Dr Who zombies inspired by the hospital superbug
- Publication: Sunday Express
- Date: 2006-04-02
- Author: David Stephenson, Neil Hughes
- Page: 3
- Language: English
DOCTOR WHO is about to meet his fiercest foe yet —the deadly hospital bug MRSA. In the first episode of the new series on Easter Saturday, writer Russell T Davies has created a stinging satire on Britain's dirty hospitals.
The writer told the Sunday Express that he was inspired to pen the episode last year when MRSA was dominating the headlines. Davies said at the series launch: "Every day I was writing, it was in the newspapers."
In New Earth, set in the year 5billion and 35, the 10th Timelord, played by David Tennant and accompanied by Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), arrives in a city called New New York which has a hospital run by spooky "Cat Nuns".
Davies told me: "You take something happening now and extrapolate it. The Cat Nuns, for example, are in a very simple story about a sinister health service. There's something feline and cool about them but you never know what a cat's thinking and you imagine there's something evil buried underground!"
Hidden within the walls of this slick, high tech hospital are thousands of zombies whose faces are hideously marked with boils and pus-filled sores. It transpires that they are being tested for diseases. Some of the drugs are used to keep alive the grossly supersized but near-death patient, the Duke of Manhattan, who is suddenly given a miracle cure for his "incurable" condition.
Bred specifically for the purpose, the zombies are kept in plastic tubes but are killed if they develop complications or personalities.
The plot line eerily echoes the recent drug-testing experiment which went terribly wrong with human guinea pigs at Northwick hospital in north London.
When asked about animal versus human drug experimentation, Davies said: "That's the way I write. I can't help it. I'm not saying I'm against animal testing."
WE ARE also reintroduced to Lady Cassandra from the first series. Davies admits that the character is an attack on celebrity dieting. He said: "I was watching the Oscars and seeing all those beautiful women, who were reduced to sticks, and I remember Nicole Kidman in particular, who I think is one of the most beautiful women in the world but looked horrifying.
"It's like watching a public death and we watch while you die and we call it beauty. So I got on my high horse about that and that's why I wrote Cassandra."
While the episode features welcome comic moments, it is undoubtedly the most serious and politically targeted Doctor Who series we have seen since the sci-fi franchise was brought back to life.
We return to politics again in the third episode, entitled School Reunion, which features the evil Krillitanes and their headmaster.
Davies says Jamie's School Dinners partly inspired this story. "There's a little bit of a laugh where half the plot revolves around school dinners. It was when the show was on TV and chips figure very importantly in the story. You don't sit there and do Jamie's School Dinners' but these things just crop up. Every kid knows about the school dinners campaign, so to say school dinners are part of the alien plot is sort of sweet really!" The series may also be the most frightening yet. In the second episode, we meet an enormous werewolf, "the most detailed monster yet", says Davies.
That instalment is set in Balmoral castle in Scotland and the Doctor must protect Queen Victoria from an alien onslaught by werewolves. Later in the series the Doctor meets the devil. Davies told me that the series had not got too frightening for children. "The werewolf is the scariest episode yet but there is no blood. It's vile to look at but you also have to bear in mind that Harry Potter now has a werewolf, so they're in family films."
HE ADMITS he writes the series for himself. "I don't have a particular age of a child in mind when I write but I think you could watch that first episode and be two years old and be thrilled. At that age, you're being told stories like Little Red Riding Hood. Adults have trouble realising that children interpret things in their own way."
In the meantime Davies is casting closer to home for new talent for the new spin-off series, Torchwood, and is a big fan of Welsh diva Charlotte Church: "I love her and I'd put her in!"
Unfortunately Charlotte is a very busy girl at the moment with her singing career and her fledgling talk show on Channel 4.
Caption: TERRIFYING: A Cat Nun in the spooky hospital where hordes of horrifying zombies lie hidden
Caption: SHOCK Dr Who played by David Tennant and his young assistant played by Billie Piper drop in on a future civilization on Earth, where human guinea pigs suffer for the majority of the population
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- APA 6th ed.: Hughes, David Stephenson, Neil (2006-04-02). Dr Who zombies inspired by the hospital superbug. Sunday Express p. 3.
- MLA 7th ed.: Hughes, David Stephenson, Neil. "Dr Who zombies inspired by the hospital superbug." Sunday Express [add city] 2006-04-02, 3. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Hughes, David Stephenson, Neil. "Dr Who zombies inspired by the hospital superbug." Sunday Express, edition, sec., 2006-04-02
- Turabian: Hughes, David Stephenson, Neil. "Dr Who zombies inspired by the hospital superbug." Sunday Express, 2006-04-02, section, 3 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Dr Who zombies inspired by the hospital superbug | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Dr_Who_zombies_inspired_by_the_hospital_superbug | work=Sunday Express | pages=3 | date=2006-04-02 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=13 April 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Dr Who zombies inspired by the hospital superbug | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Dr_Who_zombies_inspired_by_the_hospital_superbug | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=13 April 2025}}</ref>
