The Stolen Earth - Synopsis

Synopsis

At the start of the episode the Earth is teleported out of its spatial location shortly after the Doctor and his companion Donna Noble arrive to investigate Rose Tyler's warning at the end of "Turn Left". The Doctor contacts the Shadow Proclamation, a universal police force, to find Earth. They determine twenty-seven missing worlds—including Earth, Adipose III, Pyrovillia, and the Lost Moon of Poosh—reorganise when placed near each other. Donna mentions the disappearance of bees on contemporary Earth; this allows the Doctor to trace the planets to the Medusa Cascade, an inter-universal rift.

A Dalek force, led by their creator Davros and the red Supreme Dalek, quickly subjugate Earth. Military bases, including UNIT's headquarters in New York City and their aircraft carrier Valiant, are destroyed. Davros, who was thought to have perished at the beginning of the Time War, was saved by Dalek Caan, who entered the conflict after performing an emergency temporal shift. The power needed to enter the Time War—which is "time-locked", preventing time-travellers from entering the conflict—caused Caan to become precognitive at the cost of his sanity.

The Doctor's former companions Captain Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, and Rose Tyler—who have all encountered the Daleks before—hide in various places: Jack takes refuge in the Torchwood Hub (51°27′50″N 3°09′51″W / 51.4640°N 3.16415°W / 51.4640; -3.16415 (Torchwood Hub, underneath Roald Dahl Plass, Cardiff Bay)) with his team; Martha uses Project Indigo—an experimental teleport device scavenged from the Sontarans—to escape UNIT with the "Osterhagen Key", a device that activates a defensive last resort nuclear weapons; Sarah Jane stays in her home with her son Luke Smith and supercomputer Mr Smith; and Rose tracks down Donna's mother Sylvia Noble and grandfather Wilfred Mott. They are contacted by former Prime Minister Harriet Jones through a secret "subwave network" designed by Mr Copper—a humanoid alien who met the Doctor in "Voyage of the Damned"—to contact the Doctor's companions in an emergency. They attempt to contact the Doctor by amplifying the sub-wave signal; Sarah uses Mr Smith's computing power and Torchwood manipulates the spatial-temporal rift in Cardiff. The Doctor and the Daleks receive the transmission and trace the signal: the Daleks kill Harriet Jones; and the Doctor is able to locate Earth in a temporally desynchronised pocket universe.

At the end of the episode, the Doctor travels into the pocket universe and receives images of his companions in the subwave signal. After Davros hijacks the signal and taunts the Doctor about his resurrection and imminent victory, the Doctor breaks communication and attempts to convene with his companions. The Doctor lands on the same street Rose is searching for him on and runs to embrace her, but is shot by a Dalek. Jack promptly destroys the Dalek and helps Rose and Donna carry the Doctor into the TARDIS, where the Doctor begins to regenerate.