Production Code: 5X
First Transmitted
1 - 15/02/1982 18:55
2 - 16/02/1982 19:05
3 - 22/02/1982 18:55
4 - 23/02/1982 19:05
Plot
The Doctor attempts to take Tegan back to Heathrow Airport but the TARDIS arrives in the 17th Century instead of the 20th. The time travellers discover that a space capsule has crash-landed nearby and that its alien occupants, three Terileptil prison escapees, intend to wipe out all indigenous life on Earth by releasing rats infected with an enhanced strain of the great plague.
The creatures are also using a sophisticated android to strike terror into the local villagers. Aided by itinerant thespian Richard Mace, the Doctor tracks the Terileptils to their base in Pudding Lane, London. The creatures are ultimately destroyed when a fire breaks out and the Terileptil leader's weapon explodes - also setting off the Great Fire of London.
Episode Endings
The travellers investigate an apparently deserted manor house, where the Doctor finds a fake wall at the bottom of a flight of steps. Nyssa goes to fetch Tegan and Adric, but when they get to the steps the Doctor has gone. The android closes and bolts a door behind the three friends, trapping them. Tegan calls out to Doctor.
The Doctor and Mace find themselves surrounded by villagers and sentenced to execution. They are forced to kneel with their heads bowed before a man who prepares to decapitate them with a scythe.
The Terileptil leader leaves the Doctor locked in a cell with Tegan and Mace, who are both now under the alien's control. The Doctor tries desperately to break through Tegan's conditioning, but, as instructed, she starts to open a cage full of plague rats...
The travellers leave in the TARDIS. Tegan is concerned about the fire that has broken out, but the Doctor knowingly comments they should let it run its course. The sign on the wall outside the Terileptils' base reads 'Pudding Lane'
Roots
Pepys.
Saward's 1970s radio plays (Mace).
Dialogue Triumphs
Terileptil : "Where is this Doctor from?"
Tegan : "He's never told us. He likes to be mysterious, although he talks a lot about... er... Guildford. I think that's where he comes from."
Terileptil : "You're being a very stupid woman."
Tegan : "That isn't a very original observation."
Richard Mace : "I have appeared before some of the most hostile audiences in the world. Today I met death in a cellar. But I have never been so afraid until I met the man with the scythe."
The Doctor : "How do you feel now?"
Tegan : "Groggy, sore and bad tempered."
The Doctor : "Almost your old self."
Continuity
The TARDIS' lateral balance cones are 'playing up' (probably 'temperamental solenoids'), foiling the Doctor's attempt to get Tegan back to 1981 Heathrow 'We're about 3 years early.'
Adric's homing device (see Full Circle) is dropped in the fight with the villagers. Reference is again made to Adric's ability to recover from injuries quickly. He and Nyssa are able to pilot the TARDIS on their own.
The Terileptils are very intelligent semi-reptilian creatures who have a heightened appreciation of aesthetics and warfare. They have developed advanced androids. These Terileptils have escaped from the Tinclavic mines on Raaga (see The Awakening), where they have been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Terileptils cannot last for long without breathing soliton gas: the substance is volatile when mixed with oxygen. The Terileptils' control bracelets are made of polygrite: the substance, and the power packs, are found in many parts of the Universe. Their usual form of lighting - vintaric crystals - is also common.
The Doctor's sonic screwdriver is destroyed. Thankfully, he finds a safety pin in his pocket.
QV
Location
Somewhere near London, 1666.
Links
The story follows on directly from Kinda, the Doctor admonishing Adric for trying to escape in the TSS, and Tegan talking to Nyssa about the Mara. Tegan assumes that the Terileptil's interest in the TARDIS means that, like Monarch, he wants to 'ride in it' (Four to Doomsday).
Trivia
In a brilliantly written and directed 'prologue', a local Squire and his family are wiped out by the Terileptils and their robot.
There are continuity references back to Kinda when Tegan and Nyssa speak in the TARDIS in Part One.
The sonic screwdriver, a remarkable tool used by the Doctor off and on since season five's Fury from the Deep, is destroyed in Part Three.
The Terileptil leader's mask was the first example in Doctor Who of an effect achieved with animatronics - the use of mechanically controlled components to achieve lifelike movement.
The character Richard Mace had previously featured in three plays - The Assassin (1974), Pegasus (1975) and The Nemesis Machine (1976) - that Eric Saward had written for BBC Radio 4.
Goofs
The android wears poorly disguised cricket gloves (cf Silver Nemesis).
The Miller's donkey seems to resent Mace's attention, and, when Nyssa is attacked by the android, the room begins to shake before she switches on the machine.
When the Doctor is searching for the Terileptils' London base, the scanner shows a 'brown and white' 17th Century print of London's streets, rather than an image drawn up by the TARDIS' sensors [See Full Circle.]
The future archaeologists that Nyssa refers to will probably be rather more puzzled by the Terileptil ship and base.
Fashion Victim
Nyssa's fluffy ear muffs.
Cast & Crew
Cast
The Doctor - Peter Davison
Adric - Matthew Waterhouse
Nyssa - Sarah Sutton
Tegan - Janet Fielding
Android - Peter van Dissell
Charles - Anthony Calf
Elizabeth - Valerie Fyfer
Headman - Eric Dodson
Miller - James Charlton
Poacher - Neil West
Ralph - John Baker
Richard Mace - Michael Robbins
Terileptil - Michael Melia
The Squire - John Savident
Villager - Richard Hampton
Crew
Director - Peter Moffatt
The Vistation