Hide (TV Story)

Beth Willis

***Hide*** was the tenth serial of Season 47 of *Doctor Who*. It was written by Neil Cross, directed by Jamie Payne and starred Peter Capaldi as the Thirteenth Doctor, Freema Agyeman as Ashley Tannen & Tom Ellis as Richard McIntyre.

## Synopsis

The Doctor, Ashley & Richard arrive at the haunted Caliburn House, set alone on a desolate moor. Within its walls, a ghost-hunting professor and a gifted empathic psychic are searching for the Witch of the Well. Her apparition appears throughout the history of the building, but is she really a ghost? And what is chasing her?

## Cast

* The Doctor - Peter Capaldi
* Ashley Tannen - Freema Agyeman
* Richard McIntyre - Tom Ellis
* Alec Palmer - Dougray Scott
* Emma Grayling - Jessica Raine
* Hila - Kemi-Bo Jacobs
* The Crooked Man - Aidan Cook

## References

### The Doctor

* The Doctor says he loves carrier pigeons.

### Individuals

* Alec is a ghost-hunter, as well as a "member of the Baker Street Irregulars [who] specialised in espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance behind enemy lines, a talented water colourist [and a] professor of psychology."
* Emma is an empathic psychic and assistant to Alec.

### Popular culture from the real world

* Ashley introduces herself, Richard and the Doctor as "Ghostbusters."
* The Doctor quotes the song *Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)* by Cole Porter when he realises the truth about the two monsters; "Birds do it, bees do it - even educated fleas do it!".

### Foods and beverages

* The Doctor drinks milk.
* Emma and Ashley both have a glass of whiskey which they don't like, and so drink tea instead. Furthermore, Ashley calls whiskey the "11th most disgusting drink ever invented."
* The Doctor requests some Kendal Mint Cakes to go with his Tacorien rescue.

### Places

* Alec owns Caliburn House, which was built sometime before 1474.

### The TARDIS

* Ashley calls the TARDIS a "grumpy old cow."
* The TARDIS unlocks herself in order to allow Ashley to enter, even though she doesn't yet have a key.
* Richard says that they need a place to keep his umbrella.

### Technology

* The Doctor obsesses over toggle switches and an ACR 99821.
* A subset of the Eye of Harmony is used to open a gateway to the pocket dimension.
* Alec has a Kodak Carousel S projector.
* Alec has a Nikon film camera with electric flash that the Doctor borrows.
* The Doctor builds a psychochronograph.

## Story Notes

* Scriptwriter Neil Cross confirmed that the episode had been inspired by Nigel Kneale's acclaimed 1972 TV play *The Stone Tape*, also about a scientific investigation of a haunted house with a psychic as one of the team.
* What the "ghost" version of Hila is saying is "Em pleh", which is "Help me!" backwards.

## Continuity

* The Doctor is able to utilise a "subset of the Eye of Harmony" to enter a pocket universe by running cables from the TARDIS. (TV: *The Deadly Assassin*)
* The TARDIS' cloister bell chimes. (TV: *Logopolis*, *Castrovalva*, *Resurrection of the Daleks*, et al.)
* The Doctor references fixed points in time. (TV: *The Fires of Pompeii*, *The Lincoln Assassination*)
* The Doctor uses a blue crystal from Metebelis III in order to amplify Emma's powers. (TV: *The Green Death*, *Planet of the Spiders*)
* The Doctor enters a pocket universe. (TV: *The Celestial Toymaker*, *The Mind Robber*, *Full Circle*, *The House of Nothing*, et al.)
* The Doctor uses what appears to be the same reddish-orange space suit he used on Krop Tor. (TV: *The Impossible Planet*) It does not have the "Sanctuary Base 6" logo, however.
* The Seventh Doctor also visited a mysterious stately home due to his companion at the time, Ace. (TV: *Ghost Light*)
* The Fourth Doctor previously encountered a time traveller from the future, whose journey had gone disastrously wrong. (TV: *The Talons of Weng-Chiang*)
* The Doctor previously drew a symbol on the floor with chalk to solve a problem from another pocket universe. (TV: *Battlefield*)
* Both the Doctor and the TARDIS state that the pocket universe would drain the energy from the TARDIS; this had previously happened in a parallel universe. (TV: *Knight Falls*)
* Ashley answers a question of the Doctor's by saying, "That's the chap." This is the same answer that the Fourth Doctor gave when Adric asked if Earth is the planet with all the oceans. (TV: *Logopolis*)
* The Doctor refers to the Time Vortex with verbiage similar to his "wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey" description of Time. (TV: *Blink*)
* The device the Doctor puts on Emma's head to connect her to the "subset of the Eye of Harmony" has a remarkably similar design to the one the Second Doctor used to show his own thoughts to Zoe Heriot. (TV: *The Wheel in Space*)

## Home video releases

### DVD

* This story along with the other stories in Season 47 were released as *Doctor Who: The Complete Forty-Seventh Season* in 2011.
* This story along with the other stories in Season 47, Part 2 were released as *Doctor Who: Season 47, Part 2* in 2011.

### Blu-ray

* This story along with the other stories in Season 47 were later released as *Doctor Who: The Complete Forty-Seventh Season* on Blu-ray in 2011.
* This story along with the other stories in Season 47, Part 2 were released as *Doctor Who: Season 47, Part 2* on Blu-ray in 2011.