The bow of the Titanic slices through the skin of the TARDIS, much to the Doctor’s alarm, though he is able to pull the timeship out of the collision so it can repair itself. Landing within the Titanic, the Doctor is stunned to find alien life forms and helpful robotic angels mingling with the passengers…until he looks out a window and discovers that he’s aboard a spacefaring cruise ship bearing the same name. He befriends a cocktail waitress named Astrid, who admits that she only signed up for the opportunity to travel through space, but before the Doctor has finished sizing her up as a new companion aboard the TARDIS, things start to go disastrously wrong. The Titanic’s captain, in observation of Christmas being celebrated below on Earth, dismisses his bridge crew, disables the shields, and steers his ship into the path of oncoming meteors. Several direct hits ensue, causing many deaths and leaving the Titanic reeling out of its orbit. But instead of just burning up when it comes through the Earth’s atmosphere, the ship’s powerful engines will overload, destroying all life on the planet. The angelic robot servants on the ship begin to slaughter the few survivors aboard. The Doctor doesn’t have much time to save the day, barely managing to keep Astrid and several passengers alive. But who has set the Titanic on a deliberate course for disaster in the first place?
written by Russell T. Davies
directed by James Strong
music by Murray Gold
Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Kylie Minogue (Asterid Peth), Geoffrey Palmer (Captain Hardaker), Russell Tovey (Midshipman Frame), George Costigan (Max Capricorn), Gray O’Brien (Rickston Slade), Andrew Havill (Chief Steward), Bruce Lawrence (Engineer), Debbie Chazen (Foon Van Hoff), Clive Rowe (Marvin Van Hoff), Clive Swift (Mr. Copper), Jimmy Vee (Bannakaffalatta), Bernard Cribbins (Wilfred Mott), Nicholas Witchell (himself), Paul Kasey (The Host), Stefan Davis (Kitchen Hand), Jason Mohammad (Newsreader), Colin McFarlane (Alien voice), Ewan Bailey (Alien voice), Jessica Martin (voice of the Queen)
Notes: Guest star Bernard Cribbins may well be the new series guest star with the longest association to the golden days of Doctor Who - he appeared as hapless police constable Tom Campbell in the 1966 film adaptation Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., starring alongside Peter Cushing as Doctor Who; he would reprise this role in Partners In Crime. At least on the surface, Voyage Of The Damned would appear to share at least its setting with the computer game Starship Titanic, created by the late Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy creator Douglas Adams and novelized by former Monty Python writer/performer Terry Jones. The Heavenly Hosts bear an uncanny resemblance to the equally helpful (and, ultimately, equally deadly) Vocs and Super Vocs from the Tom Baker story Robots Of Death. Voyage also sees the introduction of another variation on Murray Gold’s arrangement of the Doctor Who theme tune, this time featuring electric guitars mixed in with the version, introduced in 2006, which combines samples of the original 1963 Delia Derbyshire arrangement with an orchestral overdub. At 71 minutes, Voyage is the longest single episode of Doctor Who yet, running longer than any of the new series’ previous Christmas specials and longer than the 1996 TV movie. A dedication appeared at the end of the episode to Verity Lambert, the first producer of Doctor Who, who died on November 22, 2007 - one day before the 43rd anniversary of the series she was so instrumental in launching.
LogBook entry & review by Earl Green (click here for review and more details…)
A drone smashes into an uninhabited part of Atlantis, and when Rodney runs a diagnostic on it, his laptop is shut down by Replicator nanites. An accident during a sparring session with Ronon leaves Sheppard with a head wound, but by the time he reports to Dr. Keller, it’s healed - and the doctor seems to have no answer as to why. Ronon, Sheppard, Teyla and Rodney meet, admitting that they each have noticed something “off” about their surroundings. As they investigate their suspicions, Keller, Major Lorne and apparently everyone else in the city turns against them - everyone except the miraculously revived Elizabeth Weir. But even Weir seems to be as in the dark as they are. Eventually, Keller explains that the four suspicious crew members, plus Weir, are organic facsimiles of the original human beings, grown by the Replicators to try to learn how human beings descend. Furthermore, these aren’t Oberoth’s Replicators, but a splinter group; Oberoth’s Replicators are busy wiping out every human-inhabited world in the Pegasus Galaxy in an effort to starve the Wraith of potential food sources. When Oberoth’s Replicators do find them, though, Weir may have to sacrifice her life again - the original Weir having been killed months ago - so her comrades can escape.