Some clips from the ninth episode of the Doctor Who 2024 series, Empire of Death, were released on official media.

The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) has lost. His ageless enemy, the One Who Waited, Sutekh (Gabriel Woolf) reigns supreme and The TARDIS is in his grasp. The Earth is dying and shadow, sand and death are spreading over creation. Nothing can stop the devastation… except, perhaps, one woman. Far away, on a distant planet with no name, a kind woman (Sian Clifford) waits with a vital object. As reality itself teeters on the brink, can the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby (Millie Gibson) save everything that is, was, and ever will be? Or will all life perish under the reign of Sutekh?

“Now I know every beat of the heart of your Time Machine. And I can bend it to my will. It will stand as my altar. The Temple of my Empire of Death… Never yours again, Doctor. Never.”

UNIT opens fire as Harbinger (Genesis Lynea) stands in front of the TARDIS.

Harbinger takes control of the TARDIS, which has been seduced and usurped by Sutekh.

The Doctor and Mel Bush (Bonnie Langford) escape Triad Technology on a Vespa as a cloud of sand, dust and death begins to engulf London.

Meanwhile, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) is has returned to the Time Window at the Doctor’s instruction. Though believed broken, the Time Window takes her back to 2004 to the church on Ruby Road to see the mysterious cloaked figure she believes to be her mother. Does the Time Window protect her and Corporal Sullivan (Jasmine Bayes) from the battle happening at UNIT ops?

The Doctor and Mel arrive and the Doctor declares to an unseen entity, “I swear to you, with both the hearts of the last of the Time Lords, I will stop you!”

Mrs Flood (Anita Dobson) continues to look after Cherry Sunday (Angela Wynter) despite her forbidding heel-turn in The Legend of Ruby Sunday. Will Cherry get her cup of tea? There are more concerning events than thirst happening in London.

The Memory TARDIS shows the Doctor a ruined Earth and solar system.

The Doctor travels to a desolate planet incognito. Who he meets there makes him smile. Is it the kind woman (Sian Clifford)? Who is this kind woman?

The Doctor and Ruby manage to regroup and are on a mission to save the universe. Everything is covered in dust and sand.

Mel is on a mission of her own.

The Fifteenth Doctor’s TARDIS was compromised and inaccessible yet the Doctor and Ruby travel in a TARDIS. Which TARDIS? Has the fifteenth Doctor’s TARDIS been restored? The Fourteenth Doctor’s TARDIS doesn’t have a jukebox. Is it the Memory TARDIS manifesting the memory of the Fifteenth Doctor’s TARDIS? How will the Doctor save, the TARDIS, Earth and the universe when so much destruction has already occurred? Not everyone survives the devastation.

Written by Russell T Davies and directed by Jamie Donoughue, Empire of Death will stream on 22 June 2024 midnight, 00:00 BST (21 June 7:00pm ET) on BBC iPlayer in the UK and Ireland and Disney+ everywhere else, where available. Empire of Death will also broadcast on BBC One in the UK on 22 June at 6:40pm.