"The Stolen Earth" is the twelfth episode of the fourth series and the 750th overall episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC One on . The episode was written by show runner and head writer Russell T Davies and is the first of a two-part crossover story with spin-offs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures; the concluding episode is "Journey's End", the finale of the fourth series, broadcast on 5 July.
The finale's narrative brings closure to several prominent story arcs created during Davies' tenure as show runner. In the episode, contemporary Earth and 26 other planets are stolen by the Daleks, aided by their megalomaniacal creator Davros and a shattered but precognitive Dalek Caan. As the Doctor and his companion Donna Noble try to find Earth, his previous companions Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, and Rose Tyler convene to contact him and mount a defence against the Daleks. In the episode's climax, the Doctor is gunned down by a Dalek and begins to regenerate. It is the Doctor Who appearance of Torchwood characters Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones; and SJA characters Luke Smith and Mr Smith.
The two-part finale's epic scale and underlying plot was first conceived in early 2007 as the last regular-series story for departing producers Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner, and Phil Collinson: the fourth series finale is the last story produced by Collinson; and Steven Moffat and Piers Wenger replaced Davies and Gardner as showrunner and executive producer respectively in 2010.
"The Stolen Earth" was reviewed positively by both audience and reviewers. The Audience Appreciation Index score was 91: an unprecedented figure for Doctor Who and one of the highest ratings ever given to a television programme. On its original broadcast, it was viewed by 8.78 million viewers and was the second most-watched programme of the week; at the time of broadcast, it was the highest position Doctor Who had ever reached. Critical reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Nicholas Briggs and Julian Bleach were commended for their portrayal of Dalek Caan and Davros respectively; and most aspects of Davies' writing were applauded. Most notably, the twist ending of the episode was universally appreciated. The shock regeneration created an unprecedented level of public interest in the show, which continued until the transmission of "Journey's End".
Plot
The Earth is teleported out of its spatial location. In order to find the Earth, the Doctor contacts the Shadow Proclamation, a universal police force. The Doctor and Donna determine that 27 missing planets—including Earth and others they learnt were lost—automatically reorganise into a specific pattern when placed near each other. Donna mentions the disappearance of bees on contemporary Earth; this allows the Doctor to trace the planets to the Medusa Cascade, an inter-universal rift.
A Dalek force, led by their creator Davros and the Supreme Dalek, quickly subjugates Earth. Davros, who was thought to have been killed in the Time War, was saved by Dalek Caan, who entered the conflict after performing an emergency temporal shift. The power needed to enter the Time War caused Caan to become precognitive at the cost of his sanity.
The Doctor's former companions—who have all encountered the Daleks before—hide in various places in Britain. Martha, Captain Jack and Sarah Jane are contacted by former Prime Minister Harriet Jones through a secret Sub-Wave Network to contact the Doctor's companions in an emergency, although Harriet is unable to reach Rose. They attempt to reach the Doctor by amplifying the Sub-Wave signal; Sarah Jane uses her supercomputer Mr Smith's computing power, and Jack and his Torchwood team members Gwen and Ianto manipulate the Cardiff Rift. The Doctor, and consequently the Daleks, receive the transmission and trace the signal: the Daleks kill Harriet; and the Doctor locates Earth in a "pocket of time".
The Doctor travels into the pocket universe and receives transmitted images of his companions in the Sub-Wave signal. After Davros hijacks the signal and taunts the Doctor about his resurrection and imminent victory, the Doctor breaks communication and attempts to convene with his companions. He lands on the same street on which Rose is searching for him and runs to embrace her, but is suddenly shot by a Dalek. Jack teleports to the street and promptly destroys the Dalek. In the Torchwood hub, Gwen and Ianto attempt to fight off a Dalek that corners them. Sarah Jane sets off in her car to find the Doctor but two Daleks find her and threaten to kill her. Jack helps Rose and Donna carry the Doctor into the TARDIS, where the Doctor begins to regenerate.
Production
Early development "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End" are the culmination of all four series of Doctor Who since its revival in 2005 and show runner Russell T Davies' work in reviving the show. Davies stated the story arc for the fourth series comprised "an element from every episode—whether it's a person, a phrase, a question, a planet, or a mystery [that] builds up to the grand finale", and the finale "[had] been seeded for a long time, with small but vital references going all the way back to Series One". Several of these thematic motifs are used as major plot points: the significance of disappearance of bees, the Medusa Cascade, and the Shadow Proclamation are explained in the episode. It is the first major crossover between Doctor Who and its spin-off series Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. Davies compared the crossover's conception to a typical child's imagination of a crossover between the Doctor Who and Star Wars universes:
The fourth series finale was first planned in early 2006. Its epic scale—including the threat of the destruction of reality and large number of guest stars—was required to compensate for Doctor Whos reduced airtime in 2009 and the imminent departure of producers Davies, Julie Gardner, and Phil Collinson between mid-2008 and early 2010. The episode's story was defined in early 2007, when Davies disseminated his summary of the fourth series to the production team. In his brief, he described the finale—already titled "The Stolen Earth"—as:
Donna was also planned to make a cameo appearance before Tate agreed to reprise the role for the entire fourth series. Midshipman Alonso Frame (Russell Tovey), who appeared in "Voyage of the Damned", was present as part of the Shadow Proclamation in several drafts of the episode. Piper's appearance was almost cancelled when filming was originally scheduled during her honeymoon in January 2008. Freema Agyeman was similarly contracted to appear in the finale when she accepted the role of Martha Jones in 2006.
Major concepts of the finale were already developed in March 2007. Davies explained the Medusa Cascade—first mentioned in dialogue between the Master and the Doctor in "Last of the Time Lords"—to Radio Times and Doctor Who Magazine journalist Benjamin Cook as "just an area of space" near an inter-universal rift which allowed Rose to return for the fourth series. He sent Cook another email several hours later that explained Dalek Caan's role in the finale and Davros' resurrection from the Time War. The Doctor's regeneration was conceived in two separate parts in mid-2007: Davies outlined the concept of two Doctors in "Journey's End" in late April 2007; and using a regeneration to end the episode was originally conceived on .
Writing
Davies started writing "The Stolen Earth" on . He had spent the previous day writing Martha's appearance in New York City. He considered destroying the city but decided against it.
Several days before he started writing the episode, he received a call from Bernard Cribbins, who proposed a scene in which his character, Wilfred Mott, would fire a paintball pellet at a Dalek's eyestalk. He proposed it as a reference to the Peter Cushing Dr. Who films that he starred in during the mid-1960s, and thought it would provide comic relief in between heavy exposition. The Dalek's response—evaporating the paintball and replying "My vision is not impaired!"—was added after Cook reminded Davies it was "obligatory" to invert the recurring phrase spoken when a Dalek was blinded ("Vision impaired!"), and remove a weakness the Daleks had exhibited since their first appearance in the 1963–1964 serial The Daleks. Wilfred's reaction to Rose after she blew up the same Dalek—asking her if she wanted to swap weapons—was likewise added by Cribbins by way of an ad-lib during filming.
Davies' first drafts of the Dalek invasion and the Shadow Proclamation were fundamentally different from their broadcast counterparts. Instead of hearing the Daleks' repeated cry of "Exterminate", Captain Jack and Sarah Jane reacted to the sight of Dalek saucers. One saucer would descend towards Whitehall, destroy Big Ben in transit, and assassinate the Prime Minister, Aubrey Fairchild. The Shadow Proclamation—defined in the script as an intergalactic police force that occupied a "huge installation, metal sci-fi towers ranged across a series of linked asteroids, hanging in space, like a Roger Dean painting"—originally featured "every creature [the revival of the show] ever had" and a cameo by Blon Fel-Fotch Pasameer-Day "Margaret Blaine" Slitheen (Annette Badland) as a Jingatheen (a Raxicoricofallapatorian family) toddler. The number of monsters and the Proclamation's bureaucratic nature would anger the Doctor and cause Alonso Frame—now employed as a "Shadow Soldier"—to aid him in filling out paperwork. Frame would be killed by the Daleks later in the story.
A week after he had written the Shadow Proclamation scenes, Davies decided to rewrite the scenes heavily because of monetary and script constraints. Tovey's cameo was replaced with a scene centred on the "Chief Constable" because he was unavailable for filming, much to Davies' disappointment. The Dalek invasion was also rewritten to the version broadcast after he decided a personal assassination of the Prime Minister was uncharacteristically "diplomatic", and recycled the Prime Minister's name for "The Next Doctor" He also expressed doubts about the Shadow Proclamation to Cook; he thought the Chief Constable was "terribly stripped down", but admitted the Shadow Proclamation was a vital element of the plot. He decided to correct the faults in the Chief Constable by renaming her the "Shadow Architect" (Kelly Hunter):
Davies kept the Shadow Proclamation scenes set before the introduction of the Shadow Architect until early February 2008. Davies' submitted script was over the budget afforded for special effects, so he was required to cut the scene, even though Annette Badland had already recorded dialogue for her cameo. The rewritten—and eventually broadcast—scene had the TARDIS "land directly in the Shadow Architect's office" with four Judoon guards.