Untitled (short story)

Untitled was a short story in the 2007 Doctor Who Storybook. Written by Robert Shearman, it featured the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler. Somewhat confusingly, it was not an untitled story, but a story with the title of Untitled.

Summary
The Doctor and Rose travel to an art gallery on the Moon. There they find a painting depicting Rose screaming and looking at something in terror. It has no title, and there is no information about who painted it, when it was painted or even its genre and inspirations. The Doctor and Rose look around the gallery, finding a room full of bodies frozen in position and rendered in many different colours, all screaming like the depiction of Rose.



Upon walking back to the untitled painting, they notice that all the other artwork in the gallery have changed to include Rose's screaming face. The Doctor takes the painting from the wall, realising that the painting isn't screaming, but instead slowly speaking the words: "Who am I?" Paint begins to run down the walls, and the Doctor dives into it, tapping into the mind of this entity and learning all about where it came from. The artist had intended to create the best piece of artwork of all, and used a soul extractor to do so. However, he became addicted to the device, and accidentally poured all of his passion and soul into the painting, creating an intelligent creature. The Doctor answers the painting's question, telling it that it can decide what it wants to be, and inspiring it to become the first piece of art in the gallery to depict a lemon cheesecake.

Characters

 * Tenth Doctor
 * Rose Tyler
 * Factor Eleven on the Oddness Scale

Worldbuilding

 * Rose's job at Henrik's had been a stop-gap until she found something better.
 * Rose views paintings by Rubens, Breughel, Gibbons, and Van Gogh.
 * The Sea of Tranquility has been dug out and turned into a gift shop.
 * In an effort to give their art more life, some artists used soul extractors to siphon off part of their soul and put it into the canvas.

Continuity

 * The Doctor was once imprisoned in a drawing. (TV: Fear Her)
 * The Doctor voices his dislike of paintings done by computers. He previously expressed this opinion when taking Romana II to the Louvre. (TV: City of Death)