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Feb 16, 2020 · The Haunting of Villa Diodati: Directed by Emma Sullivan. With Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole, Mandip Gill. Villa Diodati, 1816 - on a night that inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The plan was to spend the evening in the presence of literary greats - but the ghosts are all too real.
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- Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi
- Emma Sullivan
- 2020-02-16
Feb 16, 2020 · The Haunting of Villa Diodati. Series 12. Episode 8 of 10. Lake Geneva, 1816. Lord Byron and the Shelleys prepare for a night telling ghost stories, but their villa proves to have ghostly...
The Haunting of Villa Diodati Lake Geneva, 1816. Lord Byron and the Shelleys prepare for a night telling ghost stories, but their villa proves to have ghostly presences all of its own.
" The Haunting of Villa Diodati " is the eighth episode of the twelfth series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who, first broadcast on BBC One on 16 February 2020. It was written by Maxine Alderton, and directed by Emma Sullivan.
- Overview
- Synopsis
- Plot
- Cast
- Worldbuilding
- Story notes
- Continuity
- Home video releases
was the eighth episode of series 12 of Doctor Who.
It offered an alternate account of the conception of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley to that of the audio story Mary's Story featuring the Eighth Doctor, though with the story acknowledging that what it was depicting was the result of history becoming unusually flexible around that night.
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 Shelle...
Lake Geneva, June 1816. Thunder and lightning crash down on the Swiss countryside. Inside the nearby Villa Diodati, a young woman called Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (later to be known as famous writer Mary Shelley) gazes out the window with her baby son William. Nearby, three other young people - Lord George Gordon Byron, his friend Doctor John Polidori, and Byron's partner Claire Clairmont - bemoan being stuck indoors. Mary hands her son off to a maid, Elise, and suggests that someone read them a horror story. Bryon does so and as they settle down while night falls, the maid is unaware of a mysterious rattling behind her. As Byron reaches the climax of his story, they all jump at the sound of a knock on the door.
Byron goes to find out what it is, with the others following, concerned it could be an infernal beast. While Polidori assumes it is Mary's partner, Percy Shelley, they open the door and scream at the sight of the Thirteenth Doctor, Graham, Yaz, and Ryan, all soaked and, aside from the Doctor, in period costume after the Doctor's previous recommendation. The four scream back and after collecting themselves, the Doctor tries to introduce herself with the psychic paper, but it is too wet to work. As Graham fails at grasping nineteenth-century speech, Ryan simply asks to be let in.
Drying off, the Doctor promises the butler, Fletcher, they will stay for one hour at most. Yaz is excited at visiting the night that inspired Frankenstein, but the Doctor enforces her rules: nobody mention Frankenstein, don't interfere, and nobody snog Byron. The group share a drink and dance together. The Doctor and friends are treated to the gossip surrounding Mary taking Shelley's surname despite not being married and Byron separating from his wife to elope with Mary's step-sister Claire. As Graham leaves to find a toilet, the Doctor suggests that writing a new horror story might be a good idea.
Elsewhere, Elise has tucked up William and as she leaves the nursery, a vase flies across the corridor and shatters. The Doctor, however, cannot convince Mary to start writing. Yaz points out she is breaking her own rules but the Doctor knows something is wrong - this should be a famous night of horror writing and just as importantly, Shelley is missing.
Graham continues searching as he stumbles upon Elise, but she only understands French and runs off. As Graham walks, he does not notice a painting fall off the wall, followed by a skeletal hand bursting out of it, walking itself along the floor. Graham rounds the corner and walks upstairs only to find himself back in the same corridor.
In another corridor, Yaz discovers Claire trying to pick a door open. She explains that she believes that Byron's letters about her are inside and she wishes to find out his true feelings for her. Yaz admits that she knows someone like that. As lightning strikes again, Yaz thinks she sees a ghostly figure but dismisses it.
•The Doctor - Jodie Whittaker
•Graham O'Brien - Bradley Walsh
•Yasmin Khan - Mandip Gill
•Ryan Sinclair - Tosin Cole
•Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin - Lili Miller
•Lord Byron - Jacob Collins-Levy
Locations
•Villa Diodati is located near Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Team TARDIS travel there to witness the creation of Frankenstein on a stormy and rainy night on a Tuesday in June 1816. •Lord Byron cannot return to England. •The Doctor almost says the boney hand is from the 14th century before correcting, saying there's a "touch more umami", being human, protein and collagen. •Byron has the skeletal remains of a 15th century soldier from the Waterloo Battle of Morat. •Polidori believes the Doctor to be from "the north". •Mary believes Percy has taken to their chalet Maison Chapuis by the shore. •Percy described the "lake apparition" as a death god rising from Hades. •Byron wonders if the haunted villa is in reality Hell. •The Doctor ponders if the Year Without a Summer blamed on volcanic ash was something else. •The Doctor wants to return her friends to 2020. •The following July, Byron is reading one of his works to an audience of people.
The Doctor
•The Doctor says she's getting a vibe of evil from the villa. •The Doctor loves "a good plume". •The Doctor has a natural "Time Lord magnetism" that makes the Cyberium choose her as host. •The Doctor shows Percy a vision of himself drowning by using an "old Time Lord trick".
Individuals
•John Polidori calls the weather outside dank and frigid. •Fletcher is the butler at the villa, and Elise is a nursemaid. •Mary Shelley notes that Percy Shelley is not one for playing tricks. •Lord Byron recently separated from his wife. •Graham searches for the lavatory, but finds that they're too early in history to enjoy the invention of toilets. •Mary has a child named William. •A ghost maid and a ghost girl are haunting the villa. •Byron uses the term candid. •Ryan mentions his nan. •Mary feels she is not as good a writer as her parents. •Fletcher points Graham to a chamber pot. •Ryan tells Polidori to stop shooting daggers. •Graham says the sleepwalking Polidori is like a zombie. •The villa is described as demonic. •The "lake apparition" turns out to be Ashad looking for "a Guardian". •The Lone Cyberman's real name was Ashad, and he once had children, but he slit their throats when they joined the resistance. •Claire Clairmont finally falls out of love with Byron.
•The episode had a "cold opening".
•Unusual to a normal set up, this particular episode did feature a cliffhanger but it wasn't set at the end of the episode, instead appearing before Team TARDIS head back to the TARDIS, in the final scenes in Villa Diodati.
•In the real world, the competition to create the best ghost story took place over three days, not one single night.
•The Cyberman's incomplete Cyber-suit is a unique patchwork design consisting of a new Cyber-helmet atop a body mostly matching the 2013 design introduced in Nightmare in Silver, lower legs matching the 2006 design introduced in Rise of the Cybermen and a left arm resembling the recreated Mondasian Cybermen introduced in 2017's World Enough and Time.
•Although uncredited, the Cyberman's helmet design visibly appears to be based on Matthew Savage's 2006 design.
•Jodie Whittaker confirmed the line about losing "anyone else" to Cybermen was a deliberate reference to Bill Potts specifically.
•In another account, the Eighth Doctor was involved in this night's events. (AUDIO: Mary's Story)
•Mary also travelled with the Eighth Doctor for a time, as his companion. (AUDIO: The Silver Turk, The Witch from the Well, Army of Death)
•In one of their adventures, Mary encountered another lone Cyberman, popularly known as the Silver Turk, in 1873 Vienna. (AUDIO: The Silver Turk)
•In a second account, the Tenth Doctor saved Mary from a bandaged alien during her stay in Switzerland, partly inspiring her to write Frankenstein, and certainly leading to the book's ultimate title. (COMIC: The Creative Spark)
•The Shelley Cabal's encounters with the Mal'akh are detailed in PROSE: The Book of the War.
•Although taking on Shelley's name, Mary and Percy are not yet officially married. (AUDIO: Mary's Story)
DVD and Blu-ray releases
•This story was released as part of the Complete Twelfth Series boxset on DVD and Blu-ray in region 1/A on 9 June 2020, in region 2/B on 4 May 2020 and in region 4/B on 3 June 2020.
Digital releases
•In the United Kingdom, this story is available on BBC iPlayer
Feb 16, 2020 · Doctor Who S12 E8. Lake Geneva. 1816. Lord Byron and the Shelleys plot a night telling ghost stories. But as the Doctor and friends arrive, the Villa proves to have ghostly presences all...
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Doctor Who (2005–2022) The Haunting of Villa Diodati. In 1816, Lord Byron and the Shelleysplot a night of ghost stories. Enter: The Doctor!
