"The Empty Child" is the ninth episode of the first series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who, which was first broadcast on BBC One on 21 May 2005. It was directed by James Hawes, and was the first official episode written by Steven Moffat, who previously wrote the Comic Relief mini-episode "The Curse of Fatal Death" in 1999. He would later become the showrunner and main writer of Doctor Who from the fifth to tenth series. "The Empty Child" is the first of a two-part story, which continued and concluded with "The Doctor Dances", on 28 May.

The Ninth Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. He is portrayed by Christopher Eccleston during the first series of the show's revival in 2005.