Doctor Who (series 2)

The second series of British science fiction programme Doctor Who began on 25 December 2005 with the Christmas special "The Christmas Invasion". Following the special, a regular series of thirteen episodes was broadcast, starting with "New Earth" on 15 April 2006. In addition, two short special episodes were produced; a Children in Need special and an interactive episode, as well as 13 TARDISODEs.

This is the first series to feature David Tennant as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor, an alien Time Lord who travels through time and space in his TARDIS, which appears to be a British police box on the outside. He continues to travel with his companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), with whom he has grown increasingly attached and is forever separated from him at the end of the series. They also briefly travel with Rose's boyfriend Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke), and Camille Coduri reprises her role as Rose's mother Jackie. The series is connected by a loose story arc consisting of the recurring word "Torchwood".

List of episodes
The first episode of the series, "New Earth", was also the first episode since Doctor Who was revived not to be set in the vicinity of Earth, and the first story since The Greatest Show in the Galaxy from Season 25 to be wholly set on an alien world; every episode of Series 1 had taken place either on Earth itself or on a space station in the vicinity of the planet.

Supplemental episodes
Two mini-episodes were also recorded: "Doctor Who: Children in Need" was produced for the 2005 Children in Need appeal, and interactive episode "Attack of the Graske" was recorded for digital television following the broadcast of "The Christmas Invasion". 13 TARDISODEs were also produced to serve as prequels to each episode. All episodes were filmed as part of the second series' production cycle.

Main characters
Series two was David Tennant's first in the role of the Doctor. Following his brief appearance in the closing moments of "The Parting of the Ways" he was next seen in the Children in Need special, broadcast on 18 November 2005. "The Christmas Invasion", broadcast one month later, marked his first full episode.

Billie Piper continued her role as companion Rose Tyler, although she left the series in the final episode. Noel Clarke's character Mickey Smith, a recurring guest character during the first series, became a member of the TARDIS crew for several episodes.

Guest stars
Camille Coduri continued to guest in the series as recurring character Jackie Tyler. Shaun Dingwall returned for several episodes as Pete Tyler and Penelope Wilton reprised her role as Harriet Jones.

Elisabeth Sladen featured in the episode "School Reunion", returning to the character of Sarah Jane Smith, companion of the Third and Fourth Doctors. John Leeson also featured in this episode as the voice of K-9.

Other guest stars included Adam Garcia, Daniel Evans, Zoë Wanamaker, Anna Hope, Pauline Collins, Anthony Head, Sophia Myles, Roger Lloyd Pack, Andrew Hayden-Smith, Don Warrington, Maureen Lipman, Danny Webb, Shaun Parkes, Claire Rushbrook, Will Thorp, Marc Warren, Peter Kay, Shirley Henderson, Simon Greenall, Moya Brady, Kathryn Drysdale, Nina Sosanya, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Raji James, Barbara Windsor, Derek Acorah, Alistair Appleton, Trisha Goddard and Freema Agyeman, who went on to play companion Martha Jones.

Production
Following the success of the opening episode of the first series, the BBC announced that Doctor Who had been recommissioned for both a second series and a Christmas special on 30 March 2005. Recording for the Christmas special began in July 2005, with production on the series itself beginning on 1 August 2005 and concluding on 31 March 2006.

New writers for the show included Toby Whithouse, creator of the Channel 4 drama No Angels, Tom MacRae, creator of Sky One's Mile High, Matt Jones, also a prolific script editor and producer, and Matthew Graham, co-creator of the BBC science fiction series Life on Mars. Previous writers Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat and Russell T Davies all contributed to the series, with Davies continuing to act as head writer and executive producer. Phil Collinson produced all episodes, with Julie Gardner as executive producer. The series was directed by James Hawes, Euros Lyn, James Strong, Dan Zeff and Graeme Harper, who had directed episodes of the programme's original run.

The second series encompassed a loose story arc based around the word "Torchwood", which first appeared in the 2005 episode "Bad Wolf". The mythology of Torchwood is built across the series; in "The Christmas Invasion" it is revealed to be a secret organisation which possesses alien technology, and its establishment is shown in "Tooth and Claw". Contemporary Torchwood is finally visited by the Doctor and Rose in "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday", at which point it is situated within London's Canary Wharf and accidentally allows the invasion of the Cybermen and, subsequently, the Daleks. The Doctor and Rose are forcibly separated by these events, which lead to Rose's entrapment within a parallel universe.

The Doctor and Rose are indirectly responsible for their separation; their enjoyment of the events of "Tooth and Claw" horrifies Queen Victoria and leads to the establishment of Torchwood. Over a century later, the institute's foolish actions are resolved at the expense of the Doctor and Rose's companionship. "It's deliberate when that happens [The Doctor and Rose's arrogance]", said head writer Russell T Davies, "and they do pay the price. In "Tooth and Claw", they set up the very thing — Torchwood — that separates them in the end. It's sort of their own fault."

Production blocks were arranged as follows:

A Children in Need special and an interactive episode, entitled "Attack of the Graske", were both produced alongside the series.

A series of 13 TARDISODEs were also produced. These mini-episodes (approximately 60 seconds in length) served as prequels to each forthcoming episode, and were available for download to mobile phones and viewable at the official Doctor Who website. The TARDISODEs were recorded intermittently from 31 January to 8 April 2006.

Australia
In Australia, this series aired in 2006, on ABC at 7:30 pm Saturdays. The premiere episode was the 2005 Christmas special. During the runs of these episodes, the Doctor Who Confidential Cut Down was not shown at that time. This series aired again from Tuesday, 27 January 2009 starting with "The Christmas Invasion" at 8:30 pm. From 3 February 2009, not only was the show airing on ABC2 on Tuesdays at 8:30 pm, Doctor Who Confidential Cut Down episodes aired right after the episode. This is the second time that the Doctor Who Confidential Cut Down episodes were shown; the first time happened in 2008 when airing series 4 of Doctor Who. Then from 2 January 2012, episodes were shown at 7:30pm on ABC2 daily from Rose to The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe to the lead-up of Series 7. The lot of episodes were repeated again a second time later that year.

Soundtrack
Selected pieces of score from this series (alongside material from Series 1 and "The Runaway Bride"), as composed by Murray Gold, were released on 4 December 2006 by Silva Screen Records