Doctor Who Confidential (2005–2011): Season 2, Episode 9 - Myths and Legends - full transcript
GATISS: He's seen off some
determined creatures in this series so far.
(GROWLING)
But this time, the Doctor
is going to hell and back
to see off a terrifying enemy
who challenges his own beliefs.
It's nice when you've got a character
that's a bit of a know-it-all...
I'm very good.
...to every now and again
throw him a curve ball.
It's fears of the dark.
Fears of the devil.
It's terrifying.
Open fire!
Here we go, then.
Action.
It's a very action-packed episode.
STRONG: The set was designed
so we could elevate it.
So, literally, they could feel the
weight of gravity, if you like, on them.
MAN: Clear.
STRONG: And when we shake it, they actually...
It feels like it's got movement to it.
It was great, actually, for the
performances because it was claustrophobic,
it was nasty, you couldn't move about.
It was... It felt a threatening space.
And we're all kind of doing
this, kind of, shaky-chair acting,
and pretending that
we're kind of taking off.
Yeah, it was good fun.
Don't get to sit in the driver's seat,
I was a bit upset about
that, but never mind.
I'm getting to fly a spaceship.
I'm on a planet that's being dragged
towards some black hole.
Lift-off!
(WHOOPING)
I'm gonna have to do
a lot of hyperventilating acting.
Um, lots of Kirk acting,
lots of Star Trek acting.
I've always wanted to do that.
I'm not gonna be in a Star Wars
and I missed being a hobbit,
so this is the next best thing.
-I am the rage and the bile and the ferocity!
-It's Toby!
I am the prince and the fool and the agony!
I'm the sin and the fear and the darkness!
The ship's not stable.
What is he? What the hell is he?
Rose is trapped in a spaceship
with four crew and this completely...
This crazed man.
I shall never die! The
thought of me is forever.
In the bleeding hearts of men,
in their vanity and obsession and lust!
Nothing shall ever destroy me. Nothing.
Go to hell
I worked out a system where I can kinda rehearse
where I stand and look through the window.
We've still lost the gravity funnel.
We can't escape the black hole.
Because we've got to read in bits and bobs,
we kind of, by accident, worked out a system
where I can actually hear what
they're saying, 'cause of the mikes,
and then talk to them through a lip mike.
The first human beings
to fall inside a black hole.
How about that? History.
Shaking gets worse.
It's getting really bad.
Going in.
And calm.
What happened?
We're turning.
We're turning around.
We're turning away.
(STATIC BUZZING)
Sorry about the hijack, Captain.
This is the good ship Tardis.
-DOCTOR: First things first...
-Have you got a Rose Tyler on board?
I'm here! It's me! Oh,
my God! Where are you?
DOCTOR: I'm just towing you home.
His kind of default mechanism is to believe
that everything has a scientific explanation.
If that thing had said it came
from beyond the universe, I'd believe it.
But before the universe?
Impossible.
I think he believes in what he can see and
what he can understand and what is tangible.
That's partly why I
wanted to do The Satan Pit.
It was to take a rational man
and to challenge his beliefs.
What did "before time" mean?
Before time and light and space and matter.
Before the cataclysm.
Before this universe was created.
That's impossible.
No life could have existed back then.
Is that your religion?
It's a belief.
The best thing you can do with the Doctor,
and the best thing you can do with an
actor like David Tennant, to be honest,
is to keep pushing the character.
To put him in areas where he's not comfortable
and to find out how the Doctor survives,
'cause the doctor under pressure
is always the finest doctor of all.
If you are the Beast, then answer me this.
Which one, hmm?
'Cause the universe has been busy
since you've been gone.
There's more religions
than there are planets in the sky.
You start to see a Doctor that I think
is wondering
whether or not this is something so intangible,
this is something that he can't understand,
and, therefore, how can you defeat
something you cannot understand?
This one knows me as I know him.
TENNANT: Because he usually is the man
with all the answers
to even entertain the fact
that there might be something other...
It unsettles him to have to
even confront those issues, I think.
And I think, generally,
he avoids doing that.
Have I got to...
I don't know, beg an audience or...
Is there a ritual?
Some sort of incantation
or summons or spell?
All these things I don't
believe in, are they real?
He gets down in that pit and there does seem
to be something beyond his understanding,
something that is from beyond time,
which he spent the last two episodes
denying is possible.
I don't have to accept what you are. But
your physical existence, I give you that.
So, it shakes him and it worries him
and he doesn't find an explanation,
and in the end he
chooses to not understand.
Never did decipher that writing.
But that's good.
The day I know everything,
I might as well stop.
I wanted CGI for this
devil to give it a scale,
to give it a...an inhumanity,
to give it, you know, a mouth that
you couldn't possibly make on a prosthetic.
One of the things we need to see
is the size of this beast
which is gonna be, you
know, tower-block size.
In order to see that,
we have to film it from the correct angles.
We will shrink those shots down
and make them a lot wider and bigger shots
into which we'll put this creature.
At the end of The Satan Pit.
when the devil is facing the Doctor,
actually, he's an ordinary old Time Lord
without his Tardis
and there's nothing more important
than the love of his best friend.
When he refers to his relationship with Rose,
that's something very tangible, very real,
and something that he absolutely
will always believe in.
If I believe in one thing, just one thing,
I believe in her.
We never find out if this
was a devil or the Devil,
or just a big beast, we don't know.
It's really thought-provoking
'cause it makes you think, you know,
what do I believe, what's my religion?
On one level, it's a base on a planet
with a big monster living under it.
On another level, it's humanity's struggle
against good and evil.
We've got enormous, great,
big science-fiction spectacles to come,
especially episodes 12 and 13.
So actually The Satan Pit is a little pause,
a little chance to focus on the Doctor.
Especially on the Doctor for once,
and say, "What do you believe?"
Before the real hell is let loose
by the end of the series.
determined creatures in this series so far.
(GROWLING)
But this time, the Doctor
is going to hell and back
to see off a terrifying enemy
who challenges his own beliefs.
It's nice when you've got a character
that's a bit of a know-it-all...
I'm very good.
...to every now and again
throw him a curve ball.
It's fears of the dark.
Fears of the devil.
It's terrifying.
Open fire!
Here we go, then.
Action.
It's a very action-packed episode.
STRONG: The set was designed
so we could elevate it.
So, literally, they could feel the
weight of gravity, if you like, on them.
MAN: Clear.
STRONG: And when we shake it, they actually...
It feels like it's got movement to it.
It was great, actually, for the
performances because it was claustrophobic,
it was nasty, you couldn't move about.
It was... It felt a threatening space.
And we're all kind of doing
this, kind of, shaky-chair acting,
and pretending that
we're kind of taking off.
Yeah, it was good fun.
Don't get to sit in the driver's seat,
I was a bit upset about
that, but never mind.
I'm getting to fly a spaceship.
I'm on a planet that's being dragged
towards some black hole.
Lift-off!
(WHOOPING)
I'm gonna have to do
a lot of hyperventilating acting.
Um, lots of Kirk acting,
lots of Star Trek acting.
I've always wanted to do that.
I'm not gonna be in a Star Wars
and I missed being a hobbit,
so this is the next best thing.
-I am the rage and the bile and the ferocity!
-It's Toby!
I am the prince and the fool and the agony!
I'm the sin and the fear and the darkness!
The ship's not stable.
What is he? What the hell is he?
Rose is trapped in a spaceship
with four crew and this completely...
This crazed man.
I shall never die! The
thought of me is forever.
In the bleeding hearts of men,
in their vanity and obsession and lust!
Nothing shall ever destroy me. Nothing.
Go to hell
I worked out a system where I can kinda rehearse
where I stand and look through the window.
We've still lost the gravity funnel.
We can't escape the black hole.
Because we've got to read in bits and bobs,
we kind of, by accident, worked out a system
where I can actually hear what
they're saying, 'cause of the mikes,
and then talk to them through a lip mike.
The first human beings
to fall inside a black hole.
How about that? History.
Shaking gets worse.
It's getting really bad.
Going in.
And calm.
What happened?
We're turning.
We're turning around.
We're turning away.
(STATIC BUZZING)
Sorry about the hijack, Captain.
This is the good ship Tardis.
-DOCTOR: First things first...
-Have you got a Rose Tyler on board?
I'm here! It's me! Oh,
my God! Where are you?
DOCTOR: I'm just towing you home.
His kind of default mechanism is to believe
that everything has a scientific explanation.
If that thing had said it came
from beyond the universe, I'd believe it.
But before the universe?
Impossible.
I think he believes in what he can see and
what he can understand and what is tangible.
That's partly why I
wanted to do The Satan Pit.
It was to take a rational man
and to challenge his beliefs.
What did "before time" mean?
Before time and light and space and matter.
Before the cataclysm.
Before this universe was created.
That's impossible.
No life could have existed back then.
Is that your religion?
It's a belief.
The best thing you can do with the Doctor,
and the best thing you can do with an
actor like David Tennant, to be honest,
is to keep pushing the character.
To put him in areas where he's not comfortable
and to find out how the Doctor survives,
'cause the doctor under pressure
is always the finest doctor of all.
If you are the Beast, then answer me this.
Which one, hmm?
'Cause the universe has been busy
since you've been gone.
There's more religions
than there are planets in the sky.
You start to see a Doctor that I think
is wondering
whether or not this is something so intangible,
this is something that he can't understand,
and, therefore, how can you defeat
something you cannot understand?
This one knows me as I know him.
TENNANT: Because he usually is the man
with all the answers
to even entertain the fact
that there might be something other...
It unsettles him to have to
even confront those issues, I think.
And I think, generally,
he avoids doing that.
Have I got to...
I don't know, beg an audience or...
Is there a ritual?
Some sort of incantation
or summons or spell?
All these things I don't
believe in, are they real?
He gets down in that pit and there does seem
to be something beyond his understanding,
something that is from beyond time,
which he spent the last two episodes
denying is possible.
I don't have to accept what you are. But
your physical existence, I give you that.
So, it shakes him and it worries him
and he doesn't find an explanation,
and in the end he
chooses to not understand.
Never did decipher that writing.
But that's good.
The day I know everything,
I might as well stop.
I wanted CGI for this
devil to give it a scale,
to give it a...an inhumanity,
to give it, you know, a mouth that
you couldn't possibly make on a prosthetic.
One of the things we need to see
is the size of this beast
which is gonna be, you
know, tower-block size.
In order to see that,
we have to film it from the correct angles.
We will shrink those shots down
and make them a lot wider and bigger shots
into which we'll put this creature.
At the end of The Satan Pit.
when the devil is facing the Doctor,
actually, he's an ordinary old Time Lord
without his Tardis
and there's nothing more important
than the love of his best friend.
When he refers to his relationship with Rose,
that's something very tangible, very real,
and something that he absolutely
will always believe in.
If I believe in one thing, just one thing,
I believe in her.
We never find out if this
was a devil or the Devil,
or just a big beast, we don't know.
It's really thought-provoking
'cause it makes you think, you know,
what do I believe, what's my religion?
On one level, it's a base on a planet
with a big monster living under it.
On another level, it's humanity's struggle
against good and evil.
We've got enormous, great,
big science-fiction spectacles to come,
especially episodes 12 and 13.
So actually The Satan Pit is a little pause,
a little chance to focus on the Doctor.
Especially on the Doctor for once,
and say, "What do you believe?"
Before the real hell is let loose
by the end of the series.