The one where the Doctor juggles Cybermen, time-traveling Nazis, and Elizabethan witchcraft while Ace discovers that Nitro-9 solves most problems, including Cybermen.
Short Synopsis
A silver comet containing an ancient Gallifreyan weapon returns to Earth in 1988. Everyone wants it: the Cybermen, a Nazi with delusions of grandeur, and an Elizabethan sorceress who time-hopped into the future. The Doctor plays them all off each other, Ace blows up lots of Cybermen, and the Nemesis statue rockets off to destroy the Cyber-fleet.
Extended Storyline
We open in 1638 with Lady Peinforte, a scheming aristocrat dabbling in black magic, because apparently Elizabethans had a “curses and alchemy” elective. She discovers the return of the Nemesis — a silver comet that orbits Earth every 25 years — and immediately decides she must claim it to rule the world. Naturally, she travels forward in time to 1988 because nothing says power grab like parachute pants and Thatcherism. She drags along her loyal servant Richard, who looks perpetually confused about why he agreed to this gig.
Meanwhile, the Doctor and Ace are already on the case, with the Doctor casually revealing that the comet is no ordinary rock. Inside it is a silver statue: a Gallifreyan-made weapon of mass destruction tied to the Hand of Omega and his own mysterious past. The Doctor’s fingerprints are all over this thing, but as usual, he’s being cagey and refusing to tell Ace the full truth. (She’s starting to realize traveling with him means lots of explosions and zero explanations.)
But Peinforte isn’t the only one interested in the statue. Enter De Flores, a Nazi who somehow survived the war and decided, “You know what’ll really get the Reich back on track? A magical comet!” He and his goose-stepping buddies show up in 1988 Windsor, waving guns around and trying to look menacing. Unfortunately for them, they’ve wandered into the same plotline as the Cybermen, who descend like silver locusts to nab the Nemesis for themselves.
Cue a three-way brawl for cosmic custody rights. The Cybermen stomp around demanding obedience, the Nazis shoot at everything that moves, and Peinforte delivers grand monologues while Richard sighs in the background. The Doctor, naturally, keeps stirring the pot, ensuring that no one gets the upper hand. Ace, meanwhile, takes a much more direct approach: blowing Cybermen to bits with Nitro-9 and whacking them with a slingshot. Honestly, she’s more effective than the British army.
The Nemesis itself is a creepy silver statue that eerily resembles Peinforte (because she used her own likeness when it was forged, because vanity never dies). It has the power to annihilate entire planets — hence why everyone’s drooling over it. The Doctor makes it clear he’s less concerned with who wins the tug-of-war and more with making sure the statue doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Or, let’s be honest, any hands.
As the chaos escalates, the factions start double-crossing each other. The Nazis try to bargain with the Cybermen, which goes about as well as you’d expect. (Hint: Cybermen aren’t big on sharing.) Peinforte claims she knows dark secrets about the Doctor’s past — the kind that make him visibly squirm — but before she can drop a lore bomb, she hurls herself into the Nemesis out of sheer melodrama.
In the climax, the Doctor tricks the Cybermen into thinking they’ve secured the statue’s allegiance. In reality, he’s programmed the Nemesis to destroy them. The statue launches itself into space, crashes into the Cyber-fleet, and blows them to metallic smithereens. The Doctor and Ace watch the fireworks, Ace grins about how many Cybermen she personally blasted, and the Doctor broods about the mysteries still lurking in his shadowy backstory.
Everyone else? Nazis are dead, Peinforte is gone, Richard’s probably wondering if he can just get a job at Tesco, and the world carries on oblivious to the alien death comet over Windsor Castle. Business as usual.