400 million years ago a huge spider shaped spaceship tries to take off from a barren desert like rocky Earth. A one eyed being with green skin and a wormy face advises against using power 3 with warp thrust without secondary engines. It is untested. Scaroth, the being, is the only one of his crew directly in warp field. After 20 sarlens over, the ship takes off at full power. The legs go up to its bottom and the ship seems to shimmer in on itself. It glows and shakes, vibrating, then explodes in the sky into a shower of sparks.

Romana and the Doctor are on top the Eiffel Tower in 1979. The only place in the universe where one can relax entirely. Romana calls it a bouquet and the Doctor steals the word after calling Paris the city with an ethos but earlier he called it nice. It has a spirit all its own. Like a good wine, a vintage year can be but 1979 is more a table wine, the Doctor states. The randomizer lacks true discrimination. He asks her if she wants to take a sip. She does. She asks him if they should take the lift or fly. The Doctor says, "Let's not be ostentatious." "Alright, let's fly then," Romana says. The Doctor comments, "That would look silly." He nudges her with his shoulder, prompting her to go with him to take the lift. They take the lift down and cross to the trains, then take the train at the Paris Metro.

On the train, Romana asks where they are going. The Doctor asks, "Are you talking philosophically or geographically?" Romana says, "Philosophically." His answer, "Then we're going to lunch." He knows a little place that makes a wonderful bouillabaisse which Romana calls yum-yum!? They get out at the station and the Doctor prompts her to run up the steps. She takes his hand in the streets and they cross that also. They walk past a poster promoting an exhibit at the Paris Natural History Museum.

At a Paris chateau with gargoyle's face on one of its doors, Professor Theodore Nikolai Kerensky complains of money for the experiments he is conducting for a Count. The Count named Carlos Scarlioni gives him three million francs but the Professor tells him, while this is good enough for now, he will need more to keep the experiments going. His butler Hermann is told by the Count that the Gainsboro didn't fetch enough money. He tells Hermann that they may have to sell one of the rare Guttenberg Bibles as discreetly as possible. Kerensky is ready to start the next test.

In a cafe, the Doctor is reading a book. He flips through it after opening it and reads it all very quickly. He tells Romana that it is a bit boring in the middle, then tells her not to move, she might spoil a work of art. A man nearby is drawing a picture of her. Romana turns around quickly, causing the artist to get mad, get up, crumble up the sketch and toss it on the ground. Romana wants to know what it looked like and the Doctor suggests they pick it up. Suddenly, there is some disturbance in the force of time and the man, the artist appears in his seat as time moves backward and only Romana and the Doctor feel the time jump. The portrait of a Time Lady has a large clock for Romana's face... with the face of the clock having a crack in it, almost like a crack in time, which makes the Doctor get all serious. Romana suggests the sit outside.

Scarlioni is impressed by the Professor's demonstration even though it was flawed. The Count wants very fast progress now and seems obsessed with time. He wants the next test today but Kerensky doesn't understand the urgency. The Count calls it a matter of time.

Outside, sitting at the outdoor part of the cafe, the Doctor thinks the time effect must be because he crosses the time fields so often. Romana didn't like the jump in time. The Doctor says, "You and I exist in a special relationship to time, you know. Perpetual outsiders." She tells him not to be so portentous. He shows her the picture prompting her to comment that at least on Gallifrey they can get a good likeness from computers, which can draw. This upsets the Doctor: that she would sit in Paris and talk of computer art. He will take her to see some real art made by real people. She asks about the time slip but he tells her they are on a holiday. They leave and cross a street and then another. They cross a plaza and head toward the Louvre, which the Doctor calls one of the greatest art galleries in the whole galaxy. Romana asks what about as it compares to the Academia Stolraus on Sirius 5 and the (Solarian) Solarium Panatica on Stricium, and the Braxiatel Collection. He shows her the Mona Lisa.

Romana thinks it is quite good. She is embarrassed when the Doctor calls it one of the greatest art pieces in the universe. "The world, Doctor, the world, don't draw attention!" The Doctor gets mad, "One of the great treasures of the universe! Go on let them gawk, let them gape, what do I care!" Romana asks why the Mona Lisa doesn't have any eyebrows. He starts to chide her for asking this but realizes for the first time that the Mona Lisa doesn't. A school teacher with high schoolers is taking children to the Mona Lisa and asks the Doctor, after finally finding his face, playing a bit of hide and seek without moving, if he can move along, other people would like to see the picture. Romana, having moved off for a few moments, returns and asks what she said. Before the Doctor can answer, there is another time slip back to the teacher approaching the Doctor. The Doctor stumbles into her, passes by others and then collapses onto a red bench where a rich lady was reading. He hits her lap and falls off the bench. A man in a raincoat gets the crowd out of the way and gets the Doctor to the bench. When the man, Duggan, asks if he is all right, the Doctor tells him he just dented his head on his gun, that's all. Romana tells Duggan that the Doctor is just taking one of his funny turns. The Doctor thinks the whole world took a funny turn. Romana gets him up but he falls to his knees. She takes him out. The rich lady nods to a man in a hat to follow. Duggan has already started to follow the Doctor and Romana.

Scarlioni thinks the last experiment was good despite an unfortunate side effect. He wants the Professor to continue and to vastly increase the time span. Kerensky feels stretched to the limit. He appreciates walks in the country, regular meals, sleep. The Count orders Hermann to get the Professor food, half a bottle of wine, and more but cancels it when he wants the Professor to forego sleep and take a vitamin pill instead.

Along the sidewalks, Duggan follows Romana and the Doctor while they walk past art shops. He follows them past a river and more shops. When they sit at another cafe, Romana tells the Doctor they have been followed. The Doctor knew it: by that idiot with the gun. He tells Romana to look in her pocket. The woman the Doctor bumped into was wearing a bracelet which Romana asks if the Doctor stole it from her. He put it in Romana's pocket. It is a micromeson scanner which someone is using to monitor the alarms in the Louvre to steal it. "It is a very pretty painting," the Doctor said. Romana thinks it is a high level technology for a level 5 civilization. He tells her the bracelet is never the product of an Earth civilization. She asks if he means an alien is trying to steal the painting. "Well, it is a very pretty painting," he repeats. He asks if she recalls the man who followed them, well, he is standing behind them with a gun at the Doctor's back. He makes them go into the cafe with their hands up. The Doctor asks for three glasses of water, "Make them doubles."

The rich lady, the wife of Scarlioni, the Countess explains to him part of what happened. He asks her not to play games and she asks what else she has been doing all these years. He tells her following instructions. She goes on. Duggan was watching her. Scarlioni thinks Duggan is too stupid to cause them any harm. When she tells her husband about the stolen bracelet, he gets upset. She has already planned to get it back.

"What bracelet?" The Doctor asks of two men pointing guns at him, Romana, and Duggan. He puts the bracelet onto the point of one of the men's guns. Romana asks if he is alright. "Yes, just relaxing and enjoying Paris," the Doctor answers. Duggan believes the thugs were the Doctor's. The Doctor asks if Duggan is English and asks the Patron where his three glasses of water are. The patron brings them. The Doctor introduces himself. Duggan asks about Count Scarlioni's angle. Romana claims she's never been good at geometry. They ask Duggan who Scarlioni is. Everyone on Earth's heard of Count Scarlioni. "Ahh, well, we've only just landed on Earth," the Doctor tells Duggan, who accepts this but doesn't really think the Doctor is serious. He gives up and is about to leave until the Doctor mentions someone might want to steal the Mona Lisa.

The two thugs give the bracelet back to the Count, who dismisses them, then tells Hermann to kill the two thugs. Hermann tells him he will do that with pleasure. The Count tells his wife to tell Hermann to bring the three to the chateau.

Duggan has told Romana and the Doctor that masterpieces thought lost for centuries were turning up all over the place. He thinks they are very good fakes but the "fakes" stand up to every scientific tests. The Count is so clean he stinks. Two new thugs with hats on point guns at the trio and want them to follow them.

The two thugs usher Romana, Duggan, and the Doctor through the chateau doors. Hermann brings them in to the lounge where the Countess is setting a rare Chinese trick box. Hermann pushes the Doctor in and has him at gunpoint. The Doctor falls but gets up amused by the wonderful butler, "He's so violent." On his knees, he introduces Romana and Duggan as well as himself to the Countess. The Doctor crawls on his knees to a Louie Cannes chair, asking the Countess if they have worn well, and dismissing Hermann, "That will be all." He also tells her he is a very pleasant fellow. The Countess tells him she didn't invite him here for pleasantries and social reasons. He gets himself a drink and sits Romana and Duggan. He tells her he is a thief, Romana his assistant and Duggan the detective who caught him, "You see our two lines of work dovetail beautifully." When the Countess tells him she was under the impression that Duggan was following her, the Doctor says, "Well, you're a beautiful woman, probably..." and that Duggan was after a dinner date. She asks who sent him and he asks, "Who sent me what?" The Countess tells him that the more he tries to convince her that he is a fool she is more likely to think otherwise and she could have him killed. She also orders Romana to put the Chinese puzzle box down but Romana opens it in seconds and takes out the bracelet. Scarlioni enters and takes it, happily meeting the others. The Doctor says, "Hello there." The Doctor tells them he liked the bracelet but would have preferred to steal a painting but all sorts of alarms go off and disturb the concentration. "My dear I don't think he's as stupid as he seems," the Countess says. Scarlioni comments, "My dear, nobody could be as stupid as he seems." The Count dismisses the interview, making the Doctor jump up and talk of lunch with Duggan and Romana, possibly at Maxim's. When Duggan picks up a chair, the Doctor asks what is he doing. Hermann is in a position to shoot Duggan so the Doctor bluffs that he cares more about the chair not being damaged. He tells him to act civilized. Hermann is to show them to the cellar where they will be locked in. The Count is after the Mona Lisa.

As he leads the way into the cellar, the Doctor asks questions of Hermann. The chateau was built about 400 or 500 years ago. Hermann tells the Doctor his boring conversation doesn't interest him. The Doctor examines the equipment, "Good lord." Hermann locks them into a cellar closet and gives them a light which will last 2 or 3 hours. They have only one match. Duggan tells the Doctor that they could have escaped at least twice. The Doctor's plan: let them think they have them safe but then escape after finding out what they came for. He takes out the sonic screwdriver and finds it not working. Duggan takes it and hits it against the door. The Doctor grabs it back, thinking that the screwdriver was useful against the Daleks on Skaro but Duggan wouldn't remember. Duggan thinks he is locked in with two raving lunatics for company. The screwdriver starts to work and the Doctor asks Duggan if he would like to stay on as his scientific advisor. Romana calculates the horizontal length of the stairs and figures there is another area of the room that is not seen. The Doctor wants to look at the lab first. Duggan is about ready to bump someone.

The Doctor and Romana examine the equipment. While the Doctor explains what is going on to Duggan, Romana begins taking tools and equipment to do something. The Doctor asks Duggan if he is in this just for the thumping. They know the Count is going to steal the Mona Lisa. As the Doctor asks him what Romana is doing, he doesn't care and begins to start up the steps but Kerensky comes down. The men hide but the Doctor manoeuvres himself as to make Kerensky think he just arrived, pushing Duggan back into hiding. Kerensky puts an egg on a table under three red cone points. The experiment makes the egg hatch and a chicken come out and grow to full size. The Doctor talks to Kerensky, telling him he got it wrong.

The Count shows his wife and Hermann as well as two thugs a special device that he claims is of his intellect--far smarter than the Professor's -- which he will use to steal the Mona Lisa. He will begin his own test.

The Doctor tells Kerensky that tinkering with time is a bad idea when you don't know what you are doing. Kerensky thinks he is the foremost scientist on temporal physics in the whole world. The Doctor thinks that is a small place when you think about the size of the universe. Kerensky asks who can and the Doctor says some can. Kerensky tells him if this works, it will be the end of famine in the world but the Doctor warns him it will be the end of him. The chicken turns into a skeleton and dies. The principle is wrong -- he has created a different time continuum but it is incompatible with their own. He can stretch time back and forward but cannot break into it. The Doctor reverses the polarity and the chicken reforms and becomes an egg again. Kerensky is impressed. Kerensky does not ask too many questions. The Doctor yells that he should ask questions...that is a scientist's job. The Doctor sees Scaroth's face in the time field. As he sees it, Duggan hits the Professor, who falls unconscious. The Doctor doesn't realize this. He thinks he's fainted. Duggan tells the Doctor he did that. The Doctor yells that his philosophy is that if it moves, hit it. He will take severe measures if Duggan does that one more time: he will ask him not to. Romana has found another room behind the wall in the place they were sealed up in. It was bricked up. It is due for an airing.

The Count has used his device to create a replica of the Louvre. They will cut through the glass with a sonic knife. To get through the laser alarms, they have to deflect the beams by disrupting the air itself. Then they can get the picture. The Count puts the bracelet on his wife, telling her to wear it always. He comes from a family of geniuses.

The Doctor chisels on the brick, telling Romana that the Professor thinks he's breeding chickens but that Scarlioni is using the equipment to tamper with time. Duggan tells them there are seven people in his address book that would be willing to pay for the Mona Lisa for their private collection. To get through the last bit, the Doctor will need some machinery. Duggan smashes into the wall and knocks the rest in. Entering, the trio find a cupboard with a Mona Lisa inside -- one which the Doctor claims is the real one. He finds: five other Mona Lisas. The Doctor knows the pigment and the brushwork of Leonardo's. Duggan explains to the Doctor that if there was a Mona Lisa hanging in the Louvre, no one would buy the others. They would each have to think they were buying the stolen one. The Doctor put a hand on Duggan's shoulder, "I wouldn't make a very good criminal would I?" The Count is down there and tells him, "No, good criminals don't get caught." The Count has a gun and answers yes and no to the Doctor's questions. "I like concise answers," the Doctor smiles. The Count tells him he found Kerensky unconscious, "Can you throw any light on that?" Duggan can: he tosses the lantern at the Count's gun and punches him down.

"Duggan, why is it that every time I start to talk to someone, you knock them unconscious?" The Doctor asks. Duggan didn't expect the Count to go down so easily. The Doctor doesn't think that Duggan should go about hitting things just because he doesn't understand them. He yells at Duggan and tells him his job. Using his scarf to lead the way out, the Doctor takes Romana and Duggan up the steps. They sneak into the house and hear a crash which was Duggan, who tries to tell them he is sorry. But a gun points at them from a hidden spot. Duggan sneaks up on the person and knocks the person out: they find it is the Countess. Duggan tells her he is sorry but she is out cold. The Doctor thinks the sorrow is due to the vase being Ming Vase 2nd Dynasty. The Doctor tells Romana to look after Duggan while he has to go meet a late middle aged Italian, Renaissance age.

Soon, the Doctor opens a glass door to the Denise Rene Art Gallery where the TARDIS is parked. It is closed for the night. He goes inside the TARDIS and says hello to K9 and asks if the metal dog is all right.

The TARDIS appears in Florence, Italy 1505 AD. The Doctor finds it is day and enjoys the Renaissance sunshine. He calls for Leonardo after whistling with some birds. He tells Leo that everyone loved the Last Supper and his other paintings. Of Mona Lisa he says: that dreadful woman with no eyebrows who wouldn't sit still. The idea for the helicopter took a longer time to catch on. A soldier points a long saber at his face. Leonardo is engaged on important work for Captain Tancredi. The Doctor gasps, as if he knows the name, "Captain Tancredi!" "You know him?" "No," the Doctor answers, circling with the guard, the sword at his throat. The guard makes the Doctor sit. Tancredi will want to question the Doctor but the Doctor wants to question him. The door opens and in walks Tancredi.

Romana and Duggan get into the Louvre and find a guard on the floor, the alarms on the outside immobilized. Romana tells Duggan he has a very cynical look to life. He asks her how old she is and she tells him 125. Duggan moves to the laser alarms behind which the Mona Lisa should be sitting...but it isn't. He triggers the alarms and he and Romana are forced to flee. They go through a window... Duggan literally, split up and remeet back at the cafe.

Kerensky finds the secret room, the other Monas, and the downed Count. As the Count wakes, he talks in his sleep -- the same conversation he is having with the Doctor in 1505! He wants to know how the Doctor comes to be in this time. On his knees, the Doctor tells him that he just walks along and pop! he's on a different planet and sometimes a different time. Tancredi tells the Doctor he is the last of the Jagaroth, also their saviour. On one of his trips, the Doctor recalls something about the Jagaroth. They destroyed themselves in a war some 400 million years ago, "How quickly time passes," the Doctor says. A few escaped in a crippled spacecraft and found Earth in a primeval age with on life. The ship disintegrated and Scaroth was fractured in time, splinters of his being were scattered in time, all identical, none complete. Scaroth asks what the box is. The Doctor avoids the answer, lying. He finds the Mona Lisa, the original and figures out the plan to make more Mona Lisas. Scaroth will collect the instruments of torture. He instructs the soldier to confiscate the Doctor's tongue if the Doctor talks. When the Doctor asks how he can talk if he has no tongue, Scaroth leaving, tells him he can write.

The Doctor tells the guard that Tancredi is mad -- a difficult job humouring him. The guard tells the Doctor when you work for the Borgias you believe anything. The Doctor sees his point...the sword. The Doctor uses a camera from his pocket to take a picture of the wary guard. The instant picture forms and the Doctor gets the guard to lean in close to see it. He hits the man under the chin and gently lowers him to a chair. On the back of the extra six paintings of the Mona Lisa, the Doctor writes, "THIS IS A FAKE" in felt tip pen and puts them face down. He also writes a quick note to Leonardo, "Dear Leo, sorry to have missed you. Hope you're well. Sorry about the mess on the panels, just paint over them, there's a good chap. see you earlier, love the Doctor." As he is about to pop off, Tancredi returns with the thumbscrews. The Doctor sucks on his own thumb.

Kerensky gets the Count up, telling him he is in Paris. The Count thinks it a dream. Kerensky asks who the Count is. He also mentions something about his face and asks who the Jagaroth are -- the Count was mumbling about them. The Jagaroth are the ones who need the experiments. Kerensky thinks the Jagaroth need all the chickens. Scaroth laughs that such a giant intellect could live in such a small mind. The Count hears voices -- his other selves. He tells Kerensky he is working for more than the human race and their feeding.

Romana uses a sonic screwdriver to get into the closed cafe that night. Duggan just smashes a window and gets in. He thought these places are meant to be open all night. Romana tells him he should go into business with a glasser they would have a perfect symbiotic relationship. He breaks a lot of glass. He breaks the top of a wine bottle to drink with her. He tells her you can't cook an omelette without breaking eggs. She tells him she would expect to find broken crockery, a cooker in flames, and an unconscious chef. As they sit and drink, they discuss the situation and the Count's plan. Duggan says, "You know what I don't understand..." Romana answers this with, "I expect so..." She doesn't like something in her drink. Duggan mentions the buyers and then the Mona Lisas and that they are bricked up for centuries. "What buyers?" Romana asks. "No, Mona Lisas," Duggan says. How did the Count know where the bricked up Mona Lisas were and how did he know where to get them? Romana thinks it taxes the mind.

The Count shows Kerensky the exact end product of his labours: what he will make. Kerensky spits when he talks about the new project. It talks of increasing a part of the project that Kerensky was trying to eliminate. It can work both ways. Kerensky thinks it is monstrous, what he is trying to do. He will not do it and says a thousand time no. Even the Count cannot afford such equipment. Hermann comes with the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. The Count tells Kerensky to continue with the work or he will die.

1505: the thumb screws are on the Doctor's hand and the Doctor winces -- the guard's hands are cold: they haven't started with the torture. He cannot stand being tortured by someone with cold hands. The Doctor reveals his Time Lordship. Tancredi asks about the girl and adds when the Doctor stalls, "Time is running out." "What do you mean time's running out, it's only 1505!" The Doctor jokes. The guard moves to the thumbscrews. The Doctor asks questions--how he communicates with his other selves across time.

In the 1979 timezone, the Countess talks to her husband. When she brags of the money and the achievement of stealing the Mona Lisa, he brags about the pyramids to be built, the heavens to be mapped, made the first wheel, shown the true use of fire, and brought up a whole race from nothing to save his own race. He wants a single life and the life of his people. The voices come and he tells her, "Please leave us. Leave me." He urges her to go. When she leaves, he communicates briefly with his Tancredi self but it takes energy out of both Scaroth splinter selves. While their backs are turned, the Doctor undoes the thumbscrews with his mouth at first. He gets to the TARDIS. The guard tries to tell the Captain but Tancredi dismisses him, "Leave us. Leave me!" The guard runs out. Besides the Captain and the Count, other splinters of Scaroth appear to talk to him, mentally, making him mad: there seem to be 12 of him and these seem to include a Norman soldier, and an ancient Greek. Others appear to be someone in Germany in 1455, England in 1600 when Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, and ancient Egypt where he posed as a god. "The centuries that divide me shall be undone," Scaroth yells. The Doctor watches him yells this from the TARDIS scanner. The TARDIS vanishes.

The Count makes a realization about the Doctor and the girl.

The Doctor returns to 1979, parking the TARDIS back in the same museum and not liking the sound of the centuries that divide me shall be undone. He goes out to the streets, puts his hat on, and starts out.

Romana tells Duggan, who is sleeping, that his coffee will get cold. He jumps up and knocks over a cup. Romana sits next to him and he sits back down. He thinks he is washed up. Romana will leave the Doctor a note. She feels they should go get the real Mona Lisa. Duggan jokes that he wonders if he will see half a dozen Eiffel Towers lying about. Romana wonders if Scarlioni has found a way to travel back in time. Duggan tells her that he used to do divorce investigations: it was never like this. But one flaw in that idea: the time machine Kerensky has made cannot work. She tells Duggan that you can have two adjacent time continuums running at different rates but without a field interface stabilizer you can't cross from one to the other. Romana suggests they get back to the chateau where at least he can trounce somebody. They run through the streets just as the Doctor is also. The Doctor runs to the outside of the Louvre where two guards tell him the news that the Mona Lisa has been stolen. The Doctor goes inside to see it gone. He taps on the shoulder of a woman and she jumps -- it is the old school teacher. He asks her, frightening her, about the girl and the man who were here, trying to stop the painting from being stolen. He describes Duggan as a man with fair hair who's always hitting people and he makes a fist to show her and she gasps. She tells him he should tell the police. The Doctor shushes her by telling her he has the human race to think about and there is no time for the police. He runs outside and through the streets again.

In a cafe, a newscast explains about the Mona Lisa and how it was stolen and a bit about its history. The Doctor runs in and asks the bar tender about the two people he was in here yesterday, "We kept getting held up, attacked, breaking things..." The man turns. "They can't have been mad enough to go back to the chateau..." The bar tender gives the Doctor a note that is from Romana -- that she and Duggan went back to the chateau. The Doctor thanks the bar tender.

Hermann has a gun on Romana and Duggan and they are in the lounge with the Count. As soon as the man got into the window, the alarm went off. Hermann called off the dogs since he thought the Count would want to talk to the pair. The Count tries to act nice to Romana, calling her "my dear" and telling her she only had to knock on the door. Scarlioni talks to Romana. Duggan warns him not to touch her. Romana tells Duggan she will look after herself. The Count sits with her and tells her that the Doctor let it slip that she is an expert in temporal travel. Duggan asks if anyone can get in on this conversation or do you need a certificate. The Count instructs Hermann that if Duggan interrupts again, he should kill Duggan. The Count wants Romana to examine the equipment in greater detail. If she refuses, he will destroy Paris, even though he'd rather not use threats. To prove he can destroy Paris, he shows her the equipment, instructing Hermann to bring Duggan with them.

The Doctor runs through the streets.

The Count tells them that is the result of an unstablized time field and he will do the same thing to the whole of the city unless Romana reveals the secret of how to stabilize that time field. Duggan calls him mad and inhuman. Scaroth tells them he is not human. Romana asks the Count why should she care if Paris is destroyed. The Count calls her bluff by telling Hermann to kill Duggan. Romana stops this and the Count knows she does care. Romana agrees to cooperate if he tells her what he is trying to do. Duggan will be kept as an insurance policy--it isn't possible, the Count says, "Unfortunately" to kill Duggan twice. Duggan is locked away. Scaroth explains his situation to Romana -- he's been split into 12 different parts via the warp control cabin. His parts lead or have lead different but connected lives in this planet's history. He doesn't want to reunite himself. He wants to go back to where his spaceship was and stop himself from pressing the button that split him. His 12 selves were pushing the race of Earth to help him master this low level technology. He wants Romana to build a field interphase stabilizer. Romana agrees.

A man with a gun backs the Doctor into a maid in the chateau. He asks the woman to get the Count for him. When she leaves, the Doctor says to the quiet thug, "I once knew a boy like you, never said a word, very taciturn, there's no point in talking if you've got nothing to say..." he goes on to say this was Shakespeare. The Countess is there and opens a secret door in the wall revealing a secret cabinet: the original Hamlet manuscript, missing for centuries. The Doctor recognizes the handwriting -- his own. William sprained his wrist writing sonnets. The Doctor reads from it and finds a mixed metaphor ("take arms against the sea of troubles") which he told Shakespeare about. The Countess laughs, thinking the Doctor is perfectly mad. He tells her nobody is perfect. He uses this as an opening to explain about the Count and how he acquired the original Hamlet book. He tells her she doesn't know the Count as much as she thinks she does.

Hermann tells the Count the maid told him the Doctor is here. The Count already guessed this. Romana is continuing the work.

Upstairs, the Doctor debates with the Countess about discretion, charm, civilized, being unhelpful, and blind. He yells at her wilful blindness. The Doctor asks what he is doing in the cellar. A man with one eye and green skin ransacking the art treasures of history to rescue his people, the Jagaroth. Hermann arrives and takes the Doctor to the cellar. The men all leave the Countess who is laughing at the Doctor's stories. But he leaves her thinking about it. In her secret wall cabinet, she finds a book with a hollow centre and an Egyptian scroll. On the scroll is the one eyed "god" that is the Jagaroth Scaroth.

The Doctor prattles on and on as Hermann takes him downstairs to the lab. He asks what Romana is building the Count, "A Gallifreyan egg timer, a railway?" He will be very angry if she is making a time machine. Duggan asks the Doctor to get him out of the cell. The Doctor is happy to see him, "Good, good." The Count tells the Doctor he will help him also. The Doctor cannot allow him to fool with time. The Doctor is a professional time interferer. Romana tells the Doctor it is all right: Scaroth just wants to get back to his spaceship and reunite himself. The Count doesn't care one jot if he goes back. With the device Romana made, the Count leaves Hermann to lock the two in with Duggan to watch his departure. He will go say goodbye to the Countess. After he departs back in time, he tells Hermann to kill the trio in whatever way takes his fancy.

The Count finds the Countess with a gun in her hand. She knows the truth now. He tells her who he really is, the last of the Jagaroth. It was not difficult keeping secrets from her: fur coats, trinkets. An infinitely old race and a superior one is the race he is from. He takes off his fake Earth face to show her the alien face. She drops the gun in fear. He presses his ring and a crackle of electric goes off on the bracelet which the Countess wears. She falls dead. In a short while, she will cease to ever have existed.

Romana is sorry she was helping the Jagaroth. The Count was trying to put the whole world into the time bubble... 400 million years. He only succeeded for a few seconds, those timeslips -- shifting the world back in time for a few seconds. With the device Romana made, he can stabilize the field and go back himself. Romana rigged the component she made so that it can only go back in time for two minutes. The Doctor reveals that his writing on the back of the Mona Lisas would show up under any X Ray: "THIS IS A FAKE". But if the Count goes back, everything, all life will cease. The Doctor blames Romana for giving him the missing component but Romana reveals her rigging. The Doctor tells her all he needs is one minute. If the Count is not splintered in time, all history will be changed. The two get an idea. They ask Duggan to knock over the door and Duggan does this.

The trio run out and face a gun holding Jagaroth... Scaroth in his real face. "Very pretty," the Doctor brushes his hair out of his face. The Count is aware of the limitations Romana has put in the device. But he will go back and prevent the ship from exploding and himself from being splintered. He goes back, "Bye, Doctor." As he vanishes in the time field, a blast destroys the time machine, rigged by the Count. That way the Doctor will not be able to read the settings on the dials. Duggan thinks it all over and wants a drink. The Doctor tells them they are going on a journey. Romana tells him 400 million years ago. Duggan thinking the pair mad, follows them out of the building.

The trio run across Paris streets near the Arch of Triumph. They keep going along the streets. The Doctor tries to hail a cab with Romana, "Is no one interested in history, hmmm?" The trio run through traffic stopped streets.

In the museum where the TARDIS is, a man and woman discuss the function of the sublime colours of the redundant TARDIS. It has an afunctionalism, divorced from its function as a piece of art. It has no call to be here but the art lies in the fact that it is here. Romana and Duggan follow the Doctor past these two, the Doctor tossing his scarf over his shoulder to almost hit the man and Romana. The trio go inside the TARDIS and it vanishes. The man and woman think it is absolutely exquisite. They don't seem to be commenting on the vanishing.

The Doctor is following the time trace made by the Jagaroth to 400 million years ago. The Doctor, upon getting out of the TARDIS on barren rock, tells Duggan that they are standing on what will be the bottom of the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Romana tells the Doctor that Duggan is out of his depth here. Using a telescope, the Doctor finds the Jagaroth ship--a vicious, callous, war like race whom the universe won't miss. Romana points out the thrust motors are disabled and the idiots will try to take off on warp drive. The Doctor finds the amniotic fluid from which all life on Earth will spring in the inert soup of a low slurry. Amino acids form and fuse to make cells which develop into animal and vegetable life, "You Duggan," the Doctor says. The explosion which caused Scarlioni to splinter into time also caused the birth of the entire human race. Scaroth is there and calls to his brothers to stop trying to take off. The Doctor tells him he has thrown the dice once, he doesn't get a second chance. Duggan punches Scaroth down. The most important punch in history, the Doctor smiles. Scaroth's time is up and he vanishes. Duggan points out the ship is about to take off. The trio rush back into the TARDIS and it vanishes. The Jagaroth ship takes off and explodes as it should. A mass of flame and radiation which ignites the slurry soup.

The alien monster appears... Scaroth... in the time field. Hermann sees it and before the monster can convince him that it is the Count, Hermann picks up throws something at the equipment and causes the time field machine to blow up. A fire erupts, the stairs fall, and the Count is blasted out of existence.