Production Code: 5B
First Transmitted
1 - 30/09/1978 18:20
2 - 07/10/1978 18:20
3 - 14/10/1978 18:20
4 - 21/10/1978 18:20
Plot
The tracer detects the second segment on the planet Calufrax. The TARDIS makes a bumpy landing, and the Doctor and Romana soon discover that they are not on Calufrax at all. They are in fact on Zanak, a planet that has been hollowed out and fitted with engines so that it can transmat through space and materialise around others - such as Calufrax - to plunder their mineral wealth, leaving them as shrunken husks held by gravitational forces in a 'trophy room'.
Ostensibly in charge is the Captain, whose body has been partially replaced with robotic parts following a near-fatal crash, but he is merely a puppet controlled by his nurse - a projection of Zanak's original ruler, the aged Queen Xanxia.
Xanxia is using time dams, powered by the forces generated in the trophy room, to keep her body alive until this new, younger form has stabilised. The Captain prepares Zanak to 'jump' again - this time with Earth as its target.
The Doctor attempts to thwart his plans, calling on the assistance of the Mentiads - a gestalt of telepaths amongst Zanak's indigenous population - to sabotage the engines.
The Captain rebels against the nurse, but she kills him. The nurse herself is then destroyed by one of the Zanak natives whom the Doctor, Romana and K9 have befriended.
The Doctor realises that the second segment comprises the whole of the planet Calufrax. He contrives to drop the compressed husks from the trophy room into a space-time vortex created by the TARDIS in the centre of Zanak, and is then able to pick up and convert the segment at his leisure.
Episode Endings
A group of Mentiads blast the Doctor with a bolt of mental energy. K9 blasts them back, but to no avail. The Mentiads turn again to the Doctor, who slumps to the floor under their attack.
The Doctor, Romana and the young native Kimus explore the mine workings under Zanak. The Doctor realises that the planet is hollow and that it has materialised around Calufrax. The three friends flee further into the mine as the Captain's guards arrive and give chase. Suddenly they are confronted a group of Mentiads who state that they have come for the Doctor.
K9 destroys the Captain's robotic parrot, the polyphase avitron, and by way of retribution the Captain forces the Doctor to walk a plank suspended over a sheer drop. The Doctor reaches the end and pauses. The Captain fires a gun at his feet until, with a cry, he falls from the plank and disappears from view. The Captain laughs.
The Doctor helps to set up some explosives for the Mentiads, who then operate the detonator telepathically. Zanak's control centre, the Bridge, is totally destroyed in a spectacular explosion. The Doctor and Romana leave to return to the TARDIS.
Roots
The Tomorrow People (telepaths 'breaking out').
Mutiny on the Bounty.
Peter Pan ('Mr Fibuli!').
The pirate genre.
Candide.
Through the Looking Glass (the inertia free walkway).
The Beach Boys ('You mean they pinned him to the wall with Good Vibrations?').
Monty Python's Flying Circus (allusions to 'The Spanish Inquisition' and a dead parrot).
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Dialogue Triumphs
Guard : [Taking a telescope from Romana] "This is a forbidden object."
Romana : "Why?"
Guard : "That is a forbidden question. You are a stranger?"
Romana : "Well, yes."
Guard : "Strangers are forbidden."
Romana : "I did come with the Doctor."
Guard : "Who is the..."
Romana : "Ah, now don't tell me. Doctors are forbidden as well."
The Doctor : [To the Captain] "What is it you're really up to, eh? What do you want? You don't want to take over the universe do you? No. You wouldn't know what to do with it beyond shout at it."
Captain : "I'm gratified that you appreciate it."
The Doctor : "Appreciate it... appreciate it! You commit mass destruction and murder on a scale that's almost inconceivable and you ask me to appreciate it! Just because you happen to have made a brilliantly-conceived toy out of the mummified remains of planets."
Captain : "Devilstorms, Doctor... It is not a toy!"
The Doctor : "Then what's it for? Huh? What are you doing? What could possibly be worth all this?"
The Doctor : [The Doctor is asked what he does for a living] "I save planets, mostly."
The Doctor : "I just put 1.795379 and 2.20468 together."
Romana : "What does that mean?"
The Doctor : "Four!" [(4.000059, actually.)]
Double Entendre
Mentiad : "We must act... Act at once..."
The Doctor : "It's a bit crude, but immensely satisfying."
Continuity
Romana was given an air car for her 70th birthday, and can shoot with surprising accuracy. She states that the study of 'veteran and vintage vehicles' (i.e. Type 40 TARDISes) was optional on the syllabus at the Academy and that she preferred to study 'the life cycle of the Gallifreyan Flutterwing'.
We see the TARDIS handbook. The TARDIS does not seem to be indestructible. Romana states that the Doctor has been operating the TARDIS for 523 years [As the Doctor was at the Academy with Drax 450 years ago, this cannot refer to the length of his exile from Gallifrey. Instead, this figure refers to the length of time that the Doctor has operated TARDISes, a necessary part of his employment or training on Gallifrey.]
Oolion is a rare precious stone found only on Qualactin and Bandraginus V (the latter 'disappeared about a hundred years ago'). Balaton says that Queen Xanxia ruled when he was 'a lad', which indicates that he must be over a century old. Calufrax was an 'oblate spheroid 14,000 kilometres across'. Rich in voolium and madranite one-five, it was also the second segment in the Key to Time. Zanak's next victim is be to the Earth, co ordinates 58044684884, which is rich in the mineral PJX18 (quartz).
The Doctor lies to the Captain, telling him that the TARDIS has a lock that requires both his and Romana's presence when being opened.
Location
Zanak
Callufrax
Links
The unconscious Doctor mumbles 'no more janis thorns' (a reference to Leela)
Untelevised
The Doctor told Sir Isaac Newton the idea for gravity at dinner after sitting in his tree dropping apples on his head.
Trivia
The Doctor has a visible cut on his top lip during this story as Tom Baker had been bitten by a dog whilst offering it a sausage. This is explained in plot terms by the Doctor banging his lip on the TARDIS console when it makes its bumpy landing on Zanak.
There are some excellent location scenes filmed at the Dan-yr-Ogof caves in Powys, Wales.
Technobabble
The Doctor doesn't use the synchronic feedback circuit or the multi-loop stabiliser when landing the TARDIS (both of which are, according to Romana, essential for a smooth materialisation). Also featured are a linear induction corridor, a macro-mac field integrator, an amblicyclic photon bridge, a magnifactoid eccentricolometer, a counter jamming frequency projector, a warp oscilloscope, etc. (After all, this is a Douglas Adams script.)
Cast & Crew
Cast
The Doctor - Tom Baker
Romana - Mary Tamm
Voice of K9 - John Leeson
Balaton - Ralph Michael
Captain - Bruce Purchase
Citizen - Clive Bennett
Guard - Adam Kurakin
Kimus - David Warwick
Mentiad - Bernard Finch
Mr. Fibuli - Andrew Robertson
Mula - Primi Townsend
Nurse - Rosalind Lloyd
Pralix - David Sibley
Crew
Director - Pennant Roberts
The Pirate Planet