Man, that Gulliver guy just pops up wherever he’s needed, doesn’t he?
OK, so, Zoe for some reason hasn’t figured out that saying figures from myth and legend don’t exist makes them stop existing where they are, but then the Doctor remembers how the beat Medusa in mythology and shows Zoe Medusa’s reflection in the hand mirror he carries everywhere. That shows how silly looking Medusa and and she is no longer a threat.
And as Jamie notes, that is not what the ticket-tape machine predicted would be how the Doctor vanquished the woman with the snake hair that was a pretty effective special effect for a low budget 1968 TV show. But then Jamie runs into Gulliver again, and after setting off an alarm, gets Gulliver to cover for him as those white robots from the void show up again. Gulliver doesn’t know what a robot is, but that’s only fair as Jamie doesn’t know what a Yahoo is.
Back on the ground, the Doctor and Zoe are attacked by a guy named the Karkus. He’s large and mean. The Doctor manages to disarm him by pointing out that his ray gun in scientifically impossible, but because he’s never heard of the Karkus, he doesn’t know if the character is real or not. See, the Doctor figures when an author writes about the past, it’s history, but if you write about things that haven’t happened yet, it’s fiction.
That doesn’t sound quite right to me.
As it is, Zoe knows kung fu and subdues the big man, a comic strip character she read about in her 21st century childhood, into a loyal servant who leads the two to the Citadel of the Master who is not THAT Master. Once inside, the two find Jamie and he warns them about the alarm and the ticket-tape machine. The Doctor theorizes that if they do exactly as the machine suggests, they become fictional characters. That…almost makes sense. But then Zoe trips the alarm because one of the companions can only be awesome once per episode and she already used hers up. This time, the trio decide they want to see the Master and let the robots take them away.
It turns out the Master is from Earth. He was an author of a pulp magazine feature and was taken by the Master Brain of the Land of Fiction because they need someone with imagination to actually run the place. It’s a prison of sorts for the poor author, even though he denies it, and the Brain speaks through him sometimes in ways that sound unpleasant. The Master is growing too old to keep up his job, and since the Doctor is ageless, the Doctor has been chosen as a replacement. The Doctor steadfastly refuses.
Of course, Jamie and Zoe didn’t listen when the Doctor said to stay close and went off to look for a back door. They find a giant library and are soon surrounded by those robots again. This time, the Master says the Doctor will take his place because the companions have been caught and the robots are closing the two up in a giant book.
Look, the Doctor is far too smart for these people. I’m sure he’ll be fine.
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