BASIC PLOT
It is 2204 and the final confrontation between humankind and the Selachians. With Jamie fighting for Earth and Zoe trapped in an alien prison camp, the Doctor must choose between the sanctity of the time stream and the lives of his companions.

DOCTOR
Second.

COMPANIONS
Jamie and Zoe.

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
Pg 2 A beach on the planet Kalaya, 2204.

PREPARATORY READING
None. There are a couple of followups to The Murder Game, but nothing that relies on having read that book.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Pg 8 "And if there was one thing her training at the Earth School of Parapsychology had given her, it was a good sense of direction." The Wheel in Space.

Pg 39 "T-Mat. You remember that, don't you?" The Seeds of Death.

Pg 54 "'A bit,' he hedged, wondering if his adventure in Atlantis counted." The Underwater Menace.

Pg 75 "A powerful cartel of Earth conglomerates, some of whose methods would put the Cybermen to shame!"

"Earth is still very nervous after the Dalek invasion, isn't it?" The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

Pg 82 "They could be using static electricity, she supposed." This might be a reference to The Daleks, or it might be a general reference to the idea of static electricity powering things in the Doctor Who universe.

Pg 92 "Perhaps he came from Agora or somewhere, one of those colonies where people had eschewed technology" Agora was Grant Markham's home planet, first mentioned in Time of Your Life and then seen in Killing Ground.

Pg 142 "Your face appears in our records" The Murder Game.

Pg 169 "His father had died in a Dalek mine" The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

Pg 175 "Or when they blew up a hotel in Earth orbit?" The Murder Game.

Pg 210 "He thought of all the monsters - the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Ice Warriors - that he had been forced to kill to keep them from committing greater evils."

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
The Selachians were seen in The Murder Game.

Pg 41 The Terran Security Forces were seen in The Murder Game.

An Ice Warrior makes a cameo on page 129.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
None surviving.

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS
None.

PLUGGING THE HOLES [Fan-wank theorizing of how to fix continuity cock-ups]
N/A

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
Pg 14 Kalarians, who have bright pink skin, webbed fingers, black eyes and no nose.

The Selachians.

Pg 30 Crustaceans.

Pg 95 Green blobs a metre high and half as wide. Bioengineered weapons that can explode revealing slimy tentacles.

Pg 105 Ockoran natives are thin and pink with a scaly tail. Those that become Selachians surgically alter themselves to fit into their battlesuits.

Pg 129 One of Zoe's cellmates is an Ice Warrior.

Pg 199 A Selachian thinker weapon. It is almost invisible, rippling on the floor and waits for victims to step on it, although it can pursue them slowly as well.

FEATURED LOCATIONS
Pg 16 Kalaya, 2204.

Pg 71 The Triumph.

Pg 88 An escape pod.

Pg 97 Ockora, homeworld of the Selachians.

Pg 281 New York City, the aftermath of the Dalek invasion.

IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith?
What a difference a second read - and a number of years - makes! What seemed like shallow war posturing in 1999 seems a lot more frightening and relevant in 2003. Having the second Doctor spend all his time deliberately not interfering in order to maintain the web of time is quite odd, especially at the end when he simply turns tails and runs, the entire cast having been violently killed off. This is actually quite good and the various ethical dilemmas play out well, but it really needs a second read to bring them out. An overlooked gem.