Episode 168: Boom Town.
Companions: 9th Doctor, Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness
Air Date: 4th June 2005.
The Ninth Doctor, and his companions, Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness travel to modern-day Cardiff and meet up with Rose's boyfriend, Mickey. There, they discover that their "enemy", Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen, is very much alive, if without an easy escape route from Earth, and is willing to rip apart the planet to ensure her freedom.
Boom Town is a sequel of sorts to Aliens of London / World War Three, as we learn that one of the Slitheen escaped at the end and is now hiding out in Cardiff plotting to escape the Earth, destroying it in the process. It is a very well thought out story that touches on the morality of the Doctor. Is he willing to kill, even second hand, a relatively "harmless" enemy? This plot element would never have come up before though it becomes fairly common throughout the new series.
Other than dealing with the Slitheen survivor, the adventure sets up the heart of the TARDIS for the season finale, and the Cardiff rift again for Torchwood. References are made back to The Unquiet Dead about the rift. It's a good fun episode but does feel more like a filler to set up future elements. I had the same issue with The Long Game but at least Boom Town has a self contained story and isn't so bad.
The time travellers get their first direct impression of the Bad Wolf meme in this story. The name of a local nuclear power plant is Welsh for Bad Wolf. Blon says that the name just came to her and the companions ignore it afterwards.
Boom Town has some interesting moral instances that we don't see previously. Does the punishment fit the crime if the punishment is going to be death? Can you take an individual back to their home world knowing full well that a painful execution awaits them? I'm not sure I could and you do see the Doctor and his friends wrestling with that question.
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