Martha Examining The Doctor

Medical student Martha Jones, while on her way to work at London's Royal Hope Hospital, London, has a close encounter with a strange man who takes his tie off in front of her and then with a leather-clad, helmeted person who seems to be in a hurry to enter the hospital.

But this is just the start of a strange day for Martha. During her rounds through the hospital she gets to meet two very unusual patients. The first is an elderly woman, called Florence Finnegan who is suffering from salt deprivation, and the other is with a man who calls himself John Smith - who is actually The Doctor and who Martha recognises as being the man who took his tie off outside – despite him claiming he has been in bed all morning.

While Martha goes off with her fellow students discharges of static electricity start occurring all over the hospital. Then as if from nowhere, a freak rainstorm develops over the hospital. But instead of falling down the rain is going up into the sky. Then the entire building shakes and vanishes in a flash of light. For those inside the Royal Hope Hospital they find themselves looking out onto the surface of the Moon, encased in a force field keeping the limited amount of air inside the building.

On the Moon

Accompanied by Martha – who is one of the very few people who does not seem to be panicking – The Doctor goes off to investigate. Between them they witness Ms Finnegan, who turns out to be not what she seems, attacking the hospital administrator, Mr Stoker. As explained by The Doctor Finnegan is a Plasmavore, a creature that subsists on assimilating blood from other species. She also has two henchmen, the non-sentient Slabs (the leather-clad figure Martha spotted earlier) – one of whom chases The Doctor and Martha when Finnegan is caught drinking Mr Stoker’s blood through a straw.

It seems that Finnegan is trying to pass herself off as human so as to hide from the scans of The Judoon, a rhino-like race of intergalactic thugs who have arrived in giant cylindrical spaceships, and are scanning everyone in the hospital. As Earth is out of their jurisdiction, they are the ones responsible for teleporting the hospital to the Moon, where they can than scan everyone and so discover the culprit behind the assassination of a princess on a distant planet. By using Stoker's blood Finnegan manages to mask her scan, but The Judoon soon discover The Doctor is non-human and so pursue him thinking that he is the non-human thay are hunting down.

Finnegan and her Slabs

The Doctor, with Martha's help, manage to evade The Judoon and also stop one of the two Slabs by amplifying an X-ray machine. While Martha delays The Judoon The Doctor finally confronts Finnegan and goads her into sampling his blood, thinking it will mask a more thorough scan... but in doing so he collapses to the floor and is announced as being dead by The Judoon. Thinking that their mission is over it is up to Martha to convince The Judoon that Finnegan is the non-human they are looking for. After this is prooved the kill before departing leaving Martha with a dead Doctor and the limited air inside the hospital running out.

Martha succeeds in bringing The Doctor back to life just before the last of the air runs and the hospital is returned to its rightful place in London and the authorities take over – Martha’s last sight of The Doctor is of him entering a blue Police Box which then fades away. Or is it?

Later that evening, as The Doctor comes back for her and to prove that he can travel in time as well as space, he invites her into the TARDIS for just one trip. But will he be able to bring her back home before anyone notices she is missing?