Hubbry Logo
search
logo

The Next Doctor

logo
Community Hub0 Subscribers
Write something...
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
See all
The Next Doctor

"The Next Doctor" is a special episode of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who, broadcast on 25 December 2008 as the fourth Doctor Who Christmas special of the revived series. During its original airing, the episode had an audience of 13.1 million viewers and was the second-most-watched programme of Christmas Day 2008.

David Tennant stars as the Tenth Doctor with one-off companions Jackson Lake (David Morrissey) and Rosita Farisi (Velile Tshabalala). The episode is set in London during the Christmas period of 1851. In the episode, the Doctor teams up with a man who appears to be another incarnation of himself; in their quest to foil a plot by the Cybermen to create a giant Cyberman called a CyberKing under the control of workhouse matron Miss Hartigan (Dervla Kirwan), the two inadvertently discover that the "new" Doctor is actually Jackson Lake, a regular human who began suffering from amnesia and believing himself to be the Doctor after interacting with Cyberman technology.

The Tenth Doctor lands in London on Christmas Eve, 1851. Overhearing cries for help, he encounters a man calling himself "the Doctor" and his companion Rosita attempting and failing to capture a Cybershade. The Doctor believes the man, who is suffering from amnesia, may be a future incarnation of himself. The man, dubbed the Next Doctor, takes the Doctor to a nearby house of a recently deceased reverend, believing him to be tied to a series of disappearances around London. Inside, they discover a pair of Cyberman data-storage infostamps, which the Next Doctor recalls holding the night that he lost his memories.

The two Doctors regroup with Rosita at the Next Doctor's base. The Doctor comes to realize that the Next Doctor is really a human, Jackson Lake, the supposed first missing person. The Doctor suspects that Jackson had encountered the Cybermen and used the infostamps, containing knowledge of the Doctor, to ward them off. Jackson's mind then entered a fugue state from the trauma of the Cybermen killing his wife, and as the infostamp had infused his mind with knowledge of the Doctor, he came to believe he was the Doctor. The Doctor and Rosita set off to try to find the source of the Cybermen.

The Doctor and Rosita find numerous children, pulled from workhouses around the city by Miss Mercy Hartigan, are being put to work at an underground facility under Cybermen guard. The Cybermen betray Miss Hartigan, and convert her into the controller for the "CyberKing", a giant mechanical Cyberman powered by the energy generated by the children. She also gains control over the Cybermen. Jackson remembers encountering the Cybermen on moving into his new home. The Doctor discovers another entrance to the Cybermen's base under Jackson's house. Within the complex, as the CyberKing starts to rise to the city, the three rescue the children, including Jackson's son, who was abducted in the initial attack that triggered Jackson's fugue state. The CyberKing starts to lay waste to the city. When Miss Hartigan refuses the Doctor's offer to leave the planet, the Doctor uses the infostamps to sever her connection to the CyberKing, exposing her to the raw emotion of what she has done. The emotional feedback destroys both the Cybermen and Miss Hartigan. As the CyberKing starts to topple, the Doctor draws it into the Time Vortex with technology from Jackson's cellar, saving London.

According to Neil Gaiman, when discussing the 2013 episode "Nightmare in Silver", the Cybus Industries Cybermen "zapped off into time and space" by the Doctor at the end of this episode eventually encountered the Mondas Cybermen; their "cross-breeding and interchange of technology" resulted in the variety of Cybermen seen in that episode.

Pre-broadcast publicity, based on excerpts from Davies' book Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale, revealed that the Doctor would meet a man played by David Morrissey who also claims to be the Doctor. In further excerpts, Davies commented, "The best title for this episode would be The Two Doctors... but maybe not. The New Doctor, perhaps? Or The Next Doctor? I quite like The Next Doctor." The book also contained two pictures from a scene cut from the end of the previous episode, intended to segue into the special echoing the previous two series. This scene was included on the series boxset.

Following the success of the previous year's Christmas special, "Voyage of the Damned", which guest starred pop star Kylie Minogue as one-off companion Astrid Peth, Russell T Davies had initially felt tempted to copy this format with another high-profile guest star, but decided against it after jokingly offering up "Cheryl Cole on board the Hindenburg" as an example.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.