Davros has been rescued from the Time War by an insane Dalek Caan. Cannibalising his own body, he has created a new race of Daleks, who transport the Earth and twenty-six other planets across time and space. Former Prime Minister Harriet Jones sacrifices her life to connect Martha, Jack and Sarah Jane, while Rose's search for the Doctor and Donna leads her to Wilfred and Sylvia. The disappearance of Earth's bees provides the Doctor with the clue he needs to track the missing worlds to the Medusa Cascade. Separately or together, the Doctor and his friends must find a way to stop Davros' plot to obliterate all of reality.

From an early stage, it was known that the concluding two-part story of Doctor Who's thirtieth season would be something extraordinary. This adventure would mark the end of producer Phil Collinson's tenure on the programme, and would also be the last season finale overseen by executive producers Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner. Neither would be leaving Doctor Who immediately, but it was already planned that Season Thirty-One would be delayed by a year, until 2010, when a new production team would take over. Davies and Gardner would wrap up their time on Doctor Who with several specials, which would air in the interim.

As a result, Davies was keen to bring back a number of elements which had featured in Doctor Who since its 2005 revival. By early 2007, he planned to have the Doctor and his companion -- at this point intended to be a new character named Penny Carter -- joined by Rose Tyler, Martha Jones, Jack Harkness and Sarah Jane Smith, as well as Elton Pope, who had been the protagonist of 2006's Love & Monsters. It was also hoped that Jack's colleagues from the spin-off series Torchwood would make an appearance. Furthermore, Davies was contemplating the inclusion of two characters closely associated with Rose: her ex-boyfriend, Mickey, who had briefly travelled in the TARDIS, and her mum, Jackie. Additionally, he hoped that Catherine Tate might be willing to record a cameo appearance as Donna Noble, who had accompanied the Doctor in the 2006 Christmas special, The Runaway Bride; however, there was scepticism that Tate's busy schedule would allow this.

Davros had not been seen on-screen since Remembrance Of The Daleks in 1988

As the villains, Davies earmarked the Daleks and their creator, Davros; although the Daleks had appeared in several Doctor Who stories since 2005, Davros had been only obliquely referenced, and had not been seen on-screen since Remembrance Of The Daleks in 1988. Davies also planned to incorporate an intergalactic conference on a space station, which would allow him to include many other creatures from the show's recent past, including the Gelth (The Unquiet Dead), the Slitheen (Aliens Of London / World War Three and Boom Town), the Krillitanes (School Reunion), the Isolus (Fear Her), the Judoon (Smith And Jones), the Bane (from Invasion Of The Bane, the debut episode of spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures), the Graske (introduced in the 2005 interactive game Attack Of The Graske), and the Jixx of Balhoon, who was intended to be the brother of the late Moxx of Balhoon from The End Of The World.

By the summer, some of Davies' plans for the adventure -- dubbed The Stolen Earth -- had changed. Much to his surprise, Tate had consented to return to Doctor Who to play Donna for the whole of Season Thirty, resulting in the abandonment of his plans for Penny. Elton was no longer being considered for the finale, but Davies was instead mulling the inclusion of Midshipman Frame from the 2007 Christmas special, Voyage Of The Damned. Davies had been impressed by Russell Tovey's performance as Frame, and he thought that the character could be reintroduced as an agent of the Shadow Proclamation, the secretive intergalactic police force mentioned in episodes as far back as Rose, the 2005 premiere.

In David Tennant's first full story, 2005's The Christmas Invasion, the Doctor's hand had been severed during a duel with the Sycorax Leader, although the proximity to his regeneration had permitted him to grow a new one. The amputated hand had reappeared in Torchwood, and was then returned to the TARDIS in 2007's Utopia, after which it had remained present in the console room. Davies had long intended that it would eventually be used to grow a half-human version of the Doctor, and he had anticipated that this would take place during Tennant's final adventure. However, he now decided that he could get more mileage from the idea if he used it in The Stolen Earth. Davies also wanted the serial to end with Mickey Smith back on his original Earth, after having been trapped in a parallel universe with Rose and Jackie in 2006's Doomsday. This way, the character would be available for potential use in Torchwood or The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Russell T Davies considered reducing Rose's involvement to a short coda on Bad Wolf Bay

In August, Davies learned that Billie Piper would be unavailable to play Rose throughout January 2008 while she went on her honeymoon. This was a huge blow to his plans, because it meant that her schedule conflicted with the intended recording dates for The Stolen Earth. Davies hastily began rethinking his story. He considered dropping Mickey and Jackie altogether, and reducing Rose's involvement to a short coda in which the half-human Doctor arrived on Bad Wolf Bay in the parallel universe. Fortunately, Gardner was subsequently able to rearrange the Doctor Who recording schedule to accommodate Piper's absence, with the majority of The Stolen Earth now slated to be filmed in February.

A major consequence of this change was that the intended director, Euros Lyn, would no longer be available to make the season finale. Instead, he was shifted to the year's eighth production block, consisting of Silence In The Library / Forest Of The Dead. His replacement would be Graeme Harper, who would move onto The Stolen Earth -- which was designated Block Nine -- immediately after completing its prequel, Turn Left.

Davies began writing The Stolen Earth on December 10th. By now, it was decided that castmembers from both Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures would play supporting roles in the finale. In addition to Jack Harkness and Sarah Jane Smith, Torchwood's Gwen Cooper (played by Eve Myles, who had a previous Doctor Who appearance as Gwyneth in 2005's The Unquiet Dead) and Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd) would appear, as would Sarah Jane's adopted son Luke (Thomas Knight), her supercomputer Mr Smith (voiced by Alexander Armstrong) and her robot dog K·9 (voiced by John Leeson). Some thought had been given to including all three of the juvenile leads of The Sarah Jane Adventures, but it was eventually decided to omit Luke's friends, Clyde Langer (Daniel Anthony) and Maria Jackson (Yasmin Paige), although they would be acknowledged in dialogue. Adjoa Andoh would also return as Martha's mother, Francine; her last Doctor Who appearance had been in the previous year's climax, Last Of The Time Lords.

By this stage, Davies had fleshed out his plans for Midshipman Frame. He would appear when the Doctor and Donna travelled to the Shadow Proclamation, and assist them in dealing with his superiors there. He would then journey with them in the TARDIS to the Dalek Crucible, only to be exterminated, allowing Davies to sacrifice somebody recognisable without having to kill off one of the show's better-established characters. This had been a concern for Davies during his development of the narrative, because he felt that the death of one of the Doctor's allies was necessary to demonstrate the scale of the adventure. Unfortunately, it was soon discovered that Tovey already had commitments throughout the first quarter of 2008, meaning that he would be unavailable for The Stolen Earth.

Julie Gardner and Phil Collinson felt that Harriet Jones deserved an opportunity for redemption

Instead, Davies decided to heed Gardner and Collinson's requests to bring back Harriet Jones, the former Prime Minister who had not appeared since The Christmas Invasion. That adventure had seen the Doctor topple Jones' government in retaliation for her destruction of a retreating Sycorax battleship, and both Gardner and Collinson felt that the character deserved an opportunity for redemption. It was not initially certain that Penelope Wilton would be free to reprise the role of Harriet, and so Davies was also prepared to replace her with Mr Copper, the alien played by Clive Swift in Voyage Of The Damned. Fortunately, Wilton confirmed her willingness to return to Doctor Who in early January 2008.

Unlike recent seasons, when a single phrase or character had been seeded throughout several episodes to lead into the final story, Davies had to pay off no fewer than three different mysteries in The Stolen Earth. Most obviously, there was the return of Rose, presaged in Partners In Crime, The Poison Sky, Midnight and Turn Left. Several stories had also made reference to missing worlds: Adipose 3 (Partners In Crime), Pyrovillia (The Fires Of Pompeii) and the Lost Moon of Poosh (Midnight). The twenty-seven worlds captured by the Daleks were a tremendous increase from Davies' initial conception, in which only six planets were needed for their scheme. Finally, there had been frequent allusions during Season Thirty to the disappearance of Earth's bees, including Partners In Crime, Planet Of The Ood, The Unicorn And The Wasp and Turn Left. Beyond these three puzzles, Davies had included a reference to the Medusa Cascade in Last Of The Time Lords, with the Master noting that the Doctor had sealed a rift there during the Time War. Davies also realised that the metacrisis subplot allowed him to repurpose the Ood's description of the TARDIS crew in Planet Of The Ood as “the DoctorDonna”.

As production loomed at the end of 2007, Davies was keenly aware that Harper urgently needed the scripts for both installments of the finale. Working feverishly, he even cancelled his appearance at Piper's wedding on December 31st in order to allow himself more time to write. Davies was finally able to complete his first draft of the penultimate episode in the wee hours of New Year's Eve. A scene in which Wilfred Mott attempted to blind a Dalek using a paintball gun had been suggested by Bernard Cribbins himself. Meanwhile, General Sanchez of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT) was originally called General Slade.

Russell T Davies contemplated cutting the scenes in the Torchwood Hub or the involvement of Sarah Jane

The script for the second episode -- which would come to be known as Journey's End -- was begun on January 11th. As the writing progressed, Davies became concerned that there was no way to conclude his story within the confines of a standard fifty-minute episode. He began to contemplate the necessity of cutting a major element of the story -- such as the scenes in the Torchwood Hub or the involvement of Sarah Jane -- and contacted Gardner to discuss the problem. On January 19th, Gardner was able to convince Jane Tranter, the BBC's Controller of Fiction, to extend Journey's End by ten minutes, making it the longest regular-season Doctor Who episode ever. Reinvigorated, Davies completed the initial draft of Journey's End three days later, on January 22nd.

Various changes were made to The Stolen Earth / Journey's End in the lead-up to production, many of them a result of budgetary considerations in the face of the scripts' enormous ambition. Most notably, the appearance of various returning aliens during the scene at the Shadow Proclamation -- a list which had now grown to include Sycorax (The Christmas Invasion), Hath (The Doctor's Daughter), Vespiforms (The Unicorn And The Wasp), and even a giant adult Adipose (Partners In Crime) -- was substantially cut, with only the Judoon being retained. Davies had included a cameo role for Annette Badland, whose Slitheen character had reverted to infancy at the conclusion of Boom Town. She would now be in the care of the Jingatheen, another family from Raxacoricofallapatorius, but would react badly to the presence of the Doctor. Badland had already recorded accompanying dialogue but, unfortunately, it would go unused. Davies also excised a lengthy flashback chronicling Davros' youth on Skaro, his experiments on Kaled soldiers, and the explosion which disfigured him.

To play Davros, the production team approached Julian Bleach, who had recently appeared as the villainous Ghostmaker in From Out Of The Rain during Torchwood's second season. A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Bleach had also appeared in movies such as Topsy-Turvy and The Brothers Grimm. The task of redesigning Davros fell to Neill Gorton of Millennium FX. Two Davros masks had been used in twentieth-century Doctor Who, and it was agreed that the new version should hew towards the original from 1975's Genesis Of The Daleks, rather than the more distorted mask introduced in 1984's Resurrection Of The Daleks. Davros' life support unit was newly-constructed, and was intended to have a sturdier appearance than the old prop.

Russell T Davies wanted the Supreme Dalek to have a red livery as a nod to the Aaru Pictures Doctor Who movies

Apart from Davros' chair, three new Dalek casings were required for The Stolen Earth / Journey's End. One was the Supreme Dalek, which Davies wanted to have a red livery as a nod to one of the main Daleks seen in the Aaru Pictures Doctor Who movies from the Sixties. A variety of possible designs were considered, including some with an oversized dome reminiscent of a samurai helmet, and others which boasted an enormous gun arm, inspired by the Special Weapons Dalek of Remembrance Of The Daleks. The additional struts on the finished version were suggested by the antennas on Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite which had been launched by the Soviets in 1957. The partly-collapsed Dalek Caan was also a new build. Finally, one of the Daleks built for 2005's Bad Wolf / The Parting Of The Ways was now being used exclusively for exhibitions, so a replacement was needed. The original casing from 2005's Dalek was also restored to its bronze colour scheme, having been painted black to serve as Dalek Sec for Army Of Ghosts / Doomsday in 2006 and then Daleks In Manhattan / Evolution Of The Daleks in 2007.

Ahead of the main shoot for The Stolen Earth / Journey's End, footage of the newsreaders was recorded on January 31st at BBC Broadcasting House in Cardiff. Principal photography then began with a week at Doctor Who's studio home in Upper Boat, spanning February 18th to 22nd. TARDIS scenes were filmed on the first day, with cast and crew moving to the Torchwood Hub set from the 19th to the 21st. More action in the TARDIS console room followed on the 22nd, alongside an insert in the Hub. After the weekend, February 25th again saw cameras rolling on the TARDIS set, with a particular highlight being the memorable sequence of both Doctors and all of their friends operating the console. Harper's team next moved out on location, with sequences in the Noble home recorded on the 26th and 27th in their usual venue on Nant-Fawr Road in Cardiff. It was back to Upper Boat on February 28th and 29th for more TARDIS scenes, before the cast and crew again enjoyed the whole weekend off.

Studio recording remained predominant during the following week, with Harper focussing on sequences in the Dalek Crucible vaults. This work began on March 3rd and 4th, and resumed on the 6th and 7th. In between, on March 5th, Doctor Who returned to Southerndown Beach, at Southerndown in Ogmore Vale. The location again posed as Bad Wolf Bay, as it had done in Doomsday two years earlier. On March 8th, Cardiff University's School of Optometry and Visual Sciences served as the headquarters of the Shadow Proclamation.

Following a break on Sunday the 9th, the remaining scenes in the Crucible vaults were completed at Upper Boat on March 10th. Harper's team remained in the studio on the morning of the 11th; the primary concern was material in the Crucible corridors, together with various inserts. The afternoon was then spent on Ffordd Gerdinan in Tonteg, for the Doctor and Donna's arrival on Earth at the start of the story, and Rose's later materialisation following the planet's theft. March 12th took cast and crew to Pontypridd, where sequences outside the Noble residence were captured on Hawthorn Road, and Megabyte City -- the looted computer store visited by Rose -- was actually Computing Wales. On the 13th, various scenes on the streets of London were filmed in Penarth. The TARDIS materialised on High Street, Rose teleported onto Queen's Road, and the Dalek shot the Doctor from Paget Road. Arcot Street was the venue for Jack's belated arrival at the scene of the Doctor's near-extermination, as well as for Sarah Jane, Mickey and Jackie surrendering to the Daleks. More street scenes were taped in Cardiff on March 14th, including the Daleks rounding up their prisoners on Brook Street, and Rose saving Wilfred and Sylvia on Plantagenet Street. Harper then filmed the material in and around the German castle, which was actually Castell Coch, a Victorian-era edifice built from the ruins of a thirteenth-century fortification.

Saturday the 15th was a day off, after which the South Wales Traffic Management Centre in Cardiff posed as UNIT's New York City headquarters on March 16th. The Reality Bomb test was filmed on the 17th at the disused Alpha Steel facilities in Newport. March 18th was Wilton's only day of work on the serial, with Lower House Barn in Michaelston-le-Pit posing as her cottage. Once work there had wrapped, further scenes outside the German castle were taped at Castell Coch. On the 19th, the Doctor returned Sarah Jane, Mickey, Jack and Martha to Earth at Morgan Jones Park in Caerphilly, while Martha teleported away from UNIT headquarters in the National Collections Centre of the National Museum Wales at Nantgarw. Upper Boat was once again the venue on March 20th and 21st, with Harper concentrating on material on the Dalek Crucible command deck, plus various inserts. The latter day saw Collinson's departure from Doctor Who, Tennant's final work for Season Thirty, and Tate's last contribution as a series regular. Despite assumptions to the contrary, however, Tate opined that she would have been very interested in remaining on the programme.

The extended length of Journey's End meant that an additional week of recording had been tacked onto Block Nine

The extended length of Journey's End meant that an additional week of recording had been tacked onto the end of Block Nine. As such, despite the absence of the lead cast, Harper's team was back at Upper Boat after the weekend, with the Crucible command deck set in use again on March 24th. The 25th was spent in Penarth, initially at a house on Cwrt-y-Vil Road which served as Francine Jones' residence. Next, Sarah Jane's home on Bannerman Road was the same house on Clinton Road which was regularly employed for The Sarah Jane Adventures. Finally, Mickey and Jackie rescued Sarah on Robinswood Crescent. Cast and crew returned to Cwrt-y-Vil Road on the 26th, for more scenes at Francine's.

From March 27th to 29th, most of the remaining material for The Stolen Earth / Journey's End was filmed at Upper Boat. In addition to various inserts, the standing set of Sarah Jane's attic was the centre of attention for the first two days. Once this work was completed on the 28th, the cameo appearance by Richard Dawkins was recorded. This role had been written as an unnamed scientist in Davies' initial drafts of The Stolen Earth, but Doctor Who Magazine columnist Benjamin Cook suggested that Dawkins might be persuaded to appear. In addition to being an esteemed -- and sometimes controversial -- evolutionary biologist and author, Dawkins was also married to former Doctor Who companion Lalla Ward. His involvement maintained the tradition, established with Bad Wolf / The Parting Of The Ways in 2005, of famous faces popping up in the Doctor Who season finale. Harper next started work on the sequences in the Osterhagen station, which he finished on the 29th. Then, on March 31st, a second celebrity cameo was filmed for the serial when entertainer Paul O'Grady's segment was taped on the set of The New Paul O'Grady Show at The London Television Centre in Waterloo, London.

During the two preceding seasons, the Doctor Who recording schedule had been comprised of a Christmas special plus thirteen regular episodes. Since each season began transmission in the spring, but the subsequent Christmas special wouldn't be filmed until the summer, cliffhanger endings were incorporated into the final installment of each run to tease the events of the festive broadcast. However, in 2008, this pattern had to change. There would not be a full season in 2009, and the specials which would bridge Seasons Thirty and Thirty-One would have to be recorded around Tennant's obligations to the Royal Shakespeare Company, for whom he was starring in Hamlet and Love's Labour's Lost during the latter half of 2008. As such, the 2008 Christmas special, The Next Doctor, would be recorded directly after The Stolen Earth / Journey's End.

Journey's End originally concluded with a cliffhanger to foreshadow The Next Doctor

This was an important difference because, as originally envisaged, Journey's End concluded with a cliffhanger to foreshadow The Next Doctor. It saw two Cybermen suddenly loom behind the Doctor as he piloted the TARDIS away from Donna's home. However, Cook pointed out to Davies that filming for The Next Doctor would already be complete by the time Journey's End was transmitted. This meant that Season Thirty could conclude with a full trailer for the Christmas special. Cook argued that this was preferable to the cliffhanger ending, which he felt jarred with the solemnity of Donna's departure. Davies agreed, and he duly amended the script for Journey's End. A new final sequence was recorded on the TARDIS set on May 1st.

Despite the extended duration of Journey's End, one substantial cut was still made. Before leaving Rose and his half-human counterpart in the parallel universe, the Doctor originally gave them a cutting from the TARDIS, with which they could grow their own version of the time machine. Retained was a flashback sequence spotlighting individuals who had sacrificed themselves on the Doctor's behalf, spanning all four seasons overseen by Davies. The characters featured included Harriet Jones (The Stolen Earth), Jabe (The End Of The World), the Controller (Bad Wolf), Lynda (The Parting Of The Ways), Robert MacLeish (Tooth And Claw), Mrs Moore (The Age Of Steel), the members of LINDA (Love & Monsters), the Face of Boe (Gridlock), Chantho (Utopia), Astrid Peth (Voyage Of The Damned), Luke Rattigan (The Poison Sky), Jenny (The Doctor's Daughter), River Song (Forest Of The Dead) and the Crusader 50 hostess (Midnight). A second flashback sequence reflecting upon Donna's travels with the Doctor incorporated clips from all of Tate's episodes except Midnight, in which she had barely appeared.

When The Stolen Earth aired on June 28th, it returned to the later 7.10pm timeslot occupied by Midnight two weeks earlier. The sitcom After You've Gone preceded Doctor Who, while the season finale of The National Lottery: 1 Vs 100 was broadcast afterwards. Doctor Who's ratings continued to impress, with The Stolen Earth placing second amongst the week's programmes. This put it into a tie with Voyage Of The Damned as the show's highest-charting broadcast ever.

Over the next week, interest in Doctor Who reached a fever pitch, stoked by both the regeneration cliffhanger -- which had not been included in copies of The Stolen Earth sent out for review -- and press speculation about the imminence of Tennant's departure from the show. The contents of Journey's End had been kept a closely-guarded secret, with no screening copies whatsoever sent out in advance. Having wound up with a sixty-five-minute runtime, the season finale was scheduled at 6.40pm on July 5th, between a special edition of the quiz show Weakest Link and the premiere of the reality competition Last Choir Standing, which would take over the Doctor Who timeslot in the coming weeks. When the final audience numbers were tallied, all of the intrigue and excitement resulted in an unprecedented first-place finish in the weekly chart. Like never before in its forty-five-year history, Doctor Who was indisputably the most popular programme in the United Kingdom...

• Dalek 63·88, edited by Jon Green and Gavin Rymill.
• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #20, 19th November 2008, “Episodes 12 & 13: The Stolen Earth / Journey's End” by Andrew Pixley, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Complete History #60, 2018, “Story 198: The Stolen Earth / Journey's End”, edited by Mark Wright, Hachette Partworks Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale by Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook (2008), BBC Books.