4th Doctor
Underworld
Serial 4Y
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Producer
Graham Williams

Script Editor
Anthony Read

Designer
Dick Coles

Written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin
Directed by Norman Stewart
Incidental Music by Dudley Simpson

Tom Baker (Doctor Who), Louise Jameson (Leela), John Leeson (Voice of K9), James Maxwell (Jackson), Alan Lake (Herrick), Jonathan Newth (Orfe), Imogen Bickford-Smith (Tala), James Marcus (Rask) [2-4], Godfrey James (Tarn) [2-4], Jimmy Gardner (Idmon) [2-4], Norman Tipton (Idas) [2-4], Jay Neill (Guard Klimt) [2], Frank Jarvis (Ankh) [3-4], Richard Shaw (Lakh) [3-4], Stacey Tendeter (Naia) [3-4], Christine Pollon (Voice of the Oracle) [3-4].


Exploring the very edge of the known universe, the Doctor, Leela and K9 discover a group of astronauts searching for the lost gene bank of Minyan race. During the perilous voyage, the astronauts' craft plunges into the heart of a recently formed planet, wherein an awesome secret is hidden.

How will the Minyan quest end? What must the Doctor wrest from the Heart of the Oracle?


Original Broadcast (UK)
Part One		      7th January, 1978			6h25pm - 6h50pm
Part Two		      14th January, 1978		6h25pm - 6h50pm
Part Three		      21st January, 1978		6h30pm - 6h55pm
Part Four		      28th January, 1978		6h25pm - 6h50pm
Notes:
  • Released on video in episodic format. [+/-]

    U.K. Release U.S. Release

  1. UNDERWORLD
    • U.K. Release: March 2002 / U.S. Release: May 2003
      PAL - BBC video BBCV7264
      NTSC - Warner video E1741
  • Novelised as Doctor Who and the Underworld by Terrance Dicks. [+/-]

    Paperback Edition

    • Hardcover Edition - W.H. Allen.
      First Edition: January 1980.
      ISBN: 0 491 02229 8.
      Cover by Bill Donohoe.
      Price: £3.75.

    • Paperback Edition - W.H. Allen.
      First Edition: January 1980. Reprinted in 1980, 1982, 1984 and 1985.
      ISBN: 0 426 20068 3.
      Cover by Bill Donohoe.
      Price: 75p.
  • Doctor Who Magazine Archive: Issue #243.
 
 
 
 
Part One
(drn: 22'36")

Deep space in an unspecified time: the TARDIS spins as Leela in a new lighter coloured outfit, comes into the newer control room with the roundels, and touches the controls. The TARDIS stops dead, making Leela call the Doctor, frantically. When Leela tells K9 they have stopped dead, he tells her negative dead. The Doctor enters with a painter's outfit on, complete with cap and holding a paintbrush. He takes it all off and throwing the smock aside opens the large viewscreen. There is nowhere to go now. They are on the frontiers of creation, the boundaries of the universe, between what is and what isn't or isn't yet, at the edge of the cosmos. The Doctor feels like a goldfish looking out of a bowl onto a new world. K9 keeps trying to tell the Doctor, "We are not alone." While Leela thinks out there is just nothing, the Doctor tells her a new world is being seen by them, the first intelligent and semi-intelligent life forms to witness something like this. Leela looks at him, aware he has insulted her somehow. K9 mentions a pulsing drive which could mean a spaceship is in the area. The Doctor ignores this, telling him to shut up. Leela gasps, "Doctor!" The Doctor thinks she means for him not to tell K9 to shut up. He tells her he can tell K9 to shut up if he wants to. She is pointing out to a spiral nebula, a gas cloud, a new star system sucking all into a gravity whirlpool. The Doctor wants escape coordinates -- right to the ion drive of the alien spaceship which beyond range of the viewscope.

On the alien spaceship, Commander Jackson and his crew -- radar watching Herrick, pilot Orfe, and an aged woman named Tala -- hear the sound of the TARDIS materializing; Herrick is order to trace it. They are not sure the sound is inside or outside the ship. Herrick runs the sound through an ID.

Leela and the Doctor come out of the TARDIS which has materialized in the armoury. Leela notes stale air and cobwebs. The Doctor looks at some equipment and realizes this belongs to the Minyans of Minos. He asks Leela if she ever knew the Flying Dutchman and when she tells him she doesn't, he thinks it a pity as he wanted to find out who the Flying Dutchman was. 100,000 years ago on the other side of the universe the Time Lords knew the Minyans.

Herrick's ID check reveals the sound to be of the timeships of the "gods" who came to help the Minyans 100,000 years ago.

The Doctor explains to Leela that years before the non-intervention policy of the Time Lords, the Time Lords tried to help the Minyans, giving them medical and scientific aid, communications, and even weapons. Time travel was new to the Time Lords at this time and they were kicked out by the Minyans, who then fought among themselves and eventually learned about the invention called a toothbrush and how to split the atom. The expulsion of the Time Lords by the Minyans was one reason for the later non-intervention policy adapted by the Time Lords.

While some of the crew think the time "gods" could help with their Quest, Herrick is against the "gods" who he thinks played games with the Minyans. If one is on board, he will make it find out what it really means to dematerialize. Getting up, he calls the captain a pacifist. The captain tells him to sit back down. They say a motto, "The Quest is the Quest." The ship shakes, near the nebula.

K9 tells the Doctor and Leela that his blaster has malfunctioned and he cannot open a door to the rest of the ship. Leela, playing with a shield, accidentally fires a laser from it and blasts the door away, and shocking the Doctor, who falls back from his kneeling position, having been talking to K9. His arm is in his scarf as if it was a sling but he recovers and tells her the shield is a Leberman Laser which sends charged particles along a laser beam. As they walk out, the Doctor tells her not to play with strange things. He also tells her to make sure the safety cap is off.

Herrick has to carry the tired and aged Tala from the flight deck to a lower area of the room while Jackson and Orfe try to get the ship away from the nebula. Herrick puts Tala onto a horizontal bed-like structure where she starts to regenerate. The Doctor enters and Herrick attacks him. Leela arrives and attacks Herrick. Orfe is instructed to use a light from the flight deck above to pacify Leela: One light beam shot from it and she's pacified.. Herrick grabs Leela's weapon and is about to kill the Doctor but Jackson orders Orfe to light beam Herrick into a pacificistic mood. Herrick then tells the Doctor he's sorry. Herrick is told to help Tala regenerate. Leela sees Orfe and touches him, spouting several times that Orfe is a beautiful name.

Jackson tells the Doctor they have been here for hours and asks if he is a Doctor of medicine. The Doctor answers his question, "Of many things, many things." He knows of crystal cybernetics. The ship, the R1C, is caught in the gravitational field; they can't blast out, the terminal cores are burnt out. The ship was not meant to last 100,000 years. Each of the crew has regenerated 1000 times, Jackson telling the Doctor that regeneration is not a pleasant experience. The Doctor admits to knowing this, "I've been through it myself two or three times." Jackson calls this a ship of ghosts and claims that since there is no hope, their quest is over at last. They were following signals from the P7E, a ship that left 100,000 years ago, carrying the race bank of their kind -- a genetic inheritance -- if it can be found. There might be survivors or colonists and the race bank might still exist in one form or another. Those on the P7E couldn't regenerate. There was a theory on Minyos II, the place the R1C has come from, that the race bank has survived.

The Doctor calls something to help them -- his "second best friend" -- K9 who is hooked up via wires to the ship in order for them to avoid the nebula. The ship goes into the nebula and flies out thanks to K9. Tala returns, young and pretty, blond and able to work with vigor. She takes over for Orfe at a station.

The Doctor goes to Leela and looks into her eyes, telling her she is primitive, warlike, bad tempered, wild, aggressive. She pulls her knife on him but is told he didn't do it. She yells, asking who did. Orfe tells her it was him. He and the Doctor seem amused. Leela sulks, "You're laughing at me. You're all laughing at me." She moves off, hanging her head, "I'd like to smash your stupid grins off your stupid faces."

The P7E signal is locked onto again. Despite the Doctor's requests to do the contrary, Jackson orders the crew to follow the signal even if it means flying right back into the nebula -- which it does. Jackson tells him the Quest must end and will now. The P7E might have gone into the nebula and it formed around them. If so, they cannot follow since the outer nebula will destroy them. The Doctor can't allow Jackson to destroy the ship needlessly. The Doctor orders K9 to stop but Herrick holds the Doctor until he instructs K9 to go on. Jackson orders the Doctor and Leela into the carbo magnetic seat lock.

The ship flies into the nebula as the heat shields are slid over the windows. A layer of meteorites starts smashing the ship. They lose the left and right ancillaries and the solar sail as well as an exterior antenna. The pumps and drive are still working positively though. The shields come down and there are rocks sticking to it from outside. The signal of the P7E is gone and the ship is drifting.

K9 reports the hull thickness increasing from 3 meters to 20 and 70 and beyond. The Doctor tells the crew the ship is being turned into a planet. The smaller objects in space are under the gravitational pull as is the ship but the ship has more gravity. The Doctor claims they are being buried alive. The debris on the outer hull is what saved them from the asteroid belt -- if the hull didn't have the rocks sticking to it, the belt would have smashed the ship to pieces. The Doctor smiles after delivering this news to the crew. Herrick is mad that the Doctor is laughing at them. The Doctor suggest the laser cannon even if it will use all the reserve fuel. Herrick fires one and two. Tala warns them that they are melting their own hull. The Doctor keeps ignoring her, and repeats, "Herrick, keep on." Herrick yells that is no use, "The cannon's disintegrating!" The ship is soon completely covered by rocks!

Part Two
(drn: 21'27")

The cannon penetrates the rocks and the ion drive via K9 accelerates out of the mass. The Doctor is up and looking out the window at the planet ahead -- the P7E is at the centre of it. The planet formed around the ship as it almost did to Jackson's. The ship heads at the planet, Leela clinging to the Doctor's scarf. There is no impact as the ship enters a soft outer covering which slows it down; only the core is solid. This planet is still in the process of formation. The ship will hit below the surface. The Doctor notes with interest the crews' one track mind, "The Quest and nothing but the Quest." The impact of the ship either coincides with, or causes a "skyfall" -- dirt falling from the caves onto the primitively dressed workers below. These slaves, men and women, wearing only rags, no shoes, and little else, run from falling debris and hard rocks. An old man among them, named Idmon, cries, "My children, my children." He and his son, a young man called Idas, are the only two trying to dig out the rest of their family. Idmon calls, "Help, damn you, help us!" The others run as more comes down.

In a complex control room, black and grey dressed humanoid figures, send guards out, all with their faces covered by strange hood like masks. The guards are sent out to choose a sacrifice from among the slaves -- whom they call Trogs.

From the spaceship R1C, Orfe opens the hatch so that Herrick and Jackson, in spacesuits and helmets, can go out to look around. They can't get far -- outside the door is solid rock. The Doctor deduces it is hematite; Leela wondering how since she knows that there is only fire in the middle of a planet. The Doctor suggests using the shield gun to burrow out.

Idmon makes a speech to the other slaves. It is a speech against the guards, telling them that they can escape to the stars. The grey guards arrive and capture Idmon. Idas escapes as the listeners flee elsewhere. One of the guards, Rask, tells Idmon there will be a penalty for his insurrection.

Another guard, chasing Idas, fires a ray at him but the young man slips and luckily falls under the beam fired by the guard. Idas gets away but hurts his knee.

In the spaceship R1C, the Doctor helps Herrick find the point of impact he should aim at to laser out of the rock around the ship. The crew burrow out into another cave. Herrick and Jackson find a strange camera on a long metal pole along the ceiling of the caves. Jackson and Herrick return to get Tala and Orfe, all reciting the Quest is the Quest. Jackson tells the Doctor he and Leela are to wait here, this quest is not his quest, nor Leela's. When Jackson leaves, the Doctor and Leela walk back toward the inner ship, stop, turn, and then follow Jackson out.

All soon find there is air in the tunnels. The Doctor and Leela stay away from Jackson's party. The Doctor tells Leela, "Welcome to the Underworld."

In the ship, K9 is building up strength.

The Doctor finds there is radiation in the tunnel; Leela thinks this lucky as it is energy. The Doctor tells her physics isn't luck. These tunnels were being dug out by someone for energy. As they walk, the Doctor asks her if he's told her about his trip to Aberdeen. She smiles and tells him he has, both of them recounting the granite city where people can absorb the radiation similar to that in a nuclear power plant. The radiation was actually good for them. This proved to the Doctor that human can adapt to anything over time. Leela and he duck from a running figure -- Idas. They also hide from who is chasing him: a grey guard and a black guard. The Doctor heads one way, whistling to draw their attention away from Idas. The guards follow the Doctor and Leela.

Idas finds a place to hide-- the airlock area of the R1C.

Leela and the Doctor hide under a tarp in a mine cart. The guards call Security to close down this tunnel -- number 9. They will fumigate it. The Doctor doesn't like the sound of that, the guards mean to smoke them out like badgers. He and Leela run back to the ship where Leela finds blood on the door and floor. She jumps inside, over Idas, who is on his back now, "Surrender or die!" She waves her knife at him. The Doctor stops her, telling her she is scaring him to death. She did not seem to realize this. Leela looks for something to help patch up Idas's leg. The Doctor tells him they are friends.

Jackson sounds Herrick to reconnoiter in the caves. Herrick encounters a guard named Klimt, who fires on him. The ray is deflected by Herrick, who holds his shield up. It bounces back at the guard and downs him.

In the cave's control room area, the black guards have their face masks off and are human faced as well as being shaped like humanoids.

Herrick runs to Jackson's party but a door comes down, sealing him off from them as the fumigation starts on Herrick's side.

In the ship, Idas asks if the Doctor is a Seer. When Leela returns with bandages for Idas's knee, the Doctor asks her to unplug K9. She wants a breather, having only just come back, but the Doctor tells her now that K9 is fully recharged himself, still being plugged into the ship means he is recharging it over and over as a whole. She has to unplug him. She goes. Idas tells the Doctor about his belief that there is chaos above the sky. The Doctor gets him to consent there could be stars above the sky. When Idas asks the Doctor if he is a god, the Doctor tells him he is not. Idas explains about his whole family being buried, except for his father who will be sacrificed. The Doctor tells him, "We'll see about that." Returning again, Leela sees gas coming in from the open door. Idas tries to get out and falls as the Doctor tries to stop him. They scuffle but both are overcome by the gas. Leela gets them both out and on the Doctor's orders, brings Idas to the Command Deck of the R1C. She checks his wound as he starts to recover. Then she feels anxious, just waiting.

The Doctor goes out of the ship into the gas filled tunnels. He covers his mouth and waves his scarf about to blow gas away from him. The Doctor goes to the source of the gas. He finds a vent where gas comes out and a control device. He uses his sonic screwdriver to begin deactivating it or turning it back but his head goes down and he seems to succumb to the gas. More gas seems to come out of the vent...

Part Three
(drn: 22'21")

The Doctor recovers, having already completed his work in sending the gas out of the tunnels and back to the source: the guards and the controllers. Jackson, Orfe, and Tala blast the door that has Herrick trapped on the other side away from them. He rejoins them.

The gas knocks down the guards and one, Rask, a human faced man, calls someone on a radio, referring to the someone as "master."

The Doctor wonders where the gas has gone off to.

As Herrick explains what happened to him, the others spot the gun he lifted from the guard Klimt. It is a gun pirated from the P7E.

The Doctor re-meets Leela and Idas in the tunnels; Leela claims she has found another weapon. She and Idas talk of the roof. He tells the Doctor about a metal ship just like the one they came in. The Doctor thinks it is the P7E and wants to save Idas's father Idmon. Idas tells him there is no time. The Doctor says, "Don't say that to me. I'm a Time Lord." They rush off, Leela telling Idas that the Doctor has saved many fathers.

A guard named Tarn is ordered to make sure that as many slaves as possible are present to view the sacrifice of Idmon.

As the Doctor, Leela, and Idas make their way back to K9, who has made a map of the tunnels for them, Leela inspires Idas on the thoughts of revolution, yelling it once so loud as to scare the young man into running off. She gets him to return to them. The Doctor sends K9 to find Jackson and his three crewmembers, ordering the metal dog to have them meet up with him in the Citadel -- if the Doctor's group can get in. Idas talks of a route called the Tree at the End of the World, guarded by invisible dragons, beyond which is the Citadel where the Seers live. The Seers have powers, Idas tells the Doctor, who claims, "So do I." Leela keeps telling Idas not to worry. The Doctor leads Leela and Idas to the rock door entrance to the Citadel area. He hands Leela something to throw at the door to test the invisible dragons and she starts to eat it. He tells her not to eat it, to throw it. The dragons are some kind of invisible forcefield which electrify anyone trying to pass into the Citadel area -- the Citadel really being the P7E. Leela, using one of the shield weapons she found on the R1C, blasts the source of the forcefield which is over the door. The Doctor and his two friends enter.

Inside, they find a hole in rock which the Doctor tells them to enter. Leela refuses -- there is nothing in the hole and gravity will make them fall. The Doctor tells her that gravity makes things fall to the centre and since they are in the center of the planet, they cannot fall. The trio step out onto thin air and wave their hands, floating down a shaft into the P7E.

Using a TV monitor, a controller watches the trio descend. A female voice directs the proceeding of the sacrifice with slaves watching in case they get it in their mind to give in and rebel as did Idas's father. The lamp of life is lit and lifted via rope to another cord which holds a sword over Idmon. The ritual is being dragged out to make the slaves more fearful.

As they cross a bridge, Leela, the Doctor, and Idas are captured by guards, made to drop the weapon, and are pushed and yelled at as they are taken into the actual P7E. Idas is told he will follow his father. As they enter the area, the Doctor hangs back for a moment after the guard moves ahead, then jolts forward. Just before the sword drops, the Doctor pulls the slab holding Idmon on it, away from under the sword. Leela fights guards and all the slaves run for the tunnels. The gate patrol is called and the guards on both sides of the fleeing group try to cut them off; shooting at some slaves, who fall.

Leela shoots two of the guards from behind her group but her weapon runs out of power, forcing her to run. Soon, all the slaves, Leela, and the Doctor run across the bridge.

Herrick helps Jackson, Orfe, and Tala out of the tunnels with some of the slaves. They flee to the P7E but Herrick hangs back to cover their escape, relishing the thought of battle, something he's been waiting for a long time. He shoots guards, bidding Jackson good-bye. Herrick is shot down by guards who find him still alive. Not caring that he is in great pain, they drag him toward interrogation.

In the caves, the slaves (including Naia, who tells the Doctor and Leela some information about the Trog's work), The Doctor, and Leela regroup. The Doctor and Leela find out that the slaves are to meet their quota of rock which they dig for the guards and the Seers for their fuel. Also, for rock to be reprocessed for all to eat! The Doctor mentions something to Leela of his being in Blackpool. She rolls her eyes. He tells Leela that Idas has never seen a tree -- the Tree of Life is the race bank of the Minyans, stored on the P7E and guarded by the Oracle. All myths have some grain of truth in them, the Doctor tells Leela. Idas and his people are descendants of the original crew of the P7E, and Jackson is probably Idas's great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather a few times back. Leela tries to figure this out but the Doctor moves away from her. He asks Jackson to come with him to the area where the rock is brought for processing. This might be a way into the Citadel to rescue the race banks. Jackson agrees.

Soon, Leela, Jackson, and the Doctor are watching slaves move carts to a crusher where a large stone slab door closes over the rocks that are piled down. The Doctor has a plan -- it is not his he tells Jackson but was someone called Ulysses.

Herrick is sat into a machine with a device attached to his head. He is interrogated but not believed when he tells Ankh and Lakh, the two Seers, that he and his crew are from Minyos. To them Minyos was destroyed 100,000 years ago. Watching the machine's readings, a guard tells the two Seers, strange humanoid figures with metallic heads, that Herrick is telling the truth. Herrick tells them they seek the future. They press him for more since they know he is holding something back. If he doesn't tell them they will boil is brain in his head. He tells them the future is the race bank; the guards and slaves are the Minyans who are left. He also thinks the two Seers are Minyans but they remove their masked hoods... they have robot heads! They serve the Oracle.

Leela and the Doctor are hiding in one cart of rocks being pushed by a slave. The plan goes wrong and the cart's contents -- Leela and the Doctor -- are dumped over the slab, heading for the crusher...

Part Four
(drn: 25'23")

Leela and the Doctor hold onto the top of the slab until the others (Jackson, Tala, and Orfe) come out from the other carts and shoot the guards with the shield weapons but one guard manages to get an alarm to sound off. Idas and Jackson pull the Doctor and Leela up. The Doctor sends K9 back to the ship to power it up for departure. He insists Leela come with him even though she wants to stay and fight with Jackson, Tala, and Orfe. Idas has the sword. Jackson, Tala, and Orfe hold back the guards to cover for the slaves and the Doctor, Leela, and Idas, the later three going to a vent grating when Leela senses someone ahead of them and coming fast. Sure enough, guards pass them but they make their way into the grating.

The Seers tell their guards to stand and fight even though they feel beaten and outnumbered. Herrick, in his chair in the interrogation room, murmurs, "There's no stopping us now." The Seers discuss among themselves the idea that they should give the newcomers what they want and see them depart. Why destroy each other? They tell this to Herrick who describes the race bank -- gold cylinders with the mark of Minyos on them.

The Doctor, Leela, and Idas are crawling through the tunnel leading from the grating to another opening. They see the blue guards and the Seers. The Oracle raises a device in the P7E which has the gene cylinders.

Jackson, Orfe, and Tala, in the caverns, notice a white guard and a black guard do not return fire. The black guard offers a truce and call Herrick over. Herrick brings the cylinders, "The Quest is over." A TV screen allows this exchange to be watched by the head guard, who monitors it.

Leela, the Doctor, and Idas exit another grid at the end of the tunnel they crawl through and go into the Oracle's center, on the P7E. As the Doctor exits behind the other two, he drops the grid, making a sound. The Oracle talks to the Doctor when he moves further in. The Doctor wants the race banks. The Oracle asks who he is. The Doctor tells it that the people of Minyos called his people "gods". The female voice tells the Doctor the only god is she. The Doctor insults her, calling her nothing but just another computer with delusions of grandeur, an artefact, insane. He gets her to tell him that she is the Keeper of the Race Bank. He calls her nothing but a box and he has the key. He takes the sword from Idas and uses it into a lock on the device. The cylinders rise again but under the Doctor's turning. The Doctor takes the cylinders as the Oracle rants over and over orders for her guards to destroy him. From behind, as he fiddled with the sword, Leela kept calling for him to hurry -- the guards are rushing toward the room. The computer rants, "Destroy him! Destroy him!" Idas and Leela get into the grid to tunnel back the way they came. The Doctor follows but stops and looks out as the computer, the Oracle, keeps ordering his destruction, "No hard feelings," he calls to it. Leela yells at him from inside, "C'mon!"

As the trio exit from the other side, the Doctor follows Idas's directions -- he knows the caverns best of the three of them. The Seers order the guards to close down the tunnels and the guards collapse the roof on either side of the Doctor, Leela, and Idas, effectively trapping them in between just as Idas told the Doctor and Leela they were safe. The Doctor clicks the cylinders together to test them, wondering what it was they gave Jackson. If the Doctor has the real cylinders, Jackson must have fakes.

On the R1C, Jackson prepares for launch. K9 reports fuel absorption is incomplete but when Jackson and Herrick want to try for a launch anyway, K9 tells him negative -- there are missing crew members -- the Doctor and Leela. Jackson sends K9 to look for them.

In the caved-in tunnel, trapped, Leela and Idas worry; she claims they will be here forever. The Doctor knows they will not -- the Seers, the Oracle, and the guards will have them dug out since he knows they want the race bank.

The Oracle orders the trio dug out of Tunnel 7 and to have their bodies sent to the crusher.

Jackson and his crew have secondary control checks complete. Jackson waits, "C'mon, Doctor, c'mon!"

K9 blasts the Doctor out of the Tunnel 7 and the Doctor asks what kept it; "Gratitude is unnecessary, speed is essential."

Just as Jackson finishes a countdown to blast out, the Doctor enters and tells him to stop. He has the race bank cylinders. The Doctor takes out the cylinders the guards made Herrick give Jackson. The Doctor makes K9 analyze these -- fission grenades which cannot be defused or they will blow up and which are 2000 megatons. The Doctor thinks he should get rid of them and voices this to Jackson. At first, he walks slowly, then runs out with the fake cylinders.

Leela takes her knife out and with Idas, follows the Doctor. He may need their help, she claims. In the caves, Leela pulls Idas by the arm after he tells her they have lost the Doctor and it is no use.

The Doctor just strolls up to a guard who is supervising slaves to dig out Tunnel 7and ask for the way to the Oracle. The guard won't listen to the Doctor about the fake cylinders, makes the Doctor give him the cylinders, and won't believe the Doctor after he allows the Doctor to tell him about the cylinders. He thinks the Doctor is lying but the Doctor told him the truth -- the cylinders are bombs. This guard, a lead one, makes two other guards take over the Doctor's watching and orders them to kill the Doctor. He leaves to give the race banks to the Oracle. Leela arrives to shoot down the two guards before they can kill the Doctor.

Idas tells the slaves that the prophesy has been fulfilled, "Our god has come to save us," meaning the Doctor. He gets the Trogs (the slaves) to abandon the caves and follow the Doctor and Leela.

Rask brings the cylinders to the Seers who give them to the Oracle. She orders the cylinders to be put back into the holding device.

The Doctor comes down the steps of the outer area, carrying a little girl. He passes all the Trogs, telling them to go quietly but quickly and gives the care of the girl over to others, "Someone watch this little one." He leads them with Leela into the R1C. He makes them all sit down, telling them there is plenty of room. Jackson comes to this outer room and asks what is going on. He tries to kick the Trogs off. The Doctor stops him and takes him aside, telling him that these are his people and makes Jackson forget about getting the Trogs off, "Your only chance is to go Jackson, GO!" He shoves Jackson off and Jackson moves to the control deck. The Doctor orders all the former slaves to get down as the ship blasts out and awaits the explosion of the planet. Even with the extra weight of the Trogs and less fuel for all their mass and weight, the RC1 blasts out of the underworld.

On his screen, Rask watches, laughing that soon the RC1 and all aboard will all be blown to bits. The Oracle orders the Seers and the guards to get the cylinders out of the holding device -- these are not the race banks. "Get rid of them!"

The RC1 starts to fall back -- the gravity of the planet is pulling the ship back to it. They can't reach escape velocity. Jackson blames the extra passengers. The Doctor tells him, "Oh, come on, Jackson, be brave and sit down." The Doctor does sit but no one else does.

The Oracle tells her men that she has failed in her duties and deserves destruction. One of the Seers opens the cylinder and it blows up the entire planet, vaporizing it and the cloud that constantly hovered over it.

The Doctor tells Jackson to ride out the blast and the extra power from the blast will give Jackson all the power he needs to continue his journey to Minyos II. The Doctor and Leela slip off toward the exit door to the room where the TARDIS is. Before they go, Jackson and crew say goodbye to them. They return the goodbyes, the Doctor calling Jackson, Jason. The crew will be busy with 370 years to Minyos II.

In the TARDIS once more, the Doctor dons his paint smock and painter's cap while Leela asks him why he called Jackson by the name Jason. He tells her Jason was another captain on another long quest -- for the Golden Fleece which Jason found hanging on a Tree at the End of the World. The Doctor wonders if myths are not really the old stories of the past but really are the prophesies of the future. He, optimistically asks K9, hoping for a positive answer of agreement. K9 says, "Negative." The Doctor gets mad, "What did he say?" Leela repeats it. The Doctor storms out, "Can he paint?" He leaves the room as Leela smiles at K9. Leela bends down and kisses K9.

Source: Charles Mento

Continuity Notes:
  • Though the Time Lords were in fact responsible for Minyos’ destruction, the audio The Inquiry reveals that the truth is somewhat different than the facts as related here.
 
 
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