About
- Broadcast: 9 April 2005
- Viewers: 8.86m
- Availability: DVD Series 1: Volume 1
Synopsis
The Doctor and Rose travel back through time to Victorian Cardiff, where the dead are walking and creatures made of gas are on the loose. The time travellers team up with Charles Dickens to investigate Mr Sneed, the local undertaker. But can they halt the plans of the ethereal Gelth?
Credits
Written by Mark Gatiss
Directed by Euros Lyn
The Doctor – CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON
Rose Tyler – BILLIE PIPER
Gabriel Sneed – ALAN DAVID
Redpath – HUW RHYS
Mrs Peace – JENNIFER HILL
Gwyneth – EVE MYLES
Charles Dickens – SIMON CALLOW
Stage Manager – WAYNE CATER
Driver – MEIC POVEY
The Gelth – ZOE THORNE
Quotes
Charles Dickens: "What is this phantasmagoria?"
Rose: "How much do you get paid?"
Gwyneth: "Eight pounds a year, miss. "
Rose: "How much?!"
Gwyneth: "I know. I would have been happy with
six."
Charles Dickens: "Seances? Nothing but luminous tambourines and a squeezebox between the knees."
Rose: "You can’t let them run around inside dead people!"
The Doctor: "Why not? It’s like recycling."
Charles Dickens: "What the Shakespeare is going on?"
The Doctor: "I saw the Fall of Troy, World War Five… I pushed boxes into Boston Harbor at the Boston Tea Party. Now I’m gonna die in a dungeon… In Cardiff!"
Notes
This episode takes place in the year 1869.
The BBC received many complaints about this episode with people complaining it was too scary for pre-watershed viewing. The BBC reacted by advising viewers Doctor Who should be not watched by the under eights, which they later retracted.
This episode was watched by 8.86 million viewers making it the second highest of the shows first series run.
This episode was actually filmed in Swansea as the buildings suited the period better.
The ‘Time War’ is mentioned for the first time by name in the series. The Gelth were involved but what part they played is not revealed. They were more likely a casualty of war.
Gwyneth sees "The Big Bad Wolf" in Rose.
The rift that is opened in this episode is the same rift that is re-opened later in the series by the TARDIS in ‘Boom Town’.