Destination: Bandril (unproduced novel)

Destination: Bandril was a Third Doctor novel pitched to BBC Books' Past Doctor Adventures range by Jonathan Morris and Lance Parkin in 2001.

It would have been the adventure to which Timelash is a sequel – "what The Tomb of the Cybermen is to Attack of the Cybermen" – with several gags intended in this light. A character killed off-screen in Timelash was given a major role, with the gag being that her actress (Penelope Keith) chose not to return for the sequel. Some elements of the plot were chosen to echo Timelash to paint the serial as derivative; others were based off of the game in the 1973 Doctor Who Annual. Several familiar tropes from the Third Doctor era were also incorporated.

The story was ultimately rejected by range editor Justin Richards. While Morris and Parkin were given the impression that the novel might be commissioned if there was ever a gap in the scheduling, this never came to be. Elements of the story would eventually be reused in Morris' stories The Crimes of Thomas Brewster and We Are The Daleks.

Synopsis

Part One, mostly conceived by Morris, featured Sergeant Benton going undercover as a gangster to investigate strange, glowing alien crystals; the Doctor and Jo going undercover as an elderly man and his granddaughter to investigate strange apparitions at an elderly home, where they meet Queenie O'Toole; and the reveal of the Bandrils following a warehouse shoot-out. Part Two, largely written by Parkin, explained that the Bandril were located partially on Earth and partially on Karfel, and they were working with mercenaries to obtain weapons. The Doctor builds a detector to track the time corridors. Meanwhile, Jo is accidentally brought to Karfel with some mercenaries.

In Part Three, again by Morris, the mercenaries are revealed to be Karfelan refugees led by Queenie aka Queen Tola. Their planet was invaded and their populace enslaved by the Bandrils, who wanted their grain after the failure of their own crops. The Doctor agrees to help by travelling to Karfel with Benton and Megellan to persuade the Bandrils. Meanwhile, after a Bandril attack on Jo's group of mercenaries, she is brought before the Bandril leaders.

Part Four begins with the Doctor and his group lost in the caverns beneath Karfel City. The Doctor uses a hitherto-unmentioned ability to hypnotise the fearsome Morlox, but he and Magellan are captured by the Green Men. Back on Earth, the Brigadier used the Doctor's time corridor deflector to trap a Bandril, who immediately became soft-spoken and placid, introducing itself and explaining that Bandrils were never usually like this. Something must be telepathically controlling them. They head to Karfel to investigate, but the Bandril suddenly turns aggressive again. Still in the tunnels, the Green Men nearly kill the Doctor and Megellan before Megellan uses mysterious technology to turn the Men against themselves. After a brief encounter with a weightless tunnel, they find and rescue Jo, but the Doctor turns on Megellan: his aggression ray is the true cause of the Bandril's invasion.

In the final Parts Five and Six, both by Morris, Megellan uses the ray to make Jo attack the Doctor. The Brigadier's group arrives and saves him, but Megellan steals the keys to the planet's power supplies from Queenie. His plan is to use the power supplies to blast Bandrunn with the aggression ray; they will destroy themselves, the Bandrils on Karfel will surrender, and Megellan will be swept to power by public gratitude. Queenie deduces that the Searchlight on top of the pyramid is an amplifier for the ray, and she works with the Doctor and the Brigadier to destroy it. They discover in the process that the Bandrels' blue-faced androids, who are in charge of subduing the populace, are controlled through the mirrors throughout Karfel. The Doctor is too late to stop Mandrell from turning on the ray, but he fights off his group to destroy it. Freed, the Karfelans overpower the Bandrils.

However, hypnotised Jo has built an aggression ray back on Earth at the elderly home. Everyday people begin attacking each other, and at the International Arms Limitation Conference, the Americans, Russians, and Chinese are on the brink of nuclear war. Meanwhile, the Bandrils on Bandrunn launched a bendalypse warhead toward Karfel in their aggression. The Doctor sets to work: on Earth, the aggression machine is rewired to be a peace machine, and flower power breaks out all over the globe (with one Arab delegate snogging Mike Yates); meanwhile, the TARDIS intercepts the missile and, with Megellan's time travel inventions and the self-sacrifice of Pritztik, it is sent millions of years into the past. On Karfel, Megellan has escaped to his secret laboratory, and he informs the celebrating Karfelans that he will flood the city with poison gas unless they give him command. The Doctor makes his way to the secret laboratory, where he breaks Jo's hypnosis and they overpower Megellan, who escapes into the tunnels of poison gas and accidentally uses his aggression ray on the Morlox. The Doctor leaves him for dead.

With the threat taken care of, the Doctor negotiates a grain supply trade agreement between the Karfelans and Bandrils, Queenie is returned to the throne, and the Doctor and Jo return to UNIT. However, Queenie realises Jo has left her locket behind, so she gifts it to her granddaughter as a memento.