August 14: The Talons of Weng-Chiang Parts Three & Four

So part two ended with a shot of Mr. Sin, Chang's creepy-looking ventriloquist's doll, moving of its own accord and menacing Leela with a large knife in Professor Litefoot's home.  The pig-like snorting coming from Mr. Sin is memorably bizarre, and the cliffhanger resolution in part three isn't a cheat, as Leela launches herself through the window to (relative) safety.

Part three is primarily Leela's time to shine, as she follows Chang and Sin back from Litefoot's to their hideout, substitutes herself for one of the girls Chang abducts for his master, and even gets in an attempt to take care of Weng-Chiang by throttling him -- only to be foiled in this by the fact that Weng-Chiang is touting an anachronistic laser gun.  And we should stop for a moment and recognize just how good Louise Jameson is as Leela; her approach to the material she's given never feels relaxed or lazy, but rather as someone who's constantly thinking through the implications of what things would mean to the character -- which she nevertheless makes look effortless as she does everything the scripts ask her to do.  Most of it is subtle and nuanced, which helps everything be that much more believable.  It's a great performance.

Chang is told by Weng-Chiang to bring more girls for his "god" to
feed upon. (The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Three) ©BBC

But yes, while Leela is on the trail of Weng-Chiang, the Doctor is working out more of the plot with Litefoot.  There was a bit of exposition in the first two episodes, with Chang on the villain's side as girls are abducted, but here the Doctor decides to do something about it.  He knows that Weng-Chiang has his lair in the sewers near the Palace Theatre and so he takes a Chinese fowling piece into the sewers to find his way there, only to find Leela in the sewers as well, being attacked by a giant rat...

Honestly, I don't think the rats are that bad.  They're not really any worse than any other effects seen on the show in the last two seasons -- the fur's too clean, but at least David Maloney has shot the thing as best as he can.  Really, the worst shot is that one of the giant rat "scurrying" toward the camera, which doesn't quite come off the way it's intended to, but even that's not that bad.  And besides, it's not a big part of the story anyway -- what's the big deal?

In any event, part four gives us a good deal more backstory than we had previously.  We learned in part three that Weng-Chiang has a special machine that sucks the life from people -- "Sounds like an organic distillation," the Doctor remarks -- and that he's fixated on recovering the cabinet in Litefoot's home, which he calls a "time cabinet" and which the Doctor establishes is from Earth, but in the future.  And near the end, Chang tells the Doctor about how he encountered Weng-Chiang:

DOCTOR: Li H'sen, you know he's not a god, don't you?
CHANG: He came like a god.  He appeared in a blazing cabinet of fire.  I saw him and helped him.  He was tired from his journey. ... He was ill for many months.  I was but a humble peasant, but I gave him sanctuary while the soldiers searched.  I nursed him.
DOCTOR: The cabinet.  What happened to the cabinet?
CHANG: Soldiers of T'ung-Chi⁹⁹ took it.  Ever since, we have searched for the great cabinet of Weng-Chiang.  The god will not be made whole until it is recovered.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - The Talons of Weng-Chiang)

So we learn that the cabinet is important, and that, coupled with all the other clues, suggests that the person calling himself "Weng-Chiang" is in fact from Earth's future.  We still don't know why he wants the cabinet though, other than some references to not being whole without it.

All this and there's still time for an extended sequence in the theatre, as we watch Chang perform his act (with the assistance of the Doctor).  It goes on for quite some time, but it's entertaining nonetheless.  Plus it performs a plot function, as it leads to Chang's downfall -- thanks to Weng-Chiang, who has dismissed Chang from his service and ends up discrediting him on stage by placing a dead body in Chang's magic cabinet for the audience to see.

And finally, this episode ends on one of the most downbeat cliffhangers yet: Weng-Chiang has packed up everything in his lair -- which means he can start all over again somewhere new -- and we see him with the time cabinet, riding away from Litefoot's house and laughing triumphantly with Mr. Sin.  It seems that Weng-Chiang has everything he needs; nothing can stop him now.







⁹⁹ Presumably this is the Wade-Giles system of romanizing Chinese; the modern Pinyin equivalent is Tongzhi.  In any case, unlike Weng-Chiang, this is genuine: the Tongzhi Emperor ruled from 1861 to 1875.