Original air dates March through April of 1969. Last of the “lost” episodes, this one has telesnap reconstructions of five of six serials. They’re better than nothing, but I’ll be glad to be through them.
The one hsa more title cards and words than most do.
A ship appears, and demolishes a space beacon.
A general summarizes what’s going on, pirates stealing Argonite as it’s quite expensive. The Beacons are being targeted because of their high Argonite content. New ship mission is to investigate the missing beacon, and find the pirates.
The pirates destroy another beacon. The defense ship sees the pirates before they go and heads to that beacon. The beacon blows, and the cruiser chases the pirates. The pirates run away, and outrun the cruiser.
They’ll man the beacons until they’ve stopped the pirates. They are set up as emergency locations for other ships so should be livable with rations delivered with the men. They plan on rotating men out in about six weeks.
The TARDIS arrives in the computer bay of the newly-manned beacon. They’re not where they expected to be, but are someplace interesting. They investigate, figuring out they’re on a beacon of some sort, and that it’s unmanned. Except it’s not and they’re being shot at.
Meanwhile, the pirates appoach the docking bay. The pirates kill the three guards, and the Doctor and crew hide until the pirates go away, not knowing bombs are being set. The doors are sealed, the lock welded.
The beacon explodes as the credits roll. We have one complete episode, #2, of video.
The cruiser chases the pirates, going to be too late again.
An old tramp freighter wanders by, with a single man on board. He’s trying to eat breakfast, but things keep going off, including a call light from the cruiser. There’s a comm call. The cruiser stops to investigate the freighter.
The Doctor comes around in the damaged beacon and rouses his friends.
The cruiser investigates the freighter, who reports Argonite theft and is grumpy.
The Doctor figures out that the beacon wasn’t destroyed, just broken into sections, and held together with magnets. They may be able to use the magnets to reassemble the beacon to get to the TARDIS. Zoe worries that polarity of the magnets will force the segments apart instead of drawing them together. “Don’t be such a pessimist.” advises the Doctor.
Except he gets it wrong and shoots them across space, away from everything else. Whoops.
As they lay dying and out of oxygen, the freighter connects to the section and the old miner comes in. Jaimie approaches and is shot, just as credits roll.
Back to slide shows.
The General send the cruiser to help the ship following the freighter. The fighter gives the freighter one minute to surrender, which is problematic as he’s talking to the Doctor et al.
The space corps fires a warning shot, which gets their attention. The old miner take evasive action, and jams the controls of the fighter.
The General orders the launch of the rest of the fighters and orders the freighter destroyed. He’ll take no more chances. The old freighter creaks and groans at the stresses of speed. The miner lands on nearby Tau.
Zoe has calculated where the beacon parts were going, and it’s on the planet within ten miles. So are the pirates.
The pirates change the plans, and plan on redirecting the parts of the beacon to another location.
The cruiser heads off to another planet, where the beacon will be redirected to, but not where the Doctor et al are.
I’m skipping a whole bit with a chase and pirates in mine shafts because the slideshow was incomprehensible.
The Doctor, Jaimie, and Zoe are left behind when Milo’s ship takes off on automatic control. The ship’s o2 is also killed, leaving Milo and the old man to die in the old ship.
The Doctor and friends restore air conditioning to the ship via remote control. The freighter contacts them via radio and everything is expalined. The general moves in with the cruiser to get the pirates.
Milo and his old ship are the ones who have to come in and rescue everyone, no one else ise close enough.
Yet another nuclear plant being used as an explosive.
There’s a bomb the Doctor is trying to defuse. He only has a few minutes. The timer is ticking, and the end of the episode draws closer! Dramatic music!
The crusier hits the pirates with missiles, destroying them. The bombs do not go off, everyone is saved.
What about the TARDIS? It’s orbiting Milo’s home planet, and he’s offered them a lift back in his old freighter. Credits roll over laughter.
Tags: doctorwho