The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), Rose (Billie Piper) and Jack (John Barrowman) narrowly escape the zombie plague victims in Albion Hospital by using some clever moves and Jack’s disruptor pistol to exit through the floor. They stumble upon the mysterious Room 802, where they learn that the ‘empty child’ was infected with whatever the Chula transport ship was carrying. However, the child is now following them again.

Nancy blackmails the owner of a home she was stealing into giving her food for the children and some wirecutters, as she plans on breaking into the crash site herself. She is caught by the officers at the crash site, however, and chained to a desk alongside a young man who also has the plague, and who starts to change before her eyes into a gas-masked zombie. However, she puts the officer to sleep with a lullaby.

Meanwhile, Jack teleports himself out of the hospital, but the Doctor and Rose are still trapped – and later pulled out via the teleporter in Jack’s ship while she’s teaching the Time Lord how to dance (or so she thinks). The three then go to the crash site, where they find Nancy... just as the rest of the soldiers there start to change. The Doctor realises that the Chula transport ship was carrying nanobots, microscopic robots that heal damaged tissue; unfortunately, without a proper pattern to base their work on, they used the young boy – Nancy’s son, Jamie – as a model, and are now turning everyone they come into contact with into something like him.

As the zombies march on the crash site, the Doctor learns how to manipulate the nanobots. Nancy tells the boy that she’s his mummy, and the nanobots inside him recognize her for the ‘superior’ human model, and clear him. The Doctor then focuses all the nanobot energy on the zombies, freeing them from ‘death’ and allowing everyone to live.

However, Jack’s initial con is suddenly coming to fruition; before a German bomb destroys the crash site, which was always foretold by history, Jack takes his ship and captures the bomb, then takes it out into space. A malfunction doesn’t allow him to jettison it, but before certain death in deep space, the TARDIS rescues him. The Doctor and Rose welcome Jack as part of their crew.

Extras

• Screen Caps

Thanks to Outpost Gallifrey for the story synopsis.