Production Code: 6Q
First Transmitted
1 - 23/02/1984 18:40
2 - 24/02/1984 18:40
3 - 01/03/1984 18:40
4 - 02/03/1984 18:40
Plot
On holiday in Lanzarote, a young American girl named Peri narrowly escapes drowning when she is rescued from the sea by Turlough and taken into the TARDIS to recover. The Doctor is on the island because the TARDIS has detected a mysterious signal being transmitted from an unknown artifact retrieved from the sea bed by Peri's stepfather, Howard Foster.
The Master reasserts his control over Kamelion and gets it to bring the TARDIS, along with the Doctor, Turlough and Peri, to the planet Sarn, where he is hoping to use that world's supply of revitalising numismaton gas to restore his body - accidentally shrunken in an experiment with his tissue compression eliminator weapon - to its correct size.
It transpires that amongst the Sarn natives, who worship a fire god named Logar, are political prisoners from Trion - Turlough's home world. Turlough too is revealed to be a political refugee. He meets his brother and later, when a spaceship arrives from his home world, discovers that Trion has granted an amnesty to all political prisoners.
The Master is apparently killed when a stream of numismaton gas in which he is bathing turns to a normal hot flame. The Doctor destroys Kamelion at the robot's own bidding as it has become completely unstable. Turlough leaves to return to Trion, while Peri goes with the Doctor.
Episode Endings
The TARDIS arrives on the planet Sarn and the Doctor and Turlough venture outside, leaving Peri in the control room with, apparently, her stepfather Howard Foster. The latter is really a disguised Kamelion, however, and after closing the TARDIS doors he transforms into an image of the Master. Peri asks who he is, and he replies: 'I am the Master, and you will obey me.'
The Kamelion-Master exhorts the people of Sarn to sacrifice the 'unbelievers' amongst them by throwing them into the flames of a furnace. The Doctor, who is one of those to be sacrificed, is seemingly powerless to prevent this.
Peri takes refuge in the Master's TARDIS. She sees a box on the floor and, lifting the lid, is shocked to find inside it the miniaturised form of the Master. He tells her: 'You escaped from my slave, but you will obey me - or die.'
The Doctor accedes to Peri's request to be allowed to travel with him and, as the TARDIS lurches violently in flight, welcomes her aboard.
Roots
References to Judaism (the penalties that await trespassers on the holy Mountain of Fire) and Christianity (the messianic 'Outsider', Timanov's reference to oblation, and the Doctor postulating on the Master's desire to be 'born again').
Von Daniken.
She.
Dune.
Dialogue Triumphs
Kamelion-Master : "I am the Master!"
Peri : "I'm Perpugilliam Brown, and I can shout just as loud as you can!"
Timanov : "You will never understand, Amyand. Logar is everywhere. He cares for the faithful."
Turlough : "I don't want to go, Doctor. I've learnt a lot from you."
Double Entendre
"I don't know how long it'll be before the next emission."
Continuity
The Doctor for once has some coins on him, but they're alien. He briefly dons his half moon spectacles (see Frontios).
Peri (Perpugilliam) Brown is a young American student, holidaying with her mother and archaeologist step father, Professor Howard Foster, on Lanzarote. Peri's summer studying includes an ecology project. She has exams coming up, and her return flight is to New York.
Turlough is from Trion, and was on the losing side in the planet's civil war. His father and brother Malkon were exiled to Sarn, where the Trions sent occasional prisoners. Such prisoners were branded with the Misos triangle, and the indigenous population heralded them as leaders chosen by Logar, their fire god. Turlough's father died when the spacecraft crashed. The volcanic forces of Sarn were for a while kept in check by Trion scientists.
Vislor Turlough - his rank is Junior Ensign Commander, identification code VTEC9/12/44 - was sent to public school on Earth, where a Trion agent 'an eccentric solicitor in Chancery Lane' took care of arrangements. Turlough states that the Trions have agents on every civilised planet, including an agrarian commissioner on Vardon and a tax inspector on Darvey. When Turlough makes contact with Trion to enable the people of Sarn to be evacuated he is relieved to find that political prisoners are no longer persecuted.
The volcanic activity on Sarn which will soon destroy the planet also produces numismaton gas, 'an immensely rare catalytic reagent' with great healing properties (see The Brain of Morbius). Despite his 'reduced circumstances', the Master is able to regain partial control of Kamelion. The Doctor says that he thinks that the Master's body will be good for a few years yet, but the Master appears to die in flames at the end of the story. [The Master screams 'Would you show [no] mercy to one of your own ', referring to their shared biology as Gallifreyans or status as Time Lords.]
[The presence of the device containing the Trion distress signal in a sunken wreck that is said to be similar to 'your English Mary Rose' is not explained, and neither is the reason for the Master's familiarity with it.] Under his instructions, Kamelion lands the TARDIS at Lanzarote, where the device is being brought up to the surface, and the Master then follows the Doctor to Sarn.
It seems possible that the Trions were aware of the properties of numismaton gas and laid a complex 'trail' for it: the Master says that he has travelled billions of light years through time and space to arrive at Sarn. The Master removes the temporal stabiliser from the Doctor's TARDIS, rendering it inoperable (see Time Flight: 'Another old trick of the Master's') Kamelion also removes the comparator (which is full of silicon chips and resistors!), another vital circuit.
QV
Location
Lanzarote, [1980s: possibly 1985 as the Doctor in the next season threatens to return Peri to tht year].
Sarn.
Links
The story directly follows Resurrection of the Daleks.
Kamelion is seen for the first time since The King's Demons.
Trivia
Peter Wyngarde, better known as cult icon Jason King in the eponymous ITC series and its Department S forebear, appears here as the Sarn elder, Timanov.
The Doctor wears a variation on his usual costume, with different trousers and - initially - a waistcoat.
Goofs
Peri is dry by the time Turlough brings her into the TARDIS.
The Doctor asks Amyand and Sorasta about Logar, despite having never heard the name before.
Peri can override the Master's control of Kamelion, but the Doctor can't.
If the Master's gun is a Tissue Compression Eliminator, why does it compress Kamelion and the radiation suits? (Peri seems to be able to out-run its blast in episode three.)
Cast & Crew
Cast
The Doctor - Peter Davison
Peri - Nicola Bryant
Turlough - Mark Strickson
Voice of Kamelion - Gerald Flood
Amyand - James Bate
Curt - Michael Bangerter
Lomand - John Alkin
Lookout - Simon Sutton
Malkon - Edward Highmore
Professor Howard Foster - Dallas Adams
Roskal - Jonathan Caplan
Sorasta - Barbara Shelley
The Master - Anthony Ainley
Timanov - Peter Wyngarde
Zuko - Max Arthur
Crew
Director - Fiona Cumming
Planet of Fire