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New Earth (Doctor Who)

"New Earth" is the first episode of the second series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 15 April 2006.

For other uses, see New Earth (disambiguation).

168 – "New Earth"

Russell T Davies
Julie Gardner

2.1

45 minutes

15 April 2006 (2006-04-15)

The episode is set five billion years in the future on New Earth, a planet humanity settled on following the destruction of the Earth in the 2005 episode "The End of the World". In the episode, the alien time traveller the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant), his travelling companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), and their old enemy Lady Cassandra (Zoë Wanamaker) uncover many artificially-grown humans having been infected with every disease in a luxury hospital by the Sisters of Plenitude as a way of finding cures for the diseases. The Face of Boe makes his second appearance before his last appearance in "Gridlock", the third and final sequel episode to the "New Earth Trilogy".

Plot[edit]

Synopsis[edit]

The Tenth Doctor takes Rose to the year 5,000,000,023 to a world humanity settled on after the destruction of the Earth[N 1] called "New Earth". The Face of Boe telepathically summons the Doctor to a hospital ward in New New York. In the ward, the Doctor notices humanoid feline nuns of the Sisters of Plenitude have been curing incurable diseases. Meanwhile, Rose is separated from the Doctor and is tricked by Lady Cassandra into having Cassandra's mind implanted in Rose's body.

Broadcast and reception[edit]

Overnight ratings for the episode peaked at 8.3 million viewers in the UK,[5] with a final rating of 8.62 million, making it the ninth most watched programme of the week.[6] The episode achieved an audience Appreciation Index of 85.[7] This is the first Doctor Who episode to have an accompanying TARDISODE.


The Canadian English-language premiere of Series 2 on CBC, consisting of this episode, took place on 9 October 2006. It concluded with an extended version of the "Tooth and Claw" trailer from the BBC broadcast; the revised closing theme was not heard in the broadcast and it was also the first episode to be broadcast without a specially taped introduction featuring one of the lead actors. The episode had previously aired on 29 August 2006 in translation on the French-language broadcaster Ztélé, under the title Une nouvelle Terre.


This episode was released together with "The Christmas Invasion" as a basic DVD with no special features on 1 May 2006, and as part of a second series boxset on 20 November 2006. *Copies of the DVD from the complete Series 2 set distributed to Netflix customers contained an error: at the 32-minute mark, the playback switched abruptly to a gruesome scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Netflix has pulled the disc from their inventory while they work out the issue with the BBC; this only seems to have affected Netflix copies.[8]


IGN rated the episode 7.2 out of 10, concluding, "Although this was an entertaining episode, it did not have the dramatic impact of the previous episode. Overall, 'New Earth' featured more than a few interesting moments, such as the scenes with the Doctor and the Face of Boe, and Billie Piper's performance as the Casandra-possessed Rose was hilarious; but the zombie attack felt quite out of place for a Doctor Who episode".[9] Nick Setchfield of SFX questioned whether the "brash, colourful and occasionally howl-out-loud funny" tone was appropriate enough to start the series, but he praised the concept of the cat nuns as well as their prosthetics, Tennant's performance, and the ending that "alchemises the broad strokes comedy into something genuinely moving".[10] Writing for The A.V. Club in 2014, Alasdair Wilkins gave "New Earth" the grade of "C+". He noted that, likely due to production difficulties, it "too often feels like it is missing vital context" and suffered from unconvincing special effects. Furthermore, he criticised the story for being "caught between two irreconcilable tones" and featuring a "baffling" ending that wished to redeem Cassandra. Nevertheless, he found Tennant's performance to be impressive though not as coherent as he eventually will be, and he praised Piper despite the fact that the story lacked Rose's character.[11]

at the Doctor Who Stories Website

"New Earth"

TARDISODE 1

(MP3)

Episode commentary with David Tennant, Russell T Davies and Phil Collinson

"New Earth" episode homepage

at the BBC Doctor Who homepage

"New Earth"

BBC's "New Earth" image gallery

New Earth as Planet Name in Science Fiction

at IMDb

"New Earth (Doctor Who)"