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A space probe under the command of Captain Salamar (Prentis Hancock)
comes to Zeta Minor to pick up Professor Sorenson (Frederick Jaeger) and
associates, who have been mining antimatter here, which promises to be a
rich energy source ... but of the whole team, only Sorenson himself is
still alive, while all of his crew has been found totally dehydrated.
After a bit of investigating, two tailor made suspects are quickly found,
Doctor Who (Tom Baker) and Sarah Jane (Elisabeth Sladen) who only stopped
on the planet to answer a distress call. Despite claims that they have
only come to help, and despite escape attempts, the Doctor and Sarah are
quickly sentenced to death, too, until more people are killed, a being of
pure energy attacks the space probe and the probe just can't leave orbit -
with the fuel situation getting more and more desperate. Finally, thanks
to the interference of his second in command Vishinsky (Ewen Solon),
Salamar sets the Doctor and Sarah free and asks the Doctor for advice -
and the Doctor is quick to find a lake of antimatter on the planet and
passes through it to another universe. where he makes peace, but only
under the condition that no antimatter will be removed from Zeta Minor. Salamar
has all the antimatter removed from his ship, much to the dismay of
Sorenson, who injects a bit of antimatter into his body and as a result
becomes a Jekyll
and Hyde-like monster - and he releases hell onto the ship and
its crew. Salamar desperately tries to save his ship, but when he hits the
energy being with a special raygun, he only helps it to multiply, so it's
up to the Doctor to save the day - which he does by luring Sorenson in his
monster state into the antimatter lake - from which he is released healed,
and the two universes can live in peace again ... Taking into
account that this is a science fiction TV show for the youngsters done on
a budget, this one's pretty good: If you can swallow the sci-fi-mumbo
jumbo of the antimatter universe, this one's rather intelligently written,
with ghost story- and Jekyll
and Hyde-themes subtly introduced into the main plot, the
jungle set representing Zeta Minor might be totally unrealistic in an
expressionist sort of way, but it's also wonderful, the special effects,
in all their simplicity, are better than usual on the show, are the
characters are quite interesting and multi-layered rather than
one-dimensional and the actors are uniformly great. Pretty good in fact.
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