| Production Code: 5Z
First Transmitted
Cast The Doctor - Peter Davison
Crew
Plot Outline from Wikipedia Supported by his companions, the newly regenerated Doctor is escorted back to the TARDIS while all around them in the radio telescope base alarms are going off. Security guards rush towards them, and when the Doctor falls over the group is caught. An ambulance arrives, and one of the guards starts to frisk Tegan, Nyssa and Adric whilst the ambulance men fetch a stretcher to pick up the Doctor's prone body. The guards find no weapons, but as the Doctor is being put into the back of the ambulance, Tegan spots that the keys to ambulance have been left in the ignition. Adric starts a conversation with one of the guards about the project's goal being to track down alien intelligences, admitting that they are themselves alien intelligences. Distracted by what they think is the young man spouting nonsense, they do not notice as Tegan starts to drive the ambulance away. While Adric struggles with the guards, the two girls manage to bundle the Doctor into the TARDIS. While Tegan complains they cannot take off without Adric, the Doctor leaves them in the console room. Tegan follows him. As Adric tells the guards that they will never get the chance to thank the Doctor for defeating the Master, a Corinthian column materialises in front of them, it is the Master's TARDIS. Sparks of energy emanate from the column knocking the guards unconscious. Observing this on the Doctor's TARDIS scanner, Tegan and Nyssa run outside just as the Master's column dematerialises. They find the prone form of Adric, and quickly bring him back inside the Doctor's TARDIS. Immediately Adric starts to activate the TARDIS console, and it dematerialises. Meanwhile, the Doctor is behaving strangely and is asking for the Zero Room. On hearing the name of this room, Adric rushes off to find the Doctor. He finds the Fourth Doctor's red coat, and then he sees a piece of wool tied to a door. Following the wool, he finds the new Doctor unravelling his scarf. The Doctor rambles about another Zero Room under the panopticon on Gallifrey, renowned for its healing properties, and then tells Adric that Romana is always telling he needs a holiday. The Doctor seems very disoriented when Adric reminds him that they left Romana behind in E-Space. Unable to fathom any of the controls of the TARDIS, Tegan and Nyssa prepare to follow the Doctor into the bowels of the TARDIS, when Tegan stumbles across a screen on the console flashing "TARDIS Information System". As they try to find instructions to operate the TARDIS in flight, Nyssa opines that it would help if there was an index file. Tegan wonders aloud that if they had the index file, they could find the index file by looking it up under "index file". Nyssa reassures her that recursion is not nonsense. Tegan then has a brainwave that the index file might be found under its initials I F.
As Adric and the Doctor search out the Zero Room, the Doctor continues to act oddly, reenacting gestures and phrases of some his former incarnations. Tegan and Nyssa manage to find the flight data in the information system, and see that their destination is listed as hydrogen in-rush: Event One. Together they go off to find the Doctor to find out what this might mean. The Doctor finds a mirror, on which hangs a cricketer's bat, hat and coat. Taking a liking to the costume he changes into a new outfit. As Adric wanders the TARDIS corridors, the Master is somehow observing him from afar, and laughs evilly to himself that Adric cannot escape him. In the distance, the Doctor hears the Zero Room door slam. Hurrying towards the noise, he runs into Nyssa and Tegan. They manage to find the Zero Room, and within the Doctor starts to act more normally. He says he will stay there until his dendrites heal. Levitating into a horizontal position he goes to into a trance. He tells the girls that all of the companions will play a crucial part in the times ahead. Tegan has the ability to be a fine coordinator, Nyssa has the technical knowledge, and Adric has the mathematical skill. As he is speaking an image of Adric appears on the wall, trapped in some kind of web. Adric calls out to them that the Master has caught them all in a trap - he has locked the co-ordinates for Event One. Tegan says she is coming to help him, but Adric says it is a block transfer illusion. As Nyssa returns to the console room, she notices the lipstick Tegan was using to trace their path is melting. The Doctor wakes up as he senses something wrong and the cloister bell starts ringing indicating imminent danger. However he is still too weak to leave the Zero Room. The information system tells Nyssa that the TARDIS is approaching the hydrogen in-rush at event one and that the environment is beyond engineering tolerances. Nyssa realises that the heat is coming from outside the TARDIS, because it is heading backwards in time to creation of the galaxy - the biggest explosion in history. The Master appears on the scanner to wish the TARDIS crew farewell forever… The Doctor stumbles out of the Zero Room and finds an electric wheelchair. He arrives in the control room, where the heat is stimulating his brain sufficiently for him to think normally. He outlines a plan to escape the event horizon of Event One by changing the architectural configuration of the TARDIS. By deleting rooms, they can gain momentum to escape. They need to jettison at least 25% of the TARDIS's rooms, but the Doctor is unable to tell them how to stop the console room being one of the ejected rooms. At the last moment, the girls perform the manoeuvre… In the Master's TARDIS, the Master tries to persuade Adric to become his ally rather than his enemy. He could use the mathematical genius' computations as a source of great power. The Master mentions that he had set a further trap should the TARDIS have survived. Adric tries to hide the image he is receiving of the TARDIS surviving Event One, but the Master notices the residual voltage and forces him to reveal it. Tegan finds an entry in the TARDIS information system which tells her that "ambient complexity" is a cause of many of the failures of regeneration. It goes on to say that certain locations have environments similar or even superior to that of a Zero Room, and mentions the Dwellings of Simplicity on Castrovalva as such a place. Tegan sets the co-ordinates for Castrovalva. Nyssa takes the Doctor back to the Zero Room, but when she opens the doors, they see a blank wall behind — it was one of the jettisoned rooms. The Doctor gives her the sonic screwdriver and gets her to unscrew the hinges of the doors. He tells Nyssa they can make a Zero Room out of what is left. She builds a box from the doors in which the Doctor lies. Tegan manages to land the TARDIS. She and Nyssa take the Zero Room box containing the Doctor and start to make their way to Castrovalva. Eventually they reach the citadel, but can find no entrance. They hide the box and try to find an opening. Two figures in brightly coloured armour spot the girls and go off to warn someone called Mergrave. After a long search they still cannot find an entrance, and return to the box. However, when they get there, Tegan finds a pool of blood, the box is empty and the Doctor is gone…
The Doctor is questioned by Shardovan, the librarian to the dwellings of Castrovalva, but does not even know his own name. They give him food and drink and a room to rest. Alone in his room, the Doctor is visited by an elderly man known as the Portreeve. Portreeve tells him he will soon find the Doctor and says he should sleep. Tegan and Nyssa find a rope ladder and use it to enter Castrovalva where they demand to see the Doctor. Shardovan decides not to inform the Portreeve of the new arrivals, saying old men need their sleep. However, the Portreeve was observing from a balcony and calls down to him that only some old men do. The companions allow the Doctor to sleep, but Adric is seen lurking in the Doctor's room. The next day, Nyssa wakes before Tegan and sees Castrovalvans carrying along the Zero Room box, so she makes them take it into the Doctor's room. In a mirror she sees Adric. He tells her that the Master is in Castrovalva, and must not find him. Telling her not to tell anyone that she has seen him, Nyssa turns around, but Adric disappears from the mirror. In the Master's TARDIS, Adric is still trapped in the web, and the Master congratulates him on a perfect impersonation of himself. The Doctor wakes up somewhat refreshed. While Nyssa and Tegan accompany Shardovan into the library, the Doctor and the Portreeve examine a magnificent tapestry. Within it they see scenes of the world outside. Portreeve warns him not to examine the complexity behind the tapestry in his current condition. When the Doctor mentions his three companions, he cannot think who the third companion is. Nyssa and Tegan emerge from the library carrying large stacks of books. Nyssa is disappointed that there are no technical books, so instead they will examine the history of Castrovalva. As the Doctor paces the courtyards counting to himself, a small girl walks up to him and tells that the number three comes after one and two. He congratulates her and tells her she deserves a star for mathematical excellence, which causes him to remember Adric. Returning to his room where Nyssa and Tegan are reading the histories, he demands to know where Adric is. Tegan accuses Nyssa of telling the Doctor about Adric, but she blurts out that it was Adric who told her not to. The three of them head off for the TARDIS but as they stride through the streets of Castrovalva they keep finding themselves back in the same court yard. They keep heading downwards but nevertheless, still end up back in the central square. Nyssa says it is as if space was folded in on itself, and the Doctor agrees. As the Doctor charges up a staircase, he is blocked by Shardovan. As the librarian demands to know why the Doctor is being so hasty, he collapses due to the increased complexity. He says that Castrovalva is folding in on itself. Returning him to his room, Nyssa and Tegan find that the Zero Cabinet has gone. The Doctor looks out of the window he says that they are caught in a recursive occlusion. Someone is manipulating Castrovalva — they are caught in a space-time trap…
The Doctor begins to describe the history books he has read. They relate the rise of Castrovalva from its beginnings to the present day. However, he thinks they are fakes. The Doctor gets into the Zero Cabinet and asks to be taken to see the Portreeve. Nyssa and Tegan carry the cabinet to the Portreeve's house. It is however a ruse, as the Doctor is not inside the cabinet. He uses the opportunity to speak with Shardovan. Shardovan tells him the paradox of the history books — despite being 500 years old, they chronicle the history of Castrovalva up to the present day. Although Shardovan cannot see the folding of space in Castrovalva, he knows in his philosophy that there is something wrong. When the Zero Cabinet is set down before the Portreeve, he consults the tapestry. He says that the tapestry has the power to fold space and create worlds. The Portreeve states that he has contented himself to create one town. As he speaks, he begins to transform and is revealed to be the Master. When Nyssa says that there is a real Castrovalva because they saw it in the TARDIS databank, the Master tells them that Adric entered it there. As the Master attempts to break into the Zero Cabinet with his Tissue Compression Eliminator, the Doctor is breaking into the Portreeve's house. Hearing the sounds of a window breaking as a result, the Master sends Ruther and Mergrave to investigate. Nyssa tries to distract the Master so he does not look at the tapestry which is showing images of the Doctor's activities. After consulting with the Doctor and Shardovan, Ruther and Mergrave confront the Master telling him that he is not the Portreeve. Ruther says that he believes the visitor and points at the tapestry. The Master looks and sees the image of the Doctor and realises he has been deceived. In a rage he picks up the cabinet and smashes it against the floor, causing the history books inside to spill out. The image on the tapestry changes to show the web containing Adric. The Doctor rips that tapestry away, and behind it is the real web with Adric hanging there. The Doctor realises how the Master has been powering Castrovalva, which the Master reveals to be his version of the block transfer computation. The Master says that the Hadron power lines of the web are deadly to the touch. The Doctor pleads with him to let Adric go. As Ruther picks up a poker with which to strike down the Master, he suddenly disappears. Shardovan reaches up and grabs a hold of a chandelier. The Master looks up at him and tells him not to disrupt the web as it is holding Castrovalva together. Shardovan replies that although the Master made them, now they are free. He swings across the room on the chandelier smashing into the web. As the Doctor dashes to rescue Adric, the Master dashes into the fireplace which promptly dematerialises — it was his TARDIS. The Doctor and his companions run through Castrovalva which is beginning to fold in on itself. Mergrave can still make sense of the dwellings and leads them through the streets. They see the Master's TARDIS materialise, it cannot take off as space is folding in too fast. Soon though, Mergrave is also confused, but Adric can see the hillside. They run towards it and manage to find their way out. As the Master tries to flee after them, he is grabbed by Mergrave and the Castrovalvans who prevent him leaving. With Castrovalva gone, the Doctor and his three companions make it back to the TARDIS. When he sees the TARDIS standing at a strange angle, the Doctor asks who landed it. Tegan proudly states that it was her, and that she flew the time machine following the instructions in the computer. The Doctor tells her that there are no such instructions, they were only a projection. She had not actually flown the ship after all, to her disappointment. The Master had left nothing to chance. Now, however, the Doctor is feeling, if maybe not his old self, that he is absolutely splendid.
Pheww, what a complicated story. It should surprise nobody that “Castrovalva”
comes from the title of a painting by Maurits Cornelis Escher –
for anyone not familiar with the name, he is the artist who does those
weird paintings of castles with stairs that go up and end up lower
than they started – most famously seen in the fantasy film Labyrinth.
The set of Castovalva is based on the painting. Lord Reith’s
informing and educating remit still finds a place in Doctor Who even
among the fantasy.
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