DOCTOR WHO IN DETAIL

The Doctor, Romana and K-9 have traced the second segment of the Key to the planet Calufrax. But when they arrive at exactly the right point in space, they find themselves on exactly the wrong planet - Zanak.

Zanak is a happy and prosperous planet. Mostly. Rules from the Bridge by the mysterious 'Captain', it's just one New Golden Age after the next, raining enough gems and minerals for everyone. It's an economic miracle - so obviously something's very wrong...

'You're tinkering with time. That's always a bad idea unless you know what you are doing.'

The Doctor takes Romana for a holiday in Paris - a city which, like a fine wine, has a bouquet all of its own. Especially if you visit during one of the vintage years. But the TARDIS takes them to 1979, a table-wine year, a year whose vintage is soured by cracks - not in the wine glasses but in the very fabric of time itself.

Soon the Time Lords are embroiled in an audacious scheme which encompasses home-made time machines, and the theft of the Mona Lisa, the resurrection of the much-feared Jagaroth race and the beginning (and quite possibly the end) of all life on Earth.

Aided by British private detective Duggan, whose speciality is thumping people, the Doctor and Romana must thwart the machinations of the suave, mysterious Count Scarlioni - all twelve of him - if the human race has any chance of survival.

But then the Doctor's holidays tend to turn out a bit like this.