Mel has woken up a super-grumpy POV monster, and the first thing it does is POV-attack a manny.
When Professor Lasky's assistants, Bruchner and Doland, go to the hydroponic centre they find all of their secret pods are empty. They obviously know more about what is going on from the way they say
Doland: "Some fool must have introduced high intensity light into the centre."Bruchner: "We're confronted with a catastrophe and that's your reaction? Don't you realise what's been unleashed?"
A catastrophe? That sounds great! Meanwhile, the security officer Mr Rudge is more concerned about who in the "isolation room" and has been breaking all their plates.
Some aliens chat to the Doctor about their concerns over mannys mining on their planet, with one describing mannys as "going through the universe like a plague of interplanetary locusts." The Valeyard interrupts this conversation to claim it is irrelevant, but the Doctor counters that something important just happened if the Valeyard had been paying attention. The Inquisitor asks
"Gentlemen, is this case to be resolved with a battle of words or to be conducted via the Matrix?"
I mean... surely it's both? Arguments by the prosecution and defendant have to be required in order to contextualise why and how the Matrix evidence supports their case, right? Otherwise none of these interruptions should be permitted... oh. Maybe she has a point after all?
One of the aliens gets poisoned and goes
The Valeyard demands to know how the Doctor knew he wasn't an alien, and accuses the Doctor of "editing the Matrix" (something he is supposed to believe is impossible, so this is actually a big clue to him being the baddy behind everything). The Doctor demonstrates how he knew by replaying an earlier scene where the real aliens had to use a translator to be understood by mannys, while the fake alien didn't need one.
This is a rare use of the trial setting to do something that an ordinary story couldn't do by having a detective replay the discovery of a clue to show off his own cleverness (though the same effect could have been achieved for the viewers at home by making use of a flashback), which only goes to show that Pip and Jane Baker, writers of this section of The Trial of a Time Lord, understood their brief and made best use of the format out of any of the season's writers.
Professor Lasky, Bruchner and Doland argue about what they should do next, with Bruchner saying:
"Can't you accept we're on the brink of disaster?"
Cla... no, wait, that's a completely different Doctor Who episode he's just dropped the title of. We see a bit more of their differing personalities in this scene, with Bruchner seemingly being the only one with a conscience. (Maybe that's because he used to be a policemanny, in Softly Softly: Task Force?)
They are unaware that they are being observed by the POV monster, although we get our first sight of it - in accordance with tradition, this isn't a full view but rather one where it is in shadow and partially concealed.
The POV monster next goes after the old manny, who is about to have some sleeps. It must still be really grumpy from having been woken up, and sees this as a form of poetic justice.
The Doctor and Mel finally decide to investigate the mysterious isolation room after they see Lasky come out of it. It has been too conspicuously featured during this episode - with multiple (seemingly unrelated) scenes taking place just outside it - for them to ignore it forever. Or, to put it another way, it must have something to do with the plot under the law of conservation of narrative details.
Inside is a secret pod-like chamber in which a manny is having some sleeps. The Doctor and Mel wake her up - oh noes! Have they learned nothing from the end of part nine cliffhanger?
Crash zoom to the Doctor's face - cliffhanger!
Crash-zoom to face cliffhanger count: 7
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