There's almost no recap of the previous episode, which is surprising - especially in a six-parter, when they normally take every opportunity they can for some padding.
At the Draconian court the same situation as on Earth is playing out in parallel, with the Emperor as cautious as the Earth President was, and the Prince playing the part of General Williams in pushing for a war. This is a clever way of quickly establishing the similarities between them.
The Master, the Doctor and Jo enter, and the Doctor introduces himself to the Emperor. This is an iconic moment, worth quoting in full:
Doctor: "My life at your command, sire."Prince: "How dare you address the Emperor in a manner reserved for a noble of Draconia!"Doctor: "Ah, but I am a noble of Draconia. The honour was conferred on me by the 15th Emperor."Prince: "The 15th Emperor reigned 500 years ago."The Master: "Your Majesty, do not be taken in by this ridiculous story."Emperor: "Be silent! There is a legend among our people of a man who assisted the 15th Emperor at a time of great trouble, when we were almost overwhelmed by a great plague from outer space. But you could not be that man. No Earthman lives so long."Doctor: "Your Majesty, this man that you speak of, was he not known as the Doctor? And did he not come to this planet in a spaceship called the TARDIS?"Emperor: "He did."
Jo obviously didn't know the Draconians before this story, and the Doctor couldn't use the TARDIS again until after she was already his Companion, so this suggests the Doctor must have visited Draconian before his regeneration and exile to Earth - it is lucky for him they don't have any pictures of that time, or he would find it even more difficult to convince them.
The Doctor goes on to tell the Draconians about the Master's plan (masterplan?), but when Jo tries to back him up she is told
"Silence! Females are not permitted to speak in the presence of the Emperor."
Now I know Malcolm Hulke wrote this story, but nobody told me that Ben Steed was the script editor for it.
All the Master can do is deny the Doctor's accusations. The Emperor seems to believe the Doctor, so the Master tries a different approach:
"I too welcome your wisdom, your Majesty. Nobody could be more devoted to the cause of peace than I. As a commissioner of Earth's interplanetary police, I have devoted my life to the cause of law and order. And law and order can only exist in a time of peace."
The Doctor follows this with the punchline:
"You feeling all right, old chap?"
Lol. Another spaceship lands claiming to be from Earth, but it makes the hypno-eyes noise from earlier. Ogrons run in and rescue the Master, but the Doctor knocks one out so that when the others have gone and the sound fades away, the Emperor sees it is really an Ogron and not a manny.
The Prince continues to act like General Williams when he threatens to use the mind probe on the captured Ogron. The Emperor sends the Doctor, Jo, and the Prince to go to Earth to show the Ogron to the President.
On board the ship, Jo talks to a Draconian guard about the Ogron prisoner:
"Hey, you know, you want to be very careful of him. He's not as stupid as he looks. I know, I know, women aren't allowed to speak. You know, I think it's about time that women's lib was brought to Draconia."
This is ironic because she is speaking to an extra who is not allowed to speak back to her.
The Master's (new) spaceship is following them, and the Master talks to an Ogron:
The Master: "I'd like to try and take the Doctor alive if possible. If not, I'll blast him out of space. Pity though."Ogron: "You do not wish to kill him?"The Master: "Of course I do! But I don't know... rocket fire at long range, it's... I don't know. Somehow it lacks that personal touch."
Lol. The Doctor, not realising it is the Master's ship, telephones the master to ask who they are. The Master puts on a komedy policemanny voice to answer him, because he is a master of disguise.
The Master fires missiles at them, and then sends the Ogrons to board them. They rescue the captured Ogron, and in exchange manage to capture Jo, but then the Master spots yet another spaceship approaching, this time "an Earth battlecruiser," so they withdraw and fly away, leaving the Doctor and the Prince behind to get arrested by the mannys on the Earth spaceship.
In a nice change from the way this story has operated so far, we don't see the Doctor and the Prince get imprisoned, it just cuts directly to them talking to the President and General Williams on Earth. Even without the Ogron as evidence, the President believes the Doctor enough to go along with his plan to "mount an expedition to the planet of the Ogrons."
Planet of the Ogrons? Isn't that the name of the next story?
General Williams has forgotten that he isn't meant to be the main baddy any more, and refuses to go along with the President. This leads him into having an argument with the Draconian Prince:
Prince: "How can we expect help from a man such as this? This is the man who deliberately caused war between our people!"General Williams: "That is untrue!"Prince: "20 years ago, you destroyed a Draconian ship that had come in a mission of peace."General Williams: "A ship that was about to open fire on us when we were damaged and helpless."Prince: "They came in peace as had been arranged."General Williams: "Then why didn't they answer my signals?"Prince: "Their communications equipment had been destroyed in a neutron storm. The same neutron storm that damaged your ship!"President: "Is this true?"Prince: "I have read the records of my father's court. It is the truth."General Williams: "But why a battlecruiser? The agreement was that both ships were to be unarmed."Prince: "Naturally we sent a cruiser. How else should a nobleman of Draconia travel? But its missile banks were empty. The ship was unarmed."
This is very similar to the events that would, years later, be used as the backstory for the war between mannys and Minbari in Babylon 5. If I were a suspicious cat, I might even say they were suspiciously similar.
This is enough to make General Williams realise how wrong he has been. He switches completely to siding with the Doctor and the Prince, and even insists on leading the expedition. Unusually for Doctor Who, the Doctor plays virtually no part in helping General Williams come to his realisation in this scene, merely being present as the Prince and the General figure it out between themselves.
The Master takes Jo to his base on the Ogron planet, where he also has the TARDIS. He says
"I'm going to set a trap for the Doctor and you are going to help me."
Then he tries to hypno-eyes her, just like he did back in Terror of the Autons, even bringing back his music to help him. Jo responds by reciting nursery rhymes, so the episode goes a bit Once Upon A Time for a moment, with the Master repeating "you will obey me" while Jo counters with "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall."
The Master gives up and his music trails off to show he has been beaten and can no longer hypno-eyes Jo. So then he resorts to turning on his hypno-noise, to see if that will be more effective.
Cliffhanger!
Imprisoned counter: Jo 1
Running total: Doctor 9, Jo 9
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