Planet of the Dead

Writers: Russell T Davies                                               
                Gareth Roberts
Director:  James Strong
           
“Oh...humans on a bus…always blaming me!”

The International Gallery has been broken into and the thief, a young woman manages to escape into the streets where she boards a bus to evade being captured by the Police.  Just as the bus is setting off The Doctor steps on board and sits down next to the thief.

D I McMillan who has been chasing the thief, unsuccessfully, for a long time sees her on the bus as it pulls away and gives chase. The bus enters a tunnel and McMillan orders the other end shut off to trap the bus and its occupants.

 On the bus a device in The Doctor’s pocket begins to bleep, he pulls it out explaining that it is picking up something very strange. The device suddenly explodes and he realises that something is about to happen and tells his fellow passengers to ‘hold on tight!’
The bus is bounced about, windows are broken and the occupants thrown about as it passes through a wormhole to appear, badly damaged, on another planet.

In the tunnel the bus just disappears from right in front of the chasing Police.

All the occupants of the bus are unharmed and all but two of them get out of the bus onto the new planet. The woman who stayed on the bus says that she can hear the voices of the dead, crying all around her.
The planet is nothing but sand as far as the eye can see and The Doctor knows that although it looks just like normal sand it contains a trace of something else.  One of the passengers blames The Doctor and his device for what has happened to them and he explains that although he was following a hole in the fabric of reality it shouldn’t have been big enough for them to fall through. He shows them the edge of the wormhole by throwing sand into the air.

The bus driver argues that if the wormhole is actually a door in time and space then they can use it to get back home. Despite The Doctor’s warnings not to try it he steps into the wormhole and is instantly vaporised.

In the tunnel the skeleton of the bus driver falls through their end of the wormhole. McMillan, knowing that he is now out of his depth, calls in UNIT who surround the tunnel entrance with soldiers who have orders to shoot to kill.

On the planet The Doctor tells them that they survived the wormhole because the bus protected them and that they need to find a way to get the bus out of the sand so that they can use it to return to Earth. The thief, Christina, takes charge of the others and gets them all to go back on board the bus to save them from the heat of the planet. They introduce themselves, there are two young men, Nathan and Barclay, a housewife Angela and an older couple Lou and Carmen. It is Carmen who can hear the voices. The Doctor explains that going through the wormhole was an accident and that they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Carmen tells him that it wasn’t an accident and that somebody or something made it for a reason. She tells him that death is coming, riding on the wind. This panics the other passengers but The Doctor finds out what each of them was doing on the bus, where they we going and why and tells them that for all of those reasons he will get them home.

As passengers start work on a way to get the bus out of the sand using the seats from the bus and a spade that Christina had in her bag, The Doctor and Christina go off into the desert where they see a storm in the far distance. Returning to the bus The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to get a signal on Barclay’s mobile phone and calls UNIT. They tell him they have a scientific advisor, Malcolm, with them and he can help. The Doctor tells Malcolm that he believes the storm and the wormhole are connected and asks him to start analysing the wormhole for him. Then he and Christina go back out into the desert to get a photograph of the oncoming storm for Malcolm. Christina notices that the sand storm seems to be made up of things that shine, like metal, but before they have a chance to get back to the bus they are captured by a fly-like alien and taken back to its stranded space ship.

Inside the space ship they discover that the aliens are called Tritovores and that originally they had come to the planet to trade with its inhabitants. After The Doctor has convinced them that he, Christina and the others are not a threat and are stranded like they are the Tritovores allow him to use their ship to send a probe to investigate the storm.  The Doctor uses the Tritovores computer to discover that they are on the planet Sanhelios which up until 1 year ago had been thriving but was now nothing more than desert. The whole planet and everybody on it had been turned to sand and the voices Carmen could hear were the sounds of them dying.

Malcolm phones The Doctor to tell him that the wormhole appears to be getting bigger of its own accord. The Nathan calls to tell The Doctor that they have finished laying the tracks for the bus to run but because they kept trying the engine the bus is now out of fuel.

The probe has reached the storm and shows that it is in fact not a storm but a SWARM of stingray like creatures with an exoskeleton of metal. They are responsible for devouring the planet and creating the wormhole. They intend to use the wormhole to get to Earth where they can destroy the planet just as they had done with Sanhelios.

The Doctor discovers that although the Tritovore ship crashed the power crystal is still intact. It has fallen to the bottom of a deep well. He thinks he can use the crystal to power the bus and whilst he goes off to try and find a way to access the shaft Christina takes a more direct approach. Using the winch and harness that she uses for stealing things she lowers herself down into the shaft. At the bottom she discovers a dormant stingray creature, but her body heat causes it to wake up and she only just escapes with the crystal before it attacks her.

The Doctor tries to persuade the Tritovores to come with him back to the bus and off the planet but they are reluctant to do so and pay the ultimate price of being eaten by the now revived stingray. The Doctor and Christina escape back to the bus where The Doctor tells her that it wasn’t actually the crystal he wanted but the 4 anti-gravity clamps that came with it. He attaches one to each wheel of the bus and prepares to take them back through the wormhole. He calls Malcolm and tells him that they are coming back through but when they have done so he needs Malcolm to find a way to shut down the wormhole and prevent the creatures from following them.

Malcolm thinks he knows how to shut the wormhole down and UNIT insist that he does so now, BEFORE the bus returns, trapping The Doctor and the others on the planet forever. Malcolm steadfastly refuses to do so even when it looks like it might cost him his life.

The Doctor has to use the ancient and very valuable cup that Christina stole to bridge the alien and human technology and enable him to get the bus working.  He flies it back through the wormhole just ahead of the swarm of stingrays, only 3 of whom get through before Malcolm finally shuts down the wormhole for good.
The UNIT soldiers swiftly dispatch the three aliens that made it through the wormhole and The Doctor is able to land the bus safely. The passengers are taken for de-briefing by UNIT, with the exception of The Doctor who finally gets to meet Malcolm. He tells UNIT that although the creatures will start again rebuilding a new wormhole he will do his best to nudge it towards an uninhabited planet.

The Doctor is reunited with the TARDIS and Christina asks him if she can join him on his travels. He turns her down, the pain of loosing his companions is still to raw for him. D I McMillan finally gets to arrest Christina but as she is lead away The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to free her handcuffs and she is able to escape as far as the bus which she then flies off into the night sky.

As Carmen is leaving she gives The Doctor a warning- she tells him:

            Your song is ending Sir
            It is returning…….It is returning through the dark
            Oh….but Doctor
            He will knock four times

What or who could she mean????

Written by Deryn Corner