The Doctor and Rose arrive on New Earth and meet old friends and enemies in a hospital which can cure every disease. But the cures come at a terrible cost.The Doctor and Rose arrive on New Earth and meet old friends and enemies in a hospital which can cure every disease. But the cures come at a terrible cost.The Doctor and Rose arrive on New Earth and meet old friends and enemies in a hospital which can cure every disease. But the cures come at a terrible cost.
Doña Croll
- Matron Casp
- (as Dona Croll)
Struan Rodger
- Face of Boe
- (voice)
Nathalie Cuzner
- Cat Nun
- (uncredited)
Sophia Day
- Diseased Patient
- (uncredited)
Lucy Hassan
- Diseased pod patient
- (uncredited)
Kevin Hudson
- Cassandra Escort
- (uncredited)
Melissa Stanton
- Hero patient
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- Russell T. Davies(showrunner)
- Sydney Newman(uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaRussell T. Davies wrote this episode because Billie Piper requested that she would be given a comic role in the new season, as a counterpoint to the often very serious material she had tackled the year before.
- GoofsIt's never explained how the Doctor managed to cure all the test subjects by simply spraying them with the cures, which were shown being used intravenously on the real patients.
- Quotes
The Doctor: So the year five billion, the sun expands, the earth gets roasted...
Rose: That was our first date.
The Doctor: We had chips!
- ConnectionsFeatured in This Morning: Episode dated 12 April 2006 (2006)
- SoundtracksDoctor Who Theme
(uncredited)
Written by Ron Grainer
Arranged by Murray Gold
Performed by BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Featured review
New Doctor, new adventures...
Having revamped the series to great effect with David Tennant's introduction in The Christmas Invasion, Russell T. Davies moves on to the start of the regular season with a basic Doctor Who story: fun, danger, and weird creatures. Sadly, it's a rather disappointing season premiere compared to series opener Rose.
In its own way, though, New Earth is a bit of a landmark in the revived show, in that it's the first episode that actually takes place on another planet (sorry, spaceships and satellites don't count), namely the eponymous new home for mankind, chosen as their home-world after the original Earth was destroyed (in Season One's The End of the World). Here, the Doctor and Rose have an encounter with a race of feline nuns that are able to cure a surprising amount of diseases. Inevitably, something's not quite right about it, and the situation worsens when it turns out that the villainous Cassandra (Zoe Wanamaker), presumed dead after the events of The End of the World, is actually scheming against the time-traveling duo.
Despite a steady pace and the welcome return of both Cassandra and the Face of Boe, the episode is let down by a distinct lack of the novelty that made the first season such a delight to watch. Part of the problem is that Davies usually writes with a bigger picture in mind, but in this case, notwithstanding an intriguing mystery regarding the Doctor's relationship with the Face of Boe, it just feels like a filler story thrown in to start the season.
On the plus side, as mentioned earlier, Wanamaker's bad "girl" (well, an abnormally stretched human face or whatever) is a hoot, and the Doctor/companion relationship is given plenty of room to evolve in light of The Christmas Invasion, even if the contrivance to make them kiss is rather bland, not to mention used too early in the series, as opposed to the truly touching romantic moment between Eccleston and Piper during the climax of The Parting of the Ways. Fortunately, there's 12 more episodes to prove the first season wasn't a fluke...
In its own way, though, New Earth is a bit of a landmark in the revived show, in that it's the first episode that actually takes place on another planet (sorry, spaceships and satellites don't count), namely the eponymous new home for mankind, chosen as their home-world after the original Earth was destroyed (in Season One's The End of the World). Here, the Doctor and Rose have an encounter with a race of feline nuns that are able to cure a surprising amount of diseases. Inevitably, something's not quite right about it, and the situation worsens when it turns out that the villainous Cassandra (Zoe Wanamaker), presumed dead after the events of The End of the World, is actually scheming against the time-traveling duo.
Despite a steady pace and the welcome return of both Cassandra and the Face of Boe, the episode is let down by a distinct lack of the novelty that made the first season such a delight to watch. Part of the problem is that Davies usually writes with a bigger picture in mind, but in this case, notwithstanding an intriguing mystery regarding the Doctor's relationship with the Face of Boe, it just feels like a filler story thrown in to start the season.
On the plus side, as mentioned earlier, Wanamaker's bad "girl" (well, an abnormally stretched human face or whatever) is a hoot, and the Doctor/companion relationship is given plenty of room to evolve in light of The Christmas Invasion, even if the contrivance to make them kiss is rather bland, not to mention used too early in the series, as opposed to the truly touching romantic moment between Eccleston and Piper during the climax of The Parting of the Ways. Fortunately, there's 12 more episodes to prove the first season wasn't a fluke...
helpful•45
- MaxBorg89
- Oct 20, 2010
Details
- Runtime45 minutes
- Color
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