School Reunion (Doctor Who)

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174 - "School Reunion"
Doctor Who episode

"Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, allow me to introduce... K-9!"
Doctor David Tennant (Tenth Doctor)
Companions Billie Piper (Rose Tyler)
Noel Clarke (Mickey Smith)
Writer Toby Whithouse
Director James Hawes
Script editor Helen Raynor
Producer Phil Collinson
Executive producer(s) Russell T. Davies
Julie Gardner
Production code 2.3
Series Series 2
Length 45 Minutes
Originally broadcast April 29, 2006
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by →
"Tooth and Claw" "The Girl in the Fireplace"
IMDb profile

"School Reunion" is an episode in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It featured the return of Sarah Jane Smith, played by Elisabeth Sladen, and K-9, voiced by John Leeson; and saw Mickey Smith, played by Noel Clarke, join the TARDIS crew.

Contents

There are strange goings-on at a comprehensive school — UFOs, over-intelligent children, and odd-tasting school dinners. This attracts the attention of the Doctor, Rose and Mickey, as well as a couple of old friends…

The headmaster, Mr Finch, invites a pupil into his office, after she claims to have a headache. As the door closes we hear him comment that it is almost time for lunch, there is a flap of wings, and the girl screams.

The Doctor, under the alias "John Smith", is undercover as a science teacher in the school. After greeting the class, he asks a few simple questions about physics, which no-one can answer except a student called Milo. The Doctor asks increasingly difficult questions, which Milo also answers, including how to travel faster than the speed of light.

Meanwhile, Rose is working undercover in the canteen. At lunch, she goes over and talks to the Doctor, complaining about the last two days. The Doctor mentions that it was Mickey who alerted them to the strange goings-on, and that he was right. Everyone at the school seems too well-behaved, and there is something odd about the taste of the chips. Rose eats a few, saying she likes them. The school menu has been designed by Mr Finch himself to improve concentration and performance.

Another teacher, Mr Wagner, approaches one of the students, Melissa, informing her that since Milo has failed him, she will advance to the top class. He also summons another pupil, Luke, but not Kenny, who is not allowed to eat chips. After observing all this quietly, the Doctor looks up and sees Finch gazing down on the canteen floor, watching everything.

In the kitchen, Rose watches the other kitchen staff, all wearing gloves and face masks, bringing in a large barrel. Mrs Jackson, the head cook, warns them not to spill a drop. Mickey calls Rose on her mobile phone, telling her about the massive UFO activity he has discovered around the area. However, his investigations are being blocked by something called "Torchwood". Rose, in turn, tells him that the kitchen staff were all replaced three months ago. As they speak, the barrel slips, spilling something over one of the staff who starts to burn. The rest usher her into a side room. As Rose starts to phone for an ambulance, Mrs Jackson tells her not to worry — the woman is all right, even as Rose hears screams and sees lots of smoke appear. Rose glances down at the barrel, which is leaking a golden, oily substance.

In the Maths room, Wagner tells the children at their computers to put their headphones on. The screens flicker on, and the monitors begin to display a rotating green cube with rapidly scrolling, alien-looking symbols. The children start to type on their keyboards with incredible speed.

Finch escorts a journalist, Sarah Jane Smith, around the school. Sarah has been assigned to write a profile on him, and Finch explains to her one of his policy changes, which has been to make school dinners free, but compulsory. In the staff room, the Doctor is speaking to Mr Parsons, head of History, who tells him of the extraordinary knowledge of his students since Finch became Headmaster and that, since Finch's arrival, seven members of staff have caught the flu, and have been replaced by strange new teachers. The exception was that the teacher the Doctor replaced, who resigned when a winning lottery ticket was posted through her door at midnight.

The Doctor smiles when he sees Finch bring Sarah into the room. When he introduces himself as John Smith, Sarah remarks that she once knew a man who went by that name. When she finds that he is a new teacher, she starts asking him if he has noticed anything odd. The Doctor is delighted that she has not lost her inquisitive nature, although he does not reveal his identity to her.

Kenny goes into the Maths room, and to his shock, he sees a bat-like creature beneath one of the desks, which transforms rapidly into Mr Wagner. The teacher tells Kenny to leave, and the boy retreats hastily. School ends for the day, and night falls. Sarah breaks into the school to investigate, as the Doctor, Rose and Mickey do the same. The Doctor sends Mickey to the Maths room and Rose to get a sample of the oil while he checks the headmaster's office. All three hear the sounds of flapping, and the occasional shriek, and see winged shadows flitting across walls.

Sarah notices she is being watched, and enters a store room. To her shock she sees the TARDIS standing there. Backing out, she sees "John Smith", who calls her "Sarah Jane", and she realises it really is the Doctor. After a brief exchange, they hear a piercing scream and run towards the sound, meeting Rose along the way. The Doctor introduces the two women, and Rose is immediately jealous. The scream turns out to be Mickey, who opened a cupboard only to see vacuum-packed yellow rats tumble out. Sarah surmises that the rats are for dissection, but Rose retorts that rat dissection has not been done in schools for years, making a snide dig at Sarah's age. As they head for Finch's office, Mickey welcomes the Doctor to every man's worst nightmare — "the missus and the ex".

The Doctor suggests that the rats may be food for something, and when they enter Finch's office, they see thirteen large, bat-like creatures hanging from the ceiling, asleep. They back out hurriedly, but as they shut the door, one of the creatures wakes up and shrieks. They run outside, and the Doctor tells them they have to go back in so that he can use the TARDIS to analyse the oil sample Rose procured. Sarah tells the Doctor that she may have something that can help him, and takes him to her car, revealing an inactive and rusty K-9 Mark III, with one of his side panels missing. Sarah explains that one day the robot dog just stopped working, and that she could not repair the advanced technology inside it.

Not knowing that they are being watched by Finch and another bat-creature, they go in Sarah's car to a nearby café, where the Doctor works on repairing K-9. Mickey teases Rose about her jealousy, while Sarah asks the Doctor why he never came back for her. The Doctor tries to brush it off, saying that she was getting on with her life. Sarah replies that he was her life. The hardest thing was adjusting back to mundane life after all she had seen. She asks him why he could not have come back, and the Doctor turns serious and does not answer.

K-9 comes back to life, and recognises the Doctor as its master. He dips his finger in some of the oil and smears it on K-9's sensor. Analysing it, K-9 determines it is Krillitane oil. The creatures are Krillitanes, a composite species which take the best physical parts of other species they conquer. The Doctor did not recognise them because they looked like long-necked humans during his last encounter with them. He realises that the Krillitanes are doing something to the children.

As they leave the café, Rose asks the Doctor if Sarah is her future; and whether she will be left behind like all his other companions. The Doctor tells her he did not go back for Sarah because it would have been too hard — while humans age and die, Time Lords are almost immortal. Rose can spend the rest of her life with him, but he cannot spend the rest of his life with her. Finch hears the phrase "Time Lord" and sends the other Krillitane towards them, but the Doctor raises his hand and strangely, the creature swoops away without harming anyone.

The next day they all return to the school. The Doctor sends Rose and Sarah to discover what is inside the computers, and tells Mickey to stay in the car with K-9 as surveillance — a task Mickey compares to being "sent to the back of the class with the safety scissors and glitter". The Doctor is going to have a word with Finch. The two confront each other at the swimming pool. Finch confirms that he is a Krillitane named Brother Lassar; the wings being a recent addition to their form, having been obtained from the invasion of Bessan ten generations ago. What the Doctor sees as human is just a morphic illusion. Surprised to see a Time Lord, Finch refers to them as a race of pompous, dusty senators, afraid of change and chaos, and now all but extinct. He can sense, however, that the Doctor is different, but still refuses to reveal his plans, challenging the Doctor to work it out. Finch says that they are not enemies, and asks if the Doctor would declare war on them. The Doctor quietly replies that he had much more mercy when he was younger, and this is their only warning. Finch promises, however, that the next time they meet, the Doctor will join with him.

Working on the computers, Sarah and Rose begin to argue about who has had more experience travelling with the Doctor, yelling the names of the different monsters they have met. Both of them soon realise the argument is pointless and bond by comparing notes on the Doctor, bursting into laughter when he enters, much to his consternation.

Finch tells the other Krillitanes that they are moving to the final phase. The school will be sealed, and they will become gods. Even though it is break time, the PA system calls all pupils to class and all staff to the staff room. The pupils all appear strangely happy that the break has ended early, except Kenny, who hesitates, eventually following the others inside. Meanwhile, the Krillitanes begin by devouring the rest of the staff.

In the Maths room, the Doctor finds the computers fixed with a deadlock seal, something which even the sonic screwdriver cannot breach. Finch seals all the school's exits while Wagner activates the computer programme which the children begin running again. Kenny finds himself unable to escape the school building, but attracts Mickey's attention. Mickey reactivates K-9, asking it if it has some way to get in the school, and K-9 reminds Mickey thrice that he is in a car, much to Mickey's annoyance. Finally, though, Mickey gets K-9's meaning, and tells Kenny to stand back. Meanwhile, Rose, Sarah and the Doctor watch the symbols flash on a large screen, and the Doctor works out what it is. The Krillitanes are trying to solve the Skasis Paradigm.

The Doctor explains that the Paradigm is the god-maker, the Universal Theory. Whoever solves it will be able to control the building blocks of the universe: all of time and space. The Krillitanes are boosting the children's intelligence with the oil, using them and their imaginations as a giant processing device. Finch appears at this point, asking the Doctor to join them, tempting the Doctor with the ability to change the universe, to save everyone, even restore the Time Lords. He also offers Sarah and Rose the chance to remain with the Doctor forever, never growing old, so he need never be lonely. For a moment the Doctor appears tempted, but Sarah tells him that pain and loss define them as much as happiness or love. Everything has its time, and everything ends, whether a world or a relationship. The Doctor picks up a chair and hurls it at the screen, smashing it. He tells Rose and Sarah to get out.

Mickey crashes the car through the front doors of the school and he and Kenny run in towards the pupils. Finch shrieks, summoning the other Krillitanes, who transform into their bat-forms. Mickey and Kenny meet the others and run into the dinner hall, pursued by the bat creatures. Finch tells them he wants the Doctor alive, but to eat the others. As the Krillitanes attack, a laser bolt shoots one of them down. K-9 appears in the doorway, blaster at the ready. The Doctor tells K-9 to hold them off while they retreat.

However, K-9's battery is failing, and Finch tells the others to ignore "the shooty dog thing" and get the others. In the physics lab, the Doctor realises that the answer is to use the oil. The Krillitanes have changed their physiology so often that even their own oil is toxic to them now. The Krillitanes start bashing down the door. The Doctor tells Mickey to get the children unplugged and evacuated. Kenny triggers the fire alarm, the high pitched sound hurting the bat-like ears of the Krillitanes and stunning them long enough to get past to the kitchens.

Mickey unplugs the computers and gets the children out of the school. In the kitchens, the Doctor discovers the barrels of oil are deadlock sealed. The Doctor gets the others out while he and K-9 stay behind. K-9 tells the Doctor that the barrels will not withstand a direct hit from its laser, but as its batteries are weak, it has to remain nearby. The Doctor protests, knowing that K-9 will be caught in the explosion, but the dog replies there is no alternative. Sadly, the Doctor bids K-9 good-bye, and calls it a good dog, to which it replies, "Affirmative."

The Doctor takes Sarah's hand and while she asks about K-9, drags her away from the school. Finch and his brethren enter the kitchen in human form, searching for the Doctor. Finch mocks K-9 when he sees it, but K-9 shoots a barrel, spilling the toxic oil over the aliens. Finch snarls that K-9 is a "bad dog"; it again replies, "Affirmative." The explosion takes out a large chunk of the school. The pupils cheer the school's destruction, and hail Kenny as the hero who did it. Sarah weeps over K-9's sacrifice as the Doctor comforts her.

Later, Sarah enters the TARDIS, which is standing in a park. Rose suggests that Sarah joins them, but Sarah declines, saying it is time she found a life of her own. Mickey asks if he could join them in the TARDIS. Sarah says they need a Smith aboard the TARDIS, and despite Rose mouthing "no", the Doctor agrees. Rose does not look pleased. Before she goes, Sarah tells Rose to stay with the Doctor, and that some things are worth getting a heart broken for. She adds that someday, if Rose needs to, she should find her.

Outside, Sarah thanks the Doctor for her time with him. The Doctor asks if there had been anyone special, and Sarah tells him that there was this one man, who she travelled with for a while, but he was a tough act to follow. She asks him to say good-bye this time, and he does, hugging her tightly. Sarah watches the TARDIS disappear, and as it does so, K-9 is revealed. It informs Sarah that the Doctor rebuilt its systems. Sarah notes, smiling, that K-9 has been replaced by a brand-new model — something the Doctor tends to do. Happily, she orders K-9 home. They have work to do.

In the commentary for this episode, script editor Helen Raynor mentions that Finch's first name, not mentioned in the episode, is Hector. However, the Deffry Vale School tie-in website gives his name as Lucas. The character of Mr Finch was originally given the first name "Hector", but this was changed after a real teacher named Hector Finch was discovered.[1] Head had auditioned for the role of the Eighth Doctor in the 1996 Doctor Who television movie.[2]

  • "School Reunion" incorporates several elements from the original Doctor Who series and the spin-off K-9 & Company. There are acknowledgments that the Doctor has had many companions and that the current TARDIS has been "redecorated". There are direct references to stories in the Third and Fourth Doctor eras (in particular The Hand of Fear, Sarah Jane's final regular appearance), while Sarah Jane's career as an investigative journalist harkens back to her earliest appearances in the series.
  • The Doctor says "Correct-a-mundo" in class, adding, "A word I have never used before and, hopefully, never will again." In the Tenth Doctor Adventure The Feast of the Drowned he uses the phrase "Ace-a-mundo", and makes an almost identical comment on it.
  • On the Deffry Vale website it states the Doctor previously taught Physics in Shoreditch, the location of Coal Hill School from the very first Doctor Who episode, An Unearthly Child.[3]
  • When Finch tempts the Doctor with the power of the Skasas Paradigm, the Doctor muses that he could "stop the war". This is the Tenth Doctor's first allusion to the Time War.
  • Though Rose seems initially surprised and annoyed that she wasn't the Doctor's first companion, the Ninth Doctor said to her in "The Empty Child" that he has "travelled with a lot of people".

  • This is the only time that companions from the original series of Doctor Who have appeared in the new series. Sarah and K-9 featured together in K-9 and Company, an unsuccessful pilot for a spin-off series in 1981, and were last seen in the 20th anniversary special, The Five Doctors (1983).
  • Sarah says that the Doctor dropped her off in Aberdeen instead of South Croydon as was his intention. This occurred at the end of The Hand of Fear, Sarah's last regular appearance as a companion. (The actual location used for this scene was in Stokefield Close, Thornbury, Gloucestershire.) The Aberdeen comment concludes a joke that was left hanging for 30 years: At the end of The Hand of Fear, after the TARDIS dematerialises behind her, Sarah realises that the Doctor must have gotten the coordinates wrong (yet again) because her surroundings do not look like Croydon; this episode reveals that it was Aberdeen instead.
  • When explaining to the Doctor why she has not repaired K-9, Sarah says that getting spare parts for him is harder than getting them for a Mini Metro, the model of car that she drove when last seen in K-9 and Company. (Metro spare parts have been quite difficult to obtain since the MG Rover Group collapsed into insolvency in 2005.)
  • While trying to one-up each other in the types of unbelievable things they have seen, Sarah tells Rose that she has encountered the Daleks (in Death to the Daleks and Genesis of the Daleks). She also mentions "mummies" (Pyramids of Mars), "lots of robots" (Robot, The Sontaran Experiment, The Android Invasion and others), "anti-matter monsters" (Planet of Evil), "dinosaurs" (Invasion of the Dinosaurs), and "the Loch Ness Monster" (Terror of the Zygons). Rose counters by claiming to have met "ghosts" ("The Unquiet Dead"), "Slitheen in Downing Street" ("Aliens of London" and "World War Three"), "the [Dalek] Emperor" ("The Parting of the Ways"), "gas-masked zombies" ("The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances"), and a "werewolf" ("Tooth and Claw"). Rose finally concedes at the mention of the Loch Ness Monster, saying, "...Seriously?"
  • Sarah tells the Doctor that "everything has its time, and everything ends." This echoes the Doctor's own words in "The End of the World" and "New Earth". The Fourth Doctor also expressed the sentiment that death is the price of progress in The Brain of Morbius when facing the immortal and unchanging Sisterhood of Karn.
  • Sarah seems to believe that she will never have any grandchildren. In the short story Lily by Jackie Marshall, in Big Finish's Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury, the Fifth Doctor pays a visit to an older Sarah, who has a daughter, Lauren, and an autistic granddaughter, Lily; Lauren's father is not named.
  • Sarah Jane and K-9 next appear in The Sarah Jane Adventures, a new CBBC series focussing on Sarah Jane, played by Sladen. A special written by Russell T. Davies and Gareth Roberts aired on January 1, 2007, with a full series which followed later that fall. K-9 appeared in the special, but is not a regular character in the series.[4] This is due to the concurrent development of K-9, which is not associated with the BBC and will not feature any Doctor Who connections beyond K-9 himself.[5]

  • As noted by David Tennant on the DVD commentary, this episode is the first time K-9's visor light has flashed as he spoke (as with a Dalek's ear lamps).
  • Rose describes K-9 Mark III's appearance as a bit "disco" (the model was designed in the 1970s). The Doctor defends K-9 saying, "that was cutting edge in the year 5000." The first K-9 unit, introduced in The Invisible Enemy (1977), a story set in the year 5000, was built by Professor Marius.
  • K-9 Mark III's "death" marks it as the fourth companion, or fifth if one counts Sara Kingdom, to die permanently in the television series, after Katarina (and Sara Kingdom) in The Daleks' Master Plan (1965), Adric in Earthshock (1982), and Kamelion in Planet of Fire (1984), although K-9's apparent "death" is not witnessed on screen. (Peri, an assistant of the Sixth Doctor was seen to die at the end of the Mindwarp section of The Trial of a Time Lord (1986), but it was revealed that she had in fact lived and gone to live with King Yrcanos at the end of The Ultimate Foe segment of the arc.)
  • K-9 is rebuilt at the end of the episode (Sarah says it is a "brand new model" and K-9 affirms this), which has improved capabilities, one of them being "omniflexible hyperlink facilities".

  • The Doctor says that Mickey summoned them to investigate the school. In the TARDISODE for this episode, Mickey puts out a call to Rose, asking her and the Doctor for some help, mentioning a school which has had UFO sightings around it.
  • Mickey checks the Internet for information on UFO sightings but further information is denied by Torchwood. Torchwood also blocks his access in the TARDISODE. Where Mickey is accessing this is not specified, although in the commentary Raynor claims it is supposed to be a cybercafé. On the wall behind Mickey can be seen the words: "Because Friends Stick Together". This same motto appears on Mickey's website.
  • Mickey finally joins the TARDIS crew as a companion, after several appearances dating back to "Rose" (2005). Counting the two-parter "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances" (2005) as one story, the last companion to be introduced in a story different from the one in which they join the crew was Nyssa. She first appears in The Keeper of Traken (1981) and joins in the next story, Logopolis.
  • Although Rose is visibly unhappy with the idea of Mickey joining the TARDIS crew, this is not explored in the subsequent episodes, with Rose shown enjoying Mickey's company in the next story, "The Girl in the Fireplace".

  • Both K-9 props used in the episode are original props from the 1970s: one is used for stationary shots and the other for mobile ones. The fake innards of the stationary prop have been redesigned to match the style of Gallifreyan technology introduced in the new series.
  • According to an interview with writer Toby Whithouse in Doctor Who Magazine #367, this episode had the working title "Black Ops". The original storyline submission for the episode involved the Doctor meeting Sarah while investigating events at an army base neighbouring an isolated village. The change of location to a school was suggested by Russell T. Davies.
  • The primary location for the school filming was Duffryn High School in Newport. 70 pupils from the school worked as extras during the filming, and met the episode's stars. Dyffryn is a Welsh word which means "valley" in English, while Deffro means "awakening". Some other scenes were filmed at Fitzalan High School in Cardiff.
  • The BBC registered the following domain names: sarahjanesmith.org.uk; deffryvale.com; deffryvale.co.uk; deffryvaleschool.org.uk, although only the latter two have active websites.
  • The episode has been nominated for the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. [6]
  • According to the "Production Notes" column in Doctor Who Magazine, Finch's line was originally "Get the shooty dog thing." While the script was later changed so the Krillitane did not attack K9 at this point, the line was accidentally unchanged. The "for-" was added in post-production.
  • According to the episode commentary, a scene cut from the broadcast showed Milo falling over on his desk, his brain being "shorted out". This is alluded to in the scene in which Wagner recruits students for his advanced class, mentioning that Milo "has failed" him.

  • During the farewell scene between the Doctor and Sarah in the park, the soundtrack plays a slower, instrumental version of "Song for Ten" from "The Christmas Invasion".
  • The music playing in the café scene is "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division.

  • The Doctor greets his class and asks them, "Are we sitting comfortably?" This is derived from the catchphrase, "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin," popularised by the 1950-1982 BBC Radio series Listen with Mother, which began every episode with those words. This phrase was later parodied by the Wire in the episode "The Idiot's Lantern"; Professor Stephen Falken also uses this phrase before beginning his lecture regarding dinosaurs in the movie WarGames; and a song "Are You Sitting Comfortably?" appears on The Moody Blues' album On The Threshold Of A Dream. The phrase also appears on the inside cover of the second series DVD box set's booklet.
  • The Doctor claims he expected the kids to all be "happy slapping hoodies with ASBOs and ring tones", making a reference to current chav stereotypes in British schools (to which the Lady Cassandra likened Rose in "New Earth").
  • This episode of Doctor Who is indirectly referenced in Episode 6 of BBC One sitcom Outnumbered, as seven-year-old Ben asks "What about Krillitaney-bat-thingy from Doctor Who?"

  1. ^ Andrew Pixley (2006). "School Reunion". Doctor Who Special Edition #14 — The Doctor Who Companion: Series Two: 39. 
  2. ^ Segal, Philip; Gary Russell (2000). Doctor Who: Regeneration. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-710591-6. 
  3. ^ http://www.deffryvaleschool.org.uk/staff.shtml
  4. ^ BBC (2006-09-14). Russell T Davies creates new series for CBBC, starring Doctor Who's Sarah Jane Smith. Press release. Retrieved on 2006-09-14.
  5. ^ Nazzaro, Joe. "Who's Sarah Jane Gets Own Show", Sci Fi Wire, Sci Fi Channel, 2006-09-28. Retrieved on 2006-09-28. 
  6. ^ Nippon 2007 Hugo Nominees. World Science Fiction Society. Retrieved on 2007-03-29.
  7. ^ Lyon, Shaun. School Reunion Overnight Ratings - Updated. Outpost Gallifrey. Retrieved on 2006-09-20.

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