This ought to be a really dramatic scene, but the CSO is used in such a way that the space background doesn't track with the foreground, so the scene looks fake and like something out of a Monty Python sketch.
The cliffhanger is not resolved straight away, which is a little unusual. Instead, after the recap it cuts directly to the Doctor and Sondergaard on the planet. They see Jaeger's rockets exploding and the Doctor knows this means his experiment has started.
Back on Skybase, everybody escapes when the camera manages to right itself (so the cameramanny is the unsung hero of this bit). The Marshal summons more guards and they capture Jo, Ky, Stubbs and Cotton. He is then about to have them all shot when Jaeger comes in and has a strop at the Marshal because the experiment failed, thereby accidentally saving their lives.
This develops into a great scene as the Marshal ponders just how many mannys he's going to have to kill to stop the Investigator from finding out what has happened here, then considers maybe he only has to kill the Investigator, before Jo bluffs that she and the Doctor have been W-wording with the Investigator all along.
"He's coming to confirm the Doctor's findings."
she says.
On the planet, Sondergaard again asks the Doctor to go on without him - he's got his martyr-complex character quirk and he's going to use it, mew.
The Marshal takes his guards back to the planet (I love how quickly they travel between Skybase and Solos, sometimes as quickly as a camera cut) to capture the Doctor. This leads into a short chase sequence in which the Doctor avoids the guards or else defeats them using Venusian Karate, until he gets to the teleporter and waves goodbye to his pursuers.
This doesn't actually stop them from following him, as they teleport to Skybase too and continue the chase there. The Marshal captures him just as he thinks he is rescuing Jo and the others. The Marshal still needs the Doctor to help Jaeger make the planet breathable by mannys (since Jaeger has failed to manage that on his own) as well as to convince the Investigator that everything is in order here.
"Marshal, you are quite mad."
"Only if I lose."
He's not the most memorable of Doctor Who baddys, but this line of the Marshal's is so good evil that the Master would have killed for it to be his.
The quality of his guards is, however, pretty low. Jo tricks the one left to guard her, escapes, and frees Ky, Stubbs and Cotton. They use the Marshal's mobile-telephone-on-a-stick, which he conveniently left behind for them to find, to contact the Investigator's spaceship "Hyperion" (is this story set around the same time as Terror of the Vervoids?) and Jo recaps the entire plot so far for his benefit:
"Situation on Solos critical. Marshal's attempts to convert atmosphere is causing severe loss of life. The Administrator assassinated on Marshal's orders. Marshal attempting to maintain complete control of entire planet. He must be replaced immediately. Over."
Stubbs gets shot by the Marshal's guards and the others are chased for a bit before being recaptured.
The Doctor and Jaeger have been spouting a fair amount of technobabble at each other in their scenes together, but now the Doctor gets a chance to deliver some in a more humourous way while still making his point:
"The slightest accident in this stage of the proceedings and we'd all reverse instantly into antimatter. Blasted out to the other side of the universe, as a flash of electromagnetic radiation. We'll all become unpeople, undoing unthings untogether."
The only main character still on the planet is Sondergaard. He is saved from a guard by some mutants and then he manages to talk with them.
Jo, Ky and Cotton are put in a room to be hostages for the Doctor to go along with the Marshal's plan as the Investigator's ship arrives. Cotton starts to fret that the room they're in is radioactive, and
"They'll need to refuel Hyperion, the Investigator's shuttle. They should be putting a probe out any minute now. Then live thesium will start flooding through there. We'll all be done for!"
That's the end of the episode. This is another rather poor choice for a cliffhanger moment, which I suspect was only chosen because of the lack of any other suitably dramatic moments nearby.
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