The Sixth Doctor and Mel have to escape very quickly from an exploding space thing, so Mel hops aboard the nearest escape pod, which sets a course for the nearest inhabited space colony. The Doctor soon realises that he may be forced to commit a Heroic Sacrifice, but he's time-scooped out at the last moment by the group of grey Daleks who were last seen imprisoning Davros.
Three months later, Mel has found a job, a lot of friends and an almost-boyfriend named Geoff on the human colony of Lethe, where she happily waits for the Doctor to come find her. She's working as a robot programmer for the kind old crippled Professor Vaso. The group is working on advanced mining robots, and Mel is soon offered a permanent contract for her excellent work in programming them. She has to decline, because she knows the Doctor will come fetch her soon.
The Daleks, meanwhile, have got a deal for the Doctor: if he can get them Davros, who's tweaked the crew's mandatory arm implants so that they'll perceive him as the kind old crippled Professor Vaso, they let Mel live. Lethe's atmosphere isn't very healthy for Daleks, so the Doctor has to run errands for the Daleks down there. He (snarkily) agrees, is reunited with Mel, and tries to explain the concept of Daleks and Davros to her.
She won't have it at first, so Six goes off to confront Davros in person. His visit coincides with the arrival of a group of health & safety inspectors. One of them, Kryson, is able to see Davros' true form because he's a drug addict — his veins are too clogged with chemicals for Davros' mind-altering tweaking to have any effect. He's perfectly willing to work together with Davros, though. Six has a chat with both, thoroughly mocking both Davros and Kryson. He's very unimpressed with Davros' new pet project (a bunch of badly brain-damaged white Daleks who also survived his escape). However, he's fascinated by Davros' other project: the resurrection, and gradual enhancement, of aforementioned mining robots — the Juggernauts. Who turn out to be Mechanoids. Davros is making them into the ultimate Dalek killers, and claims that his intentions are pure: he now wants to rid the universe of his renegade Dalek creations. Six wearily explains that Mechanoids already are the ultimate Dalek killers.
Davros rather unceremoniously kills Kryson's superior, hoping that as the new team leader, his new lackey will convince health & safety to approve the Juggernaut program. Kryson, very freaked out, explains that a Klingon Promotion just doesn't work that way in health & safety, and that his entire team would object. Davros merrily murders the rest of the team as well, then calls Mel into his office. Mel's friends and the Doctor, meanwhile, discover that the Juggernauts aren't just enhanced Mechanoids... they're built with Human Resources. Living hearts and organs and semi-sentient brains are deep inside them, and Mel has been unknowingly programming them for months. Mel is intensely angry at Davros, and swiftly re-programs her Mechanoids to capture Davros while Six halts their hidden production line and Geoff sacrifices his own life to get the braindamaged white Daleks Thrown Out the Airlock. However, when Six radios the grey Daleks and tells them to come fetch Davros, the Daleks merrily admit that the whole thing was a setup. Not only that, but Mel feels even more betrayed now, realising that the Doctor worked together with Daleks all this time. In the end, they leave Davros to be dragged off by his own "Juggernauts", although they're painfully aware of his Joker Immunity.
Tropes
- Action Prologue: The ship is blowing up! The Doctor can't find the TARDIS!
- Alien Blood: "What bleeds green?" Kaleds.
- Anachronic Order: Aside from the reference to Evelyn (see below), this episode was released just after "The Next Life", an Eighth Doctor episode that ends on a Davros Cliffhanger. In respect to "The Juggernauts", that Cliffhanger takes place in the far future both for Davros and for Six and is never even alluded to.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Famously the episode in which Mel Bush makes Davros beg for mercy.
- Board to Death: Davros attempts this. The realistic consequences followed, and people have to explain to him that things just don't work that way.
- Body Horror: The Juggernauts are "enhanced Mechanoids." The enhancement is done with human tissue.
- Call-Back: Davros envisions that his Juggernauts will be "the perfect Dalek-killers." The Doctor retorts that they already are.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: A Black Dalek shows up for the Doctor.
- Computer Voice: The Daleks, as usual. The Juggernauts even more so, when their dialogue can be made out at all.
- Continuity Nod: A few to the Big Finish episode "Davros", and to "Genesis of the Daleks" and "Revelation of the Daleks".
- Curse Cut Short
- Deadpan Snarker: Six is really on a roll in this episode. Pretty much every line out of his mouth is pure snark.Ohh, let me guess — Daleks with legs? Daleks with fashion sense?
- Death Equals Redemption: Davros tries to invoke this. Needless to say, he doesn't actually die.
- Enemy Civil War: As was de rigeur for the era of Dalek history this story is set in.
- Escape Pod: Mel ends the Cold Open in one of these, flying away from a ship and the Doctor.
- Falsely Reformed Villain: The Professor, who's actually a guise for an old enemy of the Doctor.
- Female Monster Surprise: The Doctor springs the gender of an alien on Mel, though not in the best of circumstances.
- Fluffy the Terrible: The Juggernauts are named after children's show characters.
- Foreshadowing: When Six wakes up, he briefly wonders where Evelyn is, before remembering she's not around anymore and he's back to travelling with Mel. We just have no idea why yet, since the episodes are produced in Anachronic Order. The reason for her departure was much later revealed in "Thicker Than Water".
- Functional Addict: Krysen is addicted to certain chemicals.
- Genius Cripple: The Professor.
- The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: Big Finish loves to apply this trope to Daleks.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Poor Geoff.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: Davros wanted the Juggernauts to be killer robots. He didn't anticipate someone pointing them at him.
- Human Resources: Once again, Davros shows he's not above this.
- Klingon Promotion: Davros stages one for Kryson. Kryson is not happy with it.
- Layman's Terms: While this story is actually fairly light on the Techno Babble, terms get simplified even further for the investors (and the audience).
- Mad Doctor: Davros, as always.
- Nostalgic Musicbox: Geoff gives one to Mel in a character moment.
- Override Command: The project staff built backdoor commands into the Juggernauts, making them among the very few roboticists working on giant death machines to be even vaguely savvy.
- The Professor: "The Professor."
- Replacement Goldfish: It's never explicitly stated, but Davros basically wants to have Kryson as his new Nyder. Kryson isn't up for it.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Kryson, once he realises what's really going on.
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: A thoroughly defeated Davros attempts to take his Dalek pursuers with him.
- Significant Anagram: "Professor Vaso" is just a tiny step away from Doctor Vaso - Dr Vaso - Davros.
- Shout-Out:
- The Doctor wonders why he hasn't met any short, whistling miners in the underground tunnels.
- Mel quotes "Big Brother Is Watching You" from Nineteen Eighty-Four.
- The three Juggernauts are called Sooty, Sweep and Soo.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: The Doctor.
- Thrown Out the Airlock
- Time Skip: For Mel, it's three months between the Cold Open and the first scene.
- Title Drop
- Unwitting Pawn: The Doctor proves to be one for one of the factions.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Mel (after the events of the story) asks the Doctor why he didn't go through with destroying the Daleks when he could have.
- Will They or Won't They?: Mel and Geoff. They don't. He dies.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Said nearly word for word by Davros.
