The Doc meets Mahatma Gandhi and does his level best to foil an alien insurrection…
The Doctor and Donna Noble arrive in Calcutta, India in 1947.
The Doctor and Donna become separated.
The Doctor saves a man from being trampled by a horse and arrives at the refugee camp.
Examining the mutated patients with his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor is made aware of an alien energy source.
There is excitement as the refugee camp is visited by Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi.
The Doctor is delighted to meet the great spiritual leader.
Later reunited with Donna, the Doctor, Gandhi and others take an elephant ride to a strange temple.
At the temple the travellers see visions of their worst nightmares.
The Doctor realises this is a psychic shield designed to scare people to get to protect an alien craft.
Gandhi is very accepting of the Doctors ideas.
Using the TARDIS the Doctor is able to locate the alien energy source.
The Jalkorath has ambitions to harvest 50,000 humans to create Gellum warriors.
When these plans involve Gandhi, the Doctor is forced to protect the timeline from being destroyed…
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This is a well written, very atmospheric story.
Many of the scenes are reminiscent ofA Passage To India,The Jewel In The Crownand indeed,Gandhi.
David Troughton, with several connections toDoctor Whoof his own, is a great choice for narrator.
Troughtons attempts at Donna are interesting.
Whilst she retains her sledgehammer social skills and uber-firey persona her accent seems to drift somehow.
The upper crust gentry and natives are very believable, Troughton excels himself with his performance as Gandhi.
The plot is quite involved and may take more than one listen to fully appreciate.
There are sequences of technobabble which go on too long even forDoctor Who!
The story is split into two episodes running at approximately 75 minutes each.
David Troughtons nicely-judged performances really bring the script to life.
In a poignant epilogue the Doctor tells Donna of Gandhis eventual fate.
This is handled with great sensitivity and the disc is all the better for it.
