Episode #107 : Nightmare of Eden

Romana : "I don't think we should interfere."

The Doctor : "Interfere! Of course we should interfere. Always do what you're best at, that's what I say."

Episode 107:    Nightmare of Eden.
Companions:    4th Doctor, K9 and Romana.
Air Date:         Four episodes. 24th November to 17th December 1979.

The TARDIS arrives on the space liner Empress which has become locked together with a private ship, the Hecate, after colliding with it on emerging from hyperspace. The Doctor and Romana meet the scientist Tryst, who has with him a Continuous Event Transmuter (CET) machine containing crystals on which are stored supposed recordings of planets that he and his team have visited. Someone on board the liner is smuggling the dangerously addictive drug vraxoin, and to complicate matters the interface between the two ships allows some monstrous Mandrels from the mud-swamps of Eden to escape from the CET machine - which does not merely take recordings but actually displaces whole planetary areas into its crystals.

Nightmare of Eden is based on the concept of what drugs and drug trafficking may be like in the future. For that it gets bonus points as such a concept probably wasn't as common place on the televisions of the 1970's as it may be now. Quite a bold move really. In this instance the story starts of with an investigation of a space crash, the presence of a drug found and then that the drug runners have found a whole new source for the outlawed drug and they are smuggling it in a way that makes it impossible to be detected.

The alien Mandrels are very much men in suits. Not a lot of effort was out into them by the look of things. In the past the series has shown some excellent costumes and alien appearances so it is sad to see how badly production values have lowered since the days of Jon Pertwee.

Not a bad adventure for our time travellers and certainly a cleverly thought out plot. If the production values were better it could have been so much more.