"Voyage of the Damned" is an episode of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. First broadcast on BBC One on 25 December 2007, it is the third Doctor Who Christmas special since the show's revival in 2005. The episode was written by Russell T Davies and directed by James Strong.
In the episode, the alien businessman Max Capricorn (George Costigan) seeks revenge on his company after it votes him out. He sets a starship replica of the Titanic on a collision course with Earth to frame the board of directors for killing the humans on Earth. The episode features the only performance in Doctor Who by the Australian singer and actress Kylie Minogue, who plays the waitress Astrid Peth. Davies described her casting as a "very exceptional case", having written the part of Astrid specifically for Minogue. She is a one-off companion of the Tenth Doctor who appears just in this episode. Minogue's casting in the role was a major coup for Doctor Who, her fame attracting much publicity for the episode. Subsequently, much of the episode's success in terms of viewing figures was attributed to Minogue's appearance in the role.
On its original airdate Christmas 2007, "Voyage of the Damned" was watched by 13.31 million viewers, the highest viewing figure for Doctor Who since the 1979 serial City of Death and still the highest viewership of any episode since the show's revival. It was the second most-watched programme of 2007, beaten only by the episode of EastEnders which aired immediately after it. Critical opinion about the episode was divided; the writing and Minogue's performance were both praised and criticised. Plot
The TARDIS has collided with a ship called the Titanic. To investigate further, the Tenth Doctor runs the TARDIS's self-repair programme and boards the Titanic, which the Doctor discovers is an interstellar cruiser from the planet Sto. Modelled after the Earth ocean liner Titanic, the ship is orbiting present-day Earth to observe "primitive cultures"—specifically, Christmas. The Doctor decides to stow away, and joins a party of aliens including the waitress Astrid Peth on a brief excursion to London. However, the populace of London fled in fear because of extraterrestrial attacks over the previous two Christmases.
After the party return from the excursion, the ship's captain, Hardaker, sabotages the ship by engineering its collision with three meteors. The resulting collision kills most of the passengers on board and draws the ship to an extinction level collision with Earth. The Doctor makes contact with Midshipman Frame, a crew member who survived the collision, to help him stabilise the ship. En route to the bridge, the Doctor's party are repeatedly attacked by the Host, androids resembling angels who were programmed to kill the survivors. The Doctor breaks from the party and attempts to reach the control point for the Host. He is taken to the Host's leader, former cruise line owner Max Capricorn, who is a head attached to a mobile life support unit. Capricorn was bitter about being forced out of his own company and plotted the Titanics inevitable collision with Earth to bankrupt the company by framing the board of directors for murder; the terminally ill Captain Hardaker's part was secured by promising financial support for his family. To save the Doctor, Astrid rams Capricorn with a forklift, which sends both of them over a ledge to their deaths in the engine.
The Doctor uses the Host to reach the bridge, where he uses the heat from entry into the Earth's atmosphere to restart the ship's engines. After stabilising the ship, the Doctor realises that the teleport bracelet Astrid was wearing backed up her molecular pattern. However, the damaged system can only partially regenerate Astrid. Astrid reappears spectral and bewildered, as the Doctor gives her a goodbye kiss before freeing her sentient atoms (described as "stardust") to roam space as energy.
Production Casting Clive Swift and Geoffrey Palmer have had previous roles in Doctor Who. Swift portrayed Jobel in Revelation of the Daleks (1985), while Palmer played Undersecretary Masters in Doctor Who and the Silurians (1970), and the Administrator in The Mutants (1972). Jessica Martin had played Mags in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (1988–89). In addition, Bernard Cribbins played Tom Campbell in Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., the second Doctor Who feature-film adaptation starring Peter Cushing as well as Arnold Korns in the audio play Horror of Glam Rock. Colin McFarlane, who provided the voices of the Heavenly Host for the episode, went on to play General Pierce in Torchwood: Children of Earth (2009), before later reappearing in Doctor Who as Moran in "Under the Lake". Russell Tovey plays Midshipman Frame, a role he would briefly reprised in The End of Time. Tovey and McFarlane would appeared in The War Between the Land and the Sea (2025) in which Tovey played Barclay Pierre-Dupont and McFarlane reprised General Pierce from Torchwood: Children of Earth.
Jimmy Vee had previously played aliens in "The End of the World" and "Aliens of London" (2005), and would later play other aliens in "The End of Time" (2009–10) and "The Caretaker" (2014).
Kylie Minogue During the third series press launch in March 2007, the production team was approached by William Baker, Kylie Minogue's creative director, about her appearing in the show. Executive producer Julie Gardner replied that Minogue could guest star if her schedule was free. Minogue officially registered her interest on 26 March 2007 and was subsequently given a one-off role as the Doctor's companion. Minogue's appearance would allow the show to easily transfer the lead companion role from Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) to "Penny"—the intended companion for the fourth series, eventually replaced by Catherine Tate as Donna Noble—and provide a "big name" star to appear in the Christmas special.
Her casting was first reported in the News of the World in April 2007. Davies initially dismissed the story, but Baker and Minogue contemporaneously confirmed she would star in the show. Her role was officially confirmed on 3 July 2007. Both Minogue and Doctor Who had acknowledged each other before: "The Idiot's Lantern" mentions Minogue as a real person; and Baker, a fan of Doctor Who, included aspects of the classic series in Minogue's tours: the Raston Warriors (from "The Five Doctors") in the KylieFever2002 tour; and the Cybermen in the Showgirl: Homecoming Tour.
The BBC officially announced that Minogue was to feature as Astrid in the episode "Voyage of the Damned" on 3 July 2007. The official announcement followed rumours regarding Minogue's casting having already circulated in the press, although the episode's writer Russell T Davies had denied these rumours in in-house BBC publication Ariel in an attempt to keep the news secret for longer. Furthermore, Minogue herself had confirmed that she would be appearing in the episode in InStyle magazine, whilst the London paper Standard Lite published a photograph of Minogue's creative director Will Baker carrying a 'to do list' with a note about a Doctor Who script on it, thus indicating that Minogue would be in the episode. Minogue had also been sighted filming for Doctor Who by members of the public before the official announcement of her casting. Baker, a long-term Doctor Who fan, was largely responsible for Minogue's casting by setting up a meeting between her, Davies and Julie Gardner. Davies has claimed that Minogue was keen to appear on Doctor Who to relaunch her acting career.
Minogue met designer Louise Page four times during pre-production to discuss her costume. Page rejected a long dress because it was atypical to Minogue; she instead elected for a "cigarette girl" image, similar to a "1950s [...] cinema usherette". Five costumes were made for different scenes and Minogue's stunt doubles, and each part of each costume was made separately to keep Minogue's role secret. After filming, Minogue told Page that the costume was "the most comfortable [she] had worn in years".
Writing In August 2007, screenwriter and executive producer Russell T Davies announced that Astrid Peth would be the next companion, following the positive reception towards Martha Jones, (played by Freema Agyeman). Astrid's surname, Peth, was confirmed in the Christmas edition of Radio Times. Davies has stated that the character was always going to be a "one-off" even before Minogue was cast and that Astrid would demonstrate "a whole new take – again – on what a companion can be". The name Astrid Peth generated some speculation before the episode's broadcast over the findings that Astrid is an anagram of TARDIS, and that Peth means thing in Welsh. However, the episode established no such connection. On Doctor Who Confidential, Minogue describes Astrid as a "dreamer" and that meeting with the Doctor rekindles Astrid's desire to explore. Later in his book A Writer's Tale Davies discussed with co-author Benjamin Cook how he had originally named the character "Peth" in a treatment but it bugged him, he later renamed her to "Astrid" giving the reason that it "...sounds more spacey, more like a futuristing Doctor's companion".
Despite Davies stating that the companion in "Voyage of the Damned" was "always going to [be] a one-off...little knowing that it would be Kylie Minogue", he has since stated that he would cast Minogue again "like that". In 2008 The Daily Express quoted Minogue as saying there had been talk that her character could be reintroduced at a later date. Davies refused to comment when Doctor Who Magazine asked him about the rumours regarding Minogue's return to Doctor Who.
The episode was primarily written by Russell T Davies after Minogue was cast. Davies described his pitch to Minogue as "busking". The character of Astrid Peth was written for Minogue. Davies later stated that Minogue was a "very exceptional case"; he considered writing a role specifically for one actor "dangerous territory" because the desired actor may be unavailable or decline the part. In early drafts of the episode, Astrid did not die. Davies decided Astrid's death was necessary to allow Minogue to focus on her musical career. Davies described the original nature of her death—falling over a precipice during a fight with Capricorn—as "fleeting". He intensified the scene by changing Max from mobile to cybernetic and Astrid's attack from an altercation to a fork-lift truck. Davies felt the revised scene was "such a beautiful image" and romanticised Astrid's "ultimate sacrifice".
Davies based the episode on the traditional disaster film format. He was highly influenced by the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure: he considered "[turning] the spaceship upside down" before cutting the concept for monetary constraints; and the character of Foon Van Hoff (Debbie Chazen) was heavily based on Belle Rosen (Shelley Winters). He diverged from the trope in its climax; the format of Doctor Who dictated the requirement of an antagonist: Max Capricorn, whose plan was to sabotage the ship as part of an insurance scam. Davies based the portrayal of Sto on Kansas in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.