Warning - spoilers may be unmarked.
Written by Robert Perry and Mike Tucker; published 1999, and featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace.
On the small ocean planet of Coralee, the Doctor and Ace arrive for a seaside holiday. While Ace has a swim, the Doctor sees ten-year-old Troy to have found a strange, claw-shaped seashell. Meanwhile, colony Co-ordinator Brenda Mulholland has lost contact with cable-laying ship the Hyperion Dawn.
That evening, in the Coralee Hilton’s bar, travelling author Edwin Bryce mentions local legends of monsters.
Next day, while Ace joins Bryce on a submarine cruise, the Doctor, posing as an InterOceanic inspector, joins Professor Alex Mackenzie on an underwater visit to the ruins of an undersea temple. Here lies a device keyed to the biorhythms of the Krill: a horde of genetically engineered, insatiably murderous beasts - some of whom Ace and friends narrowly escape.
In search of the anti-Krill weapon, Cythosi General Mottrack lands a shuttlecraft on the colony. However, the only thing that can stop the Krill has been stolen - and a hurricane is about to hit the island…
Tropes:
- Abusive Precursors: The ancient masters of Coralee bred the Krill, insatiably murderous, virtually indestructable humanoid predators.
- Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: On the hotel bar's terrace, the Doctor and Ace sip wine, watch the stars, and fondly reminisce.
- Action Politician: Downplayed with Colony Coordinator Brenda Mulholland, who, as the storm hits, continues to direct safety measures.
- Alien Autopsy:
- On a Cythosi corpse recovered from the undersea temple, the Doctor conducts a post-mortem.
- He also has a poke around inside a currently dismembered Krill.
- Alien Landmass: At ninety-eight percent water, Coralee’s only dry land is a broken line of equatorial islands. At less than half the size of Earth, its ocean horizon reveals the planetary curve.
- All Planets Are Earthlike: Downplayed and justified: the colony’s architecture has a seemingly deliberate Mediterranean aesthetic; the place rather reminds Ace of the Greek islands.
- Alien Sky: Coralee has two glaringly bright suns. At night, the planet’s rings shine splendidly.
- Attack Its Weakpoint: By severing a tangle of nerves, the Doctor manages to permanently kill one Krill. Their only other apparent weakness is a cylindrical weapon keyed to their biorhythms.
- Awesome Aussie: Greg Mallory helps submarine captain Rajiid Woozeer divert several Krill by luring out a train-sized Ramara eel.
- Beach Episode: At least to start with - on the white Coralee sands, the TARDIS lands beneath a palm tree; Ace goes for a swim, and the Doctor builds a sandcastle in the shape of the City of the Exxillons. With a working flashing beacon.
- Bigger on the Inside: Yes, Ace, the Doctor's Gladstone bag is dimensionally transcendental.
- Big Fun: Rotund, jovial Edwin Bryce.
- Bioweapon Beast: The ancient masters of Coralee bred the Krill for interstellar warfare. Man-sized eggs, impervious to vacuum and friction, were launched to other planets, whereupon the Krill destroyed all before them.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: A Krill’s self-repairing organs can adopt each others' functions. On terminal damage, they excrete a black ooze, which calcifies into a regenerative cocoon.
- Body Horror: Due to a malfunctioning personal morphing generator, Phillip Garret variably fuses his original Cythosi face with its human guise.
- Cigar Chomper: Qu'ilp the dolphin - through his blowhole.
- Collector of the Strange: Ten-year-old Troy's exotic shell collection reminds the Doctor of his own boyhood.
- Continuity Nod:
- The Hyperion Dawn's hull is made of polycarbide.
- To check into the Coralee Hilton, the Doctor pays by credit card - a walking, multi-legged, mechanical beetle.
- A few Alpha Centaurian holidaymakers.
- The Doctor's respiratory bypass system saves him from drowning.
- Bryce mentions one of his books, Androgum Cookery for Novices: How to Master the Boomerang Spoon.
- Dark and Troubled Past: As a young man, Edwin Bryce was a war correspondent - who once saw some Dalek action…
- Deadpan Snarker: R'tk'tk, the dolphin tour guide.
- Defiant to the End: Despite being overwhelmed by the Krill, the Cythosi fight fiercely.
- Deflector Shields: The colony's colossal storm shutters are roofed with a force field.
- Devious Dolphins: Blu'ip, an interstellar terrorist in Cythosi employ, loathes both humans and human-allied dolphins. He aims to arrange their slaughter by the Krill.
- Domed Hometown: The ancient undersea city.
- Disproportionate Retribution: For human Functionaries, eye contact with Cythosi masters is punishable by death.
- A Father to His Men: Cythosi Commander Bisoncrawl.
- Fun Personified: The Doctor arrives on the beach with a whopping great kite. He later bedecks his hotel room with an electric train set.Ace: You’ve made yourself at home.The Doctor: A few creature comforts.
- Gadgeteer Genius: The Doctor builds a massive sandcastle of the City of the Exxilons - with a silica-powered beacon. He looks forward to spending his holiday working on a way to add powered doors.Ace: Professor, you are in a class of your own.
- Guy of the Week: To submarine tour bus captain Rajiid Woozeer, Ace gets quite close, and mournfully ponders his probable incompatibility with TARDIS life.
- Hair-Trigger Temper:
- Cythosi General Mottrack enjoys fatal interrogations.
- The Krill are constantly, murderously furious.
- Hidden Depths: Cythosi Commander Bisoncrawl, on a long cargo haul, developed a taste for painting - he particularly enjoys the work of JMW Turner.
- Humanoid Aliens:
- Four-armed Dreekans closely resemble humans. Often found on ocean worlds, they tend to be good swimmers.
- The seven feet tall Cythosi have rhinoceros-like skin and protuberant brows.
- The Krill, while spiny, hulking and razor-clawed, are broadly humanoid.
- Improvised Weapon: When several Krill through a dolphin tunnel reach the Coralee Hilton swimming pool, Ace, from various combinations of booze and robot oil, makes several bombs.
- Identity Amnesia: On twenty years’ cover of a personal morphing generator, Cythosi agent Skuarte succumbs to the identity of chief engineer Phillip Garret. He alternates between the two, and eventually believes himself to be the Dreeka'Dwra, an animalistic vengeful god.
- The Infiltration: Cythosi agent Skuarte, for twenty years, has posed in the human guise of Phillip Garret. In order for the Cythosi to claim them for their war effort, he rouses several Krill by detonating a nuclear submarine.
- Long Game: Via undercover agent Skuarte, in the human guise of chief colony engineer Phillip Garret, the Cythosi arranged the founding of Coralee's colony. With the Krill, they aim to best their enemies the Zithra.
- Mini-Mecha: On dry land, dolphin settlers, equipped with telepathic translators, get about in multi-legged exoskeletons.
- Mythology Gag: Ace wonders what else a four-armed Dreekan man has "got four of" - an unused gag written for the TV Movie, and eventually used in The Christmas Invasion.
- Naming Your Colony World: Colony Co-ordinator Brenda Mulholland is running out of names to give Coralee's islands.
- Nigh-Invulnerable: While sufficient doses of weaponry may dismember or halt a Krill, the damaged body simply forms a regenerative chrysalis - which can survive in space. At one point, another Living Weapon was bred specifically to best them - but that's another story...
- Ominous Floating Spaceship: The huge, pockmarked Cythosi ship hangs broodingly in orbit.
- Running Gag: Like his brolly, the Doctor's spade has a question mark-shaped handle.
- Sapient Cetaceans: Dolphins, having fled Earth's pollution, are equipped with telepathic translators.
- Scenery Porn: Some beautiful descriptions of the doubly sunlit white sand beach; nearby jungle, and ring-bedecked night sky.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The Doctor sets the deserted Cythosi shuttlecraft to fly into Coralee's ring belt, and self-destruct. Both the Krill eggs and their destructor device, sent by transmat, end up floating amidst the rings.
- Settling the Frontier: As well as humans, many dolphins, unable to cope with Earth pollution, settled on Coralee.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: For the colony square, the Doctor dons a white linen suit. For the hotel restaurant, Ace splashes out on seashell-bedecked blue-green dress.
- Slave Liberation: On the Cythosi ship, human Functionaries, led by Bavril, violently revolt.
- Sole Survivor: On contact with the cable-laying ship Hyperion Dawn, planetary engineer Holly Reif is the only survivor.
- The Swarm: The Krill attack in large numbers, and are utterly relentless.
- Teleportation: From the ocean floor, the Cythosi shuttlecraft transmat-beams Krill eggs into the orbiting ship.
- Turned Against Their Masters: The Krill, bred for interstellar war, rendered Coralee a desert.
- Unfazed Everyman: By the colony’s exotic array of interstellar tourists, the Doctor is merrily unfazed.
- We Need a Distraction: In order to borrow Professor Mackenzie's entry pass, the Doctor, with a clockwork mouse, incites a nearby cat to minor commotion.
- Xenomorph Xerox: Downplayed. While the egg-hatched Krill's inexhaustibly self-repairing bodies render them near-invincible, their overall frame is humanoid.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Following the trauma of their last adventure, the Doctor guiltily reflects to Ace on his dangerous lifestyle.Ace: You’ve taken me to my past and my future, you’ve shown me planets I couldn’t have begun to dream about. I’ve met monsters and criminals, I’ve held Excalibur… I’ve travelled in time! Yes, there are dangers, but for God's sake, people die crossing the road. Life’s too short to live like that. I stay on my own terms, Professor. If ever I’ve got a problem with it, I’ll let you know.
