Series 1 (2005)
Episode title: Bad WolfFeaturing: Ninth Doctor
Companions: Rose Tyler, Captain Jack Harkness
First shown: 11th June 2005
Related articles: Daleks
Guide: In the year 200,100, the trio of time travellers find themselves waking up in game shows on the Game Station, previously known as Satellite 5. The trio wake up having been transmatted off the TARDIS, with the Doctor placed in a version of Big Brother, Rose in a version of the Weakest Link and Jack placed in a version of What Not to Wear, each with a droid version of their respective hosts, the Davinadroid, Anne Droid and the Trine-E and Zu-Zana droids. The trio quickly discover that these versions of the games are much more vicious than their 21st century counterparts. Contestants that lose in these games are seemingly disintegrated from existence while those on What Not to Wear undergo major cosmetic surgery. The Doctor tries unsuccessfully to escape using his Sonic Screwdriver but is unable as the doors are deadlock sealed. During this, memories of what happened start to come back. Having left Raxacoricofallapatorius, the trio went onto Japan, 1336. After escaping that, the three were laughing in the console room of the TARDIS, when a bright light came through the walls and enveloped them. The Doctor notes that no ordinary transmat beam could have achieved such a thing, which means that this wasn’t just a game and something else is going on.
The Doctor doesn’t understand the emotional reaction when Crosbie is evicted at first, but becomes horrified when he sees Crosbie disintegrated. The Doctor questions whether getting on television is worth the risk of being killed but Lynda explains that they don’t have a choice, they just get transmatted from Earth and end up in the games and winning simply means that they get to live. The Doctor realises that Rose was also transmatted and is probably in a game and deliberately destroys the Big Brother House cameras which lines him up for eviction from the house. Meanwhile Jack is told he would look much better with a dogs head after being forcibly stripped naked on What Not to Wear. However, Jack produces a Compact Laser Deluxe pistol from an intimate hiding place and blows the heads off the Trine-E and Zu-Zana droids. Meanwhile, Rose plays her first round of the Weakest Link and is more amused at the situation than upset, though that changes when she also discovers what happens to contestants that lose. Back in the Big Brother House, the Doctor cheerfully walks into the eviction area and watches the countdown, but as he successfully guessed, nothing happens to him, proving his theory that whoever brought him there, wanted him there alive. He uses his Sonic to exit the House and Lynda goes with him.
The Doctor discovers that he’s on the former Satellite 5 that he visited in The Long Game (Series 1 : Episode 7) and that is now under the control of the Badwolf Corporation. Meanwhile, in the control room the female programmer decides to search through the transmat logs to find out who brought the Doctor and company to the Game Station, but is denied access by the Controller. Down in What Not to Wear, Jack converts the defabricator used to strip him naked into a ray gun and goes in search of the Doctor, scanning for the Time Lords bicardial circulatory system to locate him. On the observation deck, Lynda tells the Doctor that 100 years previously, the satellite stopped broadcasting suddenly without explanation and as a result, progress on Earth came to a halt. The Doctor realises that he made it happen after he defeated the Jagrafess when he was last on Satellite 5. The human race still isn’t on track, instead continuing to be mindless sheep watching the programs broadcast by the Game Station. Jack finds the duo as the Doctor tries to access the computer systems to find Rose.
Locating Rose on Floor 407, the Doctor, Jack and Lynda rush to rescue her, but as they get there Rose loses the final round of the Weakest Link to Rodrick. As Rose rushes towards the Doctor, the Anne droid shoots her and disintegrates her to dust. Numb with shock, the Doctor doesn’t resist when the guards come to arrest the trio and take them to the cells where they interrogate them before getting them ready to be sent to a lunar penal colony. At the Doctor’s signal, the Doctor and Jack rise up and attack the guards, knocking them unconscious before stealing their weapons and making their way up to Floor 500. Up there, the Doctor threatens the programmers and demands answers from the Controller but she does not respond. The male programmer explains that she was installed when she was 5, but because the Doctor is not an authorised member of staff she cannot communicate with him. Jack breaks into Archive 6 to find the TARDIS and goes into the console room where he finds something that shocks him.
The solar flares predicted by the Controller occur and cause static to flood the screens, blocking transmissions on the Game Station. The Controller asks for the Doctor, revealing that with the transmission block she can communicate with him without her masters hearing her. She tells the Doctor that she saw the transmissions of her masters and in them saw the Doctor so brought him to the Game Station and hiding him in the games. She says that her masters have been hiding for centuries, manipulating Earth but they fear the Doctor. As the flare passes, Jack tells the Doctor that the TARDIS worked out that the disintegration process is actually a transmat system, and instead of killing losing contestants, it merely transports them somewhere else, meaning Rose is still alive. Rose regains consciousness onboard an alien spaceship where one of the creatures approaches her. She stands up quickly and backs against a wall as she recognises the creature, and claims to have seen one of them die before. Back on the Game Station, the Controller gloats to her masters that she has brought about their destruction to which she is killed by an energy weapon. The transmat beam is then traced to the end of the solar system, but the screen shows just blank space , though another signal is detected that is shielding what is hidden there. These are the people who installed the Jagrafess 200 years previously and been manipulating mankind for hundreds of years. The Doctor cancels out the shielding signal and is met by a horrifying sight.
The Doctor is confronted by the sight of 200 Dalek spaceships, each housing over 2000 Daleks, an army of nearly half a million, despite being supposedly destroyed in the Time War. The Daleks open communications with the Doctor, ordering him not to intervene with their plans or they will exterminate Rose. The Doctor simply says no, defying the Daleks and says that he will fly into the middle of the Dalek fleet, save Rose and wipe every last Dalek from existence. The Daleks retort that the Doctor has no weapons, no defences and no plans, but the Doctor agrees and notes that it is that which is scaring the Daleks so much. The Doctor tells Rose that he is coming for him before cutting communications while the Daleks begin an invasion of Earth.
This episode is the first part of the two part finale. Read the concluding episode guide here.