History Recap / DoctorWhoS27E4AliensOfLondon

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: This episode starts the pattern of the Russell T Davies era of the Earth episodes being a year ahead of the air date.

[[WMG:[[center:[-'''RECAP:'''\\
[[Recap/DoctorWho Index]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E1Rose 1]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E2TheEndOfTheWorld 2]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E3TheUnquietDead 3]] | '''4''' | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E5WorldWarThree 5]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E6Dalek 6]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E7TheLongGame 7]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E8FathersDay 8]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E9TheEmptyChild 9]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E10TheDoctorDances 10]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E11BoomTown 11]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E12BadWolf 12]] | [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E13ThePartingOfTheWays 13]]]]-]]]
'''Series 1, Episode 04:'''
!Aliens in London

'''Air date:''' 16 April, 2005\\
'''Production code:''' 1.4

* {{Catchphrase}}: "Harriet Jones, MP Flydale North."

----

'''Jackie:''' Prove it! Stitch this, mate! ''[slaps him hard across the face]''

-->'''Rose Tyler:''' ...Oh that's just not fair.

* {{Troll}}: Russell T Davies deliberately inserted a line of dialogue for Rose where she said to the Doctor, "You're so gay!" to set off a heated discussion about homosexuality within fan circles. For the record, Davies himself is gay.

'''Original air date:''' April 16, 2005

'''Production code:''' 1.4

Written by Creator/RussellTDavies.

* MeaningfulName: Harriet Jones is the MP for Flydale North, as in a flyspeck, a very unimportant place.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

Also, the one where the show's timeline is set ahead of the year of broadcast by one year (owing to a TimeSkip) until Series 5. Better remember that!

There has been no sign of the Prime Minister since the state of emergency was declared, and due to the gridlock and the grounding of flights, most of the Cabinet has been stranded outside central London, leaving the central government in full crisis mode. Consequently, in a most unusual turn of events, Joseph Green, the rotund MP for Hartley Dale, and [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on the Monitoring of Sugar Standards in Exported Confectionery]], [[UnexpectedSuccessor has ended up being declared the acting Prime Minister by default]]. He seems to be having difficulty handling the pressure, and while junior secretary Indra Ganesh tries to brief him, Green breaks wind, complaining that the nerves are giving him an upset stomach. The equally rotund Margaret Blaine of [=MI5=] and Transport Liaison Oliver Charles report that the PM boarded his car that morning, before the emergency, and has since disappeared. Ganesh gives Green a briefcase containing the emergency protocols to be followed in case of alien incursion, and Green takes Margaret and Oliver into the Cabinet room to discuss the situation... but once there, he drops the briefcase on the table, and all three begin to laugh at one another like naughty schoolchildren. In all of the confusion, nobody pays any attention to Harriet Jones, a backbencher MP for Flydale North, whose afternoon appointment has been cancelled as a result of the emergency.

* MonumentalDamage: An invoked trope on the Slitheen's part. They deliberately crash the ship into Big Ben to draw attention and make sure everyone sees it.

The Doctor returns to Rose's flat, where Jackie reluctantly lets him in for fear of alienating her daughter further. Jackie's friends and neighbours have joined her to discuss the UFO crash and Rose's return, and the Doctor has difficulty hearing the television over their conversation; at one point, he even finds himself fighting for the TV remote with a young boy who wants to watch a ''Series/BluePeter'' special in which they're making an alien spaceship cake. The world is on red alert, flights have been grounded in North American airspace, and the Secretary General of the United Nations has advised people to watch the skies. Divers remove a body from the wreck and take it to Albion Hospital for examination by Dr. Toshiko Sato. She reveals her findings to General Asquith, who is startled by the alien pilot's appearance and orders Sato to keep it out of sight until the experts arrive.

There has been no sign of the Prime Minister since the state of emergency was declared, and due to the gridlock and the grounding of flights, most of the Cabinet has been stranded outside central London, leaving the central government in full crisis mode. Consequently, in a most unusual turn of events, Joseph Green, the rotund MP for Hartley Dale, and [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on the Monitoring of Sugar Standards in Exported Confectionery]], [[UnexpectedSuccessor has ended up being declared the acting Prime Minister by default]]. He seems to be having difficulty handling the pressure, and while junior secretary Indra Ganesh tries to brief him, Green breaks wind, complaining that the nerves are giving him an upset stomach. The equally rotund Margaret Blaine of [=MI5=] and Transport Liaison Oliver Charles report that the PM boarded his car that morning, before the emergency, and has since disappeared. Ganesh gives Green a briefcase containing the emergency protocols to be followed in case of alien incursion, and Green takes Margaret and Oliver into the Cabinet room to discuss the situation... but once there, he drops the briefcase on the table, and all three begin to laugh at one another like naughty schoolchildren. In all of the confusion, nobody pays any attention to backbencher Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North, whose afternoon appointment has been cancelled as a result of the emergency.

Meanwhile, at 10 Downing Street, Harriet tries to convince Ganesh to let her speak with Green, but he refuses to interrupt Green's important meeting for her proposed scheme by which cottage hospitals don't have to be excluded from centres of excellence. When Green, Margaret and Oliver emerge from the Cabinet room, Harriet tries to speak with Green, but Green laughs in her face and walks off with the others. Nettled, Harriet slips into the deserted Cabinet office and drops the report she's prepared in Green's briefcase... but she then notices he's left the emergency protocols behind, like he hasn't even bothered reading any of them. Curious, she sits down and begins to leaf through them.

Mickey enters the Tylers' flat, and is furious to see Rose sitting with the rest of his neighbours. Rose apologizes for not visiting him, but that's not nearly good enough; when she disappeared with no explanation, Mickey was nearly charged with her murder. He's been questioned five times in the past year, and even when Jackie blamed him, Mickey couldn't tell her the truth, as he knew she'd never believe him. He now demands that Rose admit the truth; she might as well, because the Doctor's gone without her. Rose refuses to believe this, but when she goes out to see for herself, there is indeed no sign of the TARDIS. She insists that the Doctor wouldn't have left her behind, and as she speaks, the TARDIS key begins to glow in her hand. Jackie has followed Mickey and her daughter, and although Rose tries to bundle her back to the flat, it's too late. To Jackie's shock, the TARDIS materialises before her eyes.

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor — who insists on calling Mickey "Ricky" rather than admit he can't remember his name — explains to Mickey and Rose that the crash landing was faked, but by other aliens. Mickey points out that putting the world on red alert is an odd way to start an invasion...[[DumbassHasAPoint a point that the Doctor acknowledges is very valid]]. The Doctor starts fiddling about with the circuitry beneath the console, but refuses to explain what he's doing, pointing out rather rudely that Mickey doesn't have a hope of understanding it anyway. Rose apologises for the Doctor's behaviour, and assures Mickey that she did miss him, even though she's only been gone for a few days from her perspective. He tells her that he spent the whole year looking for her, and that he never dated anyone else (though, to be fair, most people think he murdered Rose and hid her body somewhere). Now that she's back, she realises that Mickey wants to pick up where they left off... but [[AlmostKiss as they're about to lean in to kiss, the Doctor announces that he's finished his work]]. He's looped back the TARDIS radar 12 hours to follow the ship's flight path, and he, Rose and Mickey thus discover another interesting detail: the ship launched from elsewhere on Earth, made a slingshot, then crashed in the Thames. It too was faked by the aliens, who have obviously been here for a while... but what they're up to is still a mystery.

In the Cabinet room, the alien pretending to be Oliver Charles has now shed his skin and assumed General Asquith's identity. Like the other aliens, he must break wind frequently to fight into his tight disguise (Margaret insists they should do something about the gas exchange that comes with their disguises, but Green retorts it's a rather human thing to do). "Asquith" tosses his former skin inside the closet where Harriet is hiding, while expressing regret that he'll now have to give up [[ReallyGetsAround Oliver's wife, his mistress, and the young farmer he was seeing on the side]]. As Green, Asquith and Margaret leave, Ganesh intercepts them and tells them that the government's automated surveillance software has detected someone speaking about "the Doctor", who is apparently the ultimate expert in extra-terrestrial affairs. Harriet listens from hiding as Ganesh tells the others that they'll have to enlist the Doctor's help.

Actually, the Doctor and Rose are not being arrested; they're just being escorted to 10 Downing Street. As they are driven through the streets, the Doctor admits to Rose that he's visited this planet a lot, and these days, his arrival tends to be noticed. He and Rose arrive at 10 Downing Street, where they wave and pose for the paparazzi before entering the seat of government. Inside, Harriet Jones is trying to mingle with the visiting experts, but before she can speak to any of them, Ganesh arrives and ushers them all out to the briefing room. He gives the Doctor an ID card, but refuses to give one to Rose, who doesn't have sufficient security clearance. Harriet offers to take care of Rose while the Doctor is busy, and escorts Rose out into the hall — where she breaks down in tears and tells Rose about what happened to the real Asquith.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: The consequences of the TARDIS' notoriously dodgy choices of "time and place" are in full force. Jackie has had to spend a year living with the fact that her daughter vanished without a trace, assuming that Rose was quite possibly dead or worse. Mickey, meanwhile, was hauled in by the police ''five times'' for questioning and has become a social pariah on the estate as everyone believed he killed Rose and hid her body somewhere — particularly Jackie, who turned people against him even further. Both of them are ''furious'' at the Doctor when he and Rose finally get back, and Mickey in particular finds it hard to forgive Rose.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Jackie waves off her persecution of Mickey with "Well what was I supposed to think?" Seeing as Mickey ''was'' the last person to see Rose before she left with the Doctor, and obviously can't explain what really happened without getting committed...

JustForFun/TheOneWith fat people and farting aliens. [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer Yes, really.]]

''Also'', the one with an ambitious MP from Flydale North. And if you don't [[PhraseCatcher know who she is]], [[RunningGag you will soon enough...]]

The one with fat people and farting aliens. [[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer Yes, really.]]

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: This or EarlyInstalmentWeirdness. Dr. Sato appears here as a medical doctor, as opposed to the technical scientist the character becomes in ''Series/{{Torchwood}}''. "[[Recap/TorchwoodS2E13ExitWounds Exit Wounds]]" finally explained that she was filling in for a hungover Owen Harper.

* FirstContact[=/=]FalseFlagOperation: The Slitheen stage a "first contact" situation using a hot-wired pig as part of a plan to destroy the planet.

* ToiletHumor: The Slitheen and the entire matter with the gas exchange.

The Doctor is irritated when Jackie and Mickey follow Rose into the TARDIS, and as Mickey angrily accuses the Doctor of ruining his life, Jackie stares about in shock and bolts out of the ship in terror. Rose follows, trying to assure her mother that everything's all right, but Jackie runs back to the flat, and the frustrated Rose returns to the TARDIS to find out what the Doctor has to say. Jackie huddles up in her flat, trying to cope with what she's seen, and when the emergency alien hotline number reappears on the TV, she calls it up and blurts out her story, claiming that her daughter is in danger because of an alien called ''the Doctor'', who travels in a ''blue box'' called the ''TARDIS''. These key words trigger an automated alert which Ganesh receives at 10 Downing Street.

No sooner does Rose say this when an alien spacecraft sputters overhead and careens wildly across the London skyline, belching smoke. As they watch, the ship sweeps low to pass over Tower Bridge, pivots around St. Paul's Cathedral, clips Big Ben, and finally, crashes into the River Thames near Westminster Bridge. Delighted, the Doctor rushes off to investigate, but the police and military have cordoned off the crash site and the streets are gridlocked. The Doctor wants to find out what's happening, but he can't get close to the crash site, and he doesn't want to attract the wrong sort of attention by materialising the TARDIS nearby. Rose thus suggests that he watch the news on TV like everyone else.

The Doctor returns to Rose's flat, where Jackie reluctantly lets him in for fear of alienating her daughter further. Jackie's friends and neighbours have joined her to discuss the UFO crash and Rose's return, and the Doctor has difficulty hearing the television over their conversation; at one point, he even finds himself fighting for the TV remote with a young boy who wants to watch a ''Series/BluePeter'' special. The world is on red alert, flights have been grounded in North American airspace, and the Secretary General of the United Nations has advised people to watch the skies. Divers remove a body from the wreck and take it to Albion Hospital for examination by Dr. Toshiko Sato. She reveals her findings to General Asquith, who is startled by the alien pilot's appearance and orders Sato to keep it out of sight until the experts arrive.

* ArmourPiercingSlap: Being slapped by an irate companion's mother is one experience that's new to the Doctor.

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Rose calls the Doctor “gay”. Davies, who is gay himself, claimed that he put the line in because he felt it reflected how real life young people spoke at the time.