The Unquiet Dead by: Mark Gatiss and directed by: Euros Lyn

 

“The Unquiet Dead” stars Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler with Simon Callow as Charles Dickens, Alan David as Sneed, Eve Myles as Gwyneth, and Zoe Thorne as the Gelth.  It was written by: Mark Gatiss and directed by: Euros Lyn with Helen Raynor as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies, Julie Gardner, and Mal Young as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Saturday 9 April 2005 on BBC One.

 

In Russell T. Davies’ original pitch document for Doctor Who it was clear that with the second episode sending the Doctor and Rose to the far distant future, the third should be responsible for sending them into the past.  Davies, knowing that there would be thirteen episodes, realized that it would be improbable for him to write all thirteen and this first trip into the past would be handed to a different writer.  Mark Gatiss was chosen to write this episode for a number of reasons, mainly his success with The League of Gentlemen and the four Doctor Who novels he penned during the time the show was off the air.  Included in the pitch was the idea of bringing in Charles Dickens as a historical figure and featuring ghosts.  From this Gatiss had several drafts, beginning life as “Charles Dickens” before becoming “The Crippingwell Horror” and finally “The Unquiet Dead”, taking the Doctor and Rose to Cardiff in 1869, coincidentally where the production of Doctor Who had been moved to for the revival.  The exteriors of course would not be shot in Cardiff, but in Swansea due to director Euros Lyn being unable to find any suitable historical locales in Cardiff that could be used.

 

“The Unquiet Dead” is the first episode to open away from the Doctor and Rose, the pre-credits sequence being used to show the corpse of an old woman, played by Jennifer Hill, rising from her coffin and attacking her son.  Since the series is now in a 45-minute monster of the week format, these pre-credits sequences are written by design to emulate a classic Doctor Who cliffhanger of some sort, this one being a classic “Part One” monster reveal.  Gatiss’ penchant for gothic horror as a writer is used perfectly for this initial scene and the first two thirds of the episode.  The title itself is evocative, perfect for a Christmas style ghost story aired in mid-April.  The plot is essentially a mystery of why the dead are walking.  Rose is proactive but this leads to her being kidnapped by undertaker Sneed, played by Alan David, and Gwyneth, played by Eve Myles.  While it is a shame to have the companion damselled in the third episode, luckily, the kidnapping doesn’t actually last long, Gatiss using it to get the Doctor and Charles Dickens into the undertaker’s where the rest of the episode takes place.  Getting the plot moving is important as “The Unquiet Dead” is the first episode of the series where the main focus is on the plot and exploring a time period over establishing the show and the relationship between the Doctor and Rose.  This isn’t to say that there aren’t character moments, far from it, but this is an episode that needs to explore history through a plot driven lens.

 

The character moments are used to explore the side characters, especially Dickens and Gwyneth.  Sneed is the other active player in events and Gatiss uses him more for some very wry comic relief which is very enjoyable.  Simon Callow as Dickens also airs on the side of comedy, but not as outright as Sneed.  There is a sadness behind Dickens being alone at Christmas, performing a live reading of A Christmas Carol, but coming into contact with the Doctor reinvigorates the man almost immediately.  Eccleston’s charming of Dickens is in this incredibly fast paced scene in terms of acting, but slow in terms of acting as a chase scene which is also a bit odd in the way that it is shot.  Perhaps Lyn is attempting to emulate an actual carriage chase, but the editing just feels like there wasn’t enough footage shot to make it work.  Eve Myles’ Gwyneth ends up becoming a tragic figure, having the second sight and a connection to an apparent afterlife.  It’s of course really the alien Gelth, voiced and portrayed by Zoe Thorne, a casualty of the war that left the Doctor the last of his kind.  Gwyneth is willing to sacrifice herself to let the Gelth through and inhabit the quiet dead of the world, potentially allowing the unquiet dead to come to be.  Myles plays Gwyneth as almost the little girl lost, in a fairly similar position that Rose was in “Rose”, working a job that’s being invaded by the Doctor’s world.  The idea is that because her family lived on the rift in time that inhabits Cardiff, something that will be a recurring element through this series and Davies’ time as showrunner, she can communicate to the Gelth and is betrayed when it turns out the Gelth wish to not just live, but conquer.  Now this is meant to be the Doctor being too trusting due to the grief of losing his people, but it also allows the reading of anti-immigration (though the former is clearly the intent of the production due to how it is portrayed and how the Gelth remain a mystery and begin as actively hostile, not tricking the characters).

 

Overall, “The Unquiet Dead” shows that the revived Doctor Who is not just going to be the Russell T. Davies show, with Mark Gatiss taking the reigns bringing a classic gothic horror runaround to the screen.  The character moments are great and the simple plot works to really bring history to life, essentially riffing on Dickens’ ghost stories and the Christmas setting of quite a lot of his work.  The direction is great while Eccleston and Piper shine despite not being the main focus of the entire episode for the first time, although the resolution has some implications that don’t quite work and there is the occasional sequence that just falls flat.  7/10.