Galaxy 4 Part 3/4: Air Lock

So here's where we're at: the Doctor and Vicki have creeped onto Rill territory. They're in a room with a spaceship and a broken Chumbley robot, and this weird monster thing has appeared at the window and is almost definitely not cool with them hanging out on his turf.

But alas! More peril! A Chumbley appears and chases them down a corridor. A corridor which - gasp! - ends in a locked door! BUT WAIT. On the wall there's a machine that converts air into ammonia (cat pee)! The Doctor does some Time Lord maths and figures out that

(robots that go outside for them) x (machine to convert air into ammonia)
=
the Rills CAN'T BREATHE AIR omg

So obviously because he is a kind and loving Time Lord, he thinks it'll be funny to break the machine that converts air to ammonia and allows the Rills to breathe. While he's working on suffocating dozens of creatures without ever speaking to them, two Chumblies chumble on over to take Vicki somewhere. Weirdly, she's not up for following these machines of wedding cakey death, but the Doctor urges her to do it so that he has more time to murder everything.

Vicki's taken back to the room where she saw the creepy thing peering in the window. The Chumblies beep some weird alien shit at her, to which she responds, "God can you just speak English please you losers," (I'm paraphrasing) and then cool! They do!

A bit of light-hearted interrogation follows, in which it is revealed that the Rills have offered to take the Drahvins with them in their ship so NOBODY gets blown up by the Absolutely Scientific Time-Bomb Planet. Vicki is confused, because the Drahvins told her that the Rills hated them and surely nobody that sexy could LIE.


Turns out, the Rills are basically just intergalactic Hufflepuffs (called it) and the whole Drahvin/Rill 'they killed one of us!' thing was a massive accident caused by the sexy Drahvins shooting the crap out of the Rills and the Rills getting in a hit in retaliation and then both of them crashing onto Planet Time-Bomb. (Technically it wasn't even the Rills' shot that killed the Drahvin; one of them was injured by the crash and the Rills tried to help them, but the Drahvins chased them away and Maaga shot the injured one to save herself the trouble of healing her.)

Vicki is getting on well with the Rill (who is using the Chumbley as a thought-to-speech walkie talkie because the Rills don't have vocal chords, and also he refuses to let Vicki see his full body because it would "not be pleasant" to humans, yeah, I know where you're coming from there, bro) when she remembers that oh shit! There's a crazy Time Lord working to smother them all with oxygen!

Meanwhile in Sexy Drahvin land, Steven has had enough of all the sexual frustration that the HQ has to offer. He knocks out the Drahvin who is standing guard over him, nicks her gun and heads for the door. Thing is, there's a Chumbley right outside, and he has seen those things explode shrubbery so he knows they are not to be messed with. He's then stuck between a wedding cake and a sexy place, because Maaga has appeared and is smirking at him in her alluringly evil way. What do, Steven? Well I don't know yet, because we're back with the Doctor's light-hearted mechanical tomfoolery and racial cleansing.

VICKI: Heyyy Doctor hello, um, don't do that, the Rills are cool.
RILL VIA CHUMBLEYCOM: Yo, we heard you got a dude in Drahvin HQ?
DOCTOR: Omg is that a Rill speaking via Chumbleycom?
VICKI: Yep!
DOCTOR: HELLO? CAN - YOU - HEAR - ME?
VICKI: They're not deaf.
DOCTOR: What?
RILL VIA CHUMBLEYCOM: We're not deaf.
DOCTOR: Oh.

By reminding the Doctor that the Rills could have shot them ages ago with their Chumbley death machines, Vicki and the Rill convince him to step away from his work on the Mechanism of Mass Suffocation.

The Doctor does so and only acts a little embarrassed about his cold-hearted murder plot. To make amends he offers the Rill the information that the planet is going to explode in a couple days' time and the Rills need to hurry their shit up. But alas, the Rills thought they had two weeks and so are not ready for imminent detonation of the ground. The Doctor still feels a little guilty though and so he offers his TARDIS powers to help the Rills get out of there. Everybody wins! Except Steven, who is still trapped in a weird nightmare/wet dream crossover.

Speaking of which, Steven is currently trapped in an airlock - hey, it's the title of the episode! - between the outside, where the Chumbley is, and the inside, where the sexy evil Drahvins are. He thinks it's all cool, because while he's trapped in there neither of them can harm him, but then Maaga starts emptying all the air out of it, which he should have seen coming, really. She tells him he has three options:

1. Stay in the airlock. Pros: No one will shoot him. Cons: Death.
2. Open the door and go outside. Pros: That's the opposite direction to the crazy lady with the gun. Cons: Probable death by robot wedding cake.
3. Surrender to the Drahvins. Pros: They're really hot. Cons: Probable death and sexual frustration.

He decides to wait it out.

The Chumbley outside the airlock sends a message about this to the Rills, who pass on the information to Vicki and the Doctor that their friend is about to suffocate (which is a kind of poetic justice, when you think about what the Doctor was trying to do to the Rills not TEN MINUTES BEFORE). The Doctor is extremely distressed when he hears this. He can barely hold himself together.


Such emotion. It's overwhelming. Vicki and the Doctor grab a couple of Chumblies in case they need to blow shit up, and head back on over to Sexy Drahvin HQ. A sexy Drahvin notices that they're followed by robots controlled by The Enemy and politely inquires as to why that is. Vicki tells them that the Chumblies are controlled by them now and makes a Chumbley do a little dance to prove it.

But after Vicki's demonstration of power and dominance (weird how that would work on the Drahvins, right), Sexy Dravhin 1 is convinced and lets them through to see what's happening with ol' Stevey Baby.

I mean, it's not looking well for for him. He's pretty much entirely out of air, and he tried the button to let him outside where there is oxygen and only probable death, and, whoops, the pressure is too low in the airlock, the door won't open.

AH JEEZ and there's the end music!


Mannnn, this is getting tense! Will the sexy Drahvins stop being crazy and killing everything? Will we ever get an explanation of why the planet is going to explode? Will Steven make it out alive? And more importantly will he ever get laid? So many questions left unanswered! Next episode better be good, man.

Moosh