Previously … Crisis (extended version) …

The DVD release of Planet of Giants included a reconstructed 4-part version.  It was originally intended to be broadcast as a four-part story, but was trimmed down to three parts, presumably because it didn’t have enough story to make it to four full episodes.  Episode 3 was extended for the DVD release, and this extra episode 4 was constructed.

The cliffhanger explains why Barbara recovered so quickly after collapsing.

Another extra scene with the exchange operator and her police officer husband which leads to the operator putting the engaged tone on the phone.  This deafens the team as Ian tries to lead them back to the sink.

Smithers again gets concerned about what Forrester said about Farrow prior to killing him.  Smithers no longer believes Forrester’s story.

Barbara is now the one worried that the insecticide could be harmful to full-size humans in sufficient quantity.  She refuses to leave until they do something about it.

Even more at the telephone operator in which she tells her husband that the car that ran him off the road has been seen at the farmhouse.  The telephone is still off the hook and, at the farmhouse, Smithers goes to check the extension in the lab.  He wants to check Farrow’s notes (I thought they’d already been looking at them).

The episode continues with the Doctor’s idea to start a fire to draw attention.

In the lab, Smithers sees the dead cat and, on disposing of it, realises that DN6 (the insecticide) killed the cat (in the previous version, it was the dead fly).  Now he’s worried about the extent of the danger that could be caused by DN6.  Smithers reads Farrow’s notes, and a missing page points the finger at Forrester.

When Smithers discovers that DN6 is killing everything (including the worms and the cat), he argues with Forrester and uncovers the real reason for Farrow’s death.

Following the exploding can and the policeman turning up, we have a scene of the TARDIS crew (reused Doctor & Susan footage) climbing down the sink drainpipe.

In the TARDIS, a frustrated Ian is more worried about Barbara.  The Doctor says it takes time, but it appears he’s spent some time fixing the TARDIS scanner (the one that exploded in the first episode).  This explains why the Doctor suggests that he’d fixed it during the cliffhanger scene (when it doesn’t work right).  We get a ten second countdown prior to the Doctor activating the “reverse” dematerialisation to get them back to their normal size.

As the seed appears to shrink, the Doctor explains why it doesn’t grow with them.  He explains that, as with the insecticide inside Barbara, its molecules are “stable” – suggesting that theirs, and the TARDIS, were made unstable by the error in landing at the start of episode one.  This explanation is something I said was missing in the televised episode, so I’m glad to see that the writer had addressed the issue.

Barbara recovers and the episode ends as in the televised version with the cliffhanger (and the dodgy scanner).

There is some important dialogue and scenes (including the cat, which provides a much better sense of how dangerous the insecticide is) in the four-episode version of this story, but most of the missing stuff boils down to the villains working out how to get away with what they’re doing, the scientist growing wary of Forrester, and a whole lot of extra scenes for the telephone exchange operator.  Other than a couple of unanswered questions in the televised version, you’re not really missing a lot when it comes to this four-episode version.

Next time … World’s End