The Star Beast (TV story)

The Star Beast was the first of the three 2023 specials of Doctor Who, broadcast on 25 November 2023 as part of the 60th anniversary celebrations.

It saw the first full onscreen adventure of David Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor, the return of Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, and the first episode of Russell T Davies's second stint as showrunner.

This episode is an adaptation of the comic story Doctor Who and the Star Beast.

Synopsis
A spaceship crashes in North London. Not that Donna Noble (Tate) noticed; she had other things on her mind. Besides, there's no such thing as aliens — right?! But then one turns up in her garden shed: the Meep (voiced by Margolyes). Another — the Doctor (Tennant) — barges into her kitchen. By the time a squadron of Wrarth Warriors shows up on her doorstep, the Noble family must face facts: Donna's past is catching up to her. And her mind is about to be blown...

Plot
The TARDIS lands in London in 2023, as the Doctor ventures out and strolls down the road. He wanders into a bustle of people before seeing a woman holding a large pile of boxes, which he tries to help with. He helps her with a few and is shocked to discover Donna Noble, who doesn't remember him. Her daughter, Rose Noble, runs up as Donna becomes distracted with her boxes, missing the spaceship that crashes to earth not too far away. Donna and Rose head off right before Shaun Temple drives up in his taxi. The Doctor convinces Shaun to take him to the crash, and as they drive he pumps Shaun for information, claiming to be a friend of Nerys'.

The Doctor manages to access the crash site inside the steelworks even as UNIT has established a perimeter around it. He isolates himself inside and begins to analyze the data from the crash as Shirley Anne Bingham comes up and offers him her readings on the site. He expresses hesitancy to work with UNIT - he doesn't fully know who he is at the moment. He has his old face again and he's not sure what to make of that, or of the fact that he ran into Donna Noble almost immediately after. Soldiers come up and mention that they've found the escape pod to the wreck and are sending a team after it, prompting the Doctor to leave with them.

After the Doctor leaves, UNIT manages to unlock the ship and sends a squad of soldiers to secure whatever's inside. As the door opens, tendrils of light flow out into the eyes of the soldiers, leaving them aglow as they turn and walk away.

Meanwhile Rose and Donna return to their house and to Sylvia who's cooking dinner. Donna asks Sylvia if she heard anything about the spaceship that everyone's been talking about, which Sylvia resolutely denies. Rose finds a creature as she's taking out the recycling. The creature names itself The Meep and insists that there are others after it, "monsters". Rose hides the Meep in her backyard shed though Donna stumbles in. Donna first mistakes the Meep for a stuffed toy before prodding it in the eye, realizing that it's alive and panicking. The Meep tries to calm Donna down and Sylvia intervenes, insisting that the entire thing is just a hallucination - the Meep doesn't exist. The Doctor shows up at their house after UNIT stops nearby, realizing that something must have happened, unlocking the door using his sonic screwdriver.

The UNIT team with glowing eyes order those who are guarding the escape pod back to the steelworks and begin to search for the Meep.

The Nobles, the Meep, the Doctor, and Shaun, who came in not too long after the Doctor, discuss what to do with the Meep, with the Doctor and Sylvia insisting that he should take the Meep. The Meep explains to them all that the Wrarth Warriors used to hunt meeps for their fur, and when the rest of the galaxy put a stop to the practice they decided to kill the entire species. UNIT soldiers knock at the door, and as the Doctor answers it he scrolls up their visors, seeing glowing eyes. The Doctor closes the door on them right as the back entrance is smashed open by two Wrarth Warriors, the UNIT soldiers crashing through almost immediately after. The Doctor, the Noble family, and the Meep escape through the attics on the street using the sonic screwdriver to weaken the brick walls between them. The group drives off and stops in a car park.

The Doctor dons a wig and uses his sonic screwdriver to summon two Wrarth Warriors, Zogroth and Zreeg. The Doctor notes how there was no damage done to the taxi and that the fallen UNIT soldiers weren't killed, merely unconscious. The Wrarth Warriors confirm, their weapons apply an anesthetic. They consider the tale of the meep to be tragic, a species whose sun turned psychedelic and mutated them all into maniacs bent on conquest. The Wrarth Warriors were summoned to stop their conquest. As they all fight to the death, only this last one remains, their leader, the worst of them all, Beep. The Doctor asks the Meep if they have anything to say in their defense. Instead, the Meep pulls out a weapon and kills both of the Wrarth Warriors as UNIT soldiers, brainwashed by the psychedelic sun, arrive. The Doctor manages to convince Beep the Meep that they're more useful as hostages than dead.

Beep takes the group back to the steelworks and shows off the ship present there. The Doctor insists that the ship can't be used - it has a dagger drive, it gets its power for propulsion by stabbing downwards, it would use the whole of London as fuel. Beep laughs and orders the group taken aboard the ship. Shirley assaults the soldiers taking them aboard and frees the Doctor and the Nobles, telling him that he needs to get aboard to stop it from taking off and pointing the family towards an exit. As he runs away, Donna decides to follow him, calling him "Doctor" for the first time. She enters the ship after him, watching him as he darts around, flipping switches and buttons to prevent the takeoff as best he can. Beep lowers a screen from above, splitting the room in two, each caught on the other side as he still tries his best to stop it. Time runs out as Beep activates the dagger drive.

The Doctor explains to Donna that time's run out, that there's only one chance left. Donna insists that he needs to do it - that there's no time to wait. It will kill her, she's told, and she accepts that, because it will save her daughter, and the lives of everyone else in London. The Doctor lowers the mental block she has in her head and regeneration energy spills out of her. In a flurry of technobabble the two set to work on dismantling the ship. The drive fails, and Donna collapses. Soldiers of the Meep storm in to kill the Doctor, the light drains out of their eyes, and Donna gets back up. Rose absorbed aspects of the Doctor's mind that were too much for Donna both as she was born and as the mental block fell away, allowing her to turn off the psychedelic sun emitters.

The Wrarth Warriors show up to arrest Beep and imprison them for ten thousand years, and as they part, Beep teases the Doctor that two hearted species are so rare - someone called "The Boss" will be told about him. The Doctor is put off by this but brushes it aside, returning to the issue of Rose and Donna having too much knowledge for any human, it was slowed down but not stopped. Rose and Donna acknowledge this, but say that there's just another way, one men would never understand. They decide to just let the power go.

The Doctor suggests to Donna that they take one last trip in the TARDIS, to see Wilf, one last time, for him to no longer have to worry about all the secrets he's kept. They enter a fully revamped TARDIS interior that the two of them spend some time goggling over, complete with a coffee maker. The Doctor offers Donna a coffee. She joyfully accepts, and not two minutes later spills it on the TARDIS console, causing it to burst into flames and take off.

Cast

 * Fourteenth Doctor - David Tennant
 * Donna Noble - Catherine Tate
 * Rose Noble - Yasmin Finney
 * Sylvia Noble - Jacqueline King
 * Shaun Temple - Karl Collins
 * Shirley Anne Bingham - Ruth Madeley
 * The Meep - Cecily Fay
 * Voice of the Meep - Miriam Margolyes
 * Wrarth Warriors
 * Constable Zreeg - Stephen Love
 * Voice of Zreeg - John Hopkinson
 * Sergeant Zogroth
 * Voice of Zogroth - Ned Porteous
 * Major Singh - Ronak Patani
 * Colonel Chan - Jamie Hayden
 * Fudge Merchandani - Dara Lall
 * BBC reporter - Matt Green
 * Chief technician - Anna Martine Freeman
 * Sergeant - Archie Backhouse
 * Soldier - Isabella Carey
 * Lad - Harley McEvilly
 * Lad - Max Fincham

Uncredited cast
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Worldbuilding
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 * Rose Noble's toy designs appear to be based on a Dalek, a Cyberman of the Cyberiad, a Judoon, an Ood, an Adipose, and a Lupari.
 * The psychic paper takes time to properly reflect the Doctor's gender in titles; especially if the change was recent. When the Doctor attempts the title "Master", it says "Mistress" instead.
 * Wilfred Mott, due to being ninety-four years old and is unable to use the stairs in their home, has to stay in a cottage as "sheltered accommodation".
 * While the Nobles couldn't afford it, UNIT made an offer to cover most of the expenses, as Kate said she'd look after him as he was an "old soldier".
 * Rose Noble was born under the dead name of Jason.
 * Rose points out the Doctor assumes Meep's pronouns; bringing up gender identity. This makes sense as Rose is a transgender woman.

Comparison with comic version
Doctor Who and the Star Beast is also a comic strip story by Pat Mills and John Wagner, which featured the Fourth Doctor meeting Sharon Davies after she had been tricked by Beep the Meep, with The Star Beast featuring the Fourteenth Doctor meeting Rose Noble during a reunion with Donna Noble that involves a Meep.

Myths
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Filming locations
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Production errors
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Influences
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Continuity

 * Although not explicit at the time of release, the Redacted audio drama leads directly into The Star Beast, as the characters Cleo Proctor and Apex Costa watch the Meep's star cruiser fly through the skies of Camden Town.
 * Doctor Who The Official Annual 2024 contained several works of fiction which teased some of the characters in The Star Beast:
 * The short story hinted towards the reunion of the Nobles and the Doctor, and Rose meeting the Meep.
 * The Doctor mentions "wearing a bowtie", being "a Scotsman". and "a woman" in his last three incarnations.
 * Bingham briefly mistakes the Fourteenth Doctor for the Tenth, referencing his involvement with UNIT in, etc.
 * The TARDIS surprises the Doctor with a new console room, which it had previously done in and.
 * The Doctor carries a Barrister's Wig and conducts a trial like his fourth incarnation in.

Home media releases
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Gallery
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