9.9: The Empty Child
In which both Captain Jack Harkness and Mr Steven Moffat make their debut, and suddenly everything gets funnier, scarier and filthier.
Broadcast: May 2005
Watched: July 2021
Despite being one of the best of the season, this in some ways feels like the first attempt to do a “normal” episode. It’s not part of RTD’s grand plan – I think the only element that was prescribed was Jack – and it’s not a huge part of the season arc. It’s just really, really good.
Moffat arrives sort of fully formed. He’s immediately funny (“all those misunderstandings, all that dancing”); also I think he writes Rose slightly differently, turning her into Standard Issue Moffat Wisecracking Girl: you could give Clara these lines and they’d still work.
But his stuff is immediately just packed with ideas – the monster (we wait a ridiculously long time to find out *why* it’s a monster, BTW, until about minute 40 it’s just a creepy kid), the idea of injuries as plague, the nanites, Jack the time agent, the Oliver Twist bit... like the earlier two parter the story feels *complicated*.
Plus we get the sort of image only Who can give us, of two people dancing on an invisible spaceship in front of Big Ben. (Jack has chosen the same parking place as the Nestenes, you notice.)
All that, and it’s got a bloody incredible one-scene performance from Richard Wilson. It’s a bit convenient (why is he happy to talk to the Doctor? Why does he succumb at exactly the right point so we can see it? It’s like he’s met a deadline and then immediately got the flu)... but Wilson is so perfect I don’t care.
Only two small criticisms... The “a mouse in front of a lion” speech has not aged well: as with a lot of speeches like that, it ignores the small matter of the largest empire the world had ever known, so feels a bit simplistic now. Secondly, the bit where Rose hangs from a barrage balloon is slightly contrived: the effects are not up to it yet, it feels cartoon-y. I do admire the ambition, though.
Other things:
The title is incredibly evocative, but what does it mean exactly? It’s also sort of empty. Although to be fair – everyone talks about how scary the masks are, not about the creepy way the child doesn’t actually respond to anything: he wouldn’t pass the Turing Test.
The Doctor expositing to a cat is lovely.
For the second episode running, the plot is advanced by a creepy phone call.
Nice use of Chekhov’s Gun with the nanogenes.
“What’s a copper gonna do with you lot? Arrest you for starving?” Yes, probably, tbh.
The cliffhanger is probably terrifying if you’re eight. My partner (who was a fair bit older than eight when it was first broadcast) refused to watch it with me because it’s too scary.
Moffat’s run on the show begins and (almost) ends with a creepy hospital.
The iPlayer version is 51 minutes – but I can’t work out why. Was the original? Have they added things? What? [UPDATE: the mundane explanation seems to be that, er, it isn’t: as James noted in the comments, it’s 41.47. My eyes are normally the one bit of me that works, so I’m resistant to the idea I misread it, but perhaps something malfunctioned? Anyway, weird.]
I remember having NIGHTMARES about this episode all week long when I first saw it when I was 12. But more importantly, I remember that GIRLS on the back of the school bus were talking about the creepy gas mask child. Girls watched this show too! This nerdy science fiction show was popular! I was cool. Thanks Moffat.
I've just check iPlayer and the episode length is 41:47, so maybe you misread it? When series 1-4 were originally upscaled to HD for the blu-rays the framerate was changed from 25fps to 24fps, making the episodes 4% longer - but even if that was the version on iPlayer, it doesn't account for 10 minutes.