Love & Monsters (TV story)

"You have battled with aliens, now meet the genuine article"

- Abzorbaloff

Love & Monsters is the 10th episode of the 2006 series of Doctor Who. It is noted for not featuring the Doctor and Rose much. The episode recieved ratings of 6.66 million.

Synopsis
Elton Pope recounts how a mysterious stranger infiltrated his circle of friends, all of whose lives had been touched by the Doctor...

Plot
A young man approaches the Doctor's TARDIS then finds the Doctor and Rose tackling an alien-looking monster in a warehouse. The Doctor asks the man if they have ever met before, at which he panics and runs.

The young man, Elton Pope, a typical Londoner, narrates his story to us via his video camera. He introduces himself and tells how, when only three or four years old, he came downstairs one night to find a strange man in his house: the Doctor.

After the alien invasion last Christmas day, Elton looks for information on the strange goings on and finds a photo of the Doctor, looking exactly as he did all those years ago. Elton meets Ursula Blake, who posted the photo on her blog and believes his story about the Doctor. Ursula introduces Elton to her group of friends Bliss, Bridget and Mr. Skinner - who have all heard of the Doctor and meet regularly to discuss their findings. Despite the name Elton coins for them (London Investigation 'n' Detective Agency, or LINDA), they soon become more of a social group, helping each other through their problems and enjoying each other's company.

That all changes with the arrival of Victor Kennedy, an evidently wealthy gentleman who doesn't touch people on account of a skin condition, and who also wishes to find the Doctor. He soon takes over LINDA, forcing the members to work harder. Bliss vanishes. Elton manages to track down the Doctor and, as Elton explained, he then panicked and fled.

Victor is furious, but decides to change plans: they will look for Rose. Elton locates Rose's mum Jackie with surprising ease, visiting her often supposedly to do odd jobs but really because Jackie finds him attractive. One night Jackie tries to seduce Elton, but a phone call from Rose brings her to her senses. Elton feels ashamed of using her, realising at the same time that he loves Ursula. When Jackie finds a photo of Rose in Elton's jacket she rounds on him and tells him to leave and says bitterly that no one has any interest in her.

Elton tells Victor he's ruined LINDA and that the three remaining members are leaving, noting that Bridget has gone, just like Bliss. He asks Ursula out to dinner, but Mr. Skinner stays behind as Victor offers to help him find Bridget. Ursula forgets her phone, and when the pair return for it they find Mr. Skinner has disappeared and Victor has transformed into a corpulent green alien - the Abzorbaloff, as Elton names it. The creature had absorbed Bliss, Bridget and Mr. Skinner, who all retain some consciousness within the creature's body it wants to find the Doctor, which it believes will be the ultimate feast.

Ursula is absorbed as well. Elton runs, the creature chasing after him, until the TARDIS appears. Rose has come to confront Elton about his behaviour with her mother, but before the Abzorbaloff can try to consume Elton, the absorbed members of LINDA manage to distract it, Ursula telling Elton to snap its cane. This destroys the limitation field that maintained its integrity, and the Abzorbaloff dissolves into liquid and seeps into the ground along with the people absorbed by it. The Doctor then explains to the distraught Elton that the night they met so long ago he was hunting a living shadow which had escaped its home dimension; he caught it, but not before it had killed Elton's mother.

Elton muses that a meeting the Doctor is fraught with danger, but that he did save Elton one last time: with the sonic screwdriver, he was able to partially restore Ursula, who now exists as an unaging face in one of the paving stones where the Abzorbaloff had melted. The pair have found some happiness despite their ordeal.

Cast

 * The Doctor - David Tennant
 * Rose Tyler - Billie Piper
 * Elton Pope - Marc Warren
 * Ursula Blake - Shirley Anderson
 * Jackie Tyler — Camille Coduri
 * Victor Kennedy — Peter Kay
 * Mr Skinner — Simon Greenall
 * Bridget — Moya Brady
 * Bliss — Kathryn Drysdale
 * The Hoix — Paul Kasey
 * Mrs Croot — Bella Emberg

Trivia

 * Abzorbaloff is from Clom the twin planet of Raxacoricofallapatorius.
 * If you look at the newspaper that the Abzorbaloff is holding the Headline states that Saxon is ahead in the polls, making this the introduction of Mr. Saxon.
 * Abzorbaloff is from a Blue Peter design a monster competition. The boy whose picture Abzorbaloff was based on famously said (upon seeing the final production), "It was meant to be as big as a bus!"
 * The Hoix heavily resembles a Sycorax, leading it to be mistaken for one in the "next time..." trailer.
 * Bella Emberg was to reprise her role as Mrs Croot in The Runaway Bride, but was edited out.

Continuity

 * This episode contains the first ever reference to Mr Saxon. There are also Bad Wolf and Torchwood references making this the only episode to contain all three.
 * Elton was present during the Auton invasion, the spaceship in the Thames, and the spaceship on Christmas Day.
 * The Doctor refers to the living Shadow that killed Elton's mother to be from 'The Howling Halls'. This may be an early reference to the Void, which plays a major part in the series finale. The Doctor later mentions that the Eternals referred to the Void as 'The Howling'. Hence, The Howling Halls and the Howling may be the same thing: The Void.

DVD Releases

 * Released as part of a vanilla along with The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit. Also included on the Complete Second Series DVD.