THE STORY
Close to the planet Azure two spacecraft, the luxary liner Empress and a private ship, the Hecate, crash into one another while the former is emerging from hyperspace. As a result the two ships become fused together. The Doctor, Romana and K-9 arrive and offer to help free the ships, posing as galactic insurance agents. They meet Tryst, a scientist and his assistant Della, who are travelling aboard the Empress. Tryst has created a Continuous Event Transmuter (CET) machine that stores recordings on crystals of the planets that he and his team have visited, however the machine actually displaces whole areas of the planets. The dimensional instability created by the accident has caused the machine to malfunction, and it releases a number of Mandrels, creatures from a planet called Eden, who promptly set about attacking the crew and passengers.The Doctor discovers that someone onboard the Empress is smuggling Vraxoin, a dangerously addictive drug which can destroy whole worlds. The pilot of the ship was suffering from such an addiction and caused the crash. Two customs men from Azure, Fisk and Costa suspect the Doctor of being the drug smuggler, but the real culprits are revealed to be Tryst and the pilot of the Hecate, Dymond. The source of Vraxoin is the remains of the Mandrels, a fact Tryst discovered on his expedition. The Doctor is succesful in seperating the two ships and uses the CET machine to trap Tryst and Dymond. He and Romana then leave to return all of the scientists 'specimens' to their proper places.
CAST:
The Doctor (Tom Baker), Romana (Lalla Ward), Voice of K-9 (David Brierley), Tryst (Lewis Fiander), Dymond (Geoffrey Bateman), Rigg (David Daker), Della (Jennifer Lonsdale), Secker (Stephen Jenn), Crewmen (Richard Barnes, Sebastian Stride, Eden Phillips), Stott (Barry Andrews), Fisk (Geoffrey Hinsliff), Costa (Peter Craze), Passengers (Annette Peters, Lionel Sansby, Peter Roberts, Maggie Petersen), Wounded Passenger (Billy Gray), Mandrels (James Muir, Derek Suthern, Jan Murzynowski, Robert Goodman).
FACTS:
David Daker, appearing as Captain
Rigg had previously played the vicious Irongron in the 1974 story 'The Time Warrior'.
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