August 7: The Deadly Assassin Parts One & Two

I like the opening text scroll -- it makes things seem even more important than they otherwise would, setting the events of this story in a (fake but important-sounding) historical context.  And there's admittedly something exciting about the thought of a whole story set on Gallifrey, which also gives things an extra bit of energy.

Intriguingly, Robert Holmes expends little time on doing elaborate set-ups and looks into Time Lord society, preferring instead to toss in details as they come up.  In one sense this can be a bit frustrating, as it sometimes looks like Holmes is just making it up as he goes along (e.g., Engin's comment in part two about how the Doctor appears to have survived being plugged into the APC because "his brain must have an unusually high level of artron energy" -- and yes, this is the first mention of that particular piece of lore), since no time has been taken to establish any of these things.  But ultimately moments like this are outweighed by the more successful application of the same techniques, such as Runcible's off-handed descriptions of the Time Lord chapters, which add a sense of history even if they're about as meaningful to the viewer as talk of "artron energy".  (Although there seems to be some confusion about which colors actually go with which chapters, as what we see doesn't line up with what we're told.)

The other interesting choice that Holmes makes is to make this first episode feel like a political thriller, as the Doctor races to stop the assassination of the outgoing Time Lord President even as the Chancery Guards try to apprehend him; meanwhile, in the shadows there lurks a shadowy, disfigured person who seems to have ensnared the Doctor in some sort of trap.  Still, the Doctor gets pretty far, making it into the main ceremonial chamber (which looks fantastic, by the way) and even up into the balcony, where he finds a convenient form of rifle.  And then, in what's really quite a shocking cliffhanger, we appear to see the Doctor shoot down the President.  Why would he do that?  What's going on?  And who's that mysterious figur–oh wait, the credits say it's the Master.  So, there's that answered, I guess.

The disfigured Master. (The Deadly Assassin Part Two) ©BBC

Part two cheats the cliffhanger reprise a bit by inserting a shot of someone pulling out an energy pistol; this is apparently who the Doctor was actually shooting at.  It takes about half the length of this episode before the Doctor works out that it's the Master behind things.  He's looking a lot worse for wear than the last time we saw the character in Frontier in Space, and it looks like he's motivated more by hatred than anything else -- though why his accomplice is helping him, we can only guess.  The Doctor, meanwhile, only escapes summary execution thanks to some legal trickery where he declares his candidacy for the recently vacated Presidency, which grants him immunity from execution until the election is over.  This gives him a chance to investigate and come to the aforementioned conclusion regarding the Master.  The political thriller aspect gives way to a murder mystery (complete, hilariously, with a chalk outline of the assassinated President), which then itself gives way to something more surreal, as the Doctor is plugged into an advanced sort of computer called both the APC and the Matrix in order to find out where the Master is -- only to find himself in a strange, desolate dreamscape (which looks an awful lot like a quarry), fighting for his life against a masked foe.  This episode's cliffhanger's rather strange, given what's gone before, but it makes sense in the context of what we've just seen, as the Doctor finds his foot trapped in a railroad switch track as his masked foe bears down on him...