History Recap / DoctorWhoS19E4TheVisitation

'''Production code:''' 5X

Written by Creator/EricSaward. This four-episode serial first aired from February 15--23, 1982.

* WeaponForIntimidation: Richard Mace attempts to threaten the villagers with a pair of unloaded flintlock pistols. The Doctor points out that the villagers are being mind-controlled and are therefore immune to intimidation.

* NoNameGiven: The Terileptil is referred to by its race.

The one where the Doctor sets fire to everything and Creator/JohnNathanTurner sets fire to the Sonic Screwdriver.

[[quoteright:346:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/android_6211.jpeg]]
[[caption-width-right:346:It's like Music/{{KISS}} collaborated with Music/EltonJohn on the design!]]

Minutes later, the android, in the guise of the Grim Reaper, bursts into the mill, frightens off the villagers and takes the Doctor and Mace back to the manor. They find Tegan under the bracelet's control. The Doctor encounters the Terileptil and his offer to take him away from Earth fails. The Terileptil plans to kill everyone on Earth and take over the planet. Mace is also equipped with a bracelet and the Doctor is thrown in a room where the Terileptil incinerates his sonic screwdriver.

It would be [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie fourteen years]] until we see the sonic screwdriver again.

-->--Tegan

Which it is. Doctor, Nyssa, and Richard investigate, and hole up inside to fend off a hilariously futile attack by guys with axes and arrows. They blow the escape hatch and... escape. Nyssa is sent back to the TARDIS to build a remote android jamming device out of spare parts. Which she does. Because she is awesome. Not that she gets any thanks--or even acknowledgment--from the Doctor for her {{MacGyvering}}, because the Doctor's a bit of a dick in this story.

The survivor is a Terileptil fugitive. He interrogates Tegan and Adric about the Doctor. Meanwhile, the Doctor and the others find the Terileptil's ship near the manor. They plan how to deal with the android: A sonic booster set up in the TARDIS might just deal with it. As they leave the ship, a group of villagers, all wearing the same device Mace found, approach them. They demand the Doctor come with them. When he refuses, they attack. The three run back into the ship, now under siege by the villagers. The Doctor blasts open the rear hatch of the ship and the group escapes into the forest to find the TARDIS. The controlled villagers follow them at a distance.

* TheBlackDeath: The TARDIS arrives in a village outside of London during the time of Great Plague of 1665. The Terileptils plan to use a genetically modified version of the bubonic plague to wipe out humanity.

* TheBlackDeath: The TARDIS arrives in a village outside of London during the time of the Black Death. The Terileptils plan to use a genetically modified version of the bubonic plague to wipe out humanity.

This serial marks the ''Doctor Who'' debut of Creator/EricSaward, who had also just become the series' new script editor. (Though since the season was shot OutOfOrder, he was credited onscreen as early as "Castrovalva", shot later.)

Written by Creator/EricSaward. This serial first aired February 15-23, 1982.

** When the Doctor is about to be beheaded by the scytheman, he groans, "[[OhNoNotAgain Oh no, not again.]]" He is alluding to the events in "Four to Doomsday", in which he was nearly beheaded by Monarch's androids. In fact, this was a ThrowItIn moment as Davison pointed out that the cliffhanger had been used recently and suggested the LampshadeHanging.

This serial marks the ''Doctor Who'' debut of Eric Saward, who had also just become the series' new script editor. (Though since the season was shot OutOfOrder, he was credited onscreen as early as "Castrovalva", shot later.)

* {{Expy}}: Eric Saward, who wrote this story, had featured a very similar character named Richard Mace in some radio plays he wrote in the 1970s. Those were set in the nineteenth century, however, so this probably isn't actually the same person.

** An alien traveling by cart through Restoration England adopts this as a PaperThinDisguise that completely fails to cover his reptilian snout.

This serial marks the final appearance and the destruction of the sonic screwdriver in the classic series, as producer Creator/JohnNathanTurner claimed it was too much of a [[DeusExMachina convenience]] for the Doctor, much like K9 was when he was around. The screwdriver wouldn't return onscreen until the [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie TV Movie]] in 1996. This is also the ''Doctor Who'' debut of Eric Saward, who had also just become the series' script editor. (Though since the season was shot OutOfOrder, he was credited onscreen as early as "Castrovalva", shot later.)