Tag: Sixth Doctor

Timestamp #144: The Mysterious Planet

Michael Falkner7 Comments

Doctor Who: The Mysterious Planet
The Trial of a Time Lord, Parts I-IV
(4 episodes, s23e01-e04, 1986)

 

Changes about with a darker theme tune and intricate model and special effects work. The same old creepy smiling intro remains a constant.

Swimming in effects is the TARDIS, drawn off course into a space station in the middle of nowhere. The Doctor emerges from the time capsule, confused and stumbling into a room where he is put on trial by his fellow Time Lords. The trial is spearheaded by the Valeyard and is overseen by the Inquisitor. The latter remarks that he has been put on trial once before for his meddling. He’s also been stripped of his title of Lord President of Gallifrey.

The Valeyard commences his trial of the Doctor with the tale of his adventure on Ravalox, which is contained in detail inside the Matrix. The assembled Time Lords begin to watch an episode of Doctor Who, and this whole thing goes kind of meta.

The adventure begins as Peri and the Doctor roam the forests of Ravalox, a planet virtually identical to Earth (but not in the same location) that is destined to be destroyed by a solar fireball. They are watched by Glitz and Dibber, a pair who try to shoot the Doctor but miss their respective opportunities. The travelers find a cavern, which apparently contains the L3 robot that the assassins are trying to destroy. As the Doctor and Peri proceed inside, the find a sign for the Marble Arch tube station, and Peri mourns the death of her home planet. Ravalox is Earth.

In the courtroom, the Doctor objects to what he considers a waste of time. He also questions where Peri is during this whole affair, which the Valeyard finds interesting. The Doctor has forgotten where he left her, presumably a side effect of being “taken out of time.”

 

Returning to the episode already in progress…

The Doctor continues into the depths of the station alone and Peri gets captured by the local natives. In the clean and shiny underground complex, the Doctor picks up a bottle of water and is apprehended for theft. Water is life, and those who steal it must die by stoning. He has a discussion with Balazar, the leader of the water guards, and discovers that the man’s job is to read the sacred texts of Marb Station – Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley, and UK Habitats of the Canadian Goose by H.M. Stationery Office – before being placed for the stoning. He tries to deflect the rocks but ends up unconscious anyway.

Meanwhile, Glitz and Dibber make their way to the native village to meet with their leader. They claim that the malfunctioning navigational beacon in their village, which Katryca and her people treat as a totem to a god, is what brought the fireball to Ravalox. The assassins try to overpower their guards and fail. They are soon joined in the village by Peri.

In the courtroom, the Valeyard proposes that the inquiry become a full trial of the Time Lord, with the penalty being his death. Presumably, not just regeneration as it was before, but a full-blown execution. I guess they’re semi-serious about this (despite their previous history of asking and compelling the Doctor to interfere).

 

Returning to the episode already in progress…

Officials arrive and interrupt the stoning, and the robot (“the Immortal”) demands that the Doctor and Balazar are brought before him. The Doctor is cautioned not to look upon the Immortal – “On pain of being turned into a pillar of salt, I imagine.” – before being sent into the robot’s inner sanctum. The robot, known as Drathro, commands the Doctor to work with his two human assistants.

In the village, Peri is introduced to the queen, promised many husbands, and then placed in captivity with the assassins. Glitz and Dibber share their plan to destroy the robot, but Peri balks at mass murder of the underground civilization. The captives are taken before Katryca where Glitz is chosen as a sacrifice to the god as penance for his crimes. The trio stage an escape with Glitz and Peri heading to Marb Station while Dibber destroys the black light converter tower.

The Doctor identifies the problem with the black light system, even though it is outside his area of expertise, but Drathro forbids it since his instructions are to maintain an underground civilization, not one above ground. The Doctor rigs a trap and escapes, and Drathro sends a utility drone to pursue him. During the search, Merdeen (one of the guards) tells Balazar to head for the surface. Balazar objects, but Merdeen assures him that the firestorm has been over for hundreds of years.

Balazar and Merdeen find the Doctor and offer to help him escape, but circumstances bring Peri’s team and the Doctor’s team together at the entrance to Marb Station, trapped between the armed tribesmen and the service drone. Luckily, Balazar recognizes the leader of the tribesman as his friend Broken Tooth and convinces him to shoot the drone. The tribesmen insist that the Doctor and the collected crowd return to the village.

After another courtroom interlude where the Inquisitor expresses her distaste for primitive violence, the episode continues in Marb Station with a confrontation between Merdeen and Grell, a fellow guard who overheard Merdeen’s discussion with Balazar. Drathro breaks the tension by dispatching Merdeen to find Balazar as his assistants reactivate the drone.

Returning to the village, the Doctor, Peri, and the assassins are brought before Katryca. The Doctor offers to repair the totem, but she tosses the lot in a cell. They are inadvertently freed as the drone breaks down their cell and captures the Doctor.

In the courtroom, we learn that the Matrix files are updated with the experiences of all Time Lords no matter where they are. Further, the TARDIS can act as a collection device to add experiences within its range. The Doctor questions whether or not a Type 40 TARDIS can do this without being bugged and the Valeyard deflects. Curiouser and curiouser.

 

Returning to the episode already in progress…

Katryca and the tribesmen pursue the service drone and disable it. They celebrate the death of the Immortal and rush off to storm Drathro’s castle. Peri sees to the Doctor while Glitz sends Dibber for some heavier artillery. The Doctor and Peri head to Marb Station to stop Tribe of the Free before the robot kills them.

Hey, he’s all heroic again! It’s about time.

Returning to the courtroom, the TARDIS evidence tapes end as Glitz and Dibber, armed with a big gun, pursue everyone else into Marb Station. The Valeyard claims that the evidence has been classified in the public interest. The Inquisitor asks if the Doctor officially objects, but he does not. Instead, he lets the Valeyard continue with the imagery collected from the Doctor’s perspective.

 

Returning to the episode already in progress…

The Doctor and Peri are intercepted by Merdeen, and the guard claims to be hunting the Doctor. He fires his crossbow, but instead of killing the Doctor he strikes Grell, who was trying to capture the Doctor for Drathro. Meanwhile, Katryca’s group breaks into Drathro’s domain, but he kills both the queen and Broken Tooth. He sends the rest of the strike group to await culling while his assistants run. It seems that an explosion is coming.

In the courtroom, the Doctor and the Valeyard come to verbal blows over what they’ve seen. The Doctor disputes the relevance of what they’ve seen while the Valeyard claims that had the Doctor never been there, none of it would have happened.

He has a point, you know.

The Inquisitor also takes issue with censoring of the discussions between Glitz and Dibber.

 

Returning to the episode already in progress…

The Doctor returns to Drathro and tries to shut down the black light system, but the robot forbids it. The Doctor tries to reason that the robot is doomed either way, but the people who serve the Immortal can be saved. The discussion is a good back-and-forth on the value of life and finally solidifies the Sixth Doctor in the ideology of the Doctor overall.

Also, Drathro calls the Doctor out on his verbal abuse, which is fantastic.

Glitz and Dibber are in search of information so they can sell it on the black market. They find the castle entrance, presuming that five rounds rapid (The Daemons) could break it down, but Dibber objects. So, they find their way to the food chutes with Peri, Merdeen, and Balazar, but Drathro detects their intrusion and tries to kill them. Dibber blasts his way in, opening a path into Drathro’s domain, and the group join the discussion. Glitz and Dibber humorously try to salvage the situation, resulting in everyone being tied up while the assassins escort Drathro to their ship. The Doctor breaks free and tries to stop the explosion, but he is only able to limit it to the castle. The explosion also destroys Drathro, leaving the assassins a chunk of valuable rock to fund their next escapade.

In the end, the Doctor tells Balazar to take his civilization to the surface and start a new life before leaving with Peri for their next adventure.

With the episode over, the Doctor proclaims that he should be found innocent of the Valeyard’s charges, but the Inquisitor denies him his victory. The Valeyard is only getting started.

 

Not a bad story overall. The separate scene storytelling trope took a little getting used to, but the evidentiary episode was a fun adventure. The Valeyard has a point that fewer lives would have been lost if the Doctor had never interfered, but Glitz and Dibber were already on the planet and would have potentially stolen information that could have killed any number of beings. The Valeyard’s schemes appear transparent to both the Doctor and the viewer, but it’s fun to see someone using the ignorance and procedural nature of the Time Lords against them like he does.

Refreshingly, this was a low body count for this era of the show.

Additionally, the Doctor and Peri were a lot closer this time than they have been in previous adventures. It’s nice to see him being less abusive toward her.

 

 

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

 

 

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Mindwarp

 

 

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.

Timestamp: Twenty-Second Series Summary

Michael Falkner4 Comments

Doctor Who: Twenty-Second Series Summary

 

A stunning and sharp decline.

The Sixth Doctor’s full opening set was the lowest of any run to date in the Timestamps Project. After a promising start with Attack of the Cybermen and average adventures with Vengeance on Varos and The Mark of the Rani, the series nose-dived hard in the back half.

The problems are pretty much the same across the board: The stories were weak and overly convoluted, and the Doctor himself is acerbic, cynical, and downright abusive. The latter of those traits has been more often than not aimed at his companion Peri. Yes, she does bite back, but oftentimes she’s just as taken aback as the viewer at his verbal slaps.

Additionally, the stories have been continuing the John Nathan-Turner trope of high body counts. The difference between this Doctor and the previous incarnation under the same producer is that the Fifth Doctor still retained heroic traits and empathy. This Doctor has brief sparks – Timelash‘s attempted self-sacrifice is a notable example – but it’s never a sustained effort to actually be the Doctor.

It’s almost as if he’s just marking time until his hitch is up.

 

The Twenty-Second Series comes in dead last in comparison against the twenty-one previous sets. This score is over a half-grade lower than the Third Series, the Nineteenth Series, and the Twenty-First Series. All of them are tied for second to last, and the last two are the bookends for the Fifth Doctor.

 

Attack of the Cybermen – 4
Vengeance on Varos – 3
The Mark of the Rani – 3
The Two Doctors –  1
Timelash – 2
Revelation of the Daleks – 2

Series Twenty-Two Average Rating: 2.5/5

 

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Mysterious Planet

 

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.

Timestamp #143: Revelation of the Daleks

Michael Falkner8 Comments

Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks
(2 episodes, s22e12-e13, 1985)

 

A swing and a miss for an abusive Doctor’s last at-bat this inning.

Peri and the Doctor arrive on the snow-covered vista that is Necros. They are both wearing blue – the Doctor has a blue and gold cloak over his typical garishness while Peri is in an overcoat and beret – in honor of the planet’s traditions for mourning. While Peri complains that the garments are too tight, the Doctor engages in a little recreational body-shaming. Honestly, Doctor, Peri is far from overweight.

The Doctor has arrived to honor the memory of Professor Arthur Stengos. As the travelers plan, neither notices a hand emerge from the icy pond where Peri just threw the remnants of her lunch until the resulting large splash startles them. As they walk away, a humanoid emerges from the depths and pursues them. Hey, zombies gotta eat.

In a warmer place, planetary funeral director Jobel and his staff are making arrangements. The director is notified that the presidential spacecraft is on approach, and using gallows humor he gives orders for his staff to look their best. He also rebuffs the advances of his protégé Tasambeker, much to her chagrin. As the staff disperses, two figures bearing firearms pass their stealth checks, sneak through the center, assault guards with both energy and projectile weapons, then break into a locked room.

As the Doctor and Peri muse over the local flora, they are attacked by the humanoid from the pond. The Doctor attempts to hypnotize it, and when that fails Peri strikes the creature dead. Their exploits are captured by a local disk jockey whose broadcast is being watched by a Dalek and the head of Davros. The villains are distracted by the gunfire, and they miss the dying humanoid’s revelation that he is the product of experimentation by the “great healer.” The humanoid also forgives Peri for her actions.

The mysterious duo continues their quest, but their sneaking about is captured on video by the disk jockey. Tasambeker dispatches two of the funeral staff to find them and, interestingly, the two officials are able to walk right by the Dalek guards with a flash of identification. No exterminations, huh? Meanwhile, Davros summons Tasambeker to his chamber before contacting a woman named Kara. The discussion reveals that Kara is a food distributor who works for and funds Davros, the Great Healer. In fact, Davros takes pretty much everything she makes.

The sneaky pair finds evidence of… something… before running from guards that shoot on sight. They escape only to encounter Daleks escorting gurney and corpse down a corridor. They carry on, unknowingly being observed on Davros’s cameras, and find a room full of brains being preserved in giant glass tanks. They also find a glass Dalek containing a humanoid head. Creepy to be sure, but it gets creepier: The head recognizes Natasha, one of the rogues and his daughter, and calls her by name. He reveals that the corpses (really, beings on the edge of death placed in suspended animation) are being transformed into Daleks and he demands to be euthanized to prevent that grisly fate for himself. Reluctantly, Natasha obliges, but they are soon captured by the guards.

Oh, and Natasha’s father is none other than Arthur Stengos. <dramatic music cue>

Outside the facility, Peri and the Doctor are unable to find a door so they climb the wall instead. The Doctor continues his abusive barbs about her weight and she inadvertently destroys his pocket watch. Inside the facility, the disk jockey continues to be annoying.

Kara meets with an assassin named Orcini and his squire Bostock. She fawns, Orcini demurs, and Bostock leers. Finally cutting to the chase, Kara hires Orcini to eliminate Davros and free her supply chain. While they scheme, the Doctor and Peri continue their journey to the facility, a place called Tranquil Repose.

I agree with Peri: Yuck.

Tasambeker arrives before the Great Healer: Davros wants her to be transferred to his private staff, effective immediately. Outside, Peri spots (but does not recognize) a Dalek, followed by the spectacle of the Doctor’s face on a memorial plaque. It seems that the Time Lord is destined to die here… and he nearly does as the plaque falls on top of him.

You know, I don’t normally point out the flaws in set design, but that falling memorial was telegraphed multiple times as it swayed and swiveled on all of its seams for minutes before falling over. Downright distracting, that.

Anyway, as Peri runs to the Doctor’s aid, she is intercepted by Jobel. The Doctor emerges from the rubble unharmed – his cloak is stained with blood, but the whole event was theatrics staged by someone else – and the pair continues inside to unravel the mystery of attempted assassination. They receive a sales pitch from Tasambeker, complete with a commercial by the infernal disk jockey, and learn that only the Great Healer can erect monuments to the dead.

On the surface, Orcini and Bostock continue their mission with pomp and circumstance. They encounter a Dalek and destroy it with bastic bullets, an act that raises the alarm in Davros’s chambers. Davros calls Kara (who is deeply invested in President Vargos’s approach) to investigate her involvement, and she deflects as best she can.

Peri asks to meet the disk jockey. The Doctor agrees, though troubled that Jobel is accompanying her while he investigates the Great Healer. He’s even more troubled a few moments later as he is taken prisoner by the Daleks. Peri ditches Jobel and meets the DJ, obsessed by his patter which reminds her of home. Sadly for her, he’s only imitating what he knows from historical records of the United States.

The Doctor wakes up in the same cell as the two rogues, and they fill him in on the goings-on. As they chat, Daleks apprehend Kara and take her to Davros, Jobel schemes to take down the Great Healer, and Davros manipulates Tasambeker into killing Jobel in exchange for immortality as a Dalek. Orcini and Bostock make their way to Davros’s sanctum, stopping along the way to release the rogues and the Doctor.

Tasambeker tries to reason with Jobel in order to save his life but ends up killing him in a fit of rage. Daleks kill her shortly afterward. Meanwhile, Peri contacts the Doctor and he asks her to warn the president away. Davros dispatches Daleks to capture Peri and orders a new glass Dalek incubator to be prepared, forcing his guard to leave as Orcini makes his attempt on Davros’s life. Orcini destroys the head, but it was a ruse; the real Davros emerges (apparently unscathed by the Movellan virus), kills Bostock, and incapacitates Orcini. Elsewhere, the rogues are killed in the incubation chamber by a self-destructing Dalek (after it inexplicably levitates) and a wasteful plot.

In the DJ’s studio, Peri warns the president as the disk jockey sets up a “rock and roll” cannon to defend against the incoming Daleks. It works until the DJ gets cocky and is exterminated. Peri is captured, as is the Doctor after hearing the entire battle on the compound’s intercom.

In his chamber, Davros entertains Kara with the “transmitter” that she gave to Orcini, revealing it to be a bomb. Orcini kills Kara as the Doctor is brought before Davros, and the leader of the Imperial Daleks gives the Doctor his best “evil plan” lowdown speech as the assassin schemes with Kara’s bomb. Davros plans to take over the galaxy with his new Dalek army while winning over the populace by eliminating famine. Of course, he’s taking the Soylent Green approach by turning people into food for the masses. After Peri arrives, a not-quite-dead-yet Bostock manages to shoot Davros’s hand off, and he pays for it by being exterminated for real this time. The Daleks squash the escape attempt and an irate Davros swears that the Doctor and Peri will become Daleks in exchange.

Despite Jobel’s death, his loyal staff have called in reinforcements: Daleks loyal to the Supreme Dalek arrive from Skaro and the civil war hostilities come raging onto Necros. The Renegade Daleks storm Davros’s chambers and apprehend their creator. Davros offers the Doctor in exchange, but the Renegade Daleks don’t recognize the Time Lord in this regeneration and they take Davros away.

In a nice touch of this incarnation’s caustic wit, the Doctor offers to shake Davros’s stump in farewell.

Using the gun with bastic bullets, the Doctor shoots the eyepiece off their Dalek guard before destroying it with a grenade.

(I’ve heard arguments that the Doctor doesn’t use guns, which is obviously false. I’ve also heard the argument that the Doctor only uses guns as tools, which is obviously false in this story.)

He then convinces Jobel’s staff to leave Tranquil Repose and start farming the purple flowers on the surface for food. In exchange for the Doctor’s promise to tell his order of his sacrifice, Orcini decides to remain with Kara’s bomb so he can destroy the Dalek incubation chambers. Everyone, including the Renegade Daleks, escapes just in time as the bomb reduces Tranquil Repose to shambles.

With the crisis solved, Peri asks for a real holiday somewhere fun. The Doctor agrees, deciding to take her to—

 

You know, I’m not even angry that the ending is freeze-framed as an artificial cliffhanger. In fact, I’m glad that the story is over.

The DJ is an annoying extravagance that could have been cut with no real consequence to the story. His exit was an addendum on a high body count plot that sidelined the protagonists for a long time as the plot eventually unfolded itself.

The whole thing was dragged down even further by the Doctor being abusive toward his companion. First, because body shaming her is unacceptable, period. Second, it has no narrative basis during the Sixth Doctor’s run except as an escalation of his petulant and boorish behavior.

I am beyond weary of this Time Lord equivalent of an internet troll.

The only benefit I could find to this tale was exploring the Dalek Civil War – in order to stop the Daleks, Jobel’s staff calls in more of them… that was an intriguing solution – but even that was tacked on as a means to stop the threat when the Doctor couldn’t.

 


Rating: 2/5 – “Mm? What’s that, my boy?”

 

UP NEXT – Twenty-Second 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.

Timestamp #142: Timelash

Michael Falkner6 Comments

Doctor Who: Timelash
(2 episodes, s22e10-e11, 1985)

 

A less than stellar kiss with history.

The Doctor and Peri are on their way to the constellation of Andromeda (or possibly the Eye of Orion) for a holiday, of which the Sixth Doctor seems to take many. Their transit – and the Doctor’s grumpiness – is interrupted by a Kontron tunnel, a time corridor that tears them off course and sends them toward Earth in 1179 AD.

There’s an interesting callback here. Peri mentions the Daleks using a time corridor, but that adventure preceded both her and the Sixth Doctor. Was the reference for the benefit of the viewer?

On a desolate moon, three rebels attempt to escape from a rigid hierarchy and punishment in the timelash (*ding*). They don’t get far before being captured and punished by the Borad (the societal leader), the Maylin (Renis, a mayor of sorts), and the Councilors of Karfel. Two of them, Gazak and Tyheer, are sentenced to the timelash, which is effectively banishment by time corridor. The prisoners plead for clemency due to the threat of war, but leniency does not come.

Skeptical councilor Mykros is told by the Maylin to cure his outspoken future wife Vena – fellow councilor and the Maylin’s daughter – of her stubbornness. Ah, sexism. Mykros follows the Maylin to the Borad’s power chamber (a rare place without surveillance) where he sees the mayor reluctantly transferring power from the Karfelon supplies to the Borad using two amulet-like keys. This will leave the timelash online but will harm the rest of the society, including the Maylin’s wife who is currently in the hospital.

Unbeknownst to the two men, the Borad was monitoring their discussion. Maylin Renis is brought before the Borad while Mykros is sent back to the inner sanctum. Renis is subsequently killed by accelerated aging, and Councilor Tekker is installed as the new Maylin. Vena is skeptical of her father’s death, and her skepticism only grows as Mykros is sentenced to the timelash. She tries to stop the sentencing but instead falls into the timelash (with the Maylin’s amulet in hand) and flies through the TARDIS is a ghostly fashion as the time capsule stabilizes and lands in the council chambers.

The Karfelons apparently have met the Doctor before, about a regeneration or three back, but the Time Lord is concerned: The Karfelons shouldn’t have access to a time corridor at their technological progression. The travelers are greeted, although the android guards steal Peri’s St. Christopher’s necklace. The reception is interrupted by an ultimatum from the Bandrils that results in a declaration of war. Peri receives a covert message – “Sezon at the Falchian Rocks” – before the Maylin returns and offers her a short tour of the citadel while he confers in private with the Doctor.

The Doctor is not interested in retrieving the Karfelon amulet until the Maylin reveals the true purpose of Peri’s tour: She has been taken as a hostage and the ransom is the Doctor’s cooperation. Peri outwits her captors and escapes into the caves of the Morlox – not to be confused with the antagonists of The Time Machine – which are lizard creatures that look similar in snout to the dinosaurs that invaded London during the Third Doctor’s tenure. She is rescued from the Morlox by Karfelon rebels Katz and Sezon, but the whole group is soon captured by the Borad’s guards after they find Peri’s note. Before they are apprehended, Katz shows Peri a locket that she received from her grandfather. Inside is a picture of Jo Grant.

I guess Peri has been reading about the Doctor’s prior adventures. Fascinating.

The Doctor reluctantly agrees to find Vena, who would have followed the time corridor to Earth 1179 AD. Instead, due to interference from the TARDIS, she has landed in Scotland 1885 and is rescued by a man named Herbert, a writer and aspiring teacher. When the Doctor arrives, Vena explains things, and the trio board the TARDIS for Karfel… although Herbert is more of a stowaway than a ticketed passenger.

Tekker coerces the Doctor to return the amulet and then reneges on the deal, refusing to reveal Peri’s whereabouts. Instead, he sentences the rebels and the Doctor’s group to the timelash. The Doctor uses a mirror to confuse the android guard and the rebels fight back, eventually taking the sanctum as their own. The Doctor rappels into the timelash and, with Herbert’s help, removes two Kontron crystals. He uses the crystals to construct a time-break, which allows the rebels to repel an attack on the sanctum. The Doctor and Herbert leave to deal with Borad.

In the battle, a wall is broken to reveal a painting of the Third Doctor. Meanwhile, Peri is chained up in the Morlox cave as a tasty treat.

Tekker retreats with Councilor Kendron to the Borad’s side, and the leader’s public face is revealed to be an android. The real Borad is a human-Morlox hybrid, and the creature kills Kendron after Tekker betrays his trust. The Doctor faces the Borad while Herbert watches from above, and the Time Lord figures out that the Borad is Megelen, a crazed scientist the Time Lord exposed on his last visit for unethical experimentation. Borad intends to use the chemical that transformed him, Mustakozene-80, to transform Peri and populate the planet. He also wants to use the Bandril assault to cleanse the planet of everything but the Morlox, paving the way for his new society.

The Doctor activates his time-break, setting up a ten-second delay between his image and true self and allowing him to set a trap. The Borad’s aging beam is reflected in the Kronton crystal and kills the hybrid. The Doctor and Herbert free Peri and then set their sights on stopping the war. The Doctor uses his title as President of the High Council of Gallifrey to convince the Bandrils, but they are unable to destroy the missile. The Doctor returns to the TARDIS and maneuvers the time capsule directly into the projectile’s path, risking himself for the Karfelons.

That effort takes forever as the Doctor prevents Peri and Herbert from helping (as well as deflecting the latter’s sexism and prattling).

The nearly indestructible nature of the TARDIS acts as a shield, destroying the missile in orbit and opening the way for new peace talks. When the Doctor returns, he finds a clone of the Borad has taken Peri hostage. After some verbal sparring, the Doctor breaks the mural of his third incarnation to reveal a mirror. The reflection drives the Borad back toward the timelash and the Doctor shoves him through. The Time Lord destroys the timelash and then prepares to take Herbert (better known as Herbert George Wells) home.

Oh, and the Borad? He’ll have somewhere to swim since the time corridor supposedly dumps into Loch Ness. He’ll have company with the Skarasen in a hundred years or so.

 

On the upside, I enjoyed the references to the works of H. G. Wells – The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, and The Island of Doctor Moreau were most prevalent – and the inference that the Doctor influenced those works. I was amused that the Third Doctor had a few adventures with Jo Grant outside of their three televised seasons together, but I would have liked the idea more if it showcased Liz Shaw instead of Jo. Sure, the Doctor didn’t get his keys back until Jo was on the scene, but I’m still upset at how the production team shortchanged Liz.

On the downside, other than the historical bits, this story wasn’t very engaging. The story was decent enough, but it felt thin and hastily constructed. We got a heroic Doctor, but the body count is still pretty high and the character is still pretty surly and petulant.

Regarding that body count, I’m curious about the other victims of the timelash, including the android that fell in during one of the battles. Are they roaming Earth somewhere, or is the timeline cleaned up somewhere along the line?

Despite the Doctor’s quotation of numerous rules and regulations this adventure, it’s probably not that important to him.

 


Rating: 2/5 – “Mm? What’s that, my boy?”

 

 

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks

 

 

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.

Timestamp #141: The Two Doctors

Michael Falkner14 Comments

Doctor Who: The Two Doctors
(3 episodes, s22e07-e09, 1985)

 

The triumph of The Five Doctors brought Icarus too close to the sun.

Starting in black and white the Second Doctor and Jamie McCrimmon in their TARDIS – although, that’s not the right console – the adventure phases into color as the mission is revealed: The Time Lords have sent them Space Station Camera in the Third Zone. The Time Lords have also installed a recall device on the console. Victoria is off on her own studying graphology – placing this voyage of the TARDIS in the narrow window between The Evil of the Daleks and Fury from the Deep – and excusing the uncharacteristic interference in affairs by the Time Lords is an exercise left to the viewer.

When they materialize, it is in the kitchen of Shockeye, a knife-wielding cook who wants to buy Jamie as the main ingredient in his ideal meal. The Second Doctor talks his way out of the situation by flaunting his authority as a Time Lord, but after they leave, the TARDIS leaves, subject to recall by the Doctor, to prevent the station scientists from studying it. In the kitchen, Shockeye and a woman Chessene scheme.

The Second Doctor and Jamie meet with Dastari, the Head of Projects, and explain that the time travel experiments of researchers Kartz and Reimer threaten disaster for the universe and should be stopped. While they talk, Dastari reveals that Chessene is a special experiment in augmentation called an Androgum, which the Doctor considers dangerous.

His fears seem justified when (unbeknownst to him) she kills a technician who discovers three Sontaran battlecruisers bearing down on the station. Instead of raising defenses, she opens the docking bays. During the discussion with Dastari, the man succumbs to a sleeping drug while the Sontarans invade the station.

Moving to another place and time, the Sixth Doctor and Peri are vacationing near a lake. Peri is bored, but the Sixth Doctor is intent on catching gumblejacks, the finest fish in the universe. After the fishing expedition is a flop, the pair returns to the TARDIS with plans to try a different body of water, but before they can leave, the Sixth Doctor collapses in pain. In a parallel, the Second Doctor is being tortured by the Sontarans. After the Sixth Doctor recovers, he remembers images of jelly babies and recorders, and he concludes that he is a temporal anomaly. He decides to consult with Dastari.

The TARDIS materializes in the kitchen again, but this time the atmosphere is dank and dark, saturated with the scent of death. The Sixth Doctor and Peri explore the station and are confronted by station computer. It tries to kill them, but the Sixth Doctor saves himself and Peri from decompression by dragging her to Dastari’s abandoned office. He reviews Dastari’s journal but refuses to believe that the Time Lords were responsible for the sacking of the station. Peri suggests that a third party is responsible, potentially to destroy relations between the Third Zone and Gallifrey. The pair leaves the office via service ducts and tries to deactivate the computer before it kills them.

Moving to Earth, time unknown, Chessene, Shockeye, and a Sontaran seize a Spanish hacienda after killing the elderly owner. Chessene absorbs the contents of the woman’s mind, discovering that they are situated just outside of Seville, Spain. Their Sontaran escort, Major Varl, announces the arrival of Group Marshal Stike of the Ninth Sontaran Battle Group. They are observed by two humans, Oscar and Anita, who are hunting moths and think that Dastari and the Sontarans are helping victims of a plane crash.

After what seems like an eternity of walking in circles, the Doctor attempts to disconnect the main circuit. Peri is attacked by a humanoid creature in rags, and the Doctor trips a gas trap and is ensnared. When the travelers recover, they discover that the attacker is Jamie. Together, they uncover that the Sontarans are responsible for the attack, and the Sixth Doctor and Peri investigate while Jamie sleeps. The Sixth Doctor discovers that he could indeed be dead if he arrived in the focus point of a temporal experiment, and his status as an anomaly signifies the collapse of the universe.

Peri returns with a recovered Jamie as the Doctor views videos of torture. He concludes that they were red herrings, illusions to dissuade people from investigating further. He also concludes that the Sontarans kidnapped Dastari, the only scientist in the galaxy who can duplicate the symbiotic nuclei of a Time Lord and the subsequent ability to travel through time. Such technology would make the Sontarans unstoppable. The Doctor enters a telepathic trance to find his past self, and he does in Seville.

Nice jokes, Doctor. I laughed.

The antagonists set up their equipment in the hacienda’s cellar while Shockeye snacks on a rat. The Sixth Doctor, Peri, and Jamie make their way to Seville while the Second Doctor discusses matters with his captors. It’s worth noting that the Second Doctor recognizes Sontarans despite never meeting them in his run.

It’s also worth noting that Dastari is fully on board with this plot. So, what was the point in drugging him earlier?

If only that was the sole problem with this story.

The Sixth Doctor, having shed his overcoat due to the heat, talks with Oscar and Anita about what they saw. The humans mistake the travelers for plain-clothes police officers, and the entire group makes their way toward the hacienda. In the cellar, the Second Doctor and Stike have a little rhetorical back and forth while Shockeye studies cookbooks and the Sixth Doctor scouts the area.

While Jamie and the Sixth Doctor enter the cellar, Peri poses as a lost American tourist. Chessene is suspicious, having read Peri’s thoughts, and wheels the Second Doctor through the entry hall as a test. Since Peri has never seen the Second Doctor, she doesn’t react. Peri takes her leave of the hacienda, but Shockeye and his stomach pursue. He later captures her and takes her to the kitchen.

The Sixth Doctor and Jamie investigate the Kartz-Reimer module, a device that will use the symbiotic nuclei – the Rassilon Imprimatur – to make time travel accessible to all. The Sontarans overhear the exchange and capture the pair. Stike threatens to kill Jamie unless the Sixth Doctor primes the machine, so the Time Lord does so. Stike tries to kill Jamie anyway, but Jamie stabs him with his sgian-dubh and escapes. The Sixth Doctor and Jamie find the Second Doctor, but as they attempt to escape, Shockeye returns with Peri. The Sixth Doctor and Jamie hide while the Second Doctor feigns unconsciousness.

Chessene and Dastari find the Second Doctor and decide to transform him into an Androgum. Chessene enlists Shockeye to move the Time Lord to the operating theater, but betrays him to harvest the brute’s genetic material. Meanwhile, the Sontarans scheme to betray their allies with their newly primed time device, but they don’t realize that the Sixth Doctor reveals that he has sabotaged the craft.

Shockeye awakens and releases the Second Doctor, now halfway transformed, so they can go on a dining spree. Dastari and Chessene double-cross the Sontarans, attacking them with acid and killing Varl before chasing after their wayward diners. The Sixth Doctor, Peri, and Jamie pursue them separately. While they’re gone, a critically wounded Stike heads back to his ship (time circuits in hand) intent on bringing back reinforcements. He forgets that he previously set the self-destruct and is killed in the resulting explosion.

Once in Seville, the Second Doctor and Shockeye end up at Oscar’s restaurant. They order massive amounts of food, but Shockeye pays with Oscar’s life. Shockeye runs as the Sixth Doctor arrives. The Second Doctor reverts to his former self after rejecting the Androgum transfusion, and the whole lot are returned to the hacienda at gunpoint by Chessene and Dastari.

What was the point of this narrative side trip? What a waste.

Once they arrive, the Doctor reveals the truth about the time device and returns the part he stole. Peri unwillingly but successfully takes a trip in the machine to test it. Chessene gives Shockeye permission to eat Jamie, but orders Dastari to detain the rest in the cellar. Once Dastari leaves, the Second Doctor confirms that the Sixth Doctor sabotaged the part so the machine would only work once. The two Time Lords escape from the cellar, and the Sixth rushes to the kitchen to rescue Jamie. He encounters Shockeye and the brute wounds the Time Lord. The two lead a merry chase into the woods as Chessene gives in to her base instincts and licks the Doctor’s blood from the ground.

There are so many issues here. “Once a [category], always a [category]” is an overused and false trope. It’s a horrible message to send, particularly in a franchise built around the premise that anyone can evolve and change.

The Sixth Doctor stumbles across Oscar’s moth-catching apparatus and ends up killing Shockeye with arsenic. A fitting revenge, I suppose, but is the Sixth Doctor really so bloodthirsty? Given the body count in this story and so many others in this era of the show, it seems so.

Back in the hacienda, Dastari tries to rescue the Second Doctor and Peri. In the end, Chessene kills Dastari, Jamie saves his Doctor and Peri, Chessene tries to escape in the time device but dies when it explodes. The Second Doctor recalls his TARDIS and the survivors of this story say their respective farewells.

 

Nostalgia aside, the Second Doctor is completely wasted in this story. The Shockeye storyline is also superfluous, and the culinary stabs at carnivorous diets were heavy-handed and awkward. I get that writer Robert Holmes wanted to promote his vegetarian lifestyle, but his efforts were painful at best. Which is where we find this story on the whole. Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines are huge highlights, but Troughton’s talents are squandered by keeping his Doctor restrained throughout the adventure. When the Doctors do get to interact, the chemistry between the two cranky characters is amazing but (sadly) brief.

Honestly, it could have been better off without involving the Second Doctor at all. The key DNA could have come from a previously unknown Time Lord who was trying to stop the experiments. If a recognizable character is required, bring back the Monk (it’s been long enough that he might be less annoying). If it needs to be more personal, try K’anpo Rimpoche – without whom the Doctor wouldn’t have made it past his third incarnation, or even had some of his foundational guidance – or Romana or Susan.

Even better, since the Time Lords of Troughton’s era were very strict about interference in time – they exiled the Doctor for less – this could have been a follow-up to The Mark of the Rani with the Sixth Doctor being driven to save the Master and the Rani in order to save the universe.

The story itself was lackluster and boring before the bloody side-trip to the restaurant. After that bout of filler – I’m guessing that they needed to justify the trip to Spain? – this one fell hard and fast, leading me to a conclusion that hasn’t been made on the Timestamps Project since The Power of Kroll.

 

Rating: 1/5 – “EXTERMINATE!”

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Timelash

 

 

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.

Timestamp #140: The Mark of the Rani

Michael Falkner5 Comments

Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani
(2 episodes, s22e05-e06, 1985)

 

A peaceful, hard-working existence at a mining village meets a trio of Time Lords.

This story has a fast launch out of the gate. A group of miners head for the relaxation of the local bathhouse, but they are gassed out by an unknown force. On the TARDIS, the Doctor is frustrated as the TARDIS is pulled off course by a mysterious time distortion. Peri, in an odd costume, is displeased at the rural setting.

The gassed miners have an odd mark on their necks, and the chemicals have transformed them into vandals more intent on fighting than working. In fact, they act more like Luddites than anything else, destroying machinery and attacking those who use it. The Doctor and Peri disrupt one of these attacks and find a red mark on one of the vandals, but the attacker runs off.

As the Doctor and Peri make their way into town – intent on meeting George Stephenson, an architect of the Industrial Revolution – the Doctor’s time distortion tracker keys in on the bathhouse. They also fail to notice the shadowy figure skulking in their wake. We soon discover that dark figure is none other than the Master and that the woman who runs the bathhouse is in on the scheme in some way. The Master commands the vandals – who don’t bat an eye at the Master’s advanced technology – to attack the Doctor. Our heroic Time Lord nearly falls into the open mineshaft before being saved by Lord Ravensworth, the landowner. They discuss the mystery of the mining village.

The Master, using a device that works on wood (unlike the typical sonic screwdriver), forces his way into the bathhouse and uncovers the identity of the old woman: She is the Rani, an exiled Time Lord, and a chemist who is distilling sleep-inducing neurochemicals from the miners. The distillation process causes the red marks, and the sleep-inducing chemicals are needed for Miasimia Gora, a planet that the Rani rules. The two Time Lords work together despite their deep distrust of one another and repeated attempts to sabotage one another in their quest to kill the Doctor.

The Doctor follows the clues to the bathhouse, going undercover as a miner to investigate. He succumbs to the gas, but upon awakening, he challenges the Rani’s ethics. She’s been coming to Earth for the neurochemicals for centuries, and their discussion reveals the presence of the Master to the Doctor. The Rani leaves to find the Master, leaving an opening for Peri to sneak in. Unfortunately, her attempt to save the Doctor is interrupted by the other two Time Lords. After some rhetorical back, forth, and trickery, the Master is given leave to deal with the Doctor. He has the Luddites drop the TARDIS down the mining shaft, and after a twist of fate, they find the Doctor and send him in after it.

Luckily, the Doctor is saved just in time by George Stephenson. The inventor spirits the Doctor and Peri to Lord Ravensworth’s home and sends Luke to find the lord with a message. Unfortunately, he is intercepted and enthralled by the Master, forced to kill anyone who might disrupt the upcoming meeting of inventors at Lord Ravensworth’s manor. The Master wants to use the meeting to accelerate the Earth’s technological development so he can harness that power for his own evil means, and he strikes a deal with the Rani so that she can return to Earth at any time if she helps his plans move forward.

The Doctor and Peri return to the bathhouse and investigate the Rani’s TARDIS. After dodging booby traps, they enter the console room, but the Doctor kicks Peri out as the TARDIS dematerializes remotely and moves to the mines where the Rani and the Master are scheming. The pair enter, retrieve some tools and leave, which frees the Doctor to sabotage the control column.

I do like elements of the Rani’s TARDIS console room, but it needs a bit more color and depth. It’s certainly better than redressing the Doctor’s console room once again. The renovated roundels are a nice touch.

The Doctor meets up with Peri at the mine shaft where she takes him back to Lord Ravensworth’s manor. Stephenson is gearing up to rescue one of the incoming inventors, but the Doctor realizes that the message was carried by Luke and that the assistant is acting funny. The Doctor goes in his stead to Redfern Dell, where the Rani and the Master have set landmines (those tools they retrieved earlier) to ambush Stephenson.

As the Doctor ventures out, Peri uses her botanical knowledge to develop a sleeping-draught for the affected miners. Her quest takes her to Redfern Dell with Luke to find the herbs. As everyone converges, the Doctor ambushes the other two Time Lords and holds them at bay with the Master’s Tissue Compression Eliminator. He watches as Luke inadvertently steps on a landmine and is transformed into a tree – a development that comes out of nowhere – then angrily marches his hostages through the dell. The Luke-tree saves Peri from sharing his fate, alerting the Doctor to his companion’s danger. He forces the Rani to save her but leaves Peri to take them to the mines as he tries to save the Luddite horde from the landmines. His captors don’t listen and succumb to their new fates.

The Rani and the Master escape due to the former’s trickery, but their triumph is short-lived as they board the Rani’s TARDIS. The Doctor’s sabotage causes the time capsule to tumble out of control, and the time spillage reaches a jar holding a Tyrannosaurus Rex embryo. The dinosaur begins to grow…

The Doctor and Peri return to Lord Ravensworth, exchanging the vial of neurochemicals (which they pickpocketed from the Master) for the TARDIS (which Ravensworth retrieved from the mines). The travelers board the TARDIS and dematerialize, shocking the inventor and his financier.

 

Really all I can say is that this was an average story. It was good to see another Time Lord in a large role, nice to see the Master again, and fun to touch on history once again with the first historical figure directly on screen since The Gunfighters. The Rani seems like she could be a good lead-in to the concept of Missy, which debuts nearly thirty years after this point.

It’s especially fun to see the mystery and menace of the Master. We’ve never needed to know how he survives each time, it’s just enough to know that he does and seems unstoppable.

 

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

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Two Doctors

 

 

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.

Timestamp #139: Vengeance on Varos

Michael Falkner5 Comments

Doctor Who: Vengeance on Varos
(2 episodes, s22e03-e04, 1985)

 

It’s a hit-and-miss meta-adventure.

On a rocky red planet dominated by domes, a chained man is being tortured on television. Arak and Etta, our court jesters representing the common man in this play, complain about their mandatory entertainment choices, compulsory voting, and less-than-pleasing TV dinners. The whole thing is very 1984 meets The Running Man (or, if you’d rather for the sake of temporal argument, the novel version). Simultaneously, The Doctor is repairing the console on the TARDIS. Peri questions his skills, remarking on all of the traumatic events since they left Telos. The Doctor even burned dinner! Shortly thereafter, the TARDIS stalls in deep space and strands the travelers.

I enjoyed the parallel between both opening couples.

The dome planet is called Varos, and its governor is negotiating with a fish-slug creature named Sil over the price of the planet’s exclusive Zeiton-7 ore. The discussion ends in a stalemate, which upsets the Varos delegation because they have to announce the unfortunate news on schedule, and that will likely affect an upcoming vote. To complicate matters, the Chief Officer is collaborating with Sil behind the governor’s back. When the governor makes his televised announcement, he is met with a resounding “no” vote – his third consecutive failure – and is subjected to a Human Cell Disintegration Bombardment, which slowly kills the recipient with each dose. The Chief Officer gives the governor a moment to recover while a guard recommends a public execution of Jondar, the prisoner in the dungeon, to boost ratings.

On this week’s episode of Survivor…

Peri brings the TARDIS operator’s manual to the Doctor, and they soon discover that the TARDIS has sufficient power but – as we discover through a barrage of technobabble – cannot transmit it since the transitional systems are misaligned. To solve it they need Zeiton-7 (of course), so set sail for Varos. They arrive just before the execution of Jondar, and the TARDIS is mistaken for a hallucination side-effect from the execution method. The Doctor and Peri end up rescuing Jondar – inadvertently executing a guard in the process – and escaping into the depths of the dungeons. They are rescued by Areta (Jondar’s wife) and Rondel (Jondar’s friend, a government official who is evicted from the Big Brother house… er, I mean, killed by the pursuing guards), and navigate back to the TARDIS with their peril-filled journey being broadcast to the masses.

Of course, the TARDIS has been taken by Sil and the governor. Luckily, attempts to open it have failed (which means that the Doctor has finally remembered how the lock works). Meanwhile, the Doctor is separated from the group: The remaining three are arrested, but the Doctor escapes into a desert scene where he nearly succumbs to the virtual heat. He is taken to a separate room to recuperate before being slated for execution by acid bath. The Doctor wakes up and startles the guards, both of whom end up taking a dip in the fatal pool with some oddly comedic music and a James Bond-style quip.

The Doctor’s escape gets stymied by Quillam, the planet’s chief scientist. Meanwhile, the governor decides to execute the Doctor and Jondar in a “good old-fashioned way.” They will be hanged while Areta and Peri are subjected to a cell mutator, but as the noose is slipped over his neck, the Doctor connects the dots and confronts Sil over his extortion of Varos. Sil orders his bodyguards to silence the Doctor by pulling the lever, but the Doctor and Jondar simply fall through the trap doors unharmed. The governor was using the staged event to learn the truth about the Doctor’s presence on the planet, which the Doctor suspected when the cameras were turned off.

In the cell mutator, the women are already being transformed. Sil pushes the Chief to continue the mutations in order to defeat the Doctor, but the Doctor confronts Quillam and stops the experiment in the nick of time by shooting the control panel. The men rescue the women the quartet escapes into the depths of the Punishment Dome after stealing a golf cart. Unfortunately, Peri is captured once again after wandering off.

The golf cart theft scene was unintentionally comedic, but the discussion between the governor and Peri was quite pleasant. Peri is really starting to grow on me. I enjoy her plucky, kind, and curious attitude toward everything.

The Chief and Sil set up one last vote in hopes that the governor will be killed and their alliance can secure control over the ore. The vote is resoundingly no, but Maldak (the guard overseeing the proceedings) saves the governor by destroying the field emitters. The governor, Maldak, and Peri escape into the Punishment Dome and pursue the Doctor, Jondar, and Areta, eventually joining up with them. The Chief and Quillam also pursue the running prisoners, but the Doctor traps them in an ambush with their own arrogance.

Our heroes end up back in the Varos control center to confront Sil, but his own mining corporation betrays his invasion plans when they find a second source of Zeiton-7, removing the corner from the market. The Doctor and Peri depart, Zeiton-7 in hand, and the governor proclaims that the era of injustice, torture, and executions is over.

In the end, the story’s court jesters Arak and Etta are left in confused disbelief over their new-found freedom from the television.

 

The stranded TARDIS part of the story was pretty bad. I liked Peri trying to solve the problem, but I didn’t like the Doctor moping instead of looking for a way out. The commentary on socially-driven entertainment to placate the masses was frighteningly relevant three decades later, and I did kind of enjoy the spin on The Running Man-style execution by entertainment. Some of it was silly, and the setting certainly amped up the dark and violent tone of the show in the John Nathan-Turner era, but the creativity was enjoyable.

It’s always odd when televised entertainment comments on the perils of televised entertainment; one would think that it would be self-defeating, but more often than not, it works on some level. It was decent enough here.

 

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

 

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Mark of the Rani

 

 

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.

Timestamp #138: Attack of the Cybermen

Michael Falkner13 Comments

Doctor Who: Attack of the Cybermen
(2 episodes, s22e01-e02, 1985)

 

After some time off, the Doctor has gotten better.

The adventure begins with two unfortunate sewer workers who find a shiny new brick wall where one should not be. One of them investigates, but the other is attacked by an unknown force.

On the TARDIS, the Doctor is working on the capsule’s circuitry, specifically the chameleon circuit. Peri is concerned that he is over-exerting himself after his recent trauma, but the Doctor disregards her. When she suggests some relaxation he agrees and sets course, but something draws the TARDIS away.

On Earth, stranded mercenary Lytton is planning a heist with some local criminals. One of the cohort, a man named Russell, relays the plan to an outside party under the guise of purchasing explosives. Later on, Lytton’s gang enters the sewers, intending to access the diamond vault from below. As they set up, two policemen patrol nearby.

The production values have improved this season.

The TARDIS stabilizes in the orbit of Halley’s Comet, circa 1985. Peri wants to land, relating the comet’s appearance to certain disaster, but the Doctor disagrees. A sudden distress signal focuses both of them on Earth, the source of the call, and in franchise fashion they decide to investigate. They touch down at 76 Totter’s Lane, and the newly repaired chameleon circuit (eventually) kicks in, disguising the TARDIS as an ornate cabinet.

The Doctor and Peri track the source of the signal and Peri expresses her concerns for the Doctor’s well-being. She’s worried that his mind is not quite right, specifically because he keeps confusing her for past companions like Tegan, Zoe, Susan, Jamie, and even the Terrible Zodin (who?). He reluctantly admits that she may have a point. As they wander the streets of London and return to I.M. Foreman’s scrapyard, two policemen shadow them. The policemen are unimpressed when the TARDIS dematerializes.

In the sewers, Russell hears someone following them, and Lytton orders Payne to deal with the intruders. Instead, the intruders deal with him. Meanwhile, using the TARDIS computers, the Doctor and Peri determine that the signal is being bounced around multiple relays, and the Doctor assumes that someone must be watching the transmitter and waiting for help to arrive. They materialize at the garage where Lytton’s gang entered the sewers, and the Doctor is dismayed that the TARDIS has taken the form of a pipe organ. They are confronted by armed policemen – although they’re likely not real police officers – but the pair dispatches them with ease and enters the sewers.

This Doctor is much more violent, echoing the Third Doctor.

The Doctor and Peri find Payne’s body as they explore. Meanwhile, the thieves encounter the newly built wall and a black Cyberman. Russell runs as the wall opens and reveals many more Cybermen, to whom Lytton readily surrenders. He explains to the Cyber Leader that he tracked the signals to their hidden ship behind the moon, and he offers his accomplice Griffiths as fodder to be assimilated as Cybermen.

Moving to the planet Telos, the Cybermen have slave gangs digging in a quarry. They attempt to escape, but only two make it out alive. Unfortunately, they need three people to fly their escape craft. They head for the Cyber Control complex, using a Cyberman head as a disguise.

Russell finds the Doctor and Peri, revealing himself as an undercover policeman. The Doctor disarms Russell, and at gunpoint, the officer reveals that he was pursuing Lytton. Together, they all head back to the TARDIS. The Cybermen learn of their presence and send a team to find them. The Doctor disables the black Cyberman with a sonic lance, prompting the Cyber Leader to evacuate with Lytton and Griffiths.

When the travelers return to the TARDIS, they find it overrun by Cybermen. I’m guessing that keys and locks are beyond the Doctor now, and he pays for that laziness as the Cybermen kill Russell and take aim on Peri. The Doctor agrees to cooperate to save her, coercing the Cybermen into the agreement by setting a self-destruct sequence, which drives the Cybermen to reveal the Cyber Controller’s survival on Telos. The Doctor sets a course for Telos before being confined with Peri, Griffiths, and Lytton. Lytton begins the info-dump and explains that the Cybermen found a timeship that landed on Telos and now have plans for both it and the TARDIS.

As the one not well versed in all things Doctor Who, Griffiths demands an explanation. Lytton and the Doctor explain that Telos is the adopted home planet of the Cybermen, and that it only came into their possession after they destroyed the native Cryons to take over their advanced refrigeration technology to store their troops after Mondas was destroyed.

After the Doctor sabotages the navigational controls, the TARDIS lands in the catacombs instead of Cyber Control and assumes the shape of a gateway. The Cybermen are attacked by a rogue cyber soldier, one of many who have been driven insane by faulty refrigeration tombs. While their captors are distracted, Peri, Griffiths, and Lytton run. Peri, now in a new (warmer) costume, is rescued by Cryon freedom fighters. Another group finds Lytton and Griffiths and detail how Lytton has been working for them to stop the Cybermen from destroying Telos. Apparently, all he needs to do is steal the original time vessel.

The Doctor is confined to a cold storage room where he meets Flast, a Cryon prisoner. Flast reveals that the Cryons were not completely destroyed and that the Cybermen plan to save Mondas (and rewrite time) by destroying Earth with Halley’s Comet. Peri gets pretty much the same briefing from her new friends. Peri is distraught, but the Doctor is angry, partially because the Cybermen are breaking the laws of time, and partially because the Time Lords were likely responsible for diverting the TARDIS to this time and place to stop them, making him their errand boy once again.

The Cryons costumes are really quite strange, but their swooping fantasy movements are very elegant.

Lytton and Griffiths are intercepted by the two prisoners, who have both been partially assimilated, and the four men join forces in order to hijack the time vessel. They enter a tunnel to Cyber Control, but Lytton is captured en route to the ship. Elsewhere, Flast shows the Doctor a mineral that is highly volatile above freezing temperatures. The Doctor uses it to escape the room and kill the guard, then leaves his sonic lance with Flast (who cannot survive outside the refrigerated room) after she volunteers to detonate the rest of the minerals and destroy Cyber Control. After she sets the bomb, the Cybermen note the Doctor’s absence and kill Flast by exposing her to warm temperatures, effectively boiling her alive.

That was one of the most unique (and sad) deaths on this show in a while.

While the Cybermen torture Lytton to reveal his plan, Peri and the Doctor reunite and make their way to the TARDIS. The Doctor lures the Cybermen inside the time capsule with a dead Cyberman’s distress signal. The new leader of the Cryons, Rost, pressures the Doctor to leave before the bomb explodes, but Peri reminds him that Lytton’s team is still on Telos.

The Doctor moves the TARDIS to the conversion center – the TARDIS takes its normal form this time – where they find a partially assimilated Lytton. Lytton and the Doctor take out the Cyber Controller, but Lytton dies heroically in the battle. The Doctor reflects on his misjudgment of the man as he and Peri leave in the TARDIS and Cyber Control is destroyed.

I enjoyed watching the effort to tie up some of the loose ends in Cyberman mythology, including the return of both Telos and Mondas from the black and white days of the franchise. I also liked the moments of compassion from the Doctor, which were a good shift from the arrogant and pompous attitudes displayed in The Twin Dilemma. It was also a nice twist to use an established villain and turn him into an anti-hero.

The big downside across these two 45-minute episodes was the dump truck of exposition used to drive the plot, but it wasn’t enough to drag it down too much.

 

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

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Vengeance on Varos

 

 

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.

Timestamp: Twenty-First Series and Fifth Doctor Summary

Michael Falkner9 Comments

Doctor Who: Twenty-First Series and Fifth Doctor Summary

 

It’s an unfortunate ending to an era.

The Fifth Doctor’s three series run did not perform well in comparison to the rest of the franchise so far, and that’s disappointing considering how much potential the character had. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t stellar.

The Twenty-First Series had highs in Warriors of the Deep  and Resurrection of the Daleks, and it had a low in The Awakening. The rest just evened out to the average. Part of that was the companions, Tegan and Turlough, who I never really connected with. Another part was the stories, which has really high body counts and somewhat lackluster execution and resolution.

This series also contained a regeneration, but what is interesting about that is how it shakes out against other regeneration stories. The Fifth Doctor’s regeneration and Sixth Doctor’s premiere both scored a 3, and the last regeneration/premiere story to do that was An Unearthly Child. Everything since then has been either a 4 or 5, leading to an average among those stories of 4.2. I hope this doesn’t bode poorly for the future of the franchise, but there have been stories…

The caveat here is that none of the series so far have been outright bad. The average across all twenty-one series is a 3.6 on a 5.0 scale. The lowest series score is 3.1 out of five, which is smack in the middle. The downside is that is that the Twenty-First Series is tied with the Third and Nineteenth Series (the Fifth Doctor’s first set of stories) for last place.

After Adric left the series, I was optimistic about the series and the Fifth Doctor’s evolution. I wanted to see him run with the role, but the opportunities never came to fruition. More on that in a moment.

 

Warriors of the Deep – 4
The Awakening – 2
Frontios – 3
Resurrection of the Daleks –  4
Planet of Fire – 3
The Caves of Androzani – 3
The Twin Dilemma – 3

Series Twenty-One Average Rating: 3.1/5

 

 

 

If there’s one positive thing to say about the Fifth Doctor, it’s that he was consistent.

If there’s another, it’s that he was a good father figure.

The Fifth Doctor’s tenure brought the franchise back from some of the silliness of the Fourth Doctor‘s run, but it also reduced a bit of the charm. I admired his youth, sensitivity, and honesty. His reserved honor made him an ideal guardian and guide for his companions, and he used his traits to help each of the companions (whether I liked them or not) expand their horizons.

But those traits brought a hesitancy to the character that made him demure instead of advancing the take-charge attitude that the Doctor often embodies. Since he also tended to rush right into danger before observing the conflicts, we also tended to see a higher body count in his stories.

It’s that consistency that hurt his run the most because he never really evolved. Compare him to the two other scientist Doctors, the First and the Third, and you can see a distinct improvement as the character evolves and settles in. The First Doctor started as a gruff nomad but demonstrated a deep capacity to love and care. The Third Doctor’s run was an evolution of the franchise, and he started angry and frustrated by his circumstances before softening once he got his keys back and could satiate his exploratory curiosity.

And that’s why I’m so conflicted about the Fifth Doctor. I admire people who embody ideals like honor, sensitivity, and fairness, and Doctor Who has asked us to celebrate heroes who triumph over brute force and cynicism with love and compassion. But it also asks us to celebrate the capacity to learn and grow, and I don’t know that this Doctor ever really did.

If the First Doctor was a wise grandfather, the Second a sly jester, the Third a secret agent scientist, and the Fourth an inquisitive idealist, then I would call the Fifth Doctor an honorable humanitarian.

 

For scoring purposes, I obviously will not include The Twin Dilemma in the Fifth Doctor’s final tally.

 

Warriors of the Deep – 4
The Awakening – 2
Frontios – 3
Resurrection of the Daleks –  4
Planet of Fire – 3
The Caves of Androzani – 3

Series Twenty-One (Fifth Doctor) Average Rating: 3.2

 

Series 19 – 3.1
Series 20 – 3.3
Series 21 – 3.2

Fifth Doctor’s Weighted Average Rating: 3.20

 

Ranking (by score)
1 – Third (4.00)
2 – Second (3.67)
2 – Fourth (3.67)
4 – First (3.41)
5 – Fifth (3.20)

Ranking (by character)
1 – Second Doctor
2 – Third Doctor
3 – Fourth Doctor
4 – First Doctor
5 – Fifth Doctor

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Attack of the Cybermen

 

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.

Timestamp #137: The Twin Dilemma

Michael Falkner12 Comments

Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma
(4 episodes, s21e21-e24, 1984)

 

He’s the Doctor, whether we like it or not.

After some updated and more colorful credits, we find two twins are playing a game of space backgammon. They are named Romulus and Remus, which is a bit on the nose. The boys move on to a new strategy game when a stranger named Professor Edgeworth materializes before them. After a cryptic but friendly discussion, the trio vanishes.

On the TARDIS, the Sixth Doctor shows off his new looks after regeneration, but Peri is not impressed. This Doctor is more vain and arrogant, readily denouncing his predecessor’s “feckless charm.” Ouch! He goes into the wardrobe to change clothes and has a minor breakdown. He breaks out the Second Doctor‘s fur coat and the Third Doctor‘s maroon velvet jacket, both of which he rejects in favor of a garish technicolor number topped with a cat brooch for luck. Peri remains unimpressed, but she does take time enough to change clothes as well.

Edgeworth and the twins appear on a spacecraft staffed with goat-bird hybrid aliens. The goat-birds take the twins to another room as Edgeworth contacts his boss, a slug-like entity known as Mestor. Edgeworth is tasked with taking the boys to Titan III.

The Doctor, unimpressed with Peri’s style, sets course for a holiday planet called Fiesta 95. He wanted to go to the Eye of Orion but cannot remember the way. Adopting a less antagonistic tone, he asks Peri about her name (which is short for Perpugilliam, and must have been absolute hell for her in American public schools) and recites a poem about a peri (a beautiful fairy in Persian mythology that starts out evil until completing a penance to achieve paradise). He then goes crazy, accuses Peri of being an evil alien spy, and attempts to choke her to death. Peri defends herself with a mirror which, when the Doctor looks into it, causes the Time Lord to recoil.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with him?

When the Doctor recovers, he doesn’t remember the incident at all. He also doesn’t believe Peri when she tells him what happened. When it finally clicks, he is distraught and decides to enter seclusion as a hermit on Titan III. When he touches the TARDIS controls, the time capsule goes just about as crazy as the Doctor but makes its way to the secluded planet. When the TARDIS shakes violently, the Doctor decides to investigate the cause.

The twins’ father returns home and reports their disappearance. The authorities are concerned about the twins being kidnapped by extraterrestrials and make it their top priority. Apparently, these kids are super important or something. On the ship, the kids attempt to escape by fiddling with the electronics and emitting an erratic signal. The authorities find the ship running under a fraudulent registry, and when they challenge it, the freighter jumps to warp speed (even though it’s not supposed to be designed for that). The jump destroys the authority ships in the process.

Edgeworth, the goat-birds, and the twins arrive on Titan III. Mestor contacts the professor, chews him out for his carelessness, and orders him to set the twins to whatever task they’re there to accomplish. Later on, Edgeworth chides the twins for not working fast enough. They aren’t allowed to use electronic means after the distress signal incident, so they’re working equations by hand. Edgeworth persuades them with tales of Jaconda and Mestor threatens their lives. As they work the mathematics, the twins soon realize that they’re meddling with enough power to destroy a planet.

Peri and the Doctor venture onto the asteroid and find the wreckage of one of the police ships. They find a survivor and the Doctor chastizes Peri for jumping to conclusions. They take the officer back to the TARDIS and Peri calls the Doctor out on his attitude. At that exact moment, the officer springs up and holds the Doctor at gunpoint, threatening to kill him for the destruction of the police squadron. Peri pleads with the officer, and he is soon disarmed after he passes out. The Doctor initially has no desire to provide aid, but Peri persuades him.

While discussing their situation, Peri and The Doctor spot Edgeworth’s building on the scanner. The Doctor coaxes Peri into exploring, even confusing her for Tegan at one point as his mind continues to sort itself out. This incarnation is far more bold and willing to rush headlong into the unknown with a foolhardy flourish. They infiltrate the bunker and are apprehended by the goat-birds, during which the Doctor pretends to be a meek pilgrim who uses Peri as a human shield. They are taken before Edgeworth, maintaining their guise as pilgrims until the Doctor recognizes the man behind the face. Edgeworth is Azmael, a renegade Time Lord whom the Doctor recognizes from an adventure in his fourth incarnation.

The Doctor discovers what Azmael has done and is disgusted. Azmael rejects the Doctor’s help and locks the travelers in the bunker before transmatting to his ship. As the Doctor sets to work in deciphering the lock combination, Peri discovers a time bomb ticking away. The Doctor repurposes a revitalizing modulator chamber as a device that will rewind the user ten seconds. Peri steps in and vanishes and the Doctor follows just as the bunker explodes. They both reappear in the TARDIS console room to find the injured police officer holding his freshly reassembled gun on them.

Okay, so both of these elements are really lazy storytelling. First, Peri hid the gun’s power pack in the wardrobe room, but Officer Lang just happens to change into the one tunic with the power pack in its pocket. That’s way too convenient. Second, the Doctor and Peri have been inside the bunker for much longer than ten seconds. Simply rewinding ten seconds isn’t enough to place them back in the TARDIS, which makes the improvised temporal teleporter a bit beyond normal suspension of disbelief.

On the upside, I did like the callback as the Doctor (who apparently believes in luck now) strokes the cat brooch to compensate for his guesswork and MacGyvering of the revitalizing modulator. On the downside, he’s still being abusive toward Peri by cursing her out for something beyond her control.

The Doctor sets course for Jaconda and then confers with Lang and Peri about the plot, swaying Lang to his side in the process. On Jaconda, Mestor executes a lower-class goat-bird for stealing to feed his family to prove to us that he’s a bad, bad character. Shortly thereafter, the TARDIS arrives in a Jocandan wasteland, which the Doctor eventually realizes is not the beautiful planet he once knew. He also recognizes that it is the work of giant gastropods, prompting him to return to the TARDIS to figure out his next course of action. Reluctantly, he is swayed to move the TARDIS to the palace and accompany Lang and Peri to rescue the twins.

After arriving on the planet, Azmael takes the twins on a tour of the palace, showing off the laboratory and the storeroom of gastropod eggs. Mestor enters and tries to persuade them that their actions are benevolent. Azmael asks Mestor to refrain from monitoring his thoughts and remove his guards. Mestor eventually agrees and departs, and Azmael details his plan to save Jaconda: The star system has three planets, and the two outer planets will become moons of Jaconda – picking up Jaconda’s atmosphere and ecosphere by timey-wimey plot means – and provide more places for the slugs to conquer.

As the travelers navigate the palace, the Doctor offers a Jacondan history lesson by way of pictograms. Shortly afterward, Lang gets stuck in a gastropod slime trail after two of the creatures pass. Of course, it’s a mere matter of plot convenience as no one got stuck in Mestor’s slime trail during the lab visit. The Doctor has another of his childish tantrums and blames Peri for the entire situation, storms off, stumbles into the lab, and attacks Azmael before coming to his senses. The twins reveal that Azmael wasn’t responsible for the bunker’s self-destruct, prompting the Doctor to learn more about the plot surrounding him.

Meanwhile, Lang breaks free and accompanies Peri to find the Doctor. The goat-birds attack Lang and leave him for dead before taking Peri to Mestor. Lang comes to, stumbles into the lab, and tells the story. When the Doctor realizes that Peri is likely going to die, he suddenly (and unconvincingly) grows a backbone of compassion for her.

Lucky for him, Mestor sees no reason to kill Peri. Unlucky for him, he is taken before Mestor.

The Doctor agrees to help Mestor while Azmael restores the twins’ hidden memories. Number-crunching commences, and Azmael reveals his plan to overcome the gravitational stresses by shifting the minor planets into different time zones. The Doctor points out that temporal displacement won’t stop the massive gravitational explosion, and that Mestor must know about the consequence.

Meanwhile, Mestor magically gains access to the TARDIS and sends his minions to do evil within.

The Doctor enters the gastropod hatchery and examines the eggs. He discovers that they are tough enough to survive the solar explosion, and will likely hatch under extreme heat spread throughout the universe through Mestor’s plan. This must be a Star Trek Abrams-style supernova or something.

The twins destroy their notes, keeping only the records in their photographic memories. Peri, Lang, and the twins head for the TARDIS while Azmael (who is on his last regeneration) and the Doctor confront Mestor. The Doctor tries to destroy Mestor with acid, but the slug is protected behind a force field. Meanwhile, Lang stymies an attempt to kidnap the twins. Mestor uses his last resort and projects himself into Azmael, intent on taking over the Time Lord’s body and mind. The Doctor uses a second vial of acid to destroy Mestor’s body while Azmael forces a regeneration to destroy Mestor’s mind.

The act of forcing a regeneration when none were left to him causes Azmael to die. Before he does, in perhaps the most emotionally driving moment of the story, he passes a crystal ring to the Doctor.

Lang removes the now liberated goat-birds from the TARDIS and he offers to remain and assist with rebuilding Jaconda. The Doctor gives him the ring as a badge of office and the travelers say goodbye, setting a course for Earth to take the twins home. Peri confronts the Doctor about his instability, but the Doctor retorts that he has finally stabilized and reminds her that he is an alien, so his methods can be foreign to her.

He is now the Doctor, whether she (or we) like it or not.

 

I know that regeneration stories are hard. Each incarnation of the Doctor is a unique interpretation of the character, and as such, it takes time for the actors and creative teams to settle into their respective voices. It’s why I give the +1 regeneration handicap, and it’s why I can abide by the (nearly meta) admonition from this new Doctor to give him time before making final judgments on his character.

It’s almost as if the creative team from 1984 could see the future. Keyboard warriors of genre fandoms across social media, take note: The Doctor has another lesson for you. One performance is not substantial enough to make a final decision on a character (or a show, for that matter).

That said, I can criticize this story’s Doctor. He is arrogant and rude, but well beyond what the Third Doctor brought to the table. This sixth incarnation takes being a pompous ass to a whole new level. I’m not a fan of this clownish blustering that downplays compassion, abuses his companions, and places them in mortal danger. I would willingly travel with each of the previous five, but I wouldn’t step foot in this Doctor’s TARDIS based on this story.

The story itself was found lacking, particularly with the sloppy writing and consistency errors that I noted earlier. Aside from the touching death of Azmael – which was a missed opportunity that could have revisited the Monk, the War Chief, the Hermit, Morbius, Andred, Drax, Chronotis, or even Maxil (which would echo The Enemy of the World) – I didn’t find much to engage with beyond my anger with the Doctor.

I do find the speculative ramifications of Azmael’s death quite fascinating, particularly on how regeneration works near the end of the thirteen life limit. Apparently trying to break the limit on one’s own is far too taxing and doesn’t result in a full regeneration. I also liked the “Doc” callback, a running gag that has touched Tegan and Steven Taylor with another grumpy Time Lord.

 

 

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

 

 

UP NEXT – Twenty-First Series and Fifth Doctor 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.