The Pied Piper in reverse

The Tardis lands on a jungle world that Jamie has no desire to investigate. However, the Doctor's other young passenger is game and she tells "the Professor" that she's ready to go out exploring long before Ace was even a blip of a thought. Just then a chimpanzee-like creature wearing a tool belt appears on the scanner. Much to the Scotman's surprise, it also has on its chimpanzee something that looks like a blunderbuss. Jamie is so astonished that he gives another "Sizzling satellites!" which we last had in "Man Friday". Uff da.

Zoe and the Doctor slap on some insect repellent cream, don contra-gravity suits, and head outside. At one point they're flying above the chimp fellow who promptly zaps them with his blunderbuss and deactivates their suits. With no TARDIS translation, the Doctor guesses the native tongue of the creature and says, essentially, that they come in peace. Well, this guy, Valgar, doesn't believe a word of it and accuses our time travelers of being robot spies sent by the Jaibohs. Valgar is going to bring them back to HQ to have them dissected.

In the lab, Valgar puts on a lab coat and thrusts the Doctor and Zoe in front of a machine that bathes them "in an eldritch blue glow." Hmm. Now where have I read that before? Valgar discovers that the Professor and his passenger were telling the truth. They are not robots.

Fortunately, the Doctor was not relieved of his recorder as it is chimp creature repellent and it allows the Doctor and Zoe to escape. Out in the jungle they run into Jamie who has used a string to mark his trail, a trick he learned by reading an old Greek legend in school. What?! Did he go to Highland High? Inverness Public School? Also, he has moved the ship closer to the action with a short hop. What?! The Doctor can't even do that yet Jamie can?!

As they are nearly home free, Valgar appears riding some small, zeppelin-like craft. Some mid-period Schoenberg on the recorder, however, dispatches with the chimp on the blimp and our heroes are able to get back to the safety of the TARDIS.

While I can appreciate the Piped Piper in reverse thing here as well as a lack of bad guys with slanted eyes, this, the penultimate Annual tale for Troughton, is just blah.