'New Earth' (Story Code 2.1) by Russell T Davies

"Oh my god! I'm a chav!" - The Lady Cassandra as Rose

Having said goodbye to her mum and Mickey, Rose rejoins the Doctor in the TARDIS. The Doctor tells her that he has received a mysterious summons on his psychic paper instructing him to come to ‘Ward 26’, which he has traced to a hospital in New New York, on the planet New Earth, in the galaxy M87, in the year 5000000023. On arrival, the Doctor explains to an excited Rose that the beautiful planet is mankind’s replacement home world, founded after the destruction of the original Earth twenty-three years ago; the two time travellers are unaware that they are being spied upon by a familiar mechanical spider – as elsewhere, a reconstructed Lady Cassandra and her tattooed aide, Chip, watch their arrival through the robot’s eyes… The Doctor and Rose arrive at the hospital, where Rose is amazed to learn that the attending staff, known as the Sisters of Plenitude, are in fact humanoid cats. When the Doctor steps into a lift and requests Ward 26, Chip closes the doors remotely, forcing Rose to take the next one; inside each of their lifts, Rose and the Doctor experience a built-in decontamination procedure of a good wash, talc and blow dry. But while the Doctor’s lift travels up, Rose’s takes her down to the hospital’s sub-levels, where she is met by Chip. Back in the hospital, the Doctor meets the Duke of Manhattan, a patient literally turning to stone from an incurable disease called petrifold regression. The Doctor then encounters his summoner: the Face of Boe; the enigmatic alien is dying of old age, and has a great secret to impart to “the man without a home; the lonely god” – a description that fits the Doctor very well... Meanwhile, a surprised Rose comes face to face with Cassandra, who has been hiding in the hospital basement; it seems that the brain and eyes of the self-styled ‘last human’ survived their earlier encounter, and Cassandra is now wearing a section of stretched skin taken from her back-side. Having told Rose that the Sisters are hiding a secret, Cassandra uses a body-swap device to psychograft her mind onto that of Rose, taking over her body while her old brain and ‘body’ decompose. Pleased with her “bouncy” new body, Cassandra answers a call on Rose’s mobile phone, and promises to join the Doctor on Ward 26. The Doctor is amazed to learn that the Duke and several other patients have somehow made a miraculous recovery, although the Matron refuses to reveal the secret behind their amazing revival. Rejoining the Doctor, ‘Rose’ promptly stuns him with a huge snog; quickly recovering himself, the Doctor decides to investigate the hospital’s intensive care section, and with the help of his oddly behaving companion, soon discovers a vast, hidden complex containing thousands of secure pods, each containing a captive human. The Doctor realises that these prisoners have been deliberately grown as lab rats by the Sisters, who have infected them with every disease in the galaxy in order to create the ultimate research laboratory. The Doctor is outraged, but when he confronts one of the nurses she defends the actions of her sisterhood as being beneficial to the survival of mankind. When the Doctor demands that the nurse restore Rose to normal, ‘Rose’ is forced to reveal her true identity; she then renders the Time Lord unconscious with a blast of her perfume, and triggers an alarm. The Doctor comes to and finds himself locked into one of the pods, facing death from an imminent flood of deadly diseases. When the Matron arrives to answer the alarm, Cassandra attempts to blackmail her; however, the Matron refuses, choosing to draw her claws instead; panicking, Cassandra and Chip use their back-up plan, activating a controls that administers a reviving shot of adrenalin to a row of prisoners, and then activating their door releases. Freed from captivity, the disease-ridden victims kill one of the nuns with a touch, and then cause a power surge that releases every one of the remaining pods; while the Doctor escapes with Cassandra and Chip, the Matron tries to contain the crisis by giving the order to activate the quarantine seals around the entire building. Reaching her basement hideout, Cassandra, Chip and the Doctor are confronted by more plague carriers, all pleading for help, but unable to prevent infection from the diseases they carry. As Chip escapes through a waste chute and then hides in an empty pod, the Doctor forces Cassandra to release his friend; she complies – and then possesses the Time Lord instead. As their diseased pursuers close in, ‘The Doctor’ and Rose climb up a lift shaft; the Matron is not far behind, but when she tries to grab Rose she is killed from a touch by one of the plague carriers below. Faced with the anger of both the Doctor and Rose, Cassandra jumps between their minds, eventually possessing one of the plague victims to allow the Doctor to open the lift doors with his sonic screwdriver; however, once safely through, Cassandra takes over Rose’s body once more. The two of them make their way to Ward 26, where the Doctor attempts to stop the Duke’s aide from breaking the quarantine. Knowing that it is up to him to save the day, the Doctor straps all the intravenous solutions in use in the ward to his chest, and then prepares to abseil back down the lift shaft; with the loneliness of the plague’s mind carrier weighing heavily on her, Cassandra agrees to help him, and together they plunge down the shaft and land on top of the lift. Having tipped the solutions into the decontamination reservoir on the top of the lift, the Doctor draws a group of plague victims into the jets; the liquid quickly takes effect, curing the patients crammed inside the lift; these people then pass the treatment on to their fellows through touch, and it is not long before everyone in the building is restored to full health. The Doctor is elated – he has helped create a new sub-species: New Humanity. A short time later, after the New New York Police Department have arrived to arrest the misguided Sisterhood and take the new life forms into care, the Doctor visits the Face of Boe. Now fully recovered, the Face of Boe tells the Doctor that his secret can wait until they meet for the third and final time; disappointed, the Doctor can only look on as the inscrutable alien teleports away. The Doctor again confronts Cassandra and demands that she release his companion; a redeemed Cassandra complies, this time jumping into the mind of her willing aid; however, Chip’s cloned body is not strong enough, and his internal organs quickly begin to shut down from the strain. Knowing she is near death, the Doctor takes Cassandra back in time to her favourite party, a time when she still had her human body. As her life slips away, Cassandra takes the opportunity to tell her earlier self how beautiful she looks, before dying in her arms…

David Tennant (The Doctor), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler), Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler), Noel Clarke (Mickey Smith), Zoe Wanamaker (Lady Cassandra), Sean Gallagher (Chip), Dona Croll (Matron Casp), Michael Fitzgerald (Duke of Manhattan), Lucy Robinson (Frau Clovis), Adjoa Andoh (Sister Jatt), Anna Hope (Novice Harne), Simon Ludders (Patient), Struan Rodger (Face of Boe)

Directed by James Hawes
Produced by Phil Collinson
Executive Producers Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner
A BBC Wales production

TX:
15th April 2006 @ 7.15 pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Tenth Doctor, Rose, Mickey and Jackie

*Working title: 'Body Swap'

*Bad Wolf sighting: the partially-erased words 'Bad Wolf' can still be made out on the estate's playground, near to where the TARDIS stands


*TARDISODE: Welcome to New Earth, where the Sisters of Plenitude can cure any illness. But what is the shocking truth behind the hospital..? [Cast: Anna Hope (Novice Harne), Sophie Higgs (Patient), Natalie Cuzner, Kim Wyld (Cat Nuns)]