Fear Her (TV story)

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Chloe! I'm coming to hurt you!Chloe Webber's Father

Synopsis

The Doctor takes Rose to the London 2012 Olympics, only to find terror in an ordinary street.

Plot

The TARDIS materialises on Dame Kelly Holmes Close on the day of the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in between two skips, with the door facing the side of one, which prompts the Doctor to close the TARDIS and turn it around. On the street, concern is divided between preparation for the Games, as the torchbearer on the final leg, and the continued disappearance of children from their gardens. Cars break down on the street, something which a council worker, Kel, states has been happening all day.

The source of the problems is a small girl, Chloe, who is able to cause people to disappear by drawing them.

Rose, while wandering down one of the estate streets, hears a noise coming from one of the garages and desides to investigate. As she opens the door a round, fuzzy, scribble creature flies forward, hitting Rose square in the face. She falls backwards, landing flat on her back on the driveway. The scribble creature then begins to attack Rose, who swats at it helplessly. Luckily the Doctor arives just in time, deactivating the scribble with his screwdriver. The scribble lands on Rose's chest, and the Doctor helps her to her feet. The Doctor is able to deduce from detection of residual energy and the carbon nature of a scribble that had attacked Rose that the problem is coming from an alien influence.

Intrigued, the Doctor investigates and through talking to Chloe, he discovers that the disappearance is related to the Isolus, an alien life-form, who had befriended Chloe as she had a troubled childhood including an abusive father. The Doctor warns that the Isolus is desperate for love too, and will use the billions of people watching Olympic opening ceremony to renumber its family.

The Doctor returns to the TARDIS, which locates the Isolus pod to the Close. However, the Doctor and thousands at the Olympic Stadium start to disappear, leaving Rose to dig the pod up (to Kel's protestations). Rose realises that she needs to offer the pod heat, which she does by throwing the pod towards the torch, which had subsequently became a morale beacon, that is passing the Close.

As the missing children start to reappear, Rose realizes that so will the demon-like drawing that Chloe had made of her father. Rose and Chloe's mother are able, though, to calm Chloe enough to destroy him.

As the torch-bearer approaches the Olympic Stadium, he staggers, but the Doctor completes the run and lights the Olympic Flame, allowing the Isolus to return home.

As the Doctor and Rose walk off to watch the Games, Rose remarks that however hard they attempt, nothing will ever split the two of them up. However, the Doctor does not seem so sure, as he surmises that a storm is approaching.

Cast


Crew

to be added

References

  • The Doctor invokes the Shadow Proclamation.
  • The Isolus are beings that can draw power from other being's extreme emotion.
  • The Doctor mentions that he "was a dad once," a reference which was previously implied numerous times by his relationship as grandfather to Susan Foreman. This could also refer to his relationship to his adopted daughter Miranda Dawkins.
  • Humanoid catkind are mentioned.

Story Notes

  • Fear Her is a story which replaces an unwritten script originally allocated to Stephen Fry.
  • The Doctor has travelled with several children throughout all his lives, but this is the first televised story to deal with actual child abuse.
  • In 2009, Doctor Who Magazine conducted a reader poll to rank the first 200 Doctor Who stories in order of preference. Fear Her ranked 192nd out of 200, earning it the dubious distinction of being the lowest-ranked story of the 2005-present revival.

Ratings

  • 7.14 million

Myths

to be added

Filming Locations

to be added

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

  • When the Doctor eats from a jar of marmalade in Trish's house, he puts one finger in his mouth. The camera cuts to Rose for a second as she warns him off this little faux pas, then back to the Doctor who now has two fingers in his mouth. He put the other one in between shots.
  • Despite the fact that the torch will be running down in a few minutes, there is no crowd or fences when Rose digs up the pod. The fences and crowds also disappear very quickly after the drawings are brought back.A few minutes may have been an exaggeration
  • When drawing Tom, the trousers in the picture are of a different colour to the ones he is wearing. Since Chloe also drew the Doctor with a blue suit jacket when she had brown pencils available to her, we can assume that the colours of the drawings aren't particularly important.
  • Tom also disappears before the drawing is complete, but later the cat doesn't disappear till after the drawing is complete. Note that we do not see the actual completion, we see Chloe/Isoldus placing what appears to be a mark-up on the drawing. The drawing may have already been completed and she was editing."
  • The logo for the Olympics is the one used for the bid. The logo for the Olympics itself was released after the episode. Presumably in the Doctor Who universe the original logo was retained; it's doubtful that in 2012 in the real world that anyone resembling the Doctor will light the flame, either.
  • Despite the fact that this episode is set in Stratford in 2012, in several scenes Central Trains liveries trains are seen passing by, which have never operated through Stratford (but do operate through Cardiff, around where the episode was filmed). Indeed, Central Trains ceased to exist in 2007, replaced by three new operators.Speculatively, it is possible that the company has been reformed and are operating in Stratford; a lot can happen in 5 years, especially in business. Alternatively the rolling stock may have been transferred to a company operating in Stratford and not yet repainted in the new company colours; some things are very slow in the rail industry.
  • As in several episodes, the on-screen branding seen on BBC News 24 in this episode is out of date, since it changed dramatically in 2008, along with being re-branded BBC News. It may have changed back by 2012 - a lot can happen in five years
  • On the way to light the torch, even if the runner collapsed as he did in this episode, if someone else picked up the torch the police and security forced would have intervened and the Doctor would have been arrested. As stated by the News reader, no one wants to stop the Doctor as they are in the spirit after everyone who has disappeared returned. After all, it is a beacon of love. Also the same effect as to why do the Cybermen and Daleks don't just shoot the doctor on sight! 
  • A red smart forfour is shown (probably selected due to its futuristic look), but in fact the car was discontinued in June 2006 and would therefore be at least six years old. (Sometimes old models are revived. Similarly, sometimes people take good care of their 6-year-old cars.)
  • What happened to Chloe's father affter the end of this episode? The link may have been broken after Chloe effectivly defeated her father

Continuity

This would seem to establish that sometime prior to 2012, Torchwood is no longer a particularly secret organization. It might serve as an explanation why Torchwood is known to so many people in the series Torchwood.
  • Each of the kids react to coming back from being in their pictures just as people did in DW: The Idiot's Lantern when regaining their faces.

DVD Releases

Series 2 Volume 5 DVD Cover

See also

to be added

External Links

Template:Series 2

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