Days 540 to 543 - Full Circle

A strange thing happened during the start of this story. I got a little emotional, for literally no reason at all! I think it was when I saw the "soon to be" companion Adric appear on screen. Adric is more associated with being a companion to the fifth Doctor and it made me realise how fast the departure of the fourth Doctor was approaching. It also feels like I am moving into a new era of the show and I feel a little sad leaving the old days behind..

The story itself starts with quite a touching scene when Romana admits to the Doctor that she does not want to return to Gallifrey now that she has a sense of the adventurous life in the TARDIS. Fortunately for her, the TARDIS hits a Charged Vacuum Emboitment (CVE) and is pulled through into another universe known as E-Space.

The TARDIS materialises on a planet where the crew of a crashed starliner are busily preparing for departure. They have been preparing for generations, repairing the ship and doing everything they can "towards the embarkation!!" The Starliner is run by the Three Deciders, with only the first Decider having full access to all informaton regarding the ship and how it came to crash on the planet. When the first Decider is killed by a Marshman and the second Decider takes his place we sense that something is very wrong after the new first Decider learns the truth from the archived files. His reactions tells us that things are not all as they seem.

Outside of the starliner we meet a group of younger people who prefer to live away from the starliner, living like rebels and stealing river fruit etc in order to survive. Their leader is Varsh and his younger brother is Adric.

Whilst we are on the subject of Adric we unfortunately should address the fact that Matthew Waterhouse isn't the greatest of actors and Adric can be a little annoying (boasting about his badge for Mathematical Excellence etc) but I actually really like him! He doesn't annoy me half as much as he does other people and I think he is one of the more interesting companions. He certainly has one of the best departures but I'm getting way ahead of myself here!

The Doctor soon realises that the work being done on the starliner is just procrastination and that the ship has been ready to fly for years. Confronting the first Decider with his findings we get a fantastic scene where the Decider proudly states how the archive files are so detailed that they could be used to break the ship down to it's smallest parts and be reconstructed again exactly. Unfortunately the one things the files don't instruct them how to do is to how to fly the ship! It's a brilliant twist!

Further twists arrive when the Doctor realises that the starliner has been on the planet for thousands of years longer than anyone realised and that the crew can never return to their home planet of Terrodonian simply because they have never been there! The crew of the starliner are actually evolved Marshmen and have replaced the original crew.

The campaign to remove K9 from each story continues here when a Marshman manges to remove the dogs head! Can't say I was that bothered!

The story ends with Adric smuggling himself into the TARDIS and the Doctor and Romana realising that they are still trapped in the bubble universe of E-Space and wondering if they will ever be able to escape to our own universe.

Best story of season 18 so far!