FOUR TO DOOMSDAY

BY: TERENCE DUDLEY

Part Three

Original Air Date: 25 January 1982
Running time: 24:09

BIGON: This is my memory of two thousand five hundred and fifty five years, linked to that, which is my reason, my intelligence, linked to that, which is my motor power.

DOCTOR: Incredible engineering.

BIGON: This compound is a polymer stretched over a non-corrosive steel frame.

TEGAN: It's wicked. Evil.

BIGON: Not in itself. As with all technology, it is the use to which it is put.

DOCTOR: Exactly. Just three silicon chips.

BIGON: My reasoning chip contains more circuits than there are synapses in your brain, Doctor, each linked by lines one hundred nanometres thick.

TEGAN: What's a nanometre?

DOCTOR: Oh, a thousand millionth of a metre.

TEGAN: No. I'm sorry, I can't believe that.

DOCTOR: Well, like it or not, Tegan, you're looking at a fact, if not a fact of life. This ship contains the entire population of Urbanka. Nine billion silicon chips.

BIGON: Not so many. Some are slaves, robots. They have but one chip, the motor circuit. Those are they that wear the discs.

DOCTOR: So, the Aborigine, the Chinaman and the Mayan are

BIGON: All as I, yes. The leaders of four ethnic groups.

MONARCH: So you see, I mean you no harm.

NYSSA: You're androids.

MONARCH: Oh no, girl, don't irritate me. And above all, don't disappoint me. I hold you to be intelligent. I've already explained simply and succinctly that we're fully integrated personalities with a racial memory.

ADRIC: Then what are these, your Majesty?

MONARCH: No, no, no. There must be a class system. It is absolutely essential for good government. Now these are second-class citizens. You could call them assisters.

NYSSA: Or slaves.

MONARCH: If you will, girl. It is, however, a very emotive word.

ENLIGHTENMENT: Very flesh time.

ADRIC: Flesh time?

ENLIGHTENMENT: It is the name Monarch to the primitive time. In your terms, the time of the chickenpox, of hunger and heart disease, arthritis, bronchitis and the common cold.

MONARCH: I have over thrown the greatest tyranny in the universe. External and internal organs.

NYSSA: What about love?

MONARCH: Love?

ENLIGHTENMENT: The exchange of two fantasies, your Majesty.

MONARCH: Ah. Thank you, Enlightenment. Oh, my children, I would like to have held you c*ptive by my words, not by assisters.

ADRIC: But you have, your Majesty.

MONARCH: My boy?

ADRIC: What you've done is almost beyond belief. You've performed a miracle.

MONARCH: Did you hear that, Enlightenment? We have been receiving messages from Earth for fifty years. Have you ever heard a more intelligent statement? Release them. Release them at once.

MONARCH: You will be invaluable to me in my crusade.

ADRIC: Crusade?

MONARCH: To come to the aid of the Earthlings. To save them from themselves. They're not as intelligent as you. They w*r amongst themselves. They make more w*apon than food and two thirds of them are starving. It is all a problem of the flesh time. We come to rid them of it.

NYSSA: Perhaps they don't want to be rid of it.

ADRIC: Well, that's silly, Nyssa. How can anyone want to live like that?

MONARCH: He's right.

ENLIGHTENMENT: Think, girl. Think.

NYSSA: I am thinking.

BIGON: We have been made immortal.

DOCTOR: So it would seem. As long as you have spare parts you could go on forever.

DOCTOR: All you need is the raw materials.

BIGON: The reason for Monarch's invasion of Earth. The visits established its suitability.

DOCTOR: Of course! That's it, he's after the silicon.

TEGAN: What?

DOCTOR: One of the biggest components of the Earth's crust is silicon. All the chips he wants.

BIGON: And the fossilisation.

DOCTOR: Oh yes, carbon too.

BIGON: First he intends to replace the population of Earth with his own.

TEGAN: What, three billion people?

BIGON: He can do it. The landing will be peaceful. He has prepared a message of peace and will offer them the help of his advanced alien intelligence. That is why he will want your help. To convince the people of Earth that he means them no harm.

TEGAN: He'll get no help from me.

BIGON: Don't be too sure. In the Mobiliary there is a deadly poison. The deadliest in the known universe. The Urbankans secreted it in a gland. It causes organic matter to shrink in on itself. One trillionth of a gram would reduce you to the size of a grain of salt. With this he will conquer Earth.

ENLIGHTENMENT: We bring enlightenment.

NYSSA: And persuasion.

PERSUASION: That, too.

ADRIC: Just think of it, Nyssa. A whole new technology. No more hunger, no more wars. Fine schools, fine hospitals

NYSSA: Fine tyranny.

ENLIGHTENMENT: You should guard against the arrogance of the scientist, Nyssa. As a bioengineer, you, more than most, should marvel at the might of our Monarch. He led us from the Urbankan slime first to conquer the land, then the elements, to develop the greatest technology in the universe.

MONARCH: You mustn't be too hard on the child, Enlightenment. She has spirit and courage and a fine independence. Such qualities will be useful. She'll come round in the end.

NYSSA: Never to tyranny. I can never forget that my father was k*lled by a tyrant.

ADRIC: Well, now you're being unreasonable, Nyssa. One simply can't compare his Majesty to the Master.

MONARCH: Who is this Master?

ADRIC: A Time Lord, your Majesty, and the Doctor's greatest enemy.

BIGON: Unless he is stopped, he will eventually destroy Earth just as he destroyed Urbanka.

DOCTOR: I thought he said Urbanka's son was a supernova?

BIGON: A lie. He exhausted the planet of its minerals and then polluted it with his technology. The pollution destroyed the ozone layer and left ultraviolet light to scorch Urbanka.

DOCTOR: And all this for what?

BIGON: His great plan. For him to travel faster than light.

DOCTOR: What?

BIGON: Monarch is obsessed with solving the riddle of the universe.

DOCTOR: Absurd. So he believes that to travel faster than light would mean going backwards in time, back to the Big Bang?

BIGON: And beyond. Monarch believes he will meet himself there. He believes he is God.

MONARCH: I grieve you, my child, that your father should have met such a fate. So, this Doctor of yours is also a Time Lord, eh?

ADRIC: Yes, your Majesty.

MONARCH: Whence comes his power?

ADRIC: From other Time Lords. He speaks of the one called Rassilon.

ENLIGHTENMENT: There is a galactic legend about a Rassilon. He who found the Eye of Harmony.

MONARCH: You know very well, Enlightenment, I regard such tales as superstition.

ENLIGHTENMENT: Yes, your Majesty.

MONARCH: Yes, now tell me more about this Time Lord Doctor. He seems to be a very agreeable person.

ADRIC: Yes.

MONARCH: He has a powerful mind.

ADRIC: Yes, yes.

MONARCH: Yes, I like that. Has he any power outside his machine?

ADRIC: Well, he has two hearts.

MONARCH: Oh, poor fellow. That must make him very vulnerable.

ADRIC: And he has the ability to go into a trance that suspends life functions.

MONARCH: Oh, that must be useful. But I'm interested in this er, machine of his.

ADRIC: The TARDIS.

MONARCH: Hmm?

ADRIC: Short for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.

MONARCH: Fascinating. It's very small. I mean, is it not uncomfortable.

ADRIC: No, the interior's in a different dimension.

MONARCH: Really?

ADRIC: Yes, it's quite large.

NYSSA: Why don't you shut up!

MONARCH: Oh, mind your manners, my dear. Go on, boy.

ADRIC: Oh. Well, it's got a power room, it's got a bathroom. It's even got cloisters.

MONARCH: Cloisters?

ENLIGHTENMENT: A covered walkway, your Majesty. An architectural feature of ecclesiastical and educational establishments on Earth.

MONARCH: All that inside this TARDIS?

ADRIC: Yes, your Majesty.

MONARCH: Fascinating. I should love to see all this.

ADRIC: Well, I'm quite sure the Doctor would be only too pleased to show you around. He's the only one of us who really understands it and how it operates.

MONARCH: Oh, I like that. Could you ask this Doctor now if I could look inside his TARDIS?

ADRIC: Of course, your Majesty.

MONARCH: Not you. Stop her. I have other plans for you, child.

NYSSA: What are you going to do?

MONARCH: Don't be afraid. One only harms that which one fears.

BIGON: He must be stopped at all costs, Doctor.

DOCTOR: If you feel this way, why have you not acted before?

BIGON: I am powerless alone. I have free will, but built into my circuits is a fail-safe mechanism. Any aggressive intent is immediately signalled and baulked.

DOCTOR: Well, the only course of action I can think of is to go along with him. Appear to cooperate.

BIGON: There may not be time. Sooner or later he is bound to make you as I am. All of you.

TEGAN: No! k*ll us?

BIGON: It is not death. First you are hypnotised. Under hypnosis you are made to recall your whole life. This is recorded and micro-chipped. Your body is then disposed of and you are remade as I.

TEGAN: No, no, no, no, no!

DOCTOR: It's all right, it's all right. Just leave everything to me.

TEGAN: I'm sick of leaving everything to you!

DOCTOR: Could you perhaps show me the part of the ship that controls the population? All the information you can.

BIGON: Yes, but we must hurry.

TEGAN: You must be mad.

DOCTOR: Just keep calm.

TEGAN: How? We've got to get out of here. We've got to get to the TARDIS and get out of here!

DOCTOR: Not yet. Please, will you stop thinking of yourself for once!

TEGAN: I'm not thinking of myself. We've got to get to Earth and warn them!

DOCTOR: Of what? Who'll believe us? We'll be laughed at.

TEGAN: We can try.

DOCTOR: Yes, another way.

BIGON: Doctor?

DOCTOR: Yes, just coming. Now stay here. You'll be perfectly safe. I won't be very long.

TEGAN: I won't stay here!

DOCTOR: Yes, you will! In here you can't be seen, out there you can. You stay here! (to Bigon) Go a little in front of me. That will tell them not to confront me and I can surprise it.

TEGAN: Don't leave me, please.

DOCTOR: Shush.

BIGON: You reversed the magnetic field?

DOCTOR: Yes, and that's the way we'll deal with them all. Come on.

BIGON: (re helmet) You'd better put that on.

ENLIGHTENMENT: Your eyes are getting heavy. They are getting heavier, and heavier, and heavier.

ENLIGHTENMENT: Now you are asleep. Soon you will recall all past life and then you will be relieved of the flesh time. Take her to the Mobiliary.

PERSUASION: The monopticon in linkway seven has a fault.

ENLIGHTENMENT: The magnetic field has reversed.

MONARCH: Then it's the Doctor who's reversed it. He'll be dealt with. They will all be dealt with. My patience is not inexhaustible.

MONARCH: Now he's in the library.

ENLIGHTENMENT: Much good may it do him, unless Bigon is there.

PERSUASION: I've not seen Bigon for some time, your Majesty.

MONARCH: It need not concern you, Persuasion.

ENLIGHTENMENT: The boy appears lost.

MONARCH: He'll find his way.

BIGON: You can take that off to conserve it. The life support system is on. That red light indicates it.

DOCTOR: Is the course controlled from here?

BIGON: Yes, but it is an a*t*matic control.

DOCTOR: What are these doing?

BIGON: What they have been doing for centuries. Attempting to find power formulae to move faster than the speed of light. And having some success. Perhaps a thousand years hence Monarch will indeed be going backward in time to a rendezvous with himself, the Creator.

LIN FUTU: Leave her.

LIN FUTU: Five minutes.

ADRIC: Tegan, where's the Doctor?

TEGAN: I don't know.

ADRIC: What's the matter?

TEGAN: We've got to get off this ship. We must or we'll all die.

ADRIC: What utter rubbish! Monarch has no reason for harming us. He wants our help. Tegan, the Doctor was right about these Urbankans. They're light years ahead in their technology.

TEGAN: Oh, silicon chips!

ADRIC: You know?

TEGAN: Yeah, and a lot more than you. Now out of my way.

ADRIC: Where do you think you're going?

TEGAN: To the TARDIS.

ADRIC: Why?

TEGAN: To try to get out of here. Somebody's got to.

ADRIC: You're being very silly, and anyway, you can't even work it.

TEGAN: Well, I'm going to try.

ADRIC: But I don't see what you're in such a state about. Look, can't you understand? These Urbankans are benefactors.

TEGAN: Ha!

ADRIC: And Monarch is charming. He's just asked me very politely if he could have a look round the TARDIS.

TEGAN: Adric, you can come with me or get out of my way. What's it going to be?

ADRIC: But everything is all right, I tell you! And anyway, you can't get into the TARDIS.

TEGAN: Oh, can't I?

TEGAN: You forget, I was given this when we left it.

ADRIC: Well, I'll take that.

TEGAN: You will not! Adric, I'm warning you. Get out of my way!

ADRIC: No! Now look, I'm not going to let you do anything silly.

LIN FUTU: Two minutes.

PERSUASION: He's now in the Flora chamber, and I saw Bigon with him.

MONARCH: As he was in the library. Your eyes have been elsewhere, Persuasion. Our friend Bigon is giving the Doctor a guided tour.

PERSUASION: Is that wise, your Majesty?

MONARCH: Oh, my other minister questions my wisdom.

PERSUASION: I beg your Majesty's pardon.

MONARCH: I should think so, indeed.

DOCTOR: Intensified ultraviolet for photosynthesis.

BIGON: Yes, this is all that was saved from Urbanka.

DOCTOR: And now it's a source of oxygen.

BIGON: For those who need it.

DOCTOR: Point taken.

BIGON: And this is the graveyard of all those taken from Earth.

DOCTOR: There were others?

BIGON: Many. After the experiments, only the highest intelligence was allowed to live on, as I.

DOCTOR: And the frogs?

BIGON: To ensure a supply of the poison with which Monarch will conquer Earth.

MONARCH: The girl Tegan.

PERSUASION: Action, your Majesty?

MONARCH: None. She can do nothing. No Earthling could possibly have the capacity.

MONARCH: The guided tour continues.

ENLIGHTENMENT: They are now in the Mobiliary.

PERSUASION: The girl Nyssa is there in the first stage, your Majesty.

LIN FUTU: What did you do to the monopticon?

BIGON: The Doctor was trying a small experiment. No harm has been done. Monarch commanded me to show the Doctor the ship. I hope we do not intrude.

LIN FUTU: No. If you will allow me to continue with my work?

BIGON: Of course.

BIGON: This is where the metamorphoses are performed with him in charge. Here in these drawers lie the Urbankans, the future inhabitants of Earth.

DOCTOR: An appalling thought.

BIGON: All must be destroyed.

DOCTOR: It's a tall order.

BIGON: This was once my prison for over a hundred years. The penalty for my one and only attempt at revolt.

BIGON: Here is the poison.

BIGON: This is how the process works. The subject is hypnotised and their memory recorded. The subject is then terminated and their body used to fertilise the Flora chamber. By Zeus! One of you is already in there!

DOCTOR: Nyssa, wake up.

NYSSA: Oh, Doctor, thank you.

DOCTOR: Are you all right?

NYSSA: I'll be all right in a minute. They were going to k*ll me.

DOCTOR: Yes, the devils. Where's Adric?

NYSSA: I think he's all right. They sent him to look for you. They want the key to the TARDIS.

DOCTOR: Oh, do they.

LIN FUTU: Your Majesty, they were plotting the deliberate destruction of the Urbankan people.

MONARCH: You've done well. Bigon will be de-circuited and the Doctor destroyed. Persuasion, see to it.

PERSUASION: Your Majesty.

MONARCH: So perish all who thr*at my mission.

TEGAN: Come on.

DOCTOR: Could we expect support from the others, Kurkutji and Futu?

BIGON: No, they have been corrupted by power. They have been promised, as I was, dominion over their ethnic groups on Earth.

DOCTOR: Yes, difficult to resist.

BIGON: Not for me. In a civilised world, there is no substitute for democracy.

DOCTOR: Is there nowhere we could hide ourselves to get a plan together?

BIGON: Nowhere.

DOCTOR: No w*apon?

BIGON: The armoury is in the throne room.

DOCTOR: Then our only hope is to get to the TARDIS and warn Earth. Might these be of any use to us?

BIGON: Not as they are. Perhaps I could alter their circuits.

NYSSA: Doctor, may I have your sonic screwdriver?

DOCTOR: What for?

NYSSA: I'd like to try something. This has an electric charge, hasn't it?

DOCTOR: Yes.

NYSSA: Now, may I borrow your pencil?

ADRIC: Doctor! Doctor, it's Tegan. She's trying to move the TARDIS.

DOCTOR: Oh, good grief.

PERSUASION: Take them!

DOCTOR: Ah, yes, I

MONARCH: So it goes. So any fool can operate it. So much for the Doctor's technology. So be it.

PERSUASION: De-circuit that.

PERSUASION: And k*ll him.

ADRIC: No! No! No! No!
{"type": "series", "show": "Doctor Who", "episode": "19x07 - Four to Doomsday - part 3"}