Doctor Who/Recap/S27/E04 Aliens of London

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< Doctor Who‎ | Recap‎ | S27

Rose: My mum's here.
The Doctor: Oh, that's just what I need. Don't you dare make this place domestic
Mickey: You ruined my life, Doctor. They thought she was dead. I was a murder suspect because of you.
The Doctor: You see what I mean? Domestic!

One trip to the past, one trip to the future, and now the Doctor brings Rose home, safe and sound, twelve hours after she left.

Make that twelve months after she left. Oopsie! Jackie goes all Mama Bear on the Doctor, Mickey sulks in the background, and an enormous spaceship clips Big Ben and crashes into the Thames. The Doctor, hearing that the spaceship's pilot has been taken to Albion Hospital, sneaks off to investigate. But the only strange life form he encounters there is Tosh (who's only been with Torchwood for two weeks and is generally a bit confused).[1]

The British government is in full crisis mode, here defined as "a bunch of people running around, not sure what to do". Harriet Jones (MP, Flydale North) displays a crackerjack sense of timing as she decides that the middle of an alien invasion is the perfect time to advance her pet project (hospital standards of excellence, in case you're wondering). Everyone fends her off, on the grounds that there's an alien invasion on, so she sneaks into the Secret Meeting Room and puts her project briefing folder inside the official alien invasion briefcase. Approaching footsteps warn her to hide in a convenient closet, so she's the first to discover that the acting heads of the British government have been taken over by aliens! Dun duh DUUUUN!

The Doctor goes back to pick up Rose, freaking out Jackie but acquiring the invaluable help of Mickey. Jackie runs upstairs and reports an alien sighting of a specific alien, namely the Doctor, which makes the British government go even more apeshit. They send the black helicopters after the Doctor and Rose, and pretty soon they're on their way to 10 Downing Street, for a conference on aliens. It turns out that the UNIT files on the Doctor are still quite positive, because he's able to join in as the UK's resident alien expert.

Rose isn't allowed in, so Harriet Jones (MP, Flydale North) takes her aside and confides to her about the alien thing. The Doctor comes to roughly the same conclusion a few minutes later, when he realizes that the conference on aliens is an excuse to gather all the most knowledgeable about aliens in one room, and then kill them.

Tropes

  • Aliens of London: Trope Namer.
  • Arc Words: A kid spray-paints "BAD WOLF" on the side of the TARDIS.
  • Bavarian Fire Drill: The Doctor manages to get out of being held at gunpoint by a room full of soldiers by shouting "Defense Plan Delta! Come on!" after a scream is heard. He didn't even flash his psychic paper!
  • Board to Death: The Slitheen conveniently discuss their plan in the room where Harriet Jones is hiding.
  • Catch Phrase: "Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North".
  • Chekhov's Gun: The flatulence produced by the Slitheen.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Tosh appears a year before Torchwood was even mentioned.
  • Defense Plan Delta
  • First Contact: The Slitheen make up a "first contact" situation as part of a plan to destroy the planet.
  • Gasshole: The whole Slitheen family, due to how they compress themselves to fit into their meat suits.
  • Invisible Prime Minister: The episode was broadcast close to the General Election - when the Doctor asks Rose who the PM is, she points out that she missed a year. When they find the PM's corpse, we never see his face in detail.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: The Doctor compares the humanoid pig "alien" to P.T. Barnum's monkey/fish "mermaid".
  • My Name Is Not Durwood: The Doctor insists on calling Mickey "Ricky". When first corrected, the Doctor jabs that how should Mickey know his own name? He's much too stupid for that.
  • Puppeteer Parasite: The Slitheen.
  • The Slow Path: Everyone connected to Rose. Mickey is understandably thrown when she explains it's only been a few days for her.
  • Stealth Hi Bye: The Doctor pulls one on the coroner.
  • Toilet Humour: The Slitheen.
  • Trailers Always Spoil: The "Next Time" trailer for the following episode began immediately after the cliffhanger, and showed that all the characters (including minor ones who the viewers might have thought were going to die) would survive. Needless to say, many fans (and even casual viewers) were pissed at the first Doctor Who cliffhanger in sixteen years being utterly ruined, and future episodes of the series would have the "Next Time" trailer moved to being after the end credits, giving viewers enough time to turn the channel.
    • Not to mention the trailer for this episode on "The Unquiet Dead", which spoils which characters are actually the Slitheen.
  • Whitehall: Number 10, Downing Street is the setting of most of this episode and the next.
  • The X of Y
  1. ↑ Also, covering for Owen, who was hung over that day.
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