 |
| Standard and special edition DVDs |
Hey, it's Sean Connery's son Jason, shirtless and being tortured, apparently for the pleasure of a captive audience. No, not us at home (although that too), but instead for the inhabitants of Varos. We get a look at one viewing couple as they calmly watch this while commenting on the quality of the food and their patriotic duties. Interestingly, some fifteen years before the genre really took off,
Doctor Who is tackling reality television. Well, it's actually tackling the idea of a population increasingly inured to violence, but even if no one was consciously thinking about it at the time, the reality TV parallels are hard to avoid.
It's also interesting how long it takes the Doctor and Peri to get involved in the action -- it's halfway through part one before they arrive on Varos. Before that they're stuck in the TARDIS (with Peri in a blue version of her
Attack of the Cybermen outfit), right as the power fails -- the TARDIS is out of zeiton-7, a very rare element that the TARDIS needs to work properly. Interestingly, though, the Doctor chooses to deal with this problem by giving in to it, rather than trying to come up with a solution -- he seems resigned to spending the rest of his life adrift in the TARDIS. "It's all right for you," he tells Peri. "You've only got one life. You'll age here in the TARDIS and then die. Me, I shall go on regenerating until all my lives are spent." It's an attitude that you can't imagine any other Doctor adopting, but it doesn't seem out of character for the sixth Doctor.
 |
Peri and the Doctor arrive on Varos. (Vengeance on Varos
Part One) ©BBC |
But yes, it takes half the episode for the Doctor and Peri to arrive, and while they're floating around in the TARDIS we're learning about conditions on Varos. It's not a pleasant planet, to put it mildly, and the populace is ruled with an iron fist. But the bright spot (for the viewers, if not for the Varosians) is the character of Sil -- easily one of the standout characters of the Colin Baker era. The idea of a profit-obsessed character hasn't really shown up on the show yet, but the fact that it does in the form of a green reptilian slug is rather wonderful -- and Nabil Shaban does a knock-out job of playing this character to the hilt. (And I really like Sil's laugh.) Even though Sil is the villain of the piece (well, the most obvious villain in a story that seems to be filled with them), his presence really does light up the screen. And they've got Martin Jarvis in as the Governor, to act as Sil's foil while submitting himself to repeated referendums regarding his decisions (with deadly rays if the "No"s have it), which leads to a dignified actor constantly on the verge of death thanks to the people, but still able to try and negotiate with Sil over the price of zeiton-7.
The second half is less interesting, just because there's a lot of running around the Punishment Dome corridors (to the tune of higher audience appreciation figures, though -- a somewhat pointed joke), but the cliffhanger is excellent, as the Doctor appears to die from imagined dehydration. But that's not the actual cliffhanger: instead, we cut to the gallery, directing the Doctor's death. "Close-up on death throes, please. ... And cut it... now." It's a really nice twist on the cliffhanger, showing how these things are cynically provided for entertainment.