The Meddlers – Part 1
Tarot visits a run-down street market, learning that unlucky accidents have been befalling the merchants there – a grocer whose goods go rotten, a bookseller whose cart catches on fire, and so on. A trio of wandering street musicians draw Tarot’s attention as well, particularly the somewhat threatening attitude of their spoon player. Tarot meets a photographer named Chas and his sister Mikki, discovering that he has a psychic link to Mikki similar to that which he once shared with Luli. Realizing that the stakes are becoming deadly, Tarot decides to stay and help revitalize that market, only to discover that someone doesn’t want his help…and intends to send that message forcefully.
written by P.J. Hammond
directed by John Russell
music by Andrew Bown
Cast: Michael Mackenzie (Tarot), Petra Markham (Mikki), Roy Holder (Chas), Michael Standing (Spoon), Barry Linehan (Mockers), Paul Dawkins (Dove), Stefan Kalipha (Drum), Honora Burke (Madge), Neil Linden (Accordion Player)
Notes: This is the premiere of Ace Of Wands’ third season, the only season of the show left intact by ITV’s policy of erasing and reusing then-expensive videotape in the 1970s. While Doctor Who fans may feel
unlucky that so many 1960s episodes of that series are missing, Ace Of Wands was produced much more recently, and none of its first two seasons’ episodes now exist in the archives. Involving a crime-solving stage magician with mystic powers and ESP, the series introduced new characters in this episode, replacing the departed Roy (Tony Selby) and Luli (Judy Loe), who had been Tarot’s accomplices in the first two years of the show.
LogBook entry by Earl Green
Cast: Christopher Godwin (Mattocks), Carmen Du Sautoy (Foster), Barrie Rutter (Ackroyd), Bruce Boa (Beadle), and Bimbo (himself)
broadcast license). ATV signed off for the last time on January 1st, 1982. Whereas the first season had neither a theme tune nor incidental music within the episodes, there was now a “spacey” theme tune over the open and end credits. Other than that, one can be forgiven for thinking that no time had passed at all. The second season was produced in 1982, before the ATV-to-Central handover.
2039 A.D.: After encountering rumors of illegal genetic experiments being conducted by the U.S. military under the cover of the Deep-sea Energy Exploration Project, the Doctor drops in with the TARDIS and confirms his worst fears. The ruthless General Flint has been using Professor Vollmer’s ecologically friendly energy experiments, harnessing power from undersea geothermal vents, as a cover for experiments that even the Army has now disavowed. Faced with the impending end of his secret project, Flint has Vollmer injected with a cocktail of accelerated DNA cultivated from sea creatures, his last chance to prove the value of his project. To prevent Vollmer’s mutation into an amphibious life form, the Doctor kills him, but not before Vollmer makes the Doctor promise to look after his daughter. General Flint confiscates the Doctor’s TARDIS key, forcing the Time Lord to abandon the seabase in an escape submarine before Flint’s plan comes to a deadly end: radioactive dirty bombs detonate around the DEEP base, ensuring that even the most curious and determined explorer can’t get near it. 
Cast: Nick Frost (Henderson), Kevin Eldon (York), Miranda Hart (Teal), Dan Antopolski (Jeffers), Stephen Evans (Vine), Petra Massey (Sandstrom), Geoffrey McGivern (Supreme Ruler), Montserrat Lombard (Lavya), Hon Ping Tang (Sergeant Destruction), Dustin Demri Burns (Queppu Warrior), Stephan Kreiss (Gunface), Tannoy Voices (Ewan Bailey)