Ep. 91 The Nightmare Begins
Ep. 92 Day of Armageddon
Ep. 93 Devil's Planet
Ep. 94 The Traitors
"She didn't understand. She couldn't understand. She wanted to save our lives. And perhaps the lives of all the other beings of the Solar System. I hope she's found her Perfection."
Things have been crazy around here lately and the blog has suffered for it. The watching/listening has continued as scheduled, but I've been unable to take the time and mental resources to make the daily post. This will be a quick catch up on what has happened so far.
The TARDIS lands on the jungle of Kembal, not to far away from where Space James Bond died back in Mission to the Unknown. Steven is dieing from blood poisoning brought on by a Trojan trying to introduce too much iron into his diet.
Space James Bond Jr (actually a shaved Brigadier) is following in the path of Space James Bond and has found the Dalek presence on Kembal. The Shaved Brigadier takes the TARDIS key from the Doctor and tries to fly the TARDIS away when the Doctor returns to the ship and traps him in a magic chair.
I'm not kidding about the magic chair.
The Doctor leaves The Shaved Brigadier in the magic chair to find medicine in the jungle for the dieing astronaut. (Now there's a sentence that I never thought that I'd write.)
It turns out that The Shaved Brigadier has some hypertech medicine on him and manages to get Katarina to give it to Steven who promptly doesn't die.
The Daleks show up and everyone else leaves the TARDIS to get away from them.
Back on earth Mavic Chen (that's his real name, not some wiseass nickname) the leader of the Solar System gives a stirring speech while a pair of space switchboard operators watch. This is actually a fairly nice scene. Just a couple of co-workers, one male, one female goofing off a little and providing exposition. She is comes back at least once. There's a part of me that imagines these two developing a relationship, maybe getting married (or whatever they do in the year 4000) and having kids (or whatever they are in the year 4000.)
The big nugget of news is that Chen is going on a mysterious holiday.
Not so mysterious for the viewers though; he shows up on Kembal to join the delegates.
The Daleks start burning the jungle with "pyro-flames" (T]thank you, Terry Nation) so our intrepid do gooders decide to steal Chen's ship. On the way in, they find a walking pile of seaweed in a black robe, beat it senseless, strip it's robe off and put it on the Doctor so that he can infiltrate the meeting.
While the Doctor breaks into the meeting, the rest of them go to lowjack Chen's ride.
It turns out that the Daleks have made a Time Destructor. Seems the natural next step after mastering "pyro-flames." The only thing that they need to complete it is some Tarranium, the rarest metal in the Universe, only found on one of the dead planets in the Solar System. Chen has brought it in the hopes of gaining control of something bigger than the one star system.
The walking seaweed wakes up and hits the panic alarm. While everyone is panicking, the Doctor steals the Tarranium and runs to the Chen's ship.
Katarina whines and fails to use contractions. In fairness, she may be older than contractions.
The Daleks force the runaway ship to crash on Desperus, "the penal planet of the Solar System." Why the Solar System keeps a penal planet in another star system isn't exactly clear, but this is a Terry Nation script so clarity isn't always a given.
The ship crashes on Desperus. Some homicidal maniacs try to take over the ship. Katarina opens an airlock door and kills herself and the maniac.
In all seriousness, I do feel bad about the treatment that the character received. She was thrown into the TARDIS without much introduction and then got thrust into a breakneck story that didn't allow many pauses to develop character. Leela is proof that a primitive companion could work; they could have made Katarina work if they had given her a chance.
I've heard that she was killed because they didn't know what to do with her. I think that she may have been created to get killed off, emphasizing the danger that the Dalek Masterplan threatened.
Anyway, the Daleks forget that they have a machine that can remote control the ship that the Doctor's on and let them head to Earth.
Chen has beaten them back to Earth and has arranged security to deal with the Doctor, Steven and the Shaved Brigadier. Chief among those arrangements is special agent Sara Kingdom, professional badass and sister to Richard the Lionhearted.
Next up: Counter Plot
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