Original subtitles

(DOCTOR WHO THEME)

Alastair? Alastair?

- Hmm? - What about this one?

- Oh, fine, if you like it, Doris. - Oh, show some enthusiasm.

It will look great by one of our azalea beds. What do you think?

Yes, I'll plant it when we get home.

- Oh, thank you. - The exercise will do me good.

Now, where's that salesman got to? Typical lack of efficiency.

Back in your soldier days, you just had to give an order and stand back.

Of course.

Sergeant Benton, tree planting party, at the double!

Sir!

- You don't regret it, do you? - What, giving up teaching?

No, leaving United Nations Intelligence Taskforce.

No, my blood and thunder days are long passed.

Come in, Salamander 6-0. Over.

(STATIC CRACKLING)

Come in, Salamander 6-0. Over.

Salamander 6-0, reading you. Strength one. Over.

Stand by, 6-0.

Brigadier, I've made contact with Lieutenant Richards.

6-0, the Brigadier is coming now.

Salamander 6-0, please clarify your situation. Over.

(STATIC CRACKLING) Massive electrical disturbance. Over.

Salamander 6-0, you're breaking up. Over.

(STATIC CRACKLING)

Salamander, do you copy?

Get that vehicle on the road, ASAP!

- They've gone. - Must be the storm.

I don't like this weather.

At last he is revealed to us.

ACE: Professor, why is it dark in here?

- Quiet, Ace, I'm working. - Oh, is that why it's dark?

(SIGHS) Yes.

What's that noise?

- A cry in the dark. - A distress signal?

A cry for help, perhaps a summoning.

- Where's it coming from? - Earth.

Rippling out through the cosmos, forward in time,

- backwards in time and sideways... - Sideways in time?

Yes, sideways in time.

Across the boundaries that divide one universe from another.

Weird.

This cry, who's it for?

For? I don't know.

Well, perhaps if we went there... Where's it coming from again?

Earth! A few years in your future.

It's giving me the creeps.

What does it mean?

We'll know in a moment. Once I've deciphered it.

(ECHOING) Merlin...

Wherever it is it's coming from, I don't think we want to go there.

Too late. We've already arrived.

(WHOOSHING)

Salamander 6-0, this is Seabird 1, are you receiving me? Over.

(STATIC CRACKLING)

Brigadier.

- What now? - Hitchhikers.

Oh, shame.

Don't stop then, I don't care!

(CAR APPROACHING)

I don't think this will stop either.

ACE: Don't be such a pessimist, Professor.

Where are you heading?

- Northeast. - Right, climb aboard.

- Come to see the dig, have you? - Ah! Archaeological dig?

Yes, actually... Oh, sorry, haven't introduced myself.

I'm Peter Warmsly.

I'm site manager for the Carbury Trust Conservation Area.

I'm Ace, and this is the Doctor.

The dig, as a matter of fact, is a hobby. A battlefield.

I hate that sound, don't you?

Sometimes at night I lie there, listening, thinking it might be...

The beginning of something terrible.

What was that?

The military use the area as a firing range.

Never understood why.

Blowing the occasional chunk out of the earth keeps them amused.

It didn't sound like a shell.

Oh, very good. Why not drive the missile into the lake?

Professor?

(BEEPING)

DOCTOR: Yes, the transmission is definitely coming from over there.

Professor.

(RAPID BEEPING)

It's a missile convoy.

A nuclear missile convoy.

How do you know?

It has a graveyard stench.

Warmsly is the name, and I demand to see somebody in charge.

(WHOOSHING OVERHEAD)

What was that?

- A low flying jet? - Not this far south.

Raise Division, get them to check flight paths.

Sorry, sir, but we cannot get a signal out.

Well, see what you can do, Zbrigniev. All this noise is making me nervous.

There's a Mr Warmsly who wants to speak to an officer, sir.

Brigadier!

There's a Mr Warmsly who wants to speak to somebody in charge.

You talk to him, Zbrigniev, I've got enough troubles.

(WHOOSHING)

(EXPLOSION)

Didn't sound like a shell.

- More like a couple of rockets. - Yes.

(EXPLOSION)

What we need is something to help us.

Wait a minute.

(CHUCKLING) Ah. Yes, of course.

I never thought I'd need these again.

This should remove a few obstacles.

- Who's Elizabeth Shaw? - Hmm?

- I don't even look like her. - Oh, never mind.

Just think like a physicist.

- Now, what seems to be the problem? - Excuse me?

Well, you've had an explosion in your electronics, haven't you?

- An electro-magnetic pulse effect. - Make yourself at home!

- Caused by? - A nuclear explosion, usually.

I think I would have noticed a nuclear explosion.

Yes, well, they are conspicuous.

Well, if there was no nuke, where did the energy pulse come from?

DOCTOR: Exactly.

All systems failures were the result of a minor technical difficulty.

I don't know where you got these from, but I intend to find out.

- Show these two out. - I'd just like to say three things.

- What? - Yeti, Autons, Daleks.

Cybermen and Silurians!

- That was five things. - She didn't even notice.

Among all the varied wonders of the universe,

there's nothing so firmly clamped shut as the military mind.

Well done, Zbrigniev.

Two civilians waltz up with a pair of antiquated pass cards

and you let them in, why?

- Sir. - You know something, what is it?

- Off the record, sir. - Off the record.

When I served under Lethbridge-Stewart,

we had a scientific adviser called the Doctor.

The man outside?

- No, sir. But... - But?

He changed his appearance, several times.

- A disguise. - No, sir.

The word was he changed his whole physical appearance.

- His whole appearance. - And his personality.

How could he be the same man if his appearance and personality have changed?

I don't know, sir.

What do you know, Zbrigniev?

Just that whenever this Doctor turns up...

- Yes? - All hell breaks loose.

DORIS: Alastair, telephone for you.

Who is it?

Hello, can you tell me who's speaking?

Okay, fine, thank you. Geneva.

Oh, probably just another peace conference.

Tell them I've retired.

Tell them I've decided to fade away.

No, I'm terribly sorry, I'm afraid he's unavailable.

Okay, yes, I will.

Thank you, bye-bye.

Alastair, that was the Secretary-General.

Doris, I don't care if it was the King. I'm still retired.

He said something about the Doctor being back.

Alastair, who is the Doctor?

We could have walked to the hotel, you know.

No problem. I thought you might like to see Vortigern's Lake.

Vortigern? That's an interesting name.

Yeah, fascinating.

- What's your name, by the way? - Brigadier Winifred Bambera.

Winifred?

There are many secrets in names. Vortigern is old British for High King.

Your convoy's stranded by the lake of the High King.

- Can I help you? - Yes, I'd like to book a room.

One for myself and one for my young friend here.

Yes, sir. Long journey?

Um, quite a distance, as it happens.

- Then you'll be having a drink, sir? - Yes, please.

Why not? What do you have?

What we have, sir, is possibly the finest beer in the area,

even if I do say so myself, perhaps the best in the country.

- Really? - Mmm-hmm.

He makes it himself in a converted barn at the end of the garden.

It's in the CAMRA Guide. We call it Arthur's Ale.

- Vodka and coke, Pat. - Glass of water, please. Ace?

- Oh, vodka and... - Ace?

Lemonade, please.

- Good choice. - Lemonade?

Anything but the beer.

Hello, I'm the Doctor.

- And this is my friend... - Ace.

There we are, sir. £5, please.

- How much? - Well, remember we are in the future.

Now, £5 piece.

Thank you, sir.

Do you mind? It's a very valuable piece of coinage.

RADIO: Assume maximum alert. If the Doctor is involved,

look out for a police telephone box.

Look out for what?

Oh, shame.

- So you've met Peter? - Mmm. Very knowledgeable fellow.

Hmm. It's one way of putting it. He's got this thing about King Arthur.

Digs things up out of the ground by the lake.

Well, he is an archaeologist.

Can't see it myself, all that patient scraping about.

You know, I get the urge to bung half a kilo of TNT down the hole

- and bring it all up in one go. - Now you're talking!

The point of archaeology is to carefully recover the past,

not disintegrate it.

Wouldn't make much difference.

The only half decent thing Peter's ever found is that scabbard.

You could use something with more brisance.

More brisance? Than trinitrotoluene? Like what?

How remarkable.

- Tell you outside. - Why outside?

He gets upset when I talk about explosives.

- Interesting, isn't it? - Yes.

I wish I could see what it looks like.

I can feel its presence sometimes.

Touch it.

My! It's hot.

No, now it's cold.

Every so often, I get the strangest feeling about it.

What kind of feeling?

Ooh, that it's waiting for something.

Stupid, really.

Waiting for something, or someone.

Oh, shame.

I'm surprised it still fits.

I should have thrown it out while I had the chance.

And that, too.

You could have said no.

I could have, Doris, but I still have my duty.

This isn't duty, you want to go. I mean, do I...

All this means so little to you.

- I will be coming back. - You don't need to go.

You don't need to go on playing soldier any more.

I'm not playing.

There is the enemy. Kill him.

WARMSLY: Elizabeth!

Ah, I need to use your telephone, the one in my car isn't working.

Yes, call. External.

Sedgewick, Carbury Trust.

Mr Warmsly, just the person.

There's a convoy just off the road by the lake with a nuclear missile in it.

PHONE: There is a fault on the line. There is a fault on the line.

Yes. No...

Off!

- This scabbard... - The line's dead.

This scabbard.

- Where did you find it? - Here, locally. Why?

Where?

For the scabbard's worth.

BOTH: Ten of the sword.

Said Merlin.

Yeah. Careful with it. Yeah.

It was found here, at the dig, by the lake.

- What period? - Does it matter?

Eighth century, AD.

No, no, no. It's been waiting around longer than that.

Waiting for what?

Waiting for me.

Alastair, I found this. Had you forgotten it?

Oh, thank you.

- You will be careful? - Of course.

I've always been careful.

Don't worry, I'll sort this out, and then come home.

Okay.

Well, it was obvious I was never gonna be the world's greatest artist.

Anyway, Mrs Parkinson, the art teacher, asked me what it is, right.

So I told her it was a lump of school Plasticine.

Well, I couldn't tell her what it really was!

The homemade gelignite.

(BOTH LAUGHING)

So, we're in the school corridor by now,

and Mrs Parkinson asks me to put what she thinks is school Plasticine

- back in the art room. - So what did you do?

I tossed it over my shoulder, like that.

Landed right in the middle of class 1C's prize-winning pottery pig collection.

And boom!

(GIGGLING) Boom!

Boom!

(CRASHING)

It's hit the brewery!

- We better get the Doctor. - Good idea.

- Did you see it? - ACE: Yeah.

- And? - It looked like a bloke.

- A bloke, flying through the air? - And then through a wall!

- You two, stay here. - Oh, be serious, Professor!

- What's going on? - Well, you better ask the Professor.

- What's going on? - Shh.

- ACE: Doctor? - DOCTOR: Yes.

ACE: I can't see anything.

What was that?

Is it an android?

No. It's a human.

Merlin.

Against all hope.

ACE: You got it wrong, mate, this is the Doctor.

Oh, he has many names, but in my reckoning, he is Merlin.

You recognise my face, then?

No, not your aspect, but your manner that betrays you.

Do you not ride the ship of time?

Does it not deceive the senses, being larger within than without?

Merlin, cease these games and tell me truly,

is this the time?

- Time for what? - Thou does not know, truly?

Do you think he'd be asking if he did, tinhead?

Why, the answer to Excalibur's call. The time of restitution.

The time when Arthur rises to lead the Britons to war.

Vortigern's Lake, of course!

- Can you walk? - Can someone answer a simple question?

What's wrong, Doctor?

Can someone tell me what on earth is going on?

If my hunch is right, the Earth could be at the centre of a war

that doesn't even belong to this dimension!

Freeze! Everyone stand nice and easy.

Listen, Winifred, we've got to be somewhere urgently,

so please get out of the way.

You're under arrest! You and your freaky friends.

Who are you calling freaky?

I can sort this out. Look, if I can just explain...

Kill them! Kill them now!