Return Of The Mechanoids

Return Of The Mechanoids was the first episode of Season 42 of Doctor Who. It was written by Scott Alan Woodard, directed by Nicholas Meyer and featured Hugh Grant as the Doctor & Stephen Fry as Sam Youto.

## Return Of The Mechanoids

### Director

Nicholas Meyer

Synopsis

In a small mining colony on the dark and distant planet of Lethe, strange events are occurring — the results of which could dramatically affect things on a universal scale. For within the dingy corridors of the artificial biosphere, the lone survivor of a devastating crash has expertly wormed his way into the lives of the colony's personnel.

A scientist known as Davros.

Separated from one another across space and time, the Doctor and Sam find themselves in very different predicaments: Sam has been employed on Lethe, while the Doctor has been imprisoned aboard an alien spacecraft. Both situations are inexorably linked, however, and at the apex of the two sits Davros and the terrifying possibility of a new threat even more powerful than the Daleks!

Rescuing Sam and stopping Davros should be the Doctor's primary goals, but could it be that this time, Sam does not wish to be rescued? And might Davros actually be working on something for the benefit of the civilised galaxies...?

Plot

A Nazzian freighter carrying medical supplies in the Beta Orianus system comes under heavy fire and the Doctor sends Sam to safety in an escape module whilst he locates the TARDIS. Sam crash-lands on Lethe, sets up a homing beacon and waits for the Doctor for three months, spending his time repairing unearthed Mechonoids for Professor Vaso, a scientist who also survived a crash-landing and who takes an interest in the Doctor.

The Doctor is Time Scooped and held in a molecular disintegration cage by the Renegade Daleks, who hold the TARDIS and intend to recruit him to stop the creation of a rival race on Lethe, a planet with an atmosphere that is potentially lethal to the Daleks. They inform him that Sam is on Lethe and use a visualiser to show him with Professor Vaso, whom he is telling stories about his adventures; the Doctor immediately recognises him as Davros.

The Black Dalek explains that Davros crash-landed on Lethe en route to his trial on Skaro and agrees to give the Doctor and Sam their freedom following Davros's capture. After a successful demonstration of the Juggernauts adapted from the Mechonoids for investors from Outreach, Sam returns to his bedroom and is reunited with the Doctor, who has been transmatted down by the Daleks. Sam has difficulty believing the truth about Professor Vaso and rests whilst the Doctor looks around the colony.

In the morning, Mr Brauer informs the staff that work on the Juggernauts will be taken over by one of Outreach's own product development team for a month or two, angering Davros. He deduces that Mr Kryson is an addict immune to the virus masking his true appearance and blackmails him into recommending that his superiors suspend their plan. Afterwards, the Doctor enters and, as they discuss how Davros has taken a new identity and plans to leave a new legacy, three damaged Imperial Daleks arrive.

Davros summons his Daleks to exterminate Mr Brauer when he interrupts his demonstration of the Juggernauts to confront him about his blackmail of Kryson and orders a colony lockdown. He summons Sam, confirms that the Doctor is right about his true identity and explains that the Juggernauts are the perfect Dalek killers, but the Doctor does not believe that they are a valid solution. Giving the Doctor some time to reconsider, Davros has his Daleks kill Mr Brauer's colleagues and tells Kryson that they will claim that it was an accident.

Sam puts the Juggernaut escorting him and the Doctor into idle mode using a backdoor he included in its programming and they find a living organism inside. Hacking the colony's medical records, he finds evidence that Davros has been harvesting organs from dead colonists and proceeds to erase any information on the Juggernaut programme on the Doctor's orders. The Doctor calls for the Renegade Daleks to capture Davros and a battle breaks out. The Doctor and Sam run, but more Juggernauts emerge from the section of the base damaged by Davros's crash-landing.

The Juggernauts are held back by a back-up energy barrier, allowing the Doctor and Sam to get to an access panel and sabotage the Juggernaut manufactory in the damaged section of the base whilst Davros offers to upgrade the Renegade Daleks as he has the Mechonoids. The Black Dalek reveals to the Doctor that the Dalek Supreme has manoeuvred both him and Sam as part of his scheme to defeat Davros, with the supposedly lethal atmosphere being a fiction. The Doctor is to be taken to Skaro so that knowledge of how to fly his TARDIS can be extracted, but the Juggernauts destroy the Black Dalek and kill Kryson on Davros's orders.

Sam locks up Davros's Daleks as Sonali evacuates their colleagues to the Outreach spaceship and sacrifices himself to kill him by opening the airlock. Having learnt that another colleague, Loewen, was placed inside a Juggernaut, Sam takes control of the Juggernauts and has them attack Davros, an act which the Doctor disapproves of. Davros's self-destruct system has been activated by the attack and, after the Doctor and Sam use the transmat to escape to the TARDIS on the Dalek mothership, the resulting explosion destroys the base. Sam apologises for his actions and leaves a music box given to him by an old friend on the Dalek ship.

Cast

The Doctor - Hugh Grant

Sam Youto - Stephen Fry

To Be Added.

Crew

Created by Sydney Newman, Donald Wilson and C.E. Webber

Executive Producers - Ira Steven Behr and Julie Gardner

Co-Executive Producers - Ronald D. Moore, Paul Cornell and Robert Shearman

Producer - Tony Redston

Script Editor - Russell T Davies

Writer - Scott Alan Woodard

Director - Nicholas Meyer

Director of Photography - David Odd

Production Designer - Chris Wilkinson

Visual Effects - The Mill

Make-Up - Davy Jones

Casting Director - Andy Pryor

Music - Murray Gold

Costume Designer - Emma Rosenthal

Edited by - Tony Cranstoun

Original Theme Music - Ron Grainer

Title Sequence - BBC Wales VFX

Music conducted & orchestrated by Ben Foster

Memorable Quotes

To be added.

Background Information

To be added.

Development

To be added.

Pre-Production

To be added.

Production

To be added.

Post-Production

To be added.

Reaction

This episode received a 7-Day Viewing Figure from BARB of 7.66m viewers. It ranked at 15th over the week.

Story Notes

To be added.

Continuity

To be added.

Home Video Releases

To be added.