DOCTOR WHO:  FULL CIRCLE

commentary by Judy Harris

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	#38: FULL CIRCLE (4 Parts)	ORIGINALLY AIRED: 10/25/80 to 11/15/80
	WRITTEN BY: Andrew Smith	DIRECTED BY: Peter Grimwade
	PRODUCER: John Nathan-Turner	SCRIPT EDITOR: Christopher H. Bidmead

FULL CIRCLE is the first of a trilogy of tales taking place in E-space. E stands for exo, meaning outside. According to the Doctor, the universe in which Gallifrey, the Earth and the rest of his adventures have taken place is in N-space (N for normal), which has positive coordinates. E-space has negative coordinates.

Apart from coordinates, the only difference between E-space and N-space seems to be E-space is smaller. By a fantastic coincidence the location of Alzarius has the identical coordinates in E-space as Gallifrey has in N-space. K9's sensors were able to detect only one other E-space planet--with no name--which the TARDIS visits in the next story, STATE OF DECAY. To give viewers a visual clue, E-space appears on the TARDIS' scanner as a green starfield.

The TARDIS arrives in E-space accidentally, by passing through a CVE--a charged vacuum emboitement. Although it takes a while, there is eventually an explanation of CVEs in LOGOPOLIS. E-space seems to be merely a plot device to postpone returning to Gallifrey, and is not terribly interesting in itself.

FULL CIRCLE sees the addition of a new companion for the Doctor--Adric--the first teenaged boy since Frazer Hines played Jamie McCrimmon in the Patrick Troughton era. Like Sarah Jane Smith, he joins the TARDIS by stowing away.

The monsters in this story--the Marsh creatures--are one of the better looking costumes, but are not particularly well used. However, they are certainly photogenic; perhaps this is the reason FULL CIRCLE was chosen to be immortalized on ViewMaster disks.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor asks K9 to set a course for binary coordinates ten zero eleven zero zero by zero two from galactic center. They're headed for Gallifrey, with an estimated time of arrival of 32 minutes. The Doctor is looking forward to finding out how Leela and Andred are getting on, and tells K9 he can meet his twin (see THE INVASION OF TIME).

Even though he left his coat and scarf on Zulfa Thura, which was blown to smithereens, the Doctor is wearing them; he must have spare outfits.

Romana is sulking in her room, which is the first look we get at it. She doesn't want to return to Gallifrey.

The TARDIS is caught in some disruption for which K9 has no available vocabulary. During the turbulence, he receives substantial data, but can't assimilate it. There is no damage to the TARDIS, which materializes on a planet. The scanner shows the wilderness of outer Gallifrey, but when the Doctor steps outside, he knows instantly it's not Gallifrey.

Some boys are harvesting riverfruits, which are round melons. Others--known as Outlers--come along and try to steal some, but are chased away.

Draith, who is First Decider and Keeper of the System Files, examines a riverfruit with Dexeter, a scientist. The fruit seems to have eggs of some kind inside, a sign reported 50 years ago in studies made by Corellis and Dell. Draith has some knowledge from the System Files, but he is not permitted to share this with Dexeter.

In the TARDIS, K9 insists the coordinates are correct and Romana concurs. The Doctor checks under the console, and there is a small explosion.

In a cave, Adric tells his brother Varsh he wants to be an Outler, like Varsh, Tylos and Keara and some others, but his brother tells him he belongs on the Starliner. The Outlers ask Adric the Embarkation Question--where will he be when the Starliner leaves Alzarius? Adric doesn't know but he feels sure he'll be somewhere else. Adric is one of the Elite on Alzarius. Pinned on the pocket of his blouse he wears a star, which was awarded for mathematical excellence. Tylos sets Adric the task of stealing some riverfruit, to prove himself worthy of joining the Outlers.

A mist comes up and the water begins to boil. Draith announces the coming of Mistfall, and tells the citizens they have two hours to prepare for embarkation in the Starliner.

Draith catches Adric trying to steal some riverfruit and chases him. Adric falls and hurts his knee. Draith stumbles and hits his head, knocking himself out. Something pulls him toward the water. Adric tries unsuccessfully to pull him out. Just before he disappears under the water, Draith revives and says, "Tell Dexeter we've come full circle."

In a panic Adric starts to run. He sees the TARDIS and knocks on the door. Romana lets him in and Adric faints.

Back in the cave, the Outlers' ranks have been reduced to Keara, Tylos and Varsh. The others no longer think Mistfall is a myth and have headed back to the Starliner.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor bandages Adric's knee. Adric tells Romana and the Doctor about Alzarius. To Romana the propaganda about Mistfall sounds like a Type D oligarchy.

The Doctor tells Romana the scanner shows outer Gallifrey because the TARDIS' image translator reads the absolute values of the coordinates. Real space doesn't have negative coordinates. The disruption the TARDIS came through pushed them out of real space.

The Doctor and K9 go out into the marsh (shot at Black Park near Iver Heath in Berkshire). K9 reports the fog is nontoxic and alerts the Doctor to something emerging from the water--Marsh creatures. The Doctor asks K9 to follow the creatures and let him know where they settle. He comes face to face with a small one, who runs away from him. "How odd, I usually get on terribly well with children," the Doctor says.

At the Starliner, the two hours are up and the doors are sealed, although Draith has not returned, nor Login's daughter, Keara.

In the TARDIS, Adric wants to leave to warn the others, so Romana gives him a homing device. She is amazed his knee is completely healed. In the cave, Adric tells the Outlers Decider Draith is dead. Against Adric's protests, the others decide to seek safety away from the mist in the TARDIS. They enter it and threaten Romana with knives.

On the Starliner, Nefred is now First Decider and has a look at the System Files. In the Great Book Room, which has manuals on the repair and maintenance of every item on the ship, he meets with Garif, and they appoint Login a new Decider.

With Adric's help, Romana gets the knife away from Tylos and then returns it to him. Suddenly the TARDIS tilts. It is being carried by an unknown force. The Doctor returns to where he left the TARDIS, but it's gone, so he heads for the Starliner, followed by the Marsh Child. He rings a bell and knocks, but no one answers, so he uses the sonic screwdriver to open the door. Inside on a table, he sees a riverfruit and a knife. While the Doctor checks down a corridor, the Marsh Child enters and takes the knife.

Nefred addresses the citizens from the Great Book Room, giving them a pep talk about their ancestors who journeyed from Terradon, where their descendants will one day return.

The Doctor notices the knife is gone and closes the airlock before setting off to explore.

The TARDIS is set down. According to Romana it weighs 5 X 10 to the 6th kilos in Alzarius gravity. Adric knows of no machinery which could lift it. Romana tries the scanner, but it still shows Gallifrey because they need a local image translator to view what's really outside. Romana opens the door. The TARDIS is in the Outlers' cave, carried there by the Marsh creatures, who are right outside, armed with sticks.

On the Starliner, the Marsh Child follows the Doctor and drops the knife, which the Doctor retrieves when he retraces his steps. Some of the Alzarians spot the Marsh Child and chase it. When the Doctor comes to its aid, one of the Starliner citizens hits him over the head, knocking him out, and grabs the Marsh Child.

The Marsh Child, subdued in a net, and the Doctor are taken to the Great Book Room to see the Deciders.

K9 has followed the Marsh creatures to the Outlers' cave. Romana looks out the TARDIS door in time to see one of them knock K9's head off.

Adric and Romana think the Marsh creatures are going to try to use the TARDIS as a battering ram to smash in the Starliner. Romana sets the coordinates for the Starliner, but doesn't dematerialize the TARDIS.

The Marsh creatures leave the cave, frightened by a large spider. Another one pops out of some riverfruit, terrifying the Outlers, who dash back into the TARDIS and close the door. Trying to open the door for Romana, Adric accidentally dematerializes the TARDIS.

Romana picks up a riverfruit to toss at one of the spiders chasing her, but it bursts open and a spider jumps at her face, biting her. She falls down in a faint.

On the Starliner, the Doctor and Dexeter examine the Marsh Child, which has been anesthetized. Dexeter has taken a tissue sample, which the Doctor looks at under a microscope.

Login comes in and asks the Doctor to show him how he got into the Starliner. The Doctor sees some Alzarians replacing a perfectly good optronic circuit. Login tells him preparations for the embarkation may take generations. He offers to help the Doctor find the TARDIS if the Doctor will help him find his daughter Keara. The Doctor agrees.

The TARDIS materializes inside the Starliner right next to the Doctor, and Keara exits, followed by Tylos, Varsh and Adric. The Doctor and Adric reenter, and the Doctor sets the coordinates for the Outlers' cave, telling Adric, "These short trips don't usually work. The chances of reversing a short trip are even more remote." The Doctor asks Adric to cross his fingers and shows him how.

The TARDIS dematerializes and rematerializes back in the cave. Romana is there and doesn't recognize the Doctor. He collects a headless K9 and a dead spider and puts Romana in her room on the TARDIS. She has fallen into a coma due to a psychochemical in the spider bite.

In the Great Book Room, the Deciders meet with the Outlers and welcome them back into the community. There is no punishment.

The TARDIS materializes back on the Starliner. The Doctor and Adric exit and head for the Great Book Room, arriving in time to see the Deciders observe on a video link Dexeter as he starts to perform a surgical examination on the brain of the revived Marsh Child. The creature gets loose, strangles Dexeter and smashes his lab. Seeing the Doctor on the video screen, it approaches and accidentally electrocutes itself.

The Doctor sends Adric back to the TARDIS and accuses the Deciders of willful procrastination with endless procedures. The Starliner isn't going anywhere, although it's been ready for centuries and could take off in a half an hour. Nefred confesses, despite all the manuals, no one knows how to pilot the ship.

In Dexeter's lab, the Doctor dissects a dead spider and looks at it under the microscope, finding "Leucine, Isoleucine, Methionine--usual complement of amino acids." He's seen the cell shape someplace before.

Login tells the Doctor every 50 years or so another planet takes Alzarius away from its sun. The Doctor doesn't raise a eyebrow at this, but it sounds very odd to me. At any rate, the increased distance from the sun results in a cooling process, which causes Mistfall. The Doctor has noticed a high nitrogen content in the spider cells. Adric breaks in to tell the Doctor Romana is gone. Her room in the TARDIS is a shambles.

Romana has strange streaks on her hands and face, as though her veins were inflamed. Their appearance is similar to the poison injected by the Cybermats into Sarah in REVENGE OF THE CYBERMEN. She opens an emergency escape hatch, letting in the Marsh creatures. She makes a gesture to one, which he returns. They are linked somehow. A Marsh creature kills Tylos.

The Doctor and Adric follow a trail of pieces of the Doctor's waistcoat and the broken image translator from the TARDIS. En route, the Doctor asks about Adric's knee, which is completely healed. The Doctor realizes Alzarians have rapid cellular adaptation.

A Marsh creature, with K9's head on a stick, comes toward the Doctor, who grabs the head. Romana comes in and, although she pays no attention to him, the Doctor tells her she's got alien protein in her brain tissue. He hasn't had time to analyze it yet, but feels the effects are probably only temporary. As she tries to attack him, he asks her to consider why she's acting this way.

Instead of staying in the science unit where the Doctor told them to stay, Varsh and Keara leave. The Doctor meets them and takes them back, barricading the door behind them. He tries to use the microscope, but it won't work because Adric has removed the local image translator. He gives it back and the Doctor remarks, if it works in the TARDIS, it will prove they're in E-space--the exospace-time continuum, outside the Doctor's own universe.

"Now for a short course in cytogenics," the Doctor says, looking through the microscope. He checks tissue samples from a spider, the dead Marsh Child and Dexeter, and creates a serum to cure Romana.

The Marsh creatures break into the Great Book Room, toss the manuals around and injure Nefred.

Below decks Nefred lies dying. He advises Login and Garif to seek out the Doctor to learn from him how to fly the Starliner and leave Alzarius. He says the people cannot return to Terradon because they've never been there. He dies.

As the Marsh creatures break into the science unit, the Doctor tells the others to avoid all contact with them. The Doctor tricks the creatures into releasing oxygen from some cylinders. It is too rich for them; they can't adapt quickly enough to it. Varsh, Keara and Adric drive off the Marsh creatures with the oxygen, as Romana breaks in. Adric shoots some oxygen at her and she passes out. The Doctor gives her the serum; if it doesn't work, she's dead.

Keara tells the Doctor it's been 40 generations since the Starliner crashed. The Doctor checks the microscope again to do karyotype comparisons, noting "definitely morphological similar karyotypes. Of course, the inversions in bands 8 to 10 may be significant; I need to establish how long the evolutionary process has taken" from spiders to Marsh creatures and beyond.

Romana recovers and suggests trying gel electrophoresis. She checks the microscope and says the Starliner must have crashed 4,000 generations ago.

In the Starliner corridors, the Marsh creatures attack Adric, Varsh and the Deciders. Adric runs out of oxygen, so Varsh sends him back to the lab for more.

Varsh runs out of oxygen and is attacked by a Marsh creature. Adric tries to pull him to safety but, as with Decider Draith, he slips away and is killed. Keara removes Varsh's belt--his symbol of Outler leadership--and gives it to Adric.

Login tells the Doctor the Starliner has an electrolytic power system, so the Doctor can have as much oxygen as he wants. The Doctor asks him to flood the whole Starliner.

The Marsh creatures can't take the oxygen and, heading to the emergency exit, they figure out how to open it and leave. The Doctor tells Garif the Marsh creatures are the ancestors of the Alzarians. Garif is horrified, but the Doctor explains, "We're all basically primeval slime with ideas above its station."

Login asks the Doctor if the first Marsh creatures came to resemble the original crew of the Starliner. "Yes, the environment evolved the creatures most fitted to survive in it," the Doctor replies.

Adric sneaks into the TARDIS and leaves a local image translator on the console.

In the Great Book Room, the Doctor shows Login and Garif how to use the Starliner controls--stabilizer, power, fuel, thrusters 1, 2 3, 4 and 5, ground hold disengage and a large green ignition button. The Doctor and Romana leave.

In the TARDIS, as Romana reattaches K9's head, the Doctor tells her he was asked to stay on as a Decider. "I decided not to," the Doctor says. He installs the local image translator and operates the scanner; it now works. "We're out of our time and space, Romana," he says--in exospace. "That thing we came through was a charged vacuum emboitement"--a CVE--"one of the rarest space-time events in the universe."

The Starliner takes off, but the Doctor and Romana are trapped in E-space until they can find another CVE.

James Bree, who plays Nefred, played the Security Chief in the Troughton story THE WAR GAMES; and plays the Keeper of the Matrix in the last installment of the Colin Baker story THE TRIAL OF A TIME LORD.

Alan Rowe, who plays Garif, played Edward of Wessex in the Pertwee story THE TIME WARRIOR; Dr. Evans and the Space Control Voice in the Troughton story THE MOONBASE; and Colonel Skinsale in the Tom Baker story THE HORROR OF FANG ROCK.