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Roots: Romeo and Juliet. Tegan name checks Metal Mickey and Enid Blyton. The Doctor refers to the Tortoise and the Hare. Henry IV, Part One Act V (i) "[Discretion is the] better part of valour and all that" The legend of Prometheus ("mortal clay") Goofs: Klatch's accent shifts in episode two from Scouse to Scot. Does anybody not hear the name Hoss and think immediately of Bonanza? Dialogue Disasters: "If it's law enforcement, sit tight. Anyone else - boooom!" "She's mad alright, Turlough - mad about me!" Double Entendres: "The tunnels are where it grows until it's ready to come out" "Kiss her, Turlough. I know it's the only way to open your bubble!" Continuity: Vektris is a leisure world with a synthetic sun. It features auto-taxis which are card-operated. Trion repatriation squads use bio signal technology to patch into the DNA of fugitive Trions. Trion ships have gravity wells to prevent mining debris attaching to it. The other ship's space warp drive pushes super-heated plasma in its wake, creating a tell-tale trail. Klatch's ship has a proton drive. There are over a hundred planets in this system owned by wealthy Trions and shielded from the repatriation squads' DNA scanners. Turlough's family used to own the Winter Planet, an icy cold world with lower gravity than Earth's. Turlough's grandfather was something of a space pirate, using alien technology to hide his loot. His own great grandfather was ambassador for the Trion court during its colonial phase, and the Winter Palace was his construction. At the heart of the Winter Palace is a concealed dimensional vault. It has been three years, nine months and seventeen days since Deela and Turlough last used the vault. The vault is within a pocket 'bubble dimension, unlocked by a kiss and has self-repairing circuitry. The Palace is protected by force fields and has stasis traps. Turlough's grandfather offered the Palace vault as a safe house for the Trion queen, but word got out to Deela's father, who was on the 'right" side of the war. Deela sequestered the palace during the war. The doors are made of Majorican oak. Rennol suggests the treasures of the vault are "hundreds of years" old; they include suits of armour and scabbards. The Morass can create facsimiles of its enemies by absorbing their energy and uses the properties of its surrounds to communicate. The Doctor surmises that there is a confluence between the Morass' power supply and the palace above. Deela and Turlough are from the same clan, but are not directly related and were on opposing sides during the Trion war. Deela calls Turlough "Vis" and has blonde hair. Her mother was killed during the conflict, and her father and brother exiled. Reformatting the TARDIS interior requires all organic life forms to be out of the Ship. Turlough says he has continued to wear his uniform to remind himself that he's an outsider and doesn't belong. The Doctor refers to 4-Dimensional chess and conkers (which he says he's always been rather good at.) Links: Tegan mentions Heathrow (Time-Flight). This is the second story in a row where a companion falls into a crack on a planet's surface. The Doctor mentions his lack of sonic screwdriver (The Visitation) Location: The Winter Planet, some time after the Trion civil war. The Bottom Line: Time for a Turlough story, then. Kiss of Death has at its core a dependable, if predictable, story; the problem is that it doesn't (because it can't) move the character of Turlough any further ahead, because of established television continuity (Tegan and Nyssa's "we'll never tell" promise at the end beggars belief.) Things aren't helped with the second unintelligible monster in a season of three, and some questionable direction at character sympathy (Klatch shoots a mining ship's pilot in cold blood, but we're supposed to mourn his death? Oh well.) Average. | ||