Rose Tyler is a normal young woman. She lives with her mum, Jackie. She has a semi-serious boyfriend, Mickey. And she works a mundane job at Henrik's department store. One night, however, Rose's life is turned upside-down when she finds murderous animated mannequins in the store basement, and is rescued by a mysterious stranger who calls himself “the Doctor”. Rose becomes determined to delve deeper into the mystery of the Doctor, but her life is imperilled again when Mickey is replaced by a plastic doppelganger. Only together can Rose and the Doctor stop a secret invasion of the Earth.

The dawn of the twenty-first century was perhaps the bleakest period in Doctor Who's storied history. Following the programme's cancellation in 1989, a substantial number of suitors had almost immediately sprung up, each of them trying to strike a co-production deal with the BBC. The most persistent was Philip David Segal who, in November 1995, finally brought together BBC Drama, commercial arm BBC Worldwide, American network FOX, and production company Universal Television. The result was Doctor Who (1996), a telefilm starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor. But although it had been developed with the hope of spawning further TV movies, and perhaps even a fully-fledged new series, poor North American ratings for its May 1996 broadcast guaranteed that the project would go no further. Universal spent the next year and a half looking for other interested parties, but none presented themselves. And, unlike in 1989, no other companies publicly declared their interest in co-production. For all intents and purposes, Doctor Who now essentially appeared dead as a television concern.

Occasionally, though, there were still furtive signs of hope. Part of the reason for Doctor Who's cancellation had been the antipathy -- and sometimes downright hostility -- with which it had been regarded by the BBC brass. That began to change in the mid-Nineties, most notably with the appointment of Mal Young as the Head of Drama Series in October 1997. Young hired Patrick Spence as his Head of Drama Development. Around the end of 1998, Spence was introduced to Russell T Davies by a mutual acquaintance, BBC producer Tony Wood. Davies was then developing the groundbreaking Channel 4 drama Queer As Folk, and he explained to Spence that the project which would have the strongest likelihood of coaxing him to the BBC was Doctor Who. This notion met with the approval of both Young and the Controller of Programmes for BBC One, Peter Salmon. For a brief time, Davies was attached to a revival referred to in some places as Doctor Who 2000.

Mal Young was informed that Doctor Who was off-limits for development as a television programme

By this point, however, BBC Films had been granted permission to pursue a Doctor Who movie. Around the time that Spence spoke with Davies, they were having similar conversations with Paul WS Anderson, the director of Mortal Kombat and Event Horizon, and his production partner Jeremy Bolt. Companies such as Miramax and Artisan Entertainment also became involved in the project at various stages, and Young was informed that Doctor Who was therefore off-limits for development as a television programme. This remained the status quo for several years, even after BBC Films parted company with Anderson and Bolt. By 2000, they were instead discussing Doctor Who with the Mutual Film Company, who engaged the services of Ed Solomon, the co-writer of Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure and Men In Black.

As a television entity, it seemed that Doctor Who would be relegated to occasional repeats and comedy tributes. In 1999 alone, not one but two spoofs had been created by Doctor Who fans who were now making inroads in the television industry. First, in March, Steven Moffat wrote The Curse Of Fatal Death, which aired as part of the biennial Comic Relief charity appeal. It saw no fewer than five prominent actors play different incarnations of the Doctor: Rowan Atkinson, Richard E Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant and Joanna Lumley. Then, in November, Mark Gatiss and his League of Gentlemen comedy troupe created a number of humorous sketches for a Doctor Who night on BBC2, which celebrated the programme's thirty-sixth anniversary.

The year 2000 was accompanied by a number of promising changes to the BBC landscape. Although Doctor Who lost a potential ally when it was announced in September that Salmon would be leaving the Controller's position, his successor, Lorraine Heggessey, was also well-disposed towards the show's return to BBC1. She was egged on by her right-hand woman, Channel Executive Helen O'Rahilly, who was a lifelong Doctor Who fan. A month later, Head of Drama Serials Jane Tranter was promoted to Controller of Drama Commissioning. Tranter was very fond of Doctor Who; during the early stages of her career in the late Eighties, she had once volunteered in its rehearsal room. At the same time, Young's role was rechristened Controller of Continuing Drama Series.

All the while, Davies looked for opportunities to remind the executives of his interest in a Doctor Who project. As an intermediary, he often relied upon his frequent collaborator, Nicola Shindler of Red Productions. Finally, at the press launch for Linda Green in mid-October 2001, Shindler introduced Davies to Tranter. With Davies now an influential figure in television following the success of Queer As Folk, Tranter realised that the opportunity existed not only to bring Davies into the BBC fold, but to simultaneously resurrect a programme she held in such high esteem. However, her pursuit of this project would have to wait: heavily pregnant with twins during her encounter with Davies, Tranter would take maternity leave shortly afterwards.

In late 2001, Dan Freedman was working on a proposal which would have seen Stephen Fry take over as the Doctor

Simultaneously, there were other parties who were quietly manoeuvring to take charge of Doctor Who. The most visible was Dan Freedman, producer of BBC Online's first Doctor Who webcast, Death Comes To Time. In late 2001, he was working on a proposal which would have seen Stephen Fry -- who had played a Time Lord called the Minister of Chance in the webcast -- take over as the Doctor in a series designed for the cult programming slot on BBC2. There it would join stablemates such as the American fantasy/horror series Buffy The Vampire Slayer and, indeed, Freedman had reached out to members of its production team for assistance with his Doctor Who proposal. However, Freedman's project -- which eventually metamorphosed into a spin-off about the Minister of Chance, rather than the Doctor -- ran out of steam during 2002.

Around the same time, and partly in reaction to Freedman's pitch, another proposal was developed by Mark Gatiss, Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman. Like Gatiss, Roberts was not only an established screenwriter but had written several Doctor Who novels for Virgin Publishing during the Nineties; Hickman was the editor of Doctor Who Magazine. They suggested a series of twenty-one half-hour episodes featuring a semi-amnesiac Doctor and his friends, policeman Dan and university student Holly. Meanwhile, circa 2002, Matthew Graham had a meeting with Young's deputy, Head of Drama Series John Yorke, where they discussed ideas for a Doctor Who revival. All four men would eventually write for the programme or its spin-offs: Gatiss would be involved as both a writer and an actor starting with 2005's The Unquiet Dead, Roberts contributed several scripts beginning with The Shakespeare Code in 2007, Hickman would co-write some material for The Sarah Jane Adventures including Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith in 2010, and Graham would provide two adventures starting with 2006's Fear Her. But, at this stage, nothing would come of their ideas.

To a large extent, it appears that the ongoing efforts of BBC Films were responsible for the lack of progress on the television front. However, there was also a growing belief within BBC Drama that the rights situation surrounding Doctor Who had become complicated. This seems to arisen through a combination of poor institutional memory of the 1995 agreement with Universal Television and awareness that the ownership of certain characters lay not with the BBC but with their respective creators, such as Terry Nation's control of the Daleks.

Nonetheless, Davies continued to meet with BBC representatives regarding Doctor Who, including executive producer Pippa Harris and Laura Mackie, the Head of Drama Serials. He was now envisaging a companion who worked a mundane job such as an office cleaner. Inspired by the BBC's successful series Walking With Dinosaurs, he suggested that she might find dinosaurs in the basement of the high rise where she worked. She would be saved by the Doctor, with one sequence involving an escape using a window cleaner's cradle. Davies was also keen to make use of contemporary popular culture, and he thought that an adventure set in the future might feature a robotic version of Anne Robinson, the host of the quiz show Weakest Link.

Jane Tranter commented that she wanted to resurrect Doctor Who with a star the calibre of Judi Dench

On September 17th, 2002, Heggessey gave an interview to Simon Mayo on Radio 5live. Here she provided the clearest indication yet of her interest in bringing Doctor Who back to television, when she confirmed that preliminary discussions were under way. Likewise, on March 16th, 2003, Tranter commented in The Observer that she wanted to resurrect Doctor Who with a star the calibre of Judi Dench. In an interview with The Guardian on August 25th at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, Heggessey reiterated her hope that Doctor Who would one day return to production. In fact, Tranter had directly approached Davies' agent, Bethan Evans, at the press launch for The Canterbury Tales on August 6th. Davies himself, however, was wary of the BBC's commitment to the project.

By this stage, Heggessey's patience with BBC Films had worn out. Little progress had been made on the putative Doctor Who movie, and it was now agreed that the property would return to the aegis of BBC Drama. However, there was still lingering uncertainty as to whether any rights issues would prevent the production of new Doctor Who on television, as Heggessey made explicit in her interview with The Guardian. Fortunately, earlier in the year, BBC Online had commissioned an animated serial called The Scream Of The Shalka, featuring Richard E Grant as a brand-new Ninth Doctor. As part of this work, researcher Daniel Judd and producer Jelena Djordjevic tackled the mammoth task of investigating the full extent of the rights situation. In an article published on the official Doctor Who website on August 21st, they conclusively demonstrated that there were no legal barriers to the BBC making a new series of Doctor Who. Heggessey's office was subsequently made aware of their conclusions.

Meanwhile, Julie Gardner had joined BBC Wales as its new Head of Drama, the appointment having been announced on July 29th. Gardner and Davies had first met during an awards ceremony on February 6th, 2002, and were now collaborating on a serial called Casanova. Although it was originally in development at London Weekend Television, Gardner would now bring Casanova to BBC Wales, as part of the Corporation's overall efforts to decentralise its traditionally London-based television production. During one of her first meetings with Tranter at the start of September, the two women agreed to make a formal approach to Davies regarding a new Doctor Who series. Gardner called Davies while he was on holiday in France; such was his confidence in her that it helped overcome his uncertainty about working with the BBC. As a Welshman himself, he was also very pleased with the notion that Doctor Who would help establish Cardiff as a new centre of drama production.

Lorraine Heggessey confirmed the return of Doctor Who in an interview published on September 26th, 2003

Following his return from France, Davies met with Gardner and Young -- both of whom would share executive producer duties with him -- as well as Tranter. From there, discussions progressed quickly and, on September 24th, Heggessey officially commissioned a new season of Doctor Who, the twenty-seventh in its history. She then confirmed the programme's return in an interview published on September 26th. For fourteen years, it had been believed that Survival would be the last Doctor Who story produced in-house by the BBC -- but no longer.

There was no question that Doctor Who would return to the twenty-five-minute format to which it had adhered for most of its original run. Most BBC dramas were now an hour long, but it was quickly agreed that forty-five-minute episodes would better satisfy the international market to which the production team hoped to appeal. There was less consensus about how many episodes should be made, and how they should be formatted. Tranter and Young suggested six installments, divided into three two-part adventures. But while he was well aware that cliffhanger endings had been a hallmark of twentieth-century Doctor Who, Davies felt that multi-part serials were now better deployed to punctuate key moments within the season. After considering an eight-episode slate, he and Gardner were soon advocating for thirteen episodes, most of which would consist of standalone stories. This had been agreed by the start of November.

Davies' initial idea for the Doctor's companion was to turn convention on its head by pairing the Time Lord with an elderly grandfather, whose pensioner friends would occasionally lend a hand. Soon, however, he returned to his earlier notion of a young woman working as an office cleaner. The character became known as Rose Tyler from an early stage, sharing a first name with one of the main protagonists in Davies' sitcom Bob & Rose, and a surname with characters from his scripts for the soap opera Revelations and the drama The Second Coming, as well as his 1996 Doctor Who: The New Adventures novel Damaged Goods from Virgin Publishing.

Although Tranter had expected the Daleks to be the villains of the first episode, Davies felt that they would be better used to provide a mid-season bump in publicity. Instead, he favoured pitting the Doctor and Rose against the plastic-controlling Nestene Consciousness and its Auton servitors. Created by Robert Holmes, they had first appeared in Spearhead From Space, Jon Pertwee's 1970 debut as the Third Doctor, and had returned a year later in Terror Of The Autons. Not only would they suit the intended high rise setting, but their nature would allow Rose to plausibly doubt their alien origins. Furthermore, the fact that they were established monsters would permit Davies to focus on the relationship between the Doctor and Rose; he could also draw upon the iconic imagery of their original Seventies appearances. The main villains were conceived to be the twin bosses of Rose's company who always appeared to be holding hands -- because they were really two Autons who were fused together.

The people closest to Rose would serve as recurring characters throughout the season

Davies largely spent the latter part of 2003 working on Casanova and a new five-part drama called Mine All Mine. Nonetheless, on December 8th, he presented the rest of the team with a fifteen-page pitch document for Doctor Who. It established the new production's remit to bring the series back to its roots as a family programme which could entertain the adults, while still spooking the younger members of the audience. In addition to introducing Rose -- now envisaged as working in a department store rather than a high rise -- it also emphasised that the people closest to her would serve as recurring characters throughout the season. Both Davies and Gardner felt that Doctor Who should emulate American series such as Buffy The Vampire Slayer by juxtaposing science-fiction and fantasy elements against genuine human relationships and emotions. As such, Davies introduced Rose's mother, Judy, and her boyfriend, Muggsy. In order to maintain the pace of each episode, the Doctor would once again wield his sonic screwdriver, a device which had been introduced in 1968's Fury From The Deep and destroyed in 1982's The Visitation. Davies also suggested the possibility of bringing back K·9, the popular robot dog who had accompanied the Doctor throughout the late Seventies.

Davies had now decided that the new series would continue on from where Doctor Who (1996) had left off, although it would be extremely judicious in its use and acknowledgement of the show's history. Its protagonist would indeed be the Ninth Doctor, but the regeneration of McGann's Eighth Doctor would have happened at some time in the past. At this stage, it was expected that Davies would write seven of the thirteen episodes himself -- including the premiere -- and would develop storylines for the remaining six. Amongst the writers he approached about the series was JK Rowling, the author of the best-selling Harry Potter fantasy novels. However, she declined the invitation because she was too busy working on the penultimate book in the series, Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince.

Originally, it was hoped that Season Twenty-Seven would debut on or around New Year's Day 2005. Early in 2004, however, it was realised that the amount of work which would happen in post-production was too extensive to permit such an early premiere date. This was in spite of the fact that Davies was determined to make only selective use of computer-generated effects, due to both their expense and the limitations of the technology. During January, the team was joined by Phil Collinson, who would work under Davies, Gardner and Young as the programme's producer. His previous credits had included Peak Practice, Born And Bred, and the supernatural drama Sea Of Souls.

The use of the plastic garbage bin was inspired by the way Robert Holmes' Auton serials had made everyday objects sinister

On January 17th, Davies began writing the episode which would herald Doctor Who's return to television screens. Muggsy was now Mickey Smith, while Rose's mother was called Jackie. Rose's decision to join the Doctor in the TARDIS was foreshadowed when Jackie mentioned receiving a phone call from her daughter that morning, promising that she would be safe -- a call which Rose insisted she hadn't placed. Outside Clive's, Mickey was originally kidnapped by Autons disguised as workmen; the use of the plastic garbage bin was inspired by the way Holmes' Auton serials had made everyday objects sinister. At the restaurant, the Mickey duplicate was unmasked when his plastic eyeball fell into his soup. In the Nestene's lair, Rose was initially deceived by another Auton Mickey; it was from their conversation that the Nestene learned about the Doctor's anti-plastic serum.

Meanwhile, the production team was actively searching for an actor to play the Ninth Doctor. At an early stage, the role was offered to Hugh Grant, the star of movies like Four Weddings And A Funeral and Notting Hill who had also played a version of the Doctor for The Curse Of Fatal Death in 1999. Although he didn't quite fit the image that Davies had in mind, it was felt that his star status would bring enormous prestige and publicity to Doctor Who. Grant, however, was not interested in the offer. One actor who was widely touted as a top contender was Bill Nighy, who had appeared in films like Love, Actually. Indeed his wife, actress Diana Quick, indicated at one point that Nighy had been offered the role of the Doctor and turned it down; he would later appear as Dr Black in 2010's Vincent And The Doctor.

On March 20th, the Daily Mail confidently reported that Nighy had been cast as the Ninth Doctor. On the very same day, however, the BBC announced that the new Doctor would actually be played by Christopher Eccleston. Eccleston had starred in Davies' The Second Coming, and he had contacted Davies to indicate his interest in playing the title role soon after the September announcement of Doctor Who's return. Eccleston had been independently suggested by Young, and he was one of three candidates under consideration for the Doctor by the time he auditioned for Davies, Gardner and Collinson in February. Around the end of the month, consensus was reached that Eccleston was the best choice, and an agreement with the actor was brokered on March 19th. This was not Eccleston's first brush with Doctor Who: he had previously been asked to audition for Doctor Who (1996), but had not been interested in associating himself with such an established television property at that time.

The Doctor's low-key outfit reflected Christopher Eccleston's desire that his clothes not dominate his performance

For the new Doctor's outfit, costume designer Lucinda Wright adopted a more low-key approach than had been taken in the past, with a battered leather jacket being the signature piece of apparel. Although this image was suggested by Davies' pitch document, it also reflected Eccleston's desire to ensure that his clothes would not dominate his performance. Meanwhile, production designer Edward Thomas was developing the look of the TARDIS console room. Davies had always intended it to be a departure from its previous realisations; his pitch document described a room where only the console itself was plainly visible, with other architectures glimpsed in the darkness beyond. Thomas, however, suggested a fusion of mechanical and organic elements which would give the impression that the TARDIS had been grown.

With the Doctor cast, attention now turned to finding the right person to portray Rose. A frontrunner from an early stage was singer-turned-actress Billie Piper, but there was scepticism that she would be willing to commit to a full season. Other candidates included Georgia Moffett, the daughter of Fifth Doctor Peter Davison, who would later appear in 2007's The Doctor's Daughter. Piper was one of five actresses who joined Eccleston for auditions on April 30th. Her casting was made official on May 21st, and announced to the press three days later. The importance of Piper's character to Doctor Who was made explicit by Davies' decision to call her debut episode Rose -- although it was only latterly that it was agreed to include an on-screen title at all. This was a further contraction of the name which had appeared on Davies' contract -- “Rose Meets The Doctor” -- and which itself was abbreviated from Davies' pitch document description of the episode, “Rose meets the Doctor, and the journey begins”.

Whereas twentieth-century Doctor Who had largely been recorded serial by serial, the new season would be comprised of production blocks consisting of one to three episodes. Since most of the scripts were self-contained stories, this meant that a single team could be responsible for multiple adventures. Davies originally intended the first production block to cover episodes one and two -- Rose and The End Of The World -- but it was subsequently agreed that the production blocks would be more effective if they grouped together episodes with common characteristics. As such, Block One would be comprised of three episodes: Rose and the year's first two-part adventure, Aliens Of London / World War Three, which would be broadcast fourth and fifth. Both were set in the modern day and would require location work in London.

Another element which linked Block One's two stories was the presence of Jackie Tyler and Mickey Smith. In June, both roles were filled: Camille Coduri would play Jackie, while Noel Clarke was cast as Mickey. This made Clarke the first person of colour to have a recurring role in Doctor Who, but it also presented a challenge for the production team due to his preexisting commitments to the finale of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. To account for Clarke's limited availability, Davies made several revisions to his script. The resulting deletions included Rose running into Mickey outside Henrik's department store just before it blew up.

Director-General Mark Thompson made inquiries about whether there was still an opportunity to cancel Doctor Who

On June 22nd, a potential crisis for Doctor Who materialised when Mark Thompson became the Director-General of the BBC. Almost immediately, Thompson began making inquiries about whether there was still an opportunity to cancel Doctor Who before it entered production. It seems that this came at the behest of Michael Grade, who had taken up the post of Chairman of the BBC Board of Governors on May 17th. Grade was infamously dismissive of Doctor Who, and had been partly responsible for its near-cancellation in 1985. In response, Heggessey, Tranter and Gardner presented a united front in their assertion that the project had moved too far along for the BBC to back out; doing so would represent a substantial waste of resources, and would give the Corporation a very public black eye.

It was now expected that Doctor Who would premiere in late February 2005, around the time that recording for the season was scheduled to conclude. It would be joined by a documentary programme on BBC3, which would air immediately upon the conclusion of Doctor Who each week. Originally called Doctor Who Uncovered and then Doctor Who Confidential, the plan was for the new show to pair behind-the-scenes footage from that week's Doctor Who story with interviews and relevant excerpts from the classic series. Meanwhile, some documentation now referred to the season premiere as “The Journey Begins”, although Rose would ultimately be used on-screen.

For Block One, it was hoped that a big-name director could be attracted to Doctor Who. To this end, Gardner contacted Edgar Wright, who had recently made the 2004 cult horror hit Shaun Of The Dead. When Wright proved unavailable, several veteran television directors were approached, but none of them were interested in Doctor Who. Finally, the job went to Keith Boak, with whom Davies had worked on the children's programme DEF II.

Whereas twentieth-century Doctor Who had been recorded on either film or videotape, the new season would be captured digitally for the first time, using the Digital Betacam format. Although high-definition recording was starting to become increasingly common, it would have placed additional demands on the design and effects departments, whom the production team was being careful not to overburden. As such, Doctor Who would be made in standard definition for the time being. To preserve secrecy, the DigiBeta tapes would be labelled “Torchwood” -- an anagram of Doctor Who -- when they were shipped from Cardiff to London.

July 18th, 2004 marked the first recording for Doctor Who on British soil in more than a decade

When Block One entered production on July 18th, it marked the first recording for Doctor Who on British soil in more than a decade. With the initial two days devoted exclusively to Aliens Of London / World War Three, filming for Rose began on July 20th in Cardiff, and witnessed Piper's debut as Rose. First, Howell's department store posed as Henrik's, before elements of the Auton attack on the shopping district were captured along Working Street. This included the shot of the mannequins smashing through display windows -- a sequence which had been imagined for Spearhead From Space but had ultimately been represented only by a sound effect due to the expense. More material outside Henrik's was taped on July 21st, followed by the carnage inside the shopping mall, which was actually the Queen's Arcade. By the time cast and crew returned to the Queen's Arcade and Working Street on the 22nd, it was already becoming clear that insufficient time had been budgeted for such a labour-intensive and effect-heavy production.

Next up was a week's work in London, with several venues required for Rose on July 26th. Most were in Westminster: the shot of Rose and Mickey from the start of the episode was captured at Trafalgar Square, the TARDIS materialised near the Royal Air Force Memorial along the Victoria Embankment, and the Doctor and Rose ran across Westminster Bridge. Material at the London Eye was then recorded in Lambeth, to which Boak's team returned on the 27th. More sequences at the Victoria Embankment were recorded on July 28th, after which the Brandon Estate in Kennington posed as the Powell Estate, where the Tylers lived. Cast and crew remained there until the 30th.

August 2nd and 3rd saw taping move back to Cardiff and the basement of the University Hospital of Wales, for scenes set in the Henrik's cellar. Again progress was slow, with the artistes dressed as Autons needing more breaks than anticipated, especially given the heat of the subterranean spaces. On August 4th, the BBC confirmed the involvement of both Clarke and Coduri in Doctor Who; Clarke's presence in London had already been noted by the press.

Early in the planning process for Doctor Who, it had been recognised that there was insufficient space to accommodate the series at BBC Broadcasting House in Cardiff, where the studios were dedicated to the Welsh-language soap opera Pobol y Cwm. Although this would be partly mitigated through location filming, a sound stage would still be required -- especially for the standing TARDIS set. Fortunately, BBC Wales had already been making use of a warehouse near Newport known as Unit Q2, and it would now become Doctor Who's new studio home. The first work for Rose there took place on August 20th, and involved material in Rose and Jackie's bedrooms.

On August 22nd, La Fosse restaurant in Cardiff stood in for Tizzano's. Script editor Elwen Rowlands had suggested the name of the pizzeria in reference to the sixteenth-century artist Titian, whose real name was Tiziano Vecelli. The removal of the Auton Mickey's head had reminded Rowlands of the decapitation of John the Baptist, the aftermath of which was debatably the subject matter of the Titian painting popularly known as Salome. Clarke rejoined the team, newly returned from shooting the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet finale in Thailand. He was now beginning to realise that his challenging schedule -- which had been exacerbated by the sudden death of his Auf Wiedersehen, Pet co-star Pat Roach -- had impeded his understanding of the tone for which Davies was striving. As a result, he felt that he was overemphasising Mickey's cartoonishness.

From August 23rd to 25th, the disused Ely Paper Mill in Cardiff was the site of the Nestene's lair. Lack of time at this location forced the abandonment of the sequence involving the second Auton Mickey. Work on August 26th began at Unit Q2 for scenes in the Tylers' kitchen, before St David's Market in Cardiff provided the alleyway where Rose decided to travel with the Doctor. Several days at Unit Q2 followed. On September 1st, Boak started with sequences in Mickey's apartment before moving on to material in the Tylers' flat, which continued to the 2nd. On September 3rd, Rose entering the TARDIS was taped; Davies had hoped that the shot could appear to follow her seamlessly through the doors of the time machine, but the effect was now deemed to be too complex to achieve. Although Davies had scripted the Doctor to use the word “Dimensions” when explaining the meaning of the acronym TARDIS, Eccleston chose to revert back to the original “Dimension”; the plural form had been adopted in 1965's The Time Meddler.

This should have marked the end of production on Rose, but Block One had now fallen so badly behind schedule that an extra week had been arranged. As a result, September 7th saw more work at Unit Q2 on the sets for the Tylers' flat and Clive's shed. The next two days involved further location filming in Cardiff. On the 8th, Taff Terrace was Clive's street, while Channel View Flats offered a stairwell suitable for the Powell Estate. Material in the pizzeria kitchen and its rear yard was recorded on the 9th, on the grounds of the Cardiff Royal Infirmary. Cast and crew returned to Unit Q2 on September 10th for shots in the Henrik's lift, after which the bomb-carrying Doctor bade farewell to Rose at Marks & Spencer in Newport. The last day of principal photography on Rose was September 11th, which started with the remaining sequences in the Tylers' apartment at Unit Q2, and wrapped up with shots of the Henrik's lift in motion, captured at BBC Broadcasting House in Cardiff.

Christopher Eccleston was already contemplating his departure from Doctor Who

Unfortunately, the chaotic first month of recording had driven a wedge between Davies and Eccleston. Frustrated that the production team had not done enough to foster a positive working environment, the series star was already contemplating his departure from Doctor Who. Meanwhile, model filming took place on September 15th and 16th at the BBC Model Unit Stage in Acton, London. Soon thereafter, it was realised that the rapid pace of the editing meant that Rose was under-running. Davies extended the scene where the Doctor and Rose walked from her flat to the TARDIS, and this material was taped as part of Block Two, on October 18th at Lydstep Flats in Cardiff. Finally, on November 10th, inserts of Jackie in her bedroom were captured at Cardiff's HTV Wales Studios.

It was known all along that Doctor Who would be an expensive production which BBC Drama could not fund on its own. BBC Worldwide had agreed to provide significant funding, but it was also hoped that an international partner could be found. Early in the year, Davies, Gardner and Young had spent some time in the United States trying to attract American interest, without success. On October 4th, however, it was announced that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had invested in Doctor Who. The BBC agreed to produce special introductions for transmission on the CBC, although they refused a request to dub Eccleston's dialogue with a Canadian voice.

Meanwhile, a number of key decisions for the series were still to be made. On October 18th, a new Doctor Who logo was unveiled; it was the creation of the BBC Wales Graphic Design Team. Special effects house The Mill added it to the credit sequence they were developing, which was completed towards the end of the year. The new titles took inspiration from the version originally designed by Bernard Lodge in 1973 and used until 1980, and depicted the TARDIS travelling through the time vortex. The Mill also proposed revamping the TARDIS materialisation, with suggestions including a progression through dimensions from point to line to plane to prism, or a refractive effect. It was ultimately was agreed that the time machine would fade in or out, as previously established. For Ron Grainer's theme music, some thought was given to using Delia Derbyshire's original arrangement from 1963. However, Davies felt that it didn't suit the new title sequence and so, late in the year, he turned to Murray Gold -- who was already composing Season Twenty-Seven's incidental music -- to develop a new version.

With the production of Season Twenty-Seven now expected to run into March 2005, it was finally decided that Doctor Who would debut at the end of the month, during the Easter weekend. Having been broadcast on weekdays for most of the Eighties, it would now return to its traditional Saturday evening timeslot. Long a bastion of family viewing, Saturdays had become a source of increasing concern to BBC schedulers, and there was some belief that there was no longer any interest in programmes designed to appeal to both adults and children. Indeed, one of Heggessey's motivations in reviving Doctor Who had been as part of an effort to reinvigorate the Saturday family audience.

On March 4th, 2005, a copy of Rose was leaked onto the Internet

Serious promotional efforts began in earnest on New Year's Day 2005, when BBC1 screened the first teaser trailer, which had been posted on the official Doctor Who website a month earlier. Additional teasers followed on March 8th, with the first full trailer broadcast on the 15th. The BBC launched its redesigned Doctor Who website on March 8th; on March 23rd, it was joined by a subsite posing as a “real” version of Clive's webpage. BBC2 held a Doctor Who theme night on March 19th, screening documentaries and even a Doctor Who edition of the quiz show Mastermind. But perhaps the most potent publicity for Doctor Who came on March 4th, when an employee of a company associated with the CBC leaked a copy of Rose onto the Internet. Although the employee was subsequently fired, the result was a storm of press and public attention.

Rose was broadcast on March 26th, in-between Strictly Dance Fever and The National Lottery: Jet Set. The Doctor Who timeslot had most recently been occupied on a regular basis by Match Of The Day Live. A preview show called Doctor Who: A New Dimension aired earlier in the evening. It was narrated by Casanova star David Tennant -- who, in reality, had already been cast as the Tenth Doctor. Eccleston's relationship with Davies had never really recovered from the fraught production of Block One, and the actor had ultimately chosen to leave Doctor Who after a single year.

The days before the programme's return were rife with speculation as to whether Doctor Who would be able to overcome the stiff ratings challenge of ITV's popular variety show Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway. When the dust settled, however, the Doctor and Rose had won the battle with an average audience of 10.8 million viewers -- the highest tally for Doctor Who since a strike-bolstered The Creature From The Pit in 1979, when the television landscape was much less competitive. Perhaps even more impressively, the appreciation index of 76% was the best in the programme's history to that point. After all of the delays and disappointments, Doctor Who's extended and sometimes interminable hiatus from television screens had ended in resounding triumph.

• Doctor Who Magazine #500, July 2016, “Doctor Who: 2001” by Graham Kibble-White, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #11, 31st August 2005, “Fact File: Rose” by Andrew Pixley, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Complete History #48, 2016, “Story 157: Rose”, edited by John Ainsworth, Hachette Partworks Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Inside Story by Gary Russell (2006), BBC Books.
• The Long Game by Paul Hayes (2021), Ten Acre Films.