Two serials, each staged in two episodes.
The TARDIS lands aboard the eighteenth century goods ship the Isabella. Captain Alexander Marfleet, and many of his crew, having recently encountered a glowing ship crewed with a glowing crew, suspect the Doctor, Ace and Hex to be agents of some insidious ethereal trickery, and lock them up.
When the alleged Flying Dutchman returns, the Doctor’s assistive steering skills persuade the Captain to reconsider their testimony. Meanwhile, Ace and Hex differ over explanation of extraterrestrial intervention, or of actual, undeniable ghosts…
Tropes for The Flying Dutchman:
- Bizarre Alien Senses: The Doctor recognises Earth by the distinctive gravity.
- Continuity Nod: The apparently deserted Isabella is compared to the Marie Celeste.The Doctor: Don’t remind me.
- Flying Dutchman: The crew of the Isabella encounter a glowing ship, whose glowing crew call to them menacingly. Ace thinks it’s aliens. As it turns out, the ship and its very much alive, earthly crew are painted with phosphorus.
- The Mutiny: Orchestrated by Chief Mate Unsworth to overthrow Captain Alexander Marfleet, in resentment of his paternal inheritance of command.
- Ocean Madness: The Doctor ventures the Isabella ‘s crew to have succumbed to a touch of this.
- Pulled from Your Day Off: Inverted; the Doctor recalls having taken an afternoon off, and not to have enjoyed it very much.
- Samus Is a Girl: Archie the cabin boy is really a girl called Anna.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: The Flying Dutchman is the Henrietta, arranged by Chief Mate Unsworth to be painted with phosphorus, in order to scare the crew of the Isabella into mutiny.
- Seen It All: Discussed and Downplayed. Hex ventures that to the Doctor, humans must seem predictable. The Doctor notes that he still has much of the universe to see. He then seems to quickly anticipate the secret of the alleged Flying Dutchman, but takes satisfaction in encouraging Ace and Hex to deduce it unaided.
- Trickster Mentor: Ace is convinced the spookily glowing crew are aliens. Hex is open to the possibility of ghosts. The Doctor wants the two to figure it out for themselves.
The TARDIS lands in the living room of a house which the Doctor deduces to stand in the Fens, north-west Norfolk. While the house looks to be occupied, no one appears to be home, and everything, including a partially dunk cup of tea, is frozen in place.
While the Doctor, Ace and Hex try to find out what’s going on, the doors, and the voice-controlled device Harry, seem to have a mind of their own...
Tropes for Displaced:
- Bland-Name Product: In 2020, the year before Hex joined the TARDIS team, a house is equipped with “Harry”, a talking, voice-activated digital interface.
- Children Are Innocent: Hex laments the poignancy of the recently vacated children’s bedroom.
- Empathy Doll Shot: A stuffed rhino, whose owner has been murdered for the family land.
- Genius Loci: The House is able to arrange itself in response to emotion: the front door is made of Pathis Wood, biomechanical component of a crashed Craw ship, which, from organisms in and around the house, cultivated a sentience. It subtly augmented the land so as to make the resident Tungates infertile, and to imbue their adopted heirs with ties to the land.
- Energy Beings: The Craw, inter-dimensional, partially insubstantial beings who feed on the residual emotion of recent death.
- Haunted House: The recently vacant house is occupied by an incorporeal sentience: a biomechanical alien compound, of which the front door is built.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: George Colbert gassed to death a whole family for money.
- Innocent Aliens:
- The Craw survive by feeding on the psychic aftermath of death, but never cause it.
- The sentience grown from a family home by biomechanical Pathis Wood.
- Kill the Host Body: On gassing to death the , George Colbert set in motion the expiration of the sentience cultivated by the biomechanical Pathis Wood ingrained in the house’s front door.
- Lethal Chef: To celebrate solving the mystery, Ace decides to make pancakes… again.Hex: Me eyebrows’ve only just grown back!
- Not Me This Time: Hex suspects the bewildering situation to be part of one of the Doctor’s secret tests. He pleads innocent, and is telling the truth.
- Organic Technology: Pathis Wood, a kind of wood filled with a silver approximation of a nerve system.
- The Power of Love: One of Ace’s badges, charged with residual emotion from Ace and Hex in regard to each other, conveys to the house a message to reverse its sudden reinstation of the house’s poisoned air.
- Scenery Porn: The Doctor fondly ponders the tranquil contest of land and water.
- Starfish Aliens: Pathis Wood, a sentient component of a crashed Craw ship, was used by the Tungates to build a front door. From organisms within and around the house, the Pathis Wood grew a sentience manifest in the building.
