Episode #103 : The Armageddon Factor

"There'll be a rather large bang, big enough to blow up Zeos, take Atrios with it, and make certain the whole thing ends in a sort of draw. That's the way these military minds work."

Episode 103: The Armageddon Factor.
Companions: 4th Doctor, K9 and Romana.
Air Date:       Six episodes. 20th January to 24th February 1979.

The final segment of the Key is traced to the planet Atrios, engaged in a long war with the neighbouring Zeos. The Marshal of Atrios intends a final strike to destroy the Zeons, but the Doctor and Romana discover that Zeos is deserted and the war is being co-ordinated by a computer called Mentalis, built by one of the Doctor's old Time Lord Academy friends, Drax.

The Key to Time story arc comes to an end with a bit of a let down unfortunately. While the story itself is fine and moves along nicely, it is stretched out to six episodes and comes to a rather pointless end. The Black Guardian is introduced and has possibly orchestrated the whole thing from the start and to thwart him, the Doctor scatters the pieces of the Key back into time and space. All of which means the last six adventures were pointless. The only reason I don't rate it worse than an average story is because it does flow well and is otherwise entertaining. I just find it disappointing as a conclusion.

We lose Mary Tamm as Romana. In the following story she is simply replaced by a regenerated version played by Lalla Ward (who also played Princess Astra in this very story). I liked Tamm's version of Romana but Lalla Ward will go on to be a very good successor.

The 1970's and 80's had some strange ideas about nuclear wars and this episode runs with those. There were plenty of shows back then that used the concept of nuclear war and what might happen, and this story does bring back memories of those programmes.

At the end of the story the Doctor fits a randomiser to the TARDIS so that they won't know where they are going and in theory neither will the Black Guardian. Questions that this raises are that if the Guardians are these god-like beings with domain of time, how can they not know where the pieces of the Key to Time are, and where the Doctor is at any time?