Doctor Who (1963) 21.06.04

The Caves of Androzani - Part Four

The Doctor crash lands the mercenaries' spaceship back on Androzani Minor and escapes on foot. The two junior mercenaries come after him but they give up the chase after a series of mud bursts begin. They rush back to the spaceship while the Doctor makes his way to the caves.

Chellak and Real Salateen lead an assault on the level where Sharaz Jek's base of operations is located. All of the humans with the exception of Chellak are killed.

Morgus arrives on Androzani Minor and links up with the mercenaries. He is explaining his plan to them when he gets a call from his lieutenant back on Androzani Major. She explains that he is wanted for treason and murdering the president. All of his assets have been frozen. She is now in charge.

Chellak finds Jek's bunker. He breaks in. The two men fight. Chellak rips off Jek's mask. He is so repulsed by what he sees that Jek is able to push him out of the bunker and lock the door. Chellak is killed moments later by a mud burst.

The Doctor makes his way to Jek's bunker where he finds Jek and Peri. She is suffering badly from the Spectrox infection. The Doctor gets the information he needs from Jek and goes looking for bat's milk, the cure for the Spectrox infection.

Morgus and Stotz, the head mercenary, decide to head out in search of Jek's store of Spectrox. The two junior mercenaries aren't keen on risking getting killed by a mud burst or anything else and decide to stay behind. Stotz kills them before he leaves with Morgus.

Morgus and Stotz make their way to Jek's bunker. Jek and Morgus fight and Jek kills him with some help from Android Salateen who shows up unexpectedly and kills Stotz.

The Doctor finds the bat's milk and makes his way back to Jek's bunker. Jek is dying. The Doctor takes Peri and returns to the surface and finds the TARDIS. The Doctor gives Peri the bat's milk once they are inside the TARDIS. There isn't enough left for him.

The Doctor lays down as Peri recovers. He starts seeing visions of his companions from the recent seasons plus the Master. Everything goes wobbly and then the Doctor regenerates.

Thoughts

I can say at this point that I'm pretty sure that I have no memory of seeing this story before. I think I might still have a Doctor Who Magazine from 1985 or so with an image of the Doctor facing off against Sharaz Jek on the cover.

There's a moment when the mercenaries are chasing the Doctor when one of the mercenaries guns looks like it starts to come apart. I rewound the scene and watched it again. I was even more confident the second time around about what I saw.

How did the Doctor get the milk from a bat? He must have milked it, right? They glossed over this part way too much. 

I didn't like this installment as much as the first three. It felt very rushed. There was too much packed into too little time. This story really could have used another episode and a bigger budget to wrap things up in a more coherent manner.