August 30: The Ribos Operation Parts Three & Four

Part three certainly starts entertainingly, with the Doctor trying to restrain the Graff Vynda-K from striking Garron and receiving a slap across the face with the Graff's glove for his troubles -- which leads the Doctor to indignantly take the glove from the Graff and slap him across the face.  Obviously this doesn't do anything to improve the Graff's mood, and the Doctor, Romana, and Garron are hauled off, to be questioned later.

The Doctor summons K-9 with his whistle while Garron and Romana
look on. (The Ribos Operation Part Three) ©BBC

The rest of this episode is largely complications, but there are some entertaining moments along the way: the scenes between Unstoffe and Binro the Heretic (who controversially believes that the lights in the sky are stars and not ice crystals, among other things) are justly lauded, particularly because of how Holmes allows the story enough time to insert this material.  We could have just as easily gotten some scenes of the Graff's men searching for Unstoffe, but instead we get a quiet, beautiful moment.  And the interaction between the Doctor and Garron is also a lot of fun, as Garron describes how he almost got away with selling Sydney Harbour to an Arab, only to be rumbled when the Arab complained to the government about how Garron refused to throw the Opera House into the bargain. "Doctor," Romana interrupts, "there are men out there planning to kill us, and you're just sitting here chattering!"  "Please don't panic, Romana," the Doctor tells her. "...Listen, when you've faced death as often as I have, this is much more fun."

Then there's the odd inclusion of the Seeker, who seems slightly out of keeping with everything else -- while there's a medieval element obviously present, the sense we get is of a more urban environment that the Seeker doesn't quite fit into.  But, more than that, there's also the manner that the off-worlders keep ridiculing the primitives on Ribos for their superstitious ways -- and yet all of the Seeker's predictions come true.  It's an interesting touch.

Part four is concentrated in the catacombs beneath the city of Shur, as the Graff gets closer to tracking down Unstoffe (and thus his stolen gold, as well as the piece of jethryk).  This is really more business as usual as far as Doctor Who goes -- complete with more Shrivenzales (those slightly-less-than-convincing creatures like we saw in part one) roaming the catacombs.  The most notable part is how, after a cave-in kills most of the Graff's men (including his beloved friend Sholakh), the Graff goes mad and declares revenge on everyone on the planet -- leaving his remaining soldier with an armed grenade so that he can blow himself up.  Then we as the audience hear what the Graff hears: the sounds of battle as he marches forth, clearly mad -- and unaware that the soldier (aka a disguised Doctor) has planted the grenade on him.  The Graff's reign is over, and the Doctor has the jethryk -- in reality the first segment of the Key to Time.  "Only five more to go," the Doctor says at the end.

It's a fun, fast-moving story -- yet it still has quieter moments of charm to help balance things out.  It's not a "big" story, but it is an entertaining one.  Robert Holmes has been given the chance to write a lighter script, and he's delivered in spades.  It doesn't hurt that the cast all seem to be having a good time; the only person who seems slightly out of their depth is Mary Tamm, who occasionally sounds a bit stiff -- but this could just be characterization (since Romana is also meant to be rather austere and stiff).  If the rest of the season is up to The Ribos Operation's standards, we'll be in for quite a good season indeed.