'Tooth and Claw' (Story Code 2.2) by Russell T Davies

“It's not merely a wolf. It's more than that. This is a man who becomes an animal.” - Sir Robert MacLeish

“A werewolf...” - The Doctor

In the Scottish Highlands, a band of warrior monks arrives at the Torchwood Estate lodge and overpowers its residents in an impressive display of martial art combat. The monks’ leader, Father Angelo, takes the owner’s wife and staff hostage, imprisoning them in a cellar with a caged creature of terrifying origin… Meanwhile, the Doctor and Rose are looking forward to attending a concert by Ian Dury and the Blockheads in 1979 Sheffield; however, the TARDIS overshoots by a hundred years, landing the two time travellers in 1879, where they find themselves held at gunpoint by a group of soldiers escorting Queen Victoria through the Highland moors. With the aid of his psychic paper, the Doctor convinces the monarch that he is Doctor James MacCrimmon of the township Balamory, appointed by the Lord Provost as her protector; it seems that an obstruction on the railway line has forced the Queen to travel to her destination by coach – although her highness suspects the incident to be foul play, due to the number of recent assassination attempts on her life. The royal party soon stops for the night at the Torchwood Estate, where the owner, Sir Robert MacLeish, is acting under duress by Father Angelo and his monks, who have disguised themselves as the household staff. Showing the Queen and her party around the house, Sir Robert demonstrates his late father’s pride and joy: a huge telescope known as the ‘Endeavour’, a contraption viewed with interest by the Doctor and Rose, who are both enjoying the situation in which they find themselves. That night, the monks drug the soldiers protecting the queen. Rose tries on a selection of clothes to please her majesty’s eyes, only to find a terrified maid hiding in her wardrobe; the girl, Flora, tells Rose of the monks’ takeover, but before they can warn the Doctor, they are both captured by Father Angelo and his men, and imprisoned along with Lady Isobel and the rest of the hostages. Supper is served: while the Doctor, Sir Robert and Captain Reynolds enjoy their meal, the queen admits that she misses her late husband, and so to distract herself, Victoria asks her host to recount the local legend of a werewolf. In the cellar, Rose confronts the man trapped in his cage; he reveals that he is the host for an alien entity that plans to infect the queen as part of its plan to begin “The Empire of the Wolf”. Hearing Father Angelo begin an unearthly chanting, the Doctor and his dinner companions suspect that something is wrong… while in front of Rose’s startled eyes, the light from the full moon strikes the Host, transforming him into a raging werewolf. The Doctor and Sir Robert arrive just as Rose and her fellow prisoners manage to free themselves from their chains – and as the werewolf frees itself from its prison. The guarding monks prevent anyone from leaving the lodge, and bullets fail to stop the creature, so while Isobel and her staff flee to the kitchens, the Doctor, Rose and Sir Robert head in the other direction; they are quickly rejoined by the Queen, who has already dealt with Father Angelo with the aid of her handy pistol. Fleeing from the werewolf, the quartet make for the upper levels of the house; as the creature prepares to attack they are saved by Captain Reynolds, who bravely holds the monster off, giving them enough time to barricade themselves inside the library. The Doctor is puzzled as to why the werewolf cannot enter their hiding place, until he realises that the walls have been covered in mistletoe oil, a power that is an anathema to the creature. Down in the kitchens, Isobel concludes that mistletoe protects the monks, and so orders her maids to begin boiling up a ‘soup’ of the plant. Looking through the books belonging to Sir Robert’s father, the Doctor learns that something fell to Earth in 1540 near the monastry of the Brethren; he determines that an alien force survived the crash, and has now regenerated enough to attempt to take over the British Empire. When the queen reveals that she was taking the Koh-i-Noor diamond to the royal jewellers, the Doctor realises that her husband and Sir Robert’s father suspected the existence of the werewolf, and conspired to lay a trap for the beast inside the lodge. Having reached the roof, the werewolf smashes through the skylight, but the Doctor and his companions manage to escape into the corridors, where the creature is warded off by Isobel’s mistletoe concoction. After Sir Robert lays down his life to buy the queen and her party time to reach the ‘Endeavour’, the Doctor uses the diamond to boost the telescope’s power, converting it into a huge light chamber. As the werewolf bursts through the door, the Doctor and Rose amplify the power of the moon through the device, utterly destroying the werewolf and its human host. Some time later, Queen Victoria rewards her rescuers by bestowing the honours of “Sir Doctor of TARDIS” and “Lady Rose of the Powell Estate” upon them – before banishing them from her Empire for enjoying recent events too much. Rather put out, the Doctor and Rose leave in the TARDIS, while pondering the fact that the Queen may have been bitten by the werewolf – which would explain the monarch’s “rare blood condition”, and the tendencies of the current royal family. Back at the lodge, the Queen decides to take over Torchwood House from the widowed Lady Isobel, proposing to set up an institution to investigate and fight supernatural threats – and noting that if the Doctor returns, he should beware…

David Tennant (The Doctor), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler), Pauline Collins (Queen Victoria), Ian Hanmore (Father Angelo), Michelle Duncan (Lady Isobel MacLeish), Derek Riddell (Sir Robert MacLeish), Jamie Sives (Captain Reynolds), Ron Donachie (Steward), Tom Smith (The Host), Ruthie Milne (Flora)

Directed by Euros Lyn
Produced by Phil Collinson
Executive Producers Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner
A BBC Wales production

TX:
22nd April 2006 @ 7.15 pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Tenth Doctor and Rose

*Bad Wolf sighting: the Host recognises something of the wolf inside Rose...

*The Doctor plays 'Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick' by Ian Dury and the Blockheads

*The 'Torchwood' Files: This episode acts as a prelude to the spin-off series, 'Torchwood', starring John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness

*TARDISODE: An alien spacecraft crashes in the highlands of Scotland. Three hundred years later, a lonely crofter is attacked by a ferocious werewolf... [Cast: Alan Dorrington (Crofter)]