Love & Monsters

"Love & Monsters" is presented as an excerpt from the video diary of Elton Pope, a young ELO fan, describing his encounters with The Doctor. Elton's on-camera narration forms a present-day frame story to a series of flashbacks related to his investigation of the Doctor. Elton recounts a chance meeting with the Doctor, and recalls having seen the same man as a young child. Searching the Internet, he discovers others, including Ursula Blake, who have also reported similar experiences with the Doctor. Elton and Ursula form LINDA—"London Investigation 'N' Detective Agency"—with three others, Bridget, Bliss, and Mr. Skinner, and meet in a library basement to discuss their experiences, but soon their activities become more social in nature. Elton and Ursula become closer through these meetings.
One day, LINDA finds its meeting interrupted by the portly Victor Kennedy, who points out that LINDA has lost its cause and reinvigorates the group to seek out the Doctor's location. Elton is given the task of getting close to Jackie Tyler, Rose's mum. Elton manages to find Jackie but when he starts asking too many questions about Rose, Jackie shoos him off. Meanwhile, two of LINDA's members, Bridget and Bliss, appear to have left the group, Victor explaining their absence as having decided to move on in their lives. After one meeting, Elton and Ursula depart, while Mr. Skinner remains at Victor's request. When Ursula realizes she had forgotten her phone, the two return, and discover that Victor is really a grotesque alien being (later named an "Abzorbaloff" by Elton), with the faces of the former LINDA members and others protruding from his body, still conscious of themselves. Elton is unable to stop the Abzorbaloff from absorbing Ursula, but makes for his own escape.
As the Abzorbaloff chases him, Elton is forced down a dead-end alley. However, moments before the Abzorbaloff can touch him, the TARDIS appears and the Doctor and Rose step out; Rose angrily confronts Elton for upsetting her mom. The Abzorbaloff, now with the Doctor in range, tries to absorb the Time Lord, but the absorbed members of LINDA use their willpower to hold back the Abzorbaloff's body, forcing it to drop its cane. The Doctor realizes that the cane contains a field generator that keeps the Abzorbaloff in control of its body, and Elton smashes the cane apart. The Abzorbaloff and the absorbed people begin to dissolve, and while the Doctor realizes it is too late to save the others, he manages to use his sonic screwdriver to keep Ursula's essence alive in a piece of cement tile, which Elton has kept in his room. The Doctor realizes that he has seen Elton before as a young child, and apologizes to him for the death of his mother at the hands of an elemental shade he had been chases years ago.
In the conclusion of Elton's narrative, he demonstrates that he and Ursula still have a romantic, if not unconventional, relationship. He further postulates that while one could have a conventional life, "the real world is much stranger than that; it is so much darker, madder, and so much better."