The Edge of Destruction

Summary

A mystery explosion has trapped the four time-travellers inside the TARDIS. Plunged into near darkness, none of the control systems are working, leaving the craft, to all intents and purposes, hanging dead in space.
    The aftermath of the explosion has left all four companions suffering various degrees of concussion, states of mind leading tempers and suspicions all round to rise in the silent, shadow-filled atmosphere of the dormant craft.
    Recovering gradually, the travellers find it impossible to re-activate the TARDIS's flight systems, and even machinery that supplies food and drink, though still in action, registers 'Empty'. The scanner is showing strange pictures that bear no resemblance to what is outside. The doors open and shut on their own, and beyond them is nothing but the void of space.
    The Doctor is sceptical of the explanations offered by his companions. Susan and Barbara fear some alien intelligence has invaded the ship; Ian is more practical and is convinced there is simply a technical fault. With no-one yet fully recovered, and as the strange events continue, open hostility breaks out. The Doctor accuses the two schoolteachers of sabotaging the ship as a blackmail threat to get them back to England in their own time. Susan goes temporarily berserk and viciously wields a pair of scissors at Ian. And Barbara, fed up with the Doctor's taunts, gives him a piece of her mind, telling him he should be grateful for all their help.
    The crisis point comes when the Doctor, unable to fathom what has happened, decides to put the two teachers off the ship.
    Suddenly the whole of the Fault Locator lights up, showing that all the controls of the TARDIS have broken down. The Doctor realises that there is no way the two teachers could have achieved all this, but it is Barbara who arrives at the real solution.
    It is the TARDIS itself which has halted their flight, aware of some danger which the time-travellers themselves are not. Reviewing the procedures he followed on leaving Skaro, the Doctor, at last, traces the fault - a tiny broken spring on a switch that, had it stayed in the 'down' position, would have sent the TARDIS back past the moment when the Earth's solar system was formed - beyond the Sun's point of creation. The ship refused to do this, knowing it would be destroyed, and immobilised itself, using what techniques it could to warn the travellers. With the spring repaired the systems come back on again, and the Doctor is able to reset the controls for Earth.
    Tempers cool but the Doctor realises that he said some terrible things to his unwilling passengers. Barbara in particular is less than sympathetic towards him, but the old man eventually pours oil on troubled waters by explaining that as they travel together, so they will learn more of each other.
    The TARDIS lands on a snowy plateau. The readings say Earth, but outside Susan finds the footprint of a giant in the snow.

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Original series broadcast on the BBC
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