In The Doctor's Wake

Trust is a Lie was the sixth episode of Season 41 of Doctor Who. It was written by David Bishop, directed by Graeme Harper and featured Hugh Grant as the Twelfth Doctor and Stephen Fry as Sam Youto.

## In The Doctor's Wake

### Director

Graeme Harper

Synopsis

The Doctor and Sam are lost – in a labyrinth of monsters. And somewhere, lurking, are the Dream Crabs...

From the Sphinx to Gorgons, Cerberus and Pegasus, the Greek myths are alive and threatening the TARDIS duo with death at every turn. How long until their Fates unravel, and the truth is revealed?

Plot

The Doctor tells Sam a story in which he reaches the centre of a labyrinth and finds bodies and bones and other things beginning with B. A minotaur roars and attacks, his death certain, but Charley interrupts the story and says that he leapt to one side at the last moment and uses a cape to lure it into a pit. He uses a step ladder to get down and retrieve the belt from the minotaur before following the string out of the labyrinth and giving the belt to the King.

Sam says that he will not be able to get to sleep after that story, but the Doctor points out that he would not have put his bed in a room with three weavers if he wanted him to sleep.

The Doctor tells Sam another story, this one set in a garden full of statues armed with real swords. A Gorgon searches for Sam, who cannot escape from the garden (although Sam notes that he must have got in somehow) and has no weapons (which he thinks silly after encountering the minotaur). Sam interrupts and says that he smashes a statue, grabs a sword and decapitates the Gorgon with her eyes closed. When the Doctor asks how he knew where the Gorgon was, he points out that she had hissing snakes for hair. Again, he follows the string out.

In another story, Sam is alone on a ship on Lake Lerna, being attached by the Hydra. He adds that he was serving as a distraction whilst his men launch flaming arrows from another boat. The Doctor says that the flaming heads of the Hydra fall onto the ship, setting it alight, and that a flailing limb has broken Sam's arms and knocked him overboard, but he says that his men pulled him to safety by way of the string.

Sam asks why the Doctor seems so intent on killing him in the stories. He tells him about the parasitic Kantrofarri and how thinking about them gives them power, making him realise that he is dreaming. The weavers are making a tapestry with the threads of the stories to create a portrait depicting the ultimate fate of one of the travellers. The Doctor tells him that he has to die in the stories to shock him into waking up, saving him from the Kantrofarri, but he worries that he will die in real life.

The Doctor sets the next story in Thebes and has Sam encounter the Sphinx. Before the riddle can be asked, Sam says that the answer is "man" and that there is string showing him the way onwards. He follows it to the city and ends the story, for which the Doctor admonishes him due to the need for him to die in order to wake up. The tapestry now shows a Kantrofarri on a face.

In the next stories, Sam encounters Cerberus and plays fetch with him before using string to escape; he escapes from Scylla and Charybdis using a rope bridge; he turns the Cyclops into stone using the Gorgon's head, having carried it around in her bag in case of emergencies, before following the string out of the cave; astride Pegasus, he falls from the skies and lands on a net he prepared earlier; and he defeats Typhon using string to trip him into a crevasse.

Sam rhetorically asks the Doctor why he is not allowing himself to be killed in these stories when he trusts him completely, telling him that the tapestry is showing the Doctor's fate rather than his. It is the Doctor who has to wake up, so Sam begins a story about the Harpy Queen. In this story, Sam is dealing with the lesser harpies whilst the Doctor goes after the Queen, but he is attacked by a Kantrofarri and he goes in search of him in a maze. He allows himself to be attacked too so that he can join him in the dreaming.

Sam gets tired and falls asleep. The Doctor commands the weavers, the Fates, to cut the final thread of the tapestry, causing him to wake up and kill the Kantrofarri. He eventually manages to find Sam by following the string and removes the Kantrofarri from his face using his sonic screwdriver. They follow the string out of the cave and fly away using harpy wings, making Sam wonder if they are still dreaming. The pain at their temples has gone, however, and they continue to fly to the TARDIS.

The Doctor and Sam end the story.

Cast

The Doctor - Hugh Grant

Sam Youto - Stephen Fry

To be added.

Crew

Created by Sydney Newman, Donald Wilson and C.E. Webber

Executive Producers - Ira Steven Behr, Julie Gardner, and Stephen Garwood

Co-Executive Producers - Ronald D. Moore, Paul Cornell, Nicholas Meyer, and Robert Shearman

Producer - Tony Redston

Script Editor - Russell T Davies

Writer - David Bishop

Director - Graeme Harper

Director of Photography - David Odd

Production Designer - Chris Wilkinson

Visual Effects - The Mill

Make-Up Designer - Davy Jones

Casting Director - Andy Pryor

Music - Murray Gold

Costume Designer - Emma Rosenthal

Edited by - Tony Cranstoun

Original Theme Music - Ron Grainer

Title Sequence - BBC Wales VFX

Music conducted & orchestrated by Ben Foster

Memorable Quotes

To be added.

Background Information

To be added.

Development

To be added.

Pre-Production

To be added.

Production

To be added.

Post-Production

To be added.

Reaction

This episode received a 7-Day Viewing Figure from BARB of 7.94m viewers. It ranked at 20th over the week.

Story Notes

To be added.

Continuity

To be added.

Home Video Releases

To be added.