Doctor Who: Highway To Terror

Scene 4 - Time Carriages

We cut to the TARDIS interior, the interior seen in Season 13, designed by Roger Murray Leach. The Doctor busily operates the control console. The time rotor rises and lowers slowly as the TARDIS travels through the time vortex. He hovers around at control panel 2, meticulously operating his time machine. Harry enters from the corridor leading deeper into the TARDIS and walks up to the console.

Harry:

Ah, there you are Doctor, Sarah was asking...

Doctor:

No, no, no!

Harry:

What is it?

Doctor:

Don't touch anything, Harry. She doesn't like it when you start fooling around with Helmic Regulator, or any part of her at all.

Harry:

Oh. Ok. Well, maybe I thought that I could give you a hand in flying the TARDIS so you could teach me what these buttons and levers do.

Doctor:

You've already fiddled about with my ship enough, Harry. Didn't you ever learn not to touch other people's belongings because you might damage their things?

Harry:

Well, I was just trying to find out what it did.

Doctor:

Well now you know. It controls the accuracy of our flight through the time vortex. The Brigadier wants us back on Earth and I would rather sort out my TARDIS on my own thank you. The sooner we find out what Alistair wants with us, the sooner we can fix his little problem, and then the better.

Harry:

Oh. Sorry. We'd have a lot to tell the Brigadier at least what we've been up to since we left UNIT.

Sarah arrives.

Sarah:

Harry, what's keeping you? It was just a simple question to ask for.

Harry:

I'm sorry, Sarah. But first I had to find my way back from the library, all the corridors looked alike, I thought I was lost for good.

Doctor:

If only you had of been lost for good, Harry.

Harry:

And then the Doctor got defensive when I was going to ask him the question over the TARDIS. So I haven't had a chance, Sarah.

Sarah:

Don't worry about the Doctor and the TARDIS, Harry. The Doctor is very protective of the controls. They have after all been through a lot you know.

Doctor:

You can certainly say that again, Sarah.

Harry:

I suppose we just go back to you showing me the rest of the TARDIS then, Sarah. Not to upset the Doctor working hard for us.

Sarah:

Well let's ask him what we want to know first. When will we be arriving back on Earth, Doctor?

Doctor:

Eh? Oh, in approximately the next five and three quatre minutes and a half precisely, as a rough guess, Sarah.

Harry:

Precisely as a rough guess?

Doctor:

Well, shortly anyway. Trouble is that I'm always trying to repair and mend her but there is always something still to be done with her.

Sarah:

And is that how come the TARDIS has changed on the inside after you regenerated?

Doctor:

Not necessarily. I mean, I do sometimes like to change a few things here and there, after I've regenerated. Or from time to time whenever I feel like it. Not majorly sometimes. And not minorly other times.

The TARDIS shakes a little, pushing the Doctor and his friends back to the wall. The Doctor quickly rushes back to the console.

Ah! Come on old girl. You can pass through one of them easily.

Sarah:

What was that?

Harry:

You complain about me touching things I shouldn't do, what did you just do?

Doctor:

Nothing. It just so happened that we passed through that Time Carriage.

Harry:

And what are they? Motorways for space travel then?

Doctor:

That's a very generalised description for putting it, Harry. I knew exactly what it was as soon as we entered it. They should have been banned a long time ago by my people. Time Carriages are appallingly dangerous. Unstable, and cause nothing but mishandling to time. One of them can't harm my TARDIS. We passed through that one easily enough, didn't we?

Harry:

Just about. I wouldn't have called that one exactly easily.

Sarah:

Well if these Time Carriages are banned and dangerous to time, we should investigate it.

Doctor:

You're absolutely right, Sarah. They are strictly forbidden, and cause nothing but nasty paradoxes. The Brigadier will have to wait. We're going to find out who or what's causing these illegal Time Carriages. We will start by following the trace of that path, and hopefully its source.

Harry:

Well, here we go again, Sarah. Another evil alien to sort out before it conquers the universe.

Doctor:

This is no laughing matter, Harry. We're going to put an end to these Time Carriages. Once and for all. It is my duty as a Time Lord.

We hear the TARDIS materialising to follow where the Time Carriage comes from...