Series 2 (Doctor Who)

Series 2 of Doctor Who ran from 18 November 2005 to 8 July 2006. It starred David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, Billie Piper as Rose Tyler and Noel Clarke as Mickey Smith. The regular series was preceded by The Christmas Invasion, opened with New Earth and concluded with Doomsday.

Overview
It consisted of twelve stories and fifteen episodes. It was David Tennant's first full series as the Tenth Doctor, wrote out Billie Piper's Rose Tyler and briefly introduced the character of Donna Noble. Significantly, series 2 also served as a mild advertisement for the then-forthcoming Torchwood television series, since its main story arc established the origins of the Torchwood Institute.

Unlike series 1, the main production team did not feature Mal Young. Instead, Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner carried on as executive producers and Phil Collinson continued in his role as the main producer — an arrangement that persisted through to series 4's Journey's End.

Everything from the 2005 Children in Need Special to Doomsday was a part of the series 2 production block — though the "regular season" is typically characterised as the stories from New Earth to Doomsday.

Production
The main story arc for the season was the Torchwood Institute, referenced only twice previously, which served to lead up to the final episodes as well as the Torchwood spinoff series. A secondary arc dealt with the development of the love story between Rose and the Doctor. Series 2 saw the return of the Cybermen to television and the return of companions Sarah Jane Smith and K9. Both were last seen (notwithstanding independent, fan-made productions) in 1983; their successful return sparked the commissioning of a second spin-off series, The Sarah Jane Adventures, for CBBC. The series 2 finale saw the introduction of Donna Noble.

This was the first series to feature a "Doctor-lite" episode. These were episodes in which the Doctor (and, usually, his companion) only appears in one or two scenes, with the story carried by new, supporting characters. This allowed David Tennant to film two episodes at the same time, and let the production team speed up the filming schedule. Love & Monsters was the first episode to use this innovation, though it did not receive the same level of acclaim as later Doctor-lite episodes such as Blink and Turn Left.

Each episode (not counting the specials) was accompanied by a short teaser "Tardisode" which was only viewable on the Internet; this experiment was not repeated for succeeding seasons, though several online prequels would once again be produced for series 6; the Tardisodes were the first BBC-filmed Doctor Who productions since TV: Mission to the Unknown in which neither the Doctor nor a companion appeared (with the exception of the Tardisode for TV: School Reunion which featured Mickey Smith).

Cast

 * The Doctor - David Tennant
 * Rose Tyler - Billie Piper

Recurring

 * Jackie Tyler - Camille Coduri
 * Mickey Smith - Noel Clarke
 * Harriet Jones - Penelope Wilton
 * Trinity Wells - Lachele Carl
 * Cassandra O'Brien.Δ17 - Zoë Wanamaker, Billie Piper, David Tennant, Sean Gallagher
 * Novice Hame — Anna Hope
 * Face of Boe — Struan Rodger
 * Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
 * K9 - John Leeson
 * Peter Tyler - Shaun Dingwall
 * Jake Simmonds - Andrew Hayden-Smith
 * Cybermen - Nicholas Briggs
 * Ood - Paul Kasey and voiced by Silas Carson
 * Cyber-Leader - Paul Kasey and voiced by Nicholas Briggs
 * Daleks - operated by Barnaby Edwards, Nicholas Pegg, Stuart Crossman, Anthony Spargo, Dan Barratt, David Hankinson and voiced by Nicholas Briggs
 * The Bride - Catherine Tate

Guest

 * Sycorax leader - Sean Gilder
 * Sister Jatt — Adjoa Andoh
 * Queen Victoria – Pauline Collins
 * The Host – Tom Smith
 * Lassar - Anthony Head
 * Reinette - Sophia Myles, Jessica Atkins
 * Clockwork Man - Paul Kasey
 * Alternative Jackie Tyler - Camille Coduri
 * John Lumic - Roger Lloyd Pack
 * President of Great Britain - Don Warrington
 * The Wire - Maureen Lipman
 * Magpie - Ron Cook
 * Toby Zed - Will Thorp
 * The Beast - Gabriel Woolf, Will Thorp
 * Abzorbaloff - Peter Kay
 * Elton Pope - Marc Warren
 * Hoix - Paul Kasey
 * Chloe Webber - Abisola Agbaje
 * Yvonne Hartman - Tracy-Ann Oberman
 * Adeola Oshodi - Freema Agyeman
 * French Newsreader - Anthony Debaeck

VHS
All episodes of series 2 including the Children In Need special and The Christmas Invasion were released in July 2006 by Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment.

DVD
All episodes of series 2 were released in 2006 in both individual volumes and in boxset form by 2|Entertain and Columbia Tristar Home Entertainment for Region 2, in 2006 by Warner Home Video for Region 1. However, in region 4 volumes 3, 4 and 5 along with the complete box set were released by CTHE under the Sony Pictures Home Entertainment name.

In 2014 the series was re-released on DVD in the US, split into two volumes labelled "Part One" and "Part Two" respectively, mimicking the home video release of Series 6 and 7. This release is missing much of the bonus content seen on the previous box set. Re-packaged versions of the complete series were also made available.

Blu-ray
Series 2 was included in the Doctor Who: Complete Series 1-7 Blu-ray boxset, released on 4 November, 2013 in the UK and 5 November, 2013 in the US.

Novels

 * The Stone Rose
 * The Feast of the Drowned
 * The Resurrection Casket
 * I Am a Dalek
 * The Nightmare of Black Island
 * The Art of Destruction
 * The Price of Paradise

Audio stories

 * Infamy of the Zaross
 * The Sword of the Chevalier
 * Cold Vengeance

Promotional trailer

 * A trailer using specially shot footage of the Doctor was created to promote the new season.