Newbies Guide to Doctor Who

The Parting of the Ways

Sorry, no picture currently available.		Writer: Russell T Davies Director: Joe Aherne First Broadcast: 18th June 2005 Placement: Immediately after Bad Wolf Links: The second half of a two-part story, The Parting of the Ways follows on from Bad Wolf.
Doctor:	The Ninth	The ninth Doctor wears a leather jacket and has short hair and big ears. He has a love of life, as well as a sadness about him. His home planet of Gallifrey was destroyed in a war.
Companions:	Rose Tyler	Rose Tyler is a 19-year old girl from London c.2005. In Rose (Series 1), she was working in Henrik's department store when the ninth Doctor was investigating Auton activity in the store, and blew it up. In the events that followed this, Rose helped the Doctor defeat the Nestene Consciousness's attempt to take over the world, and he offered her a chance to travel in the TARDIS, leaving behind her mum, Jackie, and boyfriend Mickey. In The End of the World (Series 1), the Doctor took her to the far future to see the day the Earth is destroyed. During this trip, he upgraded her mobile phone, tying it into the TARDIS, so that she can call home no matter where or when she is.
	Captain Jack Harkness	Jack is a time traveller from the 51st Century. In The Empty Child (series 1), he saw Rose hanging off a barrage balloon during the Blitz, and saved her life. In The Doctor Dances (series 1), his ship was almost blown up, the Doctor saved him, and he joined the TARDIS crew.
Recurring Characters	The Daleks	The Daleks are a genocidal race of aliens created by mad scientist Davros. The Doctor first encountered them in The Daleks (season 1), when he visited their home planet. He has fought them on numerous occasions since then. In The Chase (season 2), we saw that the Daleks had discovered time travel technology. In Genesis of the Daleks (season 12) the Time Lords sent the Doctor back in time to influence the creation of the Daleks, they were concerned that the Daleks would become the supreme beings in the universe. By the time of Remembrance of the Daleks (season 25), the Doctor was prepared to destroy the Daleks' home planet. At some point after this, as revealed in Dalek the Daleks were involved in a Time War, where they fought against the Time Lords. The Doctor was responsible for destroying their entire race - he watched them burn, and the Time Lords burnt with them. Apart from the one single survivor of the Daleks who he met in Dalek, the Doctor believed that the Daleks no longer exist. However, at the end of Bad Wolf, he discovered that 200 Dalek ships, each containing over 2000 Daleks had been hiding in Earth's Solar System.
	Lynda	Lynda (with a "y") was one of the contestants on Big Brother in the year 200,100. When the Doctor appeared in the Big Brother House in Bad Wolf (Series 1) he escaped and took Lynda with him. Lynda is sweet, and the Doctor clearly likes her.
	Roderick	Roderick was one of the contestants on The Weakest Link in the year 200,100. When Rose Tyler appeared on set as one of the contestants in Bad Wolf (series 1), he protected her by voting out other contestants, hoping to keep her in the game because she was "stupid" and gave him the best chance of survival.
	Jackie Tyler	Jackie is Rose Tyler's mother. She cares very deeply for her daughter, and is very protective of her. She met the Doctor in Rose (series 1), and again in Aliens of London / World War Three (series 1), where she disliked him.
	Mickey Smith	Mickey was Rose's boyfriend in Rose (series 1). He stuck with her in Aliens of London / World War Three (series 1), and in that story, the Doctor offered him a place on the TARDIS, which he refused, knowing that he probably couldn't cope with it. In Boom Town, he and Rose effectively split up. Although he was still hopelessly in love with Rose, he knew that the Doctor would always come first for her. Unfortunately for him, Rose didn't really take in what he was saying about how he wanted her to come back for him.
Recommended Viewing:	As this is the second half of a two-parter, it is strongly recommended that you watch Bad Wolf before watching this episode. In that episode, the Doctor, Rose and Jack were transmatted into various programmes on the Gamestation, a space station in the year 200,100. The games were deadly to the participants, however the Doctor and Jack escaped and took over the control centre, whilst Rose - apparently disintegrated - was teleported to a Dalek ship as a prisoner to control the Doctor. The episode ended with the Doctor promising to rescue Rose, save Earth from the Daleks, and wipe the Daleks out of the sky.
	In Dalek, we learnt that the Doctor had destroyed the Dalek race along with his own people, the Time Lords. This was the conclusion of the Last Great Time War, which was fought between these two races, though, as revealed in The Unquiet Dead, other "higher" races were affected by it. Until the end of Bad Wolf, the Doctor had thought the Daleks to have perished. In this story, the Doctor only just managed to defeat a lone Dalek.
	Throughout the series (and, indeed, in the ninth Doctor novels and ninth Doctor comic strip The Love Invasion) the phrase "bad wolf", or a translation of it, has turned up repeatedly, the only episode to escape a The Parting of the Ways mention is Rose, though some are very subtle, and the mention in World War Three is the name of a newsreader which was only revealed on one of the tie-in websites, this one run by Mickey. In Boom Town, the Doctor and Rose commented on how the phrase seemed to be following them around. In Bad Wolf, both of them remarked on how the Gamestation is run by the Bad Wolf Corporation.
	In Father's Day (series 1), Rose went back in time to see her father before he died. She learnt that he was a bit of a "Del Boy" character - always coming up with strange ideas that might make some money, and earning a modest income from them. When he was run over by a car, she ran to him and comforted him before he died.
	In Boom Town (series 1), we saw the heart of the TARDIS had special powers. In addition to telepathy, it regressed an adult of the Slitheen species to an egg, and was accessed by pulling up a particular panel from the console room's floor.
Recommended Reading:	None.
Recommended Listening:	None.

You visited the Whoniverse at 7:28 am GMT on Friday 6th January 2006