Deep Breath (TV story)

Deep Breath
Doctor:	Twelfth Doctor
Companion(s):	Clara
Featuring:	Vastra, Jenny, Strax
Main enemy:	Half-Face Man, Clockwork Droids
Key crew
Writer:	Steven Moffat
Director:	Ben Wheatley
Producer:	Nikki Wilson
Release details
Story number:	241
Premiere broadcast:	23 August 2014
Premiere network:	BBC One
Format:	1x74 minute episode
Production code:	4.1
Doctor Who television stories
← Previous	The Time of the Doctor
Next →	TBA

Deep Breath was the first episode of the eighth series of Doctor Who produced by BBC Wales. After a brief cameo in The Day of the Doctor and a short appearance at the end of The Time of the Doctor, this episode marks the full first appearance of Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor. It also saw the last regular appearance of Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor in an surprise cameo set directly before his regeneration.

Following the success of the theatrical simulcast of The Day of the Doctor on 23 November 2013, this premiere episode also received a release, simultaneous with its broadcast on television, in cinemas across the world.

Synopsis

When the Doctor arrives in Victorian London he finds a dinosaur rampant in the Thames and a spate of deadly spontaneous combustions.

Plot

to be added

Cast

• The Doctor - Peter Capaldi
• Clara - Jenna Coleman
• Madame Vastra - Neve McIntosh
• Strax - Dan Starkey
• Jenny - Catrin Stewart
• Half-Face Man - Peter Ferdinando
• Inspector Gregson - Paul Hickey
• Alf - Tony Way
• Elsie - Maggie Service
• Cabbie - Mark Kempner
• Barney - Brian Miller
• Waiter - Graham Duff
• Courtney - Ellis George
• Policeman - Peter Hannah
• Footman - Paul Kasey
• Missy - Michelle Gomez
• and Matt Smith as The Doctor

Crew

to be added

References

• The Doctor accidentally brings Clara to Glasgow.
• In his confusion, the Doctor thinks Clara is the regeneration of Handles.

The Doctor

• The Doctor speaks both Dinosaur and Horse.

Story notes

Specific to theatrical presentation

• A specially recorded scene similar to the Strax Field Reports was shown before the episode in its showing in cinemas featuring the Paternoster Gang: Vastra, Jenny Flint, and Strax. The scene primarily focused on Strax describing humourously describing the first twelve incarnations of the Doctor, making note of the War Doctor as well as the Tenth Doctor's aborted regeneration, to his people, before alerting them to the appearance of the latest Doctor.
• A live Q & A in London, hosted by Zoe Ball with Peter Capaldi, Jenna-Louise Coleman, and Steven Moffat, was screened to cinemas following the showing of Deep Breath.

Ratings

to be added

Filming locations

to be added

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.

You can see the end of Vastra's mask in the opening scenes.

Continuity

• The Twelfth Doctor often reflects that he finds the current situation of robots harvesting human organs to repair a ship to be naggingly familiar (TV: The Girl in the Fireplace), but his addled brain is unable to make the connection even when he notes that the ship- the SS Marie Antoinette- is the sister ship to the SS Madame De Pompadour.
• The Doctor mentions Amy, making reference to her legs. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
• While performing a physical examination of Clara, Strax makes an observation on her thorax as did Linx with Sarah Jane Smith (TV: The Time Warrior) as well as Commander Skorr to Martha Jones. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem)
• The Doctor wonders who gave Clara the phone number of the TARDIS. (TV: The Bells of Saint John)
• The Doctor is sure he has already seen his new face before. (TV: The Fires of Pompeii)
• The Paternoster Gang are located in the Victorian era. (TV: The Snowmen, The Crimson Horror)
• Clara learns why the TARDIS telephone was hanging off the hook when she returned to the TARDIS after the Eleventh Doctor began regenerating. Because he did not patch it back to the console unit, the Eleventh Doctor dragged the phone by its cord into the entrance of his console to make a private and final phone call to Clara in the near future, then neglected to properly hang up the phone with his time running too short to worry about it. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)

Home video releases

to be added

External links

to be added