Mel's bubble doesn't explode but it does land on some water, making for something of a damp squib of a cliffhanger resolution. Mel does get wet though, so she doesn't escape entirely unscathed. Poor Mel. Ikoma, her Lakertyan friend, rescues her from the bubble.
Scary Face!
One of the hitherto unseen monsters, the Tetraps, leaps in from out of shot and scares Mel with his scary face. Mel screams to show she is scared, but it turns out the Tetraps are little more than overgrown flying mouses - they would be no match for cats so their scariness evaporates the first time we get a good look at them. This is often the way with monsters and aliens. Mel and Ikoma run away.
The Doctor begins to suspect the Fake-Mel Rani is not really Mel because she can't remember things that Real-Mel should be able to remember. The Rani leaves the Doctor locked in her base while she goes to get some more technobabble (they use up a lot in this episode!) from her TARDIS.
Ikona helps Real-Mel sneak into the Rani's base by distracting a Tetrap. The Tetrap ends up shooting his tiny net over the Rani by mistaik because she is still dressed as Fake-Mel.
The Doctor and Mel don't recognise each other and so have a fight until they come to trust and believe they are each who they say they are. This is a well written scene and does a lot to help properly establish what the new Doctor is like, even if he is still getting sayings wrong (which doesn't get any less annoying the more he does it).
The Doctor and Mel try to work out what is going on and what the Rani's plan is. Beyus joins them and helps them by letting them out of the room so they see the fridges where the Rani keeps her geniuses. A place has been prepared for the Doctor, possibly because Borusa was indisposed. There is one door that Beyus has never seen beyond, so there is still a mystery element to the Rani's plan.
The Rani comes back so Real-Mel hides and the Doctor and Beyus pretend that the Doctor has never left the room. But the Rani sees through the Doctor's pretending and takes off her Fake-Mel wig. This isn't much of a dramatic revelation because I already knew it was the Rani.
The Doctor runs away to the room where the Tetraps have their sleeps, hanging upside down just like flying mouses do. Not all of them are having sleeps, as three of them surround the Doctor for a cliffhanger!
One of them has a derpy tongue.
This episode is a workmannylike bridge from the beginning of the story to its middle. The setting has now been established and the Doctor and his friends are starting to work at unraveling the mystery, while at the same time the baddy is trying to progress her plans.
The best bit of this part was the scene of the Doctor and Mel getting to know each other, and the worst was the reveal of the Tetraps' appearance - the episode played its hand too soon by first showing them on location, it could have been much more effective if they had been saved for the darkness of their sleeps room. This might have made the cliffhanger ending more effective also.
Doctor getting sayings wrong count: 4
(Season running total: 9)
"More hasta less vista."
"A kangaroo never forgets."
"The proof of the pumpkin is in the squeezing."
"Where there's a will, there's a Tom, Dick and Harriet."
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