Davies decided to write a different story centred on bringing Badland's character back from the fourth and fifth episodes of the series, "Aliens of London" and "World War Three", as he had enjoyed her performances.

The Doctor observes Blaine's scale model plans for a new nuclear power plant, but realizes that it is purposely flawed to cause a meltdown that would open the Cardiff Rift and destroy the Earth.

The Doctor decides to take Blaine back to her home planet of Raxacoricofallapatorius, but she reveals that she has received a death sentence there and will be executed upon returning.

The Doctor, Blaine, Rose, and Jack regroup and find that the extrapolator was a trap meant to redirect the energy from the TARDIS into the Rift, rupturing it.

Jack and the Doctor are unable to stop the energy transfer, and Blaine takes Rose hostage and demands the extrapolator.

[1] Margaret says that as a child she was threatened with being fed to venom grubs; these creatures appeared in the First Doctor serial The Web Planet (1965).

[2] Abbott accepted and submitted a storyline, revealing that Rose had been bred by the Doctor as an experiment in creating a perfect companion.

[1][2] Davies wrote "Boom Town" instead, bringing back Badland as Blaine due to her performance in "Aliens of London" and "World War Three" being "brilliant", though she had few lines.

[4] The actor playing Mr Cleaver, William Thomas, had previously appeared as Martin the undertaker in the 1988 classic series story Remembrance of the Daleks.

The reviewer acknowledged that it "certainly misfires on some levels, and leaves various elements underdeveloped", but praised the moral dilemma, including the dinner scene.

[17] Digital Spy's Dek Hogan was more negative, feeling that it "really didn't work", calling bringing back Margaret a "poor idea", and he criticised the pace for dragging too much.

[18] In 2013, Patrick Mulkern of Radio Times particularly praised Badland and the dinner scene, though he described the whole episode as a "peculiar short-story, a low-cal filler sandwiched between the dramatic juggernauts of Steven Moffat's Doctor Who debut and Russell T Davies's dazzling finale.

Club reviewer Alasdair Wilkins gave the episode a grade of B, noting that it required more suspension of disbelief than usual.

He felt that the plot was included out of necessity while the episode was more focused on character moments, and that this did not work as well as "Father's Day" because Margaret's fate was "less clearly motivated."

is part of his nom de plume) called the episode "highly entertaining" and "thoughtful", despite not being well-plotted with an "unsatisfying" deus ex machina ending.

He felt that there were many good scenes but "no real story", and pointed out how the moral dilemma did not matter because the decision does not end up being in the Doctor's hands.