The Kingmaker

A visit from a robot collections agent from a publishing house in the future prmopts the Doctor to make a trip back in time; he is in default for delivery of a book he was contracted to write during his time in exile with UNIT. In doing so, however, the Doctor is separated across several years from Peri and Erimem who end up embroiled in the mystery of Richard III and who killed the two princes in the Tower of London. But there is an extra player in this game: another time traveller from the Doctor's past is present, stirring the pot with his own ideas and pushing Peri and Erimem further into the web of deceit. And the closer their circumstances bring them to the Doctor, the less their chances of being reuinted begin to seem...

There has been talk of this sort of story in the past, where the action is spread over two time periods and the characters communicate back and forth but do not cross paths again until the climax, and it works quite well in The Kingmaker. The premise of the Doctor writing under the pen name of "Doctor Who", though is a bit of a sticking point, but the concept is amusing, especially when the Dead Ringers cast provides the recorded voice of the fourth Doctor in recorded notes on history. And watch (or listen) for the cameo appearance of the ninth Doctor ... sort of.

The Kingmaker is played for laughs, a comedy in the midst of a lot of more serious, heavy adventures where terrible things happen to the TARDIS crew. There are planety of laughs and a reassertion of Erimem's character, although having her going around breaking arms of people who touch her bum seems a bit... silly. Especially after everything that has happened to her recently. Peri gets to the the resourceful one during the separation, and the Doctor wonders how he will ever escape the robot collection agent.

And no I am not going to say who the other time traveller is.

NEXT EPISODE : THE VEILED LEOPARD