The Doctor is missing from the TARDIS, which is particularly alarming since the TARDIS is in flight. While Hex takes what seems like the most reasonable course of action – panic – Ace tries to land the TARDIS, bringing the timeship down in England in 1989. Oddly, the TARDIS’ police box exterior has turned white, and Hex and Ace find a couple preparing their cottage for the unthinkable: the world is on the brink of nuclear war, and the government has sent out pamphlets describing how its citizens can build and stock their own fallout shelters within their homes. Ace and Hex discover that history is following a different course than the 1989 they remember, but when they try to go back to the TARDIS and leave, they discover that it has dematerialized on its own, leaving them trapped. Ace decides to “borrow” the couple’s car to drive to London to contact UNIT to help her reach the Doctor, but she’s caught red-handed… just as sirens signal the beginning of World War III. An uneasy alliance becomes a necessity, especially when Hex is blinded by the blast of the bomb, but survival becomes a luxury – one that won’t be afforded to all four of them… unless, of course, they do things differently the next time.
written by Jonathan Morris
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Wilfredo Acosta
Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Philip Olivier (Hex), Ian Hogg (Albert), Elizabeth Bennett (Peggy), Peter Egan (Moloch / Announcer)
Notes: The radio announcements that recur throughout the story are based on real radio scripts and pamphlets that were prepared by the British government as part of the real “Protect & Survive” public information campaign to be deployed ahead of an imminent nuclear attack on British soil. The pamphlets mentioned were actually designed and printed, but not distributed until their existence was revealed by the newspapers, and public outcry forced disclosure of the campaign in 1980. This story shares that title with the first episode of Gerry Anderson’s Space Precinct (a space police series which played on the phrase’s similarity to “protect and serve”).
Timeline: after Lurkers At Sunlight’s Edge and before Black And White; possibly simultaneous with House Of Blue Fire
LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green
John and Carol return to their base, and are stunned to find Stephen is there, in perfectly good health, but with no memory of how he got there. Even TIM can’t remember Stephen’s return. They jaunt back to the scene of the crime, discovering that the older man who carried Stephen out of the water is a galactic policeman hunting an alien criminal named Spidron…and that, thanks to the presence of the Tomorrow People, Earth’s status as a “closed planet” off-limits to aliens has been lifted, endangering the planet.written by Brian Finch and Roger Price
Cast: Sammie Winmill (Carol), Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughan-Clarke (Stephen), Stephen Salmon (Kenny), Kenneth Farrington (Smithers), Michael Standing (Ginge), Derek Crewe (Lefty), Philip Gilbert (TIM), Kevin Stoney (Steen), John Woodnutt (Spidron), Nova Llewellyn (Joy)
