Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Who mourns for Charles Dickens?

Doctor Who: The Unquiet Dead

Some guy's grandmother dies in the 1800s, and then she comes back to life and rises out of her coffin and tries to kill him. Wonderful. Apparently it's not the first time, judging by the funeral director's reaction.

The woman walks out into the snow with glowy lights around her head. Points from at least stealing from something quality like Buffy and not something lame like Enterprise.

The TARDIS isn't working that well, so they end up in 1860.

The funeral director guy gets chewed out by his servant for not doing what he should have in the first place and getting help for the, you know, walking dead people.

Rose and the Doctor get dressed and go out to see Christmas in 1860.

Just to make things more disturbing, Gwyneth, the servant girl, is psychic. She is able to find the old lady going to see "the great man" from London. Turns out Charles Dickens is in town.

Charles Dickens is depressed about his lack of attachment.

The Doctor calls Rose beautiful, which is sweet. They go out and poke around Christmas 1860, which I assume is good times.

The undertaker and Gwyneth track the dead lady to a convention hall or whatever.

The Doctor got the year wrong. It's 1859.

Charles Dickens, reciting A Christmas Carol, is disturbed to see the dead lady glowing again. She rises from her seat, screaming, and of course the Doctor and Rose run to the rescue. Gwyneth and the undertaker run in too, and these glowy phantom things fly all over the room. The Doctor runs in to help, and Rose goes after the undertaker. Sadly, the undertaker chloroforms Rose and the Doctor comes out just in time to see her taken away. He gets Charles Dickens to give them a ride on his carriage.

The undertaker and Gwyneth take Rose and lock her up. Rose wakes up with the corpse.

Charles Dickens and the Doctor arrive and see the phantoms flying around. The grandson of the dead woman wakes up, and the two corpses start trying to kill Rose, because of course she's locked up with them. The Doctor manages to keep Rose from being killed by zombies. It turns out they're not so much zombies as they are disembodied aliens.

The undertaker explains that the house is haunted, which the Doctor calls a rift. Charles Dickens starts wandering around, which I personally wouldn't do, but I guess he's closed minded, much like Samuel Clemmens in Time's Arrow. The Doctor catches him looking for wires with which to animate the corpse. Eventually he comes around and we can all get back to our fun lives.

Rose bonds with Gwyneth, who has a crush on the butcher's apprentice guy. Then Gwyneth refers to Rose's dead dad. Oh, yeah - because she's psychic. She can read Rose's mind. The Doctor hears that part of the conversation, and realizes that she's the key to the rift. So they're gonna have a seance.

Charles Dickens refuses to participate until they talk him into it. The gas creatures swarm in and Gwyneth manages to talk to them. They are called the Gelth, and they need to get home. Or they need to come through so they can posess all the dead bodies.

Charles Dickens believes now, at least.

They end up in the morgue, where the Gelth turn out to be evil. They kill the undertaker and take his body. They decide to kill the rest of them. In fact, they're gonna kill all the humans.

Yeah, great plan, Doctor.

Charles Dickens figures out that the Gelth are allergic to gas lights, so he runs back and turns up the gas in the house. Gwyneth can hold them there forever - but only by sacrificing herself. She lights a match and the whole place goes up.

Turns out Gwyneth was already dead.

Charles Dickens goes back to London, very excited. But he'll die before he has time to write about it.

Perhaps I've thought of everything I'll ever think

-Charles Dickens

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