Love & Monsters (TV story)

"You have dabbled in aliens, now meet the genuine article!"

- Abzorbaloff

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

Plot
An awestruck young man approaches sheepishly the 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 away.

The young man, a typical Londoner, introduces himself as Elton 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. Elton had gotten up in the massacre by the Autons and a year later watched as an alien ship crashed into Big Ben. Following another 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 "My Invasion 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 ran away. 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. Mr. Skinner wonders where he is and the Abzorbaloff reveals he's absorbed him. Mr. Skinner is now in its belly. Bridget has been absorbed to on his back. Elton wonders where Bliss is. Bliss then mumbles. The Abzorbaloff lifts itself up and as he farts Bliss tells them they don't want to know as she is squashed back on the chair. It makes hideous rumbling sounds. It wants to find the Doctor, which it believes will be the ultimate feast.

Ursula grabs the Abzorbaloff's cane and threatens to beat him with it unless he returns the LINDA members to their former states. The Abzorbaloff seems genuinely terrified by this thought and begs for mercy, which causes Ursula to hesitate; a decision which proves fatal as the Abzorbaloff grabs hold of her arm. A single touch is all that is needed for a victim to be absorbed, and Elton watches in horror as Ursula is gradually fused into the Absorbaloff's body, with her face ending up on his chest. Elton begs for Ursula to be returned, but the Abzorbaloff reveals that her original form is gone forever, and taunts Elton about the feelings Ursula had for him, which the Abzorbaloff now has access to. Likewise, Ursula can also access the Abzorbaloff's thoughts, and yells for Elton to flee, as he's next to be absorbed.

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, and Elton comments that he now knows the meaning of Stephen King's quote "salvation and damnation are the same". However he ends on a positive note, saying that the world isn't all it seems - it is better.

Cast

 * Elton Pope - Marc Warren
 * The Doctor - David Tennant
 * Rose Tyler - Billie Piper
 * Ursula Blake - Shirley Henderson
 * 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
 * Auton - Natalie Danks-Smith (uncredited; archival footage)
 * Elton John - Himself (uncredited; archival footage)

Story Notes

 * The working title for this episode was "I Love The Doctor" and was created as a comic strip.
 * 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!"
 * Bella Emberg was to reprise her role as Mrs Croot in The Runaway Bride, but was edited out.
 * This episode contains each of the first four series' story arcs: Bad Wolf, Torchwood, Mr. Saxon and a (soon to be) missing planet (Clom).
 * Clom would also later be revealed as one of the the Missing Planets. (DW: The Stolen Earth), but this was not revealed in this episode.
 * There are references to Rose, Aliens of London and The Christmas Invasion, with new footage showing Elton's point of view of those events.
 * This is the first attempt at a 'Doctor-lite' episode; in these episodes, the Doctor's appearances are restricted to only a few select scenes, in order to allow two episodes of the series to be filmed at the same time; this scheduling was introduced with the 2006 season in order to allow production of a 14th episode, a Christmas special, in the same time it takes to produce 13 regular episodes. This would become an annual tradition henceforth.

Ratings
to be added

Myths and Rumours

 * The Hoix heavily resembled a Sycorax, leading it to be mistaken for one in the "next time..." trailer.
 * Mrs Croot could be the mother of Billy Croot, who Jackie said had asked her out in Aliens of London.

Filming Locations
to be added

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

 * Elton says that he saw the Doctor in his house when he was a child, but he couldn't have recognized him, since the Doctor regenerated not that long ago. The trip was after the regeneration, and Rose was somewhere else at the time. Possibly just after the events of Attack of the Graske. The TARDIS is a time machine.
 * How come the Doctor recognises Elton, even though he last saw him as little more than a kid? Elton would have changed a lot since then, having gone through puberty and countless haircuts. Jackie explained what Elton looked like, as could be told by the fact that Rose went straight to Elton. Additionally, the Doctor does not only recognize people through physical appearance.
 * When Bridget is shown there is another face next to her, but when the Abzorbaloff gets out his chair there is a shot where you can see his back, and only the other face is there, Bridget is missing. You have assumed that once the people are absorbed, they are then displayed at a fixed position on the Abzorbaloff's body. This may not be the case.
 * How can the Abzorbaloff get secret Torchwood files if they are heavily guarded. Well, we don't know an awful lot about the Abzorbaloff's technology from his home planet: he could have used several weapons or 'spy gadgets' such as knock out gas. Or something more complex, as the Abzorbaloff may not be as stupid as it looks.

Continuity

 * Elton was present during the DW: Rose, the Aliens of London, and The Christmas Invasion.
 * When Davros forces the Doctor to reflect on people who have died because of him, his mind flashes to Ursula (although she technically doesn't die), as well as other members of LINDA, even though he never meets them. (DW: Journey's End)
 * Just before his demise, the Abzorbaloff angrily yells "You stupid bast..." at Elton, mirroring the Slitheen's final words of "Oh, boll..." prior to the destruction of 10 Downing Street.

DVD Releases

 * Released as part of a vanilla along with The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit.
 * Released in the Series 2 Boxset