The Sixth Doctor is reunited with his friend, the now-retired Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, at an archeological research centre in Cornwall. Previous attempts at excavating the moor and its fogou have been abandoned on account of an unearthly presence, driving the workmen to madness or even death. The legendary spectre of Lanyon Moor is more than it seems, and after eighteen thousand years of imprisonment, he is preparing to take his revenge on the entire Earth.
While the Doctor and the Brigadier try to race against the alien's human lackeys, Evelyn (in the grand tradition of Doctor Who companions) wanders off and gets herself kidnapped. She escapes and rejoins the plot in time to see the alien's revenge plan unfolding. The Brigadier decides to make a Heroic Sacrifice to stop the alien, rather effortlessly outthinking it — but as usual, it doesn't take and he survives.
The Tropes of Lanyon Moor:
- A God Am I: Sir Archibald Flint thinks he will be a god once he's got total control of the psychic energy. He even compares himself to Christ, though Evelyn mocks the analogy.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Sir Archibald Flint, even though he's only a baronet and thus relatively low on the aristocratic ladder.
- Bad Boss: Even though Mrs. Moynihan has done everything Sancreda has asked and freed him from imprisonment, he kills her in a particularly vicious way, simply because he finds her irritating.
- Bag of Holding: Evelyn's bag.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: What Sir Archibald Flint hopes to achieve with Sancreda, the alien.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Sir Archibald Flint, whose plans for an alliance with Sancreda are abruptly dismissed once Sancreda is fully conscious.
- The Brigadier: Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart returns.
- Busman's Holiday: It seems this is the case for the Brigadier but he's actually undercover.
- Chekhov's Gun: The Doctor's coil of copper wire that the Brigadier carries in his pocket for much of the story.
- Continuity Nod: Professor Morgan who appears in this story was first mentioned in passing by Professor Amelia Rumford in the TV story "The Stones of Blood" as an archaeological acquaintance of hers. She particularly mentioned him with regard to Cornish fougos, a major plot point in this story. Both Professor Rumford in the earlier story, and Professor Morgan in this one refer to a colleague called Leamington-Smith as an "idiot".
- Continuity Snarl: A minor one, but it's jarringly repeated a few times: Six finds out that the Brig has a wife named Doris, but in "Battlefield", Seven apparently doesn't know this yet.
- Could be justified as the Seventh just forgetting this detail through regeneration-induced amnesia.
- Disproportionate Retribution: When Sancreda learns that the brother he has blamed for his 'exile' on Earth has been dead for millennia, he decides instead to use his ship to vapourise Earth as 'punishment' for trapping him for so long, even though he was unaware for most of that time and virtually nobody on Earth ever knew that he was there.
- Don't Go Into the Woods: It's a small little village (if THAT) with cottages miles apart.
- Energy Beings: The Trigannon can manifest as these via psychic projection, although they appear to have a physical form.
- Evil Laugh: Of the Giggling Villain variety for the Goblin.
- Evil Takes a Nap: The eponymous moor is secretly the resting place of a marooned Tregannan scout by the name of Sancreda. Though he's been comatose for over eighteen thousand years, his psychic powers make him extremely dangerous even in sleep: RAF radio operators stationed in the area were driven mad, farmers who tried to flatten Sancreda's tumulus to plant crops suffered catastrophic spates of bad luck, and some travelers have ended up dead courtesy of psychic projections. By the start of the story, Sancreda has become aware enough to reach out to the minds of others in the hopes of finding someone who can find his psychic amplifier and awaken him.
- Eye Scream: Evelyn gets threatened with having her eyes boiled out of her skull.
- Faux Affably Evil: Sir Archibald Flint."Sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin."
- Fix Fic: The Sixth Doctor never met the Brigadier on television, "Dimensions in Time" excepted. This audio gives them a proper adventure together.
- Foreshadowing: The Ironic Nursery Rhyme.
- Gadgeteer Genius: The Doctor rigs up a few, with access to his TARDIS being cut off.
- Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: Sancreda never shows any sign that he is aware that the Doctor isn't human, simply commenting on the Doctor's surprising knowledge of his people without directly asking how he knows all this.
- Insignificant Little Blue Planet"Speck of MUD"
- Ironic Nursery Rhyme: "Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glenn, we daren't go a-huntin' for fear of little men".
- Irony: The tour guide at the museum in Athens jokes that most of the marble from the Parthenon is at the British Museum. The tiny Celtic artifact the Big Bad is looking for happens to be in that very museum, in Athens.
- Mind over Matter: What Sir Archibald Flint intends to achieve by tapping the alien's abilities.
- The Mole: Phillip.
- Mood Whiplash: At the end the Doctor, Evelyn and the Brigadier head off to the pub asking about chocolate puddings, seemingly uncaring of the six people who have died.
- Must Have Caffeine: The officers harp on about this.
- Mythology Gag: One of the officers remarks that their scientist has "Spotted UFO's, found the Loch Ness Monster, and solved the mystery of the Pyramids." - All of which have been done by the Doctor in the past.
- Non-Answer: The Doctor states he is a Doctor of "This and that, mostly that."
- Our Goblins Are Different: Physical manifestations of Psionic energy.
- Pet the Dog: Literally. Mrs. Moynihan loves her dogs, but is otherwise not a very nice person.
- The Renfield: No, not The Mole; Mrs. Moynihan.
- Revenge: Sancreda's motivation after believing that his brother abandoned him. When presented with the truth, he decides to kill more things just to make up for it. Mrs. Moynihan has the same motivation.
- Rip Van Winkle: The alien in this story gets described by the Doctor as relatively been asleep akin to a decade "for human standards". Though it's been over 20,000...
- Running Gag: At one point one of the officers comes running up to the Brig and the Doctor shouting "Doctor..! Doctor..!" "Who!?" is the reply.
- Shapeshifting Sound: Sancreda pulls a Kill and Replace on Professor Morgan so he can find where the focusing amplifier is hidden; once he's gotten all the info he needs, he reverts to his true form with a visceral crunching sound.
- Silver Vixen: Evelyn gets described as an "extraordinary beautiful woman" before she enters the cabin; justified by the fact the officers themselves are in the autumn years of their lives as well.
- Small Reference Pools: Aleister Crowley.
- Stealth Insult: Evelyn tries a few using the words "nuts" and "fruit" but the person she's with picks up on them.
- Stepford Smiler: Suggested In-Universe about Mrs. Moynihan, seeing as her husband left her for his secretary, and her daughter married someone she didn't approve of.
- 10-Minute Retirement: The Brigadier states an officer never truly retires.
- Turned Against Their Masters: The dogs are sic'd on Mrs. Moynihan by Sancreda.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Averted with Six and the Brigadier. The Brig actually gets along better with Six than with most other regenerations, due to Six's straightforward attitude.
- We Are as Mayflies: See Rip Van Winkle.
- We Can Rule Together: Archibald attempts this with Sancreda. Sancreda will have none of it.
- When the Clock Strikes Twelve
- Would Hit a Girl: Sir Archibald Flint.
