Anji Kapoor has just had the worst week of her entire life, and things aren't getting any better. She should be back at her desk, not traveling through time and space with a couple of strange men.
The 43rd EDA opens directly where its predecessor left off, with the Doctor, Fitz and the newly acquired Anji stepping out of the TARDIS and into what appears to be prehistoric Earth. It soon becomes apparent, however that this isn't Earth at all, but a futuristic theme park based on Earth, and located on the planet New Jupiter.
Fitz is quickly separated from the Doctor and Anji, who soon have their own troubles as they are arrested and accused of terrorism. With the help of a few teen rebels whose name coincidentally matches Anji's, they escape custody and set off to investigate New Jupiter and locate Fitz, who's having problems of his own. He is captured by a set of ruthless thirteen year old triplets, the princesses of New Jupiter. With a bit of fast talking he's able to convince them that he is actually Fitz Fortune, an Earth rock star more popular than Elvis, and gives them a quick performance to throw off their suspicions. He is surprised by how well he does, considering how long he's been out of practice, before realizing that his new-found talent is the result of his cloning, and subsequently suffers from a truly massive BSOD.
After the Doctor then manages to get separated from Anji as well, he discovers that the triplets have taken control of Earthworld and left android doubles (or rather, triples) in their places. He does some more digging and finds out that the triplets have been locked up for years for (supposedly) attacking their mother, leaving her comatose and brain dead. The years of confinement, with no one but their androids for company, has leached whatever sanity the girls may have possessed out of them and left them violent and cruel. The Doctor runs around corridors for a bit while Fitz fights in a death match with an Elvis android and Anji impersonates Queen Guinevere (who, due to cultural fragmenting and language drift, is now called Gwinnyveer).
The Doctor eventually discovers the truth about the triplets' mother: she's been in a coma for years and the triplets have replaced many of her internal organs and other body parts with android technology to keep her alive, simulating brain function with a memory scanning machine they built themselves. A machine they decide to use on Fitz. After reliving all of his deepest memories (including the memory of his birth), he is told by the girls that his memories are all on the surface of his mind, rather than buried, because they were planted there by the TARDIS when she reprogrammed his head. Poor Fitz. The Doctor wants to use this machine to regain his own memories, something Fitz thinks is a terrible idea, though he refuses to tell the Doctor why.
Earthworld provides examples of:
- Anachronism Stew: In-universe. Earth World's interpretation of history can only be described as loose.
- Animal Motifs: Anji tries to decide which animal from The Jungle Book (1967) the Doctor reminds her of, and after initially thinking of and then dismissing the tiger, can't decide between the snake, the bear, and the panther, but is quite sure Fitz is the orangutan.note
- Body Horror: The triplets have been keeping their mother alive with spare android parts.
- Contrived Coincidence: The Doctor and Anji are arrested because Anji is wearing a necklace with her name on it, as the planet is dealing with the alleged terrorists of the ‘Association for New Jupiter Independence’.
- Enfant Terrible: The triplets.
- Future Imperfect: The theme park on New Jupiter, EarthWorld, is filled with this. It's meant to put different eras of Earth history on display. Their research needs a little work.
- Heroic BSoD: Fitz suffers from a truly massive one as a result of the identity crisis he goes through, even referring to himself as "it" instead of he for a time.
- Like Brother and Sister: Anji considers the Doctor to be like a sister to her.
- New Neo City: Set on a planet called New Jupiter.
- Precocious Crush: Xernic, one of the three boys from ANJI has one for the real Anji.
- Trauma-Induced Amnesia: The Doctor's still got it, and now Fitz has the TARDIS's permission to withhold information from him.
