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Production Code: 7C
Plot Outline from Wikipedia After a recess in the trial for the Doctor to grieve for the death
of Peri, he proceeds to present evidence for his defence. He chooses
to show future events on the galactic liner Hyperion III, ferrying
a cargo of precious metals from the planet Mogar to Earth in the year
2986. The Doctor says that not all the passengers will survive the
journey, as one of them is a murderer… In the TARDIS, the Doctor's companion Mel is forcing the Doctor to perform a rigorous exercise regime and making him drink carrot juice, to his great disgust. Edwardes, the communications officer of the Hyperion, detects an unidentified craft in the same vicinity of space. Suddenly he is attacked from behind by an unseen figure who injects him with a syringe. The figure appears to send a message. In the TARDIS, the Doctor and Mel pick up a Mayday message beamed specifically at the time machine, and responding, they materialise on board the Hyperion. The Doctor tells Mel he can sense evil on the ship and proposes to immediately depart, but Hyperion guards arrive and seize them. Edwardes reports to his commanding officers Rudge and Commodore Travers. As none of the machinery was damaged they realise the assailant's goal was to send out a message. When the Doctor and Mel are brought before Travers, the Doctor recognises him from a previous encounter — an occasion of mayhem and intrigue — calling him Captain "Tonker" Travers. Travers corrects him over his rank before saying that it was not he or any member of his crew who had sent the mayday signal. Travers tells Rudge not to police the Time Lord too carefully; if he gives the Doctor enough rope, he will discover the culprit for them. In the Hydroponics Centre there are row after row of plant pods. A Mogarian concealed in its atmospheric suit is seen putting silver Demeter seeds into a petri dish and departing with them. In the Lounge, the Doctor and Mel make plans to investigate the mystery of the message. A Mogarian observes them silently from a balcony. While the Doctor asks for a passenger list, Mel goes snooping off around the passenger decks. She arrives in the ship gymnasium where she sees Lasky. As Mel starts an exercise routine, Doland arrives and informs Lasky that someone has broken into the Hydroponics centre, and together they rush off. On her headphones, Mel hears someone speak to her but when she looks around cannot find who it was. Rudge gives the Doctor the passenger list, hoping that he will recognise a name, find the culprit and depart quickly. Unfortunately for him, the Doctor recognises none of the names. Mel arrives in the lounge and tells the Doctor that someone has arranged to meet him in cabin 6. The suspicious Doctor refuses to take on the role of a judas goat. Lasky and Doland go to the Hydroponics centre, where they see the signs of forced entry, and that Demeter seeds are gone. Mel goes on her own to cabin 6; when someone approaches, she tenses but it is only the Doctor. They find the silver Demeter seeds and a single shoe in the cabin. Rudge contacts Travers to inform him there has been an accident in the waste disposal unit. Travers arrives to see that someone has been murdered by being thrown into the unit. All that remains of the victim is a single shoe, partner to that found in cabin 6. Rudge tells them that it was a mineralogist named Grenville. The Doctor and Mel go to the gymnasium, where the Doctor reaches the conclusion that there is nothing further that either he or Mel can do. As he wallows in the gym, Mel departs to investigate the hydroponics centre alone. The Doctor interrupts the Matrix evidence, to say he does not remember
this happening when he reviewed the scenes in preparing the defence.
He claims there have been changes. He tells the Inquisitor he thinks
he is being manipulated, causing the Valeyard to furiously rebut the
possibility that the Matrix could lie. They continue to view the extract…
Two guards arrive at the scene, and Mel tells them that Edwardes is dead. One of the guards leads Mel away, but as the other guard examines Edwardes' corpse, something looms over him. The Valeyard stops the extract and tells him that but for luck, it
could have been Mel that was killed. The Inquisitor tells the Doctor
that he could have prevented her going to the cargo hold alone, instead
he appeared to encourage her. The Doctor replies that when he viewed
the Matrix earlier, that it is not what happened. The Doctor allows
the extract to continue, as it is the only way to find out who is
manipulating him. The Doctor and Mel ask Professor Lasky about the Demeter seeds. When she sees them, she immediately accuses the Doctor of being a thief, but Mel tells her that they found the seeds in cabin 6. The seeds will increase a crop yield by three-fold and can even grow in deserts. Travers enters the lounge to inform the passengers that the Hyperion has made a slight course correction bringing their ETA forward by 72 hours. Three Mogarians address him asking if that means they will be travelling through a sector containing the black hole of Tartarus. Travers confirms that this is the case, but they will be well within safety margins. Shortly afterwards, as one of the Mogarians is drinking a cup of tea, he stands up choking, before collapsing. The Doctor tries to remove the face plate of the protective suit, but Travers and Rudge hold him back — Mogarians cannot breathe oxygen. The Doctor informs them that it is not in fact a Mogarian at all, and when they allow him to remove the face plate, he is proved correct. It is actually Grenville from cabin 6, whom they had thought already murdered in the waste disposal unit. The Doctor recognises the man, his name is not Grenville, it is Hallett. The Doctor says that Hallett had staged his own death because he had been recognised. He had probably been sent to the Hyperion on an investigation on one of the other passengers. Rudge asks how the Doctor knew that dead man was not a Mogarian. The Valeyard halts the extract and also asks the Doctor how he knew
that. Replaying the scene where the Mogarians spoke to Travers concerning
the black hole, the Doctor reveals that when the third Mogarian speaks,
he does not switch on his translator before speaking.
The female creature sits up and implores the Doctor and Mel to stop Lasky, but immediately Lasky, Bruchner and Doland arrive and sedate her. Doland reveals that the creature is his lab assistant Ruth Baxter who is being returned to Earth in the hope of reverting her condition. During an experiment, a speck of pollen had landed in a cut on her arm causing her to mutate into her present form. A group of humanoid plant creatures is seen gathering together the various dead bodies. Two of them attack another guard in the corridors. In the hydroponics centre, Bruchner begins destroying his notes. Doland sees him and goes to fetch Lasky. As she goes off to try to calm Bruchner down, Mel asks Doland what was in the pods. He tells that they contained giant fruit. He departs, and Mel hears a noise in the air conditioning ducts. She uses the gym equipment to amplify the sound and hears the plant monsters discussing how they will hunt down all the humans on the ship. As she hears this, she is attacked from behind by an unseen assailant. Her unconscious body is dumped in a waste disposal trolley filled with used gym towels. The Doctor enters the gym and hears the recording made by Mel, including her scream when she was attacked. Meanwhile the trolley containing Mel is being wheeled towards the pulveriser. The Doctor runs to the pulveriser seconds before the trolley was about to be thrown in. Upon rescuing her, the Doctor tells her, "Don't throw in the towel, Mel." As Mel investigates the stewardess Janet's quarters, the Doctor is seen in the communications room with an axe destroying the communications equipment. The Doctor stops the extract to deny smashing the equipment, and
again insists the Matrix showing false evidence…
As the ship shakes from the turbulence of the black hole, the vervoids, fearing their own destruction proceed towards the bridge. The Doctor uses a heat lance to break onto the bridge, but it is filled with marsh gas. Rudge summons the two Mogarians who are able to breathe the poisonous atmosphere from within their suits. They manage to regain control of their ship and direct it away from the black hole. However, as soon as it is safe, Rudge addresses Travers at gun point telling him that he and the Mogarians are taking over the ship. Mel manages to get to the lounge ahead of Rudge and she informs Doland and Janet of the hijacking. Rudge tells the Doctor that the Mogarians are seeking to return the consignment of precious metals, considering them to have been stolen from their home planet. For himself, Rudge is seeking a more comfortable financial future. However, the Doctor does not believe that he is the murderer. On the bridge the two Mogarians are attacked by an unknown assailant who throws liquid oxygen at them killing them. Mel sneaks through the air ducts to let the Doctor know there will be an attack on the lounge. He tells her it is too dangerous and that they should attack the bridge instead. There, they find the dead Mogarians, and take the face plates to prove to Rudge they are dead. Doland smashes the gun from Rudge's hands. He runs off into the corridors but is waylaid by Vervoids who attack and kill him. Searching Doland's cabin, the Doctor finds him and tells him that he has narrowed the suspects down to either him or Lasky. Mel meanwhile is searching Lasky's gym locker, but Lasky finds her and tells her that she does not have the tape. Doland takes the Doctor to the hydroponics centre. As the Doctor forces open a drawer looking for the tape of the Vervoids, Doland removes it from his pocket. Tossing it to the Doctor, he picks up a gun. He admits the murders, he says he did it because of the huge enormous economic power of the Vervoids — they could be used as slave labour in factories. The gun however was emptied of power and Travers arrives to arrest Doland. However, as he is being taken to the Brig, he runs off, but is attacked by Vervoids and killed. The Doctor tells Travers and Lasky that the Vervoids want to destroy all animal life. Travers asks the Doctor to help him destroy the Vervoids. The Doctor presents this as evidence that he was not meddling in
affairs, that he had been asked to help out in the situation, which
the Inquisitor accepts, but the Valeyard says they should see the
final outcome of events… The Inquisitor asks the Doctor if any of the Vervoids survive, and he informs her that none did, not even a leaf. Seizing on this, the Valeyard accuses the Doctor of breaking article 7 of Gallifreyan law — he has committed genocide.
Analysis by Cuisle After the harrowing scenes in which we are given to believe that Peri has been horribly killed by the Mentors, the Trial of the Time Lord now moves on to present the evidence for the defence, and a story taken from The Doctor’s future activities. Now, I never QUITE understood HOW that works. I don’t think anyone else does. But having accepted that, we go on to meet a new companion who, unusually, is already established in the TARDIS, making The Doctor do physical exercise and drink carrot juice. It is never explained where she joined him, although he does tell her that the adventure on the Hyperion is better than living in Pease Pottage, and she is apparently a clever computer technician. It is actually quite refreshing in a way to have her fully established already when we meet her character. It allows for a little of her background to be added in as we go along. Now, I can’t pretend that Mel is my favourite companion. She would come a LONG way down my list. But the level of antagonism against her is NOT warranted. Bonnie Langford CAN act. And she is not confined to the lisping Violet Elizabeth routine. Mel Bush is NOT just a grown up version of the same. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to have told the director. There were several occasions when Mel had been making perfectly good progress, working things out in a calm, intelligent way, and then she would be required to scream hysterically. The character was bright, enthusiastic, game for anything, brave enough to have a go at scary situations, and then when something pops up, she is screaming again. It was not unlike the way Jo Grant was portrayed in the 1970s. An intelligent girl whose main purpose was to scream. It was understandable in the 1970s, but unforgivable in the mid 1980s. The other aunt sally of this episode is the Vervoids. Critics have delighted for years in laughing at their moulded foam rubber faces and their petals that resemble female genitalia and generally made fun of them. But they were a very nasty monster in their way. A sentient plant life that wanted to consume flesh is a genuinely original idea, and the costume was different enough to be a surprise to viewers. The story, essentially a Whodunnit in the Murder on the Orient Express
mould. And it works. Travellers on a space liner are all suspects
in a death while the creatures run amok. What more could anyone want
except to get to the bottom of who the Valeyard is and why he hates
The Doctor.
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