The Waters of Mars is a 2009 Autumn Special of Doctor Who. It was written by Russell T. Davies and Phil Ford, directed by Graeme Harper and featured David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor & Lindsey Duncan as Adelaide Brooke.
Overview[]
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Synopsis[]
The Doctor arrives on Mars in the year 2059 and joins the first human Earth colony led by Adelaide Brooke. The day he arrives is also the day history records the entire settlement destroyed in an unknown cataclysm with all members of the settlement being killed. Everyone soon realises that colonists are being infected by some unknown agent and are being transformed into zombie-like creatures. The Doctor is torn by the fact that he cannot change events and eventually chooses another path, one that will have other repercussions for him in the future...
Plot[]
Captain Adelaide Brooke of Bowie Base One makes a video call to her daughter Emily on Earth from the surface of Mars but her transmission doesn't hold due to solar flares. Outside the base, the TARDIS lands on a ridge above and the Doctor steps out to look around. On the outside of the base, nurse Yuri Kerenski hangs an amusing sign on a probe outside while in the central dome, Brooke's second in command Ed Gold is unimpressed; Brooke comes in and reprimands him, to his annoyance on account of having done nothing. Meanwhile, the Doctor spots the base from a distance when he is held at gunpoint by a tracked robot named Gadget that arrests him for trespassing.
Brought inside, Brooke holds him at gunpoint and demands to know his business when the base's medical officer Tarak Ital arrives and is stunned by his arrival. Brooke scoffs at the Doctor's ignorance as everybody on Earth knows them as the first off-world colonists in history. The Doctor immediately comes to recognise them all as the crew of Bowie Base One, the first humans on Mars: Captain Adelaide Brooke, deputy Ed Gold, Tarak Ital, M.D., nurse Yuri Kerenski, senior technician Steffi Erlich, junior technician Roman Groom and geologist Mia Bennett. He also remembers that on this exact date, 21 November 2059, they are all due to die in a giant explosion. Knowing he can't interfere with the course of events, the Doctor tries to excuse himself but Brooke refuses to let him.
In the Biodome, remaining crew members Maggie Cain andn Andrew Stone succeed to their cultivation of vegetables with a perfectly grown carrot. Stone washes it and takes a bite, only to drop to his knees behind Maggie; when she notices he turns to face her, revealing himself to have transformed into a horrifying creature. Ed calls Maggie over the comms when all they hear is a roar from the biodome. Since the Doctor arrived at the start of the trouble, Brooke drags him along with her and Tarak to investigate. They find Maggie in the tunnel between the domes with an injury on her head. Yuri and Ed come and collect her to place her in isolation while Brooke, Tarak and the Doctor continue on to the biodome to look for Andy.
Once there, Tarak goes off to look and finds him drenched from head to foot in water when he turns around to face him and thrusts water at him. In isolation, Maggie wakes up and tries to get Yuri to release her but protocol stops him; she notices a picture of the Earth on his monitor and her voice starts changing. Yuri turns to see that Maggie's transformed, now exhaling water with deeply broken skin around the mouth. He calls Brooke in a panic and she calls Tarak back, deeming the area unsafe. When he doesn't respond, she and the Doctor go looking for him to find him being transformed by Andy into the same creature.
Both Andy and Tarak chase the Doctor and Brooke back to the airlock when they use their water to fuse the system and break inside. They chase them down the tunnel so the Doctor upgrades Gadget with his sonic screwdriver to increase his speed and get them back to the central dome ahead of them, sealing them out with a more secure door. They go to the medical dome where they examine what Maggie's become. The Doctor suspects that some sort of creature buried in the ice field the base gets it's water from is responsible for causing the change. Ed takes Brooke to the side and suggests that the danger this virus poses demands Action Procedure One, abandoning the base and returning to Earth.
As Brooke orders the evacuation, the Doctor warns her that whatever infected Maggie was clever enough to hide inside her before it manifested once it was inside the central dome, meaning that, if it's a viral infection, any of the other crew could be an infection risk. Acknowledging this, she goes to inspect the ice field and the Doctor follows her. When they arrive, the Doctor theories that a creature existed thousands of years ago before it was frozen in the glacier by a mighty and noble race; while he works, the Doctor drops a story to Adelaide about how her involvement on Mars, following the incident when she was a child during the crisis when the Daleks stole the Earth and she survived an encounter with one, would impact the future and inspire her future granddaughter Susie Fontana Brooke and other descendants to take to the stars and pave the way for humanity's expanded understanding of the universe.
Ensuring that the Flood first manifested as a result of a broken filter, Brooke decides the crew can't be infected, making it safe to continue Action One. Back in the central dome, the crew keeps gathering supplies while Brooke gives the Doctor his spacesuit back. He turns to leave as the Flood make it up to the roof and start leaking water through the ceiling. On his way outside, Brooke, thinking on what the Doctor had told her, demands he tells her what happens; reluctantly, the Doctor informs her that 21 November 2059 is when history states Adelaide Brooke calls for Action Procedure Five, detonating a nuclear warhead beneath the base and taking it, herself and her crewmembers with her.
Brooke pleads for the Doctor to do something but he tells her that her importance to the course of history as a result of her actions means that he can't save her. Knowing that she won't kill him by increasing the airlock's pressure, Brooke releases the Doctor just as water breaks into the central dome. The crew move away from it but Steffi is cut off by the water. She tries to hide in the communications section but the water breaks in. Unable to get out, Steffi plays a recorded message from two daughters before she is covered in water and transforms. As the Doctor heads out of the base, a drop of water breaks through the ceiling and lands of Roman's face.
He insists that it's too late for him and tells the others to leave without him just as his body begins to convulse and the transformation begins. Mia begs Yuri to let her help him but he restrains her and drags her out, followed by Brooke. Meanwhile, Maggie, who had escaped confinement, pins Ed in the rocket and douses him in water, compromising the shuttle. Unable to let the ship take off for Earth now, Ed detonates it and takes himself with it. The explosion rocks the base and throws the Doctor to the floor. As he gets to his feet, he listens to the survivors cries for help and, now ignoring the Laws of Time, goes back and helps them barricade the storage zone where they're pinned down in.
Brooke insists that he leave and not interfere with history as he'd said, but the Doctor, now under the belief that with no more Time Lords, the Laws of Time are now at his behest and this means he can countermand them if he wants. Unpacking Gadget, the Doctor uses his control gauntlets to send the robot, brandishing his key to collect the TARDIS on the outskirts of the base. While everybody works, Brooke actives the countdown for Action Five like history says she does. The Doctor speeds up Gadget with the sonic and manages to get to the TARDIS, launch it and bring it to him, materialising it around them just as the base detonates.
The TARDIS lands on Earth, outside Brooke's house on the same day that it was on Mars. Gadget, having lost his control signal, shuts down while Mia, now terrified of the day's events and the Doctor's obvious power, runs away in fear while Yuri goes off to look after her. Brooke is concerned that the Doctor's saving their lives may have changed her whole family's destiny and accuses him of carelessly altering the course of events simply to suit himself. The Doctor tells her that without the Time Lords, the full authority of the Laws of Time is left with him, proclaiming himself the 'Time Lord Victorious'. Brooke is horrified, disgusted and mystified by the Doctor's newfound arrogant parading and bitterly tells him that the "Time Lord Victorious is wrong!", but he doesn't listen and insists that's for him to decide.
Brooke returns home while the Doctor returns to the TARDIS. Still thinking his victory assured, he fails to notice Brooke draw her gun on entering her house until a gunshot rings out from inside, revealing to him that she's committed suicide to ensure history remains intact as final spite to the Doctor's ego. History starts re-writing; the true events of the base's destruction are put forward by Mia and Yuri and Brooke's granddaughter Susie still travels into space and makes way for her generations from the hero stories she'd heard about her grandmother.
The Doctor only now realises the full impact of what he's done, Brooke's words echoing to him in his mind when he sees a vision of Ood Sigma in the street, prompting him to wonder if he's gone too far and if his time to die is nearly upon him. Sigma abruptly disappears and the Doctor vanishes into the TARDIS. He stands silent at the console as the cloister bell starts ringing out. His only response is a defiant "No!" as he takes off...
Cast[]
- The Doctor - David Tennant
- Adelaide Brooke - Lindsey Duncan
- Ed Gold - Peter O'Brien
- Yuri Kerenski - Aleksandar Mikic
- Mia Bennett - Gemma Chan
- Maggie Cain - Sharon Duncan-Brewster
- Tarak Ital - Chook Sibtain
- Andy Stone - Alan Ruscoe
- Steffi Ehrlich - Cosima Shaw
- Roman Groom - Michael Goldsmith
- Emily - Lily Bevan
- Mikhail - Max Bollinger
- Adelaide's father - Charlie De'Ath
- Young Adelaide - Rachel Fewell
- Ulrika Ehrlich - Anouska Strahnz
- Lisette Ehrlich - Zofia Strahnz
- Ood Sigma - Paul Kasey
Crew[]
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References[]
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Story Notes[]
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Continuity []
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Home video and audio releases []
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External Links []
- Official The Waters of Mars page on Doctor Who Website