From Newsgroup: rec.arts.drwho
On 29/08/2026 14:51, Yads wrote:
In article <116tq0d$2vjb0$1@dont-email.me>,
The True Doctor <agamemnon@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote:
The Doctor and Romana embark on collecting the sixth segment of the Key
to Time but the TARDIS refuses to land on the planet Atrios where the
segment is located or even its neighbour the planet Zeos, but somewhere
in between. Something must be blocking the way to both planets which
have been engaged in a nuclear war for the past four years because the
Martial does not want to consider any suggestion of making peace. Why
Marshall
this war began no one can explain, but the Zeans attacked Atrios and
Atrios is now on the verge of defeat.
Princess Astra the leader of Atrios wants to try to contact the Zeans to
negotiate a peace treaty but the Martial won't allow her off the planet
so that he can keep on waging war until the bitter end while trying to
inspire the people with his "we will never surrender" Winston Churchill
like speeches in-between the low budget romantic melodramas broadcast on TV. >>
Even if the Martial did let Astra do what she wants no one is able to
find where Zeos is located so Atrios can't even bomb it let alone send a
diplomatic envoy to it.
The Shadow who is the agent of the Black Guardian is responsible for
starting the war and for blocking either side from reaching the other
except though a transmit beam which the Shadow's henchmen drag Astra
into after she meets up with her boyfriend Merack who is a doctor at one
of the field hospitals she visits for moral support.
ANd the fate of Xeos?
You mean Zeos. The population seem to have departed long ago. It was
never stated where they went or how they got there. Maybe the planet had
been taken over by machines which wiped out all organic life. Maybe they
all lived underground or on the other side of the planet.
After figuring out how to land on Atrios the Doctor is captured by the
Martial, but the Martial is being controlled by the Shadow using a tag
attached to his neck though which he talks to a skull on the other side
of a tow way mirror, and is told to let the Doctor go free to help him
stop the Zeans.
After the Atrian ships are reduced to just three against a dozen Zean
ships the Doctor suggests creating a force shield to protect the planet,
but this will not only stop the Zeans from getting in, but will also
stop the Atrians from getting out to attack Zeos so the Martial tells
the Doctor to create a barrier that only works one way. The Doctor
suggests a psychological barrier based on fear but he needs to examine a
Zean fist to find out how they will react.
Since there are none on Atrios the Doctor must go to Zeos to find one
but the TARDIS has gone missing so the Martial suggests using one of the
transmat chambers. The Doctor needs K9 to go with him but K9 is trapped
inside the garbage incinerator ready to be recycled so the Doctor jumps
in and rescues him.
The Doctor, Romana, and Merak then escape with K9.
Merak ends up travelling to Zeos by transmat after taking the tracer
from Romana after he finds it is sensitive to items of jewellery which
Astra had on her. Romana goes after him with K9 and gets the tracer back
while K9 searches for Astra.
The Doctor is captured by the Shadow's agents and interrogated by the
Shadow on Zeos which is also where the Shadow has transported the now
missing TARDIS to to try to break into it and retrieve the five segments
the Doctor has of the Key to Time. He can't break into it and since the
Doctor won't let him in he lets the Doctor go free because he has plenty
of time to wait for the Doctor to make a mistake and let the pieces fall
into his hands.
The Doctor finds the tracks of Romana, Merek and K9 in the dust on the
floor and follows those of K9.
The Martial's second in command Shapp also ends up being transmatted to
Zeos going after the Doctor.
Eventually they all meet up and find out that there's been no one living
on Zeos for many years and a computer is running Zeos's war campaign all
by itself.
The Shadow who now has Astra in his lair puts a tag on her neck so that
she is under his control and lets her go to find Merak to get close to
the Doctor and inside his TARDIS.
Meanwhile the Shadow has stopped the attack from Zeos and ended the war
as he promised the Martial for bringing the Doctor to him so the Martial
decides to attack Zeos, which he has now located after the Shadow
removed the barriers, and declare a decisive victory. He is accompanied
by a singled pilot in the last remaining star fighter that Atrios has.
The Doctor figures out through K9 that the war computer Mentalis is
programmed to carry out mutually assured destruction if Zeos is directly
attacked and can't win, which it can't since the Shadow has told it to
stand down, so the fallback device it controls will destroy both planets
in a huge explosion when the computer implements the Armageddon factor.
Shapp is sent back to Atrios by the Doctor to tell the Martial the war
is over and for him return to Atrios but gets split off from K9 who is
then captured by the Shadow and enslaved with a neck tag.
The Doctor ties to disable Mentalis but the computer blows itself up to
prevent itself from disabling the fallback device.
Astra then rescues Merak after he goes searching for her again and she
finds him first. They both go back to the Doctor and Romana and enter
the TARDIS where the Doctor improvises a dummy sixth segment for the Key
to Time which he assembles with the five pieces which he already has
with the tracer locking them together so as to use the powers available
in the pieces that he has already collected.
He instructs the Key to Time to put the Martial and Mentalis into a time
loop after the Martial orders the launch of his missiles towards Zeos
but the improvised sixth segment can't last long and the time loop can
only stretch to 10 seconds before it breaks, which only gives the Doctor
about an hour to find the Shadow's lair on the third planet, which turns
out to be a space ship between Atrios and Zeos, and gain possession of
the sixth segment.
The TARDIS lands and Romana, Merak and Astra, who the Doctor had removed
the tag from earlier, go out first to search for the Shadow and the
sixth segment. But the Shadow with K9 under his control tricks them and
captures Astra and interrogates Romana while the Doctor emerging from
the TARDIS after them escapes.
While making his escape the Doctor runs into a former classmate from the
Gallifreyan Academy who not receiving a doctorate like the Doctor did
became a travelling technician for hire. He was the one responsible for
creating Mentalis after the Shadow hired him, but didn't know that the
Shadow was planning to trap a Time Lord when he entered into the deal
which the Shadow reneged on and then imprisoned him.
The Doctor and his fellow classmate who is called Drax and who calls the
Doctor Theet, being short for "Theta Sigma", plan to stop the Shadow
from getting possession of the Key to Time and giving it to the Black
Guardian so that he can bring the entire cosmos into conflict for their
entertainment.
In Parts 5 and 6 , Drax plays a very important role.
3 Gallifreyans on the Offensive.
Imagine ifthe MAster was the Agent of the Black Guardian instead
of the Shadow.
He'd have taken all the power for himself.
K9 is sent to find the Doctor but the Doctor realises he is under the
Shadow's control and knocks him over and removes the tag from his neck.
Using the dimensional stabiliser from Drax's TARDIS which he took with
him to repair they build a shrinking gun which Drax uses on the Doctor
and then on himself to flee the Shadow's henchman.
They then secrete themselves inside K9 to use as a Trojan Horse and K9
takes them to the Shadow as he transforms Astra the 6th princes of the
6th house of the 6th dynasty of Atrios into the sixth segment of the Key
to Time as was to be her preordained destiny which she accepted.
Yes and Merrack ...
What about him?
K9 fires on the Shadow as he attempts to remove the dummy sixth segment,
which the Doctor made, from the Key to Time, which his henchman
retrieved from the TARDIS since the Shadow could not tolerate the light
inside. This will be the first step of his plan to create cosmic turmoil
since doing this will break the time loop and cause the destruction of
both Atrios and Zeos.
The Shadow is blinded by the Light.
The Doctor and Drax in shrunken form climb out of the side panel of K9
which has now slid back and return themselves to full size. The Doctor
then grabs the sixth segment of the Key to Time and taking the rest of
the Key to Time runs back to the TARDIS with Romana and Merak, while
Drax takes the transmat to Zeos.
Now this is a good scene of improvisation.
The Shadow can just wait.
Inside the TARDIS the Doctor sets up a deflector shield over Zeos for a
millisecond, after the time loop breaks and the Martial launches his
missiles, which bounce off it and hit the Showdow's lair blowing it up
^
along with the Shadow and his henchmen.
The Black Guardin's artifical Planet.
It looked more like a space ship. Maybe the original idea was for it to
have looked like a Death Star.
The Doctor has now assembled the Key to Time in full. Drax finds the
Doctor on Zeos and says goodbye telling him of his plan to rebuild
Atrios with the Martial and Merak returns to Atriors to look for Astra
who he still think is alive despite seeing her transform into the sixth
segment. The Doctor then pretends to be consumed by the power that the
Key to Time will give him but Romana does not like that this was at the
expense of a person's life or that she and the Doctor were used for this
purpose.
It is a test.
What for?
The Black Guardian is angered at the Shadow having being beaten by the
Doctor, but will not accept defeat so he appears to the Doctor in the
form of the White Guardian and asks the Doctor to give him the Key to
Time. The Doctor suspects this is a trick and refuses to hand it over
since the Guardian did not say what he would do about Astra.
A mjor clue.
Still why a dark background.
It was a negative black and white image. Maybe both Guardians were the
same person all the long alternating between the light and the dark side.
Recall the openeing of the Season.
You do recall Dyall and Luckham were original Goons.
What about them?
The Doctor then breaks up the Key to Time and snaps the tracer in half
after instructing it to disperse its segments once again and return
Astra to her original form on Atrios who is then reunited with Merak.
Merrick IIRC and all the other piecec.
The other pieces are gone. The question is why doesn't the Black
Guardian just go look for them again and put the Key to Time back
together and use it instead of threatening to go after the Doctor?
If he's really both Guardians then that would explain it. But
Enlightenment ruins that idea.
All the work the White Guardian needed to do to restore the balance in
the cosmos would have been possible in the time the Key had been fully
assembled.
And end th REality War.
What does that have to do with anything?
The Doctor then adds a new piece of equipment to the TARDIS console, the
randomiser. Neither the Doctor, Romana, nor the Black Guardian will know
where they are going to go to next so the Black Guardian cannot follow
them and exact his revenge. Romana is not happy but the Doctor laughs it
off.
Romana is a bit of a prick.
No she isn't.
This story by Bob Baker and Dave Martin is obviously inspired by Star
Wars and other space-opera. The scene with the Martial piloting his
falcon like star fighter while looking out of the main window with criss
crossing beams is a clear attempt to replicate the look of Han Solo
looking out of the main window of the Millennium Falcon in the original
Star Wars movie from a year earlier.
WEll the ship looks like something seen in B7.
Maybe the BBC reused it.
Unfortunately the low budget was never going to be enough to be capable
of replicating the star fields and effects produced by motion capture
including the lighting. Instead of spectacular space battles between the
Atrian and Zean ships the viewer is only allowed to watch dots moving
diagonally across a radar screen. Maybe they will create the space
battles properly with CGI in the Blu-ray edition?
I prefer the original. Case in Point Star Trek OS remade in the early 2000s.
That's because the CGI in the SFX version of TOS is absolute crap and
looks worse than most of the original effects especially every shot
featuring the flat CGI Enterprise.
The idea of a one way force-shield based on imbuing fear on the people
you want to keep out comes directly from E E Smith's Lensman series,
most specifically Grey Lensman.
The idea of battle computers controlling an entire war gets explored
again in Destiny of the Daleks which follows next in the series.
Or logic traps.
The Guardians are clearly derived from the concepts of good and evil in
Zoroastrianism with Ahura Mazda representing light and Angra Mainyu
representing darkness.
Got you.
Good performances from Tom Baker as the Doctor and Barry Jackson as Drax.
What about Woodwine as the MArshll?
The Winston Churchill impersonation was too obvious.
This was Marry Tamm's last performance as Romana in the main series and
one of her best. She went one to make a single series with Tom Baker for
Big Finish before she died.
Cancer :-(
Lalla Ward who played Princess Astra in this story, a rip-off or
Princess Leia from Star Wars, went on to play Romana II in the following
stories.
REmind us when This Episode of DW was shot in Studio.
It looked better than The Power of Kroll half of which was filmed outdoors.
10/10
Avergage 9.5/10
Melissa gave it a 10/10 too.
--
The True Doctor
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCngrZwoS0n21IRcXpKO79Lw
"To be woke is to be uninformed which is exactly the opposite of what it stands for." --William Shatner
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