Aiming to spend New Years’ Eve in Edinburgh, the Doctor and Ace land a week or so early, and about seventy-nine miles north, near the village of Coilin Bridge. A local pub shelters mountaineer Tom, who, having returned from nearby Ben Macdui, is traumatised by some inscrutable terror encountered on the mountain.
Here to investigate the phenomenon is Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart - who, while retired from the rank, still happily answers to the title of Brigadier - vlogger Kirsty, zoologist/anthropologist Thadius Canner, and cryptozoologist Dr Neve Godek. With Kirsty, Ace ventures onto the mountain, in search of a glimpse of the fabled Grey Man.
Meanwhile, Tom recalls an encounter with a twelve-foot tall figure - whose face sent him catatonic with dread…
Tropes:
- Ambiguously Gay: Kirsty mentions having recently split up with her girlfriend.
- Another Dimension: A region of the mountain leads to a parallel Earth, where “denisorphans, a hardy, archaic human species” have evolved to induce primal dread by mere gaze.
- Big Foot Sasquatch And Yeti: The twelve foot, mountain-dwelling Grey Man.
- Bonnie Scotland:The Doctor: Air filled with the ancient stories, the blood of warring clans, and just a hint of iron girders…
- Christmas Episode: From chill winds, shelter in a warm inn with tea and mince pies fondly stokes a seasonal atmosphere. On the mountain, the Brigadier strikes up a rendition of “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen.” Accompanied, naturally, by the Doctor on the spoons.
- Cool Gate: When a flung rock vanishes in mid-air, the Brigadier suspects a region of the mountain to be a doorway to the past. He’s not far off - it’s a point in space/time where dimensional walls have weakened to breach a parallel universe.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Ace, having left Earth in the late eighties, finds herself in a future where computers enable just about anyone to have their own television show, and tiny mobile telephones are commonplace.
- Good All Along: The Grey Men never meant any harm: their induction of overwhelming dread is their natural defence mechanism. While primitive, they’re sapient and reasonable.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: A glimpse of the face of the Grey Man induces an inscrutable sense of fathomless dread, and forces observers to forget its appearance. This is a naturally evolved defence mechanism.
- Heartbreak and Ice Cream: Kirsty considered a cryptozoological mountain expedition to be a preferable alternative to this.
- Hostile Weather: A dangerously cold storm.
- I Choose to Stay: Dr Godek choses to maintain exploratory communications in the universe of the Grey Men.
- Kill the Cutie: Hapless explorers Tom and Andy, the latter stranded on the mountain, die respectively of fright and cold.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Sight of the Grey Man’s face drives Thadius to a reckless desperation to catch the Grey Man.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Subverted. Neve and the Brigadier are bemused to find several displaced cairn stones to have been replaced with implausible speed. The Brig theorises that they’ve unwittingly stepped into the distant past, and are seeing the cairn at a different point in its existence. They’ve actually stepped into a parallel universe.
- Ominous Fog: The dense mountain mist.
- Primal Fear: A palpable, inscrutable fear is induced by proximity to the Grey Man.The Doctor: Human instincts aren’t always wrong....
- Retired Badass: Who else but the Brig?
- Skeptic No Longer: Discussed.The Brigadier: Once you’ve been attacked by the Loch Ness Monster, it’s rather hard to look at these old legends in quite the same way again.
- Supernatural Fear Inducer: A defence naturally evolved by the Grey Men.
- You Are Not Alone: On exposure to the Grey Man’s face, Kirsty’s overwhelming dread is eased by Ace’s fellowship.
