9.4: Aliens of London

In which the old joke that Doctor Who kidnaps children turns from subtext to text.

Broadcast: April 2005

Watched: July 2021

“That’s just what I need, don’t you dare make this place domestic.” This episode’s mission statement: avoiding the obvious path of keeping what the TARDIS does from Jackie.

The “not 12 hours, it’s 12 months” conceit is brilliant – a great joke, which puts some distance between Doctor Who’s London and ours, plus it’s a really dark conceit dressed up as a silly gag (which is another RTD mission statement). Jackie is clearly *broken* when we see her again; then we find out Mickey is a pariah because Jackie’s been telling everyone he’s a murderer and possibly a sex criminal, too.

The fake alien invasion stuff is great. The sequence with the army about to shoot the Doctor, then him leading them in the chase after the pig (“What did you do that for? It was scared!” etc). Ditto the Doctor expositing at the great and the good, then realising it’s a trap, leading us to a triple cliffhanger.

That, plus the first use of a big RTD trick – using media coverage as a shortcut to tell the story (he’s seen The War Marchines) – means that this is actually, structurally, quite a sophisticated story.

So it’s a shame that the only thing people ever remember is the farting. And the fact the aliens are all fat people. Also, “That makes you acting Prime Minister” – oh RTD, never skimps on the research.

Good things:

• “Aliens. I’m the only person on planet Earth who knows they exist.” [spaceship zooms over head] “Oh, this is not fair.”

• Trinity Wells! Andrew Marr! The first celeb playing themselves in Who since... the saxophone player in Silver Nemesis? The Blue Peter “make your own spaceship” sequence is brilliant.

• Mickey keeps his trainers outside because they smell so bad.

• “Have you been seeing anyone else?” “No. Mainly cos they think I murdered you.”

Bad things:

• Terrible episode title, let’s be honest. Just dull and meaningless.

• Harriet Jones and her obsession with cottage bloody hospitals is actually quite irritating. Tosh does absolutely nothing to suggest why they’re going to put her in a spin off, which leads me to suspect that, like Eve Myles, she was a bit of a laugh on set.

Other things:

• Oh look, it’s the hospital from The Empty Child, which we haven’t seen yet.

• More “2005 was actually quite a while ago now” stuff – London’s skyline (good view of that from the Powell Estate) is very low rise.