The Idiot's Lantern

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177 - The Idiot's Lantern
Doctor David Tennant (Tenth Doctor)
Writer Mark Gatiss
Director Euros Lyn
Script Editor Simon Winstone
Producer Phil Collinson
Executive producer(s) Russell T. Davies
Julie Gardner
Production code Series 2, Episode 7
Series Series 2 (2006)
Length 45 mins
Transmission date 27 May 2006
Preceded by The Age of Steel
Followed by The Impossible Planet
IMDb profile

The Idiot's Lantern is an episode in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on May 27, 2006.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

In 1953 London, the police are abducting people from their homes. The people of Britain gather around their new-fangled "tele-vision" sets to celebrate the new Queen's coronation — but something strange is affecting the signal.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
"Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then we'll begin…"
Enlarge
"Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then we'll begin…"

In the middle of a rain storm, Mr Magpie, the owner of Magpie Electricals, does his books while on the black and white television set in the background a female continuity announcer announces the end of the day's programming from Alexandra Palace. Finding he is £200 overdrawn, he mutters that he needs a miracle. Nearby in the same neighbourhood, the Connolly family are listening to the radio. As Rita, the mother, works at a sewing machine, Tommy, the teenage son, asks his father, Eddie, about getting a television set. Eddie replies that they may get one for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Tommy's grandmother tells him that she has heard that television rots people's brains.

Eddie goes out, passing by Magpie's, but does not notice a pink streak of what looks like lightning strike the television aerial above the store. Magpie is woken by the voice of the television continuity announcer, who now speaks directly to him. She asks him if he is sitting comfortably, then tendrils of pink energy lash out from the television screen, latching onto his head. Magpie begins to scream as his face stretches towards the television, and the announcer begins to laugh diabolically…

Rose steps out of the TARDIS in a pink skirt and blue jacket, excited about seeing Elvis Presley perform. The Tenth Doctor rides out on a blue Vespa scooter, wearing a white helmet over his Teddy Boy quiff and sunglasses. They set down the street, ostensibly to see Presley perform on the Ed Sullivan Show in New York, until they notice a double-decker bus and the many Union Flags hanging outside the houses on the street. The two then realise, to the Doctor's chagrin, that they are actually in London.

The Connollys watch Muffin the Mule on their new television set. Eddie comments on the "realism" of the new technology, while Rita and Tommy seem nervous. Rita is worried about her mother, remarking about her face before Eddie cuts Rita off. From Grandma's room, they hear a steady rapping.

The Doctor and Rose pass by Magpie's van as he unloads television sets to the various houses on Florizel Street. After they find out that it is 1953, on the eve of the Coronation, Rose notices that every house along the street seems to have a television aerial, which is unusual. Magpie says that it is not unusual around here, since he is selling the sets for £5 each. Suddenly, they hear a cry for help, and see two men usher Mr Gallagher out of his house and into a car, hidden beneath a blanket. The men brush off the Doctor's questions by saying it is police business. They drive off.

Tommy has come out into the street as well. He tells Rose that this is happening all over the place — people turning into monsters — but is quickly called back into his house by an angry Eddie. The Doctor and Rose ride after the car on the Vespa, but the car drives into a warehouse, the wooden gates closing after them and a fruit stall set up so that it appears to be a dead end.

Magpie speaks to the television sets in his shop, saying that he has finished "it" as instructed. He presents what appears to be a portable television set. The continuity announcer appears on the screen again; Magpie pleads with her to release him: her presence is burning him from the inside. She tells him that the time is almost ripe.

Tommy climbs the stairs to Grandma's room, but before he can go in, Eddie sternly calls him away. Tommy protests that they cannot just lock Grandma away, but Eddie yells to both him and Rita that he is talking. As the two are cowed into silence, the doorbell rings: it is the Doctor and Rose. Using the Doctor's psychic paper to pose as a representative from the government, the two barge in. The Doctor quickly takes control of the situation and persuades Eddie to start putting up decorative flags while he tries to question Tommy and Rita.

Rita begins to sob, and as Rose comforts her, Eddie becomes suspicious of the two travellers. He yells that this is his house and when the Doctor interrupts, tries to cut him off by saying, as before, that he is talking. However, the Doctor just yells back that he is not listening and instead demands to know what is going on. As they hear the raps from Grandma's room above, Tommy tells them about people who start changing, and their families keeping it a secret. Somehow, the police find out, and show up to take them away.

Tommy takes them to Grandma's room. Her face is gone, completely devoid of any features. Scanning her with his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor finds barely any neural activity left, like someone has wiped her brain clean. Suddenly the police burst into the house. When the Doctor tries to fast-talk them, one of them punches him out. They take Grandma away.

The Doctor revives quickly and gives chase, Rose following behind. However, she pauses in the living room when she sees pink electricity crawling over the television set, and the Doctor has no choice but to ride off without her. Rose examines the back of the set and sees the pink energy crackle over the cable to the aerial, then fade away. Eddie chases Rose out of his house.

The police car disappears into the same street, but when the Doctor sees the same workmen at the wooden door, he realises, admiringly, how they decoyed him. He enters the warehouse through a side gate, and finds over a dozen of the blank-faced people locked up, their hands clenching and unclenching robotically. He goes in to examine them, but is interrupted by the police.

Meanwhile, Rose goes to Magpie's shop and asks why he is selling the television sets so cheaply. The announcer appears on one of the sets, crying out that she is hungry. Magpie brushes it off as a television programme, and says he is selling the sets cheaply as a patriotic duty. Rose, however, points out that something is happening out there and the common factor is the presence of a television set. The woman on the screen starts talking to Rose, to her surprise. Rose asks who she is, and the announcer introduces herself: she is the Wire… and she is hungry. The energy tendrils lash out towards Rose, drawing her in. She cries to Magpie for help, but he simply observes, with some regret, that twenty million people will be watching the Coronation.

Detective Inspector Bishop interrogates the Doctor, who plays on Bishop's unhappiness at merely covering the disturbances up instead of solving them. The Doctor soon persuades Bishop that he can help, and so Bishop tells him what the police know. Bishop explains that the transformations began about a month ago, spreading out from North London to all over the city, but a large number in Florizel Street. At that point, another policeman brings in Rose, her features wiped clean like the others. The Doctor is furious that whoever did this just took Rose's face and left her on the street, and swears that no power on Earth can stop him from ending this.

It is the day of the Coronation, and a group of friends gather at the Connollys' house to watch it on television. The Doctor and Bishop show up at the door, and the Doctor asks Tommy for details on what happened inside the house. Eddie comes out, angrily saying that they can handle this themselves; he has a reputation to maintain. Tommy realises that it was Eddie who informed on Grandma and the others to the police. Rita tells Tommy to go with the Doctor, then tells Eddie that there was a monster under their roof — but it was not her mother.

Tommy tells the Doctor that Grandma was just watching the television that night, and the Doctor makes the connection with all the aerials along the street. They rush to Magpie's shop and break in. The Doctor searches and finds the portable television set: made by human hands but not of human design. The sonic screwdriver also picks up another power source in the room — and as he scans for it, the faces of those transformed, including Rose and Grandma, appear on the television screens around them. Rose's face silently mouths the Doctor's name, and the Doctor assures her that he is on his way.

Magpie appears, and the Doctor demands to know who is in charge. The Wire flickers into life on the screen, still using the image of the woman announcer, briefly even turning into a colour signal. She explains that her people executed her, but she managed to escape in this form, fleeing across the stars. She is now trapped in the television set, but once she has gorged herself on enough human minds, she will be able to manifest in a corporeal form. The Doctor realises, however, that she is still not strong enough, which is why she needs the portable television set. It will turn a large transmitter into a receiver, allowing her to reach every television set simultaneously.

The Wire starts to consume Tommy, Bishop and the Doctor, but notices the Doctor struggling to work his sonic screwdriver. Realising that the Doctor is armed, she releases them. The three fall to the floor, the Doctor and Tommy merely unconscious, but Bishop transformed. The Wire orders Magpie to bring the portable set near, and transfers herself into it. Magpie brings the set to his van, and drives off towards what the Doctor says is the largest transmitter in North London: Alexandra Palace.

The Doctor and Tommy wake up. When he finds out they are in Muswell Hill, the Doctor deduces where Magpie must be heading. The Doctor gathers various components from Magpie's shop, going back to the TARDIS to grab one more item before he and Tommy run for Alexandra Palace, assembling the device on the way.

As the nation watches the Coronation on television, Magpie climbs up towards the transmitter tower, the Wire urging him on. The Doctor and Tommy fool their way past a guard with the psychic paper, which the Doctor then checks, noticing that it identified him as the King of Belgium. The two reach the control room at Alexandra Palace, plugging in the device. The Doctor tells Tommy to leave it switched on as he grabs a coil of copper wire from a shelf and heads for the tower, trailing the wire all the way.

The Doctor climbs after Magpie, but Magpie plugs the portable set into the tower, and the tendrils of energy crackle out across London as the Wire begins to feast on everyone watching. The energy stabs at the Doctor as well, but his rubber soles insulate him. Despite the Wire's demands, Magpie refuses to kill the Doctor, whimpering that he only wants peace. The Wire obliges Magpie by consuming him, his body vanishing in a burst of energy. The Doctor tells the Wire that she has overextended herself, and plugs the copper wire into the portable set. However, the device overloads, and the Wire mocks the Doctor's plan.

Tommy quickly replaces the burnt out vacuum tube on the device and plugs it in. The tendrils of energy are drawn back into the tower, releasing her intended victims and restoring her previous ones. The Wire screams, and the portable set goes dead. The Doctor returns to the control room, and smugly tells Tommy that he turned the transmitter back into a receiver and trapped the Wire in a makeshift video cassette recorder. "She" is now trapped on a Betamax cassette.

The Doctor and Tommy return to the warehouse, where Tommy is reunited with Grandma and the Doctor with Rose. Rita throws Eddie out of the house, and he leaves as the street is celebrating the Coronation. The Doctor gives his scooter to Tommy (but tells him he should keep it locked up for a couple of years), and tells Rose that the Wire is trapped on the video recording, but to be safe, he will record over it. Tommy is glad to see his father leave, but Rose persuades Tommy to go after Eddie — he may be an idiot, but he is still his father. Tommy was clever enough to save the world, so he should not stop there. As Tommy walks after Eddie and helps him with his suitcase, the Doctor and Rose toast each other with soft drinks.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Cast notes

Ron Cook, who plays Magpie, starred alongside Sophia Myles, David Tennant's girlfriend and The Girl in the Fireplace's Madame de Pompadour, as Parker in the 2004 film Thunderbirds, while Margaret John, who plays Grandma Connolly, also played Megan Jones in the Second Doctor serial Fury from the Deep (1968).

[edit] Continuity

  • The story is set at the time of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, due to its significance as the first key event televised across Britain and can therefore be definitively dated as taking place on June 1 and June 2, 1953. According to a report in The Daily Mirror newspaper, Queen Elizabeth is a fan of the new series of Doctor Who, and requested DVDs of the 2005 series during her summer stay at Balmoral.[1] Elizabeth II appears here in archive footage; she previously appeared (played by an impersonator) in the Seventh Doctor story Silver Nemesis (1988). According to a late 1980s interview with former Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner published in Doctor Who Magazine, an attempt was made to get the Queen herself to appear in Silver Nemesis but the plan fell through.
  • Jackie Tyler is revealed to be a fan of Cliff Richard. The Doctor talks about Elvis Presley and Ed Sullivan and later refers to Kylie Minogue's 1989 hit "Never Too Late".
  • The Wire's blank-faced victims are similar in appearance to the faceless Shape in the fourth story of the cult television series Sapphire and Steel. A crewman was rendered faceless in the Star Trek episode "Charlie X", and a faceless child appeared in the movie The Brothers Grimm. A girl was rendered mouthless while watching television in the Twilight Zone: The Movie segment based on the original The Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life". A Second Doctor serial was titled The Faceless Ones (1967), but the titular aliens did not resemble the blank-faced victims of this episode. In another Second Doctor serial, The Mind Robber, the Doctor's companion, Jamie McCrimmon is rendered faceless twice, and the Doctor is forced to reconstruct Jamie's face using stickers with various facial features depicted on them. (He gets it wrong on his first attempt)
  • Mr Magpie says, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry", to Rose before allowing the Wire to feed on her. The Doctor has used this phrase in the 2006 series when discovering a diseased 'New Human' in New Earth and when examining the dying Cyberman, Sally Phelan, in The Age of Steel. The President said it to the Cybermen at the party in Rise of the Cybermen. The phrase recurs in subsequent episodes.
  • As the Doctor examines the blank-faced Rose, Bishop says in the background (at 24:20 into the show) that this will get "Torchwood on our backs, and no mistake."
  • The Wire's use of the television signal as a means of feeding is comparable to Gatiss's Eighth Doctor audio play Invaders from Mars for Big Finish Productions. It involved alien invaders using Orson Welles's infamous radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds as a conduit to a real invasion.
  • Just before the Doctor climbs Alexandra Palace, the script originally included a line alluding to the Doctor's fear of transmitter towers because he "fell off one once", a reference to the Fourth Doctor's death at the end of Logopolis.
  • The Sixth Doctor also traps a creature on a recording medium in the Big Finish Productions audio play Whispers of Terror, though that creature was made of sentient sound.
  • Magpie's television sets later appear as a set element in spin off series Torchwood.[2]

[edit] Production

  • The Idiot's Lantern is written by The League of Gentlemen co-writer Mark Gatiss, who also wrote the Ninth Doctor episode The Unquiet Dead as well as several spin-off audios and novels.
  • This episode was broadcast on the tenth anniversary of the 1996 Eighth Doctor television movie (starring Paul McGann). Coincidentally, it was also broadcast nearly 53 years after the coronation of 1953.
  • This episode is notable for its heavily stylised cinematography, with extensive use of static Dutch angles. The still included at the head of this article is an example.
  • Most of the action in this episode takes place on the fictional Florizel Street, on which the Connolly family live. Florizel Street was a working title for the British soap opera Coronation Street, first broadcast in 1960. One shot of Florizel Street during the Wire's transmission of signals resembles a shot of Coronation Street from the opening sequence of that series; it is unclear whether this is intentional or coincidental.
  • The episode is set in the Muswell Hill area of London, but in spite of second-unit photography around Alexandra Palace, it is very apparent that the bulk of the episode was filmed in Cardiff. Although Muswell Hill does have red-brick terraced houses, the substantial buildings built by W.F. Collins are much larger, with typically three floors, white-painted woodwork, and front gardens. The two-up, two-down terraces shown in some scenes do not resemble any streets in the Muswell Hill area. The exterior of Magpie's shop was filmed on Mafeking Terrace, Tredegar and the street sign can be seen as the Doctor leaves the shop. Also, just after the Doctor establishes that they are in Muswell Hill, he is shown heading to Alexandra Palace from the slope on the east side, which would put him in the Hornsey/Wood Green area. Muswell Hill is to the west.
  • The game associated with this episode, the "Magpie Online Archive" is a "file sharing application" in which the player must search through various clips of BBC television history to look for messages left behind by the Wire. Unlike earlier games, it is only accessible through the BBC Doctor Who website.

[edit] Historical details

  • "The idiot's lantern" was British slang for television in the 1940s and 1950s (compare to "the idiot box").
  • What's My Line?, which began in 1951 on UK television, is mentioned by the continuity announcer in the pre-credits sequence.
  • The "Bat's Wings ident" is seen on the television sets in this episode, but that particular ident did not see use until 2 December 1953, six months after this episode is set. Although the ident is seen the BBC logo is never shown clearly. The reason for this is not clear.
  • Another historical error is that it is sunny in London at the end of this episode, whereas it was actually raining on Coronation Day.
  • Muffin the Mule, clips of which feature in this episode, was also mentioned in the 1999 Doctor Who Night sketch, The Pitch of Fear, which was also written by Mark Gatiss.
  • The phrase, "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin," was popularised by the 1950–1982 BBC Radio series Listen with Mother, which began each episode with those words. The Wire uses a paraphrase of this when first speaking to Magpie. Another paraphrased version was said by the Doctor at the beginning of School Reunion. The phrase "Goodnight children, everywhere," used by the Wire as she feeds on Rose, was the catchphrase of Children's Hour presenter Derek McCulloch.
  • The number plate on the Doctor's scooter would not appear for another twelve years, as the "D" suffix denotes that it was registered in 1965. The letter suffix was not introduced until 1963, when the suffix was "A".
  • The going rate for a Pye television set in 1953, including installation, was about £70, compared with the £5 Magpie was selling them for as part of the Wire's plan.[3]
  • Throughout the story, several later developments in television technology are alluded to and shown: colour television, portable televisions, and video recording.
  • The Doctor claims "I just invented the home video 30 years early". A closer inspection of the Betamax cassette shows Gallifreyan text scored out in pen and new text written (this is presumably a well-used and recorded-over tape). The world's first video tape recorder intended for home use was the Sony model CV-2000 in 1964, and the first popular video cassette in the UK is usually attributed to the VCR format of 1972. Other technical inaccuracies from this episode include a white dot in the centre of the screen (which it certainly would not whilst still running).

[edit] Ratings and DVD release

  • Overnight viewing figures for the initial broadcast of this episode were 6.32 million, peaking at 7.78 million, an audience share of 32.2%. The final rating was 6.76 million, making it the most watched programme of the day.[citation needed]
  • This episode was released as a basic DVD with no special features in the UK on 10 July 2006, together with Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel.

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/showbiz/tm_objectid=15779668&method=full&siteid=94762-name_page.html
  2. ^ "'Yes, they're Mr Magpie's TVs,' says our set guide, production designer Edward Thomas. 'His son eventually took over the business and Jack has sourced three televisions from his shop. The TVs are scanning for signals.'" "Base Notes". (28 October – 3 November 2006) Radio Times, p. 10
  3. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/yourplaceandmine/topics/arts/A833492.shtml

[edit] External links

[edit] Reviews

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