The TARDIS falls through a cosmic whoopsie into E-Space, and Adric arrives to make everyone wish it hadn’t.
Short Synopsis
The Doctor, Romana, and K-9 arrive on Alzarius, a swampy planet with weird evolutionary cycles, angry marshmen, and apple-loving child geniuses. Cue Adric, who latches onto the TARDIS crew like an unshakable mosquito.
Extended Storyline
Just when you think the TARDIS can’t possibly land anywhere worse than Brighton Beach, it slips through a crack in space and winds up in E-Space — a pocket universe that’s basically the “Oops, all entropy!” version of the cosmos.
The first stop? Alzarius, which looks like the marshiest bit of Wales, mist included. The local human colonists are descendants of a spaceship called the Starliner, which supposedly crash-landed generations ago. The colony has been waiting for repairs to finish so they can leave, though the way they keep dithering about it suggests they’re less “pioneering explorers” and more “committee of indecisive homeowners’ association members.”
Enter the Marshmen, who rise dramatically out of the swamps every “Mistfall,” a spooky natural cycle that also causes giant spiders to invade the colony. The Marshmen are basically big rubber swamp monsters, but scarier than they have any right to be. At least until one of them bonks itself unconscious against a door.
The Doctor and Romana poke around, uncovering secrets the colonists would rather keep buried. Turns out the Starliner didn’t crash at all — it’s been space-worthy for ages. The colonists just don’t know how to pilot it because their “learning” is a giant pantomime of adults reading from instruction books they don’t understand. Imagine an entire civilization founded on people pretending to know Excel.
Meanwhile, the Marshmen? Yeah, they’re not just monsters. They’re the earlier evolutionary stage of the colonists themselves. In other words: the humans of Alzarius are just swamp creatures that learned to stand upright and put on tunics. Naturally, the colonists don’t like hearing this revelation from the Doctor, but denial has always been humanity’s strongest evolutionary trait.
Oh, and then there’s Adric. A so-called “mathematical genius” and member of the Deciders’ Outward Bound club. He tries to impress Romana, bumbles into danger several times, and eventually stows away on the TARDIS, cementing himself as the character fans love to debate… loudly.
The Doctor, Romana, and Adric leave Alzarius with K-9 (who is mostly useless here, thanks to swampy conditions). The colonists finally realize their ship actually works, though given their track record, one suspects their maiden voyage won’t make it past the nearest asteroid.