Planet Of Giants
Just prior to materialization, the TARDIS main doors open prematurely. Ian, Susan and Barbara struggle to close them, and the ship seems to make a smooth landing. Outside, the time travelers find the remains of an enormous earthworm and ants at least a foot in length. When Ian and Susan find a huge sign which is clearly from present-day Earth, and a gigantic matchstick almost hits the Doctor and Barbara, the conclusion is obvious – the in-flight accident has reduced the crew of the TARDIS in size. The planet on which they have landed is Earth, and everything from a normal human being’s footsteps to an ordinary housecat is a potentially lethal danger to the time travelers. Something caused the accident that shrunk them…but can they reverse the damage?
Season 2 Regular Cast: William Hartnell (The Doctor), William Russell (Ian Chesterson), Jacqueline Hill (Barbara Wright), Carole Ann Ford (Susan), Maureen O’Brien (Vicki), Peter Purves (Steven)
written by Louis Marks
directed by Mervyn Pinfield and Douglas Camfield
music by Dudley SimpsonGuest Cast: Alan Tilvern (Forester), Frank Crawshaw (Farrow), Reginald Barratt (Smithers), Rosemary Johnson (Hilda), Fred Ferris (Bert)
LogBook entry & review by Earl Green
Guest Cast: William Smith (Patron / Modok), Len Birman (Positive 14 / Brawn), Kim Cattrall (Rama II), Jeanne Sorel (Rama I), Betty Jinnette (Woman-Positive), John Gowans (Engineer-Scientist)
Cast: Robert Hays (Starman / Paul Forrester), C.B. Barnes (Scott Hayden), Michael Cavanaugh (Agent George Fox), Lisa Blount (Angela), Jonas Marlowe (Bobby), Michael Prince (Dr. Schuyler), Patrick Culliton (Wiley), Mie Hunt (Anne Nishakura), Frank Lugo (Mr. Romero), David Bowman (Sportscaster), Pete Gonneau (Newscaster), Peter Jolly (Orderly), Kim Strauss (Young Man), Sam Temeles (Patient)
Guest Cast: David Baxt (Gray), Joseph Mydell (Kane), Ken Drury (Azusa), Paul Humpoletz (Dallas), Nic Klein (Matt Brogan), Megan Olive (Liz Brogan), Jerome Willis (Podly), Richard James (Orrin), David Quilter (Fredo), Lou Hirsch (Romek), Mary Woodvine (Took), Leigh Tinkler (Captain Tecopa), Rob Thirtle (Driver), Andy Dawson (Military General), Joanna Berns (Medic), Gary Martin (voice of Slomo)
The Doctor and Turlough arrive in London, 1702, amidst a rash of disappearances, murders, and robberies. Well-to-do men have been vanishing without a trace, and the only connection anyone can draw between the victims is that they were last seen playing cards with the sinister and enigmatic Sir Nicholas Valentine at the Diabola Club. Turlough himself witnesses one of the horrifying disappearances and finds himself separated from the Doctor, and joins the intrepid Jasper Jeake as he tries to uncover the whereabouts of his friends. The Doctor befriends self-proclaimed occultist Dr. Samuel Holywell, who claims to have made contact with the dead – but the Doctor believes the explanation is simultaneously simpler and more complex than that. And largely unnoticed by the time travelers is the sudden transformation of a well-known robber into a murderer. At least two of these players are not from Earth – and even if the Doctor can discover who they are, the game is almost up.
Determined to get away from it all after the sarin gas threat, Sarah and Josh take a vacation to Romania to visit one of Sarah’s journalism mentors. But trouble seems to follow – with an international peace conference taking place nearby, and the delegate from America and his wife staying with Sarah’s friend, the visit is hardly normal. On the first night, Sarah sees something that she can only describe as a ghost; the next night, a sighting of something similar frightens the American delegate’s wife literally to death. Sarah and Josh set up recording devices to capture the next appearance of the “apparitions,” but even though there is another sighting, the evidence doesn’t show up on tape – and the enigmatic butler of the house turns up dead. Sarah realizes that someone is manufacturing the “ghosts” to disrupt the peace talks, but that realization, and her hunch about who is responsible, may make her the next target.
The TARDIS lands in the middle of a suburban living room, but the woman whose home has just been invaded by a time machine seems unperturbed by the sudden appearance of a Police Box, or the three people who walk out of it. The Doctor tries to take things in his stride, until he notices that the television snooker tournament is being interrupted repeatedly by the same series of scenes taking place aboard a spaceship with two astronauts. Even more incongruous is the fact that the woman who lives in this house has a grandson who she insists is 10 years old, but her “grandson” is quite clearly one of the two astronauts seen on TV. C’rizz runs afoul of a woman who would appear to be the other surviving astronaut, and the Doctor is alarmed to find that the street this house is on has no beginning and no end – and worse yet, the TARDIS is being stolen on the back of the ice cream truck. But how can the ice cream truck escape from this street if no one else can, and why is one of the astronauts acting like a child, building Lego models of his abandoned spacecraft?
Older and a little wiser to the ways of the political world, Davros walks a knife’s edge as an increasingly senior member of the Kaled Scientific Corps: his government expects him to tend to research that will deliver devastating weapons for use in the war against the Thals, but Davros himself sees a higher goal: nothing less than ensuring the survival of the Kaled people in the radioactive aftermath of the war. As Davros sees it, leaving the Kaleds’ fate to evolution will produce too random a result, with little hope of surviving the merciless postwar ecosystem; he advocates research that will help direct the mutations that will carry the Kaled legacy forward. Davros’ mother, Calcula, sees far more immediate concerns, namely that Davros and his research are accumulating some political opponents, and she feels that he’s naive about politics in general. But when Davros’ mother is murdered, and the attack on her is found to be an inside job – the work of fellow Kaleds rather than enemy Thals – he proves just how well he learned the game of political maneuvering from her while she was alive, sweeping aside some of her enemies and putting others on notice as he consolidates his newly inherited power base. Mere weeks later, though, a Thal attack on the home base of the Kaleds’ Scientific Corps changes Davros – and his ambitions – forever.
The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Steven and Dodo to Russia in 1812, not long before Napoleon Bonaparte’s disastrous attempt to take over the country. They stay for a while, making friends, even taking up jobs, and Steven looks forward to being the best man at a wedding for one of his new friends. But then the locals are terrified by blinding lights and the sound of thunder – not the French advance, but a spacecraft exploding moments after it ejects an escape pod, though of course only the time travelers realize this. Steven and his friend rush off to see if there are any survivors, but the unfortunate answer is yes – Steven is attacked and knocked out, and his friend, the groom-to-be, is killed and replaced by a “shape-stealer,” though it’s some time before anyone realizes this. The creature assumes numerous guises to allow it to move freely among the villagers, until finally it impersonates the Doctor and sets off to steal the TARDIS – until it spots someone in a more obvious position of power which will allow it to further its mission: Napoleon himself.