Army of Ghosts - Plot

Plot

The episode begins with a cold open in which Rose Tyler, via narration, recollects her life with The Doctor and how she believed their adventures would continue indefinitely before all that changed and she announces, "This is the story of how I died."

The TARDIS arrives back on the Powell Estate where Rose and The Doctor visit Rose's mother, Jackie Tyler. Jackie is pleased to see them, however she is behaving strangely and remarks with happy anticipation that her deceased father — Rose's grandfather — will arrive soon. Despite Rose's gentle protestations that her grandfather is dead, Jackie insists that he has returned in some capacity and has been visiting her for some time. At this point a vaguely humanoid, luminous silhouette appears in the flat, surprising both The Doctor and Rose but delighting Jackie before disappearing after a short time. Television broadcasts confirm that this is a worldwide phenomenon and Jackie explains that a few months previously millions of these "ghosts" began to appear at regular intervals in numbers all over the world with humanity coming to accept them and believing that they are the manifestations of long-lost loved ones.

Dismissing the possibility that these are returning spirits, The Doctor deduces that the ghosts are impressions of something forcing its way into the universe and tracks the source to One Canada Square, revealed to be the secret headquarters of an organisation known as Torchwood which, along with its director Yvonne Hartman, is shown to have a special interest in The Doctor. Arriving inside Torchwood HQ via the TARDIS, The Doctor and Jackie, who is mistaken for Rose, are imprisoned and then given the reason for the ghosts' appearance — an invisible breach in the universe through which a mysterious spherical object has arrived. The Doctor, after an inspection of the sphere, reveals that it is a "void ship", an indestructible vessel designed to exist outside of space and time and inhabit the void — the nothingness between universes.

While Torchwood have no explanation for what the sphere is or where it came from, it is shown that they have been responsible for the arrival of the ghosts as they have been periodically forcing open the breach with the aim of using it as an inexhaustible power source. Hartman also reveals to The Doctor that his encounter with Queen Victoria made him an enemy of the state, and was the catalyst for the creation of Torchwood. Unbeknownst to all at this point, an unseen party has infiltrated the institute and has been successful in subjecting three Torchwood staff to manipulation.

Rose, free from detection, masquerades as an employee and explores Torchwood. She gains entrance to the chamber where the void ship is located, but is immediately questioned by Dr Singh, who is in charge of experimenting upon the sphere. He discovers that Rose is an imposter, and asks his colleague Samuel, who Rose recognises as Mickey Smith, to seal the doors.

Back in the command centre, the three employees under manipulation initiate an unscheduled "ghost shift" and forcibly open the breach, ignoring Hartman's orders to stop. The extended shift causes millions of ghosts to appear across the globe before they materialise into their true form. The ghosts are Cybermen from a parallel universe and have been attempting to gain access to our own via the breach. Simultaneous to their arrival, the void ship — previously undetectable to any scientific instrument — suddenly activates and begins to open. The Doctor, puzzled at how the Cybermen could have created such an advanced piece of technology, asks the Cyber Leader how they were able to use it. The Cyber Leader responds that the Cybermen are similarly oblivious to the origins of the sphere and that they merely followed its course through the breach.

Down in the sphere chamber, Mickey explains to Rose that after a battle in the parallel universe, the Cybermen mysteriously disappeared. He happened upon their means of escape and returned to his native universe with the intention of stopping them. Believing Cybermen to be in control of the sphere, he produces a gun and prepares to fire until the sphere opens fully and Rose is horrified by what emerges: four Daleks that immediately identify their location as Earth and prepare to exterminate all life forms.