GALLERY
CAST
Regular Cast
Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor), Mandip Gill (Yasmin), Toshin Cole (Ryan), Bradley Walsh (Graham)
Guest Cast
Lili Miller (Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin), Nadia Parkes (Claire Clairmont), Jacob Collins-Levy (Lord Byron), Maxim Baldry (Dr John Polidori), Percy Shelley (Lewis Rainer), Patrick O’Kane (Ashad), Stefan Bednarczyk (Fletcher), Sarah Perles (Elise)
CREW
| Written by | Maxine Alderton |
| Directed by | Emma Sullivan |
| Produced by | Nikki Wilson, Adam Friedlander & Alex Mercer |
SYPNOSIS
‘Nobody mention Frankenstein. Nobody interfere. Nobody snog Byron.’ Should be easy, right?
The Doctor and her gang arrive at the Villa Diodati at Lake Geneva in 1816 on the night that inspired Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The plan is to spend the evening soaking up the atmos in the presence of some literary greats, but the ghosts are all too real, and the Doctor is forced into a decision of earth-shattering proportions.
PLOT
Lake Geneva, June 1816. Thunder and lightning crash down on the Swiss countryside. Inside the nearby Villa Diodati, a young woman called Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (later to be known as famous writer Mary Shelley) gazes out the window with her baby son William. Nearby, three other young people – Lord George Gordon Byron, his friend Doctor John Polidori, and Byron’s partner Claire Clairmont – bemoan being stuck indoors. Mary hands her son off to a maid, Elise, and suggests that someone read them a horror story. Bryon does so and as they settle down while night falls, the maid is unaware of a mysterious rattling behind her. As Byron reaches the climax of his story, they all jump at the sound of a knock on the door.
Byron goes to find out what it is, with the others following, concerned it could be an infernal beast. While Polidori assumes it is Mary’s partner, Percy Shelley, they open the door and scream at the sight of the Thirteenth Doctor, Graham, Yaz, and Ryan, all soaked and, aside from The Doctor, in period costume after The Doctor’s previous recommendation. The four scream back and after collecting themselves, The Doctor tries to introduce herself with the psychic paper, but it is too wet to work. As Graham fails at grasping nineteenth-century speech, Ryan simply asks to be let in.
Drying off, The Doctor promises the butler, Fletcher, they will stay forone hour at most. Yaz is excited at visiting the night that inspired Frankenstein, but The Doctor enforces her rules: nobody mention Frankenstein, don’t interfere, and nobody snog Byron. The group share a drink and dance together. The Doctor and friends are treated to the gossip surrounding Mary taking Shelley’s surname despite not being married and Byron separating from his wife to elope with Mary’s step-sister Claire. As Graham leaves to find a toilet, The Doctor suggests that writing a new horror story might be a good idea.
Elsewhere, Elise has tucked up William and as she leaves the nursery, a vase flies across the corridor and shatters. The Doctor, however, cannot convince Mary to start writing. Yaz points out she is breaking her own rules but The Doctor knows something is wrong – this should be a famous night of horror writing and just as importantly, Shelley is missing.
Graham continues searching as he stumbles upon Elise, but she only understands French and runs off. As Graham walks, he does not notice a painting fall off the wall, followed by a skeletal hand bursting out of it, walking itself along the floor. Graham rounds the corner and walks upstairs only to find himself back in the same corridor.
In another corridor, Yaz discovers Claire trying to pick a dooropen. She explains that she believes that Byron’s letters about her are inside and she wishes to find out his true feelings for her. Yaz admits that she knows someone like that. As lightning strikes again, Yaz thinks she sees a ghostly figure but dismisses it.
Meanwhile, Byron talks to “Mrs Doctor” about his work. The Doctor asks after Shelley, but Byron explains he is indisposed. Elsewhere, Mary laments her poor attempts at writing. Ryan points out Polidori’s bad mood which Mary attests to sleepwalking. Byron assumes that The Doctor has visited to read his in-progress work, which The Doctor dismisses, even if it does mention his daughter Ada that she has met in her future. Instead, The Doctor notes that she is getting an “unrelentingly evil” vibe.
Graham meets Ryan in the drawing-room and is spooked by Fletcher appearing out nowhere for a second time. Ryan says to Polidori that he should try to sleep, but he turns him down and instead challenges Ryan to a duel. Polidori leaves to find a pistol but is attacked by the skeletal hand. It leaps for Ryan’s throat but Mary prises it off and the Doctor and Fletcher beat it, crumbling it to dust. The Doctor tastes its remains, surmising with the sonic screwdriver it is a perfectly normal 400-year-old hand. The Doctor leaves Graham behind to look after Polidori while the rest inspect Byron’s skeleton.
Bryon shows The Doctor his relics of war and that his skeleton is a fifteenth-century soldier from the Battle of Morat, but now both its hands are missing. Mary explains that when the weather recently got worse, Shelley began receiving visions of a figure floating above the lake. Byron admits that he does not know exactly where Shelley is and Yaz plans on visiting his chalet. Meanwhile, Graham is alone with a sleeping Polidori when a flash of lightning reveals a mysterious woman and girl. He picks up a sandwich from a plate near them and carries on reading.
Yaz, Ryan, and Mary walk downstairs hearing more about Shelley’s visions but find themselves emerging back at the top of the staircase again. Meanwhile, The Doctor tries to leave Byron’s chamberonly to enter through the same door which she left. As baby William starts crying, Elise enters the nursery to help him.
Polidori stands up by Graham and he tries to stop him, but he sleepwalks through a wall, and the doorout does not work for Graham either. The three groups shout to each other through the corridors and chimney, realising they are all trapped in separate areas. Graham is told that there are no ghosts, despite not knowing who the woman and girl are. As they talk, Polidori emerges into the upstairs room with The Doctor, Byron, and Claire. The Doctor confirms he is still alive, but as he is sleeping, he cannot see the illusion that the others are trapped in.
The Doctor tells the others to clear their minds and try to see through the perception filter. Doing so, Mary finds a hidden door away from the staircase, eventually entering the nursery. However, William’s cot only contains a skull and hand. She screams, waking Polidori up. Carefully, everyone gathers together again.
With the skull and hand trapped, everyone shares their findings. Although Byron believes they may be dead and in Hell, Ryan instead wonders if Shelley simply could not enter the house. The Doctor realises that 1816 was nicknamed “The Year Without a Summer” as volcanic activity caused the weather to play up, wondering if this was due to some outside influence. As she talks, Mary points to an apparition over the lake, just like Shelley’s vision. The Doctor finally understands that it is a traveller in time trying to get in the house. It eventually does, asking “Are you the Guardian?” Although rusted and patched together, with half a human face visible through its helmet, it is a lone Cyberman, just what Jack Harkness warned The Doctor’s friends about in the past. Everyone scrambles to block the doors as the Doctor explains that whatever he is looking for is hidden in the villa. The Doctor goes to investigate alone, knowing what he could do to her friends, and adding “I will not lose anyone else to that.”
Meanwhile, Fletcher tries searching for Byron and the Cyberman grabs him by his neck. As he was not who he was looking for, he discards Fletcher, choked, and instead follows the sound of William’s crying. Upon finding him and Elise, however, he does not kill the baby. The rest of the group worry about what The Doctor is doing and Yaz theorises they should split up.
The Doctor faces up to the Cyberman and he says that he is complete enough for his purpose, but his blaster no longer works. With him still having emotions, however, he is volatile and attacks The Doctor, despite her trying to get on his side. With the house’s rooms still shifting, half of the group finds a room with scrawled pieces of paper stuck all over the walls. Mary recognises it as her partner’s writing. The Cyberman lets himself get hit by lightning to recharge, and as Claire finds something with Graham and Polidori, the Cyberman confirms that The Doctor is not the Guardian he is looking for and that the Cyberium has selected another host – something The Doctor is unfamiliar with. He then starts quoting poetry that is very familiar to the others, being the writings of Shelley.
In the cellar, Claire discovers a man hiding, muttering that he has to keep the Cyberman out. He is the Guardian: Percy Bysshe Shelley. The Doctor meets up with the others, only to find Elise and Fletcher dead but William spared. Hearing the news of Shelley from Polidori, The Doctor tries to visit him on her own, but Mary insists on following too, followed by her friends.
The Doctor realises Shelley is hiding the Cyberium and as the Cyberman teleports to him, Shelley sends him away again. The Doctor makes psychic contact with Shelley to hear his story. One day, he found a shimmering silverout by the lake, and upon touching it, it hid in his body. From then on, nobody else could see him (explaining the ghostly movements) and he was hidden in the villa, altering everyone’s perceptions to avoid it being discovered. Shelley explains he sees constant symbols and numbers, but no amount of writing them down will make them go away. The Doctor realises the Cyberium contains all future knowledge of the Cybermen and was sent back in time to change the future, but it will destroy his mind if it stays in him.
The Doctor convinces Shelley to stop fighting the Cyberman’s influence, no matter what Jack warned her about. She then faces an ultimatum: if she gives the Cyberman what it wants, it will raise an unstoppable army and billions could die, but if she does not, Shelley will die early, unrecognisably changing the future due to his impact. Furious at her situation, The Doctor yells at her friends about how there is no right answer. As the Cyberman commands the Cyberium to show itself, Mary squares up to him, asking if he has a name. The Cyberman admits he was a fatheronce, and his name was Ashad. However, he has no mercy, having only spared baby William because he was weak, and even killed his own children when they fought against him. As Ashad explains he was transformed in death, The Doctor has an idea. Apologising to Shelley, she shows him a vision of his own death, drowning young off the coast of Italy, and the Cyberium leaves his body.
Suddenly, everyone finds themselves teleported back into the drawing-room, the house having been reset without the Cyberium’s influence. However, Shelley is still weak (with Yaz performing CPR) and the Cyberium chooses a new host, settling on The Doctor. However, the ground starts shaking and a hole opens in the sky – Ashad is prepared to bring his ship to destroy the world. Although The Doctor knows the world should not end in 1816, she cannot be sure if he is bluffing and has no choice but to surrender the Cyberium to him. He vanishes, the hole closes, and the thunderstorm disappears as Shelley comes to. The Doctor explains she used a Time Lord trick to show him his own death and trick the Cyberium out of him, but now the future is in the gravest danger. She now has to fix the mess she has created before the Cyber Army can rise again.
The next day, the group reflect and Claire tears into Byron for his poor treatment of her, breaking up with him. The Doctor apologises for giving Shelley knowledge of his death, and she simply tells him to never lose hope – Ryan adds that Mary should keep on writing. Returning to the TARDIS, Graham admits he is still confused about the woman and child who brought him a sandwich. The others confirm they saw nothing of the sort and the Doctor refuses to say that they were not ghosts.
Inside the TARDIS, The Doctor turns serious, saying that she is willing to return her friends to 2020. However, they choose to stick together, having Shelley’s coordinates ready. In the garden of Villa Diodati, Byron reads his poem Darkness to an audience – a tale of an apocalyptic event. As Team TARDIS give each otherone final silent nod of approval, he finishes: “The winds were wither’d in the stagnant air, And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need/of aid from them – She was the Universe.”
REFERENCES
LOCATIONS
Villa Diodati is near Lake Geneva.
HISTORY
Graham searches for the lavatory, but finds that they’re too early in history to enjoy the invention of toilets.
CULTURE
Graham begins “It is a truth universally acknowledged…”, but The Doctor interjects “wrong writer”.
The Doctor has instructed her friends not to mention Frankenstein, orotherwise affect its inception. Mary Shelley wonders if Ashad is a composite of multiple men (like the creature in her novel), and refers to his creators as a “Modern Prometheus” (the novel’s full title is Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus). She watches him recharge via a lightning strike, in the novel, it is implied the monster is brought to life via electricity.
Ryan plays “Chopsticks” on the piano.
The Doctor quotes Lord Byron’s poem “She Walks in Beauty”.
Lord Byron believes that The Doctor is after the third canto of his work Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
The Lone Cyberman recites Percy Shelley’s poem “Queen Mab”.
The poem read aloud by Byron at the end of the episode is”Darkness”.
NOTES
– In another account, the Eighth Doctor was involved in this night’s events. (Mary’s Story)
– Mary also travelled with the Eighth Doctor for a time, as his companion. (The Silver Turk, The Witch from the Well, Army of Death)
– In a second account, the Tenth Doctor saved Mary from a bandaged alien during her stay in Switzerland, at least partly inspiring her to write Frankenstein, and certainly leading to the book’s ultimate title. (The Creative Spark)