Tooth and Claw (TV story)

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Summary

The Doctor and Rose arrive in the highlands of Scotland in 1879 in time to meet Queen Victoria. They accompany her to the Torchwood Estate where they must face a band of warrior monks and a werewolf.

Plot

A group of hooded monks travels across the Scottish moors, entering the Torchwood Estate belonging to Sir Robert MacLeish. There, the monk leader Father Angelo demands possession of the house and when the Steward refuses, beats him into submission with a quarterstaff. The monks remove their cassocks, revealing red robes, and exhibiting incredible martial skill they make short work of the rest of the men. They take over the house, chaining everyone they find in the cellar, including Lady Isobel MacLeish. The monks then carry a covered cage into the cellar. When Father Angelo unveils it Lady Isobel sees its contents and screams…

In the TARDIS, the Doctor offers to take Rose to Sheffield in 1979 to see Ian Dury in concert. However, they exit the police box to find themselves surrounded by armed soldiers on horseback. From their accents and attire, the Doctor realises that they have arrived in 1879 Scotland instead. Using psychic paper and affecting a Scottish accent, he convinces Captain Reynolds that he is a Scottish doctor named James McCrimmon. An authoritative voice issues from the carriage the soldiers are escorting, asking the Doctor and Rose to approach. When they see who is within, the Doctor introduces Rose to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, who is on her way to Balmoral Castle. When Victoria sees the psychic paper, she notes that it says that the Lord Provost has appointed the Doctor as her protector. The royal carriage is travelling by road because a fallen tree has blocked the train line to Aberdeen. The two travellers accompany the carriage on to the Torchwood Estate, where the Queen plans to spend the night.

Sir Robert watches from the window, with Father Angelo (disguised as a servant) behind him. Sir Robert goes to receive Victoria, but despite hinting that all is not right, the Queen insists on staying, as the estate was a favourite place of her late consort, Prince Albert, who used to visit Sir Robert's father. They go into the manor, with Reynolds deploying his men to guard the estate. He also carries a small leather box inside, which he locks in a safe. In the cellar, the captive in the cage, which appears to be a hooded man, indicates to the other prisoners to be silent.

Sir Robert shows the Queen, Doctor and Rose the Observatory, which contains a telescope his father designed. Examining the telescope, the Doctor notices that it has too many prisms, causing too much magnification for simple stargazing. Sir Robert says that he knows little of his father's rather eccentric work. Victoria mentions that Sir Robert's father was a polymath, equally versed in science and folklore, and that Albert was fascinated by local stories of a wolf. Before Sir Robert can tell the tale, however, Father Angelo interrupts, offering to take the guests to their rooms to prepare for dinner.

While Rose searches through the wardrobes for more appropriate attire, the disguised monks serve the soldiers drugged drinks, which knock them unconscious. Rose discovers a frightened servant girl, Flora, hidden in one of the cupboards, and Flora tells Rose what has happened. However, when they leave the room to find the Doctor, they are captured, taken to the cellar and are chained with the others.

At the dinner table, Sir Robert tells them the story of how, for the past 300 years, livestock would be found ripped apart every full moon. Once a generation, a boy would also vanish, and there would be sightings of a werewolf. In the cellar, Rose notices the caged man's alien-looking eyes, and asks him what planet he is from. Amused that he has actually encountered intelligence, he tells Rose that the human body he possesses was born ten miles away, a boy stolen by the Brethren, but he comes from a much longer distance. Rose offers to take the alien intelligence back home, but he does not wish to leave, instead intending to bite Queen Victoria, migrate into her body and begin the Empire of the Wolf. He notes that Rose has "something of the wolf" about her, but while she has burned like the sun, all he requires is the Moon.

Upstairs, Sir Robert relates that his father believed the story as fact, and even claimed to have communicated with the beast and learned its purpose. However, the Brethren of the monastery in St. Catherine's Glen opposed his investigations. Sir Robert asks, what if the monks had turned from God and started worshipping the wolf? The Doctor sees Father Angelo face the full moon through the window, chanting in Latin, "lupus magnus est, lupus fortis est, lupus deus est" — "The wolf is great, the wolf is strong, the wolf is God" — and realises that the enemy is here.

The monks throw open the cellar doors, and moonlight streams into the Host's cage, triggering a horrifying transformation. Rose rallies the other prisoners, telling them not to look but pull on the chains. Sir Robert apologises to the Queen for his betrayal, explaining that they were holding his wife. The Doctor demands to know where Rose is, but Father Angelo ignores him, continuing his chanting. The Doctor and Sir Robert rush down to the cellar, leaving the Queen while Reynolds trains his pistol on Father Angelo, asking him what his goals are. Father Angelo replies, "the throne", and swiftly disarms Reynolds.

The Doctor and Sir Robert reach the cellar just as Rose and the other prisoners manages to break their chains, but the Host has finished his transformation, and is breaking out of the cage. The others run out of the cellar, with the Doctor transfixed at the terrific sight of the werewolf until the last second. He seals the door with his sonic screwdriver as the werewolf howls at the moon. Above, Victoria surmises correctly that the monks had sabotaged the train tracks to bring her here. However, she is not unprepared, and threatens Father Angelo with her own revolver. He sneers at her sceptically, calling her a "woman". The Queen retorts, "The correct form of address is 'Your Majesty'!" and fires.

The women are told to leave the house through the kitchen, while the Steward organises his men. The werewolf has broken through the sealed door, but is driven back momentarily by rifle fire. The women find the kitchen door locked, and the courtyard beyond guarded by monks with rifles. The Doctor tells the men they should retreat upstairs. The Steward says that nothing could have lived through the rifle barrage — and is promptly grabbed and killed by the werewolf. Sir Robert, Rose and the Doctor run.

The werewolf slaughters the remaining men, and makes its way to the kitchen, where Lady Isobel and the other women are huddling in fear. However, instead of killing them, it sniffs the air and leaves. Meanwhile, Victoria retrieves the mysterious box from the safe, and meets up with Sir Robert, Rose and the Doctor. However, as they try to escape through the windows, the monks outside open fire. The four run upstairs, pursued by the werewolf. They meet Reynolds, who after confirming that Victoria has the contents of the box, says he will buy them time until they can get away. He fires at the werewolf, but is quickly torn apart as the others enter the Library and barricade the doors.

However, the werewolf does not try to break through. The Doctor wonders what it is about the room that is preventing its entry. Victoria demands to know what the creature is, and why the Doctor has lost his Scottish accent. The Doctor tries to explain, but she will have none of it, declaring angrily that this is not her world.

In the kitchen, Lady Isobel notices that the monks are wearing mistletoe around their necks, a charm against werewolves. She then notices sprigs of mistletoe scattered on the kitchen floor, and orders the other women to gather the scraps up. In the Library, the Doctor notices wooden decorations on the doors carved into the shape of mistletoe. He then realises that the walls are varnished with viscum album — oil of mistletoe. The werewolf is allergic to it, or the monks had trained it to be to control it, and Sir Robert's father knew this. Sir Robert laments that they do not have an actual weapon against it, but the Doctor points out they have the greatest arsenal available: the Library itself.

Lady Isobel and the women cook up the mistletoe into a broth. Upstairs, the others discover an account of something falling to Earth in 1540, near the monastery. The Doctor theorises that perhaps only a single cell survived, passing itself from host to host while it grew stronger with each generation. Now it wants to establish an empire, advancing technology and building starships and missiles fuelled by coal and driven by steam, laying waste to history. Victoria breaks in at this point, telling Sir Robert that she would rather die than let herself be infected, but asks him to find a place of safekeeping for something more precious. She reveals what was in the box: the Koh-i-Noor diamond. The Queen had been transporting it to the royal jewellers at Hazlehead for it to be recut. The Doctor remembers that Prince Albert kept insisting on having the diamond cut down and was never satisfied with the shape or size.

Suddenly, the Doctor has a brainstorm. The diamond, the telescope, Prince Albert and Sir Robert's father are all connected. The Doctor asks, what if the two men were not just exchanging stories, but treated it all as real, and laid a trap for the wolf? Just then, the werewolf crashes through the skylight, forcing the others to flee the Library. The werewolf nearly catches up with Rose, but Lady Isobel appears, throwing the mistletoe broth in the werewolf's face and forcing it away. Sir Robert kisses his wife and tells her to take the women back downstairs, while he and the others climb the stairs to the Observatory.

The Doctor needs time, however, as the doors to the Observatory are not barred against the werewolf — Sir Robert's father intended the wolf to come in. Sir Robert offers to place himself between them and the werewolf, willing to die with honour to make up for his betrayal. He holds the werewolf off with a sword, and as his screams are heard through the door, the Doctor and Rose manoeuvre the telescope so that it is aligned with the full moon. The telescope is not just a telescope: it is a light chamber, magnifying the Moon's rays. The werewolf may thrive on moonlight, but it can still drown in it.

The werewolf crashes through the door and prepares to slash at Victoria, but the Doctor tosses the diamond on the floor and it catches the light beam, which intercepts the werewolf and suspends it in mid-air. The werewolf reverts to human form and asks the Doctor to make it brighter and let it go. The Doctor obliges, and the werewolf form reasserts itself, howls and fades away in the moonbeam. The Doctor notices Victoria's wrist is bleeding, and wonders if the werewolf managed to bite her after all, but the Queen defensively dismisses his concern, saying it was just a splinter from the door.

In the morning, Victoria dubs the two travellers Sir Doctor of TARDIS and Dame Rose of the Powell Estate. Having rewarded them, however, she banishes them from the Empire. The Queen does not know who or what they are, but observes that their world is steeped in terror and blasphemy and yet they consider it fun. She will not allow this in her world, and warns them to consider how long they might survive such a dangerous lifestyle. The two make their way back to the TARDIS, where the Doctor reflects that it was always a mystery where Victoria (and from her to her children) contracted haemophilia from, and perhaps that was just a Victorian euphemism for lycanthropy.

Back at the Torchwood Estate, Victoria tells Lady Isobel that her husband's sacrifice and the ingenuity of his father will live on. The Queen has seen that Britain has enemies beyond imagination, and proposes to establish an institute to research and fight these enemies: the Torchwood Institute. And if the Doctor returns, Torchwood will be waiting…

Cast & Characters

Cast notes

Crew

to be added

References

Story Notes

  • The BBC Website gives this story a Fear Factor of 5 (Terrifying)
  • Tooth and Claw was also the name of a story in the Doctor Who comic strip published in Doctor Who Magazine. The story ran from DWM #257 to #260, was written by Alan Barnes and drawn by Martin Geraghty and Robin Smith
  • Pauline Collins has appeared previously in the series as Samantha Briggs in The Faceless Ones. This makes Collins the third actor from the classic series to appear on-screen in the new series, following William Thomas (Remembrance of the Daleks and Boom Town) and Nisha Nayar (Paradise Towers and Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways)
  • David Tennant uses his natural Scottish accent at points in this episode.
  • Michelle Duncan and Jamie Sives were unable to attend the readthrough for this story, and their parts were read by David Tennant's parents, who happened to be visiting the Doctor Who set. Tennant told reporters at the series' press launch, "Because it's set in Scotland they were delighted to be asked to read in. My Mum played Lady Isobel and my Dad played Captain Reynolds and they were in seventh heaven. And they were genuinely cheesed off when they didn't get asked to play the parts for real! I was like 'chill-out Mum and Dad, back in your box!'"
  • During the story The Curse of Peladon, the Third Doctor reveals that he was present at Queen Victoria's coronation in 1837, although she apparently does not remember this or did not meet him in person at that time.
  • The Doctor identifies himself as "Doctor James McCrimmon of the township of Balamory" - Balamory is the setting of a CBeebies television program which although designed for pre-school children has gained a cult following in the UK. This town, however, is not entirely fictional - the children's TV show is filmed in an actual village called Balamory.

Ratings

  • Tooth and Claw - 8.9m viewers (42.3%)

Myths

  • Four versions of this story were written each were set in different settings, all four scripts were specifically written for each of Russel T Davies' choices for the role of the Tenth Doctor and set in their home town. If Bill Nighy had played the Tenth Doctor it would have been set in the sewers of Catterham, Surrey, England. Had David Walliams had played the role it would have still been set in the sewers of Surrey but a different part. Had the unknown (and unnamed by the BBC) actor who spoke in a cockney accent played the role it would have been set in the sewers of East London.

Influences

Location Filming

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

  • Both the Doctor and Rose are knighted in this episode, becoming Sir Doctor of the TARDIS and Dame Rose of the Powell Estate. The formal names of a knight and a dame do not include a location. Also, as the Doctor told the Queen his name was James McCrimmon, she would have knighted him as such, not as "Sir Doctor".

Continuity

  • When Rose first encounters the wolf in its human form it says it can see the wolf in her and that she is "burning like the Sun", a reference to her transformation in The Parting of the Ways
  • It is revealed at the very end of this episode that Queen Victoria founded the Torchwood Institute, taking the name from the estate, with a remit to investigate paranormal events such as the werewolf in this episode. The Torchwood Institute has previously been referenced in Bad Wolf and was seen in action in The Christmas Invasion. The Institute is to form the basis of a spin off series entitled Torchwood
  • The Doctor once again seems suprised by what appears on his psychic paper. It may just be that he allowed his mind to wander as Captain Jack did in The Empty Child or it may be that someone else is manipulating the paper as the Face of Boe was able to do in New Earth
  • Werewolves also appear in the stories Wolfsbane and Kursaal
  • The Doctor introduces himself as "Doctor James McCrimmon", a reference to his past Scottish companion Jamie McCrimmon.
  • The Seventh Doctor also foiled the plans of an alien who wanted to assassinate Queen Victoria in the episode Ghost Light.
  • There have been several stories previous to this episode involving (or featuring) werewolves including: Kursaal (featuring the Eighth Doctor), Loups-Garoux (featuring the Fifth Doctor, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (featuring the Seventh Doctor).

DVD and Other Releases

See Also

External Links

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