Nightshade (serial)


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

Nightshade was the first story of Season 29. It was written by Mark Gatiss, directed by Paul Seed and featured Richard Griffiths as the Doctor, Julia Sawalha as Katie Tollinger and John Banks as Henrick.

Synopsis

Katie and Henrick have never known The Doctor to be so withdrawn and melancholic. He is avoiding their company, seeking refuge in the forgotten and labyrinth passageways of his ancient time machine. Perhaps he will find the peace he yearns for on his favourite blue planet Earth. The second half of the twentieth century- in the isolated village of Crook Marsham to be precise, 1968, the year of peace, love and understanding. But one by one the villagers are being killed. The Doctor has to act, but for once he seems helpless, indecisive, powerless. What are the signals from space that are bombarding the radiotelescope on the Moore? What is the significance of the local legends about the civil war? And what is the aeons-Old power that The Doctor is unable to resist?

Plot

Part 1

December 22-23, 1968: WW1 veteran Jack Prudhoe dodges an argument with his wife Win and goes to the local pub. He reminisces about meeting her in 1916; then he sees what he believes, impossibly, to be the 1916 version of Win outside the window. He follows outside onto the moor in the rain, and into a shallow cave, where he is killed by something large and dark.

Ageing former actor Edmund Trevithick once played the adventurous Professor Nightshade on television. Now the series is being replayed on the new BBC2, and the BBC wants to interview him at Dalesview Residential Home, for old times' sake. As he goes to bed, his nurse, Jill Mason, is frightened by something monstrous outside. Later, something smashes Trevithick's window and menaces him.

Lovers Holly Kidd and Vijay Degun work as technicians at Hawthorne and Cooper Space Tracking Station, a radio telescope near the village. Shortly after 5 AM on the 23rd, the telescope--trained on Bellatrix in the Orion quadrant--picks up alarming readings at the same time as a security breach alarm. Vijay finds the security guard missing and a hole in the fence, and then is chased back to the facility by something large and fearsome.

In the village, Betty Yeadon, the second wife of pub owner Lawrence Yeadon, has a mysterious chronic illness. Her situation--and her husband's unwarranted cheerfulness about it--is a hot topic of gossip.

A mile from the station, along the road to nearby St. Hilda's Monastery, homeless man Billy Coote witnesses the early-morning arrival of the TARDIS.

Katie and Henrick reflect on the Doctor's recent spell of brooding. They discover him in his nightclothes; unexpectedly he takes them on a search through the TARDIS, ending at a long-disused, stone-decorated tertiary console room. He relocates it to the main entrance. Katie discovers an old Coal Hill jacket, which once belonged to Susan, prompting the Doctor to snap at her before abruptly switching to good humour. He dresses, then leads her and Henrick outside.

Betty Yeadon wakes up from a nightmare about her dead brother, Alfie, who died in a WW2 ship sinking. She takes medication, and gets her stepson Robin out for the morning, before giving in to her fear. In the pub

Robin meets the Doctor, Katie and Henrick, and refers them to a cafe for breakfast. The Doctor ruminates on retiring to Gallifrey, then leaves for the monastery to think, promising to meet at the pub at 8:30 pm. Katie and Henrick see Vijay come in and try to call Cambridge, but all lines are down.

Betty goes for a lie-down but passes out when she sees what looks like her dead brother walking out of her bedroom. At the same time, the tracking station detects more activity.

Katie and Henrick discuss the telescope and current events with Mrs Crithin at the cafe; she then goes outside and spots Vijay's car. Investigating it, she gets inside but is forced to stay put and hide when he returns and drives away.

The Doctor walks to the monastery. In the greenhouse, he meets the exceedingly jolly abbot Mervyn Winstanley and asks to spend time at the monastery.

Betty's vision continues, terrifying her and causing her to scream until she passes out. Lawrence sends Robin for a doctor, as the phones are still out.

Trevithick and Jill meet a constable, George Lowcock, who expresses little expectation for the investigation. Robin then arrives, having been unable to find local physician Dr Shearsmith, and gets Jill to go check on his mother. Trevithick accompanies them.

Katie and Henrick, driven by Vijay onto the station grounds, find themselves trapped inside the fence. When Katie finds the hole in the fence, she discovers the dead body of the missing guard.

Part 2

Katie and Henrick run into the station, startling Hawthorne and Cooper.

At the pub, Trevithick talks with Lowcock about the disappearance of Prudhoe and Shearsmith. They are interrupted by Betty's renewed screaming.

The Doctor reads a history of the area which implies that locals have been subject to terrible fears for centuries.

In 1644, Cromwell routes an army led by Prince Rupert near Crook Marsham. Survivors led by Sir Harry Crooke hide in the village's ruined Norman castle, hunted by Cromwell's man Philip Jackson. Cooke sees apparitions of his dead daughters, which turn into a fiery creature that consumes him; his men flee in terror and are captured by Jackson. Jackson investigates the castle, but sees strange energies, and flees in terror just before it explodes and burns out of existence.

Finishing the book, the Doctor inquires about the castle site; the abbot tells him that the telescope was built on the spot.

Hawthorne, a diehard racist, muses on the path that brought him here (including a bit of childhood trauma regarding the Tar Baby in the Brer Rabbit stories, which he associates with his perceived racial inferiors). He is interrupted by the arrival of the terrified and manic Katie and Henrick.

Intent on going through with his plan to retire, the Doctor returns to the pub to meet Katie and Henrick, who isn't there; but on the mention of his name, Trevithick and Lowcock press him into helping Betty, who is now sedated by Jill. He gets her to sleep peacefully. In the pub, he compares notes with Trevithick regarding the phone outage and the disappearances but still doesn't want to get involved. He learns that Katie and Henrick were interested in the telescope, and leaves to find them; Robin sneaks out to follow him.

Hawthorne and Cooper interrogate Katie, who reports the dead guard. They are interrupted when the facility gets another data burst, and Hawthorne sends Henrick to get Vijay and Holly, who are in bed together. Vijay responds but lets Holly sleep.

Betty awakens to another vision of her brother.

Robin finds the Doctor to tell him about Katie and Henrick, but before he can, they find a traumatised Win Prudhoe on the moor. She wanders away, and they find Jack's body.

Trevithick meets the monster again as he walks home, recognising it as an insect creature from the nightshade serials. It chases him, and even gives him a small injury before Lawrence Yeadon's car runs it off. Lawrence says he and Lowcock couldn't get out of the village to go for help.

The Doctor and Robin break into the satellite facility and meet everyone but Holly. He quickly ingratiated himself to Cooper as a scientist and identifies the double-star nova that is causing the electronic chatter and offers to help. He also reports the body of Jack, corroborating Katie's story about the guard.

Holly dreams of her former lover, James, who died six years ago; she then awakens to an apparition of him in her bedroom.

Billy Coote is sleeping at the monastery and musing about the headaches that started a few months ago, and about the erratic second sight, he has had all his life. A strange wind begins to moan around him; down the hall, the abbot feels it too. At the station, Vijay interrupts Holly's visitation before it can devour her; he only sees it as a vaguely humanlike cloud.

Katie and Robin sleep in the station breakroom; they are beginning to develop feelings for each other, and nearly kiss in the morning before being interrupted by the Doctor.

Journalist Tim Medway comes to town to interview Trevithick. Trevithick, meanwhile, has stayed overnight in the pub with Lowcock and Yeadon, who are shaken by their encounter with the monster last night. In the morning, They compare notes, and suddenly Yeadon hurries upstairs to check on Betty. He finds her dead in bed, with the room mangled and the window torn out. Yeadon is hysterical; Lowcock sets Trevithick to watch him, then heads to his police station. Edmund decides to take Yeadon to Dalesview and leave him with another resident while Edmund recovers something useful--his old service revolver.

The Doctor fails to repair the station radio, then interrogates Vijay and Holly about the apparition. Cooper gives him a walkie-talkie, and he takes Katie to the monastery; Henrick decides to go with Robin. As they go, Katie realises she is beginning to resent the way the Doctor treats her, and to long for human contact--like Robin. Meant, Medway nears town and finds that all radio stations turn to static a mile out. He encounters a crashed bus with a dead driver; the occupants are Jill and most of the Daleview residents, who were en route to visit various families for Christmas. Jill tells him of a sickly feeling that overcame everyone as they neared the edge of town, terminating in the fatal crash. He denies feeling anything and helps them all to the nearby monastery. The Doctor and Katie arrive first and begin researching more local history with the abbot, though not without some small tension between themselves. Katie finds a record of an archaeological dig, Palaeolithic period, at the station site, which was abandoned under mysterious circumstances.

Medway goes to the police station and meets Lowcock, reporting the bus accident. Lowcock sends an officer to deal with it, then takes Medway to meet Trevithick.

The Doctor finished his research and gets a call from Cooper, asking him to return--new signals are building up. Katie asks to stay behind--secretly waiting for Robin--and though neither of them admits it, both are preparing for her to leave the Doctor and Henrick. Leaving the monastery, the Doctor meets Jill and her charges and learns of the accident.

Robin returns to the pub with Henrick, thinking about Katie. He learns of his mother's death, and Yeadon blames him for leaving, and punches him, then apologises. He views the body, then admits to finding Jack in the same condition, then leaves. Lowcock and Medway arrive at the same time, and Trevithick reports Robin's story about Jack; Lowcock tells Trevithick about Jill's accident. Lowcock relocates Yeadon to a b&b, and Trevithick tells Medway what's been going on.

The Doctor, Cooper, Vijay and Holly confer. The signals are building steadily, but they aren't coming from the nova. The Doctor discusses the history of similar, horrific incidents. Hawthorne doesn't believe it, and nearly starts a fight with Vijay before storming off. Suddenly the signal goes wild again.

Musing about the Doctor and waiting for Henrick and Robin, Katie briefly joins Jill and the seniors in the monastery great hall, but gets uncomfortable and steps out. Jill gets the residents singing to calm them, but then sees an apparition of one resident's long-dead husband. It is joined by many other ghostly figures. When the phantoms touch their respective victims, the seniors are consumed in a burst of light and corruption. Jill flees the hall. Katie meets her and sees the conflagration; a moment later, Henrick and Robin arrive and Katie saves them from death. The creature chases Robin and Katie upstairs but is distracted by the abbot on an upper floor.

Hawthorne broods angrily in his room.

Medway takes Trevithick to the telescope station, and Trevithick finishes his story en route. They arrive into the chaos of the control room, just as the fence breach alarm sounds again; Cooper goes to investigate. The Doctor realises something is happening at the monastery.

An apparition in the form of the Tar Baby kills Hawthorne.

An apparition in the form of a glowing, white humanoid kills the abbot.

With the signal surge over, the Doctor and Henrick leave for the monastery to check on Katie. The power goes out. Trevithick confers with Holly while Vijay and Medway search for candles; they find Hawthorne's remains, and Medway flees in terror in his car. Katie and Robin commiserate while hiding, and kiss.

The Doctor and Henrick arrive as the creatures fade from the monastery, and meets Jill running out, hysterical; she updates them, and the Doctor sends her and Henrick to gather everyone safely in one place. He goes in to find Katie.

Trevithick confers with Vijay and realises the apparitions are all from the victims' pasts. Vijay's relationship with Holly is strained by her experience. As the power slowly returns, Holly finds the regular nova signal, plus a fainter but regular pulse in the background.

Medway gets sick as he tries to leave town, but the fatal incident happens when he nearly runs over Jill and Henrick and wrecks his car causing it to explode.

Robin and Katie, in the tower now, see the explosion, as do the group at the station. They stay put and discuss the Doctor and Katie's life and kiss again. They see Billy Coote approaching from further into the tower, and he appears possessed. At the station, the window explodes; half a dozen of Trevithick's Nightshade monsters are approaching. The trip flees further inside as the creatures invade, and are forced to split up Trevithick finds an elevator and battles a creature to get inside, then goes up. The creature clings to the bottom of the lift, then breaks through the floor; Trevithick shoots it, to no avail. He rigs a fire extinguisher to the creature, forces it back down onto the cable, sets the elevator going up, then shoots the extinguisher, setting the creature ablaze.

The Doctor arrives at the monastery just as sunrise arrives, and finds nearly everyone dead. He sees an apparition...of Katie.

Part 3

Katie and Robin climb to the roof to escape from Billy. Meanwhile, the Doctor realises that the Katie that's with him in the monastery isn't the real Katie, and rejects the apparition, which turns into the burning cloud creature. He runs for the stairs up to the tower.

Yeadon is assaulted by an apparition of Betty in the apartment over the pub.

Vijay and Holly awaken and go outside, and find Cooper beneath a vehicle, injured but alive. The fence has been blown down—or rather, toppled by ground subsidence—and a "fairy ring" around the station is flattened and scorched. They discover that the Palaeolithic quarry beneath the grounds has been opened.

Lowcock tries to gather the residents into the church as recommended, but finds that most of the village—including Win Prudhoe—have been consumed. Only about sixty survivors join him, Henrick and Jill in the church.

The Doctor gains access to the tower; his encounter with the Katie apparition has forced him to face the feelings that led him to want to retire, and he isn't prepared for it. In the tower, he finds Katie's purse on the floor and then encounters the possessed Billy Coote, whose eyes have gone from normal, to all black, to transparent. The Doctor tries to confront him, realising he is mentally linked to something. Katie and Robin hear him but remain on the roof.

Trevithick awakens in the level 18 corridor, and takes the elevator back down, aiming for the control room on Level 8, which is the ground level (the lower levels are underground). The elevator doesn't stop, and through the hole in the floor, he sees a web of light. He manages to escape on level 5. Vijay, Holly, and Cooper return to the control room to search for Trevithick but get distracted by the energy readings, which now show a regular pattern. Cooper realises it's coming from underground.

As the Doctor confronts the creature in Billy, Katie returns to the room to get the climbing rope from a storage room for Robin. The creature says it is ancient and doesn't know what it is or where it came from, but it is hungry for life energy. Katie sets a rope, and Robin makes it to the ground. The creature moves to consume the Doctor, and Katie fends the creature off with a baseball bat before knocking it out. She descends the rope with the Doctor following, She makes it down safely, but the rope suddenly snaps, causing the Doctor to fall.

Part 4

Trevithick makes it up to Level 8 but passes out.

The Doctor is alive, but his shoulder is dislocated; Katie and Robin are forced to reset it. He then tells them that the creature—which he labels the Sentience—is ancient, with the Earth possibly having formed around it, and it feeds on energy. Katie's attack on the Sentience saved them for now but made the Sentience stronger. They head for the telescope.

As it grows, the Sentience destroys the Monastery, then begins to tear apart the village, before moving in on the crowd in the church. It finds root in the reactions of an old war veteran, then in Lowcock.

Vijay locates Trevithick and gets him back to the control room just as the Doctor, Katie, and Robin arrive; the group compares notes as the Sentience spreads over the moor and the village. The Doctor concludes that it is emotion, memory, and belief which are feeding the creature, summoning it, causing it to grow. He plans an expedition below ground via the quarry, and will take Trevithick, Vijay, and Holly with him, leaving Cooper to monitor via the equipment; but he forces Katie to stay behind, with Robin to look after her, telling her she is too important to lose. Robin talks with her and finally asks her to stay behind with him when the Doctor inevitably leaves.

The Sentience confronts the Doctor’s group underground; the Doctor warns them to clear their minds. Holly is unable to do so, and it gets a foothold in her memories, then manifests as her dead fiancé again. This time, she gives in and runs to it, but Vijay knocks her out in an attempt to save her; but unknown to him, the sleeping mind is more vulnerable, and the creature quickly devours her. The Doctor, Trevithick, and Vijay flee the cavern but encounter more of the nIghtshade creatures. Trevithick realises they can only exist because his memories give them form; and he chooses to sacrifice himself by attacking them, allowing the Doctor and Vijay to make it back to the telescope station. Trevithick dies still fighting.

The Sentience’s apparitions begin to break into the church despite Henrick and Lowcock’s efforts at coordinating a defence, though they begin to realise what is feeding them. They find a trapdoor into the crypt below and gets everyone inside. At the station, the Doctor admits his failure and tells Cooper, Katie and Vijay about his vision of Katie. Katie tries to summon the creature in the form of her father, to determine their chance of success, and to illustrate her belief in the Doctor, who doesn’t believe in himself at the moment. It materialises, but she denies its reality, and without belief from her it is forced to retreat. She then challenges the Doctor to face his past as she faced hers.

The Sentience now has enough strength to fully free itself from its prison in the earth. The Doctor summons it back to him on the strength of his memories of Katie, and it takes her form again. He forces it to confront its hunger and then locks it onto the feed from the nova coming through the telescope. Finally strong enough to depart, it leaves Earth along with the signal and heads for the star, a practically unlimited source of energy.

With the crisis over, Henrick meets up with the Doctor and Katie. Katie does something difficult: She tells the Doctor she intends to stay behind. He accepts it and asks her for one last favour: A final trip in the TARDIS, as an experiment. As they board, the Doctor surmises that the nova is 324 light-years away—thus, it happened 324 years ago—and the creature is moving back in time…

The Doctor lands in Crook Marsham in 1644, where Jackson and Rupert’s soldiers are being alternately terrified and killed in the castle. The Doctor and Ace deduce that the creature is arriving here from the future before homing in on the nova—and true to expectations, they witness the destruction in the fire of the castle as the creature arrives. It was the modern creature, not the historic, that destroyed the castle, before leaving Earth completely. The Doctor, Katie and Henrick follow it to the nova, then forward in time to the nova’s eventual consumption, then across space to a supernova in Andromeda..and forward again, in time to witness the conversion of the supernova into a black hole. The Sentience, at last, is consumed by the black hole.

The Doctor prepares to take Katie back…but when she steps out of the TARDIS, she finds herself on an alien beach. When she steps back inside, the TARDIS dematerialises…and the Doctor is nowhere to be seen.

Robin waits five months for Katie, but she does not return. Eventually, he moves on, to York and beyond, keeping in touch with Cooper, Vijay, and Jill as they pick up the pieces. The telescope station is closed and later dismantled, and life in the village—such as remains—goes on.

Cast

Crew

Writer - Mark Gatiss
Producer - Ian Fraser
Script Editor - Ben Aaronovitch
Director - Paul Seed
Lighting - Brian Handley
Designer - Ken Ledsham
Visual Effects Designers - Malcom James, Dave Chapman
Make-Up Designer - Helen Barrett
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: 8.4m for Part One, 8.2m for Part Two, 7.9m for Part Three and 7.1m for Part Four.

Story Notes

This was the first story since The Ultimate Foe to air on a Saturday.
Nightshade was the first Doctor Who television story written by actor-writer Mark Gatiss, who would go on to write and appear in several more Doctor Who stories before finding fame in the TV series The League of Gentlemen. In the 2000s and 2010s.
Characters named Dr Shearsmith and Mr Pemberton are mentioned (but do not appear), a possible reference to Gatiss' fellow The League of Gentlemen co-creators and co-stars Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton.
The character of Professor Nightshade was inspired by Bernard Quatermass.
An abridged version of this story was used in the Season 39 story The Name's Shakespeare, William Shakespeare.

Continuity

This story takes place contemporaneously with several sequences of DW: The Left-Handed Hummingbird in which the Doctor and Henrick likewise visit England in December 1968.

Home Video Releases

To be added.