The following recap contains spoilers for 2.06, “The Interstellar Song Contest.” Review is also available.

In the year 2925 at the Harmony Arena, a female cat-like alien, Sabine (Julie Dray), introduces the immortal Rylan (Rylan Clark) as host of the 803rd Interstellar Song Contest, who walks out to a cheering crowd.

The TARDIS materializes in one of the VIP viewing booths. The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) brings out the Vindicator and sets it up as Belinda (Varada Sethu) takes in the arena, surprised to see Rylan, who explains to the audience that forty finalists from forty different worlds will be singing. Belinda quickly says they are staying, and the Doctor readily agrees.

Rylan says from the stage that the show is transmitted live to an audience of three trillion life forms to find one winner.

Meanwhile, backstage in the gallery, the crew works to run the show and cues the confetti canon. An ad goes up on holograms in the audience for the sponsors of the show, Poppy Honey, which it says is cultivated from 100% organic golden poppy.

Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson) cheers among the fans in the stadium. She uses her opera glasses to see into the private booth with the Doctor and Belinda, where Belinda says that this proves that the Earth survives. The Doctor talks about previous Interstellar Song Contests he has been to, and she says she watched with her parents when she was little. She comments on the night sky, and he tells her that it is not night but space, as the arena is actually a space station. She questions they are inside a bubble on a station in orbit. He says the universe is wild. She questions the song contest let in Australia and then space. He says he knew she would finally enjoy being with him. The Vindicator beeps that it’s complete, and Mrs. Flood notes that it’s ready and primed. She picks up a device that lights up and says that it is the final link. Then she says that there is no rush; she loves a good show. The Doctor says that he wonders whose seats they are in, and Belinda says that it doesn’t matter, because they’ve missed it.

Meanwhile, in the outer part of the venue, a man, Gary (Charlie Condou), gets a ticket error and is upset as he sees on the video screen that the Doctor and Belinda are in their seats. He tells his partner, Mike (Kadiff Kirwan), that none of it would have happened if he had turned up on time, upset that he doesn’t take anything he does seriously. Mike tells him that it is hardly important, as it’s just songs. Gary gets upset and says when he makes fun of it, it’s like he’s making fun of him. Gary goes to a humanoid drone with the ticket card, wanting them to do something about it, but the drone just says, “phase one activated,” and walks away.

Backstage in the gallery they hear what sounds like zapping sounds and people screaming. A horned alien of the Hellion species, Kid (Freddie Fox), comes in with a gun. One of the crew members, Nina (Kiruna Stamell), tells the drone guards to get him out, but he has control of the drones and arms them. She tells everyone to stay calm, but Kid says that the gallery is his.

Rylan isn’t sure what is happening, since no one is telling him what to do in his earpiece, but starts saying hello to the contestants, including Cora Saint Bavier from the planet Trion (Miram-Teak Lee). She waves and talks to the audience.

Kid has the drones take all of the crew, except for Nina and Wynn (Iona Anderson), who is also a Helllion, out of the gallery and tells them and keep them guarded. He then kisses Wynn. Nina tells her to stop whatever she is doing and says that no one employs Hellions, but she took a chance on her. Ignoring her, Kid starts the dress rehearsal playing. Wynn says that no one will know the difference, but Nina says she is wrong, because Rylan wasn’t at the dress rehearsal but still in deep freeze. Kid says they will just tell people he has food poisoning.

Meanwhile, the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver beeps as Sabine says that later on, they can vote using their home neural hypersync headset or the app. He notices that Rylan, who is out live on the stage, is not on the television screen in the booth. He jumps over to the front of the console and takes off the cover.

Kid grabs Nina’s hand and scans it to access controls. After getting a call on the radio, Wynn tells Kid they have thirty seconds until they realize something is wrong, but he says that’s all he needs.

Meanwhile, Rylan decides to start the show. He announces Liz Lizardine (Christina Rotondo) who comes out onto the stage sings “I Love You, But My Heart Says No.”

Kid turns off the safety protocols. Rylan asks through the headset what’s going on, and Kid tells him it’s the greatest song contest in the universe, and as he would say, “let’s raise the roof.” He then pulls a lever, and an alarm goes off. Everyone stops and stares in shock as the roof opens. Belinda questions if it’s part of the show. There is an announcement that the air shield is collapsing.

Wynn sneaks her hand towards a control when Kid isn’t looking.

The Doctor uses his sonic on the control panel as people fly upwards as the mavity (gravity) is removed from the arena. Belinda gets caught on the ceiling of the booth. Wynn shuts the booths, and Belinda falls to the floor, but both the Doctor and the TARDIS are swept away into the atmosphere.

Cora and the man with her, Len (Akemnji Ndifornyen), are also safe in their VIP booth. They and Belinda, as well as Mike and Greg, watch as everyone goes up into space. Rylan says not again as he freezes. Belinda is upset and cries wondering what has happened to the Doctor.

Wynn says the arena has been purged and closes the shield to maintain integrity. Nina says they are monsters, and Kid says people have been saying that to him his whole life, because of the horns. He tells her he is only doing the things they expect of him and that he is moving to phase three, the final phase. He tells Wynn to fetch the device, and Wynn sends out a command for the drones to get it and bring it to the gallery. Nina tells them that they aren’t dead; the mavity shell is still on, and they can still save those people. The drones bring in the device, which he explains is a Delta Wave.

Belinda comes out of her booth and sees Len and Cora, who tells her they are locked in.  Len says he was in the tech squad and thinks he can open the door and proceeds to work on it. Belinda, worried about the Doctor, asks if there is some sort of air bubble outside or if they can call someone. Cora explains that they can’t call anyone, because they are in close-down because of gambling rules. If people could transmit from in there, they could hyperstream a bet to the other side of the galaxy before the results got there, so all signals are blocked. Dugga Doo from the planet Grimbald sings on the monitor as the dress rehearsal continues to play on automatic. Belinda worries her parents will just sit waiting forever; she doesn’t even know where she is. She continues to freak out, telling Cora that her friend was so wonderful, but she never got to tell him. Len says that he is tapping into the computer core, but it’s like the software is being overwritten.

Nina, who saw Wynn save Cora, asks about her, but she tells her to be quiet. She says they are doing this for Hellia, and those people can’t be saved.

The Doctor floats, frozen. He sees an aged Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford), his granddaughter, in his head telling him to go back. He suddenly unfreezes and Greg and Mike see him moving in space. He grabs the confetti canon and uses it to propel himself through space, going for the airlock, and Greg and Mike let him in. He falls over. As he’s a nurse, Mike tells Gary to bring the medical kit from the wall. He injects adrenaline into the Doctor’s chest, and he wakes up gasping.  Mike says that there must be a hundred thousand dead out there, and he was lucky. The Doctor says he wasn’t lucky, but clever. Mavity is holding them in. He tripled the field when he used the sonic on the control panel earlier. He tells them that they are all still alive in mavitic suspension. They are in a state of preservation, because it’s freezing out there. The Doctor thinks Belinda is out there frozen, and the TARDIS is gone.  Mike says to reach and save that many people, he’d have to be some sort of insane genius. The Doctor simply replies, “Hello, I’m the Doctor.”

Kid says they are starting the upload and will be ready to broadcast during song fourteen, which happens to be Cora’s song. Kid says she is the best, and that it’s all going to blow their minds.

The Doctor starts using his sonic on the controls in the panel and goes through things he could do that won’t work. He says the software says it’s Hellion script and asks Mike and Greg about them. Mike says his family used to vacation there and they talk about all the fields of Hell poppies, as far as the eye could see, but it’s ruined now. Greg says they say the Hellions did it to themselves. The Doctor says he wonders what they are uploading and taps something on the screen. There is a loud noise that hurts all their ears. He falls to the ground, grabbing his head, but is able to grab his sonic and turn it off. He wipes his nose, which is bleeding a bit. The Doctor says that it was a primitive Delta Wave aimed at the temporal lobe of the brain. He asks how many people are watching the contest and is told there are three trillion. He says that if they route that signal through the station and transmit it, it will kill every single person watching.

Meanwhile, Len has figured out it’s the Hellions as well and says that people say they practice cannibalism and witchcraft and that their horns give them psychic powers. Cora says that people say that a lot about species they don’t understand.

The Doctor says that if he’s going to fight the signal, he’s going to need a caustic hyperlink. Greg says he’s got it and heads over to access the tech desk, turning on the lights in the museum for the history of the contest. He says he worked on the tech design of the contest and was in charge of the hologram archive. He turns on a hologram of Graham Norton, and the Doctor gets upset, realizing that Belinda would have loved to see it. As he tells them he swore he’d get her home, he sees Susan again. He uses his sonic on the screen, which connects the video. He asks Kid who he is, and Belinda is able to hear him on their screen and gets excited, asking Len to fix the video, which he does. The Doctor tells Kid that he is threatening three trillion people, and he is there to tell him no. Kid tells him that if he goes near gallery, he will purge the airlocks and clear the whole station. The Doctor says if he does, he will survive and find him. He says that he has put ice in his heart, so he will cast his body into the void and watch him freeze to death. Belinda, shocked, says that that is not the Doctor. Kid ends the conversation and sends the drone guards to the museum to find and execute the Doctor.

It’s clear that Cora has recognized Kid and Wynn. Belinda questions he’s named Kid, as in baby goat, and Cora tells her as in his mother was shot before anyone asked his name. Len asks how she knows so much about the Hellions, and she admits she is one of them, lifting her hair to reveal her sawed off horns, which she says were removed by force, adding that Hellions are treated like scum across the galaxy. She explains that Hellia was the most harmless world in the sky. The Corporation bought the planet, including its population, for one reason only: to harvest their Hell poppy, which they use to make Poppy Honey. They took the seeds and burnt the fields so they could never grow it back. Kid blames the Corporation, who sponsored the contest, and is out to get revenge on them – and every viewer. Belinda asks her if she thinks she could stop him, and Cora says they might listen. She says that if Len fixes the elevators she might be able to talk to them. He doesn’t want to help her, but she says to do it then to help everyone else. Belinda says that she wants to get to them too, as that’s where the Doctor will be heading. She’s never seen him like that before, and if he is angry, the world is going to shake.

The drones arrive, but the Doctor explodes their heads with his sonic, and he and Gary work on the system.

The Delta Wave is almost ready when the Doctor appears and tells Kid that when he tells him to stop, he really should stop, or he will regret it. He says that he has met so many versions of him, and revenge is just an excuse, because he likes to kill. Kid says, “if you insist,” and shoots at him, but the Doctor is just a hologram. Kid, however, turns and sees the real Doctor across the room, who says that holograms are of no use unless you are him and can convert them into hard light, in which case, a hologram can hurt. He puts on special glove and when he closes his hand, the hologram appears besides Kid and touches him, shocking him. The Doctor says that he wanted to kill three trillion, so perhaps he should do it three trillion times. He shocks him again and again until he sees Susan again in his mind. He, however, does not stop until Belinda, who comes in with Cora, tells him to stop. He seems to suddenly realize what he has done and stops, taking the glove off. He rushes over to Belinda, and they embrace.

Cora says to Wynn that she can’t be the gentle kin-sister she loved so much, but she tells Cora that she abandoned her, and she had to do it to tell the galaxy about the Corporation and that all Cora has ever done is hide.

Nina, taking control back over the drone guards, orders them to take Kid and Wynn to the Justice Monolith. Kid tells the Doctor he will see him again, and the Doctor says that the ice he put in his heart is still there, and he will be ready.

The Doctor knows Gary can turn hard light into a tractor beam and they can use the glove so they can bring in the hundred thousand people who are still trapped in the Mavity Shell but frozen and perfectly suspended in space. They are able to retrieve Rylan, and Belinda is excited to meet him. She tells him he came back from the dead, and he says that sums up his career. The Doctor asks Gary if he can do that one hundred thousand times. He gets started as “Making Your Mind Up” plays and various aliens are rescued. The Doctor is able to get Len to turn the VIP pods into revival booths and they bring in larger groups at a time.

Rylan and Sabine return to the stage to a cheering audience. Rylan says that the spirit of the song contest is not about winning but the joy of each other, and that the actual contest is null and void with all of them nearly dying. He, however, wants all three trillion watching across the galaxy to hear one song. Cora comes on stage to sing the song she says that the Corporation tried to hide about her home planet Hellia, to remind them about the civilization they destroyed. When she finishes there is silence until Gary starts a slow clap and eventually everyone claps and cheers. Even Wynn and Len are affected.

A worker leads the Doctor and Belinda through the museum to the TARDIS, which he says they found on the asteroid spar. Belinda tells the Doctor she didn’t tell him before, but he is wonderful, and they hug. She says that he scared her back there, and he admits he scared himself. The potential death of three trillion triggered him and made him think of his home planet where every Time Lord died. He again sees Susan in his mind but says that it can’t be. He tells Belinda that he needs to get her back home. She says to fire up the Vindicator so they can go back to Earth.

At that, the Graham Norton hologram appears again, telling the history of Earth, which he says died many years ago on 5/24/25, the day Belinda left, according to the history books. He explains the planet disintegrated and all the memories he has were sieved from the rubble of a civilization that died in a single second, the cause unknown.

They rush into the TARDIS. The Doctor says that the Vindicator finally has enough readings and that he’s not just going to take her home but save her home. He sends the TARDIS there, but the cloister bells go off, the lights turn red, and there is a loud grinding noise, which he says is the sound of May 24th. They turn to the door and there is an explosion into the TARDIS…

In a mid-credits scene, Greg and Mike bring the last person through the cryogenic chamber, and it’s Mrs. Flood. She asks if the Doctor has gone. Greg says they looked for him, but he just disappeared. She says then that it is safe. She says that her double-brainstem froze, which is lethal for a Time Lady, but she has her own knack for survival. She says supposes she should think of some famous last words and says, “let battle begin.” She then bigenerates into another Time Lady (Archie Panjabi). Mike questions they are both the same person, which the woman confirms, saying that their name is the Rani. She says that although Mrs. Flood has become a Rani, she is the Rani, the definite article, so to speak. She asks Mrs. Flood for the Vindicator readings, which she gives her. The Rani says that she has a date to arrange, and as for the Doctor, she will bring him absolute terror.