The Sixth Doctor and Evelyn gate crash an interstellar time/space conference and run into Vansell of the Gallifreyan C.I.A., who still doesn't get along with anyone. They discovered that a planet has been missing for twenty years. It happened to house a space/time MacGuffin bomb and, rather surprisingly, Lady President Romana of Gallifrey, who was abducted just weeks into her presidency.
The Daleks turn out to be behind the planetary kidnapping, and they've kept Romana as a slave for twenty years. She's rather broken, but bounces back as best as she can after the Doctor rescues her. The Daleks announce that they plan to destroy all of time and space using the MacGuffin bomb, and they need Gallifreyan technology to keep themselves Just One Second Out of Sync from the explosion. The Doctor, Romana, Evelyn and Vansell team up to stop them.
Part two of four of the Dalek Empire series, followed (from the Daleks' perspective) by "The Mutant Phase".
The Tropocalypse Element:
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The Daleks are good at this.
- Apocalypse How: The Daleks set a new personal record with a Class X3, destroying an entire galaxy with the titular element.
- Artificial Gravity: The Gravity Wells.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The Daleks get exactly what they were really after - they destroy-and-recreate the Seriphia Galaxy in a time bubble, leaving them with an entire galaxy empty of life in which to create "a million Skaros!", letting them launch attacks on the rest of the universe.
- Batman Gambit: The Daleks are good at this as well.
- Big Words: Gets a Layman's Terms.
- Body Double: The Daleks are once again using their tried-and-trusted Dalek puppets.
- Borrowed Biometric Bypass: The Daleks make their way through the capitol using the eyes of dead guards to bypass the retinal security locks.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: The Daleks having a limited vocabulary, this extends to those under their control.
- Break the Cutie: Romana's been a Dalek slave for twenty years. She's... not quite her old self. Not yet anyway.
- The Bus Came Back: Romana appears for a Sixth Doctor adventure!
- Call-Forward: Another (unintentional) one to "The Stolen Earth" - yet again, the Daleks are stealing planets for nefarious purposes. They also keep saying that "Gallifrey must fall!" - they eventually find out Gallifrey Stands.
- The Doctor counters the aforementioned Borrowed Biometric Bypass by replacing the Eye of Harmony’s recognition system from Time Lord to human. That comes back to bite him 700 years later.
- Catchphrase Interruptus: The Doctor gets sick and tired of the Daleks' threats very quickly.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The Daleks are lead by a Black Dalek.
- Combat Tentacles: The uncased Dalek mutants.
- Covered In Slime: What it does to the Doctor.
- Eye Scream: The doors in the Gallifreyan Capitol are opened via retina scan of a Gallifreyan's eye. The Daleks exploit the fact that the eye doesn't need to be attached to a living Gallifreyan at the time.
- Foreshadowing: Unintentionally to the Time War. Russell T Davies, and later A Brief History of Time Lords would mention the "Etra Prime Incident" as one of the events that led to the Time War.
- Ghost Town/Ghost Planet: Using technology The Doctor locks all of the inhabitants of the Gallifreyan Capitol inside, saving most of them from the Daleks.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Averted. Romana syncs into the gestalt consciousness, glimpses Dalek minds and the consciousness of space and gravity itself, and gets a bit more broken than she already was — but doesn't go mad. Then she does it again and still manages to retain her sanity.
- Gondor Calls for Aid
- Have We Met Yet?: Romana notes that the Doctor is doing their timelines entirely out of order, and that he's in "the wrong body"note .
- Holographic Disguise: See below.
- The High Queen: As soon as Romana is back on Gallifrey, she picks up the role quickly.
- I Surrender, Suckers: By proxy.
- Large Ham: The Doctor is confronted with the end of the universe.. And doesn't handle it well.
- Layman's Terms: "Maritime vessel initiating materialization sequence." "If that means we're landing, just say it."
- Mass Teleportation: To an entire planet.
- Mental Fusion: A Time Lord trick.
- Mind Control: A Dalek trick.
- Mineral Macguffin: The crystals of Archetryx prime.
- More Hero than Thou: Varner.
- No Indoor Voice: The Daleks are even more shouty.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: The Doctor feels that Vansell is one of these.
- Omnicidal Maniac: The Daleks.
- The Paralyzer: Dalek weaponry works like this if they want it to.
- Peace Conference: The setting.
- Poorly Disguised Pilot: Serves as one for:
- Gallifrey, setting up Romana as Lady President and providing the impetus for the creation of the Temporal Powers alliance with the Monan Host and others.
- Dalek Empire, setting up the ongoing Dalek attack from the Seriphia Galaxy.
- Pun: "Put's a whole new spin on the term ID, doesn't it?"
- Robo Speak: The Daleks, natch.
- Space Station
- Space "X": See Two of Your Earth Minutes.
- Spanner in the Works: The Daleks recognize the Doctor is this very much so.
- Storming the Castle: Well, storming Gallifrey.
- Teleportation: The Whoniverse Transmat system returns.
- Title Drop: The contents of the crystals...
- The Watcher: The Doctor claims this is what the Time Lords "should" be.
- Wham Episode: For Big Finish - this was their first episode with such a large scope, and launched two different spinoffs - and indeed for the greater Doctor Who story. The Daleks make one of the first great strikes of the Time War, gaining a whole galaxy for themselves, and a spearhead force invades Gallifrey itself. They also cause the first coalition of Temporal Powers, who will also play a role in the Last Great Time War.
- Two of Your Earth Minutes: Inverted. Evelyn asks if time is measured in Space Minutes or Earth Minutes.
- You Are Number 6: Unit 117? You are Unit 117?
