THE STORY
The Doctor and Romana receive a distress call and arrive on Chloris, a lush and verdant world that has only small quantities of metal, all of which are controlled by its ruler, Lady Adrasta. Adrasta keeps order with the aid of her Huntsman and his wolfweeds - mobile balls of vegetation - while a group of bandits, led by Torvin, organize raids on her palace to steal whatever metal they can. The Doctor identifies the distress signal's source as a large eggshell-like structure in the forest. He is taken prisoner by Adrasta's guards and, in order to escape, leaps into the Pit - the entrance to a cave system into which all who incur Adrasta's wrath are thrown to be devoured by an immense green globular creature.The Doctor, with the aid of the elderly soothsayer Organon, discovers the creature is not an unthinking killer but an ambassador from the planet Tythonus, which has a lack of chlorophyll but an abundance of metal. The Tythonians hoped to trade with Chloris, but the first person their ambassador Erato encountered on arriving in his egg-like starship was Adrasta, who took his communicator device and trapped him in the Pit to preserve her monoploy on metal. Erato retrieves his communicator and kills Adrasta. He then warns the Doctor that the Tythonians have set a neutron star on a collision course with Chloris in retaliation for his imprisonment. With the Doctor's help he is freed from the Pit and, out in space, spins an aluminium shell around the star, allowing for it to be pulled off course by the TARDIS's gravitiational tractor beam.
CAST:
The Doctor (Tom Baker), Romana (Lalla Ward), Voice of K-9 (David Brierley), Adrasta (Myra Frances), Karela (Eileen Way), Torvin (Edward Kelsey), Ainu (Tim Munro), Huntsman (David Telfer), Tollund (Morris Barry), Doran (Terry Walsh), Organon (Geoffrey Bayldon), Guardmaster (Tommy Wright), Guards (Philip Denyer, Dave Redgrave).
FACTS:
Director Morris Barry plays the small role of Adrasta's engineer Tollund in Part One.
Geoffrey Bayldon, better known as out-of-time wizard Catweazle in the LWT series of the same name and as the Crowman in Southern's Worzel Gummidge, plays Organon.
OTHER FORMATS:
The Fourth Doctor Novelisations
Back to the Fourth Doctor Programme Guide
Forward to 'Nightmare of Eden'.