The Crimson Horror ( TV story ) This episode leads directly into the following one , " Nightmare in Silver " , due to the Maitland children blackmail ing Clara to make the Doctor take them on a trip ; they found evidence of Clara ' s time travelling in history books and on the internet . Synopsis . In 1893 , the Eleventh Doctor ' s old friends , Vastra , Jenny Flint and Strax find an optogram of the Doctor on a victim of the mysterious " crimson horror " . They head for Yorkshire , where Jenny infiltrates Mrs Winifred Gillyflower ' s community of Sweetville to find what has happened to him . Plot . Madame Vastra and her partners , Jenny and Strax , investigate " the Crimson Horror " — a mysterious condition leaving victims with red skin and preserved like statues — after discovering that one victim has the image of the Eleventh Doctor visible in one of his eyes . Investigations lead them to Sweetville , an idyllic community run by Mrs Winifred Gillyflower and her never - seen " silent partner " , Mr Sweet , apparently as a home for the chosen few to help them survive " the coming apocalypse " . Jenny goes undercover as a convert and infiltrates Sweetville , where she discovers the Doctor , chained up in a cell , but only partially preserved ; the process didn ' t work because he was not human . Gillyflower tends to dispose of such " rejects " , but he has been saved by her blind daughter , Ada Gillyflower , who has become infatuated with him and describes him as " my monster " . The Doctor is able to reverse the process on himself and he and Jenny go off in search of companion Clara Oswald , who has also been preserved . This confuses Jenny , as she saw Clara killed by the ice woman months earlier . The Doctor tells Jenny that he and Clara were actually aiming to visit London in 1893 , but they instead arrived in Yorkshire . They immediately got involved in the investigation of Sweetville and the red bodies piling up in the sewer s . The Doctor and Clara , posing as a married couple , joined the Sweetville community to investigate , but Mrs Gillyflower imprisoned and preserved them . The process worked on Clara , but not the Doctor ; Ada locked him away , keeping him as her " special monster " . The preservation process on Clara is successfully reversed , and Madame Vastra says the substance used to create the " Crimson Horror " effect is the poison of the red leech , a parasite the Silurian s considered a major threat 65 million years ago . The Doctor and Clara confront Mrs Gillyflower , who explains her plan and reveals that Mr Sweet is in fact a red leech who has attached himself to her chest . Their plan is to launch a rocket into the skies over England and spread the leech ' s poison over the planet . Ada , listening in , learns of her mother ' s plans and confronts her ; meanwhile , Clara disables the rocket launch controls . Holding a gun to her daughter ' s head , Gillyflower retreats into the rocket silo to activate a secondary launch control ; she launches the rocket , but learns moments later that Vastra and Jenny have removed the poison payload . She fires at the Doctor , but misses . Strax , who has climbed the chimney from the outside , returns fire , causing Winifred Gillyflower to plummet to her death at the bottom of the silo . As the old woman lays dying , Mr Sweet abandons his host . Ada shares final words with her mother before brutally kill ing the parasite with her cane . Later , the Doctor returns Clara to her 21st century home , where she discovers that the two children she helps care for , Angie and Artie Maitland , have found images of her and the Doctor in different points of time — including a nuclear submarine in 1983 and a manor house in 1974 . They have found an image Clara does not recognise ; it was taken in Victorian London — but she ' s only been to Victorian Yorkshire . The children threaten to inform their father that their nanny is a time travel ler unless she takes them on a trip in her time machine . Story notes . Ratings . " The Crimson Horror " was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 4 May 2013 . Overnight ratings showed that it was watched by 4 . 61 million viewers live . Home video releases . DVD releases . " The Crimson Horror " was released as part of Doctor Who Series 7 Part 2 on May 22 , 2013 , and as part of The Complete Seventh Series on September 24 , 2013 . Blu - ray releases . " to be added "