Christopher Eccleston credited as playing...
Doctor Who
- Driver: [as the coach races down the road after the hearse] Everything in order, Mr. Dickens?
- Charles Dickens: No it is not!
- The Doctor: What did he say?
- Charles Dickens: Let me say this first. I'm not without a sense of humor...
- The Doctor: Dickens?
- Charles Dickens: Yes?
- The Doctor: Charles Dickens?
- Charles Dickens: Yes.
- The Doctor: The Charles Dickens?
- Driver: Shall I remove the gentleman, Sir?
- The Doctor: Charles Dickens. You're brilliant you are! Completely one hundred per cent brilliant. I've read them all. "Great Expectation", "Olivier Twist", and whats the other one? The one with the ghost?
- Charles Dickens: "A Christmas Carol"?
- The Doctor: No, no, no. The one with the trains. "The Signalman". That's it. Terryfying, The best short story ever written! You're a genius!
- Driver: You want me to get rid of him, Sir?
- Charles Dickens: No, I think he can stay.
- The Doctor: What about me? I saw the Fall of Troy, World War V. I pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party. Now I'm gonna die in a dungeon. In Cardiff!
- Rose Tyler: It's not just dying...
- [the Gelth still press against the gait to reach them]
- Rose Tyler: We're going to become one of them.
- [cut to Charles Dickens moving through the house; extinguishing the lamps, allowing gas to fill the rooms; back to Rose and the Doctor]
- Rose Tyler: We'll go down fighting, yeah?
- The Doctor: Yeah.
- Rose Tyler: Together?
- The Doctor: Yeah.
- [they link hands]
- The Doctor: [looking at Rose] I'm so glad I met you.
- Rose Tyler: Me too.
- [they smile at each other]
- Charles Dickens: But you have such knowledge of future times. I don't wish to impose on you, but I must ask you... My books, Doctor. Do they last?
- The Doctor: Oh, yes.
- Charles Dickens: How long?
- The Doctor: Forever.
- Rose Tyler: Think about it, though. Christmas 1860. It happened once. Just once, and it's... gone, it's finished. It'll never happen again. Except for you. You can go back and see days that are dead and gone, a hundred thousand sunsets ago. No wonder you never stay still.
- The Doctor: Not a bad life.
- Rose Tyler: Better with two.
- The Doctor: Now, don't antagonize her - I love a happy medium!
- Rose Tyler: I can't believe you just said that!
- Charles Dickens: Can it be that I have the world entirely wrong?
- The Doctor: Not wrong. There's just more to learn.
- Charles Dickens: I've always railed against the fantasist. Oh, I loved an illusion as much as the next man, revelled in them. But that's exactly what they were. Illusions. The real world is something else. I dedicated myself to that, injustices, the great social causes. I hoped that I was a force for good. Now, you tell me that the real world is a realm of spectres and jack-o-lanterns. In which case, have I wasted my brief span here, Doctor? Has it all been for nothing?
- The Doctor: I got the flight a bit wrong.
- Rose Tyler: I don't care.
- The Doctor: It's not 1860, it's 1869.
- Rose Tyler: I don't care.
- The Doctor: It's not Naples.
- Rose Tyler: I don't care.
- The Doctor: [unhappy] It's Cardiff!
- Rose Tyler: Right...
- The Doctor: [after Rose has just been pulled from the clutches of two Gelth-possessed bodies] Hi!
- Rose Tyler: Hi. Who's your friend?
- The Doctor: Charles Dickens.
- Rose Tyler: Okay.
- The Doctor: [looks up to see Rose in an 1860s dress] Blimey!
- Rose Tyler: Don't laugh!
- The Doctor: You look beautiful.
- [Rose stops laughing and smiles instead. The Doctor looks away, awkwardly]
- The Doctor: Considering.
- Rose Tyler: Considering what?
- The Doctor: That you're human.
- Rose Tyler: [amused] I think that's a compliment. Aren't you going to change?
- The Doctor: I've changed my jumper.
- [starts to get up as Rose heads for the TARDIS door]
- Rose Tyler: You stay there. You've done this before. This one's mine!
- Charles Dickens: Incredible. Ghosts that are not ghosts, but beings from another world, who can only exist in our realm by inhabiting cadavers.
- The Doctor: Good system. It might work.
- Rose Tyler: [about the Gelf] You can't let 'em run around inside of dead people!
- The Doctor: Why not? It's just like recycling.
- Rose Tyler: Seriously though, you can't.
- The Doctor: Seriously though, I can!
- Charles Dickens: Who exactly is in that hearse?
- The Doctor: My friend. She's only 19. It's my fault. She's in my care, and now she's in danger.
- Charles Dickens: Why are we wasting my time talking about dry old books? This is much more important.
- [leans out the window; shouting to the driver]
- Charles Dickens: Driver, be swift! the chase is on!
- [driver answers 'Yes, sir]
- The Doctor: [smiling] That a boy, Charlie!
- Charles Dickens: Nobody calls me Charlie.
- The Doctor: [with a sly grin] The ladies do.
- Charles Dickens: How do you know that?
- The Doctor: I told you, I'm your number one...
- Charles Dickens: Number one fan.
- [more to himself]
- Charles Dickens: I know.
- The Doctor: [runs towards a coach; shouts to the driver] Oi, you! Follow that hearse!
- Driver: I can't do that, Sir.
- The Doctor: [climbs in] Why not?
- Charles Dickens: [having followed the Doctor] I'll tell you why not!
- [stands at the door]
- Charles Dickens: I'll give you a very good reason why not. Because this is *my* coach!
- The Doctor: Well, get in, then.
- [grabs his arm, pulling him inside, and slams the door]
- Charles Dickens: After all these revelations, there's still one mystery you haven't explained. Answer me this... Who are you?
- The Doctor: Just a friend, passing through.
- Gabriel Sneed: What did you say, Doctor? Explain it again. What are they?
- The Doctor: Aliens.
- Gabriel Sneed: Like foreigners, you mean?
- The Doctor: Pretty foreign, yeah. From up there.
- [points upwards]
- Gabriel Sneed: Brecon?
- The Gelth, Gwyneth: [during the séance, the Gelth come through] Pity us. Pity the Gelth. There is so little time. Help us.
- The Doctor: What do you want us to do?
- The Gelth, Gwyneth: The rift. Take the girl to the rift. Make the bridge.
- The Doctor: What for?
- The Gelth, Gwyneth: We are so very few. The last of our kind. We face extinction.
- The Doctor: Why? What happened?
- The Gelth, Gwyneth: Once we had a physical form like you. But then the War came.
- Charles Dickens: War? What war?
- The Gelth, Gwyneth: The Time War. The whole universe convulsed. The Time War raged, invisible to smaller species but devastating to higher forms. Our bodies wasted away. We're trapped in this gaseous state.
- The Doctor: So, that's why you need the corpses.
- The Gelth, Gwyneth: We want to stand tall, to feel the sunlight, to live again. We need a physical form and your dead are abandoned. They go to waste. Give them to us.
- Rose Tyler: But we can't!
- The Doctor: Why not?
- Rose Tyler: It's... I mean, it's not...
- The Doctor: Not decent? Not polite? It could save their lives.
- The Gelth, Gwyneth: Open the rift. Let the Gelth through. We're dying. Help us... Pity the Gelth!
- [the Gelth vanish]
- The Doctor: The rift's getting wider and something's sneaking through.
- Rose Tyler: What's the rift?
- The Doctor: A weak point in time and space. A connection between this place and another. That's the cause of ghost stories, most of the time.
- Gabriel Sneed: That's how I got the house so cheap. Stories going back generations.
- [Dickens walks out of the room]
- Gabriel Sneed: Echoes in the dark. Queer songs in the air. And a feeling like a shadow passing over your soul.
- [pause]
- Gabriel Sneed: Mind you, truth be told, it's been good for business. Just what people expect from a gloomy old trade like mine.
- The Doctor: [over the noise of the TARDIS] You've seen the future, how about I show you the past? 1860? How does 1860 sound?
- Rose Tyler: What happens in 1860?
- The Doctor: I have no idea, let's find out! Hold on! Here we go!
- The Doctor: I'm such a big fan.
- Charles Dickens: [stutters] A what? A big what?
- The Doctor: Fan. Number 1 fan. That's me.
- Charles Dickens: How exactly are you a 'fan'? In what way do you resemble a means of keeping oneself cool?
- The Doctor: [saying goodbye to Charles Dickens] Nice to meet you. Fantastic.
- Rose Tyler: [shaking his hand] Bye then. And thanks.
- [steps forward and kisses him on the cheek]
- Charles Dickens: [taken aback] Oh, my dear... How modern.
- [Rose smiles]