Let Ekk's people go

I went into this tale, "Slave of Shran", hoping that these short stories get better in the Pertwee era Annuals. With my luck, the illustrators won't bother with looking at Liz Shaw and write the Third Doctor like Troughton.

But this one began well with the story beginning in media res with the Doctor a slave who mindlessly concedes he is ready to obey - obey a rogue supercomputer named Shran. It had the Doctor's memory wiped and used his not insignificant cranial power to fix its spaceship. The Time Lord's next task is to build a (very late-60s) atomic bomb to destroy the planet after Shran and Co. make their escape.

Our Gallifreyan Oppenheimer is led to a dungeon where he is to do his work. Also there are a race of beings known as the Shelgars who look like cockroaches and they too have been enslaved by Shran. One of them, Ekk, shoots a guard and frees the Doctor who recovers his memory. The TARDIS had landed in a giant bird nest and he went out to investigate while Jamie and Zoe caught some zzzz's. Mama bird returned forcing the aspiring ornithologist to flee and get captured.

The "eldritch glow" of the laser gun is what restored the Doctor's memory so he hastily modifies the gun so that it can safely be used on the other Shelgars.

Curiously enough, Ekk has an airship and for reasons unknown, it's parked nearby. He and the Doctor escape and fight off some pterodactyl-like creatures before landing near the TARDIS. But a warrior of Shran was waiting for them. Luckily Jamie had awoken by this time and was outside to see that the Doctor and his new friend were in a jam. One big rock on the warrior's head later, the danger is gone. The Doctor rejoins his companions while Ekk returns to Shran's city where he plans to lead an uprising against the dastardly computer which is a thoroughly apposite moral for our times, if you ask me.

I give this story a lot of credit for starting the action in the middle of things and for portraying cockroaches as good, brave creatures instead of a joke about being the only things to survive an atomic blast. Other than these things, I've gotta say this is just more of the same Annual kind of stuff.  I suppose I should add that it was a welcome relief that there was no bickering amongst the TARDIS crew here.