December 7: Paradise Towers Parts One & Two

And suddenly the McCoy era arrives.

There's definitely a different feeling about these first two episodes of Paradise Towers.  I wonder if it's partly because this is really the first story edited by Andrew Cartmel (his name is on Time and the Rani, but by his own admission he didn't actually do much work on it), but it's certainly distinct from anything we've seen in quite some time.

The first thing that's worth noticing is how filthy and dirty everything looks.  This is a good thing, as the Towers are meant to be run down and dirty, but they really do a nice job with all the graffiti and caked-on dirt along the edges of corridors.  Even the frosted windows look dingy as they let brownish light in.  And thankfully, there's a lot of nice moody lighting to help sell the scene even more.  When one thinks back to the set of Warriors of the Deep, and the floodlighting everywhere, you start to realize how much of a refreshing change this is.

The second thing worth noting is how distinct and reasonably well-defined all the various inhabitants are.  Yes, there are some casting problems (some of the Caretakers seem too young, all of the Kangs seem too old, and Pex isn't nearly as much of a Stallone-esque meathead as the script wants him to be), but the striking thing about this is how easy it is to look past these problems.  Stephen Wyatt's script sparkles with enough idiosyncrasies (the Kangs' slang terms, the Caretakers' reliance on their rule book) that the characteristics of these different groups comes through, and it doesn't really matter that the Red Kangs look like they're in their 20s -- you know what the story is getting at, and that works just fine.  And it certainly helps that the structure of this story is different enough from other recent Who stories, in both concept and execution, to maintain the audience's interest.

And into this environment the Doctor and Mel are inserted.  This is a story where McCoy starts to really put his stamp on the show -- his reactions here feel fresh and unique to this incarnation, and thankfully the malapropisms have disappeared.  And while Mel is wandering the Towers more or less separated from the Doctor, she more than manages to hold her own -- her conversations with Tilda and Tabby, the two Rezzies, are enjoyable, and she gets some genuinely good moments with Pex (her chastising of his destructive behavior, her crestfallen reaction to learning that he's a fraud).  This feels like a world that existed long before the TARDIS arrived, rather than one with a specific problem for the Doctor to solve (as the recent crop of stories has occasionally felt).

So far Paradise Towers is smart, clever, and genuinely funny at times (such as the "Are you annoying these old ladies?" gag), and while there are some problems that show up here and there, they're generally easy to look past.  A rather wonderful breath of fresh air, but can the concluding episodes keep it up?

December 6: Time and the Rani Parts Three & Four

A somewhat surprising thing happened; I actually found myself somewhat enjoying these two last episodes.

That's not to say they're actually good (and there are still times when they're very bad indeed), but there are moments that entertain.  Beyus's continued determination to collaborate because the alternative is the death of his people is noble even if it's presented as misguided, and the discussion between Ikona and the Doctor about the idleness of the Lakertyans is also rather nice.  (The Centre of Leisure set is also nicely done.)  Ikona is also one of a handful of good performances on display here (Faroun is another) that do lead to something worth watching.  And while the realization of the giant genius gestalt brain is rather silly, the idea is a striking one.  Plus, even though we've barely got a handle on this new Doctor (and, weirdly, they seem to have decided that his primary characteristic is malapropisms), the Rani's problem of the Doctor causing confusion when he's hooked up to the gestalt is both entertaining and rather difficult to imagine the sixth Doctor pulling off in quite the same way -- which means that this new seventh incarnation is already taking form in new ways.  Finally, while the Rani's interactions with the Doctor in these episodes tend to be of the plot exposition variety, they're still nevertheless entertaining to watch.

The Rani and the Doctor. (Time and the Rani Part Four) ©BBC

Of course, it's not all good; unless I'm drastically misremembering the quality of her later appearances, this is hands down Mel's worst characterization on the show.  She's reduced to lots of screaming and being helpless and very little in the way of anything proactive.  You'd think the team who wrote Mel's debut story (where she's considerably more interesting than she is here) would have given her more to do, but no.  She's pure background material.  There are also some dodgy overdubs (notably, "Look out, they kill!" before the insect lights have killed anyone) and some awkward plotting (everyone points it out, but the Rani's plan is foiled because she doesn't have a rocket with an adjustable trajectory).

But considering how poor the first two episodes were, I'm genuinely surprised to find that these two have risen from the level of "painful to view" up to "barely watchable" -- high praise, I know, but considering where this story appeared to be going it's something of a welcome change.  If you're willing to just switch your brain off and essentially watch a broad pantomime version of Doctor Who, this story just about fits the bill.  It's understandable if you don't want to do that, but even then there are a handful of decent bits and bobs in these four episodes to reward the patient and/or generous viewer.  All damning with faint praise, I realize, but it's some small comfort to know that in the final analysis, Time and the Rani isn't a complete waste of time.

December 5: Time and the Rani Parts One & Two

So Colin Baker has been sacked, despite the best efforts of John Nathan-Turner to convince Michael Grade to let him stay.  (This was after Nathan-Turner thought he was leaving the show as well, and was therefore somewhat irked to find that no, he was back in as producer for the new season.)  But no; the best Grade will do is to let Colin Baker do one final story to bow out on.  Baker, not unreasonably, refuses to do this.  (As Baker has since said, "[I]t's like your girlfriend giving you the push and saying, 'But you can come back and spend a night with me next year!'"¹⁴⁹)  And so the opening story of season 24 becomes the debut story for seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy.  Meanwhile, Nathan-Turner's also hired a new script editor named Andrew Cartmel to help oversee the next three seasons, and he knows he needs a script pronto, so he turns to his old standbys Pip and Jane Baker, who willingly set about first writing Colin Baker's swansong, and then, with a few minor tweaks, McCoy's debut.  Time and the Rani is the result.

The sixth Doctor regenerates into the seventh. (Time and the
Rani Part One) ©BBC

It opens with a pre-titles sequence as the TARDIS (in a cutting-edge-for-1987-but-rather-crude-by-today's-standards CGI sequence) is forced down by the Rani, who then strolls into the TARDIS and tells her alien helper, "Leave the girl; it's the man I want."  But this forced landing, which seems to have only knocked Mel unconscious, is enough to trigger the Doctor's regeneration, because apparently Nathan-Turner has decided that of course you have to show the regeneration.  (Fandom occasionally tries to justify this by saying that the sixth Doctor was dying from whatever adventure happened just before the events seen here (or that this was a deliberate sacrifice to get to the proactive seventh Doctor -- read the New Adventures for more on this idea, if you're so inclined), and that the Rani's device simply triggered what was an impending regeneration anyway; a nice idea, even if there's nothing on screen to substantiate this.)  But if Baker's not coming back for four episodes, he's certainly not coming back for thirty seconds, and so it's painfully obvious that it's McCoy in a blonde wig as the "change-over" happens.  And then it's straight into the new title sequence, complete with new theme arrangement.

I have to confess, I quite like both the new titles and the theme.  It's probably nostalgia in some regards (as the McCoy stories were really, for me, the first set of brand-new Doctor Who that I'd experienced), but there's still quite a bit to enjoy.  The theme's back to a more upbeat, heroic sound -- and we get to hear the middle eight again in the opening credits -- and the title sequence is very swish, with the galaxy swirling about as the TARDIS moves through it; it's a hell of a lot better than that pre-titles CG sequence.  I don't even mind the wink that much; the silver face is a neat touch and the result is a lot better than the abandoned attempt at making the sixth Doctor wink.  It's all rather thrilling.

Sadly, the same can't be said for the actual episode. McCoy's actually not too bad here, even if they keep giving him pratfalls and malapropisms; you can see where his performance will be going in some of the quieter moments here, with a sense of gravity and a touch of world-weariness.  Meanwhile, Kate O'Mara seems to be deliberately playing this with a welcome bit of theatricality, and her impersonation of Mel is really rather entertaining indeed.  But everyone else is largely useless -- the real Mel spends most of her time screaming (well, it feels like it, at least) and the native Lakertyans are a weak-willed bunch, with only the rebel Ikona standing out in any way.  The Doctor's costume change sequence (after swimming in Colin Baker's coat for most of the episode -- and note that he's wearing the Mindwarp/actual trial sequences costume, rather than the "future" Terror of the Vervoids one) feels like it's going through the motions, as if it's a requirement to see McCoy in old Doctors' outfits before showing us the real one -- which itself isn't bad, although the question mark sweater is ludicrous, but doesn't really seem of the same mind as the previous outfits tried on (so, a bit like Tom Baker's costume scene in Robot, then).  It's an oddly joyless scene.

Things sadly don't improve much in part two.  There's more farting about with trying to make the Doctor think he's the one performing this experiment, not the Rani, and Donald Pickering and Wanda Ventham have to try and look dignified beneath some rather ugly alien makeup.  And Mel still seems off here -- which is especially strange when you note that there's only been one Mel episode so far that hasn't been written by Pip & Jane.  But no, she's generally unlikeable here until Ikona finally believes her and they start working together.  Her first encounter with the newly-regenerated Doctor is also rather wonderful (unconvincing judo throw at the start aside) -- if the story had been more like this scene things might have gone better.

Still, it is generally nice to look at; it's another quarry, but the effects shots are rather impressive, and care has clearly gone into the exterior of the Rani's lair.  The smoking skeleton of the recently deceased Sarn is also well done, even if surprisingly graphic for what feels like a lightweight story.  And the Tetraps (the hairy creatures with the bat wings) are also designed well, even if they're not as effective when they actually have to do things.  But the visuals alone aren't enough to save this story; let's hope there's a dramatic increase in quality for the last two episodes.







¹⁴⁹ Howe-Stammers-Walker, The Handbook: The Sixth Doctor, p70.

December 4: The Trial of a Time Lord Parts Thirteen & Fourteen

(The Ultimate Foe parts 1 & 2)

Finally, we're getting something imaginative and more than just business as usual from this story!  The Ultimate Foe (or Time Inc., if you prefer) is set the task of wrapping things up, and it actually does this surprisingly well -- particularly given the nightmare that was going on behind-the-scenes.¹⁴⁷  We get a reasonably satisfying explanation about why this trial is happening: some secrets were stolen from the Matrix and hidden on Earth, so the High Council moved Earth a couple light years, accidentally wiping out most of the planet in the process, and renamed the place Ravalox -- and all was well and good until the Doctor stumbled upon evidence linking Earth and Ravalox.  Therefore, discredit/execute him in a trial (although it's maybe not quite such a good idea to feature the thing you're trying to cover up in said trial), and the High Council's actions would remain undiscovered.  This leads to a deservedly oft-quoted speech from the Doctor:

In all my travelings throughout the universe I have battled against evil, against power-mad conspirators.  I should have stayed here.  The oldest civilisation: decadent, degenerate and rotten to the core.  Ha!  Power-mad conspirators, Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen, they're still in the nursery compared to us.  Ten million years of absolute power; that's what it takes to be really corrupt.

The revelation of all this comes via the Master of all people, who's been hiding out in the Matrix and is frankly better here than he's been his last few appearances.  Anthony Ainley seems to delight in playing the role of a spoiler, come to undo the High Council's actions ("I've thrown a pebble into the water, perhaps killing two birds [the Doctor and the Valeyard] with one stone, and causing ripples that'll rock the High Council to its foundations.  What more could a renegade wish for?" is delivered with particular glee), and he's much more interesting here than when he's trying to kill the Doctor.  And I utterly adore the way the true nature of the Valeyard is just casually tossed away by Ainley: "They made a deal with the Valeyard, or as I've always known him, the Doctor, to adjust the evidence, in return for which he was promised the remainder of the Doctor's regenerations."  Also, full marks to composer Dominic Glynn for not highlighting this reveal until the Doctor cottons on to it.

But what a fascinating idea!  The concept of a dark Doctor from the future -- "an amalgamation of the darker sides of your nature, somewhere between your twelfth and final incarnation", as the Master puts it¹⁴⁸ -- is a striking one, and it also makes the current sixth Doctor seem more moral in contrast.  This sixth Doctor has been alien and often nontraditional in his approach to concepts of good and evil, but when placed next to the Valeyard, who seems significantly more corrupt, the sixth Doctor's virtues become more apparent.  And then Robert Holmes, the man who wrote The Deadly Assassin, sends the Doctor and the Valeyard into the Matrix to have an entertainingly surreal battle, with loads of Victoriana and bureaucracy swimming around.  This is an environment in which the Doctor seems both out of place and in his element as he fights his future self (his ultimate foe in more ways than one, you might say -- another reason why that's a much better title than Time Inc. ever was), trying to both play by the Valeyard's rules and to work out how to build to a final confrontation.

The Doctor and the Valeyard in the Matrix. (The Trial of a
Time Lord Part Fourteen) ©BBC

Once again, given the production nightmare, the fact that Part Fourteen is as coherent as it is is a testament to the Bakers' abilities.  It's not quite as wonderful as Part Thirteen was, but there are some great moments: the Doctor's confrontation with the Valeyard on the beach, the fake trial the Valeyard sets up in the Matrix, any scene with Sabalom Glitz in it (although the best one is when the Master tries to hypnotize Glitz with a shiny watch, swinging it back and forth, leading to Glitz trailing off: "Splendid, splendid." the Master says.  "Listen to me.  Are you listening, Sabalom Glitz?"  "Not really," Glitz replies, totally unhypnotized.  "I was just wondering how many grotzits this little bauble cost you") -- these all add up to a memorable resolution.  And while there may be some less scintillating moments (including, infamously, "A megabyte modem!" and the ludicrous pink heart-like haze surrounding the scene demonstrating that Peri and Yrcanos are happily married -- oh right, Peri's not dead; that was one of the Valeyard's fabrications), on the whole this ends very satisfactorily.  Although ponder the paradox at the end, as Mel seems ready to travel with a Doctor who hasn't met her yet -- and note that the last words spoken by the sixth Doctor here are "Carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice!": this will matter in a moment.  But it's still a great ending, as we see the Valeyard has escaped to fight the Doctor another day (though, an off-hand reference in "The Name of the Doctor" aside, the Valeyard hasn't made a reappearance or even really been mentioned on televised Who since).

I suspect that The Trial of a Time Lord, as an entire story, has improved with age.  Audiences are now willing to devote more time to longer-running threads that run through a series of unrelated stories (indeed, Steven Moffat has been making it a huge part of his run on Doctor Who -- although he seems to have dialed it back in his most recent series), and the trial part of The Trial of a Time Lord fits this style very well: a few hints here and there to suggest that something else is going on, leading to the big reveal at the end of the season, with implications for the future as well.  It may have confused viewers at the time (one of the primary criticisms often leveled at this story -- although the audience appreciation figures are all reasonably high, suggesting this may not have been the case), but the season as a whole holds together very well.  If there's a complaint to be made, it's that the individual segments often play it safe, opting for familiar, well-worn paths rather than trying something new, beyond the overarching theme.  As with Terror of the Vervoids, the whole thing isn't bad (and The Ultimate Foe leaves one with, perhaps, a greater feeling of goodwill toward this season than it actually warrants), but at this point in time, not being bad isn't really good enough.  But with the departure of Saward and Colin Baker, the shake-up that this show really needs might finally be around the corner.

But yes, it's time to say goodbye to Colin Baker, who was unceremoniously fired by BBC1 Controller Michael Grade after season 23 aired (thus unfortunately making that "Carrot juice" line his final one as the sixth Doctor).  Many of the scripts Baker was saddled with were problematic, and much of what he was asked to do in terms of performance was questionable, but Colin Baker himself managed to rise above this to create a compelling new persona -- larger than life and often abrasive, but still the same Doctor we'd come to know and love.  Anyone who's listened to some of his Big Finish audios will know that Colin Baker plays an excellent Doctor, and that the sixth Doctor definitely works as a character -- it's simply a sad fact that the televised stories didn't afford him quite the scope or control over the character to really make this clear.  There are certainly gems to be found during his era, but the fact that sometimes you have to dig a little deeper to find them isn't his fault, and by the end of season 23 he was firing on all cylinders.  Michael Grade made the wrong decision, and Colin Baker frankly deserved better than he got from the show.

But it's the nature of the show to always keep moving forward; now it's on to season 24 and a brand-new Doctor...







¹⁴⁷ The story so far: the original season 23 had to be scrapped, as you'll recall, and John Nathan-Turner and Eric Saward came up with the idea of having a season-long story about the Doctor being on trial.  The first two segments went relatively smoothly, it seems, other than some last-minute requests by Head of Drama Jonathan Powell to make some major changes to Robert Holmes's segment -- which were eventually worked through, but Saward became unhappy with the disrespect he perceived from Powell toward Holmes, a man he respected very much.  Saward also found that the last two segments of the trial format were going very poorly -- at least three writers were approached and had scripts found wanting (either by Saward or Nathan-Turner) before Pip & Jane Baker came along for parts nine to twelve.  In addition to all this, Saward found his relationship with Nathan-Turner was deteriorating (he felt Nathan-Turner was emphasizing and paying attention to the wrong things and disagreed with a number of decisions being made) and he was rapidly losing the stomach to keep working on the show.
     Then Robert Holmes died, having only written the first episode of the concluding segment, and Saward was devastated.  He wrote up the final episode, based on the discussions he'd had with Holmes, only for Nathan-Turner to disagree about the ending (Saward had written a "down" cliffhanger ending that showed the Doctor and the Valeyard locked in a struggle as they fell through a time vent, inspired by Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty's death in "The Final Solution"; Nathan-Turner disliked this on the grounds that it would make it too easy for the BBC to cancel the show, if the last shot was of the Doctor apparently going to his death).  This, it seems, was the final straw; Saward withdrew use of the final script and quit the show entirely.
     Nathan-Turner, now desperate for a final episode, turned to Pip & Jane Baker, who, after a story conference with Nathan-Turner that apparently included a third party to witness the fact that Nathan-Turner hadn't told the Bakers anything about Saward's part fourteen script, went off and wrote their own ending based on everything that went before and a handful of locations that had already been scouted (Saward's script, for instance, apparently required the use of a large round building that ended up not being used in the Bakers' script, though you can still see it in some of the Victorian sequences).  Fortunately the Bakers were able to turn in a script that was largely coherent, thus saving the day.

¹⁴⁸ Obviously this slightly odd description (not necessarily a future Doctor so much as a dark distillation offshoot) is intended to not have to actually cast Michael Jayston (or some equivalent) as an evil thirteenth Doctor, and it's also the case that the language is such that, given that we've subsequently seen that the Doctor has more than twelve regenerations, we might not have actually witnessed the creation of the Valeyard yet.  But with the recent revelations, in "The Day of the Doctor" and "The Time of the Doctor", both of a War Doctor between McGann and Eccleston and that the Doctor's almost-regeneration in "Journey's End" does count as using a regeneration, an interesting correlation shows up.
     To recap: if McGann is the 8th incarnation, then Hurt is 9, Eccleston is 10, and Tennant is 11.  But then Tennant uses up a regeneration in "Journey's End", thus also becoming 12.  And what happens in "Journey's End"?  A little after the regeneration we get a second Tennant Doctor (the metacrisis Doctor), one who we're told was "born in battle, full of blood and anger and revenge" -- not exactly an "amalgamation of the darker sides of your nature", but close enough (as well as matching up with the "between your twelfth and final incarnation" description surprisingly well) to at least require some thought.  Pure speculation, obviously, but more has been built with less.

December 3: The Trial of a Time Lord Parts Eleven & Twelve

(Terror of the Vervoids parts 3 & 4)

The Vervoids plan their next move. (The Trial of a Time Lord
Part Eleven) ©BBC

It's a bit difficult to get a handle on these two episodes; on the one hand they do seem to sort of be following the murder mystery conventions, with red herrings and extra complications (like the sudden hijack of the ship), but on the other hand it all feels a bit distant, like everyone's just going through the motions until the time is up and the murderer is revealed.  It also doesn't help that there don't seem to be many plausible suspects available (and the culprit is hardly a surprise when we do find out for sure), and that the murderous intent of the Vervoids overshadows what was the main plot.

Actually, this might be a bigger problem than it first seems.  Because the murder plot is so lightweight (and probably because the segment's called Terror of the Vervoids rather than, say, The Hyperion III Murders), the Vervoids become the main focus of attention, and all they're doing for most of this is lurking in the (really quite impressively large) ductwork and occasionally killing crewmen.  (And pause to note that, yes, the Vervoid heads do look a bit naughty -- although frankly they don't look as inappropriate as is sometimes stated.)  So the end result is this lopsided story where the script wants us to concentrate on the murders and the finished product is far more interested in the Vervoid side story.  There are lots of bits relating to the murders -- including an attempt to kill Mel halfway through part eleven (although this requires Hyperion III to incinerate its used towels rather than launder them -- humanity is such a wasteful species -- and for the worker on duty to literally be paying no attention at all to what he's throwing away) -- but they're frankly rather uninvolving.  The script sort of seems to be aware of this, so we get an end-of-episode cliffhanger involving Lasky's assistant Bruchner hijacking the ship and piloting it into an incredibly unconvincing black hole, just so that there's some excitement happening.

Mel and the Doctor say their goodbyes. (The Trial of a Time
Lord Part Twelve) ©BBC

Oh, and in case you missed it, the murderer is Lasky's other assistant Doland, who's so desperate to exploit the Vervoids as a slave race (even though one pollen spore in a microscopic cut was enough to turn his assistant Ruth into a half-human/half-Vervoid mutant) that he'll kill a number of people to get them through to Earth.  Although one wonders who would actually want a genetically-engineered slave race with built-in insta-kill thorns in the first place; that seems like you're just asking for trouble.  And then you have to wonder why Doland rigged up the electrocution booby-trap in the hydroponics lab that activated the Vervoids in the first place; surely they would be much easier to deal with in their pre-germination state?  As Zaphod Beeblebrox might say, "Okay, so ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking, yeah?"

Still, part twelve is a vaguely more exciting episode as the Vervoids start openly attacking people.  There are some decent scenes, such as Janet the stewardess and some guards trying desperately to keep the Vervoids out of the lounge, but soon enough the whole story ends when the Doctor does something clever to wipe out all the Vervoids -- which leads the Valeyard in the cliffhanger to accuse the Doctor of committing genocide.  So, you get to try people for crimes they haven't committed yet in Time Lord courts, do you?

There seems to be a conscious effort with Terror of the Vervoids to create a deliberately whimsical tale -- albeit one that still seems awfully bloodthirsty; stop and think for a moment about how many people are dead by the end of this -- but this leads to a feeling of being rather lightweight and disposable as well.  It's certainly not a bad story, and there's nothing that's truly egregious about it, but one does get the feeling that in context this is a misjudged opportunity.  Doctor Who is on trial for its life, and it needs something more than a throwaway tale to convince people that it's a show worth doing.  Terror of the Vervoids might be okay in isolation, but in this larger framework it falls rather flat.

December 2: The Trial of a Time Lord Parts Nine & Ten

(Terror of the Vervoids parts 1 & 2)

It's the Doctor's turn to mount his defense, and while I see what the production team is going for with this Christmas Carol past-present-future vibe, it really is a terrible defense, to the point where it doesn't really seem like a legitimate one at all.  (Or, to quote About Time, "if it's not immediately obvious as to why [the basis of the Doctor's defense really is crap], we refer you to the Monty Python sketch where Eric Idle is accused of murdering several people and claims, 'I'm very sorry and I won't do it again.'")  But this is where the trial is going, so I guess we have to go along.

Terror of the Vervoids¹⁴⁶ does something of a first for the show (well, "An Unearthly Child" excepted): it introduces a companion in media res, without any of the "getting to know you" stuff that's usually standard for these things.  This is of course because this story takes place in the Doctor's personal future (so, er, he's found innocent at the trial, then -- and when did this thing become a trial anyway?  It started as an inquiry...), and so from his point of view he's already known Mel, the new companion, for some time.  And so Bonnie Langford is introduced as something of a health nut, trying to get the sixth Doctor into better shape.  Mel is somewhat relentlessly cheerful and bubbly, but as it makes a welcome change from Peri and the Doctor's more fractious relationship (even allowing for the softening we saw in the first two stories this season) the positives outweigh the drawbacks.  (And, being American, I have no preconceived notions about Bonnie Langford going into this -- I understand that's not the case for the majority of British viewers.)

The actual storyline concerns a murder mystery, and other than a couple instances where the Doctor contests what's being shown in the courtroom, contending that it's been altered since he reviewed it in preparation, the trial interruptions are generally kept to a minimum -- thus allowing Terror of the Vervoids to develop its own pace -- and as this is intended to evoke Agatha Christie's stories, pace is a crucial concern.  But it's an odd sort of murder mystery that Pip & Jane Baker are presenting us with -- the initial death turns out to have been faked, but then that person dies for real, while there's some stuff involving giant plants that seems to worry Professor Lasky and her two assistants (probably because they end up being killer plants).  This means that the first mystery has been cleared up, the second leaves us none the wiser, and meanwhile there are a bunch of homicidal plants on the loose that nonetheless no one seems to know about, even though they've started killing people too.  It's almost like setting Murder on the Orient Express (and note the homage early in part nine) in the middle of a slasher movie.  And since this is a Pip & Jane Baker script, people talk in ludicrous ways; infamously, Michael Craig, as Commodore Travers, has to deliver the line "Accident?  Why can't you use plain language, mister?" and then follow it up with "Whoever's been dumped in there has been pulverised into fragments and sent floating in space, and in my book that's murder."  He also gets lines like, "I should accept that advice and drop the sophistry", while the Doctor has to say things like "The weird atmosphere down there could lead to phantasmagoria."  It's particularly obvious with Craig because he spends the rest of his time trying to play a no-nonsense ship commander, and the dialogue gets in the way of that.

Nice design though; you do get the sense that this is a luxury liner (the cabins in particular seem to have been designed to be small and claustrophobic, as you'd expect), with carpet on the walls and warm colors everywhere.  Plus full marks to whoever decided to put framed comic book pages up as artwork in the cabins.  And there's a nice costuming touch that's been going on throughout the season: Colin Baker's cravat changes color (so blue means past, red means present, and now yellow means future) to act as a subtle indication of what version of the Doctor we're watching.

So it's not the worst thing ever, but judgement of Terror of the Vervoids will probably depend on how it resolves the various problems and mysteries it's setting up.  Nice cliffhanger into part eleven, though; the design of the mutant is realized very well.







¹⁴⁶ As the whole season is officially called The Trial of a Time Lord, we get to hark back to the days of William Hartnell and debate what to call these segments.  The first two had their accepted titles on the scripts, so no problems there, but the working title for this third segment was first The Ultimate Foe (now the accepted title for the last two parts -- a confusion that might have occurred because these last six episodes share a production code of 7C) and then The Vervoids.  Terror of the Vervoids is a title that was invented for the Target novelization (although it's not clear if it was someone at Target or Pip & Jane Baker who actually came up with the title) and which has since stuck with everyone except the people who insist on referring to The Daleks as The Mutants.

December 1: The Trial of a Time Lord Parts Seven & Eight

(Mindwarp parts 3 & 4)

They are a bit uneven, these two episodes, aren't they?  In some respects it feels like they're padded out to meet the required length, with lots of corridor wanderings and little in the way of complications -- the first two parts of Mindwarp had all the stuff with the Doctor behaving unpleasantly to keep things going, but here it just feels like marking time, waiting for the end of part eight to start moving again.  Kiv being placed into a new body is rather nice, and the hints that the host's old brain cells are influencing Kiv are intriguing, but they don't do enough with it, content instead to show Peri, Yrcanos, and Dorf wandering corridors while the Doctor continues to help out with Crozier's experiments.  And more egregiously, they don't really make it clear when the Doctor's mind slips back into phase (for lack of a better term), which leads the audience to wonder how much of the Doctor's behavior was a ruse and how much was genuine.

And yet I find I don't mind too much.  There may be a good deal of padding, but it's at least entertaining padding -- Brian Blessed continues to be a lot of fun ("Oh, very well.  Today, prudence shall be our watchword; tomorrow I shall soak the land in blood"), and the bits with Sil are still fun; the way in which Kiv slowly awakens in his new body to see Sil's face beaming at him is a comic delight.  The manner in which Colin Baker plays the Doctor for most of this, with a sort of off-kilter, fascinated joy, is also worth watching -- you can tell he's not taking things for granted.  The scene with him and Sil, discussing commerce and future events that could lead to profit, is a particular highlight.  But apparently it depends on my mood as to how much I enjoy the sound-sensitive Mentor in the induction centre -- I recall being highly amused by him in the past, but this time it fell a little flat.

Kiv wakes up in his (her?) new body. (The Trial of a Time
Lord Part Eight) ©BBC

It's that second half of part eight that really kicks Mindwarp into high gear, though.  Crozier decides to use Peri as the new host for Kiv's mind (as that second body is only meant to be temporary), while the Doctor does his best to free Yrcanos and others to help him save Peri.  There's a lot of good action in these scenes, and while the ending is spoiled rather by Time Lord machinations, you can tell that Nicola Bryant is having a ball, getting the chance to play an amoral character.  She takes particular delight in the waking-up scene as Kiv, enjoying the feel of warm blood.  Of course, this does mean the end of Peri, as her mind was destroyed when Crozier put Kiv's mind in her body.  Thus we bid farewell to Peri and to Nicola Bryant -- but what a way to go, eh?

However, these ending scenes are marred by that aforementioned Time Lord interference.  We have no way of knowing whether the Doctor would have arrived in time to save Peri (or if Yrcanos would have, for that matter -- although it looks like he probably would have been too late), because this is the moment that the Time Lords choose to pluck the Doctor "out of time" (as the Doctor puts it later), as well as slowing down Yrcanos's charge so that he'll be able to kill Peri/Kiv and Crozier at the right moment.  And yet the Time Lords have the sheer nerve to then claim that Peri's death is the Doctor's fault, as well as continuing to accuse him of meddling in the affairs of others.  The hypocrites.  It's also weird how the Inquisitor is suddenly the one to start berating the Doctor for his actions and to inform him what the High Council decided -- you'd think this information would have come from the Valeyard, rather than the supposedly impartial Inquisitor.  Good cliffhanger ending though: "There's something else going on here.  The High Council has no right to order Peri's or anyone else's death. ... I was taken out of time for another reason, and I have every intention of finding out what it is."

Mindwarp's actually a surprisingly entertaining segment; I remember not caring for this story much the last time I saw it, but I'm not actually sure why: this time it seemed significantly more enjoyable.  It's nice that the trial sequences are being used for more than just rather tiresome points of exposition, and the suggestion that something more is going on than simply a sudden whim to now try the Doctor for meddling is a welcome one.  The Valeyard's actual case seems suspect (this time around the argument seems to be that the Doctor was responsible for everything that happened on Thoros Beta just by being there -- which may be true but seems a lot like supposition rather than a genuine argument (there's no reason to believe that the Doctor was instrumental in Crozier's success, for instance)), but we're starting to get an indication that this trial format might actually work out.