Just in time to spread some holiday cheer, John and Eugene are taking a look at 1968’s The Green Slime.

Synopsis

A member of the crew aboard the UNSC Gamma 3 space station utters those inevitably fateful words, “nothing exciting ever happens around here,” and fast than you can say, “sir, I’ve got something on the screen,” the asteroid Flora, six million tons of rock, is hurtling towards a certain collision with the Earth.

With only 10 hours to go before it collides with Earth, former Space Commander Jack Rankin is called in for one last suicide mission.  Go to Flora, blow it up, and save the day.  His first stop on the way is Space Station Gamma 3, where he is put in full operational command for the duration of this mission.  They’ve outfitted a ship, bombs, and a crew to accompany Rankin on the mission.

There is, of course, a moment’s drama.  The current commander of Gamma 3, Vince Elliot, is an estranged friend of Rankin’s.  Formerly an unbeatable space team, they’ve fallen out over a woman, Dr. Lisa Benson.  She was formerly Rankin’s main squeeze, and now she’s engaged to Elliot and the head doctor aboard Gamma 3.  There’s more to their animosity than just that, though.

Gamma 3 Space Consultant Hans Halversen also worms his way onto the mission, which leaves immediately for Flora.

On Flora, the bombs are planted successfully, but strange pools of liquid contain a seething glean slime that fouls the surface vehicles, causing the teams to run back to the spacecraft on foot.  Halversen realizes that the slime is alive and collects a specimen for return, but Rankin throws it away, shattering the specimen’s container.  Unbeknownst to anyone, a small bit of green slime has attached itself to one of the spacesuits.

It looks like a job well done, but then Earth radios them, alerting Rankin that Flora is accelerating.  They will have to detonate the bombs early, and everyone knows that doesn’t leave enough time for Rankin’s team to escape.  Nonetheless, Rankin accelerates the spacecraft to Ludicrous Speed, and they escape by the hair of their teeth.

Back on Gamma 3, Rankin and Elliot begin butting heads.  The mission is over, so Elliot should be back in charge, but Rankin is hanging on for a while and giving orders like he’s still in command.

When the spacesuits are placed in decontamination, the energy causes the slime to grow.

The crux of the problem between Rankin and Elliot is revealed at the obligatory celebratory party for successfully saving the Earth.  Elliot made a poor command decision.  He decided to save a member of his team, resulting in the deaths of ten others.  Rankin is the one who wrote up the report, which nearly destroyed Elliot.

In decontamination, a creature breaks out, killing the technician via electrocution.  Halversen finds a sample of green slime for study.  Later, in a service corridor, another man is killed, and eventually, they track the creature to the power room.  Rankin orders it killed, but at Halversen and Lisa’s insistence, Elliot takes command and orders it captured.  That goes about as well as you’d expect, and more men are killed.  Rankin moves to kill it with a laser, but it doesn’t work, either.  Nonetheless, he declares himself in command while they try to hunt down and kill the creature.

Halversen makes a terrifying discovery.  Give the creature’s blood any form of energy, and it grows new creatures at an alarming rate.  Rankin hasn’t hurt it by shooting it with a laser; he’s given it more energy to spawn.  

The creature attacks the medical section, and after a pitched battle that involves some lasers, they trap the creature in an isolation ward. Still, with alien blood all over the infirmary, they secure the whole area.  Watching from the monitors, they see more of the creature’s form.

So far, the creatures are contained in Section C, so Rankin hatches a plan.  Shut down the power in the section, then use flashlights to draw the creatures into a storage area where they can be captured.  That works, more or less, but they forgot the ones trapped in the infirmary, which have now broken out.  They eventually manage to trap them behind a pressure door, and I think the plan is to space them, but Halversen insists on going back in to get his notes and manages to get trapped on the wrong side of the door. Elliot and Lisa fight back against Rankin’s unreasonable refusal to rescue him, and in an act of open defiance, they open the door.  Halversen is, of course, dead, the stupid idiots, and now the creatures are out.

New plan:  Evacuate, and destroy the station.  The creatures have moved outside and are absorbing solar radiation and multiplying.  The evacuation hits a snag as the space doors are jammed.  Elliot defies orders again and goes out with a team to clear them off.  He succeeds with minimal casualties, and the station personnel is evacuated.

Rankin turns control over to Earth to destroy the station, but there’s too little power; it’ll have to be done manually.  Rankin, of course, is the man for that job.  Elliot learns what his old friend is doing and goes to help, saving Rankin but dying in the process.  Rankin escapes with Elliot’s corpse, and the station is plunged into Earth’s atmosphere, spreading the green slime across the entire planet.  

Just in time for Christmas, it’s a new series here on Fusion Patrol!  (And this is one we’ve been looking forward to for a very long time – for at least seven years!)

We’re beginning our journey through Anthony Horowitz’s 1997 time-traveling* detective series, Crime Traveller.

Simon and Eugene get our first look at our heroes and the premise of this oft-forgotten BBC series and we discuss how all crime drama is essentially time travel, actors trying to break out of soaps, and if time can make value judgments in the intersection between the laws of economics and the law of physics.

It’s episode one of Crime Traveller, entitled Jeff Slade and the Loop of Infinity.

Episode Synopsis

Detective Jeff Slade and his detectives are on a stakeout, surveilling a train station.  Their job is to observe a slippery character they suspect of committing multiple murders but have no evidence to convict.

To the horror of his boss, Chief Inspector Grisham, Slade thinks the suspect has spotted them, and he gives chase, first in the station and then by motorcycle on the streets of a great metropolitan British city.  In the end, the suspect’s car plummets several stories into the river and almost certain death.  Slade is going to be cashiered over this one.  If only they knew why the suspect was at the station.

Police Science Officer Holly Turner does not want to see Slade gone, so secretly, she heads home, where part of her flat is a time machine.  She travels back in time, goes to the train station, and observes the suspect at the train lockers.  With that information, she returns to the present, gives the info to Slade, and they discover that the locker contained the very evidence needed to convict – if he’s even still alive.  Slade can keep his job.

He’s curious how Holly got the information, and eventually, she tells him.  She only works for the police to make money to help perfect her father’s time machine.  He doesn’t believe it.

Slade is called away to the scene of an alleged suicide.  Industrialist Guy Lombard has been found dead of a gunshot wound in a locked room at his home.  He was about to make a ton of money at a meeting this very evening; it didn’t seem likely that he’d commit suicide at this time.

Some suspicious caterers were trying to escape the scene and have been detained for later questioning by Slade, but they’ve escaped.

Slade returns to see Holly and apologizes for his skepticism; he convinces her to demonstrate the time machine.  

She explains how it works to him:

The machine sends them back 10 hours, and Slade immediately starts acting like a bull in a china shop.  He confiscates a catering van and clothes, and they head to the Lombard house, posing as the caterers.  While Holly tries to pull off the catering, Slade snoops around and learns that Lombard is a complete ass to everyone, and they all might have motives to kill him. Eventually, he witnesses part of the crime and, in the process, gets shot.  He doesn’t know who the killer is, but he does know Lombard wasn’t alone in the room and that the suicide was staged.

Now, as the police are arriving, they must return to the time machine, but their actions trying to flee the scene are suspicious, and they are held by the local police for questioning when Detective Slade arrives.  They manage to escape with the police hot on their tails.

Once in town, they split up, planning to rendezvous at Holy’s flat.  Slade takes a moment to bet on a horse, planning to collect when he returns.

They make it in the nick of time, and Slade’s gunshot wound is miraculously healed.  Holly explains that everything resets when they return to the present.

Armed now with what he knows, Slade returns to the scene of the crimes and reveals that the murderer is Lombard’s business partner.  It’s a fair cop, and Chief Inspector Grisham is impressed with Slade’s detectiving. 

Slade takes Holly out to a very expensive dinner to thank her and also to try to convince her to let him use the time machine more.  Nope, that’s never happening, she says.

Slade gets one more surprise.  His betting ticket is blank.  Holly explains:  Time won’t let you cheat.

WARNING: Subjectively, I feel like this may be the harshest episode of Fusion Patrol ever.  It may not be suitable for listeners of a nervous disposition.

Dimension hopping? Time displacement? Body/Soul swapping? We don’t know what’s going on here, and we daresay no one else does, either.  Kenneth and Eugene ponder A Stitch in TIme.

Episode Synopsis

Travis has a weird topsy-survey dream.  He’s alone on the Trans-Utopian, he keeps hearing someone call his name, and he finds Percy dead in the command chair.  Instead of rejoicing, he screams, “nooooooooo,” and awakes with a fright.

Dreams never make sense.

In the real world, the Trans-Utopian has arrived on Mars to collect a dangerous ex-military prisoner for transport to Clarke Station.  Soon, Percy has spotted something strange on the screen.  Flashing, where no flashing should be.

Travis hears a distress signal that no one else does, and they head towards the uninteresting and uninhabited asteroid Ida to investigate, until they reach the point that the ship is being hit by mysterious gavimetric waves and every can finally hear the distress call from the Galantus, and orbital station about Ida.

During this time Percy is hit by some form of wave thingy and starts acting more like a normal person that usual.

Capt. Parker of the station requests help for the crew of the station and the miners working the asteroid.  After some bouncy bounce shuttle flying, Travis and Callie arrive at Galantus, but there is no one except Capt. Parker aboard, and there is no sign of the mines below.

Rescuing only Capt. Parker, they return to the Trans-Utopian, where Percy starts up a conversation with the prisoner about taking over the ship.

When Parker contacts his superiors on Mars they’ve never heard of him, nor his station.  The answer is obvious, Parker has jumped from another parallel universe.

The Percy/Not-Percy overhears this and realizes they’re on to her.  She is an escaped mass murdered that sabotage the dimensional whatsadoodle on the mine to jump universes and inhabit someone else’s body.

Back up against the wall, she releases the prisoner and they try to take the ship, and kill Parker, unsuccessfully.

Parker says if they just go back to Galantus, tech the tech, reverse the polarity of the neutron flow, and put some uncertainty back into the Heisenberg compensators, things will happens.  And they do.  And everything is back to normal.

Two episodes.  First, John and Eugene ponder which of Logan and Jessica’s biological functions inconveniences him the most in The Collectors.  Second, in Capture, they discuss how many times they’ve both seen TV remakes of The Most Dangerous Game.

The Collectors Synopsis

The legendary quality of 1970s American cars shines as the solar car has broken down in the desert.  Rem is repairing it, but it will take some time to repair.  He sends Logan and Jessica away, so they stop annoying him.

As they crest the sandy dune, they wax poetic about the possibility that Sanctuary could be “just over that ridge.”  Little do they know that a pair is watching them on a monitor and preparing to grant their wish.

Over the rise, they find an oasis and Sanctuary.  The actual, honest-to-goodness Sanctuary, with all the Runners that escaped the City of Domes, even Jessica’s childhood friend Martin.  It’s just like everything they think about comes to be reality.

Sanctuary is looked over by the Protector, a man called John, and his partner Joanna.  They were the ones watching Logan and Jessica.

Logan and Jessica are given nice quarters and shown all the hospitality, but Logan, the old dour puss, is a bit suspicious; however, Jessica drinks it all in.

Rem finishes fixing the car and goes looking for the wayward humans.  When he crests the rise, all he sees is desert, and he knows something is wrong.

Logan investigates the city and comes across a cave.  Inside, he is harassed by three Sandmen who have come to take him back.  Actually, they claim he actually is already back.  He escapes them and discovers aliens being held in cells.  He meets one pair who live in an alternate atmosphere, which causes Logan to pass out.

John decides to consider collecting Rem as a specimen, too.  He sends a fake Logan and Jessica to collect him, but Rem sees through this and the illusion completely.  He plays along.

When Logan wakes, he’s back in their room.  He finally convinces Jessica that everything they’ve encountered has been created by their minds, so they wish Rem was here, and, like magic, he walks through the door.  Is it him or an illusion?

Rem explains that what they see as Sanctuary is most likely an alien spacecraft.

John and Joanna interview Rem, and Rem proves his superiority to them by surviving in the alien atmosphere cell, where he makes friends with the captives.

When the aliens discover Rem is an android, they decide to add him to their collection.

Back in their room, Logan and Jessica use the power to create things from their minds to escape.

All three are captured and are being escorted back to their cells when the revolution begins, and the captive aliens rescue our heroes and kill the bad guy aliens.

Rem, Logan, and Jessica release all the captive aliens and head on their way.

Capture Synopsis

At an idyllic mountain lake, Francis and fellow Sandman Benjamin catch up to Logan, Jessica, and Rem unawares.  They take them prisoner.

Francis explains that Logan and Jessica must return to the City of Domes.  Rem, on the other hand, is to be destroyed, and he leaves Benjamin behind to do the deed while he takes Logan and Jessica in their solar car.

Separated, Rem tricks Benjamin into a trap and makes him his prisoner, while Logan gets the jump on Francis in a bid to escape.  Francis hands Logan his butt on a plate.  They camp, waiting for Benjamin to join them.

During the night, Jessica is abducted.  In the morning, Logan convinces Francis they must find Jessica, and he gives his word that if Francis gives him back his gun, he’ll give it back when they find Jessica.  Francis agrees.

Then meet James Borden, a local landowner and hunt enthusiast.  He explains Jessica was probably taken by the swamp mutants, along with all his staff.  In the morning, the three armed men can rescue them.  They return to Borden’s compound and meet his wife Irene – an intense woman with a passion for 20th-century firearms.  Borden himself prefers energy weapons and shows off his penis surrogate to the appreciative Francis.

We learn that Jessica is actually being held by the Bordens.  Borden is an avid hunter who has become bored with it all.  Like the rest of us, he probably had to read Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game in school, and he’s taken it to heart.

Tomorrow, he will hunt two Sandmen, the most dangerous opponents he’s yet faced.  When it’s over, and they are dead, Irene will hunt Jessica – old school style.

The next day, the hunt is on.  Logan and Francis fall into all the traps but manage to get themselves out while Borden toys with them.  In the hunt, Logan’s gun is destroyed.

Back at the compound, Jessica manages to escape and bumps into Rem, who has been looking for her.  They search for Logan and Francis while Irene hunts Jessica.

In the kind of tragic accident that makes hunting the fun sport that it is, Borden accidentally shoots and kills his wife.  Distraught, he goes after the Sandmen with a vengeance – even though he is 100% at fault in his wife’s death.

Logan and Francis set up a diversion, and a trap, and Francis kills Borden.

Rem sneaks up and takes Francis’ gun, giving it to Logan.  Logan honors his promise and gives it back to Francis.

Francis will now take them in, except that he cannot.  Rem has sabotaged the vehicles.  In exchange for repairing them, Francis gives Logan until sundown to escape in their solar-powered car.  As they leave, Rem presents Logan with another present:  Benjamin’s DS Gun.

Simon and Eugene discuss what happens when the police finally appear at a crime scene in Bugs, the best way to deal with any inconvenient build-up of anti-matter, and whether the definition given of viruses adequately explains the infection of man by machine.  (Spoiler: it doesn’t)

Episode Synopsis: The Bureau of Weapons

Military types are mildly distressed to learn that CyberAX, a top-secret project, has escaped.  The creators explain: “We created an AI that can learn and grow, and somebody hacked in and showed it a better playground, and it left to go play.”

Of course, we all know that Jean Daniel Marcel is the hacker with a better playground with his super-conducting Naobium computer processors.  Far from wanting to control the child-like CyberAx, he sends it out into the world to grow and develop.

Roland, from the Bureau of Weapons Technology, and Ros’ friend contacts the Bugs to show them this cool new technology they’ve intercepted: a CyberAx headset, which allows direct mental control of electronic systems.  Two-way, it seems, for when Ed raises the possibility that such a system could infect the user with a computer virus, Roland aims a howitzer at his chest and shoots himself at point-blank range.

With a shell mass of 5kg and a muzzle velocity of 770 m/s (or 1,722 mph) at a total distance of only 3 or 4 meters, Roland is instantly killed.

Except he isn’t.

Four groups of people rush to the top secret location: Team Bugs, paramedics, the police, and Jean Daniel’s extraction team disguised as sexy paramedics.

I know what you’re thinking:  “There’s a policeman in this episode?!”  Don’t worry, he only delivers one line and then leaves.

As you would expect, the responding parties arrive in the following order:  sexy fake paramedics, Team Bugs, the lone policeman, and finally, much later, the actual paramedics.  By then, the sexy paramedics have already spirited away Roland’s somehow still-living corpse.

But let’s not get caught up in the details, or we’ll be here all day.

Team Bugs surmise that the headset implanted a computer virus that lays dormant until detected – detected in this case being the infected person thinking about the idea that they might be infected – and then the virus takes steps to protect itself, causing the infected person to destroy the physical device and either kill themselves or collapse in a comatose heap.

We’d better not tell the rest of the Bureau’s team that they might be infected.  Too late, they’re all down and have, again, been collected by the sexy paramedics.  And this time, they’ve planted a bomb, which Ed disables by dropping it in the swimming pool.

An analysis of the wrecked headset equipment shows Naobium, which was what Jean Daniel was all hot and bothered to obtain.  Ros checks out his former prison home while Ed checks a particle accelerator to see if Naobium can be made.

Ros learns that Jean Daniel had an entire empire of companies interlinked but ignorant of one another, including a company called CyberAx.

Ed learns that if you make Naobium in a particle accelerator, the only way modern science knows how you create anti-matter and destroy the world.  As such, experimentation on the creation of Naobium has been stopped.  No loss, anyway, says Dr. Briggs of the particle lab, since, despite being a superconductor, it has no practical uses.

Jean Daniel has a diabolical plan.  He has allowed CyberAx (the AI) to grow and flourish. Now he plans to build a Naobium-powered data center at Technopolis, where he will double-cross CyberAx, trapping it, then forcing it to do his bidding.  There’s just one problem, he’s used up all the Naobium and he needs more.  Time to get some made at the particle accelerator.

Beckett goes undercover as a CyberAx victim, hoping he’ll be collected and taken to their secret lair.  This works until Jean Daniel hears it’s Beckett, and he decides that it must be a trick.  Beckett is captured and taken to the particle accelerator.

Dr. Briggs has already been unknowingly infected with CyberAx.  Creating the Naobium will cause a massive explosion, killing thousands, but, for some inadequately explained reason, that won’t happen until after Jean Daniel has the opportunity to escape with the newly-created Niobium.

Ed and Ros come to the rescue.  Briggs kills himself as the virus takes hold of him.  Jean Daniel and his sexy paramedic Cassandra escape down the evacuation tunnel.

It’s only a matter of time before the anti-matter collides with matter and matter-anti-matter annihilation occurs, killing thousands in the area.  Ros must put on the CyberAx headset to control the particle accelerator.  She’s able to deflect the path of the anti-matter so that instead of hitting matter, it hits solid rock, punching a hole through it and trapping Jean Daniel in the rubble.  Sexy paramedic Cassandra escapes with the Naobium.

Ros is now knowingly infected with the virus.  Luckily, she forgets all this and the events leading up to this, more or less, and now, Ed and Beckett must keep it a secret from her and prevent her from ever finding out, all while investigating and solving the problem of CyberAx, without their computer expert’s help.

Episode Synopsis: A Cage for Satan

Some time has passed, and Ros is baffled by the mystery of her missing memories, deleted computer files, and the disappearance of her friend Roland and his team.  She is disturbed and deeply suspicious of Ed and Beckett, who are obviously keeping secrets from her while pretending nothing happened.

She takes her old mentor, Dr. Talbot, into her confidence, and when she discovers Ed following her, she sets a trap and captures Ed and Beckett in their basement.

Ros leaves to investigate on her own.

Dr. Talbot calls Ed and Beckett and says he’s figured out that Ros is infected.  CyberAx has been giving their headsets out to research and education facilities all over, his facility included.

He understands why they’re keeping secrets from he and he didn’t tell Ros either because of what would happen.  In an effort to gain intel on the enemy, he puts the headset on and infects himself.  Gleaning enough information to send Ed and Beckett to follow Ros to Technopolis.

Ros has gone to this planned techno-community in Eastern Europe to visit their top security prison, where Jean Daniel is imprisoned in induced electronic sleep.  He’s pleased and amused to see her and hear her plight.  He sets her on the path to find out for herself, knowing it will trigger the virus.

Cassandra has completed the construction of the world’s largest data center, the future home (or prison) of CyberAx.  Before getting things going, she convinces CyberAx to get Jean Daniel out of prison, by inducing his death, then reviving him medically.  This works.

Ed and Beckett are chased around Technopolis by armed guards while Ros continues her investigation.  Ed lands upon Jean Daniel’s plan, with one difference.  Ed suggests destroying the power lines after CyberAx has taken up residence in the data center, killing it.

As the tower goes live, CyberAx moves into its new home.  Jean Daniel starts killing people.  Beckett is captured, and we learn that Jean Daniel is allowing CyberAx to use the comatose victims as future servers for itself.

Ros’ virus gets activated, and Beckett heads to plant the bomb but gets captured again.  Ed kills sexy paramedic Cassandra and then, just for good measure, kills Ros.  Also, Beckett escapes again.

But he’s not really killing Ros, he’s just rebooting her.  Ed runs, carrying Ros’ corpse, two blocks to the medical center.

Beckett returns to plant the bomb but is captured once again by Jean Daniel, but the bomb goes off, kills Jean Daniel, and kills CyberAx.

Beckett then runs the two blocks to the medical center, where Ros has been declared dead after about… what?  30-40 minutes of no heartbeat?  That’s when they realize the CyberAx revival chamber isn’t working because CyberAx is dead, so they try traditional revival technics, and Ros wakes up after hearing Beckett’s voice calling her back from the light.

Later, we see Roland and the others remain comatose and brain-dead.  Ros bids her friend farewell.  Then his eyes open after she leaves.  

The End

When someone starts blowing up planets in another solar system, it’s Travis and the Gang to the rescue! Kenneth and Eugene discuss.

Episode Synopsis

Evil Scientists aboard Keres Station are doing evil things, in this case, blowing up a planet – in secret.

Elsewhere, the Trans-Utopian experiences a space earthquake which decreases the efficiency of their anti-matter by 50%.  This is quite impressive, really, since only recently their supply of anti-matter was zero point zero.  Anyhoo, it was caused by some electromagnetic surge that originated beyond the solar system.

Percy and Marcus will have to solve the engine problem en route however because they’re on their way to Keres Station for a commission.  The station administrator informs them that they are working with a lethal virus.  A former employee, Quinnell, stole a vial of the virus enclosed in a security box.  Their mission, should they decide to accept it, is to find Quinnell, recover the box, and return it to Keres Station – all without the authorities getting wind of the situation.  

Travis recognizes Quinnell as a member of the Feder Clan of Raiders.  They track him to Clarke Station and capture him easily while crapping, but not before he slips the box to a random stranger in the next stall – as you do in these circumstances.

The folks at Keres Station want Quinnell, but the box is more important.  Largely because they’re afraid of their backers. They are funded by the Orchard, and they’re a bunch of humorless hard-noses that will kill them if they find out they blundered.  

Quinnell has a secret scanner-proof transmitter and notifies his confederates on Clarke Station about the identity of the man who has the box – which they can presumably identify by Quinnell’s description of his ankles and perhaps a name tag stitched in his dropped trousers.  

The fugitive steals a ship, and a chase is given by the Raiders, who conveniently encounter the Trans-Utopian because space isn’t really that big.  (See also: how did an electromagnetic surge from another solar system arrive and affect this solar system so quickly.)

Travis and the gang make quick work of disabling the Raider ship and rescuing the guy with the box.  They’re on to him, he’s just a punk kid, so they lock him up, too – after relieving him of the box. 

Travis questions the Raider, who explains that he doesn’t know what the box contains but that it’s something big.  Some of his clan discovered something was up, and they were killed for it.  He infiltrated Keres to steal the box for the defense of his clan.  This has the ring of truth to Travis, and he instructs Carrivagio to open the box.

Meanwhile, Marcus discovers the signature of negative energy, a theoretical thing that might be an enormous energy source and hold the secret of faster-than-light travel.  He found the signature while studying the ongoing problem associated with the ship’s engines.  

They also find the signature coming from the box.

Inside the box is a (sort of) flight data recorder showing information on the planet’s destruction in the other solar system, which, coincidentally, will destroy that entire solar system.

Travis takes them back to Keres station but makes some alternate plans.  The folks at Keres don’t plan on letting the Trans-Utopian crew leave alive.  

They get their money for delivering the box and Quinnell, then while the Keres people are trying to double-cross them, they use the secret transmitter to execute an escape plan, escaping with Quinnell.  The box they returned was empty.

Keres Station is destroyed by the Orchard, and Travis and the gang contemplate whether or not the backers will pursue them.

Join John and Eugene as they journey to fantastical sights and dangers of the 24th century as we follow Logan’s Run.

Episode Synopsis

In the year 2319, 200 years after a devastating nuclear war, the people in the City of Domes live a perfect life.  Perfect, that is until their 30th birthday. That day they must die or renew into a new body on Carousel.

Logan 5 is a Sandman with doubts, and when, on one fateful day, he encounters Jessica 6 helping a runner try to escape.  “Don’t do it,” she cries, “We’ve been watching you.  Carousel is a lie.”

Her words strike home just as Logan’s best friend and fellow Sandman, Francis 7, arrives and kills the runner.  In an unthinking moment, Logan knocks Francis unconscious and escapes with Jessica outside the City of Domes.

Francis is called to White Quadrant 1, the restricted part of the city, where he learns the truth:  Carousel really is a lie, and a council of old men actually runs the city.  They task him with bringing back Logan and Jessica with the promise that he can join the council and live past his 30th birthday. Taking two Sandmen he can trust, Francis leaves the city in pursuit.

In the ruins of Washington DC, Logan and Jessica find a solar-powered car, and with it, they escape from Francis, who has caught up with them.

Searching for a fallout shelter, they find a community of peaceful people living underground because of violent, armed riders above who capture and enslave them.  When the riders capture Jessica, Logan frees the slaves, and the underground dwellers rise up and defeat the riders.

Francis is hot on their heels as they continue their search for Sanctuary.

Next, they come across Mountain City, which welcomes them with open arms, food, and oily baths.  Soon they discover something is amiss, the city’s Masters are actually all dead, and the city is populated with robots who imprison Logan and Jessica so that they can serve them.

They meet Rem, who maintains the robots, and he helps them escape.  In the process, they discover Rem is an android, also created by the Masters.  Francis catches up again and is taken prisoner by the robots.  Logan, Jessica, and their new friend, Rem, continue searching for Sanctuary.

Jodie Whitaker’s Doctor’s era comes to a close. Simon and Eugene conclude a two-part discussion of the fall of the Thirteenth.

Jodie Whitaker’s Doctor’s era comes to a close. Simon and Eugene begin a two-part discussion of the fall of the Thirteenth.

Episode Synopsis

The enhanced Time Lord Cybermen are attacking a train in space carrying some very special cargo, a small child.  The Doctor, Yaz, and Dan do some derring do and rescue the train, but fail to stop the Cybermen from taking the child.

In 2022, Tegan and Ace are now working for UNIT.  Ace is investigating some “missing” paintings, while Tegan is investigating missing seismologists.  Tegan reports to Ace that she found a present from the Doctor.  A Russian nesting doll with a miniature Cyberman doll inside.

Returning Dan to Earth in time for his date, Dan says, “don’t bother to pick me up.  Bye.” And then there was but one companion.  While Yaz says bye to Dan, a Dalek appears in the TARDIS asking for help and offering a way to destroy the Daleks.

In 1916 Russia we learn that a mysterious second moon has arrived at Earth, that the Master is actually Rasputin,  and that he has hypnotized the Czar and Czarina to do his bidding.

The TARDIS has traced the missing child back to that very same “moon” which is actually a cyber-planet, with another TARDIS on it, and the child isn’t really a child, it’s a Qurunx, which is just an energy McGuffin powering the cyber planet.  The Cybermen arrive and the Doctor and Yaz escape back to the TARDIS just in time for Kate Stewart from UNIT to call the Doctor back to Earth for an emergency.

The Doctor is not happy at being called in for a few missing paintings and seismologists, is uncomfortable meeting Tegan and Ace, and Yaz is shocked to learn that she’s neither the first nor the last of the Doctor’s special friends.  The Doctor’s interest is piqued when she learns that the paintings had all been defaced with the face of the Mad Monk himself, Rasputin, and… it turns out Rasputin looks a lot less like the Fourth Doctor and a whole lot more like the Master.  Cybermen, Daleks, the master… it can’t all be a coincidence, can it?

The Master delivers a message. He’s holding a seismologists’ convention near Mt. Vesuvius.  They’ve all been killed in signature Master fashion, of course, and, after warning the Doctor that today is the day I erase you from existence, they take him prisoner and return him to UNIT HQ for imprisonment.

Meanwhile, Vinder is also looking for the Qurunx and crashes on the cyber-planet.

Ace and Tegan stay at UNIT HQ the help monitor the Master while The Doctor and Yaz go to a volcano in Bolivia to meet with the turncoat Dalek.  The turncoat is legit, but unfortunately, the Daleks were onto him and used him to capture the Doctor.  Yaz escapes in the TARDIS.

At UNIT, the doll left behind for Tegan turns out to have been from the Master, not the Doctor, and it is a compressed vehicle for a Cyberman assault force, led by a clone of Assad.  Assad rescues the Master while the Cybermen capture UNIT and start converting the soldiers.  Kate makes plans for Tegan and Ace to escape the building.

In 1916 St. Petersburg, the Master reveals that he’s teamed up with both the Cybermen and the Daleks to defeat the Doctor, and now he’s going to force her to regenerate into him, or he’s going to regenerate into her.  It really makes no difference what’s happening at this point, it’s all just words on a page.

Anyhoo, the TARDIS has managed to trace the Doctor and Yaz arrives just in time to see the Master be regenerated into the Doctor.  The Master appears to die, and the Doctor has become the Master and the Master says he’s the Doctor, but, of course, he’s really just still the Master in ill-fitting clothing.

Heading off is “his” TARDIS, he takes Yaz along as a companion, and he demonstrates his brilliant plan.  As “the Doctor” he’s going to cause lots of mischief and death and ruin the Doctor’s legacy.  Yaz leaves him stranded on a desolate planet.

In the after-regeneration life, the dead Doctor meets previous dead Doctors 1, 5, 6, 7, & 8, and they’re all metaphysical about falling off cliffs and unfinished business.

Aboard the TARDIS, the dead Doctor appears to Yaz in the form of a AI hologram, programmed to be the Doctor.  With the AI-Hologram-Doctor’s help, Yaz manages to respond to Vinder’s call for help and picks him up.  They hatch a plan to un-force-regenerate the dead Doctor.  Next Yaz goes and saves Ace from certain death, and sends her on a mission to Bolivia.

At UNIT HQ, Tegan has stayed behind, feeling responsible for letting the Cybermen in. Kate puts in action a plan which sees Tegan try to blow up the building, entombing the Cybermen.  Kate surrenders herself as a distraction.  The AI-Hologram-Doctor-In-The-Form-Of-The-Dead-Fifth-Doctor appears to Tegan and they have a touching moment during which Tegan seems to forget that she’s the one who left the Doctor and not vice-versa.

In the Bolivian volcano, Ace meets the AI-Hologram-Doctor-In-The-Form-Of-The-Dead-Seventh-Doctor, and they have a touching moment talking about Ace’s departure that we never saw on screen.  Using enhanced Nitro 9, she plans to blow up the Dalek drill, but first bumps into Graham who is… there.

Yaz returns to pick up the Master-Who-Pretends-to-be-the-Doctor-acting-like-the-Master and takes him back to 1916 Russia, where he decides to launch the volcano attack in 2022, plus kill Yaz.  Now, the AI-Hologram-Doctor-in-the-form-of-the-imaginary-Dead-Fugitive-Doctor shows up and fools the Cybermen into recreating the final scene of Blakes 7 and killing all the Cybermen.

Being Time Lord Cybermen, they begin to regenerate, so Vinder and Yaz force the Master-Who-Pretends-to-be-the-Doctor-acting-like-the-Master back into the cabinet, where they use the Cybermen’s regeneration powers to un-force regenerate the Master-Who-Pretends-to-be-the-Doctor-acting-like-the-Master back into the dead Doctor and reviving the dead Master.

Time to sort this mess out.

Tegan gets help from the AI-Hologram-Doctor-in-the-form-of-the-now-not-dead-Doctor-but-that-now-doesn’t-know-they’re-no-longer-a-dead-Doctor on how to destroy the Cyberconversion devices, save Kate, and blow up the building.  Ace and Graham’s sabotage blows up the Daleks, and the whole gang is now aboard the TARDIS, but not Dan.

They return to the Cyberplanet, the Doctor fixes Vinder’s ship and sends him away, they use the Doctor and the Master’s TARDIS to move the Cyberplanet forward to 2022, using it’s power to turn the erupting volcanoes into steel.

Finally, the Doctor convinces the Qurunx to destroy the planet and go free, which it starts to do, but the Master shows up and makes the Qurunx spin wildly out of control, blasting the Doctor with its planet-destroying power.  Yaz rescues the unconscious Doctor.  They escape.

The Doctor is unconscious for a long time, so Yaz dumps all the others off somewhere so she can have some alone time with the Doctor, but that will be short-lived, the Doctor is regenerating.  The Doctor takes the time to make sure Yaz realizes she’s no more special than any of the countless other companions.  

They have ice cream, and then the Doctor dumps Yaz off, too, where she meets up with Graham, and Dan, on her way to meet up at Compananon, a support group for former companions, including Ian, Jo, Tegan, Mel, Ace, Graham, Dan and Kate.

The Doctor heads off for one more sunrise before regenerating, clothes and all, into a noticeably-aged Tenth Doctor.

Everybody, all together now, say it with me: “What? What? What?”

John and Eugene take a look at what may be the last of Hollywood’s Pre-Star Wars Sci-Fi spectacles.  It all changes after this one, folks.

Synopsis

The Domed City is a closed- oasis in a world destroyed by war.  Logan 5 is one of the elite Sandmen who enforce the ultimate law of the Domed City:  That life must end on your 30th birthday unless you are renewed in the ritual of Carrousel.  All citizens are a colored Life Clock embedded in their hands, showing their age.

Some who refuse to accept Carrousel become Runners, attempting to escape.  The Sandmen make sure they fail.

In a chance encounter with a Runner, Logan collects a strange medallion from the Runner, shaped like an Ankh.  He later sees that same symbol on a beautiful young woman named Jessica 6, who doesn’t want to have sex with him.  Imagine that.

Reporting the next day, the computer that controls the city takes an interest in the Ankh.  It reveals to Logan that over 1000 Runners are unaccounted for, that no one actually “renews,” and that Ankh is tied to a place called “Sanctuary,” the destination of the Runners.

Logan is assigned to go undercover and find Sanctuary without the help of his fellow Sandmen.  To add a little verisimilitude to Logan’s assignment,  the computer takes four years from Logan’s life.  His Life Clock is now Red and blinking, signifying that he is on Last Day.  

Logan seeks out Jessica, and, despite her doubts, he finally convinces her that he really is a Runner.  Her friends aren’t so easily convinced and try to have him killed.

Meanwhile, Logan’s best friend and partner, Francis 7, has witnessed some of the things Logan has done, including letting a Runner go free.  He feels betrayed but covers for his friend, confronting him.

Logan and Jessica escape from him, finally convincing Jessica’s friends to let them leave the dome through secret passages.

Logan, however, is still trying to be a Sandman and reports their location, bringing a squad of Sandman to raid their hideout.  When Jessica is almost killed, Logan saves her and throws in his lot with her, escaping into the tunnels.

Frances follows them, but they get away from him in a flood.

They enter an ice cave and encounter the cybernetic organism named Box.  His faulty programming is to preserve fish, plankton, sea greens, and protein from the sea in ice storage, but when that stopped coming, and the Runners started coming, he began freezing them instead.

Logan destroys Box and his cave.  Logan and Jessica are likely the very first to make it outside the dome.

It is a wilderness, but not a completely desolate one.  Eventually, they come upon the ruins of Washington DC, where they meet an old man living alone with his cats.  They have never seen old before, and he teaches them about how he was raised by his parents.

Francis finds them and, in a struggle to the death, Logan must kill his friend.

With little outside, Logan decides he must try to go back to the Domed City and expose the lie of Carrousel.  They convince the Old Man to accompany them to show everyone what “old” looks like.

Inside, Logan fails to convince the crowds that are gathering for Carrousel, and they are taken prisoner by the Sandmen.

Under mind probe to the computer, Logan explains that there is no Sanctuary and that the Runners didn’t escape.  The computer doesn’t want to hear that and explodes.

A fight breaks out, more computers are destroyed, and the Domed City basically self-destructs, as computer-controlled domed cities are want to do.

The pampered and ill-prepared population of the city struggles forth into the outside to begin a new chapter in unpredictable death.