page_title: The Stolen Earth
section_title: Casting
hierarchical_section_title: The Stolen Earth / Production / Casting
caption_attribution_description: Richard Dawkins signing his book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution at an event at Kepler's Books in Menlo Park.
context_page_description: "The Stolen Earth" is the twelfth episode of the fourth series and the 750th overall episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 28 June 2008. The episode was written by show runner and head writer Russell T Davies and is the first of a two-part crossover story with spin-offs The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood; the concluding episode is "Journey's End", the finale of the fourth series, broadcast on 5 July.
  The finale's narrative brings closure to several prominent story arcs created during Davies' tenure as show runner. In the episode, contemporary Earth and 26 other planets are stolen by the Daleks, aided by their megalomaniacal creator Davros and a shattered but precognitive Dalek Caan. As the Doctor and his companion Donna Noble try to find Earth, his previous companions Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, and Rose Tyler convene to contact him and mount a defence against the Daleks. In the episode's climax, the Doctor is shot by a Dalek and begins to regenerate.
  The episode marks the first appearance of Davros since the 1988 serial Remembrance of the Daleks; he is portrayed by Julian Bleach.
context_section_description: The finale contains nineteen principal cast members, sixteen of whom appear in "The Stolen Earth". As a consequence of the episode's crossover nature, the episode is the first appearance of Gareth David-Lloyd as Ianto Jones and Tommy Knight as Luke Smith in Doctor Who. Eve Myles, who previously played Gwyneth in "The Unquiet Dead", makes her first appearance as the Torchwood female lead Gwen Cooper. The episode features many returning characters: Billie Piper, Freema Agyeman, Adjoa Andoh, John Barrowman, Nicholas Briggs, Elisabeth Sladen, and Penelope Wilton reprise roles for "The Stolen Earth". Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and comedian Paul O'Grady make cameo appearances on Torchwood's television screen; cameos by celebrities such as Davina McCall, Derek Acorah, and Ann Widdecombe had been a part of each penultimate episode since the show's revival. O'Grady was given a cameo after Davies heard that he was a fan of the show; and Dawkins was added to the script by Davies when Cook suggested him to portray the "elderly professor" on a Newsnight-style television programme discussing the new planets in the sky. Dawkins accepted because of his pre-existing association with Doctor Who; his wife Lalla Ward portrayed the second incarnation of the Time Lady Romana between 1979 and 1981. Gary Milner was cast as the extra "Scared Man" after misreading the callsheet as "Sacred Man" and creating a "priest-like" portrayal of the character. Andrew Bullivant—who portrayed the Milkman in the episode's cold open—was given a role in The Sarah Jane Adventures serial The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith as a policeman because of his performance in "The Stolen Earth". Michael Brandon later appeared in the audio play Lurkers at Sunlight's Edge. Kelly Hunter made a further appearance as the Shadow Architect in the opening episode of Series 9, "The Magician's Apprentice".
caption: Evolutionary biologist and humanist Richard Dawkins agreed to a cameo appearance because his wife, Lalla Ward, portrayed companion and Time Lady Romana in the late 1970s.
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