Episodes Broadcast: 2005

Born in Ireland, Joe Ahearne made a splash at the 1994 Edinburgh Festival with his short film Latin For A Dark Room. He was soon recruited to television, writing and directing for the drama This Life and then creating the vampire thriller Ultraviolet. Following the turn of the century, Ahearne directed for Dark Realm and Strange before making five Doctor Who episodes in 2005, featuring Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor. They included Robert Shearman's Dalek, which made the title monster scary for a brand-new generation of viewers, and The Parting Of The Ways, which culminated in the Ninth Doctor's regeneration.

Ahearne was reunited with Eccleston on the 2006 telefilm Perfect Parents, before he created Apparitions, on which he received his first credit as an executive producer. He began an association with Marvel Comics in 2009, scripting several issues involving the Fantastic Four family of characters. In the 2010s, Ahearne wrote and directed The Secret Of Crickley Hall and The Replacement, while other scripts included an episode of Da Vinci's Demons. His first movie screenplay was 2013's Trance for Danny Boyle, adapting his 2001 telefilm of the same name. Ahearne returned to the silver screen in 2017, writing and directing the thriller B&B, which starred Eighth Doctor Paul McGann.