The series started production on 8 August 2007 and concluded on 29 March 2008. A short Children in Need special titled "Time Crash" was also produced and set before "Voyage of the Damned", as well as a mini-episode entitled "Music of the Spheres", which premiered at the Doctor Who Prom after the fourth series finale in July 2008. The series was the last to star David Tennant as the Doctor, but he remained as the Tenth Doctor in a series of hour-long specials in 2009, and appeared as the Fourteenth Doctor in the 2023 specials. It was also the last regular series to feature Russell T Davies as the lead writer and showrunner until the fourteenth series.
The Tenth Doctor repairs the damage to the TARDIS from crashing into the Titanic, before landing on the ship. He discovers it is not the RMS Titanic, but instead a duplicate starliner. The Doctor meets waitress Astrid Peth, before joining an excursion to London. The Doctor notes that London is abandoned. As part of cruise line owner Max Capricorn's revenge plot after Max's board votes him out of his company, Captain Hardaker drops the vessel's shielding, causing meteors to be pulled toward the ship. The vessel begins plunging toward the Earth. Max has the Heavenly Host androids kill any survivors. The Host take the Doctor to Max Capricorn. Following the Doctor, Astrid uses a forklift to push Max into the ship's engine, seemingly killing herself too. Reaching the bridge, the Doctor uses the heat from the re-entry to restart and stabilise the ship. The Doctor retrieves Astrid's pattern from her teleport bracelet, before her ghostly remains dissipate into space.
Donna Noble finds herself regretting declining the Doctor's invitation to travel in the TARDIS two years ago, and investigates conspiracy theories in the hope that she will find him again. The Doctor and Donna, neither aware of the other's involvement, both investigate Adipose Industries, which is marketing a special diet pill. The pills use body fat to parthenogenetically create small white aliens called Adipose. The Doctor and Donna separately infiltrate Adipose Industries. As they explore the building, they encounter each other through opposite windows in an office. They are confronted by Miss Foster, an alien who is using Britain's population to create Adipose babies. The Doctor creates a diversion and escapes, so Miss Foster accelerates her plans. Throughout London, the Adipose begin to spawn and soon number several thousand. The Doctor and Donna prevent the plan from killing those who had taken the pill, and the remainder of the young Adipose make their way to Adipose Industries. The Adiposian First Family arrive in a spaceship and collect their young. The Doctor refrains from killing the young Adipose because they are children. Donna accepts the Doctor's offer to travel in the TARDIS.
The Doctor and Donna arrive in Pompeii one day before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79. They discover that the TARDIS was sold to sculptor Lobus Caecilius, and they search for it. At Caecilius's house, the Doctor and Donna meet the local augur, Lucius Petrus Dextrus, who has arrived to collect what resembles an oversized circuit board Caecilius has sculpted. The Doctor breaks into Lucius' house with Caecilius's son Quintus, and finds numerous circuit boards made by multiple sculptors without the others knowing. The Doctor deduces that the circuits will form an energy converter. The Doctor discovers that the Sibylline Sisterhood soothsayers are being slowly turned into stone creatures called Pyroviles. He escapes with Donna into the heart of Mount Vesuvius, and is faced with the choice of either erupting the volcano and killing Pompeii's inhabitants, or letting the Pyroviles use the converter to turn all of humanity into Pyroviles. The Doctor and Donna trigger the eruption and run for the TARDIS, leaving Caecilius and his family, but Donna begs the Doctor to go back and save them. The Doctor relents and saves Caecilius and his family, leaving them on a hill overlooking Pompeii.
The Doctor and Donna land on the Ood's home planet, the Ood-Sphere where a company called Ood Operations has been selling the Ood as slaves. A member of Friends of the Ood, Dr Ryder, infiltrates the company and lowers the settings on the barrier which blocks the giant brain that telepathically connects all of the Ood. The Ood start a revolution. Halpen murders Dr Ryder, but transforms into an Ood because his personal Ood, Ood Sigma, had been using Halpen's hair loss medication to slowly convert Halpen into an Ood. Sigma promises to take care of Halpen. The Doctor shuts down the barrier, freeing the Ood.
Martha Jones calls the Doctor for assistance during an investigation by UNIT. Minutes after the TARDIS materialises, Martha authorises the raid of an ATMOS factory. ATMOS is marketing a satellite navigation system developed by young prodigy Luke Rattigan. The system also reduces carbon dioxide emissions to zero; UNIT requested the Doctor's help because the technology may be alien, and they are also concerned about 52 early simultaneous deaths that occurred spontaneously. The Doctor investigates the system at Rattigan's private school and discovers a plot by an alien warrior race known as the Sontarans. Instead of an outright invasion, they are taking control with a combination of human clones, mind control, and ATMOS; Martha is captured and cloned to provide a mole within UNIT. Donna returns home to her mother Sylvia and grandfather Wilfred. The Doctor investigates the ATMOS devices and discovers it can emit a poisonous gas. Wilfred attempts to take the car off the road, but is trapped when all 400 million ATMOS devices installed in cars worldwide are activated. The Doctor stares helplessly at a street full of cars emitting the gas, while the Sontarans prepare themselves for battle.
Sylvia frees Wilfred. The Doctor and Donna return to the ATMOS factory, where the Doctor warns UNIT not to engage the Sontarans. The Doctor tells Donna to stay in the TARDIS, but the Sontarans teleport the TARDIS aboard their ship. The Sontarans defeat UNIT at the factory and take over. UNIT eventually manages a counterattack. Finding the TARDIS missing, the Doctor tells Donna to re-engage the teleport pods. The Doctor enters the factory and awakens the real Martha. The Doctor learns from Martha's clone that the gas is being used to convert Earth into a breeding world for the Sontarans. The Doctor tells Donna how to use the pods and teleport the TARDIS to Earth. The Doctor constructs an atmospheric converter at Rattigan's academy, which harmlessly ignites the gas and allows the humans to breathe. He calibrates the converter so it can ignite the Sontarans on board their ship, and teleports on board. The Doctor offers Staal the chance to retreat, but Staal encourages him to destroy them. At the last second Rattigan switches places with the Doctor, sacrificing himself to destroy the Sontarans. With the Earth saved The Doctor, Donna, and Martha reconvene in the TARDIS to say their goodbyes when suddenly the TARDIS takes flight on its own with Martha trapped onboard.
The TARDIS takes the Doctor, Martha, and Donna to the planet Messaline. They are met by soldiers working for General Cobb. The soldiers force the Doctor into a progenation machine, which uses his DNA to generate a soldier who becomes the Doctor's daughter. The other occupants of the planet, the Hath, attack, taking Martha hostage. The Doctor and Donna are taken to see Cobb, and Donna names the Doctor's daughter "Jenny". Elsewhere, Martha tends to an injured Hath, and they take her back to their command center. The General explains that they were meant to live with the Hath, but a dispute arose over "the Source". The Doctor inadvertently reveals its location to the humans and the Hath, and the two sides prepare for battle. The Source turns out to be a terraforming device. The Doctor, Martha, Donna, and Jenny make their way to the Source before both armies arrive. The Doctor declares the war to be over and releases the terraforming agent. Cobb tries to shoot the Doctor, but Jenny takes the bullet to the chest and dies. Later, Jenny revives and commandeers a rocket to leave the planet.
The Doctor and Donna invite themselves to a dinner party in 1926, hosted by Lady Eddison, where one of the guests is Agatha Christie. The Doctor realises that they have arrived on the day Agatha inexplicably disappears. A giant shapeshifting alien wasp in human form called a Vespiform kills three of the guests with methods similar to the murders in Agatha's murder mysteries. The Vespiform is revealed to be Lady Eddison's illegitimate half-human son, Reverend Golightly. Golightly, who has a telepathic link with Lady Eddison through her necklace, became aware of his alien nature and absorbed the details of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, an Agatha Christie murder mystery his mother was reading at the time. He transforms into the Vespiform and threatens the guests. Agatha lures him towards the Silent Pool. Donna throws the necklace into the water, and the wasp dives after it and drowns. Due to her own connection with the necklace, Agatha falls unconscious and suffers from amnesia. This becomes the event that gave her amnesia during her disappearance, and the Doctor drops her off in Harrogate.
The Doctor and Donna are summoned to a planet-sized library in the 51st century. A scan for life shows the Doctor and Donna as the only humanoid life signs but trillions of nonhuman life forms they cannot see or hear are present. A team of explorers led by River Song (who summoned the Doctor) arrives, and River acts like she knows the Doctor. She discovers the Doctor has not met her yet. The Library's operation system appears to be connected to the mind of the girl living in 21st-century Earth. The girl’s psychiatrist Dr. Moon visits the girl, telling her that the library is actually real, and he implores her to save the people in the library. The Vashta Nerada kill two of the team; the Doctor and Donna learn that the team are wearing communication devices which can store their thought patterns after death. The Doctor explains that the Vashta Nerada are creatures that appear as shadows. The creatures use Dave's suit to chase the others. The Doctor teleports Donna back to the TARDIS, but the teleport fails. The Doctor later finds an information node with Donna's face which tells him Donna has been saved.
Strackman Lux explains that the Library was constructed by his grandfather, who had a giant computer constructed at Library's core to preserve Lux’s aunt Charlotte's mind. Charlotte "saved" the thousands of missing patrons' minds to the data core to escape the Vashta Nerada. Donna has also been uploaded to the simulation in the core. One of the dead team, Evangelista, reminds Donna her world is not real. After the Vashta Nerada kill more of the expedition, the Doctor discovers the Vashta Nerada’s forests were used to create the books of the Library. The Doctor tries sacrificing himself by giving the computer memory space from his mind to allow the patrons to be teleported back; River knocks the Doctor out and takes his place. The Doctor tries to stop her, but River insists that his death now would prevent her meeting him in her own past. As River initiates the connection, the patrons stored inside the computer re-materialise in the Library. The Doctor finds a data recorder inside the sonic screwdriver his future self gave River, which has preserved her consciousness, and he uploads her pattern, upon which River wakes up in the simulation with her dead crew mates.
The Doctor and Donna visit the resort planet Midnight, the surface of which is bathed in lethal radiation. The Doctor plans to take a shuttle tour to visit a waterfall made of sapphires, and decides to take the trip with other tour-goers. Mid-route, the shuttle stops; the Doctor joins Driver Joe and Mechanic Claude in the cockpit and they see all systems appear operational, but they are simply not moving. Joe calls in for a rescue shuttle. The Doctor returns to the cabin, before knocking begins on the sides of the shuttle. When the shuttle is rocked violently, the hostess finds the cockpit has been ripped out. Sky begins repeating what the Doctor and passengers are saying. Sky starts to only repeat what the Doctor says, and soon is speaking simultaneously with him, and eventually starts saying things before the Doctor repeats them. While most of the other passengers begin to sacrifice the Doctor, believing him to now be possessed, the hostess begins to believe in the Doctor. The hostess grabs Sky and sacrifices herself by pulling the two of them into the radiation. The Doctor returns to normal, and the shuttle passengers are rescued and returned to the resort.
A fortune teller approaches Donna, who helps her recall what led to her meeting the Doctor. Donna remembers she was driving to get a new job, and turned left instead of right to get a temp position. When the fortune teller convinces Donna to turn right instead, a large beetle working for the Trickster attaches itself to her back. Donna's decision creates an alternate reality, where she never met the Doctor, so the Doctor drowned after killing the Racnoss children. Sarah Jane and Martha die. The spaceliner Titanic crashes into Buckingham Palace, destroying London, and Britain is placed under martial law. Rose appears to Donna to save her and her family from the destruction of London, but they are forcibly displaced. Explaining that the stars are going out in every universe, Rose insists that Donna travel back and turn left. Donna is transported back, and is hit by a passing truck, creating a traffic jam that causes her past self to turn left. As Donna dies, Rose whispers a message to her. The alternate universe disappears, and Donna wakes up. Donna recalls Rose's message was the words: "Bad Wolf". The Doctor announces that the universe is in danger.
The Doctor contacts the Shadow Proclamation to find Earth after it is teleported away. They determine twenty-seven missing planets automatically reorganise into a specific pattern when placed near each other. The Doctor traces the planets to the Medusa Cascade, an inter-universal rift. A Dalek force, led by their creator Davros, quickly subjugate Earth. Davros, alive after the Time War, was saved by Dalek Caan, who become precognitive at the cost of his sanity. The Doctor's former companions Captain Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, and Rose Tyler hide in various places. They are all contacted by former prime ministerHarriet Jones through a secret "Subwave Network". They attempt to reach the Doctor by amplifying the subwave signal. The Doctor receives the transmission and traces the signal: the Doctor, and consequently the Daleks, are able to locate Earth in a pocket universe, and Harriet is killed. The Doctor lands on the same street as Rose, but is shot by a Dalek. Carried into the TARDIS, the Doctor begins to regenerate.
The Doctor is regenerating, and part-way through the process, he halts the transformation by transferring the remaining energy into his severed hand. The TARDIS is transported to the Daleks' flagship the Crucible. The Supreme Dalek orders the TARDIS to be destroyed, with Donna locked inside. Donna touches the severed hand filled with regeneration energy, causing a new, cloned Doctor to form, which saves the TARDIS from destruction. Davros explains that the stolen planets form a "Reality Bomb" which has the potential to destroy all matter in every universe. The clone Doctor and Donna arrive and try to refocus the bomb, but fail. Donna becomes imbued with Time Lord knowledge from the clone Doctor, and she disables the bomb. She and the two Doctors relocate the missing planets apart from Earth. The new Doctor destroys the Daleks and the Crucible; Davros refuses to be saved. The companions "tow" the Earth back into its original orbit with the TARDIS. The Doctor returns Rose to her universe, and sends the cloned Doctor with her. Donna's mind becomes overwhelmed by the Time Lord knowledge; the Doctor wipes her mind and returns her home.
After the Doctor parts ways with Martha, he tries taking off, only for the TARDIS to spin wildly and sound an alarm. Checking out the systems, the Doctor passes his fifth incarnation doing the same thing. The Tenth Doctor recognises his past self and is overjoyed to see him, gently poking fun at his particular eccentricities; he also explains that his presence has "shorted out the time differential" between himself and his past incarnation, resulting in the latter gaining an uncharacteristic older physical appearance. The Fifth Doctor is annoyed, believing his counterpart to be a fan who has broken into the TARDIS. The Fifth Doctor discovers that two TARDISes have merged, a paradox that will cause a massive black hole. The Tenth Doctor counters it with a supernova, a solution he remembers seeing himself perform in this same incident; the Fifth Doctor realises that the Tenth really is his future self. The Tenth reminisces as the Fifth begins to fade into a separate timeline. The two Doctors say goodbye. As the time streams split, the Fifth Doctor warns the Tenth to put his shields up, but the Titanic collides with the TARDIS.
The Doctor Whotitle card for series 4, identical to that used in series 3.
Development
All of the episode titles were revealed in the 5 April 2008 issue of the Radio Times, except the title of the twelfth, which was "being kept secret as it gives away too much."[28] The article also identified the title of episode 9 as "River's Run", as did the press release for the subsequent issue of Doctor Who Magazine, but this was changed a few days afterwards to "Forest of the Dead". The title of episode 12 was eventually revealed in a press release as "The Stolen Earth".[29] A Children in Need special, entitled "Time Crash", was produced alongside the series and was broadcast on 16 November 2007. In addition, a mini-episode entitled "Music of the Spheres" was shot on 3 May 2008[30] for series 4 and was premiered at the Doctor Who Prom on 27 July 2008, with the audio being broadcast simultaneously on BBC Radio 3. It was then broadcast on BBC One on New Year's Day 2009.
"You've got to watch and listen closely. It's been seeded for a long time, with small but vital references going all the way back to series One."
Like the previous three series, all of the episodes are bound together in a loose story arc. In previous series, the story arcs were in the form of an arc word, such as Bad Wolf, Torchwood, or Mr Saxon, but the arc for the fourth series is cumulative: Doctor Who Magazine's preview of "Partners in Crime" described the arc as "an element from every episode–whether it's a person, a phrase, a question, a planet, or a mystery –builds up to the grand finale". Multiple mentions were made about the bees disappearing from planet Earth and stories driven by a missing or lost planet. Executive producer Russell T Davies stated in the same feature that the series' finale had been planned for three years previous to its airdate.[31] The regular series focuses heavily on Donna: David Tennant stated that the "whole thirteen weeks is Donna's story ... why she's with the Doctor again is the subtext",[32] and producer Phil Collinson cited Donna as a "fresh dynamic" for the fourth series.[33]
Murray Gold returned to compose the soundtrack to Series 4, with Ben Foster orchestrating.
Filming
Doctor Who had been recommissioned for a fourth series in March 2007,[42] shortly before the broadcast of the third series. The production schedule called for 15 full episodes to be produced, rather than the usual 14, due to the announcement that the next full series of Doctor Who would not air until 2010. This schedule meant that the programme would be unable to enter production during the second half of 2008. The 15 episodes consisted of 13 regular episodes and the 2007 and 2008 Christmas specials. Recording for the 2007 Christmas special began on 9 July 2007,[43] with production on the series itself beginning on 8 August 2007[44] and concluding on 29 March 2008.[45] The tenth production block – consisting of 2008 Christmas special "The Next Doctor" and the BBC Proms "cutaway" scene "Music of the Spheres" — completed recording on 3 May.[30]
On 1 February 2008, the BBC announced that, in a partnership with Carlton Screen Advertising, a 90-second film trailer of the fourth series would be shown in cinemas across Britain "before the most anticipated new releases".[47] The trailer was aired on British television on 22 March 2008.[48] As with the third series and every series subsequently, the stars of the programme and production crew attended a premiere in central London where the first two episodes of the series were screened.[49]
Broadcast
The fourth series premiered on 5 April 2008 with "Partners in Crime", and concluded after 13 episodes on 5 July 2008 with "Journey's End".[50]Doctor Who Confidential also aired alongside each episode of the series, continuing on from the previous series.[51]
The fourth series received positive reviews from critics. The series is considered among critics as one of the greatest of the revived era of the programme, as the series saw the revived era at its peak in popularity.[78] The series finale "The Stolen Earth" / "Journey's End" received an Appreciation Index score of 91, the highest ever for an episode of Doctor Who and one of the highest ever given to a television programme.[79] A poll conducted by Radio Times in 2015 found that readers voted the fourth series finale as the greatest finale of the programme.[80]
Ben Rawson-Jones of Digital Spy gave the series four out of five stars, stating that "a winning mixture of elation and poignancy ensured that the season achieved a great tonal balance where neither light nor dark was allowed to fully overwhelm the other". He praised Tate's performance, by saying of the series that "at the core was Catherine Tate's excellent performance as Donna Noble, a refreshing contrast to the effervescent spirits of Rose and Martha". He also praised the tone of the series, stating that "Russell T. Davies deserves great praise for assembling such a diverse range of stories". However, Rawson-Jones was critical of certain monsters lacking "menace"; he named the Sontarans as an example and stated that the execution of UNIT "was a genuine letdown".[81]
Den of Geek gave an overwhelmingly positive review of the series, giving it four stars out of five, believing it to be the most consistent series of the revived era so far, and of the programme as a whole. They praised the special effects, citing "The Fires of Pompeii", "Planet of the Ood" and the finale as "the epitome of what The Mill can do". Den of Geek further praised the acting talents of David Tennant and Catherine Tate, saying "never have we had it so good... she [Tate] displayed such a fine grasp of character that even David Tennant was left slightly in the shade by her energetic, thoughtful, hopeful and achingly sorrowful (not to mention damn funny to boot) performance". However, they also criticised the familiarity of the Sontaran two-parter and the hollowness of "Voyage of the Damned". Overall, Den of Geek summarized the series as "astonishing", stating that "series four was never anything less than stunning, there were no 'lows' it was all 'highs'".[82]
David Cornelius of DVD Talk stated that "It's the best season yet...every episode in this season is a highlight". He too praised Tate's performance, declaring her as "the new series' best companion yet." Cornelius went on to state that Davies' and Tennant's final series was the series "we'll always remember as the year Davies and Tennant went out on top". He further praised the cast and crew as a whole, complimenting "the excellent guest stars, the impressive set designs, the sharp direction and the detailed creature makeup". Overall, Cornelius summarized that "the fourth season of Doctor Who is outstanding television...and a monumental work of storytelling".[83]
Travis Fickett of IGN gave the series a rating of 7.5 out of 10. Summarizing the series, he stated that "Overall, this season is a mixed bag. I enjoyed Donna more than Martha and less than Rose. It was a let down to see the Daleks as the villains yet again, especially after the terrific appearance by The Master. The Sontarans were original and fun, but nothing to write home about." Fickett stated that Moffat's episodes, "Silence in the Library" / "Forest of the Dead", and Davies' episodes, "Midnight" and "Turn Left", were the highlights of the series.[84]
Selected pieces of score from this series (from "Voyage of the Damned" to "Journey's End"), as composed by Murray Gold, were released on 17 November 2008 by Silva Screen Records.[98] 27 tracks were released on a single CD, with a total length of 76 minutes, 27 seconds.[99]
^ abSpilsbury, Tom (April 2008). "The Gallifrey Guardian: Series Four Episode 1: Partners in Crime: Back in Business!". Doctor Who Magazine. No. 394. Tunbridge Wells, Kent: Panini Publishing Ltd. pp. 6–7.
