Anvil
2 recruits 6 to join his legion of “undercovers” – Village residents who spy on other Village residents. The undercovers don’t try to determine if someone is guilty; they assume guilt and then try to find out what their subject is guilty of. 6 vows on the spot to find ways to turn this new assignment against 2, but even 6 is surprised when he learns about the culture of surveillance that exists within the borders of the Village: children are taught spying techniques, and virtually anyone could be a spy. 6 worries about the fate of the dreamers, Village residents who have inexplicably drawn sketches of such things as Big Ben and the Statue of Liberty. Anyone caught remembering the world outside the Village doesn’t have a long life expectancy; anyone caught associating with 6 may have an even shorter life.
written by Bill Gallagher
directed by Nick Hurran
music by Rupert Gregson-WilliamsCast: Ian McKellen (2), Jim Caviezel (6), Hayley Atwell (Lucy), Ruth Wilson (313), Lennie James (147), Jeffrey R. Smith (16), Rachael Blake (M2), Jamie Campbell Bower (11-12), Vincent Regan (909), Warrick Grier (1955)
Notes: The new Prisoner episode titles hearken back to episodes of the original – in this case, Hammer Into Anvil – even though there may not necessarily be a direct story correlation.
LogBook entry by Earl Green
The Doctor and Nyssa are trapped aboard the Rutan ship, which has been set to apply all available power to the task of leaving Earth. Engine overload is imminent, and the ship explodes with the time travelers aboard.
The Dust Run: Having grown up as a “spacer”, young Jenna Stannis considers piloting a spacecraft to be a pastime… and a profession. This brings her into conflict with a fellow hotshot pilot named Townsend, another spacer, who challenges her to the Dust Run: a hazardous race through a dense asteroid belt in which the pilot has no computer assistance. Jenna’s sure that Townsend just wants to get into her pants, but in fact he’s playing for much higher stakes.
The Doctor brings the TARDIS to a landing at Blackpool in 1986, promising Peri a relaxing getaway for once. But other alien forces have different plans for Blackpool: the Celestial Toymaker is play-testing a new arcade game there, one which burns out the minds of those players who prove to be very good at it. The two time-travelers are separated, and the Toymaker intends to use Peri as a pawn to secure the Doctor’s cooperation in his scheme to take over the world.
Mike Yates listens on as the Doctor tells him about his next encounter with the swarm of alien hornets, at an abbey in the middle ages. The nuns of the abbey tell the Doctor that they welcomed a new Mother Superior only a few months ago, at roughly the same time that wild wolves began to besiege their abbey. Despite the nuns’ protectiveness of their new leader, the Doctor demands an audience with her, confident that she is the current host of the hornets. He’s stunned to find that she’s not even human, but a hornet-infested pig. The hornets leave their host and infest one of the wolves, which then pursues the Doctor and gains entry to the TARDIS. The hornets now have their prize: with the Time Lord under their control, that can set into motion the events that he has been trying to prevent since his first encounter with them. His story told in full, the Doctor prepares to fight the hornets one last time, and Mike Yates wonders if it’s a fight they can both survive.
With a war-weary Mike Yates and nervous housemaid Mrs. Wibbsey in tow, the Doctor takes the fight to his nemesis, using the TARDIS’ dimensional stabilizer to reduce himself to the size of the hornets and confront them on their own turf. They quickly win an audience with the Queen of the alien hornets, and the Doctor resists her will, but she finds an more receptive ear in Yates, preying upon the same fears that led him astray at the end of his career with UNIT. The Doctor and Mrs. Wibbsey are locked up while the Queen continues trying to persuade Yates to join her, and the Doctor uses this time to hatch a scheme for thwarting the hornets’ invasion of Earth… assuming that Yates is still on his side.