Let us all bow our heads and take a moment of silence for the passing of the sonic screwdriver. First introduced in 1968's Fury from the Deep, the sonic screwdriver was a mainstay of the series for nearly fourteen years from the Second Doctor until halfway through the Fifth Doctor's first season. Producer John Nathan Turner hated it, though, and thought it allowed for lazy plotting from the writers. As such, he had it summarily destroyed in the third episode of The Visitation, and it never appeared again in the classic series.

Some other stuff happened as well, so let's talk about that.

The Visitation - Parts 3 & 4

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

In the back half of the story, the Doctor discovers that the three surviving Terileptils are planning on taking over the Earth by unleashing a genetically modified plague that will wipe out all of humanity, carried by the rats. At that same time, Nyssa is back at the TARDIS following the Doctor's instructions on how to build a device that will destroy the android under the Terileptils' control. For a while Wesley Crusher Adric is also back at the TARDIS with Nyssa, but being a smug and reckless dick he decides he should go rescue the Doctor (against Nyssa's objections). He gets about a dozen steps outside of the TARDIS before he is capture by the local townsfolk, which is exactly what Nyssa predicted would happen because she is both smart and sensible.

Fortunately, Nyssa's smarts fully extend to properly building android-destroying hardware, so by the time the Doctor, Tegan, and Adric are all reunited back on the TARDIS the android has been destroyed and they are fully prepared to follow the Iguana Men to London. The good news: the bad guys are defeated and the plague is destroyed. The bad news: in the ruckus, the Doctor accidently kicks off what turns out to be the Great Fire of London. Given that he also set off the Great Fire of Rome (in which Nero fiddled), I think it is a safe guess that at some point the Doctor will also have a run-in with Mrs. O'Leary's cow and trigger the Chicago Fire at some point.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable story, and even Adric wasn't too annoying. It is also, I think, the first story of the Fifth Doctor era in which all of the companions were fully utilized instead of having at least one of them sidelined most of the time. The character of the roguish actor/highwayman was nicely done and entertaining to watch, as well. I liked it a lot and I can see how it launched writer Eric Saward into the role of Script Editor shortly thereafter.

Tomorrow: The first (and last) pure historical story since The Highlanders way back in 1967. I have really been looking forward to this one, since I wish the show would go back to doing the occasional purely historical story without any science fiction elements driving the plot. I hope it lives up to my expectations.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Fifth
Companion(s): Adric, Tegan, Nyssa
Episode(s): The Visitation - Parts 3 & 4
Steps Walked: 7,678 today, 1,988,404 total
Distance Walked: 4.40 miles today, 1,013.74 miles total
Weight: 247.82 lbs (five day moving average), net change -59.48 lbs