Arachnids in the UK (TV story)
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Arachnids in the UK was the fourth episode in the eleventh series of Doctor Who produced by BBC Wales.
The Thirteenth Doctor finally returns Graham, Ryan and Yasmin to Sheffield, just half an hour after they had left. Notably, these new companions actively choose to travel with her at the end of this episode.
Synopsis
The Thirteenth Doctor finally manages to bring her friends home, but with more time alone on the horizon, she soon discovers that something unnatural has happened to the eight-legged population of Sheffield. Why have they converged on an unopened hotel, and why is there a man going around like he owns the place?
Plot
to be added
Cast
- The Doctor - Jodie Whittaker
- Graham O'Brien - Bradley Walsh
- Ryan Sinclair - Tosin Cole
- Yasmin Khan - Mandip Gill
- Robertson - Chris Noth
- Grace O'Brien - Sharon D Clarke
- Najia Khan - Shobna Gulati
- Dr Jade McIntyre - Tanya Fear
- Hakim Khan - Ravin J Ganatra
- Sonya Khan - Bhavnisha Parmar
- Frankie Ellish - Jaleh Alp
- Kevin - William Meredith
Crew
| Executive Producers Matt Strevens and Chris Chibnall | ||||||||||||
| Co-executive producer Sam Hoyle | ||||||||||||
| Series Producer Nikki Wilson | ||||||||||||
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| Not every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required. The information above is based solely on observations of the actual end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information from IMDB or other sources. |
References
People
- Frankie is the wife of Robertson's niece.
- The Doctor mentions an incident involving stopping an airplane with a pencil-thick strand of spider-web and Amelia Earhart.
- Robertson is running for President in 2020 in America.
- The Doctor is wearing a bum bag.
- The Doctor notes how Yaz's dad collects junk like stamps.
- The Doctor likes conspiracies.
- The Doctor used to be a sister in an aqua hospital which turned out to be a training camp for the Quiston Calcium Assassins.
- Ryan's dad sent him a letter apologising for not being around.
- Anna was on the admin team of the scientists.
- Robertson at first thinks the webs are an eco-protest.
- Robertson, Ryan and Graham have Arachnophobia.
- Ryan and Graham suggest to Robertson that the spiders could be an espionage plot by the Russians.
- The Doctor calls Robertson "dude".
- The spiders are cocooning people.
- The Doctor muses that The Spider Mother in the Ballroom could be the title of "the best novel Edith Wharton never wrote".
- The Doctor says she used to have sisters.
- The Doctor states Ed Sheeran is a person a lot of people talk about today.
- Ryan remarks Stormzy is popular in Sheffield's grime scene.
- Donald Trump is said to be the current sitting President of the United States.
- Jack Robertson was featured in Fortune Global 500.
- Sonya thinks Yaz and Ryan are romantically attached. Najia also makes that assumption of her daughter and the Doctor.
- Graham is tired of grieving.
- The Doctor calls her friends "fam" before settling on Team TARDIS.
Locations
- Yasmin Khan and her family live in Flat 34 at Park Hill. Anna, the neighbour two doors down, lives in Flat 27.
- A sign on Yaz's floor points the way to Norwich Street.
- They have sales offices in some parts.
- A Stagecoach Supertram is seen travelling to the destination Malin Bridge. Another is travelling to Meadowhall.
- It has The Sheffield College written on a window.
- Sheffield Hallam University can be seen from Graham's house.
- Graham's house is number 36.
- A map of Sheffield shows districts within and around the city. Areas include Boulder Hill, Brightside, Burngreave, Catcliffe, Cathedral, Darnall, Fir Vale, Firth Park, Grimesthorpe, Hillsborough, Kelham Island, Longley, Longley Park, Loxley Estate, Manor Castle, Middlewood, Orgreave, Parkwood Springs, Parson Cross, Pitsmoor, Sheffield Park, Shirecliffe, Shiregreen, Stannington, Templeborough, Tinsley, Wadsley, Wadsley Bridge, Walkley, Wincobank, Wisewood, Wood Hill and Worrall.
- Malin Bridge is also shown, although "Malin" is crossed by the marker pen when the Doctor draws on the map, leaving just "Bridge".
- Jack Robertson's hotel is located just north of Parkwood Springs.
- The Doctor says the spider ecosystem in South Yorkshire has been disrupted.
Species
- Giant spiders, and their mother have infested Robertson's hotel.
- Jade and Anna are studying arachnids and arthropods.
- Spider-web can be as strong as kevlar, as indicated by Jade.
- The Doctor says that she and the others are like flies.
Businesses
- Najia briefly works as General Manager for Robertson Luxury Hotels.
- Royal Mail have delivered a parcel which needs collecting from Flat 27.
- JLR Disposal gets rid of waste.
- On the bottle the Doctor carries it says Trapex Export.
- Robertson says he's gonna get into the White House by any means.
Music
- Ryan plays "Know Me From" to attract the spiders.
Technology
- Robertson's hotels use escalators to get between floors.
- Robertson has an airplane waiting for him to leave in.
- The Doctor uses the psychic paper to identify herself to Robertson as a "problem-solver".
- Jade uses an HP laptop.
- The spider lab has a Herasafe machine.
- Kevin has a gun, which Robertson takes.
- Robertson's panic rooms have thumb and eye scanners.
Food and beverages
- The Doctor agrees to come for tea in Yaz's flat.
- The Khan family has cornflakes, apples, cinnamon rolls and shished chicken.
- Hakim offers to cook pakora - a dish which Yaz states that he's terrible at.
- Graham and Grace had a bowl of lemons and pears.
- Anna has tins of chick peas, baked beans, crisps (including nacho crisps), Organic Raspberry Burst tea, bovril, garlic and vinegar in her flat.
- After saying she eats danger for breakfast, the Doctor says she prefers cereal or croissants or a little portuguese thing.
- Robertson has food and water in his panic rooms.
- Yaz says there's no more bread.
Chemicals
- The spiders don't like the acetic acid in vinegar.
- The spider carcasses have been reanimated and grown to giant size due to toxic waste of methane, sulphide and trichloroethylene.
- The spiders' pheromones caused disruption in the normal spiders' behaviour.
- The Doctor uses peppermint and tea tree oil diluted with water as a spider repellent.
Story notes
- This story introduced the new version of the Time Vortex, providing an in-depth view of the TARDIS flying through it.
- While the Doctor says in this episode she's never had a flat before, previous stories such as PROSE: Verdigris and PROSE: Endgame indicate otherwise.
- The plot of the episode is similar to the films Ice Spiders and Eight Legged Freaks due to using both the themes of scientific blunders from the former and toxic waste mutating normal sized spiders from the latter.
- The title of this episode is a play on the Sex Pistols song title Anarchy in the UK.
- Almost every science fiction fact about spiders mentioned or done in the episode has its ground in real-world science.[1]
- Internationally renowned zoologist and conservationist Dr Niall Doran was consulted for this episode.[2]
Ratings
- 6.43 million (UK overnight)[3]
Filming locations
Production errors
If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.
to be added
Continuity
- The Doctor returns her companions to Sheffield half an hour after they left. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)
- The Doctor once more refers to her TARDIS team as "fam". (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth) Sarah Jane Smith had previously told the Tenth Doctor that he had the biggest family on Earth in the form of his companions. (TV: Journey's End)
- The Doctor calls her group "Team TARDIS." (TV: Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS)
- The Doctor's bemusement to Ryan if she is being weird in public resembles the Tenth Doctor's similar aside to Rose Tyler about whether he acts rude. (TV: Tooth and Claw)
- Najia Khan's wary attitude to the Doctor echoes that of other mothers of companions such as Jackie Tyler, (TV: Aliens of London) Francine Jones (TV: The Lazarus Experiment) and Sylvia Noble. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem)
- The Doctor reiterates her dislike of guns, (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem, The Doctor's Daughter, The Impossible Astronaut, The Curse of the Black Spot, Into the Dalek, The Doctor Falls, The Ghost Monument)
- The Doctor uses her psychic paper. (TV: The End of the World, et al.)
- Graham is still grieving over Grace O'Brien. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)
- The Doctor has previously met large arachnid-like creatures, such as the Great One of the Eight Legs, (TV: Planet of the Spiders) the Lobri, (COMIC: Ground Zero) a friendly Hysperon spider, (PROSE: The Scarlet Empress) the Racnoss, (TV: The Runaway Bride) and spider germs, (TV: Kill the Moon) as well as a large spider of unknown origin (COMIC: Dr. Who in the Spider's Web) and giant spiders of a jungle planet. (COMIC: The Psychic Jungle)
- The Doctor had encountered arthropods which had been mutated to giant size by toxic waste dumped by an unscrupulous company in an abandoned coal mine once before. (TV: The Green Death)
- The Doctor states she calls people dude now, having introduced the word to humanity several years earlier than they were supposed to have had it. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice)
Home video releases
DVD releases
to be added
Blu-ray releases
to be added
Digital releases
to be added
External links
- Official Arachnids in the UK page on the Doctor Who website
