'Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror' (Story Code 12.04) by Nina Metivier

“I suggest we don’t surrender to the giant alien scorpion.” - Yaz

At Niagara Falls in 1903, pioneering inventor Nikola Tesla shows off his new generator plant to a group of potential investors. But Tesla’s new invention of the wireless distribution of electricity is overshadowed by his belief that a radio signal he recently received comes from Mars, and one of his backers walks out. Learning of the death of a worker, Tesla resolves to investigate the cause; he works into the night and discovers that parts of his machinery have been stolen. Hearing a noise, Tesla finds a strange, green sphere floating in the factory. As Tesla is joined by his assistant, Dorothy Skerrit, they are both chased by an intruder, the indignant investor, who in turn is shot by a mysterious hooded figure just as the Doctor arrives on the scene. She rushes Tesla and Dorothy away and onto a night train where Graham, Yaz and Ryan are waiting; the gang are travelling to New York, but took a detour so that the Doctor could check out a strange energy reading. The hooded man chases everyone through the train, firing bolts from an alien energy weapon and electrical blasts from his hands; but the Doctor stuns him, grabs his gun, then separates the train’s couplings, leaving their attacker behind in a separate carriage. Having identified the gun as a Silurian blaster, the Doctor traces the energy reading to the green globe that Tesla pocketed; but the engineer refuses to hand it over, so the Doctor and her fam follow him back to his laboratory in New York. Tesla’s building has attracted an angry mob, protesting against the engineer and his new machines. Inside his lab, Tesla hands over the globe, which the Doctor identifies as a repurposed Orb of Thassa: a device created by an ancient race of advanced aliens to spread their legacy across the stars. After Tesla sees an employee of his rival, Thomas Edison, spying at the window the Doctor, Graham and Ryan pay Edison a visit at his Electrical Illuminating Company; seeing the Silurian gun, Edison mistakes their visit as a business offer, and he takes them inside his factory. While they talk, Edison’s spy murders all the factory workers with a blast of energy and then goes after Edison and his visitors... Tesla and Yaz connect the sphere to the engineer’s apparatus, and discover that it is scanning for something… Hiding in Edison’s chemical lab, the Doctor sets a trap using flammable material to encircle their pursuer in a ring of fire; the man’s holographic disguise slips, and he disappears into thin air. The Doctor phones Yaz to warn that Tesla could be in danger, but she is too late: two disguised aliens have taken Dorothy at gunpoint, and they teleport Tesla and Yaz away to a huge, green-lit chamber filled with giant scorpions. Using the TARDIS to retrieve Dorothy, the Doctor connects the sphere to the ship’s console and discovers that it was repurposed to scan Earth. Elsewhere, Yaz and Tesla meet the scorpions’ queen, who reveals that they are aboard her cloaked Throneship, hundreds of feet above New York... With Dorothy’s help the Doctor works out that the ‘Martian signal’ detected by Tesla mush have come from the aliens’ ship; she then pilots the TARDIS to Tesla’s Wardenclyffe science centre in Long Island, where she uses his signal readout to locate the alien vessel. Taking a ‘Braxian bouncer’ teleport device from her toolbox, the Doctor plans a rescue mission… The Queen of the Skithra orders Tesla to prepare her ship for battle; when the engineer refuses, she orders her scorpion soldiers to kill Yaz, but is interrupted by the arrival of the Doctor. Stalling for time while the bouncer recharges, the Doctor notes how the ship and its contents are all stolen technology that is breaking apart. The Doctor then learns that the Skithra have deemed Tesla a suitable engineer to fix their ailing tech because he was the only person who replied to the message they sent out. Using the flash from a stolen camera to confuse the queen, the Doctor teleports herself, Yaz and Tesla back to Wardenclyffe. With the TARDIS’ comms system the Doctor gives the Skithra an eviction notice; but the furious queen vows to burn the Earth and its inhabitants unless Tesla returns. Tesla decides to surrender, but the Doctor proposes a better idea, using the engineer’s tower to wirelessly transmit a bolt of energy at the alien vessel. While Tesla and the Doctor work on the tower under the protection of the TARDIS’ extended shields, Dorothy, Graham and Ryan prepare to defend Wardenclyffe, and Edison and Yaz encourage those people in the surrounding area to get to safety. When agents of the queen locate the Wardenclyffe tower, Edison tries to see them off with his gun; but this only attracts more of the giant scorpions, which chase Edison and Yaz through the streets. As Edison and Yaz duck into the safety of a secret passage back to Wardenclyffe, more scorpions teleport to the electrical tower, but are held back by the TARDIS’ shields. Yaz and Edison rejoin the others as the Doctor explains that because the Skithra are a hive species, they can be defeated by taking out the queen; unfortunately, generating the required electricity will require dropping the TARDIS’ shields at the last moment, leaving Wardenclyffe open to attack. The tower’s charge builds and the shields drop, just as the aliens break into the building – and then stop. To everyone’s horror the queen appears – she is no longer on her Throneship. After blasting away Edison’s gun with a zap from her stinger, the queen demands Tesla leave the safety of the TARDIS; when the Doctor intervenes, the queen resolves to overrun the Earth and pick it clean. The Doctor tricks the queen’s guards into confiscating her bouncer device, and as they hand it to their monarch the Doctor teleports her back to her Throneship. Inside the TARDIS, Tesla activates the controls and sends a huge bolt of electricity from his tower to the alien vessel. Caught in the electrical blast the queen screams in agony; her scorpions teleport back to protect her, and the Throneship flees back into space… The next day, as the papers report their version of recent events, Tesla turns down Edison’s latest offer of work. The Doctor explains to Yaz that although Tesla will die penniless, his vision will live on to shape the course of technology forever. Bidding goodbye to Tesla, the Doctor encourages him to never give up; in return, Tesla promises to continue his work to change the future…


Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor), Bradley Walsh (Graham O'Brian), Tosin Cole (Ryan Sinclair), Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan), Goran Višnjić (Nikola Tesla), Robert Glenister (Thomas Edison), Anjli Mohindra (Queen Skithra), Haley McGee (Dorothy Skerrit), Paul Kasey (Harold Green), Robin Gulver (Bill Tallow), Erick Hayden (Mr Sorenson), Russell Bentley (Mr Brady), Brian Caspe (Mr Martin), Shaun Mason (Foreman)

Directed by Nida Manzoor
Produced by Nikki Wilson
Executive Producers Chris Chibnall and Matt Strevens
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
19th January 2020 @ 7.10 pm

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

*This episode has no pre-title sequence