Deep Breath (TV story)

 was the first episode of the eighth series of Doctor Who produced by BBC Wales. After a brief cameo in The Day of the Doctor and a short appearance at the end of The Time of the Doctor, this episode marks the full first appearance of Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor. It also saw the last regular appearance of Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor in a surprise cameo set directly before his regeneration.

Following the success of the theatrical simulcast of The Day of the Doctor on 23 November 2013, this premiere episode also received a release, simultaneous with its broadcast on television, in cinemas across the world.

Synopsis
The Doctor arrives in Victorian London, bringing with him a dinosaur which runs rampant in the Thames. Soon after he discovers a spate of deadly spontaneous combustions. Meanwhile, Clara struggles to embrace the new man the Doctor has become.

Plot
A Tyrannosaurus rampages in the River Thames much to the shock of onlookers, with the exception of the Paternoster Gang. Jenny notices the beast has something lodged in its throat that caused it to time travel, and then the dinosaur coughs up the TARDIS, which lands upright on the banks of the river. Vastra gives a policeman a device which will keep the dinosaur in one place, before she, Jenny and Strax descend to the bank. Strax knocks on the door and the newly regenerated Doctor appears, shooshing him and telling him that he thinks he has escaped the dinosaur, before leaving the TARDIS and refamiliarising himself with the gang, albeit poorly due to only just recently regenerating. After failing to identify his companions, the Doctor suggests to "take five" and passes out. The Gang learn from Clara that this strange man is indeed the Doctor regenerated, and take him to their home.

Back inside, the Doctor is conscious again. But he is puzzled by the bedroom he's in, complaining on what you do in this room when you are awake. He is also annoyed about the accent Jenny and Clara speak with as his accent is now Scottish. Madame Vastra however, talks properly according to him using the same accent as his. She then uses a psychic link to trick him into getting back to sleep. Clara is more troubled by the fact that the Doctor's new face looks old and different. Meanwhile the Tyrannosaurus is making moaning sounds in the city. The Doctor then seems to be translating the moans in his sleep, perhaps also echoing his own situation. Strax comes in and escorts Clara to Madame Vastra who asked to have a word with her.

Outside on the street, people are still looking at the giant dinosaur. A man called Alf guesses the Tyrannosaurus is part of a government plan, in conversation with his wife. Alf then says to a mysterious man there is something wrong with the dinosaurs neck, that makes it look unreal. The man replies that Alf has good eyes, and he needs them as a gift to replace his bad eyes. He reveals the other side of his face and looks much like a droid, and then proceeds to remove Alf's eyes.

Madame Vastra questions Clara about how she and the Doctor came to be in Victorian London after Trenzalore. Clara remarks that Vastra has put on her veil again, Vastra says she wears it to be accepted. The conversation escalates as Clara thinks Vastra is judging her. Vastra retorts by implying that Clara is judging the Doctor. Upstairs, the Doctor wakes up smelling something. After sniffing about on the floor, he finds a piece of chalk. He writes calculations with the chalk, around the whole room. He then escapes through the window to check on the dinosaur. Shouting across London at the dinosaur. He apologises that his time machine got stuck in its throat and vows to get it home, eventually the dinosaur suddenly spontaneously bursts into flames and is killed, prompting the Doctor to action.

Falling from a tree and getting stuck on a branch, he stops a horse and carriage and asks that he will need to relieve him of his "pet" much to the driver's confusion. The Doctor replies that he was talking to the horse. Jumping onto the horse, he uses the Sonic Screwdriver to cut the ropes linking the horse to the carriage. As the Doctor struggles to properly control the horse, the Paternoster Gang and Clara unknowingly follow nearby. The Doctor arrives at the bridge and quietly observes as the dinosaur burns in the flames. Clara questions the Doctor's sudden appearence here. As Vastra locks the carriage like a car, she begins to question who would do such a thing. The Doctor points out that it's not the question. The question is: "Have there been any similar murders?" Vastra answers that there have been many similar ones. The Doctor then points to a man who seems unmoved by the situation. The Doctor then dives into the water. Clara worriedly informs Vastra that he'll drown, but she doubts it, claiming that the Doctor has taken up the case.

Clara wakes up the next morning and discovers Strax threatening workers with their lives when they return with the TARDIS. Strax informs Clara that the Doctor will always come looking for his time machine and takes it too far when he says that once he returns, they'll melt him with acid. Clara asks for 'The Times' newspaper article to be sent up to her. Strax immediately throws the paper up to Clara, striking her in the face.

Now dressed in a Victorian dress, Clara makes her way downstairs and meets Jenny, who warns her not to disturb Madame Vastra as she investigates on a different matter. Clara encounters Strax once again, who offers her water. Clara at first accepts, but then declines when Strax gives her the bucket of water he has been using to mop the floor. Strax then gives her an unexpected medical examination, while also peeking inside her head and seeing what she's thinking.

In a dirty alley somewhere, the Doctor examines his face in a small mirror and rummages through debris. As a disheveled old man stumbles by, the Doctor is confused over why he now has this face. Ranting and belligerent, he asks the man's input on why he gave himself this face, noting that it is somehow familiar to him. The Doctor asks the confused and frightened man if he has seen the Doctor's face before, which the old man indicates he has not. Intimidated by it, he says he doesn't like the Doctor's face, which the Doctor doesn't seem to fond of, either, due to a new, potent set of eyebrows that seem like they want to cede from the rest of his face and "set up their own independent state of eyebrows". Playing along with his madness, the old man agrees he has mighty eyebrows. The Doctor then notes that he has a Scottish accent, which the man confirms. The Doctor rants on that he can now complain about things, before demanding the man's coat. The man whimpers in fear, until the Doctor brings up a newspaper, showing the article 'Fourth Case of Spontaneous Combustion'.

In the epilogue, the cyborg awakens in a beautiful garden, and meets Missy, a mysterious woman who claims the Doctor as her boyfriend. She tells him that he has reached the promised land at last.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Peter Capaldi
 * Clara - Jenna Coleman
 * Madame Vastra - Neve McIntosh
 * Strax - Dan Starkey
 * Jenny - Catrin Stewart
 * Half-Face Man - Peter Ferdinando
 * Inspector Gregson - Paul Hickey
 * Alf - Tony Way
 * Elsie - Maggie Service
 * Cabbie - Mark Kempner
 * Barney - Brian Miller
 * Waiter - Graham Duff
 * Courtney - Ellis George
 * Policeman - Peter Hannah
 * Footman - Paul Kasey
 * Missy - Michelle Gomez
 * and Matt Smith as The Doctor

The Doctor

 * The Doctor enhances the TARDIS control room with furnishings such as a chalkboard, bookshelves, and a recliner. He also changes the cold blue neon piping in the time rotor to a warmer amber.
 * The Doctor once again has a Scottish accent, an accent he hasn't had since his Seventh incarnation.

Story notes

 * Matt Smith's cameo was recorded during the filming of The Time of the Doctor, as confirmed by the leaked shooting script.
 * Moffat joked that Matt's return was the fastest return ever, considering the fact that he last appeared in the previous episode.
 * This episode (and its script) was leaked online when stored on a publically-accessible server, with incomplete CGI, watermarks and timecodes in black-and-white, prompting a plea from BBC Worldwide not to watch it. The rough cut held the nomenclature, "Prepared for Marcelo Camargo at Drei Marc".
 * The BBC gave this episode a world tour in seven countries over twelve days.
 * No shots of the TARDIS interior are shown before the reveal of its redesign, due to the permanent remodeling of certain parts in the control room for Peter Capaldi's Doctor, which would make the replication of the pre-redecorated console highly tasking.
 * During the read-through of the script for this episode, the cast and crewmembers filled the room with laughter when Peter Capaldi reached the lines ridiculing his eyebrows.

Specific to theatrical presentation

 * A five-minute "prequel" was shown before this episode, consisting of a specially recorded scene similar to the Strax Field Reports, featuring the Paternoster Gang: Vastra, Jenny Flint, and Strax. The scene primarily focused on Strax humourously describing the first twelve incarnations of the Doctor, making note of the War Doctor as well as the Tenth Doctor's aborted regeneration, to his people, before alerting them to the appearance of the latest Doctor. He also made fun of the Ninth Doctor's ears and the Eleventh Doctor's chin.
 * The first installment of Doctor Who Extra, a new documentary series conceived as a smaller scale replacement for the former Doctor Who Confidential, which was cancelled by BBC Three, ending with Series 6. Otherwise exclusive to BBC iPlayer, this initial installment was screened to participating cinemas following the showing of Deep Breath and focused on both the production of this episode and Peter Capaldi's inauguration as the Twelfth Doctor. Doctor Who Extra was in turn followed by a live Q & A in London, hosted by Zoe Ball with Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, and Steven Moffat.

Common among all versions

 * The story's premier broadcast date, 23 August, is the same date as the in-universe setting of The Fires of Pompeii, in which Peter Capaldi made his first appearance in Doctor Who as Lobus Caecilius.

The Hanshaw Title Sequence

 * This episode saw the debut of a new title sequence designed by Billy Hanshaw after executive producer Steven Moffat saw a video of his conceptual Doctor Who titles sequence on YouTube and decided to draft him aboard to do a professional version of his sequence. The new titles features a vast expanse of golden-bronze clock gears whizzing by in empty space, and then the TARDIS flying through a tunnel of Roman numeral clock face numbers spiraling into a literal depiction of a time vortex with glowing engravings of circular Gallifreyan. The TARDIS passes across the screen in a way very similar to the Series 1 title sequence as the TARDIS jumped from the blue to red time vortex, and then launches past a group of planets. Peter Capaldi's piercing eyes are shown, rather than a full insert of the actor's face.
 * Moffat replied in an interview, "I happened across it [the title sequence], and it was the only new title idea I'd seen since 1963. We got in touch with him, and said, 'OK, we're going to do that one.'" Billy Hanshaw responded, "I had to pinch myself because I didn't know if it was really happening. It's one of those stories about people putting something on YouTube - it's usually a musician this happens to. They put a performance on there and they get picked up by a label. It's a similar kind of story. I thought, these things don't generally happen."

Ratings
6.8 million overnight

Filming locations
The Maltings, Pontprennau

Mount Stuart Square, Cardiff

Queen Street, Cardiff

Production errors

 * The end of Vastra's mask is visible during the opening scenes.
 * When the Doctor is in bed, Jenny walks to the window and looks up to see the dinosaur. But in the next shot, the T-Rex is clearly at eye-level.
 * When the Half-face man wakes up in "Heaven", he clearly has a left brow, despite him only having a right half of a face.
 * The dinosaur slime that covers the TARDIS appears to disappear from the door when the scene shifts to show Strax knocking.

Continuity

 * The Cloister Bell is heard as the Doctor collapses on the bank of the River Thames. (TV: Logopolis, Doctor Who, et al.)
 * The Doctor often reflects that he finds the current situation of robots harvesting human organs to repair a ship to be naggingly familiar (TV: The Girl in the Fireplace), but his addled brain is unable to make the connection with the events of The Girl in the Fireplace and the name of the ship wouldn't help him as the Doctor never knew the name of the ship then.
 * The Doctor mentions Amy, making reference to her long legs. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
 * While performing a physical examination of Clara, Strax makes an observation on her thorax as did Linx with Sarah Jane Smith (TV: The Time Warrior) as well as Commander Skorr to Martha Jones. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem)
 * The Doctor wonders who gave Clara the phone number of the TARDIS. (TV: The Bells of Saint John)
 * The Doctor is sure he has already seen his new face before, and comments are made that it has frown lines that he didn't frown. (TV: The Fires of Pompeii)
 * Clara learns why the TARDIS telephone was hanging off the hook when she returned to the TARDIS after the Eleventh Doctor began regenerating. Because he did not patch it back to the console unit, the Eleventh Doctor dragged the phone by its cord into the entrance of his console to make a private and final phone call to Clara in the near future. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
 * The Doctor can speak horse (TV: A Town Called Mercy), and dinosaur.
 * The Doctor and Clara yell "Geronimo!" as a code word to spring the Paternoster Gang into action, a catchphrase used by the Doctor's previous incarnation. (TV: The End of Time et al.)
 * Jenny snaps at Vastra for calling humans monkeys, or apes, as Silurians often have. (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians, A Good Man Goes to War)
 * Strax mentions using deadly acid again. (TV: The Crimson Horror)
 * When Clara sees the improved console room, she says, "You've redecorated... I don't like it." This was said verbatim by both the Second and Tenth Doctors at the sight of new TARDIS console designs. (TV: The Three Doctors, The Day of the Doctor) The Second and Eleventh Doctors have also said this about redecorated houses. (TV: The Five Doctors, Closing Time)
 * The Doctor wishes he had more "round things" in his updated control room. (TV: The Day of the Doctor) He remembers he "had many round things once" and wonders where he put them. (TV: An Unearthly Child onward)
 * Clara's last interaction with the Eleventh Doctor takes place on the phone, mirroring the first interaction she had with him as an adult. (TV: The Bells of Saint John)
 * The Doctor states that he is over 2,000 years old. (TV: The Time of the Doctor, PROSE: Tales of Trenzalore: The Eleventh Doctor's Last Stand)
 * The Doctor once again confirms that he does not see the human race as "small" (TV: The End of Time, Hide)
 * The Doctor remembers that he wore a scarf once. (TV: Robot et al.)
 * After seeing the new Doctor, Madame Vastra says "Well then, here we go again.", just like the Brigadier did after the Third Doctor's regeneration. (TV: Planet of the Spiders)
 * Clara recalls her first day working as a teacher in Coal Hill School. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
 * Strax continues to call Clara "boy", as he still has trouble telling male and female genders apart. (TV: The Crimson Horror)
 * According to Strax, Clara is now 27 meaning that she has in fact been traveling with the Doctor for a few years as she was only 24 when they met. (TV: The Bells of Saint John)
 * This is the second time that Clara asks the Doctor who Amy is, as she previously did when he referenced her as "Amelia". (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
 * The Doctor wonders where he got his face. Romana chose her appearance based on someone she had previously met. (TV: Destiny of the Daleks)

Home video releases
to be added