'Spyfall' Part 1 (Story Code 12.01) by Chris Chibnall

"The name's Doctor. The Doctor."

All over the world, intelligence agents are murdered by mysterious humanoid creatures that emerge from the surroundings. In Sheffield, Yorkshire, Ryan, Yaz and Graham are kidnapped by Men in Black; the MIBs then pool resources to collect the Doctor, who is busy giving the TARDIS an overhaul in a local garage. Bundled into a car along with her fam, the Doctor is shocked when the sat-nav atomises the driver with a bolt of energy, takes over the car, then drives the vehicle backwards at speed along a busy carriageway. As the road runs out behind them, the Doctor uses the rear-view mirror to deflect an energy bolt back at the sat-nav, destroying it. After receiving a message over the radio from 'C', the head of MI6, the Doctor drives her friends to the intelligence agency's headquarters in London, arriving just in time to see the TARDIS brought into the building. The Doctor and her friends are greeted by C, who explains that every spy agency around the globe needs the Doctor's help in investigating attacks on their agents: the assassins use unknown technology to rewrite their victims' DNA, leaving the agents as hollow husks. Knowing that only alien technology could be responsible, and with UNIT and Torchwood now disbanded, the Doctor agrees to help. C hands out bundles of spy gifts to Graham and Ryan, and advises the Doctor and Yaz that all investigations have led to billionaire Daniel Barton, owner and inventor of the VOR search engine, and a former MI6 agent. The Doctor asks for help from a friend of hers, agent 'O', whom C recently sacked; O responds to her call, and sends over his location encrypted in a photo. C is assassinated by an energy bolt fired through the window, and as more of the deadly beams destroy his office, alien humanoids emerge from the walls and close in on the Doctor and her fam. Fleeing into the TARDIS, the Doctor only just manages to stop one of the aliens from breaching her ship, by dematerialising the space-time vessel away from danger. The Doctor sends Yaz and Ryan on a mission to meet Barton at the San Francisco headquarters of VOR. Posing as a journalist and photographer, the duo interview the CEO in his office, and use a camera-scanner to duplicate his security pass; they also use a bio-scanner disguised as a digital recorder to discover that only 93% of Barton's DNA is human. Unfortunately, the interview is cut short by a phone call, but Barton invites Yaz and Ryan to his birthday party the next day. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Graham travel by TARDIS to O's house in the Australian Outback. Here they meet the agent, along with two security officers sent to guard him, and learn how O's office is a veritable treasure trove of X-Files material. The house soon comes under attack from the glowing aliens, who obliterate the guards and advance on the house; O activates a force wall that disperses most of the creatures, but one manages to get inside by phasing through a wall. More of O's defences trap the creature in an energised, transparent cabinet; the creature refuses to answer the Doctor's questions, but gloats how its race will take over the universe. Back at VOR HQ, now that everyone has gone home, Yaz and Ryan emerge from hiding and use the duplicate pass to enable them to search Barton's office and copy his computer files. Forced to hide when Barton returns to collect his bag, the friends watch as the CEO meets with the glowing aliens. When the creatures vanish, Barton departs - but one alien returns, and it zaps Yaz away. Horrified at his friend's apparent death, Ryan flees from the creature; outside he sees dozens more glowing aliens standing in the windows of the office block. Elsewhere, Yaz awakes to find herself in a strange, green-lit jungle full of alien trees; curious white lights flash all around her - and then Yaz swaps places with the alien trapped inside O's house... The next morning, having collected a relieved Ryan, the Doctor holds a meeting with her friends and O to discuss their situation. The Doctor then finds a piece of alien code in an obscure section of Barton’s VOR data, but it doesn't match any language in the known universe; however, by using scans taken from the fringes of the universe, she is finally able to make sense of the data: it shows the locations of hundreds alien spies, all hidden across multiple Earths. Deciding to crash Barton's birthday party, the Doctor, her fam, and O don smart tuxedos and pay a visit to the CEO's country mansion. While her friends enjoy the casino games on offer, the Doctor bluntly confronts Barton about assassinating C, being in league with aliens and having non-human DNA; but Barton denies everything, and flees in a chauffeured limousine. Borrowing some of the billionaire's motorcycles, the Doctor, Graham, Yaz, Ryan and O give chase - and quickly come under gunfire from Barton. Pursuing the CEO to an airfield hanger, they watch as Barton prepares to escape in one of his private planes. As the aircraft begins taxiing, the Doctor sonics open its cargo door and then leads her friends and O in a frantic race to board the plane before it takes off. They only just get onboard in time - but O's comment about being a bad runner jars with the Doctor's memory of his MI6 file. O's entire demeanour changes, and when he tells them to look out the window, the Doctor and her fam are thrown by the sight of his Outback house flying alongside the plane. O then reveals his true identity as the Spy Master behind everything - in fact, he is the Master! After gloating how he keeps the real O's miniaturised corpse in a matchbox in his pocket, the Master makes no effort to stop the Doctor reaching the cockpit - because instead of Barton, it contains a bomb! Amused by the Doctor's futile attempts to sonic the explosives, the Master reports the lack of parachutes aboard, and summons two of the glowing aliens. The bomb explodes, decompressing the cabin and sending the plane plummeting towards the ground below. After cryptically telling the Doctor that everything she thinks she knows is a lie, the Master teleports to safety. But as Graham, Yaz and Ryan brace for impact, the Doctor is teleported away by the aliens – before reappearing inside the alien forest, unable to save her friends from imminent destruction…


Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor), Bradley Walsh (Graham O'Brian), Tosin Cole (Ryan Sinclair), Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan), Sascha Dhawan (O [The Master]), Lenny Henry (Daniel Barton), Stephen Fry ('C'), Shobna Gulati (Najia Kahn), Ravin J. Ganatra (Hakim Kahn), Bhavnisha Parmar (Sonya Kahn), Melissa De Vries (Sniper), Sacharissa Claxton (Passenger), Willian Ely (Older Passenger), Brian Law (Operative [US]), Buom Tihngang (Tibo), Asif Khan (Sergeant Ramesh Sunder), Andrew Bone (Mr Collins), Ronan Summers (Rendition Man), Christopher McArthur (Ethan), Darron Meyer (Seesay), Dominique Maher (Browning), Struan Rodger (Voice of Kasaavin)

Directed by Jamie Magnus Stone
Produced by Nikki Wilson
Executive Producers Chris Chibnall and Matt Strevens
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
1st January 2020 @ 6.55 pm

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

*This New Year's Day special is sixty minutes long

*Part one of a two-part story