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Chinn (Peter Bathurst), a pompous patriotic politician, tries to take over
UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Task force - the arm of the UN that deals
with alien invasions) & basically debase their scientific advisor, Doctor
Who (Jon Pertwee), when a UFO shows up over England that seems to have no
problems evading the missiles shot at it & lands near a nuclear powerplant. Chinn,
the Doctor & UNIT's commander, brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas
Courtney) soon follow an invitation of the UFO's crew, the Axons & soon
find themselves inside the spaceship, an organically grown machine called Axos
that, so the Axons say, did run out of fuel. And as exchange for a permit to
stay and refuel, the Axons offer the world Axonite, a miraculous material that
can reproduce and multiply any kind of matter needed - which would essentially
end all the world's food problems ... Chinn is fascinated by this proposal
& desperately wants to secure the world rights to Axonite for Britain, only
the Doctor wonders how a spaceship with such a mineral aboard can possibly run
out of fuel ... Of course, the Axons motives are ulterior, they just want to
suck the earth dry of any energy, any life, & for that need to cover the
world in as much Axonite as possible ... & who has suggested earth as a
prime victim to suck dry to them ? Why, the MAster (Roger Delgado), Doctor
Who's arch-nemesis of course ... but unfortunately, the Axons dont treat their
allies all that well & have made him their prisoner ... After much ado,
the Doctor has found out that the Axons, Axonite 6 the spaceship Axos itself
are all one and the same thing, & this thing, under a friendly pretense,
builds a ring around the world to suck it dry, banking on mankind's greed for
Axos, and now, with the Doctor & the Master both being Time Lords (an alien
species that is able to timetravel) they figure they can find out the
principles of timetravelling to have access to more planets, in all different
times ... The Doctor & the Master soon form an uneasy alliance against
Axos, but eventually the Doctor pretends to switch sides & in his
timemachine, the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space), he sends Axos
into a timeloop - earth saved, only the Master has somehow managed to escape. Katy
Manning as the Doctor's assistant Jo Grant is relegated to a mere supporting
role, Paul Grist plays an American agent trying to capture the Master, but has
little to do with the actual plot. A Doctor Who story
that somehow falls in two: On one hand there's some quite biting political
satire (in the conetext of a kids sci-fi-series that is) about a pompous
politician - Chinn - who is self-absorbed enough to make a mess out of
everything without understanding in the slightest. And then there's of course
another wonderfully camp performance of Roger Delgado as the Master ... but on
the other hand there's a terribly messed up script that seems to take a
different direction every few minutes, & dropping narrative threads rather
at will, which every now & again makes one wonder how difficult it can be
to tell an alien invasionn story ... a pity rather because the episode had its
promises.
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