I've always thought that those moments that you see in movies where people wake from a scary dream to sit bolt up right in bed was just an exaggeration. No one actually does that! However over the last few days I've leaned that I was very much mistaken. I'm not sure why but for the last couple of days I have woken up in a mad panic in the belief that I have forgotten to watch my daily episode. Clearly the madness is finally setting in. I guess it's been long over due.
If this was to happen at any time during my quest then it seems fitting that these nightmares begin whilst watching a story with the word "nightmare" in the title, proving that my subconscious mind is just as witty as my conscious mind! It's possible that this all began because I watched episode one at a much later time of night than I'm used to due to the fact that I had been out at a quiz (we didn't even win! Second from last!). If anything this goes to show that having any kind of life is dangerous and should be avoided at all costs! The quest is the quest!....yep there's that madness again!
So what can I say about the story itself? Well...
A space liner collides with another smaller ship and the two ships become merged in some very poor model shots. I really couldn't work out what the hell was supposed to be going on.
Luckily the Doctor and Romana arrive in the nick of time to help in the separation of the ships (something that gets talked about for three out of the four episodes before someone finally does something about it)
Meanwhile the space liner is transporting Professor Tryst (who has a very strange accent) and his CET machine. That's Continual Event Transmuter (obviously!) which is carrying recordings of all the various worlds he has visited stored in crystals which can then be projected onto a screen. Due to the dimensional instabilities caused by the merging of the two ships, it is now possible for people to step into these projections and, more worryingly, allow creatures to step out! Soon the ship is being rampaged by the Mandrels from the planet Eden, who are a little to cuddly to be scary.
On top of this the Doctor realises that the whole thing is a cover for the smuggling of the highly addictive drug, Vraxoin. It's very rare that Doctor Who does a story about something as serious as drugs and I really liked this aspect of the story. The captain of the space liner inadvertently takes some of the drug and his actions (particularly when he is coming down and becomes violent with Romana, whom he believes to be hiding more Vraxoin) is actually really alarming!
The Doctor can't work out where the drugs are being hidden and there is a cool twist where we find out that the Mandrels themselves are the source of the Vraxoin. When they are killed they instantly decay into a powder that the Doctor identifies as the drug.
I've only seen this story a couple of times and each time I've really wanted to like it as it has a fairly good reputation and has a lot of neat story ideas, but there's just something about it that I don't like. I think it's all a little confusing. I found it hard to work out which ship each of the characters were on at any moment. I think they were on the space liner for most of the story.
I think it's mainly a case of it being one episode too long and feels a little padded.
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