Doctor Who (1963–1989): Season 17, Episode 8 - City of Death: Part Four - full transcript

You're beginning to appreciate
the truth in my words, are you?

That you can destroy Paris? Yes.

Why all this talk of destruction?
What are you doing with my work?

Professor, I shall show you.
Would you care to examine the field generator?

You will now see, my dear, how I deal with fools.

No, not that switch!

The unfortunate effect
of an unstabilised time field.

Now, I shall do exactly the same thing
to the whole of this city

unless you reveal to me the secret
of how to stabilise that field.

You're mad, insane, you're inhuman!

Quite so.



When I compare my race to yours, human,
I take the word inhuman as a great compliment.

You couldn't possibly--
Oh, do be quiet.

Count, you must have realised by now
that I'm not from this planet.

-Why should it worry me if you destroy Paris?
-What are you talking about?

-You had your warning, Hermann, kill him.
-No.

Ah, so you do care.
I think you've answered your own question.

Not a very clever bluff.

All right, what are you trying to do?

You agree to cooperate then?

Just tell me what you're trying to do and I'll see.

Excellent! Hermann, take him away, lock him up.

-Yes, sir.
-I shall keep him as an insurance policy.

Since it is unfortunately not possible
to kill him twice.

Now, my problem is very simple.



400 million years ago,
the spaceship which I was piloting

exploded while I was trying to take off
from the surface of this planet.

-That was clumsy of you.
-Calculated risk.

The spaceship sustained considerable damage.
I was in the warp control cabin

and when the explosion occurred
I was flung into the time vortex

and split into 12 different parts

which lead, or have led,
independent but connected lives

in times in this planet's history.

Not a very satisfactory mode of existence.

So you want to reunite yourself, yes?

More than that. I want to go back
to where my spaceship is.

Was.

And stop my original self
from pressing the button.

And you were hoping to do that with this lot?

You underestimate the problems
with which I was faced.

My 12 various selves have been
working throughout history

to push forward this miserably primitive race.

So that even this low level of technology
could be available to me now.

But this won't work.

Put yourself in that bubble

and you will either regress back to
being a baby again or go forward to old age.

I had worked out a way
but it would have taken rather too long.

Now with your help,
I shall be able to return with ease.

Now, build me a field interface stabiliser.

Do it!

All right, I'll help you.

I'd like to make an appointment
with Count Scarlioni,

at his earliest convenience,
if you don't mind, that is.

Ah, someone in authority.

I wonder if you would be kind
and tell the Count that I'll wait upon him, please.

Silent type, eh?

I once knew a boy like you,
never said a word, very taciturn.

Well, I said to him,

there's no point in talking
if you've got nothing to say.

Did well in the end though.

Name of Shakespeare, ever read any Shakespeare?

-Countess?
-A little.

Hamlet.

The first draft.

What?

It's been missing for centuries.

-It's quite genuine, I assure you.
-I know, I recognise the handwriting.

-Shakespeare's?
-No, mine. He'd sprained his wrist writing sonnets.

Wonderful stuff. ''To be or not to be,
that is the question.

''Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

''or to take arms against a sea of troubles''...

''Take arms against a sea of troubles''?

That's a mixed... I told him that was
a mixed metaphor and he would insist.

Oh, Doctor, I'm quite convinced
that you are perfectly mad.

Nobody's perfect. If you think I'm mad
because I say I met Shakespeare,

where do you think your precious Count got that?

-He's a collector, he has money and contacts.
-Contacts?

Human contacts?

How much do you really know about him, eh?
I think less than you really imagine.

-Excellency!
-Don't tell me. The Doctor is here.

Why, yes, sir.
So I've only just been told by the maid.

-I knew it! Bring him down here.
-Yes, sir.

-How long have you been married to the Count?
-Long enough.

''Long enough'', I like that.
Discretion and charm. So civilised.

-So terribly unhelpful.
-Discretion and charm, I couldn't live without it.

Especially in matters concerning the Count.

There is such a thing as discretion.
There's also such a thing as wilful blindness.

Blind? I help him to steal the Mona Lisa,

the greatest crime in the century,
and you call me blind?

Yes!

You see the Count as a master criminal,
an art dealer, an insanely wealthy man.

And you'd like to see yourself as his consort.
But what's he doing in the cellar?

-Tinkering. Every man must have his hobby.
-Man? Are you sure of that?

A man with one eye and green skin, eh?
Ransacking the art treasures of history

to help him make a machine to reunite him
with his people, the Jagaroth.

And you didn't notice anything?
How discreet, how charming.

Excuse me, my lady.

Doctor, the Count is very anxious
to see you in the cellar.

Think about it, Countess, think about it.

Count, hello. I wonder if you could
spare me a moment of your time.

Romana, hello, how are you?

I see the Count's roped you in as a lab assistant.
What are you making for him?

A model railway? Gallifreyan egg timer?

I hope you're not making a time machine.
I shall be very angry.

Doctor, how very nice to see you again.
It seems like only 4 74 years since we last met.

Indeed, indeed, yes.

I so much prefer the weather in the early part
of the 16th century, don't you?

-Where's Duggan?
-Doctor, get me out of here.

Oh, there you are, Duggan.
Are you behaving yourself? Good, good.

Now, Count, this is what I've come to say.

If you're thinking of going back in time,
you'd better forget it.

-And why do you say that?
-Well, because I'm going to stop you.

No, on the contrary, Doctor,
you're going to help me.

-I am?
-You are indeed.

And if you do not,
it will be so much the worse for you,

for this young lady, and for
thousands of other people I could mention

if I happen to have
the Paris telephone directory on my person.

Count, that sort of blackmail won't work

because I know what the consequences would be
if you get what you wanted.

-I can't let you fool about with time.
-What else do you ever do?

Well, I'm a professional, I know what I'm doing.
I also know what you're doing.

-Romana, put the equipment down.
-Doctor, it's all right.

He just wants to get back to his spaceship
and reunite himself.

Doctor, I think we can dispense
both with your interference and with your help.

Your friend has done her work very well indeed.

Count, do you realise what will happen if you try
to go back to the time before history began?

Yes. Yes, I do. And I don't care one jot.

Hermann, lock them in the cellar. They shall stay
long enough to watch my departure.

After that, kill them
in whatever way takes your fancy.

I must say my farewells to the Countess.

My dear?

Close the door.

-What are you?
-I beg your pardon?

What have I been living with all these years?

Where are you from and what do you want?

If I may answer those questions in reverse order,
what I want is a drink.

-Will you have one?
-Stay away!

Put it down!

Now, who are you?

I am Scaroth.

-Scaroth?
-Last of the Jagaroth.

It has not been difficult
keeping secrets from you, my dear.

A few fur coats, a few trinkets,
a little nefarious excitement.

What are the Jagaroth?

The Jagaroth, an infinitely old race

and an infinitely superior one.

I shall show you what you want to know, my dear.

I am Scaroth.
Through me, my people will live again.

I'm glad to see you're still wearing the bracelet
I designed for you, my dear.

It is, as I said, a useful device.

Goodbye, my dear. I'm sorry you had to die.

But then, in a short while,
you will have ceased ever to have existed.

-If I had known I was helping the Jagaroth.
-Jagaroth? What's a Jagaroth?

They're not nice to know.

So that's why he had to go back in time.

He had to reverse history in order to
save the Jagaroth race.

And I've made that possible.

Yes, without the stabiliser,
he only had the time bubble.

And he couldn't get in to that.

You saw what happened to the
Professor and the chicken.

It doesn't travel in time, it just goes forwards
or backwards in its own lifecycle.

If he'd got in it he'd just have
become a baby again.

What he was really trying to do was
put the whole world in the bubble.

Like those tiny jumps in time
when we first arrived.

Of course.
Cracks in time.

He shifted the whole world
back in time for two seconds.

But what he really wanted to do

was shift the whole world
back in time 400 million years.

But without the stabiliser, he couldn't have
been there himself to save his ship.

Yeah, but how would he get the power?
It would be fantastic.

What do you think we've been
chasing about for all this time?

-The Mona Lisas.
-Yeah.

-He couldn't have sold them anyway.
-Why not?

Well, before Leonardo painted them,

I wrote, ''These are fakes,'' on the blank boards
with felt tip to show up under the X-ray.

Doctor, there won't be any X-rays for it
to show up on if he gets back to that ship.

No, because you supplied him
with the vital component he needed.

Wait a minute,

when I made that component, I rigged it so
it could only go back in time for two minutes.

After that, he will be catapulted back
to his own time here.

Now he couldn't do any harm.

One minute would be sufficient for him
to go back in time,

contact his ship and prevent it exploding.

He wouldn't then be splintered in time
and all history would be changed.

We must do something to stop him.

-I've got an idea.
-What?

We'll ask Duggan.

-Duggan.
-Right, stand back again.

You now see me as I truly am.

Very pretty.

And you will see the culmination of my lives' work.

How very fulfilling for you.

For thousands upon thousands of years,

my various splintered selves
have been working for this moment.

And now, with the aid of this device,
so kindly supplied by the young lady,

I shall be able to make this equipment
into a fully operational machine.

I'm well aware of the limitations
you have built into it, my dear.

They will not affect the outcome.

I shall return to my spaceship
the moment before it exploded

and stop myself from pressing the button.

You will not be able to read
the settings on the dial, Doctor,

they will explode as soon as activated.

Goodbye, Doctor.

Well, that's got rid of that then.

-I need a drink!
-What? We're going on a journey.

-Where to?
-400 million years ago.

-Where?
-Just don't ask. Come on.

We haven't got the time
or place coordinates, Doctor.

The Jagaroth will leave a faint trace
through time.

But we can only follow it
if we get to the Tardis in minutes.

Mad! Mad! They are absolutely mad.

Is no one interested in history? Hm?

To me, one of the most curious things
about this piece is its wonderful afunctionalism.

Yes, I see what you mean.

Divorced from its function
and seen purely as a piece of art,

its structure of line and colour
is curiously counterpointed

by the redundant vestiges of its function.

And since it has no call to be here,
the art lies in the fact that it is here.

Exquisite.

Absolutely exquisite.

-Where are we?
-This will be the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

-We're standing on land.
-He's out of his depth.

Duggan, we are where I promised we would be,
400 million years back in Earth history.

-I can see why the Jagaroth wanted to leave.
-Yes.

-But where's the Count?
-He'll be here.

Ah.

There's the Jagaroth's ship.

The last of the Jagaroth,
a vicious, callous, war-like race.

The universe won't miss them.

-You can see why it must have exploded.
-Yes.

Its atmospheric thrust motors are disabled.
The idiots will try to take off on warp drive.

That's a spaceship!

The amniotic fluid from which
all life on Earth will spring,

where the amino acids fuse to form minute cells.

Cells which eventually evolve
into vegetable and animal life.

You, Duggan.

-I come from that, that soup?
-Yes, well not that soup exactly.

It's inert, there's no life in it yet.
It's waiting on a massive dose of radiation.

-The Jagaroth ship?
-Yes.

The explosion that caused Scarlioni
to splinter in time

also caused the birth of the human race
and that's what's about to happen,

the birth of life itself.

-Here, while we watch?
-No, no,

if we were watching we'd be in dead trouble.
We've got to stop Scaroth.

-Scaroth?
-Yes, that's his real name.

If we don't stop him, the entire human race
will cease to exist instantly.

Doctor.

Stop! Stop my brothers.

In the names of the lives of all of us, stop.

-Scaroth, we've got to stop him.
-Keep out of my way.

-I must get to the ship.
-No, Scaroth, you can't!

I'm in that ship. I'm in the warp control cabin.
I must stop myself pressing the button.

No, Scaroth, no. You've pressed it once.

You've thrown the dice once,
you don't get a second throw.

But I will splinter in time again,
and all of my people will be killed.

No, the explosion, that you in there,
are about to trigger off

will give birth to the human race.

The moment your race kills itself, another is born.

That has happened, it will happen.

What do I care of the human race?
Scum! The tools of my salvation.

No, the product of your destruction!
History cannot change. It cannot!

I will change it!

Duggan! Duggan.

I think that was possibly the most
important punch in history.

His time's up. He's gone back to the ch?teau.

Let's get back to the Tardis.

The ship! It's about to take off.

It's about to explode, you mean.
Come on!

No, Hermann, no, it's me!

The one nearest the wall?

It was the only one that
wasn't damaged in the fire.

But it's a fake.

-You can't hang a fake Mona Lisa in the Louvre.
-How can it be a fake if Leonardo painted it?

With the words, ''This is a fake'',
written under the paintwork in felt tip.

It doesn't affect what it looks like.

-It doesn't matter what it looks like.
-Doesn't it?

Well, some people would say
that's the whole point of painting.

-But they'll find out. They'll X-ray it.
-Serves them right.

If they have to X-ray it
to find out whether it's good or not,

they might as well have painting by computer.

-Like we have at home.
-Hm.

Home? Yes.

Where do you two come from?

From? Well, I suppose the best way
to find out where you come from

is to find out where you are going
and then work backwards.

Where are you going?

I don't know.

Nor do I.

Goodbye.

Bye-bye, Duggan!