| Production Code: PPP
First Transmitted
Cast
Crew
Plot Outline From Wikipedia The TARDIS misses Metebelis Three and seems to materialise on a cargo ship in the Indian Ocean. But the Third Doctor and Jo soon realise that the ship’s occupants keep repeating their actions as if somehow controlled. The Doctor also sees that they are on the SS Bernice, on the very day that it suddenly disappeared without a trace. The pair soon, bizarrely, find a way out of the ship, and into the circuitry of some sort of giant machine. They make their way to a marshy area that they think is the outside, but soon discover that they are still inside the machine and are chased by the Drashigs, huge swamp-dwelling carnivores, back into the circuitry. It is here, where they stop to rest, that the Doctor realises that they are inside a Miniscope, a machine that keeps miniaturised groups of creatures in miniaturised versions of their natural environments. He says that he persuaded the Time Lords to ban these and deduces that they must have materialised in its compression field. The Drashigs break through from the marsh and the Doctor and Jo are forced to return to the ship. They become separated in the confusion as the crew defend against the Drashigs, and the Doctor manages to find a way to the real outside. While they remain inside the Miniscope, it arrives with its owners, travelling showman Vorg and his assistant Shirna, on Inter Minor, who are refused an entrance visa, as the entrance tribunal believes they are spies, and they are therefore allotted space on the next shuttle home. Vorg finds the TARDIS inside the Miniscope, which is accidentally left out of the compression field for too long and thus returned to normal size. Meanwhile, two tribunal members plot to let the Drashigs escape from the machine and allow them to wreak havoc, forcing the President of the planet to resign. The Doctor emerges from the Miniscope and is restored to his normal size. He tells Vorg that his machine is illegal, and attaches part of the TARDIS to it so that he can return to get Jo. After he goes back into the Scope, which is now overheating due to the Drashigs' damage, the device he attached is shot by a tribunal member and ceases to function, leaving the Doctor stranded. He finds Jo, but they collapse on the floor as the heat gets too much for them. Two Drashigs escape, but Vorg manages to kill them by fixing the eradicator, sabotaged by the mutinous tribunal members. He then fixes the Doctor’s device, pushing the Phase Two switch which brings the Doctor and Jo back, just in time, and also returning all of the Scope’s other occupants to their rightful space-time positions. As the penniless Vorg tries to get enough credit bars to return home by using the old three-magum-pods-and-a-yarrow-seed trick, the two travellers depart in the TARDIS.
Analysis by Cuisle This is The Doctor's first 'free' trip in the TARDIS since the Time Lords gave him back the means to do so. He wants to go to Metebelis Three, the fabled blue planet. He doesn't get anywhere near. This is to be something of an ongoing theme for this series. Metebelis Three evades him every time. Jo is delightfully hard to convince that they are not on Earth. Only when the drashigs attack does she finally realise all is not as it seems. Then they realise NOTHING is as it seems. The boat is not even on a real planet. The scenes when The Doctor realises they are inside the Miniscope are very well done. Given how difficult good CSO effects were in the early 1970s, the miniaturised TARDIS, Doctor and Jo are very well done. Yes, you CAN see the joins. The same is true of the Drashig appearances. The first view of them is clearly a filmed insert and when it is mixed with live action it isnft COMPLETELY convinving, but it isn't the worst effect ever. That STILL has to be the Doctor and companions walking in front of a cinema screen picture of a cat in Planet of the Giants. But for the viewer who is prepared to suspend disbelief the effects help along what is a light-hearted story with not too many dangers apart from evading the Drashigs. Worthy of note are two actors who appear in this story and later turn up in more significant roles. Ian Marter, later to be loved by Doctor Who fans as Harry Sullivan, plays a rather dashing sailor on board the SS Bernice. Since Harry is a Royal Navy surgeon, it is perhaps not a huge jump between the two characters. The other notable guest star of this episode is Michael Wisher, playing Kalik, brother of the president of Inter Minor whose plot to take power is a side story in the episode. He was later much better known for playing Davros, creator of the Daleks. Sadly, both Ian Marter and Michael Wisher are now dead, both at a
relatively young age. This episode, therefore, whatever its faults,
stands as something of a tribute to them, along with Genesis of the
Daleks, where they played their more famous charaters.
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