Empire of Death (TV story)

Empire of Death

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Empire of Death
Doctor:	Fifteenth Doctor
Companion(s):	Ruby, Mel
Featuring:	Kate, Ibrahim, Morris, Rose
Main enemy:	Sutekh
Main setting:	UNIT HQ, 2024; Remembered TARDIS; Agua Centina; England, 2046
Key crew
Writer:	Russell T Davies
Director:	Jamie Donoughue
Release details
Genre:	Science fiction
Story number:	311b
Number of parts:	1
Premiere broadcast:	22 June 2024
Premiere networks:	BBC iPlayer, Disney+
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Doctor Who television stories
← Previous	The Legend of Ruby Sunday

You may be looking for the novel of the same name or Sutekh's Empire of Death.

Empire of Death was the eighth episode of Season 1 of Doctor Who. It finally resolved the matter of Ruby Sunday's parentage, which had served as a story arc since The Church on Ruby Road ^[+]Loading...["The Church on Ruby Road (TV story)"], and featured her initial departure from the TARDIS.

The return of classic 1970s villain, Sutekh, was fully explained, with it being retroactively established that the God of Death was able to escape his fate of being banished to the Void by latching onto the Doctor's TARDIS, growing in power into a new form, and projecting a new Angel of Death - the mysterious women played by recurring actress Susan Twist - into whatever time and place it landed.

Unexpectedly, the story also revealed the Time Window projection of the Doctor's TARDIS - first shown in the previous episode - to be the Remembered TARDIS, the setting of the spinoff miniseries, Tales of the TARDIS, which debuted half a year prior. To coincide with this revelation, an additional episode of the spinoff - bringing its original six episode run up to seven - was broadcast on BBC Four two days prior, which presented a condensed omnibus edition of Sutekh's original debut story, Pyramids of Mars ^[+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)"], framed as a story being told by the Doctor to Ruby during the events of this episode.

With most of the season's previously established mysteries solved, the episode ended with one last mystery still remaining; the identity of the Sunday family's mysterious neighbour, Mrs. Flood, who closed out the episode by ominously informing the audience of the Doctor's story ending in "absolute terror", before declaring "night night" to them.

Synopsis

Sutekh has won, and spread his gift of death across all the universe. Holed away in a Remembered TARDIS, can the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby find the one thing that vexes the God of Death himself, and save the day?

Plot

The Doctor and Mel warn everyone out of the room as Susan Triad unleashes Sutekh's Dust of Death, fleeing back to UNIT HQ - Harriet Arbinger doing the same at UNIT as they fire at Sutekh, desiccating life wherever it touches bit by bit. Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and the rest of UNIT fall, a wave of dust crashing over London. As Mrs Flood watches the city, she tells Cherry Sunday to pray, to tell her Maker - "I will come to storm down his gates of gold and seize his kingdom in my true name", before the two dissolve into sand.

The Doctor and Mel enter the time window, meeting Ruby Sunday, the Doctor entering the TARDIS he finds there. A TARDIS made of memories, Ruby's memories of the TARDIS and the TARDIS's memories of itself making it real. As this TARDIS stabilises, another TARDIS appears behind them, a beast curled on top of it, Sutekh with his harbinger. Sutekh explains to the Doctor that he'd been hiding, cloaked around the TARDIS, for years, evolving into godhood. How he learned the Doctor's secrets and laid a trap. How he birthed angels of death in Susan Triad's image wherever they landed using the TARDIS's perception filter, now ready to spread his gift of death throughout all of time and space. But the Doctor doesn't know why Sutekh is monologuing, rather than killing him - only coming to one conclusion. Sutekh is uncertain, Sutekh has doubt. Sutekh snarls at the taunt, and the trio flee into the remembered TARDIS, a patchwork mess of all the Doctor's previous TARDISes, barely able to fly without collapsing, held together with the time window and their memories.

As all of time and space dies, everywhere the Doctor has ever landed being a place where Sutekh's angels unleash their gift, Sutekh contemplates the one thing that frustrates him, baffles him, still - the secret Ruby carries within her. The Doctor arrives in a desolate land and meets a woman. He takes a spoon from her, needing metal. He stays with the woman as she dies, returning to the TARDIS, connecting the spoon to the remnants of the time window inside the remembered TARDIS. As the trio ponder why Sutekh has finally gone on the offensive, after waiting for so long, the time window shows them the answer - Sutekh couldn't make sense of Ruby's mother, a fact which terrified him. As Mel sits, listening, Sutekh's voice begins to infiltrate her thoughts. The time window then suggests how they might find Ruby's mother. In 2046 Roger ap Gwilliam made DNA testing mandatory for British citizens.

The trio pilot their way to 2046, to the Department of Health. Sending Mel to keep watch, the Doctor uses the screen from the time window to access the DNA database. The Doctor and Ruby find a name, comparing Ruby's DNA to the database as it snows, but Mel crumbles before Sutekh's will, re-entering the room and subduing them. Using the Doctor's TARDIS, Harriet summons the trio before Sutekh. Sutekh toys with the Doctor, tortures him, until Ruby agrees to hand over the screen from the time window that has the name of her mother. As she goes to hand the screen to Sutekh she drops it, shattering the device.

As Sutekh howls, Ruby leashes him with a rope, handing it back to the Doctor, each wearing an intelligent glove. The Doctor whistles for his TARDIS, a thruster below the console activating, knocking Harriet aside as she investigates, and pushing the TARDIS across the room. The Doctor and Ruby scramble inside, hooking the rope to the console. With a flip of a switch the TARDIS dematerialises, rope, Sutekh and all.

The Doctor, Ruby and the TARDIS fly through the time vortex, dragging the god of death behind them, surveying the universe that had been rendered dead and decrepit through Sutekh's plans. The Doctor's decided - he'll bring death to the dead universe - death to death - life. On earth, UNIT members and people in the street come back to life. As the universe comes back to life, the Doctor decides that he must once again bring death, casting Sutekh back into the time vortex.

Back at UNIT HQ, they've retrieved the data from the time window - Ruby's mother. Louise Miller. An ordinary woman, invested with significance by people making her important, pointing not at the Doctor but at the signpost behind him, the sign that named Ruby, giving Ruby her name.

Ruby and the Doctor stand outside a cafe where Louise Miller sits, the Doctor suggesting to Ruby that he leave the issue alone, Louise is happy and has had plenty of time to come see Ruby and never has. But Ruby dashes inside and sits down next to her mother. Ruby tells her mother who she is, and thanks her for giving her a better life, a safe life. Later at the Sunday residence, Louise is meeting Carla and Cherry, getting to know Ruby's life, and see photos of Ruby growing up. Ruby still wants to travel with the Doctor, wants to leave on a trip. But she's getting news about her biological father, and the Doctor tells her to take time with her family, that her life is with them for the time being. He promises that he'll return for her, even if he regrets not returning for his granddaughter.

As the Doctor leaves, and Ruby and her family look at pictures, Mrs. Flood stands atop the building, talking to the audience. "And that's how the story of the Church on Ruby Road comes to an end. With a very happy ending for little Ruby Sunday. But life goes on, doesn't it? Ruthlessly. And what happens, you might wonder, oh what happens, to that mysterious traveller in time and space known as the Doctor? I'm sorry to say his story ends in absolute terror. Night night."

Cast

• The Doctor - Ncuti Gatwa
• Ruby Sunday - Millie Gibson
• Voice of Sutekh - Gabriel Woolf
• Susan Triad - Susan Twist
• Melanie Bush - Bonnie Langford
• Kate Lethbridge-Stewart - Jemma Redgrave
• Rose Noble - Yasmin Finney
• Harriet Arbinger - Genesis Lynea
• Morris Gibbons - Lenny Rush
• The Vlinx - Aidan Cook
• Voice of the Vlinx - Nicholas Briggs
• Colonel Christofer Ibrahim - Alexander Devrient
• Corporal Alice Sullivan - Jasmine Bayes
• Mrs Flood - Anita Dobson
• Carla Sunday - Michelle Greenidge
• Cherry Sunday - Angela Wynter
• Kind Woman - Sian Clifford
• Amol Rajan - Himself
• Roger ap Gwilliam - Aneurin Barnard
• Colonel Winston Chidozie - Tachia Newall
• Bailey Sinclair - Fela Lufadeju
• Louise Miller - Faye McKeever

Uncredited cast

• Brindle Dee - TBA
• Fourth Doctor - Tom Baker (archival footage)
• Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen (archival footage)
• Laurence Scarman - Michael Sheard (archival footage)
• Susan - Carole Ann Ford (archival footage)

Crew

Executive Producers   Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter with Joel Collins and Phil Collinson

Written by Russell T Davies	Produced by Vicki Delow	Directed by Jamie Donoughue	Director of Photography Chas Bain	Production Designer Phil Sims	Visual Effects Automatik VFX
Make-up Designer Claire Williams	Casting Director Andy Pryor CDG/CSA	Hairdresser Stuart Cheadle	Music Murray Gold	Costume Designer Pam Downe	Edited by Ben Drury	Special Effects Real SFX
Original theme music by Ron Grainer  •  Title sequence by Painting Practice & Realtime Visualisation  Music conducted by Alastair King  •  Music performed by BBC National Orchestra of Wales   Sutekh created by Lewis Greifer

General production staff Executive Producer for the BBC - Rebecca Ferguson Production Executive - Steffan Morris Co-producer - Ellen Marsh Line Producer - Mark Devlin Production Manager - Delmi Thomas Supervising Location Manager - Iwan Roberts Location Manager - Baljinder Sidhu Assistant Location Manager - Alex Moore Location Assistant - Robyn Selby Unit Manager - Kyle Yates Production Co-ordinator - Sandra Cosfeld Assistant Production Co-ordinator - Liam Hobbs Production Assistant - Juanee Scott Production Secretaries - Adam Byard, Chris Harkus Production Office Runners - Danilo Van-Der Nguyen, Rugie Begum 1st Assistant Accountant - Greg Robinson Script department Script Editor - Scott Handcock Assistant Script Editor - Rasheed Bello Camera and lighting department 1st Assistant Director - Geraint Havard Jones 2nd Assistant Director - Lauren Pate 3rd Assistant Director - Jennifer Day Floor Runners - Jac Lewis, Devante Fleming, Emmy Williams Script Supervisor - Richard Pask Camera Operator - Martin Stephens B Camera Operator - Ryan Eddleston Camera Trainees - Kudzai Dzokamushure, Chai Lee Tan Focus Pullers - Jonathan Vidgen, Steve Rees Key Grip - Bobby Williams Grip - Ken Hodgson Clapper Loaders - Sarah Macleod, Evangeline Davies Gaffer - Pete Chester Rigging Gaffer - Chris Kiley Best Boy - Sion Davies Electricians - Andy Green, Joe Jennings, Jon Down	Art department Supervising Art Director - Robyn Paiba Art Directors - Jon Horsham, Kartik Kundan Nagar Assistant Art Director - Eleri Lloyd Art Department Assistant - Ilee Khezrzadeh Art Department Co-ordinator - Jason Davies-Redgrave Production Buyer - Helen O'Leary Assistant Buyer - Taymar Lee Petty Cash Buyer - Charlie Shelley Set Decorator - Adrian Anscombe Set Dresser - Vicki Male Action Props Buyer - Tara Lily Johnston Concept Artist - Nandor Moldovan Graphic Designer - Stephen Fielding Standby Props - Phill Bull, Jonathan Barclay Standby Carpenter - Lee Hosken Prop Hands - Declan Petryna, Atiff Tahir, John Thomas, Ingo Hans, Joseph Craig, Jason White, Matt Shrimpton Standby Art Director - Brad Perry Rigging - Shadow Rigging Standby Rigger - Nigel Owen Standby Painter - Jessie Thomas Painter - Justin Abraham Storeman - Charlie Malik Prop Master - Nick Thomas Props Chargehand - Stuart Rankmore Construction Manager - Rhys Griffiths Construction Coordinator - Ffion Roberts Plasterer - Drew Abraham Practical Electrician - Phillip Jones Scenic Artists - Shane Patterson, Gary Nyhan Draughtsperson - David Merryweather Carpenters - Christopher Hawksworth, David Martynski, Dean Page, Gareth Jones, Harriet Jones, Huw Morgan, Jason Thomas, Jonathan Tylke, Mark Borde, Patrick Watts, Richard Griffiths, Sam Burridge Costume department Costume Supervisor - Laura Baker Assistant Costume Designer - Raïssa Hans	Make-up and prosthetics Movement Stunt Co-ordinators - Derek Lea, Belinda McGinley Stunt Performers - Mike Denton, Paul Bailey, Paul Joseph, Nadia Hansell, Eddy Beckett, Christina Low, Tsvetan Paunov, Chris Cordell, Rosie Rowett, Anna Benton, Robert Jarman, Anna Stephenson, Jodie Saunders Casting Casting Associate - Becky Rossmaur Casting Assistant - Kristian Wall General post-production staff Post-production Producer - Ceres Doyle Post-production Supervisor - Liv Duffin Post-production Co-ordinator - Lauren Pate On-line Editor - Christine Kelly Assistant On-line Editor - Luke Stanbury Special and visual effects Additional VFX - Egg VFX, BBC Wales Graphics VFX Producer - Will Cohen VFX Editor - Matt Nathan VFX Co-ordinators - Siân Reynish, Livvy Edwards VFX Assistant - Sarah-Hoor Aboubakar Colourist - Gareth Spensley Sound Sound Recordist - Alex Thompson Re-recording Mixer - Paul McFadden Audio Post-production - Bang Post Production

Not every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required. The information above is based solely on observations of the actual end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information from IMDB or other sources.
This episode was produced with the support of incentives for the Irish film industry provided by the Government of Ireland.

Worldbuilding

• The kind woman is from Agua Centina, a lush planet turned to dust by the death waves. It had at least one opera house.
• Sutekh is revealed to have been latched onto the TARDIS since the events of Pyramids of Mars. Like Rose Tyler (TV: The Parting of the Ways), Sutekh was exposed to, and obtained god-like power from, the Time Vortex. River Song and Martha Jones were previously shown to have been altered in some way by exposure to the Time Vortex.
• Mrs Flood alludes to plans she has, and refers to Cherry Sunday as a "little woman". She is last seen standing on a rooftop promising that the Doctor's story will "end in absolute terror".
• The Doctor mentions that his death would be an "extinction event".
• The Doctor reveals a hope to once again reunite with Susan Foreman.

Brands

• Buses in London have advertisements for The Bloomsbury Gazette and Foxglove & Co.
• Ruby meets her mother at But First... Coffee.
• The coffee shop has taps for Hammond's Premium Beer, Whole Island Premium Export Ale, and Loftus Ale.
• A poster in the coffee shop advertises Academy Coffee Shop.

Story notes

• The title of the episode was revealed on the official Doctor Who Twitter account on 31 March 2024.
• It shares its title with a 2004 novel from the Past Doctor Adventures series.
• In Russell T Davies' Letter from the Showrunner column for DWM 589, he stated that scenes 20-22 involved a vital object which he was at the time deciding whether it should stay in the "Ops Room" or be moved to the "Chamber".
• Davies shared words from the episode in his column on two occasions: first "kingdom", "gold", "Tigella"; later "terror, dust, pizza, Einstein, death, opera".
• Davies told Radio Times that there were aspects of the story he had been "thinking of for 40 or 50 years".
• On 22 May, UK cinematic screenings of this episode and The Legend of Ruby Sunday were announced for the night of 21 and 22 June, with Empire of Death set to screen at midnight, the same time as the overall global release.
  • The episodes were separated by a 15 minute interval followed by a message from Millie Gibson thanking the audience for coming.
• Gabriel Woolf, Aneurin Barnard, Amol Rajan, Tachia Newall, Fela Lufadeju, and Faye McKeever were omitted from the advance cast list.
• A special episode of Tales of the TARDIS was released the night before this episode aired. It appears to take place during this episode, while the Doctor shows Ruby the events of The Pyramids of Mars on the portable screen.
• Footage taken from Pyramids of Mars ^[+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)"] is edited to replace its depiction of the Time Vortex with the version introduced in The Star Beast ^[+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"].

Myths

to be added

Filming locations

• One Central Square, Cardiff
• Principality Stadium, Cardiff
• Barry, Vale of Glamorgan

Ratings

BBC UK overnight ratings: 2.25 million.

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

to be added

Continuity

This section needs a cleanup.

Those parentheticals need to be changed into proper BTS-focused sentences. The parentheticals are being phased out Wiki-wide.

• The Doctor asks how Sutekh survived his apparent death seen in TV: Pyramids of Mars ^[+]Loading...["Pyramids of Mars (TV story)"]
• The Remembered TARDIS manifests and is sustained by stories told by Ruby Sunday.
• Mel discovers the Sixth Doctor's ascot and coat. (TV: The Twin Dilemma)
• Like many other objects in the remembered TARDIS, the fire extinguisher originated from another story, namely TV: The Angels Take Manhattan ^[+]Loading...["The Angels Take Manhattan (TV story)"].
• The Doctor reminds Mel of the time they met Albert Einstein. (TV: Time and the Rani)
• The Doctor mentions some of the time periods he has visited, including 1066, (TV: The Time Meddler), 1999 (TV: Doctor Who) and 2005 (TV: Rose).
• The Time Window shows the TARDIS landing on Ribos (TV: The Ribos Operation ^[+]Loading...["The Ribos Operation (TV story)"]), in Rassilon's tomb on Gallifrey (TV: The Five Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"]), on a beach on Thoros-Beta, (TV: Mindwarp ^[+]Loading...["Mindwarp (TV story)"]), in Paradise Towers, (TV: Paradise Towers ^[+]Loading...["Paradise Towers (TV story)"]), on ancient Earth (TV: City of Death ^[+]Loading...["City of Death (TV story)"]), San Francisco (TV: Doctor Who ^[+]Loading...["Doctor Who (TV story)"]) Bad Wolf Bay (TV: Journey's End ^[+]Loading...["Journey's End (TV story)"]) Cardiff, above Torchwood Three's hub, (TV: Utopia ^[+]Loading...["Utopia (TV story)"] at the base of the Statue of Liberty, New York (TV: Daleks in Manhattan ^[+]Loading...["Daleks in Manhattan (TV story)"]) Mercy, Nevada. (TV: A Town Called Mercy ^[+]Loading...["A Town Called Mercy (TV story)"])
• The Doctor observes that Venus (AUDIO: Voyage to Venus ^[+]Loading...["Voyage to Venus (audio story)"]), Telos (TV: Attack of the Cybermen ^[+]Loading...["Attack of the Cybermen (TV story)"] et al.), Karn (TV: The Brain of Morbius ^[+]Loading...["The Brain of Morbius (TV story)"]), the Ood Sphere (TV: Planet of the Ood ^[+]Loading...["Planet of the Ood (TV story)"]) and Skaro (TV: Destiny of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Destiny of the Daleks (TV story)"], etc.) are dead. Mel is familiar with the Daleks; AUDIO: The Juggernauts ^[+]Loading...["The Juggernauts (audio story)"] had shown her meeting them on the planet Lethe.
• The Doctor says that the TARDIS’s perception filter extends to a distance 66.7 metres, which Ruby immediately says is 73 yards. She doesn’t know how she knows that, but 73 yards was the distance the mystery woman kept from Ruby in TV: 73 Yards ^[+]Loading...["73 Yards (TV story)"]. The Doctor also comments that “Funny things happen at 73 yards. People say that you can see things.” 73 yards was also the distance of the nearest CCTV camera to the church in Ruby Road, as reported by Harriet in TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday ^[+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"].
• When monitoring the locations where life has been restored, the Doctor mentions Vortis (TV: The Web Planet ^[+]Loading...["The Web Planet (TV story)"]), Vox, Tigella (TV: The Creature from the Pit ^[+]Loading...["The Creature from the Pit (TV story)"]), Messaline (TV: The Doctor's Daughter ^[+]Loading...["The Doctor's Daughter (TV story)"]), Calufrax (TV: The Pirate Planet ^[+]Loading...["The Pirate Planet (TV story)"]), Spiridon (TV: Planet of the Daleks ^[+]Loading...["Planet of the Daleks (TV story)"]), Telos (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen ^[+]Loading...["The Tomb of the Cybermen (TV story)"] et al.), Shan Shen (TV: Turn Left ^[+]Loading...["Turn Left (TV story)"]), and the Ood Sphere (TV: Planet of the Ood ^[+]Loading...["Planet of the Ood (TV story)"]).
• Like previous stories of this season, a character breaks the fourth wall, in this case Mrs. Flood. (TV: The Church on Ruby Road, TV: The Devil's Chord)

Gallery

Main article: Empire of Death (TV story)/Gallery