The Deadly Assassin - Part 1
The Doctor heads to Gallifrey after he has a vision. He sees himself taking aim at the President of the High Council of Gallifrey and shooting him. He arrives just outside of Gallifrey. Some guards try to arrest him but the Doctor evades them. Hilred, the leader of the guards reports into his Castellan Spandrell, his boss, letting him know what happened. The Castellan is not happy but he immediately starts to investigate the TARDIS that has arrived and its owner.
A skeletal figure in dark robes sees the Doctor escape the guards. He shoots a guard who tries to stop the Doctor from feeling the scene. The skeletal looking man later meets with another man who also wears a dark robe.
Spandrell gets some help from Engin, a tech, in researching the Doctor. Spandrell reports his findings to Chancellor Goth, who hails from the same order as the Doctor, the Prydonians. Goth doesn't seem too concerned about the findings even though they seem to indicate that the Doctor may be an agent of the Celestial Intervention Agency.
The Doctor makes his way to the Panopticon where the President of the High Council is about to announce his successor. The Doctor sees something high above the floor of the Panopticon. He goes up to the level where a camera man is filming everything that is going on. The Doctor doesn't find the camera man but he does find a rifle. He points it at the President and shoots him.
What makes a show like this really work are the guest stars. This one has some real characters: Spandrell, Engin, Runcible to name a few. Each has their own little quirks which add nuance to the story as a whole.
I like how this one opens up and where it goes from there. It begins with a mystery. Things aren't any closer to being resolved at the end of the episode but lots more bread crumbs are introduced. If anything there are more unanswered questions at the end of the episode than there was at the beginning. The broad outline of several important parts to the story are there but how they fit together is still a mystery.
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