The Doctor lands the TARDIS on a cliff. Once Lucie is done yelling at him for almost killing her that way, they notice two teenagers on the cliff (Prince Kalkin and Sararti) who are about to kill themselves for love. Lucie tries to talk some sense into the young Romeo and Juliet while the Doctor investigates.
The planet turns out to be a world colonized by humans, based entirely on Greek mythology. Three "Gods" are in charge: Zeus, his wife Hera, and their friend Ares.
Lucie, who quite fancies Kalkin, notices with some horror that he looks exactly like a younger version of Zeus. When Ares nearly dies, we find out why: Kalkin's best friend looks exactly like a younger version of Ares, and his body is used as Ares' new home. The planet is entirely populated by clone people of the three "Gods", who serve as younger bodies for their minds when the old ones expire. The "Gods" are simply astronauts from a crashed ship who got a nasty case of megalomania. They keep their "children" in the dark about technology, using mythology to mask what's really going on. And since Zeus is getting on a bit too, Kalkin is just within the right age bracket to provide his next body. Kalkin's love for Sararti is just a side effect of both of them being clones of a married couple.
Zeus wants to take Lucie on as his sex toy, and threatens to clone her and torture her offspring forever if she doesn't consent. She won't have it and tells him to sod off. The Doctor saunters in from the balcony to save her.
Since the clone machine is running out of "toner", the Doctor is roped in by Zeus to fix it. Ares, in the meantime, is killed. The Doctor goes along with Kalkin's new plan: they'll fake Zeus' transferral into Kalkin's body and kill the real Zeus before anyone notices. Sadly, they don't tell Sararti, and she has the exact same plan with Hera. In true Romeo & Juliet fashion, they each threaten suicide for a while over losing each other, but Lucie and the Doctor manage to tell them the truth just in time. Kalkin and Sararti decide to reign the planet together and pretend to be Zeus and Hera, without ever telling their subjects what happened and without ever using the transferral machine again. They realise that mortal life is much like delayed suicide, only a bit more ethical.
The Doctor tells Lucie he doesn't need her in the TARDIS, but she's not fooled.
Tropes
- And I Must Scream: The Doctor theorizes this to be the final fate of Zeus, stuck in the cloning machine.
- And This Is for...: Zeus is on the receiving one of these, with a knife.
- Brain Uploading: The "deities" extend their lives by transferring their minds to younger clones.
- But Now I Must Go: The Doctor says at the end.
- Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": The technology employed has esoteric names that describe their usage in prose. "Ether Trumpet" instead of "Walkie Talkie" etc.
- Clarke's Third Law: The God Guise is maintained by dressing high tech in the trappings of magic.
- Clone Degeneration: The Brain Uploading machine is old and starting to fail. As a result, the "deities" have been losing memories from their previous incarnations.
- Dirty Old Man: Zeus.
- Expendable Clone: Clones are used as backup bodies for the "Deities".
- God Guise: A Planet of Hats variety.
- Grand Theft Me: The clones mature normally, developing their own identities and personalities — which are overwritten when they are used as replacement bodies.
- He Is Not My Boyfriend: Zeus inquires about whether or not Lucie and the Doctor are a couple, not that he cares with what he has in mind.
- Interrupted Suicide: At the beginning.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: When somebody says breaking silence would break his Hippocratic oath the Doctor quips this back.
- Jerkass Gods: Or at least, those who claim to be Gods.
- Phlebotinum Analogy: Lucie several times this story. Once referring to mind transfers as "Wiping over an old video", and once as a faulty mindtransfer as "A printer running out of toner".
- Poor Communication Kills: Almost kills, anyway.
- Running Gag: The TARDIS still has issues going to Blackpool.
- Shout-Out:Zeus: My, my, what big words you have.The Doctor: All the better to know you with, Mr...?
- Suicide Pact: Prince Kalkin and Sararti.
- Two Rights Make a Wrong: Sararti and Kalkin both pretending they've been brain-swapped without knowing what the other is up to.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To Romeo and Juliet, with touches of Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light.