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The Jedi Nexus
C-3PO and R2-D2 talk their way out of Imperial capture and try to find a safe place to plug into the Death Star and avert certain doom for Luke and the others. Meanwhile, just as Ben Kenobi has sensed his presence, Darth Vader has sensed Ben’s – and sets out to meet him face-to-face. Luke, Han, Leia and Chewie manage to escape death in the trash compactor, but immediately encounter stormtroopers while they try to return to the Falcon. What they don’t know is that a duel looms ahead which will rob Luke of his mentor, but give him a chance to escape with Leia.
written by Brian Daley
based on the screenplay Star Wars by George Lucas
directed by John Madden
music by John WilliamsSee the first episode for cast information.
A virus called NFS – Neurotransmitter Failure Syndrome – has swept the galaxy, laying entire populations to waste. Siy Tarkov, after discovering evidence of an impending Dalek invasion, fell victim to NFS after leaving Velyshaa and placed himself in suspended animation after helplessly watching the rest of his crew die. His desperate distress signal, warning of the Dalek approach, has gone undetected…except by a mysterious man named Selestru, who hires a space traveler named Galanar to find Tarkov’s drifting ship and bring Tarkov back. Selestru wants to know more about the Daleks, and he wants to know about the planet Velyshaa, which has fallen off of the galactic star charts and into the realm of myth.
On the planet Nowwhat, despair once again becomes the order of the day for Arthur Dent. Attempting to hitch a ride back to Earth, Arthur has found that apparently Nowwhat occupies Earth’s coordinates in space-time – and he still hasn’t found Fenchurch, who vanished without a trace when their ship jumped into hyperspace. What Arthur doesn’t realize is that it is he who has vanished – he’s jumped into a slightly parallel dimension where Trillian is a blonde, American news reporter, Zaphod Beeblebrox is delivering pizza, and Ford Prefect is having to break into the corporate offices of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But the corporate culture at the Guide has changed – and for anyone trying to break in, it’s changed fatally.
After her ordeal in Tibet, Erimem is uncertain of whether she wishes to continue traveling with the Doctor and Peri. The TARDIS arrives on Space Station Medusa, orbiting over a distant world that is the home to Earth Colony Phoenix. Protected from the inhospitable surface of the planet by their artificial habitats, the colonists live and work in isolated quarters, travel only by transmat, and virtually never share space with each other. After she and Peri find what appears to be a nest of enormous eggs, Erimem accidentally activates a transmat port and finds herself beamed to Earth Colony Phoenix, into the quarters of a man who has never met another human being in his adult life. The Doctor and Peri are taken by an android to meet the leader of the Phoenix colony, who insists that nothing is wrong – even though Peri later learns that the colony, capable of supporting thousands, is down to only 16 people. Soon, the Doctor learns the grisly truth: a species of aliens known as the Khellians is also lurking on both the colony and the station, and has slowly harvested the human population for food until the colonists are nearly extinct.
Tired of the constant political backstabbing that seems to be evolving into the more literal variety, Leela tells Romana she wants to leave Gallifrey. Romana agrees, taking her to a secure retreat on the planet Davidia so they can talk over what’s bothering Leela. While they make some headway in understanding each other, the peace on Davidia is shattered by the unexpected arrival of a TARDIS. Its sole occupant is burned beyond recognition, his hands are broken, and he is missing his tongue, and worse yet, when Romana calls Braxiatel on Gallifrey to check on the ID of the TARDIS, the Cardinal learns that the vehicle is still on Gallifrey – this TARDIS comes from the Time Lords’ future. When Romana talks about forcing the man to regenerate, Leela can only see it as more evidence that she’ll never be able to understand the Time Lords. Romana also wants to try to access the man’s thoughts via the Matrix, but given the threat of Pandora, the disembodied voice which promised that Romana would become the Imperiatrix of Gallifrey, Romana is barred from using the Matrix lest Pandora spread throughout Gallifrey’s systems. The retreat may offer an alternative way of viewing the TARDIS pilot’s thoughts, though after seeing those thoughts, Romana and Leela may wish they had let him die.
The Doctor, Ace and Hex arrive in Ireland, 1649, to the sound of thunder…only it’s not thunder. The TARDIS has brought the time travelers to Drogheda, just before Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army raze the town to the ground, and there are almost no survivors. The Doctor befriends a pregnant widow named Mary, after sternly telling Ace and Hex not to get involved in historical events. But when the moment comes, Hex and Ace take up arms alongside the Irish. Ace is injured in battle, and Hex is captured by Cromwell’s forces. Hoping he can change history and prevent another massacre like Drogheda, Hex becomes Cromwell’s personal advisor, trying to steer him toward more humane treatment of prisoners, civilian and otherwise. Hex tries to get Cromwell to be more concerned with how history will see him. As the Doctor tries to help Mary bring a new life into the world, Hex is helpless to watch as his best efforts only ensure that Cromwell will continue carving a bloody path through history at Wexford.
Leela receives news that Andred has been found murdered in the chambers of the Chancellery Guard. Leela intends to claim the Sevateem right of vengeance, but Romana needs her friend to continue serving as the acting Castellan, not a bloodthirsty killer. That’s only the latest in a series of violent incidents, including a bombing of the Time Lord Academy, targeting the alien students. Inquisitor Darkel, now openly challenging Romana’s presidency, can’t resist suggesting to the Gallifreyan public that if Romana can’t ensure that the presence of aliens at the Academy can’t be maintained without violence, then the aliens should be sent home. Romana sets Leela and K-9 on the trail of the bombers, while also assigning Coordinator Narvin of the Celestial Intervention Agency to investigate. But what Romana doesn’t know is that Narvin is working with Darkel to secure the Inquisitor’s rise to the presidency. Romana continues to consult in secret with the being known as Pandora, but continues to insist that she won’t go down the path that Pandora says in inevitable. Leela’s K-9 finds evidence of another bomb at the Academy just before it explodes; Guard Commander Hallan closes the blast doors before K-9 or many of the alien students can escape. Romana raises Gallifrey’s defensive transduction barriers and puts the planets on a war footing. Darkel calls for a public, and openly broadcasted, debate in the High Council, and Romana agrees…but she has something in mind other than than the orchestrated open debate that Darkel is planning. And naturally, Romana only has the best interests of Gallifrey and the Time Lords at heart…even if that means that the freedom to disagree with her policies is about to become a thing of the past.
Exotron: The TARDIS arrives at a distant human colony, and the Doctor is ready to be off again, but Peri is still sampling the local flora. When they meet their first exotron, however, both of the time travelers are ready to go. The enormous, remotely-operated mechanical men – or at least whoever is controlling them – takes a keen interest in the Doctor’s scientific knowledge. An exotron snatches up the Doctor and simply walks away with him in hand, while Peri encounters some human colonists and barely survives a meeting with the local fauna. The Doctor finds that the exotrons are powered by telepathy, or in this case, the machine-enhanced telepathy of a man who seems to have something to hide. The Doctor decides to use his own mental powers to level the playing field, but doing so may put his own survival, and Peri’s, at risk.
The Doctor and Lucie arrive in Germany in 1827, just in time to find the wreckage of a coach, its passengers wounded or dead and its horses literally torn to pieces. One of the passengers is dazed, but not actually hurt; this man is introduced as Baron Teufel, obviously a lucky survivor of whatever happened. Naturally, the local constabulary believes that the Doctor and Lucie are the most likely suspects, though the Baron blames the incident on the legendary beast of Orlok, a piece of local folklore. As the Doctor tries to get to the bottom of the attack, which clearly shows signs of a power beyond current human technology, Lucie teams up with a particularly bright philosophy student and does some investigating of her own. The Doctor finds a lab loaded with technology beyond the 19th century, and discovers the Baron is behind it… and the Baron also somehow knows that the Doctor is a Time Lord.
Trying to reacquaint Jamie with travel in the TARDIS, the Doctor promises to take his old friend to the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary. But the timeship lands in the cargo hold of a very different ship – the Titanic, on her own maiden voyage. The Doctor realizes that time is running out to return to the TARDIS and leave, but suddenly the cargo hold seems to have vanished, and every door aboard the Titanic opens onto nothing but a steel plate. A man claiming to be Titanic’s first officer believes the Doctor and Jamie to be saboteurs from a rival shipping company, while a bored passenger finds the notion of stowaways exciting – but these two seem to be the only two people aboard. Everything changes suddenly, and the Doctor and Jamie are aboard the doomed steamship Titan. The same two people from the Titanic are also there, but they have very different personas. The Titan’s wreck happens on schedule, leaving the Doctor stranded on an iceberg and Jamie trapped in the hold of the sinking ship. A futuristic submarine rescues Jamie and the Titan’s young lady passenger, and Jamie persuades its captain to rescue the Doctor as well. The Doctor is shocked to discover that he’s been rescued by none other than the legendary (and fictional) Captain Nemo. And then things really get strange.
Tegan and Nyssa enjoy a vacation world that the TARDIS has conveniently stalled on while the Doctor effects repairs. Turlough tries to stay aboard the TARDIS to help with the repairs, but the Doctor convinces him to step outside and enjoy himself. Within minutes of leaving the TARDIS, however, Turlough encounters an old flame, a girl named Deela, just before they’re both abducted by a pair of mercenaries who know Turlough’s identity. With the Doctor, Nyssa, and Tegan in hot pursuit in a decrepit mining ship, Turlough and Deela are taken to a planet once owned by both of their families. The mercenaries’ paymaster, Renor, needs Turlough and Deela alive to open a biometric lock to a dimensional vault side to contain unimaginable treasures. The Doctor’s procured ship is shot down and makes a barely-survivable landing, but the impact awakens a security system that has lain dormant for centuries, quietly forgetting its programming and going mad. Turlough and Deela are forced, at gunpoint, to try to open the vault, but the controls don’t work – and suddenly, everyone’s life is in danger from the whims of Renor and his hired thugs and from the living guardian known as the Morass.