Whether you've watched Doctor Who or not, you'll certainly enjoy this - my ongoing guide to its many stories.
I present some photos I've taken off the telly, and some notes I've written to help explain what's going on. What's not to like?
The Curse of Peladon
In this story, Doctor Who goes to the planet Peladon and meets these guys. They're the Ice Warriors, and they've encountered Doctor Who before. Except that was when the show was in black and white. Now, they're startled to find they are green.
They used to be bad guys, with a very strong "murder the humans" agenda. They've gone nice now, though.
Doctor Who is still a total jerk to them regardless. Obviously.
Also on Peladon is this exciting Space Penis. He hangs around with the Ice Warriors trying to be friends. They are, understandably, making quite an effort to pretend he is not there.
There's one more alien to meet. He is also, perhaps unsurprisingly, green. He's called Arcturus. He will turn out to be a bad guy - a shock revelation, subtly foreshadowed by him being a hideous combination between a skull and a spider.
He lives in a machine, which zooms about all over the place. It's meant to be so he can breathe the Peladon air, but it might just be that he's exceptionally lazy. And, I suppose, this way people might refer to him as "The guy in the life support contraption" rather than, "Revolting Evil Spider Skull Face Guy".
Doctor Who is caught messing around with Arcturus's 'Stops Him Dying' machine. Everyone assumes Doctor Who is trying to murder him. Which is fair. Doctor Who has made no secret of how repulsive he finds all the aliens. Except the Space Penis, of whom he seems curiously fond.
The Ice Warrior thinks that Doctor Who is probably a murderer, and is telling Arcturus and the Space Penis about all the times that Doctor Who tried to kill his friends, back in the black and white days.
Space Penis is drooping with sadness. He likes Doctor Who, and is shocked to find that he once ran around on the moon killing Ice Warriors with guns. Let's hope he doesn't find out about the time Doctor Who made the Krotons drink corrosive acid and laughed as they melted.
Jo is wondering if she can come and be a companion for the Ice Warriors instead, and do they have their own TV show, and does it involve less sexist, patronising dialogue?
The answer is no.
Eventually Doctor Who teams up with Space Penis and the Ice Warriors, and defeats Arcturus. This means the galaxy is safe, but it's hard to escape the feeling that everyone is still overcome with a kind of ennui as the story comes to an end.
Everyone here seems to be trying to avoid eye contact, which suggests that their "Arcturus is Dead!" party got out of hand, and went to some dark, unexpected places.
The Sea Devils
Hurray! The Master is back. We last saw him being arrested, for being a massive intergalactic nuisance, and put in prison.
He's loads more fun than Doctor Who. When Doctor Who gets locked up, he just tells sad stories and complains to the guards. The Master, on the other hand, sneaks out and steals hats, and pretends to be an Admiral, and makes contact with Sea Monsters.
Oh yeah. The story is about Sea Monsters.
Doctor Who comes to see The Master in prison, and quickly tries to kill him with a sword. Why do they even have swords in this prison?
Doctor Who wins at swords, but gets distracted by some sandwiches and forgets to murder The Master.
If only more villains had snacks to hand, they'd get away with whatever they wanted. He loves a sandwich, Doctor Who.
Jo, meanwhile, is being chased by guys in capes, on jeeps. I forget why. I think maybe The Master told them she was doing spying. I like the composition of this shot, though the monster on the right is unconvincing.
Suddenly - pow! Sea Monsters! It turns out that The Master has been sending them emails going "Come up to the surface - it's great and you could kill all the humans!"
This one is very excited by the prospect, and has made all haste. Although, that doesn't look like an expression of joy, to me. I think he's surfaced in the wrong place.
Meanwhile, this Sea Monster has got inside a submarine. Though he now appears to very much wish he hadn't, because there's a Man With A Gun. "Oh no!" he is clearly thinking.
His options are:
a) Back away slowly through the hatch and hope no-one has noticed him, then go home and forget all about submarines, and just be content with his lot.
b) Attempt to convince the Man With A Gun that this is a Sea Monster submarine, and it is the Man With A Gun who is in the wrong place. If the Man With A Gun is English, this might work. He will apologise to the Sea Monster and go off scratching his head.
c) Stay still like this, forever, until the Man With A Gun gets bored or goes for a wee.
d) Hope the Man With A Gun is an idiot, and just come in anyway, and then kill everyone while Man With A Gun just watches, as if he was a Man Without A Gun.
If memory serves, he goes for 'd'.
Doctor Who refuses to believe Jo when she says there is an exciting chase going on outside with jeeps and men in capes and everything. So she takes him outside to look.
By the time he gets there, things have escalated, and now there are more men with jeeps, and capes, and even one guy on a horse! Jo is clearly saying, "I told you so," and Doctor Who is clearly thinking, "Why are there horses now? What's even happening in this story?"
The Master is enjoying himself a lot in this story. Here we see him shouting, "Go! Kill everyone! Do it with guns! Zap! Kapow!"
I'm not sure the Sea Monsters understand him, though. The one on the left is just staring at The Master's pointing finger. The one on the right has become distracted by a bird. "Sky fish!" he's thinking.
Eventually Doctor Who goes to the King Sea Monster and tells him to stop it. This is usually Doctor Who's best plan - just telling everyone to go away and have a think about what they've done. It works nine times out of ten. And when it doesn't work, he just has them all killed.
The Sea Monster looks kind of shifty though, don't you think? Like he's borrowed money from Doctor Who in the past, and he's hoping he's forgotten about it, and he's just hoping to get through the conversation before Doctor Who remembers and asks him for it back.
Anyway. In the end, the Sea Monsters do stop, but then I think they get blown up anyway. Doctor Who looks a bit sad about it, but I don't think they ever really bonded, so it's not that big a deal and he soon recovers.
That's all for now.
Season 9 Part Three is here.
Season 9 Part One is here.
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