Kinvig

Des Kinvig leads a particularly dull life: when he isn't spending his time running his somewhat unsuccessful electrical repair shop, or moping about the pokey upstairs flat he shares with his fussing wife, Netta, and their dog Cuddly, he whiles away the hours daydreaming of better things. However, all that is about to change… On one particular day, having spent his time lazing about his shop, discussing U.F.O. sightings and governmental cover-ups with his unemployed - and unemployable - friend, Jim Piper, and generally avoiding doing any actual repair work – much to the irritation of his long-suffering customers – Des encounters a particularly attractive woman named Miss Griffin, who asks him to cut a spare set of keys for her. Needless to say, Des falls asleep before he can finish the job, and when Miss Griffin later returns, she flies into a rage and angrily vows to inflict bodily harm on the lethargic repairman unless he completes her order by the following morning. That night, Des wakes from a mysterious dream in which he hears Miss Griffin calling for help; unable to go back to sleep, Des takes Cuddly for a walk outside – and promptly comes across a giant alien spaceship parked on a piece of waste ground. Entering the vessel, Des meets three strange aliens named Loon, Bat and Sagga, and learns to his astonishment that their commander is none other than Miss Griffin, now wearing a revealing space-age costume and asking for his help in a much friendlier fashion. It seems that Miss Griffin is really from a race of people descended from the ancient Atlanteans, who left Earth thousands of years ago, and who now live inside the hollow interior of the planet Mercury; her mission is to watch over the Earth, but her spaceship has broken down, and only Des can fix it. Des eagerly complies, and his quick repair work earns Miss Griffin's respect, and a passionate kiss too boot. The extraterrestrial lovely then tells Des that he must keep her dual identity a secret, as she may well call on his assistance again in the future…

Des' repair shop was left to him by Netta's late father, and so he is less than pleased to receive a rates demand for the property. Learning of Des' predicament, the overbearing Miss Griffin forgoes complaining about his lack of progress at fixing her broken hair-dryer, and bullies him into standing up for himself by complaining to the local Town Hall. However, when Des arrives at the Bingleton Borough Council offices, his protests are promptly ignored by the pompous Mr Horsley, who threatens to carry out a full assessment on the premises if Des refuses to pay up. Defeated, Des returns to his shop and meets Jim, who attributes his friend's lethargy to ‘culture shock', caused by his recent close encounter with Miss Griffin and her alien crew aboard their spaceship. In desperation, Jim takes a dose of his late father-in-law's collection of old health-tonics – the shock of which inadvertently causes him to astrally transfer himself across space to Miss Griffin's side, arriving on the bridge of her flying saucer. Together they travel to the planet Mercury, where Des is introduced to the wise elder, Buddo, and learns of a grave danger threatening the Earth: it seems that an alien race known as the Xux is infiltrating the planet by replacing humans with their own evil android duplicates. Des immediately realises that he has already met one of these humanoids: none other than the council's Mr Horsley…

Des' sense of self is thrown into confusion when Netta, Cuddly and Miss Griffin all see a man who looks exactly like him out walking the streets with his dog. When Jim also reports a similar sighting of his double, Des realises that the duplicate must be an evil alien bodysnatcher sent to steal his identity and take over his life. Taking another swig of his father-in-law's tonic, Des astrally transfers himself aboard Miss Griffin's spaceship, where the beautiful extraterrestrial warns him to be on his guard; it seems that Des has indeed become the target of an alien duplicate, and the creature will stop at nothing to complete its mission. Under Miss Griffin's instructions, Des uses the power of a potted plant to construct an early-warning device, but after a night lying awake in fear, he decides he has had enough. Steeling himself for a dangerous confrontation, Des sets off with Jim and Cuddly to track down the duplicate and put an end to its evil plan…

Des has a disturbing dream in which he sees two of the insect-like Xux constructing a humanoid duplicate of Mr Horsley from the Town Council. When he tells Jim the next morning, they both realise that instead of a premonition, Des has had an out of body experience through a time warp, which has enabled him to see into the past. Their musings are interrupted by the arrival of Miss Griffin, complaining that the spare key Des cut for her has bent in its lock. Having fixed the key by bashing it with an iron, Des then receives a visit from a shabby rag-and-bone man named Charley, who shows him his latest acquisition: a sack filled with knives, forks and spoons, all inexplicably bent out of shape. Learning that the twisted cutlery came from the canteen of the Bingleton Borough Council, Des and Jim immediately suspect Mr Horsley to be the culprit – could it be that the town official is using alien psychometric energy to bend metal objects as part of a devious plot to demoralise humanity?

After a pleasant dream in which his penny-pinching brother, Howard, is attacked by the insectoid Xux, Des is dismayed to learn that he and Netta are due to visit his obnoxious relative that evening. Having met up with Jim, Des then ponders as to the whereabouts of Miss Griffin, who has failed to visit the repair shop for two weeks, despite the fact that Des has actually ‘fixed' her razor… Meanwhile, unknown to the two friends, the object of their worries is busy working for Mr Horsley at the Town Hall, undertaking secretarial duties while attempting to fend off the clerk's lascivious attentions. That evening, after their tedious dinner engagement, Des, Netta and a roll of second-hand carpet – a gift from Howard – are returning home when their car inexplicably stops in the middle of a wood. Feeling uneasy (and a little unsteady from the beer) Des goes for a walk and comes across Miss Griffin's spaceship parked amongst the trees. Inside he meets Loon, Bat, Sagga – and Buddo, who has come in person to warn that Miss Griffin has been missing for two weeks; it seems that her last log book entry indicates that she may have gone on a dangerous mission to the Town Hall… Having been instructed to take no action until he is contacted again, Des returns to Netta, and finds his car now works once more. The following day, while walking through the woods, Netta is approached by a flasher; although the encounter leaves her and Cuddly quite shaken, Des and Jim suspect the incident may have been due to an alien attempting to make contact. That night, the two friends set off for the woods in an attempt to track down their contact…

Des has a daydream in which he sees countless suited, bowler-hatted humanoid duplicates marching out of the Bingleton Borough Council, as the Town Hall itself is consumed by fire. After having been woken by Netta, Des receives a visit from Miss Griffin, who bullies the repairman into mending her broken bag, and then criticises the shabby clothes he wears. Put out by the woman's mocking comments, Des decides to go out for a walk, and eventually meets up with Jim for a Chinese meal. However, as the two friends discuss Des' premonition, speculating that the Xux may have infiltrated the Town Hall, they suddenly spy Mr Horsley outside, acting somewhat suspiciously; deciding to investigate, Des and Jim follow the clerk through the back streets until they arrive at a disused pickle factory. Unbeknownst to Des and Jim, Horsley's nephew, Simon, is using the old building as a studio, where he is busy reconditioning some old shop dummies by painting them with interesting faces – including that of his uncle – so that he can then sell them on to interested department stores. However, when Des and Jim see the mannequins, they immediately believe that they have stumbled upon a Xux factory that is creating evil duplicates in a plot to take over the world…

When Des has another ‘out-of-body' experience, in which he saves Miss Griffin and her crew from an attack by the Xux, Netta becomes concerned that her husband was calling out the name of one of his customers in his sleep. The next morning, Netta resolves to pay more attention to Des, and begins by taking an interest in his hobby of U.F.O. spotting. Later, an irate Miss Griffin arrives at the shop – it seems that the duplicate key Des made for her has snapped in its lock, and now she wants the inept repairman to visit her flat and fix things. While her husband is away with the attractive Miss Griffin, a worried Netta soon encounters Anthony Jessop, a suave representative from the Education Department, who is conducting surveys in the area. Taken in by the handsome man's charms, Netta decides to ask Jessop round for tea that evening; however, when her husband hears that Jessop was asking strange questions, showed an interest in Des' U.F.O. newspaper, and came from the Town Hall, Des and Jim suspect him to be a Xux humanoid – and that the aliens may also have replaced Netta with a duplicate…