'The Talons of Weng-Chiang' (6 Parts) Story Code '4S' by Robert Holmes

The TARDIS arrives at the end of the nineteenth century, in Victorian London. The Doctor and Leela discover that a series of murders have been carried out by the Tong of the Black Scorpion, a Chinese tong led by the god Weng Chiang. The two travellers befriend a police pathologist, Professor Litefoot, and learn that hairs found on the clothes of a dead body found floating in the Thames appear to belong to a giant rat. During his investigations, the Doctor enters the sewers, but is pursued by giant rats; the course of the river runs underneath the Palace Theatre, which is the centre of the mysterious disappearances. Performing at the theatre is a stage magician, Li H'sen Chang, whose ventriloquist dummy, Mr Sin, seems to have a life of its own. After the theatre's proprietor, Henry Gordon Jago, decides to assist in his enquiries, the Doctor discovers that Li H'sen Chang is kidnapping young girls for his master, Weng-Chiang. The god is in fact Magnus Greel, a war criminal from the Fifty-first century, whose experiments in time travel brought him to this century; however, the journey through time has destabilised his molecular structure, and he is now forced to feed on the life force of others in order to survive. Greel has mislaid his Time Cabinet, and his searches have brought him to London, where he has now located the machine in the possession of professor Litefoot. Greel sends Mr Sin, in actuality an advanced computerised toy with the brain of a pig which has now become unstable and murderous, to infiltrate Litefoot's house, where it regains the Cabinet and kidnaps Leela. Greel prepares to leave for the future,and, no longer requiring a worshipper, throws Chang to the rats. But Chang, mortally wounded, escapes to an opium den, where he is found by the Doctor. Before dying, he gives the Time Lord the location of Greel's base. The Doctor, Litefoot, and Jago enter Greel's lair, and confront him before he can escape. After Greel falls into his lifeforce extraction machine and disintegrates, Mr Sin attacks the Doctor and his friends. But the Doctor is able to disconnect the dummy's circuitry, disabling it.

Tom Baker (Doctor Who), Louise Jameson (Leela), John Bennett (Li H'sen Chang), Christopher Benjamin (Henry Gordon Jago), Chris Gannon (Casey), Trevor Baxter (Professor Litefoot), Deep Roy (Mr. Sin), David McKail (Sergeant Kyle), Conrad Asquith (P.C. Quick), Alan Butler (Buller), Patsy Smart (Ghoul), Tony Then (Lee), John Wu (Coolie), Michael Spice (Weng-Chiang), Judith Lloyd (Teresa), Vaune Craig-Raymond (Cleaning Woman), Penny Lister (Singer), Vincent Wong (Ho)

Produced by Philip Hinchcliffe
Directed by David Maloney

TX:
Part 1 - 26th February, 1977 @ 6.30pm - 6.55pm
Part 2 - 5th March, 1977 @ 6.35pm - 7h00pm
Part 3 - 12th March, 1977 @ 6.30pm - 6.55pm
Part 4 - 19th March, 1977 @ 6.30pm - 6.55pm
Part 5 - 26th March, 1977 @ 6.30pm - 6.55pm
Part 6 - 2nd April, 1977 @ 6.30pm - 6.55pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Fourth Doctor and Leela

*Working titles: 'The Foe From the Future' and 'The Talons of Greel'