Under the Lake
| 255a – "Under the Lake" | |||||
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| Doctor Who episode | |||||
The ghostly adversaries as they appear in the episode – Prentis (Paul Kaye, centre), and former crew members, Pritchard (Steven Robertson, left), and Moran (Colin McFarlane, right)
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| Cast | |||||
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Others
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| Production | |||||
| Directed by | Daniel O'Hara | ||||
| Written by | Toby Whithouse | ||||
| Script editor | Nick Lambon | ||||
| Produced by | Derek Ritchie | ||||
| Executive producer(s) |
Steven Moffat Brian Minchin |
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| Incidental music composer | Murray Gold | ||||
| Series | Series 9 | ||||
| Length | 1st of 2-part story, 45 minutes | ||||
| Originally broadcast | 3 October 2015 | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Rotten Tomatoes (Tomatometer) | 81% |
| Rotten Tomatoes (Average Score) | 7.6 |
| The A.V. Club | B+ |
| Paste Magazine | 8.7 |
| SFX Magazine |   |
| TV Fanatic | |
| IGN | 8.5 |
| New York Magazine | |
| Daily Telegraph | |
| Radio Times | |
"Under the Lake" is the third episode of the ninth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 3 October 2015. It is the first part of a two-part story, the second of which is "Before the Flood"; both are written by Toby Whithouse and directed by Daniel O'Hara. The two episodes are set in different time periods – "Under the Lake" takes place in 2119 and "Before the Flood" is set in an earlier time, initially described by Brian Minchin as being "a few hundred years before episode three" but later revealed to be 1980.
It is set in an underwater mining facility called the Drum, where alien time traveller the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and his companion Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) arrive three days after the crew have unearthed an empty black spaceship. The crew members then start dying, and the survivors find themselves faced with an army of hollow-eyed homicidal ghosts. In the form of Prentis, played by Paul Kaye, this episode sees a return for the Tivolians, a race last seen in the 2011 episode "The God Complex", also written by Toby Whithouse.
In 2119 at an underwater base on Earth, a joint-military-industrial team discover an alien vessel among the ruins of a long-submerged town. Bringing the vessel aboard with remote drones, they find it empty, one of its two power cells missing, and four strange glyphs carved into the stark white wall. Suddenly, the ship's engine comes to life, and team's commander Moran is killed when pushing another out of the way of the exhaust. Later, the remaining team encounter Moran and an alien being dressed as a mortician, both ghost-like in appearance and silently chanting words at the team before they attack them.
The Doctor and Clara arrive a few days later via the TARDIS, finding the alien ship and the glyphs, but no trace of the crew. The ghosts attempt to attack them, and in their escape, they find the rest of the team hiding in the base's Faraday cage, as the ghosts cannot cross its walls. Acting commander Cass, a deaf woman that speaks through her translator Lunn, explains the situation to the new arrivals. The Doctor recognises the alien ghost as a Tivolian, a cowardly race that would never confront others. The base's automated systems switch the environment from "night" to "day" cycles, causing the ghosts to disperse.
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Wikipedia