The Doctor, Rose, and Jack take a trip to the early 21st century — where the biggest monsters aren’t aliens, but humanity… plus one bloke from the Stone Age who’s really not ready for reality TV.
Short Synopsis
When a time portal dumps a prehistoric human into modern-day Bromley (poor bloke), the Doctor, Rose, and Captain Jack uncover a future experiment gone spectacularly wrong. Meanwhile, in the far future, humanity’s gotten so advanced it’s basically forgotten how to human — and someone’s been rewriting history for fun.
Extended Storyline
The TARDIS trio decide to stop somewhere “normal” for once. Which, naturally, means something’s about to explode. In this case, it’s not an alien armada but a bit of temporal weirdness in suburban England — a time ripple dropping a Neanderthal named Das straight into the 21st century. He’s hairy, confused, and somehow still more polite than most commuters on the Tube.
While Rose and Jack take on the task of teaching Das the joys of deodorant and breakfast cereal, the Doctor goes poking around the temporal rift that brought him here. What he finds is a future tech signal — the sort of thing that shouldn’t exist unless someone’s been tampering with time (again). Following the trail forward, he lands in the 429th century, where humanity has evolved into something sleek, smug, and utterly insufferable.
These “post-humans” are smarter, stronger, and so genetically refined that basic emotions — and basic compassion — are practically optional. Think Silicon Valley meets the Borg, with better cheekbones. But among them are the "Exodons," a group of humans who’ve gone rogue and are performing dangerous experiments on prehistoric people, treating time travel like a particularly cruel safari.
The Doctor, naturally, is furious — in that tightly-coiled, Northern way that suggests he’s about ten seconds from exploding with righteous anger. He teams up with an unexpectedly decent post-human scientist named Chantal to stop the Exodons from rewriting evolution itself. Meanwhile, back on 21st-century Earth, Rose and Jack try to integrate Das into modern society, leading to several awkward misunderstandings about technology, fashion, and why everyone stares at their phones like hypnotized meerkats.
Eventually, the Doctor uncovers the Exodons’ big plan: to “upgrade” early humanity by inserting advanced DNA, essentially creating an artificial evolutionary leap. Which, as he points out, tends to go about as well as “Operation: Let’s Play God” ever does. Cue moral confrontation, frantic running, a bit of timey-wimey tinkering, and one thoroughly satisfying defeat for the future fascists.
By the end, Das chooses to stay in the modern world — proof that sometimes, humanity’s heart can beat stronger than its head. The Doctor, Rose, and Jack depart, leaving behind a few wiser scientists, a slightly bewildered Neanderthal, and several unanswered questions about who’s really evolved.