Fear Her

180 - Fear Her
Cast
Doctor David Tennant (Tenth Doctor)
Production
Directed by	Euros Lyn
Written by	Matthew Graham
Script editor	To be announced
Produced by	Phil Collinson
Executive producer(s)	Russell T. Davies Julie Gardner
Production code	Series 2, Episode 11
Series	Series 2 (2006)
Running time	45 mins
First broadcast	24 June, 2006
Chronology
← Preceded by Love & Monsters Followed by → Army of Ghosts

Fear Her is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on 24 June 2006.

Synopsis

When the TARDIS lands in 2012, the Doctor plans to show Rose the London Olympics. But ordinary children are vanishing, seemingly into thin air, whilst a mother living in a seemingly ordinary British household is trying to hide her daughter's unnatural powers from the world. Why has the girl got drawings of the missing children on her bedroom walls? What's lurking in the cupboard? Can the Doctor defeat the evil nestled in the heart of London?

Plot

File:Fearher.jpg

"If living things can become drawings, then maybe drawings can become living things..."

The story begins in a suburban neighbourhood in London as it prepares for the 2012 London Olympics. An old woman named Maeve is walking home and notices a strange presence in the air. Sighting two boys playing football in the front yard she warns them to go back inside their homes but a neighbour tells her to calm down and denies feeling a disturbance. Meanwhile, a child, concealed, watches from a window. After watching, the child draws the boy standing by the goal while Maeve and the neighbour argue. When Maeve and the neighbour finish arguing the child in the goal vanishes. In the concealed child's bedroom the drawing of him comes to life.

The TARDIS materialises in between two large containers. As The Doctor steps out, he realises that, unfortunately, the door is actually opening out into the right container. By dematerialising and rematerialising, he fixes the problem and steps out of the TARDIS. Rose follows him out and, seeing the banner over them, is amazed that they are in 2012.

They go into the neighbourhood to discover several posters reporting children missing. The Doctor says that he can detect heat in areas where children disappeared. A local man catches him on his lawn and The Doctor uses the Psychic Paper as a police badge to quiet him down. The other neighbours leave their houses to investigate. They all argue over who kidnapped the children until The Doctor signals the people to put their fingers on lips. The neighbours reluctantly do so, as the Doctor explains his theory.

Meanwhile, Chloe, the concealed child, is confronted by her mother, Trish, who questions why she isn't sleeping. Chloe retaliates by threatening to draw her mother, to the point where Trish gives up and leaves. Trish answers a knock at the door, and is greeted by a cheerful Doctor and Rose, who ask if they can come in and see Chloe. Trish explains to the Doctor about Chloe's abnormal behaviour, but refuses to let him see her. Rose takes advantage, and asks to go to the bathroom, but instead sneaks upstairs to see Chloe, who at the same time leaves her room to go downstairs. Rose hides herself inside the laundry cupboard, avoiding Chloe. When the coast is clear, Rose goes into Chloe's room, where she sees pictures of the children that are missing.

All of a sudden, when Rose opens a wardrobe, a large, animated doodle of a man glows red and a demonic voice yells at her. Rose calls for the Doctor and he, Trish and Chloe rush into the room. The Doctor begins to question why there are so many doodles across the wall and Rose has many questions herself, mainly concerning the doodle of the man. Chloe explains that she has been dreaming about her dad, and that "we need to stay together. No, not you-- us." Trish tries to throw the Doctor and Rose out of the house, but they get her to admit that she has seen the drawings move out of the corner of her eye, and realise that they are the only ones who will listen to her.

The Doctor puts Chloe into a trance, allowing him to speak to the entity inside her. It wants to be reunited with its brothers and sisters; they travel together for thousands of years, using their power to create worlds to play in, but its heat-dependent travel pod was separated by a solar flare. From there, it was drawn to Chloe because she was also alone, and we see a flashback of it entering her body. The Doctor tries to talk it into leaving her body, but it refuses.

The demonic man speaks again, saying that he is coming. The Doctor prompts Trish to calm Chloe down; she sings to her, and the man eventually howls and falls silent. While collecting Chloe's pencils and taking them away, Trish fills in some earlier mentions of Chloe's abusive father, who died a year ago in a car crash; it becomes increasingly apparent that the demonic man is a drawing based on Chloe's memory of him. Trish wanted to forget about him, but Rose suggests that her silence on the matter may have added to Chloe's loneliness. Meanwhile, the Doctor warns that the entity is used to being with a pretty big family - somewhere around four billion.

The Doctor and Rose return to the TARDIS and locate the pod's heat signature. However, Chloe sneaks out of the house and sees them enter the TARDIS, then returns to her room; she has extra pencils hidden inside a doll, and draws the TARDIS and the Doctor, which disappear as he and Rose are walking back toward the house. Rose demands that the entity let the Doctor out, but it refuses; she promises the Doctor's drawing that she will get him out.

Rose talks to the man who has been re-paving the street, eventually realising that the pod would have homed in on his heated road tar. Over his protests, she grabs a pick-axe and digs up the new pavement, locating the pod. Meanwhile, Chloe draws the thousands of people at the Olympic stadium, who all disappear, then clears off a wall and starts drawing the Earth.

Rose bangs on Chloe's door, saying that she has the pod; receiving no answer, she breaks through the door with the pick-axe. The demonic man speaks again, and the entity says that it will let him out if they stop Chloe. When Rose offers the pod, the entity says that it is dead, and needs more than heat. At that point, the road worker sees one of the drawings move; Rose sees the drawing of the Doctor again, now pointing to a drawing of a torch. In the background, a TV announcer describes the Olympic torch as a symbol of love, and Rose says that she knows how to charge up the pod.

Rose runs outside as the torch-bearer runs past. Security guards prevent her from reaching him, but the pod starts to activate on its own, so she throws it into the air and it homes in on the torch. The entity immediately says that it can go home now, and leaves Chloe's body. The children in the drawings reappear, but the Doctor is still nowhere to be found. Rose questions his absence, saying that all the drawings are coming to life, then realizes that this includes the demonic man. The doors of the house fly closed, trapping Trish and Chloe inside. Rose urges them to sing again, and the man eventually falls silent.

The Doctor is finally spotted on TV; he picks up the Olympic torch after the previous bearer collapses, carries it the rest of the way to light the flame (which he had considered doing at the 1948 Games), and bids the entity farewell. As he and Rose walk off to watch the Games, Rose says that they will always be together, but he looks into the distance and says that a storm is approaching...

Cast

• The Doctor — David Tennant
• Rose Tyler — Billie Piper
• Chloe Webber — Abisola Agbaje
• Maeve — Edna Doré
• Trish Webber — Nina Sosanya
• Tom's Dad — Tim Faraday
• Neighbour — Erica Eirlan
• Policeman — Stephen Marzella
• Driver — Richard Nicholls
• Kel — Abdul Salis
• Announcer — Huw Edwards

Notes

1. This is a replacement for a planned but unproduced script by Stephen Fry, and is set on modern-day Earth. It is quoted as being "different from anything we've ever seen before".
2. Early drafts of this episode were titled Chloe Webber Destroys the Earth, and later, You're a Bad Girl, Chloe Webber.
3. In the 15 April edition of the Radio Times, Russell T. Davies reported that "It's a bit like a Twilight Zone tale of an ordinary family", and compared the set-up to the film Edward Scissorhands.
4. According to Doctor Who Magazine #366, this episode will be released with Army of Ghosts and Doomsday as a basic DVD with no special features.
5. The year 2012 was the year the 2005 series episode Dalek took place, the native time period of Adam Mitchell.
6. David Tennant described this episode as being like "The Exorcist meets Brookside". Similarly, on Doctor Who Confidential, writer Matthew Graham describes this episode as the Doctor going to Brookside.
7. The episode takes place in "Dame Kelly Holmes Close", in Stratford, which will host the Games. Kelly Holmes is a British athlete who won 2 gold medals at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, again tying in with the Olympic theme.
8. A Central Trains train can be seen passing by the TARDIS as it materialises towards the beginning of the episode. However, Central Trains do not run anywhere close to Stratford, and their operating licence will have expired by 2012. Central Trains do however serve Cardiff, where much of the series is filmed.
9. The episode uses the "Ribbon Thames" logo to represent the 2012 Summer Olympics. This was the logo of the Olympic bid; a separate logo, as yet unchosen, will be used for the Games themselves. The Olympic Torch for the 2012 Olympics has also yet to be announced.
10. The futuristic setting of the episode is emphasised by signage. For example, the registration plate number UY61LJW is seen in a clip in the trailer, representing a vehicle registered between September 2011 and March 2012, whilst the "Missing" notice refers to an "East London Constabulary" rather than the Metropolitan Police, and the council van is from 'East London Council'. There is also a 19-digit telephone number featured in the TARDISODE.
11. The opening ceremony used in the episode is in fact that of the 2002 Commonwealth Games held in Manchester, while the stadium shown is in fact a digitally altered City of Manchester Stadium, as opposed to London Olympic Stadium, which was in the early stages of construction during filming of the episode.
12. Details of the torch run at the opening ceremony were not consistent with the ceremony used in 2004. The Doctor takes the torch its entire way through the stadium and lights the cauldron; in 2004 it was handed over several times and finally lit by a particularly notable person. Of course, the Doctor IS a particularly notable person.
13. The preview for the following episode, Army of Ghosts, was not accompanied by the normal Doctor Who theme.
14. BBC News 24 features as a narrative device, as it has done previously in Rose, Aliens of London, World War Three and The Christmas Invasion.
15. Rose is surprised to learn that The Doctor was "a dad once". The Doctor's granddaughter, Susan Foreman, was the first companion in the classic series. The spin-off novel character Miranda was his adopted daughter.
16. The Doctor's line, "Keep em' peeled," is a reference to Shaw Taylor's catchphrase on Police 5 and Junior Police 5. His naming Rose "Lewis" refers to Inspector Morse.
17. Rose's pickaxe scene echoes Jack Nicholson's performance as Jack Torrance in The Shining.
18. A poster is seen advertising Shayne Ward's Greatest Hits, a supposed future album.
19. The reporter on BBC News 24 mentions Torchwood when he is shocked about the disappearance of the stadium spectators.
20. This is the second story in the new series of Doctor Who (after The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances) in which no-one dies.
21. With the opening ceremonies taking place on the same day, the episode can be specifically dated to 27 July, 2012.
22. The "edible ball bearings" the Doctor refers to (and later eats) are made of sugar (with trace amounts of silver in the coating) and known as dragées.
23. Nina Sosanya has previously appeared alongside David Tennant in People Like Us and Casanova and alongside Billie Piper in the BBC's 2005 Much Ado About Nothing. She also appeared in Love Actually, as did Abdul Salis.
24. The Doctor and Chloe exchange a Vulcan salute. Rose previously compared the Doctor to Spock in The Empty Child.
25. When Dale Hicks disappears in the opening scenes, his trousers are a different colour from those he wears in Chloe's drawing.
26. Overnight viewing figures on first broadcast were 6.6 million, with a 39.7% audience share.

External links

• Episode Commentary by Euros Lyn, Abisola Agbaje and Steffan Morris. (MP3), BBC.