DOCTOR WHO:  THE FACE OF EVIL

commentary by Judy Harris

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#15: THE FACE OF EVIL (4 Parts) 
ORIGINALLY AIRED: 1/1/77 to 1/22/77
WRITTEN BY: Chris Boucher 
DIRECTED BY: Pennant Roberts
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes

This is the best Tom Baker DOCTOR WHO story not written by Robert Holmes. At the time Chris Boucher began the script, the show was between companions, and Hinchcliffe and Holmes were delaying any decision as to who the Doctor's new assistant would be. Boucher was told to use a character of his own devising to act as a temporary friend and confidante. Although Sarah Jane Smith was hardly a dependent little girl type, Boucher aimed to come up with an even more modern, aggressive woman, imbuing her with traits he admired, such as courage, curiosity and pride. He named her after a Palestinian girl named Leila who was then in a British jail, changing the spelling slightly. Hinchcliffe and Holmes were pleased with Leela and commissioned a second script with her, on the understanding that she was still just temporary. By the time Boucher had finished writing ROBOTS OF DEATH, the decision had been made to make Leela the Doctor's new companion.

Boucher went on to be script editor and writer for BLAKE'S 7. Of all his scripts, this is my favorite for its invention, intricate plot and delightful dialogue and for making Leela such a fully fleshed and interesting character. Louise Jameson says she played Leela as a mixture of naivete, generosity and aggression, and based her performance on a combination of her dog's body language and the inquisitive innocence of a 4-year old neighbor.

While Sarah Jane Smith was the favorite companion of many, Leela seems to be the ideal companion. Louise Jameson herself feels the assistant exists to be a feed for the Doctor; a surrogate of the audience to whom the Doctor can explain what's happening. Leela's inexperience with even the most rudimentary technology provided the opportunity for some delightful exchanges; and put the Doctor in a more adult-child, tutor-student relationship than with any previous--or subsequent--companion.

THE FACE OF EVIL rings in an interesting change on two classic science fiction plotlines. One involves the descendants of a technologically advanced civilization who have forgotten the secrets of technology and live inside a spaceship never realizing it is a ship; the difference in THE FACE OF EVIL is the ship has crashed already. A later Tom Baker story, FULL CIRCLE, also concerns a civilization who have lost the secret of their technology and don't know the true use of their downed spaceship.

The other classic plot is the "most powerful computer ever built" which behaves uncontrollably; changes are rung on this as well. Boucher uses this plot as a springboard to address religious superstition and the unthinking obedience to rituals which are not completely understood.

THE FACE OF EVIL is also notable because it shows the Doctor, despite all his good intentions and great knowledge, can make very bad mistakes, which have caused untold death and misery for generations.

In the Council hut, Andor, the leader of the Sevateem, officiates at the trial of Leela, a female warrior accused of heresy. Calib pushes for her banishment--which is sure death. Tomas speaks in her behalf, but Leela doesn't wish his intercession.

Neeva, the tribe shaman, says the great god Xoanon demands Leela be cast out. Leela makes things worse for herself by publicly denying Xoanon exists. She declines the Test of the Horda. Her Father, Sole, takes the test for her, so she recants, but fails to save her father's life.

Out of respect for his brave death, Leela and the rest of the tribe make a sign at their neck, shoulder and waist. Leela has until sunrise; if she's still within the Sevateem boundary then, she'll be thrown to the Horda. She leaves, and Neeva sends a couple of men after her to kill her.

All of the Sevateem are dressed in skins; some with beaded or leather headbands, bracelets and necklaces. Leela's costume is very brief, with a halter top and panels on the front and back to make a skirt. She carries a knife in a belt at her side and wears high, soft leather boots.

The TARDIS lands in a jungle. "I think this is not Hyde Park," the Doctor decides, "could be a nexial discontinuity. Must remember to overhaul those tracers." To remind himself, the Doctor decides to put a knot in his hanky, but when he pulls it out of his pocket, there's already a knot in it. "Wonder what that was for?" the Doctor muses, "Little look 'round, Doctor? Why not?"

Leela realizes she is being stalked. She kills one of Neeva's men with an arrow from her crossbow; as the other aims his bow at her, Tomas shoots him in the back. Tomas offers to go with her, but Leela sends him back to the village.

The Doctor strides through the jungle whistling THE COLONEL BOGEY MARCH, pursued by an invisible growling creature. Leela runs from it as well and falls at the Doctor's feet.

The Doctor greets her and tells her not to be afraid, but Leela recoils, calling him "the Evil One." "Well, nobody's perfect, but that's overstating it a little," the Doctor replies in surprise. They introduce themselves and the Doctor offers Leela a jelly baby. "It's true then, they say the Evil One eats babies," Leela gasps. "You mustn't believe all they say," the Doctor tells her, "No, these are sweets." He persuades her to eat one.

The growling gets closer and the Doctor asks Leela if they're in danger. "They're your creatures," she tells him. "They are? I wonder if they know that?" the Doctor says. Leela tells him they're invisible phantoms.

The Doctor takes a large clockwork eggtimer out of his pocket. "To our friends, whoever they are, the visible spectrum is irrelevant. They're blind. Crudely speaking, they hone in on vibrations," the Doctor explains. He leads Leela quietly away, as the imprint of a phantom's foot appears in the dirt. "Now tread carefully," the Doctor tells Leela, then trips and falls flat on his face. The egg timer goes off. "Saved by the bell," the Doctor says. The timer is crushed and nearby rocks are tossed by the invisible creatures.

Leela and the Doctor reach safety. She tells him the phantoms never cross the boundary. The Doctor suspects a fence of some kind. The Doctor finds a low intensity sonic disrupter with a 180 degree spread, which he guesses is probably set at intervals along the whole boundary. The technology is too advanced for Leela's tribe.

Leela tells the Doctor of Xoanon, a god who is held captive "within the Black Wall wherein lies Paradise" by the Evil One and his followers, the Tesh. Leela doesn't know what to believe anymore. "Well, that sounds healthy, anyway, Leela. Never be certain of anything; it's a sign of weakness," the Doctor says.

In the village, the shrine of Xoanon is littered with bits and pieces of technologically-advanced equipment. A voice, which sounds like the Doctor, tells Neeva Leela has returned. Neeva abases himself and calls the voice Xoanon.

Leela hears a noise and takes cover. The Doctor tells her this is no time to be playing games: "If they're preparing for a battle, they're hardly likely to send men on patrol on the off chance that you might come back." An arrow whizzes past his nose and lodges in a tree. "On the other hand, I could be wrong about that," the Doctor admits.

Four Sevateem warriors approach; the Doctor whispers for Leela to hop it, but she refuses to leave him, although she remains hidden. He turns toward them and they think he is Xoanon. The Doctor decides to take advantage of their mistake: "Tread softly, gentlemen, or I'll turn you into toads."

The Doctor notices the gesture at the neck, shoulder and waist the Sevateem make to ward off evil. "It's also the sequence for checking the seals on a Starfall 7 spacesuit; and what makes that particularly interesting is that you don't know what a Starfall 7 spacesuit is, do you?" the Doctor rhetorically asks.

He has been creeping closer to one of the men and now holds a jelly baby at his throat menacingly: "Now, drop your weapons," he threatens, "or I'll kill him with this deadly jelly baby." The warriors are frightened but one calls his bluff: "Kill him then."  The Doctor bites into the jelly baby, saying, "I don't take orders from anyone. Take me to your leader."  In his autobiography, WHO ON EARTH IS TOM BAKER?, Tom mistakenly remembers this happening in PLANET OF EVIL:  "There was a scene in which I had to seize some poor alien and threaten to kill him with a knife in order to persuade his comrades to reveal their leader to me.  It was a very ordinary little scene; so ordinary that I hadn't really read it properly.  When the knife was offered to me I felt suddenly impatient and then disgusted with the idea of using such a coarse threat in our lovely programme.  The line I was to say ran, 'Take me to your leader or I'll kill him with this knife'.  Yes, I think it was as plonking as that.  So I refused to say it.  We had very little time left on our final day of filming to get this scene in the can and my refusal caused a problem for ... the director.  In the absence [of the producer], he had to log the scene I was causing about my lines.  I didn't really care.  [The director] and I were very friendly colleagues and he knew I was not just being difficult.  But, without the producer there, who could take responsibility for a line change?  Me, of course.  We rolled the cameras and, as written, I grabbed some pitiful little native ..., pulled him close, and said:  'Take me to your leader or I'll kill him with this deadly jelly baby.'  When the other little [aliens] agreed to comply, I bit the head off the jelly baby (orange was my favourite) and I think I offered the rest of it to the captured [alien].  That's the way I remember it.  . . .  When at last the episode was aired, the children loved the scene and realized that I was bluffing the [aliens] who wouldn't know a jelly baby from a kangaroo.  It made just as much or as little sense as a knife. . . . All of this happened in October 1975.  A few weeks ago [1997], in a bookshop in Manchester, a child of about ten offered me a jelly baby.  He was so happy when I laughed, then he quoted my line, and it was my turn to be happy."

The Doctor is brought to Andor in the Council hut, blindfolded by his own scarf, and with his hands tied behind his back. "Good evening," the Doctor says, when he can see, "I think you're going to be very happy I came here tonight."

Neeva performs a ritual chant around the Doctor, waving an ultrabeam accelerator. "If there happens to be a charge in there," the Doctor says, cringing away, "you could transform this whole village into a smokey hole in the ground."

The Doctor tells Andor he's a traveler; and, based on the equipment, weapons and tools scattered around, he feels the Sevateem have been visited by space travelers from another world before. Andor denies this and stalks out, the Doctor calling after him: "Killing me isn't going to help you. It isn't going to do me much good either, is it?"

The tribe is called together in the Council hut for Neeva to speak the Litany. Neeva recites in singsong fashion about the Tesh remaining at the Place of Land while the Sevateem went forth to seek Paradise.

While Neeva recites, Leela sneaks in to the hut where the Doctor has been confined and stabs his guard with a Janis thorn. This is a large thorn which paralyzes and then kills. There is no cure. Leela unties the Doctor and tries to get him to leave. He wants to hear the rest of the litany, but she tells him they're coming to the part where he'll be sacrificed. Finally, he agrees to leave: "And don't dawdle," he tells her.

They are discovered in mid-escape and Leela stabs another warrior with a Janis thorn. "That wasn't necessary," the Doctor ungratefully lectures her, "Who licensed you to slaughter people? No more Janis thorns, you understand, ever!" Leela is baffled.

She leads the Doctor to the Black Wall of the litany. "Well now," the Doctor admits, "It seems I have been here before." "That's the Evil One," Leela tells him, indicating a Mount Rushmore-sized idol, which resembles the Doctor, carved in the side of a cliff. "I must have made quite an impression," he says.

This idol is a miniature which blends in well with both the actors and the jungle background, and actually resembles Tom Baker after a fashion.

However, it is also about the only inconsistency in THE FACE OF EVIL. If the Doctor was on this planet so long ago he's forgotten he was ever there, it probably happened before his current regeneration, so the idol shouldn't look like Tom Baker. On the other hand, if it happened during the current regeneration, it must be fairly recently, so why doesn't he remember being here before? Something like this came up in the Colin Baker episode TIMELASH, but was handled more consistently, in that the image--which was a painting not a mountain sculpture--was of Jon Pertwee, not Colin Baker.

The paperback novelization of THE FACE OF EVIL, written by Terrence Dicks, addresses this situation, indicating the Doctor visited this planet in the middle of ROBOT, the first Tom Baker story, when he was still erratic from his recent regeneration. The novelization also addresses the question of why the idol represents the Evil One, and not Xoanon, the imprisoned god, which seems more logical.

These novelizations sometimes provide additional details and insights to the televised version, because they are based on the original scripts. Occasionally during the recording of the scripts, time ran out and not everything was filmed or taped, causing some inconsistencies in the televised versions, which the novelizations sometimes clear up. However, they also occasionally go off on their own and provide information contradictory to the televised versions, so can't be completely relied on.

One oversight in the script which is not addressed in the novelization is the name of the planet this story takes place on. It's a great pity, since it is Leela's planet of origin, making it more important than settings in most other stories.

The Doctor wants to return to the village. Leela reminds him the last time he said the tribe wouldn't be looking for them he was wrong. "Well, you can't expect perfection, you know, not even from me," he tells her.

The Doctor returns to the shrine of Xoanon to examine the relics. Through a flap Leela has cut in the back of the hut, he observes Neeva preparing to take part in the attack on the Tesh to free Xoanon, by putting a spacesuit glove on his head. "I like the hat, very fetching," the Doctor says. "That was the Hand of Xoanon," Leela tells him. "That was an armored space glove, or what was left of one," the Doctor corrects her.

The Doctor and Leela enter the shrine. The Doctor fiddles with some of the equipment, trying to get it to work: "Hello, Intergalactic Operator, hello. Over," the Doctor says; when there is no response, he remarks: "Dead as a Dalek."

Suddenly a voice calls for Neeva; it comes from a space helmet and it sounds like the Doctor. Leela cowers at the voice of her god. "Don't be afraid," the Doctor tells her, "It's only a machine for sending voices over long distances. That may be Xoanon speaking, but it's not god. Gods don't use transceivers."

The Doctor offers to take a message for Neeva. "At last we are here," Xoanon replies, "At last, at last. Us." "Us?" the Doctor asks. "You. Me. Us. We. At last I shall be free of us," Xoanon tells him. "Who are you?" the Doctor asks. "Don't I know?" Xoanon says, signing off. The Doctor recognizes his own voice and has a feeling something nasty is going on.

Leela takes him back to the wall, which the Doctor recognizes as a time barrier: "The principle's really quite simple--you just move everything forward a couple of seconds inside it. You get a barrier that's impervious to all energy; a true void. I've seen it done as a parlor trick, but never on this scale."

The Doctor and Leela seek out Calib to warn the tribe they won't be able to get through the time barrier. However, they're too late; the Sevateem walk into a trap and more than half the men are killed. Calib stabs Leela with a Janis thorn. Tomas barges in, distracting Calib, giving the Doctor the opportunity to get the drop on Calib with a crossbow.

The Doctor forces Calib and Tomas to carry Leela to the shrine of Xoanon. Using a bioanalyzer that happens to be there, the Doctor hopes to "identify the poison and program the medikit to make an antitoxin." Calib escapes while Tomas is distracted. The Doctor injects Leela, who responds almost immediately. She's surprised to be alive, and asks him: "Do you know the answer to everything?" "Yes," the Doctor starts to reply, then changes it to "No--answers are easy; it's asking the right questions which is hard."

The Doctor again faces the Sevateem in the Council hut, while Andor captures Leela and Tomas. Calib, trying to break Neeva's hold on the tribe, argues if the Doctor can be killed, he is not the Evil One. The Doctor is to be put to the Test of the Horda.

These small creatures look quite a bit like Cybermats but they're not metallic and have strong jaws with sharp teeth. "They'll strike at anything that moves, except each other," Calib tells the Doctor, "Ten of these can strip the flesh from a man's arm almost before he can cry out." The Doctor stands on a narrow plank over a pit full of them. He must break a rope with an arrow from a crossbow before the plank disappears, dumping him into the pit.

Leela, her hands tied behind her back, gives him advice: "The rope gets thinner the further it goes but it gets faster too." One of the Sevateem slaps Leela, for trying to help the Doctor. "Who is that man?" the Doctor demands, angrily tossing a horda at him.

Leela gets loose and tries to close the pit but is stopped by the tribe. The Doctor shoots the crossbow, breaking the rope and passing the test. "Very good, Doctor," he congratulates himself. He tells Leela he learned to shoot "in Switzerland--charming man--William Tell he was called." The Doctor gets Calib to untie Tomas as well.

The Doctor enters Xoanon's shrine. Xoanon asks for him, in multiple voices. "We have decided to destroy you," Xoanon declares.

The Doctor picks up some wire, tape and other bits and stuffs all this in his pockets. Xoanon turns off the boundary to let in the invisible phantoms. The Doctor tells Neeva, this "means trouble, large, deadly and invisible."

Using his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor puts together some disrupter guns for the Sevateem to use against Xoanon's creatures. They are destructive up to 20 times bow range but can be used only in short bursts. The disrupters are self regenerating but take time to recharge. He also creates a forcefield barrier to keep out Xoanon's creatures and warns the tribe to be quiet because vibrations attract them.

The Doctor wants to get inside the time barrier: "I could build a time bridge myself, but that would mean dismantling the TARDIS and, even then, it mightn't work," the Doctor tells Leela.

She asks how it is possible to hear Xoanon's voice from beyond the time barrier. The Doctor calls her a genius and returns to Xoanon's shrine, where Neeva is in a trance. The Doctor impersonates Xoanon and discovers Xoanon communicates via a tight beam transmission. "There's a bridge over the time barrier, and I know where it is," the Doctor tells Leela. The Doctor and Leela return to the idol. "The nose could be a shade more aquiline," the Doctor comments, "and the noble proportion of the brow hasn't been perfectly executed. Still, we mustn't complain; we live in an imperfect universe."

Leela asks if the bridge is up the nose. "No, it isn't," the Doctor snaps, offended, "It's over the teeth and down the throat." There is a rather interesting reverse shot of the Doctor climbing over the idol's teeth. "Odd feeling standing in my own throat," the Doctor remarks.

The phantoms attack and one of the men panics and beats on the village gong, attracting them; Andor is killed by a phantom. When Tomas shoots at it with the disrupter, it becomes visible in outline from, similar to the Monster from the Id in FORBIDDEN PLANET. It's a giant head of the Doctor!

Inside the time barrier, the Doctor and Leela encounter a space suited figure, which appears to walk through a stone wall. The Doctor now remembers the Mordee expedition; he thought he was helping them.

Leela recognizes the figure as a Tesh because its skin is loose and shiny and it has two heads, one inside the other. The Doctor tells her it was a protective suit and helmet.

Guessing there is another environment beyond, the Doctor also walks through the wall, which turns out to be a psi-tri projection. Closing her eyes, Leela follows. They find themselves in an antigrav transporter, which takes them to the Mordee ship.

We see Xoanon for the first time. He's a room with 3 scanners on which his muddled thoughts are projected. He senses the Doctor is near and, in multiple voices, vows "to destroy us to become one."

The Doctor enters a room in the spaceship and discovers another shrine. There are lit candles all around and vestments draped on the equipment. The Tesh are as ignorant of their origins as the Sevateem. The Doctor tells Leela the Sevateem were the ship's Survey Team, while the Tesh were the Technicians; they're the same people. "You're all human beings from this colonist ship."

Leela asks the Doctor what happened. "I'm rather afraid I did," he confesses, "I misunderstood what Xoanon was." Leela asks if Xoanon is a human being. "At the time I didn't think he was a being at all," the Doctor replies.

Jabel, the Captain of the People of Tesh, arrives, calling the Doctor the Lord of Time. Leela warily aims her crossbow at him, and by mental power he causes her to collapse. She is carried away by two Tesh acolytes.

The Tesh are dressed in exaggerated costumes which would not look out of place in the Emerald City from THE WIZARD OF OZ. They pride themselves on never getting excited and always behaving in a logical, calm manner.

"Outside the barrier, physical courage and strength; inside the barrier, paraphysical achievement and the sort of psi power you used against Leela. It's an experiment in eugenics," the Doctor marvels. He has to find Xoanon before it kills everyone.

Leela awakens strapped to a table; a particle analyzer aimed at her is counting down. This looks quite a bit like a box camera and behaves like the laser in GOLDFINGER.

The Doctor finds out from Jabel Xoanon is on level 37. He's able to get some equipment working and notices Leela on a scanner. She's about to be reduced to her constituent atoms. The Doctor makes the mistake of criticizing Xoanon. Jabel knocks him out with his mental powers and has him strapped on a table next to Leela.

With seconds to go before they are atomized, the Doctor wakes up and tells Leela to close her eyes. When the analyzer engages, the Doctor uses a mirror he luckily has in his hand to redirect its beam back on itself. The analyzer catches fire, releasing the Doctor and Leela. The Doctor quotes Gertrude Stein. He and Leela set off to find Xoanon. Jabal calmly orders the Doctor and Leela are to be killed.

The Doctor tells Leela Xoanon is a machine that's become a living creature; an omniscient computer with schizophrenia. "Not a very pretty thought, is it? And all my fault," the Doctor laments.

"When I was here before, I programmed Xoanon for the Mordee. Unfortunately, I forgot to wipe my personality print from the data core. Or did I really forget? I forget if I forgot," the Doctor admits. It may have been the Doctor's own egotism. "Anyway, now it has a split personality and half of it is mine."

The Doctor and Leela find an auxiliary communications room, and the Doctor manages to get the equipment working. He sees the village on one of the scanners; the tribe are fleeing the psi-tri projections from the darkside of Xoanon's id, which have enough kinetic energy to kill.

The Doctor contacts Neeva on a transceiver and again pretends to be Xoanon. He tells Neeva to have Calib lead the tribe through the mouth of the idol. Neeva agrees, even though he knows the voice is the Doctor's.

On level 37, Leela uses the Doctor's hat to decoy a Tesh guard outside Xoanon's doorway. The Doctor tells Leela to keep watch: "Xoanon's unstable. He might kill me. He'd certainly kill you."

The Doctor approaches Xoanon and tries to reason with him: "When the ship was stranded, the computer broke down. I thought the data core had been damaged, so I renewed it by making a direct link with the compatible centers of my own brain," the Doctor explains. Xoanon asks if this was a Sidelian memory transfer, and begrudgingly the Doctor admits it's a variation of it.

"For generations teams of technicians had worked on the computer trying to extend its power," the Doctor continues, "Without realizing it, they had created life. The computer hadn't failed at all. It had evolved into a living creature, the first of an entirely new species."

With frequent interruptions from the multivoiced Xoanon, the Doctor explains, "When I arrived it had just been born; it was in shock. I didn't recognize a birth trauma, and that was my mistake. When I connected my own brain to it, it didn't just take compatible information, as a machine should have done; it took everything. When it awoke, it had a complete personality--mine. It thought I was itself. Then it began to develop another, separate self--its own self--and that's when it started to go mad."

The Doctor desperately tries to make his point: "It's here, Xoanon, I'm talking to it; it's you!" Xoanon grows tired and tells the Doctor, "I will think you no longer." While the Doctor tries to tell Xoanon he's separate and real, the Tesh attack Leela outside, and Xoanon attacks the Doctor who falls to the floor.

Xoanon has a power failure, which frightens the Tesh, most of whom run off, thinking it is the end of the world.

Leela grabs a Tesh weapon and enters Xoanon's room. She shoots Xoanon and pulls the Doctor out by his feet. The Doctor comes to in the corridor. He tells Leela Xoanon is the most powerful computer ever built and also insane and will try to kill him, because the Doctor contradicts what Xoanon thinks is real and is a threat to his world.

The Doctor notices the weird lighting and a funny smell. He stops Leela touching the wall, which has been electrified by Xoanon, who shorted the main power circuits in the wall.

Xoanon takes mental control of the Tesh, one of whom attacks the Doctor and tries to push him into the electrified wall. They fight and the Tesh is electrocuted.

The Sevateem get through the time barrier and kill a Tesh. Inside the idol, the Sevateem realize they've reached the Paradise promised by their litany. Neeva marvels, "We start getting proof and we stop believing." Tomas retorts, "With proof we don't have to believe." Neeva is furious with Xoanon for all the years of betrayal; and vows to kills his former god.

Back in the auxiliary control room, the Doctor picks bits and pieces out of drawers. "You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common," he tells Leela, "They don't alter their views to fit the facts; they alter the facts to fit their views, which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering."

In a mirror he notices a glazed-eyed Leela preparing to shoot him. He takes cover and she misses. With his voice alone, he hypnotizes her and takes the gun away, breaking Xoanon's hold over her. They leave for the main control room.

The Doctor gets the equipment in the main control room operative and notices Xoanon has put the atomic generators on overload. He has about 24 1/2 minutes to build a reverse memory transfer system and wipe his personality print from Xoanon's brain, or else the generators will blow, taking half the planet with them: "Effective, but crude," the Doctor tells Leela.

I can't help feeling this 24 1/2 minutes is a sly reference to the exact running time of a typical DOCTOR WHO episode, the last part of which involves tying up the loose ends set up in the previous 3 parts and frequently concerns the Doctor saving the world with a deadline ticking away.

Xoanon takes control of all the Tesh and the Sevateem, except for Neeva, who is psychotic, so is impossible to control. All they can think of is "destroy and be free."

Leela has been taken over again and tries to stab the Doctor. He is busy with the equipment and accidentally moves out of the way, so her knife hits some equipment, knocking her out with a mild electric shock.

The Tesh and the Sevateem, united by Xoanon's control, reach the Doctor and prevent him from completing the reverse memory transfer. But Neeva has found a large Tesh disrupter gun and shoots Xoanon. This destroys Xoanon's mental control, but not before Xoanon disintegrates Neeva.

The Doctor, painfully, wipes his personality from Xoanon, who cancels the generator overload. The Doctor falls unconscious from the effort, and wakes up on the floor 2 days later. Leela brings him round by waving a chocolate under his nose; she remembers nothing.

The Doctor and Leela go to see Xoanon, now a single, reasonable voice, who greets the Doctor cordially; he is whole at last. He explains to Leela his treatment of the Tesh and the Sevateem: "I created a world in my own image; I made your people act out my torment. I made my madness reality."

Xoanon exonerates the Doctor: "Yours was a mistake anyone could have made." The Doctor bridles, "I don't think anyone could have made it!"

Back in the main computer control room, the Tesh and the Sevateem argue over choosing a leader--democracy in action. The Doctor brings Xoanon's apologies, along with an offer of his knowledge and power. As a token of good faith, Xoanon provides a self destruct button, but no one will use it, so it disappears. "Good," the Doctor says, "You've got to trust someone sometime."

Tomas proposes Leela as leader, but she doesn't want that. She notices the Doctor has left--he hates goodbyes--and catches up with him outside the TARDIS. Leela offers to protect him from the phantoms, but the Doctor tells her they were projections of Xoanon's disturbed subconscious and are now gone.

Leela comments, "I suppose you're always right about everything." "Invariably," the Doctor agrees; both of them knowing it's not true.

Leela asks the Doctor to take her with him, but he declines, so she dashes into the TARDIS. He runs in after her, shutting the door and shouting, "Don't touch that," as the TARDIS dematerializes.

David Garfield, who plays Neeva, played Von Weich in the Troughton story THE WAR GAMES.

Leslie Schofield, who plays Calib, played Leroy in the Troughton story THE WAR GAMES.

Tom Kelly, who plays a Guard, plays a Guard in THE SUN MAKERS and a Vardan in THE INVASION OF TIME, future Tom Baker stories.

Rob Edwards, who provides one of Xoanon's voices, plays Chub in the next Tom Baker story THE ROBOTS OF DEATH.

Pamela Salem, who provides another voice for Xoanon, plays Toos in the next Tom Baker story, THE ROBOTS OF DEATH; and Rachel in the McCoy story REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS.

Roy Herrick, who provides yet another Xoanon voice, played Jean in the Hartnell story THE REIGN OF TERROR and Parsons in the future Tom Baker story THE INVISIBLE ENEMY.