All right so we are straight back into serious business Dalek action! I get the impression that this is the BBC's way of reminding us that, while absolutely mental things are allowed to happen at Christmas, this show is still British, and must be taken seriously at all other times.
The Daleks are finally getting round to testing the lump of fake Taranium that Steven gave them a couple episodes ago, back when he was a zombie. Mavic Chen (GUARDIAN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM) is having a chat with two other Galaxy Representatives, Celation and Trantis. Celation and Trantis are a little pissy because it was residents of Earth that nicked off with the Taranium in the first place, and Mavic Chen gets all defensive and tells them that only two of them were humans! And they were under the influence of an evil creature from another galaxy! Celation and Trantis scoff and say, well, he looked human enough, and Mavic Chen tells them that the Daleks know of him, he's some kind of time and space traveller. So that's the first indication we've had that the Daleks know who the Doctor is and that's kind of cool.
The Daleks interrupt them and are all like, "Yo dudes we're gonna need a person to fire the Time Destructor at to make sure that it's working," and then select Trantis as the lucky recipient of that honour. So they bung him into a room and fire this thing at him and Trantis flinches away from it and Mavic Chen and Celation laugh at him.
MAVIC CHEN: So, that's what's supposed to happen. A kind of abject insanity.
CELATION: I do not know, though I always thought Trantis was a little unstable anyway.
TRANTIS: THIS WAS NOT IN THE 'TAKE OVER THE UNIVERSE' CONTRACT THAT I SIGNED. I WANT TO SEE A LAWYER.
The Time Destructor obviously doesn't work and everyone immediately glares accusingly at Mavic Chen, who shits himself only a little bit and blames the time travellers! And the Daleks! And it definitely wasn't his fault, guys, really! The Daleks consider this and instead of killing him, make him wait there while they get a time machine sent to Kembel (the planet their HQ is on) from Skaro (the Dalek home planet), and they kill Trantis instead. Trantis is displeased by how his life has turned out.
Inside the TARDIS, there's a scanner showing that something is following them, though they don't know what. Sara immediately says that they have to go back to Kembel to BLOW ALL THE DALEK SHIPS UP just in case it's them, the Doctor tells her to calm her murderous urges and instead starts bouncing through time. They land briefly in the middle of an England-v-Australia cricket game on Earth (is there any other kind of cricket game on Earth?), which none of them understand at all, and then dematerialise and show up again on a planet called Tigus, where there are volcanoes erupting everywhere, and at which point the dot showing that someone was following them disappears.
SARA: It's stopped.
STEVEN: What does that mean, Doctor? Have we shaken it off?
DOCTOR: No, my boy, we haven't shaken them off. Whoever it was following us has landed, they've landed out there.
SARA: Cool! Then we can kill them, right? Just a little bit of death? I haven't murdered anything for like three episodes, I'm boooooored.
And it turns out the thing that was following them wasn't the Daleks at all, it was the Monk! The Time Lord from the end of series 2 that the Doctor trapped in 1066! THAT'S REALLY COOL. What's not so cool, apart from the magma going mental over the surface of the planet, is that despite the fact that (a) the surface of Tigus is MADE OF VOLCANOES and (b) they know someone who was chasing them has landed on the planet, the Doctor, Sara and Steven LEAVE THE TARDIS and go to check out the environment.
While the three idiots are off being idiotic, the Monk sneaks over to the TARDIS and does something to the lock.
After that's done, he goes to find the Doctor and his companions to have a little showdown and to laugh at how now THEY'RE the trapped ones so see how they like THAT.
The Monk clears off and the gang go back to the TARDIS to see what's what and they find themselves locked out. Steven and the Doctor get into yet ANOTHER little fight as Steven tries to pick the lock and it doesn't work, then the Doctor holds his ring to the lock and it glows and then everything's fine again? Steven asks what just happened, exactly, and as the Doctor is wise and full of knowledge, he kindly shares his wisdom with the young inquiring minds that he's travelling with.
STEVEN: How did you break that lock?
THE DOCTOR: Oh, that's all very simple, dear boy. You see, the sun in that particular galaxy has very unusual powers. I merely reflected its powers through that ring. The combined forces of that sun together with the stone in that ring was sufficient enough to correct the Monk's interference.
STEVEN: Yes, but what properties does it have?
THE DOCTOR: Now, I don't want to discuss this any more. About turn, and do as you're told. Go along.
Smooth, Doc, well done.
The TARDIS takes off again and lands on New Year's Day, 1966, (the Doctor, Steven and Sara all don't know what New Year's Day is) but back on Kembel, the Daleks now know where the TARDIS is and are preparing to follow it! There's a cool bit where the countdown to midnight on Earth matches the countdown to the Dalek ship taking off and then it is READY AND BEGINS THE PURSUIT.
Aaaand end credits! The title of the next episode is 'Golden Death', which Sara should be a fan of, and hopefully this is going to be the last stretch of this serial before it ends. (The Daleks' Master Plan is the longest serial of Doctor Who, don't worry, we'll never have to do this again.) Excited to see how this GRIPPING EPIC concludes.
Moosh
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