Story 250: Mummy on the Orient Express

 

In which the Doctor takes Clara on her final trip in the TARDIS...

Following the Doctor's recent behaviour, when he abandoned her and schoolgirl Courtney Woods on the Moon, Clara has notified him that she no longer wishes to travel with him. She does agree, however, to one final special voyage. This takes them both to the Orient Express. This is not the famous luxurious terrestrial train, however, but a spaceship based upon it.

Shortly before they arrive an elderly lady named Mrs Pitt dies when she is confronted at dinner by a decomposing mummified figure. The bizarre thing is that no-one else sees it. It took 66 seconds between first seeing it and her dying.

The TARDIS materialises in the baggage car and the Doctor and Clara make their way to the dining car. As he talks knowledgeably about a planet which no longer exists he is suddenly challenged by a distraught young lady, who accuses him of lying. The train's captain, Quell, intervenes - apologising to the Doctor by explaining that this is Mrs Pitt's granddaughter Maisie, and she is still in shock after her relative's sudden death. He mentions the old woman's claim about having seen a Mummy.

Quell wants to know who they are, and the Doctor uses his psychic paper to claim they are mystery shoppers.

The death and the mention of a Mummy pique the Doctor's interest, and he decides to investigate. Clara is in her cabin phoning Danny Pink to tell him about this being her last trip in the TARDIS, so the Doctor elects not to invite her along as he makes for the engine room where Mrs Pitt's life support cum wheelchair has been stored. Here he encounters the train's engineer, Perkins. He has also been intrigued by the death, and has started his own investigations. After some initial distrust of each other, the two decide to combine their efforts. Clara decides to go and see the Doctor but spots Maisie in the corridor. She decides to follow her and is lead to the baggage car. Maisie wants to see the body of her grandmother. She confesses that the old lady was really her mother. The door is locked and the computer, which identifies itself as Gus, states that they cannot enter without official permission. Maisie smashes the lock with her shoe and they both enter the car. Clara notices a large sarcophagus...

The Doctor tracks down one of the passengers - Professor Emile Moorhouse - who is an expert on alien mythology. He wants to ask him what he knows about the legend of the Foretold. This creature is supposed to look like a Mummy, can only be seen by its victims, and kills in exactly 66 seconds from first appearance. As they talk, the Mummy appears to one of the kitchen staff. Locking himself in the freezer room does not help, and he dies 66 seconds later.

Quell lets the Doctor know that he does not believe the story about mystery shoppers, but he is prepared to let him try and help if he can. The Doctor learns that the captain had been a soldier, but had suffered from post-traumatic stress and so had taken on this civilian job instead, expecting a quieter life.

Clara phones the Doctor and tells him that she and Maisie are trapped in the baggage car, where they have found the sarcophagus. The Doctor goes there but cannot get in. He finds that the TARDIS has also been surrounded by a force-field. As he tries to break in, the sarcophagus activates and begins to open. It is empty, however, and high tech in nature.

The Mummy attacks once more, killing one of the guards. The computer suddenly takes control of the train. Many of the passengers turn out to be holograms, and the dining room is really a well equipped laboratory. Present is a tattered old pennant covered in an unknown alien language. Gus announces that everyone still present has been brought here to investigate the Foretold. It always appears wherever the pennant is held. Communications are banned and, when the Doctor uses his phone to try to speak to Clara, Gus has the kitchen staff killed - ejected into space. The Doctor realises that they will have to wait for the Mummy to kill again if they want to learn anything. The next victim proves to be Moorhouse. Quell dies next. With the help of Perkins, the Doctor begins to work out what is happening. The Foretold is killing the weakest people present. Quell had PTSD and the others had long term health issues or had undergone major surgery such as a heart or lung transplant. Mrs Pitt had only been kept alive by the life support unit in her chair. 

This is a military tactic - pick off your enemies one by one, starting with the weakest. The next victim is going to be Maisie, as emotional health issues are considered as equal to physical health problems. Realising he cannot rely on second hand information about the Foretold, the Doctor makes a mental link with Maisie and takes on her grief - causing the Mummy to switch its attack to him. With 66 seconds to live, he must finally work out what the Foretold is. The presence of the pennant is his final clue. It is a flag, and the Foretold is a soldier.

Pleading for your life has never worked with the creature, so the Doctor suddenly announces that he is surrendering. This stops it - its war now over. The Mummy is the animated remains of an ancient soldier, with life-prolonging technology built into its body. This operates out of phase with the rest of its environment by 66 seconds. Gus had wanted to capture it and secure it in the sarcophagus, so that its weaponry could be later reverse-engineered to make new weapons. The Doctor removes the tech and it crumbles to dust. 

Deprived of its goal, Gus decides to kill everyone by blowing up the train, but the Doctor is able to get the survivors into the TARDIS, dropping them off at a nearby planet.

After Perkins has had a look around the TARDIS, and declined a job as its engineer, Clara makes the decision that she is not yet ready to give up travelling with the Doctor - but she is going to keep this hidden from Danny...

Mummy on the Orient Express was written by Jamie Mathieson, and was first broadcast on Saturday 11th October 2014. 

This is the first of two consecutive stories from the writer, though Flatline was actually written first.

The basic premise of the story derives from a throwaway line at the conclusion of The Big Bang. The Doctor had received a phone call in the TARDIS, asking him to help deal with an ancient Egyptian goddess running amok on the Orient Express, in space. The Foretold here is not an ancient Egyptian goddess, but the Doctor in this story does claim that that earlier phone call was from Gus, attempting to lure him onto this train.

It was Mathieson who decided to link it to the 1934 Agatha Christie novel Murder on the Orient Express, which gave us the title. He did not know that the Doctor and Clara had just suffered a falling out when he wrote his initial draft.

Mummies had featured in the series before - particularly in Pyramids of Mars. There the Mummies were bandage-covered service robots. The body shape of those costumes did not make them look like reanimated corpses, though they were designed to try to look that way. Another Mummy figure had featured in The Rings of Akhaten. The Foretold is much more horrific in appearance, like something out of a horror film - although it is also more realistic.

Early drafts had the Express visiting the Seven Wonders of the Universe.

Unusually, the 66 second countdown appears on screen for the audience's convenience. Subtitles of any kind are very rare in the series (featuring in only two episodes of the classic series, for instance).

There is an excellent guest cast. 

Playing Perkins is the comic and presenter Frank Skinner, who is a huge Doctor Who fan. He recently fronted a tribute documentary about the late Terrance Dicks on the Season 8 Blu-ray box set. He had also featured in The Five(ish) Doctor Reboot in 2013.

Quell is character actor David Bamber, who was notable as Cicero in the TV series Rome.

Maisie is played by Daisy Beaumont.

Two of the cast have appeared in Doctor Who before. As Mrs Pitt we have Janet Henfrey, who had played Miss Hardaker in The Curse of Fenric. She recently featured in the spin off video Sil and the Devil Seeds of Ardor.

Portraying Professor Moorhouse is Christopher Villiers, who had played the headstrong Hugh Fitzwilliam in The King's Demons.

Heard but not seen, as the voice of Gus is John Sessions. He had featured in "Death Comes To Time", a Seventh Doctor webcast which ran from 2001 - 2002.

The pop singer Foxes features in a cameo role, entertaining the train passengers with her rendition of the Queen song Don't Stop Me Now.

The Foretold is brought to life by Jamie Hill. He had played a Silent in Series 6, and would go on to play other mummified creatures in the Monk trilogy in Series 10.

No sign of Michelle Gomez this week, but Clara's personal story arc features. She is initially planning to give up travelling with the Doctor and tells Danny this - only to change her mind by the episode end, though she is going to keep this secret from her boyfriend.

Overall, it is a very good story, beautifully designed and well cast, with an impressive looking monster. It topped all the season polls. It is a great shame that Gus was never revisited, despite a perfect opportunity to do so arising in Series 10, by the same writer.

Things you might like to know:

• The BBC were worried that the design of the Mummy might cause this episode to be shown in a much later time slot. It was shown at 8:35pm - the latest start for any Doctor Who episode.
• Mathieson wanted the Foretold to be seen in the trailers, but this was refused.
• The Doctor had been seeing using a yo-yo in the last story, and here he has jelly babies, which he keeps in a cigarette case. This was the first time he had been seen to eat these sweets since the series returned in 2005.
• Mathieson named Perkins for a friend of his who was a train-spotter.
• Frank Skinner claimed that he was watching The Sensorites in his tour bus when he was offered the role of Perkins. He has a TARDIS ring-tone on his phone, and a life size Dalek cut-out in his bedroom.
• A deleted scene at the end of the episode showed Maisie on the alien beach as well as Clara.
• A TARDIS scene appears to have been flipped, as Clara's hair parting changes sides.
• As well as acting in the series, Jamie Hill (the Foretold) was also one of the managers of the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff. His old costume was on show there when I visited in 2016.