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177a – "Army of Ghosts"
Doctor Who episode
The titular army of ghosts, Cybermen who have not fully materialised, march along Westminster Bridge.
Cast
Doctor David Tennant (Tenth Doctor)
Companion Billie Piper (Rose Tyler)
Guest stars
Camille Coduri – Jackie Tyler Noel Clarke – Mickey Smith Tracy-Ann Oberman – Yvonne Hartman Raji James – Dr Rajesh Singh Freema Agyeman – Adeola Oshodi Hadley Fraser – Gareth Oliver Mellor – Matt Barbara Windsor – Peggy Mitchell Derek Acorah, Alistair Appleton, Trisha Goddard – Themselves
Production
Writer	Russell T Davies
Director	Graeme Harper
Script editor	Helen Raynor
Producer	Phil Collinson
Executive producer(s)	Russell T Davies Julie Gardner
Series	Series 2
Length	1st of 2-part story, 45 minutes
Originally broadcast	1 July 2006 7:00 PM
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → "Fear Her" "Doomsday"
IMDb profile

"Army of Ghosts" is the twelfth and penultimate episode in the second series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who which was first broadcast on 1 July 2006.^[1] It is the first episode of a two-part story; the concluding episode, "Doomsday", was first broadcast on 8 July.

The episode takes part on contemporary Earth, some time after the Doctor’s and Rose’s visit to Earth in "Love & Monsters". During this time, the public have become accustomed to intermittent appearances of ghosts. The Doctor tracks the source of the ghosts to the Torchwood Institute, where the Doctor learns of the Cybermen from "Rise of the Cybermen" and "The Age of Steel" crossing a breach in the Void created by a Dalek-piloted Void ship.

Plot

The episode begins with Rose Tyler narrating how her life changed when she met the Doctor, and that she thought it would last forever. But then came the ghosts, Torchwood, and the war, and she says "This is the story of how I died."

The TARDIS materialises on the Powell Estate so Rose can visit her mother, Jackie Tyler. Jackie shows the Doctor and Rose, to their surprise, that ghosts have been regularly visiting since they last left. After watching various television programmes, the Doctor and Rose find out that the ghosts started visiting several months before, and over time humanity accepted them. Disturbed by both the ghosts and their appearances being scheduled, the Doctor traces the "ghost shift" to One Canada Square, the secret base of the Torchwood Institute.

Torchwood are shown to be, along with causing the ghosts to appear, experimenting on a sphere, which arrived concurrently with the ghosts. The sphere is commented to be without mass or a gravitation field – physically, it does not exist. The cause of all these is shown to be a breach between universes caused by the sphere, allowing Cybermen from a parallel universe^[2][3] to filter through, and slowly infiltrate Torchwood's ranks.

Upon arriving at Torchwood, the Doctor is taken prisoner, along with Jackie, who Yvonne Hartman, director of Torchwood, believes to be Rose. The Doctor is told that his encounter with Queen Victoria made him an enemy of the state, and was the catalyst for the creation of Torchwood.^[4] He is then shown the sphere, which he identifies as a "void ship", and the experiments on the breach, which the Doctor strongly disapproving of both practices, noting that experimenting with the breach will only cause it to fracture more.

Rose, free from detection, masquerades as an employee, and explores Torchwood. She is able to get into the chamber where the void ship is located, but is immediately questioned by Dr Singh, who is in charge of experimenting upon the sphere. He discovers that Rose is an imposter, and asks his colleague Samuel, who Rose recognises as Mickey Smith, to seal the doors.

At the end of the episode, the breach is fully opened, and the multitude of Cybermen are able to cross the Void and take over the Earth. At the same time, the void ship begins to open, and Mickey produces a gun to fight the Cybermen he expects to find inside. But the Cybermen tell the Doctor that they merely followed the sphere across worlds and do not know its origin. When it opens fully, four Daleks emerge, identify the Earth and vow to exterminate its lifeforms.

Continuity

The majority of this episode takes place in the Torchwood Institute, which is seen on screen for the first time. The phrase "Torchwood" first originated from an anagram of Doctor Who used to conceal the "rushes" tapes during the filming of the first series.^[5] It was an arc word used through the majority of the second series,^[6] starting with the series one episode "Bad Wolf".^[7]

The episode's secondary plot device is the Cybermen, from the universe featured in "The Age of Steel" and "Rise of the Cybermen".^[2][3][8] The Cybermen breaking through plastic sheets is a recurring theme throughout Cybermen appearances, in particular, The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Invasion and Earthshock.^{[9][10][11][12]}

The episode is also the first in which Freema Agyeman appears, although she is not playing the role of Martha Jones, which she would play in series 3, but a minor character named Adeola. Russell T Davies admired Agyeman's performance as Adeola and called her back to fill the role of companion that Piper had chosen to leave. Agyeman was officially announced to be playing Martha Jones on 4 July 2006,^[13] and first appeared as Martha in the episode "Smith and Jones". In that episode she refers to her cousin Adeola, explaining the resemblance between the two characters that she had portrayed.^[14]

Production

The two-part finale comprising "Army of Ghosts" and "Doomsday" was originally going to take place in Cardiff on the time rift which was the focus of the episodes "The Unquiet Dead" and "Boom Town". With the commission of the Torchwood series in 2005, Davies decided to base the spin-off in Cardiff and relocate "Army of Ghosts" and "Doomsday" to Canary Wharf in London.^[15]

To ensure that Noel Clarke and Shaun Dingwall (Mickey Smith and Pete Tyler, respectively) were available for filming, the story was filmed in the season's third production block along with "Rise of the Cybermen" and "The Age of Steel". Filming for the story started on 2 November 2005 on location in Kennington, but this story did not become the primary focus of the production crew until 29 November, when filming began on the scenes in and around the sphere chamber. Scenes in the lever room, the main setting for the story, were filmed between 12 December and 15 December, and 3 January and 5 January 2006.^[15]

The episode also features references to other programmes by the BBC. The most notable of these is the cameo of Barbara Windsor as Peggy Mitchell in EastEnders, where she bars a ghost whom she presumes to be Den Watts from The Queen Victoria. Watts, presumed killed in 1989, returned to the soap in 2003,^[16] before being killed a second time in 2005 after being written out of the show.^[17] Additionally, the shot of One Canada Square is taken from the opening credits of The Apprentice.^[18] A programme with the same name as a controversial broadcast in 1992 by the BBC, Ghostwatch, also appears in the show.

Broadcast and reception

To keep the appearance of the Daleks secret, the final scene was removed from all preview tapes and replaced with a title card reading "final scene withheld until transmission", including the copy given to the Doctor Who microsite's "fear forecast" team.^[19]

The episode was watched by 8.19 million viewers, and was the seventh most watched programme of the week, behind four World Cup games and two episodes of Coronation Street. The Companion episode of Doctor Who Confidential gained 570,000 viewers.^[20] The episode's Appreciation Index was 86,^[15] above the average baseline of 77 for drama series.^[21]

The episode was generally well reviewed by critics. The Stage commented that the episode was "a tense contest, full of drama, tears, adversity and two powerful forces coming face to face in the ultimate battle" while mockingly downplaying the England football team's defeat earlier that evening. The author of the review then stated that the cliffhanger increased his affection of the show.^[22]. The Guardian commented that the episode was "Who back at its best" while The People complimented the humour of the scene of the Doctor channel surfing.^[23] Jacob Clifton of Television Without Pity gave the episode an A- rating.^[24] Ahsan Haque of IGN gave the episode 9.8 out of 10 (Incredible), and complimented the pacing of the episode and the revelation of both the Cybermen and the Daleks, concluding that "you couldn't ask for a better cliffhanger".^[25]

After its initial airing, the episode was released on DVD with "Fear Her" and "Doomsday" on 25 September 2006.^[26] The story ("Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday") was nominated for the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.^[27]

References

External links

• Army of Ghosts on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki
• TARDISODE 12
• Trailer for "Army of Ghosts"
• Episode commentary by Russell T Davies and Matt Savage (MP3)
• "Army of Ghosts" episode homepage
• "Army of Ghosts" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
• "Army of Ghosts" / "Doomsday" at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• "Army of Ghosts" / "Doomsday" at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• "Army of Ghosts" at Outpost Gallifrey
• "Army of Ghosts" at TV.com

Reviews

• "Army of Ghosts" reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• "Army of Ghosts" / "Doomsday" reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• "Army of Ghosts" reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
• "Army of Ghosts" / "Doomsday" reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide