The story so far: I really hope Captain Dent's first name isn't Arthur, or it's going to mean the Doctor's line in The Christmas Invasion makes even less sense.
The Doctor declaws Morgan with some Venusian Karate, and when Morgan runs away the Doctor gets the buttons to turn off the robot.
The IMC baddys land their spaceship next to the colonists. Captain Dent and Caldwell do proper spaceship-landing acting, but the extra standing behind them can't be bothered.
Ashe and Dent agree to send for an adjudicator to arbitrate which of their groups owns the planet (the aliens who also live there are not getting a look in, obviously), and the Doctor is pleased because he wants to tell "the proper authorities" about the robot monster.
Jo and Winton sneak on board the IMC spaceship to look for proof of the robot monsters, but evil Norton warns his secret friends on board about them so they get captured.
Dent tries to blackmail the Doctor, and threatens to blow up Jo with a button if he tells the adjudicator what he knows. Jo and Winton have been manacled next to a big bomb, but they quickly get free. A guard comes in, shoots Winton and recaptures Jo. Winton is only injured and so he still gets away.
Dent sends Morgan to kill Winton, and they have a chase scene on location while some completely undramatic music undermines the scene. I wonder if Jon Pertwee insisted on this as a form of revenge on Winton for his getting to do these action bits instead of the Doctor? Winton runs up to Caldwell, who pretends to shoot him so that the other baddys go away.
This puts together an interesting pairing - not only do they both have fabulous '70s moustaches, this is the most hardline of the colonists opposite the most sympathetic of the miners, allowing for some character building for both of them - Caldwell helps Winton while still warning him to "get off this planet."
Winton stubbornly clings to the idea that an adjudicator will find in the colonists' favour, but Caldwell makes the stakes very clear to him:
"Now IMC want this planet and they're going to have it."
"The adjudicator's decision is law, if he says we can stay..."
"Even adjudicators can be dealt with. Oh, get your people off this planet before someone else is hurt."
When Winton gets back to the other colonists he wants to attack the IMC spaceship immediately, but the Doctor thinks going to Caldwell for more help is a better plan. Caldwell agrees to help the Doctor, and risks his career (and therefore his moneys, a significant step along his character journey) by forcing Dent to have Jo brought back to the spaceship (from where it would be easier to rescue her), but this goes wrong when Jo is captured from the baddys by some aliens who kill her guard after he shoots one of them first.
Not yet knowing that Jo is in the paws of the aliens now, the Doctor agrees to help Winton with the attack on the spaceship, but persuades him to try a stealth plan first, since it is always much easier to do stealth first and then fight when the stealth goes wrong than the other way round.
It lasts long enough for the Doctor and Winton to get inside the spaceship, but then Morgan recognises them and raises the alarm. They still manage to capture Morgan, Dent and Caldwell, so with all their named characters captured the baddys are forced to give up. Dent claims
"You know this is an act of piracy punishable by death under interplanetary law?"
but because he has so far been claiming that almost everything the colonists have done is punishable by death, there's a good chance he's making this up.
With Jo not there after all that, the Doctor has to go to search for her. He and Ashe find the IMC guard's ded body.
The aliens have not done much in the story up to this, almost the halfway point, but now they take Jo to "their city," the door to which is hidden inside a big fake rock. Unknown perils await Jo inside, so this works well as a suspenseful cliffhanger moment.
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