42
- Episode aired Aug 17, 2007
- TV-PG
- 45m
On a spaceship headed straight for the centre of the sun, the Doctor only has 42 minutes to save Martha and the ship's crew from an inevitable doom.On a spaceship headed straight for the centre of the sun, the Doctor only has 42 minutes to save Martha and the ship's crew from an inevitable doom.On a spaceship headed straight for the centre of the sun, the Doctor only has 42 minutes to save Martha and the ship's crew from an inevitable doom.
- Director
- Writers
- Chris Chibnall
- Sydney Newman(uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaIn the commentary for this episode, Russell T. Davies stated that he prefers the Doctor in the blue suit when going to the future and the brown suit when going to the past.
- GoofsThe device used to open the Pentallian's doors says Icarus, the name for the ship in the shooting script (see trivia).
- Quotes
Riley Vashtee: [reading from display] Find the next number in the sequence: 313, 331, 367...? What?
Martha Jones: You said the crew knew all the answers!
Riley Vashtee: The crew's changed since we set the questions.
Martha Jones: You're joking!
The Doctor: 379!
Martha Jones: What?
The Doctor: It's a sequence of happy primes - 379!
Martha Jones: Happy what?
The Doctor: Just enter it!
Riley Vashtee: Are you sure? We only get one chance.
The Doctor: Any number that reduces to one when you take the sum of the square of its digits and continue iterating it until it yields 1 is a happy number, any number that doesn't, isn't. A happy prime is both happy and prime. Now type it in!
[aside]
The Doctor: I dunno, talk about dumbing down. Don't they teach recreational mathematics anymore?
- ConnectionsFeatured in Parkinson: Episode dated 5 May 2007 (2007)
- SoundtracksDoctor Who Theme
(uncredited)
Written by Ron Grainer
Arranged by Murray Gold
Performed by BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Now an official companion, Martha (Freema Agyeman) joins The Doctor (David Tennant) in responding to a distress call from spaceship. Leaving the room that the Tardis lands in, the crew deadlock the door as the temperature skyrockets, making the Tardis unavailable for escape. This is particularly unfortunate as the spaceship's engines are down and it's caught in the gravitational pull of a nearby sun. With the temperature increasing, the crew have only 42 minutes to make it through dozens of sealed doors and restart the engineers - but something is picking them off, one by one.
Watching all of the episodes in quick succession again, you can see the similarities between this episode and the "Satan's Pit" double bill from last season. The threat is almost identical, but with the black hole replaced by a sun and the crew of British character actors picked off by an internal and emotionally manipulative threat. This time it's the companion that accepts their death and says their goodbyes rather than the Doctor, but it's the same idea.
That crew includes Anthony Flanagan, Vinette Robinson (who would return 11 years later for a much more high profile role as Rosa Parks) and Michelle Collins, who you don't tend to see as much of now as we did a few years back - but who appeared in nearly 500 episodes of both "Eastenders" and "Coronation Street".
So yes, a bit derivative but it was OK, I thought. It did enough to maintain my attention and I didn't notice any painfully obvious flaws in logic or science that would have annoyed me. The B-Story, with Mr Saxon takes a step up as Elisa Du Toit joins the cast as his currently unnamed underling. Overall reasonably solid.
- southdavid
- Apr 10, 2021
Details
- Runtime45 minutes
- Color