Season 19, Episode 2 | 4 parts | First broadcast: 18–26 January 1982 | Writer: Terence Dudley | Director: John Black
Cast
- Peter Davison as the Doctor
- Matthew Waterhouse as Adric
- Sarah Sutton as Nyssa
- Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka
- Stratford Johns as Monarch
Summary
Attempting to fly Tegan home to Heathrow, the Doctor instead lands the TARDIS aboard a vast alien spaceship crewed by android recreations of historical Earth cultures and ruled by the ancient, megalomaniacal Urbankan leader Monarch. As Monarch’s true plan to return to a long-abandoned Earth and subjugate humanity through faster-than-light “silicon” biology is uncovered, the Doctor must outwit him before the ship completes its journey home.
Interesting Facts
- This was one of the earliest scripts to test Peter Davison’s fresh take on the Doctor, in only his second broadcast story.
- The story features an early depiction of an alien plan to travel faster than light using a biologically engineered method rather than conventional technology.
- Its human android crew, drawn from various historical Earth cultures, gave the production an unusually large and diverse guest cast for the era.
- Stratford Johns’s performance as the imperious Monarch was noted for its theatrical, scenery-chewing menace.
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