Ky and Jo get teleported to the planet where they get chased by more of the Marshal's guards. Ky knocks out one of the Marshal's mannys and steals has mask so that Jo can use it to breathe properly.
Back on the spaceship, the Marhsal explains to the Doctor that the atmosphere of Solos will be poisonous to Jo, and the "planet is under marshal law - my law" (hence, as they say, the name). He will only agree to rescue Jo if the Doctor opens the Time Lord box for him, so the Doctor agrees to try.
The Marshal takes the Doctor to a laboratory where he meets Jaeger (George Pravda, Castellan Spandrell from The Deadly Assassin), who is a scientist that the Marshal gets to assist the Doctor.
Speaking of deadly assassins, the Marshal shoots Varan's son with the same gun he used to assassinate the Administrator in part one, obviously an attempt to cover up his own involvement by assassinating the assassin. He then tries to do the same with Varan himself, but Varan runs away in time.
From seeing the equipment in the laboratory, the Doctor deduces the Marshal and Jaeger's plan to make the atmosphere breathable by mannys. At the same time Jaeger realises that the Doctor could help them with their plan and tells this to the Marshal.
Ky tells Jo a lot of exposition about the planet and the exploitation of Solos and the Solonians by the "overlords" from Earth. It is a biased perspective, but we are clearly intended to sympathise with it, and not the opposite viewpoint as epitomised by the obvious baddy the Marshal.
We get a glimpse of a mutant in the cave with them before we cut back to the spaceship, where the Doctor is helping Stubbs hunt for Varan (presumably because it's a more interesting subplot than helping Jaeger with his science - the one the Doctor is supposed to be doing). Varan gets the drop on Stubbs, but the Doctor picks up Stubbs's weapon and pews the sword out of Varan's paw.
Varan explains what has happened in his part of the plot, so now the Doctor and Stubbs know about it. They lie to the Marshal and tell him that Varan has been "dealt with" (meaning 'killed' although the double-meaning is a neat little bit of writing), but the Marshal also lies to the Doctor when he says that Jo has been rescued (which is also not totally a lie because she has been rescued, only by Ky, not by the Marshal's mannys) and that "Ky left her to die" (which is the lie). I think the Doctor only believes this because it rhymes, but it isn't long before Cotton tells him the truth about what really happened.
Stubbs and Cotton are now the Doctor's friends, and they help him and Varan with a plan to get them teleported to the planet. The Doctor tricks Jaeger into overloading the power supply of the spaceship, and when the lights go dim (in accordance with narrative rules around emergency lighting, which apply even under marshal law) he escapes. Unfortunately, it is either dark enough or else near enough to the end of the episode that Varan mistaiks the Doctor for an overlord and attacks him, while shouting
"Die, overlord, die!"
No comments:
Post a Comment