City of Death Part 4
The Doctor and his companions must stop Count Scarlioni, a Jagarothian who seeks to reunite his splintered selves and alter history, from using a time machine to prevent the destruction of his spaceship and restore his race.
In 'City of Death - Part Four', Count Scarlioni, a member of the ancient and superior Jagaroth race, has been working to reunite his twelve splintered selves across different points in history. His goal is to return to his spaceship, which exploded 400 million years ago, and prevent it from being destroyed. This would allow him to save his race and potentially alter the course of human history. The Doctor, Romana, and Duggan become entangled in Scarlioni's plans when they discover that he is using a time machine and a stabilizer device, created by Romana, to facilitate his journey. As Scarlioni prepares to execute his plan, the Doctor and his companions must intervene to stop him, understanding that his actions could have catastrophic consequences for the timeline and the emergence of life on Earth. The story unfolds with Scarlioni's attempts to blackmail the Doctor into helping him, the Doctor's efforts to reason with him, and ultimately, a confrontation at the Jagaroth spaceship. The Doctor and his companions successfully thwart Scarlioni's plan, preventing the destruction of the timeline and ensuring the continuation of human history.
Events in This Episode
The narrative beats that drive the story
The narrative opens with Count Scarlioni demonstrating the destructive power of an unstabilized time field, using it to threaten Paris and coerce Romana into stabilizing his device. He reveals his true identity as a splintered Jagaroth and his grand plan: to return 400 million years into the past to prevent his spaceship's original explosion, thus saving his race and altering human history. Romana, initially feigning indifference, is forced to cooperate when Scarlioni threatens Duggan. Meanwhile, the Doctor arrives at Scarlioni's chateau, engaging the Countess in a witty but probing conversation, subtly challenging her perception of her husband. He questions Scarlioni's humanity and his motivations, hinting at the vast, non-human scope of the Count's activities. The Countess, initially dismissive, begins to suspect the truth after the Doctor's persistent questioning and her own discovery of ancient diagrams depicting a one-eyed, green-skinned figure. The act culminates as Scarlioni, having secured Romana's expertise, imprisons the Doctor, Romana, and Duggan in the cellar, intending for them to witness his departure. He then reveals his true Jagaroth form, Scaroth, to the Countess, brutally killing her with a device disguised as a bracelet, eliminating a witness just before his final journey. This act establishes the villain's ultimate goal, the high stakes of altering history, and traps the protagonists, setting the stage for their desperate escape and pursuit.
Count Scarlioni brutally leverages Romana’s unintended care for Duggan to force her compliance, weaponizing the unstabilized time field as an imminent threat to Paris. With Duggan abducted as leverage, Romana …
Count Scarlioni dismantles Romana’s detachment with a brutal ultimatum, forcing her into reluctant cooperation under threat of erasing Paris. Romana’s sudden concern for Duggan betrays her true allegiance, compelling Scarlioni …
Imprisoned in the cellar, the Doctor, Romana, and Duggan piece together Scaroth's full plan. Romana reveals she sabotaged the stabilizer to allow only a two-minute temporal jump, a crucial detail that offers a slim chance to intervene. They deduce that the stolen Mona Lisas were intended to power Scaroth's massive time-altering scheme, and the Doctor reveals he subtly marked them as fakes, a detail that becomes irrelevant if history changes. Realizing the imminent danger, Duggan, with a powerful shoulder charge, breaks open the cellar door, initiating their escape. They burst into the laboratory just as Scaroth, now fully in his Jagaroth form, activates his time machine and vanishes. The Doctor, Romana, and Duggan race through Paris to the TARDIS, narrowly escaping traffic and encountering two art critics before dematerializing. They arrive 400 million years in Earth's past, a desolate landscape that will eventually become the Atlantic Ocean, and locate Scaroth's damaged spaceship. The Doctor explains the profound significance of this moment: the spaceship's explosion, which splintered Scaroth across time, also created the radiation necessary to spark life in the primordial soup, leading to the birth of the human race. Scaroth appears, attempting to warn his past self on the ship. The Doctor confronts him, explaining that this explosion is a fixed point, a paradoxical moment of destruction leading to creation. Scaroth, indifferent to humanity, attempts to force his way to the ship, but Duggan intervenes with a decisive punch, causing Scaroth to vanish, his brief window of opportunity closed. The Jagaroth ship then explodes once more, exactly as history dictates, ensuring the continuation of life on Earth.
The Countess ambushes Count Scarlioni with a pistol, demanding to know his true identity after uncovering his diagrams. His casual deflection evaporates when her interrogation becomes direct, forcing him to …
Scaroth unveils his true identity and unceremoniously silences his wife after she discovers his monstrous past as the last Jagaroth. His brief, hollow apology rings false as he weaponizes his …
Romana admits her role in stabilizing Scaroth’s time machine while secretly limiting its temporal jump to two minutes. She explains that without the stabilizer Scaroth could only use the time …
Duggan
Scaroth stands in the activated time machine, having discarded his human guise to reveal his grotesque Jagaroth form. With cold precision, he exposes the culmination of his life's work—using Romana’s …
Scaroth
Scaroth’s escape into the time machine forces the Doctor, Romana, and Duggan to confront the full scale of their mission’s peril. The astronomical scale of the temporal jump—400 million years …
Following the successful preservation of history, the narrative shifts to the immediate aftermath. Back in the chateau's laboratory, Hermann, Scaroth's henchman, witnesses Scaroth's return in his true Jagaroth form. Shocked and horrified by his master's monstrous appearance, Hermann impulsively throws a plastic bottle into the time bubble, causing the time machine to explode and ignite a fire, which collapses the stairs. This action inadvertently destroys Scaroth, ensuring his final demise and preventing any further attempts to alter the timeline. Later, at the Eiffel Tower, the Doctor, Romana, and Duggan reflect on their adventure. Duggan expresses concern over the fake Mona Lisa, which was salvaged from the fire, questioning the ethics of displaying a forgery. The Doctor, however, dismisses his concerns, asserting that the value of art lies in its aesthetic appreciation rather than its authenticity, especially if authenticity requires scientific verification. Romana agrees, highlighting their own advanced society's use of computer-generated art. Duggan, still grappling with the revelations of his own origins from the primordial soup, asks the Doctor and Romana about their home. The Doctor offers a characteristically enigmatic response, suggesting that understanding one's origin requires knowing one's destination. With their mission complete and the timeline secured, the Doctor and Romana bid farewell to Duggan. Duggan watches them dematerialize in the TARDIS, a souvenir postcard of the Mona Lisa in hand, left to ponder the extraordinary events and his place in a universe far larger than he ever imagined.
The Doctor and companions burst into the Paris gallery, fleeing the unraveling timeline as Scarlioni’s crimes unfold. Romana and Duggan maintain outward composure while the Doctor slips into the TARDIS, …
As the TARDIS dematerializes within the Denise René Gallery, the Doctor and his companions vanish without ceremony, leaving Duggan isolated among the wreckage of Scarlioni’s failed temporal ambitions. The abrupt …
Arriving four hundred million years before their time, the Doctor and his companions find themselves on an alien Earth, a barren land under a blood-red sky where the wind screams …
The Doctor leads Romana and Duggan across the stark primordial landscape to the desolate remains of the last Jagaroth spaceship. Surveying the hulking vessel, he voices his contempt for its …
Duggan discovers a forgery of the Mona Lisa deliberately marked as such and threatens to expose it, but the Doctor and Romana challenge his obsession with authenticity. Their debate about …
Duggan presses the Doctor and Romana about their origins after they evade his questions about the forged artworks at the Eiffel Tower. The Doctor deflects with a cryptic remark about …
With the immediate threat of Scarlioni neutralized by Hermann’s intervention, the Doctor and Romana prepare to depart the Eiffel Tower. Their brief exchange with Duggan about authenticity and artistry masks …