It starts with stock footage. This reminds me instantly of Volcano, which is an inauspicious beginning for two reasons. First, because Volcano is a rubbish episode of Blakes 7, and second, because it reminds me that they killed off Captain Hawkins at the end of Doctor Who and the Silurians, so Paul Darrow won't be in this, mew.
One manny who is unexpectedly guest-starring in this story is Jason King, undercover as a technician. He meets with Sir Keith (Christopher Benjamin). Sir Keith then goes to have an argument with Professor Stahlman (Olaf Pooley), who is already acting a bit like this story's Dr Lawrence, in that he doesn't want anybody to stop W-wording for any reason whatsoever, no matter how sensible.
These characters are new to us but they already know each other, and so once again it feels like we are interrupting a story that had already gotten underway before we joined in. The crux of the argument seems to be about who is in charge here, with both mannys thinking it should be themselves. A furious Kung Fu battle to settle the matter seems unlikely, at least not at this stage.
Jason King sees some green slime and he touches it. That was very foolish of him, what would Stewart Sullivan say if he were here? Jason's hand goes green and he makes a face, then he walks outside as though he has been hypno-eyesed while the incidental music helps convey that something sinister is going on. A manny tries to help him but Jason goes mad and attacks him - then there is a clever jump cut to a nail being hammered into a wall, both symbolic and suggestive of the violence we don't see.
The Brigadier, Sergeant Benton and the Doctor are in a room nearby. It is gradually revealed to us that it is actually the next day, and the Brigadier is investigating the murder of the manny. Jason King (or 'Harry Slocum' to use his naughty, naughty alias) has disappeared. The Doctor is here to do some "related experiments" to the drilling, not to investigate murders.
Greg Sutton has arrived to get some exposition from Sir Keith. The mannys are drilling 20 miles deep, and Greg is impressed so that must be a lot. Sir Keith also tells him they have their own nuclear reactor, which means that something is bound to go wrong soon, mew.
"As a matter of fact, some of the technicians have nicknamed this place the Inferno."Clang!
They are drilling for "Stahlman's gas," which must be why they have Professor Stahlman here, he wants his gas back. Sir Keith introduces Greg to some of the other main characters, starting with Petra Williams. This is an unusual way of getting the story going, since we are not introduced to new characters via the Doctor or even Liz or the UNIT mannys, but instead Greg is acting as our POV character even though he is just as new as the rest. It comes off because Greg is an outsider to the project like us, the only one in fact.
Greg wastes no time at all before perving over Petra - did he and Jason King perhaps swap roles in this story by mistaik? Sir Keith has a good chuckle at this because the UNIT era isn't set far enough in the future for mannys to not be sexist, mew.
As soon as Greg is introduced to Professor Stahlman, the Professor goes on a Dr Lawrence-esque rant about Sir Keith:
"Well, he's a dedicated man, you see. Dedicated to stifling us with overcaution and an overabundance of experts and advisors. We're drowning in them, Mr Sutton."The Doctor comes in and the Professor starts ranting about him too, but the Doctor is a match for him (and has presumably had enough of this sort of nonsense already this season).
"I didn't volunteer for this job, you know."
"How you came here is of no importance to me. You're here. We see them everywhere - advisors on this, advisors on that. Look, there's another one."
"Our liver playing us up again this morning, is it Professor?"
Greg asks Sir Keith
"Who's the gentleman in the fancy dress?"He means the Doctor, lol.
The Doctor drives Bessie to a small shed where he uses the sonic screwdriver like a remote control to open the door. A UNIT soldier is amazed by this display of advanced technology.
Inside the shed is a studio set with some CSO, Liz, and the TARDIS console in it.
The Doctor tells Liz "there's been a murder" but Jon Pertwee has the wrong voice for the line. This would have been better coming from the Doctor when he was Sylvester McCoy, Peter Capaldi, or even David Tennant. The Doctor wants to use the project's nuclear to power the TARDIS console.
Jason King is now looking green and has hairy green paws. He does heavy breathing noises as he runs around. He sneaks up on a manny who is on the telephone saying "everything's very quiet up here," which is just asking for trouble, especially with the incidental music sounding like it does just now.
Liz turns the power on, but in another room we can see that Jason King is doing something else with a big lever - we don't know exactly what, but we do know it must be bad because he is moving it to the red bit. The Doctor says there is "too much power" and then he and the TARDIS console vanish.
The SFX goes mad and the Doctor obviously doesn't like it, judging by the faces he makes. Liz switches the power off and the Doctor appears again, upside down lol. The Doctor says he went to "some sort of limbo" and can't wait to have another go. He wants to find out what is on the other side.
The Doctor and Liz are interrupted by an alarm going off. The power has affected the drilling as well, and all the new characters are arguing about what to do. The Brigadier finds out that "there's been another murder" (no, he's no good at it either, even if he is a Stewart) near the reactor and he and the Doctor run to investigate. When they get there Jason King runs in and rars at them - cliffhanger!
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