Parts: 4
Writer: Robert Holmes
Airdates: 8 March 1984 - 16 March 1984
Production Code: 6R
Megalomaniac of the Week: Sharaz Jek
Story: The Doctor and Peri arrive on Androzani Minor, a sandy planet riddled with caves that are regularly flooded with boiling mud from the planet's center. The Doctor finds evidence that a spacecraft has been picking up some kind of cargo from the desolate planet, so, curious, he and Peri follow the trail to the caves.
The slippery cave rock causes Peri to slip and fall onto a fuzzy white ball; after brushing several clinging threads off her, the Doctor decides that it is probably harmless, but Peri's legs are stinging. Soon they find a cavern full of weapons and bombs, and of course they stumble upon it at just the wrong time - a raid of the cavern soon follows, and the Doctor and Peri are arrested on gunrunning charges.
The Doctor and Peri have come to Androzani Minor at a critical point in the planet's history. Deep within the cave system hides Sharaz Jek, android engineer and the man who controls spectrox, a highly valuable substance that can practically stop the aging process - when it is refined. An army from Androzani Major is in the middle of a heated battle with Jek's android forces to destroy his monopoly at the same time as a band of smugglers has come to purchase some of Jek's spectrox supply. The Doctor and Peri would like nothing more than to leave, but they have other problems at hand - they have both contracted fatal spectrox toxaemia, the only cure lies out of reach miles beneath the planet's surface, and slowly but surely, they are dying...