History Recap / DoctorWhoS20E5Enlightenment

They turn out to be [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative everyone's favourite omnipotent, extradimensional beings who wear birds on their heads]]: the Black and White Guardians! The Doctor declines the prize, saying that no one should receive complete enlightenment, including him.

* ShapedLikeItself: At the end of the first segment, The Doctor says "We're not on a yacht, we're on a ship", which would sound kind of silly if he hadn't continued [[WhamLine "... a [[RecycledInSpace space]] ship!"]]

* ShapedLikeItself: At the end of the first segment, The Doctor says "We're not on a yacht, we're on a ship", which would sound kind of silly if he hadn't continued [[WhamLine "... a [[RecycledINSPACE space]] ship!"]]

* ShapedLikeItself: At the end of the first segment, The Doctor says "We're not on a yacht, we're on a ship", which would sound kind of silly if he hadn't continued [[WhamLine "... a [[Recycled IN SPACE space]] ship!"]]

* ShapedLikeItself: At the end of the first segment, The Doctor says "We're not on a yacht, we're on a ship", which would sound kind of silly if he hadn't continued [[WhamLine "... a space ship!"]]

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: The Eternals, especially Striker and Marriner, simply do not understand human/Time Lord morality. Wrack is a bit more of a clearcut villain, but still has shades of this

* DrivenToSuicide: Turlough (attempted)
* TheEdwardianEra

* GorgeousPeriodDress
* ImpossiblyLowNeckline: Tegan's [[TheEdwardianEra Edwardian]] ballgown. (The BBC got a few complaints from parents.)
* LargeHam: The Black Guardian, Wrack, Turlough

* PluckyGirl: Tegan

* SecretTestOfCharacter

* SpacePirates: Lynda Barron (Captain Wrack) plays one of the best space pirate captains anywhere. Her performance is larger than life, but works well within the confines of the story

* DoggedNiceGuy: Marriner

* ImpossiblyLowNeckline: Tegan's [[TheEdwardianEra Edwardian]] ballgown

* AdaptationExpansion: The novelisation adds a scene where, upon reading a "First British Submarine Launched" headline in a newspaper, the Doctor concludes that the year is 1901.
** The Eternals are expanded in greater detail.

* MoreThanMindControl as MindRape: The Eternals do this a lot, not always successfully

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: the Eternals, especially Striker and Marriner, simply do not understand human/Time Lord morality. Wrack is a bit more of a clearcut villain, but still has shades of this

* CoolShip: the whole race idea is built on this trope. Admittedly, it ''is'' pretty awesome.

* SwitchingPOV: switches with the doctor, Tegan and Turlough

* ParentService: Tegan wears a beautiful, [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tegan_dress_2634.jpg low-cut]] dress that actually caused a couple of {{Wardrobe Malfunctions}}.

** The consistent tension between Tegan and Marriner is told from both points of view: he views her as fascinating, but she sees his fascination with her as physically (and sexually) threatening, and makes her discomfort VERY clear to him (because she is Tegan, and she does not stand for that sort of behavior). He is often shot as though he physically looms over her, driving the point home. Marriner is deeply puzzled by Tegan’s fear, which emphasizes his alien nature (and his Eternal privilege).

* SpaceSailing

->'''The Doctor:''' [[CaptainObvious You're reading my thoughts.]]
->'''Captain Striker:''' You are a Time Lord. [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment A lord of time.]] Are there lords in such a small domain?

This story marked the final televised appearance of the Black and White Guardians and their [[NiceHat ducky hats]], though a character intriguingly similar to the Black Guardian -- though minus the hat, and identified as "the Trickster" -- turns up in ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures''. The Guardians, of course, return in the DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse, including AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho.

Yes, he refuses Enlightenment and throws the crystal at the Black Guardian, who promptly catches fire because "light defeats darkness". The White Guardian congratulates Turlough, and says that Enlightenment was not the diamond, but the ''choice''. Cue credits.

[[caption-width-right:350:{muffled Music/{{Styx}} in the distance}]]

'''WARNING! THERE MAY BE UNMARKED SPOILERS!'''

Meanwhile, Tegan is left in the TARDIS in case the White Guardian sends another message. He does: they have to win "the race" and it's "winner takes all". But before she can get to the Doctor with this urgent information, she runs into the ship's handsome but creepy first mate, Marriner, who tells Tegan in an equally creepy voice that he will take her to her friends. The four of them eventually meet in the bridge, where the Doctor looks at the ship's map just in time for the show's first cliffhanger: [[SpaceSailing the ship is actually a]] ''[[SpaceSailing space]]''[[SpaceSailing ship]], and it's racing with other period Earth ships through the solar system. [[RuleOfCool Because they thought it'd be cool, that's why.]] The prize: Enlightenment!

A badly-bluescreen'd net saves him and he's taken aboard another ship, led by the ruthless and hammy Captain Wrack. He manages to convince her that he's on her side and wants to share the prize, and due to his "devious" and "confused" mind Wrack has difficulty reading it. Wrack sends her first mate (played by hammy pop star Leee John) to present Captain Davey (another competitor) with a '''jewelled''' sword and to deliver party invitations to the other captains. Striker refuses the invitation, but the Doctor accepts, wanting to retrieve Turlough.

After receiving a garbled message from the White Guardian (and almost blowing up the TARDIS in the process), the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Turlough are taken by the TARDIS to what appears to be an Edwardian sailing ship. The Doctor and Turlough find out that the sailors have absolutely no idea how they came aboard the ship nor who their captain is. [[{{Handwave}} But they got paid in advance, so don't give a damn.]]

Meanwhile, Tegan is left in the TARDIS in case the White Guardian sends another message. He does: They have to win "the race" and it's "winner takes all." But before she can get to the Doctor with this urgent information, she runs into the ship's creepy first mate, Marriner, who tells Tegan in an equally creepy voice that he will take her to her friends. The four of them eventually meet in the bridge, where the Doctor looks at the ship's map just in time for the show's first cliffhanger: [[SpaceSailing the ship is actually a]] ''[[SpaceSailing space]]''[[SpaceSailing ship]], and it's racing with other period Earth ships through the solar system. [[RuleOfCool Because it'd be cool, that's why.]] The prize: Enlightenment!

A badly-bluescreen'd net saves him and he's taken aboard another ship, led by the ruthless and hammy Captain Wrack. He manages to convince her that he's on her side and wants to share the prize, and due to his "devious" and "confused" mind Wrack has difficulty reading it. Wrack sends her first mate to present Captain Davey (another competitor) with a '''jewelled''' sword and to deliver party invitations to the other captains. Striker refuses the invitation, but the Doctor accepts, wanting to retrieve Turlough.

Meanwhile, Davey's ship explodes. Jinkies, what a coincidence! Tegan is horrified by Marriner's aloof reaction to all the "Ephemerals" who just died on that ship, while the Doctor puts two and two together and realizes that any ship that challenges Wrack's goes all explodey. On Wrack's ship, she reveals to Turlough how she does it: she goes to a vacuum-sealed chamber where she uses the Black Guardian's power to make the red jewel explode. Somehow.

The Doctor, Tegan and Marriner travel to Wrack's ship, where they mingle at a party while Turlough sneaks off to examine the chamber of explodium. He finds an eye-shaped grid[[note]]that looks amazingly like [[http://media.sae.edu/media_thumbs/Images/News/8943_cbs_logo.png the CBS network's logo]][[/note]] open to space, but a pirate locks the door and turns off the vacuum shield. Fortunately, the Doctor finds Turlough before he suffocates, but both are immediately captured. Wrack lures Tegan away from everyone else and momentarily stops time so that she can sneak a '''red jewel''' onto the tiara Tegan is wearing for the party.

Turlough turns on the Doctor ''again'' and Tegan, the Doctor and Marriner are sent back to the ship. The Doctor doesn't mind, for he believes that Turlough is trying to stop Wrack. He's right, and Wrack realizes it: she sentences Turlough to WalkThePlank. She pauses, however, when Turlough tells her that he, too, serves the Black Guardian and decides to let him watch her destroy Striker's ship. Luckily, the Doctor realizes just in time that Tegan's tiara contains the jewel and throws it overboard before Wrack can destroy it. He travels in the TARDIS to the other ship to keep her from winning but is thrown overboard along with Turlough. Wrack wins!

Striker leaves, along with Marriner, after the latter gets rejected by Tegan... ''again.'' But the White Guardian turns to Turlough, and says that since he helped the Doctor win, he's entitled to a portion of Enlightenment. As he reaches out to grab Enlightenment (represented here by a huge white crystal) the Black Guardian says that since the Doctor's indebted to him, Turlough can either have Enlightenment or give up the Doctor.

Yes, he refuses Enlightenment and throws the crystal at the Black Guardian, who promptly explodes because "light defeats darkness". The White Guardian congratulates Turlough, and says that Enlightenment was not the diamond, but the ''choice''. Cue credits.

This story marked the final appearance of the Black and White Guardians and their [[NiceHat ducky hats]], though a character intriguingly similar to the Black Guardian--though minus the hat, and identified as "the Trickster"--turns up in ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures''. The Black Guardian would also make appearances in a few Big Finish Audio stories.