Original air dates December 1967 through January 1968. The TARDIS appears near the seaside, which is enough for the Doctor, but the others want to know where they are. The hovercraft that comes off the sea sets the time as “futuristic”.
The people on the hovercraft say, “He’s here!” and indicate the Doctor. They call a central location to inform them they’re going to kill him. Central is advised to stop them.
The hovercraft approaches threateningly and Doctor and crew run away. They’re chased, and run down the beach. They are rescued by a helicopter, who flies off with them. The Doctor has to explain the helicopter to both Jaimie and Victoria.
The helicopter is damaged, and the pilot shot. The Doctor takes charge and sees her bandaged up. The pilot, Astrid, tells the Doctor that the men are trying to kill him because they hate him. Astrid offers to take them to Giles Kent, who Astrid works for. The Doctor apparently resembles a man who’s trying to become Dictator of Earth.
Doctor, Astrid, and companions flee. The men leap into Astrid’s damaged helicopter, not knowing of the damage. It, as predicted, blows up.
Giles Kent is impressed at how closely they resemble each other. Doctor and companions are shown a video of a speech. It’s a dead ringer. The Doctor is asked to impersonate this Salamander to show he’s taking over power and get proof of it.
Push comes to shove and the Doctor does the impersonation to dissuade a security officer. Credits roll.
The security officer interrogates another man about Salamander’s whereabouts, clearly trying to figure out how he was where he was instead of where he was supposed to be. The other man calls, leaves a message.
Their satellite phones look almost like satellite phones of today.
Jaimie climbs over the wall to save Salamander’s life from a bomb. Salamander suddenly trusts him.
Salamander wheels, deals, and blackmails to get what he wants. He may not be evil, but his hands are not clean.
More very 60’s outfits.
And then there are reconstructions!
And then I lost track. Jaimie and Victoria are captured and the Doctor has to impersonate the dictator to get them out. Some know there’s an impostor around now, complicating things.
Salamander has a hidden control room, which he goes to. A group of people are waiting there for him. Asking him about food and supplies. And they’re getting itchy to get out. They’ve been warned to take radiation protetcions.
Salamander acts as if he’s been irradiated, and has brought them food. Keeps the mole people making earthquakes etc. to fight the good fight. He’s using them too, to make his predictions come true. It’s a huge con on both sides.
The clued-in security officer finds the Doctor and knows he’s an impersonator. Credits roll.
The Doctor tries to convince the security officer to listen to him. The Doctor does, and they go to the research station to get real facts about Salamader’s operations and free Jaimie and Victoria.
Meanwhile, the people underground are finding out that Salamander is a killer and has lied about the wars above ground. Astrid goes and convinces them to go above.
Things start to unravel. Kent and Salamander have a face off in the tunnels, and Salamander has a truly good evil laugh or two. It makes me want to look up other things Patrick Troughton did.
Kent blows up the tunnels, which causes them to collapse. The research department begins to collapse. They plan to get the people out of the atomic shelter.
Back at the TARDIS, the Doctor and Jaimie meet up. The Doctor won’t talk; it’s apparently Salamander. The Doctor appears and reveals the secret. Salamander attacks the Doctor and in the kerfuffle the doors are opened, and Salamander is sucked out into the time-space void. Credits rather finally roll.
Tags: doctorwho