Doctor Who: Meglos
(4 episodes, s18e05-e08, 1980)

Time loops have momentum problems.

Time loops have momentum problems.

Time loops have momentum problems.

Annoying, right? So why did the showrunners think it would hold my attention without irritating me?

In the TARDIS, the Time Lords are repairing K9. Romana puts the TARDIS into a hover over the planet Tigella to avoid any sudden movements during the procedure, and the Doctor reminisces about his last experience on the planet. We’ll see this again.

On the planet below, a transformer blows resulting in a severe casualty for a community that lives below ground. They are the Savants, and are in conflict over an item called the Dodecahedron, a sacred item for the Deon sect of their culture, and the religious leader named Lexa refuses to let them touch it, enter the power room where it resides, or venture above ground. Stuck in the middle of the impasse, Zastor, the leader of the community, sends for the Doctor.

Two notes: First, Lexa looks familiar. It’s good to see Jacqueline Hill again, and she is just relishing this role. Second, the Savants share the same hairstylist as Prince Adam of Eternia and the Romulan Sela.

On a desert world, a ship lands to reveal a party of bounty hunters, including a Clark Kent-style human in a business suit. The human is stunned, and this crew brought him to the world for a reward. A mysterious structure rises from the sand, revealing a door which the party enters. Beyond, they meet Meglos, a giant sentient cactus and the only survivor of the planet. Meglos tasks the bounty hunters with stealing the Dodecahedron, which he claims was constructed on the desert planet and is far more powerful than the Tigellans realize. As Meglos and the human are placed in adjacent chambers for some kind of procedure, the bounty hunters scheme to steal all of the valuable technology within, but Meglos traps them in the structure and forces them to execute his plan. The procedure transfers Meglos into the human, notably changing the human’s skin into something more cactus-like. Meglos then traps the Time Lords in a time loop and assumes the Doctor’s identity. They set course for Tigella.

Time loops. Why did it have to be time loops?

Lexa finally relents and allows the Doctor to visit, but only if he swears allegiance to the Deons. Zastor is upset with the decision, but errs on the side of diplomacy when the bounty hunters ship arrives and the Meglos-Doctor inspects the city. Meglos-Doctor takes the oath, and then sells them on the idea that it is too dangerous for anyone but him to inspect the Dodecahedron. Shortly afterward, Meglos-Doctor steals the Dodecahedron.

The Doctor and Romana break the time loop (thank the maker) by repeating the events within the loop, setting up a destructive interference pattern. They then proceed to Tigella and head for the city, but Romana is waylaid by some bell plants and K9 is sent to find her. The Doctor arrives in the city as his arrest order goes out, stumbles into some guards, and is taken prisoner.

K9’s power runs low, so he returns to the city. Of course, without the Dodecahedron to power it, the city shares a similar fate. Meanwhile, Romana follows a trail of scorched vegetation to find the bounty hunter ship only to encounter the crew and an overacted order to kill her. Romana stalls them by promising to lead the crew to her ship, parading them in circles through the jungle, and snaring them in the bell plants.

While in hiding, Meglos struggles to keep the Clark Kent human in check. In Superman III-style – okay, okay, but that bomb of a movie has its moments – it is fighting his control.  After the Doctor convinces the Savants that he is the victim of a doppelgänger, Meglos kidnaps engineer Caris and convinces her to follow him. As the Doctor and Zastor investigate the Dodecahedron’s whereabouts, the Deons stage a revolution and send all of the non-believers to the surface. Lexa keeps the Doctor and prepares him for sacrifice.

On the run from the bounty hunters, Romana finds K9 stranded in the undergrowth. She barely makes it inside the city and is trapped in the airlock, but she’s safe from the bounty hunters for a moment before they break down the door. As Meglos is plagued by the human he absorbed, Caris takes him hostage, but he breaks away and joins the bounty hunters outside the city. Romana joins forces with Caris to search for the Doctor, who is about to be crushed by a giant stone. They find Zastor and Deedrix, and the four rush to the power room just in time to prevent the sacrifice.

Meglos and the bounty hunters return to Zolfa-Thura, the desert planet from earlier. The Doctor wonders why they would go there until Romana reminds him of the screens on the surface. They head for the TARDIS, and a dying bounty hunter takes a shot at Romana. Lexa steps in front of the bolt, giving her life for the Time Lords and ending Jacqueline Hill’s roles with the franchise. In all seriousness, that woman was such a class act.

When Meglos buries the Dodecahedron inside the perimeter, the screens amplify its power into a Death Star-type of superweapon. Since Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration, the bounty hunters choose Tigella as the test for their new tool of terror. The Doctor leaves Romana, K9, Caris, and Deedrix with the TARDIS as he attempts to stand in for Meglos and stall the countdown. The bounty hunters decide to capture Meglos and operate the weapon themselves, and they end up capturing both the cactus and the Time Lord. Trapped in the same cargo hold, the Doctor informs Meglos that he changed the target’s coordinates to Zolfa-Thura. Meanwhile, the rest of the travelers rescue the pair, presenting an opportunity for Meglos to abandon his humanoid form and slither away.

The travelers and the sacrificial human run for the TARDIS, which has a bit of trouble dematerializing but finally does so before Zolfa-Thura is disintegrated. The Time Lords return everyone to their proper places, but the Tigellans will have to live on the surface now since the Dodecahedron was destroyed. As they get ready to take the Clark Kent human home, they get an urgent message: Gallifrey needs their help.

You know, I enjoyed this one. Except for that stupid time loop sequence that consumed most of the first episode. Carve that out and restore the momentum, and this serial could have sung.

Instead, it merely meets the average.

Rating: 3/5 – “Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.”

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Full Circle

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

Doctor Who: The Leisure Hive
(4 episodes, s18e01-e04, 1980)

It’s a new season with new credits and a new theme! A so very ’80s theme.

We open on a windy beach with a long, long, loooong panning shot that reveals a snoozing Doctor and a disgruntled Romana. In her frustration, she throws her beach ball in to the ocean and K9 tries to fetch it. The robot dog’s head explodes removing him from the story for the time being. Dammit, Romana!

At least he had the right voice again.

Another jarring change: The Doctor’s new outfit is a lot of burgundy and purple. I’m not as keen on it as his original costume.

The source of Romana’s frustration is that the Doctor missed the opening of Brighton Pavilion, mostly because he is still using the randomizer to avoid the Black Guardian, and she suggests an alternative: Argolis, home of the Leisure Hive.

The leaders of the Leisure Hive, a group with amazing hair and makeup, are experiencing financial straits and that is causing discord among them. An Earth businessman offers a way out, but it involves a buy-out by Argolin enemies known as the Fomasi. That causes further discord both among family – Chief Executive Morix’s son Pangol despises the idea – and opens the door for the Fomasi to take advantage of the radioactive wastes beyond the Hive’s walls. During the negotiations, Morix dies from old age.

At this point, I was impressed with the production values. They have improved with this serial, from the filming and scene blocking to the music. It feels very 1980s sci-fi, and it’s a style that carried into productions like Red Dwarf and remained prevalent for a long time in TV sci-fi.

The Doctor and Romana arrive in time to watch a demonstration of the Hive’s newest technology, the tachyon recreation generator. A demonstration goes awry, tearing a volunteer limb from limb. As they watch and debate the sciences, a reptilian cuts into the wall and infiltrates the Hive. As the Doctor and Romana investigate the incident, the new chairman, Mena, requests to see them. It is a case of mistaken identity as Mena is expecting an Earth scientist named Hardin. The Time Lords try to run for the TARDIS as security is alerted about their presence, but the Doctor ends up inside the tachyon generator and is apparently torn apart as a reptilian hand activates the machine.

The image is a cliffhanger and an illusion, revealed as the Doctor slips out the back of the device at the start of a new episode. The Time Lords are captured and taken to Mena for questioning as the actual Earth scientist that the chairman was waiting for arrives. Based on their proven expertise, Mena asks the Time Lords to assist in the tachyon experiments, which are an attempt to rejuvenate the Argolin surface by reversing the flow of time. The radiation causes the Argolins to age rapidly, and has also caused their sterility. Their race is dying.

The big fly in the ointment is that the Earth scientists have been faking their results, and they are very hesitant about involving the Time Lords for fear of discovery. Romana injects herself into the experiment, and Hardin’s partner Stimson ventures off to find the Earth businessman. Instead, the man finds the businessman’s corpse before becoming one himself in short order. The Doctor is snooping around when he found by the supposedly dead businessman and is framed for the Stimson’s murder. So, three options: 1) Businessman Brock is a doppelgänger; 2) Businessman Brock’s corpse is a doppelgänger; or 3) I’m watching The Walking Dead three decades early.

Romana and Hardin are able to make the experiment work, but just as they leave to deliver the good news to Mena, the experiment catastrophically fails. Pangol orders one more test, this time on the Doctor. He agrees, but as the experiment begins Romana finds the remnants of their previous attempt. The Doctor exits the booth, and he has aged several hundred years instead of getting younger. The aged Doctor looks a lot like Donald Sutherland in The Hunger Games franchise.

That’s some really bad science by Romana and Hardin since they didn’t check their results fully before declaring success.

The Time Lords are imprisoned by Pangol, driven by the Doctor’s pending charges for murder, and are fitted with collars that limit the places that they can visit. Pangol uncovers the fraud by the human scientists, and Hardin asks for leniency to continue since he and Romana were so close. Mena allows this, but not Romana’s help. The human is on his own.

As they sit in their cell, the Doctor notes to Romana that Pangol is the only young Argolin at the hive. They are soon freed by Hardin using a borrowed security key, and the they piece together that the machine is not for recreation but for re-creation.  Clever word play, and it comes into the calculation as Pangol sways Mena to turn down the Fomasi offer, claiming that he will rebuild Argolis because he is the first of the new children from the generator. It’s a sort of cloning machine.

Romana goes into the machine since she has more years to spare than the Doctor, and while inside, she encounters an alien. Using the security feeds, Pangol notices that the Time Lords are meddling with the device, and plans to age the occupant by two thousand years. Luckily, the alien, a Fomasi, rescues Romana and reveals a device that was stopping the rejuvenation experiments. The Time Lords escort the Fomasi to the boardroom, where the alien reveals Brock’s true face: The businessman is a Fomasi.

Which we already knew for the most part.

The good Fomasi goes further, unmasking all of the Fomasi in the room and explaining their presence. Brock’s team represents the West Lodge, dissidents of the Fomasi government who were trying to buy out Argolis and foment war. The good Fomasi apprehends the dissidents and makes plans to take them home for trial, the ever skeptical Pangol interferes by destroying their ship upon takeoff.

The Time Lords and Hardin return to the lab and discover that the device from the machine is missing. The Doctor retrieves the randomizer from the TARDIS and installs it in the generator. Pangol dons the Helmet of Theron, a holy artifact, and duplicates himself many times over in the machine. Since the Doctor was in the machine as well, the clones turn out to be images of the Doctor. The process restored the Time Lord, and the clones are unstable and short-lived. As they start to vanish, Hardin takes the ailing Mena to the generator to rejuvenate her, but Pangol pushes by. The process turns Mena into a young adult and Pangol into an infant.

I was impressed by David Haig. He really sold Pangol’s insanity.

After the Doctor stops the machine, the good Fomasi returns, having been kicked out of his shuttle before takeoff. The Argolins and Fomasi begin their discussions again, and the Time Lords depart for that overdue holiday.

I was entertained by this serial, despite several padding moments. I was very disappointed in the lack of K9, especially after John Leeson returned. It came down to a high three grade, and I’m keen on rounding up.

Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Meglos

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

Doctor Who: Shada
(6 episodes, s17e21-e26, 1980/1992)

The lost (and reconstructed) episode of the color era.

Before the story begins, Tom Baker takes us on a tour a Doctor Who museum that I would have loved to visit. From this point forward, the episode is split between the filmed portions from 1980 and, where the footage wasn’t shot, narrations by Tom Baker in 1992. Now, given the events of The Day of the Doctor and that the linking narrations are given by Tom Baker as the Doctor, I think it could be reasoned (in fan canon at the very least) that this story is being told by the Curator.

The story begins at a think tank in space. One of the hive’s minds awakens and drains his comrades using the computer that they were all attached to before setting a quarantine message and stealing the hard drive. After he leaves, the rest of the hive wakes up and stumbles around like zombies. Moving to what looks like relative present day, a man named Chris Parsons pedals to Cambridge and arrives at the door of Professor Chronotis, an older gentleman with the TARDIS in his office, and asks for a particular book on carbon dating. He leaves in a hurry with a stack of books as the professor reads The Time Machine.

Not too far away, the Doctor and Romana are punting on a river while (unbeknownst to them) being observed by the man from the think tank. The Time Lords hear a strange babbling of voices as they decide to return to the professor’s office. On the way, they encounter Mr. Wilkin, a man who remembers the Doctor’s previous three visits over the last three decades. The Doctor jokes that he was at Cambridge one other time in a completely different body, and the reaction establishes Wilkin as the comic foil for the duration. The Time Lords arrive in the professor’s office where he discloses to Romana that he is a retired Time Lord and offers them tea. The Doctor tells the professor that they came at his summons, but the professor says that he didn’t send the signal. While the Think Tank Man arrives in Cambridge, demands to know where Chronotis works, and is rebuffed by Wilkin, the professor remembers that he summoned the Time Lords to help find the missing book. The book, now in the possession of Chris Parsons, is written an alien dialect, and when Chris tries to analyze it, the tome smokes and glows, burning the student on contact.

The Think Tank Man, looking ridiculous in his sun hat and flowing silver cape, hitches a ride with a stranger. Thankfully, Tom Baker tells us that the man’s name is Skagra and that he used his sphere to knock out the driver before taking over the car and driving to his cloaked spaceship in a field. Kind of like Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, but without Spock and whales.

The professor explains that the missing book is The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey, dating from the era of Rassilon. The Doctor is beside himself: The book is one of the powerful artifacts, and the professor stole it from the Panopticon Archives upon his retirement. As Time Lords past and present continue to search the professor’s library, Skagra absorbs massive amounts of data about the Doctor, then contacts his superiors on a carrier ship to set plans in motion.

The Doctor and Romana briefly discuss Salyavin, a Gallifreyan criminal, before Chronotis scrounges up Chris Parsons’s identity from his spotty memory. The student has left the book with his girlfriend Claire (who initially looks a lot like Sarah Jane) while he researches the book’s origins. The Doctor sets out to find Chris as Skagra returns to Cambridge. As Romana looks in the TARDIS for some milk for their tea, Skagra arrives in contemporary clothes and asks for the book. When Chronotis refuses to yield the book, Skagra uses the sphere to attack the professor.

The Doctor arrives at the lab and examines the book with Claire, determining that it is 20,000 years old. Meanwhile, Chris returns to the professor’s office as Romana and K9 examine Chronotis. The professor has had part of his mind extracted, resulting in severe mental trauma. Romana sends Chris into the TARDIS for a medical kit while she tends to the professor, placing him on life support with the kit. Sadly, he is in a vegetative state, but he does send a message in Gallifreyan morse code warning them of the spheres, Skagra, and Shada before dying and vanishing. Fortunately for them, the information that Skagra extracted did not show Chris’s identity. Unfortunately, Skagra intercepts the Doctor and the book. The Doctor is pursued through Cambridge by the sphere, losing the book in the chase. Skagra retrieves the book, but the Doctor is captured by the sphere and it starts to drain his mind.

There was some really good situational humor during the chase – The Doctor asks the No Cycling sign to pardon him for cycling in its vicinity – as well as good production as the sphere actually knocks over a pedestrian in the hunt.

Romana arrives in the TARDIS and rescues the Doctor. They return to the professor’s offices just after the man disappears – presumably because he was on his last regeneration – and the Doctor vows vengeance. K9 begins scanning for the sphere as the Time Lords and Chris wait in the TARDIS. Meanwhile, the sphere consumes a fisherman for no particular reason.

Claire heads to the professor’s offices with a printout just as the TARDIS dematerializes in pursuit of the sphere. They arrive in the field where Skagra’s ship is located, and Skagra welcomes the group aboard before taking them prisoner. Skagra reveals that he was only interested in the professor’s mind, not in killing him. He demands that the Doctor decode the book, but when the Doctor refuses the sphere attacks him. In their cell, Romana, K9, and Chris look for a way out. They can find nothing, and even K9 cannot blast out. The robotic dog does detect the voices, including a new addition in the Doctor’s voice. Romana is transmatted from the cell and forced by the once more fantastically dressed Skagra to pilot the TARDIS.

Claire runs from the office, revealing to Wilkin that the book is absorbing energy before returning to the office to wait. While searching the rooms, she inadvertently sets off an explosion that results in a time vortex filling the space.

The Doctor awakens on the ship and reveals to the vessel’s computer that since he was playing dumb, the sphere only copied his mind. He convinces the ship that he is dead to secure freedom for him and his companions, and it replies by shutting off the air supply. Chris and K9 are pacing in their cell when they are transmatted into the corridor, prompting the ship to restore the oxygen supply. Meanwhile, the TARDIS arrives on the Krarg carrier ship. She watches as one of the crystalline beings is born, listening as Skagra tells her that he needs a Time Lord to decipher the book. The Doctor pilots Skagra’s ship into space and it dematerializes like a TARDIS as he boosts the power. Unbeknownst to our heroes, a hidden Krarg forms in the shadows.

Claire awakens inside the offices to discover Professor Chronotis. The office is a TARDIS, Claire has activated it, and the capsule restored him in the accidental temporal convergence. The book is revealed to be the key to Shada, a Time Lord prison.

Back on the carrier, Skagra plows through the Doctor’s memories but is unable to crack the code. As the Doctor’s ship arrives at the Think Tank, he and Chris board the ship, and (on the carrier) Skagra and Romana retreat to the Doctor’s TARDIS. As Skagra turns the pages and continues his study, the TARDIS operates, and he deduces that turning the last page will unlock the code.

The Doctor and Chris discover the aged members of the Think Tank, and the Doctor connects Chris to the machine. This restores the Think Tank members, and the lead scientist, Caldera, explains the group’s history with Skagra. Skagra intends to use his intellect to dominate humanity by merging everything into himself, but needs Salyavin to do so. After the Doctor learns this, he is interrupted by K9, who has been holding back the fully formed Krarg. The crystalline creature attacks the group, but in the process it destroys the central computer column. In the smoke, the Doctor, K9, and Chris escape to the Skagra’s ship and escape just in time. Sadly, the Think Tank members die as their ship explodes.

The professor’s TARDIS is wedged between two irrational time interfaces, and Chronotis and Claire attempt to fix the capsule. The retired Time Lord telepathically focuses on Claire’s mind and transfers his knowledge into her. Meanwhile, Skagra’s ship arrives at the carrier, and in the attempt to rescue Romana, the Doctor and Chris end up inside the professor’s TARDIS. In the ensuing discussion, the seeds are sown to reveal Salyavin’s true identity. As they talk, Skagra pilots the Doctor’s TARDIS to Shada using the book and start searching for Salyavin. The Doctor and Chronotis fix the professor’s TARDIS and follow to Shada.

Skagra starts the revival process in the prison, but cannot find Salyavin. The two Time Lords arrive and Chronotis reveals that he is Salyavin. Skagra attempts to drain Salyavin’s mind, but K9 slows him down by blasting the sphere. The fragments of the sphere latched onto the prisoners and the newly arrived Chris, and the brainwashed horde advanced on the Doctor. K9 attempts to slow them down, but is deflected by a Krarg. The Doctor uses the distraction to escort Romana, Claire, and K9 to the professor’s TARDIS. As the Doctor attempts to find a solution, Romana reminds him that all of the captured minds are in the melting pot, including the Doctor’s.

Skagra dispatches his legion throughout the universe to advance the revolution. The Doctor, Romana, and Claire use the professor’s TARDIS to generate a force field as they pursue Skagra in the Doctor’s TARDIS, capturing the phone box in the time vortex. The Doctor attempts to pass through to his TARDIS, but an accident deactivates the force field and throws the Doctor into the vortex. He ends up in a closet inside his TARDIS and formulates a plan.

The professor’s TARDIS arrives on the carrier ship as the Doctor struggles for control of the joint mind. Romana destroys the Krarg generator, defeating the crystalline creatures. Seeing that he has lost, Skagra retreats his ship, but the computer incarcerates him after deciding to serve the Doctor. The group restore the stolen minds and returns the prisoners to Shada. After calling the Time Lords on Gallifrey, it is discovered that Salyavin covered his escape by erasing the memory of Shada from the collective Time Lord memory, including stealing the key.

The TARDISes return to Earth, where Salyavin will supposedly continue to live in his absent-minded persona of Chronotis. The return of the professor’s offices stumps Wilkin, who has summoned a policeman to report the “stolen room,” as the professor entertains his guests to tea.

Overall, this was a highly enjoyable romp. I appreciated the linking narrations as a reconstruction (of sorts) of this lost episode, but they did lack a bit when it came to the action and battle sequences. I was a bit confused about the Salyavin being allowed to remain in retirement instead of being imprisoned once more. I mean, yes, he did help set things right, but he’s still a convicted criminal who escaped and set this entire course of events into motion. Perhaps it’s a measure to keep him out of the reach of Skagra, who is still trapped on his starship?

Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

UP NEXT – Seventeenth Series Summary

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.