Series 2 (2006)
Episode title: The Idiot's LanternFeaturing: Tenth Doctor
Companions: Rose Tyler
First shown: 27th May 2006
Related articles: The Wire
Guide: The TARDIS lands in London, 1953, despite the Doctor wishing to land in America to take Rose to an Elvis Presley concert. However, no sooner have the duo got accustomed to being in London instead do they notice people being led into black cars by the police with their faces covered by sheets. Intrigued, the Doctor and Rose hop onto the Doctor’s scooter from the TARDIS and give chase, but the car loses them after driving through some black gates that slam shut, followed by a grocery cart pulled in front of the gates to make it appear to be a dead end. Confused, the Doctor and Rose return to the street they landed in and decide to investigate. Posing as Royal Inspectors, with the help of the Doctor’s psychic paper, the Doctor and Rose meet the Connolly family, comprising of Mr. and Mrs. Connelly, Tommy, their son and Tommy’s grandmother. Tommy shows the Doctor his grandmother, who is devoid of a face and just sits in her room and lacking any brain activity. Tommy tells the Doctor that the problems started when they got the new television set for the Coronation from Mr. Magpie’s shop.
The Doctor follows the police to where they take the people while Rose goes off to investigate Mr. Magpie’s shop, where she discovers the Wire, residing in the television set. The Wire was executed on its home planet but managed to live on in electrical form and fled to Earth, where it now intends to consume enough minds to recreate its own body, and plans to use the broadcast of the Queen’s coronation the following day to take many minds. However, before Rose can flee, the Wire takes her mind and face as well. While the Doctor is inspecting the other faceless bodies, Rose is brought in by the police, saying that she was left to wander the streets. The Doctor, now mad, rushes back to Tommy and enlists him to assist in saving Rose and the others. Going to Magpie’s shop, the Doctor encounters the Wire who tells him her plan for the day, before attempting to steal both the Doctor’s and Tommy’s face, but the Doctor is able to counter the attempt with his sonic screwdriver.
The Wire retreats from the television sets, into a portable television made by Magpie while the Doctor and Tommy recover from their near face removal. When the Doctor realises that the Wire has gone, he sets about making a new device with Tommy, using the equipment and pieces left in Magpie’s shop while Magpie takes the portable television set to the Alexandra Palace transmitter. Using some bits from the TARDIS as well, the Doctor and Tommy create a device that they intend to capture the Wire on and set off to stop Magpie and the Wire. At the Alexandra Palace transmitter, Magpie plugs the portable television into the transmitter, allowing the Wire to access every television around, drawing the minds and faces of all those who are watching the Queen’s coronation. Meanwhile, the Doctor sets up his device and tells Tommy to make sure it continues working no matter what, before heading up after Magpie, noting his fear of transmitters (a reference to his fourth incarnation, who died falling from a transmitter in Logopolis (Classic series)) as he does so. The Doctor reaches Magpie, who begs the Wire to stop the pain in his head saying that she promised to spare him it, so the Wire electrocutes Magpie, killing him to spare him the pain. The Doctor takes the portable television set and plugs his wire into it that he’d been carrying from the room where he left Tommy, but the fuse blows and the Wire goads the Doctor as he begins to get electrocuted himself.
Meanwhile, Tommy notices the blown fuse and quickly replaces it before plugging the device back in, where it begins to draw the Wire into it and out of the portable television set. With the Wire trapped in the Doctor’s device, its powers stop, letting those watching the coronation to continue doing so, and releasing the faces and minds of those already captured. The Doctor, who survived the electrocution due to rubber soles in his trainers, tells Tommy that he recorded the Wire on a Betamax, inventing the home video about 30 years earlier than it should have been. The Doctor removes the cassette tape before returning Tommy to his road where the coronation celebrations have become and Rose is waiting for the Doctor to return. The Doctor tells Rose that he’ll use his unrivalled knowledge of transtemporalextopation methods to neutralise the residual electronic pattern. Rose asks him to dumb it down for her, to which the Doctor replies that he’s going to just tape over it. Meanwhile, Tommy’s father is kicked out of his house for putting his family’s status above his family, though the Doctor tells Tommy that even his dad deserves a second chance, before giving him the keys to his scooter but telling him not to drive it until he’s old enough. The Doctor and Rose celebrate the coronation along with the rest of London before leaving again in the TARDIS.