Catch - 1782

A simple visit to Mel's uncle John goes awry when Melanie is flung backwards in time to 1781. Her coming into contact with a prototype metal causes the TARDIS telepathic circuits to react, but once the Doctor finds her in 1782 events have already moved ahead at an alarming pace. The amnesiac Mel has been kept in a locked room and watched over by her ancestor Henry Hallum, and now he is determined to keep her under his care, even going so far as to marry her and trap her in her own family's past.

I already said simple, didn't I? It is just that. No aliens, no invasions, no end of the world dilemmas, just a back in time story. The whole bit about Melanie getting caught up in her own past starts to get a little too Day of the Daleks for me though; this debate about just that concept has been a lively one between myself and my friend Greg for the last few weeks, and I am still not convinced that people altering their own pasts can escape the paradox they find themselves in. But it's all down to point of view, apparantly.

Note the difference in Mel's reaction to being stranded in this adventure, as opposed to her previous marooned status in The Juggernauts. The effect of travelling through time without the protection of the TARDIS leaves her confused and frightened and without most of her memory, but she retains enough of it to know that without the Doctor coming to get her, she is stuck. She later laments about wasting six months of her life in 1782, which is odd since she lost three months on Lethe waiting for the Doctor to show up there and wasn't too bothered. Maybe the love interest of Geoff on Lethe was enough to keep her optimistic. That or Davros was a nicer man than Hallum.

Hallum's not exactly a bad man; when Mel is found in his home it is mere months after his own wife, Jane, has passed (the ancestor where Mel gets her middle name, it would seem) and he feels duty bound to protect her and see her back to health as he was powerless to help his own wife get better. But we all know how rebounds work, so when the Doctor shows up with uncle John in tow, Hallum is far from pleased. His housekeeper, Mrs McGregor, would be pleased to see Mel leave, though as she has her widowed eyes set on the master of the house herself.

So back into space and time for the Doctor and Melanie. And now they've visited Melanie's family, why not drop in on an old friend of the Doctor's next?

NEXT EPISODE : THICKER THAN WATER