At six episodes long, it is also the first instance of a Pertwee Six-Parter, a collection of 11 stories that have the combined reputation in Doctor Who cat fandom of generally being a bit too long for the amount of story they contain, with a corresponding amount of padding to fill out the rest of the run time. I think it should be interesting to see how much that theory holds to be true as we look at each P6P in turn.
It starts with the Doctor and Jo arriving at a castle in Bessie. We see a sign that this is "H.M. Prison Stangmoor."
Inside the castle-prison is a BBC television studio-prison (like you might see in the oft-repeated BBC sitcom Porridge) where there are mannys making lots of noise. Some mannys go and wrestle with another manny who doesn't want to leave his cell. One of them is Dr Summers, played by Michael Sheard in his second of six Doctor Who appearances.
The Doctor and Jo talk exposition - the Doctor is here to see the "Keller process" for himself - he seems to know what it is even if we don't. This is a story where things have already started without us, a technique we last saw in Ferno - which is not so surprising since Don Houghton wrote both of them.
The Governor (who may or may not be another Time Lord, the cat jury is still out on that one) introduces Professor Kettering, who gives us the full exposition when he tells the Doctor and the other assembled mannys
"Science has abolished the hangman's noose and substituted this infallible method."As he goes on, the Doctor keeps interrupting him for no obvious reason. After a great deal of thought, we have decided that the best explanation available to cat science is that this is an attempt by the writer to conceal by breaking up what would otherwise be an enormous exposition dump. Sadly it has the side effect of making the Doctor look like a massive yacht.
Kettering gives the game away somewhat when he describes the intended victim of the Keller machine as "the condemned man." Of course, Gamma Longcat, I should have realised... the Doctor is acting like a massive yacht because he is convinced that any professor in a Don Houghton story must automatically be an equally massive yacht like Professor Stahlman was.
They wheel in the wrestling manny from earlier who is now trying to have some sleeps on a trolley. He is Barnham (Neil "Thawn" McCarthy), and they put him in the chair for the machine. No wonder he was so grumpy before, I'm like that if I get woken up from nice sleeps, mew.
They turn on the machine, and the lighting goes evil. Something goes wrong, and Kettering and Dr Summers run about for a bit looking at dials before deciding that everything is fine after all and the resemblance to an electric chair must surely be a coincidence. Meanwhile the Doctor says
"I knew there was something evil about that machine."
Later on, a manny goes
"Today's the first ever World Peace Conference. UNIT's handling all the security arrangements."This line of exposition is a link in to the next scene with the Brigadier and Mike Yates in it.
The Brigadier tells Yates that he is in charge of transporting a missile, something that UNIT apparently does a lot of, even as late as Battlefield. Captain Chin Lee comes in and complains to the Brigadier about how
"Important state documents have been stolen from General Cheng Teik's suite."She suspects "the imperialist Americans" and says
"I must warn you that this puts the success of the peace conference in grave jeopardy."
With this peace conference subplot, the story has gone a bit Sandbaggers. Given that the UNIT era is supposed to be the near future, these could even be related to the SALT talks we saw in season 3 of that series. At this rate by the end of the season we'll see the Brigadier ordering Benton to shoot Jo to save her from the East German Secret Police. Or maybe that's what really happened to Liz Shaw in between the seasons..?
In which case, Mike Yates is auditioning for the Willie Caine role when he pervs after Chin Lee and says
"She's quite a dolly."
Nice try, Mike, but you're not fooling anyone. You'd be lucky to be considered Sandbagger Two material.
Chin Lee goes out on location where she takes a document and sets it on fire while the Keller machine noise plays on the soundtrack. She then touches a bit of metal behind her ear - the traditional place for a hypno-eyes device!
Back at the prison, the Doctor argues with Kettering about what killed the manny. The Doctor is already convinced the Keller machine is to blame, and manages to get the Governor on side enough to order Kettering to give the machine "a thorough check."
Kettering is in the middle of examining the Keller machine when it starts playing its sound effect and its lights start flashing. He tries to turn it off but cannot reach the buttons, and we see his terrifying vision of getting wet - oh noes! No wonder he too dies of fright. Poor Professor Kettering, and it wasn't even his own machine that killed him, so he wasn't allowed to say 'Stop! No! I created you!'
The next scene sees the Doctor and Dr Summers investigating Kettering's death. Dr Summers thinks it looks "consistent with death by drowning" and the Doctor once again blames the Keller machine. It is the Governor's turn to be sceptical:
"Oh, come now, Doctor. It's only a machine."
In parallel to this, the Brigadier is investigating a murder as well - he gets a telephone call from Chin Lee saying that the Chinese delegate is ded. This has practically turned into a TV detective show now. The Brigadier knows that in those terms he is only a sidekick and needs the Doctor's help, and asks Yates to try and get him back from the prison plot to help him with this one.
The Doctor asks about Professor Keller, and learns that he had an assistant who the Governor describes as "a rather attractive Chinese girl." In accordance with the laws of conservation of narrative detail, and because Doctor Who doesn't have the budget for more than one character to fit that description, this means it must refer to Chin Lee, which the story hammers home when it follows that line of dialogue with a direct cut to show her standing around waiting to talk with the Brigadier.
The Brigadier has caught her out in a lie from her statement about the time she telephoned him - once again the Brigadier showing a high level of competence in the Doctor's absence, such as previously seen in Ambassadors OF DEATH, so he's not utterly dependent on the Doctor after all.
There's definitely something very strange going on - Dr Summers discovers that
"Kettering's lungs were full of water. He drowned in the middle of a perfectly dry room."It's a mystery!
The prison mannys start shouting again and the Keller machine turns itself on, just as it did with Kettering earlier. This time it is the Doctor that is alone in the room with it.
Instead of wets, the Doctor sees fire and he makes a face - the now universally recognised sign that it is time for the cliffhanger.
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