Series 1 (2005)
Episode title: The Empty ChildFeaturing: Ninth Doctor
Companions: Rose Tyler, Captain Jack Harkness
First shown: 21st May 2005
Guide: The episode begins with the Doctor and Rose chasing a metal cylinder marked as “dangerous” through the time vortex, but the cylinder skips through it, landing in London during World War Two. The Doctor lands the TARDIS within a month of the cylinder landing. He goes to ask a local party if they’ve seen anything drop from the sky and think he’s having a laugh, as the Doctor didn’t realise they landed during World War Two in the middle of the German bombing raids on Britain. Outside, Rose sees a young boy on top of a roof, and goes up to try and help him while the Doctor returns to the TARDIS and is intrigued when its phone starts to ring. A woman, Nancy, warns him not to answer the phone but he does so anyway and hears a voice on the other end asking for his “mummy” before the line goes dead. The Doctor follows Nancy to an empty house as the occupants have gone down to their bomb shelters as the air-raid siren went off. Nancy invites the homeless children round where they eat the meal left on the table by the occupants. As they dine, a child with a gas mask appears at the door. Nancy warns the Doctor not to let it in or touch it, otherwise he will become like the child, “empty”.
With the air-raid over, the children and Nancy flee the house as the child starts making the electrical gadgets go off. The Doctor tracks Nancy who is homeless like the children, who reveals that a bomb-like object dropped near Limehouse station, and she believes that the boy is linked to it. Nancy also reveals that she lost her younger brother, Jamie, in a recent air-raid, which is why she tries to help the other homeless kids. Meanwhile, Rose attempts to climb a barrage balloon when trying to help the boy she saw after climbing a rope. She ends up hanging dangerously from the rope, but is rescued by Captain Jack Harkness, a freelance time agent with his own Chula spaceship and posing as a member of the RAF. Jack recognises that Rose is also a time traveller like himself, and after healing her rope burns with the help of the ships nanogenes, they start to negotiate on the price of an item he has to sell. Rose bluffs her way through it, asking to be taken to her partner, the Doctor. En route, Jack explains that the offer is on a limited time scale, as the object is a Chula warship that will be destroyed by a German bombing raid in a few hours.
Meanwhile, the Doctor goes to investigate the crash site and meets Dr. Constantine, a doctor of the local hospital, where he shows the Doctor a number of live patients, each of them unresponsive to anything except loud banging sounds, with gas masks seeming fused onto their faces and each with an identical scar on their hand. Constantine also explains that the first patient with those injuries was Nancy’s brother, Jamie. As he speaks however, he is also transformed into a gas mask wearing being. Jack and Rose arrive in time to save the Doctor from Constantine, escaping deeper into the hospital. Jack continuously attempts to sell his item to the Doctor but the Doctor calls his bluff and Jack admits it’s not a warship but a Chula medical ship but denies it has anything to do with the current outbreak issue. The trio become trapped in a room, being advanced on by the patients in gas masks and Nancy, having returned to a house for food, is trapped by the boy with the gas mask. The episode ends on this cliff-hanger.
This episode was the first of a two parter. You can read the episode guide for the concluding episode by clicking here.