A classified ad is placed, seeking qualified applicants for companions to a traveler in time and space. The Doctor arrives for the final interviews, finding four people with wildly varying personalities and skills. When a crisis unfolds at a gathering of scientists, the Doctor’s potential new companions have their work cut out for them – and so does the Doctor himself, for he wasn’t the one who placed the ad to begin with.
written by Eddie Robson
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Jamie RobertsonCast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), James Bachman (Hugh Bainbridge), Shelley Conn (Asha Qureshi), Joe Thomas (Theo Lawson), Niky Wardley (Juliet Walsh), Sabina Franklyn (Wanda Rothman), Tony Millan (Leonard Pallister), Joanna Kanska (Rachel), Barnaby Edwards (Rafshaw)
Review: A smartly self-referential intro for a new sidekick, Situation Vacant perfectly evokes the feel of a Russell T. Davies-era, let’s-meet-the-new-meat season opener, right down to an opening music cue that pretty much signals a dizzying zoom-in-from-orbit-to-London CGI shot in your imagination. It taps into the reality-TV-inspired millieu of contestants vying to come out on top in a series of challenges… but of course, The Apprentice has never quite managed to arrange the kind of hurdles that these would-be companions face. (more…)
With success still eluding Split Enz, the band’s live shows are earning them more acclaim than their albums. In the wake of the decidedly lukewarm reception to Frenzy, the group forges ahead with sessions for a new album produced by David Tickle, the young whiz kid who was responsible for the simple, up-front sound of “I See Red”. This time around, the right sound is coupled with the right songs, with both Finn brothers firing on all creative cylinders, and the results is – at last – a major hit. 
After nearly two nightmarish years in England, Split Enz returns to New Zealand with a new album in tow, but somehow Frenzy isn’t quite the sum of all of its parts: the flashpoint of creativity that was the Rootin’ Tootin’ Luton sessions is buried under muddled production. Still, the single “I See Red” puts the Enz back on the map (and in the charts) by being everything that the band wasn’t before: short, punchy, uncomplicated, and very electric. Split Enz is slated to play the outdoor Nambassa Festival to celebrate the group’s return home, but a fire sweeps through the concert grounds just days before the show, destroying their instruments and gear. With other local musicians rallying to their cause, the group takes to the stage with borrowed equipment and turns out to be the highlight of Nambassa.
The story picks up as the members of Split Enz, fresh from recording the first post-Phil Judd album, Dizrythmia, pack up to find their fortunes in England. But while the band is reasonably successful at home in New Zealand and Australia, the going gets tough in the U.K.: dumped by their label and their management, they’re out of work and living extremely lean, and yet the arrival of new members Nigel Griggs and Neil Finn brings an infusion of new energy and new songs. The only trick is being able to afford to put them on record…
With the first of a series of major personnel changes underway, Split Enz leaves the safe and relatively supportive confines of New Zealand to try to make it big in Australia, where one of their first orders of business is to record Second Thoughts, an album which is virtually a remake of Mental Notes, produced by Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera. But the strain of seeking success in a new country away from their roots, as well as the band’s first visit to America, culminating in guitarist/vocalist and founding member Phil Judd’s departure after a disastrous gig in Atlanta. The Enz return home, where the daunting search for a new guitarist ends surprisingly close to home.
The second part of Radio NZ’s documentary series about the country’s most famous musical export, Split Enz, opens with the band out of work, waiting for a long-promised recording contract to come through, playing gigs when they can, and gaining a reputation which is nearly shattered when they end up as the opening act for a heavy metal band whose audience simply isn’t primed for the eclectic sound of Split Enz. But their ability to soldier on with a live set in the face of an audience actively trying to will them off the stage impresses the head of an Australian label, and soon it’s off to the studio to try to document the Enz’s well-honed stage act on record. But even during the recording of their first album – with their tour manager stepping in to act as producer – “creative differences” begin to appear, and the first of many major changes to the Enz’s lineup are underway.
In the first part of a ten-hour Radio New Zealand documentary charting the origins, struggles, and meteoric rise of 
The TARDIS experiences problems in flight, and lands at the earliest opportunity so the Doctor can try to effect repairs. The scanner shows that the TARDIS has landed in medieval England, complete with a mythical hunter who stalks the locals “when their time comes.” If that isn’t strange enough, evidence of energy weapons and robotics are barely hidden from view as well. The locals are instantly suspicious of the time travelers, especially when the Doctor decides to take up the cause of freeing them from the terror that stalks the land. But the Doctor and Peri are in too deep before they discover that it isn’t land, and it’s not inhabited by locals… and that the hunter is among the least of their problems.
A run-in with the Anzor, the school bully who lorded over him at the Time Lord Academy, has the Doctor running scared, to Peri’s amazement. The TARDIS brings them to the planet Magnus, where the divide between genders has left women in charge of the planet with men as an enslaved underclass. The Doctor and Peri also discover that Sil, their old profiteering nemesis, is at work on Magnus, working a play-all-sides-against-the-middle swindle. One of the sides that doesn’t reveal itself until later is a party of rogue Ice Warriors, planning to create an environmental disaster that will make Magnus more suitable for themselves. But even the locals aren’t welcoming the Doctor and Peri’s help this time.
The Doctor brings the TARDIS to a landing at Blackpool in 1986, promising Peri a relaxing getaway for once. But other alien forces have different plans for Blackpool: the Celestial Toymaker is play-testing a new arcade game there, one which burns out the minds of those players who prove to be very good at it. The two time-travelers are separated, and the Toymaker intends to use Peri as a pawn to secure the Doctor’s cooperation in his scheme to take over the world.