It was 2005. Most of us were just getting used to the idea that Christopher Eccleston was the Doctor, and then he landed a spaceship in the Thames. Not just any spaceship. A massive, clunky, terrifyingly realistic vessel that smashed through Big Ben. If you were watching Doctor Who Aliens of London back then, you probably remember the sheer scale of it. It felt huge.
But looking back? It’s a bizarre, chaotic, and deeply political piece of television that basically set the template for how the modern show handles a global crisis.
Russell T. Davies didn't just want to show us a monster. He wanted to show us how the 24-hour news cycle would lose its mind if an alien crashed in London. It’s gritty. It’s cynical. Honestly, it’s a bit gross too. We got farting aliens in zip-up human skins, which, yeah, was a choice. But if you look past the Slitheen gas jokes, there is a surprisingly sharp satire about government transparency and war-mongering that hits differently in the 2020s.
The Slitheen and the Art of the "Family Business"
The Slitheen aren't your typical world-conquerors. They aren't the Daleks looking for purity or the Cybermen looking for efficiency. They’re basically cosmic grifters. They’re a family—the House of Slitheen—and they’re here for a profit. That’s it.
They killed the Prime Minister, stuffed a heavy-set MP into a cupboard, and then literally wore the skin of the British government. It’s a grotesque image. When you see Margaret Blaine (played by the brilliant Annette Badland) or Joseph Paterson’s character struggling with the "fit" of their human disguises, it's played for laughs, but the underlying horror is pretty palpable. They didn't invade with an army; they invaded with a bureaucratic loophole.
What really stands out about Doctor Who Aliens of London is how it treats the "expert" response. You’ve got UNIT showing up, but they’re almost immediately outmaneuvered. The Doctor is treated like a person of interest rather than a savior. It’s one of the first times in the "New Who" era where we see that the Doctor doesn't just walk into a room and get handed the keys to the kingdom. He has to prove he isn't a terrorist first.
That Big Ben Crash
Let’s talk about the ship. The visual of the spacecraft shearing off the side of the clock tower remains one of the most iconic shots of the 2000s era. It was a statement of intent. The show was saying: "We have the budget now, and we aren't afraid to break things."
👉 See also: Eazy-E: The Business Genius and Street Legend Most People Get Wrong
Actually, the production team used a mix of CGI and practical models for the crash. If you watch the behind-the-scenes footage from the old Doctor Who Confidential episodes, you can see how much they sweated over the lighting to make sure the ship felt heavy. It worked. It felt like a genuine national emergency, captured through the lens of fictional news reports from real-world journalists like Andrew Marr.
Rose Tyler’s "Ordinary" Drama
While the world is ending, Rose Tyler is dealing with the fact that she’s been missing for a year. This is where the episode shines. Most sci-fi shows would ignore the family dynamics, but RTD leans into it. Jackie Tyler (Camille Coduri) is devastated. She thinks her daughter was kidnapped or murdered.
When Rose walks back into that council estate flat, it’s not a triumphant return. It’s awkward. It’s painful. Mickey Smith has spent a year being the prime suspect in her "disappearance." The police have been hounding him. This is the grounded reality that made 2005 Doctor Who so successful. It wasn't just about the stars; it was about the consequences of leaving home.
Imagine being Mickey. You lose your girlfriend to a madman in a blue box, and then the whole neighborhood thinks you buried her in the woods. That’s dark stuff for a "family show."
The Satire of the "Red Alert"
The episode's sequel, World War Three, completes the arc, but Aliens of London does the heavy lifting for the setup. The Slitheen use the crash as a "false flag." They want the world to be terrified so they can gain access to the nuclear codes. They want to turn the Earth into a radioactive carcass and sell the remains as fuel.
It’s a literal fire sale.
✨ Don't miss: Drunk on You Lyrics: What Luke Bryan Fans Still Get Wrong
When the Doctor realizes that the "interplanetary conflict" is actually just a staged event to facilitate a weapons launch, the parallels to the then-recent Iraq War and the "dodgy dossier" were impossible to miss. It was bold. It was loud. It was deeply "of its time," yet the idea of a government manufacturing a crisis to further a private agenda feels more relevant now than it did twenty years ago.
Why the Farting Jokes Almost Ruined It (But Didn't)
Critics at the time—and many fans today—absolutely loathe the flatulence. The Slitheen "fart" because their human skins are too small for their massive calcium-based bodies. It causes a gas exchange.
Yes, it’s juvenile.
Yes, it takes the tension out of the room.
However, it also serves a purpose. It makes the monsters feel "biological" and messy. In the classic series, aliens were often stiff, polite, or purely robotic. The Slitheen are smelly, sweaty, and vulgar. They are the antithesis of the "noble alien." They are greedy hunters who enjoy the taste of human flesh. By making them "gross," the show differentiated them from the sleek, metallic threats we were used to.
Plus, let’s be honest: it kept the kids watching.
The Doctor’s Role as an Outsider
In this two-parter, we see the Ninth Doctor at his most frantic. Christopher Eccleston plays the Doctor with a raw, nervous energy. He’s not the whimsical professor yet. He’s a war survivor who is still trying to figure out if he even likes humans.
🔗 Read more: Dragon Ball All Series: Why We Are Still Obsessed Forty Years Later
When he’s trapped in the cabinet room with Harriet Jones (the legendary Penelope Wilton), we see the birth of a partnership that would change the show's lore forever. Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North. She wasn't supposed to be anyone. She was just a backbencher who stayed behind. But because she stayed, she became the architect of Britain’s Golden Age—until the Doctor eventually took her down.
The complexity here is great. The Doctor saves the world, but he does it by firing a missile at 10 Downing Street. He kills the "government" to save the planet. It’s a messy, violent solution that leaves Rose’s family terrified of him.
Actionable Insights for Fans and Rewatchers
If you’re planning to revisit Aliens of London or you’re diving into the lore for the first time, keep these specific details in mind to get the most out of the experience:
- Watch the background news crawls: The production team put a lot of effort into the fictional news tickers. They ground the alien invasion in a 24-hour media cycle that feels surprisingly modern.
- Observe the "Skin Suit" effects: Notice the zippers on the foreheads of the human disguises. It’s a subtle practical effect that looks far more disturbing in high definition than it did on old tube TVs.
- Track Harriet Jones' arc: This episode is her origin story. Pay attention to how her bravery here sets up her eventual role as Prime Minister in The Christmas Invasion.
- Analyze the Ninth Doctor’s trauma: Look at how Eccleston reacts to the prospect of nuclear war. Knowing now what we know about the Time War (which hadn't been fully explained in 2005), his desperation to stop the countdown carries a much heavier weight.
- Compare the pacing: Modern Doctor Who is often lightning-fast. Aliens of London takes its time. It spends almost twenty minutes just dealing with Rose’s homecoming before the ship even hits the water. It’s a masterclass in building tension through character work.
The Slitheen might not be the most "prestigious" villains in the Whoniverse, and the CGI of them running through corridors has aged like milk. But the heart of the story—a family trying to survive while the government is literally replaced by monsters—is some of the strongest writing in the show's history.
To truly understand the "RTD era" of the show, you have to understand this episode. It’s loud, it’s political, it’s a bit silly, and it’s fiercely human. It reminds us that even when the sky is falling, you still have to face your mom when you’ve been out too late. Or, in Rose’s case, out for a whole year.
If you're looking for the next step in your Doctor Who journey, your best move is to watch the immediate follow-up, World War Three, followed by the Season 1 episode Boom Town. This creates a "Slitheen Trilogy" that actually provides a surprisingly emotional redemption arc for one of the family members, proving that even the farting monsters of London have more depth than they first appear. For those interested in the political subtext, researching the UK's 2003 "September Dossier" provides the real-world context that inspired the Slitheen's hunt for the nuclear codes.