Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead (2009) on Netflix
TV-PG200959mAdventureDramaFamilyMysterySci-Fi
In London, the Doctor boards a number 200 bus. Among the passengers is jewel thief Lady Christina de Souza. The bus carries them through a wormhole to the desert planet San Helios.
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Plot summary
After a robbery at a London museum, the jewel thief Lady Christina de Souza boards a double-decker bus, carrying with her a gold chalice that once belonged to King Æthelstan. The Doctor gets on the same bus, and moments later it goes through a wormhole and comes to rest on the sand of San Helios. The vehicle is damaged, and the Doctor works out that its metal body shielded the people inside during the crossing. While the passengers try to repair it, he and Christina walk out to look at the desert around them. In London, Captain Erisa Magambo takes charge, and the wormhole may have to be sealed before the travelers can get back.
Cast
- Glenn Dohertyas Sgt Dennison
- Reginald Tsiboeas Lou
- James Laytonas Sgt Ian Jenner
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead (2009)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- A crane accidentally dropped a shipping container on one of the two 1980 Bristol VR double-decker buses bought for filming in Dubai City Port; rather than ship the spare bus from Cardiff, the crew partially rebuilt the bus in Dubai, damaged the Cardiff spare to match it, and rewrote the script to mention the damage.
- The first of the three days of filming in Dubai was hit by a sandstorm that left most of the footage unusable, forcing the production team to complete three days of work in two; the last day was compared to "filming Lawrence of Arabia".
- It was the first Doctor Who episode filmed in high definition; the production team switched formats after the visual quality of the spin-off Torchwood and the financial viability of HDTV convinced them.
- The special was billed as Doctor Who's 200th story, a count writer Russell T Davies admitted was arbitrary and debatable; Gareth Roberts slipped in a nod to the milestone by making the bus number 200.
- Filming coincided with the peak of the February 2009 Great Britain snowfall, and the sub-zero temperatures slowed production, so Russell T Davies added a line specifying that the Tritovore spaceship cooled as external temperatures increase.
- Bus interiors were shot in a Welsh studio against a translite, a 360-degree background image; to disguise it, director James Strong used often-avoided tricks such as muddied windows and lens flares, which also made the scene feel warmer.
- Editing and post-processing on the special ran until just two days before transmission, leaving the BBC to resort to using an unfinished copy of the episode to market it.
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