9th Doctor - The Empty Child (iii)

Book(s)/Other Related -
Doctor Who – The Doctor Prances
Doctor Who And The Bed-Wetting-Inducing Terror
Zombie Monthly – Doctor Who Series One special
Sci-Fi Banana Fetish: Putting on the Blitz


Roots – I'm not sure if it's Marxism in action or a west-end musical


Fluffs – Christopher Eccleston seemed a bit war-torn in this story.

"You can wait for inspiration till the cows come home. Just what is
it about procrastination that attracts beef, anyway?"

"Oh, dear god that is DISGUSTING!" screams John Barrowman when the Doctor shows him the banana. I guess they left it in for the passion.



Goofs –
Hoo... boy.

OK, first off the TARDIS telephone has 'British Telecom' written on it. It also falls over when Rose steps out of it in the first scene.

Confusion between Cardiff and England aside, no one puts up the blackouts during an air raid and, indeed, there seem to be 2005 double-decker red buses driving around.

The sounds of the air raids are clearly being made by a drunken sound assistant – hence the phrases "Pow!" "Ka-zap!" "Die in bed, you English pig-dog!" "Splat!" and "Of COURSE I'm fit to drive!!" punctuating the gunfire and explosions.

The Doctor abandons his dreams of being Danny la Rue far too quickly for it to be remotely credible.

The Doctor's sonic screwdriver is replaced with a set of nostril-hair clippers for most of this story.

Why does Nancy try to escape the house through the chimney when there are two perfectly good doors at the front and back?

If Jamie's communication powers can use anything with a speaker grill, then how does he affect the typewriter and clapping monkey? Are typewriters and clapping monkeys inherently possessed of evil power? Is Steven Moffat perhaps trying to tell us something?

One of the zombie can be seen smoking a cigarette during the mass exodus of the hospital.

Jack's ship has two lighting technicians playing dice in the corner.

The trains in the railway station/bomb site are clearly Thomas the Tank Engine extras.


Fashion Victims –
Rose's Union Jack shirt makes her look either like Tim Brooke-Taylor or Stupid Ape Spice. Maybe both.


Technobbable -
Captain Jack can "reverse the trajectory of the sexual orientation flow seemingly at will!"


Dialogue Disasters -

Doctor: Right you lot, lots to do - beat the Germans, save the world and don’t forget the welfare state!
OND: You have NO idea what you're talking about, do you?


Rose: I know you don't believe it now but this isn't the end of the world. I was born around here. I'm a Londoner from fifty years in the future. They don't come here, Nancy. They never come here... The Oasis tour never happens. Trust me on that.


Doctor: Don't drop the banana.
Jack: Why not?
Doctor: Good source of potassium. And a banana can be a very dangerous weapon in the right hands, you know. Very hard to get the stains out of clothes!
Rose: Just admit it, Doctor – you've got a fetish!
Doctor: Never!


Rose: Can we go and rescue Jack now?
Doctor: Rose, I'm busy resonating concrete.
Rose: Oh, there's always SOME excuse isn't there? "Rose, I'm busy resonating concrete". "Rose, I'm busy reversing the polarity of the neutron flow". "Rose, I'm busy washing my hair". I'M SICK OF IT, DOCTOR! There's only so many crap excuses for not doing stuff because you can't be arsed a girl can take!
Doctor: I like bananas. Bananas are good.
Rose: AND SHUT THE HELL UP ABOUT THOSE FUCKING BANANAS!!


Dialogue Triumphs -

Doctor: There's never a policeman when you need one.
Rose: A policeman can't help us!
Doctor: No, but I'm sure he could sacrifice himself nobly while we run for our miserable lives in the opposite direction.


Doctor: I'm really glad that worked. Those would have been terrible last words.
Rose: Oh, what would you want your last words to be?
Doctor: Something like this: "Rose, I... love... BANANAS!"


Doctor: It's got the power of a god, and I just sent it to its room. Oh yeah. Who's your daddy? Who's your daddy? I'M YOUR DADDY!
Child: Are you my mummy?
Doctor: No, fool I'm your daddy – uh-oh.


Rose: Why is it always the great looking ones who are gay?
Doctor: I'm making an effort not to be insulted. I failed.
(The Doctor bitch-slaps Rose.)
Doctor: HOW DARE YOU!! Why do you fancy him, anyway?!
Rose: He flosses. Bloke-wise that's up there with saving my life.
Doctor: I save your life every day.
Rose: Do you floss?
Doctor: Hey, I save your life EVERY day!!


Doctor: I've traveled with a lot of people, but you're setting new records for terminal bimbo airheadedness.


Rose: What about that bomb?'
Doctor: Taken care of it.
Rose: How?
Doctor: Bananas. Is there anything they can't do??


Old Woman: My leg's grown back. How do you explain that, then?
Other Ninth Doctor: I'll explain that... later.


Doctor: The barman says that all the booze is gone, and who am I to argue with the barman?
Rose: Usually the first in line.


UnQuotable Quote –

Jack: They stayed in touch. Can't say that about most bananas.



Links and References -
Rose mentions the Doctor stalking her for her whole life. As you do.

Jack reveals he was the one who rescued a Dustbin from the Temporal Difference of Opinion and sold it to JR Ewing.


Untelevised Misadventures -
This is apparently the third time Big Ben has been the centre of alien shenanigans – this story, Aliases of London, and the novel The Streetwise Man.

The Eighth Doctor seems to spend some time in 1941 racing barrage balloons during air raids.

The Doctor once visited the weapons factories of Vilengard in the 51st Century destroyed it and replaced it with a banana grove run by a fellow traveler named C'Rizz. The Doctor names lab rats after C'Rizz for some reason and takes great pleasure in killing them.



K9 Conspiracy –
Nancy comments on the size of the Doctor's ears and nose, saying his silhouette reminds her of a robot dog. What a bitch.

Captain Jack says the Doctor looks 'like Inspector Rex', the American version of which was known as K911.

There is a copy of "K9 and The Time Trap" in Jack's spaceship.

The bomb ridden is labeled "Big K9".

One of the toys the urchins steal is a Denys Fisher K9 model.

Any bit of dialogue from this story, played backwards announces:
"Hey look at me, I'm fucking K9! A big bad robot dog mother, at that!"



Subtext? WHAT Subtext? -

The idea that Captain Jack is a Time Agent from the 51st century is slightly problematic, in that it makes an obvious link to "The Talents of Wong-Jing", in which 51st-century criminal Magnificent Bastard speaks of his belief that he is being pursued by Time Agents due to his plagiarizing of films that have yet to be written under his disguise as talentless hack Wong-Jing in 1976 Hong Kong.

However, in the context of The Talents of Wong-Jing, this idea forms part of Bastard's increasingly paranoid fantasy, as he attempts to delude himself, against all logic, that the Black Scorpion film trilogy was successful, the debilitating afflictions he suffered creatively during the time experiment are reversible, and that he is regarded as enough of a dangerous threat to the film industry in the future that they would send agents to hunt him down like the dog he is.

Whereas, as the Doctor informs him, the truth the megalomaniac film director cannot face is that his epic 'Expert at Fishing for Big Crocodiles' was a critical and cinematic failure, worse even than the hardcore porn sequel to Titanic – Titanic II: The Titanic Go Down.

It is also made clear in the story Bastard was the first man of his era to travel in time, which means that he would have no idea what any future temporal police would be named. Heck, they might even be named the Temporal Police like that 1970s TV Action comic strip The Temporal Police, where Jon Pertwee is arrested during filming of Season 11 to prevent his decline and fall into Worzel Gummidge.

If there is, in fact a temporal organization called Time Agents in the 51st century dedicated to stopping cross-era movie plagiarisation, then it must POSTdate Bastard, and thus suggests either a massive coincidence or unusual powers of foreknowledge on Bastard's part.

And, as anyone who has seen Wong Jing's My Neighbors Are Phantoms knows, Bastard has very little intellectual capacity whatsoever.



Groovy DVD Extras –
The laughter track. Nancy's every appearance is coupled by so much applause you'd think she was the fricken Fronz or something.
Also scenes cut from The Doctor's Bananas due to its horrific nature -
Child: Are you my mummy?
Doctor: Yes. Come and sit on my knee. Bouncy-bouncy.