The Eighth Doctor is still getting over having spent 600 years with jellyfish, and Lucie's doing her best to win back his affection and trust. Trying to impress him, she infiltrates in Marlowe's science facility. The Doctor and new temporary companion Hazel Bright of the World Ecology Bureau meet up with her there, posing as investigators.
Marlowe isn't a fool, though, and he tricks them into viewing his experiments up close. In the middle of an artificial greenhouse jungle, immigrant workers are being morphed into human-Krynoid hybrids. After watching one being transformed in absolute screaming agony, the Doctor and Hazel confront Marlowe about his plans. However, Hazel turns out to have been on Marlowe's side all along.
Marlowe explains that he just wants to save the earth. If he can develop new life forms with Krynoid powers but without Krynoid brains, the rainforests can defend themselves against humans. He asks the Doctor to join his cause. The Doctor is disgusted and disappointed with humanity as a whole, and pretty damn homesick for Orbis, but he explains that although he shares Marlowe's views, they're a reason for him to want to save humanity.
With that, Marlowe infects Hazel with untested Krynoid extract and locks her up together with Lucie. Hazel's horrifying transformation sequence has some unexpected side effects: Marlowe's experiments seem to have been more successful than he'd hoped thus far, and Hazel manages to retain a tiny bit of control over her new self. Unfortunately however, this Krynoid strain's lifecycle has been massively accelerated, meaning it will be ready to germinate and infect the entire planet in just an hour, rather than the day the cycle usually takes. Eventually, the Doctor and Lucie get through to her, convince her to telepathically gather all the remaining Krynoid experiments around her, and create a greenhouse effect in the greenhouse to set the whole mess on fire.
The Doctor asks Lucie where she wants to be dropped off. He's got a lot of homesick moping to do, and he assumes she just wants to go home. She gets pretty damn angry at him until he realises that she wants to stay with him, that he'd better get used to humans again, and that... he's completely forgotten how to drive a car.
The news report reminds us that Earth is still just as much in trouble as it was before, and mentions a cult called "The Eightfold Truth"...
Tropes
- Body Horror: Even though we obviously can't see the Krynoid transformations, the descriptions of the process are extremely graphic.
- Eco-Terrorist: Alex Marlowe is a former rockstar who heads up an eco-terrorist group who are trying to create Human/Krynoid hybrids at a secret laboratory deep in the jungle, in the hopes that this will help the jungle fight back against humanity.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Lucie and the Doctor start cracking up when it comes out that the Doctor has forgotten how to drive.
- Evil Is Hammy: Every time Hazel's Krynoid mind regains control, she turns into a very Large Ham.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Hazel makes one.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Played with. The Doctor says that this shouldn't be possible with Krynoids, since the transformation quickly destroys the original personality of their hosts (as we saw in their original appearance), and initially it seems like that's the case with the Hazel-Krynoid. As it turns out however, Hazel's personality is dormant, and can be re-awakened with high-pitched noises.
- In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves
- Knight in Sour Armor: The Doctor kind of really hates human beings sometimes.
- Mocku Mentary: The opening and closing scenes.
- Not in This for Your Revolution: Marlowe's assistant with that sort of... foreign kind of accent. She only teamed up with him because everyone out in Foreign is getting killed, and only teams up with the Doctor because it's the only way to continue to not get killed. But she gets killed anyway.
- Oh, Crap!: "And then these Krynoids smashed in through the window and I was totally brickin' it, because, you know, this was death by salad!"
- Paper-Thin Disguise: When the Doctor is captured, Marlowe admits he knew all along that Lucie was a spy, as her pro-environmental statements were ludicrously over the top even by his standards.
- Prophetic Names: Hazel is a plant and in this story, a woman named Hazel Bright ends up being transformed into a Krynoid.
- Ship Tease:The Doctor: Lucie, I could kiss you!Lucie: (happy noise)
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Marlowe as he intends to use the Krynoids to let the rainforests defend themselves against humanity.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: the Polish characters are unable to pronounce their cities of origin, family members' names or common Polish words anywhere near correctly.
- When Trees Attack
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Marlowe to Hazel, almost word for word.
