The one where a Slitheen trades exploding gas for haute cuisine, the Doctor plays judge, jury, and waiter, and Rose discovers that relationships are just as confusing as time travel.
Short Synopsis
Back in Cardiff, the Doctor stumbles across Margaret Blaine — a Slitheen in disguise — running the city and planning to blow it sky-high with a nuclear power station. Instead of chasing her through corridors, the Doctor invites her to dinner to debate morality. Meanwhile, Rose has a lover’s quarrel with Mickey, and the TARDIS helps itself to some rift energy. Explosions, flirting, and one very lucky escape hatch ensue.
Extended Storyline
We open in Cardiff, of all places, where the TARDIS is parked on top of a time rift (you might remember it from The Unquiet Dead). The Doctor is happily refueling while Rose enjoys some downtime with Mickey, who’s turned up for a not-quite-date. Everything is calm. Which of course means within five minutes it won’t be.
Enter Margaret Blaine — better known as Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen, last survivor of the alien family who tried to nuke Downing Street in Aliens of London / World War Three. She’s been busy. Using her human disguise, she’s now mayor of Cardiff (insert your own local politics joke here). Her big plan? Build a new nuclear power plant with a “safety system” that’s basically an exploding death trap. When it inevitably goes kaboom, she’ll ride the shockwave out of Earth on a little teleport gizmo called a Slitheen surfboard. Cardiff, meanwhile, will be ash.
The Doctor, Rose, and Jack discover her scheme and confront her. But instead of killing or locking her up, the Doctor proposes something truly diabolical: dinner. Cue the strangest “capture the alien” plot ever, where half the episode is spent with the Doctor and Margaret sharing a fancy meal while debating morality, life, and redemption.
Margaret, surprisingly, is excellent company. She flirts, she argues, she points out that the Doctor is basically condemning her to death by sending her back to Raxacoricofallapatorius, where her crimes will earn her execution. She asks him: what makes him better than her if he won’t give her a second chance? The Doctor, equally sharp, isn’t swayed. He knows she’s stalling for time — and sure enough, every chance she gets, she tries to kill him. Poison breath, teleport tricks, even ordering the most lethal item on the menu. But the Doctor is always one step ahead. Watching them trade verbal barbs while the waiter quietly refills their wine glasses is one of the great underappreciated Doctor Who comedy scenes.
Meanwhile, Rose and Mickey have their own subplot that’s almost as explosive. Mickey is tired of being her backup boyfriend while she swans around the universe with the Doctor. He wants her to admit she doesn’t really need him anymore. Rose, of course, dodges the question like it’s incoming Dalek fire. Their “date” devolves into bickering, reminding us that traveling in the TARDIS might be fun, but it absolutely wrecks your love life.
Back at city hall, Margaret’s scheme goes pear-shaped. She nearly succeeds in activating her surfboard escape plan, but when the TARDIS opens to siphon more energy from the rift, she’s caught in its light. Instead of being destroyed, she’s regressed — literally turned back into an egg, given the chance to start over. The Doctor takes the egg, planning to return it to her home planet so she can have the second chance she begged for — minus all the murdery baggage.
It’s an odd ending, but fitting for an episode that spends more time asking “what is justice?” than “how big is the explosion?” (Though, don’t worry, there are still explosions. It’s Cardiff, after all.)