Metamorphosis (episode)

Metamorphosis was the third story of Season 38 of Doctor Who. It was written by Russell T Davies, directed by Julie Edwards and featured Richard E. Grant as the Doctor and Gillian Kearney as Lou Madison.

Synopsis
Landing in the 1870s by accident, the Doctor and Lou, run into Queen Victoria. However, something more sinister is afoot, and it's much more than a mere assassination plot; can the time travellers stop the coming of the Empire of the Wolf?

Plot
Hooded monks travel across the Scottish moors. They enter an Estate belonging to Sir Robert McLeish. Their leader, Father Angelo, demands possession of the house. When the steward refuses, asking if the wrath of God would make them comply, Angelo responds "No. The fist of man" as he and the rest of the monks remove their cassocks, revealing orange robes. Exhibiting 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 McLeish. They carry a covered cage into the cellar. When asked what is contained in it, Father Angelo uncovers the cage. Lady Isobel screams.

Meanwhile, the TARDIS is travelling back through time. Inside, the Tenth Doctor is trying his hardest to steer to Liverpool in 1979, as Lou wants to see what it was like the year she was born. In the Doctor's words, 1979 was a hell of a year; China invades Vietnam, The Muppet Movie, Margaret Thatcher. Grabbing his jacket, the Doctor also remembers 1979 is when Skylab fell to earth with help from him, the ordeal nearly losing him his thumb.

He ushers Lou out into the 1970s; however, they are met by armed soldiers on horseback. They demand explanations for the Doctor's presence and Lou's "nakedness", as she's wearing just a t-shirt and shorts. The Doctor realises that they have arrived in 1879 Scotland; "close enough" the Doctor shrugs. He convinces Captain Reynolds he is a local doctor.

An authoritative voice from the carriage the soldiers are escorting asks the Doctor and Lou to approach. The Doctor introduces Lou to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, who is on her way to Balmoral Castle. The Doctor says the Lord Provost has appointed him as her protector; looks like the time travellers are stuck in this time period for a while. 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 Estate, where the Queen plans to spend the night. On the way, Lou bets the Doctor ten quid that she can get the Queen to say, "I am not amused".

Sir Robert watches from the window, with Father Angelo, disguised as a servant, behind him. Sir Robert goes to receive Victoria. Despite his hinting that all is not right, the Queen insists on staying; the estate was a favourite of her late consort, Prince Albert, who used to visit Sir Robert's father. They enter 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, who appears to be a hooded man, indicates to the other prisoners to be silent.

Sir Robert shows the Queen, Doctor and Lou the observatory, which contains a telescope his father designed. The Doctor notices it has many prisms more than a typical telescope, causing too much magnification for simple stargazing. Sir Robert says he knows little of his father's 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 Lou searches through the wardrobes for more appropriate attire, the disguised monks serve the soldiers drugged drinks, which knock them unconscious. Lou discovers a frightened servant girl, Flora, hidden in one of the wardrobes. Flora tells Lou what has happened; Lou decides to tell the Doctor. When they leave the room to find the Doctor, they find an unconscious soldier. They are captured, taken to the cellar and chained with the others.

At the dinner table, Sir Robert tells the Queen, the Doctor and Reynolds a story. For the past three hundred years, livestock has been found ripped apart every full moon. Once a generation, a boy vanishes, and there are sightings of a werewolf. In the cellar, Lou notices the caged man's alien-looking eyes. She asks him what planet he is from. Amused, he tells Lou the human body he possesses was born ten miles away, a boy stolen by the Brethren, but he comes from a much longer distance. Lou offers to take the alien intelligence back home, but he does not wish to leave. He shall bite Queen Victoria, migrate into her body and begin the Empire of the Wolf.

Upstairs, Sir Robert relates that his father believed the story to be fact, and even claimed to have communicated with the beast and learned its purpose. However, the Brethren of the monastery in the Glen of St Cathrine 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: "The wolf is great, the wolf is strong, the wolf is God". The Doctor questions what if the monks were with them now?

The monks throw open the cellar doors and moonlight streams into the Host's cage, triggering a horrifying transformation. Lou rallies the other prisoners, telling them not to look, but to pull on the chains. As Father Angelo is transfixed with chanting at the moon, Sir Robert apologises to the Queen for his betrayal; they were holding his wife. The Doctor demands to know where Lou is, but Father Angelo ignores him, continuing his chanting. The Doctor and Sir Robert rush to the cellar, leaving the Queen with Reynolds, who 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 Lou and the other prisoners manage to break their chains, but the Host has finished his transformation and breaks out of the cage. The others run out of the cellar, the Doctor transfixed at the "beautiful" werewolf until the last second. He locks the door 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, after six attempts on her life, and pulls a small revolver from her bag, aiming at Angelo. He sneers at her sceptically, calling her "woman". The Queen retorts, "The correct form of address is 'Your Majesty'!" and shoots him dead.

The women go 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 seized and killed by the werewolf. Sir Robert, Lou and the Doctor run.

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

The Doctor listens to the Wolf sniffing the door.

However, the werewolf does not try to breakthrough. The Doctor wonders what it is about the room that is protecting them from the wolf. When asked about weapons, the Doctor points out that they have the greatest weapons of all in this very room: books full of knowledge, which can give them clues as to how to fight back.

In the kitchen, Lady Isobel notices that the monks are wearing mistletoe about their necks, a charm against werewolves. She notices sprigs of mistletoe on the kitchen floor and orders the other women to gather the scraps. In the library, the Doctor notices wooden details on the doors carved into the shape of mistletoe. He realises the walls are varnished with Viscum album — oil of mistletoe. The werewolf is allergic to it, or the monks have trained it to be to control it, and Sir Robert's father knew this. Lady Isobel and the women cook the mistletoe into a broth. In the library, the others find an account of something falling near the monastery in 1540. 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 she will die rather than be infected. She asks him to find a safe place for something more precious. She reveals the contents of the box: the Koh-i-noor. The Queen had been taking it to the royal jewellers at Hazlehead to be re-cut.

The Doctor remembers that Prince Albert kept insisting on having the diamond cut down and was never satisfied with the shape or size. Yelling in shock, the Doctor has an epiphany: 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 Lou, 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. 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 the werewolf and them, willing to die with honour to atone for his betrayal. He holds the werewolf off with a sword. As his screams penetrate the door, the Doctor and Lou manoeuvre the telescope to align it with the full moon. The telescope is not a telescope, but 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 moves to slash at Victoria, but the Doctor tosses the diamond on the floor. It catches the light, which intercepts the werewolf and suspends it in mid-air. The werewolf reverts to human form; the host asks the Doctor to make the light brighter, to end its life and the "Lupine Wavelength Haemovariform" as the Doctor calls it.

Honouring the request of the poor boy, the Doctor precedes to do so. 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 bit her after all, but the Queen 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 Lou of Liverpool. Having rewarded them, she banishes them from the Empire. The Queen admits that she does not know who or even what they are, but that their world is steeped in terror and blasphemy and yet they consider it fun. She makes it clear that she cannot allow this in her world, and warns them to consider how much longer they might survive such a dangerous life. During this she says, "I am not amused". Having won her bet with the Doctor, Lou cannot suppress a smirk, until Victoria adds that she is "not remotely amused".

The two make their way back to the TARDIS, where the Doctor reflects it was always a mystery how Victoria and then her children had contracted haemophilia. He muses that perhaps was just a Victorian euphemism for lycanthropy. Lou speculates humorously that perhaps even the royal family of her day are actually werewolves! As the TARDIS takes off, both of them laugh and howl at the idea.

Cast
To be added.
 * The Doctor - Richard E. Grant
 * Lou Madison - Gillian Kearney

Crew

 * Created by Sydney Newman, Donald Wilson and C.E. Webber
 * Executive Producer - David Renwick
 * Writer - Russell T Dav i es
 * Producer - Sue Ve rtue
 * Script Editor - Steven Moffat
 * Director - Julie Edwards
 * Director of Photography - Simon Maggs
 * Production Designer - Brian Sykes
 * Visual Effects - The Mill
 * Make-Up Designer - Juliet Jackson
 * Casting Director - Andy Pryor
 * Music - John Debney
 * Costume Designer - James Baylan
 * Edited by - Mark Lawrence
 * Original Theme Music - Ron Grainer
 * Title Music - Vangelis
 * Title Sequence by Santa Barbara Studios

Memorable Quotes
To be added.

Development
To be added.

Pre-Production
To be added.

Production
To be added.

Post-Production
To be added.

Reaction

 * This episode received a 7-Day Viewing Figure from BARB of 8.78m viewers. It ranked at 22nd over the week.

Story Notes

 * To be added.

Continuity

 * To be added.