Terror in beta was a first doctor story in which the doctor and his companions arrived on the human colony station Habitat Beta,and face the deadly psychic robots.The serial ran in the form of three twenty minute episodes during the 1960's.
synopsis
Episode one:Terror in Beta
The Tardis materialises on a large landing platform,the doctor,Susan,Ian and Barbara step out,they converse for a few minutes pondering where they have landed;the doctor judges by the style of space station they are in the fifty first century.Susan points out of a window and they see that they are in orbit around the earth.The scene is interrupted as the doors open and a huge rocket heads right for them,they all dive out of the way and the nose of the rocket falls short of hitting the Tardis by inches.As they watch a family step out from the rocket carrying a large amount of luggage,from a side door a large man enters and identifies himself to this family as Griff,senior controler of Habitat Beta.Griff is followed by a psychic robot who hands maps of the complex to the family,Griff and his robot lead them out of the docking platform and the doctor's companions emerge from hiding.After a short pause two stocky security guards carrying sonic blasters approach the group,the doctor asks several questions about where they are and the guards are of course surprised that they do not know where they are,they explain that they will be lead to the ship's prison facilities for trespassing.
This dialogue is cut to the family being shown around by the station by Griff and his robot,his speech to them gives a lot of information to the audience about how the psychic robots work and what habitat beta's purpose is.Griff turns away to talk to a guard for a second and unknown to him his robot extends an appendage to the family,their faces turn rigid and blue,(or at least they would be blue if this story was not in black and white)they then collapse dead.Griff is shocked and kneels to inspect the bodies,walking along the corridor is the doctor's company being led by the two guards,the doctor and his friends rush over to the body and begin discussing about what could have happened.The doctor performs a mental scan on the robot and the victims and deduces that the psychic transmission of the robot was reversed and it gave the humans an instruction to stop breathing.Griff's robot at this point suddenly runs off of its own accord and the doctor uses this as a distraction to escape the guards,they are very angry that they got away and Griff orders them after them.In the main control room two more robots go rogue and kill all the technicians,in the final minutes we catch a glimpse of the gooey entity controling the robots as the end credits start.
Episode two:The Hunt
Griff is running around checking all the robots and ensuring the inhabitants of the station that there is nothing to worry about.On the bridge two technicians are scanning security cameras for the doctor and his companions,in a corridor Ian sees that they are being watched and quickly disables a camera.The doctor decides that they should get back to the tardis and perform a scan to find the source of the problems with the robots.They make their way through several corridors avoiding guards who are looking for them and robots who are trying to kill them.At one point the doctor disables a robot by tripping it up,they arrive at the tardis but susan stumbles;the others enter the tardis without realising she is gone until they have dematerialised.Susan is promptly arrested and put in a cage.The doctor says that there is no time to go back for her as they must perform the scan.The tardis materialises in several locations at the same time around the station and they perform a scan for psychic activity,the signal is a little scattered due to the amount of psychic robots but eventually the doctor manages to lock onto it,they materialise in the centre of the ship in the control room opposite the gelatinous mass known only as the entity.The doctor converses with it and it explains that it was separated from its own kind and planed to infiltrate the station using the robots to catch up with them.The doctor goes through the usual "I can find you a home" speech which is always ignored,the entity says that unless they stop interfering he will blow up the station,During this dialogue Barbara sneaks over to the cage where susan is being kept and frees her.The creature interprets this as intervention and begins a countdown to destroy the station as the end credits start.
Episode Three:turmoil in beta
Griff encounters three psychic robots who finish him off.The doctor hurriedly explains that as long as you are strong minded the robots hypnotic attack will not work.He formulates a plan on how to stop the detonation,he instructs Ian to disable the main computer system anyway he can and tell Susan and Barbara to go back to the Tardis and attempt to use its telepathic circuits to set up a barrier disabling the robot's psychic abilities.His companions rush off to their tasks and the doctor himself climbs into a ventilation shaft to get to the main transmat controls.After fighting his way through many robots Ian arrives at the control room and begins shutting it off,two technicians help him.The doctor arrives in the teleport room where many people are trying to flee;he encourages them away and begins resetting the controls.In the Tardis Barbara and Susan are busy working on controls,Susan presses a big important button and all the robots slowly shut down.Back in the main control room Ian succeeds at stopping the detonation with one second to spare.A few minutes later the situation is much more relaxed and they have all made their way to the transmat room.During their conversation the doctor finishes setting the transmat and teleports the entity back to his own people.They all enter the Tardis as the end credits start.