Series 15: The Invasion of Time

The Fourth Doctor returns to Gallifrey after meeting a group of aliens in space, bringing Leela and K9 with him. He is behaving very strangely and when the Chancellory Guard under their Commander, Andred, arrive at the Panopticon Chamber to interrogate him, the Doctor demands to be taken to Chancellor Borusa, who is now in charge of the Time Lords. The Doctor claims the vacant Presidency of Gallifrey having previously been a candidate and, after the demise of Chancellor Goth, is now automatically elected. Under law this request cannot be refused. The Doctor then chooses a Presidential chamber and asks it be decorated with lead lining throughout. Shortly afterward a ceremony is held to swear him in as President of Gallifrey and he is presented with the various trappings of office. However, when the circlet connecting him to the Matrix, repository of all Time Lord knowledge, is placed on his head, the Doctor collapses in pain.
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The Doctor is taken to the Chancellor to rest and recover. When he regains consciousness he reminds the Time Lords that no aliens are allowed on Gallifrey and instructs that Leela be expelled from the Capitol Citadel, where she will have to fend in the wastelands. She tries to avoid banishment, but the Doctor is serious about this banishment. The Doctor now retreats to the TARDIS where he shares a secret plan with K9, but is obviously very concerned about the situation he has found himself in. He is planning to aid an invasion of Gallifrey itself and to this end sets about destroying the induction barrier that defends the planet from external threat. K9 sets about this task while the Doctor returns to the Panopticon, the great hall of the Time Lords, and laughs cruelly as three alien beings start to materialise.
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The invading beings are known as Vardans. They appear as shimmering manifestations who made an alliance with the Doctor some time ago, and the Doctor advises the Time Lords, including the stubborn Borusa, to submit to their new and powerful masters. The Doctor then asks Borusa to meet him in his office, and when this happens the Doctor explains he has had the lead walls installed to prevent the Vardans entering the room on thought waves and reading his mind. He sent Leela away to protect her, he explains, and is now able to work with Borusa to defeat the Vardan threat. A new problem has emerged, however, with the ascendancy of the obsequious and compliant Castellan Kelner, who is being far too co-operative with the Vardan occupation. The toadying yet ambitious Castellan soon has Borusa placed under house arrest and starts a process of expelling trouble-making Time Lords from the safety of the Capitol.

Leela has meanwhile kept her faith in the Doctor and reasons that if he wishes her to leave the Capitol it is with good reason, so she departs for the wastelands. She is accompanied by Rodan, a Time Lady who previously maintained the transduction barrier. They are welcomed warily by a tribe of outsiders who have rejected Time Lord society and live in the wastelands. Their leader, Nesbin, explains some of the background to his tribe. Back in the Capitol, however, things are looking grim for the Doctor when Andred corners him and decides to execute him in the name of liberty.
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K9 helps the Doctor overpower Andred, and then explains the danger and abilities of the Vardans to Andred, with his TARDIS providing a shield to his thoughts. The Doctor is hoping to persuade the Vardans to reveal their true form so that he can time loop their planet. Leela has also organised her own resistance movement in the wastelands, comprising Nesbin’s people and the exiled Time Lords, all of whom are drilled into a fighting force which soon launches an assault on the Capitol.

The aliens and Kelner have meanwhile decided the Doctor is behaving in an untrustworthy manner. The Doctor reaffirms his loyalty to them by agreeing to dismantle the final force field protecting Gallifrey from attack. He does not fully disable it, but rather places a large hole in it. The Vardans use the hole to properly invade Gallifrey and appear as humanoid warriors. Their manifestation enables K9 to track down their home planet and supply the Doctor with the correct co-ordinates. He uses this to beam the Vardans back to their home world and then traps it in a time loop. At about the same time Leela and her warriors reach the Panopticon, but celebrations are shortlived when a Sontaran warrior appears in the chamber.
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Gallifrey has now been invaded by the Sontarans, led by Commander Stor, who finds Kelner ever ready to pledge support, even if the other Time Lords remain resistant. The Doctor and his party escape and the Doctor uses his freedom to try and pressure Borusa into revealing to him the location of the Great Key of Rassilon, a missing item of the Presidential regalia. They then regroup at the TARDIS where Rodan is put to work using the TARDIS’ controls to repair the hole in the forcefield. However, Kelner imperils their resistance when he manipulates the stabiliser banks of the Doctor’s TARDIS to try and destroy the resistance force within by hurling them to the heart of a Black Star.
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The Doctor manages to override the threat, so their enemies change tack. The Sontarans, assisted by Castellan Kelner, gain access to the Doctor's TARDIS and try to hunt down the President and his friends, pursuing them through the labyrinthine corridors. Stor is after the Great Key too, knowing the Doctor has now persuaded Borusa to yield it to him. The Doctor uses distractions to buy time while Leela and the outsiders kill the remaining Sontaran troopers. On the Doctor’s instruction, a hypnotised Rodan and K9 construct a special forbidden Time Lord weapon: the Demat Gun. Powered by the Great Key itself, the Demat Gun erases its victims from time itself. The Doctor takes the Gun and confronts Stor in the Panopticon. Stor intends to destroy the Eye of Harmony with a bomb, but the blast is cancelled out by the Doctor with the Demat Gun which obliterates Stor, wipes the Doctor’s mind of recent events, and also destroys itself. Kelner is arrested and Borusa begins the process of rebuilding Gallifrey.

The Doctor is ready to leave, but Leela decides to stay on Gallifrey because she has fallen in love with Commander Andred, leader of the Chancellory Guards. K-9 decides to stay behind to look after Leela. The TARDIS dematerializes and the Doctor reveals he is not alone: he pulls out a box labeled K-9 Mk II and, breaking the fourth wall, looks directly at the camera and grins mischievously.

Cast
Doctor Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor)
Companions Louise Jameson (Leela)
John Leeson (K-9 Mk. I)
Guest stars
John Arnatt — Chancellor Borusa
Milton Johns — Castellan Kelner
Chris Tranchell — Commander Andred
Charles Morgan — Gold Usher
Hilary Ryan — Rodan
Dennis Edwards — Lord Gomer
Reginald Jessup — Lord Savar
Michael Harley — Bodyguard
Eric Danot — Castellan Guard
Christopher Christou — Guard
Max Faulkner — Nesbin
Ray Callaghan — Ablif
Michael Mundell — Jasko
Gai Smith — Presta
Stan McGowan, Tom Kelly — Vardans
Derek Deadman — Stor
Stuart Fell — Sontaran

Production
Writer "David Agnew" (Graham Williams and Anthony Read)
Director Gerald Blake
Script editor Anthony Read
Producer Graham Williams
Executive producer(s) None
Production code 4Z
Series Season 15
Length 6 episodes, 25 minutes each
Originally broadcast February 4–March 11, 1978

source: wikipedia

Series 15: Underworld

In the history of the Time Lords, their involvement with the Minyans of Minyos is regarded as a disaster. The Minyans looked on them as gods but, having learnt much from their science, later expelled the Time Lords who thereafter adopted a policy of non-intervention. The Minyans resented the Time Lords for their dominion over Minyos. Subsequently, the Minyans engaged in a civil war, using the advanced weapons the Time Lords gave them. In the final conflict, the Minyans destroyed their world. Two ships left Minyos before the final conflict, one carrying the race bank of the Minyans, the other intended to find the race bank and bring the Minyans to a new homeworld - Minyos II. The Minyan civilisation retained some Time Lord gifts, not least cellular rejuvenation and the use of pacifier guns to alter the mental state of the aggressor.

At the edge of expanding universe, the TARDIS materialises on one of the Minyan ships called the R1C. The Fourth Doctor, Leela and K-9 visit the bridge of the spaceship. The crew of four – Jackson, Herrick, Orfe and Tala – are on a quest (“The Quest is the Quest”) that has taken many millennia and they have rejuvenated many times. Their aim is to find the missing ship the P7E which disappeared en route to Minyos II while carrying the genetic race banks of the entire species. They have, however, finally traced the P7E’s signal and head into a nebula to locate the missing ship. In the process the R1C is nearly destroyed, and is almost transformed into a planetoid as small space rocks are attracted to it. A similar fate actually seems to have happened to the P7E which is found at the centre of a small planet. The R1C crashes into this planet.

Civilisation on the P7E planetoid has taken a curious turn. Most of the population live as slaves digging rock for fuel and sustenance, but they are culled and killed in rock collapses called Skyfalls. This situation is overseen by guards who are in turn responsible to two robots called Seers. In overall control is the Oracle, a powerful super-computer which has shaped the perverse society. Evidently the P7E became trapped in the planet millennia earlier and the entire basis of the mission was lost over time. The Doctor and Leela venture into this perverted society and encounter Idas, a young man nearly killed in a Skyfall, learning how the local population is managed and terrorised. The Seers and Oracle exist in a protected Citadel at the heart of the planetoid (clearly the P7E) and the Doctor, Leela and Idas venture there, in the process rescuing Idas’ father Idmon who was due to be sacrificed to the Oracle. Other slaves are freed too, and flee to the R1C where Jackson makes them welcome. However, the crucial race banks remain in the control of the Oracle. The Doctor, Leela, and Idas venture to the Citadel again to get the precious cargo. However, the Seers have meanwhile captured Herrick and give him what he thinks are the two race banks to take back to his ship. Jackson, Orfe and Tala are overjoyed, little realising that their friend has actually brought fission bombs back to the R1C.

The Doctor has meanwhile made it to the core of the Citadel and confronted the Oracle. He succeeds in locating and stealing the real race banks and then heads off with Leela and Idas to get back to the probe ship. The guards try but fail to defeat their flight. The Doctor gives the real race banks to Jackson, and then takes the fakes out of the craft. Idas takes advantage of the situation to round up the other slaves or Trogs and lead them to the safety of the R1C while the Doctor engineers the fission grenades are returned to the Oracle. With moments to spare, the R1C blasts away, loaded with the slaves and the race banks, and is pushed outward from the planetoid by the explosion of the fission grenades. The TARDIS crew depart, wishing the Minyans well as the journey on to Minyos II, their quest complete.

Cast
Doctor Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor)
Companions Louise Jameson (Leela)
John Leeson (K-9 Mk. I)
Guest stars
James Maxwell — Jackson
Alan Lake — Herrick
Jonathan Newth — Orfe
Imogen Bickford-Smith — Tala
James Marcus — Rask
Godfrey James — Tarn
Jimmy Gardner — Idmon
Norman Tipton — Idas
Jay Neill — Klimt
Frank Jarvis — Ankh
Richard Shaw — Lakh
Stacey Tendeter — Naia
Christine Pollon — Voice of the Oracle

Production
Writer Bob Baker
Dave Martin
Director Norman Stewart
Script editor Anthony Read
Producer Graham Williams
Executive producer(s) None
Production code 4Y
Series Season 15
Length 4 episodes, 25 minutes each
Originally broadcast January 7–January 28, 1978

source: wikipedia

Series 15: The Sunmakers

The inhabitants of Pluto in the far future are taxed to desperation, not least functionary Cordo, who is over-whelmed by the size of tax bill that he decides to take his own life by jumping from the roof of one of the vast Megropolis tower blocks. He is interrupted in this pursuit by the arrival of the Doctor and Leela from the TARDIS, who save him from his chosen fate, and discover that false suns have been created around Pluto to provide the ability for some of mankind to live. However, the Company which owns the suns and all the buildings on Pluto is using its economic stranglehold over mankind to extort ever growing taxes through an extreme form of usury. The Doctor is concerned at this economic and social structure, where each Megropolis is ruled by a taxation Gatherer, and the entire operation on the planet reports to a malevolent Collector. Some citizens have rejected this social order and choose to live in the dark tunnels of the Undercity. The Doctor, Leela and Cordo venture there and encounter the renegades of the undercity, a vicious bunch of thieves and drop-outs led by the brutal Mandrel. He tells the Doctor that he must use a stolen consume-card to obtain money from a cashpoint or else Leela will be killed.

The Gatherer of Megropolis One, Hade, has been alerted to the arrival of the TARDIS. He uses an electronic tracker to follow K9, who has now departed the craft in search of his master. K9 finds the Doctor and Cordo at a cashpoint where the Gatherer sees them and suspects they must be arms dealers. He orders his private guard, the Inner Retinue, to deal with them. When the Doctor tries the stolen card he is over-powered by a cloud of noxious gas and falls unconscious.


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When the Doctor awakes he finds himself restrained in a Correction Centre alongside a similarly incarcerated man named Bisham. They are likely to be tortured, but the Doctor is as concerned for Leela, whom Mandrel had threatened to kill if the Doctor did not return. Leela has defended herself though, and Cordo, who evaded capture, returns to the Undercity with news of the Doctor’s capture. This serves to increase Leela’s standing with the thieves and the threat over her life diminishes. The Doctor’s lot improves too when he is released for questioning by Gatherer Hade, but Hade is playing a game of double bluff. He has the Doctor released but orders his movements tracked, believing the Doctor will lead him to the heart of a conspiracy against the Company. Not knowing about this change in fortunes, Leela, Cordo and K9 attack the Correction Centre to try and rescue the Doctor. He has left, but they do succeed in freeing Bisham. As they depart the Centre they find all their possible travel routes blocked by Inner Retinue troopers.


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Leela leads her friends in an attack on the guards, but she alone is injured in a skirmish and falls from a troop transporter they have commandeered. The Doctor has returned to the Undercity to find a very agitated Mandrel, who refuses to believe he could have been simply released after such a crime. Once more Cordo returns, this time with Bisham and K9, and defuses the situation when he explains what has happened to Leela. He also uses a stolen blaster to force Mandrel to stop threatening the Doctor. He asserts control and persuades the Undercity dwellers to start a revolution against the Company. Their first target will be the main control area where the Company engineers that PCM, a pacifying drug which helps keep the population servile, is being added to the air supply. Mandrel and his gang are also persuaded to start destroying the monitors throughout the Megropolis and to start spreading the message of revolt.

Leela is now presented to the Collector himself, an odious humanoid in a life-support wheelchair who is even more obsessed with money than Gatherer Hade, who fawns all over him. The Collector deduces from interrogating Leela that Hade’s conspiracy theory was unfounded and orders that Leela will be steamed to death in a public execution. He is especially pleased at a public steaming and arranges immediate publicity, unaware of the revolt spreading through the Megropolis. The Doctor heads off to rescue Leela for the steamer, but is running out of time.


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The Doctor manages to save Leela in the nick of time, but the microphones set up to relay her death screams instead relay the sound of Mandrel warning the Doctor of how little time he had left to rescue her. The Collector is incensed and even more troubled when the revolution starts spreading even more quickly. Gatherer Hade is thrown to his death from the top of his Megropolis, and his normally dutiful underling, Marn, joins the revolution.

Leela and the Doctor head for the Collector’s Palace, and there he sabotages the computer system. The Collector arrives and is challenged by the Doctor, who discovers the being is a Usurian from the planet Usurius. He is really a seaweed like being like a sentient poisonous funghi. The Doctor denounces his operation on Pluto, which consumed Mars as well as the population were moved from Earth. Before the Collector can implement a plan to gas the population of Pluto, Cordo and the lead rebels arrive and help the Doctor defeat the remaining members of the Inner Retinue. The Collector checks his computer to find the Doctor’s input has resulted in projected bankruptcy, and the shock of this causes the Collector to revert to his natural state in a compartment at the base of his wheelchair. The Doctor seals him in to be sure the threat is over, and he and Leela depart with K9, leaving Cordo, Mandrel and the others to contemplate recolonising the Earth.

Cast
Doctor Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor)
Companions Louise Jameson (Leela)
John Leeson (K-9 Mk. I)
Guest stars
Henry Woolf — The Collector
Richard Leech — Gatherer Hade
Jonina Scott — Marn
Roy Macready — Cordo
David Rowlands — Bisham
William Simons — Mandrel
Adrienne Burgess — Veet
Michael Keating — Goudry
Carole Hopkin — Nurse
Derek Crewe — Synge
Colin McCormack — Commander
Tom Kelly — Guard

Production
Writer Robert Holmes
Director Pennant Roberts
Script editor Robert Holmes and Anthony Read (both uncredited)
Producer Graham Williams
Executive producer(s) None
Production code 4W
Series Season 15
Length 4 episodes, 25 minutes each
Originally broadcast November 26–December 17, 1977

source: wikipedia

Series 15: Image of the Fendahl

A scientific research establishment has been established in the late twentieth century at Fetch Borough in the West Country of England. Run by the determined millionaire scientist Dr Fendleman, the other research associates are the chronology technician Thea Ransome, and palaeontologists Adam Colby and Maximilian Stael. Their primary research subject is a seemingly human skull that had been buried in volcanic sediment in Kenya some 12 million years earlier – making it 8 million years older than the perceived thinking on the history of man. Fendleman operates a time scanner to get a reading on the skull, causing a series of strange occurrences: Thea seems to be overcome by a strange affinity with the skull, which pulses with light, and collapses; while in a nearby forest a hitch-hiker is rendered immobile by an unseen monstrosity which consumes him.

The effect is felt in the TARDIS too, where the craft’s path is disturbed by the use of the scanner and the consequent hole in the time fabric. The Doctor is worried repeated use of the scanner will result in a time implosion and so pilots the TARDIS to the source of the disturbance. When it lands, he and his companion Leela venture outside to investigate. They soon encounter council worker Ted Moss, who tells them of the strange scientific establishment at Fetch Priory.

At the research establishment Thea is recovered but all the personnel are stunned to hear that Colby has found a corpse – seemingly drained of all life – during his morning constitutional with his dog. Fendleman appals Thea and Colby by first suggesting the body be moved as it is too close to Fetch Priory, and then organises private security cover for the Priory as well as persuading Stael to do a post mortem on the corpse. When this is done, Stael reports there is a small blister on the man’s neck and that, despite his recent death, the corpse is decomposing very rapidly. Fendleman decides Stael must hide the body and speak of the death to no-one. A little later the security squad has arrived at Fetch Priory, led by a guard called Mitchell. He gets into an argument with an old woman called Martha Tyler who is both a white witch and the cook at the Priory.

When night falls the Doctor and Leela decide to investigate the Priory itself. However, Thea has meanwhile activated the time scanner and it starts to power up, affecting both the skull and the time fields once more. Its image and hers seem to merge. Meanwhile, Leela has wandered off to a nearby cottage and when she enters a shotgun goes off. The Doctor is alone in the woods and is affected by the time distortion as he walks – but his legs soon stop working and he seems to be at the mercy of whatever creature killed the hiker.


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The Doctor survives by forcing his legs to move but the creature instead attacks the Priory itself, killing Mitchell. Colby disconnects the time scanner before it causes more havoc, but he is aware of the strange trance that seems to have affected Thea. He returns her to consciousness and together they investigate the screams in the kitchen and find Mitchell’s body, decomposing rapidly. Thea starts to transform once more, at which point the Doctor arrives and takes command, telling Colby to be wary of her. Images are being transposed across her – the strange slug-like monstrosities that he names as Fendahleen. They disappear quite suddenly, but the Doctor is very worried, reflecting on the race history of his own people and the danger they pose. He warns Colby that within a year the creature could eliminate all but one life on the planet. His musings are interrupted when Fendleman and Stael arrive, ensuing the Doctor is imprisoned while they deal with a second body. Fendleman now explains to Colby his theory that the skull in the laboratory is not human – and therefore that mankind did not originate on Earth either. He is sure that the skull stored a vast amount of energy when it died some 12 million years earlier. Further, the skull has an imbedded pentagram in its structure. He also reveals he has been undertaking secret experiments on the skull with Stael.

Leela has meanwhile overpowered her assailant, local worker Ted Moss, who is waiting in the cottage for Martha Tyler. Her grandson, Jack Tyler, arrives and throws Moss out, then engages Leela in conversation until his grandmother returns. She arrives back in a deep fright, her mind shielded in fear, and Leela heads off to find the Doctor to see if he can help.

Back at the Priory, Thea has been overcome by a desire to activate the time scanner once more. When she returns to the room with the skull, Stael appears and chloroforms her. Meanwhile the Doctor has escaped his prison and starts to investigate the house. He soon finds the room with the skull too (though it is now empty) and when he touches the skull itself it sends massive spasms of pain through his body.


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Leela finds the Doctor in agony and succeeds in breaking his physical link with the skull, ending his torment. He explains the skull is feeding on death itself and thus growing stronger. She takes him back to the Tyler cottage to tend to the shocked Martha Tyler. He succeeds in breaking her mental state by confronting her with normality. He then persuades Jack of his good intentions, warning that the area isn’t haunted but rather is subject to a time fissure which causes the manifestations of things that appear as ghosts. The Doctor and Leela then visit the TARDIS where he examines his records of the Fifth Planet of the solar system, which was where the Time Lords confronted and seemingly destroyed the skull and its source, a being called the Fendahl. The Time Lords created a time loop around the remnants of the planet to protect its secrets.

Stael has meanwhile taken the upper hand at the priory. He is the head of a local cult (one of whom is Ted Moss) and the cult has established a meeting place in the basement of the Priory. Stael has taken Thea there, tied up in the centre of a large pentagram. Colby and Fendleman are also taken to the basement and tied to stakes to witness the transformation of Stael into a god. His acolytes have trailed cables to the basement too, channelling the power of the time scanner, which Stael seems to believe will be the source of his new power. Fendleman now begins raving against Stael, warning him they are all pawns in the plan of the Fendahl to recreate itself, and in return his former deputy shoots him through the head. Stael now activates the time scanner again, once more causing Thea to transform into another being.

The Doctor and Leela return to the Priory and there find Martha and Jack. However, the danger is now multiplying as the scanner is running. Moments later a Fendahleen appears before them, advancing menacingly and oozing evil, and yet none of them can move their legs to flee.


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The Doctor persuades them they can all still use their legs and they manage to escape the Fendahleen, killing it by shooting rock salt into its open maw. The Doctor explains that the Fendahl skull had created the creature during the process of restructuring Thea’s own skull as the Fendahl Core, and it is responsible for the deaths of the hiker and Mitchell. Meanwhile in the cellar Thea has become the god-like Fendahl Core, a powerful being that is able to teleport and transmit itself telepathically. Her eyes have transformed into large saucers of light and the Core uses its eyes to transform the coven members into small embryo Fendahleen. The Doctor and Leela reach the basement and manage to free Colby from the scene of carnage. Stael has looked into the Core’s eyes too and is starting to change into a Fendahleen; the Doctor gives him a gun to kill himself to prevent the full transformation. Stael’s death also means there aren’t enough Fendhaleen present to allow the full gestalt Fendhal to manifest itself.

The Doctor returns to the scanner room and switches the machine off then collects Leela, Colby, Jack and Martha. They all work together to keep the Fendahleen at bay with rock salt. The Doctor then explains the origin of the Fendahl. 12 million years earlier evolution turned in on itself and created a being capable of absorbing all energy. His people, the Time Lords, saw the danger of such a being and destroyed the Fifth Planet, hoping the Fendahl had perished too, but somehow the skull survived and projected itself to Earth. The evolution of mankind has been overshadowed ever since, with Fendleman (or “man of the Fendahl”), Stael and Thea Ransome being genetically predestined for their roles in the ensuing crisis.

The Doctor realises the only way the Fendahl can be defeated is by continuing to run the time scanner until it causes an implosion and destroys the Core and embryo Fendhaleen. He gets Colby to activate the scanner while he and Leela venture to the basement and seize the skull, using a lead-lined box to transport it from the domain of the Core. Fendhaleen and Core fail to prevent them making their escape and the Doctor, Leela, Colby, Jack and Martha meet back at Mrs Tyler’s house minutes later, where they witness the vast implosion and destruction of the Priory. The Doctor and Leela take their leave and the next journey of the TARDIS is to the heart of a supernova, where the Doctor deposits the skull, believing it will finally be destroyed.

Cast
Doctor Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor)
Companion Louise Jameson (Leela)
Guest stars
Denis Lill — Fendleman
Scott Fredericks — Max Stael
Wanda Ventham — Thea Ransome
Edward Arthur — Adam Colby
Daphne Heard — Martha Tyler
Geoff Hinsliff — Jack Tyler
Edward Evans — Ted Moss
Derek Martin— David Mitchell
Graham Simpson — Hiker

Production
Writer Chris Boucher
Director George Spenton-Foster
Script editor Robert Holmes
Producer Graham Williams
Executive producer(s) None
Production code 4X
Series Season 15
Length 4 episodes, 25 minutes each
Originally broadcast October 29–November 19, 1977

source: wikipedia

Series 15: The Invisible Enemy

Mankind is colonizing space at a fantastic rate. Some human space travelers are cruising near the outer planets of the solar system with their ship on autopilot. The ship's computer, and soon the human crew, is possessed by a strange virus. Reaching their destination, Titan Base, they proceed to take over the base as a breeding ground. The station manager, Lowe is able to send out a distress call.

The TARDIS is traveling through the same region, and is infected by the virus. The infection passes to the Doctor, but he is unaffected for the moment. He and Leela hear the distress call and go to investigate. While there, the Doctor is overcome by repeated infections and is chosen, due to his incredible powers as a Time Lord, to be the host of the Nucleus of the Swarm. Leela is unable to be infected.

The Nucleus declares her a reject and orders that she be killed. The Doctor manages to break free of his infection and tells Leela how to get the TARDIS to the nearest medical center. Accompanying them is Lowe, who has been infected, although the Doctor and Leela don't know this.

At the medical station, the Doctor's doctor, Professor Marius, introduces the group to K-9, a robotic dog he made to replace the real dog he had to leave on Earth. Professor Marius is baffled as to how to treat the Doctor's strange infection. Meanwhile, Lowe has been infecting the staff of the hospital.

Leela and the Doctor decide on a last-ditch strategy. They create clones of themselves, which can only survive for ten minutes due to problems with the technique. The clones will then be shrunk and inserted into the Doctor. There they will destroy the Nucleus and escape through the tear duct. In the meantime, Leela and K-9 fight off the infected staff of the hospital.

After a hazardous voyage through his mind, the Doctor's clone and Leela's clone are separated, and the Doctor's clone reaches the Nucleus. He has no weapons with which to destroy it, and it learns the intended escape route of the Doctor's clone, since the Doctor thought of it. Prof. Marius faithfully retrieves something from the tear duct and expands it to human size. It turns out to be the Nucleus. The Doctor is cured of his infection.

The Nucleus and the infected staff leave for Titan Base so the Nucleus can spawn. The Doctor realizes he is cured since Leela's clone introduced into his blood stream her immunity factor. He replicates it and gives it to Prof. Marius. The Doctor, Leela, and K-9 proceed to Titan Base in the TARDIS.

They just barely manage to fight off the infected humans, but are again without sufficient weaponry to destroy the Nucleus, or its many children which are about to hatch as "macro-sized" beings, like the newly macro-sized Nucleus. The Doctor manages to jam the door they are behind and rigs a gun to fire into a cloud of Oxygen gas he is releasing and escapes. As intended, when the Swarm finally forces open the door, the blaster fires, igniting the Oxygen in Titan's methane atmosphere and destroying the Swarm and the base.

When they return to the hospital, they thank Prof. Marius for the use of K-9, who has ably assisted them. Prof. Marius makes a surprising offer. He must soon return to Earth, and weight restrictions now prevent him from taking K-9 back. He offers him to the Doctor, with some sadness, but knowing K-9 will have a good home. The Doctor and Leela gratefully accept, and K-9 himself is eager to learn more about the TARDIS.

Prof. Marius, with teary eyes, watches the TARDIS disappear, commenting, "I only hope he's TARDIS-trained."

Cast
Doctor Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor)
Companions Louise Jameson (Leela)
John Leeson (K-9 Mk. I)
Guest stars
Michael Sheard — Lowe
Brian Grellis — Safran
Jay Neill — Silvey
Edmund Pegge — Meeker
Anthony Rowlands — Crewman
Frederick Jaeger — Professor Marius
Roy Herrick — Parsons
Elizabeth Norman, Nell Curran — Nurses
Jim McManus — Ophthalmologist
Roderick Smith — Cruikshank
Kenneth Waller — Hedges
Pat Gorman — Medic
John Scott Martin — Nucleus

Production
Writer Bob Baker
Dave Martin
Director Derrick Goodwin
Script editor Robert Holmes
Producer Graham Williams
Executive producer(s) None
Production code 4T
Series Season 15
Length 4 episodes, 25 minutes each
Originally broadcast October 1–October 22, 1977

source: wikipedia

Series 15: Horror of fang Rock

On the way to show Brighton to Leela, the TARDIS lands on the island of Fang Rock off the south coast of England in the early years of the 20th Century. Noticing that the lighthouse isn't functioning properly, the Fourth Doctor decides to investigate, as well as to ask for directions as the TARDIS seems to have gotten 'lost in the fog'. Upon arrival at the lighthouse, and after introducing themselves, the Doctor discovers the dead body of one of the keepers, Ben. The other two keepers, old superstitious Reuben and the keen young Vince Hawkins, report that a light fell from the sky near the island. They also explain the electricity flow to the lamp on the lighthouse has become erratic and the Doctor deduces something is feeding on the flow. Reuben does not help matters with his constant references to the mythical Beast of Fang Rock which reputedly once terrorised the lighthouse. As the Doctor and Leela explore, something moves Ben’s body out of the lighthouse and onto the island, and they witness a curious electric crackling which seems to have killed fish nearby.

The loss of the electric light due to the unexplained draining of power from the generators causes a luxury yacht to crash on to Fang Rock. The four survivors are brought to the lighthouse: the bosun Harker; an MP named Colonel James Skinsale; the owner, Lord Palmerdale; and his highly strung secretary Adelaide Lessage. Over time it emerges Palmerdale has bought government secrets from Skinsale and was desperate to reach the stock exchange to make a killing – hence the reason the ship was travelling at such a pace.

Harker and the Doctor retrieve Ben’s body and the Time Lord deduces it has been used as an anatomy lesson for an alien life-form. He determines that their best protection is to secure the lighthouse to keep the creature out. Reuben then disappears for a time and then reappears a changed man, which the others put down to shock. But the pattern of death now speeds up. Palmerdale is killed in the lamp room by a glowing alien presence on the outside of the lighthouse, and then Harker is killed when Reuben corners him in the boiler room. From the alien light emanating from Reuben it is clear he has become possessed or transformed by the alien creature. The Doctor finds Harker’s body and then Reuben’s own – the latter cold for some time – which means the creature in Reuben’s form has chameleonic properties.

The creature now stalks down and kills the others in the lighthouse. Adelaide dies first, then Vince. With its presence now revealed, the alien among them sheds its disguise: it is a Rutan, a chameleonic life form, whose scout ship crash landed in the sea and is trying to summon its mother ship. The Rutan ship is seemingly unstoppable, but the Doctor, Leela and Skinsale come up with a plan. First they kill the Rutan Scout — but not before it kills Skinsale — and then the Doctor uses Palmerdale’s diamonds as a focus for a light beam, and convert the lighthouse into a high-energy laser by which the Doctor destroys the Rutan mother ship. The blinding flash even turns Leela’s eyes from brown to blue. The Doctor quotes Wilfrid Gibson's poem Flannan Isle as they take their leave.

Cast
Doctor Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor)
Companion Louise Jameson (Leela)
Guest stars
John Abbott — Vince Hawkins
Colin Douglas — Reuben
Ralph Watson — Ben
Sean Caffrey — Lord Palmerdale
Alan Rowe — Colonel Skinsale
Annette Woollett — Adelaide
Rio Fanning — Harker

Production
Writer Terrance Dicks
Director Paddy Russell
Script editor Robert Holmes
Producer Graham Williams
Executive producer(s) None
Production code 4V
Series Season 15
Length 4 episodes, 25 minutes each
Originally broadcast September 3–September 24, 1977

source: wikipedia