Series seven 2: Dinosaurs on a spaceship

Dinosaurs On A Spaceship
By Chris Chibnall
Fourty-Five Minutes Long

2/14
Main Enemy:Soloman
Other enemies:Veloceraptors
   Robots

The Doctor:Matt Smith
 Amy Pond: Karen Gillan
          Rory Williams: Arthur Darvill
Brian Williams: Mark Williams
        Queen Nefertiti: Riann Steel
Riddell: Rupert: Graves
Solomon: David Bradley
Robots Voiced By David Mitchel and Robert Webb

Original Broadcast :8th September 2012

Plot Summary
It's the 24th Century and a huge spaceship is about to crash into Earth. Along with an Egyptian Queen and an archaeologist, the Doctor, Amy, Rory, plus Rory's his Dad,
arrive to discover that the place is populated with dinosaurs...

Main storyline


The Doctor recruits Queen Nefertiti, from 14th century Egypt and Archaeologist John Riddell, from the early 1900's, to assist him in a mission after the doctor saves Neferiti's life.

At a military defense station in India, Indira, an employer from the station, calls upon the Doctor's help in preventing a vast spaceship from colliding with the Earth. If the spaceship comes too close within the Earth's atmosphere, missiles will be fired and the ship, which contains a precious cargo, destroyed.

The Silurian Ark heading towards Earth, carrying cargo that was thought to have died out many millions of years ago...

Ten months after he last saw them, the Doctor materializes the TARDIS around Rory, Amy and Rory's dad, Brian Williams, whilst an unaware Brian, is trying to fix a light-bulb.
The Doctor was in a rush when he set the controls and so hadn't realised that Brian was on-board until it was too late. He Calls him an intruder only to then discover his relation to Rory.

I'm sure I recognise him from somewhere, the 'Harry' something films

and that a  most precious cargo is also on-board the spaceship. Thousands of... well, work it out for yourselves.

Raptors are some of the Dinosaurs that were loaded aboard the ship.

As Ridell tries to throw a knife at one of them, the Doctor announces that they need to be preserved.
Whilst asking for the ship's engine, they are taken to the engine room, which has taken on the form of a beach with an an ocean. Finding another computer in a rock, Rory mentions that the beach seems to be  humming.
They spot birds in the sky, with Brian asking "Is that a kestrel?" The Doctor replies, "I do hope so!"

Even if you were drunk and couldn't even keep your eyes open you would know that...that... just how on Earth does that look like a KESTREL?

Exploring the rest of the vessel, Amy, Nefertiti and Riddell battle it out among themselves for which historical figure is better.
Being Chased by the "kestrels," now recognisable as pterodactyls, the Doctor and his friends find shelter but encounter two large bronze and rusting robots with ridiculously small heads completely disproportionate with the rest of their bodies (Voiced by David Mitchell and Robert Webb and surprisingly slightly less intelligent than most robots.
They also encounter a friendly Triceratops, who appears to have absolutely no manners or any signs of decency, as is made apparent when it licks Brian's face because it found 'organic matter' in his trousers... Golf Balls.

The Triceratops detected Brian's Golf balls in his pocket and like one typical of the canine species would do, plays fetch with them.
Because, well, as I always say, a dinosaur is just like a dog.

Amy finds Data records and a message from a Silurian from 117 years ago. It reveals that 50 species were loaded on to the vessel and that the entire spaceship is a Silurian ark without any Silurians on-board.Thousands of life signals have disappeared and it seems that there is another smaller spaceship within the core of the ship.
Meanwhile and then much to Amy's disgust, Riddell and Nefertiti's argument turns into...flirting.

Amy discovers the ship's data records which don't work. She tries to persuade them to by using friendly and encouraging language and when that fails, like any other sane being in the world, turns to violence, bashing the computer.

The original owners of the ship, the Reptilians that lived on the Earth and ruled it before humans, the Silurians

Brought to the spacecraft inside the Ark by the Two robots, the Doctor is taken to see Solomon, the ship's owner and the Robots's engineer. Solomon  had overheard Rory at the Beach call someone 'The Doctor' and as he is badly injured, sent the Robots to capture him.

Illegal trader Solomon, played by David Bradley who also went on to appear in An Adventure In Time And Space, as William Hartnell, a drama shown on BBC 2, depicting how Hartnell became the first Doctor. It was also shown to mark the 50th anniversary of the show.

The Doctor soon discovers that Solomon is an illegal trader who raided the ship, in order to sell the dinosaurs for an enormous profit. He even tries to find out how much the Doctor is worth but comes up with no results, as the Doctor doesn't appear in his universal database.
After previously instructing the robots to kill the original inhabitants, the Silurians, Solomon now finds that he can't escape as he doesn't know how to pilot the Ark. Finding out the who Nefertiti is and how much she is worth,  he decides to kidnap her and escape, sending the robots to kill the Doctor and his friends.

Solomon with his creations Robot 1 and Robot two or alternatively, Robot and Robot

The Ark receives a message from Earth and Indira warns the doctor that she has to start the missile programme in 30 minutes
Amy, Ridell and Nefertiti find guns and Riddell loads them with anesthetic found on board the ship.
After Rory suggests that the Space Ark might have a  weapons system, the Doctor, very much to Rory's disgust , kisses him on the lips and then slaps him repeatedly after he discovers that the ship is bereft of all weaponry.
Solomon demands the Egyptian Queen and gets the robots to destroy the Triceratops which the Doctor has nick-named Tricey. Nefertiti allows herself to be taken, so that the others will be saved.
Ridell is sent to deal with the Dinosaurs but is told not to kill any of them.
Outnumbered by Raptors, Amy helps Ridell as the Doctor figures out the ship needs to be piloted by two people with the the same genes making Rory and Brian perfect for the task.

Brian and Rory turning the Silurian Ark

While Rory and Brian turn the ship and Amy and Riddell battle Raptors with tranquilizers, the Doctor magnetizes Solomon's ship so that it can't move and then disables the robots. Nefertiti attacks Solomon and the Doctor disables the Ark's signal and replaces Solomon's ship with the Silurians one and using a signal, the dodecahedron (Meglos) to make the missiles lock on to something.
Time being up, Solomon is left to die as his ship is attacked by the missiles, that followed the signal that the Doctor set and ultimately destroyed.
Escaping using the repaired Teleport, the Doctor drops Nefertiti and Riddell back on Earth where they begin a  new life together.

Back home and after the event, a once travel shy Brian, decides to set off on his travels. Amy and Rory receive a large number of postcards of the many different places that he has been to since the Dinosaur Ark.
One of the postcards show the TARDIS (Stupid fools used the wrong, different shaded blue,without the St Johns ambulance sign and the lantern from the Rose-Eleventh Hour TARDIS. How am I meant to have any faith in the production team now?) surrounded by Dinosaurs and a wooden sign in the ground that says 'Siluria'

See? You see? Look at that damn TARDIS!
I...I...I can't take the insanity of it all!
No matter, for soon they shall all pay with their blood

Episode three: A town called Mercy

Coming soon