History Recap / DoctorWhoNSS4E15PlanetOfTheDead

[[quoteright:250:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Planet_of_the_Dead_4961.jpg]]

-> '''The Doctor:''' Yes, I'll just... step inside this police box and arrest myself.

A light-hearted BreatherEpisode with very little drama, written as a contrast to [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E10Midnight "Midnight"]].

It's Easter. The Doctor has parked the TARDIS in the Buckingham Palace gardens ("she doesn't mind") and takes a bus trip around London. He tries to make small talk with ClassyCatBurglar Lady Christina, who's escaping from a heist and who's convinced that the Doctor's just a rambling hobo. However, their conversation is short-lived as the bus takes an impromptu ride through a wormhole, taking The Doctor, Christina and the rest of the passengers with it.

It turns out that the group have landed on San Helios, a desert-like planet with next to no life (except for some equally stranded InsectoidAliens). The group have no way of leaving the wormhole -- as the bus driver unfortunately proves -- and there is a HordeOfAlienLocusts on the horizon. Also, the passengers are getting suspicious of the Doctor, and he realises he's in danger of [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E10Midnight reliving some painful memories]].

However, it's the Doctor's lucky day: everyone, including the local merchant aliens, ends up trusting him. And instead of trying to save the day all by himself, he just quickly gets UNIT on the phone to deal with things back on Earth. [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E11TurnLeft Captain Erisa Magambo]] is honoured to talk to the Doctor. She hands the phone to {{Adorkable}} UNIT scientist Dr Malcolm Taylor (played by LeeEvans), who [[FanBoy squees]] and [[GibberingGenius squees]] when he finally gets to talk to his hero.

The Doctor and Christina are forced to work together with the passengers to fight the hungry alien swarm that destroyed San Helios. The creatures are making a beeline for the wormhole that they created. Using Christina's ClassyCatBurglar skills and Malcolm's brilliance, the bus is turned into a flying bus, and the Doctor saves the day. Captain Magambo thanks the Doctor, Malcolm glomps him and tells him "I LOVE YOU" about a dozen times over, and the TARDIS is neatly delivered by UNIT. Christina even manages to snog the Doctor, although he refuses to take her with him as his next companion, no matter how much she begs. He's lost too many friends recently. He does, however, sneakily destroy her handcuffs when she's arrested about five seconds later, and she climbs into the bus and flies off.

200th serial of the series. Written by Creator/RussellTDavies and Gareth Roberts and based very loosely on Roberts's Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures novel ''The Highest Science''; really they just took the striking image of a tube train crashing on an alien planet. And then made it a bus instead.

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!!Tropes

* ActionPrologue: Christina's heist.
* ActorAllusion: Lee Evans has a recurring character called Malcolm in his early stand-up routines.
* AdmiringTheAbomination: Earns a WhatTheHellHero from Christina, although she immediately admits that she's impressed too.
* {{Adorkable}}: Malcolm breathes this Trope.
* AristocratsAreEvil: Subverted; Lady Christina is a thief, but she doesn't really fall in the "evil" category.
* BigRedButton: Turns off the security grid on the Tritovore's crystal shaft.
* BilingualBonus: Christina's response to the Doctor's catchprase.
-->'''Doctor:''' Allons-y! (Lets go!)\\
'''Christina:''' Oui, mais pas si nous allons vers un cauchemar! (Yes, but not if we go towards a nightmare!)
* BilingualDialogue: The Doctor speaks insect click language with the Tritovores. Once the Tritovores employ their one-way telepathic translators, the Doctor uses English and they continue in their language.
* BreatherEpisode: Openly marketed as a last bit of fun for the Tenth Doctor.
* BuffySpeak:
-->'''Christina:''' How does a crystal drive a bus?\\
'''Doctor:''' In a... super clever... outer-spacey way, just -- trust me.
* BusFullOfInnocents: And one not-so-innocent master-thief.
* {{Callback}}: The Doctor refers to Donna when Christina calls him "Spaceman".
-->'''Doctor:''' I had this friend, once. She called me "Spaceman".
* CarFu: With a flying bus.
* ChekhovsGun: The Chalice of King Athelstan.
* ChekhovsSkill: Christina's rope-descending thing.
* ClassyCatBurglar: Christina
* ContinuityNod:
** The Doctor's comment "Humans on buses, always blaming me"; a reference to [[{{Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E10Midnight}} "Midnight"]].
** The prophecy in this special saying that the Doctor's song will be ending soon echoes the Ood's words from the end of [[{{Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E3PlanetoftheOod}} "Planet of the Ood"]].
* DeathByMaterialism: The only human character to die is the bus driver, who, at the beginning of the episode, accepted a bribe to help a criminal escape a police cordon. [[note]]He accepted her diamond earrings in lieu of a valid ticket.[[/note]](The criminal herself, whose motivation is explicitly stated to be non-materialistic love of adventure, survives.)'
* DevelopmentGag: Lady Christina is very similar to what has been publicly revealed about a character who would have replaced Ace as companion, had there been a twenty-seventh season of the original show.
* ExtremeOmnivore: The Swarm.
* FakeOutOpening: The prologue looks like some exciting heist story and not at all like a ''Doctor Who'' episode. You could believe you got the wrong series until the Doctor boards the bus.
* {{Fanboy}}: Malcolm practically creams himself when the call from the Doctor comes. The Doctor is... put off.
* FingerlessGloves: Malcolm
* FlyingCar: Flying ''bus''.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: This is the first time in the revival that the Doctor admits he stole the TARDIS. After years of the Doctor acting nostalgic about Gallifrey due to being the LastOfHisKind, RTD needed to re-establish that he didn't always agree with the other Time Lords. It's about to become very important...
* ForInconveniencePressOne: The UNIT helpline.
-->'''Phone:''' This is the Unified Intelligence Taskforce. Please select one of the following four options. If you want to report a UFO sighting, press one...\\
'''Doctor:''' Aw, I hate these things.\\
'''Angela:''' No, if you keep your finger pressed on 0, you get through to a real person. Saw that on Watchdog.
* GhostPlanet: San Helios
* GodlySidestep: The Doctor knows the true story of Easter. Right after he says "What ''really'' happened was--", he gets cut off and forgets what he was talking about.
* TheGuardsMustBeCrazy: The security at the museum includes armed guards (when even the police don't carry firearms in the UK) and a fancy laser grid from which they all face away. It has less functionality than a glass case -- the latter has a top for one thing.
* HollywoodNerd: Malcolm is a Type 1.
* HordeOfAlienLocusts
* HumanAliens: [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]]:
-->'''Christina:''' You look human.\\
'''Doctor:''' You look Time Lord.
* ImmuneToBullets: Averted and Lampshaded. MoreDakka returns as UNIT's [[FiveRoundsRapid SOP]].
-->'''Magambo:''' At last, guns that work!
* ILied: Christina, right before kissing the Doctor.
-->'''Christina:''' Remember when I said I hated you? I was lying.
* InsectoidAliens: The Tritovores.
* InspectorJavert: [=McMillan=] definitely comes across as obsessed with arresting Christina.
* IronicEcho: The Doctor and Malcolm Taylor each say "He hung up on me." and "Not now, I'm busy!" at different points.
* IsThisThingStillOn: When Captain Magambo and Malcolm gush over the fact they're actually ''speaking'' to the Doctor on the phone.
-->'''Magambo:''' We all want to meet him one day, but [[WalkingDisasterArea we all know what that day will bring.]]\\
'''Doctor:''' I can hear hear ''everything'' you're saying!
* LadyOfAdventure: Lady Christina de Souza
* LampshadeHanging: The Doctor points out how uncommon it is for him to arrive on Earth during Easter time, which lampshades that there are no Easter specials compared to the annual Christmas specials.
* LanguageOfTruth: The Tritovores use telepathic translators, which can apparently discern truth from lies.
* MeaningfulName:
** The Bus is labelled 200, due to it being the 200th serial.
** San Helios ("Saint of the Sun") could be considered one, having a double meaning due to the planet having three Suns and (having had) an abundance of Temples.
* MissionImpossibleCableDrop: Christina steals the chalice in the prologue. And then she uses the same skill to retrieve the antigravity clamps in the Tritovore ship.
* MundaneUtility:
** Carmen uses her psychic gift of precognition to play the Lottery and win £10 twice a week, ''every'' week.
** The Doctor uses his psychic paper to get on the bus in lieu of an Oyster Card.
* MythologyGag: The flying red double-deck bus is meant to resemble Franchise/IrisWildthyme's TARDIS.
* NotSoDifferent: The Doctor admits as such when he realises Christina is a thief.
-->'''Christina:''' I take it you disapprove?\\
'''Doctor:''' Absolutely! (''pauses'') Except... that little blue box... I stole it. From my own people.\\
'''Christina:''' Good boy! You were right, we're quite a team.
* PsychicPowers: Carmen.
* PutOnABus: A literal example! At the end of the episode, Lady Christina escapes from the police by flying off in the bus, and the character has not been seen since.
* RealLifeWritesThePlot: The bus that was being shipped from Cardiff to Dubai was being unloaded at Dubai when someone dropped a cargo container on it. The damage was incorporated into the plot.
* RefusedByTheCall: After they return through the wormhole, Christina wants to join the Doctor for more adventures. He flatly refuses, and won't even give her a peek inside the TARDIS.
* RuleOfCool: Necessary for a BreatherEpisode. Flying alien stingrays! In a desert! A bus flying through London!
* SequelHook: "He is coming. [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E17E18TheEndOfTime He will knock four times]]."
* ShoutOut:
** The number of the bus, 200, reflects the fact that this is the 200th ''Series/DoctorWho'' story, counting "Trial of a Time Lord" as one story and the last three episodes of Season 29 as one as well.
** Malcolm's unit of measurement for four-dimensional phenomena is named in honour of [[Franchise/{{Quatermass}} Bernard Quatermass]] -- David Tennant starred in the 2005 remake of ''Series/TheQuatermassExperiment''.
** The world on which the bus lands is San Helios, which orbits three suns, similar to the [[Franchise/{{Halo}} Elite]] homeworld of Sanghelios, which also orbits three suns. And both stories begin when a human vehicle crash-lands on a strange world.
* SpyCatsuit: A pretty realistic example, because Lady Christina's outfit is not a catsuit, in fact, but black leggings, a black shirt and boots.
* StrippedToTheBone: The bus driver on trying to cross back the vortex.
* TooDumbToLive: The bus driver, in an unfortunate side-effect of the RealLifeWritesThePlot entry above. Since the bus originally wasn't supposed to be damaged by its trip through the wormhole, it makes sense that the driver would think he could walk back through it himself. Instead, we have him happily walking into an anomaly which has just ripped most of the top deck away from his bus, and being surprised when the flesh is seared from his bones.
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: The Tritovores, poor things. Although it crosses with TooDumbToLive and HonorBeforeReason.
* TheXOfY: "Planet of the Dead"

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* ActorAllusion: Lee Evans has a recurring character called Malcolm in his early stand-up routines.

* BreatherEpisode

--> '''Doctor''': Allons-y! (Lets go!)
--> '''Christina''': Oui, mais pas si nous allons vers un cauchemar! (Yes, but not if we go towards a nightmare!)

'''The Doctor:''' In a... super clever... outer-spacey way, just -- trust me.

--> '''Doctor''': I had this friend, once. She called me "Spaceman".

* ClassyCatBurglar: Christina.

* FingerlessGloves: Malcolm.

-->'''Phone:''' This is the Unified Intelligence Taskforce. Please select one of the following four options. If you want to report a UFO sighting, press one...
-->'''Doctor:''' Aw, I hate these things.
-->'''Angela:''' No, if you keep your finger pressed on 0, you get through to a real person. Saw that on Watchdog.
* GhostPlanet: San Helios.

* TheGuardsMustBeCrazy: The security at the museum includes armed guards when even the police don't carry firearms in the UK and a fancy laser grid from which they all face away and has less functionality than a glass case -- the latter has a top for one thing.

-->'''Christina''': You look human.\\
'''Doctor''': You look Time Lord.
* ImmuneToBullets: Averted and Lampshaded.
-->''"At last, guns that work!"''
** and MoreDakka returns as UNIT's [[FiveRoundsRapid SOP]]

-->''"Remember when I said I hated you? I was lying."''

* IronicEcho: The Doctor and Malcolm Taylor each say "He hung up on me". and "Not now, I'm busy!" at different points.
* IsThisThingStillOn: When Captain Magumbo and Malcolm gush over the fact they're actually ''speaking'' to the Doctor on the phone.
--> '''Magambo''': We all want to meet him one day, but [[WalkingDisasterArea we all know what that day will bring.]]
--> '''Doctor''': I can hear hear ''everything'' you're saying!
* LadyOfAdventure: Lady Christina de Souza.

* MeaningfulName: The Bus is labelled 200, due to it being the 200th serial.
** San Helios ("Saint of the Sun") could be considered one, having a double meaning due to the planet having 3 Suns and (having had) an abundance of Temples.
* MundaneUtility: Carmen uses her psychic gift of precognition to play the Lottery and win £10 twice a week, ''every'' week.

--> '''Christina''' I take it you disapprove?
--> '''Doctor''': Absolutely! (pauses) Except... that little blue box... I stole it. From my own people.
--> '''Christina''': Good boy! You were right, we're quite a team.

* SequelHook: "He is coming. [[{{Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E17E18TheEndOfTime}} He will knock four times]]."

** The world on which the bus lands is San Helios, which orbits three suns, similar to the [[{{Halo}} Elite]] homeworld of Sanghelios, which also orbits three suns. And both stories begin when a human vehicle crash-lands on a strange world.
** Possible shout-out: The Doctor ponders on the possibility of Carmen's minor psychic powers being enhanced by the [[{{Superman}} alien sunlight]].
* SpyCatsuit
** A pretty realistic example, because Lady Christina's outfit is not a catsuit, in fact, but black leggings, a black shirt and boots.

* TheXOfY

200th serial of the series. Written by RussellTDavies and Gareth Roberts and based very loosely on Roberts's Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures novel ''The Highest Science''; really they just took the striking image of a tube train crashing on an alien planet. And then made it a bus instead.

* DesignatedHero: Christina breaks the law purely for her own ego and material gain. Yet because she does it with a certain amount of style, we're supposed to like her and cheer for the Doctor helping her become a {{Karma Houdini}}.

* DeathByMaterialism: The only human character to die is the bus driver, who, at the beginning of the episode, accepted a bribe to help a criminal escape a police cordon. [[note]]He accepted her diamond earrings in lieu of a valid ticket.[[/note]](The criminal herself, whose motivation is explicitly stated to be non-materialistic love of adventure, survives.)

* AdventureRebuff: After they return through the wormhole, Christina wants to join the Doctor for more adventures. He flatly refuses, and won't even give her a peek inside the TARDIS.

It turns out that the group have landed on San Helios, a desert-like planet with next to no life (except for some equally stranded InsectoidAliens). The group have no way of leaving the wormhole -- as the bus driver unfortunately proves -- and there is a HordeOfAlienLocusts on the horizon. Also, the passengers are getting suspicious of the Doctor, and he realizes he's in danger of [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E10Midnight reliving some painful memories]].

However, it's the Doctor's lucky day: everyone, including the local merchant aliens, ends up trusting him. And instead of trying to save the day all by himself, he just quickly gets UNIT on the phone to deal with things back on Earth. [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E11TurnLeft Captain Erisa Magambo]] is honored to talk to the Doctor. She hands the phone to {{Adorkable}} UNIT scientist Dr. Malcolm Taylor (played by LeeEvans), who {{squee}}s and [[FanBoy squees]] and [[GibberingGenius squees]] when he finally gets to talk to his hero.

200th serial of the series. Written by RussellTDavies and Gareth Roberts and based very loosely on Roberts's Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures novel ''The Highest Science''; really they just took the striking imagage of a tube train crashing on an alien planet. And then made it a bus instead.

* AristocratsAreEvil: Subverted, Lady Christina is a thief, but she doesn't really fall in the "evil" category.

--> '''Christina''': Oui, mais pas si nous allons vers un chauchemar! (Yes, but not if we go towards a nightmare!)

'''The Doctor:''' In a... super clever... outer-spacey way, just--trust me.

--> '''Doctor''': I had a friend. She called me "Spaceman".

* ChekhovsGun: The Chalice of King Athelstan
* ChekhovsSkill: Christina's rope-descending thing
* ClassyCatBurglar: Christina

** The Doctor's comment about "humans on buses, always blaming me"; a reference to [[{{Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E10Midnight}} "Midnight"]].

* DeathByMaterialism: The only human character to die is the bus driver, who, at the beginning of the episode, accepted a bribe to help a criminal escape a police cordon. [[note]]He agreed to go faster when the criminal offers him her diamond earrings.[[/note]](The criminal herself, whose motivation is explicitly stated to be non-materialistic love of adventure, survives.)

* {{Foreshadowing}}: This is the first time in the revival that the Doctor admits he stole the TARDIS. After years of the Doctor acting nostalgic about Gallifrey due to being the LastOfHisKind, RTD needed to reestablish that he didn't always agree with the other Time Lords. It's about to become very important...

* TheGuardsMustBeCrazy: The security at the museum includes armed guards when even the police don't carry firearms in the UK and a fancy laser grid that they all face away from that has less functionality than a glass case - the latter has a top for one thing.

* IronicEcho: The Doctor and Malcolm Taylor each say "He hung up on me." and "Not now, I'm busy!" at different points.

** San Helios ("Saint of the Sun") could be considered one, having a double meaning due to the planet having 3 Suns and (had) an abundance of Temples.
* MundaneUtility: Carmen's uses her psychic gift of precognition to play the Lottery and win £10 twice a week, ''every'' week.

* SequelHook: "He is coming, [[{{Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E17E18TheEndOfTime}} he will knock four times]]."

** Malcolm's unit of measurement for four-dimensional phenomena is named in honour of [[Franchise/{{Quatermass}} Bernard Quatermass]] - David Tennant starred in the 2005 remake of ''Series/TheQuatermassExperiment''.
** The world the bus lands on is San Helios, which orbits three suns, similar to the [[{{Halo}} Elite]] homeworld of Sanghelios, which also orbits three suns. And both stories begin when a human vehicle crash-lands on a strange world.

** A pretty realistic example, because Lady Christina's outfit is not a catsuit, in fact, but black tights, a black shirt, and boots.

* UnusualUserInterface: One unanswered question is why the Tritovores have internal communication devices that fit perfectly in human ears, despite the fact that they ''don't have ears''.

** The Doctor ponders on the possibility of Carmen's minor psychic powers being enhanced by the [[{{Superman}} alien sunlight]].

** The Doctor ponders on the possibility of Carmen's minor psychic powers being enhanced by the [[Comics/Superman alien sunlight]].

** The Doctor ponders on the possibility of Carmen's minor psychic powers being enhanced by the [[Superman alien sunlight]].

** The Doctor uses his psychic paper to get on a the bus in lieu of an Oyster Card.

* RuleOfCool: Necessary for a BreatherEpisode. Flying alien stingrays! In a desert! Flying a bus through London!