'Arachnids in the UK' (Story Code 11.04) by Chris Chibnall

“Something’s wrong with the spider eco-system in South Yorkshire.” – The Doctor

Yaz’s mother Najia makes an early start at the hotel where she works as general manager, in preparation for its impending grand opening; she inadvertently walks in on the owner, American businessman Jack Robertson, as he meets with his staff to cover-up a scandal that could impact his running for U.S. President. Robertson is furious, and sacks Najia on the spot… Elsewhere, the Doctor’s attempts to control the TARDIS’ journey through the time-space vortex finally prove effective, as she succeeds in landing them outside Yaz’s apartment block in Sheffield, just half-an-hour after they originally left. The Doctor happily accepts Yaz’s offer of a cup of tea, and while she and Ryan follow their friend up to her flat, Graham nips home. Yaz introduces her friends to her father Hakim and her sister Sonya; Hakim has been collecting rubbish, scarce commodities that he believes point to a conspiracy concerning stolen trash. Yaz receives a call from her mother, and leaves to collect her from work, while the Doctor offers to retrieve a parcel that has been left with the Kahn’s neighbour. Outside the flat next door, the Doctor and Ryan encounter Doctor Jade McIntyre; she is worried about her colleague Anna, who has been missing for several days. Using her sonic screwdriver to unlock Anna’s flat, the Doctor steps inside with Ryan and Jade in tow; they find the place deserted, and covered in thick cobwebs… Meanwhile, Graham returns to a house filled with the memories of his late wife Grace; it is also full of cobwebs, and when Graham investigates a thump from upstairs, he finds the discarded skin of a huge spider… Searching the cobweb-strewn flat, the Doctor, Ryan and Jade discover Anna’s corpse, cocooned in thick spiderwebs; they soon find the creature responsible, an abnormally large domestic spider that immediately tries to attack them. The Doctor concocts a solution of garlic and ammonia from kitchen supplies, which affects the spider’s sense of smell enough to keep it at bay. Outside the flat they meet Graham, who brings news of the large spider he found at home. Jade admits that there have been a number of recent incidents involving spiders – something is affecting their behaviour, sending them out of control… Back at the hotel, Robertson’s employee Frankie uses her mobile phone to record evidence against her boss; but as she explores the cobwebbed tunnels below the hotel, Frankie is attacked by something huge and terrifying… Yaz meets her mother in the hotel’s reception and learns of her unfair dismissal; they are interrupted by the arrival of Robertson and his gun-waving bodyguard Kevin, and accused of trespassing… Jade takes the Doctor, Ryan, Yaz and Graham to her university laboratory, where she explains how she and her colleagues are conducting scientific research into the powers of spiders; as well as studying their abilities and the tensile strength of webs, Jade’s team have also developed an enzyme that increases arachnids’ life spans. When Jade shows them a map of the recent spider incidents, the Doctor instantly realises that the epicentre is Najia’s hotel… Robertson takes Yaz and Najia to one of the hotel rooms, chastising the ex-general manager for the mass of cobwebs covering the furnishings. Robertson then takes a scheduled bathroom break, and hears a noise coming from the bath’s drainpipe – and to his horror a massive spider bursts out through the bath. Hearing his boss’ screams, Frank rushes to help, only to be locked inside after Robertson rushes out the door; the spider attacks Frankie, webbing him up before dragging him into the piping beneath the bath. Arriving at the hotel, the Doctor and her friends bump into Robertson, who tells them about the giant spider and the loss of his bodyguard. The Doctor checks the hole under the bath, and comes face-to-face with the huge spider; beating a hasty retreat, she and her friends follow Najia and Robertson to the reception area – only to discover that the main doors are now sealed shut with thick webbing. Everyone takes shelter in the kitchen, where the Doctor takes charge and hatches a plan… Using Graham as bait, Ryan manages to trap a large spider inside a metal cooking pot; when a swarm of spiders come after them, the duo race to give their prize to Jade. Robertson provides the plans to his hotel, prompting the Doctor to wonder what links the building complex to Najia’s neighbour. After the businessman confesses that his hotel is built on repurposed land that was formerly the site of a coal mine, he reluctantly takes them to a sealed-off section behind the spa; this leads down into mining tunnels cut into the rock, and a chamber containing the cocooned bodies of a number of people, including Frankie and Kevin. Hearing how they are in the spider’s larder, Robertson picks up Frankie’s discarded gun. The Doctor, Yaz and Najia soon discover Robertson’s secret: the old mine tunnel network is full of landfill dumped by his disposal company JLR, a mass of rubbish that has decayed into a soup of toxic waste. When they work out that Robertson uses this business plan all over the globe, he offers to pay them all off, but Najia is more annoyed that her husband’s conspiracy theory was right. When Jude recalls that JLR also disposed of spider carcasses from her experiments, she and the Doctor realise that one of her bioengineered subjects must have still been alive – and when it came in contact with the toxic waste, it mutated and continued to grow in size… Graham and Ryan encounter the monstrous spider, clinging to the ceiling of the hotel ballroom; they only just manage to escape, trapping the creature inside. Jade deduces that the huge spider is a mother; her babies have infested the city, disrupting the spider eco-system with their pheromones and causing the normal arachnids to behave abnormally; the Doctor realises that Anna must have been contaminated with the pheromones, which attracted the spider that killed her. Robertson shows everyone his personal panic room in the hotel, a self-sustainable fortress with enough food, weapons and entertainment for him to survive six months. Condemning the hotelier’s plan to shoot the spider, the Doctor and Ryan come up with a plan to lure the baby spiders into the panic room using loud music; the plan works, and soon all the arachnids are safely locked away. After concocting a solution of spider-repellent using peppermint and tea tree oil from the hotel spa, the Doctor and the others confront the mother spider in the ballroom; the creature has now become so big that it can hardly breathe, and is near to death – but that doesn’t stop Robertson from shooting it anyway. The Doctor is furious but Robertson doesn’t care, he just sees an opportunity to take credit for ending the problem, a means to get him into the White House… Some time later, Ryan, Yaz and Graham meet up at the TARDIS; each has decided that they want to continue travelling the universe with the Doctor. The Time Lady in question is excited at her new ‘Team TARDIS’, and together they head off for new adventures…


Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor), Bradley Walsh (Graham O'Brian), Tosin Cole (Ryan Sinclair), Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan), Chris Noth (Jack Robertson), Shobna Gulati (Najia Khan), Tanya Fear (Doctor Jade McIntyre), Ravin J Ganatra (Hakim Khan), Bhavnisha Parmar (Sonya Khan), Jaleh Alp (Frankie Ellish), William Meredith (Kevin)

Directed by Sallie Aprahamian
Produced by Alex Mercer
Executive Producers Chris Chibnall and Matt Strevens
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
28th October 2018 @ 7.00 pm


Notes:
*Featuring the Thirteenth Doctor, Graham, Ryan and Yaz