'The God Complex' (Story Code 6.11) by Toby Whithouse

“We’re going to die here.” – Joe

“Well, they certainly didn’t mention that in the brochure.” – The Doctor

In a seemingly empty hotel, policewoman Lucy Hayward cautiously walks the halls, checking each room she passes – rooms that contain bizarre occupants such as a sad clown, a school photographer, and even a ferocious gorilla. Sinking to her knees on the floor, Lucy records her final words in her notebook: she is the last one left, but is now happy and wants to “Praise Him”. Then something monstrous attacks her… Sometime later, the TARDIS is taken off course to bring the Doctor, Amy and Rory to the hotel. The Doctor is excited – he knows they are not on Earth, and he is intrigued by the workmanship required to mock-up such a normal-looking, 1980s-type hotel. After examining the photographs covering the walls - which depict former residents, not just human, but Sontarans, Cat People, Judoon and many other races from all over the universe - the Doctor, Amy and Rory make their way to Reception. When the Doctor rings the bell for service, he and his friends find themselves confronted by three very frightened people: a nurse named Rita; a conspiracy-geek called Howie Spragg; and Gibbis, a town-planner from an alien race of mole-like inherent cowards, the Tivoli. Rita tells the Doctor that the hotel is ‘alive’, its corridors twist and stretch, and its rooms contain “bad dreams”; she and the others have no idea how they suddenly found themselves transported there. Discovering that the doors and walls are bricked up, the Doctor leads everyone back to the TARDIS so that he can uses its systems to determine where they are – only to find that the ship has vanished. When the Doctor asks Rita if there is anyone else in the hotel, she tells him about Joe, who is tied up to a chair in the bar, surrounded by dozens of ventriloquist dummies. Joe is clearly deranged, certain that they are all going to die and babbling about there being a room for everyone in the hotel. Explaining that he now likes dummies, Joe tells them the Doctor and the others that something is coming for them – and it will feast… Puzzling why everyone has been brought to the hotel, the Doctor decides to conduct a search of the hotel. Walking cautiously along the maze of hallways, accompanied by a now-gagged Joe wheeled along by Gibbis, the party encounter an angry P.E. instructor who emerges from one room, while Howie finds himself drawn to a room full of attractive girls who do nothing but laugh at him. As the Doctor notices scratch marks on the ceiling, Amy picks up some pages of paper: all that remains of Lucy’s notes. Rory also sees a fire exit – but it quickly vanishes when the sound of something roaring rings out from the depths of the hotel. As the creature approaches everyone hides in the room nearest to them: bundling Joe ahead of her, Rita finds herself in a room occupied by her disapproving father, while the Doctor, Rory, Amy, Howie and Gibbis come face-to-face with two Weeping Angels – just as the lights start to flicker on and off. However, when the Angels fail to attack them, the Doctor realises they are not real, merely holograms, a product of Amy’s bad dreams. Hearing the creature arrive outside, the Doctor peers through the door’s spyhole and is immediately taken by what he sees. Suddenly finding his bonds slipping off, Joe steps into the corridor; uttering the words “Praise Him”, he becomes the monster’s latest victim… Hearing the noise, the Doctor bursts from his hotel room and races after Joe, only to become lost in the maze of ever-shifting hallways, and when he finally locates Joe he is too late: the man is dead… Taking Joe’s body back to the bar, the Doctor covers the corpse with a sheet and then accepts a mug of tea from Rita, listening as she tells him how she believes that they are in hell. Reassuring Gibbis that the Doctor will save them, Amy shows the Time Lord in question the paper she found; the Doctor reads Lucy’s journal aloud, but when he speaks the words “Praise him” they are echoed by Howie – whatever it is that is attacking them, it has now possessed the boy. Everyone is thrown into a panic, but the Doctor manages to calm them down, and after noting the cowardly Gibbis’ sly suggesting that they give Howie up so that they can live, he vows that no-one else will die. When Howie becomes possessed again, the Doctor questions him and learns that he wants to be killed; the Time Lord deduces their surroundings have been deliberately created in order to frighten them: whatever is after them, it feeds on fear. Deciding to capture the creature roaming the halls, the Doctor hatches a plan: tying Howie up in Reception, he broadcasts the boy’s rapturous words over the hotel’s speaker system to lure the creature into the building’s hair salon. The plan works, and after Rory has sealed the doors behind the creature with a handy mop, the Doctor confronts the monster, a ferocious-looking Minotaur. Back in Reception, Howie attempts to talk the craven Gibbis into releasing him. Struggling to translate the Minotaur’s guttural language, the Doctor learns that the half-man, half-bull monster is a prisoner too: it has been trapped in the hotel for a very long time, and it yearns to be free; but before the Doctor can learn more, he is interrupted by the arrival of Howie, who knocks out Rory and releases the Minotaur. As the creature bursts free the Doctor races after it – but all he finds are Howie’s broken glasses lying on the hall carpeting… Elsewhere, Amy finds herself drawn to room 7, but is saved by Rita’s intervention; together with Rory, the trio track down the Doctor, who is now crouching next to Howie’s lifeless body. Then Gibbis then appears and explains that he was overpowered, but the others just walk off in disgust… Later, Rory finds the Doctor looking at Howie’s picture, which now hangs on the hallway wall. After commenting that they have yet to find Rory’s room, the Doctor tries to reassure Rita that he will save her, even going so far as to offer her the chance to travel with him and his friends in the TARDIS. Noticing a CCTV camera watching them, the Doctor rushes off – and after he has gone, Rita utters the doom-laden words “Praise Him”… As he runs down the halls the Doctor is involuntarily drawn to room 11: opening the door, he hears the sound of the TARDIS’ Cloister Bell, and is unsurprised at who he sees waiting for him inside. Laughing it off, the Doctor continues his flight to the CCTV control room. Seeing Rita on the screens as she willingly walks down a hallway towards her doom, the Doctor calls a nearby phone to try to reason with her; but she will not to listen: she knows she is lost to “The Rapture” and she refuses to save herself. Turning to face the oncoming Minotaur, Rita embraces her fate… Having recovered Rita’s body, the Doctor takes her death badly; struggling to reason out what is happening in the hotel, he finally realises that he has got things wrong: it isn’t fear that the Minotaur is feeding on, but faith: it converts this into energy that it can consume, which is why its victims praise it at the moment of their death. Knowing that Rory is not religious, the Doctor works out that it was Amy’s faith in him that drew them to the hotel – and when Amy starts to say “Praise Him” too, they realise she is to be the Minotaur’s next victim. Hearing the creature approaching, the Doctor and Rory drag Amy into a nearby room – where they find the young Amelia Pond waiting for her ‘Raggedy Doctor’. As Rory holds the door shut, the Doctor urges Amelia / Amy to break her faith in him: his entreaties work, and in the hall outside, the Minotaur collapses to the floor. Cradling the creature’s head in his arms, the Doctor watches as the hotel pixelates and dissolves into the wireframe infrastructure of a holographic chamber. As the Minotaur dies, the Doctor explains to Amy, Rory and Gibbis that they are on a prison spaceship, in a cell specially designed to feed its captive: however, the programme in control of the cell’s systems malfunctioned, trapping the Minotaur – a creature distantly-related to the Nimon race – inside a maze it was unable to escape from, but which continued to sustain it. The Minotaur finally dies, giving it with the release it so desperately craved. After giving Gibbis a lift home in the nearby TARDIS, the Doctor takes his time-space ship to a street in Upper Leadworth, where he has a gift for Amy and Rory: a terraced-house with a TARDIS-blue front door, and fancy red sports car. As a very excited Rory goes indoors to explore, the Doctor confirms Amy’s suspicions: he is going to leave his friends behind, because he cannot bear to lose them. Knowing that the Doctor is only acting for the best, Amy gives him a hug and then, as she is joined by a confused Rory, she watches as her friend departs in the TARDIS. Inside the space-time ship, the Doctor resumes his travels alone once more…

Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams), Sarah Quintrell (W.P.C. Lucy Hayward), Amara Karan (Rita), Dimitri Leonidas (Howie Spragg), Daniel Pirrie (Joe Buchanan), David Walliams (Gibbis), Caitlin Blackwood (Amelia Pond), Dafydd Emyr (P.E. Teacher), Spencer Wilding (The Creature), Rashid Karapiet (Rita’s Father), Roger Ennals (Gorilla)

Directed by Nick Hurran
Produced by Marcus Wilson
Executive Producers Steven Moffat, Piers Wenger and Beth Willis
A BBC Wales production, co-produced with BBC America

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
17th September 2011 @ 7.10 pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory