"The Next Doctor" is a special episode of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who, broadcast on 25 December 2008 as the fourth Doctor Who Christmas special of the revived series.[3] During its original airing, the episode had an audience of 13.1 million viewers[4] and was the second-most-watched programme of Christmas Day 2008.[5] It was the final Doctor Who episode to be filmed in standard definition.
David Tennant stars as the Tenth Doctor with one-off companions Jackson Lake (David Morrissey) and Rosita Farisi (Velile Tshabalala).[6][7] The episode is set in London during the Christmas period of 1851. In the episode, the Doctor teams up with a man who appears to be another incarnation of himself; in their quest to foil a plot by the Cybermen to create a giant Cyberman called a CyberKing under the control of workhouse matron Miss Hartigan (Dervla Kirwan), the two inadvertently discover that the "new" Doctor is actually Jackson Lake, a regular human who began suffering from amnesia and believing himself to be the Doctor after interacting with Cyberman technology.
Plot
The Tenth Doctor lands in London on Christmas Eve, 1851. Overhearing cries for help, he encounters a man calling himself "the Doctor" and his companion Rosita attempting and failing to capture a Cybershade. The Doctor believes the man, who is suffering from amnesia, may be a future incarnation of himself. The man, dubbed the Next Doctor, takes the Doctor to a nearby house of a recently deceased reverend, believing him to be tied to a series of disappearances around London. Inside, they discover a pair of Cyberman data-storage infostamps, which the Next Doctor recalls holding the night that he lost his memories.
The two Doctors regroup with Rosita at the Next Doctor's base. The Doctor comes to realize that the Next Doctor is really a human, Jackson Lake, the supposed first missing person. The Doctor suspects that Jackson had encountered the Cybermen and used the infostamps, containing knowledge of the Doctor, to ward them off. Jackson's mind then entered a fugue state from the trauma of the Cybermen killing his wife, and as the infostamp had infused his mind with knowledge of the Doctor, he came to believe he was the Doctor. The Doctor and Rosita set off to try to find the source of the Cybermen.
The Doctor and Rosita find numerous children, pulled from workhouses around the city by Miss Mercy Hartigan, are being put to work at an underground facility under Cybermen guard. The Cybermen betray Miss Hartigan, and convert her into the controller for the "CyberKing", a giant mechanical Cyberman powered by the energy generated by the children. She also gains control over the Cybermen. Jackson remembers encountering the Cybermen on moving into his new home. The Doctor discovers another entrance to the Cybermen's base under Jackson's house. Within the complex, as the CyberKing starts to rise to the city, the three rescue the children, including Jackson's son, who was abducted in the initial attack that triggered Jackson's fugue state. The CyberKing starts to lay waste to the city. When Miss Hartigan refuses the Doctor's offer to leave the planet, the Doctor uses the infostamps to sever her connection to the CyberKing, exposing her to the raw emotion of what she has done. The emotional feedback destroys both the Cybermen and Miss Hartigan. As the CyberKing starts to topple, the Doctor draws it into the Time Vortex with technology from Jackson's cellar, saving London.
Paul Kasey (born 5 August 1973) is an English actor who frequently plays monsters on Doctor Who, The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood.
Kasey was born in Chatham, Kent. He has played the Cybercontroller, the Cyber Leader, Cybermen, a clockwork android, the Hoix, an Auton, a Slitheen, an Ood, the Anne-Droid and a member of the Forest of Cheem in Doctor Who, and Janet the Weevil, Alien Blowfish and a Hoix in Torchwood.[citation needed]
He has also made many appearances in The Sarah Jane Adventures as aliens, and frequent appearances as himself on Totally Doctor Who, usually in costume. Kasey has also appeared as a zombie in 28 Days Later and has appeared in the Star Wars film series as Ello Asty in The Force Awakens, Admiral Raddus and Edrio Two Tubes in Rogue One, and C'ai Threnalli in The Last Jedi.