Paltraki Greats The Doctor

An old woman named Andinio and a young man named Delph are on the desolate planet of Ranskoor Av Kolos. Andinio is testing Delph to see if he can harness their powers on his own. Delph begins building something out of the surrounding rock when suddenly blue energy crackles behind them. Andinio snaps Delph out of his trance, drawing his attention to a figure stumbling in an attempt to get up.

Meanwhile in the TARDIS, The Doctor, with her three travelling companions, Graham O'Brien, Ryan Sinclair and Yasmin Khan, is overwhelmed having received nine separate transmissions requesting help all from the same location on one planet, Ranskoor Av Kolos. As The Doctor sets the coordinates she reveals that the atmosphere on the planet is very unpleasant and that exposure to it will cause paranoia and irrationality. To counteract this The Doctor provides her three travelling companions with neurobalancers. This prompts Graham to wonder why they have to always answer distress calls to which The Doctor explains that no one else is responding to the distress signals, as if they do not care, so it gives them a mystery to solve.

The TARDIS materialises inside one of the spaceships giving off one of the distress signals. The Doctor, Graham, Ryan and Yasmin exit the TARDIS and straightaway encounter a scared man pointing a gun at them, demanding to know if they are with ‘them’. Even though The Doctor explains that they are responding to a distress call, and so are here to help, the man considers what The Doctor has said for a moment, but then seems to forget their entire conversation, demanding again to know who they are. Realising that the planet is affecting the man, causing a form of amnesia, The Doctor provides him with a neurobalancer, so allowing him to recall his name as Paltraki. As they help him, Paltraki gets a video signal. Without any warning Paltraki shoves everyone out of view as Andinio appears on the screen, demanding that Paltraki returns what he has stolen from The Creator. When Paltraki refuses, a sinister voice rasps a warning. The Doctor, Graham, Ryan and Yasmin look at each other in disbelief as they recognise the voice. It is the voice of Tzim-Sha! - the alien they encountered in "The Woman Who Fell to Earth" and who was responsible for the death of Grace, Graham’s wife.

The Doctor

At that moment, a Stenza mask fills the screen, threatening the life of Paltraki’s crew if he does not return what was stolen. To make his point Tzim-Sha kills a woman, called Umsang, before threatening Paltraki that he will kill the last two members of his crew if he does not comply. With the video signal terminated The Doctor wonders what Paltraki stole. Paltraki shows her a crystal-like object with a rapidly moving black object inside of it. The Doctor tries to scan the object but her sonic screwdriver reveals that there is too much data from the object inside for it to understand what it is. Despite this The Doctor is sure that it is important and that they have to stop Tzim-Sha from causing anymore senseless violence and that they can use the crystal as a bartering tool to buy them time until they can figure out what he is up to.

They head outside, where they discover eight other wrecked spaceships around them. This explains all the different distress signals that they received coming all from the same location. As they walk towards an object, that is barely visible through the mist in the distance, Graham informs The Doctor of his intention to kill Tzim-Sha. He explains that he vowed to do this if he ever saw that Stenza again as revenge for Grace's death. The Doctor tells Graham that he is better than that and killing Tzim-Sha will make him just as bad. The Doctor also warns Graham that if he stoops that low she will not allow him to travel in the TARDIS again. Graham tells The Doctor that this will not prevent him killing Tzim-Sha if he gets the opportunity.

Tzim-Sha (Masked)

They soon arrive underneath the object, which Paltraki calls ‘The Temple’. The Doctor pulls out some grenades from her back pack and attaches them to the crystal so that if she is fatally injured it will detonate the crystal knowing that if this occurs she will still survive as she will regenerate. She then scans the temple, locating the means to gain access and they all find themselves teleported inside a spaceship. The Doctor splits up the group, sending Graham and Ryan to find and rescue the kidnapped crew, while Yasmin and Paltraki look for similar material to the crystal in the hope of understanding why Tzim-Sha wants it back so badly. The Doctor plans to locate Tzim-Sha. As they all go their separate ways The Doctor encounters Andinio who, holding her at gunpoint, demands the return of the crystal. However, The Doctor reveals what she has done to the crystal. Andinio is forced into revealing that she is an Ux which initially delights The Doctor until she wonders why they are working for Tzim-Sha. The Doctor demands that Andinio show Tzim-Sha that she is here. Once Andinio does this, and Tzim-Sha sees The Doctor, he demands that she is brought to him. This confrontation confuses Andinio as she can't understand how her ‘god’ could know The Doctor. Brought before Tzim-Sha, he reveals to The Doctor that its been 3407 years since they last encountered each other in Sheffield and that the DNA bombs, that The Doctor used to defeat him, had corrupted his teleport device, banishing him to this planet. Without a spaceship or a teleport device he would die if he attempted to leave. Fortunately, the Ux found him and foolishly believed him to be their god and so did everything they could to keep him alive. This revelation disgusts The Doctor for the way Tzim-Sha has deceived such brilliant, yet naive people.

Meanwhile, Yasmin and Paltraki find a room with similar crystals and inform The Doctor of what they have found. The Doctor asks Tzim-Sha about their importance and to her horror he reveals that he has used his knowledge, in conjunction with the Ux’s powers, to take revenge on those races that have humiliated him by shrinking their planets to tiny objects and the black objects inside the crystals are the shrunken planets – just like the item that they have brought from Paltraki's spaceship. Paltraki finally remembers that he and several others were sent here to stop Tzim-Sha as his capturing of the planets wiped out all life on them. The Doctor also realises that the spaceships that litter the planet’s surface are vessels that have attempted to fight Tzim-Sha but lost due to help he has received from the Ux. The Doctor warns that having five such planets in close proximity will tear the fabric of reality and adding another would accelerate this. However, despite The Doctor's warning Tzim-Sha announces that the next planet that he is about to take revenge on will be Earth.

Elsewhere, Graham and Ryan, while they search for the missing crew, discuss Graham's desire to kill Tzim-Sha, which Ryan attempts to talk him out of. However, Graham is sure that Grace would want them to kill Tzim-Sha to stop him from spreading anymore death and misery. Suddenly they encounter SniperBots, which give chase to them. Luckily, they manage to duck when surrounded, allowing the fire from both sides to knock the SniperBots down. Having narrowly escaped Graham and Ryan discover the missing crew in stasis chambers. However, they soon realise that there are a lot more crewmembers than they expected. There is a total of 30 people trapped. They have located the crew of all the crashed spaceships. As they investigate an alarm alerts Tzim-Sha to their arrival, and he sends an army of SniperBots to stop them before going after them himself. At the same time, Andinio has arrived in a room where Delph is held prisoner in a frame to harness his powers. Delph pleads with Andinio to see that Tzim-Sha is not their Creator. However, she ignores him and powers up the temple. A beam of red light shoots out and opens a portal to the Earth. The light begins enveloping the planet - when the planet is completely covered there will be nothing left alive on Earth.

Paltraki

Unaware of what is happening on Earth, Graham and Ryan work to free the crewmembers from the stasis chambers. However, it is not long before more SniperBots arrive outside the room and start working on getting in to the room. Once everyone is evacuated, Graham tells Ryan that he will stay behind to detonate the bomb on the door, to damage the SniperBots and so allow them to escape, promising to follow Ryan to the surface of the planet. Ryan parts ways with Graham but soon runs into The Doctor, Yasmin and Paltraki. The Doctor informs the men to lead the survivors to Paltraki's spaceship for safety. In the meantime, Graham succeeds in taking out the SniperBots. But instead of following Ryan he takes one of their weapons to wait for Tzim-Sha to arrive.

The Doctor and Yasmin arrive where the Ux are powering the temple. After some debate on how to stop the temple without killing the Ux, The Doctor realises that she can use their neurobalancers to interrupt the telepathic connection that Tzim-Sha has over Andinio and Delph. Despite the dangerous affect that this will have on them Yasmin agrees that it is worth the risk to save Earth. With blurring vision from the effects starting, The Doctor and Yasmin attach their neurobalancers to the Ux - so stopping the temple and releasing the Earth from its death grip. Andinio is outraged by The Doctor’s actions and for stopping them from serving their Creator, but The Doctor forces the old woman to face reality – that Tzim-Sha is not a god, but a monster who has been taking advantage of them for centuries. Delph, now free, tells Andinio that The Doctor is right. The Doctor further tells them that they are the Creators, because they can create things for themselves without the need of their false god. Suddenly it is realised that because of all the strain Tzim-Sha has put on the Ux and their temple that the miniaturised planets are beginning to lose their stability. If the crystals housing them break it will cause destruction beyond comprehension. However, The Doctor has an idea and calls the TARDIS to her. With the help of the Ux she uses the TARDIS’ telepathic circuits to send all the planets back to where they came from at the same time, so restoring balance to the universe. The Doctor’s plan is successful, but severely draining to the Ux.

Meanwhile, Tzim-Sha arrives in the stasis room, where Graham is lying in wait for him. Graham tells the Stenza that he wants to kill him in revenge for the death of his wife. However, he has chosen to be the better man and not kill. As Tzim-Sha approaches Graham to kill him instead, with his deadly frozen touch, he becomes distracted by the arrival of Ryan, who has returned to find out where Graham is. Graham takes this moment to shoot Tzim-Sha in the foot, knocking him down. Ryan is initially shocked, but Graham defends his actions by saying that he only intended to disable Tzim-Sha. Graham then informs the wounded Stenza that they sentence him to life, trapping him inside one of his stasis chambers, and that as he ponders about how his plans went wrong, he should always remember the name Grace as her death motivated them to put him in this hell. Graham and Ryan then re-join The Doctor, who is proud of Graham for being the better man, despite Graham thinking that by not killing Tzim-Sha he has shown a sign of weakness. But The Doctor informs him that by not killing has made him one of the strongest people she knows.

With Tzim-Sha defeated and all the planets returned to the rightful places, The Doctor takes the Ux to Paltraki's spaceship, where Delph decides that the Ux must be part of the civilisations in the universe. It was because of their isolation on this planet that they mistook a monster like Tzim-Sha for a god. Andinio agrees with Delph, explaining that they have locked the temple and that no-one will be able to get to Tzim-Sha. The Doctor and her travelling companions then bid everyone farewell and leave in the TARDIS - leaving Delph to ask Paltraki if he can help return all the crewmen to their proper worlds.