Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Writer: Steven Moffat
Original Air Dates: May 21, 2005 & May 28, 2005
What’s It About:
Oh boy. Well, like every episode of Doctor Who, explaining the plot takes a lot of energy, focus and “wibbly wobbly timey whimey….stuff.”
Basically, the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and his companion, Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), receive a distress call from an alien ship that’s falling through time and space and is about to crash in the middle of London. The two follow it and immediately realize it’s going to be harder to find said spaceship because they’ve landed in 1941 London: the absolute height of the Blitz. Rose encounters a charming time traveling con man named Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and the Doctor discovers a strange “empty child” wearing a gas mask who repeatedly asks, “Are you my mummy?” The child has special powers and a unique attraction to his sister, a plucky teen orphan named Sally (Florence Hoath). If you think that’s a lot, there’s also a subplot about orphans stealing food from the rich, the Nazis are bombing London and everyone the “empty child” touches turns into a grotesque gas mask-covered zombie that asks, “Are you my mummy?”
Ultimately, it’s discovered that the little boy was wounded when the spaceship fell to Earth. The alien craft was a high tech battlefield ambulance complete with “nanogenes” that can read and repair DNA. Because the little boy was wearing a gas mask, the nanogenes assumed that’s what humans were supposed to look like and so they have been rewriting everyone’s DNA to look the same. The key to all this is that Sally is not the boy’s sister–but his single teen mother. Once she assumes responsibility for her son and embraces him, the nanogenes are able to recognize the mother’s DNA, they fix all the victims and everybody lives!
It makes sense if you just go with it.
Why It’s So Good: Today, Doctor Who is a stateside sci-fi hit, but in early 2005, the series was a punchline in Britain. The ambitious series that dominated UK airwaves from 1963-1989 was only remembered for its cheese and terrible effects. Enter Russell T. Davies. In 2005, the Queer as Folk scribe reimagined his boyhood obsession as a slick, sexy and fun romp through time and space. The reboot started off alright, but began to soar when Steven Moffat brought his imagination into the fold with this World War II-set two-parter.
“The Empty Child” deftly combines the science fiction, romantic comedy, World War II drama and horror genres into one riveting and cohesive story. One moment you’re laughing at jokes about the London blitz and the next you’re scared of a creepy child. The next minute you’re swooning over Captain Jack Harkness and then you’re immediately drawn into the struggles of World War II orphans. It’s a lot, but Steven Moffat sets up his story perfectly so that each arbitrary detail adds up to a exhilarating climax in “The Doctor Dances.”
Oh, and speaking of “climaxes…”
The Doctor was never a really sexy character until the reboot and he never displayed an excess of chemistry with his comely companions until this specific adventure. I mean, sure, the Fourth Doctor flirted with Romana in “City of Death,” but Tom Baker was hardly a pin up. Peter Davidson might have been a young and handsome Fifth Doctor, but the heartthrob downplayed his own sex appeal by playing up the Doctor’s quirkiness and maturity. This episode features open dialogue about sexuality in space and uses “dancing” as a clear metaphor for sex.
This episode set the tone for what “New Who” was. Doctor Who wasn’t going to be just for British school kids obsessed with Daleks anymore. It was going to be for an wider audience that wanted sex appeal with their science fiction. In short, it was going to be for a fandom ready to see Karen Gillan’s Amy Pond snog Matt Smith’s hipster-hot Twelfth Doctor. For better or worse, Steven Moffat’s stamp is all over modern Doctor Who and this is the arc where it all started.
The Best Moment: It’s a tough call. On the one hand, the Doctor finally has a moment of true triumph where “everyone lives!” However, we’re springing for Rose and Captain Jack’s romantic date dancing on top of an invisible spaceship tethered to Big Ben. Ridiculous? Yes. Romantic? Completely. Science fiction isn’t just about morality plays and laser beams; it’s about fantasy. That moment is fantasy at its finest.
Photos: BBC America
