"What are you captain of? The innuendo squad?" —Mickey, to Jack.
Six months later. The Doctor, Rose, and Jack pop back to 21st-century Cardiff, so that Rose can meet up with Mickey, the TARDIS can refuel from the Cardiff rift, and mischief can generally be gotten into. Also, Jack isn't getting any from Rose, or from the Doctor, which annoys him and amuses everyone else. (But the Doctor merrily flirts with him, which annoys him even more.) Still, our three travellers have bonded together in a way that really irritates Mickey, who is getting a little sick of all the inside jokes and all the flirting with each other that the three of them can cook up.
Mickey's state of mind is understandable, but he's being a bit of a jerk about it — especially uncool since today, the usually dour Ninth Doctor is relaxed and grinning, and it's a beautiful sight to behold. But perhaps Mickey's not entirely at fault, because ultimately what really harshes the Doctor's mellow is the sight of Margaret the Slitheen (from "
Aliens of London" / "
World War Three") as the mayor of Cardiff.
Oh, and she's presiding over the final stages of Cardiff's new nuclear power plant, a project she's been shepherding since its inception and which could not possibly go wrong. With all the safeguards and design reviews the power plant has had, for it to get this far it'd have to have been designed to fail! And indeed it is, as Margaret plans to use the
inevitable explosion to propel her to anywhere in the universe that isn't
Wales. Oh, and it's called "Blaidd Drwg"; Welsh for Bad Wolf. For the first time, the Doctor realises that those words are following them.
The gang chases Margaret, captures her and imprisons her in the TARDIS to await transportation to her home planet, where she's been convicted
in absentia and faces the death penalty. She talks the Doctor into taking her out to dinner (using a pair of Jack's Time Agent handcuffs to prevent escape), where she alternates between trying to guilt-trip him and kill him.
She reveals that she's developed human feelings (which is true), that she's been trained to kill all her life (which is true) and that she's now trying to better herself and live in peace forever (which is a filthy lie). The Doctor defeats her by making her stare into the living core of the TARDIS, which causes her to revert to egg form. Problem solved!
Tropes
- Actor Allusion; Nine says he'd make a very bad God - Eccleston played Simon Baxter, the Son of God in Russell T Davies' The Second Coming.
- Arc Words: The Nuclear Plant project is named "Blaidd Drwg", which means Bad Wolf.
- This is the episode where the Doctor first notices the phrase "Bad Wolf" following him around.
- Margaret points out that the Doctor messes with people's lives so much, one of the reason he is always running is because he "daren't look back". Davros mocks the Tenth about this in "Journey's End" and the Dreamlord tells Amy this about the Eleventh in "Amy's Choice".
- And Your Reward Is Infancy: Margaret gets to try her life over again as an egg.
- Batman Gambit: Margaret's Evil Plan relies on several most likely outcomes. In order
- getting elected.
- That everyone who finds out the truth will come to her first, being the decision maker she's the logical choice.
- That the hi-tech people who capture her will use the extrapolator.
- That she has a hostage or is otherwise able to recover the extrapolator between the Rift opening and the plant exploding.
- Becoming the Mask: Margaret has been in her human disguise for so long that she's starting to empathise with humans, particularly the Welsh.
- Bi the Way: The Doctor enjoys his first flirt (of many) with a male companion in the new series.
- Breaking Speech: The Doctor's reply to Margaret's Hannibal Lecture is more mean spirited than the usual Kirk Summation.
- Chekhov's Gun: The "pan-dimensional surfboard" will become one of the Doctor's most useful gadgets in the next few seasons. The Cardiff nuclear power plant eventually plays a major role in Torchwood, and in that same episode, the Time Agent handcuffs also make an appearance.
- Continuity Nod:
- Cool Board: The extrapolator's intended purpose is a "pan-dimensional surfboard", which Margaret can use to ride the shockwave of an exploding planet back to "civilization". The Doctor takes the extrapolator once she's regressed to an egg, and generally uses it as a force-field generator for the TARDIS.
- Debate and Switch: The episode sets up the moral dilemma of whether the Doctor and his friends will be as bad as Margaret if they take her home to be executed, but Deus ex Machina ending means they no longer have to worry about it, and the dilemma remains unsolved.
- Deus ex Machina: An interesting variant in that while it's clearly an out-of-the-blue version in this episode, its appearance here acts as justification for the one in the season finale.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Margaret's plan for escaping the Earth also means annihilating it.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Of course the whole Slitheen family is evil, Margaret included, but she makes it clear early on that she really grieves for them and that she didn't see them as evil...
Margaret: I had quite a sizeable family, once upon a time. Wonderful brothers. Oh, they were bold! But all of them are gone now. Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm cursed.
- Evil Plan: Margaret rigged the nuclear reactor to explode immediately while she used the extrapolator to ride the enusing wave back to outer space. After her capture it transforms into guilt tripping her captors into releasing her.
- Killed Himself Shaving: The hilarious demise of anyone who might find out the Cardiff reactor is rigged to explode, culminating in:
Cathy Salt: And then just recently Mr. Cleaver, the government's nuclear advisor?
Margaret Blaine: Slipped on an icy patch.
Cathy Salt: He was decapitated!
Margaret Blaine: It was a very icy patch.
- Going Native: Margaret / Blon - even while planning to blow up the entire planet, she mentions that the London government wouldn't notice if South Wales fell into the sea. "Oh. I sound like a Welshman. God help me, I've gone native."
- Hannibal Lecture: After the TARDIS crew capture her Margaret tries to guilt them into letting her go.
- Have You Told Anyone Else?: Twice. Although the second time Margaret spares her.
- Also, it's implied by the conversation with the reporter that it happened a lot more in the past.
- He Knows Too Much
- Ignored Epiphany: The Doctor and Rose finally notice the series' Arc Words and spend a minute or two getting more and more concerned about the implications until the episode plot grabs their attention again. They never discuss "Bad Wolf" again for the rest of the episode.
- It's All About Me
- Karma Houdini: Blon; despite her attempt to destroy the earth to escape she still manage to get a good ending when she looks into the heart of the TARDIS and becomes an egg again, thus giving her what she wanted all along — a second chance.
- No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: a variant, with the villain in what's usually Bond's position.
- Noodle Incident: Jack entertains the others with a story at lunch. We don't hear all the details, but involved a bunch of naked people and something with tusks.
- Mook Promotion: Margaret, by virtue of being the only survivor of the Slitheen seen previously.
- Oh Crap: Implied by the offscreen dropped teacup.
- Pet the Dog:
- Margaret Blaine decides not to kill an Intrepid Reporter when she reveals that she's engaged and pregnant. Subverted when the Doctor accurately accuses Margaret of only doing it to balance the evil things she's about to do.
- Arguably the Doctor, who — having spent most of the series treating Mickey like an imbecile — is quite pleasant, friendly and welcoming to him for a change.
- Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo: Margret / Blon tries this on the Doctor by poisoning his glass but it fails as he switches the glasses when he turns back to her.
- Raise Him Right This Time: The Doctor and co. find someone to do this for Blon between episodes.
- Running Gag: One that the new series likes to play with:
"Just go in there and tell her the Doctor's here."
"Doctor who?"
- Self-Deprecation: As Doctor Who is currently mostly filmed in Cardiff...
Blon: It's Cardiff. London doesn't care! The entire west coast could fall into the sea and they wouldn't notice.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!:
- The Doctor reminds Blon that for all her pleas for mercy, she's doing it through the lips of Margaret Blaine, whom she killed.
- Blon / Margaret gets one herself. After the Doctor takes her Pet the Dog argument apart, she retorts that only a killer himself would know the mind of a killer so intimately, and brings up his status as a Walking Disaster Area.
- Teleporters and Transporters / Teleport Spam: Extensively. A particularly funny scene has Margaret continually teleport herself while running away from the Doctor, but a poke on the sonic screwdriver has her immediately re-materialise running towards the Doctor.
The Doctor: I can do this all day.
- Even funnier is, every time Margaret is forced to re-materialize, she appears slightly closer to The Doctor every time.
- Title Drop: Invoked when The Doctor gets in to see Margaret/Blon.
The Doctor: Just go in there and tell her The Doctor would like to see her.
Door guard: Doctor who?
The Doctor: Just The Doctor. Tell her exactly that. The Doctor.
- The Unfair Sex: Subverted; when Rose gets upset over Mickey seeing another woman while she's been travelling with the Doctor, Mickey throws her own selfish and not-entirely-dissimilar behaviour back in her face.
- Whatever: Jack throws Mickey bitchy "W" hands in response to the page quote.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Mickey really lets Rose have it in this episode, and you can't blame the guy. He spent a year not knowing where she was and everyone thought he'd killed her! She gave him a kiss and a smile and ran off with another guy, making him feel like he was nothing, and the worst thing is, she actually expected him to wait for her.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: When everyone's angsting about having to take someone to their execution - even someone who's already tried to destroy a planet - Mickey tries to justify it with "She's not even human." It's clear he's only trying to convince himself.
