The Eleventh Hour (TV story)

The Eleventh Hour (TV story)

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The Eleventh Hour
Doctor:	[[doctor::Eleventh Doctor]]
Companion(s):	Amy Pond (introduction; joins) Rory Williams (introduction)
Main enemy:	Prisoner Zero Atraxi
Main setting:	London, post 1999 Leadworth, Easter 1996 Leadworth, April 2008 25 June 2010
Key crew
Writer:	Steven Moffat
Director:	Adam Smith
Producer:	Tracie Simpson
Release details
Story number:	203
Release number:	Series 5
Premiere broadcast:	3 April 2010
Format:	1x 65 minute episode
Production code:	5.1
Confidential:	[[confidential::Call Me the Doctor|Call Me the Doctor]]

The Eleventh Hour was the first episode of the fifth series of BBC Wales Doctor Who. It featured the debut of Karen Gillan as new companion Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill as recurring character and future companion, Rory Williams.

Though not the first episode filmed of the 2010 series, it was nevertheless the public's first full exposure to a new production ethos, as shaped by new executive producers Steven Moffatt, Piers Wenger and Beth Willis. It was also the public's first exposure to director Adam Smith's work on a Doctor Who universe programme.

The episode was extensively previewed before broadcast, with special screenings in several British cities as part of a promotional tour at the end of March 2010, and special pre-broadcast screenings on both the east and west coasts of the United States. The first minute of the episode was released as a special preview on the digital Red Button service a week before its first BBC One broadcast.

Synopsis

The Doctor has regenerated into a brand new man, but danger strikes before he can recover. With the TARDIS wrecked, and the sonic screwdriver destroyed, the new Doctor has just twenty minutes to save the whole world - and only Amy Pond to help him.

Plot

Suffering major damage after the Tenth Doctor's regeneration, the TARDIS flies wildly over London. The Eleventh Doctor barely hangs onto the edge of the entrance. As he tries to climb in, he sees the TARDIS is headed straight for Big Ben; using his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor diverts the TARDIS just enough to miss the clock's spire. Pulling himself back in and locking the doors behind him, the Doctor barely has any time to relax before another explosion sets the TARDIS spinning madly off into the distance.

In 1996, Amelia Pond prays to Santa Claus in her bedroom; a crack in her wall frightens her, and she wants him to send someone to mend it. A crash outside catches her attention, and running to look, she sees the TARDIS lying in her back garden, having crushed her shed on landing. She goes to investigate. The TARDIS doors fly open and the Doctor struggles to pull himself out; he repeatedly asks her for an apple; his regeneration is giving him a craving.

File:Amyanddoctor.png

The Doctor enjoying "fish and custard" with young Amy.

Inside, Amelia prepares various food items for the Doctor, who rejects all of them; finally, he settles on fish fingers and custard, and they bond over this meal. As they talk, the Doctor learns that Amelia is originally from Scotland, is orphaned, and lives with her Aunt Sharon. She takes the Doctor to her room to examine the crack in her wall (Amelia gives him an apple with a smiley face carved into it prior to this); the Doctor is astonished to hear a voice on the other side of the crack transmitting the message, "Prisoner Zero has escaped." Ascertaining that a prison lies on the other side of the crack, he opens it with the sonic and is faced with the alien guard -- which appears to be a giant eyeball -- that sends him a message on the psychic paper before the crack snaps shut once more. The message, however, reads the same thing: "Prisoner Zero has escaped."

The Doctor opening the Crack in time and space in Amelia's wall

The Doctor, realising that the prisoner has escaped through Amelia's bedroom, rushes out into the corridor to investigate and realizes that he's missing something out of the corner of his eye. Before he can discover it, however, the Cloister Bell chimes, warning him that the TARDIS engines are about to overload. He rushes back to the time machine, promising Amelia that he will return in five minutes and take her on a trip with him. An excited Amelia rushes back inside to collect her things, not noticing that the door at the end of the corridor -- the thing that the Doctor was missing -- has opened.

The Doctor returns to her garden in the daylight, realizing that he has taken longer than promised. He rushes back into the house, having figured out what he'd missed and knowing that Amelia's life is in danger. He begins searching for a way to open the door at the end of the corridor when someone whacks him on the head with a cricket bat.

Elsewhere, at the town hospital, nurse Rory Williams informs his supervisor that the coma patients have been calling out for "the doctor." She dismisses the idea, drawling that they are comatose. As she berates him, the patients begin to repeatedly cry out "Doctor," much to her shock and horror.

The Doctor awakes to find that he has been hand-cuffed to a radiator. He is confronted by a young woman dressed in a police uniform, who angrily informs him when he asks that Amelia Pond hasn't lived in the house for six months, and that she lives here now. The Doctor orders her to count off all of the rooms on the floor; she counts five, but the Doctor quickly informs her that there are, in fact, six -- one is hidden by a perception filter. Ignoring the Doctor's warnings, she enters the sixth room to find the sonic screwdriver stuck in a puddle of goo on the surface of a table. Picking it up, she turns and finds herself face to face with Prisoner Zero, a serpentine alien multi-form. She runs back to the Doctor, closing the door behind her.

The Doctor locks the door with the sonic and tries to free himself, but the sonic is damaged. Prisoner Zero breaks through the door, emerging as a man with a dog; both mouths bark, much to the Doctor's amusement. He informs the alien that the young woman called for backup on her police radio, but she nervously admits that it is a fake; she isn't a policewoman, but a kissogram, and subsequently whips off her police hat to reveal long red hair. The Atraxi prison guard is heard transmitting from outside, repeating the same message over and over: "The human residence is surrounded. Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence, or the human residence will be incinerated." The Doctor quickly frees himself, and he and the woman run to the TARDIS; however, the doors won't open, as it is repairing itself and is shut off until it's finished. Suddenly, he notices the shed in the backyard, remembering that he wrecked it when he previously crash-landed; going to investigate, he realizes that this "new" shed is already old -- twelve years old. He turns to the woman, demanding to know why she told him six months when it had really been twelve years; in a Scottish accent, she angrily demands to know why he told her five minutes. She is Amelia Pond, embittered by the Doctor's apparent abandonment of her twelve years prior. Grabbing his arm, she pulls him out of the yard and into town.

Back at the local hospital, Rory and his superior carefully examine the patients, but the patients still appear to be in comas. Rory attempts to inform his superior of other suspicious circumstances pertaining to the coma patients, even offering his phone and suggesting that the pictures he's taken with it can prove his story. Instead, she impatiently orders him to take some time off.

In town, Amelia tells the Doctor that she had four psychiatrists in her childhood, and that she kept biting them because they insisted he wasn't real. Nevertheless, her fury is temporarily disregarded as the duo realizes that the Atraxi message is broadcasting over all of the town's electronics, including cell phones, iPods, and the speaker of an ice cream van. They rush into the home of Amelia's friend Jeff Angelo and his grandmother, where the Doctor examines the TV and radio and realizes that the warning is being broadcasted all over the world in every language. The human residence is not just Amelia's home, but Earth itself. The Doctor explains that the Atraxi will need twenty minutes to prepare their weapons. Jeff and his grandmother immediately recognize the Doctor as "the Raggedy Doctor" from cartoons that Amelia drew as a child; additionally, Amelia tells the Doctor that she is calling herself Amy now because her name was "too fairytale."

The Doctor and Amy race outside, where the Doctor is annoyed to discover that Leadworth has no technology to help him (he is also annoyed that it does seem to have a duck pond with no ducks). Suddenly, he convulses and falls to the ground, protesting that it is too early and he's not done yet. The sky goes dark; the Atraxi have surrounded Earth in a force field before boiling it. Across the park, the Doctor notices Rory taking pictures of a man with a dog -- whom the Doctor and Amy know as Prisoner Zero -- as opposed to the obscured sun, like everyone else gathered in the square. The Doctor gleefully announces that he can save the world and tells Amy that she can either help him or run home and say goodbye to her loved ones. As opposed to either of these things, Amy slams the Doctor up against a nearby car and locks his tie in the door, trapping him; she demands to know who he really is. He secures her trust by showing her the carved apple that she gave him when she was seven, pointing it out that it is still fresh. She releases the Doctor's tie and they run across the park to confront Rory.

The Doctor takes Rory's cell phone and demands to know why he was taking a picture of the man and the dog; Amy, meanwhile, introduces him as her "sort of" boyfriend. Rory tells the Doctor that the man can't be standing in the park because he's in the hospital in a coma; however, the Doctor had been expecting this response, knowing that coma patients fufill a multi-form's requirement for a living, but dormant, mind. The Doctor confronts Prisoner Zero as an Atraxi spaceship soars overhead; he informs that alien that the Atraxi are scanning for non-terrestrial technology, and nothing says non-terrestrial like the sonic screwdriver -- which he subsequently activates at full power, breaking nearby lamp-lights and activating car alarms. However, the sonic is severely damaged, and the strain of the task causes it to burn out completely.

Prisoner Zero escapes into the sewer as the Atraxi spaceship flies away. The Doctor sends Amy and Rory to the hospital to clear out the coma ward; however, when they arrive, they learn that Prisoner Zero has beat them there and is killing all of the conscious people in the ward. Meanwhile, the Doctor returns to Jeff's house and uses his laptop to break in on a conference call between some of the most scientific minds in the world. He uses Rory's phone to write a virus that will turn every digital display in the world to "zero" at the same time; he uploads this virus to the Web via the laptop and encourages them to spread it across the world.

Amy and Rory use her policewoman uniform to sneak past hospital security and enter the coma ward. They meet a mother and her twin daughters, who have survived Prisoner Zero's attack on the ward by hiding in the bathroom. Amy phones the Doctor, who has commandeered a fire engine to make it to the hospital, and informs him that Prisoner Zero has beat them back; he encourages them to leave. However, one of the daughters has started talking in her mother's voice -- it is Prisoner Zero in disguise again. The alien concedes that it has trouble with multiple mouths, and baring razor-sharp teeth, chases Amy and Rory back into the coma ward. The Doctor arrives in the nick of time, ramming the truck's ladder into the window so that he may climb into the ward. He asks Prisoner Zero to surrender and remove its disguise; Prisoner Zero refuses, knowing the Atraxi will execute it. The Doctor enjoys a victory speech as the virus takes hold of the clock on the wall behind them and changes the counter to zero; this occurs all over the world as a means of getting the Atraxi's attention. He uses Rory's phone to upload pictures of all of Prisoner Zero's known human forms to the Atraxi.

However, Prisoner Zero surprises the Doctor by utilising a link it had formed with Amy over the twelve years it spent living in her house; it takes a new form -- a seven-year-old Amelia holding onto the Doctor's hand. The Doctor uses his powers of telepathy to encourage the unconscious Amy to dream of Prisoner Zero's true form, thereby forcing it to change back. The Atraxi catch it in a paralyzing light and teleport it away. Before departing, Prisoner Zero snarls, "Silence, Doctor. Silence will fall." With the threat ended, Amy awakes, but the Doctor calls the Atraxi back -- they have breached the rules of the Shadow Proclamation by threatening to incinerate a level 5 planet. After a quick change of clothes, the Doctor meets the Atraxi on the roof and informs them that Earth has not violated any of their laws and is not a threat to their species; he also warns them that many aliens have threatened Earth in the past, but the planet is protected -- by him. He tells them to run, and they flee in terror.

As the Doctor observes their departure, he realizes that the TARDIS key is glowing: the TARDIS has recovered and awaits him. He dashes off to see the new design and takes it on a quick hop to the moon to run it in; Amy and Rory return to her garden just in time to see the TARDIS dematerializing. She is devastated, believing that the Doctor has left her again.

Amy dreams of her younger self awaiting the Doctor's return in the garden, but awakes at the sound of the TARDIS materializing outside. Racing into the garden, she angrily informs an oblivious Doctor that all of the events surrounding Prisoner Zero and the Atraxi happened two years ago; thus, it has been fourteen years since fish fingers and custard, fourteen years since he first promised her a trip. The Doctor muses that she's waited for him long enough and asks her to join him as a companion. She refuses, but changes her mind when the Doctor opens the doors of the TARDIS and allows her to step inside. She makes the Doctor promise to bring her back to Leadworth by the next morning for "stuff," and they fly off into the time vortex -- leaving behind a wedding dress, which hangs in Amy's closet.

Cast

• The Doctor - Matt Smith
• Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
• Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill
• Young Amy (Amelia) - Caitlin Blackwood
• Mrs. Angelo - Annette Crosbie
• Jeff - Tom Hopper
• Barney Collins - Marcello Magni
• Coma Patient - Peter Moyes
• Mother - Olivia Colman
• Mr. Henderson - Arthur Cox
• Ice-Cream Man - Perry Benson
• Dr. Ramsden - Nina Wadia
• Children - Eden Monteath, Merlin Monteath
• Himself - Sir Patrick Moore
• Atraxi Voice - David de Keyser

Crew

Executive Producers   Steven Moffat, Piers Wenger and Beth Willis

General production staff Production Executive - Julie Scott Line Producer - Patrick Schweitzer Production Manager - Holly Pullinger Location Managers - Gareth Skelding, Paul Davies Unit Manager - Rhys Griffiths Production Co-ordinator - Jess van Niekerk Assistant Production Manager - Claire Thomas Production Runner - Sian Warrilow Production Accountant - Ceri Tothill A/Production Accountant - Carole Wakefield Script department Script Editor - Lindsey Alford Camera and lighting department 1st Assistant Director - John Bennett 2nd Assistant Director - James DeHaviland 3rd Assistant Director - Heddi Joy Taylor Welch Runners - Nicola Eynon Price, Laura Jenkins Continuity - Non Eleri Hughes Camera Operator - Joe Russell Focus Pullers - Steve Rees, Matthew Poynter Grip - John Robinson Camera Assistants - Tom Hartley, Jon Vidgen Boom Operator - Dafydd Parry Gaffer - Mark Hutchings Best Boy - Pete Chester Electricians - Ben Griffiths, Steve Slocombe, Bob Milton, Alan Tippets	Art department Supervising Art Director - Stephen Nicholas Associate Designer - James North Production Buyer - Ben Morris Set Decorator - Keith Dunne Props Buyer - Sue Jackson Potter Set Designer - Rhys Jarman Storyboard Artist - James Iles Concept Artists - Richard Shaun Williams, Peter McKinstry Graphic Artist - Jackson Pope Standby Props - Phill Shellard, Tom Evans Standby Carpenter - Will Pope Standby Art Director - Ciaran Thompson Standby Rigger - Keith Freeman Standby Painter - Ellen Woods Props Master - Paul Aitken Props Chargehand - Matt Wild Dressing Props - Martin Broadbent, Rhys Jones Props Makers - Penny Howarth, Nicholas Robatto Construction Manager - Matthew Hywel-Davies Construction Chargehand - Scott Fisher Practical Electrician - Albert James Scenic Artists - John Pinkerton, John Whalley Graphics - BBC Wales Graphics Costume department Costume Supervisor - Bobbie Peach Costume Assistants - Sara Morgan, Maria Franchi	Make-up and prosthetics Make-up Supervisor - Pam Mullins Make-up Artists - Abi Brotherton, Morag Smith Movement Stunt Co-ordinator - Crispin Layfield Casting Casting Associates - Andy Brierley, Alice Purser General post-production staff Post-production Supervisors - Chris Blatchford, Samantha Hall Post-production Co-ordinator - Marie Brown Assistant Editor - Cat Gregory On-line Conform - Matthew Clarke, Mark Bright Special and visual effects VFX Editor - Ceres Doyle Sound Sound Recordist - Bryn Thomas Dubbing Mixer - Tim Ricketts Sound Maintenance Engineer - Jeff Welch Supervising Sound Editor - Paul McFadden Sound Effects Editor - Paul Jefferies Foley Editor - Helen Dickson

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.
Anthony Dickenson was credited as the "Stop Frame Director" during his interview on CON: "Call Me the Doctor", but he was not credited in the episode proper. He was responsible for the "Doctor's eye view" sequence on the Leadworth village green, which leads to the Doctor noticing that Rory was taking pictures of Prizoner Zero.

References

The Doctor

• The Doctor says "What? What?? What?!?" and "Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey" much like his previous incarnation.
• The Doctor opens the TARDIS doors with a snap of his fingers for the first time since Forest of the Dead. According to River Song in the same episode, he will begin to do so regularly at some point in the future.
• When Jeff states "You can't just hack in on a call like that." the Doctor responds with "Can't I?". This is the Fourth Doctor's same response and mannerism to Sarah Jane's and the Brigadier's protests shortly after he had regenerated.
• Perhaps due to his new appearance, the Doctor finds it necessary to prove to the online conference that he has the credentials to solve the current problem, despite the fact the name "The Doctor" would have been well-known in these circles at this time (per DW: The Christmas Invasion, and other events).
• The Doctor mentions "cowboys," a phrase used by his previous incarnation in DW: The Girl in the Fireplace.
• The Doctor drives a fire engine.
• The Doctor calls the TARDIS "you sexy thing" and "dear. The later episode DW: The Doctor's Wife will expand on this, establishing that the TARDIS is not only aware of the Doctor's feelings, but reciprocates them; she also adopts the name "Sexy" based on the Doctor calling her that. It's unclear whether the Doctor's referring to the TARDIS as "sexy" originated in this episode, or had been expressed off-screen in past incarnations.
• One of the jackets taken from the hospital for the Doctor to try on is a dark maroon similar in style to one of the Third Doctor's jackets (see also Production Errors below).

Food and Beverages

• The Doctor craves many different types of foods whilst still undergoing regeneration. He attempts to try many until he finally decides which one he liked. The Doctor doesn't like apples, yoghurt, bacon, beans or bread and butter, and rejects carrots without even trying them, but does like fish fingers and custard, a combination dubbed "fish custard".

Galactic Law

• Article 57 of the Shadow Proclamation is cited by the Doctor against the Atraxi, similar to when he cited it against Matron Cofelia in DW: Partners in Crime.

Earth locations

• Gloucester is thirty minutes away from Leadworth.

Science and Maths

• The Doctor uploads the "real" proof of Fermat's theorem, the formula for faster-than-light travel (with "two diagrams and a joke"), and an explanation for why electrons have mass as a way to prove to the experts on the secure video conference that they should trust his advice about how to deal with the Atraxi threat.
• The Doctor refers to Jordrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, NASA, and the Tokyo Space Centre as three of "the big boys", as well as Sir Patrick Moore (playing himself). Unmentioned by the Doctor but shown on the conference screen are the ESA (European Space Agency) and CSIRO (Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation).

Music and Songs

• The Ice-Cream man mentions that the song playing from the ice-cream truck's speakers was meant to be 'Claire De Lune' before the Atraxi had hijacked it.

Technology

• The Doctor notes there is a perception filter around the door so that it is only visible out of the corner of his and Amy's eyes.

Theories and concepts

• Prisoner Zero mentions that the Pandorica will open and that "Silence will fall".

Story notes

• The working title for this episode was The Doctor Returns.
• Matt Smith revealed that there are five things in this story to look out for over the course of the series, the cracks being one of the five things.
• The opening scene, which was released on BBC Red Button, was actually a pick-up. Not originally included in the final shooting script of the episode, it was written months after principal photography had wrapped on the episode. It technically had its own script, subtitled "Opening Sequence". At least two drafts were written, with the second being dated 17 December 2009. The sequence was in fact its own production. Unlike the episode proper, its producer was Nikki Wilson, its director was Jonny Campbell, and its director of photography was Tony Slater-Ling. Wilson received a credit of "special thanks" in the end credits. The involvement of Campbell and Slater-Ling were established by behind-the-scenes footage of clapperboards. (WC: Doctor Who Video Explorer)
• According to Russell T Davies in Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale, Moffat informed him in January 2008 that he had begun writing the first episode of Series 5.
• This is the only televised story starring a single incarnation of the Doctor to refer to the number of that incarnation in its title.
• The episode included a sequence showing all previous ten incarnations of the Doctor. The vision of the Tenth Doctor is from DW: The Family of Blood.
• The episode introduces a new Doctor Who theme arrangement, an unprecedented third by Murray Gold (not counting several other closing-credit and non-series arrangements). A new opening titles sequence is also introduced, along with the first on-screen use of a new Doctor Who logo. Other cosmetic changes as of this episode include a new TARDIS interior design, slight modifications to its exterior, and the introduction of a new sonic screwdriver.
• This story reveals that at least some sonic screwdrivers are grown/built by the TARDIS.
• Amy Pond is the first modern Earth companion since the series' revival to not be from London. In the Confidential for this episode, Steven Moffat says that London-set stories had become a cliché and this was an attempt to avoid it.
• Caitlin Blackwood (young Amy) and Karen Gillan are real-life cousins, and Gillan convinced series producers to cast Blackwood in the role; amazingly, they hadn't actually met before Doctor Who.
• The TARDIS scene in which the characters are viewed through the central column as they talk to each other mirror those seen in the film.
• Prisoner Zero states that "The Pandorica will open", and repeats "Silence will fall".
• In the final scene, the Doctor is standing next to a monitor in the TARDIS that shows a waveform. The waveform appears to be the same shape as the crack in Amy's wall.
• To write the virus, the Doctor uses Rory's BlackBerry Storm (confirmed by Engadget-4/04/10).
• The monitor in the new TARDIS console has a Magpie Electricals logo on it.
• Like the Eleventh Doctor, the Tenth Doctor also had a distaste for certain foods, particularly pears. (DW: Human Nature/The Family of Blood)
• Lots of speculation began concerning Rory William's 1990 badge date and how it conflicted with many things seen and heard on-screen (slim camera-phones, Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, and the very 2000s technology); however, Steven Moffat later confirmed that the badge date was a mistake that went unnoticed until after the episode aired. The year of this story was later confirmed in Flesh and Stone.
• When the Doctor and Amy leave her yard in the TARDIS at the end of the episode, the clock in the TARDIS is shown changing from 11:59am to 12:00pm, despite the fact that it is clearly night outside. This would not usually be notable (this *is* Doctor Who), except that an identical effect is observed on the clock in Amy's bedroom at the end of DW Flesh and Stone. Also in the same episode, the Doctor confirms that they "had been gone five minutes"; yet the time is the same.
• This is the first time the Doctor doesn't use a mirror to find out what he looked like after a regeneration (as part of one of Prisoner Zero's forms was him).
• The Eleventh Doctor continues a long standing tradition (which has had a few exceptions) of performing a large portion his first episode in the costume of his previous incarnation, picking out his new costume at the end of the episode.
• This episode aired on the same day as the K9 episode, The Korven was first broadcast on Disney XD in Britain. It also aired on the same day that Regeneration was first broadcast on Network Ten in Australia.
• On the BBC America broadcast, which was heavily edited down to fit in a 60-minute slot with commercial breaks, left out Prisoner Zero's important "Silence will fall" line, which may have confused some viewers because The Impossible Astronaut uses a flashback to that scene.
• One clothing retailer reported that in the month following the airing of this episode, in which the Doctor declared that "bow ties are cool," its bow tie sales increased by 94%.
• The TARDIS control room from the Ninth and Tenth Doctor's era was restored and left standing for eighteen months after it was used in this episode at the request of writer Neil Gaiman. The set was used for the SJA episode The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith and finally for Gaiman's story The Doctor's Wife. Production staff had to make up excuses in response to questions as to why the set was left standing. It has since been removed.
• This episode contains a number of parallels with the story of Peter Pan. Both feature a little girl receiving a "magical" visitor who promises to take her to far-away places. In JM Barrie's original novel, Peter leaves Wendy when she is a child, promising to return every Spring, but he does not come back until Wendy has grown much older, while he remains the same age. Here, the Doctor promises to return for Amy in five minutes but does not come back for 12 (and then 14) years. In both cases the girl looks to her visitor as a way to escape an unhappy childhood. Perhaps most tellingly, the Doctor tells Amy that her growing up is something he'll "fix," echoing Peter's vow to "never grow up."
• Annette Crosbie is best known for portraying Margaret Meldrew, the long suffering wife of Victor Meldrew in the British sitcom, One Foot in the Grave. Victor Meldrew was portrayed by Richard Wilson, who has also appeared in Doctor Who as Dr. Constantine in "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances".

Ratings

• 8.4 million - First viewing in the UK (36.9% audience share)
• 10.08 million viewers - Final BARB figure

Filming locations

• The White House, Llandaff, Cardiff
• Old Cemetery, Rhymney, Gwent
• The Vicarage, Rhymney, Gwent
• Abertillery Hospital, Aberbeeg, Abertillery
• The Cathedral Green, Llandaff, Cardiff

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 the opening scene, there are several errors.
  • When the Eleventh Doctor is hanging from the TARDIS across London, every wide shot shown depicts the TARDIS rotating, but whenever a close-up of the Doctor is shown, the background does not rotate.
  • When the camera initially looks down on the Doctor, the floor is at slightly different levels, but when it cuts to the Doctor pulling himself inside, the floor is all the same level.
  • The St. John's Ambulance logo is visible on the CGI wideshots of the TARDIS, yet on the live-action close-up, the doors remain as they have been since 2005.
• On several occasions editor James Pearson mismatches footage of the same scene-parts, as recorded by different cameras or in different takes.
  • When the Doctor leaves Amelia for his TARDIS-stabilizing, five-minute hop into the future, Caitlin Blackwood's closeup shows her hair being whipped around by the TARDIS' departure. When Pearson immediately cuts to an over-the-shoulder shot of Blackwood watching the departure, her hair is totally unaffected.
  • During the Leadworth hospital rooftop scene, the Doctor progressively throws away a variety of neckties as he whittles the options down. The last of these neckties is yellow, which we see in a frontal mid-shot. When Pearson switches to footage taken from the side in a long shot, the tie is not present. When he again switches to the frontal mid-shot, the tie reappears. Later in the same scene, Pearson has a similar problem. The wide shot of the departing Atraxi vessel shows Smith reaching into his coat pocket for the TARDIS key. When Pearson cuts back to a close-up of Smith, he hasn't yet reached into his pocket, and it takes several seconds for him to complete the same action from that angle.The Doctor's hair switches from being swept back to hanging in front of his forehead. Several times when the hair is in front of his forehead, the number and size of strands also changes. Also, when he has yoghurt smeared on his chin it vanishes after the shot changes.
  • When the Doctor slaps himself in the forehead exclaiming "I missed it! I saw it and I missed it!", he ends up with a red mark, but when the camera cuts to the close-up, the red mark has vanished.
  • In the final TARDIS scene, The Doctor obtains his new Sonic Screwdriver, throws it and pockets it. However, when Amy asks The Doctor "why her", when he responds we can see him still putting it in his pocket.
• When Prisoner Zero takes the form of the mother with two daughters, the older, longer haired girl always appears to the right of the mother. When the Doctor crashes the fire engine's ladder through the window and Prisoner Zero looks on, the two girls have switched places.
• When Prisoner Zero walks out of the "extra room" in Amy's house, the doorway that he eventually walks through has its door closed yet when we flick to Prisoner Zero looking at the Atraxi's voice booming out we see that the door has magically disappeared and Prisoner Zero walks through.
• During the final scene inside the TARDIS we see close-up views of The Doctor's hands turning three joysticks and typing on the typewriter. You can clearly see that his tweed jacket has mysteriously changed pattern, becoming the pattern that is not shown again until Victory of the Daleks.
• Some of the aliens shown in the Atraxi projection on the Leadworth hospital speech scene weren't encountered on Earth, like the Hath and Vashta Nerada, for example. Also, the image when the Cybermen crash through the window was from DW: Rise of the Cybermen which was in Pete's World, not ours.
• Whilst the Atraxi shows all the aliens which invaded Earth via hologram, it shows the Ood, which never invaded that planet.
• When the Atraxi is scanning the Doctor, the camera from behind shows his head tilted but when the camera view switches to in front of the Doctor, his head is straight up.
• When the Atraxi first starts scanning the Doctor, from the camera behind the Doctor, the scanner light is halfway down his body, but when it switches to in front of him, it's just then going by his head.
• When the Doctor rushes out to stabilize the TARDIS, Amelia says, "But, it's just a box. How can a box have engines?" The word engines is unusually loud.
• When the Doctor is talking to the Atraxi on the roof of the Leadworth Hospital, he has a bunch of ties on his shoulder. The one he eventually chooses (a maroon bow tie) is never seen on his shoulder in the scene before he walks through the projection. However, Rory has been holding The Doctor's coat while he discards ties. The Doctor then retrieves his coat off camera. It is possible Rory also had the bow tie with the multiple coats in his hands.
• During the Doctor's conversation with the Atraxi, Rory is standing behind him holding a selection of jackets. As the Atraxi are reviewing the various incarnations of the Doctor, one of the jackets (a dark reddish brown jacket) can be seen on the ground to Rory's left. When the Doctor says the line "Hello, I'm the Doctor", the coat is still on the ground, but the scene immediately cuts to a closeup with Rory still holding the jacket in his arms.
• During the final scene, when The Doctor appears to switch off the monitor, it cuts from a close up of the monitor, to a wider angled shot of the Doctor standing at the monitor for a single frame, but then cuts for a single from back to the monitor before going back to the shot of the Doctor.
• In the kitchen scene, after the Doctor has taken a bite out of the apple and spit it out, he puts the bitten fruit back into the fruit bowl that Amelia is holding, and it can be seen in the bowl when Amelia is running to the refridgerator to get him yogurt. But when she returns with the yogurt, the bitten apple is laying beside the bowl on the table.

Continuity

• The Doctor asks "Do I have a face that no one listens to? Again?"; this is a reference to the fact that the Doctor's companions never seem to listen to him.
• The majority of this episode takes place in 2008, with the final scene set on 25th June, 2010. Amy is twenty-one at this time (established in Flesh and Stone)
• This story continues the events seen at the end of DW: The End of Time with the TARDIS crashing towards Earth.
• Perception filters have previously been mentioned/seen in reference to the TARDIS keys (DW: The Sound of Drums) and the Torchwood Three lift (TW: Everything Changes).
• The Doctor uses the phrase "Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey", first used by the Tenth Doctor in DW: Blink and again by both the Tenth and Fifth Doctors in DW: Time Crash.
• The Doctor opens the TARDIS by clicking his fingers as he first did in DW: Forest of the Dead.
• The Shadow Proclamation is again invoked in the first story of a new incarnation of the Doctor, as it had been in Rose and The Christmas Invasion.
• Creatures that appeared in the projected image included the Cybus Cybermen (DW: Rise of the Cybermen), the Daleks (DW: Doomsday), a Pyrovile (DW: The Fires of Pompeii), the Empress of the Racnoss (DW: The Runaway Bride), the Ood (DW: Planet of the Ood), the Hath (DW: The Doctor's Daughter), the Sontarans (DW: The Time Warrior), the Sea Devils (DW: The Sea Devils), the Sycorax (DW: The Christmas Invasion), a Reaper (DW: Father's Day) and a Vashta Nerada's victim (DW: Silence in the Library). The use of clips from The Time Warrior and The Sea Devils marks the first time "monster clips" from the 1963-89 series had been used in the revival.
• Images of all ten prior incarnations of the Doctor are also projected.
• The Doctor states that he got tired of travelling alone (DW: Planet of the Dead; The Waters of Mars); he claims he'd been giving himself earache by not having anyone to talk to.
• This is not the first time a newly-regenerated Doctor has taken new clothes from a hospital. The Third and Eighth did the same thing. (DW: Spearhead from Space; Doctor Who)
• The Doctor's sonic screwdriver was previously destroyed in DW: Smith and Jones, a story which was also the first episode of a new series and also introduced a new companion, as well as in DW: The Visitation.
• This story contains minor references to previous episodes written by Steven Moffat. Libraries are mentioned on numerous occasions, a potential reference to the two-parter DW: Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. The concept of meeting a person at different points of their life - as the Doctor (accidentally) does with Amy Pond - was a major theme of The Girl in the Fireplace. Similarly, River Song also meets the Doctor at different points in his life - often in the wrong order. The Doctor also mentions 'Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey', as he did in DW: Blink and DW: Time Crash. The Doctor opens the TARDIS by snapping his fingers as he did in DW: Forest of the Dead. When Amy contradicts him after he tells Prisoner Zero she sent for backup, he refers to the deception as "a clever lie", the same phrase he retorted with after Donna challenged his claim that the two of them were safe from the Vashta Nerada.
• The Doctor intending to return in five minutes and accidentally taking twelve years is similar to the first time he takes Rose home in DW: Aliens of London; however instead of taking twelve years, it was twelve months.
• When the Atraxi note that the Doctor is not from Earth, he responds with "No, but I've put a lot of work into it." These are the same lines used in DW: The Curse of Fatal Death (also written by Moffat) with regards to the universe.
• After witnessing the destruction of the Sycorax at the hands of Torchwood in The Christmas Invasion, the Doctor tells Harriet Jones that he "...told them this world was protected. I should have told them to run." This time, he does both (in fact, he calls the Atraxi back to do so).
• The TARDIS' doors open outwards for the first time since Episode 1 of DW: The Ice Warriors.
• Assuming that Amy is able to see the Atraxi projection of the Doctor's past incarnations, this makes her the first ongoing companion of the revival to see all the Doctor's past lives; while Jackson Lake in DW: The Next Doctor saw a similar projection, he was only a one-off companion.
• The Doctor is knocked unconscious by Amy's cricket bat. In the novelisation for DW: The Power of the Daleks it was stated that were the Doctor rendered unconscious soon after regeneration the cycle might have started again. Fortunately, the Eleventh Doctor appears to avoid this complication; it may be that when the Doctor leaves in 1996 and returns in 2008, more than fifteen hours of subjective time have passed and he doesn't have to worry about triggering another regeneration.
• The Doctor congratulates Prisoner Zero on "the perfect impersonation of yourself"; The Master gave Adric similar congratulations after he created an illusion of himself to fool Nyssa. (DW: Castrovalva)
• The TARDIS previously "regenerated" in The Company of Friends.
• The Doctor's rejection of carrots may be a callback to his sixth and seventh incarnation's dislike of carrot juice. (DW: Terror of the Vervoids, The Ultimate Foe, Time and the Rani)
• When the Doctor tells Prisoner Zero to open a crack again to escape from the Atraxi, it says it didn't open the crack. When it finds out he doesn't know what the cracks are, it adopts a young girl's voice and says, "The Doctor in the TARDIS doesn't know. Doesn't know, doesn't know!" this is similar to what Angel Bob says in DW: Flesh and Stone. Angel Bob's words were, "The Doctor in the TARDIS hasn't noticed."
• When the Doctor leaves in his new TARDIS, there is lightning or electricity as it leaves, just as there was when it materialised in San Fransisco on the 30th December 1999. (DW: Doctor Who)

Timeline

For the Doctor

• The story occurs after: DW: The End of Time
• This story occurs before: DW: The Beast Below

For Amy

• The story occurs after: DW: Let's Kill Hitler (flashback)
• This story occurs before: DW: The Beast Below

For Rory

• The story occurs after: DW: Let's Kill Hitler (flashback)
• This story occurs before: DW: The Vampires of Venice

DVD/Blu-ray-exclusive scene

The 2010 DVD and Blu-ray release of the Complete Series 5 included an additional scene from The Eleventh Hour. Contrary to many reviews and video-sharing site repostings of the scene, it is not a deleted scene, but rather a scene shot specifically for the DVD/Blu-ray release some time during the later stages of Series 5 production. The comedic scene links the events of The Eleventh Hour with those of The Beast Below as Amy endlessly hammers the Doctor with questions about the logistics of the TARDIS, as well as mocking his decision to wear a bow tie, even at one point wondering if it might be a "cry for help". The Doctor replies, "Bow ties are cool".

The scene ends with the Doctor playfully pushing Amy out into the air bubble surrounding the TARDIS, which leads directly into the first scene of The Beast Below in which Amy is seen floating above the TARDIS, the Doctor holding her by the ankle (although this is not clear to those viewing the scene without the benefit of knowing how The Beast Below begins).

International broadcasts

The Eleventh Hour received its international broadcast debut on 17 April 2010 when both BBC America in the US and Space in Canada broadcast it, followed by ABC1 in Australia on 18 April.

However, it had several pre-broadcast public screenings in North America prior to its official broadcast launch. On the west coast, it premièred on 3 April at WonderCon in San Francisco. Its east coast debut was on 14 April 2010 at the Village East Cinema in Manhattan. This latter screening was sponsored by BBC America, and was attended by Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Steven Moffat, who fielded questions after the showing. An additional showing occurred on 16 April at the C2E2 convention in Chicago. In addition there were also press screenings, such as the Canadian one held in Toronto 8 April after which Moffat participated in a Q&A via Skype.

Home video releases

BBC Video - Doctor Who Series Five - Volume One was released on DVD and Blu-Ray on 7th June 2010 (UK only), featuring The Eleventh Hour, The Beast Below, Victory of the Daleks, and the featurette The Monster Diaries. A full-series box set has been released.

Of note, the "Next Time..." trail at the end of each episode has been excised from this and all future episodes for the DVD/Bluray releases up to Series Six Part One.

External links

• BBC - Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour Extras - News & features
• BBC - BBC One Programmes - Doctor Who, Series 5, The Eleventh Hour
• The Eleventh Hour at the Doctor Who Reference Guide