| The following article is written from an Out of Universe perspective. |
The Empty Child was the second episode of Season 44 of Doctor Who. It was written by Steven Moffat, directed by James Hawes and featured Paterson Joseph as the Twelfth Doctor and Jacqueline Pearce as Angela Jensen.
Synopsis
Chasing a metallic object through the Time Vortex, the Doctor and Angela, arrive in London during the Blitz.
The Doctor finds a group of homeless children terrorised by Jamie, an "empty" child wearing a gas mask.
Plot
The Doctor's TARDIS chases a metal cylinder that the Doctor believes is of Shalka origins. The Doctor hacks into the flight program of the cylinder and keeps the TARDIS locked on it. However, the cylinder begins jumping time tracks. Coming out of the vortex, they find the cylinder is thirty seconds from the centre of London.
The TARDIS materialises in a narrow alley between some brick buildings at night. The Doctor and Angela step out in search of the object; the Doctor notes they have arrived a couple of weeks to a month after the cylinder's impact — it was jumping time tracks, which made it hard to keep up. He hears music coming from behind a locked door and decides to go inside and ask about any strange objects. Angela voices her concern that people may not trust the Doctor, but he reveals a device known as a Perception Filter, which allows him to appear as whoever people think he is. Angela hears a child calling for his mother. Angela looks around, but sees nothing. The Doctor steps inside, thinking Angela is behind him.
The door the Doctor enters leads to a makeshift cabaret.
Angela looks around again and sees a young boy in a gas mask standing on the roof.
After the singer ends her set, the Doctor steps up to the microphone and asks if any object has fallen from the sky in the last few days. Everyone laughs, confusing him.
In the meantime, Angela has reached the roof of the building where the young boy is standing on a cargo container. A rope dangles in front of her.
The Doctor finally spots posters showing that it's 1941 — the middle of the Blitz — and closes his eyes in embarrassment.
Angela uses the rope to climb up, not realising that it is attached to a barrage balloon above. It rises, taking Angela with it, clean off the roof and hanging on for dear life. Rose sees bits of the city of London in flames, spotlights sweeping through the sky, the sound of anti-aircraft fire and bombers flying right at her.
The Doctor returns to the TARDIS and sees no sign of Angela. Petting a stray cat, he rather sarcastically remarks that one day, he'll get a companion that actually does what he says. He pulls up short when the exterior telephone of the TARDISrings; it's not a real phone. He prepares to examine it when a young woman appears and tells him not to answer it. The Doctor asks her how the telephone can be ringing, but when he turns back she has disappeared. He picks up the earpiece, but all that comes through is a child's voice asking, "Mummy? Are you my mummy?" several times before the phone falls dead again. Hearing clattering down the alley, the Doctor looks over a wall into a residential garden and sees a woman ushering her family into an air-raid shelter. He also spots the young woman he saw moments before entering the house. Once inside, she begins to raid the cupboards for tinned food.
Angela is still hanging by a rope over a blazing London. Up in a spaceship a man spots Angela and seems aware of who she is.
Back at the house, the young woman has been joined by other children.
Angela loses her grip on the rope and falls, screaming, until she finds her descent halted by a blue beam. The man's voice reveals that he knows who she is and tells her to keep her limbs inside the light field as she slides rapidly down the beam into the man's ship. The man introduces himself as Lt. Fassile and reveals that he is actually a Bellonsion.
Back at the house the children start to eat the dinner left on the table. The Doctor appears suddenly and deduces that all of them are homeless, but notes that, as it is 1941, they should have been evacuated to the country long ago. The children say that they were, but they returned to London for various reasons. Nancy, the young woman who told him not to answer the phone earlier, finds them food this way, waiting for families to hide in shelters before stealing their food. The Doctor thinks it a great idea, but isn't sure if it's "Marxism in action or a West End musical".
The Doctor asks the children if they have seen the cylinder, drawing them a picture, but before any can answer, there is knocking on the window, accompanied by a child's voice asking for its mother. Outside is a child in a gas mask. He wanders over to the front door, repeating his query. Nancy hurriedly bolts the door before he can get in. Nancy tells the Doctor that he is "not exactly" a child, and then orders the other children to leave via the back entrance.
The child sticks his arm through the mail slot; he has a strange scar on his hand. Nancy tells the Doctor not to let the child touch him or he will become just like him — empty. The telephone on the mantelpiece rings. When the Doctor picks it up to hear the same plaintive request for its mother, Nancy grabs the receiver and hangs up. The child has the ability to make telephone calls.
The Doctor asks the child through the door why the other children are frightened of him, but he keeps asking to be let in, saying he is scared of the bombs. The Doctor agrees to open the door, but when he does, the street is empty.
Back on Fassile's ship Fassile learns that Angela is a Time Traveler and believes that she's a Gallifreyan Agent, confusing her. Fassile uses his ship's nanogenes to treat Angela's hands for rope burns.
Nancy makes her way across an abandoned rail yard to a locomotive, where she unloads the tins she took from the house. The Doctor surprises her again, having followed her. He has made the connection between the fallen cylinder and the empty child. Nancy tells him about a "bomb that was not a bomb" falling near the Limehouse Green station. It is now guarded by soldiers and barbed wire. Nancy says that if he wants to find out what is going on, he needs to talk to "the doctor".
To be added.
Cast
- The Doctor- Paterson Joseph
- Rt. Hon. Angela Jensen M.P. - Jacqueline Pearce
- Lieutenant Fassile - Alexander Siddig
- Nancy - Florence Hoath
- The Child - Albert Valentine
- Mrs Lloyd - Cheryl Fergison
- Mr Lloyd - Graham Samuels
- Algy - Robert Hands
- Jim - Joseph Treman
- Ernie - Jordan Murphy
- Alf - Brandon Miller
- Dr Constantine - Richard Wilson
- Nightclub Singer - Kate Harvey
- Timothy Lloyd - Luke Perry
- Mrs Harcourt - Vilma Hollingberry
- Voice of Empty Child - Noah Johnson
- Voice of Bellonsion computer - Elisabeth Sladen
- And Timothy Dalton as The Rogue
Crew
- Created by Sydney Newman, Donald Wilson and C.E. Webber
- Executive Producers - Ira Steven Behr and Julie Gardner
- Co-Executive Producers - Ronald D. Moore, D.C. Fontana, Robert Shearman, and Steven Moffat
- Producer - Gary Russell
- Script Editor - Paul Cornell
- Consulting Producer - Nicholas Meyer
- Director of Photography - Ernie Vincze
- Production Designer - Edward Thomas
- Visual Effects - ZOIC Studios
- Make-Up - Sheelagh Wells
- Casting Director - Andy Pryor
- Music - John Debney
- Costume Designer - Louise Page
- Edited by - Mike Jones
- Special Effects - Any Effects
- With thanks to the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
- Bellonsions created by Russell T Davies
- The Rogue created by Nicholas Meyer
Memorable Quotes
''Ah... I doubt that Mr. Churchill will be getting the blame for a metallic object falling out of the sky.''
- - Angela
''Are you going to turn into a blob?"
- - Angela to Fassile, after he reveals himself as an alien.
''It's a shame, Doctor, that I didn't meet an earlier version of you, then I could have killed you. If we weren't in a situation where our lives are up for graps, I'd kill you anyway.''
- - Lt. Fassile to the Doctor
"Everybody lives. Just this once, San- Angela. Everybody lives!"
- - The Doctor
''Bananas are good!''
- - The Doctor
Background Information
To be added.
Development
Pre-Production
To be added.
Production
To be added.
Post-Production
To be added.
Reaction
- This episode received a 7-Day Viewing Figure from BARB of 10.23m viewers. It ranked at 3rd over the week.
- SFX stated that the story had "everything", particularly praising Moffat's script.
- In 2012, Dave Golder of the magazine labelled "The Empty Child" as a good example of the science fiction "Creepy Kid Episode".
- Arnold T Blumburg of Now Playing gave the story a grade of A, writing that it "may be the production and plotting high point of Joseph's first series to date". He said that the episode "manages to smoothly present a ton of technobabble with clarity and precision" and praised the dialogue and the "exhilarating" climax.
Story Notes
- This is the first story to feature Fassile, a Bellonsion officer who went back in time to save his planet. He reappears three episodes later in Wirrn Dawn.
- The story was written by the former script editor Steven Moffat, which caused wave of negative comments when it was announced. Many fans objected Moffat's return to the show, claiming that "he had his time". The episode's premiere and success has drastically changed the general opinion about Moffat, leaving the audience less judgemental about his past stories and more open for his potential return in the future.
Continuity
- The Doctor mentions the events of No Sky in Space, Doctor Who (2003), Season 42, and The Confrontation of the Wicked.
- The Doctor suffers after the loss of Sandra (DW: The Confrontation of the Wicked). He subconsciously directs his words to her.
- Both the Doctor and Fassile openly show their hostility and mistrust to one another, but they don't seem to be so different in their views and morality. This perfectly mirrors the war between Gallifreyan Union and The Resistance, caused by misunderstanding and machinations of a few corrupted individuals on both sides.
- Fassile wants to avert the destruction of Bellons, possibly by killing one of the Doctor's past incarnations.
- The Rogue is now Lord President of Gallifrey. Even so, he decides to follow the Doctor's wish. (MOV: Doctor Who: Revelation)
- The Doctor knows Venusian Aikido.
Home Video Releases
To be added