The Power of Three (TV story): Difference between revisions

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* [[Kate Stewart]] is the daughter of Brigadier [[Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart]]. She previously appeared on-screen in [[HOMEVID]]: ''[[Downtime]]'' and ''[[Dæmos Rising]]'', as well as the book, ''[[The Scales of Injustice (novel)|The Scales of Injustice]]''.
* [[Kate Stewart]] is the daughter of Brigadier [[Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart]]. She previously appeared on-screen in [[HOMEVID]]: ''[[Downtime]]'' and ''[[Dæmos Rising]]'', as well as the book, ''[[The Scales of Injustice (novel)|The Scales of Injustice]]''.
* Ten years have passed since the events of ''[[The Eleventh Hour]]'' in Amy's personal timeline.
* Ten years have passed since the events of ''[[The Eleventh Hour]]'' in Amy's personal timeline.
* The Doctor, talking to a flying cube, says "Is that all you can do? Hover? I'd a metal dog that could do that" referring to [[K9 Mark IV]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith]]''
* The Doctor, talking to a flying cube, says "Is that all you can do? Hover? I'd a metal dog that could do that" referring to [[K9 Mark IV]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith]]'')
* The Doctor once again asks how humans cope with just one heart. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Shakespeare Code]]'')
* The Doctor once again asks how humans cope with just one heart. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Shakespeare Code]]'')
* Twitter is mentioned again, the Doctor seems similarly unimpressed. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Girl Who Waited]]'')
* Twitter is mentioned again, the Doctor seems similarly unimpressed. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Girl Who Waited]]'')

Revision as of 14:38, 26 September 2012

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The Power of Three was the fourth episode of the seventh series of Doctor Who produced by BBC Wales.

Synopsis

There have been many ways to invade the Earth, and the Doctor has seen them all – or so he always thought. And then the human race wakes up one morning and discovers the world has been overrun by… "very small cubes", which then proceed to… do nothing at all. A plan is afoot, humanity is endangered – but by what and how and, above all, when?

For the first time in his world-saving career the Doctor has to call upon one of the least of his virtues: patience. And the Ponds face something possibly more terrifying than any world-ending apocalypse: the Doctor is moving in!

Plot

After realizing that they lead two lives, their "Doctor" life and their everyday life, Amy and Rory conclude that they should choose one to stick with; but then are whisked away on another adventure with the Doctor. After returning home, the couple settle back into routine. But one morning they are by Rory's father Brain, who alerts them to the global appearance of small, black cubes. The Doctor, already there, quickly attempts to understand them. His experiments accidentally attract the attention of U.N.I.T. and a strike team quickly responds. After the team locks down the couples flat, Kate Stewart arrives on scene and identifies the Doctor. She and the Doctor wish to continue monitoring the cubes, as it appears that due to the cubes' inactivity people have started taking them home and to work. U.N.I.T. departs as does the Doctor, leaving Brian and U.N.I.T. monitoring the majority of the inactive cubes. Several months pass, with Amy and Rory taking on the commitments of everyday life. During their anniversary, the Doctor returns to take the couple on a journey through time once again. The trip takes on the usual mishaps; a few days journey turns into seven weeks. They return to the moment they left, and Brian questions the Doctor about the fates of his past companions; worrying about the Ponds possible future traveling with him. The next day, among everyday life, the cubes activate. Every effect is random, and the cubes inside the the Ponds' flat also activate. Around the world, many of cube's effects are dangerous. Rory and Brian leave to help the hospital with the recent injuries, and the Doctor and Amy are summoned by U.N.I.T. to the Tower of London. Captured cubes exhibit different effects; such as hacking national defense systems around the world. Soon the cubes become inactive again; the world begins to recover. At the hospital, Brian crosses paths with two identical "nurses", in reality non-human entities being used by a small girl holding an active cube to kidnap patients from the hospital. Having been discovered, Brian is kidnapped as well. Outside the Tower, the Doctor and Amy debate the merit of travelling the way they do; Amy considers it "running away" and the Doctor considers it "running to". During their conversation, the Doctor realizes the cubes acted out to gain attention and scan the entire planet. The power at U.N.I.T. goes out, and the cubes start a countdown from seven. At zero, the cubes open but contain nothing. Moments pass when around people suffer fatal heart attacks, with the Doctor experiencing heart failure with one heart. He and Amy leave for the hospital, where Rory notices his father's absence. The Doctor discovers the little girl with the active cube and reveals her to be a simple android overseeing the entire operation. The Doctor shuts her down and Amy restarts the Doctor's heart with a defibrillator. The Doctor and the Ponds converge on board a spaceship through a wormhole in a "Out of Order" elevator. The two "nurses" are on board and are quickly disabled. Brian is taken back to the hospital by Amy and Rory while the Doctor meets the ship on-board hologram. The ship was built by the Shakri, which in the Doctor's opinion are the "pest controllers of the universe". The stolen electricity was used to exterminate the human race; which the hologram thinks is a contagion to be destroy. Returning to the ship, Amy and Rory watch the Doctor reuse the electricity to start the stopped hearts on Earth. The surge however, destroys the Shakri ship just after the Doctor and the Ponds escape. Later that night, Brian urges the couple to continue to travel with the Doctor, believing that they should enjoy the opportunity to change the world.

Cast

Uncredited cast

Crew

General production staff

Script department

Camera and lighting department

Art department

Costume department

Make-up and prosthetics

Movement

Casting

General post-production staff

Special and visual effects

Sound



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.


References

Communication technology

Game consoles

Music

  • The song "Merry Xmas Everybody" by the rock band Slade is briefly heard in the hospital.
  • One of the cubes plays the infamously irritating Chicken Dance song (aka The Birdie Song), on an endless loop. The Doctor seems annoyed.
  • The song "Titanium" plays at the party Amy attends.

Culture

  • When Amy calls the Gallifreyan bedtime story about the Shakri weird, the Doctor remarks "You can talk. Wolf in your grandmother's night dress?" in reference to the story Little Red Riding Hood.
  • The Doctor tells Amy "Through the looking glass, Pond" in reference to Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.
  • The Power of Three could be a a veiled reference to the American television series Charmed.

Energy and radiation

Foods and beverages

Individuals

  • When Brian asks the Doctor what happened to those who previously travelled with him, he tells him that some left him, some got left behind, and some died.
  • Amy accidentally marries Henry VIII.
  • While playing virtual tennis, the Doctor mentions the tennis player Fred Perry and a pair of shorts he borrowed from him.
  • The real physicist Brian Cox plays himself as he is interviewed on the news for an opinion about the cubes.

Species

  • There were Zygon duplicates at the Savoy when Amy, the Doctor and Rory visit.

Story notes

File:DWLogoS7 Power of Three.jpg
The unique logo for The Power of Three.
  • For this episode, the Doctor Who logo's texture resembled the cubes featured prominently in the episode.
  • The working title for this episode was Cubed.[2]

Ratings

  • The episode received an overnight viewership of 5.49 million people in the UK.

Filming locations

Belle Vue Park, Albert Road, Penarth (filming took place on June 28 2012)

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.
  • In some shots when the cubes are counting down from 7, some cubes are missing the numbers in one shot and then have them in the next.This can be seen at 28:01 when the doctor is in the room with the cube, and when the nurse is removing the cubes from the hospital at around 25:44

Continuity

Home video releases

DVD releases

to be added

Blu-ray releases

to be added

External links

to be added

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Doctor Who Team (22 September 2012). Lord Sugar and Brian Cox: Who Knew?. BBC - Blogs - Doctor Who. Retrieved on 22 September 2012.
  2. ↑ sfx (July 2 2012). Doctor Who Series 7: New Episode 4 Reshoot Pics. SFX. Retrieved on 23rd September 2012.


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