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?[1]
Plot
Lucy Hayward is writing about a mysterious 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. They see many pictures, including a Judoon Captain and Lucy Hayward. They ring the front desk bell and almost get hit by a chair leg held by a girl called Rita. Rita is with Howie and Gibbis, a cowardly, mole-like alien.
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. Howie's room holds 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.
The Angels are revealed to be illusions. It is also revealed they aren't Amy's fear; they're Gibbis', as the Angels are the only creatures to invade Gibbis homeworld and not try to conquer it, but to kill off the inhabitants. The Doctor devises a plan to confront the Minotaur by gauging Howie and using a recording of Howie to trap the Minotaur in the same room as the Doctor.
The Doctor is able to speak the Minotaur's language. It explains that the hotel is a prison. Meanwhile, terrified of the Minotaur, Gibbis lets Howie go and the Minotaur breaks free and kills Howie. After the Minotaur kills Rita, the Doctor realizes that the scare tactics exist only to make everyone fall back on their faiths.
Joe was a gambler; he believed in luck. Rita was Muslim she believed in God. Gibbis believes that his planet is going to be invaded again. 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 then begins praising the Minotaur, because she has faith in the Doctor.
The Doctor kills the Minotaur by breaking Amy's faith in him. 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 on 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 drench in the blood of the innocent drifting through space in a maze, for such a creature Death is welcomed." At first the Doctor believes that the Minotaur is thanking him. It was talking about the Doctor.
The Doctor uses the TARDIS to drop Gibbis off on his homeworld and takes Rory and Amy back to Earth, complete with an apartment and a extravagant car. He says keep putting them in danger and he gives a heartfelt goodbye to Rory and Amy.
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.
- When the Doctor discovers that Rita is Muslim, she replies, "Don't be frightened", referencing Muslim extremists who have performed terrorist attacks.
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.
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 individuals in the photos' 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
to be added
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)
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 Doctors final death (DW: The Impossible Astronaut, Let's Kill Hitler, Night Terrors.)
- In BFA: The Holy Terror 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.
Home video releases
The episode will be released on DVD and Blu-ray shortly after the airing of episode 13.[2]
