Doctor Who "The Empty Child" - 5/5/06 (US airing)

Spoiler-free OP for mouseovers.

E.

CREEPIEST. EPISODE. EVER.

Holy CRAP. I almost made ElzaHub go to bed with me two hours early because I was SO creeped out by the kid in the gas mask.

“Are you my mummy? Mummy? Mummy, I’m coming to find you!”

LOVED the girl who played Nancy, though. Excellent choice. The scene with all of the kids around the table with the doctor was great - I read over on another board that the lighting was apparently a continuity issue as Eccleston filmed his scenes later since the kids all had to go home because of the child labor laws, but the resulting lighting with the kids looking as if they were in sepia while the Doctor was in color was a nifty touch.

Captain Jack - I’m liking him. The scene with Rose floating across the sky was very well-done, and I liked the interaction between her and Captain Jack (although I’d rather have more of the Doctor).

Dr. Spock. :smiley:

Next week - Part Two - The Doctor Dances.

E.

The music is still horrible. Also I don’t like the letterbox format.

Mister Spock was a funny touch. As was Rose saying, “Don’t you get tired of having no name? Doctor? Doctor WHO?”

The conversation Doctor had with Nancy (was it Nancy?) was good too. Her facial expression was perfect. As tho she recognised he was speaking of the future in almost concrete terms.

The phone ringing on the Tardis weirded me out!

Nancy reminded me of the Christina Ricci Wednesday Addams.

I liked Captain Jack but I wasn’t completely sure that it was a good idea to have an even cooler, more charming time traveller than the Doctor pop up.

I did like his rationale for parking near Big Ben – first rule of camoflauged vehicles – park where you’ll remember it.

Why did the face of Big Ben light up during an air raid?

Nice job on the air raid special effects.

I know Rose is hot but is she going to be picking up boyfriends everywhere she goes? I can see the Doctor getting quite annoyed with this.

So sometime in the future there’s going to be a human “Time Agency”? I wonder if the Doctor is going to bump heads with them?

Didn’t you watch *Star Trek: Enterprise *? We’re gonna be in a temporal cold war!

Side trivia point question: Was there ever any other cross ref of Trek to Who? Yeah, I know Rose was saying it because of Trek being a TV show in her time and not as tho Kirk and The Doctor would meet up irl, but it was still a very funny/cool/hoopy/whatever moment. Any others? What about refs to other fictional characters of other franchises?

Screw the kid in the gas mask… the scene with Dr. Constantine turning into one of those… things… with the gas mask coming out of his mouth… AAAUUUGGHHH.

Good episode, wonderfully spooky. How old are we to believe Nancy is? I couldn’t decide.

Oh, and Finagle, Big Ben lit up because Captain Jack used alien tech to make it so (Rose stupidly asked if he had the time, whilst standing two feet from the face of BB).

Florence Hoath

It’s generally a bad idea to try to judge the age of a character by the age of the actor - especially those characters in their early 20s and younger. But 22 is close enough. (I can’t remember just how old she turned out to be, but it’s in that general area.)

Yeah, I looked at BBC and a couple of fan sites for the character age to no avail. My best guess as to how old “Nancy” was supposed to be would be just underage, say 16 to 17. Which is within the general range that some young faced actors in their 20s are cast to play.

I haven’t done this is years, but I had to sleep with the lights on and got nearly OCD about making sure my doors and windows were locked.

Creepy kids are the creepiest things that ever creeped! And creepy kids in gas masks? Calling “mummy… mummy”? Add to it creepy cymbol playing monkeys and typewriters calling “mummy… mummy?” And then Dr. Constantine grows a gas mask?

I was seriously unnerved.

Captain Jack didn’t wow me. I didn’t hate him, but I was expecting him to be the coolest thing ever and was a bit let down. I’ll wait till next week though.

Still, how dare they end on a note like that? Surrounded by creepy people in creepy gas masks calling “mummy…” in creepy voices? That’s just not right! It’s going to give me a week of nightmares.

I thought she was being flirty, not stupid.

I thought she was actually a bit drunk, and forgot about the conversation she had not a few minutes before. So “stupidly” may be a bit strong, but I don’t think I can chalk it up entirely to flirty.

I was originally thinking Nancy was 17-ish (which would explain why she was evacuated initially), but then started questioning myself (not sure exactly why- perhaps when the light hit her just right and she looked more her age). Thanks for the input.

pure-guess spoiler(havn’t seen the continuation so I don’t really know)

I got a sence of Foreshadowing that Nancy will turn out to actually be the mother of the kid, not just the sister, and since I peg him to be around 5, I figure she’s gotta be at least 20. But I figure she is being deliberatly portrayed to seem younger to throw us off

I took the time comment as purely unconscious flirtation. It’s Rose, after all.

I’ve only seen a few episodes, but this was the best one I’ve seen. And yeah, super creepy cymbal monkey! (I should make that my new username.)

Great Episode. It had my daughter (8 years old) seriously scared. She was really getting into it. She and I were both very disappointed by it being a two-parter.
This is really a well done series. I only enjoyed the old Tom Baker Doctor. I like this one just about as much. I love the Spock references. Even went for the Cheap one of **Dr … Spock ** as Elza B pointed out. :smiley:
Creepy is a good summary. It took me a minute to remember the American would seem a little more alien to the original UK audience.
When I saw the “creepy cymbal playing monkeys” I instantly thought of Steven King and Ernie Kovaks. (Yes, I’m weird) Is there any toy creepier than those cymbal playing monkeys? Well maybe stuffed clowns, but nothing else I can think of.
The phone was great, but I thought it was Rose calling him at first.
Captain Jack Harkness reminded me of “Gary Seven”, I wonder if this is a spin off attempt?
If any Brits check this thread, maybe they could lets us Yanks know.
Sorry for the Stream of consciousness bit there, Great episode.

Jim

But if they let us know, we’ll know that he survives any danger he gets into!

That said, I do know that a spin-off is in the works, Torchwood. (It’s an anagram of Doctor Who.) I thought it was about UNIT (the group Pertwee’s Doctor ran around with, also seen in Aliens in London/World War III) and set in the current year, not a futuristic “Time Agency.” Maybe I’m wrong, though, who knows. (Ok, maybe you know, but if so, box the spoilers, please!)

I agree the episode was very creepy, but I’m not sure about Capt. Jack. He rubbed me the wrong way, somehow. He just seemed too much like every other charming, rougish tv hero.

Re that “Time Agency”: didn’t the Time Lords do their best to keep other species from travelling through time? (The Daleks being their big failure, of course.) Maybe the Agency is the result of the Time Lords being wiped out by the Time War. I wonder why the first human time travellers didn’t get eaten by those time monsters we saw last week! Wouldn’t your first experiment be to go back a couple years and give yourself stock tips?

Way Cool Torchwood was the clue I needed.

Torchwood according to Wiki does have Capt. Jack as the primary character.
John Barrowman told an interviewer that he expected to begin filming for Torchwood in April.

Jim