DOCTOR WHO IN DETAIL

'I feel like a pawn in a blasted chess game, Ace.' 'I know what you mean. Trouble is, they keep changing the chess-players.'

The TARDIS has died. Stranded in early twentieth-century London, Bernice can only stand and watch as it slowly disintegrates.

In the East End a series of grisly murders has been committed. Is this the work of the ghostly Springheel Jack or, as Bernice suspects something even more sinister?

In a tiny shop in Bloomsbury, the master of a grand order of sorcerers is nearing the end of a seven-hundred year quest for a fabled magic wand.

And on a barren world in the far-distant future the Queen of a dying race pleads for the help of on old hermit named Muldwych, while Ace leads a group of guerrillas in a desperate struggle against their alien oppressors.

These events are related. Perhaps the Doctor knows how. But the Doctor has gone away.

'Depends on how you define alien,' the Doctor said simply. 'They were human once.'

In 2006 the world is about to be overwhelmed by a disaster that might destroy human civilization: the inversion of the Earth's magnetic field. Deep in an Antarctic base, the FLIPback team is frantically devising a system to reverse the chonge in polarity.

Above them, the SS Elysium carries its jet-set passengers on the ultimate cruise. On board is Ruby Duvall, a journalist sent to record the FLIPback moment. Instead she finds a man called the Doctor, who is locked out of the strange green box he says is merely a part of his time machine. And she finds old enemies of the Doctor: silver giants at work beneath the ice.

'Not men, Ace. Silurians. The original rulers of the Earth.'

The TARDIS is attacked by an alien force; Bernice is flung into the Vortex; and the Doctor and Ace crash-land on Earth.

An attack by dinosaurs convinces the Doctor that he and Ace have arrived in the Jurassic Era. But when they find a woman being hunted by intelligent reptiles, he begins to suspect that something is very wrong.

Then they meet the embittered Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, leading the remnants of UNIT in a hopeless fight against the Silurians who rule his world. And they find out that it all began when the Doctor died...

'Someone here has been playing with time, Ace. Like playing with fire, only worse - you get burnt before you've lit the match.'

Abandoning a holiday in Oxford, the Doctor travels to Space Station Q4, where something is seriously wrong. Ghostly soldiers from the future watch from the shadows among the dead. Soon, the Doctor is trapped in the post, Ace is fighting for her life, and Bernice is uncovering deceit among the college cloisters.

What is the connection with a beautiful assassin in o black sports car? How can the Doctor's time machine be in Oxford when it is on board the space station? And what secrets ore held by the library of the invaded TARDIS?

The Doctor quickly discovers he is facing another time-shattering enigma: a creature which he thought he hod destroyed, ond which it seems he is powerless to stop.

He took up a firing stance, holding the thirty-eight out in front of him. 'Mr Lennon?' he said.

1968: Cristian Alvarez meets the Doctor in London. 1978: The great temple of the Aztecs is discovered in Mexico.1980: John Lennon is murdered in New York. 1994: A gunman runs amok in Mexico City.

Each time, Cristian is there. Each time, he experiences the Blue, a traumatic psychic shock. Only the Doctor can help him - but the Doctor has problems of his own. Following the events of Blood Heat and The Dimension Riders, the Doctor knows that someone or something has been tinkering with time. Now he finds that events in his own past have been altered - and a lethal force from South America's prehistory has been released.

The Doctor, Ace and Bernice travel to the Aztec Empire in 1487, to London in the Swinging Sixties, and to the sinking of the Titanic as they attempt to rectify the temporal faults - and survive the attacks of the living god Huitzilin.

'Doctor, we're talking about an old man who used to dress up in a skintight white jump suit and fly round New York catching super-villains. Don't you think there's something just a bit unusual about that?'

A killer is stalking the streets of the village of Arandale. The victims are found one each day, drained of blood. And if that seems strange, it's nothing compared to the town's inhabitants.

The Doctor, Ace and Bernice think they're investigating a murder mystery. But it's all much more bizarre than that. And much more dangerous.

Someone has interfered with the Doctor's past again, and he's landed in a place he knows he once destroyed. This time there can be no escape.

'This time, anarchy's real. There are power cuts and Wilson's resignation, a great upheaval of unease. But now there's real fear too. Real panic. And that's not how it's supposed to be.'

Somebody has been toying with the Doctor's past, testing him, threatening him, leading him on a chase that has brought the TARDIS to London in 1976 - where reality has been altered once again.

Black Star terrorists foment riots in the streets. The Queen barely escapes assassination. A fearful tension is rising. Something is going to happen. Something bad.

Meanwhile, Benny's the lead singer in a punk band. Ace can't talk to her or the Doctor without an argument starting, so she's made murderous plans of her own. The Doctor's alone - he doesn't know who his enemy is, and even the Brigadier has disowned him.

As usual, it's up to the Doctor to protect the world. And he can't even protect himself.

Tomorrow, Tragedy Day. Tomorrow, total control.

In Empire City on the planet Olleril, it's time for the annual Tragedy Day - when the privileged few celebrate their generosity to the masses.

But this-year, something is different. Hideous creatures infest the waters around an island that doesn't officially exist. Assassins arrive to carry out a killing that may endanger the entire universe. A being known as the Supreme One tests horrific weapons. And a secret order of monks observes the growing chaos.

Five minutes after they arrive on Olleril, the TARDIS crew know they want to leave. But Ace is imprisoned in a sinister refugee camp, and Bernice and the Doctor are in the custody of a brutal police gang. There is no way out.