Released as “The Pirate Planet” in the UK [April 1995] and Australia/New Zealand [June 1995] (BBC catalog #5608), US/Canada [September 1996] (WHV catalog #E1338); episodic format, cover illustration by Colin Howard. In the UK, the spines of all six Key to Time series videos bear an illustration by Andrew Skilleter, not used overseas.

Released in the US/Canada only [September 2002] (WHV catalog #E1338) as part of the "The Key To Time: The Complete Adventure" DVD Box Set, episodic format; photomontage cover. Includes commentary by Bruce Purchase and Pennant Roberts; photo gallery; production notes; and Who's Who. (Complete DVD set identified as WHV catalog #E1692)

Never officially novelised. An unsanctioned fan novelisation was penned in 1990 by David Bishop, re-released later by TSV Books in New Zealand with cover by Alistair Hughes.

The tracer detects that the second segment is on the planet Calufrax - somewhere that the Doctor is less than enamoured with.

The TARDIS makes a very bumpy landing and when the Doctor and Romana leave to find the segment they discover that they are not on Calufrax at all, but on a planet called Zanak. Zanak is in fact a hollow planet, which has been fitted with engines so that it can transmat through space and materialise around other planets - such as Calufrax - and drain them of their energy and minerals, leaving them as shrunken husks held by gravitational forces in a 'trophy room' on Zanak.

Zanak is governed from a complex known as the Bridge by the Captain, half-man half-robot, who is in thrall of his Nurse, in reality a projection of the aged Queen Xanxia whose real body is held in stasis by a time dam. She is using the power taken from the plundered planets to keep the dam operational until her new, younger form becomes stable and permanent.

The Captain prepares Zanak to 'jump' again and this time the target is a planet rich in PJX18 (quartz) which can be used to repair the engines. The planet chosen is Terra, known to the Doctor as Earth.

The Doctor realises the truth about Xanxia - that there is no amount of energy that will give her a permanent new form - and attempts to stop Zanak from destroying the Earth. In this he is aided by the Mentiads, a gestalt of telepathic dwellers on Zanak who are sensitive to the life force of the planets that are destroyed. Under the Doctor's supervision they damage the engines by using telekinesis literally to put a spanner in the works.

The Captain asserts his independence and tries to free himself from the Nurse's control but she kills him instead. The Nurse herself is destroyed by Kimus.

The Doctor obtains the key, which he has realised is the whole planet Callufrax, by dropping the compressed husks of the planets into a space/time vortex created by the TARDIS in the centre of Zanak and then picking up the key at his leisure.

For more in-depth information about the contents of this story, a complete episode-by-episode detailed breakdown can be found at the Dr. Who Reference Guide.

The quest for the Key continued with the first-ever contribution to the series by Douglas Adams, better known as the author of the world-renowned series "The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy"; this was actually the second submission, his first being "The Krikketmen" which would live on as the third Hitchhikers book, "Life, The Universe and Evertything". The story was a combination of two concepts, one involving a Time Lord trapped inside a giant agression absorbing machine, the other a drug parable about a company that slows down time for people who fear death. The working title "The Pirates" was the title of the combined version. BBC Head of Serials Graeme McDonald complained that the story was too camp, directly in contradiction to the lighter tone the BBC demanded of the production team this year. Vi Delmar, who played old Queen Xanxia, asked for extra money to remove her false teeth in her scenes. Tom Baker's lip injury, which happened during "The Ribos Operation," was explained in this story when the Doctor falls against the TARDIS console.

Additional, more detailed information about the production of this story can be found at Shannon Patrick Sullivan's A Brief History of Time (Travel).

Descriptions of each story screen capture at right, top to bottom: