- "For centuries we have faced each other, my dear Doctor. And each time I have come close to defeating you, you've somehow slipped from my grasp. But not this time. This time, you will not win."
The Pilot Episode of the Ginger Chronicles begins with a man ranting about how he will defeat the Doctor at last. The camera swings from a shot of the Earth spinning, with the TARDIS rotating it, to where the TARDIS has crashed. It's burning, and underneath it lies a strange man, unconscious, presumably the previous Doctor. We don't get to see him too closely, because his face fades away, turning into a pretty young lady. Who just happens to be ginger.
The opening credits roll, with a groovy new theme song, and the screen fades into a typical 21st century house. On the couch in the living room is someone lying underneath a pile of blankets. She slowly wakes up, blinks for a moment.
"I'm alive!" she screams in delight, giggling way too much to even be safe. In traditional Doctor fashion, she decides to go exploring. (Someone changed her clothes when she was sleeping.) "Allons-y," she cheers, attempting to get up, and falling flat on her face. She runs to the bathroom and realizes that she's a girl now. And red-headed. More specifically, she's a sexy, sexy, ginger girl! And she likes what she sees.
The owners of the house, Jim and Liz Baker (newly-wed) return home, to find that their houseguest has dressed up in some more appropriate clothes. She also appears to be threatening them with a beeping stick-type thing. She requests some food, and they give it to her, sending each other is she crazy? glances all the while.She explains that she's the Doctor ("Not Doctor Whatever, I know him personally") and that the box they found her near is her TARDIS, a time-space type thingy. In return, they explain who they are, and that they found her unconscious when Jim had gone up to his favorite spot to do some fishing. They were worried that they might have shot her so they brought her back. Liz dressed her, not Jim, thank you very much, Doctor. With extreme hamminess, the Doctor encourages Liz and Jim to take her to the TARDIS. Liz would really prefer to stay (you can tell she's wary of the Doctor already). Jim thinks that the Doctor is crazy, or has at least bumped her head, and should really rest a bit. The Doctor disagrees.
- Jim: But that's crazy.Doctor: YES, and that's why it has to be the ONLY EXPLANATION!
Cut to outside the house. Liz pulls on her coat as she and Jim walk out. She wants the Doctor out of her house. Jim agrees, saying that all they have to do is take the crazy woman to the blue phone-booth thing, and then she's out of their lives for good. They get into the car, with the Doctor in the back seat, munching on jelly babies. Jim attempts to start the car, but the battery appears to be dead. The Doctor jumps out, claiming to be excellent with this sort of thing. Jim looks like he's regretting this as the Doctor diagnoses an energy shock as the cause of the car's breakdown. She could fix it, but she has a better idea. She runs off to find the TARDIS, and Jim and Liz follow.
A few minutes later, the Doctor's pouting about the fact that Jim ran off ahead of them to make sure everything was safe. Liz sees something up ahead, in the park. People are frozen where they stand with bad CGI effects. The Doctor scans them, and proclaims that they're sleeping. Sh. Actually, no, they're frozen in time, and if she doesn't save them, then their personal timelines will collapse. The Doctor uses Applied Phlebotinum to break the freeze on one woman, who seems fine for a minute, then begins to convulse on the ground. Also, she starts to talk like an old man. The Doctor freezes her again, to save her. It's a sling-shot personal history thing that's killing her.
Liz and the Doctor catch up with Jim, who's already in the clearing where they found the Doctor originally. However, the TARDIS isn't there. The Doctor searches frantically for a minute, before realizing what happened.
- Doctor: Imagine your enemy is as fast as you, as smart as you, and can do anything that you can do, maybe better.
Yep, it's the Master, regenerated. He's back for revenge, and, oh yeah, he was the one doing the opening lines of narration for the episode. He and the Doctor trade witty lines, until the Master decides that the new companions are unnecessary and freezes Jim and Liz. The Doctor desperately attempts to unfreeze them, but realizes that it's no use and confronts the Master. He grins and teleports her away...
...to a dark street at night, where he reveals that he shrunk the TARDIS into something that resembles a plastic light-up toy. She gets distracted by a cockroach, and he steals a sword from a passing drunk. It's 1790-ish so people do stuff like that.
They teleport once more, this time to a forest where the Master nearly kills the Doctor with the sword. She runs through the trees, noticing strange flashing lights on tree stumps, and that tree over there seems oddly transparent. She has the time of her life jumping back and forth between projected trees before the Master catches up with her, and knocks her to the ground with his sword. He prepares to deal the killing blow... but the Doctor has stolen his sonic screwdriver. He tries to kill her, but she freezes him. She's so happy about it that she kisses her greatest (frozen) enemy on the cheek.
The Doctor heads back to the original clearing, and unfreezes Jim and Liz.
- Liz: Hey, where's the other guy?Doctor: *stands there with a smug smile on her face and shrugs*
In the halls of the TARDIS, the Master is sitting in a chair. Still frozen. The Doctor walks by, whistling, and unfreezes his head. He rants at her for a moment, before she tells him that she's told a planet that he terrorized a while back all about his regeneration tricks, and now they're very, very mad at him. They wouldn't mind if the Doctor just... dropped the Master off to be in their main museum; Frozen and unable to get out. The Master pleads for the Doctor to let him go, but she walks off whistling happily.
The Doctor rematerializes the TARDIS at Jim and Liz's house, and asks them to come with her. She's got the time wrong. Again. Oops.They can't come with her as they've got responsibilities as normal human beings. The Doctor understands and retreats into the TARDIS, off to go on other adventures.
...oh, right. Did she mention it also travels in time?
Tropes:
- Chekhov's Gun: The Master's sonic screwdriver is introduced early and becomes the key to finishing him off.
- Continuity Nod: The jelly babies and 'Allons-y!' are traits from previous incarnations of the Doctor.
- Noodle Incident: The Doctor mentions Clom
- Oh, Crap!: When the woman begins to convulse, the Doctor and Liz realize how trouble she's in.
- Shout-Out: The title of the episode comes from Sin Ciy.
