The Doctor: Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Number one in 1979.
Rose: You’re a punk. That’s what you are. A big ol’ punk with a bit of Rockabilly thrown in.
The Doctor: Want to go see him?
Rose: How d’you mean, in concert?
The Doctor: What else is the TARDIS for? I can take you to the Battle of Trafalgar, the first anti-gravity Olympics, Caesar crossing the Rubicon. Or Ian Dury at the Top Rank. Sheffield, England, Earth, 21st November 1979. What do you think?
Rose: Sheffield it is.
The Doctor: Hold on tight.
The Doctor: 1979! Hell of a year! China invades Vietnam. The Muppet Movie. Love that film. Margaret Thatcher. Ugh. Skylab fell to Earth with a little help from me. Nearly took off my thumb. walking out of the TARDIS And I like my thumb. I need my thumb. I’m very attached to— sees the armed men on horseback —my thumb. to himself. 1879. Same difference.
Captain Reynolds (Jamie Sives): You will explain your presence and the nakedness of this girl.
The Doctor: Are we in Scotland?
Captain Reynolds: How can you be ignorant of that?
The Doctor: Oh, I’m dazed and confused. I’ve been chasing this wee naked child over hill and over dale. I’nt that right, ya timorous beastie?
Rose: Och! Ay! I’ve bin oot and aboot.
The Doctor: No, don’t do that.
Rose: Hoots mon.
The Doctor: No, really don’t. Really.
The Doctor: Rose, might I introduce Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. Empress of India and Defender of the Faith.
Rose: Rose Tyler, Mum. And my apologies for being so naked.
Queen Victoria (Pauline Collins): I’ve had five daughters. It’s nothing to me.
The Doctor: Let me ask, why is Your Majesty travelling by road when there’s a train all the way to Aberdeen.
Queen Victoria: A tree on the line.
The Doctor: An accident?
Queen Victoria: I am the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Everything around me tends to be planned.
Rose: I want her to say “We are not amused.” I bet you five quid I can make her say it.
The Doctor: Well if I gambled on that it’d be an abuse of my privilege as a traveler in time.
Rose: Ten quid?
The Doctor: Done.
Queen Victoria: Please excuse the naked girl.
Rose: Sorry.
The Doctor: She’s a feral child. I bought her for sixpence in Old Londontown. It was her or the Elephant Man.
Queen Victoria: This, I take it, is the famous endeavor.
Sir Robert (Derek Riddell): All my father’s work. Built by hand in his final years. Became something of an obsession. He spent his money of this rather than caring for the house or himself.
The Doctor: I wish I’d met him. I like him.
Queen Victoria: When Albert was told about your local wolf he was transported!
The Doctor: So what’s this wolf then?
Sir Robert: It’s just a story.
The Doctor: Then tell it.
Queen Victoria: We shall dine at seven and talk some more of this wolf. After all, there is a full moon tonight.
Sir Robert: So there is, mum.
Captain Reynolds: Tell me sir, what is it that you want?
Father Angelo: The throne.
Queen Victoria: I take it sir that you halted my train to bring me here.
Father Angelo: We’ve waited so long for one of your journeys to coincide with the moon.
Queen Victoria: Then you have waited in vain. After six attempts on my life I am hardly unprepared.
Father Angelo: Oh, I don’t think so, woman.
Queen Victoria: The correct form of address is Your Majesty. shoots him.
The Doctor: Front door’s no good—it’s been boarded shut. Pardon me, Your Majesty, you’ll have to leg it out of a window.
Rose: What do we do?
The Doctor: We… run.
Rose: Is that it?
The Doctor: You got any silver bullets?
Rose: Not on me, no.
The Doctor: There we are then. We run.
Sir Robert: I’m sorry, Mum. It’s all my fault. I should’ve sent you away. I tried to suggest something was wrong. I thought you might notice. Did you think there was nothing strange about my household staff?
The Doctor: Well, they were bald, athletic—your wife’s away, I just thought you were happy.
Queen Victoria: What exactly—I pray, tell me someone please—what exactly is that creature?
The Doctor: You call it a werewolf but technically it’s more of a Lupin Wavelength Hemovariform.
Queen Victoria: And should I trust you, sir? You who change your voice so easy? What happened to your accent?
The Doctor: Oh… right. Sorry. That—
Queen Victoria: I’ll not have it. No sir. Not you, not that thing. None of it. This is not my world.
Sir Robert: That creature won’t give up, Doctor, and we still don’t possess an actual weapon.
The Doctor: Oh, your father got all the brains, didn’t he?
Rose: Being rude again.
The Doctor: Good. I meant that one.
The Doctor: Imagine it. The Victorian Age accelerated. Starships and missiles, fueled by coal and driven by steam. Leaving history devastated in its wake.
Queen Victoria: Sir Robert, if I am to die here—
Sir Robert: Don’t say that, your majesty.
Queen Victoria: I would destroy myself rather than let that creature infect me. But that’s no matter. I ask only that you find some place of safe keeping for something far older and more precious than myself.
The Doctor: Hardly the time to worry about your valuables.
Queen Victoria: Thank you for your opinion. But there is nothing more valuable than this.
Rose: Is that the Koh-i-noor?
The Doctor: Oh yes. The greatest diamond in the world.
Queen Victoria: Given to me as the spoils of war. Perhaps its legend is now coming true. It is said that whoever owns it must surely die.
The Doctor: Well that’s true of anything it you wait long enough.
Queen Victoria: I’m taking it to [Hellier and Carew]. The royal jewelers at Hazlehead. The stone needs recutting.
Rose: But it’s perfect.
Queen Victoria: My late husband never thought so.
The Doctor: Now there’s a fact.
The Doctor: What if this house—it’s a trap for you, mum?
Queen Victoria: Obviously.
The Doctor: At least that’s what the wolf intended. But what if there’s a trap inside the trap?
Queen Victoria: Explain yourself, Doctor.
The Doctor: What if his father and your husband weren’t just telling each other stories, they dared to imagine all this was true. They planned against it, laying the real trap not for you, but for the wolf.
The Doctor: Your Majesty, the diamond.
Queen Victoria: For what purpose?
The Doctor: The purpose it was designed for.
The Doctor: Your Majesty, you said last about receiving a message from the great beyond. I think your husband cut that diamond to save your life. He’s protecting you even now, mum, from beyond the grave.
Queen Victoria: Indeed. Then you may think on this also: that I am not amused. Not remotely amused. And henceforth, I banish you.
The Doctor: I’m sorry?
Queen Victoria: I have rewarded you, Sir Doctor. And now you’re exiled from this empire, never to return. I don’t know what you are, the two of you, or where you’re from. But I know that you consort with stars and magic and think it fun. But your world is steeped in terror and blasphemy and death. And I will not allow it. You will leave these shores and you will reflect, I hope, on how you came to stray so far from all that is good. And how much longer you may survive this terrible life. Now leave my world. And never return.
The Doctor: No but the funny thing is Queen Victoria actually did suffer a mutation of the blood. It’s historical record. She was hemophiliac. They used to call it the Royal Disease. But it’s always been a mystery because she didn’t inherit it. Her mom didn’t have it, her dad didn’t have it. It came from nowhere.
Rose: What, and you’re saying that’s a wolf bite?
The Doctor: Well maybe hemophilia is just a Victorian euphemism.
Rose: For werewolf?
The Doctor: Could be.
Rose: Queen Victoria is a werewolf?
The Doctor: Could be. And her children had the royal disease. Maybe she gave them a quick nip.
Rose: So the royal family are werewolves?
The Doctor: Well, maybe not yet. I mean a single wolf cell could take a hundred years to mature. Might be ready by, hm, early twenty-first century.
Rose: Naw, that’s just ridiculous. Mind you, Princess Anne.
The Doctor: Aw, say no more!
Queen Victoria: Although we may not speak of these events in public they will not be forgotten. I promise you that. Your husband’s sacrifice, the ingenuity of his father, they will live on.
Lady Isobel (Michelle Duncan): But how?
Queen Victoria: I saw last night that Great Britain has enemies beyond imagination. And we must defend our borders on all sides. I propose an institute. To investigate these strange happenings and to fight them. I will call it Torchwood. The Torchwood Institute. And if this Doctor should return, then he should beware. Because Torchwood will be waiting.