Season 19, Episode 5 | 2 parts | First broadcast: 1–2 March 1982 | Writer: Terence Dudley | Director: Ron Jones
Cast
- Peter Davison as the Doctor
- Matthew Waterhouse as Adric
- Sarah Sutton as Nyssa
- Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka
- Barbara Murray as Lady Cranleigh
Summary
Landing in 1925 England, the Doctor and his companions are drawn into a country house cricket match and costume ball, only for the festivities to be disrupted by a mysterious, disfigured figure locked away in the manor’s attic. As dark secrets about the aristocratic Cranleigh family come to light, the Doctor finds himself the prime suspect in a murder investigation with no alien threat in sight, only very human tragedy.
Interesting Facts
- This was the first purely historical story with no science-fiction elements beyond the TARDIS crew since The Highlanders in 1967.
- It was also the first two-part serial since The Sontaran Experiment in 1975, beginning a regular pattern of shorter stories each season.
- Peter Davison’s own real-life passion for cricket was accommodated by the story’s country house cricket match sequence.
- The tragic, Gothic subplot involving the hidden Cranleigh heir gave the story an unusually somber tone for its brief runtime.
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