Doctor Who Extra (2014) s01e09 Episode Script
Flatline
- 9, take 3.
- Action.
Oh, that can't be good.
'There's big trouble in a little TARDIS 'in this episode of Doctor Who.
' Stop laughing, this is serious! The TARDIS never does this.
This is HUGE! 'That's right.
The TARDIS gets shrunk, trapping the Doctor inside.
' Meet the Doctor.
'We encounter some graphic graffiti, a tiny TARDIS '.
.
and a bloodcurdling bolus.
'All this and more squeezed into our Doctor Who Extra.
'Things have been turned on their heads in this episode, 'as the TARDIS is shrunk, trapping the Doctor inside.
'It's left to Clara to take on the Doctor's duties.
' Oh, my God, that is so adorable.
Are you in there? Yes, I am.
And no, it isn't adorable.
It's very, very serious.
CLARA: So, is this more shrink-ray stuff? Are you tiny in there? No, I'm exactly the same size.
It's merely the exterior dimensions that have changed.
Fascinating for the Doctor to be trapped in the TARDIS and to be trying to help things along and dealing with the sort of dimensional perils that were being imposed upon him.
I thought it was a great episode.
I thought it was very clever.
'A small TARDIS is central to this story, 'but how did the writer come up with this big idea?' CLARA GIGGLES It's a good, fun gag.
I always like messing with the icons of the show, so to say, "Right, we're going to shrink the TARDIS to five foot tall.
"Well, what would happen if we just kept going "and it ends up eight inches tall and he can't get out?" I've managed to get a rough fix on the source of the dimensional leaching.
It's roughly northwest.
That way.
Please don't do that.
That's just wrong.
I pitched this in a meeting, and Steven Moffat being Steven Moffat immediately went, "I'll go you one better.
"What if Clara was carrying it in her bag for the whole episode?" It's one of those ideas where you just go, "Why hasn't anybody done this before?" 'With Jenna and Peter's busy shooting schedule, 'this effect could be achieved with a couple of body doubles 'and some good old-fashioned jiggery-pokery.
' It was a tricky one to film because we had It was kind of like a whole telephone conversation.
The Doctor's stuck in the TARDIS, which is miniaturised and is inside Clara's handbag, so they're kind of communicating through that, so he's kind of guiding her through what to do, how to use a sonic and how to be the Doctor.
And action! DOCTOR GASPS SONIC BUZZES Clara, the mural! Clara, the mural! Over there! Look! The mural.
- Cut there.
- Go forward, please.
'Once Clara has assumed her role as the stand-in Doctor, 'she obviously needs a companion.
'Cue Rigsy, a lovable rogue.
' Rigsy, come here.
Rigsy, come here.
Meet the Doctor.
I basically play a character called Rigsy It's biggeron the inside.
I don't think that statement's ever been truer.
The Doctor's always had this companion and when, finally, Clara and the Doctor are split up and the Doctor's in the TARDIS, Clara's out there doing her thing, and she meets Rigsy and Rigsy almost becomes kind of like this companion for Clara.
He kind of just latches on to her, and any kind of person that shows him any kind of love or any support he really kind of takes to.
And Rigsy's a graffiti artist and he's basically been put into community service for doing graffiti.
'Although the graffiti looks harmless, Clara soon discovers 'that there is a creature turning people two-dimensional.
'This people-flattening monster 'actually started life in 2-D, too.
' I had a meeting with Steven Moffat and I pitched four ideas for episodes and four ideas for monsters, and I had pictures of the monsters and one of the monsters was the Boneless.
He's a very, very visual writer.
He's very clever with He always comes in with drawings, and that's I think a huge part of his journey towards an episode is, he gets a visual impression of something and he commits it to paper and says, "I want a monster that's like this, "or a way of dying that's like this.
" GROANS AND SQUELCHES Stop! The idea of two-dimensional monsters is fabulous.
We need to move.
Now.
Walls normally protect you in Doctor Who.
Here, the walls house the villains.
The Boneless, we didn't really have anything to work off.
I mean, there was no puppets, there was no creatures.
We didn't even see anything.
It was all just down to the imagination.
'To turn the Boneless into a three-dimensional monster 'required the actors to be scanned with specialist equipment.
' We're here to do a body-scan image of me that we're then going to project onto a creation that they come up with for the episode that I'm appearing in.
'Technology was key in helping create this CGI.
' Essentially, we're capturing a 3-D representation of those actors, so we'll end up with a very detailed 3-D model of them in costume and a bunch of photographic textures that we can apply onto that.
Basically, the actors There's a turntable over there.
The actors stand on the turntable, try and stand as still as possible, turntable goes around and Jamie passes the scanner over them as they're going round the turntable and, essentially, it captures a small piece of them.
You're almost like painting the character in and you see the character come into being, almost, in front of you on the screen.
The detail on there.
It looks amazing, and I've only seen it in rough form.
At the moment it looks fantastic.
It'll be amazing to see what happens when they colour it.
So, so far, so good.
'Flatline isn't the first time the Doctor has encountered 'some very sinister artwork.
'Chloe Webber's doodles could come alive and launch terrifying attacks, 'as Rose Tyler found out.
'Chloe could also make people become animated pictures 'just by drawing them.
'And, years later, The Pandorica Opens 'was a creepy painting by Vincent van Gogh 'that seemed to predict the destruction of the TARDIS.
'But the Doctor retains his fondness for art.
'These drawings are all the Time Lord's own work, 'lovingly drawn in his Journal Of Impossible Things.
'And he's not bad with a brush, either, 'as his painting of Clara shows.
'In fact, the 11th Doctor was definitely an art lover.
'He struck up a friendship with Vincent van Gogh 'after he found an alien had somehow 'got into one of the old master's works.
'He worked out the meaning of this painting's title, 'Gallifrey Falls No More, 'and even spent his final days surrounded by pictures 'drawn by the children at Christmas.
'So, don't let the Boneless put you off works of art.
'They're not always this scary.
' Run! 'Filming for this episode took the crew to glorious Gloucester.
'A disused train line provided the setting for Clara and Rigsy's 'showdown with the fearsome Boneless.
' Action! SHE GASPS Oh 'Meanwhile, the Doctor has forced the TARDIS to take on 'an unusual appearance.
' What is it? I think it's the TARDIS.
It was the idea of, right, if the TARDIS is taken to the point of no return, and the chameleon circuit is off and it's tiny, what has it become? I thought, if you can't get in, there's no door, and the idea of this I think in the script I put a Rubik's cube shape of dull metal etched with Gallifreyan script, and I thought, "That's quite nice," because you suddenly know that's now the part of the mythos.
It's a bare TARDIS.
Doctor.
I think, at the moment in the script, it's siege mode, which is quite a nice description for it.
METALLIC THRUMMING 'With Clara's help, the TARDIS is restored 'and the Boneless are defeated.
'Clara may have enjoyed her time as the Doctor, 'but she is soon brought down to Earth.
' B camera mark.
And action! Yeah, but we saved the world, right? We did.
YOU did.
The new thing that happens in this episode is she understands, or she has a growing understanding, episode to episode, that dark though the role of the Time Lord can be, it's also exhilarating and exciting.
She's understanding the addiction better and better with every adventure they share.
Well, I was the Doctor today.
I was you.
And apparently, I was quite good at it.
- Oh, you heard that, did you? - Yeah.
I think she does understand the Doctor better.
It's a really interesting question, and something that I think keeps coming up over the series, of the kind ofthe moral dilemma, I suppose, ofof what choices do you make when you're in that position, when they are all bad? Just say it.
Just tell me I was good.
I think Clara did brilliantly as the Doctor, which is rather alarming.
But then she has had a good teacher for a while.
Say I did a good job.
Talk to soldier boy.
I think, in his darker hours, he would also comfort himself with the idea, the old idea, that he makes people better.
In this episode he is forced to conclude that maybe he's making Clara worse.
Come on, why can't you say it? I want to hear you say it.
I was the Doctor and I was good.
You were an exceptional Doctor, Clara.
Thank you.
Goodness had nothing to do with it.
She's picking up from him things that he thinks are necessary but of which he is not proud.
'But with Clara taking on so much responsibility, 'has this changed her view of the Doctor?'
- Action.
Oh, that can't be good.
'There's big trouble in a little TARDIS 'in this episode of Doctor Who.
' Stop laughing, this is serious! The TARDIS never does this.
This is HUGE! 'That's right.
The TARDIS gets shrunk, trapping the Doctor inside.
' Meet the Doctor.
'We encounter some graphic graffiti, a tiny TARDIS '.
.
and a bloodcurdling bolus.
'All this and more squeezed into our Doctor Who Extra.
'Things have been turned on their heads in this episode, 'as the TARDIS is shrunk, trapping the Doctor inside.
'It's left to Clara to take on the Doctor's duties.
' Oh, my God, that is so adorable.
Are you in there? Yes, I am.
And no, it isn't adorable.
It's very, very serious.
CLARA: So, is this more shrink-ray stuff? Are you tiny in there? No, I'm exactly the same size.
It's merely the exterior dimensions that have changed.
Fascinating for the Doctor to be trapped in the TARDIS and to be trying to help things along and dealing with the sort of dimensional perils that were being imposed upon him.
I thought it was a great episode.
I thought it was very clever.
'A small TARDIS is central to this story, 'but how did the writer come up with this big idea?' CLARA GIGGLES It's a good, fun gag.
I always like messing with the icons of the show, so to say, "Right, we're going to shrink the TARDIS to five foot tall.
"Well, what would happen if we just kept going "and it ends up eight inches tall and he can't get out?" I've managed to get a rough fix on the source of the dimensional leaching.
It's roughly northwest.
That way.
Please don't do that.
That's just wrong.
I pitched this in a meeting, and Steven Moffat being Steven Moffat immediately went, "I'll go you one better.
"What if Clara was carrying it in her bag for the whole episode?" It's one of those ideas where you just go, "Why hasn't anybody done this before?" 'With Jenna and Peter's busy shooting schedule, 'this effect could be achieved with a couple of body doubles 'and some good old-fashioned jiggery-pokery.
' It was a tricky one to film because we had It was kind of like a whole telephone conversation.
The Doctor's stuck in the TARDIS, which is miniaturised and is inside Clara's handbag, so they're kind of communicating through that, so he's kind of guiding her through what to do, how to use a sonic and how to be the Doctor.
And action! DOCTOR GASPS SONIC BUZZES Clara, the mural! Clara, the mural! Over there! Look! The mural.
- Cut there.
- Go forward, please.
'Once Clara has assumed her role as the stand-in Doctor, 'she obviously needs a companion.
'Cue Rigsy, a lovable rogue.
' Rigsy, come here.
Rigsy, come here.
Meet the Doctor.
I basically play a character called Rigsy It's biggeron the inside.
I don't think that statement's ever been truer.
The Doctor's always had this companion and when, finally, Clara and the Doctor are split up and the Doctor's in the TARDIS, Clara's out there doing her thing, and she meets Rigsy and Rigsy almost becomes kind of like this companion for Clara.
He kind of just latches on to her, and any kind of person that shows him any kind of love or any support he really kind of takes to.
And Rigsy's a graffiti artist and he's basically been put into community service for doing graffiti.
'Although the graffiti looks harmless, Clara soon discovers 'that there is a creature turning people two-dimensional.
'This people-flattening monster 'actually started life in 2-D, too.
' I had a meeting with Steven Moffat and I pitched four ideas for episodes and four ideas for monsters, and I had pictures of the monsters and one of the monsters was the Boneless.
He's a very, very visual writer.
He's very clever with He always comes in with drawings, and that's I think a huge part of his journey towards an episode is, he gets a visual impression of something and he commits it to paper and says, "I want a monster that's like this, "or a way of dying that's like this.
" GROANS AND SQUELCHES Stop! The idea of two-dimensional monsters is fabulous.
We need to move.
Now.
Walls normally protect you in Doctor Who.
Here, the walls house the villains.
The Boneless, we didn't really have anything to work off.
I mean, there was no puppets, there was no creatures.
We didn't even see anything.
It was all just down to the imagination.
'To turn the Boneless into a three-dimensional monster 'required the actors to be scanned with specialist equipment.
' We're here to do a body-scan image of me that we're then going to project onto a creation that they come up with for the episode that I'm appearing in.
'Technology was key in helping create this CGI.
' Essentially, we're capturing a 3-D representation of those actors, so we'll end up with a very detailed 3-D model of them in costume and a bunch of photographic textures that we can apply onto that.
Basically, the actors There's a turntable over there.
The actors stand on the turntable, try and stand as still as possible, turntable goes around and Jamie passes the scanner over them as they're going round the turntable and, essentially, it captures a small piece of them.
You're almost like painting the character in and you see the character come into being, almost, in front of you on the screen.
The detail on there.
It looks amazing, and I've only seen it in rough form.
At the moment it looks fantastic.
It'll be amazing to see what happens when they colour it.
So, so far, so good.
'Flatline isn't the first time the Doctor has encountered 'some very sinister artwork.
'Chloe Webber's doodles could come alive and launch terrifying attacks, 'as Rose Tyler found out.
'Chloe could also make people become animated pictures 'just by drawing them.
'And, years later, The Pandorica Opens 'was a creepy painting by Vincent van Gogh 'that seemed to predict the destruction of the TARDIS.
'But the Doctor retains his fondness for art.
'These drawings are all the Time Lord's own work, 'lovingly drawn in his Journal Of Impossible Things.
'And he's not bad with a brush, either, 'as his painting of Clara shows.
'In fact, the 11th Doctor was definitely an art lover.
'He struck up a friendship with Vincent van Gogh 'after he found an alien had somehow 'got into one of the old master's works.
'He worked out the meaning of this painting's title, 'Gallifrey Falls No More, 'and even spent his final days surrounded by pictures 'drawn by the children at Christmas.
'So, don't let the Boneless put you off works of art.
'They're not always this scary.
' Run! 'Filming for this episode took the crew to glorious Gloucester.
'A disused train line provided the setting for Clara and Rigsy's 'showdown with the fearsome Boneless.
' Action! SHE GASPS Oh 'Meanwhile, the Doctor has forced the TARDIS to take on 'an unusual appearance.
' What is it? I think it's the TARDIS.
It was the idea of, right, if the TARDIS is taken to the point of no return, and the chameleon circuit is off and it's tiny, what has it become? I thought, if you can't get in, there's no door, and the idea of this I think in the script I put a Rubik's cube shape of dull metal etched with Gallifreyan script, and I thought, "That's quite nice," because you suddenly know that's now the part of the mythos.
It's a bare TARDIS.
Doctor.
I think, at the moment in the script, it's siege mode, which is quite a nice description for it.
METALLIC THRUMMING 'With Clara's help, the TARDIS is restored 'and the Boneless are defeated.
'Clara may have enjoyed her time as the Doctor, 'but she is soon brought down to Earth.
' B camera mark.
And action! Yeah, but we saved the world, right? We did.
YOU did.
The new thing that happens in this episode is she understands, or she has a growing understanding, episode to episode, that dark though the role of the Time Lord can be, it's also exhilarating and exciting.
She's understanding the addiction better and better with every adventure they share.
Well, I was the Doctor today.
I was you.
And apparently, I was quite good at it.
- Oh, you heard that, did you? - Yeah.
I think she does understand the Doctor better.
It's a really interesting question, and something that I think keeps coming up over the series, of the kind ofthe moral dilemma, I suppose, ofof what choices do you make when you're in that position, when they are all bad? Just say it.
Just tell me I was good.
I think Clara did brilliantly as the Doctor, which is rather alarming.
But then she has had a good teacher for a while.
Say I did a good job.
Talk to soldier boy.
I think, in his darker hours, he would also comfort himself with the idea, the old idea, that he makes people better.
In this episode he is forced to conclude that maybe he's making Clara worse.
Come on, why can't you say it? I want to hear you say it.
I was the Doctor and I was good.
You were an exceptional Doctor, Clara.
Thank you.
Goodness had nothing to do with it.
She's picking up from him things that he thinks are necessary but of which he is not proud.
'But with Clara taking on so much responsibility, 'has this changed her view of the Doctor?'