Chapter Text
Ellis was sitting on the sofa in his office, all over the sofa in fact -- feet propped on one arm, head on the other, left arm resting on the nearest back-cushion, right resting on his chest. Edgar was in the office chair, reading, because it felt weird to read Ellis' scripts in his own office -- he read everyone else's scripts there, and the spec scripts that made it past screening, but if he read what Ellis wrote it felt too much like he was judging him, somehow, and Edgar hadn't needed a year of working with him to know that he was not qualified to judge Ellis, not when it came to the words.
The point was, if he was in Ellis's office then it wasn't the Executive Producer and the Head Writer. It was just Edgar reading over his buddy's script for grammar and maybe to make a suggestion or two.
"I was thinking," Ellis said, or something like that; Edgar wasn't paying attention, because he'd just gotten to the good part of the script. "We should do a spinoff."
"Mm?" Edgar answered. "Chinese, you think?"
Ellis had probably given him one of those looks he got, which said very clearly that he didn't understand how anyone in America, and Edgar van Scyoc in particular, made it past puberty.
"A Chinese spinoff?" he asked skeptically.
"I like sweet and sour chicken," Edgar said, because this was an old argument and he knew the rhythm of it. Then he paused. "Wait, what?"
"What?" Ellis said.
"Didn't you just say we should get dinner?"
"No, idiot child, I said we should do a spinoff."
Edgar gaped. "What?"
"What?" Ellis asked. "The Doctor is hugely popular with the viewership and the network can't find anything to put up after Torchwood on Saturday nights."
"Are you serious? A spinoff with the Doctor?"
"Why not? He's established as a character, and I think I could woo Barrowman into at least a season. If it goes belly-up, so what? We have Torchwood."
Edgar paused to think, because you didn't get to be one of the pre-eminent creative powers at NBC without pausing to think before you spoke.
"I've done a little backstory for him," Ellis said into the silence, like a kid confessing he'd snuck an extra chocolate bar after dinner.
"You've done backstory."
"That's right."
"On the Doctor."
"It's very interesting. I've even invented villains. They look a little like old-fashioned hoovers."
"The Doctor does battle from his police box with evil vacuum cleaners."
"Sentient evil vacuum cleaners," Ellis corrected. "With lethal lasers."
Edgar set the script down and leaned back, lacing his fingers over his stomach. "You just want to write forty scripts a year, huh."
"No! We could hire some -- well, yes, all right, I'm fast and I get a little bored sometimes and I like television."
"You can't write forty scripts a year," Edgar said, annoyed.
"No, you'll write five or six for Torchwood and probably one or two for Doctor Who -- "
Edgar laughed. "Doctor Who? That's what you're calling it?"
"Perfectly good name," Ellis said. "We have three up-and-comers for Torchwood -- one of them at least will want to swap over and keep an eye on the newbies, and we'll bring in someone new for Torchwood. You'll have to handpick someone to Exec for the show but you have some pull, you can get someone good. Someone like you."
Edgar tipped his head back and studied the ceiling. There were a handful of pennies stuck in it; Ellis had the bad habit of using a rubber-band slingshot to fire spare change around the room when he was blocked or bored.
"Okay," he said finally. "Gimme a workup and a pilot script and I'll take it to the bosses."
"That's what I like about you," Ellis said. "You're utterly mad, just like me."
"I'm not crazy," Edgar corrected. He pushed himself up from the chair and gathered up the script. "I just can't say no to you."
"I'll bear that in mind," Ellis intoned.
***
Excerpt from the shooting script for Torchwood Episode 2x01: Revival
Story & Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy
INT - DAY - HUB
A pair of hands holding a scraped-up, much-abused diary with clippings and notes pasted in. It is open to one of the last pages. In voiceover:
IAN
I had a team at Torchwood New York, once. We had two scientists, an anthropologist and a biologist, plus a technician and a bodyguard, and me. I was just a researcher, so I stayed back; never went into the field except to clean up.
FLASHBACK - TORCHWOOD NEW YORK - RESEARCH LAB
IAN is bent over a table, studying a text, making notes without looking at his notepad. LISA sets a coffee down at his elbow and circles to sit across from him. He looks up and smiles at her. Still in voiceover:
IAN
Lisa was supposed to protect them, and she did. She got two of ours out before she -- before New York fell. I didn't really know any of them very well except for her. At the end of the day they'd go off to wherever they went, and I'd take her home. Kissing on the subway. She was the only one who called me Johnny. I don't think the rest of them even knew my name was Gianni. I was just Ian, except to her.
INT - DAY - HUB
Long pan across the HUB; it is dark, obviously early morning. Voiceover:
IAN
This is what Torchwood is. We lose what we love, and we go on. We carry guns so others don't have to. I wouldn't say it's noble so much as necessary. It's not courage if you have no other option.
INT - SAME - MEDICAL GROTTO
Camera swings across TAMAKI and OWEN lying on exam tables. The table between them is empty. Swing around to reveal THE DOCTOR standing and holding IAN's diary. He closes it. Voiceover:
IAN
Life is better than the alternative. Sometimes.
THE DOCTOR exhales; gold mist drifts from his mouth, dissipating in the air. He walks to TAMAKI and touches his chest lightly. Gold glow suffuses them both.
THE DOCTOR leaves TAMAKI still lying on the table and walks to OWEN, resting the fingertips of both hands against his temples. The same glow, this time shot through with white, surrounds OWEN.
Close-up on OWEN's face. His eyes snap open as he inhales.
BLACKOUT
IAN (voiceover)
I had a team at Torchwood Chicago, once. [beat] I miss them.
INT - DAY - HUB
GWEN enters the HUB, tossing her bag down on her chair. She checks her computer. JACK emerges from his office, looking sleepy and rumpled.
GWEN
Morning.
JACK
Regrettably.
GWEN
Ian in yet?
JACK
[yawns] Don't know. I think he took Toshiko home last night. He might've stayed with her.
GWEN
Jack, did you hear anything this morning? Some proximity alerts are blinking.
JACK
Show me.
JACK leans over her shoulder to study the computer, one hand resting on the small of her back. He frowns, then looks up at the medical grotto and takes off across the HUB at a run.
INT - MEDICAL GROTTO
JACK arrives at the railing and looks down. GWEN joins him after a second. Both look shocked. Pan around to the beds in the grotto. All three are empty.
CREDITS
Written in red ink in the margin: Ellis, this is great, but are you sure it's not too passive? There's a lot of voiceover. This feels like the end of an episode rather than the start of a new season. Shouldn't we come on again with a bang?
In green ink, underneath it: Trust me, Edgar.
***
SNEAK PREVIEW: TORCHWOOD AND DOCTOR WHO
TORCHWOOD: 2x01 REVIVAL
Three corpses have gone missing from the Hub, and the grieving team will stop at nothing to find their friends' bodies and lay them to rest. The only problem is that the bodies of their friends may not want to be laid to rest just yet...
DOCTOR WHO: 1x01 PILOT
The Doctor's ship, the TARDIS, is missing after he sacrificed himself to help close the Rift in Chicago. If he doesn't find it soon it may disappear forever. But to find it he'll need the help of a USPAT Colonel named Gordon Lethbridge and a young pop-culture addict named Rose Tyler -- neither of whom are particularly inclined to lend a hand.
***
TORCHWOOD 2x02: FAMILY REUNION
The Torchwood team is reunited, but not all is well in Chicago. Tamaki and Owen are constantly at each others' throats, making Tosh miserable. Gwen's fiancee is begging her to spend more time with him, and Ian is uncertain whether his relationship with Jack has any real meaning. Now they have to infiltrate a Chicago crime family who definitely aren't Illinois natives, before the family's final plan is put into action.
Ian bowed his head and rubbed his temples, an unusually demonstrative sign of frustration from the young man; in the background, Tommy and Owen's shouting was interrupted by a crashing noise.
"Autoclave, maybe," Gwen said, sitting on the sofa next to him.
"Sounded more like the scalpel rack."
"What are they fighting about this time?"
"They need a reason?" Ian asked sourly.
"They will in a minute," Jack said purposefully, striding past them both. Gwen and Ian exchanged a look and got up quickly, Gwen grabbing Tosh's arm as they passed her station, all three following Jack to where Tommy and Owen were engaging in a heated exchange of ideas (mostly concerning each others' ancestry and sexual habits) in the medical grotto.
"I swear to god, boys," Jack said, drawing the pistol on his hip. "If you don't shut up I am going to shoot you both in non-lethal areas and consign you to Stroger Memorial ER for the rest of the day."
Both men abruptly fell silent.
"You wouldn't," Tommy finally challenged.
"He's too happy we're back among the living," Owen agreed.
"Tosh, would you mind taking your brother up to the conference room? Gwen, you can escort Owen," Jack added, waiting until everyone had passed before winking at Ian and offering his elbow. Ian waved him on and walked to his desk instead, taking down the mismatched set of coffee mugs the team used.
When he reached the conference room, Jack was just turning on the computer screen; he tapped a command into the laptop on the table and a series of grainy photographs appeared.
"After the recent...unpleasantness," Jack said, "I've had the state police and Chicago's local FBI office keeping tabs on local crime for me. The Rift put out a lot of energy, and the city's vulnerable right now as it rebuilds. Sooner or later someone was going to step into the void. Guess what! It's aliens."
"It's always aliens," Owen sighed.
"What's the job?" Ian asked pragmatically.
"Crime family, o my children. We are about to infiltrate the Alien Mafia," Jack announced. "Ian and Toshiko, I need fake pasts for all of us by the end of the day."
"Can I be the hired muscle?" Owen asked. Everyone looked at him; slight-built and short, he didn't exactly fit the bill.
"No," Jack said kindly. "But you can be my wayward playboy son if you really want to."
Ian raised an eyebrow. "Not to offend Owen's youthful looks, but you hardly look old enough to be anyone's father here."
"I can grey up," Jack said. "Also, thank you."
"You're welcome."
"Gwen, you are the favourite son's affianced, you already have the ring," Jack continued. "Tosh and Tommy, would you like to be drug dealers?"
"Awesome," Tommy said.
"Which leaves Ian," Jack grinned at him. Ian tried not to look apprehensive. "I rather fancy you for a hired gun."
"You fancy him for anything," Owen muttered.
"I could still shoot you," Jack said. "Ostensibly we are a small organization depleted by the 'earthquake' Chicago suffered, and looking to join up with someone larger and more powerful until we find our feet again."
"Wait, wait a minute," Owen said suddenly. "Ian gets to be the hired muscle? How is that fair?"
Jack gave him an appraising look. "Wait until you see the car you get as part of your cover story. Now. Let me brief you on what we know, and what we're going to attempt to find out..."
Ian glanced at Tosh and grinned. Building cover stories was always fun, and Tosh sometimes showed him how to hack various law-enforcement and city-government databases if he asked nicely.
***
Transcript from the audio commentary on "Family Reunion" with Ellis Graveworthy, David Tennant, and Edgar van Scyoc:
David: Oh, so this scene right here...
Ellis: Oh no...
Edgar: Oh! It's the hamster scene!
David: For those of you listening to this, you can see Jack standing there with the gun up his sleeve, cupped in his palm. Now what's supposed to happen in about a minute is that he'll pull the gun from his sleeve and advance on the alien and say a load of scary things before Tosh there elbows the alien in the gut to get away from the knife.
Edgar: What we did here was we got Ellis to stand in for the alien on a long shot, where he wouldn't be visible, so that David would have someone to focus on as he's giving this big long angry speech.
Ellis: You're complete bastards, the pair of you.
David: What our viewers may not know is that Ellis --
Ellis: [in the background] I swear to god --
David: -- Ellis has a phobia of hamsters.
Ellis: They're rodents. And we invite them into our homes. Inbred vicious rodents!
David: So during a break I ran back to our Art Director's office, she keeps a pet hamster there.
Edgar: Which is why we never have meetings in Mia's office.
David: OH, OH HERE IT COMES -- Jack swings his arm up, there's the pistol shooting out of his sleeve --
Edgar: But in one take, which I promise is going on the gag reel, he whips out a hamster instead.
Ellis: I hate everyone.
Edgar: And starts advancing on Ellis, standing in for the alien, and Ellis freezes and won't move until David completely breaks from his lines and starts going PEW PEW PEW with the hamster-gun.
Ellis: I am going to invent a character named after you, Tennant, and kill him gruesomely.
David: The hamsters shall have their revenge!
***
| torchwood_el special post-episode edition for Family Reunion: | |
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Discussion and Meta: Episode coda fanfic: |
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***
The Doctor, annoyed by Gordon and Rose's demands for a trip in the TARDIS as repayment for helping him find it, decides to take them to witness the end of the world. He didn't count on someone else trying to take over the super-luxury observation platform they're watching from, and he definitely didn't count on needing the help of a sentient tree.
Excerpt from the shooting script for Doctor Who 1x02: The End Of The World
Story by: Edgar van Scyoc
Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy
INT - OBSERVATION PLATFORM
DOCTOR
Lethbridge, Rose, this is Jabe.
LETHBRIDGE
Is she?
DOCTOR
Play nice. Jabe, this is Colonel Lethbridge and Rose Tyler.
JABE
I bring you a gift of friendship. [Offers ROSE a small seedling in a pot]
ROSE
Uh. Thanks. Hey, Michael Jackson's henchman over there is calling, I'm gonna go see what she wants. [ROSE indicates where one of CASSANDRA's servants is waving urgently at her.] Nice to meet you, Jabe.
JABE
Your daughter is a well-mannered young woman, Doctor.
DOCTOR
Ah! No, she's not my daughter.
JABE
Colonel Lethbridge's daughter, then.
LETHBRIDGE
Excuse me?
JABE
I meant no insult. [to LETHBRIDGE] She is perhaps your wife? Or your...mutual wife?
LETHBRIDGE looks shocked.
JABE
Concubine?
DOCTOR
She's a friend. That's all!
JABE
I apologize, but surely...do you see nothing unusual about two men of your age, traveling with a young woman such as herself?
LETHBRIDGE
Hey, I'm an officer, I don't pull that kind of crap. [gestures to the Doctor] And he's not even the same species!
JABE
What has that to do with anything?
DOCTOR
She does have a point.
LETHBRIDGE
Listen, tree-lady, it's not happening. I'm not interested in her, and I'm pretty sure the Doctor is more interested in the finger food.
JABE
Ah. Well, if the two of you were together you need only have said.
LETHBRIDGE
You know what? I'm gonna go make small talk with the giant face.
DOCTOR
Behave yourself!
LETHBRIDGE waves a hand as he walks off towards THE FACE OF BOE.
***
2x03 THE BOY IN THE FIREPLACE
Still uneasy with each other, the reunited Torchwood team encounters a machine that opens windows in time, seemingly fixated on a French-Haitian named Jean-Baptiste. They are all charmed by the adventurous young man, but when strange cybernetic cowboys begin to pursue him they have to find a way to save Jean-Baptiste -- or else Chicago might just disappear.
***
Excerpt from the shooting script for Episode 2x03: The Boy In The Fireplace
Story & Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy
INT - HUB - MEDICAL GROTTO - DAY
JACK is seated on the stairs while TOSH and TOMMY dissect the CLOCKWORK CYBERNETIC COWBOY. OWEN is extracting liquid from what looks like a fuel cell in its back.
JACK
Jean-Baptiste Pointe du Sable. Jesus.
OWEN
Who is this guy?
EVERYONE looks at him, surprised.
OWEN
What? I didn't major in the French Revolution in school.
TOSH
Du Sable Museum? Ring any bells?
OWEN
No.
JACK
Du Sable was the son of a French pirate and a Haitian slave. When his mother was killed in a raid he escaped by swimming to the ship his father served on. He was educated in France and then came to Michigan, where he married a Native American woman and became part of her tribe. He was called Black Chief.
Behind them, IAN and GWEN approach, clearly entranced by JACK's storytelling.
JACK
He built on the banks of the Chicago river and became the first permanent settler in Chicago. He had a fur-trading post -- he built his house over by where Trib Tower is now. If his home were still standing, it would face the Trump building. Before the Hub here was built or thought of, he would have walked around over our heads.
TOSH and TOMMY inadvertently look up.
Pull in tight on OWEN as JACK continues to talk; his hands tremble and he sets his face and concentrates hard. He looks exhausted.
JACK OS
He was an amazing man; he had a mill, a bakehouse, a dairy and a smokehouse, a well-furnished cabin -- full of art and good furniture. They say he was a spy for the Americans during the Revolutionary war, and he helped capture Vincennes during the Illinois Campaign. It was an amazing life. That schoolboy in the fireplace, he's going to grow up to become the founder of our city.
TOSH OS
[teasing] Our city, Jack?
JACK OS
I'm a citizen, you know.
IAN OS
So what's he doing in our fireplace?
GWEN OS
Why do we have a fireplace?
JACK OS
Gets cold in the winter...
OWEN's shaking increases and he finally slams his hands on the counter to stop it. Cut back to the whole GROTTO as they all look at him.
OWEN
Sorry. It's -- it's machine oil. Pure lubricant.
JACK wags his eyebrows.
OWEN
Perv. It's not a power source or anything interesting. I could buy a pint of it at a hardware store.
OWEN turns around, hands behind his back. They fall still against the edge of the table as he speaks.
***
DOCTOR WHO 1x03: NEW EARTH
The Doctor just wants to take his erstwhile companions home, but a supernova has interfered with the TARDIS controls and instead they end up in New New York, a colony on the far side of the galaxy. Rose is delighted and distracted by the cat people, until she ends up possessed by a familiar face. Lethbridge, meanwhile, is keeping a close eye on the Doctor -- and a secret about why he's really in the TARDIS in the first place.
From Torchwords.com, official Torchwood behind-the-scenes blog: Ellis Graveworthy, "Don't Read Too Much Into It (I'm Not That Deep)".
Because we're airing both Doctor Who and Torchwood at the same time, a lot of fans feel there must be some connection between the episodes that air together, and I think there's been some strife about this, particularly on internet messageboards. I'm here to tell you that this theory isn't really true -- while I do frequently write two scripts at once, or we coordinate for filming space, there's still quite a bit of disconnect, especially since Doctor Who often films in Vancouver.
For example, in the first two episodes of Doctor Who we see the Doctor take Lethbridge and Rose to the end of the world to defeat a skin trampoline and then to New New York to face her down again, surrounded by cat people. Couldn't quite fit all that into one episode but it certainly has very little to do with crime families and the founding of Chicago. Doctor Who is meant to be more out-there, more specifically fantastical -- it's not necessarily some kind of tag to Torchwood, but a show in its own right with strong background ties.
I actually rather wanted to switch out the fourth and fifth episodes of Doctor Who, in fact, because I felt that Gwen's marriage and the fifth episode of Who, 1984, would be really especially apt together. But instead you have Gwen getting hitched in Chicago while aliens try to crash the party, and meanwhile over in Doctor Who you have the Doctor getting sucked into Big Brother House.
Still, I feel they're both quality episodes and at any rate you can't have everything.
NB: I've never myself been married, but I'm assured that marriage and reality television are entirely dissimilar.
***
Courtesy of Who's Talking, the Official Doctor Who Extras website:
COLONEL's DOSSIER for episode 1x03: NEW EARTH
I will continue to monitor the Doctor and if possible bring him in, but he is resourceful and while I am not in any way indisposed I am more or less his prisoner. These notes are being kept on my PDA to minimize chances of discovery and in the hopes that I will be able to submit this information when next we are in the vicinity of Earth and/or the 21st Century.
The Doctor appears completely unaware of my mission, though he has shown some limited telepathic ability. He carries a weapon known as a "Sonic Blaster", which can not only stun or kill living beings but also vaporize wood, plaster, and metal alloys. Companion to this piece is a "Sonic Screwdriver", an elongated rod with a light at one end which has an apparent universal interface with any technology in local proximity. He claims to have bought them as a set.
The ship has no official name or designation but is informally referred to as "The T.A.R.D.I.S." standing for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. There is no crew and it appears that the ship is an organic/technological hybrid. More information will be forthcoming as I gain the Doctor's trust.
Another item of note is the translation circuit of the TARDIS. The Doctor is apparently not fluent in English, but some device (wireless? telepathic?) within the ship automatically translates both his language and ours, and the languages of those we encounter, into a common tongue.
In addition to myself and the Doctor there is a third passenger on the ship, a female civilian, 19 years old. Rose Tyler is a Chicago-born native and if possible recon should be gathered regarding her family and close friends. She appears reasonably intelligent and the Doctor has shown a marked protective instinct towards her.
It is my studied recommendation that USPAT command rethink its stance on apprehension and termination of the Doctor. when and if the Doctor is apprehended, terminal force must absolutely not be used. While he has shown in the past to be a danger to the continuity of the American timeline, the Doctor is an intelligent being from whom much can be learned. He is vulnerable to physical restraint and I believe he can be safely imprisoned if proper precautions are taken.
There follows a categorical list of all alien beings and technologies encountered thus far and the locations and time-periods in which they occurred. Updates will be ongoing.
***
TORCHWOOD 2x04: SOMETHING BORROWED
Gwen's getting married, and Torchwood are buckling down for the big day, trying to minimize the need for Rift supervision and prevent as much as possible from going wrong. When a group of party-crashing aliens decide to invade the wedding, however, things get tense. Fortunately, an angry Gwen is a force to be reckoned with. Here comes the bride...
Costume and marketing conceptual sketch by Mia Lee, Torchwood Art Director.
***
DOCTOR WHO 1x04: THE LONG GAME
The Doctor and his companions travel to Station Alpha, a space station broadcasting 24/7 television to the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire, spread across the galaxy. All is not well in the Fourth Empire, however; citizens of the Empire are regularly abducted and forced to play life-or-death games for reality television, and the Supercontroller of the News Teams is filtering what news gets out and what very much doesn't. When the Doctor is imprisoned in the Big Brother House, Gordon and Rose must short out the Supercontroller and save him -- but Queer Eye wants Gordon naked (and headless) and Rose is invited to a Russian-Roulette version of Deal Or No Deal...
"Rose! ROSE!"
Food courts were alike the world and time over, Rose thought, and Station Alpha was no exception. Same sticky tables, same packs of hungry workers and bored teenagers. Same...United States military officers calling her?
"Colonel?" she asked, half-rising from her seat, as mortified as if it had been her mother calling her. The Colonel saw her and pushed through the crowds hastily, grabbing her by both shoulders.
"Are you okay?" he asked, looking her up and down. "What the hell are you doing?"
She looked at the disposable cup in her hand. "Having a gurangi-juice milkshake. Tastes like grass. Want some?"
He brushed it aside as she offered and grabbed her arm, dragging her away from the food court and into a deserted hallway.
"The Doctor," he said, out of breath. "He's been taken."
"Taken?"
His face took on an almost comical look of panic and he pointed behind her, at one of the ubiquitous panel television screens that were mounted everywhere. She peered up at it, curious. Some kind of reality show, it looked like; a sort of urban-oriented Survivor --
"Oh my god," she said, staring at the Doctor's face as he pushed someone out of the way and got to proper work starting a wastebasket fire.
"This is -- "
"I can't leave him alone for a minute!" she blurted. "One second he's boring my ass off about the Bountiful Human Kingdom and the next he's on television. And Survivor is so three thousand years ago!"
The Colonel got a look. It was the same look he got when she hooked her iPod into the TARDIS central computers and blasted Feist through speakers she didn't know it even had. What? She liked Feist.
"We've gotta get him out. I asked and -- " he swallowed nervously. "When you lose in these games you die."
"Well, he's not exactly going to lose, right?" she asked. "I mean, come on, this is the Doctor."
"Rose, take this seriously, please! He was going to find the Supercontroller, he said something was wrong with the news. That's the last I saw him."
"Oh? And what were you getting up to?" she asked.
"That's not important! We need to rescue him."
She shrugged off his hand. "So we'll find someone and explain that it's just a mistake, that we were just visiting."
"Who, exactly?" he demanded. "No, we've got to find the Supercontroller and shut this place down."
"Colonel, like a million people live here! You can't just shut it down."
"This isn't life!" he retorted. "It's -- it's existence, trapped in a space mall, marking time until lack of existence. You don't even die in places like this, you just don't show up for work one day. You eat burgers and drink milkshakes and buy shoes and watch television where people live vicariously for you -- "
"You sound like the Doctor," she snapped.
"Good. Stay here and let your brain fester and rot inside your head if you want. I'm going to find him."
He started to walk away and she considered, really deeply considered going to get a burger. Then she came to her senses and shouted "HEY!" and ran after him.
***
The Doctor was sensible and intelligent, and when he found himself in a fake city in the belly of the space station without his sonic blaster, he did the most logical thing: he built himself a gun and started shooting.
He was running, running up endless flights of stairs, climbing ladders and dashing down corridors, when he encountered a pale figure darting the other way and almost shot Gordon Lethbridge. A very naked Gordon Lethbridge.
"Doctor!" the Colonel blurted. "Thank God. You got out."
"What the hell happened to you?" the Doctor inquired, taking in Gordon's mussed hair and complete lack of clothing. The Colonel drew himself up to his full height, which didn't do anything for the shadows that were barely concealing his dignity as it was.
"I got conscripted into what turned out to be Queer Eye for the Soon To Be Deceased Guy," he said. "They wanted to take off my face!"
"Come on," the Doctor said, shedding his coat and hanging it over the Colonel's shoulders. "This way. We need to -- "
" -- get to the Supercontroller, that's where Rose and I were -- "
"Rose? You took Rose to see the Supercontroller? What kind of moron are you?" the Doctor snarled.
"You wanted me to leave her in a food court in the middle of a space station in the wrong century? Great work, Lethbridge!" the Colonel snarled back.
"Fine. Fine. We need to find her. Come on, run!"
They eventually found a service elevator that didn't seem to be on the security monitors and the Doctor collapsed against a wall while Gordon dropped onto the floor for the long ride up to the four-hundred-ninety-ninth floor.
"Queer Eye, huh?" the Doctor asked.
"Just...please," Lethbridge said, pulling the coat tighter acround his waist.
"No, I was just thinking, it's weird they'd still have Queer Eye this far into your future. Orientation Rights went through a few hundred years ago at least."
"Yeah, I asked that," Lethbridge replied. "They said Queer just means urbane and intelligent now. Homosexuality optional."
"Well, that's kinda nice, I guess," the Doctor mused.
"Doesn't say much for their opinion of me," Lethbridge remarked.
The Doctor clapped Lethbridge on the shoulder, trying to be reassuring. "We'll find Rose, and then we'll stop the broadcasts. I think I know what I did wrong."
"Famous last words," the Colonel sighed.
***
Lethbridge, proving he wasn't completely useless at anything other than shooting, managed to hook his PDA into the space station and keep an eye on Rose's horrifying russian-roulette quiz show as they crept their way through the floor below the lair of the Supercontroller. The Doctor still had his makeshift gun and Lethbridge had managed to hold onto his (the Doctor didn't ask how), but they had a total of perhaps five bullets left between them.
Finally the Doctor stopped and ran his hands over a patch of wall, identical to every other patch except for the way it swung silently aside when he tapped his fingers in a particular rhythm.
"Bolero," he whispered, and began to climb the dark, twisting stairs.
"Where's this go?" Lethbridge asked.
"To the Supercontroller. Not far now -- this would have been a maintenance hatch when they were building it..."
The Doctor trailed off as he put his head up through a trap in the ceiling and peered around. He flipped it back and heaved himself out, reaching a hand down to help Lethbridge up as well.
Then he turned around.
"Oh, my god," Lethbridge said softly.
Suspended in a web of wires that dug into her skin at every joint and pulsepoint and ridge of rib under skin, a young girl hung a few feet off the floor. Her skin was pale white, almost painted-looking, and her eyes were solid deep yellow. The Doctor became aware of a soft background noise -- the girl in the wires, repeating sequences of numbers unendingly, not stopping to breathe or to swallow or to scream.
"The Supercontroller," the Doctor said. "They've wired her in. The ultimate Artificial Intelligence -- because it isn't artificial."
"It's horrible," Lethbridge whispered.
"Yeah," the Doctor agreed, and took his gun from his nerveless fingers and shot her in the head.
"Doctor!"
"She's as good as dead. She hasn't had an original thought for years, by the look of it, and she'd die without the wires," the Doctor said, as sparks began to fly. "Now, come along. Let's find Rose and get out of here."
***
Courtesy of Who's Talking, the Official Doctor Who Extras website:
COLONEL's DOSSIER for episode 1x04: THE LONG GAME
I have revised my previous assessment of the Doctor's character; details to follow. I continue to believe strongly that terminal force must not be attempted on the Doctor. I believe any attempt would not be successful and would endanger the lives of those making the attempt. Suggestions for restraint and imprisonment to follow.
***
DOCTOR WHO 1x05: 1984
The Doctor and his companions find themselves in London in 1984 and, while Rose is thrilled, Gordon recalls the eighties less-than-fondly -- until he meets a young Welsh sociology professor with fascinating ideas about the future of the human race. Abandoned by his faithless companions, the Doctor stumbles on a plot to take over the airwaves using new "cordless" telephone technology. Is Professor Jenkins part of the plot, or is she an innocent pawn?
"Mm," Ellis said, mouth full of what he still insisted on calling chips. He swallowed, took a sip of his beer, and tapped a salty finger on his lips. "Consider it this way. We know we only have Flanigan on loan while his other work's on hiatus. I want to replace Lethbridge with Lethbridge's son. But he's not quite old enough to have a son old enough to be interesting unless we radically rework his backstory. So we use the TARDIS."
"A generation of children are going to laugh at that name," Edgar observed.
"I like it. Here's what we do. We send them almost back to their own time, 1984. Rose grew up on a steady diet of eighties nostalgia, so she'll have fun. She'll run off to a Bangles concert or Madonna or someone. Lethbridge doesn't have good memories from the eighties because he spent the whole time getting shot down by girls and feeling awkward and uncool."
"With you so far."
"But he happens across this woman in a cafe -- we can play up the romantic comedy angle if we want. And they, well, get to know each other, in the biblical sense. She hears him talking about Rose to someone, figures it's a sister or mother, and calls her son Ross when he's born. Skip to the twenty-first century. When they finally do get back, young Ross has grown up and followed in his father's footsteps, according to stories from his mother. He's probably even worked under Lethbridge before, but they don't know they're related because Lethbridge gave Ross's mother a false name or something. My point is that later we'll get to see Lethbridge finally do the right thing, and then we'll see Ross trying to be his father's son in the Doctor's eyes."
Edgar blew air through his lips. "You make the stories sound so easy when you do that."
"That's because I'm a writer."
"So what's the Doctor doing during all this?"
"Feeling lonely, because his friends ditched him for a girl and a fashion era. He'll get tied up in an intrigue of course -- someone trying to take over the world via cordless telephones, fits into the George Orwell theme nicely. I like tapping into that fear of technology thing humanity has going these past few decades."
"You're starting to sound like the Doctor yourself. Don't forget Jack and his pretty kiddies, Ellis."
"No fear," Ellis smiled. "Torchwood's my first love; Doctor Who's just a dalliance. By the end of the year it'll roll along on its own, and I can do guest scripts."
"I like that better. You look tired."
"Up late finishing the new Torchwood script. We're taking Ian and Owen back to New York."
Edgar hesitated. "Does that mean -- "
"On location? Yes."
"God, I hate on-location," Edgar rested his head on his arms. He felt Ellis flick icewater from his glass onto his hair.
"It's good for the soul. Besides, New York is fun. I'll take you to see a show."
"Can I have ice cream afterwards?" Edgar asked, putting on a petulant five-year-old voice.
"With sprinkles," Ellis promised, smiling fondly at him.
***
Excerpt from the shooting script for Doctor Who 1x05: 1984
Story & Teleplay by: Ellis Graveworthy
Directed by: Edgar van Scyoc
INT - CAFE
LIZ JENKINS
So, did you leave a girl back home in Illinois?
LETHBRIDGE
Nah. Never had time. I mean, I did have time, but not for anything serious. I had a career. Have a career. Not much time for friends and wives and the rest.
LIZ JENKINS
How's that working out for you?
LETHBRIDGE
I'm not someone who needs a lot of people. And I have friends now, I mean. Just, I didn't really leave anyone back home.
LIZ JENKINS
It sounds lonely.
LETHBRIDGE
That's the price you pay, though. I've seen things most people can't imagine, on my country's dollar. I've met some pretty amazing people.
LIZ JENKINS
Not here, though.
LETHBRIDGE
I can think of one.