Born Again (Doctor Who)

The second series of British science fiction programme ''Doctor Who'' began on 25 December 2005 with the Christmas special "The Christmas Invasion". A regular series of thirteen episodes was broadcast weekly in 2006, starting with " New Earth" on 15 April and concluding with "Doomsday" on 8 July. In addition, two short special episodes were produced; a ''Children in Need'' special and an interactive episode, as well as thirteen minisodes titled '' Tardisodes''. It is the second series of the revival of the show, and the twenty-eighth season overall.

It is the first series to feature David Tennant as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor, an alien Time Lord who travels through time and space in his TARDIS, which appears to be a British police box on the outside. The Doctor continues to travel with his companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), with whom he has grown increasingly attached. They also briefly travel with Rose's boyfriend Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke), and Rose's mother Jackie (Camille Coduri). The series is connected by a loose story arc consisting of the recurring word "Torchwood". This is also the first series to be preceded by a Christmas special, the success of "The Christmas Invasion" led to the Christmas special becoming an annual tradition.

Russell T Davies returned as head writer of the series. Phil Collinson produced all episodes, with Julie Gardner serving as executive producer. Music for the series was composed by Murray Gold. A majority of filming took place in Cardiff, Wales. The series was acclaimed by critics and won multiple awards, including five at the BAFTA Cymru Awards.

Episodes

Supplemental episodes

Two mini-episodes were also recorded: "''Doctor Who'': Children in Need" was produced for the 2005 ''Children in Need'' appeal, and interactive episode "Attack of the Graske" was recorded for digital television following the broadcast of "The Christmas Invasion".

''Tardisodes''

Thirteen ''Tardisodes'', ranging from lengths of 40–55 seconds, were produced to serve as prequels to each episode. All episodes were filmed as part of the second series' production cycle.

Casting

Main characters

Series 2 was Tennant's first in the role of the Doctor; his casting was announced on 16 April 2005. Following his brief appearance in the closing moments of "The Parting of the Ways" he was next seen in the ''Children in Need'' special, broadcast on 18 November 2005. "The Christmas Invasion", broadcast one month later, marked his first episode. In 2005, Tennant had starred in '' Casanova'', written by Russell T Davies and produced by Julie Gardner, when he was offered an audition as the Doctor, which surprised him as it had not yet been publicly announced that Christopher Eccleston would not be returning to the role. He was offered the role at Davies's home, and was initially concerned that if the series was not recommissioned he would become known as "the person who played the Doctor for 35 seconds".

Billie Piper continued her role as companion Rose Tyler, for her second and final series. Piper departed as a regular following "Doomsday". She would return as a regular in the 2008 series, and in a cameo in " The End of Time". She later explained that her decision was due to the unexpected success of the revival. Piper said that she "didn't like the responsibility of being a role model".

Guest stars

Camille Coduri continued to guest in the series as recurring character Jackie Tyler. Shaun Dingwall returned for several episodes as Pete Tyler and Penelope Wilton reprised her role as Harriet Jones for the Christmas special. Noel Clarke's character Mickey Smith, a recurring guest character during the first series, featured in several episodes as a companion of the Doctor.

Elisabeth Sladen featured in the episode " School Reunion", returning to the character of Sarah Jane Smith, companion of the Third and Fourth Doctors. Following this episode, Sladen was asked to reprise her role in a spin-off series titled ''The Sarah Jane Adventures''. John Leeson also featured in this episode as the voice of K9.

Other guest stars included Adam Garcia and Daniel Evans in "The Christmas Invasion", Anna Hope and Adjoa Andoh in " New Earth", Anthony Head in "School Reunion", Roger Lloyd-Pack in "Rise of the Cybermen" / "The Age of Steel", Rory Jennings, Margaret John, and Maureen Lipman in " The Idiot's Lantern", Claire Rushbrook in "The Impossible Planet" / "The Satan Pit", Nina Sosanya in "Fear Her", and Raji James and Barbara Windsor in "Army of Ghosts" / "Doomsday". Freema Agyeman, who appeared briefly in "Doomsday", would later return to co-star as Martha Jones in the following series. Andoh returned for Series 3 but was recast as Martha's mother. Pauline Collins, who appeared in " Tooth and Claw" as Queen Victoria, had previously appeared in ''The Faceless Ones'' (1967) as Samantha Briggs. Nicholas Hoult was considered for the role that went to Jennings.

Production

Development

Following the success of the opening episode of the first series, the BBC announced that ''Doctor Who'' had been recommissioned for both a second series and a Christmas special on 30 March 2005. The series was the first series of ''Doctor Who'' to be preceded by a Christmas special. The success of the Christmas special led to it becoming an annual tradition. Production on the series began on 1 August 2005 and concluding on 31 March 2006. Phil Collinson produced all episodes, with Julie Gardner acting as executive producer.

Writing

Russell T Davies continued to act as head writer and executive producer, contributing several episodes of the series. New writers for the show included Toby Whithouse, Tom MacRae, Matt Jones, and Matthew Graham. Returning writers Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat also contributed episodes to the series. Stephen Fry was due to write the eleventh episode, but was forced to withdraw as he could not complete the script in time. Davies consequently hired Graham, who he had been trying to hire for series three, to write "Fear Her". The villain of the episode " Love & Monsters", the Abzorbaloff, was designed by the winner of a ''Blue Peter'' contest.

" The Runaway Bride", which was supposed to be the midway point of the original line-up, was moved early on to be the Christmas special for the next series, and was replaced by " Tooth and Claw", which had its roots in a story about "Queen Victoria and a werewolf", something Davies had been contemplating since 2004. The order of the first few episodes moved around a bit while being written, and were only finalised after the early scripts were partially done, in order to find the best way to develop Tennant's Doctor, especially for those viewers confused by the regeneration.

The series is primarily set on Earth (though not as much as the first series was) due to the cost involved in creating another planet, Davies stated; only two stories were set on another planet. However, the team had learnt from the first series about the specific challenges faced by a sci-fi series; instead of last-minute changes to reduce CGI, plots were written in mind to use shots needing less CGI: gardens and concrete plazas, such as those employed in the then-recently released Battlestar Galactica show, which allowed an equitable budgetary distribution between stories. The second series came about quite differently from the first, not having to present every single detail to the BBC: discussions and plot changes happened as much in coffeehouses and on phone as it did in writing, and therefore the first outline had much more detail than the first series, allowing for a more connected series.

Just like the first series, the second series saw the return of another classic enemy, the Cybermen. Presented with the opportunity to re-introduce Cybermen to a whole new generation, Davies' prime objective for these Cybermen was to erase the word "silver" and to instead choose to stress the terms "metal" and "steel", emphasising the loss of their humanity as a source of their monstrosity.

The mythology of Torchwood is built across the series, though it did not feature in any of the early outlines or drafts for series 2 until its reveal in the finale even though it had first appeared in the 2005 episode "Bad Wolf". In "The Christmas Invasion", it is revealed to be a secret organisation which possesses alien technology, and its establishment is shown in " Tooth and Claw", whose late addition to the series allowed Davies to fix it in British history by associating it with Queen Victoria . References then gradually started appearing in the script of every episode: blocked websites, mentions of buildings and archives owned by Torchwood and so on. Contemporary Torchwood is finally visited by the Doctor and Rose in "Army of Ghosts" / "Doomsday", at which point it is situated within London's Canary Wharf and accidentally allows the invasion of the Cybermen and, subsequently, the Daleks.

Filming

The series was directed by James Hawes, Euros Lyn, James Strong, Dan Zeff, and Graeme Harper. Harper had previously worked on the show's original run, which included directing ''The Caves of Androzani'' (1984) and ''Revelation of the Daleks'' (1985) in the show's original run.

Recording for the Christmas special began on 23 July 2005. The Clearwell Caves were used twice: the interior of the Sycorax ship, and the Beast's Pit in "The Satan Pit". Production blocks were scheduled around the directors. The majority of filming took place in Wales, particularly in Cardiff. Parts of "New Earth" were shot at the Wales Millennium Centre, which was used during promotion of the series. "Tooth and Claw" was originally part of block one, but production issues pushed it to block two. The episode was shot in Llansannor Court. The building was later reused for " The Unicorn and the Wasp". "The Girl in the Fireplace" used the Dyffryn Gardens for both the gardens and palace of Louis XV. The gardens were used for various other episodes, including " Deep Breath" and "The Wedding of River Song".

A Stella Artois brewery was used for the upgrading chamber in "Army of Ghosts". The Coedarhydyglyn House was used for Jackie and Pete's mansion in the episode. The house was later used in "The Angels Take Manhattan". Southerndown Beach was used for the beach where the Doctor and Rose say goodbye in "Doomsday". The beach was later reused in "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship". The first two weeks of filming on block four were spent entirely on "Fear Her". Maureen Lipman appeared in "The Idiot's Lantern", but due to scheduling conflicts, recorded her scenes remotely in London. Lipman finished her recording in under a day. Block six, the final block, contained only one episode, "Love & Monsters", which was directed by Zeff.

Production blocks were arranged as follows:

Soundtrack

Murray Gold returned to compose the music for the second series. Parts of the soundtrack were performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and orchestrated by Ben Foster, unlike in the first series, which relied almost completely on orchestral samples.

Release

Broadcast

The second series premiered on 15 April 2006 with " New Earth", and concluded after thirteen episodes on 8 July 2006 with "Doomsday". ''Doctor Who Confidential'' also aired alongside each episode of the series, continuing on from the previous series.

A ''Children in Need'' special and an interactive episode, entitled " Attack of the Graske", were both released alongside the series. A series of thirteen ''Tardisode''s were also produced. These mini-episodes (approximately 60 seconds in length) served as prequels to each forthcoming episode, and were available for download to mobile phones and viewable at the official ''Doctor Who'' website. The ''Tardisodes'' were recorded intermittently from 31 January to 8 April 2006.

Downloads of the ''Tardisodes'' to mobile telephones were less popular than expected: around 40,000 downloads, averaging 3,000 per episode. Downloads to personal computers were much more common, with 2.6 million downloads. Iain Tweedale, new media editor for BBC Wales, suggested two reasons for the low number of telephone downloads: although the BBC provided the episodes free, most users had to pay a fee to their mobile network, and many telephones were not compatible with the broadcasts.

In the United States, the second series aired on The Sci Fi Channel (now known as SyFy). In Canada, the series aired through the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation won a Constellation Award for their assistance and contributions to the series. In France, the series aired on France 4.

Promotion

The press launch for the series began on 27 March at the Wales Millennium Centre. A special trailer for the series was produced by Red Bee Media. The trailer included both clips from the series and special footage shot for it. Various episodes received screening prior to their official release, including a Glasgow-based screening for "Tooth and Claw" and a Cardiff-based one for "The Christmas Invasion".

The promotion of the second series also took other forms: interviews with cast and crew on such prestigious channels like BBC1 and ITV1; rumours and reports and the occasional interview in tabloids and newspapers such as The Independent, The Sun, The Daily Mirror, The Sunday Herald and so on; discussions about the series, sometimes with the crew, on Radio 1, Virgin Radio, Radio 4, and Radio Wales.

The BBC promoted the series using their various holdings: CBBC used the theme with the broadcast of their programme, fictional websites, such as those of Mickey and UNIT, were updated before the associated episodes, the real website saw the release of mini-episodes of 2-3 mins, called Tardisodes, as prologues for every episode, along with the rare banner using in-universe references to ask viewers to check out the current episode.

The major promoter for the series, aside from the BBC, was Radio Times: they released their first programme-specific Christmas double issue in 16 years, instead of the usual generic issue, for the release of The Christmas Invasion, a special section called "Doctor Who Watch", and covers and interviews with cast and crew throughout the run of the series.

Home media

The second series of ''Doctor Who'' was first released on DVD in five volumes, with the first volume being released in Region 2 on 1 May 2006 and the final volume on 25 September 2006. The five volumes were also released in Region 4, invariably two months after the Region 2 release. The entire series was subsequently released in a boxset on 20 November 2006 in Region 2.

In print

"The Christmas Invasion" was adapted into a novel by Jenny Colgan. The novel was subsequently produced as an audio book, narrated by Camille Coduri.

Reception

Ratings

The second series of ''Doctor Who'' was watched by an average of 7.5 million viewers, which was slightly down from the previous series, which was watched by 7.9 million viewers. ''Doctor Who'' first Christmas special, "The Christmas Invasion", was watched by 9.84 million viewers upon its premiere on 25 December 2005, and, as of 2010, was the ninth-highest figure for an episode of ''Doctor Who'' since its 2005 revival. The series' finale "Doomsday" was watched by 8.2 million total viewers, beating a World Cup match between Portugal and Germany by over a million viewers. The series high was " Tooth and Claw" with 9.24 million viewers, while the series low was "The Satan Pit" with 6.08 million viewers.

The series finale, "Doomsday", garnered the highest Appreciation Index (AI) rating of 89, while the tenth episode in the series, "Love & Monsters", garnered the lowest AI rating, at 76, seven units lower than the second-lowest AI rating. The US release of the series averaged a household rating of 1.05 million viewers.

Critical reception

''Doctor Who''s second series received positive reviews from critics. Series 2 holds a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 9/10, based on eight critic reviews. Many considered the finale "Doomsday" one of the best episodes and "Fear Her" one of the worst, with one reviewer calling the series full of intense highs and lows for both the characters and the plot. Critics praised the Tennant and Piper's performance and romantic tension. The series' CGI, the Torchwood reveal, and use of cliffhangers also received praise, as did Murray Gold's soundtrack, the series' dynamic nature, and the varying settings.

Reviewing the two-part finale, ''Slant Magazine''s Ross Ruediger and ''The A.V. Club''s Alasdair Wilkins both found the first part intense with "a great cliffhanger", with Wilkins additionally stating it was not afraid of dealing with "some large thematic questions". However, Ruediger characterised the second part as being "full of fanboy silliness", and Wilkins criticised it for how fast the situation changes with the arrival of the foes, a direct results of human interference, stating the show seems "incapable of placing the Doctor in a morally ambiguous situation". Though finding the episode "dramatic" and "soulful", they both concluded that, for a ''Doctor Who'' story, humans are mere supporting characters, with a narrative that Wilkins found "requires the Doctor to be the hero". However, they both still found the finale enjoyable: Wilkins calling it "supremely entertaining television", and Ruediger stating "it makes no attempts to play by any rules other than its own" and provides a "gut-wrenching farewell" for Rose.

The finale was characterised by ''IGN''s Ahsan Haque as "an intense epic" still being "led by character-driven drama", and by ''Radio Times''s Mark Braxton as a story where the strength of the show's two biggest foes combined is contrasted with "a poignant story about loss". In addition, ''IGN''s Haque, while finding "the denouement to be the clear emotional highlight", also found the dialogue "funny and witty" and adding to "the memorability of the finale". Together with "the great writing and beautiful acting", he called it more entertaining than entire seasons of many shows and "sci-fi television at its finest". Similarly, ''Radio Times''s Braxton praised the show for finding "ways to think big" since its revival while also sometimes delivering on this scale "with such devastating intimacy".

''Screen Rant''s Edward Cleary ranked the series sixth of thirteen, and felt the chemistry between Tennant and Piper—one of ''Doctor Who''s best duos—overshadowed any problems; he described "The Impossible Planet" / "The Satan Pit" as one of the "best two-parters ever". In 2021, ''Comic Book Resources''s Gabriela Delgado noted the series was the second-highest rated on IMDb of ''Doctor Who''s modern run, behind only the fourth. Delgado praised "Doomsday" as "heart wrenching" and "tragic". ''Digital Spy''s Morgan Jeffery and Rebecca Cook ranked the series fourth, praising Tennant's performance; they believed the series brought new levels of success by increasing the show's popularity and securing its future. ''Den of Geek''s Andrew Blair placed the series nineteenth overall, the lowest of Tennant's run, and believed it was a "comedown" in quality from its predecessor.

Awards and nominations

Notes

References

Bibliography

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External links

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