The Empty Child 

When a spaceship crashes in the middle of the London Blitz the Doctor, Rose and the enigmatic Captain Jack Harkness find themselves investigating a plague of physical injuries and a little boy in a gas mask.

Director:

James Hawes

Writer:

Steven Moffat

Stars:

Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, Kate Harvey

Cast

Episode complete credited cast:
Christopher Eccleston	...	Doctor Who
Billie Piper	...	Rose Tyler
Kate Harvey	...	Nightclub Singer
Albert Valentine	...	The Child
Florence Hoath	...	Nancy
Cheryl Fergison	...	Mrs. Lloyd
Damian Samuels	...	Mr. Lloyd
John Barrowman	...	Jack Harkness
Robert Hands	...	Algy
Joseph Tremain	...	Jim
Jordan Murphy	...	Ernie
Brandon Miller	...	Alf
Richard Wilson	...	Dr. Constantine
Noah Johnson	...	The Empty Child (voice)
Dian Perry	...	Computer (voice)

Storyline

Rose and the Doctor find themselves in 1941 London when the TARDIS receives an emergency signal from another time-traveling vehicle. While the Doctor tries to determine where the object may have landed, Rose goes off in search of a child she can hear calling for help. When she gets herself into a precarious situation, she's rescued by the rather handsome RAF Captain Jack Harkness, who owns a time machine of his own. The Doctor meanwhile meets Nancy who has an interesting way of arranging meals for homeless children. They are also being chased by the child Rose heard calling. The Doctor determines that human DNA is being rewritten but it's not obvious why or by who.

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Plot Keywords:

london air raid | gas mask | time machine | doctor who | ninth doctor | 

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | Family | Mystery | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

TV-PG

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

5 May 2006 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Barry Steam Railway, Plymouth Road, Barry Island, Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, UK

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

45 min 45 min (50 episodes)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital (Dolby 5.1)

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

As the Chula ship jumps the time track, on the console screen it is shown to be in the time vortex as seen in the credits.

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Goofs

During the scene where Jack is scanning the gas mask people, he has a scanner on his right wrist. However, when he shows Rose and The Doctor his image of the Chula warship, the scanner is on his left wrist. The makers flipped the stretch of film, according to the commentary, to make the shot work.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Rose Tyler: What's the emergency?
The Doctor: It's mauve.
Rose Tyler: Mauve?
The Doctor: Universally recognised colour for danger.
Rose Tyler: What happened to red?
The Doctor: That's just humans. By everyone else's standards, red's camp. Oh, the misunderstandings! All those red alerts, all that dancing.

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Connections

Featured in Doctor Who Confidential: Monsters Inc. (2007)

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Soundtracks

In The Mood
Written by Wingy Manone, Andy Razaf and Joe Garland
Performed by Glenn Miller

User Reviews

Compelling

So begins the start of Moffat's great standalones. Shame about his showrunning, and his sexism does peek through with Jack objectifying Rose, but that's a review for another time.

The Empty Child is a great episode with great characters. I absolutely loved Nancy and what she did for the homeless kids of London, it was very clever and touching. Even now, in 2018, I actually didn't think the CGI of the transformation was that bad - in fact, it was a bit horrific to watch.