Doctor Who Confidential (2005–2011): Season 6, Episode 11 - Heartbreak Hotel - full transcript
This is Matt Smith,
Confidential Primetime.
-You're tuning in to...
-Cool!
...Confidential on BBC Three.
It's all set in a creepy hotel.
A Doctor Who story set in a hotel,
with lots and lots of corridors
and doors.
That struck me as very Doctor Who.
It is disturbing
and scary...
Such a good monster.
(GROWLING)
We've all got to face some big fears.
NARRATOR: Check in with Confidential,
as we reserve you a room with a view
of all the backstage action.
NARRATOR: February 2011,
and the Doctor Who team gather for
the script read-through for Episode 11.
Right, everybody, welcome to
Toby Whithouse's "God Complex".
This is dynamite.
I shall be reading out
stage directions very, very fast.
"It looks like a perfectly ordinary
hotel corridor,
"doors on either side,
"some with shoes
placed neatly outside for polishing.
"We follow the back of a woman,
Lucy Miller,"
"as she plods along the corridor.
She wears a police uniform."
"She steps outside a random door,
opens it, peers into the bedroom."
When I'm stuck alone in a hotel
I always think it's a bit creepy
and a bit strange,
and you can get lost so easily.
Well, I can, anyway.
So, I suggested that to Toby.
For some reason, there's a hotel,
the corridors shift around
and what can you do with that?
"You were surprised to be
back in reception."
"You said you'd walked
in the opposite direction."
The walls move, everything changes.
You, clever one,
what's he talking about?
The hotel in "The God Complex"
is a sophisticated prison
that's going around kind of
plucking up sacrifices and tributes.
NARRATOR: But this is a hotel
you definitely wouldn't want to stay at.
Finding your room isn't a problem,
but finding your way out might be.
WHITHOUSE: The hotel is
essentially a maze.
And it struck me that, obviously,
you want a threat.
You want some kind of monster,
some kind of creature.
What creature would you have in a maze?
And it struck me as
the most logical thing to have in a maze
would be a Minotaur.
(GROWLING)
I'd like to see
Spencer walk in that corner.
Walk which corner?
You know, the route that he would take
to get...
Okay, so just coming in first, Spencer,
stopping in the middle and then
going out towards that door.
DIRECTOR: Okay, shh, shh...
Three, two, one, action!
Amy!
-What are you doing?
-Oh, he's beautiful.
MAN 1: Cut, cut!
MAN 2: Very good. Thank you, Spencer.
It was a Scottish monster, 'cause
it was wearing a kilt and a sporran.
It totally was.
The Minotaur in "The God Complex"
is a god of a civilisation
who, as the people
have become more secular
and more religiously apathetic,
the god has become redundant.
And so they deposited this god
into a very complex prison.
They're not doors, they're walls.
Walls that look... They're not doors.
I mean, the windows are... Right.
The prison travels around through space,
plucking people from different planets,
different civilisations,
who have a very strong belief system.
You're a Muslim!
Don't be frightened.
This faith is
what actually feeds the creature.
And it will take these people,
pop them into this environment,
and generally frighten them.
NARRATOR:
Filming the biggest fear scene
called for the Doctor Who team
to turn a few heads
and try their hands
at some creepy puppetry.
We wanted a big kind of bold
visual image.
And so, we walk in and there's this
whole gaggle of ventriloquist dummies.
There is something very macabre
about ventriloquist dummies.
And so, we had this idea they'd walk in
and there was a whole room of them.
One wasn't enough,
you want a whole room of them,
you want them surrounding you.
NARRATOR: With a room full of dummies,
extra pairs of hands were needed
to help handle them all.
Obviously, because we've got
so many dummies to operate,
we've had several people coming in,
all lending a hand.
We've had our production manager
laying on the floor operating dummies.
We've had several of the runners in
doing some dummies, the rigger,
lots of people have been
lending a hand today.
(LAUGHING)
We've basically been trying to
make them, like, talk and interact,
turning their heads, trying to, like,
just put in some movements,
make it look like they're talking
to each other.
And then that kind of
creepy turn of the head,
which really, really makes them feel
quite unnatural and quite unnerving.
(DUMMIES LAUGHING)
All the way through, the creature
has wanted nothing more
than its own death.
MOFFAT: “The Doctor creeps out of
the bedroom.
"The Minotaur is stumbling away
down the corridor,"
"his back to the Doctor."
"The Minotaur's legs give way
and it falls to the floor with a crash."
DIRECTOR: Doctor.
Flicker.
Lighting.
MOFFAT: "It lays there,
its breath all wheeze and rumble."
"The Doctor looks down
at the dying Minotaur."
"There's no sense of victory,
no triumph."
"I severed the food supply
I gave you the space to die."
By severing the food supply
at that moment,
it allows the creature to withdraw,
because the creature
is a creature of instinct.
And so, even though it's yearning
for this thing,
yearning for its own oblivion,
every time it's offered more food,
it can't help it, you know,
it has to just go and feed.
Shh. Shh.
MOFFAT: “There's a clanking sound,
like generators shutting down.
"The entire hotel starts to flicker off."
"Amy joins the Doctor,
they look down at the creature."
"What is it, a Minotaur or an alien?"
(SOFT GROWLING)
MOFFAT: “The creature is speaking,
the Doctor and Amy hurry over.”
The line where the creature says,
"An ancient creature,
drenched in the blood of the innocent."
"Drifting through space,"
"in an ever-shifting maze."
"For such a creature..."
"...death would be a gift."
That was the first line of dialogue
I wrote for the whole episode,
because it felt as though
there was this bizarre similarity
between the creature,
who constantly sort of
uses people up and consumes people,
and also trapped in this
bizarre labyrinth going through space,
and the echoes between that
and the Doctor and the Tardis
felt so kind of obvious.
Then accept it.
And sleep well.
It's like the creature
has held up a mirror to the Doctor
so that he can see the comparison
between his life and the Minotaur's.
"I wasn't talking about myself."
It quickly transpires,
to the Doctor's chilling horror,
that the Minotaur
was actually talking about him.
And of course, since we know the Doctor
is two episodes from death,
that hits close to him.
Confidential Primetime.
-You're tuning in to...
-Cool!
...Confidential on BBC Three.
It's all set in a creepy hotel.
A Doctor Who story set in a hotel,
with lots and lots of corridors
and doors.
That struck me as very Doctor Who.
It is disturbing
and scary...
Such a good monster.
(GROWLING)
We've all got to face some big fears.
NARRATOR: Check in with Confidential,
as we reserve you a room with a view
of all the backstage action.
NARRATOR: February 2011,
and the Doctor Who team gather for
the script read-through for Episode 11.
Right, everybody, welcome to
Toby Whithouse's "God Complex".
This is dynamite.
I shall be reading out
stage directions very, very fast.
"It looks like a perfectly ordinary
hotel corridor,
"doors on either side,
"some with shoes
placed neatly outside for polishing.
"We follow the back of a woman,
Lucy Miller,"
"as she plods along the corridor.
She wears a police uniform."
"She steps outside a random door,
opens it, peers into the bedroom."
When I'm stuck alone in a hotel
I always think it's a bit creepy
and a bit strange,
and you can get lost so easily.
Well, I can, anyway.
So, I suggested that to Toby.
For some reason, there's a hotel,
the corridors shift around
and what can you do with that?
"You were surprised to be
back in reception."
"You said you'd walked
in the opposite direction."
The walls move, everything changes.
You, clever one,
what's he talking about?
The hotel in "The God Complex"
is a sophisticated prison
that's going around kind of
plucking up sacrifices and tributes.
NARRATOR: But this is a hotel
you definitely wouldn't want to stay at.
Finding your room isn't a problem,
but finding your way out might be.
WHITHOUSE: The hotel is
essentially a maze.
And it struck me that, obviously,
you want a threat.
You want some kind of monster,
some kind of creature.
What creature would you have in a maze?
And it struck me as
the most logical thing to have in a maze
would be a Minotaur.
(GROWLING)
I'd like to see
Spencer walk in that corner.
Walk which corner?
You know, the route that he would take
to get...
Okay, so just coming in first, Spencer,
stopping in the middle and then
going out towards that door.
DIRECTOR: Okay, shh, shh...
Three, two, one, action!
Amy!
-What are you doing?
-Oh, he's beautiful.
MAN 1: Cut, cut!
MAN 2: Very good. Thank you, Spencer.
It was a Scottish monster, 'cause
it was wearing a kilt and a sporran.
It totally was.
The Minotaur in "The God Complex"
is a god of a civilisation
who, as the people
have become more secular
and more religiously apathetic,
the god has become redundant.
And so they deposited this god
into a very complex prison.
They're not doors, they're walls.
Walls that look... They're not doors.
I mean, the windows are... Right.
The prison travels around through space,
plucking people from different planets,
different civilisations,
who have a very strong belief system.
You're a Muslim!
Don't be frightened.
This faith is
what actually feeds the creature.
And it will take these people,
pop them into this environment,
and generally frighten them.
NARRATOR:
Filming the biggest fear scene
called for the Doctor Who team
to turn a few heads
and try their hands
at some creepy puppetry.
We wanted a big kind of bold
visual image.
And so, we walk in and there's this
whole gaggle of ventriloquist dummies.
There is something very macabre
about ventriloquist dummies.
And so, we had this idea they'd walk in
and there was a whole room of them.
One wasn't enough,
you want a whole room of them,
you want them surrounding you.
NARRATOR: With a room full of dummies,
extra pairs of hands were needed
to help handle them all.
Obviously, because we've got
so many dummies to operate,
we've had several people coming in,
all lending a hand.
We've had our production manager
laying on the floor operating dummies.
We've had several of the runners in
doing some dummies, the rigger,
lots of people have been
lending a hand today.
(LAUGHING)
We've basically been trying to
make them, like, talk and interact,
turning their heads, trying to, like,
just put in some movements,
make it look like they're talking
to each other.
And then that kind of
creepy turn of the head,
which really, really makes them feel
quite unnatural and quite unnerving.
(DUMMIES LAUGHING)
All the way through, the creature
has wanted nothing more
than its own death.
MOFFAT: “The Doctor creeps out of
the bedroom.
"The Minotaur is stumbling away
down the corridor,"
"his back to the Doctor."
"The Minotaur's legs give way
and it falls to the floor with a crash."
DIRECTOR: Doctor.
Flicker.
Lighting.
MOFFAT: "It lays there,
its breath all wheeze and rumble."
"The Doctor looks down
at the dying Minotaur."
"There's no sense of victory,
no triumph."
"I severed the food supply
I gave you the space to die."
By severing the food supply
at that moment,
it allows the creature to withdraw,
because the creature
is a creature of instinct.
And so, even though it's yearning
for this thing,
yearning for its own oblivion,
every time it's offered more food,
it can't help it, you know,
it has to just go and feed.
Shh. Shh.
MOFFAT: “There's a clanking sound,
like generators shutting down.
"The entire hotel starts to flicker off."
"Amy joins the Doctor,
they look down at the creature."
"What is it, a Minotaur or an alien?"
(SOFT GROWLING)
MOFFAT: “The creature is speaking,
the Doctor and Amy hurry over.”
The line where the creature says,
"An ancient creature,
drenched in the blood of the innocent."
"Drifting through space,"
"in an ever-shifting maze."
"For such a creature..."
"...death would be a gift."
That was the first line of dialogue
I wrote for the whole episode,
because it felt as though
there was this bizarre similarity
between the creature,
who constantly sort of
uses people up and consumes people,
and also trapped in this
bizarre labyrinth going through space,
and the echoes between that
and the Doctor and the Tardis
felt so kind of obvious.
Then accept it.
And sleep well.
It's like the creature
has held up a mirror to the Doctor
so that he can see the comparison
between his life and the Minotaur's.
"I wasn't talking about myself."
It quickly transpires,
to the Doctor's chilling horror,
that the Minotaur
was actually talking about him.
And of course, since we know the Doctor
is two episodes from death,
that hits close to him.