Frontios

Tegan: Doctor then do something!
Doctor: Oh I am. Lots of things. Nothing that fits the gravity of the situation.


Plot Summary

The TARDIS flies near the planet of Frontios, a planet settled by a colony of humans fleeing the destruction of Earth. The settlement has been having hard times as they run low on supplies and more and more people and equipment are sucked down into the Earth. The Doctor attempts to stay away from the planet, not wanting to get involved in human development, but the TARDIS is caught in a meteor storm and pulled in to the planet.

Upon landing, they help various colonists into the caves away from the meteors and the Doctor opts to give medical assistance. There is poor light in the caves and no electricity. Seeing a generator, he hopes to get it running but has no power. The medical officer, Range, assists him and his daughter Norna recalls that there is a basic battery generator in the remains of the colony ship. Tegan and Turlough go with her to help carry it.

The colony ship is outlawed territory, the local authority trying to preserve supplies, and the three are forced to sneak into the ship. Meanwhile the military authority, Brazen, alerts the colony leader, Plantagenet, of the new arrivals and they are immediately suspicious that the Doctor is part of an invasion force. Plantagenet has only recently taken command from his father, Captain Revere.

The three young people manage to recover the battery, though they are forced to knock out one of the guards to do it. They return with the battery to the infirmary, much to the Doctor's appreciation. Range informs the Doctor, as Plantagenet bears down on them, that they had no trouble on the planet for ten years, attempting to grow crops and survive. But for the last thirty years, they've been attacked by some unseen force pulling in meteors at them.

Plantagenet accuses the Doctor of being the fore of an invasion force and the Doctor offers to show him the TARDIS as proof that they are just travelers who didn't mean to stop there. They are halted by another round of meteor strikes which forces everyone back into the caves. As it stops, the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough race back, hoping to leave in the TARDIS. However, they find the TARDIS gone, apparently destroyed.

Plantagenet arrests the Doctor and prepares to have him shot but Turlough steps in, grabbing the Doctor's hat rack and pretending it is the weapon which summons the meteors. The Doctor attempts to assuage the people that he will only help. Tegan is sent with Range back to help the wounded while the Doctor, Turlough, Norna, Plantagenet and Brazen head to the sealed science lab to run tests on the rocks, though the work had been stopped by Plantagenet's father.

As they enter the lab, Plantagenet attacks the Doctor with a club from a soldier. The Doctor defends himself and Plantagenet is knocked to the ground. His heart begins to go erratic and the Doctor and Brazen carry him back to the infirmary. In the infirmary, the Doctor creates a makeshift defibrillator and settles his heart. Brazen becomes more convinced that the Doctor is actually here to help.

In the lab, Norna runs tests but Turlough is more curious about the source of the rocks, given that Norna told him that the quarry had been outlawed years ago. Examining the block and tackle they used earlier to get the battery, he discovers a secret passage out of the lab through the floor. He and Norna head down to investigate and find themselves in smoothed tunnels. Turlough becomes increasingly nervous and recalls things from his past, including the name "Tractators."

The Doctor and Range return to the lab while Tegan watches over Plantagenet. While talking, Tegan let's slip that she has learned of uncategorized deaths in the records, causing Brazen to begin to question her. While distracted, Plantagenet slips off his cot and disappears into the ground. Both Tegan and Brazen are shocked by this but their investigation is cut short when a group of people, fearing Plantagenet has died come in to see. Brazen chases them out, leaving Tegan a chance to slip free of the guard. When Brazen reenters the infirmary, she braces the door with piece of metal.

The Doctor and Range enter the lab and discover it empty and the tunnel. The Doctor heads down, telling Range to stay behind, but Range disobeys and follows him, running into him later. Tegan also enters the lab and subsequently the tunnels.

While exploring, the Doctor and Range run into Turlough who is fleeing in a state of panic. They catch him and can get nothing out of him except for Tractators. The Doctor orders Range to look after Turlough while he finds Norna. He comes across Norna being held in a field, surrounded by large, roly-poly type creatures. He sees Tegan from across the cave and motions for her to stay down. He is seen though and the Tractators encase him in the field with Norna.

Tegan throws her lamp and the chemicals explode in a flash of light. The Tractators scatter and the three head back up the tunnels. After reuniting with Range and the still shocked Turlough, the Doctor heads back into the tunnels. Tegan and Range go after him. The Doctor is caught in a Tractator gravity beam along with Tegan. He orders Range to head back to the lab with his daughter and Turlough.

Brazen and his men manage to get out of the infirmary and set about restoring order. Brazen finds one of his officers named Cockerill looting food. He is arrested and exiled outside the camp with others considered Retrogrades. The Retrogrades attack Cockerill, stealing his food and leaving him half dead.

Brazen heads to the lab where he finds Range, Norna and Turlough returning from the tunnels. He arrests Range for withholding information about mysterious deaths from the authorities. Range protests, stating that he was given orders to not speak of them and only catalogued the disappearances. During the discussion, Brazen becomes aware of Turlough speaking from repressed race memory about the Tractators and he begins to question him.

The Doctor and Tegan are pulled further into the tunnels but they again destroy a lamp when approaching the Tractators to blind the creatures and flee. They wander about the tunnels trying to find a way out and wondering about the nature of the Tractators. They come across one who is using a gravity beam towards the surface. It is pulling the half-dead Cockerill down. The Doctor distracts it and it breaks the beam, allowing Cockerill to escape. His escape is met with wonder by the Retrogrades as they had never seen someone escape the ground before and he is taken in.

After questioning Turlough, Brazen takes Range, Norna and Turlough to a part of the quarry where he shows Range the location where he saw Captain Revere pulled under the earth. Knowing that there are others, he assembles a squad and heads into the tunnels with Range to combat the creatures. Norna and Turlough stay behind but Turlough, near recovered, feels ashamed of his own cowardice and heads in after them.

The Doctor and Tegan follow the sound of a mechanical drill and discover the central lair of the Tractators, overseen by their leader, the Gravis. They also see Plantagenet being held in a cage. The Tractators use active minds to run their machines and they call in one drilling machine, fitted with the near drained mind of Captain Revere.

The Gravis comes forward and releases Revere. He recognizes the Doctor as a Time Lord and assumes that the Time Lords have come to take stock. The Doctor plays along, pretending that Tegan is actually a defective service robot, much to her annoyance. She is suspended in a gravity field while Plantagenet is taken from his cage and hooked up to the drilling machine. The Doctor whispers in his ear to play along until he has an opportunity.

Range, Brazen and his men stop in the tunnels as Range has lost his way. Turlough comes upon them and offers to help. Range panics at Norna being left alone and heads back up the tunnels, only just managing to avoid capture by a Tractator while doing so. Turlough is also grabbed by a Tractator but Brazen and his men subdue the creature and free him. They burst into the central lair and pull Plantagenet out. The Gravis tries to stop them but an electrical discharge is made and the Gravis is knocked out. The other Tractators flee leaving the humans alone. Turlough is strangely drawn to the machine but the Doctor and Brazen pull him away. However, Brazen is caught in the machine's grip and cannot pull himself out. He instead orders the others to run while he uses his mind to fight and destroy the machine.

In the lab, Norna is attacked by a looter and tied up while he looks for scavenge. He is in turn jumped by Cockerill who knocks him out. Cockerill and the rest of Retrogrades take over, plundering what they can. Norna manages to free herself and tells the group that Plantagenet isn't dead and shows them tunnel where the group went down. Range appears at the tunnel entrance, telling them that the Tractators are everywhere and moving towards them. Cockerill decides to take some men and attack.

As the Doctor and the humans flee, Turlough's memory comes back and he tells the Doctor that the Tractators are harmless without the Gravis to lead them. It is he that is driving the plan to turn Frontios into a mobile base that will allow them to scavenge other planets. They hear screaming as Cockerill and his men run into other Tractators and press on. Tegan however discovers a separated bit of the TARDIS. She is spotted by a revived Gravis who advances on her. She ducks through the TARDIS doors to find the others in the console room.

The Doctor orders them to hide and opens the door, displaying the TARDIS console room. The Gravis, consumed with greed when he realizes what it is, exercises all his gravitational power to pull the disparate pieces of the TARDIS back together. The act exhausts him and he collapses on the console and with the TARDIS back together, he is cut off dimensionally from the other Tractators.

Plantagenet and Turlough head back to the surface where the restore order. The Doctor and Tegan take the Gravis to an isolated, uninhabited planet where his power is limited. The Doctor returns and picks up Turlough, intending to return to Gallifrey, although he begs Plantagenet to never say a word of his involvement in the affair. As they leave, the TARDIS is caught in a time corridor which pulls them away from Gallifrey and toward the center of the galaxy.

Analysis

I never watched Tachyon TV but I heard a mock song they put out once about how boring Christopher Bidmede's writing was. I'm not sure Frontios is deserving of that level of mockery, but it is a rather dull story with a lot of little things that don't make much sense.

The Doctor is very good in this story with a strong sense of urgency most of the time. It is a bit odd that he seems so worried about getting in trouble with the Time Lords about interfering but that point is discarded fairly early. He has a nice interaction with Range and I also liked his witticisms that he would crack now and again. I don't recall the Fifth Doctor doing that that often and it was a bit of a throw back to the Fourth Doctor's style in dealing with high pressure situations. About the only thing I didn't care for was his almost cavalier attitude toward the destruction of the TARDIS. He seemed a bit too blasé about the prospect of being marooned on Frontios, to say nothing of losing that level of a companion, though the Fifth Doctor was probably the most distant from the TARDIS as a living thing.

Tegan and Turlough weren't bad but they had their faulty moments as well. Tegan did a lot of running around and helping here and there but after she rescues the Doctor and Norna, she doesn't seem to do much of anything except be there. I did like her indignation when the Doctor passes her off as a discount servo droid.

Turlough was fine, especially when he was clearly working to overcome his cowardice after returning to the lab with Norna. However I did not like the race memory bit. The acting was alright, if a bit over-the-top, but the explanation of it that Turlough's people kept deep memories of the Tractators and what they are that could be called upon in moments of trauma seemed like the flimsiest of writer's cheats. Granted it made Turlough more important and kept the Gravis from going off on a Bond-villain explanation speech, but it was still a very convenient dropping by the exposition fairy and I didn't care for it.

Most of the rest of the case did fine in a serviceable way, but no one really stood out. Range was probably the closest one as he had a nice rapport with the Doctor and got a lot of time to settle into various character moments. Most of the rest though were fairly one note, with Brazen and Plantagenet being the worst. Brazen was at least consistent in his firm military mind and bulldog attitude.

Plantagenet on the other had seemed rather fickle and changed his mind so easily. Worse, he gave off a feeling of weakness which undercut the idea that it was by his will and the promise of his leadership that the colony held together. I could buy that idea about his father, but a weak presence seemed at odds with what we are being told is happening in the script and it felt jarring to me. He also seemed to have rather rapid and unwarranted attitude swings as the plot shifted from him being either a help or a hindrance to the Doctor.

The Tractators were a fairly interesting idea, although I'm not sure they were well executed. There are limits to the costumes and they seemed overly stiff and a bit too much like a man inside a lumbering suit. The gravity power bit was also very weird. Having technological minds and developing engines I can understand. That seemed well thought out and believable. But that they had an almost magical power of creating gravity fields seemed very strange. It also felt a bit weak that they were actually a benevolent race who were being led astray by one bad leader. I'm not big on stories where everything falls into place with a quick decapitation. Yes sometimes it works but more often than not, it feels like a quick way out of a situation.

I'm also a bit non-plussed about the casual power the Tractators have to destroy and rebuilt the TARDIS. Why was the TARDIS separated into pieces simply by pulling it underground? Why did the Gravis have the power to pull it together, especially if pulling it back together made it trans-dimensional again? That seems to give the Tractators a level of power that would have made them strong enough to battle the Time Lords. If that were the case, I would thing they would have actively sent the Doctor to take out the Gravis much like they did on other missions. It was an unneeded plot device as the TARDIS could simply have been pulled into the tunnels whole and the Gravis tricked into entering and then subdued, allowing the natural trans-dimensionality of the TARDIS, cut off his power from his own kind. The pull-apart was completely unnecessary.

The story was fairly well directed and well lit. I thought the production team did a nice job in trying to stretch what they had and make it look like a believable place. I'm actually surprised they didn't try to film any part of this story in a quarry as it would have fit in well with the mood, but the studios were well dressed here anyway.

Aside from the powers of the Tractators, I think the biggest problem with this story was that it was large in ideas and short on scope. There was a tremendous amount of backstory for all the character and a lot of threads that could have been elaborated on. But most of those were not explored, leaving a lot of questions. Yet despite that, the flow of the story felt padded with a lot of running around, escapes, recaptures and just little things that didn't matter much. This gave it the disadvantage of being both boring to watch and frustrating in a lack of answers, which is strange for a writer who likes to go on about how a thing is scientifically possible.

Overall, I can't say that I enjoyed this story that much. It had some good moments but the overall story just seemed to drag and left too many things up in the air and against the common logic of the show. I wouldn't protest overly if someone pulled if off the shelf to watch, but I certainly wouldn't seek it out or put it in the top tier of Fifth Doctor stories to recommend.

Overall personal score: 1.5 out of 5

Hide

I am the Doctor and I am afraid.


Plot Summary

The Doctor and Clara arrive at an old house in 1974 where an ex-spy, Professor Palmer, and his assistant, Emma Grayling, are attempting to communicate with a ghost documented in the house. Emma is a emotional sensitive and Palmer has her attempt to contact the ghost of the house. The Doctor poses as an inspector from the ministry and is very intrigued at what the two are doing. After assuring Palmer that the Doctor is not there to steal his work, the Doctor and Clara are given leave to explore.

They head to the music room where the Doctor discovers a cold spot. Clara feels increasing agitated and there is a surge of power. They run out and get an additional scare when Clara thinks the Doctor is holding her hand but he isn't. The extra power surges into the room and a black disk appears. The ghost image also appears and the Doctor grabs Palmer's camera, taking pictures both of the image and the disk. There is a shriek and the disk collapses but an image of "help me" appears burned on the wall.

The Doctor and Palmer develop the pictures while Clara helps Emma recover a bit, having been emotionally disturbed by the ghost's outburst. Developing the pictures, the Doctor gets an idea and borrows Palmer's camera. He and Clara go into the TARDIS and travel back to the dawn of Earth. They then travel forward in time taking pictures at distinct intervals, ending in the final days of the Earth. Clara is overwhelmed by seeing the lifespan of the Earth but snaps herself back as they arrive back at the house in 1974.

The Doctor presents a slide show of the pictures he took, showing the ghost is actually a woman named Hila who was sent on a time travel experimental mission. She is now in a pocket universe, moving at a different time pace. The Doctor rigs a device and hooks it to the TARDIS. He amplifies the psychic energy of Emma with the device and uses her to reopen the wormhole. Once open he jumps through with a length of rope.

The Doctor finds himself in a misty wood where Hila runs into him, pursued by some creature. They run away from it but lose the location of the rope in the mist. Emma envisions the house and it appears in the mist. They run to it and manage to keep the creature at bay as they do. They find the rope and Hila is pulled up and out. However the strain is too much for Emma and the portal collapses before the Doctor can come through.

Clara urges Emma to reopen the portal but she is exhausted. Clara then runs out to the TARDIS to try and rescue him herself. The TARDIS holographic interface kicks on with an image of Clara appearing. The TARDIS notes the likelihood of failure and destruction of the TARDIS but Clara appeals anyway. The TARDIS lets her in and takes off at the same as Emma decides to try and open the porthole again with Hila and Palmer providing mental support.

In the forest, the Doctor is initially overcome by fear but opts to confront the creature. As he does so, the creature leaps on him. At that moment, the TARDIS flies in with Clara barely holding on inside. The Doctor grabs the exterior of the TARDIS and it flies through the porthole and rematerializes in the house just as Emma collapses a second time.

The next day, the Doctor reveals to Emma the real reason he came to see her and that was to ask about Clara. Emma is slightly confused and tells him that she is an ordinary girl with no special powers or abilities. Slightly disappointed, the Doctor reveals that Hila strong connection to Emma and Palmer was that she is descended from them and that blood called to blood.

He and Clara are about to leave when the Doctor realizes that there is a second creature that is living in the shadows of the house, which scared them during their first look around. He also realizes that the creature in the pocket universe was looking for it's mate and not attacking either him or Hila. He asks Emma to open the porthole one last time and flies in with the TARDIS, inviting the creature back to reunite with his mate.

Analysis

I sincerely doubt there are many people out there that would compare Hide and Victory of the Daleks but there was something that struck me as being similar between the two. In both stories, you have a decent premise and things start off very well. However, in both stories things go downhill until you reach an end that you are unsatisfied with. For me, the downward trajectory of Victory of the Daleks was much sharper and finished in a far lower spot, but Hide did finish in a lower position that it started for me.

Now, that is not to say that Hide is bad. Far from it actually. But the first ten to fifteen minutes of the story are about as good as you can get with a creepy, ghost-horror genre and still be family friendly. From the start to the point where Clara and the Doctor run screaming back to the lab set up is about as thrilling as you could possibly ask for. From that point, although still good in most areas, it doesn't quite keep that same level of interest and the story suffers for it, despite its still high quality.

The Eleventh Doctor is quite entertaining here despite fan obsession over his pronunciation of "Metebelis." He is whimsical but also serious. He also has a high sense of alien-ness that provides a high amount of levity when things get a bit serious. But he also does scarred very well. His reaction at the start when he and Clara get freaked out in the music room is done well to convey a real sense of fear. He also does very well when cut off in the pocket universe and confronting the unknown and his level of fear there.

Clara was pretty good as well. Again, Clara is best when she is on the wrong foot, which she is more often than not when paired with the Eleventh Doctor. It is also amusing to see her interaction with the TARDIS and the TARDIS' open hostility towards her, including the fun little dig of using Clara's own image as the holographic interface that she will actually pay attention to. But Clara is in more of a traditional companion role here and I think she is better for it.

Palmer and Emma are also quite good in this one. Palmer does very well in showing a man haunted by his deeds of the past and trying to make up for it. Emma also does well in her empathy and the mixed emotions of trying to figure if Palmer cares for her or not. Theirs' is the one romantic sub-plot that I actually buy. I'm also mildly amused that the actress who plays Emma will be going on to play Verity Lambert in only a short span of time after this in An Adventure in Space and Time.

The sets and production values were also well done with the misty island being quite creepy and the old house also being very well done. The whole episode was shot with tight, dark shots that amplified the creepiness. There were also a few instances of scenes being done at a very slightly odd angle that I think contributed to a feeling of wrongness and helped keep the audience on edge.

So with all that, why does the story go downhill? Part of it is inevitable as a scary story naturally becomes less interesting the more you reveal. The unknown is what is truly scary so as soon as the Doctor returns with details of Hila and the pocket universe, it is instantly less scary because there is a handle on what the nature of the scare is. That's not a problem that can be avoided so deflation is inevitable. There is also a shift where the first fifteen minutes are more of a Hitchcockian thriller and the later portion becomes a scary monster to be avoided. Focusing the point of fear on a monster, which is very similar to other Doctor Who, also causes the episode to lose steam because a monster can be avoided or dealt with in a tangible way. It does not take the all consuming tactic that an unknown sense can take.

Even with those, I think this story does very well but it really cuts itself down with the romance bit at the end. Suddenly its not a monster looking to eat or feeding off fear, but instead a misunderstood creature just looking for it's mate. It's a tacked on, saccharine ending that just ruins the whole mood of the previous 40 minutes. It's not an episode killer for me, but it renders all the fear and suspense of the previous time moot and it makes the episode as a whole feel more like a wild goose chase. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth, especially as it's a tack on that only spools itself out for an additional minute. There is no reunion scene or any breadcrumbs of the connection aside from the flash glimpses of the other creature in the house in the first fifteen minutes.

On the whole, the good outweighs the bad but the bad is the last thing you're left with and that is just unfortunate. I would never advocate turning a story off before it was done but I could see people stop watching just before the Doctor walks into the TARDIS and having a higher opinion of it. I still have a high opinion of it and would easily give the first fifteen minutes full marks. The rest drags it down but it's still an overly enjoyable story to watch and a highly rated one for Series 7B.

Overall personal score: 4 out of 5

Galaxy 4

Oh look it's got a sort of... chumbly movement.

Galaxy 4 is up there with Enlightenment in my having difficulty getting a copy of. I was able to watch an animated recon of the first episode (Four Hundred Dawns) but it was close to terrible in terms of quality. I scavenged around some more and finally was able to locate some of the Loose Cannon versions which made watching the story so much easier. It also helped that Episode Three (Airlock) has been found as getting a moving episode break in a recon story helps so much more.

Plot Summary

The Doctor, Steven and Vicki land on an unknown planet that despite being conducive to life, does not appear to have any. They prepare to go out but stop when hearing a strange beeping sound. A machine is bumping it's way around the TARDIS, investigating. Vicki seems amused by the machine and dubs it a Chumbly. The Chumbly sends a signal and then rolls off.

The three exit the TARDIS to explore. They find a Chumbly with a gun pointed at them. Though blind, the machine is sensitive to their movements. It demonstrates the power of it's gun and then herds the three across the landscape. As they walk, two women emerge and cast a metal net over the Chumbly, causing it to shut down.

The women identify themselves as Drahvins. They desire to take the Doctor and his companions to their leader, Maaga. They also warn the three against the masters of the Chumblies, the Rills. Vicki hesitates but when more Chumblies arrive, the group dashes off, forced to leave the metal net behind. The other Chumblies pull the net off the trapped Chumbly, freeing it.

The party arrives at the Drahvin's ship and Maaga enters. She is pleased at the capture of the Doctor and his party but angry at the loss of the metal net. She dismisses the guards and speaks of the Drahvin's war with the Rills. She also notes that the planet they are on will explode in fourteen dawns. She plans to take over the Rill ship as her ship was damaged in a firefight with the Rill ship while on a scout mission, looking for additional territory.

A Chumbly approaches her ship and Maaga fires the ship's lasers at it. The Chumbly is undamaged but flees the ship. The Doctor offers to head back to the TARDIS to see if the information the Rills have given the Drahvins about the expected death of the planet is true. Maaga accepts but demands a hostage to ensure the Doctor's return. Vicki volunteers and the Doctor and Steven leave. After they leave, Vicki overhears Maaga berating her soldiers for the loss of the metal net.

As they approach the TARDIS, they see a Chumbly circling around it, trying to gain access. Eventually it leaves and the Doctor and Steven enter the TARDIS. The Doctor checks his instruments and verifies what the Rills have said. He also notes that their timing is off and that the planet will actually explode tomorrow after only two dawns.

They attempt to leave the TARDIS but are forced to wait by the return of the Chumbly. The Chumbly again tries to enter the TARDIS, this time by detonating explosives around it. The Doctor and Steven are rocked but unharmed. The Chumbly retreats in failure and Steven and the Doctor return to the Drahvin ship. Before entering, the Doctor notes that the Drahvin ship is poorly made and not really fit for space travel. He suspects the Drahvins are not particularly technologically advanced.

Meeting again with Maaga, the Doctor lies and tells her what she originally told him: that the planet would explode after fourteen dawns rather than the two he discovered. Maaga demands that they help her take the Rill ship by force. The Doctor refuses but Maaga threatens to kill them if they don't. Steven tries to disarm her but a patrol returns and he is subdued. The Doctor agrees and he and Vicki leave to investigate the Rill ship with Steven being left behind as a hostage.

Steven attempts to incite an uprising among the Drahvin soldiers by pointing out the inequality between them and Maaga. He then tries to trick a soldier into giving him her gun and her taking Maaga's more powerful gun while on patrol. Maaga however enters and reprimands the soldier for nearly being tricked. Steven retreats to side and pretends to go to sleep so as to listen on other conversations.

The Doctor and Vicki find the Rill ship being patrolled by Chumblies. Vicki does a quick experiment and discovers that the Chumblies do not sense what is behind them. She and the Doctor follow a Chumbly until they can duck into the ship. The Doctor immediately notices that the Rill ship is a much higher technology level than the Drahvin ship. Vicki also notes a strong smell of ammonia in the air.

As Vicki and the Doctor continue to explore, Vicki is startled when she sees a Rill looking at them from the other side of a door. They flee the room but run into a Chumbly, forcing them back into the ship. They hide and evade the Chumbly and run to the edge of the ship. The Doctor gets through the gate but Vicki is trapped. The Chumblies arrive and take Vicki while the Doctor works on modifying the outside exchanger which converts the air into ammonia for the Rills to breathe.

Maaga is confronted by her drone soldiers about going on patrol. She rues their lack of intelligence and overrides their patrol order to ensure Steven is kept prisoner. Maaga plots to take the Rill ship, leaving the Doctor's company and the Rills to die in the planetary explosion. Steven overhears this but continues to pretend to sleep.

Vicki in brought back into the ship where she is confronted by a Rill through the compartment. Vicki tells the Rill that she and the Doctor were sent by the Drahvins to take the ship due to their companion being held prisoner. The Rill denies killing a Drahvin but is not surprised at the Drahvin's use of them. The Rill tells Vicki that Drahvins attacked them in space but they shot down the Drahvin ship as well. The Rill tells Vicki that they encountered a wounded Drahvin after crashing and tried to help her but Maaga shot at them and they retreated. They then saw Maaga kill the wounded Drahvin.

Steven notices his guard has fallen asleep and overpowers her, stealing her gun. He runs out of the ship, holding Maaga and another soldier at bay with the captured gun. However a Chumbly arrives outside the ship and he is forced back into the airlock. Maaga orders Steven to drop his weapon and enter. When he refuses, she orders a soldier to empty the oxygen from the airlock.

Realizing that the Rills are friendly, Vicki runs out to stop the Doctor from finishing his sabotage of the air filtration machine outside. She stops the Doctor and leads him inside. The Doctor informs the Rills that their calculations are off and that the planet will explode in one more dawn. The Rill admits that is not enough time to get power from drilled gas. The Doctor offers to help the rill build their power supplies. They also receive word from one of the Chumblies about Steven's escape attempt and his cries of distress.

The Rills tell the Doctor and Vicki to take two Chumblies and save Steven. They are stopped a soldier on patrol who doesn't trust them. They trick the soldier into believing they have captured the Chumblies and then disarm her. They continue towards the Drahvin ship.

Steven decides to take his chances with the Chumbly but finds the pressure has decreased too much for the outer door to open. He starts to collapse due to oxygen depravation. As he does, a Chumbly fires a projectile, smashing the ship window and flooding the Drahvin ship with gas. The Chumbly breaks open the airlock and Steven revives with the atmosphere rushing back in. The Doctor takes hold of him pulls him away from the Drahvin ship, helping him to get his breath back.

Maaga clears the air and orders her soldiers to arm and advance on the Doctor and the Chumblies. The Rills, speaking through the Chumblies, order Maaga and her soldiers back. The group withdraws to the Rill ship with two Chumblies providing cover. The Drahvins withdraw back to their ship and plan a night attack on the Rill ship.

Back at the Rill ship, the Doctor continues to work on transferring power from the TARDIS to the Rill ship. Vicki and the Doctor head out to the TARDIS to complete the transfer. Steven stays behind in the Rill ship to recover and look around. Steven is skeptical of the Rills motives but the Rills tell Steven that if the Doctor is wrong about the time required, they will send the Doctor, Steven and Vicki away in their ship. Chagrined, Steven apologizes and tells the Rills of Maaga's plan to take the Rill ship and leave them to die on the planet. Steven and a Chumbly then begin work on the cables in the Rill ship.

One of the Drahvin soldiers exits the ship from the rear entrance and sneaks up behind the guarding Chumbly. She manages to destroy it with a piece of pipe. Maaga then takes the other two soldiers out and they march towards the Rill ship.

The Doctor and Vicki arrive back at the TARDIS and set up the cable between it and the Rill ship. They return, followed closely by the Drahvins. One of the soldiers enters the ship just as the Doctor and Steven activate the power transfer. A Chumbly paralyzes the Drahvin soldier and the Doctor and his companions are pulled inside the inner sanctum for their safety where they see the Rills unobscured.

The Rills dispatch more Chumblies to keep the Drahvins at bay. Maaga fires at them but they are forced to stay under cover. When the power transfer is complete, the Doctor, Steven and Vicki say goodbye to the Rills with a Chumbly to escort them. As they leave, the Rill ship takes off.

Terrified, the Drahvins try to head towards the TARDIS but the Chumbly escort beats them back. The Doctor and his companions enter the TARDIS and the Chumbly powers itself down. The TARDIS disappears as the planet begins to erupt. On the scanner, they observe the planet explode into dust.

As they travel, the Doctor remarks how he could do with a rest. They turn on the scanner and Vicki makes an idle comment about a planet they are passing. The scene then shifts to the planet Kimbel where a member of the Space Patrol wakes in a thick jungle.

Analysis

Galaxy 4 may hold an interesting distinction as the only story I've seen where it actually went down in my estimation when I could see it move. Most of the time, movement will draw you further into the story, but in this case, direction choices by Derek Martinus actually pulled me further out of the story rather than further in.

One of the few things I think I can that I liked about this story is the Doctor. The Doctor is a lot more perceptive than he is shown to be on the surface. It is tempered with his mischievous, almost doddering nature, but he is still thinking well ahead of the Drahvins and not taken in by them at all. Of course he also still has a few foolish moments that keep him in that silly vein, but overall, I enjoyed the Doctor here.

Steven and Vicki weren't bad here but neither gave a particularly good performance. It is fairly well known that when this story was originally written, it was written with Ian and Barbara in mind so Steven ended up playing more of Barbara's role and Vicki absorbed some of Ian's more action oriented scenes (such as disarming the guard when going to rescue Steven). Vicki's Ian moments are actually pretty good as she sounds like a rational, thinking person. It's the overly silly and cutesy lines (such as creating the Chumbly name) where she is actually just annoying.

Steven is far more passive than he should be, although it does demonstrate that Barbara was not a wilting violet in Steven's escape attempt. His performance on the whole wasn't bad overall, even in this more passive state, with the strong exception of his being left alone with the Rills early in Episode Four. Whomever it was written for, Steven's scene where the Rills convince him of their decent nature is pretty painful for him. Cynicism is one thing, but that scene plays into a near racist trope. Even if you wanted to think of Steven (or Barbara) as having racist tendencies, to be that openly hostile about it and to have the Rills put such a strong emotional slapdown on it is just painful to watch.

The Rills aren't bad but they are a bit too noble for my taste. It's something of a cliché to talk about ugly on the outside but good on the inside and vice versa and this story is all about that. I would have liked a touch more nuance with the Rills, even if it was a developed coldness towards the Drahvins as being deserving of death for murdering their own kind. It would have been just a touch of grey that would have done well I think.

The Drahvins are boring. There is some light potential there with the three soldiers being tube manufactured drones with no intelligence and Maaga being the only one with the ability to think. That could have been explored both in the maintaining of military order but also in the shortfalls of having only one thinker in the form of the commander. However, it is only implied at best given the Drahvin's limited technology and very black hat attitude.

That actually was one of the worst scenes in the recovered episode: Maaga's soliloquy of evil to the camera. There started to be some nuance in her performance but it quickly devolved into how she will kill the others in their escape and how great she is because she can envision it in her mind. I suspect they were going for an Iago style moment where the darkness of the mind would be made manifest. It even had the background turn dark and her silhouetted as though alone in her mind. But the decision for her to look directly in camera and just stare at it while fantasying just didn't work for me at all. She was stepping out as though trying to scare the audience rather than muse on her thoughts and I found it to be a huge distraction with her performance.

There is a bit of a reputation for the last story in a season of Doctor Who to look a bit bad because the budget has run out and that does seem to apply to Galaxy 4 as well. Galaxy 4 actually led off Season 3 but it was filmed at the end of Season 2 so it was subject to the money issues. But the story just looks cheap. The Chumblies do not look very robust, especially with all the interaction they have to go through. The backdrop was clearly visible and the sets for both ships seemed flimsy. It just looked very much like a story on a studio set and a small one at that.

The overall story was very simple and it got a bit boring at times. There were sections in every episode where someone would go on a long talk that usually was only a bit of superfluous backstory. Many of these scenes were with Maaga and the other Drahvins but there were moments where the Doctor and Vicki would be shown in a little scene and it had nothing to do except pad the story's run time. When the story is that simple and you drag it out even longer, it becomes tedious and not having any interesting visuals to go with it only makes it worse.

Overall, I can't recommend this one. If it is was found, I might try to watch it again as maybe Episode Three was an aberration in the direction, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Aside from the acting of the Doctor and a few little nuances here and there, there's not a lot to enjoy with this one. I think even if there was an improvement in the directing in the other three episodes, there still wouldn't be a whole lot to pull the story up. So, I wouldn't worry about this one if you have trouble finding it. It's not worth the effort.

Overall personal score: 1 out of 5

Warriors' Gate

It's like talking with a Cheshire Cat.

Now the conclusion of the E-space trilogy and the departure of Romana and K-9. I've heard mixed things about this one and I think it is generally regarded as the weakest of the trilogy. All I really know about it is that involves time-sensitive lion-men so I'm coming into this one as a fairly blank slate.

Plot Summary

An Earth ship is attempting to go into warp drive. It is carrying a group of sedated humanoid lions called Tharls aboard and using one of the Tharls, named Biroc, as it's unwilling navigator. The ship is damaged an stuck in a neutral space between E- and N-space. Biroc appears to pass out and the captain, Rorvik, orders him taken below. Biroc comes to and shakes off his custodians, running out into a white void.

On the TARDIS, the Doctor and Romana debate about how to get back to N-space while Adric listens quietly. The Doctor suggests just pushing random buttons to see if anything will happen, though Romana restrains him. Adric however, does push a random button and the TARDIS flies off. Their flight is intercepted by Biroc, who appears out of phase. His appearance also opens the TARDIS to time winds which damage K-9.

Biroc guides the TARDIS to the null space and then leaves, although giving a warning about the people they will soon meet. Seeing K-9 damaged, the Doctor has Romana start to repair him while the Doctor leaves the TARDIS to follow Biroc. The Doctor and Romana also note that they are in a bridge of space between E- and N-space.

The TARDIS shows up on the scanner of the human ship. Already thinking of leaving to find Biroc rather than attempting to wake another Tharl and potentially killing others (and cutting into their profits), Rorvik and two others leave the ship to investigate the TARDIS. They find it and attempt to gain entrance.

The Doctor follows Biroc through the void to a small castle gate. Inside is an old hall, covered in dust and cobwebs. Biroc finds a mirror and passes through it. The Doctor enters and starts looking around. As he does so, one of the suits of armor comes to life and lifts its sword to attack him. The Doctor dodges it but the armor continues to pursue him, soon joined by a second.

To determine if Rorvik and his crew are friendly or not, Romana leaves the TARDIS but gives Adric warning to wait for her signal. She converses with Rorvik, who becomes suspicious that she might be a time sensitive person and invites her back to his ship to examine the damage. Romana sends gives a signal for Adric to be cautious and wait in the TARDIS and then goes off with them.

Adric however, does not obey and instead waits a few minutes and then decides to head off looking for her and the Doctor with K-9. K-9 is still damaged and they soon get lost in the void. Adric gets an idea to help K-9, removing one of his ears to help him triangulate better. It helps K-9 but Adric becomes lost himself.

The Doctor manages to corner himself in such a way that the two robotic suits of armor damage themselves. He opens up their circuits and begins to interrogate them. They are Gundan warrior robots, designed to guard the gate. They lose power before they can elaborate leaving the Doctor frustrated. However, K-9 arrives at the gate and the Doctor decides to hook him up to give a temporary power boost to the robots.

On Rorvik's ship, he grabs Romana and hooks her up to the navigation unit. She is unable to provide complete navigation but she does give enough for the castle gate to show up on the scanner as a physical location. Rorvik decides to head out to investigate with most of the crew. He orders two crew members to bring out one of the Tharls to be woken up on his return.

Rorvik and his men arrive at the gate just as the Doctor is getting information about there being three gates and they all being one. They threaten him to reveal more but are distracted by one of the robots suddenly getting up and passing through the gate. The Doctor grabs K-9 and dodges through the fortress. At risk of being cornered again, he leaves K-9 and passes through the gate, leaving Rorvik and his crew alone with K-9.

The two remaining crewmen on Rorvik's ship pull out one of the Tharls but against orders, try to revive him. They end up electrocuting him instead and leave the body for someone else. However, the Tharl is not dead. He gets up and makes his way to the bridge where he finds Romana bound to the navigation chair. He loosens the straps but has to hide before undoing them completely as the two crewmen left behind enter.

The two men debate what to do with her and are startled by her opening her eyes and asking questions. They leave her on the bridge as Rorvik calls them over the radio to ready a piece of heavy equipment called the M-Z for transport. Romana then slips out of her loosened bonds and hides under a tarp in the equipment bay.

Rorvik and his men fire at the mirror gate but their weapons bounce back at them. Rorvik sends three men back to the ship while he radios to prep the M-Z. K-9 follows, attempting to get new masters but he is unceremoniously tossed out of the ship when he attempts to enter.

While the door is open, Adric slips in and hides under the same tarp as Romana. The tarp covers the M-Z, which is rolled out of the ship. However, it is left while the engineer, Lane, looks over the damaged warp drive. Romana and Adric slip out and look at the ship, discovering it is made of dwarf-star alloy. K-9 rolls up shrieking about the mass contraction of the null space. His warning alerts the crew and Romana is recaptured though Adric and K-9 run escape.

Romana is taken back inside the ship while the rest of the crew push the M-Z to the gate. Inside the ship, the loose Tharl, named Lazlo, emerges and knocks out Romana's guard. He takes her and they vanish to the gate and pass through it. They emerge in the upper balcony, watching Rorvik and his men.

After passing through the gate, the Doctor meets Biroc who appears to be waiting for him. Biroc informs him that although K-9 will be repaired, only organic matter may pass through the gate. The Doctor follows Biroc through a series of gardens until the both reemerge in the fortress at an earlier time. The Tharls are feasting about the table while being served by human slaves.

The Doctor realizes that the Tharls were the slave masters who ruled a great empire and built the Gundans. He also notes they show as little compassion for their slaves as did the human crew who has now enslaved the Tharls. The dinner is interrupted by a squad of Gundans who break in and attack the party. Romana, sensing danger, runs down to the Doctor. The Doctor is then instantly transported back to the present where Rorvik and his men surround the Doctor and Romana at the table.

Rorvik demands to know the secret of the mirror, believing it to be the way out, and refuses to believe that it can only be accessed by the Tharls or other time sensitives. K-9 Enters and warns the Doctor of the null space collapsing on itself. The Doctor is confused but Romana tells him that Rorvik's ship is made of dwarf star alloy, making it a matter sink in the void.

K-9 attempts to pass through the mirror but loses power. The Doctor runs toward him and Rorvik, frustrated at the lack of answers, prepares to shoot him. Through the mirror, the Doctor sees Biroc, admitting that the Tharls were wrong in their enslavement of others. He now plans to change the future.

Before Rorvik can fire, Adric appears from behind the M-Z device, threatening to fire it. The Doctor runs up and mans the controls, ordering Romana and Adric out while carrying K-9. He follows shortly after and all four reenter the TARDIS. Rorvik starts to pursue but decides not to bother. He fires the M-X at the mirror but the blast rebounds, destroying the device. Rorvik, becoming unhinged, leads his men back to the ship.

Once on the ship, Rorvik turns the ship so that it's engines point toward the fortress. He intends to create a back blow from the engines and try to shatter the mirror that way. The Doctor sees this on the scanner and heads out to stop him, fearing the rebound will destroy everything in the void. Romana comes with him to help.

Rorvik observes the Doctor and Romana entering the outer hull of the ship and goes after them. He also orders his men to wake the remaining Tharls. As Rorvik exits the ship, Biroc and Lazlo are hiding near it. Biroc follows while Lazlo enters the ship. Rorvik catches up to the Doctor and stops him from creating a power drain on the engine. Romana starts the process but Rorvik knocks her aside and stops the drain. Biroc appears beside them and tells the two Time Lords that they should do nothing. He takes their hands and the trio disappears as Rorvik gloats.

Inside the ship, the two low levels who tried to reanimate Lazlo, Sagan and Aldo, beg off and Royce tries to reanimate the Tharls. He electrocutes three of them and is preparing a fourth when Lazlo comes up behind him. Royce attacks him but Lazlo overpowers him, electrocuting him with a severed cable. Lazlo then begins to wake the other Tharls.

Biroc, Romana and the Doctor appear outside the TARDIS. The Doctor enters but Romana refuses, electing to stay in E-space with the Tharls rather than return to Gallifrey. The Doctor gives her K-9, telling her to fix him. The Doctor dematerializes in the TARDIS while Biroc, Romana and K-9 enter the fortress and pass through the mirror.

The human ship discharges it's engines but the blast rebounds off the mirror. Much of the fortress is destroyed along with the human ship. However, out of the wrecked hull, the reanimated Tharls emerge and pass through the mirror. The TARDIS briefly materializes in the Tharl's garden before disappearing again and returning to N-space. Romana and K-9 watch and the walk way with Biroc, promising to help him pass through time and free his remaining enslaved people.

Analysis

I think it is safe to say that Warriors' Gate is weird. In many ways, it reminds me of The Curse of Fenric in that there is more story here but that there wasn't enough time to put it down. Unlike Fenric though, I doubt any of that extra material was ever filmed.

First I must praise both the direction and conception of the story. The direction was very well done and you felt instantly in good hands with the opening tracking shot leading from the sleeping Tharls to the bridge. There were a lot of good camera shots and interesting points of view throughout the story. The conception was also quite good as the whiteness of the void gave it a surrealistic feel. Yet at the same time, there was a feeling of being grounded in reality with the realism of the crew and even the Tharl's abandoned fortress. The gardens were also bathed in surrealism, keeping the watcher heavily off-balance as to what was really going on. So from a visual point of view, this story is excellent.

I also enjoyed the acting for the most part as well. The Doctor had a bit of a minimal role in this one and was off on his own quite a lot. In many ways, this was Romana's story and she did very well. Her confidence was well on display and she held her own very well against the human crew, who also acted fairly well although with a caveat or two.

Adric was also pretty good, being used lightly and mostly for comic relief. Contrasting earlier Adric stories with later ones, the key for him is in limiting his screen time. He should always be a junior companion, with a stronger character taking the main companion role. The problems arose when he was elevated to senior companion in the Fifth Doctor era and tried to hold his own against Tegan and Nyssa. It was in this overexposure that his character flaws, as well as the limits of Matthew Waterhouse's acting, rose to the surface and made him unlikeable.

Rorvik dominates among the crew and he does fairly well, especially as his mania to escape grows. He does lose it in his final gloat scene. That was over-the-top and poorly acted in contrast to his excellent earlier performance. It leaves an unfortunate bad aftertaste.

The rest of the crew is also pretty good, although fairly unremarkable. I got the feeling that there might have been a bit more backstory with Sagan and Aldo as these two were clearly designed to be a comic relief team in the Robert Holmes double act vein. However, they don't do much other than look disinterested in Rorvik's orders and bow out whenever it comes to doing anything that might inflict actual harm on anyone. Their repugnance as electrocuting Lazlo is shown and you can see that humanitarian side when they beg off attempting another revival. But without time or development, they just sort of are there and you don't feel that bad for them after they are blown up with the rest of the ship.

So you have good acting and good visuals. The problems with this story arise in the storytelling. I can handle weird just fine, Kinda being a prime example of an excellent but off-the-wall story. Warriors' Gate however suffers from a lack of focus. Surreal and odd is fine, if it is held in a tight focus or gives something that allows the audience to grab on to at the end to try and make a measure of sense of it. The Mind Robber would probably be a good example of surrealism explained.

However, in this story, the focus shifts all over the place. There are sidebars with minor characters and the main thrust of the Tharl's story is split between the more standard adventures with Romana and the highly surrealistic adventures with the Doctor. I think the ultimate problem is time. There is more to the story and that was cut out of it. I'd be curious if the cuts were made from the original run or if additional cuts had to be made because of the Romana leaving inclusion. Either way, the fall of the Tharls, their enslavement and the source of their power are never really resolved. Nor is it ever really addressed as to how the return of the Tharls to their gardens allows the TARDIS to pass through the gate and back into N-space. It just leaves you hanging and that leaves a bit of a bad aftertaste with the story.

I also wish Romana had been given a bit more time in her leaving. It was hinted at with her reluctance to return to Gallifrey at the end of Meglos and it returned here in Episode One where she expresses disdain at the idea. So her leaving is not out of the blue. However, it is so rushed that it just feels almost backhanded. I know that they were up against the clock but I would have liked a moment between the two Time Lords in the Tharl gardens. It would have also could have provided a better explanation as to how the Doctor and Adric got to N-space through some action of Biroc's or the like. Of course, the episode was running long so that was essentially impossible, but I think it would have made for a more palatable end.

Overall, I'm torn. The story looked good and was well acted. But the pacing got too fast at the end and the story had too many holes and loose threads. It is enjoyable enough and I would not call it bad, but there is not enough to compel me to actively seek this one out to watch again. But for the visuals and portrayals, I'll easily sit through it and find enjoyment in that.

Overall personal score: 3 out of 5

The Smugglers

Polly, put the kettle on.

The Smugglers is the first full adventure with Ben and Polly and the last full adventure of the First Doctor. It also happens to be the last full recon for me. The two remaining recon stories I haven't seen (Galaxy 4 and The Underwater Menace) both have at least one episode that exists. I have not reviewed The Evil of the Daleks but I have seen that one and Episode Two exists there. So this one is something of a milestone for me.

Plot Summary

The Doctor discovers Ben and Polly aboard the TARDIS after he has taken off. They land outside a set of caves just off the coast. Ben refuses to believe what has happened and wanders off. Polly believes they have landed in Cornwall, though the Doctor chastises them that they don't know when. The Doctor follows them as they walk away to ensure they don't get into any trouble.

They walk to a nearby church where they meet the church warden, Joseph Longfoot who invites them in for a meal. The Doctor figures they are in the 17th century. The Doctor notices Longfoot suffering with a dislocated finger and pops it back into place for him. Grateful, Longfoot gives a warning while about at the inn that the spirit of Avery is about and gives them a code.

Confused, the Doctor and his party make for the inn. The proprietor, Jacob Kewper, tries to turn them away but relents when he learns they know Longfoot. They head inside and dry themselves off by the fire, Polly getting annoyed at being mistaken for a boy.

Back at the church, Longfoot is confronted by a former crewman, Cherub, now serving under pirate Captain Pike. They are looking for Captain Avery's treasure. Cherub forces Longfoot to tell him about the three travelers gone to the inn. Longfoot tries to run away but Cherub stabs him in the back.

Kewper's son arrives back at the house, having been sent by his father to see Longfoot. He tells his father that he was found dead. Kewper sends his son out for the Squire.

Cherub arrives at the inn, posing as a guest. He confronts the Doctor and tries to get him to tell him what Longfoot told him. The sailor knocks Ben out and knocks Polly down before dragging the Doctor away. Polly pleads for help and Kewper finds her. He tells her that the squire has been sent for.

The Squire arrives and examines Ben and finds him fine. He then interrogates Polly about where they come from. Ben comes to but also refuses to tell where they are from. The Squire arrests them both for the murder of Longfoot.

The Doctor is taken aboard ship and shown to Captain Pike. Pike tells the Doctor that Longfoot was once a crewman with him and Cherub under the pirate captain Avery. They are now looking for Avery's treasure and threaten the Doctor to tell them what Longfoot told the Doctor just before they left.

Ben and Polly are placed in prison to await trial. They are overheard by Kewper's servant Tom who tells them he has the keys and is keeping them under guard. Polly gets and idea regarding 17th century superstitions and develops a plan to escape.

The Doctor flatters the captain and he invites the Doctor to sit and talk as gentlemen. The Doctor drinks wine and asks for a share of the treasure for his information. Pike considers it but before they can continue, Pike's slave Jamaica interrupts and speaks of someone sailing towards the nearby caves. Pike orders the Doctor taken below to wait while they deal with the visitor.

Ben signals Tom while Polly moans about. He claims that Polly has been taken over by the soul of their warlock master. Ben tricks Tom into believing that the Doctor's soul will take over and possess them unless they are freed. Tom gives in and lets them out. Ben also gives him a straw doll as a token against the Doctor's evil.

Ben and Polly return to the church and search about for evidence of the Doctor's abductor. They search around but find nothing. They prepare to leave when a secret door opens and a cloaked figure emerges. They knock him out and Polly heads off to tell the Squire, believing him to be the murderer while Ben ties him up.

The cloaked stranger tells Ben that he is Josiah Blake, a treasury officer of the King. He has been investigating a group of smugglers operating in the area and that the passageway he found leads into a set of caves and down to the beach. Ben gets excited and heads into the passageway to investigate.

Pike and Cherub meet with the Squire, posing as goods smugglers to the Squire and Kewper are involved. The Squire discusses the drop at the church, unaware of Pike's real identity. Their discussions are interrupted by Polly. She fingers Cherub as the man who abducted the Doctor. The Squire doesn't believe her. Pike suggests that they play along with Polly to capture the revenue officer who might thwart the smuggling ring. They tie and gag Polly.

Back on the ship, the Doctor finds Kewper has also been taken by the pirates and Kewper tells the Doctor that Pike is the most dangerous pirate around. Kewper and the Doctor plan an escape to help save the village from Pike's potential rampage in search of Avery's treasure.

Ben returns to the church, having found the passage to the TARDIS. He and Blake are then confronted by the Squire, Pike, Cherub and the bound Polly. The Squire recognizes Blake and has him released. Despite being on the king's business, Blake agrees to take Ben and Polly back to jail for murder and suspicion of smuggling.

The Doctor pretends to be able to divine a person's fortune from cards. His draws for Kewper attract the interest of the slave Jamaica. When he comes near to have the Doctor tell his fortune, Kewper knocks him out. They tie him up and leave the ship in the longboat intending to inform the Squire of what is going on.

The Squire and Pike arrange a meeting for the exchange of goods. The Squire has his goods hidden in a grave while Pike will leave his on the beach. The Squire decides that they should discuss payment over dinner and he and Pike leave together. Cherub watches from a distance.

Blake takes Ben and Polly back to the inn and releases them. He tells them that the Squire has been rumored to be the head of the smuggling ring. Blake needs armed men to spring a trap at the exchange point tomorrow but he is interested in hearing more about the Doctor. The Doctor enters at that moment and tells of his escape. Blake takes his information as conformation of Kewper's involvement with the smuggling ring. Kewper hears this as he enters and curses the Doctor for entrapping him. He then flees before Blake can arrest him.

Pike returns to the ship where Jamaica tells him of the Doctor and Kewper's escape. Jamaica tells Pike that they are heading to tell the Squire and Pike now suspects that the Squire might try to set a trap for him. Pike decides to strike during the day and plunder the goods before the trap is set while he and Cherub search for Avery's gold. He then kills Jamaica for his failure.

The Doctor tells Blake of Pike's plan and insists that Blake leave at once for reinforcements. Ben tells the Doctor of the secret passage that leads to the TARDIS. The Doctor refuses to go as he feels a moral responsibility to save the village. He decides to find Avery's treasure and use it to stall Pike until the reinforcements arrive. Cherub emerges from the shadows as they leave and demands to know of the stable boy where they went.

Kewper arrives at the Squire's and tells him of Pike's planned savagery. Kewper also tells the Squire that Pike is looking for Avery's gold. Kewper suggests finding the treasure first and then setting a trap for Pike along the church passageway. They also ride off for the church.

Ben, Polly and the Doctor arrive at the church. Ben and Polly look around in the graveyard while the Doctor tries to work out the clues Longfoot told him. He realizes that the clues Longfoot told him refer to names in the crypt. They head to the crypt where Ben shows the Doctor where the secret passage is. They then find two of the clue names.

The Squire and Kewper arrive at the church and pull a gun on the Doctor. Kewper threatens to kill Ben and Polly if the Doctor doesn't help them but the Squire objects. While they argue, Cherub enters and kills Kewper with a throwing knife. He shoots the Squire in the shoulder. He then threatens to kill the Doctor's companions if he doesn't tell the secrets.

The Doctor tries to play for time. He tells Cherub the names given, but does not disclose the locations in the crypt. Cherub recognizes the names as old crewmen but suspects the Doctor is stalling. He threatens Polly if more is not disclosed.

Meanwhile, Pike and his men land on the beach. Pike sends a man to look for Cherub while he and the rest of his men enter the churchyard. They open the crypt indicated by the Squire as the drop point. He orders his men to unload the goods on to the beach while Pike heads toward the church.

Pike enters the crypt and finds Cherub holding Polly. Pike accuses Cherub of deserting and trying to find the treasure himself. Cherub protests but draws on Pike when his back is turned. They cross swords with Pike slowly gaining the upper hand. The Doctor orders Ben to take Polly back to the TARDIS down the secret passage. Pike stabs Cherub, killing him.

Pike turns on the Doctor, demanding the secret from him. The Doctor agrees but demands to change the terms of their agreement. He agrees to tell the secret and will take no gold if he keeps his men out of the village. Pike agrees, though neither side trusts the other.

Two of the pirates return to the beach, carrying the smuggled goods. On the beach, they discover the TARDIS outside the cave. In the caves, Polly stops to rest while she sends Ben back to help the Doctor. Also, Blake arrives on the edge of the village with a squad of militia.

The Doctor tells Pike the riddle of the four names and points out the locations of the four names in the crypt. He also points out they intersect at a flagstone in the middle of the crypt, which is loose. Pike lifts the stone and discovers a small treasure. But they hear ruckus going on upstairs. Blake's militia pours in, killing and arresting the pirates.

Polly comes on the TARDIS and is grabbed by the two pirates. Ben however, hears her scream up the passageway and runs back. He knocks out one and fights with the second. Their struggle is heard by Blake and the two men are taken by the militia. Ben sends Polly back to the TARDIS while he and Blake head back up the passage.

Blake emerges from the passageway and attacks Pike from the rear before he can go back up with his men. Ben and the Doctor drag the Squire up out of the crypt but Pike breaks off his fight with Blake to pursue him. Blake grabs his gun and shoots Pike in the back. The Squire and Blake help each other to their feet and find the Doctor and Ben have fled down the passageway.

The Doctor and Ben return to the TARDIS and find Polly waiting for them. They enter and tell Polly what happened as they take off. Ben hopes to land back in 1966 but instead find that they have landed in the coldest place in the world.

Analysis

The Smugglers is an excellent story and I would definitely put it fairly high on the list of stories to be returned if possible. I could see some people not caring for it too much, but I really enjoyed it. The story struck me as a variation of Treasure Island, only set in Cornwall rather than on an island. But I also got a dash of The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, although I might be the only one who thinks like that.

The Doctor was quite good in this one and while he did have to rely on the arms of others, notably Blake, there was a good deal in this story where he had to outthink his enemy. I would also note that while the Squire was a bit of a dim, Pike was not and that made him a more formidable villain and the Doctor's triumph over him that much better. I also enjoyed the Doctor's quiet patience and rationalism in contrast to Ben's hot headedness.

Ben and Polly were decent, though not without their flaws. Ben get a bit loud and he does complain a lot about just going back to the TARDIS. I've also noticed that this is an unfortunate recurring feature with him, though his ability in a fight is quite good. Still, it seems a bit of a downgrade from the somewhat more introspective Steven.

Polly wasn't bad, although a bit useless in this story. She served more as the damsel in distress with her only real moment of interest being her posing as possessed in her and Ben's escape in Episode Two. It also strains credibility that Polly is mistaken for a boy the entire run of the story. Right in the beginning I could see perhaps, but someone should have clued in to her femininity towards the end. Granted, when dealing with a story about pirates, it's best not to include a woman since that leads itself to obvious conclusions. Pike is something of a gentleman pirate, but I doubt he would be that restrained.

Pike, as noted above, was quite a good villain. I think in attitude he was modeled after Long John Silver, but there was also an air of Captain Hook about him with the hook hand and the Charles II dress coat. He also had a pirate dichotomy of being gentlemanly and almost elegant with the Doctor and the Squire and also savage and ruthless with his dispatch of his own men for their failures. He made an excellent foe for the Doctor.

Lesser villains in the form of the Squire and Cherub were decent although more stereotypical. That the Squire was corrupt and in on the smuggling business was not surprising. He did come somewhat good in the end, refusing to go along with Kewper in his threatening of the Doctor. Cherub was also good as the true pirate savage. He was played full to the hilt of savagery and yet not without intelligence. He would never have been the gentleman pirate that Pike was, but you could understand why he was mate and how he could have made a strong and savage captain in his own right had the opportunity arisen.

Because of the savagery of the story, the Australian censors took a bit more out, especially Kewper and Cherub's deaths so that was a nice glimpse into the story. It helped because there were other parts of the recon I was watching that were very poorly done so I had almost no idea what was going on. But in the quality parts of the recon (both the slightly moving bits and the better pictures) it was clear that this looked like a well done story. Trust the BBC for period drama to look well and this did not disappoint from what I could tell.

I enjoyed the pacing of this story. About the only parts I didn't care for were the bits with Ben and Polly toiling away either in their makeshift jail or fussing about in the crypt. The scenes with the Doctor and Kewper on the ship or Pike and the Squire were far more interesting and I was openly hoping to go back to those scenes whenever Ben and Polly popped back up. But aside from that, the story moved well and you never felt like characters were loitering in one place too long to kill time (again, except for the jail scene).

I would also say this was a pretty good cap for the First Doctor, since he was so absent and nearly irrelevant in The Tenth Planet. This story is also a good yardstick for his growth as a character as it is the Doctor who stays and fights and changes things rather than his companions who drag him back and get involved in the action in spite of him. In fact, lining up The Smugglers next to An Unearthly Child, you'd be hard pressed to recognize the Doctor as the same character. I'd still probably take Ian and Barbara to Ben and Polly as companions, but the Doctor is so much stronger a character here.

Overall, I'd say this was a good one. I would like to see a better recon than the one I watched or even better, some of the episodes discovered, but the story still stands well on it's own. You have to be in a special mood to watch recons but if you knew someone who liked pirates, this would be a good one to delve in to.

Overall personal score: 4 out of 5

State of Decay

There's nothing worse than a peasant with indigestion.

State of Decay is the second part of the E-space trilogy and also a holdover story. Terrance Dicks originally wrote this story back for the Philip Hinchcliff era but it got put on the shelf because it would have gone on around the same time as a BBC production of Count Dracula and that would have been too much vampire at one time. The one thing I don't know is if Terrance Dicks was brought back to rework the script or if Christopher Bidmead just took the script as submitted and reworked it with his own twists. Bidmead certainly would have added all the references to E-space so he may have just done the whole thing himself.

Plot Summary

The Doctor and Romana land on an Earth-like planet, hoping to find help in getting out of E-space and back into N-space. The planet they land on has only one village surrounding a large tower in which are "the Three Who Rule": the king, Zargo, the queen, Camilla and the councilor Aukon. The Doctor and Romana explore the town which appears to be medieval in style. However after they leave, the headman of the village, Ivo, alerts others using a radio communicator.

K-9 is left on the TARDIS to do some calculations and discovers that Adric has stowed away. While he cautions him, Adric convinces K-9 to let him out of the TARDIS to explore on his own. He also comes to the village and is taken in by Ivo and his wife, Marta, as their son was recently taken by the Three Who Rule to serve in the tower.

The Doctor and Romana walk out of town, hoping to find other settlements but are taken by a group of rebels, who oppose the Three. They are taken to their lair where they have been trying to figure out how to work some antiquated technology they found. The Doctor and Romana look it over and manage to get it working. The computer is a primitive one and came from a cargo ship that left Earth but was pulled into E-space through a CVE. The computer lists three crew members and pulls up their pictures. One of the rebels was once a guard of the tower and recognizes their faces as the Three.

Concerned, the Doctor and Romana leave the rebels and head back towards the village. They are unaware that one of the guards in town reported their presence to the Three. Aukon dispatches a cloud of bats to find the Doctor and Romana. The cloud discovers the two walking towards the village and one bites the Doctor. The cloud engulfs them as they hunker down but lifts and flies back to the tower. As they do, a squad of guards finds the Doctor and Romana and takes them to the tower.

In the tower, the Doctor and Romana are greeted by the king and queen. They are welcoming but become increasingly nervous by the Doctor and Romana's intelligence and their knowledge of the old spacecraft. The Queen becomes somewhat entranced when Romana cuts her finger on a broken glass, but manages to break her gaze.

Outside the tower Aukon enters the meeting house, having detected a third alien intelligence when scanning for the Doctor and Romana. He orders the patrons to line up, including Adric. He quickly zeros on Adric, who also gives himself away with a questioning and slightly defiant attitude. Aukon takes the boy back to the tower.

The king and queen are summoned by Aukon, leaving the Doctor and Romana alone in the throne room. Aukon has hypnotized Adric and informs the others that the time of the great awakening is at hand. The king and queen are pleased but still hesitant about the Doctor and Romana.

The Doctor theorizes that the tower is actually the old space ship and he searches around and finds an access passage below the thrones. They enter it and find old control mechanisms. Descending further, they find hibernation chambers with the other crew but all have been drained of fluid. The tanks, normally full of fuel, are instead filled with blood.

The Doctor and Romana enter the base of the tower to find a large cave with Aukon waiting for them, having been alerted by the king and queen of the Doctor and Romana's escape. He tells them of a great awakening and how they will be part of the Great One's plans. Aukon attempts to hypnotize the Doctor but he resists and closes his eyes. Though he resists, the king and queen return and the two are taken captive. They are also informed of Adric being taken, though they were unaware that Adric had snuck aboard the TARDIS.

Back at the rebel lair, one of the rebels, Tarak, decides to go and help the Doctor, having been a tower guard. He goes alone as no one will aid him. He sneaks in and knocks out one of the guards, stealing his uniform. He watches as Romana and the Doctor are led into a chamber to await being offered to the Great One while the Three sleep.

In the cell, the Doctor recalls a Gallifreian legend of a great war between the Time Lords and a race of great vampires. The Time Lords prevailed but one escaped and remains in hiding. The story triggers Romana's memory that she ran across an old order of Rassilon's in the archives to install a book of records in all Type 40 TARDISes. As they talk, Tarak breaks in, knocking out the guards and freeing them. They prepare to head back to the TARDIS but Romana remembers Adric. Tarak suggests the boy might be held in the keep. They decide that Tarak and Romana will rescue Adric while the Doctor heads back to the TARDIS to find Rassilon's record book.

Ivo meets the remaining rebels in their lair. He informs them that the Three are planning a great ceremony and this is the time that he will lead the village against them. He urges the rebels to aid them, but Kalmar defers, still believing that the time is not right. Ivo tells him that he will attack anyway.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor and K-9 search the TARDIS mainframe but find nothing. The Doctor then remembers there are old data tapes and discovers the records among them. The records validate the story he heard and that one vampire did escape the Time Lords. He also learns that the only way to kill the vampire is to totally destroy it's heart, which the Time Lords did by crafting ships that fired steel bolts into their hearts.

Romana and Tarak head down to the keep where Zargo and Camilla are sleeping. They find Adric but in trying to wake him, they wake the other two. They attack Romana and Tarak. Tarak tries to fight them off but Zargo kills him in the fight. Camilla, angry at the loss of live blood, turns and attacks Romana and Adric. Romana tries to run but Zargo grabs her. Aukon however stops them, insisting that Adric will become one of them and Romana is to be sacrificed to the Great One. The two are taken to the throne room and bound.

The Doctor decides that he needs help and rematerializes the TARDIS in the rebel's lair. Using the scanner that he and Kalmar fixes, the Doctor shows them the Great Vampire sleeping beneath the tower. Ivo is summoned and the Doctor makes a plan where the people will storm the tower with K-9. They will take out the guards while the Three are busy with the ceremony. That will give the Doctor time to put his own plan into action.

In the tower, Romana appeals to Adric to help her. He defers, stating that as they have lost, he doesn't see what good it does to be on the losing side. He appeals to Aukon that as he will be joining them, he shouldn't be bound. Aukon agrees and allows him out of his bonds. The Three then take Romana and Adric down to the crypt.

As the ceremony begins, the townspeople storm the tower with K-9 stunning guards as well. They take the throne room and the Doctor heads into the service areas again, ordering the townsfolk to take care of the remaining guards and then evacuating the tower when K-9 gives the signal. The Doctor finds three different control rooms but two of the three are completely out of power. The third however does have a little battery power left and the Doctor initiates a launch. K-9 orders evacuation while the Doctor heads down to the crypt.

The ceremony is interrupted by the launch of the spaceship. Adric tries to attack the Three and free Romana, but he is slapped aside. The Great Vampire begins to emerge from it's tomb as the ship takes off. The ship climbs into the atmosphere and then U-turns back to it's launching point. The spire of the ship buries itself into the tomb of the Great Vampire, piercing it's heart and killing it.

The Doctor enters to rescue Romana and Adric and the Three try to attack him. However, without the Great Vampire, they lose their power and decay into dust. The villagers enter prepared to fight but find the battle over. They thank the Doctor and Kalmar asks the Doctor for help with the technology. He conducts some minor repairs but tells them to work it out on their own, which would allow them to flourish as their own technological civilization. He, Romana, Adric and K-9 then leave in the TARDIS.

Analysis

I really enjoyed this one. You can trust Terrance Dicks to craft a good, straight-forward story and the return to gothic horror is a nice interlude from the heavy hand of science that Christopher Bidmead can sometimes use. Yet, science is still used and the vampires explained away without invoking the normal religious tropes that would have gone against the show's format.

Both the Doctor and Romana are quite good in this. The Doctor is serious and does not take the threat lightly but he also cracks quips here and there, putting the vampires off their game slightly with his seeming whimsy. Romana is very active in this one and there is a seriousness to her as well that is occasionally absent in some of the lighter fare. Given when this was originally planned to run, I would assume that Terrance Dicks originally wrote the companion as Leela and I think a degree of that direct action was retained in Romana's character, which suits her.

Adric was pretty good in this as well, but I think that is also because he was largely absent from the story. Again, going back to when this was originally written, Adric probably took the role that was originally written for Ivo's son. There are a few references to him after the opening scene where he was taken but he seems mostly to have been dropped other than as a motivator for Ivo to finally rebel. But if he was supposed to be in the position that Adric was, the scenes that remained make a lot more sense. Still, the limited use of Adric allows him to focus better which improves his acting. It also helps that as the Doctor and Romana are still getting to know him, his apparent betrayal of them is much more believable, even if his efforts to help were effectively useless in the end.

The Three were pretty good, although they could get a touch over the top at times, especially Aukon. He had a quite creepy vibe to him but his near-religious frenzy regarding the Great Vampire was a bit much at times. I think Camilla got into the vampire spirit best as I got a lot of classic vampire movie vibe from her performances, especially when she was giving into the blood frenzy. I think that if the music had been a bit different, this would have been really scary for kids and it still might have for all I know.

I was also amused that the Three have positions that are actually inverse of their own standing. They were styled as Zargo the king, Camilla the queen and Aukon the chamberlain. However, it is Aukon that is in communion with the Great Vampire and seems to have the most actual power. Camilla likewise is clearly stronger and more given over to her vampiric powers than either of them. Zargo is more like a weak king who is led by the nose by the other two, though he too does display a measure of ferocity when given over to the vampiric lusts.

The Great Vampire is an interesting idea, though not great in execution. There is a model shot of him on the scanner that looks pretty bad and then you only see his hand emerging from the ground before the spire of the ship pierces him. That was probably a good thing as I doubt they could have made him look that good and they probably wanted to avoid a situation like The Dæmons where the antagonist just looked bad. Still, it did make for a bit of an anticlimax in how easily he was dispatched, which in turn destroyed the Three so easily.

The sets and costumes looked quite good. It is very difficult to fault the BBC on anything that looks period and this one is no exception. About the only bad moment was the climax as the model of the spaceship flying to its apex did look very much like a model and superimposing of the Great Vampire in the crypt through green screen also looked rather fake. But those are small nits to pick in an otherwise well done story. As good as it looked, I wish the whole thing could have been done on film instead of just the outside scenes as that would have added a whole new level to the gothic horror element.

One thing I will appreciate is how much Christopher Bidmead restrained his hand in reworking this story. Obviously he had to add the stuff about E-space and the scenes with Adric, presumably dropping other scenes as well to make room. But in all of this, he did not give over to his natural desires to impose science everywhere. He did toss the beginnings of a small argument about the nature of science between Kalmar and one of the other rebels just as the Doctor arrives in the TARDIS early in Episode Four, but aside from that, he left the gothic horror as it was. Granted, he was probably mollified enough by the use of technology but given the potential mystical origins for the Vampire race and their war with the Time Lords, I'm still impressed that he didn't muck with that. I think with too much change, the essence of this story would have been lost and I appreciate leaving it with the air of unknown and mystery.

I can always tell when I genuinely enjoyed a story as I usually have trouble doing a full write up of it. It's always much easier to write about things that don't work and how they could have been fixed rather than just stating that a story works well for these reasons. This was not a perfect story as I did have some small problems with it, but the overall structure, the acting and the production made it a highly enjoyable story. I could easily watch this one again without complaint.

Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5

Doctor Who and the Silurians

But that's murder. They were a race of intelligent, alien beings. A whole race of them and he's just wiped them out.

Seven-part stories make me nervous. I've also been avoiding this one for two reasons: it's the last Liz Shaw story that I've not seen and I enjoy her a great deal, and the Silurians always seem to have the same story told about them. I remember watching The Hungry Earth and In Cold Blood and just not being that drawn by the story. Perhaps it was the secondary characters but I've become nervous that I would end up not liking a story regarded as a classic of the Third Doctor era just because I didn't care for a future version of the story.

Plot Summary

UNIT is called in to investigate an atomic research lab built in a series of natural caves following three months of unexplained accidents and injuries. The Doctor and Liz arrive in Bessie and are given a brief from the station manager, Dr. Lawrence. The Doctor is given a tour by the assistant manager, Dr. Quinn, and while on that, he discovers that the activity log of the cyclotron has had several pages torn out of it.

The Doctor is informed that the man responsible for the log is suffering from psychosis after he and a fellow worker were attacked in an undeveloped part of the caves. The other worker was killed, having cracked his skull in a fall, but also showing claw marks on his hands. The Doctor goes to see the mad worker only to find him possessed by fear, his only activity: making crude drawings on the wall of reptilian people.

During another test, the cyclotron malfunctions and the Doctor is forced to step in an help in the shut down when another worker becomes hysterical. Liz remarks to the Doctor that she felt a kind of terror when she was in the control room as well. The Doctor decides that he needs to investigate the caves as the control room is the deepest point within the caves.

He enters the caves and discovers a dinosaur after squeezing through a crevice. The dinosaur attacks him but is called off by a musical call. He returns to the lab just as the Brigadier is preparing a team to go look for him. They return to the cave and Major Baker, head of the lab security, rushes ahead and fires at a figure down the cave. The dinosaur returns and attacks Baker but is called off once again. Baker is wounded but alive. The Brigadier and his men chase after the figure while the Doctor takes Baker and some blood samples of the figure he shot back to the lab.

In the lab, the Doctor and Liz notice the blood is similar to reptilian blood. The Brigadier returns having lost the figure in the dark on the moors. He will continue the search in the morning. The figure meanwhile, finds a barn of a local farmer and buries itself in some hay bales to rest.

Dr. Lawrence goes looking for Dr. Quinn but is told by his assistant Miss Dawson that he has gone to his cottage to rest. However, Quinn is instead crawling into the cave where he is transfixed by a red beam. He is taken to a communications room where he pleads with the cave creature over the radio to not keep drawing power. The creatures refuse as they still need the power, having given Quinn the technology in the first place. Quinn is given the recall device of the figure on the surface and ordered to find him and bring him back in exchange for their going quiet for a time.

The next morning, the figure is discovered by the farmer. He claws at him and the farmer is so shocked, he dies of a heart attack. He is also spotted by the farmer's wife. The Brigadier is notified of the incident by the police and comes to investigate. Liz stays at the barn to take samples while the Doctor and the Brigadier head to the hospital to see the farmer's wife.

The farmer's wife is near hysterical with fear, much like the worker. The Doctor manages to get through to her by drawing a quick sketch and asking her to identify it. She agrees that it is the creature and she says it's still in the barn. The two men race back as the creature emerges from the hay once more and attacks Liz. It knocks her out, bolts the door to the barn and then runs out a side door.

The Brigadier breaks the door down and they find Liz, stunned and scratched but otherwise unharmed. As UNIT conducts a search for the creature, Dr. Quinn arrives, having stopped briefly to tell Miss Dawson about the device given to him. He takes the Brigadier's information and begins driving around the moors signaling the creature.

Quinn successfully picks up the creature in his car but his use of the signaling device is noticed by UNIT. The Doctor and the Brigadier head after him and find tracks suggesting that the creature was taken away. The Doctor goes and visits Quinn's house. Although he doesn't see the creature, he notices the heat turned up and Quinn behaving oddly. He leaves and Quinn is contacted by Miss Dawson again. He informs her that he plans on keeping the creature prisoner until it tells him all about their technology.

The Doctor returns to the lab and he and Liz break into Dr. Quinn's files. They find a globe with Pangaea and Miss Dawson stumbles into the lab as they do. The Doctor confronts her and she admits that Quinn was in contact with the creatures but she clams up when the Brigadier enters. Concerned over Quinn's safety, the Doctor returns to Quinn's cottage only to find him dead. He uses the signaler in Quinn's hand and the creature emerges. The Doctor, tries to talk to the creature, which he calls a Silurian. Although it understands him, it doesn't answer and runs off when startled by an outside noise.

The Doctor returns to the lab, although he only tells Liz that Quinn is dead. Major Baker asserts that he wants to head back to the caves with an armed force but the Brigadier overrules him and confines him to a hospital room. The Brigadier plans to attack himself but needs more men to search the caves. Major Baker breaks out of his hospital room and heads to the caves himself, but he is captured by the Silurians.

Hearing of Major Baker's escape, the Doctor and Liz head to the caves to find him. They use a map that the Doctor had taken from Quinn's cottage that he had marked. They find evidence of Baker's fight and follow a Silurian into a hidden base. In the base, they find Baker in a cage where he tells them of being interrogated by the Silurians. The Doctor advises him to make it a two-way exchange and learn as much as he can about the creatures while he and Liz return to the lab.

While they are gone, Sir John Masters, senior under-secretary to the minister, arrives at Dr. Lawrence's request. Masters is anxious that the project continue but he denies the Brigadier's request for more men. The Doctor and Liz arrive in the middle of the meeting and try to convince the others to negotiate with the creatures. Unfortunately, Miss Dawson arrives and tells them that Dr. Quinn is dead. The Brigadier makes up his mind to attack at dawn.

The Doctor sneaks off to warn the Silurians but the capture him and place him in the cage with Major Baker. Alerted by the Doctor's warning, the Silurians spring a trap for the Brigadier and his men, sealing them in a chamber in the cave. One of the Silurians then comes up and tries to kill the Doctor, but the colony leader restrains him. He learns of what the younger Silurian has done and does not approve but does not change it.

Major Baker attacks the Doctor but he is restrained by the Silurians. The Doctor pleads to be let out to talk to them and the leader does, taking him to the control room. He and the Doctor talk and the Doctor learns that the Silurians went into hibernation when they feared Earth would suffer a major catastrophe from an incoming planetoid. However, the object was captured and became the moon. Their equipment malfunctioned and they stayed in stasis until the cyclotron was built, supplying them with power.

The Doctor negotiates with the leader to let the Brigadier and his men go in exchange for allowing the Silurians to negotiate with the humans to set up cities in hot areas where the humans are not settled. He agrees and the Brigadier and his men are released before the suffocate. They return to the lab to find that Liz has been forced to reveal that the Doctor went ahead of the Brigadier to warn the Silurians. Miss Dawson is outraged and demands the Brigadier attack at once while Dr. Lawrence slips further into delusion, refusing to believe the Silurians exist. Masters defers to the Brigadier and the Brigadier refuses to go against the Doctor and elects to wait.

When the upstart Silurian learns of what the elder has done, he and another infect Major Baker with a disease they used to kill apes that would steal from their stores millions of years ago. He is released into the caves and escapes. The elder learns of this and is outraged. He gives the Doctor a sample of the infecting agent and sends him to the surface to devise a cure. After the Doctor leaves, the upstart Silurian is confronted and he kills the elder, taking over leadership of the colony.

Major Baker returns to the base with the Doctor right behind him. The Doctor orders no one to touch him but Baker tries to attack him. He collapses and is taken to the sick bay. Against the Doctor's orders, the lab doctor has Baker shipped to a local hospital. The Doctor and the Brigadier head to the hospital to establish quarantine. They arrive just as Baker runs out of the hospital and dies. The Brigadier establishes a quarantine while the Doctor heads back to the lab.

Masters gathers his things and leaves before the Doctor returns, telling Dr. Lawrence that he is going to recommend that the lab be shut down. Once the Doctor is back, he orders quarantine and has all personnel inoculated with a broad range of antibiotics. He and Liz begin work but are unable to find Masters or Dr. Lawrence. The Brigadier returns to coordinate efforts and Dr. Lawrence returns, lashing angrily out at Liz. He storms out but she learns that Masters left and showed early signs of infection. The brigadier orders the police to intercept Masters in London.
In London, Masters leaves the train, encountering a number of people before getting into a cab just before the police arrive. He takes the cab to the ministry of science but stumbles around as the disease takes hold. Back at the station, people become infected from the ticket taker and the police declare quarantine as people begin to collapse.

The Doctor and Liz continue to work testing various drug combinations on infected blood samples. Dr. Lawrence reemerges in full outbreak, having refused to take the antibiotic cocktail that is keeping everyone else relatively healthy. He attacks the Brigadier who pushes him back. Dr. Lawrence then collapses, dead.

The Silurians observe that the humans are showing greater resistance to the plague than anticipated. The new leader decides to capture the Doctor to prevent him from creating a cure. They overrun one UNIT checkpoint, killing two soldiers, although a third escapes. The leader and his lieutenant then head to the part of the cave abutting a wall of the lab and burn a hole, allowing them access.

The Doctor discovers a cure and synthesizes a small batch to test on one of the infected men. It works and he heads back to his work space to write the formula to be sent to the medical team ready to dispense drugs. As he writes the formula, the two Silurians who breached the lab attack him from behind and capture him. As they drag him out, they also kill a UNIT soldier on patrol.

Liz heads down to the lab and finds the Doctor missing. She grabs the Doctor's notes and tells the Brigadier. Another soldier find the dead soldier and informs the Brigadier. He puts the two together and figures a raid took place. He orders all of his men to push back on the Silurians attacking his men at the cave entrances to try and rescue the Doctor. Liz goes over the Doctor's notes and finishes the formula. She telephones the outside labs and gives them the information, allowing them to mass produce the cure.

In the Silurian base, the Doctor informs his captors of his cure and they decide to attack en mass. However, the lab is in the process of being shut down and there is insufficient power from the reactor. The Silurians grab the Doctor and decide to reinvade the base with the men they have and reactivate the reactor.

The Silurians reemerge just outside the Doctor's office and see Liz and the Brigadier, having just discovered that the elevators have been deactivated. They take the two hostage and the three enter the control room. They attack the technicians but the Doctor orders them to stop, saying that he won't help them if they kill anyone. The Silurians then set up a microwave emitter which will disrupt the Van Allen belt, heating the Earth and making it uninhabitable for mammals.

The Doctor begins to activate the reactor but he gives Liz a signal and they dump all the uranium rods in at once. The action causes an overload in the controls and begins to overheat the reactor. The Doctor informs the Silurians that the reactor will blow, bathing the area in radiation for fifty years. The Silurians retreat to the caves and prepare to go into hibernation for fifty years, leaving the humans to die in the explosion. However, the Doctor is able to stop the meltdown, neutralizing the reactor.

The Doctor returns to the caves where all the Silurians have gone back into hibernation except for the leader, who stayed out to man the hibernation controls. He attacks the Doctor but the Brigadier shoots him from behind, having followed the Doctor. The Doctor returns to the base and after bringing the lab back to a minimal operating standard, he informs the Brigadier that he intends to awaken the Silurians one by one and negotiate peaceful terms with them.

The Brigadier, alarmed by this news, informs the ministry and they order him to seal the caves. He orders his men to place explosives around all the entrances to the caves. As the Doctor and Liz drive near the entrances, the explosives are detonated, sealing the entrance and causing many of the Silurian's caves to collapse. The Doctor is horrified and angrily drives back to UNIT HQ.

Analysis

This was enjoyable story, although a bit slow at the start. Usually when dealing with long stories, the padding falls more around Episodes Five or Six, but in this case, the padding is more in Episodes Two and Three with the search for the wounded Silurian. The rest was actually a fairly tight battle story between the two sides. In many ways, it wasn't quite so much padding as it was two different storylines that had an odd meet in the middle.

All the major characters were quite good in this one. The Doctor was his usual egotistical but enjoyable self. Liz was also quite good and her role expanded through the story. She was left to do "women's work" in the first couple of episodes but she expanded with her scientific knowledge, helping out the Doctor and even piecing together the final cure formula from the Doctor's notes after he was captured. I don't think any other companion could have done that.

This is also the first story where you can see the volume of respect that the Doctor has for Liz. He is a bit condescending towards her at a couple of points but mostly when about to go into action. He openly relies on her when it comes to a scientific view and has a strong respect for her mind. He even gives way in arguments, especially when he protests about his alien physiology and the need for the anti-biotic cocktail. Given the way the Third Doctor (and most Doctor's really) treats his other companions, it shows just how good Liz is in the respect that she earns from the Doctor. The Third Doctor is known for having a more father/daughter relationship with both Jo and Sarah. Liz is much more in the vein of a friend.

The Brigadier is well done in this story as well. He is orderly and smart. He has his eye toward action but does restrain himself at times, though mostly due to a desire for more resources. There is a strong respect for the Doctor from the Brigadier and even a deference to him at a couple points, which is somewhat unusual.

The secondary human characters were all pretty good as well. I couldn't help myself when I saw Dr. Lawrence as I instantly recognized him as the same actor who played Nyder in Genesis of the Daleks. What struck me most though was how quickly some of the other were gotten rid of. Dr. Quinn is dead by the end of Episode Three while Miss Dawson is removed from the picture in Episode Five, with only sporadic appearances. Masters is a quick entry and exit, serving mostly as the agent for turning a localized epidemic into a true pandemic. I was reminded of the game Pandemic as he got to London, envisioning how bad it would get because of one man.

Of all of it, I think I liked the pandemic portion of it. More than monsters, this was something really unnerving and well done. It was clearly shot with a number of background people being unaware of what is going on. It added an excellent sense of realism, along with the shooting on film. When you see random people in the street going down and police cars screaming around, it starts to take on an almost documentary type feel which is highly enjoyable.

The Silurians themselves were a bit disappointing. Obviously we've all been spoiled with the advances in the new series regarding the Silurians but you try to put that aside. The main problem is the build up. We are given only shadow glances at first and then we get the Halloween style first person perspective until the end of Episode Three. Even if you're a little disappointed there, it was still recoverable, except for the acting of the men in the suits.

The Silurians had their voices dubbed over so the men in the suits didn't have any real lines. As such, they tended to overact when talking. The tall one who takes over as leader is particularly bad as he constantly bobs his head in a rapid motion that makes it look like he's going to be sick. It effectively means that there is no subtlety in the performance. Even the voice acting is a bit overplayed as it was all done by one actor, who was clearly focused on making sure each Silurian sounded different rather than worrying much over putting much texture in his tone.

I was also disappointed that the third eye in their foreheads was such a catch-all for anything they did. It was a receiver for mechanics, it was a weapon of varying power to attack others, and it was an actual eye to see through. I would have liked if the eye was just a single use and they had to rely on constructed technology, like their signal devices shown in Episodes Two and Three, for most of their other functions. It didn't help that the noise emitted by the third eye was also quite annoying.

Also in the annoying scale was the music. There was very little tonality to the music and a lot of sharp instrumental break-ins that were highly jarring. Incidental music is best when it is in the background, providing mood without the listener being strongly aware of it. In this, the music called a lot of attention to itself and most of it was not the good kind.

As this is a Malcolm Hulke story, you would expect a story that shows both sides being in the wrong. In this case, you don't really get that. The impression given is that the Silurians began to wake up with the installation of the lab and that they made a deal with Dr. Quinn that would benefit both. Quinn does try to take advantage of that deal and pays a price for it. Likewise, some of the people (Miss Dawson for example) are shown to be somewhat bloodthirsty but usually with some justification. Only Major Baker is shown to be a complete fool in the shoot first, ask questions later vein.

So, for a Malcolm Hulke story, this one is rather one-sided as making the Silurian's the bad guys. They are shown as being reasonable with the original leader but he is killed and the more aggressive one takes over. At that instant, his personality is imprinted and the Silurians attack with gusto. I think we are supposed to sympathize with the Doctor at the end when the caves are destroyed that the Brig committed murder, but it is hard to feel much sympathy for the Silurians at this point. If there had been a faction in favor of negotiation and co-existence that was beaten into submission by the new leadership, that would be one thing. But the old leader is the only one who ever expresses any real desire for coexistence. I would also point out that even he does it more out of fear of what a war would humanity would do to his people. Perhaps it is murder, but I side with the Brigadier in what he was ordered to do.

Overall, I'd say this was a really good story. It has a few shortcomings that would keep it from being a great story but as the first full and proper Third Doctor story, it does well in how he is going to act and his relations with UNIT and Liz. As before, it's an episode or two too long but once you get into Episode Four, it really zips along and draws you in well. It would be a marathon, but I could sit through this one fairly easily, though I'd need a bathroom break in the middle.

Overall personal score: 4 out of 5