Doctor who the unquiet dead

Season #1 Episode #3

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[Chapel of Rest]

(A small altar with a cross on it flanked by a pair of candles. The rest of the room is also candle-lit and there are arum lilies in vases by an open coffin. The bald Welsh undertaker lights the gas lamp then speaks to his client.)

SNEED:
Sneed and Company offer their sincerest condolences, sir, in this most trying hour.

REDPATH:
Grandmamma had a good innings, Mister Sneed. She was so full of life. I can't believe she's gone.

SNEED:
Not gone, Mister Redpath, sir. Merely sleeping.

REDPATH:
May I have a moment?

SNEED:
Yes, of course. I shall be in the next room, should you require anything.

(Sneed leaves. The man gazes down the corpse of his mother. Her skin turns blue for a moment then her eyes open. She grabs her son by the throat and knocks over a vase. The crash brings Sneed back in.)

SNEED:
Oh, no. No.

(Sneed frees Redpath from the woman's grasp, forces her down and tries to put the coffin lid on.)

SNEED:
Gwyneth! Get down here now! We've got another one!

(The vigorous corpse pushes the lid off, knocking Sneed out, and kicks her way out of the coffin side. She walks down the snow-covered street, groaning, and with blue vapour coming from her screaming mouth.)

[Tardis]

(The Tardis is in a rather jerky flight.)

DOCTOR:
Hold that one down!

ROSE:
I'm holding this one down.

DOCTOR:
Well, hold them both down.

ROSE:
It's not going to work.

(Rose tries to stretch across half the console.)

DOCTOR:
Oi! I promised you a time machine and that's what you're getting. Now, you've seen the future, let's have a look at the past. 1860. How does 1860 sound?

ROSE:
What happened in 1860?

DOCTOR:
I don't know, let's find out. Hold on, here we go!

[Kitchen]

SNEED:
Gwyneth! Where are you, girl? Gwyneth!

(Gwyneth comes in from outside. Everyone say Hi! to Eve Myles.)

SNEED:
Where've you been? I was shouting.

GWYNETH:
I've been in the stables, sir, breaking the ice for old Sampson.

SNEED:
Well, get back in there and harness him up.

GWYNETH:
Whatever for, sir?

SNEED:
The stiffs are getting lively again. Mister Redpath's grandmother, she's up and on her feet and out there somewhere on the streets. We've got to find her.

GWYNETH:
Mister Sneed, for shame. How many more times? It's ungodly.

SNEED:
Don't look at me like it's my fault. Now, come on, hurry up. She was eighty six. She can't have got far.

GWYNETH:
What about Mister Redpath? Did you deal with him?

SNEED:
No. She did.

GWYNETH:
That's awful, sir. I know it's not my place, and please, forgive me for talking out of turn, sir. But this is getting beyond, now. Something terrible is happening in this house, and we've got to get help.

SNEED:
And we will, as soon as I get that dead old woman locked up and safe and sound. Now stop prevaricating, girl. Get the hearse ready. We're going body snatching.

[Tardis]

(The Tardis materialises at the end of a snowy street. The Doctor and Rose are lying on the floor. It must have been a rough landing.)

ROSE:
Blimey!

DOCTOR:
You're telling me. Are you all right?

ROSE:
Yeah. I think so. Nothing broken. Did we make it? Where are we?

DOCTOR:
I did it. Give the man a medal. Earth, Naples, December 24th, 1860.

ROSE:
That's so weird. It's Christmas.

DOCTOR:
All yours.

ROSE:
But, it's like, think about it, though. Christmas. 1860. Happens once, just once and it's gone, it's finished, it'll never happen again. Except for you. You can go back and see days that are dead and gone a hundred thousand sunsets ago. No wonder you never stay still.

DOCTOR:
Not a bad life.

ROSE:
Better with two. Come on, then.

DOCTOR:
Hey, where do you think you're going?

ROSE:
1860.

DOCTOR:
Go out there dressed like that, you'll start a riot, Barbarella. There's a wardrobe through there. First left, second right, third on the left, go straight ahead, under the stairs, past the bins, fifth door on your left. Hurry up!

[Hearse]

(Old Sampson and his partner are pulling the hearse slowly down the street.)

SNEED:
Not a sign. Where is she?

GWYNETH:
She's vanished into the ether, sir. Where can she be?

SNEED:
You tell me, girl.

GWYNETH:
What do you mean?

SNEED:
Gwyneth, you know full well.

GWYNETH:
No, sir. I can't.

SNEED:
Use the sight.

GWYNETH:
It's not right, sir.

SNEED:
Find the old lady or you're dismissed. Now, look inside, girl. Look deep. Where is she?

GWYNETH:
She's lost, sir. She's so alone. Oh, my lord. So many strange things in her head.

SNEED:
But where?

GWYNETH:
She's excited about tonight. Before she passed on, she was going to see him.

SNEED:
Who's him?

GWYNETH:
The great man. All the way from London. The great, great man.

[Dressing room]

MAN:
Mister Dickens, Mister Dickens. Excuse me, sir, Mister Dickens. This is your call. Are you quite well, sir?

DICKENS:
Splendid, splendid. Sorry.

(Everyone say Hi! to Simon Callow.)

MAN:
Time you were on, sir.

DICKENS:
Absolutely. I was just brooding. Christmas Eve. Not the best of times to be alone.

MAN:
Did no one travel with you, sir? No lady wife waiting out front?

DICKENS:
I'm afraid not.

MAN:
You can have mine if you want.

DICKENS:
Oh, I wouldn't dare. I've been rather, let's say, clumsy, with family matters. Thank God I'm too old to cause any more trouble.

MAN:
You speak as though it's all over, sir.

DICKENS:
No, it's never over. On and on I go, the same old show. I'm like a ghost, condemned to repeat myself for all eternity.

MAN:
It's never too late, sir. You can always think up some new turns.

DICKENS:
No, I can't. Even my imagination grows stale. I'm an old man. Perhaps I've thought everything I'll ever think. Still, the lure of the limelight's as potent as a pipe, what? Eh? On with the motley.

[Tardis]

(The Doctor is working under the console when Rose returns, appropriately coiffed and attired for 1860.)

DOCTOR:
Blimey!

ROSE:
Don't laugh.

DOCTOR:
You look beautiful, considering.

ROSE:
Considering what?

DOCTOR:
That you're human.

ROSE:
I think that's a compliment. Aren't you going to change?

DOCTOR:
I've changed my jumper. Come on.

ROSE:
You stay there. You've done this before. This is mine.

[Outside the Tardis]

(Rose opens the door and steps gingerly out into the fallen snow.)

DOCTOR:
Ready for this? Here we go. History.

[Outside the theatre]

(Charles Dickens walks out onto the stage where an appreciate audience applauds, including one dead woman.

The Doctor and Rose walk down the street while a choir sing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. They move on before the hearse stops.)

GWYNETH:
She's in there, sir, I'm certain of it.

SNEED:
Right.

(The Doctor buys a newspaper.)

DOCTOR:
I got the flight a bit wrong.

ROSE:
I don't care.

DOCTOR:
It's not 1860, it's 1869.

ROSE:
I don't care.

DOCTOR:
And it's not Naples.

ROSE:
I don't care.

DOCTOR:
It's Cardiff.

(That stops Rose in her tracks.)

ROSE:
Right.

[Theatre]

(Mister Dickens is giving his reading from A Christmas Carol.)

DICKENS:
Now, it is a fact that there was nothing particular at all about the knocker on the door of this house, but let any man explain to me if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without it's undergoing any intermediate process of change, not a knocker, but Marley's face. Marley's face! It looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look. It looked like

(The old woman begins to glow and give off a faint gas.)

DICKENS:
Oh, my lord. It looked like that!

(Dickens points, and the audience turns to see.)

DICKENS:
What phantasmagoria is this?

(The corpse rises and groans. The audience screams.)

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