1×19 May 2, 1997
SONG OF THE SPACE WHALE (Serial 13, Episode 1)
Setting: Inside a Space Whale, 24th Century
Regular Cast: Hugh Laurie (The Doctor), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Lizzie Thompson)
Guest Starring: Christopher Liam Moore (Tova Veer), Nancy Youngblut (Taleen), Kate Mulgrew (Janeway)
Plot: The Doctor parks the TARDIS in deep space to do some stargazing via the TARDIS’s planetarium dome. Too late, Lizzie sees an approaching object, which turns out to be a Space Whale: a gigantic creature adapted to live in the vacuum of space, feeding on the energy fields of radioactive materials and derelict space probes. Mistaking the TARDIS for an energy-rich asteroid, the creature swallows it, and its energy-extracting abilities disable the timeship. The travelers discover a breathable atmosphere when the TARDIS crashes in a cavity inside the whale, and emerge to find themselves in the town of Megaptera, a shanty built out of the remains of the many spacecraft and debris consumed by the whale. Despite the protests of the Megapterans that escape is impossible, the Doctor tries to find a way to move the TARDIS far enough from the whale’s stomach to restore power. Eventually, he succeeds in finding a passage to the whale’s blow-hole, where he discovers evidence of a second settlement. Before he can return to Megaptera, the whale sneezes, expelling the Doctor into open space. He is saved from suffocation by a ship which has been tracking the whale, commanded by the hard-bitten Captain Janeway. She has been hunting the whale for many years, considering it a navigational hazard to the space lanes. The Doctor believes she mostly wants to harvest the whale’s organs for their energy processing abilities. He tells her about the Megapterans, but Janeway is resolved to kill the whale at any cost. When she attempts to fire a killing shot at a weak spot on the whale, the Doctor sabotages her ship with his sonic screwdriver. Enraged, Janeway orders the Doctor executed, but the frightened whale attacks the ship, disabling it. In exchange for his life, the Doctor offers to repair the ship, but is unable to restore power before the space whale swallows it whole.