Series 4, Episode 10 | 1 part | First broadcast: 14 June 2008 | Writer: Russell T Davies | Director: Alice Troughton
Cast
- David Tennant as the Doctor
- Lesley Sharp as Sky Silvestry
- Rakie Ayola as Dee Dee Blasco
- David Troughton as Professor Hobbes
Summary
Taking a routine shuttle tour across the deadly, sun-scorched surface of the planet Midnight, the Doctor finds himself trapped with a small group of increasingly paranoid passengers after an unseen entity begins possessing a fellow traveler and mimicking their speech. As the passengers’ fear and suspicion turn violently against the Doctor himself, he is left powerless for once, unable to talk his way out of a horror born purely from human panic.
Interesting Facts
- This claustrophobic, largely single-set episode notably features no companion, with Catherine Tate’s Donna absent for the entire runtime, spending the episode elsewhere.
- The unseen entity possessing Sky Silvestry is never explained or definitively identified, one of the more ambiguous monster concepts of the revived series.
- The story is widely regarded as one of the most unsettling and acclaimed episodes of the entire David Tennant era, largely due to its intense dialogue-driven tension.
- David Troughton, who plays Professor Hobbes, is the real-life son of Patrick Troughton, the actor who played the Second Doctor.
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