Finding Out the Correct Date

Having shown his companion Rose Tyler the far future, The Doctor decides to take her back into the past. But instead of arriving in Naples in 1860 the TARDIS materialises in the snowy streets of Victorian Cardiff on the eve of Christmas in 1869. Unbeknown to them things are stirring, the dead are walking and Charles Dickens is also giving a reading of his book “A Christmas Carol” at a local theatre.

After Mrs Peace, one of the deceased at the Sneed and Company undertakers, suddenly becomes reanimated and, glowing with ghostly light, heads out into the darkness towards the theatre a chain of events is set in motion.

At the local theatre during Charles Dickens reading Mrs Peace, who is in the audience, comes to life again releasing ghosts into the theatre causing a mass panic that attracts The Doctor and Rose who are taking in the delights of Victorian Cardiff. Also outside the theatre are Gabriel Sneed, the proprietor of the undertaking firm, who with the help of his servant girl, Gwyneth, are attempting to locate Mrs Peace’s body so that they can return it to the morgue.

Saying Good-Bye

Witnessing the removal of Mrs Peace from the theatre Rose investigates the dead body inside Sneed’s hearse but before she can alert The Doctor she finds herself chloroformed and placed inside the hearse by Sneed. The Doctor is just in time to see the hearse leave the vicinity and hails a cab instructing the driver to follow. Unknown by The Doctor the cab belongs to Charles Dickens who, on following The Doctor out of the theatre joins him in the chase.

After gaining access to the Sneed and Company undertakers they are just in time to rescue Rose from more awakening corpses. It is then that The Doctor, on witnessing first hand the ghosts enter the gas pipes, that they are dealing with an alien intelligence. So that he can deduce what is going on he suggests holding a séance using Gwyneth, who it appears is likely to be able to communicate with these creatures telepathically.

Sneed and Gwyneth

This they do, despite the sceptical Charles Dickens, and so learn from a glowing alien entity that the ghosts are in fact the Gelth, a race that was decimated by the 'Time Wars' and who now only exist in a parallel reality, connected to this one by a rift that centres on the house.

After convincing The Doctor that the Gelth only want to reclaim the dead bodies here on Earth, so as to exist in a physical form, Gwyneth agrees to help by opening the rift, which is located in the morgue. Unfortunately, not everything goes to plan when Gwyneth allows the Gelth to use her as a conduit.

With more corpses being reanimated, including the recently killed Sneed, The Doctor finds himself trapped, along with Rose, within the morgue and realising that he has made a terrible mistake now that the Gelth’s true intentions are made known. It appears that they plan to kill every human being on Earth in order to inhabit this planet.

Charles Dickens

It is left to Charles Dickens, who has managed to escape from the morgue, to rescue The Doctor and Rose. This he does allowing The Doctor to try and get Gwyneth to close the conduit and so stop the Gelth from carrying out their invasion plans. Luckily for them Gwyneth is more than willing to destroy the Gelth's only hope to cross over to this world.

With the danger over The Doctor and Rose depart in the TARDIS leaving Charles Dickens to ponder over recent events and to formulate his next book. The Doctor though is not perturbed that this will change established history as he knows what the future has in store for Charles Dickens.