Series 2 (2006)
Episode title: New EarthFeaturing: Tenth Doctor
Companions: Rose Tyler
First shown: 15th April 2006
Related articles: Sisters of Plenitude, Cassandra, Face of Boe
Guide: Following the destruction of Earth in The End of the World (Series 1 : Episode 2), humans moved onto an Earth-like planet which they called New Earth. In the year 5 billion and 23, the Doctor and Rose visit New Earth and the hospital in New New York where the Doctor has been summoned through his psychic paper. While travelling to Ward 26, the Doctor and Rose get separated in the cleansing lifts, which decontaminate people visiting. On Ward 26, the Doctor meets the humanoid felines called the Sisters of Plenitude, who act as nurses in the hospital. He also notices people dying of incurable diseases being seemingly cured by the Sisters. At the end of the Ward, the Doctor recognises the Face of Boe, from The End of the World, who reached out to “the Lonely God” to give him a message before he dies of old age. Meanwhile, down in the basement, Rose emerges from the lift, where is encounters Chip, a humanoid with defects, who escorts her to his boss, Lady Cassandra (also from The End of the World), who survived after her last encounter with the Doctor and had been monitoring both the Doctor and Rose since they arrived at the hospital.
Chip had been using the hospitals equipment to care for Cassandra, though Cassandra is suspicious of the Sisters methods and requires Rose’s help to investigate. Cassandra tricks Rose into standing in a pyshcograft machine that allows Cassandra’s mind to be implanted on Rose’s and leaving her old body/skin to die, leaving Cassandra to live and control Rose’s body, though she is upset that she feels like a chav, but as she can read Rose’s thoughts, she knows how to find the Doctor which she sets out to do. On Ward 26, the Doctor is suspicious of Rose’s actions, such as kissing him and suddenly knowing a lot about the computer system, but is more concerned with working out how the Sisters are able to cure the incurable. The Doctor and Rose investigate and discover that the Sisters are housing hundreds of artificially grown humans, forcibly infected with every known disease so that the Sisters can discover how to cure them without risking human life. The Doctor accuses the Sisters of committing the atrocity, but they insist that it is necessary to perform such actions to deal with the influx of patients and diseases brought from the humans landing on New Earth.
The Doctor believes that Rose’s current actions are the result of being a test subject, but is promptly knocked unconscious by perfume gas before waking up locking inside one of the pods that house the infected humans. Rose approaches Matron Casp and tries to blackmail money from the Sisters in order to stay quiet about the operations, but Matron Casp refuses and physically threatens Rose instead. Rose releases the Doctor and other infected humans as a distraction, but the infected ones release the others causing a panic as the infected humans try to infect those that aren’t infected. The Doctor, Rose and the Sisters try to flee the lower levels, with Cassandra able to change bodies for her mind to try and aid their escape, including jumping into the Doctor’s head and the head of one of the infected before settling back into Rose’s. While in the infected humans head, she feels their loneliness of not being able to touch or be touched. Eventually, the Doctor and Rose arrive back at Ward 26 and begin to gather all of the intravenous medicines and mixing them inside the tub of one of the cleansing lifts, which they then spray onto a group of the infected humans.
The infected humans are than cured, and encouraged by the Doctor to spread their cure among the other infected humans which they do, and the attack is over. The police arrive to arrest the remaining Sisters of Plenitude, while the Face of Boe tells the Doctor that his message can wait, as he has also been cured, until they meet for the third and final time before teleporting away. The Doctor then orders Cassandra to leave Rose’s body, which she does so into a willing Chip, but his cloned body starts to die, and Cassandra finally accepts her impending death. The Doctor takes Cassandra, in Chip’s body, back in time to when Cassandra had a body of her own, taking her back to the last time someone had called her beautiful. Chip approaches the Cassandra of the past and tells her that she is beautiful before collapsing into the younger Cassandra’s arms as she comforts him. As Cassandra finally dies, the Doctor and Rose leave in the TARDIS.