Production Code: 4Z
First Transmitted
1 - 04/02/1978 18.25
2 - 11/02/1978 18.25
3 - 18/02/1978 18.25
4 - 25/02/1978 18.25
5 - 04/03/1978 18.25
6 - 11/03/1978 18.25
Plot
After a meeting in space with a group of unseen aliens the Doctor returns to Gallifrey and claims the presidency of the Time Lords. Leela meanwhile tries to work out why he is behaving out of character. At his induction, the Doctor is 'crowned' with a device giving him access to the Matrix. He then arranges for the transduction barriers around Gallifrey to be put out of action by K9. When this is done, his alien 'friends' materialise. They are telepathic invaders called Vardans.
The Doctor links K9 to the Matrix in order to determine their point of origin. His plan is to place a time loop around their home planet, but he must avoid arousing their suspicions - hence his erratic behaviour. He banishes Leela to the wastelands of outer Gallifrey for fear that she might unintentionally jeopardise his plans. There she meets a group of Gallifreyan outsiders, and together they organise an attack on the Capitol to fight off the invaders.
The Doctor finally springs his trap and the Vardans are banished. Then, however, Gallifrey is invaded by Sontarans who, unknown to the Doctor, were using the Vardans to enable them to conquer the Time Lords. The Doctor uses knowledge extracted from the Matrix by K9 to construct a forbidden de-mat gun, activated by the Great Key of Rassilon. He then uses this to kill the Sontarans, although his memory of recent events is wiped in the process.
Leela announces that she wishes to stay behind with Andred, one of the Chancellery guards, with whom she has fallen in love. K9 elects to remain with her.
Episode Endings
The presidential induction ceremony reaches its conclusion as the Matrix circlet is placed on the Doctor's head. Suddenly he writhes in pain and falls to the floor, clutching at the circlet.
K9 blasts the transduction barrier controls and the Vardan ship enters Gallifreyan space. The Doctor gathers the senior Time Lords in the Panopticon and introduces them to their new masters - the Vardans. Three shimmering shapes appear as the Doctor laughs in triumph.
The Doctor returns to the TARDIS, where K9 has been tracing the Vardans' point of origin. He places the matrix circlet on K9's head. Suddenly Andred entered the TARDIS with some guards. He sentences the Doctor to death as a traitor and raises his gun.
With the Vardan threat banished, the Doctor announces to Leela, Andred, Castellan Kelner and the others assembled in the Panopticon that the future of Gallifrey is assured. Realising that they are not looking at him, he turns to see four Sontarans standing on the steps behind him. The foremost Sontaran raises its gun and aims it at him.
As the Sontaran fleet approaches Gallifrey, Castellan Kelner, now cooperating with the Sontaran leader Stor, reverses the stabiliser banks and initiates a process that will throw the Doctor's TARDIS into a black star.
The Doctor leaves Leela to stay with Andred, and K9 to look after her. As the TARDIS dematerialises, Leela wonders if the Doctor will be lonely. Inside, the Doctor produces a large box with 'K9 MKIII' printed on the side. He stands at the console, looks into the distance and smiles broadly.
Roots
Duck Soup.
The Mikado.
Juvenal ('who guards the guards?').
Monty Python's Deja Vu sketch.
Dialogue Triumphs
Guard : "The Castellan will have me shot!"
The Doctor : "That's all right. I'll have him shot."
K9 : [[To the TARDIS]] "You are a very stupid machine."
Leela : "Discussion is for the wise or the helpless and I am neither."
Borusa : "You have access to the greatest source of knowledge in the universe."
The Doctor : "Well, I do talk to myself sometimes."
Stor : [[About the TARDIS]] "This machine is a load of obsolete rubbish."
Stor : "If we cannot control the power of the Time Lords then we shall destroy it."
Continuity
The Capitol is a section of the Citadel. The Castellan states two Time Lords are absent from Gallifrey 'on unauthorized business', noting that such use of time capsules carries 'only one penalty'. (Since The Deadly Assassin Castellan has changed from a senior 'policeman' with few dealings with Time Lords into a minister of state.) The Castellan is a Time Lord, as is Nesbin, who was once a guard. [If the guards aren't actually Time Lords, then this is a gift on promotion.] Castellan is a good position for those hoping to be president.
The Doctor signs his treaty with the Vardans with a red biro. He again refers to K9 as 'my second best friend', and (at the end) replaces the departed K9 with a box marked 'K9 M II' [which he must have built]. Borusa taught the Doctor telepathy.
The TARDIS interior includes a swimming pool, an ancillary power station disguised as an art exhibition (the paintings include 'The Fighting Temarere', Van Eyck's 'Jan Arnolfini and His Wife' and Chagall's 'Snail' - the Doctor also has the Venus de Milo), a sick bay, and various brick walled storage areas. Borusa suggests the Doctor should stabilise his 'pedestrian infrastructure'. The Doctor removes a 'primary refraction tube' from the TARDIS' 'fail safe' preventing Stor from operating his sensor device.
The President gains access to the Matrix [of which the APC net is only a small part: The Deadly Assassin implies it's the other way round] via a coronet. He becomes part of the Matrix and it part of him. [This may be one reason why the Doctor seems to be more knowledgeable afterwards than in his earlier incarnations. This knowledge came back intermittently, the majority of it returning after the sixth Doctor's regeneration]. Gallifrey has transduction barriers and a quantum force field to prevent attack. Dematerializing things is forbidden (cf. The War Games).
Andred notes Rassilon died 'aeons ago'. Gallifreyans living outside the Capitol are referred to as 'The Outsiders' [not Sheboogans: see The Deadly Assassin]. Nesbin says they are Time Lords who rejected the Capitol's effete life. From the design on the cover to the Eye of Harmony [rebuilt since 'The Deadly Assassin] Gallifrey seems to be one of six planets circling a single sun. Gallifrey's sky is orange (cf. The Sensorites]). Food pills are a source of energy.
The Vardans can travel along any broadcast wavelength and are telepathic. Their planet has the co-ordinates 3052 alpha 7, 14th span. The Doctor uses modulation rejection patterns to defeat them and plans to 'jury rig' a time loop for their planet (cf. Image of the Fendahl]).
The Sontaran army 'reckons its numbers in hundreds of millions'. The Doctor says they can multiply at a rate of a million every four minutes. They once again have six digits rather than ten.
The Doctor discusses Quasar Five, Riga, Sinian Empire second dynasty and Earth 073 period architecture with Kelner. Iridium alloy is used in the D-Mat Gun.
QV
Location
Gallifrey.
Links
There are many references to The Deadly Assassin. The Sash (recovered from the black hole?) and Rod are artefacts entrusted to the President, with the Great Key of Rassilon held in the Chancellor's custody so that no President would have access to absolute power (it is also used to arm the De-Mat gun that the Doctor has Rodan build). The TARDIS cypher indent key is again seen.
Trivia
The TARDIS contains a swimming pool sized bathroom.
Myth
Robert Holmes and Terrance Dicks were involved in the writing of this story. (They weren't, although it was on Holmes's advice that Graham Williams and Anthony Read structured it as a four-part segment followed by an effectively separate two-part segment.)
The story was originally to have ended with a scene in which the Sontarans deferred to the Doctor and knelt before him. (This myth arose when early publicity stills for the story showed the Sontarans apparently kneeling before the Doctor. These were in fact taken from a scene in Part Five in which Chancellor Borusa blasts the Sontarans with sound and they fall to their knees, clutching their helmets.)
Although three Sontarans are seen to enter the TARDIS, only two are killed, meaning that there is still a Sontaran lost in the TARDIS somewhere. (Only two Sontarans, Stor plus a trooper, are seen to enter. The trooper is killed with the de-mat gun, and Stor is also eventually killed with the same weapon, but outside the TARDIS.)
The characters living outside the Time Lords' Citadel are the Shabogans, as mentioned in The Deadly Assassin. (There is nothing to link the two. In The Deadly Assassin, the Shabogans were mentioned by Spandrell as being responsible for vandalism around the Citadel. In this story, the outsiders are clearly described as Time Lords who have left the Citadel for varying reasons, and it seems unlikely that they would have returned to carry out acts of petty damage.)
Technobabble
Silly names paradise. Cyclic burst ratio, encephialographic barrier, a winklegruber and crimps are all mentioned. The Doctor tells Rodan that 'after I feed in the doppler effect and eliminate the red shift then the invasion will succeed.'
Goofs
In episode one, the Doctor is wearing his scarf when he meets the Vardans, but it's on the hat stand when he returns to the TARDIS and he's not wearing it. [He has a superfluity of scarfs and left it behind.]
When the TARDIS lands its exterior light remains shining.
Stor has a cockney accent.
What happens to the rest of the Sontaran fleet once Stor is killed?
Leela and Andred fall in love despite barely having looked at one another before.
Why was Leela allowed to go to Gallifrey (and stay there!) and Sarah wasn't? [A new regime, perhaps?]
Cast & Crew
Cast
The Doctor - Tom Baker
Leela - Louise Jameson
Voice of K9 - John Leeson
Ablif - Ray Callaghan
Andred - Christopher Tranchell Christopher Tranchell was credited as 'Chris Tranchell' on Parts Three to Six inclusive.
Bodyguard - Michael Harley
Borusa - John Arnatt
Castellan Guard - Eric Danot
Gold Usher - Charles Morgan
Guard - Christopher Christou
Jasko - Michael Mundell
Kelner - Milton Johns
Lord Gomer - Dennis Edwards
Lord Savar - Reginald Jessup
Nesbin - Max Faulkner
Presta - Gay Smith
Rodan - Hilary Ryan
Sontaran - Stuart Fell
Stor - Derek Deadman
Vardan - Stan McGowan
Vardan - Tom Kelly
Crew
Director - Gerald Blake
The Invasion of Time