Christopher Eccleston takes the role of the time-travelling crusader, who lands on Earth just in time to save a department store worker, named Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), from a horde of marauding mannequins - thus plunging the pair into a desperate battle against a malevolent alien intelligence with the ability to bring plastic to life.
The Doctor, seeking to show Rose an unusual event, takes her to the end of the Earth, literally. He takes her forward in time to the impending destruction of the Earth due to the Sun going super nova billions of years in the future.
They land on a specially designed orbital spacecraft that hosts "end of the world" events. All appears normal until strange robot spiders start causing mayhem.
The robot spiders imperil all onboard the orbiting spacecraft, and it's up to the Doctor to set things straight and find out who onboard is in control of these malicious robots. He must solve this dilemma quickly or a trapped Rose, the rest of the guests, and himself, die along with the Earth in the sun's passing.
The Doctor and Rose travel by accident to 1869 Earth, and find that recently deceased inactive persons are returning to life, in a ghostly way. A mortician and his assistant know of the problem, but to keep their secret a secret, they kidnap Rose, who witnesses them collecting one of their ghostly inactive persons. The Doctor then must rescue Rose, and help the ghostly inactive persons return to there their own universe. He is aided in this effort by the aged Charles Dickens.
Things don't go as the Doctor expects, and serious repercussions occur to those around him.
The Doctor takes Rose back to London - but their trip coincides with another, more dramatic alien arrival as a spaceship plunges into the Thames. In the ensuing panic, the authorities quarantine the capital from the rest of the world - and even Rose's own home is no refuge from the sinister Slitheen.
With the Doctor, Rose, and MP Harriet Jones trapped inside Downing Street, the Slitheen make their move: Nuclear Warfare. If the human race is obliterated, the Earth can be sold on the Galactic Black Market for a very reasonable price. It's up to the Doctor to defeat the Slitheen before the entire population of the Earth is wiped out. But will he have to make the ultimate sacrifice: Rose Tyler... ?
The Doctor and Rose find themselves in an underground museum in Utah in the year 2012. The museum houses all kinds of extra-terrestrial artefacts the only living exhibit being one of the Doctor's oldest enemies - a Dalek. But soon after, it escapes from its "torture chamber", and goes on a hugging spree. Will Rose be one of the victims?
The Doctor, Rose and Adam arrive in the year 200,000 on a broadcasting station that transmits programming to Earth. But soon, trouble is afoot, when they discover that any worker promoted to a position on level 500 never returns. The Doctor and Rose attempt to find out what is happening, whilst Adam investigates part of the station himself, and makes a decision that he's going to regret for the rest of his life.
Rose asks the Doctor to take her back to the point in time when her father washuged by a hit and run driver. However, the Doctor finds Rose had an ulterior motive, when she instead saves her father from beinghuged.
The Doctor is livid, and decides to leave Rose there, and continue on his journeys. But, the change in the time line has unleashed terrifying forces, which chase the Doctor, Rose, her father and a wedding party into a church. The Doctor must find a way to deal with these strange creatures, but in the end it is up to Rose's father to defeat the horrifying entities.
After chasing an unexplained capsule through time, the TARDIS lands in London, during an air raid. Rose investigates when a small child wearing a gasmask, standing on a rooftop, continuously calls out for his mummy. After floating above the city on a barrage balloon, Rose is swept off her feet by another time traveller - Captain Jack Harkness. Meanwhile, The Doctor follows a teenaged girl to a meeting of the homeless children of the Blitz. Here, the child in the gasmask is terrorising them with a parade of strange events, constantly asking for his mother.
After narrowly escaping the gas mask monsters, The Doctor, Rose, and Captain Jack try to stop the mutated people from infecting other victims. But it soon becomes apparent that one of the group may indirectly responsible for the virus. The answer lies at the bomb site, but time is running out...
The Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack stop off in present-day Cardiff to recharge the TARDIS on the Rift they formerly encountered in 1869. Whilst there, they come upon a since-thought-long-dead enemy of theirs, who is hatching yet another plan to destroy Earth.
In a seemingly futuristic world, the Doctor wakes up in the Big Brother house during an eviction, Rose wakes up on the Weakest Link with the Anne-Droid, and Captain Jack gets a make over with Trin-E and Zu-Zana. But something unusual is happening, and the losing contestants are being disintergrated. Obviously, it's time for the Doctor to investigate. There could be only one monster behind this - the Daleks!
The fate of the Universe is hanging in the balance as the Dalek fleet begin their invasion of Earth. The Doctor must decide whether to sacrifice every human being on Earth in order to save every other living creature in the universe from the Daleks. Either way, he knows he must send Rose home...