Originally aired: Saturday June 17, 2006 on BBC-1
Director: Dan Zeff
Show Stars: Billie Piper (Rose Tyler (Season 1-2)), David Tennant (The 10th Doctor (Season 2 - ))
Recurring Role: Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler), Paul Kasey (The Hoix)
Guest Stars: Marc Warren (Elton Pope) , Shirley Henderson (Ursula Blake) , Peter Kay (Victor Kennedy/Abzorbaloff) , Moya Brady (Bridget) , Bella Emberg (Mrs Croot) , Simon Greenall (Mr Skinner) , Kathryn Drysdale (Bliss)
Production Code: NCFS094W
Enter Elton, a young male from London, who's at the moment running through a barren quarry. Suddenly, he spots something that is totally out of place... the TARDIS is right there, sitting right in front of him. He starts to head towards it when he hears Rose cry out from a nearby warehouse. Elton goes in to investigate and follows her voice cautiously to a quite innocent looking wooden door, which is hiding from view a creature which definately isn't innocent at all... a huge alien leaps out at him from the doorframe!
The scene switches to an apartment, Eltons appartment to be exact, and Elton speaking in front of a video camera, explaining how exciting it was just to be there...but it wasn't the most exciting day ever. He continues to narrate his story of how the alien approached him, roaring terribly, when suddenly the Doctor appeared behind it, waving a pork chop in the aliens face distracting it while telling Elton to run. Rose then appears with a blue bucket full of liquid, which she proceeds to throw upon the alien, making it worse than how it had started. The Doctor pauses to tell her it was the wrong bucket! A comical scooby-doo like chase ensues through several doors, which starts with the alien running after the Doctor and Rose, but ends with Rose running after it with a red bucket full of liquid. But the Doctor pauses to look at Elton quizzically, and to say that he recognized him. Elton then decides to flee the scene.
Back in the present, Elton explains to the camera how he’s met the Doctor before. He then has his friend, Ursula Blake, film him standing outside the house where he first met the Doctor, all those years ago. He was about 3 or 4, and he'd wandered down stairs to see a man, the Doctor, in his living room... yet he fails to remember why the Doctor was there at all.
Returning to the present, Elton introduces himself and explains how he had a perfectly normal life until he was shopping two years previously and the shop mannequins came to life! Panic obviously ensued, but he came out unharmed. Then a year later, he's back in london, and he sees an alien craft crash straight into Big Ben! Then, Christmas day that year, his windows shatter completely, glass everywhere, and he manueuvers himself so he can peer out the broken windows to see another alien craft flying high overhead! That's how it all started, how he met Ursula Blake, Viktor Kennedy, Jackie Tyler, and how he finally met the Doctor...
Elton explains how it's not all aliens and spaceships for him, but he's into other things as well, and demonstrates this by dancing to his favourite band, ELO, around his appartment. He then starts to talk of spaceships again and explains how he ran across a blog by Ursula while searching for information on the Doctor, with a photo on her site of the Doctor on Christmas day. Elton proceeded to meet with Ursula, who reveals she took a picture but didn’t realize how important the Doctor was until a Mr. Skinner told her about him. Elton and Ursula fast become good friends and Ursula introduced him to others who had encountered the Doctor, and wanted to learn more about him. Their leader was a Mr. Skinner. The rest of the team consisted of two other women, Bridget and Bliss, who had their own theories about the Doctor and what he represented. The group decided after a while to come up with a name, and Elton suggested London Investigation N’ Detective Agency-- or LINDA for short. The group bonded and became closer and closer, sharing their personal triumphs and tragedies. They even formed a band of sorts with Elton as Vocals, Bridget on Piano, Ursula on bass, Mr Skinner on drums, and Bliss on guitar. All was happy...until Viktor Kennedy arrived 'that tuesday night in march'. Kennedy says he suffers from an awful skin condition and refuses to shake hands with any of them. He then introduces himself as their “salvation.”
Kennedy reminds LINDA of their purpose in life, to research the Doctor, to find the Doctor, and once more sparks the fire in them all by showing them footage of the Doctor leaving in the TARDIS. Elton's heard the dematerialization noise of the TARDIS before, when he was 'just a kid'... Kennedy hands them all a series of Torchwood files and has them compile all the information they can find on the Doctor so they can get that one step closer to finding him. He asks for a private word with Bliss as the others leave... the rest of the group remains unaware of the woman’s scream behind them as they walk away...
LINDA continues to perform Kennedy’s research in a manner that is not unlike a school room. When the group asks where Bliss has gone, he replies that Bliss left to get married. After a while, LINDA finally got a sighting of a police box...however, this is where the story began, where Elton met the Alien at the warehouse, panicked, and fled. When Kennedy finds out, he flies into a massive rage against him, but Ursula, 'most likely to fight back', defends Elton. Kennedy suggests they take another route to the Doctor by locating Rose, his assistant. The Torchwood files have very little on Rose due to a Bad Wolf virus, so they have to search all over London to find her. Elton finally finds an old woman who recognizes Rose and directs him to Jackie Tyler who he soon finds down at the local Laundromat and follows her inside. He then attempts to follow his espionage skills from Viktor Kennedys s, and goes to step one, a conversation... He really didn't need to though, as Jackie proves more then willing to strike up a conversation, introduce herself, and invite Elton in to fix her washing machine. Jackie even begins to talk about her daughter, Rose, who's currently traveling, but is vague about her exact location.
Elton reports to his fellow LINDA members, and they all congratulate him on his brilliant success, even Kennedy, who then tells them all to prepare a full plan of attack while telling Elton to continue to infiltrate and gain more information on Rose. Before they can leave, Kennedy asks for a private word with Bridget and she obliges unwillingly. Mr Skinner gives her a kiss before he leaves and the other two speculate on his possible romance, unaware once more of the scream from their fellow member as they walk away...
Elton continues to work around Jackie’s house making repairs, as she suspiciously has a lot of things to work on. Jackie flirts quite blatantly with him also, putting on mood music and spilling wine on his shirt just to get him to take it off so she can 'wash it'. Elton goes along with it for the purposes of his infiltration but when he comes out of the bathroom he finds a forlorn Jackie, who reveals she just received a call from Rose. She's upset at her abscence, and worried about what might happen to her. Elton trys to find out more information, but as he's told to leave, something hits him, and he decides to buy pizza and cheer her up rather then worry about Rose. A night in, just the two of them, as 'proper mates'. Then, as he's walking back with the pizza, he realised that he did like Jackie Tyler, but he liked Ursula Blake a lot more. However, when he finally returns, he finds Jackie waiting for him outside. She admits to going through his jacket, just to slip a tenner in towards the pizza because he's such a nice guy, and finding the picture of Rose. She figured out he was looking for the Doctor, and won't say anything, because she'd protect her daughter and the Doctor to the end of her life. She refuses to listen to any of Elton’s claims that he did actually like her, and runs back to her flat in a state.
Elton reports back to Kennedy and the last of LINDA on his failure to infiltrate any further into the Tyler household and Kennedy is furious! But Elton points out that the group has fallen apart since Kennedy arrived. It used to be about 'having a laugh' and getting together to be together and have fun. Now both Bliss and Bridget have disappeared, presumably because of it. Elton announces he’s leaving and tells both Mr Skinner and Ursula that they're leaving too. He also finally asks Ursula out for dinner! Kennedy tries to convince them all to stay and get the answers they want about the Doctor, but Elton isn’t interested. As they are about to leave, Kennedy tells Skinner that he has Bridget’s phone number so they can get hold of her. Skinner agrees to stay behind to try and reach Bridget, saying farewell to Elton and Ursula as they leave without him.
Outside Ursula realizes that she left her mobile phone behind so they return back to retrieve it. They find Kennedy seated at his desk, holding a newspaper which is hiding him from view. There's also no sign of Skinner, not until they hear his voice cry out for help. They approach the cry for help and see that Kennedy’s hands are now alien and slightly green... That's when he revealed his true self to them. Viktor Kennedy is an alien... He's absorbed Bliss, Bridget, and now Skinner. They're all imprisoned within his body. Elton describes Kennedy as an abzorba-thon...abzorba-ling...an Abzorbaloff! Kennedy seizes on the name. It plans to absorb Jackie Tyler to gain the necessary knowledge of the Doctor, but Ursula threatens it with his cane. It lures her in by pretending to be afraid, but grabs out at her arm when shes close enough and begins to absorb her. Elton trys to save her, but its too late and Ursula is pulled into the Abzorbaloff’s chest. Elton begs Kennedy to release her but it says the process is irreversible and there's no way for Ursula to return to him. Now though, Ursula can read the Abzorbaloff’s thoughts, and Elton is next on its hit list. She shouts at him to run, and so he does, and runs with all his might out onto the streets with the Abzorbaloff in hot pursuit.
Elton continues to run, but ends up in a dead-end alley and gives up, as everything important to him is within the Abzorbaloff...everything he held dear is gone. Then, as he's about to be absorbed, the TARDIS materializes and the Doctor emerges with Rose by his side. Rose looks to Elton, and starts to complain loudly about him upsetting her mum. Elton is a bit nonplussed that Rose is having a go at him, while a rather large alien creature is towering over him and threatening to absorb him. The Doctor is intrigued by the creature, which says it was born on Klom, the twin planet of Raxicricofalapatorius. The Abzorbaloff wants to use the Doctor’s knowledge of the TARDIS to return to it's home planet victorious. It says it will kill Elton if the Doctor doesn’t surrender. He refuses, of course, but points out that the others that have been absorbed might have something to say about it. Ursula rallies the others to bust out of the alien in one united effort- LINDA united. At Ursula’s urging while the Abzorbaloff is writhing in pain, Elton destroys the cane which created the limitation field, containing the abzorbaloff in his current form, leading it to be fall apart and become absorbed by the Earth. Ursula manages to say one final heartfelt goodbye to Elton before disappearing for good into the earth. Elton breaks down sobbing and Rose wanders over to comfort him.
Later, as the three sit on a set of nearby steps, the Doctor explains how a shadow creature, an elemental shade, had entered Elton’s house from the howling halls when he was just a child. But the Doctor was too late to save Elton’s mother... Elton then finally remembers his mother who he had blocked out after her brutal death all those years ago...
Later, we switch back to Eltons appartment, where he finishes telling us his story of the Doctor to the camera, and admits that despite how wonderful the Doctor is, Elton enjoyed himself with LINDA. He had freinds, in a family like atomsphere, and for a while, his life was perfect. He even quotes Steven King: Salvation and Damnnation are the same thing, and he never knew what theat meant, until he met the Doctor. The Doctor brings with him death and suffering, and he wonders how much longer it will be until Rose and Jackie pay the price. We then hear Ursula speaking up from somewhere, and Elton reveals that the Doctor did one last thing for him. He used his sonic screwdriver to preserve the piece of concrete with Ursula’s face in it, but only her face. Elton admits they’ll have a relationship... of sorts, and he loves her, and that's all that matters. Elton ends by talking about how, as a child, everyone tells you it's all grow up, find a job, get married, get a house, have a kid and that's it... But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that, so much darker, and so much madder... and so much better.
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