October 15: The Visitation Parts Three & Four

The sonic screwdriver is destroyed. (The Visitation Part
Three) ©BBC

Ah, a cliffhanger solved by someone shouting, "Wait!" and deciding to spare their lives for now.  Of course, this just means that the Doctor and Mace have another chance to escape -- although it doesn't actually happen until the Terileptils' android smashes through the wall where they're being held, and then it just takes them back to the manor house.

There's honestly not much that happens in this episode: Nyssa works on building that sonic booster with which to shake the android apart, and Tegan is placed under the Terileptils' control and made to move dangerous vials into portable containers.  The most interesting thing that happens is when the Doctor tries to unlock his handcuffs; he doesn't get very far at all, but nevertheless the lead Terileptil orders him to drop his sonic screwdriver, whereupon the leader destroys it.  "I feel as though you've just killed an old friend," the Doctor says sadly, and for a while he was right -- this was to be the end of the sonic screwdriver, as John Nathan-Turner thought it made things too easy for the Doctor, and it didn't make another appearance for the rest of the '80s.  But other than that, and the fact that we learn the Terileptils plan on wiping out mankind with a virulent plague carried by rats so that they can take over, little of note occurs in part three.

Part four is more engaging: we get to see Nyssa destroy the Terileptil android (with a quite impressive explosion), while the Doctor works on figuring out where the main Terileptil base is, so that he can stop their plan.  The best part of the episode, though, may be the Doctor's increasingly frustrated reactions to Tegan (and occasionally Adric), as she talks back and is generally unhelpful.  He's by turns exasperated ("Will you--?!" begins one irritated retort before he stops himself) and sarcastic ("Yes, that's why I'm searching," in response to a question wondering if he knows where the Terileptil base is), and it's a fascinating side to this Doctor's character that you really want them to explore more.  All that said, a close second for best moment is Adric's attempts to land the TARDIS, and when they don't work, Nyssa suggests he try to think what the Doctor would do -- after which Adric thumps the console, which causes it to work.

The Terileptils, gathered around their soliton gas emitter.
(The Visitation Part Four) ©BBC

But still, this episode is quite linear, and once the Doctor finds the Terileptil base it doesn't take long to take it out of action, thanks to a struggle with the Terileptils that knocks the torch out of his hand and causes the bakery they're in to go up in flames -- taking the Terileptils and their plague with them.  It's still entertaining, but there aren't any twists in the story to keep you guessing, and there's something of a sense of inevitability when, as the TARDIS departs, we see the sign for Pudding Lane: it seems the Doctor started the Great Fire of London.

The Visitation is a very straightforward serial, to be sure; there aren't any new revelations or plot twists that challenge our previous understanding of what we thought we knew; here the aliens have a plan, they work on carrying it out, and then the Doctor stops them.  That's it.  But Peter Moffatt makes it work by keeping things interesting enough that the simplistic plot doesn't really bother you.  Plus it's fun to finally be back in Earth's past after five years, and the design work is really nice.  Ultimately, The Visitation isn't an ambitious story, but it is a competent one, and it's entertaining enough while it lasts.  That counts for something, surely?