History Recap / DoctorWhoS38E8TheHauntingOfVillaDiodati

Written by Maxine Alderton. This episode first aired February 16, 2020.

-->'''Ashad:''' "You appear courageous, but your vital signs betray a heightened state of anxiety."\\
'''The Doctor:''' "Or as I like to call it, Tuesday."

-->'''Mary Shelley:''' "I don't think they're really from the colonies."\\
'''Lord Byron:''' "No, she is from somewhere much, much stranger."\\
'''Dr. Polidori:''' ''[matter-of-factly]'' "The North."

-->'''Lord Byron:''' "May I just say you are quite lovely in a crisis?"
-->'''The Doctor:''' "[[AbhorrentAdmirer No, you may not.]]"

-->'''The Doctor:''' "Interesting look. What happened? They get bored halfway through or something?"
-->'''Cyberman:''' "I am complete enough to serve my purpose." ''([[ImmediateSelfContradiction Attempts to fire blaster to no effect]])''

''The Doctor and her companions visit Mary Shelley on a fateful night in 1816 when she creates Frankenstein but all is not as it seems. The rooms of Villa Diodati keep shifting around and ghosts are stalking the halls. And the group soon remember a familiar warning: "Beware the Lone Cyberman. Do not let it have what it wants". But why is Percy Shelley not where he should be according to history?''

Villa Diodati, near Lake Geneva, 1816. The infamous Creator/LordByron, along with [[Creator/MaryShelley Mary "Mrs. Shelley" Godwin]], her stepsister Claire Clairmont, and Byron's personal physician [[Creator/JohnWilliamPolidori John Polidori]] are kept inside by a dark and stormy night, for what has been several days in a row. It is eventually suggested that maybe one of the men should read some chilling ghost stories. Byron is more than amenable, but the reading is interrupted by an unexpected knock on the door: the Doctor and company, soaking wet from a walk up from the TARDIS.

The fam only plans to stay for a short time, with rules including not to mention ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}'' and "Nobody snog Byron", but there's already something wrong with this fabled night where some of Britain's greatest literary minds came up with chilling tales of terror: Creator/PercyByssheShelley, Mary's future husband and one of the participants, is missing. Apparently he went down to the lake earlier and failed to return. The Doctor has a feeling that she and her friends are going to have to stay at Villa Diodati for a little bit longer than she'd prefer.

And there are unsettling things going on in the house: a vase leaps from its pedestal and across a hallway, smashing against a wall. A skeletal hand emerges from a fallen painting. Mysterious figures appear: a maid, a young girl, a shadowy figure seen in a flash of lightning. Graham, searching for a toilet, goes up a staircase only to find himself emerging from a doorway that he already came through on the floor below.

* AbledInTheAdaptation: Downplayed. The real Byron had a deformed foot which caused him to limp; in the episode he walks normally.
* AllAccordingToPlan: Ryan begs the Doctor to tell him that giving the Lone Cyberman who it wants, despite the fact that Jack Harkness warned them not to, was all part of a plan. Doc says it was. Step one was saving Shelley, and step two is fixing the mess she just created.

* AmbiguousSituation: In real life, Claire was unable to leave Byron due to being pregnant, and Byron later kept her isolated from their daughter Allegra until her death at just five years old. It's unclear if her telling him they're through is just tragic DramaticIrony or the Doctor actually did change this part of history.

* ArtifactDomination: Percy Bysshe Shelley is taken over by Cyber technology after finding it by accident.

** Polidori can walk through walls, but it's not because he's a ghost but because he can't see the fake wall projection while sleepwalking.
** The lone Cyberman doesn't kill the baby, so Mary tries to [[IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight appeal to the person it once was]]. Turns out that person was EvilAllAlong and didn't kill the baby because it was NotWorthKilling.

** On a lesser note, the episode ends with Byron's public recital of his poem Literature/{{Darkness}}'' -- with its closing phrase, "She was the Universe", implying it was also inspired by Thirteenth's showing this episode.

* BoomerangBigot: Prior to his partial cyber-conversion, Ashad was disdainful towards humans despite originally being one himself, and sought to become a Cyberman to remove himself of this perceived taint. Even being rejected for cyber-conversion did not deter him from revering the Cyberman, and he even [[OffingTheoffspring killed his own children]] for joining a resistance that opposed the Cyber-Empire.
* BrokenPedestal: At the end, Claire calls Byron out on flirting with the Doctor without any thought for her feelings, and for using her as a human shield against the monster, and tells him "the spell is broken".
* BuffySpeak: The Doctor tells the lone Cyberman that he's not as "cyborgy" as she expected.
* TheBusCameBack: The first appearance of the Cybermen in any way, shape or form in this doctor's run.

-->'''Lone Cyberman:''' You appear courageous, but your vital signs betray a heightened state of anxiety.\\
'''The Doctor:''' Or as I like to call it, "Tuesday".
* ButterflyOfDoom: The Doctor refuses to let Percy Shelley die at this moment as it would make the future of culture and society unrecognizable, potentially erasing even more people.

** The Doctor finally encounters the Lone Cyberman that [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E5FugitiveOfTheJudoon Captain Jack]] was trying to warn her about. Unfortunately, circumstances conspire to force her to give it what it wants in order to prevent damage to the future of the human race.
** Unlike in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E8TheWitchfinders previous]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E5FugitiveOfTheJudoon episodes]] where the Doctor and the fam are proclaimed to be a "flat-team structure", the Doctor declares that sometimes, the team structure isn't "flat" at all but instead "mountainous", with her at the summit.

* {{Cliffhanger}}: The fam heads off for the end of the Cyber Wars in an attempt to head off the damage the Lone Cyberman could cause because the Doctor had to give it what it wanted.

** When the Cyberium enters the Doctor, she gets a bit "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E12NightmareInSilver Mr Clever]]", only this time it's her own vanity talking.

** Graham appreciates the ghosts bringing him food because [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E3Rosa there never seems to be food around on the fam's travels]].

** Thirteen reuses Ten's CatchPhrase "I'm so so sorry" before triggering the near-death experience in Shelley.

* CyberneticsEatYourSoul: Downplayed. While the Lone Cyberman does show more emotion than most Cybermen, it's limited mostly to rage.

* EurekaMoment: When Dr. Polidori sleepwalks into the room where the Doctor is, she notes that he hasn't just walked through a wall, but gone up a whole floor at the same time, and that would only make sense if where they think they are isn't actually where they really are.
* EvilSoundsRaspy: Ashad the lone Cyberman has an incredibly deep and grating voice, most likely augmented with a mechanical voice filter.

** Mary and Byron mention that Shelley was having visions of a figure rising from the lake. It turns out that a powerful Cyber AI has taken up residence inside him, and as a result the figure he saw was the Lone Cyberman.
** When the Doctor shouts to Graham from Byron's chamber, he can hear her quite clearly and asks her how she's doing that, to which she answers that she's shouting down through the fireplace. It turns out that they're actually in rooms right next to each other, but the PerceptionFilter is preventing them from realizing this until the sleepwalking Polidori reveals the situation.
** Byron's poetry at the end of the episode foreshadows the apocalyptic events of both the season finale, and the arc story of the following season.

* HistoricalBadassUpgrade: Inverted. Byron, who in real life fought in the Greek wars of independence, is shown cowering behind Claire.

* HopeSpot: Mary tries to appeal to the Cyberman's humanity... only to find out that humanity left him long before he was cyberconverted.

* ICantDance: Averted with Team Tardis joining their hosts in a square dance.
* ImprobableInfantSurvival: The Cyberman lets Mary's son William live when it finds the baby and his nurse hiding inside a chest, although it later claims that this is because the child was useless for conversion. A nod to real life, [[https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6747714/william-shelley as William Shelley died of malaria]] when he was three.

* ISeeDeadPeople: Graham says word-for-word that "I think I'm seeing dead people!" The Doctor brushes him off with "Ghosts don't exist!", but Graham seems less than convinced. Indeed, the woman and girl that Graham sees are later implied to be real ghosts.
* ItWasADarkAndStormyNight: The story begins during a nighttime thunderstorm.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The two ghost-like figures that Graham saw who may or may not have been actual ghosts... their presence is seemingly unconnected to the Lone Cyberman.

* MyGreatestFailure: The Doctor still feels the sorrow of losing Bill Potts to cyber-conversion. (And probably [[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E6Earthshock Adric]] as well.)

* NeckLift: The Cyberman lifts up Byron's valet by the collar when their paths cross, before breaking his neck.

* TheNeedsOfTheMany: Invoked by Ryan when he suggests that sacrificing Shelley's life would be worth the lives saved by keeping the Cyberium out of the Cyberman's hands, but the Doctor counters that maintaining Shelley's life has as much as an effect on the human race going forward as ending it would on the victims of the Cyber Wars.

** Ryan on the other hand just handwaves himself as coming from the British colonies.

* NotSoDire: While reading from a horror story there's a knock on the door, and Byron plays it up accordingly on going to answer it. The terrible monster seeking admittance turns out to be...Team TARDIS, and an [[DramaticThunder ill-timed flash of lightning]] makes everyone scream.
* NuclearCandle: Averted; things are kept spookily candlelit, unlike classic ''Who''.
* OffingTheOffspring: The lone Cyberman states that when he discovered his own children joined a resistance to combat the Cyber-Empire, he [[SlashedThroat slit their throats]].

** The lone Cyberman can feel emotions, and not in the usual "sci-fi writers can't portray an emotionless being" kind of way. He's shown doing a DeskSweepOfRage and openly portraying his irritation, fury and contempt.

-->'''Ryan:''' Shelley's only one life against all those others.\\
'''Mary:''' What are you saying? How can you condemn him to death like that?\\
'''The Doctor:''' But is he, Ryan? His thoughts, his words inspire and influence thousands for centuries. If he dies now, who knows what damage that will have on future history? Words matter! One death, one ripple, and history will change in a blink. The future will not be the world you know. The world you came from, the world you were created in won't exist, so neither will you. It's not just his life at stake. It's yours. You want to sacrifice yourself for this? You want me to sacrifice you? You want to call it? Do it now. All of you.\\
''[silence]''\\
'''The Doctor:''' Yeah. 'Cos sometimes this team structure isn't flat. It's mountainous, with me at the summit in the stratosphere, alone, left to choose. Save the poet, save the universe. Watch people burn now or tomorrow. Sometimes, even I can't win.

-->'''Mary Shelley:''' I don't think they're really from the colonies.\\
'''Lord Byron:''' No, she is from somewhere much, much stranger.\\
'''Dr. Polidori:''' ''[matter-of-factly]'' The North.

* ReallyGetsAround: The whole TARDIS crew knows Lord Byron's reputation as a philanderer and immediately agree not to let him have an inch. The Doctor in particular is ''very'' annoyed at his flirting throughout the episode. His mistress Claire (Mary's stepsister) is furious with him by the end of the story.
* RedemptionQuest: Having failed to keep the Cyberium out of the hands of the Lone Cyberman despite her best efforts to do so ''without'' risking humanity's evolution/existence in the process, the Doctor (with her companions) sets off on one at the end of the episode by travelling to ''his'' time to confront the might of the entire Cyber-Empire.

-->'''Lord Byron:''' May I just say you are quite lovely in a crisis?
-->'''The Doctor:''' [[AbhorrentAdmirer No, you may not.]]

* RunningGag: The Doctor yet again wears and expresses love for an unusual type of headgear, this time a plumed helmet.

** Either let the Cyberman get what it wants and cause the death of billions, or let Percy die with enormous consequences for the human race in the long run.
** When the Doctor takes control of the Cyberium, the Cyberman threatens to summon its ship and destroy the planet unless she gives it to him. Yaz thinks he's bluffing, but history has proven fluid enough this night that the Doctor refuses to tempt fate.

** When the characters find themselves supernaturally trapped in a room, Byron wonders [[Theatre/NoExit if they are in hell]].
** The lone Cyberman quotes from Shelley's poem "Queen Mab".

* {{Sleepwalking}}: Dr. Polidori is prone to this. However, in this state he's immune to the PerceptionFilter creating the MobileMaze keeping everyone trapped, which allows the Doctor to figure it out so everyone can move around.
* SnarkToSnarkCombat: The Doctor and the lone Cyberman.
-->'''The Doctor:''' Interesting look. What happened? They get bored halfway through or something?
-->'''Cyberman:''' I am complete enough to serve my purpose. ''([[ImmediateSelfContradiction attempts to fire blaster to no effect]])''

* TakeAThirdOption: The Doctor uses a Time Lord trick to give Shelley a vision of his future death, so the Cyberium believes he is dead, leaves his body and binds itself to her. The Cyberman can't force her to give it up, so it threatens to destroy the planet unless she willingly relinquishes it.
* ThatMakesMeFeelAngry: The lone Cyberman flatly tells the Doctor, "You irritate me." Justified in that he's a ''Cyberman''; he's not supposed to feel anything.
* ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself: The Doctor insists on confronting the lone Cyberman alone, no doubt afraid they'll be Cyberconverted or killed. Yaz ends up doing an ExactWords version. "Technically, she only told us not to follow her."
* TheTriple: Team Tardis agree on three rules--don't interfere in the timeline, don't mention Frankenstein, and don't snog Lord Byron.
* TwoFaced: The lone Cyberman's mask is either broken or incomplete, allowing the left side of his face to be seen.

* WeatherManipulation: The lone Cyberman is implied to be responsible for 1816's status as the Year Without a Summer because it needs the storms to be able to recharge itself.
* WhamEpisode:
** Yaz implies that she actually has a crush on the Doctor.
** The Lone Cyberman appears, and the Doctor ends up snapping with anger as a result.
** The Doctor is forced to give the Lone Cyberman what it wants, leading her and the fam into the Cyber Wars to try and fix things.
* WhamShot: The Doctor has just figured out that the figure hovering over the lake is a time traveller that's attempting to materialize in 1816; right as she says this, the figure materializes in the hallway... and is revealed to be [[TheBusCameBack a Cyberman]].
* WhatTheHellHero: The Doctor flips out when Ryan suggests that they should let Shelley die to save billions of lives, which seems like a pretty reasonable suggestion. She explains that the math is not as simple as one life versus billions, as sacrificing Percy Shelley would significantly alter Earth's timeline to the point that their present, the 2010s/2020s, would no longer be the same present they came from.
* WouldHurtAChild: The lone Cyberman states that [[SlashedThroat he slit the throats]] of his children after discovering that they joined a resistance to combat the Cyber-Empire.

* YouCantThwartStageOne: Unsurprisingly, the Doctor is forced to give the lone Cyberman what it wants, so she and her companions set off to do the next right thing and join the resistance against the Cybermen on their own turf.