Embedded Files
It's another quiet evening in the TARDIS. Until, that is, Doctor Who discovers that there's a Mysterious Disturbance in Time and Space happening, just round the corner.
This seems to have caused something of a disagreement between Doctor Who and Leela, doesn't it? She's very pouty faced, and his mouth has gone all cross. It's possible that Leela has asked how he's able to work out all that information, just from a light flashing on his desk. Doctor Who does not like being challenged about these things and has become instantly obstreperous.
It has to be said, Doctor Who seems to get an awful lot of information from the odd flashing bulb, and it's not clear how. The casual observer might suspect that he makes a lot of it up, to give him an excuse to go to small villages which just happen to have excellent pubs.
Look! A glowing skull! There's your mark of an excellent adventure, right there. It's a skull, which is fantastic already, and it glows, which is both spooky and fun to look at.
This skull is doing some evil Time and Space nonsense, which is why Doctor Who's light flashed earlier. So, yes, Doctor Who happens to be right in this instance about there being evil afoot, but it's very likely that this is a co-incidence and he's just got lucky this time.
Doctor Who and Leela go for a Mysterious Walk in a spooky wood of doom. This is a very pretty shot, isn't it? Don't get used it - we'll be back to horrible overlit corridors soon.
They are searching for the source of the time disturbance. They don't know it's a glowing skull, but that's probably a good thing. They'd just go around knocking on doors and shouting 'has anyone seen a big shiny skull? You can't miss it - it's all glowy!"
As it is, they'll probably follow usual procedure, which is to annoy everyone they meet until someone tries to kill them, thus proving themselves to be the villain.
These guys live nearby, and they are doing some science on the skull. They don't know it glows, I don't think, which is a shame as I reckon they'd get very excited if they saw that happen. But they do know there's something weird about it - I think it's from really old times, when there weren't people. So they're going, "Well how is there a skull then?"
It must be great being a scientist. You get to play with a skull all day, and say, "Yeah - this is work. You can't ask me to do anything else. I have to poke this skull all day, and you have to give me money."
The moustache guy is called Fendleman, I think. That's nearly the name of the story, so he's probably important. He doesn't know the name of the story, though. You don't get told that sort of thing when you're in a story, or you might use the information to cheat.
Soon Doctor Who runs into a monster! We can't see it yet - it's a surprise for later. The monster has a super power, and that power is "Making you go all still so I can eat you."
Doctor Who has indeed gone all still. But, right, his face just looks a bit bored, like he's watching the end of a TV programme that's on before the one he really wants to watch. You'd have thought if he'd seen a monster, his face would be going, "Arg!" or something.
Maybe he's seen the monster before, and he's thinking, "Oh, this guy again." That's got to be pretty hurtful for the monster.
Doctor Who escapes, somehow. I forget how - maybe it got distracted by something, maybe Leela knifed it repeatedly in the face. I don't know. Just accept that Doctor Who is not dead.
What does happen is that Doctor Who finds the brilliant skull from earlier. He is, of course, delighted, and instantly starts mucking about as if trying to impress it. The skull has stopped glowing, and we can assume that it is pretending to be dead so that Doctor Who will stop talking to it as if it was the more reluctant half of a 1990s comedy double act.
As we might well expect, it is only a matter of time before Doctor Who tries to steal the skull. It is quite likely that he plans to carry it around with him from now on, and will get it out whenever he meets someone new. Imagine the whacky King-of-the-Room antics of Doctor Who, except with added ventriloquism. Makes you panic, doesn't it?
The skull immediately attempts to murder Doctor Who, perhaps sensing how unbearable he would become with the licence to misbehave a comedy skull would give him. It glows extra bright, and I think Doctor Who's hand is stuck to it, and maybe his brain is on fire. He's certainly stopped laughing, and I bet he's no longer thinking about his next open mic spot.
Meanwhile, this woman is being sacrificed by some kind of cult. She's one of the scientists, like the guys from earlier. She was playing with the skull, and it possessed her or something, and now she's ended up in this massive pentagram thing.
It is frustrating for her that, having defied gender expectations to become a scientist in the 1970s, she's still ended up being the one that the monsters chose to do the sacrificing to. "This is like mansplaining, except much worse," she's thinking. Maybe.
Soon, monsters start to wander around the house. I think this is what made Doctor Who go all still earlier. They're a pretty cool bit of design, I think. This will be why Doctor Who stopped his laughing - they've got some top 'nightmare' vibes going on.
You can understand why they learned how to make people go still. It can't be easy to chase someone about, when you look like that. They probably developed the ability to freeze people after they got fed up of shuffling slowly after their prey and watching them run off over the horizon. They'll have been sitting at home afterwards, eating a bag of crisps, thinking, "I'm going to learn how to freeze people. That'll stop 'em."
Scientist lady from earlier has turned into a kind of golden alien goddess thing. All the guys from the cult are super excited, and saying, "Yeah - this is going really well." But then she zaps them and maybe turns them into the slug monsters, so that's not so good.
The Fendahl is going to take over the world, now. It's not 100% clear what 'the Fendahl' is, but it's some combination of the skull, the goddess lady and the slug monster things. It's quite a complicated monster, though this won't stop Doctor Who from trying to blow it up later.
Golden Scientist Goddess Lady struts around the place for a bit, being in charge and bringing death to everyone. The slug monster follows her obediently about, like a massive, horrible spaniel. It appears to be her servant, though it's hard to see what utility it could have, once her enemies are all murdered. It's not going to fetch her a cup of tea, is it? And it would be very offputting for any guests she might have round. "Don't mind Arthur - he might look like a terrifying nightmare that crawled out of the abyss, but he's a sweetheart really."
Anyway. True to form. Doctor Who makes an explosion happen and everyone in the house dies in a fire. He does steal the skull, but rather spitefully throws it into a super nova. Sending a message to skulls everywhere - don't mess with Doctor Who's theatrical ambition.
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