Parts: 4
Writer: David Fisher
Airdates: 30 August 1980 - 20 September 1980
Production Code: 5N

Doctor: fourth
Companions: the second Romana, K-9 mark two

Creature Feature: Foamasi

Story: The Doctor attempts to catch the opening of the Brighton Pavilion but misses by a century and two seasons. Fed up with the wintry seaside weather, Romana coerces the Doctor into visiting the planet Argolis instead. Once engaged in warfare so severe that their entire planet was turned radioactive, the Argolins - sterile and dying of an accelerated metabolism - have now renounced warfare, and as a memorial they constructed a recreation facility called the Leisure Hive.

Unfortunately, the Leisure Hive is in danger of being bought out by the Foamasi, a race of reptilian creatures responsible for the destruction of Argolis. Merrymakers are lured by the attractive offerings of other planets, and by comparison, Argolis' achievements in the new science of tachyonics seems tame and uninteresting to most. Not so the Doctor and Romana. Their interest in tachyonics only escalates when an accident in the Tachyonic Recreation Generator causes a man to be dismembered alive. When the Doctor investigates the chamber, Romana watches in horror as he, too, is painfully pulled apart...

Mena, leader of the Argolins, is rapidly nearing death. When she dies, her son Pangol will take over - but Pangol harbors a deadly secret or two, and his ambitions are much higher than simply leading a dying race. But why is Pangol the only young Argolin on the entire planet? What are the intentions of the creatures who have hidden themselves in the Hive and are sabotaging the tachyon experiments? Ultimately, will Argolis die out, or become the instigator of yet another horrible war?