The one where the Doctor returns to 1963 London, runs into Daleks squabbling like gangsters, casually manipulates everyone like it’s a cosmic board game, and lets Ace smash fascists with a baseball bat.
Short Synopsis
The Doctor and Ace land in Shoreditch, 1963, right near Coal Hill School (yes, the one from An Unearthly Child). Two rival Dalek factions are hunting for the Hand of Omega, an ancient Gallifreyan doomsday device the Doctor “accidentally” left lying around. The Doctor plays them against each other, Ace blows stuff up, and Skaro is obliterated.
Extended Storyline
The Doctor brings Ace to London, 1963 — the exact time and place where the show began. Except instead of a quiet school and foggy junkyard, they find military troops, secret government agents, and Daleks popping out of alleyways like homicidal trash cans on patrol.
It turns out the Doctor, in one of his most devious long games, left the Hand of Omega — a Time Lord stellar manipulator the size of a coffin — hidden on Earth decades ago. Now both Imperial Daleks (gleaming white, with a floating Emperor) and Renegade Daleks (classic grey, scrappier, with a pet little girl for a controller) want it. Yes, the Daleks are having a civil war. Think mobsters fighting over turf, only with more plungers.
The Doctor wastes no time manipulating everyone. He teams up with Group Captain Gilmore and his military unit, basically proto-UNIT, but clearly uses them as pawns in his bigger plan. Ace, meanwhile, gets to live her best life: swinging baseball bats at Daleks, blasting Nitro-9, and generally showing up the army blokes at every turn. If you ever wanted to see a teenager gleefully yell, “Whoomph! Ace!” while Daleks explode, this is your story.
Of course, the Daleks aren’t the only problem. There’s Ratcliffe, a slimy human collaborator leading a far-right paramilitary group who’ve sided with the Renegade Daleks. Because if there’s one thing Doctor Who never shies away from, it’s pointing out that fascists are still awful even without metal pepperpots backing them up. Ratcliffe doesn’t last long — siding with Daleks is a bit like buying insurance from a shark.
As the two Dalek factions battle it out across London, the Doctor carefully nudges events toward his trap. He lets the Imperials capture the Hand of Omega, because that’s exactly what he wants. He even taunts Davros — now revealed as the Emperor Dalek, in a grotesque and surprisingly effective reveal — into using it.
Davros, cackling like a B-movie villain, orders the Hand to destroy the Time Lords’ homeworld of Gallifrey. But surprise! The Doctor rigged the thing so instead it blows up Skaro, the Daleks’ own home planet. It’s one of the Doctor’s coldest, most ruthless victories — and it leaves Davros howling in despair as he escapes into space once again.
Meanwhile, Ace bonds with a local girl named Allison and repeatedly saves the day, proving she’s not just comic relief. She’s street-smart, tough, and fearless — a real partner for this darker, manipulative incarnation of the Doctor.
In the aftermath, the Doctor broods outside a cemetery, reflecting on whether his actions were justified. Destroying Skaro saved Gallifrey and Earth… but it was still genocide. Ace tries to lighten the mood, but the Seventh Doctor just stares at the sunset, the weight of his choices already beginning to define his era.