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fixing typos
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Rose, in the fine old tradition of the Doctor's companions, has wandered off and got herself into trouble. In this case by grabbing a hold of a barrage balloon and accidentally taking to the skies above London ''while it's being bombed'', wearing a T-shirt with ''a giant British flag'' on it. She's rescued in the nick of time by a suave spaceship pilot with an American accent, an RAF uniform and a penchant for flirting with his fellow soldiers, who introduces himself as [[Series/{{Torchwood}} Captain Jack Harkness]]. Captain Jack deduces that she's also a time traveller and, assuming that she's a [[TimePolice Time Agent]], tells her of a recently crashed alien ship, whose location he'll reveal for a few quid. Oh, and he (quite successfully) tries to seduce her -- by taking her for a slow dance on the roof of his invisible ship, which is anchored to the top of Big Ben.
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Rose, in the fine old tradition of the Doctor's companions, has wandered off and got herself into trouble. In this case by grabbing a hold of a barrage balloon and accidentally taking taken to the skies above London ''while it's being bombed'', wearing a T-shirt with ''a giant British flag'' on it. She's rescued in the nick of time by a suave spaceship pilot with an American accent, an RAF uniform and a penchant for flirting with his fellow soldiers, who introduces himself as [[Series/{{Torchwood}} Captain Jack Harkness]]. Captain Jack deduces that she's also a time traveller and, assuming that she's a [[TimePolice Time Agent]], tells her of a recently crashed alien ship, whose location he'll reveal for a few quid. Oh, and he (quite successfully) tries to seduce her -- by taking her for a slow dance on the roof of his invisible ship, which is anchored to the top of Big Ben.
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* OhCrap: Rose's reaction to being several feet in midair, dangling from a barrage balloon with a Union flag plastered across her chest and Luftwaffe bombers incoming.
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* WearingAFlagOnYourHead: Rose, wearing a Union Jack T-shirt. She later notes (while hanging from a balloon) it's not the best idea during the Blitz.
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* WearingAFlagOnYourHead: Rose, wearing a Union Jack T-shirt. She later notes (while hanging from a balloon) barrage balloon in front of a wave of incoming Luftwaffe bombers) it's not the best idea during the Blitz.
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-->DOCTOR: Excuse me. Excuse me. Could I have everybody's attention just for a mo? Be very quick. Hello! Might seem like a stupid question, but has anything fallen from the sky recently? [Silence, then laughs] Sorry, have I said something funny? It's just, there's this thing that I need to find. Would've fallen from the sky a couple of days ago. [An air raid siren sounds.]
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* AmbiguousSyntax: The doctor doesn't yet know what year he's in - let alone The Blitz - and the audience assumes he's cracking a joke, because bombs are falling every day.
-->DOCTOR: Excuse me. Excuse me. Could I have everybody's attention just for a mo? Be very quick. Hello! Might seem like a stupid question, but has anything fallen from the sky recently? [Silence, then laughs] Sorry, have I said something funny? It's just, there's this thing that I need to find. Would've fallen from the sky a couple of days ago. [An air raid siren sounds.]
-->DOCTOR: Excuse me. Excuse me. Could I have everybody's attention just for a mo? Be very quick. Hello! Might seem like a stupid question, but has anything fallen from the sky recently? [Silence, then laughs] Sorry, have I said something funny? It's just, there's this thing that I need to find. Would've fallen from the sky a couple of days ago. [An air raid siren sounds.]
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* AntiAir: The purpose of the Barrage Balloons are never explained, but they were meant to snag low flying airplanes with their cables.
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* AntiAir: The purpose of the Barrage Balloons are is never explained, but they were meant to snag low flying airplanes with their cables.
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Dr. Constantine is there, all right, along with a ''lot'' of apparently dead people wearing gas masks and bearing cuts on their hands, and they all got that way by touching Jamie or touching someone who'd touched him. And... ''they're still alive''. Also, the gas masks are made of flesh and bone. As Dr. Constantine finishes mutating into a gas-mask-person, they all rise up from their beds and close in on our heroes....
to:
Dr. Constantine is there, all right, along with a ''lot'' of apparently dead people wearing gas masks and bearing cuts on their hands, and they all got that way by touching Jamie or touching someone who'd touched him. And... ''they're still alive''. Also, the gas masks are made of flesh and bone. As Dr. Constantine finishes mutating into a gas-mask-person, they Rose and Jack arrive, in time for the patients to all rise up from their beds and close in on our heroes....
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Repair Dont Respond, and it notes that this was just her opinion.
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** [[FridgeLogic Actually, it may have been.]] The German bombers were focused on dropping bombs on London, and the fighters were focused on protecting them, while both were being shot at from the ground and nontrivial numbers shot down. Neither would have had much time or energy to spare with one person dangling from a balloon. It is also (as the USAF found when they tried to shoot the mechanics of the Japanese balloon bombs a few years later) very hard to hit something the size of a person from a rapidly moving plane. However, this is not the case for the antiaircraft guns on the ground, and some or most of the crews would have been operating on the logic that anything not clearly British - such as a person hanging from a barrage balloon - must be German and should therefore be shot at. The flag would therefore have substantially reduced the chance of friendly fire.
* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII: The setting of the episode.
* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII: The setting of the episode.
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* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII: The setting of the episode.
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* TheVirus: That which the child spreads and from his victims onward. Though it may take time to manifest, the result is all the same. A gas mask physically forms over the victim's face with the nozzle shoving its way out of the mouth, a lung collapses, heart stops. Gain a scar on the back of the right hand. And then they just lay there, apparently dead. Only they aren't- their mind are is vacant, and eventually one and only one thought will consume them, and drive them to wander around in a hollow, lucid state. To go after every human they run into- relentlessly asking for their Mummy.
to:
* TheVirus: That which the child spreads and from his victims onward. Though it may take time to manifest, the result is all the same. A same: a gas mask physically forms over the victim's face with the nozzle shoving its way out of the mouth, mouth; a lung collapses, collapses; the heart stops. Gain stops, and they gain a scar on the back of the right hand. And then they just lay lie there, apparently dead. Only they aren't- their mind minds are is vacant, and eventually one and only one thought will consume them, and drive them to wander around in a hollow, lucid state. To state: to go after every human they run into- relentlessly asking for their Mummy.
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Sixth Doctor Creator/ColinBaker has said that in his opinion, this episode(and its second part, ''The Doctor Dances'') is the best ''Who'' story ever filmed.
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Sixth Doctor Creator/ColinBaker has said that in his opinion, this episode(and episode (and its second part, ''The Doctor Dances'') is the best ''Who'' story ever filmed.filmed. This becomes even more notable when you realize that elements of this story (notably the creepy child in pursuit of his lost parent) share similarities with the Big Finish audio novel, [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho014TheHolyTerror "The Holy Terror"]]--a story that writer Steven Moffat called his favorite Sixth Doctor story, ever.
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Changed line(s) 11 (click to see context) from:
Fifth Doctor Creator/ColinBaker has said that in his opinion, this episode(and its second part, ''The Doctor Dances'') is the best ''Who'' story ever filmed.
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Changed line(s) 11 (click to see context) from:
Creator/ColinBaker's favourite episode of all time.
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* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: Downplayed. After the fiasco of "Aliens of London" including a spoiler-filled "Next Time" trailer just ''two seconds'' after the cliffhanger, this story began the show's standard practice of having the "Next Time" trailers moved back until after the credits on the first half of a two-parter. The trailer itself is still as spoileriffic as anything, but this time you have no excuse for watching it.
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Changed line(s) 62 (click to see context) from:
* RealityEnsues: When speaking of her younger brother, Nancy says he was alone out in an air raid. When the Doctor asks what happened, she implies he died by a bomb falling on him.
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* RealityEnsues: When speaking of her younger brother, Nancy says he was alone out in an air raid. When the Doctor asks what happened, she implies he died by a bomb falling on him.her response is simple.
-->'''Nancy:''' [[AskAStupidQuestion In an air raid? What'cha think happened?]]
-->'''Nancy:''' [[AskAStupidQuestion In an air raid? What'cha think happened?]]
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* ViralTransformation: Anyone who comes into contact with the Empty Child turns into one of the same, This is the same for those come into physical contact with the victim, and so on.
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no trope potholes in page quotes.
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'''The Doctor:''' Yeah. [[ContinuityNod I know the feeling.]]
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'''The Doctor:''' Yeah. [[ContinuityNod I know the feeling.]]
feeling.
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Changed line(s) 36 (click to see context) from:
** Time Agents from the 51st century were first mentioned in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang "The Talons of Weng-Chiang"]].
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** Time Agents from the 51st century were first mentioned by 51st century war criminal Magnus Greel in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang "The Talons of Weng-Chiang"]]. Weng-Chiang"]].
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Changed line(s) 77 (click to see context) from:
* TheVirus: That which the child spreads and from his victims onward. Though it may take time to manifest, the result is all the same. A gas mask physically forms over the victim's face with the nozzle shoving its way out of the mouth, a lung collapses, heart stops. Gain a scar on the back of the right hand. And then they just lay there, apparently dead. Only they aren't- their minds are now vacant, and eventually one and only one thought will consume them, and drive them to wander around in a hollow, lucid state. To go after every human they run into- relentlessly asking for Mummy.
to:
* TheVirus: That which the child spreads and from his victims onward. Though it may take time to manifest, the result is all the same. A gas mask physically forms over the victim's face with the nozzle shoving its way out of the mouth, a lung collapses, heart stops. Gain a scar on the back of the right hand. And then they just lay there, apparently dead. Only they aren't- their minds mind are now is vacant, and eventually one and only one thought will consume them, and drive them to wander around in a hollow, lucid state. To go after every human they run into- relentlessly asking for their Mummy.
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Changed line(s) 77 (click to see context) from:
* TheVirus: That which the child spreads and from his victims onward. Though it may take time to manifest, the result is all the same. A gas mask physically forms over the victim's face with the nozzle shoving its way out of the mouth, a lung collapses, heart stops. Gain a scar on the back of the right hand. And then they just lay there, apparently dead. Only they aren't- their minds are now hollow, and eventually one and only one thought will consume them, and drive them to wander around after every human they run into- relentlessly asking for their mummy.
to:
* TheVirus: That which the child spreads and from his victims onward. Though it may take time to manifest, the result is all the same. A gas mask physically forms over the victim's face with the nozzle shoving its way out of the mouth, a lung collapses, heart stops. Gain a scar on the back of the right hand. And then they just lay there, apparently dead. Only they aren't- their minds are now hollow, vacant, and eventually one and only one thought will consume them, and drive them to wander around in a hollow, lucid state. To go after every human they run into- relentlessly asking for their mummy.Mummy.
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Changed line(s) 77 (click to see context) from:
* TheVirus: That which the child spreads and from his victims onward. Though it may take time to manifest, the result is all the same. A gas mask physically forms over the victim's face with the nozzle shoving its way out of the mouth, a lung collapses, heart stops. Gain a scar on the back of the right hand. And then they just lay there, apparently dead. Until they decide to move, at which point they will wander around with no thoughts driving them, save one motive- relentlessly asking for their mummy.
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* TheVirus: That which the child spreads and from his victims onward. Though it may take time to manifest, the result is all the same. A gas mask physically forms over the victim's face with the nozzle shoving its way out of the mouth, a lung collapses, heart stops. Gain a scar on the back of the right hand. And then they just lay there, apparently dead. Until Only they decide to move, at which point they aren't- their minds are now hollow, and eventually one and only one thought will consume them, and drive them to wander around with no thoughts driving them, save one motive- after every human they run into- relentlessly asking for their mummy.
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Changed line(s) 77 (click to see context) from:
* TheVirus: That which the child spreads and from his victims onward. Though it may take time to manifest, the result is all the same. A gas mask physically forms over the victim's face with the nozzle shoving its way out of the mouth, a lung collapses, heart stops. Gain a scar on the back of the right hand. And then they just lay there, apparently dead.
to:
* TheVirus: That which the child spreads and from his victims onward. Though it may take time to manifest, the result is all the same. A gas mask physically forms over the victim's face with the nozzle shoving its way out of the mouth, a lung collapses, heart stops. Gain a scar on the back of the right hand. And then they just lay there, apparently dead. Until they decide to move, at which point they will wander around with no thoughts driving them, save one motive- relentlessly asking for their mummy.
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* DeadpanSnarker: Dr. Constantine:
-->'''The Doctor:''' You're very sick.\\
'''Dr. Constantine:''' Dying, I should think, I just haven't been able to find the time.
-->'''The Doctor:''' You're very sick.\\
'''Dr. Constantine:''' Dying, I should think, I just haven't been able to find the time.
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* HumansAreSpecial: The Doctor notes that, at the least, Britons were special because they refused to fall to the German War Machine.
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* HumansAreSpecial: The Doctor notes that, at the least, Britons were special because they refused to fall to the German War Machine. He even admits that they "frighten the hell out of" him, which is saying a lot coming from someone who's faced down Daleks, Slitheen, Reapers, and a countless number of other horrifying threats.
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** [[FridgeLogic Actually, it may have been.]] The German bombers were focused on dropping bombs on London, and the fighters were focused on protecting them, while both were being shot at from the ground and nontrivial numbers shot down. Neither would have had much time or energy to spare with one person dangling from a balloon. It is also (as the USAF found when they tried to shoot the mechanics of the Japanese balloon bombs a few years later) very hard to hit something the size of a person from a rapidly moving plane. However, this is not the case for the antiaircraft guns on the ground, and some or most of the crews would have been operating on the logic that anything not clearly British - such as a person hanging from a barrage balloon - must be German and should therefore be shot at. The flag would therefore have substantially reduced the chance of friendly fire.
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* Foil: Captain Jack to the Doctor, in a NobleMaleRoguishMale pairing ([[CaptainObvious Jack is the Roguish one.]])
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* Foil: {{Foil}}: Captain Jack to the Doctor, in a NobleMaleRoguishMale pairing ([[CaptainObvious Jack is the Roguish one.]])
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* Foil: Captain Jack to the Doctor, in a NobleMaleRoguishMale pairing ([[CaptainObvious Jack is the Roguish one.]])
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'''WARNING! THERE MAY BE UNMARKED SPOILERS!'''
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[[caption-width-right:350:"Are you my mummy?"]]
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'''WARNING! THERE MAY BE UNMARKED SPOILERS!'''
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* AntiAir: The purpose of the Barrage Balloons are never explained, but they were meant to snag low flying airplanes with their cables.
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* EagleSquadron: Captain Jack claims to be a member of 133 Squadron, Royal Air Force, which in RealLife happened to be one of the TropeNamers.
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* NonMaliciousMonster: The child honestly just wants to find his mother, TheVirus is completely tangential.
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Moving to proper recap title.
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[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gas_mask_kid_8183.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"Are you my mummy?"]]
->'''Doctor Constantine:''' Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I'm neither, but I'm still a doctor.\\
'''The Doctor:''' Yeah. [[ContinuityNod I know the feeling.]]
This two-part episode is the first story Creator/StevenMoffat wrote for the revived ''Doctor Who''. In what would become a continuing theme for Steven Moffat, it's very scary, contains tons of [[UnresolvedSexualTension UST]], and instantly won a Hugo award.
It introduces Captain Jack Harkness, who becomes a tremendously important character throughout the next few seasons and gets his own spinoff, ''Series/{{Torchwood}}''.
Creator/ColinBaker's favourite episode of all time.
----
The Doctor and Rose follow an alien spacecraft's emergency signal through time and space, to [[TheHomeFront London during the Blitz]]. Since they can't very well leave alien stuff lying around in the past, they decide to retrieve it.
Things quickly get weird, though: the phone on the outside of the TARDIS rings, despite not being a real phone and not being hooked up to anything; a mysterious young woman appears and warns the Doctor not to answer it; when he does, it's a plaintive child's voice asking "Are you my mummy?"
Rose, in the fine old tradition of the Doctor's companions, has wandered off and got herself into trouble. In this case by grabbing a hold of a barrage balloon and accidentally taking to the skies above London ''while it's being bombed'', wearing a T-shirt with ''a giant British flag'' on it. She's rescued in the nick of time by a suave spaceship pilot with an American accent, an RAF uniform and a penchant for flirting with his fellow soldiers, who introduces himself as [[Series/{{Torchwood}} Captain Jack Harkness]]. Captain Jack deduces that she's also a time traveller and, assuming that she's a [[TimePolice Time Agent]], tells her of a recently crashed alien ship, whose location he'll reveal for a few quid. Oh, and he (quite successfully) tries to seduce her -- by taking her for a slow dance on the roof of his invisible ship, which is anchored to the top of Big Ben.
Elsewhere in London. Nancy, the young woman who warned the Doctor not to answer the phone, sneaks into a house whose inhabitants are in their bomb shelter. They've left the house mid-meal, so Nancy gives a signal and adorable little [[StreetUrchin waifs]] come rushing in. They're mostly homeless kids and/or escapees from the [[BlitzEvacuees Blitz Evacuation]]. Oh, and one extra person -- adorable, all right, but unusually tall and deep-voiced, for a kid... it's the Doctor! He fishes for information but doesn't get very far. Then Nancy and the kids hear the approach of a certain kid in a certain gas mask, repeating a certain catch phrase, and flee in terror. Nancy identifies the boy as her brother, Jamie, and claims that he's "empty". The Doctor is left behind to see the kid up close -- including a cut on the kid's hand -- and is asked over and over, "Are you my mummy?"
Nancy, once tracked down, points the Doctor to "the Doctor". She means Dr. Constantine over at Albion Hospital, who treated Jamie when he first got hit by a mysterious falling object that wasn't a bomb.
Dr. Constantine is there, all right, along with a ''lot'' of apparently dead people wearing gas masks and bearing cuts on their hands, and they all got that way by touching Jamie or touching someone who'd touched him. And... ''they're still alive''. Also, the gas masks are made of flesh and bone. As Dr. Constantine finishes mutating into a gas-mask-person, they all rise up from their beds and close in on our heroes....
----
!!Tropes:
* AbandonedHospital: Albion has all the trademarks of one, even though it wasn't really abandoned.
* ActionPrologue: The Doctor and Rose chasing an alien spacecraft in the TARDIS.
* BlackComedy: The Doctor inadvertently invokes this by asking if anything had fallen from the sky recently... during the London Blitz. The patrons of the bar find it funny after a moment.
* BlitzEvacuees: The kids Nancy takes care of, who are mostly runaways from evacuation. The Doctor even [[InvokedTrope invokes]] the trope.
* BodyHorror: The transformation of Dr. Constantine, where you see the mask come out of his throat and hear his skull ''cracking.''
* ContinuityNod:
** Albion Hospital, the same hospital used in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E4AliensOfLondon "Aliens of London"]]. It has, however, actually ''moved'' during the last 60-odd years between the two adventures. According to the commentary, it migrated.
** Time Agents from the 51st century were first mentioned in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang "The Talons of Weng-Chiang"]].
* CoolStarship: Jack has two Chula Warships, one for his personal use and one which he tries to sell to Rose. He was planning to con her and actually sell a worthless ambulance, which would then be destroyed before she could get her hands on it.
* CreepyChild: Jamie is even ''credited'' as "The Child".
* CymbalBangingMonkey: One is briefly seen as everything in the house becomes possessed by Jamie.
* DistressCall: The Doctor and Rose pick this up and chase after it.
* {{Eagleland}}: Riffs on this with the rivalry between the glamorous American womaniser with his expensive gadgets (oversexed, overpaid and over here) vs. the Doctor's amateur "British" approach.
* EvilPhone: The Child can even animate the phone in the TARDIS's police box disguise, which isn't connected to anything.
* ExactWords: When Rose confronts Jack about the starship he found was not a warship as he had claimed, he defends himself claiming that there ''are'' ambulances in wars, and that a war ambulance is still a warship.
* FriendlessBackground: The Doctor knows what it's like, being the only kid left outside.
* GlamorousWartimeSinger: Seen before the Doctor's inadvertent BlackComedy.
* HiveMind: The final moments of the episode show some form of a link between the Child and other victims when he found Nancy and the ones in the hospital got up and moved toward Jack, Rose, and the Doctor.
* HoldTheLine: The Doctor notes that this is Britain's moment. The nations of Europe fell one-by-one to the German War Machine until this tiny island nation said "No." And would not yield.
* TheHomeFront: Food rationing and bombs feature prominently.
* HumansAreSpecial: The Doctor notes that, at the least, Britons were special because they refused to fall to the German War Machine.
* InternalHomage: "Are you my mummy?" echoes the "are you my father?" MadnessMantra from Creator/StevenMoffat's favourite Sixth Doctor story, [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho014TheHolyTerror "The Holy Terror"]] (by Creator/BigFinish).
* NoodleIncident: When the Doctor asks why the kids haven't left London yet, one of them mentions that "There was a man" where he was staying and gives no further explanation. The [[AbuseTropes implication]] seemed pretty obvious.
* NotSoDifferent: Constantine was a father and grandfather before the War; now he's neither, but he's ''still a doctor''. The Doctor quietly replies that he knows the feeling.
* PopCulturalOsmosisFailure: Rose gives the Doctor's name to Jack as [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Mr. Spock]]. Jack, being from far in the future and unfamiliar with ''Franchise/StarTrek'', takes it at face value.
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: Occasionally the Child and a few others.
-->'''Doctor Constantine:''' Are. You. My. Mummy?
* RealityEnsues: When speaking of her younger brother, Nancy says he was alone out in an air raid. When the Doctor asks what happened, she implies he died by a bomb falling on him.
* RedAlert: Played with -- according to the Doctor, mauve is the universally-recognised colour for danger, and most aliens consider red to be camp. "Oh, the misunderstandings, all those red alerts, all that dancing...."
* RedHerring: Nancy tells the Doctor to go talk to ''the Doctor''. Dramatic music and a confused countenance from the Doctor tell us something should happen... actually, no. It's just a regular doctor.
* RefugeInAudacity: The Doctor walks up to the mic at a bar and asks if anything's fallen from the sky recently, not knowing that it's during the Blitz. The audience seems to take the question as this trope and laughs.
* ShoutOut:
** Rose just won't give up on things being "very [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Spock]]". Guess what name she gives Jack for the Doctor?
** Rose's costume is similar to Jenny Spark's iconic one from ''ComicBook/TheAuthority''.
* StealthHiBye:
** Nancy when she first meets the Doctor.
** The Doctor ups this by walking past Nancy and the kids and somehow sitting at the head of the table, with no-one noticing his presence until he asks for a bit of salt.
* StreetUrchin: Nancy and the other kids.
* SupernaturalPhone: The child manages to activate the phone on the outside of the police box, much to the Doctor's amazement.
* TitleDrop: From Rose, to the show name:
-->'''Rose:''' Don't you ever get tired of "Doctor?" Doctor WHO?\\
'''The Doctor:''' [[DeadpanSnarker Nine centuries in, I'm coping.]]
* TheVirus: That which the child spreads and from his victims onward. Though it may take time to manifest, the result is all the same. A gas mask physically forms over the victim's face with the nozzle shoving its way out of the mouth, a lung collapses, heart stops. Gain a scar on the back of the right hand. And then they just lay there, apparently dead.
* WearingAFlagOnYourHead: Rose, wearing a Union Jack T-shirt. She later notes (while hanging from a balloon) it's not the best idea during the Blitz.
* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII: The setting of the episode.
----
[[caption-width-right:350:"Are you my mummy?"]]
->'''Doctor Constantine:''' Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I'm neither, but I'm still a doctor.\\
'''The Doctor:''' Yeah. [[ContinuityNod I know the feeling.]]
This two-part episode is the first story Creator/StevenMoffat wrote for the revived ''Doctor Who''. In what would become a continuing theme for Steven Moffat, it's very scary, contains tons of [[UnresolvedSexualTension UST]], and instantly won a Hugo award.
It introduces Captain Jack Harkness, who becomes a tremendously important character throughout the next few seasons and gets his own spinoff, ''Series/{{Torchwood}}''.
Creator/ColinBaker's favourite episode of all time.
----
The Doctor and Rose follow an alien spacecraft's emergency signal through time and space, to [[TheHomeFront London during the Blitz]]. Since they can't very well leave alien stuff lying around in the past, they decide to retrieve it.
Things quickly get weird, though: the phone on the outside of the TARDIS rings, despite not being a real phone and not being hooked up to anything; a mysterious young woman appears and warns the Doctor not to answer it; when he does, it's a plaintive child's voice asking "Are you my mummy?"
Rose, in the fine old tradition of the Doctor's companions, has wandered off and got herself into trouble. In this case by grabbing a hold of a barrage balloon and accidentally taking to the skies above London ''while it's being bombed'', wearing a T-shirt with ''a giant British flag'' on it. She's rescued in the nick of time by a suave spaceship pilot with an American accent, an RAF uniform and a penchant for flirting with his fellow soldiers, who introduces himself as [[Series/{{Torchwood}} Captain Jack Harkness]]. Captain Jack deduces that she's also a time traveller and, assuming that she's a [[TimePolice Time Agent]], tells her of a recently crashed alien ship, whose location he'll reveal for a few quid. Oh, and he (quite successfully) tries to seduce her -- by taking her for a slow dance on the roof of his invisible ship, which is anchored to the top of Big Ben.
Elsewhere in London. Nancy, the young woman who warned the Doctor not to answer the phone, sneaks into a house whose inhabitants are in their bomb shelter. They've left the house mid-meal, so Nancy gives a signal and adorable little [[StreetUrchin waifs]] come rushing in. They're mostly homeless kids and/or escapees from the [[BlitzEvacuees Blitz Evacuation]]. Oh, and one extra person -- adorable, all right, but unusually tall and deep-voiced, for a kid... it's the Doctor! He fishes for information but doesn't get very far. Then Nancy and the kids hear the approach of a certain kid in a certain gas mask, repeating a certain catch phrase, and flee in terror. Nancy identifies the boy as her brother, Jamie, and claims that he's "empty". The Doctor is left behind to see the kid up close -- including a cut on the kid's hand -- and is asked over and over, "Are you my mummy?"
Nancy, once tracked down, points the Doctor to "the Doctor". She means Dr. Constantine over at Albion Hospital, who treated Jamie when he first got hit by a mysterious falling object that wasn't a bomb.
Dr. Constantine is there, all right, along with a ''lot'' of apparently dead people wearing gas masks and bearing cuts on their hands, and they all got that way by touching Jamie or touching someone who'd touched him. And... ''they're still alive''. Also, the gas masks are made of flesh and bone. As Dr. Constantine finishes mutating into a gas-mask-person, they all rise up from their beds and close in on our heroes....
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!!Tropes:
* AbandonedHospital: Albion has all the trademarks of one, even though it wasn't really abandoned.
* ActionPrologue: The Doctor and Rose chasing an alien spacecraft in the TARDIS.
* BlackComedy: The Doctor inadvertently invokes this by asking if anything had fallen from the sky recently... during the London Blitz. The patrons of the bar find it funny after a moment.
* BlitzEvacuees: The kids Nancy takes care of, who are mostly runaways from evacuation. The Doctor even [[InvokedTrope invokes]] the trope.
* BodyHorror: The transformation of Dr. Constantine, where you see the mask come out of his throat and hear his skull ''cracking.''
* ContinuityNod:
** Albion Hospital, the same hospital used in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E4AliensOfLondon "Aliens of London"]]. It has, however, actually ''moved'' during the last 60-odd years between the two adventures. According to the commentary, it migrated.
** Time Agents from the 51st century were first mentioned in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E6TheTalonsOfWengChiang "The Talons of Weng-Chiang"]].
* CoolStarship: Jack has two Chula Warships, one for his personal use and one which he tries to sell to Rose. He was planning to con her and actually sell a worthless ambulance, which would then be destroyed before she could get her hands on it.
* CreepyChild: Jamie is even ''credited'' as "The Child".
* CymbalBangingMonkey: One is briefly seen as everything in the house becomes possessed by Jamie.
* DistressCall: The Doctor and Rose pick this up and chase after it.
* {{Eagleland}}: Riffs on this with the rivalry between the glamorous American womaniser with his expensive gadgets (oversexed, overpaid and over here) vs. the Doctor's amateur "British" approach.
* EvilPhone: The Child can even animate the phone in the TARDIS's police box disguise, which isn't connected to anything.
* ExactWords: When Rose confronts Jack about the starship he found was not a warship as he had claimed, he defends himself claiming that there ''are'' ambulances in wars, and that a war ambulance is still a warship.
* FriendlessBackground: The Doctor knows what it's like, being the only kid left outside.
* GlamorousWartimeSinger: Seen before the Doctor's inadvertent BlackComedy.
* HiveMind: The final moments of the episode show some form of a link between the Child and other victims when he found Nancy and the ones in the hospital got up and moved toward Jack, Rose, and the Doctor.
* HoldTheLine: The Doctor notes that this is Britain's moment. The nations of Europe fell one-by-one to the German War Machine until this tiny island nation said "No." And would not yield.
* TheHomeFront: Food rationing and bombs feature prominently.
* HumansAreSpecial: The Doctor notes that, at the least, Britons were special because they refused to fall to the German War Machine.
* InternalHomage: "Are you my mummy?" echoes the "are you my father?" MadnessMantra from Creator/StevenMoffat's favourite Sixth Doctor story, [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho014TheHolyTerror "The Holy Terror"]] (by Creator/BigFinish).
* NoodleIncident: When the Doctor asks why the kids haven't left London yet, one of them mentions that "There was a man" where he was staying and gives no further explanation. The [[AbuseTropes implication]] seemed pretty obvious.
* NotSoDifferent: Constantine was a father and grandfather before the War; now he's neither, but he's ''still a doctor''. The Doctor quietly replies that he knows the feeling.
* PopCulturalOsmosisFailure: Rose gives the Doctor's name to Jack as [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Mr. Spock]]. Jack, being from far in the future and unfamiliar with ''Franchise/StarTrek'', takes it at face value.
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: Occasionally the Child and a few others.
-->'''Doctor Constantine:''' Are. You. My. Mummy?
* RealityEnsues: When speaking of her younger brother, Nancy says he was alone out in an air raid. When the Doctor asks what happened, she implies he died by a bomb falling on him.
* RedAlert: Played with -- according to the Doctor, mauve is the universally-recognised colour for danger, and most aliens consider red to be camp. "Oh, the misunderstandings, all those red alerts, all that dancing...."
* RedHerring: Nancy tells the Doctor to go talk to ''the Doctor''. Dramatic music and a confused countenance from the Doctor tell us something should happen... actually, no. It's just a regular doctor.
* RefugeInAudacity: The Doctor walks up to the mic at a bar and asks if anything's fallen from the sky recently, not knowing that it's during the Blitz. The audience seems to take the question as this trope and laughs.
* ShoutOut:
** Rose just won't give up on things being "very [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Spock]]". Guess what name she gives Jack for the Doctor?
** Rose's costume is similar to Jenny Spark's iconic one from ''ComicBook/TheAuthority''.
* StealthHiBye:
** Nancy when she first meets the Doctor.
** The Doctor ups this by walking past Nancy and the kids and somehow sitting at the head of the table, with no-one noticing his presence until he asks for a bit of salt.
* StreetUrchin: Nancy and the other kids.
* SupernaturalPhone: The child manages to activate the phone on the outside of the police box, much to the Doctor's amazement.
* TitleDrop: From Rose, to the show name:
-->'''Rose:''' Don't you ever get tired of "Doctor?" Doctor WHO?\\
'''The Doctor:''' [[DeadpanSnarker Nine centuries in, I'm coping.]]
* TheVirus: That which the child spreads and from his victims onward. Though it may take time to manifest, the result is all the same. A gas mask physically forms over the victim's face with the nozzle shoving its way out of the mouth, a lung collapses, heart stops. Gain a scar on the back of the right hand. And then they just lay there, apparently dead.
* WearingAFlagOnYourHead: Rose, wearing a Union Jack T-shirt. She later notes (while hanging from a balloon) it's not the best idea during the Blitz.
* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII: The setting of the episode.
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