Plot
In 1983, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart has retired from UNIT, and teaches mathematics at Brendon Public School. One of his students, Turlough, a stranded alien Trion posing as a human, takes the Brigadier's classic car for a joyride but ends up in a crash. While unconscious, Turlough is contacted by the Black Guardian, who seeks to kill the Doctor for his interference in acquiring The Key to Time. The Black Guardian offers Turlough passage off Earth if he kills the Doctor, to which Turlough agrees, and is given a communication device through which the Black Guardian gives him orders.
The Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa, aboard the TARDIS, find themselves caught in the warp ellipse of a starliner that is trapped in time. Materialising aboard the ship, they find a transmat capsule as the source of interference that is trapping the TARDIS, and are soon joined by Turlough, following the Black Guardian's orders. The Doctor takes Turlough with him to Earth to locate the other end of the transmat, leaving Tegan and Nyssa aboard the TARDIS on the ship. After the Doctor corrects the transmat device on Earth, the TARDIS attempts to materialise but soon vanishes. Without any idea where to look, the Doctor talks to the Brigadier at the school, surprised that the Brigadier has forgotten their past histories due to some type of trauma. However, on mention of finding Tegan and the TARDIS, the Brigadier recalls seeing the TARDIS in 1977. The Doctor attempts to coax the details of these events from the Brigadier.
Meanwhile, in 1977, Nyssa and Tegan leave the TARDIS, and discover the other end of the transmat capsule near the school. Inside is a horribly disfigured alien humanoid, which they believe may be the Doctor. They find local help nearby from the Brigadier, still on active duty with UNIT. The alien, still pretending to be the Doctor, convinces the three to return with him to the TARDIS and return to the spaceliner where a remedy for his situation may be found. In 1983, the Doctor tracks the TARDIS' movements and realises it returned to the liner. He, Turlough, and the older Brigadier return to the liner via the transmat capsule. Due to the nature of the warp ellipse, the Doctor rejoins his allies, but on discovery that two versions of the Brigadier are aboard, cautions his companions to keep them apart, lest the resulting energy discharge prove catastrophic.
Ultimately, the Doctor learns the truth of the liner's crew, that they are several scientists that attempted to discover the Time Lord secret of regeneration, but ended up as disfigured creatures, unable to die. The alien that Tegan and Nyssa met reveals himself as Mawdryn, and tries to convince the Doctor to give up his remaining regenerations to kill Mawdryn and his fellow sufferers. The Doctor tries to leave with his companions in the TARDIS, but finds that Tegan and Nyssa are now suffering the same condition as Mawdryn, and de-age rapidly while the TARDIS is in the Time Vortex. The Doctor realises he has no choice, and prepares to give up his remaining regenerations to not only kill the scientists but to also restore Tegan and Nyssa to normal.
During this time, the two Brigadiers have been purposely kept apart by Turlough and Mawdryn and his crew. Mawdryn even attempts to send the younger Brigadier back to Earth to avoid him touching his other self, but the transmat capsule fails and returns to the ship. As the Doctor is about to engage the device to take his regenerations, the two Brigadiers finally meet and reach out to touch the other. The resulting temporal energy release occurs at exactly the right time to perform the same actions that the Doctor's sacrifice would have done: Mawdryn and the other scientists are freed of their undead existence, and Tegan and Nyssa return to their proper age. The younger Brigadier suffers a trauma that causes him to forget the Doctor and these events, until later reminded of them in 1983. The Doctor evacuates everyone to the TARDIS before the liner self-destructs, and then returns both Brigadiers to their respective time streams on Earth. The Doctor accepts Turlough's request to join his crew, unaware of his influence by the Black Guardian.
Read more about this topic: Mawdryn Undead
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“If you need a certain vitality you can only supply it yourself, or there comes a point, anyway, when no one’s actions but your own seem dramatically convincing and justifiable in the plot that the number of your days concocts.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)