Shada

 

Hang on, where's the music? It's Tom Baker! "I've always been at home in museums!"

Giant robot - beat you, cock!

Kraag. KRAAG! SHAAAADAAAAAAA!

Poor old Douglas, I wonder what became of him...

"We all cried a lot. We were very sad." That'll be that awful Keff shite in the background, Tom.

Now back to 1979, and the story can begin...

On a space station, 6 white suited scientists sleep around a pyramid of chairs, topped by a Yeti sphere.

The scar-faced scientist suddenly awakes and stands; the others have a fit then collapse as he fiddles with the controls.

In the parallel universe where this was completed, this story followed The Horns of Nimon, early in 1980.

Scarface nicks the sphere.

On Earth, in Cambridge, student Chris Parsons pays a visit to dotty old Professor Chronotis.

Chronotis has a police box in his rooms.

Chris wants to borrow some books, and finds a rather curious looking one with a strange symbol on the cover.

Must be Gallifreyan for "Don't Panic!"

Chronotis reads the Time Machine by HG Wells...

The Doctor and Romana are punting on the Cam, much to the objections of a local duck.

Tom drops his pole, but manages to avoid any black triangles.

Scarface has now adopted a ridiculous hat & carries a whispering carpet bag.

90s Tom pops up to tell us that Chris can't read the Gallifreyan Guide.

The Doctor encounters a familiar porter who points him in the direction of Chronotis.

"Crackers?" "Sometimes."

Scarface walks through the streets of Cambridge in an all-white suit, big floppy hat and cape. No one bats an eyelid.

There were obviously a lot of cape-wearing, floppy hatted, white suited guys carrying carpet bags round Cambridge in 1980.

Chronotis finally remembers who sent them a message - him!

90s Tom tells us that Chris burnt his hand reading a book. That's some papercut.

Scarface hypnotises a local into taxiing him across town. 90s Tom explains that Skagra gave him a right sphere-ing.

Skagra drives to the pub. Big Mungo Jerry fan, obviously.

Skagra climbs into the sky, or at least that's what it looks like as he enters his invisible ship.

Chronotis has a load of overdue Gallifreyan books but guess what - the one Chris took is dangerous.

Little red book; five by seven. Could be green.

Skagra watches old Doctor Whos, but mostly only season 17. There's nothing on the other side for some reason.

Then Skagra's monstrous servants, the Kraags, loom on his viewer screen, says 90s tom. Cliffhanger, sort of!

Love how the picture of the Kraag is obviously just the one from that 90s exhibition we saw Tom in.

Romana namedrops Salyavin, a time lord criminal who was a boyhood hero of the Doctor's.

Chronotis remembers that young Parsons borrowed some books.

I'm going to assume that, given Adams' love of the Floyd, Chris Parsons is named after Alan.

Skarface has changed into some more ordinary(ish) looking clothing to pay a return visit to Chronotis.

"Salyavin! Good riddance to him!" grumbles the Professor.

Skarface has come for the book. Chronotis panics when he demonstrates knowledge of the Panopticon.

Skagra unleashes his giant floating bollock on the Professor, who then needs a lie down.

Wrong-voiced K9 shows up. He couldn't have popped out to save the Prof?

The Professor is still alive but his mind has gone. Skagra must have absorbed it into his bollock.

90s Tom explains how Skagra watches nth generation VHS copies of Chronotis' memories so can't see any faces clearly.

Although theoretically mindless, Chronotis uses his last heartbeats to give Romana a message in Gallifreyan morse code.

Beware Shada!

Skagra confronts the bike-riding Doctor on a bridge and demands the book...

Tom not only turns him down, but leads his bollock into a male voice choir on a street corner to pour salt in the wound.

Jason McLaughlin ‏@jangomac72  

That chase scene would've been perfect for #TheFiveDoctors with Tom being chased by the time scoop

Skagra's bollock traps Tom down a dead end street at the back of TVC & attacks him with Keff stings! End of part 2!

Romana saves the Doctor by suddenly arriving in the TARDIS, the Doctor dives in but his scarf is trapped in the door.

"You're the one that's causing all the trouble!"

Tom vows revenge on Skagra, but Shada isn't ringing any bells.

Skagra's mind-draining bollock strikes an angler, whose mindless body falls into the river.

Watch that cowpat!

Tom gives it some mime in the middle of a field. Think this is where Skagra's parked his cloaked bird of prey.

Aboard the Skagra mobile, Romana & Shada ignore Chris.

"I dunno, nowadays they'll publish anything."

Romana is kidnapped by Skagra, who's changed back into his white and silver pimp outfit for no apparent reason.

The TARDIS key works just fine for Skagra. He makes Romana give him a lift.

Clare Keightley discovers that Chronotis' rooms are full of concealed control panels.

Keff goes nuts. The 1st episode was actually rather sympathetically done, but he reverts to type all too quickly.

Tom explains a conversation he had with the ship about duping Skagra's bollock, then convinced it he was dead to escape...

But the ship responds by switching off the oxygen.

When Chronotis' rooms settle down, who should appear but the dead man himself.

The rooms are Chronotis' TARDIS, and Clare tangled with his time fields so he's some sort of echo or whatever.

Tom takes Chris to the Institute for Advanced Scientific Studies; the scene of Skagra's crime from the beginning of ep 1.

When Skagra turns the pages of the book, the TARDIS begins to travel. Turning the last page will take him to Shada.

The scientists whose minds were drained have all aged terribly. Bit like Keff's music & Skagra's cape.

The beardy think tankers explain to Tom how Skagra's brain drain bollock works.

K9 fails to defeat the Kraag and, rather unhelpfully, leads it to the Doctor. Keff goes nuts, Jaws-style. Cliffhanger!

"Come on then!" Chris offers the Krarg fisticuffs.

The Krarg kills the scientists (sort of) & the Doctor, Chris & K9 make their escape.

Clare & the Prof race against time. Well sort of, Clare's done her hair between scenes

"What I am about to do, you are never to speak of..." Chronotis gets all Yewtree on Clare.

The Professor, hypnotizes Clare to repair his TARDIS, allowing the Doctor & Chris to arrive.

The Doctor thinks the Professor's TARDIS is "ace."

Salyavin was imprisoned in the Time Lord prison of Shada. Skagra wants to capture Salyavin to use his mental powers...

The brain drain bollock takes minds out of people; Skagra wants to then use Salyavin to then put his own mind in everyone.

Sadly we don't get to see all the other inmates of #Shada...

In case you hadn't worked it out yet, the Professor was Salyavin all along.

K9 blasts the bollock, but the pieces reform into new smaller bollocks. One absorbs Salyavin, another Chris.

The brain-drained zombies advance on the Doctor so he goes back to the Prof's TARDIS to chat up Romana & Clare.

The Doctor has to get across the vortex between the 2 TARDISes.

He makes it to his TARDIS, and takes it to Skagra's ship. The Doctor has a strange helmet, apparently.

The Doctor presses a button on his helmet.

The Doctor bests the Krargs and traps Skagra in his own ship, who's fallen for Tom's charms.

#Shada was forgotten because Salyavin used his mind powers to hide his escape.

The porter has called in the police about the missing room, but is astounded to find it's back...

...and the Doctor is reading Peter Rabbit to his chums. The TARDIS leaves it's blue police light flashing. Wait, what?

"I speculated that in a few hundred years someone would meet me and say... is that really the Doctor? How strange. He seemed such a nice old man."

TTFN! K.
Coming Soon... Earthshock