Dastari's regret and Chessene's betrayal
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Dastari confesses his remorse to the Second Doctor and Peri, acknowledging his error in creating Chessene. Chessene shoots Dastari and attempts to escape.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Confident in her power and contemptuous of moral restraint
Chessene controls the moment by ordering the Doctors chained, testing the Doctor’s claim through Peri’s imprisonment, and granting Shockeye permission to torture Jamie. Her calculated cruelty underlines her ruthless pragmatism.
- • Confirm the Doctor’s deception
- • Indulge Shockeye’s appetites to maintain alliance
- • Consolidate control over captives
- • Victims’ suffering is irrelevant to mission
- • Allies’ desires can be exploited without consequence
Frustrated by captivity but focused on escape and protecting Jamie
The Second Doctor is tied to a pillar base while collaborating with the Sixth Doctor via Peri’s wheelchair. He initiates the rescue plan by suggesting the wheelchair’s use, then remains manacled but vocal, urging action upon hearing Jamie’s scream.
- • Free himself with co-conspirator help
- • Rescue Jamie from Shockeye’s kitchen
- • Trust in the Sixth Doctor’s ingenuity
- • Belief in immediate action over passive surrender
Deriving dark amusement from Jamie’s fear and potential feast
Shockeye abducts Jamie upstairs, twisting his arm and taunting him about his ‘juiceful meat’, fulfilling Chessene’s grudging permission. His brutality is playful yet predatory, bonding rhetorically with Jamie over shared humanity’s edibility.
- • Obtain young human prey for cooking
- • Pleasure Chessene with barbaric pastime
- • Viewing humans as culinary resources
- • Rejecting restraints on his appetites
Anxious and powerless though determined to contribute to escape
Peri is seized by Chessene and subjected to the Time Space module’s violet-lit chamber, her protests inaudible as the module’s door seals shut. She later crawls painfully towards the wheelchair to aid the Sixth Doctor’s plan, showing resilience despite terror.
- • Survive the module’s activation
- • Assist the Sixth Doctor and Second Doctor’s escape plan
- • Trusting the Doctors’ competence
- • Fear that the experiment will kill her
Furious and terrified at being treated as prey
Jamie is violently seized by Shockeye, his arm twisted behind his back as he is dragged upstairs. His protests are ignored, heightening the horror of impending culinary fate and marking him as the event’s most immediate victim.
- • Escape Shockeye’s grasp
- • Survive the unfolding brutality
- • No one will intervene in time
- • The Doctors will help if possible
Uneasy and compliant, struggling with ethical conflict
Dastari operates the control panel and chains the Doctors to the pillar base, following Chessene’s orders. After placing the manacle keys nearby, he exits, exhibiting passive compliance that borders on complicity with brutality.
- • Follow Chessene’s directives without challenge
- • Minimize personal responsibility
- • Chessene’s authority is absolute
- • Silence protects him from retribution
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The Cellar Medical Wheelchair becomes the unlikely tool of escape. Peri uses its footrest to bridge the table and Sixth Doctor tips the chair onto its back, causing the keys to fall and enabling manacle release. Its mundane design masks its role in this daring jailbreak.
The Doctor reveals he has sabotaged the Briode Nebuliser by paring its interface, leaving a thin membrane that allows functional use exactly once—enabling Chessene’s test while ensuring failure and Peri’s survival. The device’s altered symbiotic print becomes the fulcrum of distrust and lab tension.
The Sontaran Manacle Keys are placed on a nearby table by Dastari while chaining the Doctors, later retrieved by the Sixth Doctor via Peri’s wheelchair. The keys’ rusted mechanisms click loudly during escape, freeing both Doctors and highlighting the Doctors’ quick improvisation.
Peri is forcibly thrust into the Time Space Module by Chessene, its sealed door locking with a hiss. Violet light pulses as her silhouette flickers against translucent panels, her muffled screams trapped inside, transforming the module from apparatus to prison to instrument of terror.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Hacienda Upper Floor functions as the domain of predation and torture, where Shockeye drags Jamie through splintered hallways past carving knives laid on a wooden table. The stench of cooking meat and burning fat drifts down, while warped floorboards creak underfoot, carrying Jamie toward an uncertain fate.
The Sontaran Revival Cellar Laboratory serves as both prison and battlefield, its low stone ceiling reinforced with jury-rigged metal beams casting jagged shadows over chained Doctors and the Kartz-Reimer module. Emergency lighting flickers over surgical drapes and bloodstains, creating an environment where hope and horror coexist.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"The Sixth Doctor's sabotage of the Briode Nebuliser is acknowledged when Chessene discovers it is missing, reinforcing his cunning strategy."
Doctor humiliates Chessene with exposed weakness"The Sixth Doctor's sabotage of the Briode Nebuliser is acknowledged when Chessene discovers it is missing, reinforcing his cunning strategy."
Fight to free Jamie from Shockeye"The Sixth Doctor's sabotage of the Briode Nebuliser is acknowledged when Chessene discovers it is missing, reinforcing his cunning strategy."
Chessene’s final gambit ends in ruin"The Doctor's deception about the Briode Nebuliser directly leads to Chessene demanding its return and him demonstrating its sabotage."
Doctor’s deceit exposed by Jamie"Shockeye's intention to cook Jamie escalates the physical threat to the group, leading to a desperate escape plan by the Doctors to save him."
Fight to free Jamie from Shockeye"Shockeye's intention to cook Jamie escalates the physical threat to the group, leading to a desperate escape plan by the Doctors to save him."
Doctor humiliates Chessene with exposed weakness"Shockeye's intention to cook Jamie escalates the physical threat to the group, leading to a desperate escape plan by the Doctors to save him."
Chessene’s final gambit ends in ruin"The Sixth Doctor's sabotage of the Briode Nebuliser is acknowledged when Chessene discovers it is missing, reinforcing his cunning strategy."
Doctor humiliates Chessene with exposed weakness"The Sixth Doctor's sabotage of the Briode Nebuliser is acknowledged when Chessene discovers it is missing, reinforcing his cunning strategy."
Fight to free Jamie from Shockeye"The Sixth Doctor's sabotage of the Briode Nebuliser is acknowledged when Chessene discovers it is missing, reinforcing his cunning strategy."
Chessene’s final gambit ends in ruin"Shockeye's action of tenderizing Jamie directly prompts Chessene's arrival and her order for the Doctors to be killed."
Doctor frees Jamie and flees wounded"Shockeye's action of tenderizing Jamie directly prompts Chessene's arrival and her order for the Doctors to be killed."
Androgum brutality exposes fracturing alliances"Shockeye's intention to cook Jamie escalates the physical threat to the group, leading to a desperate escape plan by the Doctors to save him."
Fight to free Jamie from Shockeye"Shockeye's intention to cook Jamie escalates the physical threat to the group, leading to a desperate escape plan by the Doctors to save him."
Doctor humiliates Chessene with exposed weakness"Shockeye's intention to cook Jamie escalates the physical threat to the group, leading to a desperate escape plan by the Doctors to save him."
Chessene’s final gambit ends in ruinThemes This Exemplifies
Thematic resonance and meaning
Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"DASTARI: Kartz and Reimer experimented like this many times. The subjects always vapourised into the time stream."
"CHESSENE: Out."
"DOCTOR: Chain us up? After I've handed you the secret of time travel on a plate. Come on, Chessene. Where's your gratitude?"