Doctor: Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor)
Companion
Jenna-Louise Coleman (Clara Oswald)
Others
Celia Imrie – Miss Kizlet
Robert Whitlock – Mahler
Dan Li – Alexei
Manpreet Bachu – Nabile
Sean Knopp – Paul
James Greene – The Abbott
Geff Francis – George Maitland
Eve de Leon Allen – Angie Maitland
Kassius Carey Johnson – Artie Maitland
Danielle Eames – Little Girl
Fred Pearson – Barista
Jade Anouka – Waitress
Olivia Hill – Newsreader
Isabella Blake-Thomas – Child
Matthew Earley – Man
Antony Edridge – Pilot
Richard E. Grant – The Great Intelligence
Production
Directed by Colm McCarthy
Written by Steven Moffat
Produced by Denise Paul
Marcus Wilson (series producer)
Executive producer(s)
Steven Moffat
Caroline Skinner
Incidental music composer Murray Gold
Series Series 7
Length 45 minutes
Originally broadcast 30 March 2013
A man on a computer screen describes how human souls are uploaded to the Internet when people use their computers to log into a certain Wi-Fi network. The man reveals he has been uploaded and is lost.
The Doctor (Matt Smith) has retreated to a monastery in Cumbria in the year 1207 to contemplate the mystery of Clara Oswin Oswald (Jenna-Louise Coleman), a woman he has met twice previously but who died both times. The monks disturb him one day to tell him that "the bells of Saint John" are ringing. The Doctor goes to his TARDIS and finds its exterior phone ringing. On the other end is Clara, whom the Doctor initially does not recognise. Clara, having been given the TARDIS' number by "a woman in the shop" and believing it is a computer help line, asks for help to connect to the Internet. When Clara uses the phrase "Run, you clever boy, and remember" as a mnemonic for her password, the Doctor realises who she is. He sets off to meet her in person.
When he arrives, Clara refuses to talk to him due to his bizarre appearance and erratic behaviour, so the Doctor changes out of his monk's clothing into a variation of his usual clothing. When he returns, he finds Clara being "uploaded" via a mobile robotic server disguised as a young girl. The Doctor halts the upload and despite the uploader's attempts to stop him, successfully reverses it, sending them a message that Clara is under his protection. The head of the uploaders, Miss Kizlet (Celia Imrie), informs her client that the Doctor has intervened as feared. The Doctor and Clara are outside when the uploaders cause an airplane to descend at them. The Doctor and Clara board the TARDIS and land on the plane, and the Doctor saves it from crashing.
The Doctor takes Clara to the next morning in the TARDIS, and they go to a cafe to try to understand the happenings. Clara uses computer skills that she picked up from her uploading experience to track the uploaders to their base at the Shard. The Doctor encounters people inside the café under the control of Miss Kizlet who distract him long enough for a server disguised as the Doctor to upload Clara completely. An angered Doctor sets out to the Shard on an anti-gravity motorbike and crashes it into Miss Kizlet's office. He demands that she release all the minds that have been uploaded, but Miss Kizlet refuses. The Doctor then reveals that he is still at the café and she was talking to the server he had hacked which he then uses to upload Miss Kizlet to the network. Trapped in the network, she orders her subordinates to release her (with the Doctor ensuring that they do so using a pad that controls her employees). By doing this, everyone else including Clara, is restored.
The restored Miss Kizlet contacts her client to report her failure to him. The client is shown to be the Great Intelligence, who orders her to reset all people working there, including herself, clearing their memories in the process. As UNIT storms in to shut them down, the uploaders lose all memories back to the moment before they were controlled—including Miss Kizlet being reduced to the mentality of a small child. Meanwhile, the Doctor takes Clara home and offers her a chance to travel with him, which she refuses. She tells him to come back the next morning, as she may change her mind by then.
The Bells of Saint John