They attempt to reach the Doctor by amplifying the Sub-Wave signal; Sarah Jane uses her supercomputer Mr Smith's computing power, and Jack and his Torchwood team members Gwen and Ianto manipulate the Cardiff Rift.

[6] Several of these thematic motifs are used as major plot points: the significance of disappearance of bees, the Medusa Cascade, and the Shadow Proclamation are explained in the episode.

Its epic scale—including the threat of the destruction of reality and large number of guest stars—was required to compensate for Doctor Who's reduced airtime in 2009 and the imminent departure of producers Davies, Julie Gardner, and Phil Collinson between mid-2008 and early 2010.

Prosthetics: Judoon, Slitheen, the Graske, the Moxx of Balhoon, Sisters of the Wicker Place Mat, plus a new female alien, a wise old counsellor, head of the space conference.

[10] Midshipman Alonso Frame (Russell Tovey), who appeared in "Voyage of the Damned", was present as part of the Shadow Proclamation in several drafts of the episode.

[...] These emails do influence things, definitely, because I'm thinking, no, destroying New York is a bad choice.Several days before he started writing the episode, he received a call from Bernard Cribbins, who proposed a scene in which his character, Wilfred Mott, would fire a paintball pellet at a Dalek's eyestalk.

[13][23] The Shadow Proclamation—defined in the script as an intergalactic police force that occupied a "huge installation, metal sci-fi towers ranged across a series of linked asteroids, hanging in space, like a Roger Dean painting"[2]—originally featured "every creature [the revival of the show] ever had"[24] and a cameo by Blon Fel-Fotch Pasameer-Day "Margaret Blaine" Slitheen (Annette Badland) as a Jingatheen (a Raxicoricofallapatorian family) toddler: 47: INT.

Baby Slitheen talks with the voice of Margaret Blaine: The number of monsters and the Proclamation's bureaucratic nature would anger the Doctor and cause Alonso Frame—now employed as a "Shadow Soldier"—to aid him in filling out paperwork.

[25] The Doctor would win the argument by overloading the Judoon's translator machines (because he could speak six million languages simultaneously) and order them to allow him to see the Shadow Architect immediately.

[30] Davies' submitted script was over the budget afforded for special effects, so he was required to cut the scene, even though Annette Badland had already recorded dialogue for her cameo.

[7] Davies' scriptwriting was affected by the development of a head cold and overrunning script constraints; he was annoyed that he had written "dialogue [he had] been dying to write" with a "faint heart" because he would have to cut it.

[35] These problems affected his first draft of the Doctor's conversation with his companions and encounter with Davros; he dismissed it as "lame shit" which would waste licence-payers' money,[35] and replaced it with a different version hours later.

He compared the reunion between Rose and the Doctor to "the biggest romance [the viewer] has ever seen" and joked that seminal films such as Gone with the Wind should have ended with a Dalek shooting the male lead,[1] and intensified the scene's emotional impact through Piper's cameos throughout the fourth series.

[41] 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".

[7] Davros was kept as a contingency plan for several occasions: the character would have appeared in "The Parting of the Ways" if the Emperor Dalek prop was too expensive; and was "even a possibility" to reside in the titular prison in "The Satan Pit".

[46] Davies cast Julian Bleach to portray Davros after his performances in his Olivier Award-winning play Shockheaded Peter and as the Ghostmaker in the Torchwood episode "From Out of the Rain".

After he was informed that the production designer for Genesis of the Daleks wanted the headpiece to resemble a medical brace, Gorton redesigned it to appear to be "screwed directly into [Davros'] head".

[46] Davies explained the use of the leather tunic and the exposed ribcage in Doctor Who Magazine issue 401:Seriously, Davros is meant to be horrific, and we've had so many withered geniuses in sci-fi lately–like Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars–that I needed something to make everyone sit up and realise that this man is the King of Horror: the original and the best!

[2][55] The Doctor and Rose's reunion was filmed on 13 March in Penarth town centre,[location 8] in front of two hundred people;[44][56] consequently, the scene was leaked onto the Internet and reported in the next day's edition of The Sun.

Sutcliffe expressed disbelief at the idea that O'Grady would continue to film his talk show, and with a studio audience, in the midst of planetary disaster, but nevertheless praised the cameos.

Wright complimented the way the episode was keeping with tradition, specifically aspects such as: "Daleks trundling around spaceships having shouty conversations with each other"; "UNIT [being] as useless as ever at repelling alien marauders", and the visual appearance of Davros.

He also thought positively of the final scenes; he commented that "the most flint-hearted must have had a misty eye as Rose found her Time Lord again and they ran towards each other in candy box slow-mo" and he cheered when the "outpouring of romance was brought to an end, as it should be in Doctor Who, by a big Dalek gun".

Upon closing, he commended Davies for being "an expert at delivering jaw-dropping finales that give each season a sense of cohesion and up the stakes to almost unbearable levels", and thought that matching the episode's quality would be a "tough task".

He described the storyline as "fast-moving, bursting [with] excitement" and said that it contained "everything you would expect to see from an adventure comprising of all companions and a new Dalek empire" and "acts as the ultimate climax to four years of storytelling and will leave you with goose bumps for the full 42 minutes."

Blair was impressed with how Torchwood and Doctor Who crossed over when their original target demographics dictated it "should never have happened", and commended scenes that depicted Gwen's concern for her husband Rhys, Ianto watching The Paul O'Grady Show, and Sarah's and Jack's emotional response to the Dalek transmission.

He asked: "Surely not even Russell T Davies, who seems obsessed with filling episodes with celebrity cameos and John Barrowman, wouldn't be so maverick as to change his lead actor half way through a season finale?"

Simon Brew of science-fiction blog Den of Geek commented that "If the aim of a really well done Doctor Who cliffhanger is to leaving you screaming ["no"] at the screen and frantically checking the calendar for the next episode, then it's fair to say that Russell T Davies has just managed to tick that box."

Brew thought the ensemble of companions "separated the great actors from the good": he complimented Sladen's and Cribbins's portrayal of fear; and he criticised UNIT, Torchwood, and the Doctor for uncharacteristically admitting defeat.

He closed his review by expressing hope that "Journey's End" didn't end like "Last of the Time Lords" and said:[87] To say that The Stolen Earth eclipsed the equivalent episode last year would be no understatement whatsoever, and to also note that it's generated an enthusiasm and excitement for next week already would be showing yet more restraint.Charlie Jane Anders of the science fiction blog io9 called Davies "the gay Michael Bay" and "wished for the first time that Davies would stay on to produce a fifth season" of Doctor Who.

Closing her review, she expressed excitement for "Journey's End", saying the final scene left her with a "feeling like [she had] no clue how it could be resolved, even using crazy RTD logic".