That throws us to Margaret making a speech about opening a nuclear power station in the heart of Cardiff. She informs us that she’s Lord Mayor of Cardiff now, and asks a photographer not to take any pictures of her. For the sake of continuity, the project is called the Blaidd Drwg Project. For those of us who don’t speak Welsh (which is, I suspect, ALL OF US), it translates as Bad Wolf. The project will require the destruction of Cardiff Castle, something that I can’t imagine the heritage register would be too pleased about, and Blaidd Drwg nuclear power station will stand in its place as a monument to Welsh industry. Margaret gives her personal guarantee that it’s safe, and offers a toast to the future.
A reporter approaches and asks if Margaret knows about the curse. Apparently her engineers are insisting that the project is cursed because a shit ton of people involved in its development – basically, anyone who opposes Margaret – have died. Margaret pooh-poohs it all, calling it “typical small-town thinking“. But the reporter (Cathy) informs her that before Teaser Guy died (decapitated when he slipped on ice, apparently), he posted a bunch of his findings online, stating that the design of the reactor would cause a meltdown. Margaret says they should discuss this in private.
She pulls Cathy down a corridor and insists on detouring to the bathroom when her stomach rumbles. Cathy’s all “er, no thanks”, which is legit (S: Right there with you on that NO THANKS to all things Slitheen, Cathy.), and is then forced to listen to horrific diarrhoea-y noises coming from the cubicle. But it’s just Margaret taking off her skin-suit. As she does, Cathy wibbles about how Teaser Guy’s findings indicate that the meltdown would be a thousand times worse than Chernobyl. She says she’s going to publish the information, even though her fiancé, who she’s marrying next month, thinks she’s mental. When she hears that Cathy’s to be married, Slitheen!Margaret stops, still in the cubicle. She asks when the wedding is, and Cathy says it’s a shotgun wedding because she’s pregnant. Slitheen!Margaret congratulates her, and says she’s all on her own. Her whole family are gone. She tells Cathy to leave as the Oboe of Feels does its thing.
Mari: I like that Margaret is all, “maybe we can do this later.” Not up to murdering you now, girl, because of feelings.
K: Team Heartless Cow would not have this problem.
At a restaurant, the TARDIS gang tell ridiculous stories and laugh hysterically. It’s all fun and games until the Doctor spots Margaret’s photo on the front of the newspaper. He snatches it from the man at the next table, and says “And I was having such a nice day…” Cut to the gang walking into City Hall. Jack infodumps about the Slitheen for anyone who missed Aliens of London, and rattles off a plan that involves each of them covering a different exit.
The Doctor heads to the Lord Mayor’s office and asks Margaret’s assistant to tell her that the Doctor is there to see her. “Doctor Who?” says the assistant, and we all drink because surely that’s at the top of the drinking game with “bigger on the inside”, yes?! (M: CLEARLY.) (S: I CURRENTLY ACCEPT ANY/ALL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE DRINKING GAME.) The assistant heads into Margaret’s office and we hear her mug smash on the floor. The assistant returns and nervously asks the Doctor to make an appointment for the following week. “She’s climbing out the window, isn’t she?” the Doctor asks. The assistant confirms that yes, she is, and lets the Doctor into the office. He rushes in just in time to see Margaret dashing down some scaffolding. Grabbing his mobile, the Doctor makes the necessary call.
That throws us into a slapstick-y montage of everyone rushing around trying to catch Margaret.
Mari: Mickey gets his foot stuck in a bucket. STUCK IN A BUCKET. You’d think that wouldn’t be so groan-worthy on a show with farting aliens, but alas.
Sweeney: I don’t know, maybe it’s not groan-worthy for the people who think the farting aliens were worthy of a whole quarter of a season.
K: She pulls her jewellery off as she runs and starts joining it together. Mickey’s missing from his door, and Margaret’s able to escape. Rose says she won’t get far because she’s too slow, but Margaret uses her jewellery to teleport. Jack’s pissed, but Rose just grins. The Doctor smugly holds up his sonic screwdriver and is able to reverse the teleport. Margaret runs away, and teleports again. The Doctor does the same thing. Each reversal brings her closer to them, until eventually she’s right in front of them and declaring that it’s persecution.
Back inside, the Doctor’s all “Sooooo, why are you building a nuclear power plant?” Margaret insists that it’s philanthropic and she’s learnt the error of her ways. The gang scoff because apparently building a nuclear power plant on the Rift would cause the entire planet to go kablooey. The Doctor says the plant is rigged to explode the minute it reaches capacity. He pulls a section from the scale model and flips it over to reveal electronics. “Is that a tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator?” Jack asks. Yes, apparently. It looks like a giant piece of Duplo. Rose asks WTF that is, and apparently it’s a pan-dimensional surfboard that will let Margaret leave Earth.
The Doctor stares at the “Blaidd Drwg Project” banner and asks how she came up with the name. Mostly Margaret just thought it sounded good. The Doctor’s not so sure, especially when Rose chimes in that they’ve seen seeing the words BAD WOLF everywhere they go. She asks if the words are following them, and the Doctor grins that it’s just a coincidence.
Sweeney: So, they’re clearly building something here and I’m a little bummed because I don’t know how to feel about it, since SOMEONE has been pretty dedicated to destroying what might be the show’s best attempt at subtlety so far.
K: Excuse you. I’ve only been pointing it out because when I got to the finale of season 1, I was all “Wait, what? When did this happen? What the fuck are they talking about? I’M CONFUUUUUUUUUSED.” and it wasn’t until I went back and rewatched all the episodes that I picked up all the BAD WOLFs scattered throughout the season and realised how fabulous it is. So really, I’ve been trying to save you the confusion that I went through.
The Doctor tells Margaret that they’ll take her home. Rose squeals with excitement about getting to go to Raxacoricofallapatorius. Margaret, however, says coldly that the death penalty was passed on the Slitheen family years ago and if she goes home, she’ll be executed. The Doctor says that’s not his problem.
Roald Dahl Plass, that night. Margaret gushes over the TARDIS and the whole bigger on the inside thing. SHOTS. Jack’s trying to hook the pan-dimensional surfboard up to the TARDIS’ power cells. It’s not entirely compatible, but it’ll knock 12 hours off their recharge time. Rose gets all excited about the police box being a literal police box now that they have a prisoner. Margaret says they’re not the police, they’re her executioners. “You…deserve it?” Mickey says, unconvinced. Margaret dares them to look her in the eye, but no one can.
Mari: Because staring contests are the worst! It’s going to be a long 8 hours if that’s all the entertainment you have lined up, girl.
K: Cut to Mickey and Rose by the Water Tower. He says he can’t be in the TARDIS at the moment because it’s too weird. She confesses that she didn’t really need her passport, she just wanted to see him. They grin at each other. Mickey suggests that they go and get some pizza and beer and maybe a hotel room. Rose quickly agrees. Mickey asks if she needs to tell the Doctor, but she insists it’s not his business.
In the TARDIS, Jack and the Doctor watch on a monitor as Rose and Mickey walk away hand-in-hand. Margaret says coldly that she suspects the Doctor isn’t one for waiting around, that he’s usually the first to leave the path of destruction he’s created.
Mari: I mean. I guess that’s one way of looking at it. Probably from the criminal, “my plans are FOILED!” point of view. Usually, he’s just flying away from a world he’s saved!
K: True.
She has a final request – a last meal. Jack’s against it, but the Doctor agrees. Before they leave, Jack slips a metal bracelet on her wrist, and informs her that if she goes more than 10 feet from the Doctor, she’ll get electrocuted. Jack’s left to repair the TARDIS as the two couples head to dinner.
At dinner, Margaret says that her real name is Blon and points out the apartment where she was living in central Cardiff. The Doctor turns to look and while his back is turned, Margaret (it’s too confusing to change her name now) pours some powder into his drink. She looks at him expectantly when he turns back, but the Doctor sassily changes their glasses.
Not gonna lie, all I could think of was this.
Margaret doesn’t give up that easily. She asks what he knows about species, for instance that hers can, when in danger, create a poison dart within her finger? As she says “finger“, she shoots the dart at him. But without even looking up, he grabs it in mid-air, and says “Yes. I did,” before dropping it on the table with a grin. She leans in close, and tells him that the excess poison can be exhaled as a final measure of protection. She breathes out a cloud of green, but he’s ready for this too, and zaps her with some breath freshener before saying happily that he thinks he’ll have steak and chips.
Mickey and Rose wander by the waterside. Rose gushes about all the travels the Doctor’s taken her on, including one to an ice planet with frozen waves a hundred feet high. Mickey interrupts her gushing to say that he’s seeing someone. It takes a minute, but Rose accepts it and says that the girl in question is really nice and she’s happy for him. Mickey’s relieved.
Mari: “Accepts” is too strong. Mickey tells her to keep gushing but she has nothing else to say about moving on with her life now that she knows Mickey is trying to too. YICK.
K: Margaret tells the Doctor all about public executions on Raxacoricofallapatorius – it involves being slowly boiled alive in weak acetic acid until you’re soup. Gross. He says there’s nothing else he can do. She begs him to take her somewhere else, because there are other branches of the Slitheen family, but he says she’ll just start up her evil plans again. She’s forgotten that once upon a time, there was a real person called Margaret. Blon killed her and has been using her skin ever since. “You’re pleading for mercy on a dead woman’s lips,” he tells her. She says tearfully that all she’s asking for is a chance. The Doctor doesn’t believe her.
Sweeney: 95% of this conversation is more of the same aggressive writerly preaching I’ve vocally expressed my issues with, but I liked that line about pleading for mercy on a dead woman’s lips. I appreciate the snippets of poetry in the sermons.
K: Better than nothing. I’ll take it!
Back by the waterside, Rose is suddenly less fine with the girl that Mickey’s dating. She knows him, and knows he wouldn’t go for that particular girl. “At least I know where she is!” Mickey shouts. He says tearfully that he and Rose were happy, but she left him. He felt like nothing. And he can’t even move on with his life because whenever she calls, he’ll come running. Just like now. Rose sad-pandas an apology. She tries to hug him but he pulls away.
Margaret insists that she’s changed, and tells the Doctor all about Cathy and letting her live. The Doctor says that doesn’t count. Letting one go every so often is how tyrants justify to themselves that they’re not bad people, despite the millions that they’re killing. “Only a killer would know that,” she says and I stop to have a lot of feels about Nine and all his post-Time War emotions.
Waterside. Mickey tells Rose that he’s not going to ask her to leave the Doctor, but he needs a promise that when she comes back, it’s to be with him. Ooof. Dude, no. Lucky for Rose, there’s a rumbling sound before she can answer. She realises that it’s not thunder. Back at dinner, Margaret says that she was made to commit her first kill when she was 13. She talks on and on, but the Doctor’s not listening. He’s focused on the rumbling sound. Glasses start to vibrate on the table, then the windows shatter. People scream. Rose runs towards Roald Dahl Plass, and Mickey yells after her that clearly she’ll always pick the Doctor over him.
Sweeney: BLECH. I was with Mickey on his tearful speech about how fucked up Rose’s departure was, but then he says and does impossibly pathetic shit like this. He’s shouting this as we’re watching people flee the area, clearly in some sort of peril. So much of his character is sacrificed to the whims of plot and deliberate misunderstanding that he’s embedded with an unforgivable inability to recognize shit happening around him.
K: AT THE MOMENT, SWEENEY. AT THE MOMENT.
Rushing back towards the TARDIS, Margaret begs the Doctor to take off her electrocution bracelet because she can’t keep up with him. She promises not to run, though, because it’s safer with him. He grabs her hand and they run. When they come in sight of the TARDIS, they can see that the Rift has opened up and the energy is crackling through the TARDIS and into the sky. It’s oddly reminiscent of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Inside, Jack’s trying to sort things out, but he can’t. As Margaret and the Doctor run across Roald Dahl Plass, cracks open up in the ground. They rush into the TARDIS.
Jack insists it wasn’t him, and the Doctor says it’s the Rift. Time and space are coming apart, and the whole city is going to be destroyed. Rose runs in and asks what’s happening. Margaret grins wickedly and says that it’s her. She rips an arm off her skin suit and grabs Rose by the neck with her Slitheen arm. The Doctor is horrified at himself for falling for her act. She orders Jack to place the pan-dimensional surfboard at her feet. He reluctantly does so.
Rose gasps that she thought Margaret’s plan was to blow up the nuclear power plant. But apparently she’s gone to Plan B. She knew anyone who came to arrest her would have superior technology and be fascinated by the surfboard. Which would then hack their equipment and use it to open the Rift. (M: That’s one hell of a Plan B.) She’ll ride the planet’s destruction all the way to freedom. “Surf’s up!” she grins maniacally. A panel just under the TARDIS’ console cracks open and a stream of bright light hits Margaret’s face. The Doctor tells her that opening the Rift means pulling the TARDIS apart. The TARDIS, he says, is alive. And she’s looking right into its heart. He tells her to look into the beautiful light. She does, and loosens her grip. Rose struggles free. “Thank you…” Margaret says with a smile. She disappears and her skin suit crumples to the floor.
Mari: To borrow a word: CHEESY.
K: The Doctor yells for Rose and Jack to keep their eyes closed. He ducks over to the console panel and flips a switch, closing the panel. That done, he gives them orders and they rush around flipping switches and twisting dials. The Rift closes and Cardiff returns to normal. Rose asks what happened to Margaret. Jack says she carried out her own death sentence, but the Doctor disagrees. The TARDIS is sentient and can translate alien languages for you automatically. Maybe, he suggests, the raw energy in its heart can translate thoughts too. He finds a dreadlock covered egg in the skin-suit, and says that Margaret’s reverted to her childhood so she can start over. They’ll take her home and give her to a different family, a better family. Whether she ends up better or worse is entirely up to her.
Weirdly, I always find that Cardiff is the most memorable part of this episode. Which probably isn’t really what they were going for. It’s not a bad episode, not even remotely. It’s got some fabulous moments in it, both funny and feelsy. But there’s just something about it that makes it forgettable somehow…
Mari: Agreed. It explores some great themes about the Doctor and the choices he makes over people’s lives. I think Margaret probably wasn’t the best person to have making these arguments, on account of how she kept trying to destroy the planet. Her pleas of, “you are going to kill me!” were hollow because (1) – GUILTY and (2) – homeboy was just going to give you a ride home. Deal with it.
The stuff with Mickey was over done but also a thing that needed to happen. So, despite the little spots of nice things, the whole episode could’ve benefited from taking just one step back.
Sweeney: This, again, is my issue: I can’t credit them with “exploring” anything here. They just inserted many lines of dialogue that were utterly pointless in order to say to the audience HERE IS THE THING WE WANT YOU TO KNOW. ISN’T IT DEEP? LOOK AT THE DEPTH. I laughed a little to bitterly when they literally ended the episode on, “No really, LOOK AT THE DEPTH.“
After the uptick of the last two episodes, I’m going to have to disagree about this not being a bad episode. It felt like most of the rest of the season for me. Everything is still too strung together and relying on characters I find I care about a little less with each episode.
K: Womp.
Next time on Doctor Who: The Doctor, Rose and Jack end up on TV and back on Satellite 5 in S01 E12 – Bad Wolf.
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.
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 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.
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