Planet of the Dead

This Story: Series 4b, Story 12. Production Code 4.15
Overall: Story 201, Episode 759
Airdate: 11 Apr 2009
Written by Russell T Davies & Gareth Roberts
Directed by James Strong

Notes

• The second of five specials which spanned the gap between David Tenant’s last full series, and Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor.
• Was the first episode of Doctor Who filmed in high definition.
• Was billed as an Easter special, but the only on screen reference to that was the Doctor holding a chocolate bunny in one scene.
• It is only one of two Easter specials in the history of Doctor Who – the other being Jodie Whittaker’s “The Legend of the Sea Devils“.
• This was filmed in Dubai, and the double decker bus was shipped there as a prop.  It was severely damaged in shipping, so the bus being damaged was written into the storyline.
• By my count, this is Story 201 overall. However the BBC considers this #200 – so much so that there’s an easter egg for that on the double decker bus with “200” on its front.  The discrepancy is that they do not count Shada in the official count of stories, where I do (as it was partially made – work was done, and that work should count for something).

Links

[ Wikipedia | Tardis Data Core | SPS Historium | US DVD | UK DVD | US Blu-Ray | UK Blu-Ray ]