'Dot and Bubble' (Story Code 14.05) by Russell T Davies

“You don’t know me, but my name is the Doctor, and your life is in danger, OK? There are creatures out there in the real world that are monsters, and they’re coming to get you.” - The Doctor

Lindy Pepper-Bean wakes up to another glorious day: she immediately activates her Dot, a small hovering device that projects a spherical ‘bubble’ of miniature screens around her head. Using the Bubble, Lindy talks to all her friends, Cooper Mercy, Harry Tendency, Hoochy Pie, Valerie Nook and Blake Very-Blue - but not Jimbo Fennell, who is offline. Gothic Paul pops up to warn that others have gone missing, but Lindy ignores that, preferring to take her Bubble’s guidance on where to walk in her apartment, and what to do for her bathroom activities. When she receives an unsolicited message from the Doctor, warning of monsters, Lindy blocks him - unaware there is a monster lurking in her hallway… Lindy lives in Finetime: a city encased in a huge protective bubble. Lindy’s personal Bubble guides her to work, keeping her so happily occupied with her friends that she misses an announcement about troubles with the weather satellite, and a dead body that gets dragged away before she can trip over it. At her office, Lindy prepares for a gruelling two-hours of data processing before she can spend the rest of the day playing with her friends. Ignoring another dire warning from Gothic Paul, Lindy receives a request from an official, who is conducting systems checks: it’s Ruby Sunday, who is pleased someone has finally picked up her calls. Lindy reluctantly agrees to check on her fellow workmates, but when she peers through the gaps between her friends’ screens, she finds she is alone - apart for something monstrous standing to her right. Ruby pushes Lindy to turn off her Dot and Bubble to get a better look; reluctantly Lindy complies, and sees a giant, woodlouse-like creature consuming the last of her office-mates, pulling his corpse into a large cavity in its chest. Lindy reactivates her Bubble, blocking out the creature’s awful munching noises with heart-throb Ricky September lip-syncing to ‘Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini’. The Doctor appears in a screen next to Ruby’s, having used his sonic screwdriver to unblock Lindy’s ban. The terrified Lindy follows his instructions to turn off her Dot and Bubble and get to safety, but it quickly becomes apparent she is incapable of walking without her Bubble’s guidance arrows. Reactivating her Bubble, Lindy reaches the elevator; but when it arrives, it contains another of the giant isopods. For some reason, the creature ignores Lindy, and it shuffles past her instead. Unable to report the murder because all the police lines are busy, Lindy takes the elevator to the ground floor and goes outside. Here she follows the Doctor and Ruby’s instructions to lower her Bubble so they can see around her: everywhere there are monsters, devouring their victims while other residents walk past them, blithely unaware of the carnage. Finding a hiding place, Lindy tries to remain calm while the Doctor wonders why only some of the population of Finetime are being eaten, and why the Dots don’t see the monsters. Lindy explains about the forcefield protecting the city from the Wild Woods surrounding it, and how the city’s residents are all seventeen- to twenty-seven-year-olds, sent to work hard and play hard while their costs are paid for by their rich parents. Lindy reassures herself by playing a recording of her mother; Ruby and the Doctor recognise the woman as the face of the ambulance on Kastarion 3, and several other places. Lindy starts a group chat to warn her friends, but many of them are now offline. Hearing Gothic Paul’s reports of even more disappearances, Lindy warns about the monsters - only to see one attack Paul, who then goes offline. The Doctor and Ruby advise of an escape route: a river under the city that leads outside. Lindy’s Dot runs out of power, forcing her to make her own way to the building where the tunnel to the river is located. Lindy walks unsteadily through the streets, until she eventually comes to a group of monsters standing in her path; Lindy is stuck, unable to work out how to walk past the isopods. To Lindy’s relief, the real Ricky September appears ahead of her, calling out directions to get her to safety. With the sun due to set soon, Ricky and Lindy hurry to the building that leads to the underground tunnel; on the way, Ricky wonders why not everyone is being attacked, and explains that his minimal use of his Dot and Bubble allowed him to spot the monsters. Reaching the building, Lindy recharges her Dot while Ricky uses a planet-link to call for help - only to learn that their home world’s population has been completely wiped out by the killer isopods. Keeping this awful news to himself, Ricky helps Lindy down many stairs to the building’s basement maintenance room, which contains the conduit to the river. Lindy reactivates her Bubble and tells the Doctor and Ruby about Ricky. After instructing Ricky to open the door by inputting a hundred pulse codes into its keypad, the Doctor realises why the monsters are being so choosy about their victims: they are killing them in alphabetical order. To test his theory, the Doctor uses the Bubble to call up someone with a name between ‘Gothic Paul’ and ‘Lindy Pepper-Bean’: after scrolling through a list of the dead, they find Suzie Pentecost - who promptly gets eaten on screen. As Lindy panics at her impending doom, the Doctor deduces that the creatures have been designed and created by the Dots, which have gained sentience and grown to hate their incapable owners. Lindy’s Dot drops the Bubble, its light flaring red as it swoops in to attack its owner. Ricky fights off the murderous ball, hitting it with a metal pipe while Lindy takes over on the keypad. But as the door finally opens, Lindy turns and tells the Dot that her protector’s real name is ‘Coombes’ - the Dot blasts through Ricky’s skull, allowing the cowardly Lindy to escape in the distraction. Making her way through the tunnels, Lindy soon arrives at the underground river, where she meets the Doctor and Ruby, and several other residents of the city, including Hoochy Pie. Explaining that Ricky went back to save more people, Lindy gives a grudging thanks the Doctor and Ruby for their help. Lindy then learns that her fellow survivors are planning to leave the city in a boat, to travel past the Wild Wood to the Great Beyond outside; she also learns that everyone back home is dead, including her mummy, who has been lucky enough to go to the sky. The Doctor offers to use his ship, the TARDIS, to take everyone to the safety of another world; but to his astonishment Lindy and the others refuse, looking down their noses at someone of his kind. Choosing to push past Lindy’s racism and white-entitlement, the Doctor desperately promises to do anything if she lets him save her and her fellow survivors; but Lindy stubbornly chooses to join Hoochy Pie and the others in their boat, as they cast off for a future that they can’t possibly survive unaided. Frustrated and angry, the Doctor joins Ruby and they depart in the TARDIS, leaving Lindy and the others to their chosen fate…


Ncuti Gatwa (The Doctor), Millie Gibson (Ruby Sunday), Callie Cooke (Lindy Pepper-Bean), Eilidh Loan (Cooper Mercy), Aldous Ciokajlo Squire (Harry Tendency), Niamh Lynch (Hoochy Pie), Millie Kent (Valerie Nook), Billy Brayshaw (Blake Very-Blue), Pete MacHale (Gothic Paul), Max Boast (Doctor Pee), Elloise Bennett (Rotterdam Twin 1), Olivia Bennett (Rotterdam Twin 2), Tom Rhys Harries (Ricky September), Jack Forsyth-Noble (Weatherman Will), Milo Callaghan (Alan K Sullivan), Susan Twist (Penny Pepper-Bean), Ellie-Grace Cashin (Suzie Pentecost), Jamie Barnard(Brewster Cavendish)

Directed by Dylan Holmes Williams

Produced by Vicki Delow
Executive Producers Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner, Jane Tranter, Joel Collins and Phil Collinson
A Bad Wolf / BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
1st June 2024 @ 6.50 pm


Notes:
*Featuring the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby

*This episode is forty-three minutes long

*There’s Always a Twist at the End: Actress Susan Twist appears again, this time as Penny Pepper-Bean

*Although not named on-screen, the monsters were referred to as ‘Mantraps’ by the production team

*The episode premiered in the UK on the BBC's iPlayer in Ultra-High Definition (UHD) at midnight on 1st June 2024, and simultaneously streamed on Disney+ outside the UK and Ireland

*Working titles: 'irl' and 'Monsters, Monsters Everywhere'