The Empty Child & The Doctor Dances by: Steven Moffat and directed by: James Hawes

 

“The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances” star Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler with John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, Florence Hoath as Nancy, Richard Wilson as Dr. Constantine, Albert Valentine as the Child, and Noah Johnson as the Voice of the Child.  They were written by: Steven Moffat and directed by: James Hawes with Elwen Rowlands as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies, Julie Gardner, and Mal Young as Executive Producers.  They were originally broadcast on Saturdays from 21 to 28 May 2005 on BBC One.

 

Steven Moffat is a name who after Russell T. Davies has contributed to the success of the revival of Doctor Who.  Like Davies, Moffat got his start during the New Adventures line of novels, penning a short story for their third Decalog release, but in 1999 penning the Red Nose Day special The Curse of Fatal Death starring Rowan Atkinson and Julia Sawalha.  Davies had met and worked with Moffat in the 1990s and received an immediate congratulatory message on the announcement of the Doctor Who revival, taking over the showrunner position from Russell T. Davies in 2010, a role he would take until Chris Chibnall took over in 2017.  Davies in turn had already penciled in two episodes of the thirteen-episode order to be penned by Moffat, “World War II” and “Captain Jax”, with the only outlines to be set during World War II and to feature new companion Captain Jax Harkness, later renamed Jack Harkness.  Moffat in turn provided a script rather different from his previous work in comedy, a two-episode gothic horror story set during the London Blitz, the episodes becoming “The Empty Boy” and “The Empty Children”, then becoming “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances” shortly before filming began.  John Barrowman was cast to play Jack Harkness after being seen by executive producer Julie Gardner on stage, and James Hawes was assigned to direct both episodes.  Writing this review in 2023 means that the behind-the-scenes actions of John Barrowman, exposing himself on set to cast and crew without consent, a pattern of behavior he would continue through his appearances on Doctor Who and other television productions.  Something that has recently resurfaced also shows that Barrowman doesn’t regret this pattern of sexual harassment (and in certain cases borderline assault), joking and diminishing its effects.  Any praise given to Barrowman in this and future reviews should be understood to have taken this into account.

 

While Moffat’s tenure as showrunner is generally characterized as taking on a fairy tale tone, “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances” are two episodes squarely in the genre of gothic horror.  The pre-credits sequence establishes the tension of an alien object being flung through the time vortex transmitting an emergency alert before crashing in London.  This is establishing why the Doctor and Rose are going to London, the danger of this object also detonating hanging over the entire story, initially due to the unknown nature of the ship and once it’s revealed to be an ambulance, the potential for a German bomb to drop on it and cause more havoc is established.  The immediate scenes in London, all taking place through a single night, are set up by James Hawes to be terrifying.  After the TARDIS lands, the Doctor and Rose are separated by an air raid, but before this the scenes are shot to be almost eerily quiet.  When Rose first sees the figure of a child in a gas mask on a roof, quietly calling out for his mother, the off-putting nature of the imagery fills the viewer with a feeling of dread.

 

Before any of the questions of why a child would be on a roof in the middle of the London Blitz looking for his mother can be answered, the episode launches into the action sequence of Rose hanging from a ballast balloon and being picked up by Jack Harkness.  The Doctor eventually follows homeless children left on the streets before encountering the child, continually asking for his mother and controlling various radios and electronic equipment.  This first half is primarily focused with explaining the mystery on what happened to the Child, he was caught in an explosion that fused the gas mask to his face and killed him, until it didn’t.  Jack Harkness is responsible for the ship crash landing in this time period, it’s a warship that he is ready to sell to Rose, believing her to be a Time Agent coming after him.  Barrowman is utterly charming, being perfect to be paired opposite Billie Piper and Christopher Eccleston.  There is this uncertainty in the character, as Moffat sets him up to potentially being a villain, and Barrowman being disconcerting, almost comforting at points in the role.  Rose is immediately taken in, feeling that the Doctor’s carefree methods for ascertaining information just aren’t working throughout and Captain Jack adds this sense of protocol to discovery, something that will continue throughout the story.

 

The Doctor, meanwhile, is paired throughout this episode with Nancy, one of the homeless youths played by Florence Hoath.  Moffat has Nancy act as a parallel to the Doctor, an outsider who does her best to care for those society has forgotten, stealing food and finding shelter through war torn London.  He is eventually sent to Albion Hospital where the Child was sent after the explosion and it is revealed by Dr. Constantine, played by Richard Wilson, that the fused gas mask, collapsed chest cavity, and cut on the hand in a very specific shape are symptoms of a plague that is transmitted through touch, the entire hospital being infected.  The episode ends with the Doctor, Rose, and Jack meeting for the first time after Dr. Constantine is transformed to be like the child and other patients in a sequence of terrifying body horror that in this and “The Doctor Dances” are some of the most intense and off-putting the show has done.  While not graphic with blood outside of the red of the cut, the gas mask emerging from the throat and the eyes changing to those empty, black holes is horrific.  This episode is perfect setup and introduces Steven Moffat to Doctor Who proper with utter brilliance.  10/10.

 

“The Doctor Dances” as an episode is more concerned with investigation and actually unravelling the science fiction/alien explanation behind the child, though it does this without ever sacrificing the horrors of the setting or plot itself.  While it does repeat the scare of someone becoming like the child, it ups the stakes as the infection has become airborne so our main characters have even less time to investigate the ship and discover what the child, Jamie, had encountered tot make him that way.  As a plot this second episode is actually lighter in terms of what it has to do, so Moffat includes several scenes to build up the characters especially, pushing the Doctor and Rose’s relationship squarely into romance.  Dancing is used as a metaphor for sex throughout “The Doctor Dances”, the Doctor having to realize that he still can dance.  “Moonlight Serenade” by Glen Miller is used throughout these two episodes as dancing music, however, once the Doctor has discovered himself and his feelings for Rose are accepted by himself, the episode closes with “In the Mood” also by Miller, juxtaposing the tempos of the pieces with one another for a very upbeat ending that places Rose and the Doctor squarely in the category of being a couple.  Now I generally prefer the Doctor as a character to be portrayed as asexual and not in love with their companion, the way Russell T. Davies has set up this relationship, building to this moment which Steven Moffat actually excels at writing here is a very sweet moment and continues the theme of the Doctor coming to terms with his trauma throughout this first series.  It’s important to note that this first series was made with no guarantee of a second series, so Davies and company wrote it to be complete which is integral to note going forward as after this story there are only two other stories, both by Davies.

 

Outside of this central character relationship, Steven Moffat’s conclusion is one which feels almost like an outlier when compared to many of the tropes and cliches he would become known for once he took over the showrunner position and on further shows such as Sherlock and Dracula.  This second half continues the theme of being an outsider from a society that is actively being torn apart.  Nancy has been claiming Jamie is her brother and the emotional climax of the episode is her acceptance of the child as her son, something that allows the nanogenes which malfunctioned when attempting to heal the child, a human being something these untrained robots would not have encountered.  Before this climax there is this small scene between Rose and Nancy, Rose providing this human touch in reassuring her that in the end the Germans don’t win the war.  The way Moffat portrays this horror of war is apparent here, done subtly, not by showing blood or gore, but showing people terrified that the world around them is ending and there isn’t anything they can do with it.  Nancy helps the other homeless kids because it's all that she can think of doing with the way the war has been going, Dr. Constantine only makes the patients infected by the child comfortable as he has no way of treating them and has lost his own family, and the Doctor can only be elated when just this once everybody lives.  Okay, so Jack takes the bomb that’s going to drop on the ambulance and is willing to sacrifice himself, but the final scene has the Doctor and Rose save him one last time.  It also helps that the previous eight episodes of Doctor Who have been full of death and this genuinely feels like the one time there will be no casualties, though sadly this is something that Moffat will continually return to in his time as showrunner, a large criticism being his inability to kill off characters while the social media representation between 2010 and 2015 being how he rips your heart out with character deaths.  While “The Doctor Dances” doesn’t quite live up to the setup, it still manages to be a great conclusion to the story as well as providing some great scares and maintaining the gothic horror tone, doing the same scare twice and managing to still pull it off.  8/10.

 

Overall, “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances” is perhaps best described as the emotional climax of the first series of Doctor Who.  While not the finale and while there is still a ways to go for the characters, it’s the story that cements a new dynamic for the Doctor in particular, giving the character a sense of hope.  The child itself is a terrifying concept for a monster, with the tension building as the infection spreads and the story turns into essentially a zombie narrative with a twist.  The performances are great while James Hawes shows just how suited he is to directing horror making it one of the high points of early Doctor Who.  9/10.