Starring: Tom Baker , Mary Tamm
Directed by: Pennant Roberts
Produced by: Graham Williams
Written by: Douglas Adams
As the Doctor, Romana and K9 head for the planet Calufrax in search of the second segment of the Key to Time, they are in for a surprise when the TARDIS brings them to Zanak, an entirely different planet occupying the same space coordinates.
Item Number: 14982
English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired
Audio Commentary 1 by actors Tom Baker (The Doctor), Mary Tamm (Romana) and script editor Anthony Read ● Audio Commentary 2 by actor Bruce Purchase (The Pirate Captain) and director Pennant Roberts ● Parrot Fashion "Making Of" documentary featuring an archive interview with writer Douglas Adams, Mary Tamm, John Leeson (K-9), Bruce Purchase and Rosalind Lloyd (Xanxia) (30 mins) ● Film Inserts, Deleted Scenes and Outtakes (14 mins) ● Weird Science 1970s educational film spoof looks at some of the science seen in the Key to Time season (17 mins) ● Continuities (3 mins) ● Photo Gallery (7 mins) ● Production Note Option ● DVD-ROM PC / Mac feature Radio Times billings
As the Doctor, Romana and K9 head for the planet Calufrax in search of the second segment of the Key to Time, they are in for a surprise when the TARDIS brings them to Zanak, an entirely different planet occupying the same space coordinates. Did Romana take a wrong turn when she navigated by the book? No, the tracer registers that the segment is near. Nothing is as it seems in this story by Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). The populace of Zanak lead affluent lives, thanks to the mysterious mechanizations of the Captain. He regularly announces a new age of prosperity, and most of the people accept the extraordinary turn in their fortune without further examination. Little do they imagine that their benefactor - hidden on a forbidden mountaintop - is a roaring space pirate whose best friend is Polyphase Avitron, a cyber-parrot that brings death to anyone who displeases its master. All these elements will come together to reveal the greatest crime in the galaxy and the second segment of the Key to Time as well.
The tracer detects the second segment on the planet Calufrax. The
TARDIS makes a bumpy landing, and the Doctor and Romana soon discover
that they are not on Calufrax at all. They are in fact on Zanak, a
planet that has been hollowed out and fitted with engines so that it
can transmat through space and materialise around others - such as
Calufrax - to plunder their mineral wealth, leaving them as shrunken
husks held by gravitational forces in a 'trophy room'.
Ostensibly in
charge is the Captain, whose body has been partially replaced with
robotic parts following a near-fatal crash, but he is merely a puppet
controlled by his nurse - a projection of Zanak's original ruler, the
aged Queen Xanxia.
Xanxia is using time dams, powered by the forces
generated in the trophy room, to keep her body alive until this new,
younger form has stabilised. The Captain prepares Zanak to 'jump' again
- this time with Earth as its target.
The Doctor attempts to thwart
his plans, calling on the assistance of the Mentiads - a gestalt of
telepaths amongst Zanak's indigenous population - to sabotage the
engines.
The Captain rebels against the nurse, but she kills him.
The nurse herself is then destroyed by one of the Zanak natives whom
the Doctor, Romana and K9 have befriended.
The Doctor realises that
the second segment comprises the whole of the planet Calufrax. He
contrives to drop the compressed husks from the trophy room into a
space-time vortex created by the TARDIS in the centre of Zanak, and is
then able to pick up and convert the segment at his leisure.
| The Doctor | --- | Tom Baker |
| Romana | --- | Mary Tamm |
| Voice of K9 | --- | John Leeson |
| Balaton | --- | Ralph Michael |
| Captain | --- | Bruce Purchase |
| Citizen | --- | Clive Bennett |
| Guard | --- | Adam Kurakin |
| Kimus | --- | David Warwick |
| Mentiad | --- | Bernard Finch |
| Mr. Fibuli | --- | Andrew Robertson |
| Mula | --- | Primi Townsend |
| Nurse | --- | Rosalind Lloyd |
| Pralix | --- | David Sibley |
Written by Douglas Adams
Directed by Pennant Roberts
Costumes by L Rowland Warne
Film Editing by John Dunstan
Incidental Music by Dudley Simpson
Produced by Graham Williams
Script Editing by Anthony Read
Title Music by Ron Grainer and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, arranged by Delia Derbyshire
Visual Effects by Colin Mapson
There are some excellent location scenes filmed at the Dan-yr-Ogof caves in Powys, Wales.