Re-running through corridors: The Unquiet Dead

Aired on 9th April 2005

Written by Mark Gatiss

Produced by Phil Collinson

Directed by Euros Lyn

Synopsis

Victorian Cardiff - 1869. In the Undertakers of Sneed and Company, an old lady who is supposed to be dead happens to re-animate with a strange blue ghostly light, kills her son and escapes the funeral home. The Undertaker calls for his servant girl, Gwyneth and moans "not again".

The Doctor, having shown Rose the far future decides to take her to the past. He tries to get her to Naples on Christmas Eve 1860, but instead she ends up in Cardiff 1869. He encourages her to change into period clothing and remarks that she looks "beautiful". He takes her off into the streets to explore.

It's not long before the pair find people screaming. The source is a local theatre where none other than Charles Dickens is performing his tale "A Christmas Carol". It is here that the corpse of the old woman has gone.

Not far behind them, Mr Sneed and Gwyneth turn up to grab the old woman and bring her quietly back. Rose gets too involved and panicking, Sneed chloroforms her and bundles her back to the morgue.

The Doctor hijacks a lift from a stupefied Charles Dickens' coach and off they go to find the old woman and Rose. Dickens is angry and confused but soon mellows when the Doctor tells him how brilliant he is.

Rose meanwhile wakes up in the morgue to find the old woman and now her dead son have both risen and are approaching her.

The Doctor turns up with Charles and they barge past Sneed and Gwyneth to find the corpses risen. They speak of a need to "pity the Gelth" and leave the bodies, going into the gas lamps around the room.

The group all sit down and Sneed explains that the house has always been reported as haunted which is good for his business. The Doctor explains that this haunting is actually from the house being built upon a crack in time and space called the rift. These beings are actually aliens from another dimension. Charles cannot accept this and storms off.

After tea, Rose speaks to Gwyneth who reveals she is gifted with the "sight". She is an orphan who Sneed took in and has grown up around these strange on-goings. She knows somehow that Rose is from the future and exclaims she can see her feelings, remarking about the "big bad wolf". The Doctor, catching this, asks Gwyneth to help him contact them through a séance.

The group all sit round and contact the Gelth. It's not long before they manifest through Gwyneth.

They explain they are a dying race - their bodies were destroyed in the last great time war and they need help to open the rift. They request the use of the dead bodies around them so they can embody the physical realm again. Rose is adamant that's wrong but the Doctor is stubborn and says he's helping save a race from extinction and using the bodies is fine. Rose protests but Gwyneth counts these things as her angels and vows to help them.

Gwyneth stands in the archway of the morgue and contacts the Gelth with her mind. They come to her and begin opening the rift.

All of a sudden, they change from blue spectral flame to a bright orange demonic fire. They claim they number a few billion and are coming to take over the universe.

Sneed tries to stop Gwyneth but is killed by having his neck snapped. The ghosts begin to inhabit bodies and the dead begin to rise and come after them all, backing the Doctor and Rose into a corner cell. Dickens meanwhile flees in terror and incomprehension.

The Doctor apologises to Rose as the dead claw at them, and laments that after all he's seen, he's going to die in a basement in Cardiff.

Dickens outside, sees the gas lights flicker and it inspires him to have a solution. He returns to the house and turns up all the gas, filling the room with it. The Doctor catches on, telling Rose that the influx of gas will draw the Gelth out of the bodies into the air. This is exactly what happens and together they all run out.

The Doctor hesitates and checks Gwyneth before going with him. He strikes a match and the undertakers explodes, destroying the rift opening and the bodies inside. Rose is sad that Gwyneth died inside there, but the Doctor sadly states that she died the second she opened the rift - he felt her pulse and she was gone.

Together, the Doctor, Rose and Charles Dickens walk to the TARDIS. The latter is cured of his depression and wants to go on to write again. He thanks them both and is flummoxed at them entering the Doctor's cupboard.

He is however amazed that the thing disappears in front of his eyes.

Onboard, Rose asks the Doctor if he's concerned that Dickens will tell people, but he isn't - the following year is the year Dickens dies. He is if anything happy that he managed to inspire an old mind to new things.

Trivia

Originally, this story was to be somewhat darker and serious, hinting at a death of Gwyneth's younger brother but Russel T Davies asked for it to be lighter

Although there's no official link between them, Eve Myles went on from Gwyneth to play Gwen Cooper in Torchwood. The Doctor and Rose when they meet her suggest an echo from the time rift imprinting itself on Gwen

Mr Sneed was originally meant to be a younger character, and David Tenant was considered for the part. Luckily, that changed.

Another change was the removal from the script a scene where the Doctor takes Rose to a devastated 2005 to show her the timeline can be re-written as a cause of their interference, just like Pyramids of Mars. It was felt that this drew too much away from the story though so it was left out

Simon Callow is somewhat of a Dickens expert. He has played him many times on TV, has written about him and performed as him on stage. He was the perfect choice to play him in this episode.

The mortuary is in Llandaff, which is both the area of Cardiff where the Doctor Who production offices were based, and the birthplace of Terry Nation.

The Review

This episode as with Rose, shows the true power behind the new series of Doctor Who. As this blog will show, I think there's nothing wrong with old Doctor Who, but the core beliefs and turmoil of this Doctor are all laid to bare within the story.

The Victorian Séance and obsession with the occult are easy strings to pluck for a compelling story, and both are used to great effect to create not only a historic story, but an attempt to make a scary one too. This fits right in there with the golden age of Doctor Who with the Talons of Weng Chiang and Horror of Fang Rock, but the only difference is that where in the classic stories, the Doctor is perhaps more willing to consider (and therefore play up to the audience) the prospect of a supernatural mystery, here the Doctor from the start is confident of alien involvement. Whilst this could dampen the story, instead, the team inject an ongoing mystery into the mix to hint at a huge amount of trauma that the Doctor is undergoing.

If I was to say anything wrong with this story, it would be that the Doctor selectively doesn't worry and is sure about Dickens keeping to his timeline but similarly seems to think that everything will work out fine in bringing over the Gelth when there's clearly no re-animated corpses in 2005. This can be put down to his guilt and shame over the Time War resulting in wishful thinking, so there's some leeway that needs to be granted.

Overall, this story after Rose is the definite point of call for the future Doctor Who stories- a must see and a pleasure to go through, told with compassion and traditional horror values.

Rating

10 out of 10!

Re-Watchability Factor

9 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...