On the driveway of a stately boarding school, Mr and Mrs Wilson, having been called away on business, escort brother and sister Augie and Jasmine.
Inside, Mr Wilson's dissuasion of Jasmine's misgivings is disrupted by a piercing scream. From a wall-mounted speaker sounds a low-pitched whine: class change.
Mr Taylor presents to the Wilsons the orderly system maintained at Black Book. When Augie's digital watch suddenly beeps, Mr Taylor holds his hands to his ears and moans in considerable discomfort - one of his migraines, he says.
Outside, Augie and Jasmine bid their parents farewell. Another low-pitched buzz, Augie suspects, indicates dinner time. Jasmine copes with her dismay by doing a robot impression.
In the dining hall, students pass around and enthusiastically delve into a large bowl of some sort of spongy white goo. A boy opposite identifies the stuff as "spunge," with a "u," and keenly recommends it. Augie and Jasmine decide to pass.
While the other kids are nice enough, David narrates, the school seems a bit off - in the hallway, as Willy plays with a beeping handheld games console, Mr Taylor briefly goes berserk. He then smilingly reassures the boy, and confiscates the device.
As Augie sits on his bed, he picks up his cassette walkman. A shocked dorm mate warns him not to let anyone see it - music on school grounds is forbidden, apparently because it obstructs the learning process.
After a few weeks, Augie and Jasmine start to get used to the place. Then, late one night, a buzzer sounds. All students, except for Augie and Jasmine, rise from their beds, and, in a trance, go downstairs. In the hallway, Jasmine finds Augie zombying along with them, and urges him to wake. He hastily claps a hand over her mouth and pulls her aside.
The lulled students descend a brief set of stairs. Augie and Jasmine follow.
Below, a green glow lights a low-ceilinged corridor, which leads to a tiled, expansive hall, set with squared, three foot metal consoles. On these, some of the lulled students turn dials.
Jasmine follows several others down a metal step ladder. Between pillars and stone walkways lies a pool, filled with huge, floating eggs, onto which the entranced students ladle some kind of powder. Jasmine picks up one of the speckled eggs.
In the distance, the Taylors arrive for inspection. Augie and Jasmine quickly imitate the others. The Taylors smile approvingly: clearly, the new arrivals are eating their spunge after all.
When the Taylors leave, Augie and Jasmine discreetly follow them to their study. The teachers celebrate the near-complete incubation. Someone called the Master has waited a century for this. Mr Taylor pulls up his sleeve. As Augie and Jasmine watch from the doorway, the flesh of his wrist stops, to be succeeded by an arm of dark green scales. He works a finger beneath the wrist, pulling away the synthetic skin. With glasses of some sort of green gunk, the teachers drink a toast to a troubled past, a glorious future, and to the Master.
In Augie's dormitory, he and Jasmine reel at what they've seen. Augie, near panic, gets into bed, ready to play innocent. Jasmine avows that this is no time for rules, and firmly urges an escape attempt. As she goes to dress, Augie suddenly stares at a wall-mounted speaker: he has an idea.
Augie, now dressed, approaches Jasmine's dormitory door, and quietly calls through. The door bursts open to admit Mrs Taylor, with a hand clamped around Jasmine's mouth. Jasmine bites her captor's hand, and struggles free. She and Augie run. Mrs Taylor gasps and inspects her finger, in which bite marks now reveal the green scales beneath.
Augie and Jasmine flee back into the basement. Instead of to the egg pool, Augie takes them down a further set of stairs. A wet, dark, concrete passageway is strewn with lost shoes. A low, thunderous groan is accredited by Augie to plumbing. With a heavy thud, a dim light tints the chamber. Behind the two, a metal grill has lowered, behind which stand Mr and Mrs Taylor.
Having escaped extinction, the Taylors now nurture the next generation of their race via hypnotised students, who, on hatching, will serve another purpose.
At the opposite end, mist seeps ominously around a corner. The few students to cause this extent of trouble have always ended up down here, whereupon "the mother" deals with them. In the mist stirs a huge, living shape: the Master. The horned, saurian beast edges patiently forward, and growls.
Augie hastily reaches into his bag for his walkman. To Jasmine, he hands a speaker, taken from the dormitory wall. High-frequency sound, he says, is dangerous to these creatures.
As the Taylors realise what he's doing, they panic. Mr Taylor fumbles with the keys and unlocks the door. With the Master nearing, Jasmine holds the speaker, and urges Augie to press play. Amplified electric guitar strings fill the air. The Taylors hold their hands to their ears, and cry out in anguish. Augie turns up the volume, and in a shower of offal, the Master explodes.
The unoccupied clothes of the Taylors lie on the floor, soaked with dark green goo. How did Augie know what to do? From Mr Taylor's reaction to a beeping watch, and from the sound-restrictive rules, Augie realised high-frequency sound to be dangerous to these beings.
On the next floor, disorientated students wander amidst shattered eggshells, stained with green goo. As the students make their way out, one egg, undamaged, quakes and starts to split open....
- David: The end... or is it?
This episode provides examples of:
- Accentuate the Negative: Jasmine resents being left at boarding school, and heartily bemoans the place.
- Aliens Among Us: While they don't seem to be extraterrestrial, a sapient species, seemingly older than humanity, has infiltrated Earth society.
- Boarding School of Horrors: Outwardly, Black Book isn't so bad; it just has some odd, overbearing rules. However, students are hypnotically set to work nurturing eggs to whose occupants they will eventually be fed.
- Bond One-Liner: When covered in the glutinous remains of the Master:Jasmine: This better not stain.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Augie gently rebuts Jasmine's principled rebellion, as the situation is beyond the control of them and their parents. However, as Jasmine later notes, Augie's rule-abiding holds less weight in a life-or-death situation.
- Cool People Rebel Against Authority: Both deconstructed and later justified. Augie gently notes the futility of Jasmine's endless protest - but as she later argues, some situations necessitate rebellion.
- The End... Or Is It?: As noted by David - one egg survived...
- Gadgeteer Genius: Augie skilfully connects his walkman to a speaker.
- I'm a Humanitarian:Mr Taylor: We're a race of meat eaters - all kinds of meat!
- Mass Hypnosis: The spunge entrances the students into subservience.
- The Power of Rock: The aliens are defeated by the loud guitar from Augie's walkman.
- Reptilian Conspiracy: This variant of sapient reptiles, having infiltrated human society, secretly use human labour to nurture their unhatched young.
- Robo Speak: Dryly affected by Jasmine, in mockery of the school's rigid coordination.
- Science Hero: Augie's technical skills save the students from being devoured by a murderous tribe of sapient lizards.
- Weird World, Weird Food: The Taylors drink glutinous green stuff.
