THE RIBOS OPERATION

Written by Robert Holmes.

Directed by George Spenton-Foster.

Transmitted originally: 2 September 1978 to 23 September 1978.

"Have you ever looked up at the sky at night and seen those little lights? They are not ice crystals! I believe they are suns just like our own sun, and perhaps each sun has other worlds of its own, just as Ribos is a world... I have made measurements of those little lights, and of our own sun, and I can prove that Ribos moves; it circles the sun, travelling far away and returning..." - Binro

THE STORY

The White Guardian gives the Doctor a quest to find the six disguised segments of the Key to Time which, when assembled, will be used to restore balance to the cosmos. To aid him, the Doctor is given a new assistant, a female Time Lord called Romana, and a tracer device. He tracks the first segment to the city of Shur on the planet Ribos. There con men Garron and Unstoffe are enaged in a scam to sell the entire planet to the Graff Vynda-K, deposed ruler of Levithia. The Graff has been tricked into believing Ribos is a rich source of jethrik, a rare mineral vital for achieving space warp drive. His interest is heightened when he sees a large lump of the mineral on dispaly in a reliquay. The Doctor realises that this is actually the first segment but, before he can steal it, Unstoffe spirits it away.

The Graff, realising that he has been tricked, hunts down the con men and captures them, along with the Doctor and Romana, in the catacombs beneath the city. He is on the point of having them executed when Riban guards blow up the entrance to the catacombs. The death of his loyal retainer, Sholakh in the resultant rockfall unhinges the Graff's mind. He is then killed by a thermite bomb, intended to seal the catacombs. The Doctor, Romana and K-9 depart with the jethrik, leaving Garron and Unstoffe to make off with the Graff's ship, full of plundered loot.

CAST:

The Doctor (Tom Baker), Romana (Mary Tamm), Voice of K-9 (John Leeson), The Guardian (Cyril Luckham), Garron (Iain Cuthbertson), Unstoffe (Nigel Plaskitt), Graff Vynda-K (Paul Seed), Sholakh (Robert Keegan), Captain (Prentis Hancock), Shrieves (Oliver Maguire, John Hamill), Binro (Timothy Bateson), The Seeker (Ann Tirard).

FACTS:

This story is the first in the season of six, each concerned with the recovery of the segments of the Key to Time.

The story features the first appearance of the White Guardian, who would return in the 1983 story 'Enlightenment', alongside its counterpart, the Black Guardian.

OTHER FORMATS:

The Fourth Doctor Novelisations

Fourth Doctor Videos

Back to the Fourth Doctor Programme Guide Back to 'The Invasion of Time'.