Country of origin United Kingdom Original network BBC One | No. of episodes 5 (+2 supplemental) | |
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Starring David Tennant
David Morrissey
Michelle Ryan
Lindsay Duncan
John Simm
Bernard Cribbins Original release 25 December 2008 (2008-12-25) – 1 January 2010 (2010-01-01) | ||
The 2008–2010 specials of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who are five specials that linked the programme's fourth and fifth series. They began on 25 December 2008 with "The Next Doctor" and concluded on 1 January 2010 with Part Two of The End of Time. They saw the departure of David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.
Contents
Episodes
The End of Time was the first "serial" with an overall title and episode numbers since Survival in Season 26, the final serial broadcast during the series' original run.
Supplemental episodes
The animated serial Dreamland was produced for the BBC's Red Button service and "Music of the Spheres" was filmed for the 2008 Doctor Who Prom.
Main characters
These specials marked David Tennant's final run of episodes as the Tenth Doctor and Matt Smith's first appearance as the newly regenerated Eleventh Doctor. They also featured a string of one-time Companions beginning in "The Next Doctor" with David Morrissey as Jackson Lake, a man who thinks himself to be the Doctor and his "companion" Rosita Farisi played by Velile Tshabalala. "Planet of the Dead" featured Michelle Ryan as young thrill-seeking burglar Lady Christina de Souza. "The Waters of Mars" starred Lindsay Duncan as Adelaide Brooke, Captain of Bowie Base One on Mars. Finally, the two-part The End of Time had Bernard Cribbins as recurring character Wilfred Mott as a full-fledged Companion for the first time. Other companions appear briefly during the Tenth Doctor's "farewell tour": Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, Billie Piper as Rose Tyler, Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones, Noel Clarke as Mickey Smith, John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, and Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, and Verity Newman, whose grandmother, Joan Redfern, fell in love with the human John Smith in "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood". John Simm reprises his role as the Master in The End of Time.
Production
In his book The Writer's Tale, Russell T Davies reveals that the plan to have only specials for 2009 was to allow the new production team headed by new lead writer Steven Moffat to have enough time to prepare for the full fifth series in 2010. David Tennant took this opportunity to appear in a stage production of Hamlet. For practical reasons, these specials continued to use series 4 production codes.
On 28 October 2008 at the National Television Awards during his speech after winning Outstanding Drama Performance for his work on series 4, David Tennant announced that he would be standing down as the Doctor for series 5 and that the 09/10 specials would be his last. The specials not only marked an end to Tennant's reign as the Doctor, but also Russell T. Davies' as show runner, head writer and executive producer of the show, who announced his departure from the series on 20 May 2008 with his final episode airing in 2010.
"The Next Doctor" and "Music of the Spheres" were produced at the end of the production run of series 4, but were not included in the Complete Series 4 DVD set, instead with the Complete Specials set.
"The Next Doctor" was filmed in April 2008 at Gloucester Cathedral, St Woolos Cemetery in Newport and the streets of Gloucester, where shooting was hampered by up to 1,000 onlookers. The main setting of Torchwood, their Torchwood Hub was also redesigned and used as the workshop for the children. The two major filming locations of "Planet of the Dead" were the desert of Dubai was used for scenes on the "planet of the dead"; and the Queen's Gate Tunnel in Butetown, Cardiff was used for the majority of Earth-bound scenes. Filming for "The Waters of Mars" began on 23 February 2009. In late February, David Tennant, Duncan and other actors were seen filming in Victoria Place, Newport. The filming took place on a city street, which the production team covered with artificial snow. The glasshouse scenes were filmed in the National Botanic Garden of Wales, Carmarthenshire. The first location filming for The End of Time took place on Saturday, 21 March 2009 at a bookstore in Cardiff. Jessica Hynes was filmed signing a book titled A Journal of Impossible Things, by Verity Newman.
DVD and Blu-ray releases
"The Next Doctor" was released on DVD on 19 January 2009 in the United Kingdom, 5 March 2009 in Australia and 15 September 2009 in the United States. "Planet of the Dead" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 29 June 2009 in the United Kingdom, 2 July 2009 on DVD and 1 October 2009 on Blu-ray in Australia, and 28 July 2009 in the United States. "The Waters of Mars" and The End of Time were bundled together on DVD on 11 January 2010 in the United Kingdom. Both were released separately in Australia and the United States, "The Waters of Mars" being released on 2 February 2010 in the United States and 4 February in Australia and The End of Time being released on 2 February 2010 in the United States and 4 March in Australia. A complete collection of the specials on DVD and Blu-ray was released on 11 January 2010 in the United Kingdom, 2 February in the United States and 29 June on Blu-ray and 1 July on DVD in Australia.
Soundtrack
Selected pieces of score from these specials (from "The Next Doctor" to The End of Time), as composed by Murray Gold, were released on 4 October 2010 by Silva Screen Records.