In an old mansion on a remote Scottish island, the Doctor, Ace and Hex seek shelter with an odd group of academics from the nearby university. While Hex is disturbed by similarities to his recent nightmare about a very strange surgery, a whistling figure stalks the halls of the mansion.
The academics tell team TARDIS that they're gathered for the winter break, as they've done for the past thirteen years. One of them, the taxidermist responsible for the giant stuffed bear in the main hall, is almost immediately murdered. Suspicion falls on everyone else: was it the old Major Dickens? The kind old crippled bursar? The deacon? Dr. O'Neil, who's only visiting? Or the 16-year-old mentally disturbed Sue, who's been taken in by the crew for the winter as their assistant?
After a tremendous amount of scary moments, the Doctor figures out that the old bursar is actually a Professor Bartholomew. He's very familiar with her theory on particle transmission, since it will eventually lead to humanity discovering its first forms of time travel. Also, the deacon kills herself. But by the time the Doctor realises why they're all here, Major Dickens is threatening the group with his collection of bear traps — the very things that caused the bursar to become crippled years ago — if they try to leave. The academics aren't on a winter retreat... they've been held captive by Dickens on the island for ten years. Because ten years ago, the Major and the others (some in on it, some definitely not) tried to use the bursar's theory to send a message back in time. And in order to have a perfect moment, the Major chose to operate on (and eventually euthanise) a young girl named Eadie, who'd come down with a deadly illness from the chemical war weapons that had been tested on the island. Except... there was no illness. Eadie only had an eye infection, and she was perfectly fine. Eadie was murdered just so that Dickens would have a moment in the past to influence: he would send his own voice back in time, to tell himself and the crew not to euthanise her, simply to test the theory. For ten years, the rest of the group had been cooperating with him, some to repent for their past mistake, some — like the taxidermist — out of sheer passion for their work.
But there was more to the story. Eadie's mother saw the taxidermist remove her daughter's eyes after she'd died. He was so proud of it, so oblivious to how traumatising his pride would seem to her, that she shock made her kill herself. She was presumed drowned, as was her other daughter, Ruth. Eadie was quietly buried on the island; the police were never called.
The Major forces the Doctor to activate the Bartholomew device, sending his message back in time. But the timeline stays intact. The Doctor gently explains that the device is rudimentary, simply a toy — the most it can do is give someone a chill of nostalgia, or cause a dead person's bones to rattle briefly in their grave. The Major tells the Doctor that there wouldn't be any bones to rattle, since Eadie's corpse was perfectly preserved by the taxidermist, using technology beyond any known method of preservation. With a perfectly kept body, the Doctor admits, it might be possible for Eadie to very briefly come to life thanks to the Bartholomew device. But certainly not long enough to influence the present. And wherever her body is stashed, it would now just be stalking around the island.
Meanwhile, Hex and Ace have befriended Sue, who is utterly mentally deranged. She communicates mostly through a stuffed toy rabbit named Happy. Sue explains that she's an orphan and that she's spent her life in foster homes, and that she was traumatised when (at age 14) she was handed a recording of her mother's final moments. Dr. O'Neil pieces the puzzle together and realises that Sue is his long lost daughter... Ruth, Eadie's sister. After a Tear Jerker of a reunion, the two go visit Eadie's grave together. Sue tries to dig it up, just to be sure her sister is in there, but the grave turns out to be empty...
The Doctor decides to take matters into his own hand and takes the TARDIS back ten years, to when the murder took place. The crew receive the message through the Bartholomew device, just as planned. But the Doctor convinces them to pay it no heed, since the timeline needs to be preserved, and he begins to kill the girl...
Ace and the Bursar, meanwhile, have been locked up by the Major (and Ace is not happy about having to play the Damsel in Distress for most of the episode). Locked in together with them is the giant stuffed bear. Which is breathing. And shuffling. And has Eadie's living corpse inside it. The bursar is killed when the bear falls on top of her, but the girl is nowhere to be found...
O'Neil and Sue take off to start a new life together, leaving Happy behind. Hex ties the Major to his own operating table (mostly to prevent himself from killing the bastard on the spot) and calls the police. As team TARDIS leaves, they wonder who did commit the murders, if it wasn't Sue or the Major... and the Doctor confesses that he didn't go through with killing little Eadie after all, since he simply couldn't bring himself to do it. And he realises that when he and his companions first arrived at the mansion, the crew was already doing some kind of experiment... perhaps already sending their message back in time, but believing that they'd failed. And if Eadie came to life at that moment, even just briefly, and escaped from the bear, and overheard how to keep re-sending the message to extend her own undeath, and developed a hunger for revenge...
The Major, still tied to his own operating table, is greeted by someone holding an abandoned rabbit toy and a pair of very sharp shears.
Tropes:
- Animal Motifs: Bears and rabbits.
- Apocalyptic Log
- Arc Welding: Hex's past is fleshed out a lot more, with references made to Knox, and Evelyn.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:Ace: "Nine o'clock and all is well. Except Doctor is in the middle of nowhere, with no means of transportation, frequent power cuts, a chronic storm, and ooh! A corpse in the cellar."
- Asshole Victim: Major Dickens ends up being the last character to be killed by the hooded figure, but in all honesty, he deserved his fate.
- Bears Are Bad News: Ace and the Bursar are terrorized by a stuffed (in the taxidermy sense) bear that keeps moving when they're not looking... and breathes.
- Bear Trap
- Call-Back: The Seventh Doctor still can't bring himself to commit murder.
- Closed Circle: A cabin in the middle of a snowstorm.
- Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind
- Creepy Chapel
- Creepy Child: Sue may be a bit older than the usual example at 16, but her childish demeanor and disturbing tendency to speak only through Happy the Rabbit makes her more than qualify.
- Creepy Doll: Happy the Rabbit, as well as the eyeless doll in Hex's dream.
- Damsel in Distress: Ace. She's not happy about it, and Hex teases her mercilessly.
- Dark Secret
- Dreaming of Things to Come: Hex's nightmare, which involves a group of people arguing around an operating table; the "patient" is a doll with no eyes. Turns out to be a psychic distress call symbolically representing Eadie's death.
- Driven to Suicide: The Deacon.
- Eye Scream: The entire episode is Eye Scream after Eye Scream.
- Foreshadowing: About half the dialogue during the first episode, from the Doctor's story about the captive bear to the Bursar's answer to his question as to what the bear on display in the great hall is stuffed with.
- Friendly Sniper
- Good News, Bad News: At the beginning of Part Three, The Doctor has this exchange with Ace after he finds her lying on the ground near a bunch of bear traps.The Doctor: Do you want the good news or the bad?Ace: Good, please.The Doctor: The bear trap snapped on your dressing gown cord. You're numb because you've been lying in the freezing rain.Ace: Oh, thank God. Can I move now? Well, come on, then you could at least lend me a jacket.The Doctor: Stay still. This brings me to the bad news.Ace: Oh? What?The Doctor: Your right leg's fallen neatly in the middle of another bear trap. The tiniest movement will set it off.Ace: If it snaps shut, I'll be crippled?The Doctor: Assuming we have time to stop you bleeding to death, most probably.
- Insane Troll Logic: The Doctor tells a story about several scientists from the past trying to make
a bear dance. It wouldn't dance to music, so they tied it to a post. The bear then started dancing to the music, and didn't stop. Conclusion? Bears like being ensnared. - Ironic Nursery Tune: The hooded figure whistles "Oranges and Lemons" while it kills people and gouges their eyes out.
- Karmic Twist Ending: When the Doctor, Ace and Hex leave, Major Dickens is the only member of the original group left alive, albeit tied up and awaiting the police. The Doctor wonders aloud how Eadie managed to stay alive so long, and reveals there's a slim chance her corpse could still be wandering the island if circumstances aligned just right. Cut back to the Major, who hears a sound and assumes it's the cops — but instead sees a familiar figure, one with no eyes, the voice of Happy the Rabbit, and a very sharp pair of shears...
- Luke, I Am Your Father
- Meaningful Name: Major Dickens is a major dick.
- Non-Answer:Bursar: "What were you doing out there!?"The Doctor: "We were lost."Bursar: "But what were you doing!?"The Doctor: "Trying to get unlost."
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Major Dickens' goal is to be the first person to bring someone back to life. However, not only is he not concerned about the damage to the time stream this would cause, but he relishes in it.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Eadie is pretty close to the Revenant Zombie type...but wouldn't be a zombie at all if not for the temporal paradox caused by the Bartholomew Transactor, making her about as different as zombies come.
- Rewind, Replay, Repeat
- Safely Secluded Science Center: The story takes place on a rain-lashed island somewhere in the outer Hebrides: according to Major Dickens, the British army used the area as a wartime testing ground for chemical weapons, and because of the grisly reputation it acquired as a result, efforts to repopulate the island fell apart even after it was completely decontaminated... making it perfect for the secrecy-obsessed Major Dickens' experiments in time travel.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The purpose of the academics' experimentations at the mansion turns out to be to send a message back in time preventing them from euthanizing a girl who was misdiagnosed with a terminal illness. Of course, it doesn't go exactly as planned.
- Shout-Out: Ace does a brief "Eh... What's up, Doc?"
- She later calls him Batman and says he's "Smarter than the average bear."
- Slasher Movie: A large part of the adventure plays out like one. Including a gimmick.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: In Suicide Note form.
- Summation Gathering: Though only midway through.
- Taxidermy Is Creepy: Hartley the taxidermist's occupation ends up playing a fairly significant role in the story. Specifically, he's to blame for all the Eye Scream, since his removal of Eadie's eyes for use in his stuffed animals triggers her mother's suicide and fuels Eadie's revenge.
- Time Travel
- Tuneless Song of Madness: Ruth's mother suffers a major breakdown over Eadie's death and can be heard tearfully singing "Oranges And Lemons" - Eadie's favorite nursery rhyme - as she prepares to kill herself. Eadie herself can sometimes be heard whistling the same tune as she zeroes in on her targets.
- Vader Breath
- You Can't Fight Fate: The academics' attempts to change the past by preventing Eadie's death fail because the effects of the Bartholomew Transactor are temporary and only succeed in briefly creating a paradoxical timeline where Eadie lived, resulting in her living corpse roaming the island.
