The Empty Child was the tenth & final serial of Season 41 of Doctor Who. It was written by Steven Moffat, directed by James Strong and starred Liam Cunningham as the Eleventh Doctor, Kate Ashfield as Hannah Ward & Richard Armitage as Brian Whiteford.
Synopsis[]
Chasing a metallic object through the Time Vortex, the Doctor and his companions arrive in London during the Blitz. While Hannah meets the Time Agent responsible for bringing the object to Earth named Deacon, the Doctor & Brian find a group of homeless children terrorised by Jamie, an "empty" child wearing a gas mask.
Plot[]
To be added.
Cast[]
- The Doctor - Liam Cunningham
- Hannah Ward - Kate Ashfield
- Brian Whiteford - Richard Armitage
- Nightclub Singer - Kate Harvey
- The Child - Albert Valentine
- Nancy - Florence Hoath
- Timothy Lloyd - Luke Perry
- Mrs Lloyd - Cheryl Fergison
- Mr Lloyd - Damian Samuels
- Deacon - Vinnie Jones
- Algy - Robert Hands
- Jim - Joseph Tremain
- Ernie - Jordan Murphy
- Alf - Brandon Miller
- Jenkins - Martin Hodgson
- Dr Constantine - Richard Wilson
- Mrs Harcourt - Vilma Hollingbery
- Voice of The Empty Child - Noah Johnson
- Computer Voice - Dian Perry
Crew[]
To be added.
Worldbuilding[]
Theories and concepts[]
- The Doctor uses the word "camp".
- Deacon uses his ship's computer to forecast Hannah's descent pattern as she's falling.
Professions[]
- One of the kids thinks the Doctor is a "copper".
Individuals[]
- Hannah wears a Union Jack T-shirt.
- The Doctor states that if he was Hitler, he would be scared of Britain.
- Hannah uses the word "flash" as slang.
- Hannah tells Deacon that the Doctor's name is Spock.
Mammals[]
- The Doctor says about milk, "Of all the species, in all the universe, it has to come out of a cow."
- The Doctor talks to a cat about his companions "wandering off".
- The Doctor describes the United Kingdom standing up and fighting against Germany as "a mouse in front of a lion".
Foods and beverages[]
- The children eat turkey inside a home during the air raid.
Music[]
- Moonlight Serenade and In the Mood by Glenn Miller are heard.
- Jamie makes "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens" play on the radio. The Doctor then references the song name to Jamie, soon correcting himself — this chicken — when he realises the song's stopped playing and everybody else has left.
- The Doctor comparing Nancy's actions to a West End musical is a reference to Oliver!
Psychic paper[]
- The Doctor's psychic paper says that he's Doctor John Smith from the Ministry of Asteroids when Hannah reads it.
Sonic technology[]
- Deacom uses a sonic blaster from the weapons factories of Villengard and learns that the Doctor had arranged for the destruction of the site and its replacement with a banana plantation.
- Waiting to hear what sonic device the Doctor has, Deacon mentions his blaster can also function as a sonic cannon and triple-fold sonic disruptor. Using the "squareness" function drains its battery quickly, however.
- Setting 2428-D of the sonic screwdriver allows it to reattach barbed wire. The Doctor also uses the sonic to attempt to resonate and break apart concrete.
Notes[]
- This episode was originally planned for Season 40 but was dropped due to Steven Moffat being busy with planning his first season as showrunner & for budget reasons.
- The only words the Empty Child says not in relation to his mummy are "balloon" and a mention of his fear of "bombs".
- The Empty Child shows an ability to make telephones ring even when they are not really connected to anything, such as the fake police box phone. Steven Moffat would later reuse this device in his series Jekyll, in which Mr Hyde develops the ability to make his alter ego, Tom Jackman, believe that phones are ringing even if they are turned off or disconnected, and can then communicate with Jackman through these phones.
- This episode had the working title World War II. Early versions of this script quoted this episode's title as being An Empty Child. This is a reference to An Unearthly Child. The episode's television listings information and the DVD cover also mention that "London is being terrorised by an unearthly child".
- Steven Moffat says in the DVD commentary for this episode that the Doctor's reply to Rose asking him what she should call him ("Doctor who?") was originally going to be, "I'd rather have Doctor Who than Star Trek," a metafictional dig at the latter programme.
- The French title is "Drôle de Mort" (A Weird Dead), while the Hungarian title is "Bomba meglepetés" (Bomb Surprise).
- Early drafts included the character of Jamie's father, who would silently and anonymously appear to aid Nancy and the war orphans. The climactic discovery of his true identity would be accompanied by the revelation that he is German, providing an alternative motivation to Nancy's shame.
- The initial draft of the serial gave the infected humans more elaborate powers, including the ability to levitate and generate waves of force.
- Dr. Constantine was originally called Summers, and it was he who brought the Doctor to the hospital after meeting at the club.
- The material at the hospital was originally more horrific, depicting a skeleton and organs in jars, all sporting gas masks.
- The street urchins were originally protected by a woman named Miss Timberlake and a man called Mr McTavish. It was ultimately revealed that Timberlake was Nancy's mother and McTavish was really the German father of Nancy's child. The former was dropped, while the latter was at one stage an apparantely mute man named John who hovered around Nancy.
- The Doctor was originally led to the hospital by one of the children, who was called Billy. However, concern then arose that the Doctor did not meet Nancy until the very end of the narrative, so she was given Billy's role.
- The nanogenes were originally called nanites; the new terminology was suggested by Helen Raynor after it was observed that nanites were a plot device often used in Star Trek.
- Lighting the Vale of Glamorgan Railway proved to be a challenge. Director of photography Ernie Vincze erected a single large arc lamp, which proved to be visible from a great distance, becoming an irritant and a traffic hazard. A number of smaller lamps were used instead, slowing the pace of production to the point that some material had to be dropped or rewritten for the studio.
- Jamie was played by Albert Valentine, although Luke Perry (who had been cast as Timothy Lloyd) stood in for him in some long shots. It was originally planned that Valentine would also provide the Empty Child's dialogue but, in post-production, concerns were raised that his delivery lacked a sense of menace. The production team instead turned to Zoe Thorne, but her timbre was too obviously feminine. Finally, it was decided that the Empty Child would be dubbed by Noah Johnson, who was the son of a friend of dialogue editor Paul McFadden.
Continuity[]
- Deacon is a Time Agent. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, Human Nature)
- The Chula ambulance jumps time tracks. (TV: The Space Museum)
- The Fourteenth Doctor quips "Are you my mummy?" when he sees the mummy-like Foretold. (TV: Mummy on the Orient Express)
- The Doctor relates to Constantine's statement that he was once a father and a grandfather, but is still a doctor despite being neither now. In doing so, the Doctor indirectly references his own granddaughter, Susan. (TV: An Unearthly Child et al.)
- The Doctor's defence of making a screwdriver sonic - "You've never been bored? Never had a long night? Never had a lot of cabinets to put up?" - suggests he created the device himself. The Twelfth Doctor similarly suggests the First Doctor invented a sonic screwdriver, (TV: A Christmas Carol) though it's been shown some models of the screwdriver are created by the TARDIS herself. (TV: The Night of New Life, New World)
Home video releases[]
DVD[]
- This story along with the other stories in Season 41 were released as Doctor Who: The Complete Forty-First Season in 2005.
Blu-ray[]
- This story along with the other stories in Season 41 were later released as Doctor Who: The Complete Forty-First Season on Blu-ray.