Oh, and Roger Delgado returns as the Master for his third story in a row. I'm not sure it's even supposed to be a surprise appearance any more - he's just a regular character now, in the same way as Yates and Benton are.
It starts with mannys detecting something "heading straight for Earth," very like the start of Spearhead from Space in fact, except that the mannys mistaik this week's aliens for a comet instead of meteorites. We see a spaceship and some aliens, who would appear to be dancing like they're having a party.
Mr Chin is arguing with the Brigadier about who the Doctor is, he obviously hasn't moved on psychologically from when Patrick Troughton was the Doctor. The Brigadier obviously doesn't like Chin because he has his troll face on and is refusing to answer Chin's questions. The Doctor doesn't like Chin either and says
"England for the English? Good heavens, man!"
"I have a duty to my country!"
"Not to the world?"
It looks like the Doctor is about to (quite rightly) bust out his Venusian Karate on Mr Chin's chin but the tension is defused in the nick of time when Jo and Bill Filer arrive. So quickly do the other UNIT regulars accept his presence that Bill Filer has the appearance of being an established character crossing over from an American-based Doctor Who spin-off series that seems like it ought to exist yet somehow doesn't.
Mike Yates then arrives with news of the incoming UFO. There then follows a few scenes with lots of looking at radar monitors and telephoning other mannys who would be too expensive to show, intercut with brief scenes of a komedy yokel going about his business - we know he is there for komedy purposes because the incidental music tells us so.
Mr Chin, who obviously has delusions of being Ed Straker, orders the soldiers to shoot a missile at the UFO, but the UFO vanishes so that the missile misses, and the Doctor has to remind Chin "what goes up must come down again," prompting Chin to order the missile to blow itself up.
The UFO lands near the "Nuton Power Complex 1 mile" (thank you once again, convenient establishing shot). Mr Chin takes charge of all of the Brigadier's mannys, and his first action is to throw out the American - oh how times change, I find it difficult to imagine that sort of thing happening now, when the Mr Chins of today would be much more likely to be taking their orders straight from the Americans instead.
The komedy yokel is the first to find the UFO (now landed, so more like a ULO), and things get serious for him suddenly when the ULO opens up and tentacles him inside. Cthulhu assures me that, yes, that is the proper verb for what happens.
Bill Filer may have been thrown out, but he is determined to get involved in the plot anyway, so he drives to where the ULO is and starts to investigate it. But he also gets tentacled so that, by the time the rest of UNIT arrives, he is inside getting special effects used on him.
UNIT receives a message from the aliens:
"Axos calling Earth. Fuel systems exhausted. Request immediate assistance. Immediate assistance. Axos calling Earth. Axos calling Earth. Fuel system exhausted."The Doctor, the Brigadier, Chin and a couple of scientists from the power complex go inside the ULO without needing to be tentacled, and inside they find themselves in a studio.
Benton finds the ded body of the komedy yokel (not so komedy in the end) and tells Yates and Jo. Yates goes to investigate with Benton, so that Jo can go off on her own, splitting the party three ways (or four, if you count Bill Filer). Fortunately Jo heads straight for the ULO and follows the group that already went inside, which keeps things simpler than they otherwise could have been - and probably would have been, if this wasn't a four-parter and needing to get on with things.
The Doctor has a headache brought on by a wobbly camera special effect, but it stops after a bit and the Doctor rubs his neck to make it better.
Bill Filer wakes up from some sleeps to find he is a prisoner. He is surprised when he hears from the music that his fellow prisoner is...
The Master! Thank goodness, we went for almost a whole episode without Roger Delgado being in it. This adds an extra layer of mystery to the story - why is he here and why is he a prisoner? And, while we're at it, who is Number One?
The Doctor's group meets some aliens who are here to deliver a massive dump of exposition:
"Our worlds are uncountable light years away on the far rim of the galaxy. Our planetary system has been crippled by extreme solar flare activity. Axos is all that remains of our culture. As you can see, our science, unlike yours, has taken an organic path. This ship was not built for our journey, it was grown."
"What?"
"Yes, grown from a single cell, and now its nutrient is all but exhausted. We would like to stay until our nutrition and energy cycles have been fully replenished. In return, according to your custom, we offer a gift, a payment - Axonite."
The Doctor is sceptical of their explanations because he does not think the science adds up, while the mannys, even the scientists, are greedy to get their paws on the gift, especially after the chief alien makes a froggy grow big with his pewpewpew device... and a little help from the ever-present CSO, which is, shall we say, the chameleon of the SFX.
Chin says
"We must have it!"which is probably exactly what Barry Letts said when he first saw CSO demonstrated.
Jo hears Bill Filer calling for help and goes to look for him, but instead she sees an alien appear in front of her - not of the sort that had just been talking to the Doctor's group, but one of those we saw briefly at the start of the episode. Jo screams to let us know that this moment is scary enough to qualify for the cliffhanger.
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