DOCTOR WHO IN DETAIL

At night in Miami, 1952, The Palazzo cinema is showing a newsreel of the latest atom bomb test in Nevada before Reginald Pye changes the film to the cartoon "Mr Ring-A-Ding Goes To Town". Outside the clouds clear and bright moonlight streams into the projector room and hit the film being played. On the screen, as people watch, Mr. Ring-A-Ding starts addressing the people directly before the cartoon character climbs out of the screen into the cinema.

Inside the TARDIS the Doctor is still trying to get Belinda back to Earth, 24th May 2025. Whilst the Doctor learns more about Belinda, and her family, the Doctor constructs a device, a Vortex Indicator - a Vindicator, that can emit a signal to May 2025 that the TARDIS can use like a fishing line to reel itself to that time. The Doctor and Belinda emerge from the TARDIS in 1952, dressed in 1950s clothes, outside the Palazzo cinema at 4am.

The Doctor sets up his device, then notices a chained up cinema. Belinda notices some tributes to Tommy Lee, pleading for him to come home, and a closure notice from the Dade Police Department. When the Doctor's device pings Belinda is ready to leave, but the Doctor wants to investigate the cinema. As an appeasement the Doctor takes Belinda for a coffee in a nearby diner - where the staff and patrons are liberal about the whites-only policy.

In the diner the Doctor learns more about the events leading to the cinema's closure where three months earlier fifteen people disappeared and speaks to Renée Lowenstein whose sixteen year old son, Tommy Lee, was one of the people who disappeared.

Outside faint gunshots can be heard. Reg is still in the cinema playing old movies to an empty house. Using the sonic screwdriver the Doctor and Belinda make their way inside the cinema where an old western is playing. As they approach the projector room Reg tries to shoo them away as the projector stops and curtains close over the screen. In the empty cinema they hear tap dancing before a small cartoon character, Mr Ring-A-Ding, appears on the stage in front of the screen.

As Belinda keeps asking questions about him Mr Ring-A-Ding keeps repeating "Don't make me laugh", and when the Doctor asks him about it Mr Ring-A-Ding laughs in a way the Doctor recognises. Mr Ring-A-Ding tells the Doctor his real name - Lux Imperator the God of Light - one the harbingers. Reg starts up the projector and on the screen Mr Ring-A-Ding starts dancing, and Lux has no choice but to do the same as long as the film runs giving the Doctor and Belinda time to escape and get into the projector room.

The Doctor asks Reg why he keeps playing the films, and Reg tells him they feed Lux. In return Lux was able to bring Reg's dead wife to life from an old film of her. Belinda looks at some of the film hanging in the projector room and notices a strip with fifteen frames, and inside each frame is a person.

Lux eventually makes his way into the projector room and stops Reg from talking by reminding him how easily film stock burns, including the film of his wife. Belinda demands Lux return the fifteen people. Lux says he has immortalised them on film before turning the light from the projectors on the Doctor and Belinda, turning them into animated characters in a cartoon.

As Belinda begins to despair she becomes more three dimensional. Realising sadness makes them more rounded the Doctor tells Belinda about the fates of Gallifrey and the Time Lords. They both become real, but remain in the cartoon. By breaking the frame they return the to the cinema, but something is wrong. Renée is there with a NYPD police officer. Instead they try leaving the frame and end up in the living room of three Doctor Who fans.

The Doctor and Belinda eventually escape by stopping the film and the heat from the projector causes it to burn and they collapse onto the stage in front of the screen. Controlling film reels Lux captures the Doctor and pulls him back to the projector room window where light from the projector projects through the Doctor's body to help create a physical body for Lux to allow him to go outside.

Whilst with the Doctor Who fans Robyn had given away the plot, and Belinda makes her way to the film store. She asks Reg for matches to burn the film stock, but Reg tells her to leave as he sets fires. As the film stock explodes, destroying the projectors and a wall, Lux is struck by the morning sun. The Doctor and Belinda leave the cinema as Lux keeps growing before dissipating in space.

As Lux disappears the fifteen people re-appear inside the cinema. As the Doctor and Belinda return to the TARDIS a member of the public approaches Renée and her son and tells them if they really want to see a show they should watch the TARDIS as it fades away.