The Darnley Conspiracy (episode)


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

The Darnley Conspiracy was the second episode of Season 49 of Doctor Who. It was written by Toni Graphia, directed by Metin Hüseyin and featured Samantha Bond as the Fourteenth Doctor and Montserrat Lombard as Erin Stevenson.

Synopsis

Receiving an old invitation to the wedding of Bastian Pagez, the Doctor and Erin attend to find much more than they bargained for as they find themselves in the middle of the mysterious murder of Lord Darnley.

Plot

The episode begins in the Scottish docks, foggy and misty. A ship arrives, and after a moment, Mary – the Queen of Scotland, steps out, and to her surprise, there is not one person in the docks there to meet her. Then the cannons on the ship fire, and people starts to gather around the docks – startled by the noise – and a man shouts out, Mary Stuart, the Queen of this noble country, has returned. The crowd then rejoice, applauding and cheering – as we go into the opening titles.

We then cut to the inside of the TARDIS and Erin simply says, “A party”, to which the Doctor looks naturally quite confused, she replies with “Any old party? There’s plenty to choose from… We could go to the disco halls of Thoros-Beta or the residence of King Edward the Sixteenth”, Erin then just asks the Doctor to take her somewhere fun, although she says that she’d probably prefer the past. The Doctor remarks that quite a few years back herself and Sandra received an invite to the wedding of Bastian Pagez, in 16th Century Scotland… She remarks that she never actually ended up going. The Doctor then tells Erin to go get changed into something a little more… regal?

We then cut to the TARDIS arriving in Edinburgh 1567, and both the Doctor and Erin get out, dressed in 16th Century clothes, looking their absolute best. We get the usual thing with Erin, as she has taken her first trip in the TARDIS, and she remarks how brilliant it all is, and how real it feels being her in the 16th century – and we get a bit of them just exploring the past and having a laugh.

We then cut to a bed chamber, a we see Mary, Queen of Scots, tending to a man, who is revealed in dialogue to be her latest husband, Lord Darnley, who is terribly unwell. We get a nice little scene between them, before we cut back to the Doctor and Erin as they then hire transport to the wedding, and they realise they have arrived a little too late, they have missed the ceremony and found themselves at the Masquerade Dance (basically the reception), the Doctor remarks “ah well at least we missed the boring bit, now we can just party”, to which Erin responds “wicked”, cheekily. During this scene, the Doctor points out that she believes that the Queen is actually here, to which Erin asks “you mean the really famous one? You know Mary, Queen of Scots?” and the Doctor says, “if I’m right exactly the one. She’s recently returned to Scotland about 6 years back, after the death of her husband, the King of France – they have entered a golden age, apparently, tax is non-existent.”

The Doctor and Erin split up before the Doctor bumps into Bastian. She says greets him, introducing herself as Lady Joan Smith, and Bastian remarks that he was sure that he sent the invite to a John Smith, to which the Doctor tells him that perhaps there was a typo, but I am most definitely not John Smith. Bastian chuckles and says, well what a pleasure it is to have your company Lady Smith.

At the entrance to the hall, someone announces the Queen has arrived, and the double doors open as Mary enters. The Doctor and Bastian turned around in the commotion, and they see her enter. However, the Doctor notices Erin, near to the door looking excited, and she sees her walk up to the queen and greet her… while the Doctor is worried for a moment that something may go monumentally wrong, it all seems to go pretty smoothly. Mary then walks over to Bastian (and by extension the Doctor) and tells him how nice it is to see him and that she apologises for her late arrival as she was tending to her husband. Bastian asks if Lord Darnley is okay, and Mary simply says “He’ll live”. Mary walks off and the Doctor finds Erin again, telling her that she needs to be more careful – blundering up to a ruling monarch from the 16th Century, isn’t always the best idea. This then leads into a discussion about Mary’s absence and her husband, Darnley – to which the Doctor explains to Erin the general details of Darnley and Mary’s marriage, this accompanied by flashbacks. The Doctor explains, in a nutshell, that while they fell in love quickly, their marriage was rocky, with rumours of affairs going about, including Darnley murdering in cold blood, a man to whom Mary was rumoured to have a relationship with. She also explains that Darnley was found dead, later on, under mysterious circumstances – however the Doctor points out that is yet to happen, and they must not, as responsible time travellers, interfere.

The party continues, and the Doctor and Erin mingle with other guests – hearing stories and rumours about Mary, especially about a rumoured affair with the Earl of Bothwell, however not long into the night, Mary has to leave prematurely, sparking much commotion. However only minutes later, they hear an explosion! The crowd, are startled, and start to pour outside to see what’s happened (including the Doctor and Erin). They see that there was an explosion in Kirk O’Fields, and their they find the dead body of Lord Darnley. The Doctor runs over to the body, claiming that she’s a healer, and she tells everyone that he didn’t die in the explosion but by the looks off it from asphyxiation. At that moment, a man, Doctor Garris, laughs and says that the woman is clearly mistaken, of course Darnley died in the explosion, before kneeling down to study Darnley where he bewilderedly makes the same prognosis as the Doctor. Erin then points out that around Darnley theres a chair, a cloth and some rope… that no one has seemed to notice, due to the main attraction of Darnley.

After a short while, the Doctor and Erin leave, and the Doctor says that they must go back to the TARDIS and go, as she said they mustn’t interfere, and they enter the TARDIS. Erin asks what actually happened then, and the Doctor replies “Well nobody knows, some people suspected the Earl of Bothwell and even Mary herself, but it was never solved…” Erin then says, “Could we?”, the Doctor replies “absolutely not, no, no, no.” And then we smash cut to the TARDIS arriving back where it was, and a caption reads “Two months later” – the Doctor and Erin step out of the TARDIS and the Doctor says “that’s it – we are only here to try and crack this mystery. No interfering.”

They see that a trial is being held for Bothwell, and they sneak in – however they learn from the locals that Mary is set to marry Bothwell, and that she placed Bothwell in charge of the investigation to find Darnley’s killer – which is even more puzzling.

The Doctor and Erin then meet with Bastian, who remarks he is happy to seem them, and the business with the Queen and Darnley is brought up and he speaks about how displeased he is with the handling of it. The Doctor and Erin, with the help of Bastian begin and investigation. They end up at a secret base, and they find the perpetrators, and they discover that this wasn’t just a murder, but a larger conspiracy involving all the people accused of his murder earlier. Those being the Earl of Moray, the Earl of Morton, William Maitland, Archibald Douglas, Lord Bothwell and Mary herself. The Doctor, Erin and Bastian, spying on them from afar, hear them reveal everything. They here that although Darnley’s death had been planned, most of the other conspirators simply helped out, including getting the gunpowder for the explosion. Bothwell admits it was he who killed Darnley by smothering him, and we also find out that in fact Douglas was the one who disposed of the body and planted the evidence – but left his shoes at the scene. Erin suggests they go to the authorities with this information, but the Doctor points to Mary and says, “there’s the authorities, go ahead”. However, during this short conversation, Bothwell hears them, and a chase ensues, around the streets of Edinburgh. They make it back to the TARDIS, and they bid Bastian farewell, before the TARDIS dematerlises.

Bothwell catches up with Bastian, but Mary intervenes, scolding Bothwell and says that she is pleased to see Bastian – not believing Bothwell in his assertions that Bastian was in fact spying on them.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor looks up in the databanks, what happened next – and she explains to Erin that Mary didn’t end up leading a very happy life, from this moment on it went rather downhill, we her first being imprisoned by Bothwell, then forced to abdicate, and then imprisoned again, tried to start multiple coups to get her crown back, and finally she ended up imprisoned for 20 years by Queen Elizabeth I, until she was executed for treason. Erin remarks, that this was just a bit “real” for her, and she’d like to go home. The Doctor says she understands, and Erin says, “not permanently, I still want to party in the future after all, but I just you know, want to go home for a bit.” The Doctor starts the controls and, the TARDIS heads off back towards 1977.

Cast

Crew

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

Memorable Quotes

To be added.

Background Information

Production History

Filming starts - 6 January 2014
Filming ends - 24 January 2014
Broadcast - 27 September 2014

Development

Pre-Production

To be added.

Production

This episode was shot fourth in the season, beginning Block 2, which included Fire and Fury, The Lady with the Lamp and Queen of Nine. It was helmed entirely by director, Metin Hüseyin.

Post-Production

To be added.

Reaction

Story Notes

To be added.

Continuity

Home Video Releases

To be added.