Establishing orbit around the planet Greenovia the crew of the starship Shapiro discovers the formerly lush world a barren, blasted, wasteland peopled only by memories of the personnel of Outpost Colony Five.
Establishing orbit around the planet Greenovia the crew of the starship Shapiro discovers the formerly lush world a barren, blasted, wasteland peopled only by memories of the personnel of Outpost Colony Five.
What do you get when you combine myself with a set of reviews which have no set deadline? Very little progress!
Bring on THE TRILEXIA THREAT!
Blurb Establishing orbit around the planet GREENOVIA the crew of the starship SHAPIRO discovers the formerly lush world a barren, blasted wasteland peopled only by memories of the personnel of Outpost Colony Five. And when the TARDIS is dragged into the SHAPIRO’s decontamination chamber the Doctor and Ria are enmeshed in a sinister sequence of events culminating with a flight into the very heart of a BLACK HOLE!
Part 1
A spaceship picks up a piece debris floating through… well, space. Lo and behold, it’s the Tardis. The Doctor and Ria step outside. It turns out that they’re on the Starship Shapiro. Some drudgers appear and escort the pair to the crew. The ship is heading for the planet Greenovia. The captain is having some difficulty getting in touch with the colony below. He has the drudgers escort the Doctor and Ria to their room. The Doctor notes that most of the major functions on board are done by machinery. The ship comes in to land on Greenovia, but instead of the lush countryside they were expecting, they find a hazy sky. The Doctor thinks it’s pollution (how AIRZONE of him), but there are no known toxins in the atmosphere. The ship malfunctions, but Ria is able to pilot it. In the confusion, they nearly hit a mountain that isn’t supposed to be there. When they finally land, they see miles and miles of barren wasteland instead of greenery. The land has been scorched. They come across a dead drudger, which the Doctor tries to reactivate to learn what has happened. Its positronic brain was fried by an ultrasonic emission. Whatever attacked the drudger, it knew that the colony’s vulnerability was its complete dependence on robots. The Doctor decides that the only way to find out what’s going on is to explore the mountain that isn’t supposed to be there. They come across an old colonist who takes them to his lab. He’s panicky and weird, saying that an indestructible force has kidnapped the rest of the colonists and taken them to their lair inside the mountain. Suddenly a creature starts burrowing through the floor. They throw a chitin-eating chemical at it, but it’s too late and it grabs the colonist. The Doctor and company continue on and discover a huge termite egg. The mountain is actually their mound. Before they can escape, the termites advance on them.
CUE MUSIC
Tune in next time for DANGER’S A MOUNTAIN or DON’T BE BUGGIN’! Actually it’s just part 2. Read on.
Part 2
We find our heroes hanging upside down. Fortunately, one of their drudgers wanders in and helps them down. Meanwhile, the termite queen tells her minion that the Doctor and crew must be absorbed into her consciousness. The Doctor knows that the queen is the nerve center of the colony, and that to save the day, they’ll need to find and immobilize her. Ria distributes anti-insect-shell bombs amongst the crew (don’t leave home without them), but they are set upon by the bugs. They grab the Doctor and take him to the queen. She tells him that they are the Trilexia. The colonists’ minds have all been absorbed into the Trilexia consciousness. The bugs are preparing to spread themselves across the galaxy. The Doctor begs the queen for a more peaceful solution, but as giant space termites go, she’s very single-minded. The Doctor tells her that there is a black hole nearby that can enable the Trilexia to survive without destroying anymore worlds. The queen shows the Doctor that there is already a space fleet closing in on them, and that she must spread her colony throughout space. The mountain and planet itself begin collapsing. Why? I’m not sure really, but it is. The Doctor and crew take off. The Doctor plans to fly the Tardis into the black hole, stabilizing it and allowing the Trilexia to swarm into another universe instead of their own. The Shapiro ends up exploding, but the Tardis is able to rescue the bugs. The story concludes with the Doctor wondering about what will happen when he dematerializes from inside a black hole.
CUE MUSIC
Evaluation
A great story. The plot and pacing are excellent, and the cliffhanger is actually cliffhangery. This is another story that could easily have been made into a televised story. But honestly, it works better here than it would have on TV. I expect to be corrected by the experts, but it seems to me that it was inspired somewhat by The Twim Dilemma, with space bugs wanting to spread their seed throughout the solar system/galaxy/universe. And you all know how good the BBC were at realizing giant space bugs (Mestor, Wiirn, Tractators, Bonnie Langford). The Trilexia Threat works best in your mind, where the production values do credit to this tight story. But I must say that one little thing bugs me (ha ha ha……….). The Doctor’s solution is to spit the Trilexian empire into an unsuspecting dimension. Can you just imagine living in that other dimension and suddenly seeing a swarm of millions of space bugs appear out of nowhere? Also, who’s to say that the other dimension can provide anything that the Trilexians need. For all they know, it’s a universe populated entirely by semi-sentient tennis shoes. But this is more a case of me overthinking things.
Overall 9 out of 10
NEXT TIME
The Doctor puts on his infernal dancing shoes for a MINUET IN HELL.
Yeah I know it’s cheesy. You try setting up 27 stories!