the nemertines

The Doctor, Turlough and Tegan (who is back after her absence from the previous story) are visiting Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart at UNIT Headquarters. He had retired by the time the TV story Mawdryn Undead is set, so they must be visiting him before he retired for him but after he retired for them. This is quite unusual for Doctor Who.

The Brigadier mentions that UNIT is making "a mini Dead Sea" for science purposes, so obviously this will become important later in accordance with the Law of Conservation of Detail. While there is no crisis currently ongoing with UNIT for the Doctor to help out with, the story is not all about the four characters chatting away for eight pages because - luckily for us - the Brigadier gets a 'phone call to tell him "the Thames at Westminster is crawling with worms."

"What, ordinary earthworms?" asked Turlough.
The Brigadier shook his head. "No, these seem to be mutants of some sort. They've caught one. Apparently it was taken off the body of a man the police fished out of the river just now."

That does sound like the way the Brigadier talks, it reminded me of The Green Death:

"Doctor it's exactly your cup of tea. This fella's bright green apparently, and dead."

In London they meet a policeman who has become involved because the worms nomed a manny, but he has captured a worm to show the Doctor.

The Doctor says the worm "resembles a nemertine." They take the nemertine back to UNIT laboratories to do science on it.

I'm a cat so I don't understand science. The Doctor spends three very confusing pages doing science...

... until even the pictures are doing science. The Brigadier wants to know where the worms come from.

"Oh, I can answer that, sir," said one of the UNIT officers, who was standing nearby. "We had an urgent message from a chemical plant up near Oxford. They dumped some highly toxic, top secret waste in the river by accident about a week ago and, much to their credit, reported it straight away, so that something could be done about it."

"Amateurs!"

The Doctor comes up with a plan to get rid of the worms in the style of an episode of Mission: Impossible. We are told the things he needs for the plan: "a ton of salt - in one solid lump", "something large enough to lift it", "a diving bell", "a revolutionary new type of plastic, totally waterproof and very strong indeed" and the Brigadier's mini Dead Sea (told you). But we are not told what the plan is yet.

The Doctor supervises his plan being put into operation, but as it doesn't go wrong it is not very interesting so there is a moment of comedy from Turlough and Tegan when they see thousands of worms getting captured in a big bag.

"Ugh!" exclaimed Tegan. "I can't look."
She turned away and gazed at the people behind the barriers. Their eyes were fixed on the bag. "What's happening now?" she asked Turlough.
"They're clear of the water and rising," said Turlough. "Listen, I'm not going to give you a running commentary. Look for yourself."

The nemertines nom the ton of salt because it is their favourite noms, but there is so much of it that it kills them all by science (I think). The plan has worked perfectly so the story is all over bar the obligatory comedy moment to end it on.

"Can we go soon?" she asked. "I don't feel too well, if you know what I mean."
"She's squeamish," remarked Turlough, amused.
"Oh dear," said the Doctor. "I was going to suggest that we had fish and chips for tea, but I suppose that's out now, isn't it?"
"Don't!" said Tegan, looking green. "Fish and chips make me think of salt - and I couldn't bear that! Not just yet!"

I'm with Gollum on this one:

"Fried fish and chips served by S. Gamgee. You couldn't say no to that."
"Yes, yes we could. Spoiling nice fish, scorching it. Give me fish now, and keep nassty chips!"

the nemertines is quite a good story - at eight pages long it is on the longer side for Journey through TIME, but it does not feel too long. The whole of the middle of the story is taken up by the Doctor doing science, but there are big blue pictures of the Doctor and the nemertine to keep the interest of cats while this is going on.

It is unusual to see a story where the Doctor is a scientist solving a problem without any baddys, and this makes a nice change from the usual kind of Doctor Who story (it is also very different from Winter on Mesique, the last story without any real baddys) while still feeling very much like a Doctor Who story.

It is also nice to have the Brigadier and UNIT in it, with Davo's Doctor in the place of Jon Pertwee and the fact that the plot is almost an inversion of The Green Death, it feels like something fresh is being done with UNIT here.

I don't know why the title of the nemertines doesn't have any capital letters. Maybe it was written by a cat who was less good at grammar than me - that's most cats, by the way, as you will be able to tell from the internets.