The Parting of the Ways (TV story)

The Parting of the Ways was the thirteenth and final episode of series 1 of Doctor Who.

It was the final chronological appearance for Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor and introduced David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor in its closing moments.

It concluded the Bad Wolf story arc. It also concluded a mild story arc about the Doctor's identity, revealed to newcomers that Time Lords could regenerate, and saw the regular departures of actors Eccleston and Barrowman (until Utopia), director Joe Ahearne, and executive producer Mal Young. It established a visual appearance for regeneration that would remain fairly standard into the present day until Twice Upon a Time (every televised regeneration from then on with the exception of the Master's in Utopia would appear like that until that episode), following which viewers got their first glimpse of David Tennant's Tenth Doctor.

From a visual effects point of view, viewers were treated to a massive army of Daleks and Dalek spaceships. At the time of broadcast, it was the most expansive view of a Dalek army that had yet been portrayed on screen, taking the record from Planet of the Daleks.

Despite the Ninth Doctor's short tenure as an incarnation of the Doctor on screen, novels, comic books, and audio stories would continue his adventures for over a decade and beyond, filling his timeline out with adventures previously unknown to viewers.

Synopsis
As the Daleks attack the Game Station led by their Emperor, the Ninth Doctor finds himself helpless. He knows he must make big sacrifices if he is going to survive. But does this mean losing his beloved Rose Tyler forever?

With Jack Harkness assembling an army together and the Doctor powerless against the Dalek Emperor, a deadly net closes around the whole universe. One thing is for certain, not everyone will make it out of this deadly battle alive. But who or what is Bad Wolf? It's time for the Doctor and Rose to find out.

Plot
The Daleks turn on Rose Tyler and demand that she predict the Ninth Doctor's actions, but she refuses. The Daleks detect the Doctor's TARDIS flying in real space towards the saucer, and launch missiles against it. The missiles detonate, but thanks to the tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator taken from Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen, Jack has rigged up a force field around the TARDIS that protects it. The TARDIS materialises on board the Dalek saucer, around Rose and the single Dalek guarding her, which Jack destroys with the gun he improvised on the Game Station. As the Doctor examines the wreckage of the Dalek, he muses that since it is now apparent that the Daleks survived the Time War, the Time Lords died for nothing.

The travellers exit the TARDIS and are immediately fired on by the surrounding Daleks, but the extrapolator's force field continues to protect them. The Doctor taunts the Daleks, reminding them that Dalek legends call him "the Oncoming Storm", and even though they claim to have eliminated all emotion, he is sure that deep inside, the Daleks still feel fear when faced with him. He asks how they survived the Time War, and is answered by a low, grating voice, "They survived... through me." The voice is that of the Dalek Emperor, a Dalek mutant suspended in a transparent tank of fluid, flanked by panels of armour and topped by an equally gargantuan Dalek domed head. Around it floats an entourage of black-domed Daleks.

The Emperor explains that though the Doctor destroyed all the Daleks in the War, its ship survived: "falling through time — crippled but alive". The surviving Daleks spent centuries hiding in "the dark space", silently rebuilding, infiltrating Earth's systems, harvesting humans and converting the genetic material into an army of Daleks. When Rose suggests that that makes the Daleks half-human, the Daleks cry out that the remark is blasphemy. The Doctor is surprised and horrified that the Daleks even have such a concept. The Emperor declares: "I reached into the dirt and made new life. I am the god of all Daleks!" Even though it used human genetic material, only one cell in a billion was fit to be nurtured, and the Emperor insists that its manipulation resulted in the cultivation of "pure and blessed Dalek". The Emperor announces that he is God of all Daleks, with the Daleks crying out "Worship him".

Horrified, the Doctor realises that the Daleks have been driven insane by the human values they have absorbed, becoming self-loathing fanatics who hate their own genetic makeup, which makes them deadlier than ever. The travellers re-enter the TARDIS, and the Doctor returns them to Floor 500 of the Game Station.

The Doctor orders the two remaining programmers to turn up the transmitters so the Daleks cannot transmat aboard the station. Earth is ignoring the station's warnings since it stopped transmitting and is simply sitting there defenceless. Despite the Doctor's earlier orders, Lynda Moss is still on board, unwilling to leave him. In any case, there were not enough shuttles, and there are still about a hundred people on board, on Floor 000, including Rodrick, Rose's main opponent in The Weakest Link, who is still looking for his prize money. The Dalek fleet begins to move towards Earth, the Emperor giving orders to purify the planet with fire and turn it into its temple.

The Doctor begins dismantling the panels in the control room. The Daleks have left him an enormous transmitter, and to Jack's disbelief, the Doctor is proposing to build and transmit a Delta Wave, an energy wave that will fry every brain within the radius of the blast. Unfortunately, a wave of this magnitude would require three days to build up, and the Dalek fleet will be upon them in twenty-two minutes. The Doctor must work fast.

Jack attaches the extrapolator to the station's systems so the Daleks cannot simply blast the station out of the sky, but it will not prevent them from physically invading to stop the wave. Jack concentrates the force field on the top six levels of the station, so the Daleks will have to enter at Floor 494 and work their way up to Floor 500. Rose stays behind to help the Doctor build the wave while the others, armed with bastic bullets which can breach Dalek casings, go down to Floor 000 to try to scare up volunteers to help hold back the Daleks. Jack kisses both Rose and the Doctor goodbye.

On Floor 000, only a few join the defenders. Others, like Rodrick, do not believe that the Daleks still exist. Jack warns them all to stay on Floor 000 and keep quiet, even if they start to hear the sounds of battle above; if they do, hopefully, the Daleks will not notice them. On Floor 500, Rose suggests going back in time before these events, but the Doctor sadly says it's impossible due to crossing the timeline before the Delta Wave starts its build-up. But when the Doctor checks to see how long it will need to build, he hangs his head in dismay. When Rose asks how bad it is, the Doctor brightens up and says it can work if he can use the TARDIS to cross his own timeline. He ushers her into the TARDIS and tells her to stay there pressing a button, while he powers up the station. Once he exits the TARDIS, however, his expression turns sombre, and he points the sonic screwdriver at the ship, making it dematerialise with Rose on board.

Rose finds the TARDIS doors locked, and a hologram of the Doctor appears, explaining to Rose that if she is receiving this message, then the Doctor is either dead or about to die with no chance of escape. Emergency Program One will take her home, and the TARDIS will not return for him for fear that its technology will fall into the Dalek hands. He asks her to just let the TARDIS moulder away and die, and, in remembrance of him, to have a fantastic life. The TARDIS lands Rose at her estate in the 21st century, and despite her near-hysterical jiggling of the controls, she cannot get it to work again. Outside, Mickey comes running down the street, having heard the distinctive sound of the TARDIS' engines, and Rose hugs him, weeping.

When Jack contacts Floor 500, he finds that the Doctor has sent Rose home. When Jack asks if the Delta Wave will be ready, the Dalek Emperor breaks in on the transmission, noting that even if the wave is completed in time, it will not be able to discriminate between human and Dalek; it will wipe out all Daleks and humans within its long range. The Doctor replies that there are colonies in space and that the human race will survive, but the whole universe is in danger if he lets the Daleks live. Jack tells the Doctor to keep working, and defiantly tells the Emperor that he has never, and will never, doubt the Doctor. The Doctor questions the Emperor on how it managed to scatter the words "Bad Wolf" throughout history, but the Emperor replies that these words were not part of its design.

Jack places Lynda in an observation deck which has a heavy door that will hopefully hold the Daleks out for a time. From the deck, Lynda will monitor the station's sensors and update the rest of the humans on the Daleks' progress. Through the window, they see the fleet decelerate into Earth orbit, and thousands of Daleks begin to stream out from the saucers towards the station. The Daleks force the airlock on Floor 494, and begin to work their way up. They take the internal lasers off-line and ruthlessly exterminate the first batch of defenders, whose bastic bullets have no effect as they melt against the Dalek force fields. One of the people fighting screams at Jack through the radio, saying he lied to them about the effectiveness of the bullets, just before she dies.

In the 21st century, Jackie and Mickey try to persuade Rose to just get on with her life. Rose tells them that she cannot, because the Doctor showed her a better way to live, just as he showed Mickey: you do not just give up, you make a stand and fight for what is right. As Mickey tries to reason with her, Rose notices the words "Bad Wolf" scrawled in six-foot-high letters on a paved public area of the estate, and also in the form of graffiti on the surrounding walls. Rose realises that the words are not a warning, but a message, telling her that she can still get back to the Doctor. She runs for the TARDIS, hoping at least to help the Doctor escape. She tells Mickey that the TARDIS is telepathic, and to make contact, they need to get inside it, open the console to get at the heart of the TARDIS. However, their first attempt to pry the console open by hooking a chain to Mickey's car is unsuccessful.

On Floor 495, the Daleks encounter the Anne Droid from The Weakest Link, and it effectively manages to dispose of three Daleks via its "disintegration" laser only for another one to shoot its head off. To Lynda's horror, instead of flying up to 496, the Daleks travel down to Floor 000, exterminating everyone left there, with Rodrick screaming they don't exist the entire time.

In the TARDIS, Jackie tries her hand at persuading Rose to give up, but Rose tells her that Pete, her father, would not have given up; she knows this because she met him. Jackie does not believe this until Rose reminds her that a blonde girl was there holding Pete's hand when he died and that Jackie saw her from a distance; that girl was Rose. Shaken, Jackie rushes out of the TARDIS.

On 2002nd century Earth, the fleet descends, bombarding the planet, the outlines of the continents distorting on Lynda's screen (notably Australasia) as they are devastated by the Dalek bombing. The Emperor proudly proclaims that he has created heaven on Earth. Meanwhile, on Floor 499, Jack organises the last stand against the Daleks, telling the defenders to concentrate fire on the Dalek eye-stalks. This works against one Dalek, but the other Daleks are able to overwhelm the barricades. Lynda reports that she has a problem; the Daleks have located her. They attempt to enter the room but are unable to bypass the numerous combinations on the door. As a final resort, the Daleks summon an Assault Dalek to cut the door open with its flamethrower arm. As a terrified Lynda backs away from the door, she noticed outside of the window that a small group of Daleks have gathered outside of the window. They fire at the window, shattering it and exposing Lynda to the vacuum of space, killing her. Jack, the last person standing in the assault, vainly fires at the Daleks arriving at Floor 500, telling the Doctor to hurry up and finish the delta wave to destroy them.

Back in the 21st century, all attempts to open the TARDIS console have failed and Rose starts to consider giving up but Mickey won't allow her to, knowing how important returning to the Doctor is for her. Jackie then returns to the TARDIS with a heavy-duty recovery vehicle, loaned from an acquaintance who owes her a favour. She tells Rose that she was right; this would have been the sort of mad thing Pete would have done. The heavier chain of the recovery vehicle holds, and the console tears open. Rose stares into the heart of the TARDIS, and energy from within the console flows into her eyes. The TARDIS doors close of their own accord, shutting Jackie and Mickey out, and the TARDIS dematerialises, intense light visibly streaming out of the TARDIS windows.

Jack runs out of ammunition and is exterminated at the doorway to Floor 500 just as the Doctor finishes readying the Delta Wave. The Daleks glide into the control room, and when the Doctor threatens to activate the wave, the Emperor dares him to do so, to become like it — "the Great Exterminator", to make the choice between coward and killer. The Doctor hesitates, and then says he would be a coward any day, resulting in the Emperor to mock the Doctor for his decision. The Doctor asks what will happen now and if he will become one of the Emperor’s angels. The Emperor responds that the Doctor is the heathen and must be exterminated. A defeated Doctor accepts his fate and prepares for extermination, only for the TARDIS to materialise behind him. The doors open, the light from the TARDIS's heart spilling out into the control room, and in the middle of it all is Rose as Bad Wolf, glowing brightly. In answer to the Doctor, Rose tells him she looked into the TARDIS and it into her. The Doctor tells her that she looked into the time vortex, something no one is supposed to see.

Suffused with power, Rose easily stops and diverts a Dalek blast. As the Emperor calls her "the abomination", Rose explains that she is the Bad Wolf and proceeds to scatter the name of the Game Station's owners through time and space, to lead herself to this point. She can now see all of time and space: the past, present and all possible futures; all she wants is the Doctor to be safe and protected from the Daleks. The Emperor declares that she cannot hurt it as it is immortal, but Rose proves the Emperor wrong by waving her hand and disintegrating him. All the Daleks — emperor, fleet and those on Earth — are destroyed. Rose declares the Time War has ended. However, the power continues to stream through Rose, and she is unwilling to let go of the power of life and death, a power demonstrated when outside the room and unseen by the Doctor, Captain Jack suddenly returns to life. The Doctor tries desperately to get her to relinquish what she has been given, but Rose weeps that she cannot cope with the power coursing through her body and she is in great pain.

The Doctor knows that the power will kill her, so he pulls her close and says to her "I think you need a Doctor" and kisses her, drawing the energy into himself. As Rose falls unconscious, the Doctor releases the vortex energies back into the TARDIS and staggers slightly. Jack makes it to the control room only to see the TARDIS dematerialise without him.

On board, Rose awakens, remembering little of what has transpired. As she tries to figure out what happened, the Doctor jokes that he sang a song that made the Daleks run away, but he then notices a small ripple of energy sweeping across the back of his hand and his expression clouds momentarily. Turning back to Rose, he tells her that he was going to take her to so many places, like Barcelona — the planet, not the city, and that perhaps he will, just not as he is now. Rose does not understand what the Doctor is talking about until he buckles backwards in pain. The Doctor tells her that absorbing the vortex energy into himself has damaged him, and every cell in his body is dying as they speak. Trying to both ease Rose's worry and explain the process of regeneration to her, the Doctor tells her that Time Lords have a "trick" that allows them to "cheat death", but he will have to change, and this incarnation will not see her again. The Ninth Doctor's last words to Rose are, "Before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And you know what? So was I."

With that, the Doctor grins from ear to ear and remains smiling to the very end. Moments later, he tilts backwards with a swift jolt, blazing energy courses through his body, and before Rose's astonished eyes, the Doctor's features change and he regenerates into his next incarnation. His short hair grows out rapidly into thick brown locks, and as the energy recedes, he raises back up with a different face and a remarkably thinner physique, looking quite nonplussed.

The new Doctor says hello and begins to introduce himself somewhat incoherently. He then interrupts himself saying, "New teeth. That's weird." He wonders where he was going to go, before saying, "Oh, that's right. Barcelona." As Rose stares at him in great shock, the Doctor smiles.

Cast

 * Doctor Who - Christopher Eccleston
 * Rose Tyler - Billie Piper
 * Captain Jack - John Barrowman
 * Male Programmer - Jo Stone-Fewings
 * Lynda - Jo Joyner
 * Rodrick - Paterson Joseph
 * Female Programmer - Nisha Nayar
 * Mickey - Noel Clarke
 * Jackie - Camille Coduri
 * Voice of Anne Droid - Anne Robinson
 * Dalek Voice - Nicholas Briggs
 * Dalek Operators - Barnaby Edwards, Nicholas Pegg, David Hankinson
 * Android - Alan Ruscoe
 * and introducing David Tennant as Doctor Who

Food

 * After being returned home, Rose eats chips at a café with Jackie and Mickey.
 * Jackie comments that the café has gone "up market" as they've started to serve little tubs of coleslaw.
 * Mickey tells Jackie about a new pizza delivery place on Minto Road.

Individuals

 * The Doctor states that, in the ancient legends of the Dalek home-world, he was known as the Oncoming Storm.
 * Jackie borrows the truck from her friend Rodrigo.
 * Captain Jack Harkness is killed by three Daleks and then resurrected by the Bad Wolf. This is later revealed to alter Jack's blood chemistry into that of an immortal and he becomes a fixed point in time.

The Doctor

 * The Ninth Doctor regenerates into the Tenth Doctor.
 * After he sends Rose away in the TARDIS, a hologram of the Doctor that was pre-recorded is played.
 * The Doctor reflects on the Time War and of the Time Lords after he and Jack rescue Rose.

Technology

 * The guns of the Game Station have bastic bullets.
 * A delta wave fries all living brains.
 * The Doctor and Jack use the tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator to create a force field for the TARDIS.
 * The Heart of the TARDIS can be absorbed by living beings, but prolonged exposure will burn up the cells in their body as the energies of time vortex deteriorate them.
 * An Assault Dalek uses a blowtorch instead of a manipulator arm to cut through a door comprised of Hydra Combination.

Planets

 * The future Earth is bombarded by apocalyptic Dalek attacks that are strong enough to badly warp and disfigure the shapes of its continents.
 * The Doctor wishes to take Rose to the planet Barcelona.

Places

 * The Doctor says he and Rose could go to 1989 Marbella to avoid the oncoming Dalek attack.

Species

 * Barcelonian dogs have no noses.

Story notes

 * According to his book The Writer's Tale, Russell T Davies planned to keep the departure of Christopher Eccleston a secret until the surprise regeneration. However, soon after the broadcast of The Unquiet Dead, the third episode of the season, the BBC's press office prematurely announced Eccleston's departure, which was followed several weeks later by confirmation that Tennant had been signed as the new Doctor, thereby removing both elements of surprise from the episode.
 * The guns used by Jack and the Game Station people are Heckler and Koch G36Ks.
 * Although he is soon brought back to life, Jack's death in this episode makes him the first companion to die since Kamelion in Planet of Fire.
 * The Doctor's farewell recording to Rose — "Have a good life ..." — is quoted in the lyrics of "Song for Ten", featured in the next full episode, The Christmas Invasion.
 * Jack kisses the Doctor affectionately on the mouth before going off to fight the Daleks. This is the first same-sex kiss featured in the Doctor Who franchise. Another occasion of a same-sex kiss occurs in the episode Deep Breath, when Madame Vastra kisses Jenny, although this was more so out of survival than affection. Jack later kisses who he thinks to be the Doctor but is actually the Doctor's companion Graham O'Brien in TV: Fugitive of the Judoon.
 * This episode marks the last time that the lead character is identified as "Doctor Who" in the closing credits until TV: The Next Doctor. Beginning with The Christmas Invasion, the credit reverts to "The Doctor" as it had been during the last nine years of the original series. This episode is the only occasion in which David Tennant is credited as "Doctor Who" until The Next Doctor.
 * This is the first time the Doctor, or any Time Lord for that matter, is seen regenerating standing up, as previous Doctors collapsed before regenerating. This would later become the norm.
 * Submerging the Dalek mutant puppet in the Emperor's water tank destroyed its inner mechanics. As a result, the puppet would not be used again until TV: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End. A CGI version of the mutant was later used in TV: Daleks in Manhattan.
 * This is the third regeneration episode to credit both actors playing the Doctor, the first two being TV: Logopolis and TV: The Caves of Androzani. The fourth occasion would be TV: The End of Time. Unlike the first two, and like the fourth, the incoming actor is the last actor to be credited. TV: Doctor Who also credited both actors who played the Doctor, but did so in the opening credits and without listing their roles specifically.
 * Back in 1993, the BBC produced a documentary entitled 30 Years in the TARDIS, which ended with several scenes showing how modern-day special effects could be applied to "new" Doctor Who production. One of these scenes shows many Daleks hovering together. Whether by accident or intent, this episode includes several scenes that strongly resemble this "what if" scenario.
 * As the last episode of the series, there is no "Next Time" trailer at the end of the episode, merely a message that "Doctor Who will return in The Christmas Invasion".
 * The story was chosen by BBC America to represent the Christopher Eccleston era during their 50th anniversary programming. Edited into an omnibus format with Bad Wolf, it was aired by BBCA on 29 September 2013, after the debut of their homegrown special called The Doctors Revisited - The Ninth Doctor. It also aired in the United Kingdom later in the same year on 9 November, along with the Revisited special, on the Watch channel.
 * The only characters who do not die in this episode are Rose, Jackie and Mickey, who are all either main or recurring characters. Every guest character dies, along with the Ninth Doctor and Jack, though the latter is revived shortly afterwards. As a result, this is the first episode to kill off the entire guest cast since Horror of Fang Rock 28 years before, an act that would not be repeated again until The Doctor's Wife 6 years later.
 * Interestingly, David Tennant played Barty Crouch Jr. in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, who first appears in the present events of the story in a chapter called The Parting of the Ways. Both characters Tennant plays emerge after a person the rest of the characters are familiar with change their appearance, winding up with Tennant in a battered leather jacket and black jumper, displaying maniacal tendencies.
 * David Tennant is credited last, in the format of "and introducing David Tennant as Doctor Who." Apart from replacing "Doctor Who" with "The Doctor," all subsequent regeneration stories have credited the incoming Doctor in the same manner. This is also the last story as of 2017 to have credited the leading cast member as 'Doctor Who'.
 * This was the first episode in this series which was not given a press screening prior to the broadcast. The Radio Times stated, "No preview tape was available for this episode." The episode was, however, screened for BAFTA on 15 June 2005.
 * According to Russell T Davies in Doctor Who Magazine, Jack was left behind because they wanted to explore the effects of the regeneration on Rose (noting that Jack would have taken the regeneration "in his stride").
 * An alternate ending was written and filmed, with the intention that it would be shown to press previewers to hide the secret of the regeneration. The "false" ending would have featured similar dialogue to the televised final scene, but the TARDIS would have scanned Rose and the viewers would have seen the display read: "LIFEFORM DYING". Russell T Davies considered this scene inferior to the one actually shown but suggested that it might be suitable as an extra on a DVD someday. On the DVD commentary, executive producer Julie Gardner and Billie Piper briefly discuss this ending, which Gardner describes as featuring Rose's death; unlike Davies, Gardner expresses doubts that it will be issued on DVD (it was not included in the Series 1 DVD set).
 * David Tennant's portion of the regeneration scene was actually filmed much later than Christopher Eccleston's and without the presence of Billie Piper. Tennant's segment was recorded with him speaking to a piece of sticky tape indicating Piper's eyeline and then edited into the broadcast version.
 * Initially, the Controller survived into this episode to provide the Doctor with someone to talk to, until Russell T Davies decided it would be more effective to have him converse with the Emperor Dalek instead.
 * This is the second time that Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant have appeared together. They had previously both appeared in the film Jude, with Eccleston playing the lead role and Tennant making a cameo.
 * Joe Ahearne named Lynda's death scene as his favourite death in the series.
 * The Hungarian title of this episode is "Csata után találkozunk" (We Meet After the Battle).
 * The release of the audio story Terror Firma relatively shortly following The Parting of the Ways gave rise to a theory which suggested that Davros was destined to become the Emperor seen in this story, which was officially denied by Big Finish. Davros' return in The Stolen Earth and subsequent stories firmly established that Davros and the War Emperor were separate individuals and that Davros was no longer the Emperor by the Last Great Time War.
 * Rose's statement that the new Daleks were now half-human, to which they responded by calling her blasphemous for saying as such is a reference to how fans did not react well to the Eighth Doctor telling Grace Holloway in the TV movie that he is apparently half-human.
 * Having spotlighted the menace of a lone Dalek in Dalek, Russell T Davies now intended to dazzle audiences with the spectacle of a massive Dalek army.
 * Part of the reason Jack was added to the TARDIS crew was to provide Russell T Davies with a character well-versed in military tactics who could believably coordinate a defence against a full-scale Dalek assault.
 * Russell T Davies wanted to reunite Jackie with modern-day versions of her friends Bev, Sarah Clark and Suzie, who had been seen as young women in Father's Day. With the help of Jackie's boyfriend, Rodrigo, they would link their vehicles together to open the TARDIS console. This sequence was later replaced with the more straightforward introduction of the tow truck which Jackie borrowed from the now-unseen Rodrigo.
 * For the Doctor's regeneration, Russell T Davies was determined to establish a more dynamic and affirmative staging than had previously been employed. To this point, the Doctor had always regenerated in a vulnerable, prone position; now he would be standing and exploding with energy, turning into a virtual fountain of light.
 * Christopher Eccleston's part of the regeneration was then taped in secret, with a minimal crew.
 * The animatronic Kaled mutant introduced in Dalek was reused with the understanding that the liquid in which it floated would ultimately destroy the mechanism.
 * Nicholas Briggs modelled his Emperor Dalek voice on Peter Hawkins, who had voiced the character in The Evil of the Daleks.
 * Working to one-fifth scale, supervisor Mike Tucker and his team constructed a six-foot-tall version of the thirty-foot Emperor Dalek.

Ratings

 * 6.91 million viewers. (UK final)

Myths

 * An alternative version of the ending features the death of Rose Tyler. Russell T Davies states that an alternative version of the final scene showed the Ninth Doctor looking at a screen displaying the text "DANGER: LIFE FORM DYING". This version was shown to the press in an attempt to preserve the surprise of the regeneration. This scene has never been released to the public, Davies electing not to include the scene on the Complete First Series DVD set, however, he stated it may make an interesting curio for a DVD release at some point in the future.
 * After it was announced prematurely by the BBC that Christopher Eccleston was leaving the series, some media reports indicated that he would leave (and regenerate) in the announced Christmas special, rather than this episode. This may have been intentional in order to preserve the surprise ending of this episode (which might also explain the fake Rose death reports, too).
 * Lynda Moss was going to join and/or replace Rose Tyler as a companion in this story, but the script was re-written to depict her extermination. Billie Piper had already signed on for an additional series, and no plans were made to incorporate Lynda Moss as a recurring character.
 * This episode would feature Spider Daleks. This was proven false.

Filming locations
to be added

Production errors

 * The guns, when shown close-up, are revealed to be on "safe".
 * All of the Daleks' ID codes except for the Emperor are the same three numbers over and over again.
 * The Emperor Dalek's lights are flashing (albeit briefly) when his drone Daleks are shouting "DO NOT BLASPHEME".
 * When the Daleks exterminate Jack, the CGI skeleton's foot can clearly be seen in front of the Dalek "sucker" when it should, in fact, be behind it.
 * The CGI Dalek Emperor contained a pink Dalek Mutant, however, the prop for the Dalek Emperor mutant was later made to be purple. In some scenes, the original CGI mutant can be seen with incorrect colouring.

Continuity

 * Rose would later tell both Sarah Jane Smith (TV: School Reunion) and the Cult of Skaro (TV: Doomsday) that she met the Dalek Emperor.
 * The Tenth Doctor (TV: Utopia) and (TV: Last of the Time Lords) later remark on how Rose absorbed the Time Vortex.
 * The Doctor also met a giant Dalek Emperor and some black-domed Dalek Guards while in his second incarnation. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks)
 * Jackie goes into the Doctor's TARDIS. (TV: Aliens of London)
 * The Doctor pulls a wire out too quickly while beginning to build the Delta wave, triggering a sheepish grin in him. He did a near-exact thing in TV: The Long Game.
 * Rose brings Jack back to life, an act that has far-reaching consequences for him as it makes him immortal, (TV: Utopia, Everything Changes et al.) and may ultimately be connected to the Face of Boe. (TV: Last of the Time Lords)
 * The Ninth Doctor abandons Jack as he runs for the TARDIS. The Tenth Doctor would later reveal that he had done this purposely, as Jack's immortality, and his being a fixed point in time, was "wrong" to him as a Time Lord. (TV: Utopia) Jack would spend another year on Earth before travelling back to find the Doctor. (AUDIO: The Year After I Died)
 * Humans have previously been converted to Daleks on Necros by the Daleks' creator Davros, (TV: Revelation of the Daleks) on Red Rocket Rising by Professor Martez. (AUDIO: Blood of the Daleks) and by the Dalek Fleet as cannon fodder for the Time War. (PROSE: Engines of War) Oswin Oswald would later be converted as well. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)
 * Other attempts at reviving the Dalek race would occur in TV: Doomsday, Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks and Victory of the Daleks.
 * An attempt at creating a different sort of Dalek/human hybrid would occur in TV: Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks.
 * Daleks find the concept of being "impure" disgusting, (TV: Dalek) an idea that would reappear in TV: Victory of the Daleks and TV: Revolution of the Daleks.
 * One of the Daleks has a cutting tool instead of a plunger. (TV: The Daleks, Planet of the Daleks)
 * The Daleks have overcome their weakness to bastic bullets, which previously appeared in TV: Revelation of the Daleks.
 * Shortly after his sixth regeneration, the Seventh Doctor previously recorded a non-interactive hologram for another temporally stranded companion, namely Melanie Bush. (AUDIO: Unregenerate!) A holographic version of the Tenth Doctor would later appear in the TARDIS to Sally Sparrow and Larry Nightingale (TV: Blink) and a holographic version of his immediate successor appeared in the TARDIS to the Doctor himself, as he was dying after being poisoned by River Song. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
 * Rose uses the heart of the TARDIS. (TV: Boom Town)
 * Rose mentions the Doctor taking her to meet her dad. (TV: Father's Day)
 * Mickey later mentions that he saved the world with a yellow truck. (TV: The Age of Steel)
 * The Daleks have previously invaded Earth, (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Day of the Daleks; AUDIO: Lucie Miller) and would do so again. (TV: Doomsday, The Stolen Earth/Journey's End, Revolution of the Daleks)
 * This is the first known time that the Doctor's kisses have had an effect on humans beyond the act itself. In this case, the Doctor removes the time vortex energy from Rose by kissing her. In the next, he imparts traces of his alien DNA to Martha Jones. (TV: Smith and Jones) The Doctor and Donna Noble later kiss, but in that instance the Doctor is the one affected, as the kiss was a catalyst for an antidote to poison — Donna kissed him to give his system a shock. (TV: The Unicorn and the Wasp)
 * The Time Vortex also appeared as "red to come, blue behind" when Ace travelled back in time from 2001 to 1887. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)
 * The Eighth Doctor looked into the vortex in COMIC: The Flood.
 * The Ninth Doctor looks at his left hand before he regenerates. His next incarnation does exactly the same thing twice but looking at his right hand. (TV: The Stolen Earth, The End of Time)
 * The Doctor holds off his regeneration for a few moments to explain the situation to Rose. The Fifth Doctor previously delayed his regeneration to rescue Peri Brown. (TV: The Caves of Androzani) The Tenth and Twelfth Doctors will later hold it off as well. (TV: The End of Time, The Doctor Falls)
 * The Ninth Doctor's pre-regeneration statement, "I mean it's a bit dodgy this process, you never know what you're gonna end up with", echoes the Fifth Doctor's post-regeneration statement, "That's the trouble with regeneration, you never quite know what you're going to get". (TV: Castrovalava)
 * The Ninth Doctor evidently had an underlying desire to be ginger in his next incarnation, as the Tenth Doctor would bemoan missing the opportunity. (TV: The Christmas Invasion)
 * Lynda would be among those remembered when Davros asks the Doctor how many have died in his name. (TV: Journey's End)
 * The Eighth Doctor also absorbed the Time Vortex. In that case it was to stop the Cybermen. (COMIC: The Flood)
 * The orange, glowing regeneration resembled that of another Ninth Doctor and his successors. (TV: The Curse of Fatal Death)

Home video releases

 * The Parting of the Ways was released on a single DVD together with Boom Town and Bad Wolf. The three episodes were also released on a single UMD (for Sony's PlayStation Portable).
 * The Parting of the Ways was also released as part of the Series 1 DVD box set.
 * This story was also released with Issue 7 of the Doctor Who DVD Files.