The Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his companion Jamie McCrimmon (Fraser Hines) land the TARDIS on Space Station Camera in the Third Zone. They are working for the Time Lords, who have installed a teleport control on the TARDIS, and are here to talk to Dastari (Laurence Payner), the Head of Projects. The Doctor tells Dastari that the Time-Lords want the Kartz-Reimer Time Experiments stopped before they threaten the Fabric of Time, though Dastari thinks they just want power over Time for themselves alone. The Androgum cook Shockeye (John Stratton) has been drugging the food, and another Androgum named Chessene (Jacqueline Pierce), who is technologically augmented to mega-plus level, lowers the station’s defenses so the Sontarans can invade. Jamie sees the Doctor die in Sontaran custody.

In the TARDIS, the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) sees the same thing. If he has really died in the past, he would now be just a temporal anomaly. He decides to consult his old friend Dastari. Arriving on the station with Peri (Nicola Bryant), he finds no sign of life. The computer tries to kill him and Peri but fails. The Doctor finds Dastari’s journal, including the Time Lords’ objections to Kartz-Reimer. In Spain, Chessene, Shockeye, and the Sontaran Major Varl (Tim Raynham) move into a hacienda after killing its owner. Dastari and Sontaran Group Marshal Stike (Clifton Greyn) carry in the unconscious Second Doctor.

Peri is attacked by a humanoid in rags. It is Jamie, who has been hiding all this time. With hypnosis, the Sixth Doctor finds out that Jamie had seen the Second Doctor die. This must be an illusion, because the Sixth Doctor is here. He thinks the Sontarans must have kidnapped Dastari—the only biogeneticist that could isolate the Symbiotic Nuclei that allows allow Time Lords to travel in Time. The Sixth Doctor goes into a trance and detects the presence of the Second Doctor in Seville and sets the TARDIS for those co-ordinates.

Dastari reveals his plan to dissect the Second Doctor and give his Symbiotic Nuclei to Chessene. Peri sneaks into the hacienda and interrupts the operation. In the cellar, the Sixth Doctor examines the Kartz-Reimer Module, and the Sontarans discover him. Shockeye knocks Peri out and brings her to the kitchen to cook. Stike threatens to kill Jamie unless the Sixth Doctor gets into the module. He does so, priming the module with his genes, but he and Jamie escape.

Chessene has her own plan: implant the Second Doctor with Shockeye’s genetic material, turning the Doctor into an Androgum. She interrupts Shockeye before he can cook Peri and stuns him so Dastari can remove his genetic material. The Sixth Doctor revives Peri and reveals that he has taken the Briode Nebuliser from the Kartz-Reimer Module, so it won’t work. Dastari has implanted the Second Doctor with 50% Androgum genes and he is transformed. Shockeye and his new Androgum Doctor friend go into town to sample the cuisine. Dastari turns against the Sontarans. Varl is killed. But Stike escapes. He tries to use the sabotaged Module, but it burns him. He stumbles to his own booby-trapped ship, and it explodes, killing him.

The Sixth Doctor, Peri, and Jamie follow the Second Doctor’s trail into Seville, hoping to cure him. The two Androgums are in Las Cadena’s Restaurant, eating gargantuan amounts of food. Oscar (James Saxon), the restaurant owner, demands they pay the bill. Sockeye kills him, just as the Sixth Doctor and the others show up. Shockeye takes off and the Second Doctor slowly returns to normal. Chessene and Dastari arrive and bring them all back to the hacienda at gunpoint.

Chassene and Dastari replace the nebulizer and test the machine on Peri. But the Sixth Doctor fixed it so it would work only once. The Sixth Doctor rescues Jamie from the kitchen. Shockeye pursues the Doctor through the grounds with a knife and cuts him. Chassene licks his blood from the patio, reverting to her Angrogum roots; Dastari sees this and is disgusted. The Doctor traps and kills Shockeye. Dastari, having turned against the Sontarans, decides to turn against the Androgums too, by freeing the Second Doctor, Peri, and Jamie, and is killed by Chessene. She then tries to kill the Doctor and Peri, but Jamie disarms her. Chessene tries to escape in the Module and it explodes. The Second and Sixth Doctors leave, with their companions, in their respective TARDISes, pretty much the only survivors of the story.

The opening scene with Jamie and the Second Doctor is in black and white. One is not supposed to notice that they are somewhat older than the last time we saw them. The story was originally going to be filmed in New Orleans, but Spain was cheaper. The heat was deadly, the wigs got lost, an actress and a stuntman refused to perform. They returned to England with a scratch on one of the negatives and some actors and crew had to be flown back to Spain to film scenes again. The story was a great hit, however, as multiple-Doctor stories tend to be. I thought it was a hoot myself. It was, however, criticized for its gruesome violence. In fact, it was a heavy-handed allegory, written by a vegetarian, about meat-eating, hunting, and butchery. Androgum is an anagram of Gourmand.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

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