Dusk

Jess, Lily and Wallis fend off against the undead.

Lily (Cameron Hughes)

Malcolm Clarke

Keff McCulloch

John Debney

'Dusk' is a special episode of the BloodLoomis Productions Lego Doctor Who Series, which was uploaded on 10th July 2018. It was written by James Stone and directed by Cameron Hughes. It served as the first part of the third story in a series of specials featuring the Ninth Doctor and Jessica Hampton. It was also the first new episode in about 19 months, after the series went on a lengthy hiatus due to the creator, Cameron Hughes, being at university and lacking access to his equipment.

In the episode, the Doctor and Jess follow a summons to the planet of Caventasia, a world housing six million graves due to lack of space on other planets. The two of them soon meet up with a team of explorers and monks trapped on the planet, and find themselves at the mercy of the undead creatures living under the planet's surface.

The special received very positive reviews, with some praising it as one of the best episodes uploaded up to that point.

## Plot

Inside the newly renovated TARDIS, the Doctor and Jess discover a letter addressed to Julian Vale, an undertaker on the planet Caventasia that the Doctor promised to deliver centuries ago. They arrive on Caventasia, a planet where the graves of six billion people are located due to overcrowding on other planets. The planet is seemingly deserted but they do find Julian Vale's grave.

After deciding against going back in time to before Julian died, the Doctor and Jess are caught by a torrent of acid rain, but given sanctuary by a gang of people trapped on the planet: Dawn, a hunter, Wallis, an explorer, and Lily, a priestess of the Forgotten Monastery and a trio of monks. They head down into the catacombs beneath the planet's surface, whilst the Doctor remains suspicious of how Dawn arrived on Caventasia.

In the catacombs, the lights begin to fade as Wallis warns the others of the dead bodies rising from their tombs ('They who lurk'). It seems that the Doctor's alien presence has caused the Lurkers to awaken. The lights go out completely and the party is separated. Jess, Wallis, Lily and the monks wake up in a cave and begin to make their way to safety, but Wallis detects more of the Lurkers on his thermal navigator. Elsewhere, the Doctor and Dawn wake up in another cave. As they walk through the tunnels together, the Doctor continues to question Dawn on how she got to the planet. She claims a personal teleport broke when she arrived and she hasn't been able to fix it.

Jess and the others set up camp in a cavern but one of the skeletons comes alive and kills Wallis, turning him into one of the Lurkers. A monk repels them both and Lily ensures they won't reanimate again. Jess manages to find a secret passage and they escape through there, but it just leads to a dead end. More of the Lurkers follow them. The Doctor and Dawn still make their way through the tunnels, evading a horde of Lurkers. Dawn comments that the Doctor reminds her of a friend she had, long ago, who apparently died. Meanwhile, Lily and the monks try to stop the Lurkers from getting any closer but are all killed and reanimated. Jess cowers from the undead horde.

The Doctor and Dawn find themselves in a strange room where pictures show the past of Caventasia. In them, it is revealed that Dawn has been on Caventasia for centuries, ever since she was a child, never ageing or dying. It turns out that the Doctor has also been to the planet before, in various incarnations, and that he was the friend she thought she lost. The number of dead bodies on Caventasia somehow gave it consciousness and the planet refused to let Dawn die. It also resurrected the corpses as a defence against those that had polluted the planet, but eventually the Lurkers got out of control and so the planet selected the Doctor and Dawn to save it. Images of Jess at the mercy of the Lurkers appear but the Doctor can't reach her. He spots a portal however, an exit and decides to take it, but not before carving Jess' name into Dawn's rifle to ensure that the planet doesn't wipe their memories. Before he and Dawn can escape, however, Dawn is killed by a Lurker. The Doctor enters the portal and wakes up in a bedroom somewhere. Looking at the rifle, he remembers what he has to do.

### Continuity

The Doctor mentions the events of *Yellow Fever and How to Cure It*, an aborted Sixth Doctor story featuring the Autons. Jess references *Playthings*. Dawn jokes about being a Pescaton; the Pescatons were the villains in a Fourth Doctor radio play. The Doctors that visited Caventasia previously include the Fifth and Sixth Doctors.

## Production

### Writing

James Stone first developed this story to be featured in the originally planned Season 2, but as that never went ahead, it was decided to be the first in a series of three two-part specials instead. This episode focuses much more on the various characters on Caventasia, whilst the second part would have dealt mainly with the Doctor and Dawn in their attempts to rescue Jess. At one stage, the story was actually going to feature the Eighth Doctor and an undecided companion when it was briefly decided to scrap long seasons in favour of standalone stories featuring a different Doctor in each.

### Filming

The episode was filmed over the summer of 2018, whilst Cameron Hughes was working in a school uniform shop. The sets were relatively basic, and the vast majority of the story required the camera's brightness settings to be turned down, due to the planet's dark nature. The new TARDIS console room was designed to be more similar to the various designs seen throughout the TV series, particularly the one used from *The Five Doctors* onwards.

## Trivia

* This episode features the first appearance of the Ninth Doctor's second console room.
* This is the first story to feature a female character voiced by a female voice artist.
* The Fifth and Sixth Doctor costumes were reused from *Playthings*, where they were seen in the TARDIS wardrobe. The Fifth Doctor himself also appeared in *The Sins of the Time Lords*.