The Visitation (Doctor Who)

119 – The Visitation
Doctor Who serial
The Terileptil and the android
Cast
Doctor Peter Davison (Fifth Doctor)
Companions Matthew Waterhouse (Adric) Sarah Sutton (Nyssa) Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka)
Others Michael Robbins — Richard Mace Michael Melia — Terileptil Leader Peter Van Dissel — Android James Charlton — The Miller Neil West — The Poacher Eric Dodson — The Headman John Savident — The Squire Anthony Calf — Charles John Baker — Ralph Valerie Fyfer — Elizabeth Richard Hampton — Villager
Production
Directed by	Peter Moffatt
Written by	Eric Saward
Script editor	Antony Root
Produced by	John Nathan-Turner
Executive producer(s)	None
Incidental music composer	Paddy Kingsland
Production code	5X
Series	Season 19
Length	4 episodes, 25 minutes each
Originally broadcast	15–23 February 1982
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → Kinda Black Orchid

Doctor Who and the Visitation

Author	Eric Saward
Series	Doctor Who book: Target novelisations
Release number	69
Publisher	Target Books
Publication date	19 August 1982
ISBN

The Visitation is the fourth serial of the 19th season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four twice-weekly parts from 15–23 February 1982.

At the manor home of a 17th-century family, some unwelcome visitors arrive.

In the console room, the Doctor is talking with Adric about the events of their previous adventure on Deva Loka (Kinda). Meanwhile, Nyssa is helping Tegan pack, as they plan to land back at Heathrow shortly after she left to join the Doctor (in Logopolis). Tegan and Nyssa enter the console room to find that they have landed at Heathrow... just 300-some years early. Tegan is distressed and storms out of the TARDIS.

The four gather outside the TARDIS and immediately smell sulphur and head off to find the source. They are then attacked by villagers, but escape. In the confusion, Adric drops his homing device to find the TARDIS and the group is separated. Richard Mace, a highwayman and proclaimed thespian, encounters the group and takes them to safety inside a barn.

While questioning Mace, they find out that some kind of comet recently landed nearby. The Doctor knows it was no "comet" and takes immediate interest in the necklace Mace is wearing. It is actually a bracelet used for prisoner control. The group begins searching the barn and comes across several power packs, and since they are far more fragile than the necklace, it means there were survivors. And so they set off to the nearby manor of the person who owns the barn.

No one answers the front door, so the Doctor and Nyssa find a way in through a window. While searching the manor, they find more power packs, gunpowder, and a mark from a high-energy weapon. The Doctor also notices that there is a wall where there shouldn’t be one. And while he continues his investigation of the wall, Nyssa heads to the front door and lets the others in. But when they return to the wall, the Doctor is nowhere to be found. And as the four stand there trying to figure out where he’s gone, a figure shuts and locks the door behind them.