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The untitled Doctor Who Children in Need special is a 7-minute "mini-episode" of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One as part of the 2005 appeal for the children's charity Children in Need on 18 November 2005.
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Synopsis
The Doctor has just regenerated… how will Rose react?
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Plot
Following on directly from the end of The Parting of the Ways, the newly-regenerated Tenth Doctor sets the TARDIS coordinates for the planet Barcelona (Tuesday, 6 p.m., October 5006) while Rose watches him suspiciously. He delightedly examines his new appearance (noting he has a slight weakness in the dorsal tubercle, a full head of hair, sideburns, is slimmer, and has a mole between his shoulder-blades), while asking her what she thinks of the way he looks.
Rose, confused and frightened, asks him who he is, and when he tells her he is the Doctor, she does not believe him. Confused as to what she has just seen, she theorises that this stranger has replaced the Doctor by means of teleportation, or perhaps he is a Slitheen. She demands that he bring the Doctor back, and the Doctor tries to reassure her that it is him, telling her how they first met in the cellar at Henrik's, and the first word he ever said to her — "Run!"
Rose starts to believe him, and the Doctor leaps around the console happily. However, she is still unsettled, and asks him if he can change back. Deflated, he replies that he cannot, and asks her if she wants to leave. When Rose hesitates in her answer, he resets the ship's coordinates for her council estate on Christmas Eve, offering her the choice to stay with her mother or continue her travels with him.
Suddenly, the Doctor suffers some form of seizure, expelling glowing energy from his mouth, and the TARDIS shudders as if in sympathetic response. The Doctor tells Rose the regeneration is going wrong and starts to act manically, throwing switches on the TARDIS console and ranting about increasing speed as the sounds of the Cloister Bell start ringing through the console room. As Rose hangs on to the console for dear life, the TARDIS heads for a crash landing on Christmas Eve...
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Cast
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Trivia
The mini-episode was not broadcast with a title but throughout the Children in Need appeal a preview banner for the segment read "The New Doctor". Russell T. Davies joked in an Doctor Who Magazine article that it was called "Pudsey Cutaway", modifying an alternative title for Mission to the Unknown. The 2006 Doctor Who Magazine special Series Two Companion revealed that the title used on production papers was Doctor Who: Children in Need.
The mini-episode was written and recorded separately from both The Parting of the Ways and The Christmas Invasion and recorded after the latter had completed shooting. The Christmas Invasion does not reprise any of this episode.
The pre-credits sequence for the mini-episode was a montage of the climactic scenes of The Parting of the Ways.
Apart from the recap of the events at the conclusion of The Parting of the Ways and the time tunnel effects, this is one of only two stories that takes place entirely within the confines of the TARDIS and features only the regular cast, the other being the First Doctor story The Edge of Destruction.
During the Doctor's initial spasms, Rose suggests they go back and get Captain Jack to help. The Doctor replies that Jack is too busy rebuilding the Earth (devastated in The Parting of the Ways), suggesting that he is aware — or at least may want Rose to believe — that Jack is alive.
The ringing sound that echoes through the console room near the end of the mini-episode is the sound of the TARDIS's Cloister Bell, first heard in Logopolis. Its ringing is supposed to signal "wild catastrophes and sudden calls to man the battle stations," as the Fourth Doctor put it.
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 were 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.
The mini-episode ended with the text, "Doctor Who will return in THE CHRISTMAS INVASION", an announcement that also followed The Parting of the Ways. It had no end credits, and so Tennant was not listed either as "Doctor Who" (as he had been in the credits of The Parting of the Ways) or as "The Doctor" (as he was in The Christmas Invasion).
The Children in Need appeal raised £17.2m during the fund-raising campaign on BBC One; this is expected to rise to about £30 million when all donations are accounted for.
According to the Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB), the overnight ratings suggest that 10.7 million viewers were tuned into BBC One from 9.00 p.m. to 9.15 p.m. (a 45.1% audience share), the slot in which the mini-episode was broadcast in most regions. This represented the highest ratings Children in Need had received in eight years.
BBC Scotland did not begin transmitting the Doctor Who content until 9:21 p.m., significantly later than other regions.
This special has yet to be broadcast in Canada for series co-producers CBC.
The mini-episode will be included on the Series 2 DVD box set. *
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