Scream of the Shalka was a flash-animated Doctor Who serial with Richard E. Grant as the voice of an alternative Ninth Doctor. Its animation was produced by Cosgrove Hall. The serial was webcast by the BBC's official Doctor Who website in November and December of 2003.
This story remains the most recent webcast production of this nature.
Synopsis
The TARDIS materialises in the village of Lannet in Lancashire. An annoyed Doctor, who has apparently been transported here against his will, finds the village silent. Its inhabitants are all living in fear except for a barmaid, Alison Cheney. The alien Shalka have taken up residence beneath Lannet in preparation for a wider invasion. Despite his initial reluctance, the Doctor finds himself having to save the world again, aided by Alison and an enemy who has become an ally.
Plot
The TARDIS materializes in the village of Lannet in Lancashire. An annoyed Doctor, who has apparently been transported here against his will, is locked out of the TARDIS and forced to examine his surroundings. After determining he is in England in 2003, he is surprised to discover the village is silent and the inhabitants all living in fear except for a barmaid named Alison Cheney. After the patrons and bar owner refuse to tell the Doctor what's going on, he leaves the bar and stumbles upon a lava statue and a homeless woman who is frightened. As the woman is beginning to fill in the Doctor on what's been happening, a tremor strikes the area and the woman is killed by a mysterious force. Back at the TARDIS, the ground opens up and the Doctor's police box is swallowed up into the lava below. Angered at the homeless woman's death, the Doctor tracks down Alison and her boyfriend Joe at their home and breaks in demanding that someone tell him what's been going on. Alison tells the Doctor that three weeks ago, strange noises began coming from underground. She has seen mysterious aliens around town watching her. The townspeople have convinced themselves that they need to stay indoors and make as little noise as possible. The Doctor begins making noise to attract the aliens, who burst up through the floor in a pool of lava. Immune to their shrieking cries, he deflects their noises back at them causing them to explode. The Doctor, Alison, and Joe flee next door where the Doctor explains that the aliens have bodies that can remake themselves. He improvises a large explosion which he believes will disable them and buy time. The explosion destroys the two alien worms and causes the noises from the ground to stop.
The Doctor contacts UNIT and explains that he is not interested in getting involved in this problem. He gives them all the information he has on the aliens and tells them that once he retrieves his TARDIS he is leaving. The aliens have begun nesting below ground at a site rich with a special volcanic rock the Doctor believes they have adapted themselves to use. He maps out the area and leads a UNIT team down into some caves to find his TARDIS. After a tense exchange with the UNIT commander, the worm creatures attack and the Doctor separates himself from the group and hitches a ride in a giant underground worm to the main lair of the aliens. There he meets Prime, commander of the Shalka. Prime declares humans inferior and subject to their domination. The Doctor attempts to act inept to extract information from Prime, who sees through the act and calls him out on it. Prime reveals that the Shalka are 2000 strong and will be invading the surface soon. The Doctor attempts another bluff, declaring himself a non-human and therefore uninterested in what happens to the humans. Prime orders Alison executed in hot lava, which forces the Doctor to make a deal to spare her life. He allows the Shalka into the TARDIS and de-activates the Master, who turns out to be an android programmed by the Doctor. The Shalka tell the Doctor his technology is inferior and they do not need him. He is cast into a black hole they have created inside Earth that they are using as a gateway to bring in more troops and also to dispose of people they do not need. As he is plummeting into the black hole the Doctor realizes his phone is still connected to the TARDIS and uses it to summon the TARDIS. He finds the Master re-activated and forcefully expels the Shalka from the TARDIS into the black hole. For an unknown reason, the Shalka release Alison back to the surface.
As UNIT evacuates the town, a soldier tells the Doctor he has captured one of the Shalka on the surface. The Shalka was accidentally exposed to raw oxygen when a cylinder near it exploded. The raw oxygen caused it to pass out. The Doctor also discovers that Alison is alive, and that none of the survivors from the town have made it to their new destinations. The Doctor attempts to interrogate the Shalka but it recovers and attacks the soldier. The Doctor uses more oxygen to subdue it until he can determine what's going on. He also discovers that the survivors all have sore throats. The survivors and Alison all march against their will to a warehouse in another town. The Doctor arrives in his TARDIS with UNIT men inside and they storm the area. The Doctor removes a living Shalka from Alison's forehead but the effort causes him to pass out. When he recovers they find that all around the world people are mobilizing against their will to strategic points on Earth. The Doctor realizes that the reason everyone has a sore throat is that they all have been emitting subsonic screams when under Shalka control. The Shalka are using the screams to alter the atmosphere of the Earth. As the slaves begin emitting their screams and the ozone layer of the Earth is being stripped away the Doctor takes Alison and the Master back to the Shalka underground lair. When asked if the Master is coming with them, the Doctor tells Alison that the Master cannot leave the TARDIS. The Doctor and Alison confront Prime, who tells them that the Shalka inhabit 80% of the worlds in the universe, living underground off of volcanic energy. When a species is on the edge of ecological destruction, the Shalka come in and finish destroying the planet. The rest of the universe assumes that the species that died off did the damage to themselves, and the Shalka live underground in the remains of that world.
The Doctor swallows the small piece of Shalka he removed from Alison's forehead. He bonds with it, reprogramming it to do what he wants. He uses its knowledge to plug himself into their sonic network and understand the shrieks. He engages Prime in a "sonic duel", which he purposely throws to get Prime to move him toward the black hole controls. He activates the black hole, sucking in Prime and sending her to her death. Alison stops the black hole and the Doctor coughs up the piece of Shalka. He puts it back in Alison's head, where she fights off the remaining Shalka and shuts down the screams. The Doctor unplugs her a few moments before she can reprogram the scream to heal the atmosphere. He tells her that she cannot be allowed that much power. On board the TARDIS, the Master reveals that it has been a long time since the Doctor had a living companion. His last companion was killed in the events that also led to the Master choosing to have his consciousness placed in the android and to the Doctor's exile. Without being specific, the Master tells her that they are being controlled by an unknown force and the Doctor wants Alison to stay as his companion but he won't ask her to. After they land, Joe arrives and Alison tells him she is leaving with the Doctor because she is bored and wants to see the universe. Joe reluctantly accepts her decision and a kiss before the Master begins the TARDIS dematerializing cycle and they board the craft.
Cast and Characters
References
- An android version of the Master is in the Doctor's TARDIS.
- The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to turn his mobile phone into a door into the TARDIS.
- The Doctor is thrown towards a black hole.
- It appears the Doctor is working for the Time Lords.
Story notes
- When first broadcast, this Doctor was advertised by the BBC as the 'Ninth Doctor'.
- Appearing in a cameo role in the serial was actor and Doctor Who fan David Tennant, who in April 2005 was announced as the Tenth Doctor. He was not originally cast in the production, but Tennant happened to be recording a radio play in a neighbouring studio. When he discovered what was being recorded next door, he convinced the director to give him a small role. Tennant had several roles in Big Finish Productions' Doctor Who related audios before he was cast as the Tenth Doctor on the BBC Wales' produced series.
- If the viewer right clicks and selects play after the end of episode 3, an alternate version of the closing credits plays (followed by the final part of the episode).
- Around the time of providing the voice of Alison, Sophie Okonedo also filmed a role in the movie Hotel Rwanda, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award; this makes Okonedo, to date, the only companion actor to have been nominated for an Oscar. Okonedo would eventually return to televised Doctor Who in the 2010 series as the recurring character Elizabeth X.
- Richard E. Grant previously played the Tenth Doctor in The Curse of Fatal Death and would later play Walter Simeon in TV: The Snowmen.
Production background
Scream of the Shalka was produced to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of Doctor Who. It was originally posted in six weekly parts from 13 November to 18 December 2003 on BBCi's Doctor Who website. Although it was intended to be an "official" continuation of the television series that had ended in 1989, the revival of the programme in 2005 relegated it and the Richard E. Grant's Ninth Doctor, to non-canonical status.
Previous Doctor Who webcasts were produced with limited animation which was little more than a series of illustrations. This story was the first-ever officially licensed fully animated Doctor Who story. Doctor Who had suspended production in 1989, Aside from charity specials, it had only resurfaced as an American-funded television movie in 1996 which didn't garner enough ratings to go to a regular series. When Shalka was announced in July 2003 for broadcast in November, the possibility of Doctor Who returning to television screens still seemed remote and BBC Worldwide were shopping around for another possible movie deal. As a result, BBCi announced, with BBC approval, that the Doctor appearing in Shalka would be the "official" Ninth Doctor. However, events rapidly overtook this.
In September, Lorraine Heggessey, the Controller of BBC One persuaded BBC Worldwide that as their plans for a Doctor Who film were nowhere near fruition, BBC television should be allowed to make a new series. A deal with Russell T Davies to produce the new series was quickly struck, and on September 26, the BBC announced that Doctor Who would return to BBC One in 2005, produced by BBC Wales.
As a result, the "official" nature of the Shalka webcast was in doubt from even before it was released After the web cast, in February 2004, plans for sequels were indefinitely shelved. For a period, it was unclear if the new television Doctor would be the Ninth or Tenth Doctor, but this was settled in April 2004 when in an interview with Doctor Who Magazine, Davies announced that the new television Doctor (played by Christopher Eccleston), would be the Ninth Doctor, relegating the Richard E. Grant Doctor to unofficial status.
Grant's incarnation of the Time Lord (often referred to as the "REG Doctor" or the "Shalka Doctor" by fans) has since appeared in an online short story, The Feast of the Stone by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright, although no further stories seem planned.
Paul Cornell, who wrote Scream of the Shalka, has since referred to this story as his "unbound."[1]
Original Website Release/Broadcast
- Episode 1 - 13 November 2003
- Episode 2 - 20 November 2003
- Episode 3 - 27 November 2003
- Episode 4 - 4 December 2003
- Episode 5 - 11 December 2003
- Episode 6 - 18 December 2003
Production Errors
- The cut on Allison's forehead originally appears on her right, but later appears in the middle.
DVD, Video and Other Releases
- Although there has been no official announcement from the BBC, the British Board of Film Classification has cleared all six episodes of the serial for release on DVD.
- A DVD release of the story was planned, but the release was cancelled in the wake of the BBC announcing the pending return of Doctor Who as a live-action TV series and the relegating of Grant's Ninth Doctor to unofficial status.
- It has now been revealed that the serial will be released on DVD on September 16th, 2013.
Novelisation
- Main article: Scream of the Shalka (novelisation)
Paul Cornell wrote a novelisation of Scream of the Shalka, which was published by BBC Books. This marked the first publication of a novelisation under the BBC Books paperback line since Doctor Who was so adapted in 1996, and the first novelisation of a non-televised Doctor Who story since The Ghosts of N-Space in 1995; it is also the only webcast to be so adapted. The book was augmented with a section chronicling the making of the webcast.