Those Who Lead (serial)

Those Who Lead
Doctor(s)	Fourteenth Doctor
Companion(s)	Erin Stevenson Hogan Cox
Featuring	Amanda Theodore
Main Enemy	The Gaians
Main Setting(s)	Starship Forge, 3262
Key Crew
Written by	Jane Espenson & Jamie Mathieson
Directed by	Rachel Talalay
Produced by	Nikki Wilson
Executive Producer(s)	Ronald D. Moore Jane Espenson Ira Steven Behr Ken MacQuarrie
Release Details
TX Date(s)	8 November 2014 24 January 2015
Original Release	BBC One
Format	2x60 minutes
Chapter	Chapter Four
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The following article is written from an Out of Universe perspective.

Those Who Lead was a serial which consisted of the eighth and ninth episodes of Season 49 of Doctor Who. It was written by Jane Espenson & Jamie Mathieson, directed by Rachel Talalay and featured Samantha Bond as the Fourteenth Doctor, Montserrat Lombard as Erin Stevenson and Bernard Cribbins as Hogan Cox.

 Synopsis 

The Doctor and Erin find themselves on a spaceship in the future... It's full of walking spacesuits, seemingly autonomous. However, as they journey further into the ship, they discover something much more sinister is going on.

Plot

Part I

The episode begins with space, and a spaceship comes into view. On the outer hull, we see two workers, Hogan Cox and Ellie Hollinder. They are having a conversation, but the comms system is faulty. Ellie examines her air tank to discover that she is running low on oxygen and is required to purchase more. From behind two figures start walking toward her, also wearing suits but without their helmets -- the humans wearing the suits are obviously dead. Ellie turns to see them advancing on her and she screams, but Hogan can't hear anything. Just as he finishes his repairs, Hogan turns to look behind him and sees the two figures along with a now dead, helmet-less Ellie advancing on him and he screams, as we cut to the opening titles.

The TARDIS materialises in a corridor on the spaceship and the Doctor and Erin step out. The Doctor expands the TARDIS air-shell so they can explore as their isn’t any oxygen on the ship. The Doctor welcomes Erin to her first space ship, and that they are sometime in the 32nd Century. As the two of them continue down the corridor, they discover a man in a suit standing in the middle of the repair bay. Upon examining him, they discover the man to be dead – just standing there. Erin finds it rather distressing that the mechanical suit is keeping the dead man propped upright. The Doctor examines the computer logs and discovers that the station was declared non-profitable after a majority of its workers were killed.

The Doctor and Erin continue further through the ship and discover a suit, without a body inside moving about. Suddenly a computer voice, states there has never been oxygen in the station and the unauthorised oxygen from the TARDIS has been detected and will be expelled. The Doctor and Erin, with haste, rush back to the TARDIS as the section begins decompressing the expanded air shell from it, but before they can get to it, the blast door in front of the corridor its in snaps shut. The Doctor and Erin are stuck, and with the oxygen draining, and fast. A comms unit engages on a nearby console, and the voice on the other end introduces herself as Captain Amanda Theodore of the Starship Forge. However, the empty suit starts advancing towards the two of them, and the Doctor works out that the Oxygen is contained in the suits and she and Erin quickly scamper into two held in the repair bay. 

While escaping from the smartsuit chasing them, the Doctor and Erin stumble upon Captain Theodore, Hogan and several other members of the surviving crew. The crew tells the Doctor that the suits are the property of the company which has turned access to oxygen into profit and that the suits have received instructions to 'deactivate their organic components'. All other crew members were killed by an electric shock to their nerve systems, rendering them zombies. The crew makes plans, now with the Doctor and Erin, to retreat across the Outer Hull of the Starship to a section of the ship that had been taken offline for repairs and as such wasn’t present in the stations mapping, at present. However, suddenly he suits break into the section where the crew are hiding and kill Tasker, one of the crew. Theodore, now down to only 2 of her crew left, Hogan and Dahh-Ren, guides them along with the Doctor and Erin to the airlock at the end of the section, telling them to all put their helmets on as they prepare themselves for the short journey in the vacuum. During the process of decompression, the suit Erin took from the repair bay begins to malfunction, deactivating her helmet of its own accord. The Doctor attempts to release Erin’s helmet from the suit's grip, but to no avail; she warns Erin that she is about to be exposed to the vacuum and to breathe normally. We get a tense seen, shot in a high frame rate and then presented in slow motion, of the team, with Erin exposed to the vacuum making their way across the hull, Erin’s eyes begin to boil over, her skin starts to freeze and then – they make it inside. Erin has lost consciousness… The Doctor is worried and starts getting quite tetchy as she lays Erin down to rest. Captain Theodore tells Hogan and Dahh-Ren to have a look around the section, make sure its secure.

Erin awakens, with the Doctor crouched over her. The Doctor explains that her exposure to the vacuum has caused some nasty side effects… And then Erin begins to scream almost with terror, she says… Doctor, I can’t see anything… Doctor I’m blind. The Doctor looks down solemnly, the Doctor apologises heartfeltly, she feels especially bad that this has happened. Erin says it’s okay, she’s a little shaken but right now they have to stay on task and keep all 5 of them alive. The Doctor walks off and begins speaking to Captain Theodore. Hogan, meanwhile, starts speaking to Erin and they have an in-depth discussion after life in the 32nd century, and Erin speaks of her home as well in 1977. Hogan makes mention of ‘the empire’ and Earth not being too nice a place at the moment. The Doctor, speaking to Captain Theodore, makes plans to get the 5 of them out alive, but she isn’t satisfied that they Doctor will be able to achieve it, especially due to what she let happen to Erin. But at that point, the smartsuits find the section, logging it in their mapping system and storm it, killing Dahh-Ren in the process. The Doctor shouts for everyone to come together now, Hogan helps Erin up, holding her hand as they scamper.

Just before they make it to the next section, Hogan’s suit malfunctions, he gasps out, stuck to the floor. Erin is dazed, as she is no longer being guided by Hogan due to his immobility – the Doctor grabs onto Erin, helping her navigate. Knowing that the 3 others won’t be able to get to the next section with him, Hogan tells them to go ahead, and leave him behind. The Doctor, Erin and Theodore make it to Main Engineering, where the Doctor highlights on the suits' operation being heavily established by a capitalist attitude. The Doctor claims that she is attempting to redirect the flow of water cooling the generators to convert it into oxygen, but instead connects the generators to their suit's life signs, meaning that if they die, the generators will overheat and explode. The Doctor insists that the suits be let in, seemingly as a grand statement about the inevitable downfall of capitalism, and Theodore reluctantly agrees with the plan. As the suits advance and are about to kill them, the Doctor declares that their deaths would be expensive, and the suits stop. The suits analyse the generators and conclude that it would be a greater loss for the company if the crew were to die and the station were to explode, so the suits remove their oxygen tanks and give them to the Doctor, Erin and Captain Theodore. The Doctor also re-engages Hogan’s oxygen tank and he is revived, as his suit's battery was too weak an electric charge to prove fatal.

Captain Theodore then orders everyone up to the bridge, and Hogan pilots the ship back to Earth. She says that she plans to go back to the Headquarters of the Mining Company their ship is a part of and make a public complaint about what had transpired. She also asks the Doctor to stay on board, as she believes that with a bit of string pulling on Earth they may be able to get Erin’s eyesight fixed. We cut to a shot of the ship travelling through space, and then we cut to a few hours later as it arrives on Earth. The ship descends down to the planet surface, and we see London but a futuristic version, all metal and full of skyscrapers – and then we begin to see flags, massive flags and banners all over the buildings and then on the comms we here “GAIAN Border Service, please give your clearance code for landing”. On the Doctor – oh no… They’re on Gaian Earth! 

Part II

To be added.

Cast

• The Doctor - Samantha Bond
• Erin Stevenson - Montserrat Lombard
• Hogan Cox - Bernard Cribbins
• Captain Amanda Theodore - T'Nia Miller
• Tasker - Justin Sallinger
• Dahh-Ren - Peter Caulfield
• Abby - Mimi Ndiweni
• Ellie - Katie Brayben
• White-Haired Zombie - Clem So
• Comms Voice - Jane Espenson

Memorable Quotes

To be added.

Background Information

Pre-Production

To be added.

Production

To be added.

Post-Production

To be added.

Story Notes

To be added.

Home Video Releases

To be added.