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The Children in Need Special (known also by other titles, see below) was a short 7-minute mini-episode of Doctor Who produced in 2005 for that year's Children in Need charity appeal. Rather than create a one-off skit or non-canonical story (like Dimensions in Time), the Doctor Who team instead produced a link story, picking up immediately after the regeneration in The Parting of the Ways and ending just before the start of The Christmas Invasion. The story is considered canonical, detailing Rose's immediate reaction to the regeneration and setting up the Doctor's post-regeneration illness in the Christmas special, but viewing it is not necessary to understand the opening scenes of The Christmas Invasion. Two years later, another Children in Need special mini-episode would be produced: Time Crash.
Synopsis
The Doctor has just regenerated. How will Rose react?
Plot
After the events of The Parting of the Ways, this mini-episode shows the emotional effects the Doctor's regeneration on Rose. She feels that the doctor has vanished and been replaced by a number of aliens. The doctor dismisses these ideas, by telling her about the first time he met her. The regeneration, however, has gone wrong and the newly regenerated doctor is going slightly insane. He runs around the console flicking switches and buttons screaming in pain before saying "crash landing", and the credits come on.
Cast
- The Doctor - David Tennant
- Rose Tyler - Billie Piper
- Dalek Voices - Nicholas Briggs (archive footage)
- Ninth Doctor - Christopher Eccleston (archive footage)
Crew
to be added
References
Technology
Individuals
Planets
London Locations
Races and Species
Food and Beverages
Story Notes
- This is a short sketch for the charity Children in Need.
- In addition to the broadcast, this story was available for viewing on the BBC's website until 25 November, 2005, when the link was removed.
- It and Time Crash are the only stories other than The Edge of Destruction to be set entirely in the TARDIS.
- The pre-credits sequence for the mini-episode was a montage of the climactic scenes of The Parting of the Ways.
- Post-regeneration instability has been present, to varying degrees, in every one of the Doctor's regenerations.
- The online feed of the mini-episode ended with several pre-recorded inserts of Tennant and Piper appealing for donations to Children in Need. The appeals in which they both appear are flippant in tone, with Piper claiming to be Tennant and vice versa in the first, and in the second the pair introducing themselves as Letitia Dean and Nicholas Lyndhurst.
- Russell T Davies joked that the title was the Pudsey Cutaway, a reference to Mission to the Unknown (also known as the Dalek Cutaway). No on-screen title is shown for the mini-episode, making this the first (and, to date, only) Doctor Who episode to be presented without an on-screen title.
Ratings
to be added
Myths
to be added
Location Filming
to be added
Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors
- The Doctor says about Captain Jack, "he's busy, he's got plenty to do, rebuilding the Earth." This implies that he knows Jack is alive and well, or wants Rose to think he is. When this mini-episode first aired, this appeared to be a continuity error, because the Ninth Doctor had not appeared to see Jack's resurrection. However, given the Tenth Doctor's claim in Utopia that he deliberately left Jack behind, it can be assumed that what the Ninth Doctor was staring at so intently on the TARDIS monitor while Rose was unconscious was Jack running after the dematerializing TARDIS. The Doctor has said several times that he can see everything that is, was, could be, and should not be so it's safe to say he knew when Rose brought Jack back to life.
Continuity
- This story directly connects the final moments of The Parting of the Ways with the teaser of The Christmas Invasion. It is similar to the way in which the 2007 Children in Need special, Time Crash, links Last of the Time Lords with Voyage of the Damned.
- Rose's suspicion that this new Doctor may be a Slitheen or other imposter recalls similar suspicions on the part of Ben regarding the newly regenerated Second Doctor in The Power of the Daleks. The Doctor's manic behavior towards the end of the story recalls similar, though much more violent, "fits" displayed by the Sixth Doctor in The Twin Dilemma.
- The Cloister Bell was first heard in Logopolis, but would not be named in the new series until Time Crash.
DVD and Other Releases
- This was released as an extra on the series 2 box set. For viewers in Canada, this was the special's debut as it was not broadcast by the CBC.