'Deep Breath' (Story Code 8.01) by Steven Moffat

“I don't think I know the Doctor at all anymore.” – Clara

In Victorian London, Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax are called in by Police Inspector Gregson to help with a gigantic Tyrannosaurus Rex standing in the Thames, menacing the Big Ben Clock Tower. Vastra instructs the inspector’s men to set up sonic lanterns around the creature, to safely pen it in while they decide what to do with it. To everyone’s astonishment the enormous dinosaur vomits up a blue box from the depths of its stomach: the TARDIS! Out of the time/space ship comes a newly-regenerated and erratically behaving Doctor, closely followed by a very dishevelled and confused Clara. After being rude to everyone assembled, including the dinosaur, the Doctor collapses, unconscious… The following morning, at Vastra’s home on Paternoster Row, the gang try and calm down the Doctor, who is now fully awake, dressed in a night-shirt and behaving as wildly as before; luckily Vastra is able to trick him into joining in a psychic link with her, and she sends him back to sleep. When Clara asks how they restore her friend to his former appearance, Vastra leaves in disapproval. Remaining with the Doctor, Clara hears the plaintive wails of the Tyrannosaurus Rex at the South Bank, and is surprised when the Time Lord translates her cries in his sleep: the dinosaur is sad, wondering where she is and where her family are… On Paternoster Row, amongst the assembled crowd watching the dinosaur a couple named Alf and Elsie argue as to whether or not the creatures is real. After Elsie leaves her husband to continue watching the monster, Alf is approached by a tall, thin man wearing a top hat. The man’s face is half-human and half-metal, and he wants to take Alf’s eyes… Strax escorts Clara to Vastra’s conservatory, where the Victorian Silurian makes a point about Clara’s judgement of the Doctor’s new face – despite his appearance he is still the same man Clara knows. Back in his room, the Doctor awakes, finds some chalks and begins scrawling mathematical calculations all over the place; on hearing the dinosaur’s cries, he climbs out of the window, down a drainpipe and runs across the rooftops. Yelling a promise to return the T-Rex back to the home from which his TARDIS took her, the Doctor is dismayed to see the dinosaur suddenly become engulfed in flames. Jumping into a nearby tree, the Doctor hails a passing hansom cab, drops down onto its horse, separates the carriage from his steed and rides off to rescue the burning dinosaur. The T-Rex’s dying cries are also heard by the Paternoster gang and Clara, who set off in Vastra’s carriage to investigate. Arriving on Westminster Bridge, Vastra, Jenny, Strax and Clara find the Doctor standing on the wall, weeping at the dead Tyrannosaurus Rex, her body blackened and burnt. Confirming with Vastra that there has been a recent spate of similar murders, the Doctor announces that he knows who the murderer is: the one person on the South Bank who is not looking at the burning dinosaur – a tall, thin man in a top hat who is heading in the opposite direction. The Doctor immediately dives into the Thames to give chase, leaving Vastra, Jenny, Strax and Clara to return to Patanostra Row to begin their own investigations… The following morning, after Vastra has sent out her ‘Paternoster Irregulars’ in search of the Doctor, Strax oversees the transportation of the TARDIS into his mistress’ back yard, and gives Clara a rather unorthodox medical examination. Elsewhere, the Doctor searches the dirty streets of London and encounters a tramp; after ruminating on his new physiognomy and Scottish accent, the Time Lord finds a discarded scrap of newspaper that tells of a series of cases of spontaneous combustion… The next day, back at Patanostra Row, Jenny poses for Vastra as she appears to paint her portrait; however, Jenny is annoyed to discover that her lizard wife is not actually capturing her likeness after all, but is instead working on an incident board of the nine people reported to have exploded in the last month. Clara bursts in with the morning copy of ‘The Times’, in which there is a cryptic advert from the Doctor addressed to the ‘Impossible Girl’; after much tea and investigative work the gang deduce that Clara is to meet her friend at Mancini’s family restaurant. Arriving at the restaurant, Clara takes a booth at the back and is soon joined by the Doctor, now dressed in a very smelly tramp’s coat. Clara is cross with the Doctor, but it quickly becomes apparent that the he did not place the cryptic advert – and he thought Clara had placed it for him. Realising they have walked into a trap, the Time Lord notices something else odd: not only are the patrons not eating, they are not breathing either. The Doctor and Clara attempt to leave but their way is blocked by the diners, all moving as if made of clockwork, who force the two guests to sit back down. The waiter appears, but instead of taking their order he scans the Doctor and Clara for useable body parts. The Doctor rips off the man’s mask - a real face - revealing a lattice-work of rusty metal beneath: the waiter is a robot! Steel bands snap out of the Doctor and Clara’s chairs, clamping them in place – and then the entire booth sinks into the floor… Plunging into the depths, the two time travellers ultimately arrive inside a round chamber, an ancient alien space ship’s control room in which the tall, top-hatted man sits motionless in the captain’s chair. With some jiggling the Doctor and Clara free themselves using the sonic screwdriver; exploring the chamber they find it ringed with alcoves, each containing a dormant android dressed in Victorian garb. Examining the recharging Half-Faced Man, they see how his hands are different sizes: the droids are taking body parts from unwilling human donors - the restaurant patrons - to turn themselves into humans. The Doctor finds this strangely familiar, but before he can work it out the androids begin to activate. Clara bundles the Doctor into a corridor, but a door slams down between them; the Doctor tries sonicing the door but it just closes again, so he strides off, leaving Clara trapped in the control room with the androids! As the droids close in on her, Clara stands inside an empty alcove and holds her breath in an effort to pass herself off as one of them; her plan works, and the droids ignore her and begin work at the various consoles around the room. When one activates the door release, Clara slowly and robotically makes her way out of the control room, still desperately holding her breath – but the corridor is also lined with androids, and goes on seemingly forever. Her lungs bursting, Clara is forced to take a breath… and is promptly captured by the nearest robot, a thin, bald-headed Victorian Gentleman. As she is dragged towards the Half-Faced Man, the exhausted Clara starts to lose focus: her mind recalls a time at Coal Hill School when she had to deal with an unruly class whose ring-leader, Courtney, called her bluff. Applying the same tactics to her current situation, Clara calls out the Half-Face Man’s threat to kill her, refusing to give away any information as to the Doctor’s whereabouts – and the Half-Faced Man responds by removing one of his hands, revealing a welding torch attachment beneath. Terrified, Clara still questions her attacker as to why he killed the dinosaur, and the Half-Faced Man explains how he used material from the creature’s optic nerve for his computer systems. Clara is appalled, and then asks how long the robots have been converting themselves, but the android just talks of going to “the Promised Land”. Gambling that the Doctor will save her, Clara holds out her hand to the Victorian Gentleman Droid behind her; amazingly he takes her hand… and then rips off his face to reveal the Doctor’s features beneath! Using his sonic screwdriver on the androids’ power source, the Doctor deactivates the Half-Faced Man’s weapon; he then asks why it invited him and Clara to Mancini’s, but the android doesn’t know what he is talking about. The Doctor tells Clara to use her supposedly secret communicator broach to call for help; Clara complies, and from high above them Vastra and Jenny descend on silk streamers, closely followed by a clumsily-falling Strax. Learning that the police have shut down the restaurant, the Half-Faced Man orders his androids to destroy everyone: swords emerge from the androids’ sleeves, as they face off against Vastra, Jenny, Strax and Clara. The Half-Faced Man knocks the Doctor to the floor and leaves in the booth, heading up to the restaurant so that he can leave in the ship’s escape capsule and go to the Promised Land; acting quickly, the Time Lord gives chase, grabbing hold of the underside of the ascending booth... Upstairs, Inspector Gregson and his men arrive in the restaurant and survey the aftermath of Vastra and Jenny’s attack – and then run for their lives when the Half-Faced Man appears and brandishes his fire-arm at them! The Doctor confronts the android and tries to reason with it, but the Half-Faced Man ignores him and activates the escape capsule: a balloon made of human skin that bursts out of the roof and carries away the entire restaurant! Extracting some data wafers from the controls, the Doctor identifies the pod’s spaceship as the SS Marie Antoinette, sister ship of the time-travelling vessel Madame De Pompadour from the 51st Century [see ’The Girl in the Fireplace’]. As they fly over London, the Doctor tries to make the Half-Faced Man see how replacing so many of his parts over the centuries since his ship crashed has changed him from his original self – something that equally applies to the Time Lord. The Doctor encourages the Half-Faced Man to destroy himself and end his control over his android crew; but the robot refuses and instead tries to push the Doctor out of the restaurant door. Meanwhile, down in the spaceship, Clara and the Patanostra gang have been surrounded by killer robots. Clara orders her friends to hold their breath, buying them some time as the androids lose track of their opponents. Back in the escape pod, the Doctor and the Half-Faced Man are locked in a well-matched struggle; the Time Lord again tries to reason with the android, to show the futility of his actions. Back in the spaceship, Strax is unable to hold his breath any longer, and he turns his gun on himself; Vastra orders him not to fire, giving away their position to the androids, which resume their advance. But as the droids close in on their prey they suddenly freeze in place and fall over… and high atop Big Ben, the Half-Faced Man lies dead, having impaled himself on the spire of the clock tower… Some time later, Vastra, Jenny, Strax and Clara return to Patanostra Row, only to find the TARDIS gone. Clara is devastated: the Doctor has abandoned her again, maybe this time forever. Later that day, Clara asks Vastra for a job in her household; but Vastra just smiles, knowing that Clara doesn’t really believe she has been left behind – and sure enough, they hear the sound of the TARDIS materialising. Elated, Clara races outside and straight into the space/time vessel’s console room, its walls now lined with books and chalk-scrawled blackboards; the Doctor is here too, dressed in a dapper new outfit. He tells Clara they have a new mystery to solve: whoever left the advert in the paper may also be the woman who gave her the phone number of the TARDIS before they first met – someone is very keen for to stay together. Clara is still unsure as to whether or not to continue travelling with the Doctor; then her phone rings: it’s her Doctor, the Eleventh one, phoning her from Trenzalore just before he regenerated to tell her that he will need her help when he changes. Torn between the old Doctor and the new Doctor, Clara finally realises they are one and the same, and she embraces the Twelfth Doctor in a huge hug. Friends again, they head off to find some chips and coffee…

In a beautiful garden somewhere in time and space, the Half-Faced Man awakes. Sitting next to a nearby fountain is a woman, Missy, who asks if her “boyfriend” was mean to him. Missy tells the Half-Faced Man that he is in the Promised Land, and then, with a smile and a dance of utter madness, welcomes him to ‘Heaven’…


Peter Capaldi (The Doctor), Jenna Coleman (Clara), Neve McIntosh (Madame Vastra), Dan Starkey (Strax), Catrin Stewart (Jenny Flint), Peter Ferdinando (Half-Face Man), Paul Hickey (Inspector Gregson), Tony Way (Alf), Maggie Service (Elsie), Mark Kempner (Cabbie), Brian Miller (Barney), Graham Duff (Waiter), Ellis George (Courtney Woods), Peter Hannah (Policeman), Paul Kasey (Footman), Michelle Gomez (Missy [The Gatekeeper of the Nethersphere]), Matt Smith (The Eleventh Doctor)

Directed by Ben Wheatley
Produced by Nikki Wilson
Executive Producers Steven Moffat and Brian Minchin
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
23rd August 2014 @ 7.50 pm


Notes:
*Featuring the Twelfth Doctor, Clara, Vastra, Jenny and Strax, and the Eleventh Doctor

*Working title: 'Twelfth Night'

*First appearances of Courtney Woods and Missy, the Gatekeeper of the Nethersphere

*Running at eighty minutes long, this season-premier introduced a new theme tune, and an opening title sequence that was made in conjunction with motion graphics professional Billy Hanshaw, whose original fan-made titles provided inspiration to showrunner Steven Moffatt

*The episode was simulcast in many countries across the world, and was also released theatrically in cinemas in the UK

*Jenny’s scanner gauntlet, Strax’s medical lorgnette and Vastra’s sonic hat-pin were all designed by the winners of a ‘Blue Peter ‘competition