Doctor Who (1963) s12e07 Episode Script

(DOCTOR WHO THEME PLAYS) (FEMALE VOICE) Space Station Nerva, thi's i's the Earth High Miini'ster The fact that you are heariing my voice iin a message recorded thousands of years before the day iin which you are now liviing, i's a sure sign .
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that our great undertakiing, the salvation of the human race, has been rewarded with success.
You have slept longer than the recorded hi'story of mankiind.
And you stand now at the dawn of a new age.
You will return to an Earth purified by flame, a world that we cannot guess at.
If it be arid, you must make it flouri'sh.
If it be stony, you must make it fertile.
The challenge i's vast, the task enormous, but let nothiing daunt you.
Sounds like a pre-match pep talk! Remember, Citizen Volunteers, that you are the proud standard-bearers of our entire race.
Of the millions that walk the world today, you are the chosen survivors.
You have been entrusted with a sacred duty - to see that human culture, human knowledge, human love and faith, shall never peri'sh from the universe.
Guard what we have given you with all your strength.
And now, across the chasm of the years, I send you the prayers and hopes of the entire world.
Godspeed you to a safe landiing.
I bet that did your female chauvinist heart a power of good! Why? Well, fancy a member of the fair sex being top of the totem pole! (NOAH) Vira! Vira! Yes, Commander? Vira, hear me.
Thi's i's an order.
Expedite revivification.
Commence maiin phase now.
But, Noah, the safety checks Ignore safety checks! We you .
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are in great danger Get our .
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your people to the Earth before Noah? .
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beforethe Wirrn Vira, take command! Hear me! You take command! What has happened? Commander, are you there? The Wirrn are here They will.
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(VOICE CHANGES) We shall absorb the humans The Earth shall be ours! Noah! Noah! (NOAH'S VOICE) Vira Vira there's no time They're in my mind getting stronger Libri is dead You will all die Must save our people You must! (VIRA) Noah! The chap sounds in a bad way.
What did he mean - they're in his mind? Absorb? ''We shall absorb the humans''? Endoparasitism? He talks to himself sometimes because he's the only one who understands what he's talking about.
If the Wirrn can do that, we've no chance at all! Complete physical absorption.
Of us? They'll literally eat us alive.
Vira, I must talk with Noah.
Come with me.
He trusts you.
My duty is to supervise the revivification.
No! Noah passed command to you.
- Your duties have been widened.
- What is your intention? To find out exactly what we're facing.
And only Noah knows that.
I can't leave until the last of our technical section have awakened.
Harry can handle that.
Can't you, Harry? - Well, I - You've watched Vira.
- You know the procedure.
- Yes, I One gram of scropholine when the neural register enters the red zone.
- Right - He'll be all right.
The injection must be over the pectoralis major.
- That I do understand.
- Good luck! (DOCTOR) And, Sarah, you stay and help Harry.
Yes, come along, Nurse Smith.
See? This chap's in the red zone.
Hey, there's another one seems to be awake here.
Well, after 10,000 years, he can't be in that much of a hurry.
I hope you know what you're doing! Yes.
Dead simple.
Medicine by numbers.
Oh, yes! Dead simple! Just a question of fixing a fresh ampoule thing into here.
Keep back! Don't touch me! - Noah! - Keep back, I said! Tell us one thing.
How much time do we have? Time? Before the Wirrn reach their adult form? It feels nearvery near The tearing free and then the great blackness rushing through Noah and I were pair-bonded for the new life.
Let's go back.
Dune and Libri? And Noah? I'm sorry.
It must be a terrible shock for you.
So there's just two of us to check the ship? - And Vira.
She's taken command.
- Where is she? She's gone with the Doctor.
They're trying to contact Noah.
There's been a snitch-up! Didn't I tell you, Lycett? - 10,000! - (SCOFFS) Oh, beautiful! We should have taken our chance and gone into the thermic shelters! We'd be happily dead! What killed them? Their lungs, was it? Hmm? Dune and Libri? We were told our lung tissue might atrophy.
- Well, no - Something got in here.
Yes Some sort of space creature.
It cut through your alarm clock system.
- What? - Look.
Oh, it's OK - it's dead.
But, unfortunately, its larvae are still very much alive! - Vira! - Vira, it's gone wrong! Welcome, Lycett.
Rogin.
You feel well?.
YesCommander.
What are we going to do with it? How much anatomy do you remember? Quite a lot, I think.
But you need a blooming entomologist! We need to find its weaknesses, and quickly.
- Can we help? - Not at the moment, thank you.
Then, we will commence the main phase.
Lycett, Rogin.
What was that she said? They're going to start the main phase.
Carry on with that thoracic incision.
Not too deep.
- But the safety checks? - We shall over-ride them.
- Why? - We can't! That is my decision.
Take your operating stations.
Vira, the main phase must wait.
Noah said we should expedite the revivification program - and get our people to work.
- He was wrong.
How long would it take? - Another 24 to evacuate the Ark.
- Four whole days? At the rate the Wirrn are developing, they'll have pupated to imago long before.
- We must try! - You can't do it! The Ark will be crawling with those creatures within hours! Doctor, the fate of all humanity might be decided within the next few hours! Vira, if you fail, your people will die in pain and fear.
If I fail, they'll die anyway, but only the six of us will know anything about it.
You have an alternative plan? Between the larval and the imago forms, there must be a pupal stage.
Now, the Wirrn will be dormant and defenseless.
If we can find their weaknesses We might destroy them? Yes.
- Very well Stand down.
- Good.
There's a power flutter in Section 4, Commander.
What does that indicate? External fault.
Shall I check the stacks? No! The larvae have taken over the infrastructure.
They seem to need solar radiation.
We should have stayed on Earth, Lycett! I liked the Earth! I like heat! Curious lung structure, Doctor - look at it.
Yes, fascinating.
A superb adaptation.
What is it? Obviously, the creature's lungs recycle the wastes, almost certainly by enzymes.
Quite wonderful.
Carbon dioxide back to oxygen.
You mean the way plants make oxygen? Exactly right.
It must live in space, probably just occasionally visiting a planetary atmosphere for food and oxygen, the way a whale rises from the ocean.
Judging by the size of his mandibles, this chap doesn't live on plankton! Noah spoke of a great blackness .
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rushing in He meant space, but how did he know? He now has the race memory of a Wirrn.
Symbiotic atavism, to be precise.
I'm going to need your help now, Vira.
Do you have any spare extension leads, Rogin? - Yes.
- Hurry! Fetch them! What are you going to do, Doctor? A little experiment.
Circuit display, Lycett.
It's forbidden to alter those circuits.
I need the neural cortex amplifier.
Not for long - don't worry.
(SLURPING) Right, switch on the video circuit, Lycett.
It'll take a little time to warm up.
Doctor, what are you trying to do? Latent neural impressions can be revived.
- Really? - Yes.
I've never heard of that! Advanced technology.
Gypsies used to believe that the eye retained its last image after death.
Not so far out.
No It's not going to work.
Switch off, Lycett.
Now what? It SHOULD work! The coil isn't giving a strong enough stimulus.
I'll have to link in my own cerebral cortex.
That's the only thing.
That is highly dangerous! I know.
Two more leads, Rogin.
- It could burn out a living brain! - I agree.
An ordinary brain.
But mine is exceptional.
I cannot permit it! The shock might kill you.
I think not.
Unless, of course, the experiment was interrupted.
That could be dangerous.
- Do you have to do it? - Why take the risk? If I find what killed that creature, we might have a chance of fighting the Wirrn.
That's our only hope.
Yes, but do you have to be? It's not just ourexistence that's at stake, Sarah! It's the entire human race.
It may be irrational of me, but human beings are quite my favorite species.
Vira - Yes, Doctor? - Take this.
Don't hesitate to use it if anything goes wrong.
- You won't have much time.
- What do you mean? Switch on, Lycett.
Lycett! Doctor! He's joining his mind to the Wirrn! He could remain a part of it for ever! Look! It's working! (CLATTERING) What was that? We'd better look.
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Over here! Case-hardened diranium - bent like tin! Look out! Behind you! Shut the door! Shut the door! What's going? Get out, man! Get out! They've killed Lycett! There's some sort of huge grub in there! - Stop the experiment! - You'll kill him! The armory, Rogin! Get the fission guns! - Right! - I'll come with you! (BANGING) Hurry, Rogin! That door won't hold much longer! Dune! Fools! Human fools! (WHIRRING) (EXPLOSIONS) Help me with him, Vira! Wait! Come away! Wirrn - Wirrn - Doctor - Wirrn! - Doctor! Doctor! No, you can't! I won't let you! Can't what? Is it time to get up? Doctor, you're going to be all right! (BANGING) Is that noise in my head? (WHIRRING) Doctor, come back! Doctor, don't! Doctor! Doctor! Aim lower! - It's gone back through the grille.
- That was a close one! - You all right, Sarah? - Yes.
- Doctor? - Why? Why have they gone on to the attack? They want to destroy us.
But they've only to wait.
In their adult form, they'll be a thousand times deadlier.
- Fission guns will have no effect.
- How many of them will there be? At a hatching? A hundred A hundred? We won't stand a chance! How can we fight a hundred of those? Electricity! Only by electricity! That's the one thing I found out! - Electricity? - Yes The auto-guard killed the queen - half a million volts.
- We found the queen in the cupboard! - Amazing willpower! I could feel it struggling against death until its task was done.
Rogin, is there any way we can electrify the infrastructure? Not from here, Doctor.
We'd have to run cables from the Control Center.
Control Center? Right, let's go! - You can't go that way, Doctor.
- Noah's waiting out there.
Put one foot inside the transom and you're dead! Yes I was forgetting Noah's extra mobility.
We are trapped.
The Wirrn are using Dune's knowledge of the Ark.
Perhaps there was something he didn't know.
Dune was first tech.
He knew it all! He helped design the systems.
Nobody knows it all! Perhaps he's forgotten that these transmats are reversible! - That's clever! - Isn't it? And as you appreciate it, Rogin, you can go first! I'll give you a hand! Oh, well.
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I never liked it here anyway! (PINGING) You next, Harry! (PINGING) I say! (ROGIN) Are you all right? What a marvelous way to travel! It always sets my teeth on edge! That was a power drain.
Hello, Control Center? (ROGIN) Hello, Doctor.
We've got a power failure.
It's general, then.
Do you have a fault reading? Section 4 That's the secondary stack.
There's no power (VOICE FADES) All power systems are self-repairing.
Malicious damage excluded.
Oh, well, obviously, I am not going anywhere! Help me, Doctor.
The oxygen pumps have stopped.
Of course! In their pupal stage, the Wirrn don't need oxygen.
An easy way of killing us.
Well, suffocation is not the most unpleasant death! What? We're not finished yet! - You two stay here.
- Where are you going? The infrastructure.
If they've entered the pupal stage, they'll be dormant.
Could be our chance to get down there and switch the power back on.
- You're forgetting Noah.
- No, I'm not.
I think his job's done now.
He'll be metamorphosing, too.
(CREAKING)