Obviously these changes mean that the original season 23 has had to be scrapped (although, based on the subsequent Big Finish adaptations of some of the planned stories, we had a lucky escape in not having Mission to Magnus made -- and one wonders if The Hollows of Time would have still been as worryingly convoluted (even with the framing narration out and the Master back in) as the audio version). In its place, John Nathan-Turner and Eric Saward have come up with a new (and somewhat fate-tempting) plan: as the show is on trial in real life, why not have a season-long story where the Doctor is also on trial for his meddling (an update to the events seen back in 1969 at the end of The War Games)? But rather than have one extra-long story, they decided to take three stories and have them be loosely connected to the trial theme, followed by a wrap-up for the overarching tale. And so The Trial of a Time Lord was conceived...
That's the set-up then; what did they actually put on television?
It's a hell of an impressive opening shot, though, as the TARDIS is pulled into some sort of space station via a beam of light (I'm trying to avoid using the term "tractor beam", but as the phrase actually comes from E.E. "Doc" Smith rather than Star Trek, it's probably okay). Clearly some motion control work went into this shot -- the stars moving along with the camera is proof of that. It's a really nice shot. That's then followed by some self-aware dialogue. "Am I late for something?" the Doctor asks as he enters a darkened courtroom. "I was beginning to fear you had lost yourself," the prosecutor, the Valeyard143, replies. It seems there is to be an inquiry into the Doctor's activities regarding interference in other cultures -- something, you may recall, expressly forbidden by Time Lord law. "I intend to adumbrate two typical instances from separate epistopic interfaces of the spectrum," the Valeyard tells the court -- and yet this is a Robert Holmes script, not a Pip & Jane Baker one. Why he can't just say that he's going to show two different examples of the Doctor's guilt is beyond me.
This leads into the (first) main story proper: that of the Doctor and Peri's investigations on a planet called Ravalox, some two million years in the future. It's quickly clear that Ravalox is actually Earth, though as of now there's no clear reason why Ravalox and its "constellation" (er, does he mean "solar system"?) have moved a couple light years away from their typical location. But look! Everything's on video now, which does give the production a unified look (the real world reason having to do with the problems of developing film -- an incident involving a scratch on a film negative for The Two Doctors, necessitating a pricey reshoot of the footage, only to later discover that the scratch wasn't that bad, made Nathan-Turner decide film was more trouble than it was worth). And the story is rather intriguing so far, with two "tribes" of people nearby -- one on the surface and one underground. The surface dwellers look like a primitive tribe, while those underground appear to be locked into a dictatorship run by an L3 robot named Drathro. Drathro is a suitably impressive costume -- it looks like a metal robot (instead of, say, a foam rubber costume) and it towers over everyone.
But the best part about these two episodes are the Holmes double-act of Sabalom Glitz and his partner Dibber. In the tradition of characters like Jago and Litefoot from The Talons of Weng-Chiang, Glitz and Dibber engage in highly entertaining banter, with lots of dry wit. Unlike Jago and Litefoot, Glitz and Dibber's conversations are significantly more sadistic:
GLITZ: You know, Dibber, I'm the product of a broken home.Glitz and Dibber are less like villains (even though they want to kill the Doctor and Peri, though only to eliminate competition) and more like an amoral third party, come to cause extra problems. But they're already significantly more entertaining than anything in The Two Doctors was.
DIBBER: You have mentioned it on occasions, Mister Glitz.
GLITZ: Which sort of unbalanced me. Made me selfish to the point where I cannot stand competition.
DIBBER: Know the feeling only too well, Mister Glitz.
GLITZ: Whereas yours is a simple case of sociopathy, Dibber, my malaise is much more complex. A deep-rooted maladjustment, my psychiatrist said. Brought on by an infantile inability to come to terms with the more pertinent, concrete aspects of life.
DIBBER: That sounds more like an insult than a diagnosis, Mister Glitz.
GLITZ: You're right there, my lad. Mind you, I had just attempted to kill him. Oh, I do hate prison psychiatrists, don't you? I mean, they do nothing for you.
But then this first part of The Trial of a Time Lord (hereafter The Mysterious Planet, as that's what everyone calls these first four episodes) is already a lot more interesting and entertaining than Holmes's last script for the show. The story is moving at a nice clip, and while it might not be the most original story, it at least has its charms (such as Katryca, the leader of the Tribe of the Free, already knowing what a spaceship is), and the interruptions of the actual trial aren't too bad. Interesting how both cliffhangers end with a close-up on Colin Baker's face, though.
143 It's occasionally stated that "Valeyard" is an old word for "prosecutor" or some such, but I've never been able to verify this -- the only thing that ever seems to come up when you do a search for "Valeyard" is Doctor Who.