Maddy: No cause for panic? Two of my next-door neighbours have just disappeared down the waste disposal chute!
The Doctor and Mel decide to go and visit a famous housing project (because it has a nice pool), but it turns out that all of the fit adults left years before to fight a war. The block has devolved into a bizarre sort of anarchy, inhabited by color-themed all-female youth gangs called "Kangs" who use crazy terminology, rampaging janitor robots, cannibalistic old women, rule-obsessed security guys led by a guy who looks suspiciously like
Adolf Hitler, a lone quixotic draft-dodger, and the disembodied mind of the block's
Ax Crazy architect.
Tropes
- The Apunkalypse: the Kangs are a G-rated version
- Ax Crazy: Kroagnon
- Badass Bandolier: Pex wears one. It doesn't help.
- Big Damn Heroes: Subverted by Pex, who has a habit of showing up and trying to save the day (usually with a fair bit of property damage involved) even when there's no danger whatsoever. He successfully manages to pull the trope off later in the story, just in time to save Mel from Tilda.
- Bland Name Product: Fizzade
- Book Ends: The Doctor begins and ends the serial politely doffing his hat to what appears to be some kind of disused water pipe.
Melanie: No, Doctor.
The Doctor: Well, you never can tell.
- Bothering by the Book / Talking Your Way Out: How the Doctor escapes from the Caretakers
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: the Kangs
- Possibly a subversion, given that, although they are certainly color coded, there is no actual difference between the three groups of Kangs.
- Dawson Casting: the Kangs are definitely meant to be younger than the actresses playing them.
- Enemy Mine: All the warring factions have to pull together against the threat of Kroagnon.
- Evil Old Folks
- Fanservice: Averted — despite eventually getting her swim, we never see Mel below her shoulders while she's in the pool.
- Future Slang
- Grand Theft Me: Kroagnon on the Chief Caretaker
- Hannibal Lecture: The Doctor gives one in the Regulation 13 Appendix 2 Final Conversation with the Chief Caretaker.
- I'm a Humanitarian
- Large Ham: the Chief Caretaker, especially after Kroagnon possesses him.
- Lawful Stupid: the Caretakers
- Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard: the people who imprisoned Kroagnon in the basement apparently with all he needed to take control of the Cleaners and possess a new body
- Mad Artist: Kroagnon
- Malevolent Architecture: Kroagnon was on the point of turning Paradise Towers into this when his clients caught him at it and imprisoned him. His previous project Miracle City did end up like this. It was a miracle anyone got out alive.
- Miles Gloriosus: Pex
- Mistaken for Special Guest: the Doctor is initially mistaken for the Great Architect
- My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours: How the Doctor escapes the Caretakers.
- Never Speak Ill Of The Unalive: The Kangs.
- Ominous Multiple Screens
- Psycho Lesbian: According to Word Of God (and the novelization), both Tabby and Tilda.
- Putting on the Reich: the Caretakers, and especially the Chief
- Redemption Equals Death: Pex
- Sealed Evil in a Can
- Suspiciously Specific Denial
Chief Caretaker: Careless chat about the robotic self-activating Mechapodic Mark 7Z Cleaners having got out of control is not going to help anyone! And may needlessly upset other Caretakers.
- Strange Salute: the Kang's elaborate "how do you do" ritual, which looks like a Shout Out to the video to Adam and the Ants' "Prince Charming". And the Caretakers' salute, which is the British playground "put your finger under your nose like a moustache to allude to Adolf Hitler" gesture.
- Teenage Wasteland
- What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: as usual during this era, there are political subtexts, but Word Of God has specifically denied fan theories that the red, blue and yellow Kangs were a reference to the colours of the UK's three major political parties at the time.
- Whole Plot Reference: acknowleged inspiration from the novel High Rise by JG Ballard.
