Voyage of the Damned (Doctor Who)
"Voyage of the Damned" is an episode of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. First broadcast on BBC One on 25 December 2007, it is the third Doctor Who Christmas special since the show's revival in 2005. The episode was written by Russell T Davies and directed by James Strong. In the episode, the alien businessman Max Capricorn (George Costigan) seeks revenge on his company after it votes him out. He sets a starship replica of the RMS Titanic on a collision course with Earth to frame the board of directors for killing the humans on Earth. The episode features the only performance in Doctor Who by the Australian singer and actress Kylie Minogue, who plays the waitress Astrid Peth. Davies described her casting as a "very exceptional case", having written the part of Astrid specifically for Minogue. On its original airdate Christmas 2007, "Voyage of the Damned" was watched by 13.31 million viewers, the highest viewing figure for Doctor Who since the 1979 serial City of Death and still the highest viewership of any episode since the show's revival. It was the second most-watched programme of 2007, beaten only by the episode of EastEnders which aired immediately after it. Critical opinion about the episode was divided; the writing and Minogue's performance were both praised and criticised. Plot The TARDIS has collided with a ship called the Titanic. To investigate further, the Tenth Doctor runs the TARDIS's self-repair programme and boards the Titanic, which the Doctor discovers is an interstellar cruiser from the planet Sto. Modelled after the Earth ocean liner of the same name, the ship is orbiting present-day Earth to observe "primitive cultures"—specifically, Christmas. The Doctor decides to stow away, and joins a party of aliens including the waitress Astrid Peth on a brief excursion to London. However, the populace of London fled in fear because of extraterrestrial attacks over the previous two Christmases. After the party return from the excursion, the ship's captain, Hardaker, sabotages the ship by engineering its collision with three meteors. The resulting collision kills most of the passengers on board and draws the ship to an extinction level collision with Earth. The Doctor makes contact with Midshipman Frame, a crew member who survived the collision, to help him stabilise the ship. En route to the bridge, the Doctor's party are repeatedly attacked by the Host, androids resembling angels who were programmed to kill the survivors. The Doctor breaks from the party and attempts to reach the control point for the Host. He is taken to the Host's leader, former cruise line owner Max Capricorn, who is a head attached to a mobile life support unit. Capricorn was bitter about being forced out of his own company and plotted the Titanic's inevitable collision with Earth to bankrupt the company by framing the board of directors for murder; the terminally ill Captain Hardaker's part was secured by promising financial support for his family. To save the Doctor, Astrid rams Capricorn with a forklift,