Remnants (episode)


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

Remnants was the fourteenth episode of Season 49 of Doctor Who. It was written by Ira Steven Behr directed by Nick Hurran and featured Samantha Bond as the Fourteenth Doctor, Montserrat Lombard as Erin Stevenson and Bernard Cribbins as Hogan Cox.

Synopsis

Landing upon a mysterious spaceship, the Tardis team get wrapped up in something much deeper to the Doctor, personally, than they could ever imagine.

Plot

A dark dusty vast room: a man, covered in dirt, is chucked onto the ground. He's screaming - angry, frightened - he asks what he's supposed to have done, but he gets no response. Looking over him: four people, all of them young but one, a woman, a very old woman, a familiar old woman... It's Frances. She simply tells them to 'do it', and the man is held up by the other three and flushed out of an airlock into the vacuum of space.

In a clean, white and detailless corridor, the Tardis materialises. The Doctor steps out, telling Erin and Hogan that this is it - the proper future, all clean and white, simplistic because it's so advanced. Hogan remarks that its a long way from the Forge, and it must be a long while ahead of his time. The Doctor says that she’s unsure onto when they are, but she’s certain its human. Just then a group of people in has-mat suits surround them, and arrest them - making comments along the lines, that they may be infected or something of the sort. They are then taken to a cell, which is completely airtight. A doctor stands across the glass, making up the cell, and he runs some tests on them and then confirms that they are indeed (as the Doctor, Erin and Hogan claim) not infected at all. Then someone else comes in and informs him that they’ve run a background check and these people simply “do not exist”.

The episode plays out as you would expect, and we find out that a disease has infected the majority of the ships in the fleet, with the mothership (which they are on) being one of the only uncontaminated. However, it is revealed about 20 minutes in that they aren’t in any old fleet - they are in the Time Lord/Vex fleet from the finale of Panopticon, and they are in fact 1200 years on - the Doctor and Frances, explain all of this to Erin and Hogan, and thus to the audience as this is a new chapter after all. They are still in search of their new home, and still, they don’t even have a destination.

However, they work out that the virus doesn’t affect humans, and only people with Time Lord biology, and of course everyone in the fleet, but Erin and Hogan, have Time Lord biology, so they decide to send Erin and Hogan over to a contaminated ship to test an antidote, something they wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. On the ship, Erin and Hogan, attempt to do that, but the half living, half dead, population of the ship try to stop them, leading to an action scene where you know, they run around the corridors etc.. etc.. But, they end up in a room, covered in red fabrics, really atmospheric and in the middle of the bed is Honor Blackman’s Zenla (who is the Zenla from this universe, but old, and not the same old Zenla from the Ties In Between Us). She’s been infected by the disease, and she’s terribly weak. She finds out from Erin that she’s one of the Doctor’s new companions, and a tear rolls down Zenla’s cheek. She asks to speak to the Doctor, and Hogan puts her on the comms. In a terribly emotional scene, Zenla and the Doctor speak, while in Erin’s arms, and the scene ends with Zenla dying, being whittled away by the disease.

As the episode concludes, Erin and Hogan complete their mission and deliver the antidote to every infected ship, but it comes at a cost as everyone infected with the virus will die, but it eradicates any trace of it. So the population of the fleet is cut by 62%. We have a funeral scene for Zenla, which also doubles as a memorial for everyone who has lost their lives. The Doctor walks over to Zenla’s coffin to lift it up and she sees Zenla’s body lying there, she puts her hand on her cheek and says “Farewell, good friend… thank you… thank you for staying strong, and you know what, I will find you a home.”. After the funeral, the Doctor goes into the TARDIS and searches a map, and then she presents a set of coordinates to Frances and tells her, here’s your destination. It will take approximately 500 years to reach, but at least you won’t be steering blind. The Doctor then tells her, maybe you should try and forge a new path, forget the past and build for a future, it’s an exciting new world out there, do it some good. And with that, the Doctor, Erin and Hogan step back into the TARDIS and they dematerialise.

Cast

TBA

Crew

Created by Sydney Newman, Donald Wilson and C.E. Webber

Memorable Quotes

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Background Information

Production History

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Development

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Production

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Post-Production

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Reaction

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Story Notes

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Continuity

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Home Video Releases

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