Tooth and Claw (Doctor Who)
Encyclopedia : T : TO : TOO : Tooth and Claw (Doctor Who)
Tooth and Claw is an episode in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who that was first broadcast on 22 April, 2006.
Synopsis
Landing in 1879 Scotland, the Tenth Doctor and Rose meet Queen Victoria, travelling with her to spend the night at the Torchwood Estate. However, a group of warrior monks have sinister plans for the monarch, and the full moon is about to summon a creature out of legend.Plot
A group of hooded monks travels across the Scottish moors and enters the Torchwood Estate, belonging to Sir Robert MacLeish. There, Father Angelo confronts the Steward and his men, demanding possession of the house. When the Steward refuses, Father Angelo 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 into the cellar, including Lady Isobel MacLeish. The monks then carry a covered cage into the cellar. When the Steward asks what is beneath the canvas, Father Angelo unveils it. Seeing what is inside, Isobel screams…
In the TARDIS, the Doctor offers to take Rose to Sheffield in 1979 to see Ian Dury in concert. However, after the usual bumpy ride, 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 Dr James McCrimmon, "from the township of Balamory", and had studied under Dr Bell. 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, and Victoria suspects an assassination attempt. The two travellers are allowed to 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 meet 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 and carrying a small leather box which he carries inside and 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 designed by his father. 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 offer 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 of what has happened. However, when they leave the room to find the Doctor, they are captured by monks, 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. The man is amused that he has actually encountered intelligence, and tells Rose that while the human body he wears was born ten miles away, a boy stolen away by the Brethren which it then possessed, he comes from much further away. Rose offers to take the alien intelligence back home, but the alien does not wish to leave. He intends to bite Queen Victoria, migrate into her body and begin the Empire of the Wolf. He then notices 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 a 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 go and face the full moon through the window, chanting in Latin, "corpus fortis est, lupus deus est" — "The body 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. Throwing off his robe, he begins 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, taking firearms from the cupboards. 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 by the werewolf and killed. 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; that is why the werewolf does not attack them. 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, while upstairs the others look through the books. They 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 fueled 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 — they 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 Isobel 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, knowing that he will die, but 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 maneuver 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 it, 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 stabs at the werewolf and suspends it in mid-air. The werewolf momentarily takes 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
- The Doctor — David Tennant
- Rose Tyler — Billie Piper
- Queen Victoria — Pauline Collins
- Father Angelo — Ian Hanmore
- Lady Isobel — Michelle Duncan
- Sir Robert — Derek Riddell
- Captain Reynolds — Jamie Sives
- Steward — Ron Donachie
- The Host — Tom Smith
- Flora — Ruth Milne
Trivia
- The title is an allusion to a merciless "Nature, red in tooth and claw" from Lord Tennyson's 1850 poem In Memoriam A.H.H. The poem was a favourite of Queen Victoria's, who found it a comfort after Prince Albert's death in 1861.
- Tooth and Claw was also the name of an unrelated 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.
- At the end of the TARDISODE for this episode, a Wilhelm scream can be heard.
- Interviewed in Doctor Who Confidential, director Euros Lyn said that various martial arts films were viewed in researching the opening fight sequence, including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
- The Doctor mentions assisting the early re-entry of Skylab in 1979, although the circumstances are not elaborated on.
- Rose is wearing a T-shirt with a crown on, a reference by the costume designer to Queen Victoria's presence in the episode, but also in keeping with Rose's expected visit to a 1979 Ian Dury concert. In the episode Attack of the Graske, he took Rose to an ABBA concert in 1979 Wembley, and quoted the Status Quo song "Down Down" at one point in the same episode.
- The Doctor introduces himself as James McCrimmon. Jamie McCrimmon was a young Scottish piper from the 18th Century and a companion of the Second Doctor. The Doctor's use of Jamie's name as an alias has a certain symmetry, as Jamie was the one who gave the Doctor his most often-used alias, "John Smith", in The Wheel in Space.
- The Doctor claims he is from the township of Balamory. Balamory was a popular live-action children's television programme broadcast between 2002 and 2005 and set on the fictitious Scottish island community of Balamory.
- The Doctor also claims to have trained at the University of Edinburgh under "Dr. Bell", a reference to Joseph Bell, the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. In The Moonbase (1967), the Second Doctor claimed to have studied under another Scottish doctor, Joseph Lister, in 1888.
- In the Third Doctor story The Curse of Peladon (1972), the Doctor mentioned having been in attendance at Queen Victoria's coronation. The Fifth Doctor meets Victoria (and is appointed her Scientific Advisor) in 1863 in the Past Doctor Adventures novel Empire of Death and she is also involved in the events of the novel Imperial Moon, taking place in 1878. The canonicity of the novels, like all non-televised stories, is unclear.
- Pauline Collins appeared previously in the series as Samantha Briggs in the Second Doctor serial The Faceless Ones (1967). This makes her the third actor from the classic series to appear 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). Collins had been offered a role as a companion in 1967, but had turned this down.
- Curiously, the Doctor seemed unaware that his psychic paper indicated that he would be serving as Queen Victoria's guard. Where the thought came from is left unexplained.
- The Doctor notes that the Queen, by 1879, has had six attempts on her life. Of the known assassination attempts, one took place in 1840, three in 1842, one in 1849 and one in 1850. Subsequent to 1879, two more attempts were made in 1882 and 1887. In the Seventh Doctor serial Ghost Light, the Doctor thwarts an attempt in 1883 by an alien force to kill the Queen and thereby take over the British Empire.
- Treowen House in Dingestow, Wales was a site of filming for this episode, representing Torchwood House in the Scottish Highlands.#redirect
- David Tennant uses his natural Scottish accent at points in this episode.
- A werewolf also appeared in the Seventh Doctor serial The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (1988). Werewolves feature in the Past Doctor Adventures novel Wolfsbane and the Big Finish Productions audio play Loups-Garoux. A race of werewolves, the Werelox, turn the Fourth Doctor into a werewolf in the Doctor Who Weekly comic strip story "Doctor Who and the Dogs of Doom".
- When Rose first encounters the wolf in its human form it says it can see "something of the wolf" in her and that she is "burning like the Sun", a reference to the 2005 series episode The Parting of the Ways.
- The werewolf in this story is computer-generated. Pauline Collins stated in a BBC press release that there were two performance artists who demonstrated the movements that the werewolf would do and talked about the problems of overacting in a situation where one was simply reacting to a green screen.BBC Press Office (7 April 2006), Programme Information: Network TV Week 17, 22–28 April 2006. Press release, PDF, pp. 4–5: "[By Royal appointment]".
- When Sir Robert offers to precede the Queen out of the window, she calls him "my Sir Walter Raleigh". Actor Derek Riddell had played Raleigh in the BBC drama The Virgin Queen, screened earlier in the year. The script originally had Victoria refer to Sir Francis Drake, until Riddell pointed out that this would have been incorrect for the reference the Queen was making.
- One of the traditional uses of mistletoe is indeed as a ward against werewolves. In the commentary for the episode, script editor Simon Winstone notes that mistletoe was also used as an anticonvulsant, which tracks with the fits the Host suffers as he transforms.
- The Doctor gives an explanation of lycanthropy in this episode. He says, "Well, you'd call it a werewolf, but it's actually a lupine wavelength haemovariform."
- According to the book in the Torchwood House library, the monastery existed at the time of the crash in 1540. To have survived into the 19th century, the monastery would have to have somehow missed Scotland's Protestant Reformation which began in 1560. Although some areas of Scotland did remain Roman Catholic after the Reformation, we are not told so in the episode and its survival in the Highlands therefore remains slightly implausible.
- The Doctor's description of a realised "Empire of the Wolf" — complete with starships and missiles running on coal and steam — matches much of what is portrayed in the steampunk genre. The telescope weapon also calls upon the genre's style. The novel Imperial Moon, coincidentally, involves the building of a British space fleet which Victoria subsequently orders destroyed.
- This episode bears some similarities to the Fourth Doctor serial Horror of Fang Rock (1977). In the earlier story, the Doctor also uses a diamond to refract light, creating an "amplified carbon beam oscillator" that brings down the Rutan mothership. Both stories are also set in remote, enclosed locations, in or around the Victorian era, involve shapechanging aliens and a feral girl.
- Both the Doctor and Rose are knighted in this episode, becoming Sir Doctor of TARDIS and Dame Rose of the Powell Estate. Dames in the British honours system are not traditionally dubbed with a sword, and the formal names of a knight and a dame do not include a location (compare with "Sir Ian of Jaffa", the title bestowed on Ian Chesterton in the 1965 First Doctor story The Crusade). The inaccuracies in the knighting ceremony are noted and explained in the episode commentary. The earliest British order to admit dames within Britain, namely the Order of the British Empire, was not introduced until 1917, 38 years after Tooth and Claw and 16 years after Queen Victoria's death.
- The use of the title Sir Doctor of TARDIS rather than Sir James McCrimmon implies that the Doctor and the Queen had an off-screen conversation about his name and designation. In addition, it has never been established whether the Doctor holds any Earth citizenship — when asked in the 1966 serial The Daleks' Master Plan if he is a British citizen, the Doctor retorts that he is a citizen of the universe, but in the Doctor Who television movie, when Grace Holloway suggests he is British, he responds, "I suppose I am." He would only use the title if a citizen of a Commonwealth country.
- This is not the first time that members of the British Royal Family have been suggested to be werewolves. King John of England was rumoured to be one. In one episode of the Road Rovers animated series ("A Hair Of The Dog That Bit You"), Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, among others, are turned into werewolves.
- Queen Victoria had given birth to all her children by 1879, so they would not have inherited her werewolf disorder (if she had one) in their genes. The Doctor suggests she "gave them a quick nip".
- 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.
- Although the Queen promised that Torchwood would be waiting if the Doctor returned, there was no sign of the organisation during the Third Doctor's time with UNIT or the other times the Doctor had previously returned to Britain. What Torchwood may have been doing during these occasions has yet to be explained.
- Although Victoria shoots at him, we do not see Father Angelo's body, nor do we see what happened to the monks after the werewolf was dispelled.
- Also noted in the commentary was Prince Albert's overseeing of the cutting of the Koh-i-Noor and his dissatisfaction with the results, although Winstone suggests it was more due to the fact that the stone was cut down so much. The Koh-i-Noor is currently set into the crown of Elizabeth, the late Queen Mother.
- 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!'"
- At one point during filming, Billie Piper's hair caught fire.
- The Defending the Earth site update for this episode features another "live" message from Mickey Smith to the viewer.http://www.whoisdoctorwho.co.uk
- This episode was released on 5 June 2006 as a basic DVD with no special features, together with School Reunion and The Girl in the Fireplace.
- The actor Tom Smith, who played the Host, studied at drama school with David Tennant.#redirect
- Overnight ratings for the episode peaked at 10.03 million (during one five minute segment). The audience appreciation index was 83.#redirect
References
- A father's account of bringing his young son to the set of Tooth and Claw.
- Actor Derek Riddell discusses the filming of Tooth and Claw.
Footnotes
External links
- [TARDISODE 2]
- [Episode commentary by David Tennant, Simon Winstone and Derek Riddell]
- [Tooth and Claw episode guide on the BBC website]
- [Tooth and Claw episode homepage]
- [Tooth and Claw] at [Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)]
- [Tooth and Claw] at the [Doctor Who Reference Guide]
- [Visit the Torchwood Estate]
Reviews
- [ }] reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
- [Tooth and Claw] reviews at [The Doctor Who Ratings Guide]
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.