1x03 The Unquiet Dead - Doctor Who (UK) Episode Guide

Doctor Who (UK)

- Episode 01x03

Episode: 01x03
Title: The Unquiet Dead
Type: Regular Episode
Production Code: 103
First Aired: Apr. 09, 2005

Season 1 » Episode #03 - The Unquiet Dead

Doctor Who (UK) - 01x03 The Unquiet Dead

Summary: The Doctor and Rose travel by accident to 1869 Earth, and find that recently deceased corpses are returning to life, in a ghostly way. A mortician and his assistant know of the problem, but to keep their secret a secret, they kidnap Rose, who witnesses them collecting one of their ghostly corpses. The Doctor then must rescue Rose, and help the ghostly corpses return to there their own universe. He is aided in this effort by the aged Charles Dickens.Things don’t go as the Doctor expects, and serious repercussions occur to those around him.

Who appeared in this episode?

Guest Stars:

Gabriel Sneed	played by Alan David
Redpath	played by Huw Rhys
Mrs. Peace	played by Jennifer Hill
Gwyneth	played by Eve Myles
Charles Dickens	played by Simon Callow
Stage Manager	played by Wayne Cater
Driver	played by Michael Povey (II)
The Gelth	played by Zoe Thorne
Theatre Spectator	played by Aaron Fisher

Episode Quotes

Season 1 / Episode 3: - The Unquiet Dead

The Doctor: I'm such a big fan.
Charles Dickens: [stutters] A what? A big what?
The Doctor: Fan. Number 1 fan. That's me.
Charles Dickens: How exactly are you a 'fan'? In what way do you resemble a means of keeping oneself cool?

Season 1 / Episode 3: - The Unquiet Dead

The Doctor: The rift's getting wider and something's sneaking through.
Rose Tyler: What's the rift?
The Doctor: A weak point in time and space. A connection between this place and another. That's the cause of ghost stories, most of the time.
Gabriel Sneed: That's how I got the house so cheap. Stories going back generations. [Dickens walks out of the room] Echoes in the dark. Queer songs in the air. And a feeling like a shadow passing over your soul. [pause] Mind you, truth be told, it's been good for business. Just what people expect from a gloomy old trade like mine.

[More Quotes]

MISTAKES/GOOFS

DATE: When Rose is locked in the room and the bodies come toward her, you can see a modern-day electric light-switch to the side of the door she's trying to get through. As the Doctor runs down the hall toward her, you can see a central heating radiator. Both are wildly anachronistic for the time period.
FAKE: At the end, The Doctor and Rose treat Charles Dickens by making the TARDIS dematerialise in front of him. The engines begin to grind but the twin engine pumps do not move.
FAKE: Redpath reacts when the lid is taken off of the coffin he is in.
DATE: Dickens uses the phrase "On with the motley." which is anachronistically incorrect. The phrase translates from "vesti la giubba", a line of dialogue from the opera 'I Pagliacci'. The opera wasn't written until 1892, and wasn't translated into English until 1902 (by Enrico Caruso).

TRIVIA

It was writer Mark Gatiss who suggested Alan David (I) be cast as Sneed the undertaker.
Gabriel Sneed was initially conceived to be a younger character, with David Tennant (I) in mind for the role.
The events in this episode are alluded to in the 2008 episode _"Doctor Who" (2008) {The Unicorn and the Wasp (#4.7)}_.
The character playing the maid went on to play Gwen in the Dr Who spin off series "Torchwood" (2006). The Doctor refers to this when he first meets Gwen.
This episode was watched by 8.86 million viewers on its original transmission, winning a 37.78% audience share.

Episode Screenshots (From Season 1)

Season 1, Episode 09

Season 1, Episode 12

Season 1, Episode 04

KEYWORDS:

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