Love & Monsters (TV story)
Sypnosis
A young man approaches the Doctor's TARDIS then finds the Doctor and Rose tackling an alien-looking monster in a warehouse. The Doctor asks the man if they have ever met before, at which he panics and runs.
The young man, Elton Pope, a typical Londoner, narrates his story to us via his video camera. He introduces himself and tells how, when only three or four years old, he came downstairs one night to find a strange man in his house: the Doctor.
After the alien invasion last Christmas day, Elton looks for information on the strange goings on and finds a photo of the Doctor, looking exactly as he did all those years ago. Elton meets Ursula Blake, who posted the photo on her blog and believes his story about the Doctor. Ursula introduces Elton to her group of friends Bliss, Bridget and Mr. Skinner - who have all heard of the Doctor and meet regularly to discuss their findings. Despite the name Elton coins for them (London Investigation 'n' Detective Agency, or LINDA), they soon become more of a social group, helping each other through their problems and enjoying each other's company.
That all changes with the arrival of Victor Kennedy, an evidently wealthy gentleman who doesn't touch people on account of a skin condition, and who also wishes to find the Doctor. He soon takes over LINDA, forcing the members to work harder. Bliss vanishes. Elton manages to track down the Doctor and, as Elton explained, he then panicked and fled.
Victor is furious, but decides to change plans: they will look for Rose. Elton locates Rose's mum Jackie with surprising ease, visiting her often supposedly to do odd jobs but really because Jackie finds him attractive. One night Jackie tries to seduce Elton, but a phonecall from Rose brings her to her senses. Elton feels ashamed of using her, realising at the same time that he loves Ursula. When Jackie finds a photo of Rose in Elton's jacket she rounds on him and tells him to leave and says bitterly that no one has any interest in her.
Elton tells Victor he's ruined LINDA and that the three remaining members are leaving, noting that Bridget has gone, just like Bliss. He asks Ursula out to dinner, but Mr. Skinner stays behind as Victor offers to help him find Bridget. Ursula forgets her phone, and when the pair return for it they find Mr. Skinner has disappeared and Victor has transformed into a corpulent green alien - the Abzorbaloff, as Elton names it. The creature had absorbed Bliss, Bridget and Mr. Skinner, who all retain some consciousness within the creature's body> it wants to find the Doctor, which it believes will be the ultimate feast.
Ursula is absorbed as well. Elton runs, the creature chasing after him, until the TARDIS appears. Rose has come to confront Elton about his behaviour with her mother, but before the Abzorbaloff can try to consume Elton, the absorbed members of LINDA manage to distract it, Ursula telling Elton to snap its cane. This destroys the limitation field that maintained its integrity, and the Abzorbaloff dissolves into liquid and seeps into the ground along with the people absorbed by it. The Doctor then explains to the distraught Elton that the night they met so long ago he was hunting a living shadow which had escaped its Howling Hallshome dimension; he caught it, but not before it had killed Elton's mother.
Elton muses that a meeting the Doctor is fraught with danger, but that he did save Elton one last time: with the sonic screwdriver, he was able to partially restore Ursula, who now exists as an unaging face in one of the paving stones where the Abzorbaloff had melted. The pair have found some happiness despite their ordeal.
Cast & Characters
Crew
Notes
- We follow this adventure through the eyes of Elton Pope. The Doctor and Rose appear only briefly. Possibly, some of the events of this story did not happen exactly the way he describes.
- References to several Earth musicians are made by Elton. We see a short clip of Elton John and hear songs by Elton Pope's favorite band, Jeff Lynne's Electric Light Orchestra.
Influences
Ratings
Myths
Location Filming
Continuity
- Elton remembers the events of Rose, Aliens of London, and The Christmas Invasion.
- Bridget shows slides of real police boxes. including a pictogram from some kind of ancient tablet which could refer to an unseen adventure into early human history.
- Mr. Skinner describes the Doctor as a "collection of archetypes", which echoes fictional lectures about the Doctor given in Steven Moffat's short story Continuity Errors in Decalog 3: Consequences.
- Victor Kennedy has access to Torchwood files on the Doctor, though the files' details of Rose are incomplete as they had been affected by something called the "Bad Wolf virus".
