Love and War (serial)


*The following article is written from an Out of Universe perspective.*

Love and War was the fourth story in Season 29. It was written by Paul Cornell, directed by Colin Cant and featured Richard Griffiths as the Doctor, Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield and John Banks as Henrick.

This story is notable for introducing Bernice Summerfield as a new companion.

Synopsis

It’s the 27th Century and Heaven, a human colony planet, is a cemetery for both humans and Draconians - a final place of rest for those lost during wartime. The Doctor arrives on a trivial mission - to find a book, or so he says - and Katie, wandering around Joycetown, becomes involved with a charismatic Traveller called Jan. But the Doctor is strenuously opposed to the romance. What is he trying to prevent? Is he planning some more deadly game connected with the coffins revered by the mysterious Church of Vacuum and the unusual Arch that marks the location of a secret building below ground?

Archaeologist Bernice Summerfield thinks so. Her destiny is inextricably linked with that of the Doctor, but even she may not be able to save Katie from the Time Lord's plans. This time, has the Doctor gone too far?

Plot

Part 1

Henrick attends the funeral of his old friend Julian in Liverpool. Afterwards, the Doctor takes him to the planet Heaven in the year 2570. The bucolic planet lies on the border between the human and Draconian empires, and is neutral territory, serving as a cemetery world for both races in their long and sporadic wars against each other and against the Daleks. While the Doctor visits the governmental library in Joycetown in search of a lost manuscript, The Papers of Felsecar, Henrick gets involved with a group of Travellers, a nomadic bunch that has lived on Heaven for some years now. She quickly befriends Jan, one of the Travellers, and he shares Henrick's interest, although he is in an open relationship with another Traveller, Roisa—who is in turn in another open relationship with yet another Traveller, Máire. Henrick meets other colourful characters: Christopher, the priest of the Travellers, who have peculiar powers thanks to a government experiment; and a guest of the Travellers: archaeologist Bernice “Benny” Summerfield, who is conducting a dig at some ancient ruins left behind by the now-extinct Heavenites. Meanwhile, Roisa steps on a filament of a strange fungus.

In Joycetown, Phaedrus—priest of the death-obsessed Vacuum Church—conducts a ritual sacrifice of an old friend. The friend’s dying corpse is taken over by, and converted into, a fungus—and the fungus is intelligent. It has orders for Phaedrus… later, he encounters Roisa and warns her of terrible things to come.

The Doctor’s efforts to find the manuscript are unsuccessful, and he is baulked by a nervous librarian. He meets with Miller, the head of the local military detachment, and takes him into his confidence, warning him of the real reason for his visit; Miller keeps it to himself but is convinced to help the Doctor. Miller tells him about a mysterious sphere in space, which was spotted briefly before vanishing. The Doctor meets Benny, and she shows him a buried Heavenite observatory with a strange telescope and a decayed body inside—the first Heavenite remains found. The Doctor is disturbed by what he sees there. He accompanies Benny to Joycetown, but they are attacked en route; Benny shoots off the attacker’s arm, but the assailant is not deterred and escapes. The arm is infected with white fungal filaments.

Henrick joins the Travellers in “Puterspace”, a virtual reality environment that links to the Empire’s electronic networks, and which the Travellers use to join their minds for rituals and conferences. With Jan, he encounters a being calling himself the Trickster; and he learns more of Jan and Christopher’s history. The two men are old friends; both volunteered for military experimentation during their service. The experiments gave Christopher strong psychic powers; Jan was mostly unaffected but gained the ability to generate fire on command. As the Travellers gather, Roisa begs the Travellers to leave the planet and leave her behind. They are attacked in Puterspace by a strange sphere, but Christopher sacrifices himself to let the others escape. In the real world, the others bury Christopher’s now-empty body and grieve for him. Henrick is given a spare sleeping bag by Jan. later, he dreams of the Doctor bargaining with Death for his life, with Death refusing the deal. In the morning, the Doctor meets him and is saddened by the idea that Henrick may leave, as he's still grieving over the loss of Katie. Henrick assumes he is jealous of his desire for a separate life. During the visit, he shows Henrick a tesseract, a Gallifreyan hypercube, and plays a trick where it disappears between dimensions. He enlists his help in locating the book; he meets the librarian, who seems afraid but drops a hint as to where to look in the library computers. Meanwhile, a guard named Kale meets with Miller and reports a (fabricated) attack by Sontarans, and requests to go to the orbital station to scan the planet for incursions. Miller allows it but notices that Kale’s arm is in a sling.

The Doctor talks with Jan about Henrick, and then enters Puterspace. He is attacked by Vacuum Church assassins.

Part 2

Christopher appears and rescues The Doctor. Christopher reveals that his powers allowed him to copy his mind into Puterspace as software before he died; he is working out a way to control his own dead body as well, via the Puterspace jack in its brain. However, before the Doctor can leave, Phaedrus enters Puterspace and catches him in a software trap, forcing him to relive painful memories of Katie's recent death. Henrick arrives to rescue him, but is caught in the trap himself, and it shifts to his memories of Julian and Katie. There he learns from the Doctor that the real enemy is a fungal race called the Hoothi, which absorbs its victims and gains their memories and minds. Henrick sees his dead friend Julian there, and the Doctor realises the Hoothi have replicated his house from his memories, not from Henrick's, indicating that after his death, the Hoothi absorbed him. The Doctor briefly liberates Julian’s mind, and Julian, in turn, restores Christopher’s program; Julian is reintegrated into the group mind by Phaedrus, but Henrick liberates them by reversing the trap onto Phaedrus and making him relive his worst memory—in which he killed his own mother. With the Doctor, he escapes Puterspace. While they recover, Roisa gives the Doctor a drink from a Heavenite goblet that was once stolen from the Vacuum Church.

The Doctor and Henrick lead the Travellers in a raid on the library. There they are intercepted by Vacuum acolytes, who have been absorbed by the Hoothi. Henrick kills them with a homemade explosive created by Jan setting the library ablaze in the process, but not before they infect the librarian—but just before he converts to fungus, he unlocks the computer, allowing them to find out where the manuscript is hidden. They find that it was last released to Bernice Summerfield. On the way out, they meet Miller, and he learns that the Sontaran invasion was a lie; and Kale has been infected by the Hoothi spores. Kale, it seems, is the assailant who attacked the Doctor and Benny; his arm in a sling is fake, concealing a cache of the spores. He has now infected the entire orbital station crew, and removed the station from the action, leaving the planet defenceless until help arrives—in a week.

The Doctor again tries to get Henrick to give up on his idea of joining the Travellers, but to no avail. He retrieves the manuscript from Benny, and finds his own handwriting in it, though presumably from a future incarnation. It acts as a Rosetta Stone of sorts, allowing him to translate Heavenite writing left behind in the observatory. Henrick confers with Benny, and they discuss their respective and checkered pasts; Benny admits that she faked her credentials years ago, and is not really a professor. She travels in search of the truth about her missing father, who may be among the dead buried on Heaven. That night Henrick and Jan sit by the fire, talking and joking. Jan tells him his secret name, Aradrath, meaning “one big fire”. During the night, mysterious figures release spores into the Traveller camp, infecting some of the Travellers. Christopher also appears, having regained control of his body after a fashion, and collects most of the spores, which will not harm him; he also warns Henrick that remaining with the travellers will require a sacrifice.

The observatory writing leads the Doctor and Benny to the graveyards, where they find that everybody is infected with the spores, and indeed, have not decayed—all part of the Hoothi plan. He gets Benny’s team to rush and dig up the observatory, as it is instrumental to his plan. The Hoothi, via Kale, try to crash the orbital station onto the dig, but the Doctor threatens Phaedrus to divert it; the Hoothi need Phaedrus alive for now, and they destroy the station before it can crash. The Doctor returns to the camp, and levels with everyone about the Hoothi: They are an ancient, fungal race, which absorbs and utilises the living and the dead alike in efforts to conquer the galaxy. They were believed to have fled after failing once to conquer Gallifrey, but now they have returned. They exist in sub-hive minds as part of the greater group mind, and each sub-group travels in a massive organic sphere, composed of the remains of absorbed creatures. Centuries ago, they farmed the Heavenites for raw material, until they eventually claimed the entire world; the observatory was left to guard against their return. Now they are returning, and their long game will pay off; they arranged to have Heaven made into a cemetery world, filling it with a vast army of the dead, which they are coming to claim for use in their conquest. They can see and hear through their living victims and can control the victims’ actions, or take over at any time. The spores cannot be cured.

The now-liberated observatory contains a special telescope that can penetrate the Hoothi sphere’s ability to conceal itself. Roisa, knowing she is infected, goes to blow up the Vacuum Church in a suicide bombing, but can’t pull the trigger; Phaedrus forces her to meet the Hoothi that is located in the basement. Jan realises what has happened, and takes matters into his own hands; he takes some of the others and steals a shuttle, intending to set it as a passive projectile in orbit to destroy the Hoothi sphere. Henrick and Máire follow him and sneak aboard. When he discovers Henrick he asks her to officially become a traveller. He agrees, and everyone but Jan waits in the shuttle’s escape pods. Jan will activate the final course of the shuttle, and then enter a pod himself, and launch the pods. However, when the ship appears, everyone except Jan, Máire, and Ace explodes into fungus; and even Jan is clearly infected, as he can’t fire the engines. He ejects Henrick, Máire, and one of the others. Henrick's pod spins dangerously out of control and Henrick shuts his eyes as he sees that the pod is going to crash on to the ground.

Part 3

The Doctor’s hypercube appears in Henrick's hand, containing impressions of The Doctor, allowing Henrick to concentrate and teleport out of the pod just as it crashes. Máire’s pod crashes into the Vacuum Church, doing much damage, but not destroying the church, Phaedrus, or the Hoothi.

When the Doctor learns that Henrick followed Jan, he is appalled, and immediately takes the TARDIS—with Benny—to the Hoothi sphere. The Hoothi—or rather, three of the four in their subgroup—meet with him, and reveal that he himself is infected, having received a spore from the drink given to him by Roisa. They will refrain from taking him over, and allow him to leave with Henrick if he destroys the planet’s military communication equipment so as to prevent the empire’s Spacefleet from arriving. However, they infect Benny; but the Doctor secretly prevents the infection, feeding the Hoothi images from his mind to make them think they were successful. As the Doctor and Benny leave, they see Jan’s body among the other captive forms. The Hoothi sphere enters the atmosphere and sends down sub spheres and stairways to receive their infected dead, which burst to life from the ground all over the planet. Along the way, the dead attack and kill many of the living, breaking down settlements and buildings. The Doctor sends Benny to recover Henrick, who is wandering about in the forest. Christopher joins them as well. Phaedrus, considering his work complete, enters Puterspace still haunted by the death of his mother; Henrick arrives and follows him in, seeking revenge for Jan’s death. The Doctor, meanwhile, deactivates the comm equipment. He goes to the Vacuum Church and enters Puterspace to rescue Henrick; however, with Christopher’s help, he exploits the remnants of Jan’s consciousness inside the group mind, horrifying Henrick. Rather than try to save Jan, he persuades Jan to ignite his pyrokinetic power—and the sphere, filled with flammable gases, explodes, destroying the Hoothi inside and breaking their control over their army. It was all a part of the Doctor’s plan, including leading Jan to confront the Hoothi, as he knew that Jan was infected; however, Henrick cannot forgive the Doctor for manipulating sacrificing her friend to win this battle.

As the colony picks up the pieces, Henrick returns to the church—but finds Phaedrus still alive in the basement. Phaedrus kills himself, and is absorbed by the fourth Hoothi, which has been in the basement all along; it could still salvage the situation with enough blood—and Henrick will provide that blood. The captive Roisa pushes him toward the Hoothi. However, Máire is still alive in the wreckage, and she shoots and kills Roisa. Henrick calls on the last of Julian’s mind inside the Hoothi and makes him rebel momentarily, and he causes the Hoothi to explode and die.

The Doctor searches for Henrick, and bears witness to Christopher’s final death, as he can no longer maintain his body. He finds Henrick and tries to apologise to him, but he's furious with him after his actions, and he refuses to go with him. Henrick initially wants to stay with Márie and the remaining travellers. The Doctor tells Henrick how guilty he feels about using him and insists that he had no other choice. Henrick calms down and tells the Doctor he'll continue travelling, but warns The Doctor that he'll leave if the Doctor plays any more mind games. The Doctor promises he won't and apologises again.

He returns with Henrick to the TARDIS…where Benny agrees to join him. After all, as she points out, he needs someone to remind him who he is and to give him a reason to fight.

Cast

Crew

Writer - Paul Cornell
Producer - Ian Fraser
Script Editor - Ben Aaronovitch
Director - Colin Cant
Lighting - Brian Handley
Designer - Ricky Eyres
Visual Effects Designers - Malcom James, Dave Chapman
Make-Up Designer - Denise Baron
Casting Director - Anne Henderson
Music - Mark Ayres
Costume Designer - Ken Trew
Edited by - Howard Billingham
Vision Mixer - Julie Miller
Original Theme Music - Ron Grainer
Title Music - Mark Ayres
Title Sequence by CAL Video

Memorable Quotes

To be added.

Background Information

Production History

To be added.

Development

To be added.

Production

To be added.

Post-Production

To be added.

Reaction

Official BARB ratings: 7.9m for Part One, 7.0m for Part Two and 8.0m for Part Three.

Story Notes

This is the first story to feature Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield.

Continuity

The Draconians first appeared in DW: Frontier in Space.
IMC is on Heaven. They were first mentioned in DW: Colony in Space.
The Hoothi were first mentioned in DW: The Brain of Morbius.
Felsecar Abbey, first mentioned in this story, is later visited by the Doctor in DW: The Abbey of Felsecar.

Home Video Releases

To be added.