Little Green Men and Other Martians
An old friend of Kenzy’s – a journalist with a nose for both news and booze – arrives on the moonbase, and while their old rivalry survives intact, Kenzy grudgingly admits to her fellow Star Cops that he doesn’t show up without a solid story to chase. Spring doesn’t warm to this visitor at all, especially not when Krivenko is welcoming a visiting dignitary of such importance that he requires a cover story. The destruction of a supply shuttle and its pilot tips Spring’s team off to a drug smuggling operation that’s cooking its drugs on the moon and quietly shipping to Earth. And a momentous discovery on Mars has the entire scientific community on edge – have artifacts of an ancient civilization been discovered there, and is that discovery enough to make someone turn to murder?
In the meantime, everyone from the press to his own team is trying to find out what Nathan Spring’s next move is, as he prepares to set up a Martian bureau of the Star Cops – assuming he survives the increasingly dangerous case of the supposedly Martian artifact…
written by Chris Boucher
directed by Graeme Harper
music by Justin Hayward & Tony ViscontiCast: David Calder (Nathan Spring), Linda Newton (Pal Kenzy), Trevor Cooper (Colin Devis), Jonathan Adams (Alexander Krivenko), Sayo Inaba (Dr. Anna Shoun), Roy Holder (Daniel Larwood), Nigel Hughes (Andrew Philpot), Lachelle Carl (Susan Caxton), Wendy MacAdam (Operations Manager), Bridget Lynch-Blosse (Co-Pilot), Kenneth Lodge (Pilot), Peter Neathey (Customs Officer), Philip Rowlands (Outpost Controller), David Janes (Surveryor)
Original title: Information Received
Notes: Theroux is absent for this episode, as Erick Ray Evans was ill during filming. Actress Lachelle Carl, playing another reporter in this episode, later carved out quite the “fictional science fiction journalist” role for herself in the Doctor Who universe, playing an American anchorwoman in the revived Doctor Who series (starting with the early episode Aliens Of London), and then reprising the same character in spinoffs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. Bridget Lynch-Blosse also has a Doctor Who connection, though it predates Star Cops: she appeared in a guest starring role in 1985’s Revelation Of The Daleks, which was also directed by Graeme Harper. This was the final episode of Star Cops; though the build-up to the establishment of a Martian bureau was intended to lead into a second season, producer Evgeny Gridneff and series creator Chris Boucher had locked horns often enough over the course of the first season that Boucher raised few objections when the low-rated series came to an end.
LogBook entry by Earl Green
In the aftermath of their fateful visit to near-future Manchester, the Doctor and Charley are at odds – the Time Lord doesn’t trust his companion’s story about not remembering her past, and she remains frustratingly tight-lipped. But before they can continue their conversation any further, Charley falls ill, and the Doctor is forced to take her to the TARDIS’ Zero Room to stabilize her. She has contracted some kind of virus, and the Doctor sets the TARDIS on a course for the Amethyst Viral Containment Station, a massive space station devoted to preserving – in complete isolation – samples of every virus known to exist; if the cure for Charley’s illness can be found anywhere, it will be here. But shortly after the time travelers arrive at Amethyst, each of them faces a dilemma. Charley isn’t alone in her own mind, which is now being shared with a chatty being named Mila, who claims that she has been with the Doctor, in noncorporeal form, since his first incarnation. And the Doctor is horrified to discover that two invasion forces are converging on Amethyst: a Dalek strike force seeking ammunition for viral warfare, and a Viyran ship whose crew will stop at nothing to stop the Daleks’ mission. Anyone caught in the crossfire is unlikely to find mercy. And Charley is losing the battle for control of her own mind and body…
The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Lucie to a space city which, according to the TARDIS sensors, is devoid of life. That doesn’t mean it’s completely uninhabited, however – the time travelers are quickly cornered by a band of marauding robots. A barrier separates the two, allowing Lucie to escape to safety, while the Doctor has to talk his way out of danger with a little help from his sonic screwdriver and a helpful cleaning robot who hasn’t joined his savage brethren. Lucie finds herself in the company of the Assemblers, a band of elder robots so pacifistic that they’re in constant danger from the Cannibalists, the all-consuming robots who see any other robot or life form as a source of spare parts. In the middle of the seemingly endless conflict between these two groups are Servo, a meek maintenance droid who simply wants to carry on the work of tending to the city’s needs, and Minerva, an access point for the city itself who could grant immense power to anyone, even to the point of resetting the entire system. Soon, the race is on to see who can control Minerva and rule the city… and the Doctor isn’t sure that either group has earned that power.
The TARDIS – with some assistance from a mysterious cat who resets the coordinates – brings the Doctor and his new companion Tamsin to Nevermore, a world of poison mists and robotic ravens with an affinity for the works of Edgar Allan Poe. But the Doctor once knew it as Corinth Minor, and so did the Time Lords, shortly before they took drastic measures to alter the planet’s fate. Now Nevermore is home to a war criminal convicted of genocide, a small group of people tasked with overseeing her imprisonment, and now two time travelers whose arrival coincides with the sudden appearance of a deadly creature. Every event on Nevermore seems to take its cues from the works of Poe, but if the Doctor and Tamsin can’t find and stop whatever is bent on eliminating the planet’s small population, the result will be worse than Poe’s darkest imaginings.
Trying to track down the surviving carrier of Richter’s Disease from Hellheim, the TARDIS brings the Doctor and his friends – with Nyssa once again aboard the TARDIS – to an alien forest. The Doctor and Tegan are taken to Purity, a village in turmoil in the wake of its leader’s disappearance. While the locals are concerned with the implications of two “unclean” visitors, they also fear the Takers and observe almost-ritual hygenic cleansing practices. Nyssa and Turlough meet more locals from Purity, but they also encounter the Takers, who seem to be far more advanced and powerful. The Doctor and Tegan are caught up in the succession struggle in the village of Purity, and their lives are threatened at every turn by a pretender to the throne who thinks they’ll bring infection and death with them.