This episode should have been called “6 o’clock”

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Doc and Belinda are still struggling to get back to Earth in 2025 because, maybe, there’s no Earth to go back to! Cue immediate action to solve that really rather large problem? Nope, let’s jump forward 500,000 years and dress up as soldiers instead. Yes, Doc needs to drop the Vindicator somewhere to get a new reading but that’s not before he and Bell have been blasted down to an unknown planet as part of some future army’s troop deployment. A quick wave of the psychic paper though and Doc gets a briefing on what’s going on and a front-row seat for the events that follow.

You see there was a colony base on this planet but no one’s heard from them for a while. It soon becomes pretty obvious why: they’re all dead. Well not quite all of them. There’s one survivor, Aliss, but it’s not clear if she got lucky or if she’s really a cold hearted killer beneath the surface. While Doc goes to find out just what the colonists dug up, Bell goes into full nurse mode to patch Aliss up and help her cope with the whole shitstorm of a situation. But when Bell spots something behind Aliss’s back the scene is set for violent deaths, jump scares and the return of a forgotten foe.

The "God of Light" turns itself into a cartoon character that, umm, captures people in celluloid?! On rewatch, we offer RTD a lot of admittedly late rewrite options.

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The TARDIS is still having problems landing back on earth in 2025 so Doc and Belinda are forced to land a tad off course – specifically, by a seemingly deserted Miami cinema in 1952, where unsurprisingly a mystery awaits. Fifteen people have vanished from this very picture house, yet the projector still hums to life each night.

Naturally, Doc and Belinda Scooby-Gang into action, and soon stumble upon the pre-credit reveal, namely, that cartoon menace "Mr. Ring-a-Ding" has Last-Action-Hero’d off the silver screen and trapped the poor cinema patrons within film reels. For he is no mere cartoon comic. He is Lux Imperator, God of Light and the latest addition to RTD’s incessant lineup of so-called Harbingers or Gods of Chaos. Who knows?

The boundaries between fiction and fact begin to blur, and soon it becomes frighteningly clear that the whimsical antics of Lux put everyone at risk. But just as they're about to put together the puzzle pieces, Doc and Bells are themselves pulled onto the silver screen, where they must face the biggest plot twist of them all: nerds.

We get a brand new companion, and meet a chap named Manny who wears his character arcs on his sleeves

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17 years ago, new companion Belinda was on a date with a chap called Alan and he bought her a star. Well, he bought her a bit of paper that says the star is hers. Young Belinda unfortunately doesn’t have world experience yet and thinks it’s kind of sweet. In fact, Alan is obviously a negging control freak who probably needs a swift kick in the nads to understand the word “no”. But they’re young and he doesn’t seem to fit into the picture back in the present day.

Unfortunately, the thing that is crashing into the picture of Belinda’s life is a spaceship full of robots! They come, smash some walls, kill a cat, and then demand that Belinda comes to a planet with a very familiar name. It seems that star naming was worth a bit more than the paper it was written on because these Robby Robots are pretty set on bringing Bel back to be the rightful Queen of the planet named after her.

It’s a good thing Doc was also looking for Bel. He’s just a little bit too late and has to take the long way round because of a timey-wimey rift thing between Earth and the planet currently known as Missbelindachandra. Six months later in Doc’s timeline and he’s nestled in nicely with the humanoid rebels trying to revolt against the robots. Bel might be a competent nurse, but a revolution on an alien planet is a pretty tough first day on the job for any companion. Especially when your shitty ex turns up to try and mind-meld with you!