A future time, a court in trial, Ragnar Crezzen is accused and tried in under 5 minutes for the attempted murder of Dr. Sa Yy Findecker. He's sentenced to forced labour whilst in reality he's sent to the Time Chambers of the very man he tried to kill.
The Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Turlough are attempting to land near her uncle's farm in time for ... camel shearing, until the TARDIS is struck by a Zygma beam which dissects the dimensions of the TARDIS and launches Turlough and Nyssa out into god knows where.
When the Doctor and Tegan land on Earth, they've arrived three years later, and a dictator like regime is oppressing most of Earth and an atrocious mastermind the Doctor has met (but who hasn't met the Doctor yet) is performing horrible Time Travel experiments for his own gain.
The Butcher of Brisbane contains examples of:
- Admiring the Abomination:
- The Doctor knows Findecker and the horrible atrocities he's committed, but can't help but appreciate his genius.
- Although she knows he's monstrous, Nyssa finds Greel has admirable qualities as well and tries in vain to appeal to them.
- All Animals Are Dogs: Played straight with Chops, a dingo-hybrid soldier that the Doctor befriends with food. Of course scientists still aren't sure if dingos are dogs or their own species, and some have been domesticated. In-Universe Chops denies being anything like those 'domestics'.
- Earth That Was: There's only bits of Earth left that are habitable, in Oceania, because of a new Ice Age, and the planet is just an Industrial World now.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: After being reunited, Tegan and Turlough put aside their usual Vitriolic Best Buds act to show that they are genuinely happy to see each other again.
- Beast Man: Sergeant Chops, a cyborg dingo hybrid soldier.
- The Brute: "The Troll", a giant mutant that mutated due to Zygma radiation that has the mentality of a 2 year old.
- Brief Accent Imitation: The Doctor manages to get Findecker's voice down pat over an intercom. Granted, it's unsure whether he's really Asian or he just speaks matter-of-factly, but we all know about "
The Talons of Weng Chiang". - Call-Back:
- The introduction of Mr. Sin is accompanied with cliché "Chinese music".
- Both a Call-Back and a Call-Forward. The Doctor mentions Time Agents, the same ones first talked about in Doctor Who S14 E6 "The Talons of Weng-Chiang", but we won't meet any until much later. Ironically the Time Agents Greel mentioned was the Doctor and his companions, as the Doctor used that as a cover story to avoid changing the timeline.
- The title itself is a call back to "Talons", as the Fourth Doctor calls Greel the "Butcher of Brisbane" in proving he knows who he truly is. The reference in that episode to the Doctor being at the final battle of Reykjavik is expanded on here as that battle takes place, though we don't get to actually see the past Doctor doing his bit.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: When stuck in a blizzard, Nyssa and Turlough find a body that's still alive. Turlough wishes to leave it, but Nyssa insists they save the person.
- Compelling Voice: Findecker tries to hypnotise the Doctor to no effect, but has better luck with Chops. Greel hypnotises Nyssa to force her to accompany him to Reykjavik.
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Ragnar is rescued by the Doctor and Tegan, but not before he's been aged. He later asks Findecker to finish what he started as he has nothing left to live for except for seeing Sasha in the past, one last time before he dies. Findecker obliges, but drains his life energy before sending him back so he doesn't even get this.
- The Constant: Tegan starts to freak out after recognizing the old windmill
and realizing that she's standing in a devastated future Brisbane. - Corpse Land: Nyssa and Turlough find themselves in a snow-swept mountain in Bhutan, where portals keep opening and dumping the results of Findecker's experiments.
- Delicious Distraction: The Doctor distracts Chops with a box of chocolate drops while he rewires Chops' cyborg brain.
- Domed City: Reykjavik, as a defense against missile bombardment and the encroaching ice.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Mr. Sin appears in a minor capacity, going on to have a larger role in "Talons".
- Fiery Cover Up: Findecker has all his secret laboratories rigged with a Self-Destruct Mechanism. This backfires when Greel hears of an explosion in the Brisbane Dead Zone and thinks Findecker has been killed and all their work has been destroyed; he suffers a Villainous Breakdown in public.
- Follow That Car: It helps when you have robot cabs that won't be distracted by the fact that the city is undergoing bombardment!
- Forbidden Zone: The Brisbane Dead Zone, which makes it a convenient hiding place for a Mad Scientist Laboratory conducting secret and illegal experiments.
- Foreshadowing: Very subtly. Tegan's frustration with the Doctor seemingly picking and choosing to allow villains to escape and innocent people to die to preserve time without an explanation that goes beyond "this is how it has to be" is an early sign of the feelings that will cause her to eventually leave the TARDIS in "Resurrection of the Daleks".
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: The Doctor bluffs his way past the cyborg buffalo guards at the Defence Ministry by calling up Greel and pretending to be Findecker. As he's desperate to contact his colleague, Greel gets the Icelandic Commissioner to order the guards to let him pass.
- Have We Met Yet?: Turlough and Nyssa find a victim of Findecker who recognizes Turlough, and for Turlough it was the first time they met.
- Hero of Another Story: The Doctor himself, as he mentions that he is present somewhere else during the climax, and puts a call through to himself to stop the bombings, though we don't get to hear the call or find out which incarnation it was.
- Heroic Sacrifice: When the Doctor is attacked by dingo cyborgs, he comes up with a method to scramble their circuits but it would kill Chops as well. Chops gladly grabs the device off him and uses it to save his "Chiefie".
- How We Got Here: Justified given that Time Travel is involved; the episode opens on Ragnar Crezzen's trial before he's thrown back in time.
- I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Brisbane has been rechristened as "The Dead Zone", with good reason.
- Internalized Categorism: Mr. Sin, who has the cerebral cortex of a pig, is mentioned as being seen in a zoo mocking the other pigs there.
- Kick the Dog: Ragan implores Findecker to send him back to the past to see Sasha, one last time. Findecker instead feeds on him, then sends him into the past.
- Layman's Terms: Without Nyssa to translate the Doctor's technobabble for her, Tegan has to push in order to get answers she can understand.
- LEGO Genetics: Findecker has created anthropomorphic dingos as his assistants and guards this way.
- Life Drinker: Findecker tries to repair the damage to his body from Zygma Energy by draining the life force of his prisoners. Tegan nearly suffers this fate before the Doctor does a Big Damn Heroes.
- Love-Interest Traitor: From Magnus' perspective, this is what Nyssa ends up being, as he had genuine feelings for her.
- Man Friday: Turlough works as Nyssa's secretary while she's Greel's Hot Consort.
- The Mole:
- Stranded in time for three years, Nyssa and Turlough spend a year training with the Alliance to infiltrate Greel's operations as spies. Nyssa ends up being his betrothed.
- Nyssa thinks her cyborg servant Kaori, a gift from Greel, was programmed to spy on her, but she's fixed that. Unfortunately Kaori is actually working for Findecker.
- Never the Selves Shall Meet: Towards the end of the story the Doctor mentions he's out there fighting with freedom fighters, but doesn't mention which incarnation or why.
- Obligatory Joke: Findecker makes the "hanging around somewhere" joke after the Doctor is subject to Unwilling Suspension. He finds it quite hilarious.
- P.O.V. Cam: Ragnar finds footage that Sasha took via her eye cam when she found his dying self three years ago. The footage blurs because she started crying on realising who he was.
- Pragmatic Hero:
- Turlough takes clothes off of a dead body in order to keep warm in a blizzard. He defends himself as "being practical".
- The Doctor balks at sacrificing Chops, but has no issue reprogramming Chops to see him as his Chief instead of Findecker.
- Rapid Aging: What happens to everyone sent through the Time Chambers, with their bodies (dead or dying) dumped onto a frozen mountain three years in the past. Ragnar Crezzen, whom Turlough describes as "Not looking very young" and whose voice is withered and raspy, says he's only 23.
- Released to Elsewhere: Justice Minister Greel magnanimously commutes Ragnar Crezzen's death sentence to hard labour for life in the Outer Colonies. In truth, he and other such prisoners are used as raw material for Findecker's time travel experiments.
- Secret Weapon: Greel has promised the Supreme Alliance of Eastern States the secret of time travel, which he hopes to gain from Findecker's experiments.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Once Ragan finds out that he was aged and sent back into the past to die, he flies into a rampage that makes it more likely to happen. Tegan even mentions the trope by name.
- Sequel Episode: To The Talons of Weng Chiang. Though for Magnus, it counts as a prequel.
- The Slow Path: Nyssa and Turlough end up spending three years on Earth before the Doctor and Tegan come back into play. Since they are Human Aliens and Nyssa's slow aging has already been a plot point, the time difference doesn't change them as much as it could have.
- Space Station: The Correspondants Club, where the Earth Free Media operate from, is a cloaked space station in Earth's orbit.
- Stable Time Loop:
- Poor Ragan, going back in time to die just to fill his role in history.
- The Doctor has to let Greel go instead of standing trial for his crimes, so the events of The Talons of Weng Chiang can take place.
- The Starscream: Greel has been secretly recruiting his own cyborg Praetorian Guard to dispose of Commissioner Duplessis. Unfortunately the Commissioner survives the attack and Greel is forced to defect to the Icelandic Alliance.
- Teleportation: Trans-mat bands.
- They Have the Scent!: Used when Sgt. Chops rouses the other dingo soldiers to hunt down the Doctor and Tegan. This later becomes a Chekhov's Gun with Chops recognises Tegan's scent and is able to track her down and bring her to the Doctor.
- Time Police: The Doctor mentions Time Agents.
- Unperson: Nyssa and Turlough are recruited as spies because they don't exist on Earth, and therefore have no identity tags.
- Used Future:Tegan: Why isn't the 51st century all space cities and mono-rails!?The Doctor: That'd be the 31st century. Things move on.Tegan: You mean backwards..!The Doctor: Truer than you think.
- Was Once a Man: Several of the creatures actually used to be human beings, mutated by Zigma radiation.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Tegan calls out the Doctor for both constantly interfering in events as well as deliberately not interfering, ostensibly to preserve the Web of Time, but since he refuses to explain himself, Tegan has no way of knowing the difference.Tegan: Will you stop holding time's hand for one minute? It's bigger than you are, it can look after itself. We're talking about people, here, with hopes and rights. Maybe, left alone, they can change things for the better by themselves!
- Why Am I Ticking?: Findecker ensues a Fiery Cover-Up by activating the Self-Destruct Mechanism inside the cyborg Robot Maid he built.Kaori: I hope my performance has been satisfactory. (explosion)
- You Can't Fight Fate:
- The Doctor mentions he knows what happens to Magnus Greel, but he can't change the order of events, just minimize the damage.
- Ragan sees himself as an old man, dead, and tries to change his future (in the past). It doesn't work.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: When Findecker refuses to let Greel into his Time Cabinet, Greel orders Mr. Sin to butcher him and takes it for himself.
