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Production Code T
First Transmitted: Lyn Ashley: Drahvin
Three
Crew stock : Incidental Music
However, the planet will end in 14 planetary cycles and, with the Drahvin ship irreparable, Maaga and her warriors are keen to capture the Rill ship, which they believe has been made functional again. She paints a picture of the Drahvins as the attacked species in the scenario, but the Doctor has witnessed some of the Drahvin aggression and is clearly not convinced. He also reworks the probability on the planet’s destruction and calculates it will break up in just two days time. He tries to keep this new finding from the Drahvins, but Maaga reveals her true colours and forces the truth from him at the point of a gun. With Steven held as hostage to ensure their co-operation, the Doctor and Vicki are sent by the Drahvins to try to seize control of the Rill ship. The Doctor works out that the Rills are a very advanced species: when he meets one he is impressed, not least by their telepathy. The ugly, horned, ammonia-breathing Rill explains that the Rills have offered to take the Drahvins away with them but Maaga has refused, preferring to maintain the state of war she caused when the Drahvins shot down the Rill craft. The Doctor tells the Rills of the true life remaining in the planet and promises to help them escape since the solar energy converters on the Rill craft have not gathered enough power to effect a lift-off. The Doctor and Vicki return to the Drahvin ship to find Steven unconscious after Maaga has tried to kill him by leaving him in a depressurised airlock. They all the return to the Rill vessel, where the Doctor successfully develops a power converter linked to the TARDIS, which charges the Rill craft. Maaga leads the Drahvins in a final assault on the Rill craft but the Chumblies defend their ship long enough for it to power up and leave the planet. One Chumblie left behind to aid the time travellers helps them get back to the TARDIS. Once the ship leaves, the planet explodes, with the Drahvins perishing on the dying world.
Analysis by Cuisle Captain Kirk of the enterprise would soon be learning the message of this episode on a weekly basis – beautiful space women are almost always trouble. The Doctor, having met beings of all shapes and sizes throughout the universe, ought to have known better – as should Captain Kirk for that matter – and it is not to his credit that he is taken in so easily by a pretty face. Pre-broadcast publicity for the new series, featuring killer alien women, gave away the plot to some extent at the time, so whether the viewers would have worked it out quicker than our hero does is open to debate. The amount of publicity given to the idea of nubile alien women in the show was probably not entirely welcome from a purely science fiction point of view, and besides, this ‘family’ show was intended to be educational rather than titillating. For its day, though, the story introduced some very sophisticated sociological ideas, like female dominance. Apparently, however, the fact that the Drahvins were female was a late script change – they were going to be men – and whether even Verity Lambert, a woman working in a male dominated broadcasting industry, considered the implications for feminism of such characters, is a moot point. Cloning, an issue which has gained much more prominence now that it is a science fact rather than science fiction, was also given bad press by this depiction of the results as mindless drones not unlike soldier ants. ` The Rills “Chumbley” robots, as possibly the first ‘cute’ robots to be seen on tv, are also ahead of their time, paving the way for the likes of Metal Mickey, Johnny 5 of Short Circuit, the adorable robot characters of Buck Rogers in the 25th century and Battlestar Gallactica, and even the most famous cute robot of all, R2D2 in Star Wars. (Well, cute to everyone who didn't go to Boarding School with the actor's daughter!) All these concepts, and a refreshingly simple plot of a race against time to rescue the good guys from a doomed planet while defeating the bad guys (or gals) all added up to a roaring start to season three and assuring Doctor Who’s place in the annals of tv history.
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