The God Complex (TV story)
The God Complex (TV story) was the eleventh episode in the sixth series of Doctor Who.
Synopsis
The Doctor, Amy and Rory investigate a hotel of horror where repeat business is low but the body count is high, where a mighty monster stalks the corridors and the rooms hold visions of angels, apes and creepy clowns. Who - or what - has brought them to this place? Can the Doctor solve the mystery before the residents check out in grisly style?
Plot
Lucy Hayward is writing about a monster and how it has made all of her companions 'praise him' after they find their rooms. Soon she starts to praise him and the Creature kills her. The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive in the hotel and the Doctor begins to investigate, certain that they are somewhere fascinating.
Rory shows him a picture of a Sontaran on the wall as well as others portraying a Judoon Captain and Lucy Hayward. They ring the front desk bell and almost gets hit by a chair leg held by a Rita, who is quickly followed Howie and Gibbis, a cowardly, mole-like alien from Tivoli.
Rita says that each room contains 'a bad dream'. The Doctor goes to see Joe, who is tied up in his room, which is full of ventriloquist's dummies. Joe tells him that everyone here has a room, even the Doctor. They take Joe with them, but the creature, described as a alien Minotaur, senses Joe's presence and kills him.
Everyone searches for rooms to hide in, with Howie finding his room, containing attractive girls who mock him for being nerdy and stuttering. The Doctor pulls him out of the room and they look for somewhere else to hide. Amy, Howie and Gibbis enter a room full of Weeping Angels. The Doctor arrives and tells Amy to face her fear, and reveals that the angels aren't real
On seeing Gibbis' reaction to the Angels, Amy realises that it wasn't her room, but his, as the Angels were the only creatures to invade Tivoli and try to kill rather than conquer the inhabitants. The Doctor devises a plan to confront the Minotaur by using a recording of Howie to trap the Minotaur in the same room as the Doctor.
The Doctor talks to the Minotaur, who explains that the hotel is a prison. Meanwhile, terrified of the Minotaur, Gibbis lets Howie go and the Minotaur kills Howie. Here there is an interesting scene between The Doctor and Rory where The Doctor asks Rory if he has found his room and Rory says that he hadn't. When The Docotr comments about maybe he doesn't have any fears Rory responds with "After all the time I spent with you in the TARDIS, what was left to be scared of?" When the Doctor notes how he spoke in past tense Rory denies it and informs The DOctor how Howie had just gotten over a stammer he suffered from. Rory speaking in past tense sseems to be an odd thing to draw attention to. After the Minotaur soon kills Rita (who earlier found her room, which contained her father scolding her), the Doctor realizes that only after people fell back on their faiths were they killed by the Minotaur.
Joe was a gambler, who believed in luck; Rita was Muslim; Gibbis believes that his planet is going to be invaded again and Howie was a Conspiracy theorist who believed the government controls everything. By breaking their faiths, it converts it into energy that it can consume. Amy suddenly begins praising the Minotaur.
The Doctor kills the Minotaur by breaking Amy's faith in himself. With the Minotaur dead, the hotel reveals itself to be a massive holographic ship. By hacking the ship, the Doctor determined that the Minotaur is a relative of a Nimon, a creature the feeds off faith. They need people to worship them in order to survive, which is fine until the race it fed off of became advance enough to build the ship and it has been swooping up people to feed it.
At this, the Minotaur gives the Doctor a message: "an ancient creature drenched in the blood of the innocent drifting through space in a maze, for such a creature Death is a gift."
The Doctor uses the TARDIS to drop Gibbis off on his homeworld and takes Rory and Amy back to Earth, giving them extravagant car as a goodbye present, saying he can't keep putting them in danger and he gives a heartfelt goodbye to Amy, before departing alone.
Cast
- The Doctor - Matt Smith
- Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
- Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill
- Amelia Pond - Caitlin Blackwood
- Lucy Hayward - Sarah Quintrell
- Rita - Amara Karan
- Howie Spragg - Dimitri Leonidas
- Joe Buchanan - Daniel Pirrie
- Gibbis - David Walliams
- PE Teacher - Dafydd Emyr
- The Creature - Spencer Wilding
- Rita's Father - Rashid Karapiet
- Gorilla - Roger Ennals
Crew
to be added
References
Cultural references from the real world
- Joe sings "Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head". This is from the centuries-old nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons.
Foods and beverages
- The Doctor now appears to enjoy apples.
Individuals
- Amy's room number was 7, a reference to her age when she first met the Doctor and Karen Gillan being the seventh multi-story Companion since the start of the new series.
- The Doctor's room number was 11, a reference to the fact that Matt Smith is the Eleventh Doctor.
- One room contained a clown; this may have been a reference to Sarah-Jane Smith, companion to the Third and Fourth Doctors.
Races and species
- The Minotaur is a relative of the Nimon.
- A Sontaran, a Silurian, a Tritovore, a Hoix , a Catkind and a Judoon appear in photographs.
- One of the photos show Lady Silver-Tear's fear was Daleks.
- The Weeping Angels are Gibbis' biggest fear, and Amy mentions having encountered them.
Story notes
- At the time of the script read-through, Lucy Hayward's name was "Lucy Miller". (CON: Heartbreak Hotel) It was ostensibly changed so as to avoid conflict with Lucie Miller, the long-term audio companion of the Eighth Doctor.
- Rita becomes the latest in a line of characters who are invited to become companions by the Doctor, only to die soon after.
- David Walliams previously played Quincy Flowers and Ned Cotton in BFA: Phantasmagoria.
- The Doctor's room number was 11, which is a reference to his eleven incarnation and a reference to this episode being the eleventh in the series.
Ratings
- UK Overnight: 5.2 Million
Myths
In Greek, the Minotaur as the Greeks imagined him, was a creature with the head of a bull on the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, "part man and part bull". He dwelt at the center of the Creten Labyrinth, which was an elaborate maze-like construction built for King Minos of Crete and designed by the architect Daedalus and his son Icarus who were ordered to build it to hold the Minotaur. The Minotaur was eventually killed by the Athenian hero Theseus.
The term Minotaur derives from the Ancient Greek Μῑνώταυρος, a compount of the name Μίνως (Minos) and the noun ταύρος "bull", translating as "(the) Bull of Minos". In Crete, the Minotaur was known by its proper name, Asterion, a name shared with Minos' foster-father.
'Minotaur was originally a proper noun in reference to this mythical figure. The use of minotaur as a common noun to refer to members of a generic race of bull-headed creatures developed much later, in 20th-century fantasy genre fiction.
(Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minotaur)
Filming locations
to be added
Production errors
- As the group climbed the stairs (all six of them), the edge of the TARDIS was visible. (To see this, look to the mid-right of the screen in this shot. The TARDIS' bottom can just be seen) (11:15)
Continuity
- Ace previously "saved the day" by losing faith in the Seventh Doctor in DW: The Curse of Fenric.
- A Rubik's cube is seen again, the Doctor threw one away in DW: Night Terrors when talking to George.
- Amy has previously encountered the Weeping Angels in DW: The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, NSA: Touched by an Angel.
- The Minotaur's final words were a prophetic statement delivered both to and about a long-lived traveller, similar to the Face of Boe in DW: Gridlock. It also foreshadows the Doctor's final death. (DW: The Impossible Astronaut)
- In BFA: The Holy Terror, the Sixth Doctor similarly visited a world designed to imprison an individual, namely Eugene Tacitus.
- The Doctor has previously been made to view images of that which he most fears due to the Master's Keller Machine. (DW: The Mind of Evil) In that case, he saw images of many of his enemies and a world consumed by fire.
- The Doctor states the minotaur is Beautiful when he first sees it. The Tenth Doctor previously made this comment about the Lupine Wavelength Haemovariform and a Clockwork Droid. (DW : Tooth and Claw (TV story), DW : The Girl in the Fireplace)
Home video releases
The episode will be released on DVD and Blu-ray shortly after the airing of episode 13.http://doctorwhotv.co.uk/series-6-dvd-releases-15635.htm
