November 18: Vengeance on Varos Part Two

So this is another fairly brutal story, but unlike, say, Resurrection of the Daleks, there's a point to the brutality, as it's illustrating writer Philip Martin's two ideas -- the more generic SF idea of "what would happen if a prison planet developed along prison lines" and the more pointed "what if we extrapolated from Western culture's increasing desire for violent entertainment to its natural conclusion".  Obviously the nature of this story means that it's not going to appeal to everyone, but at least you can see what Martin is getting at.

Of course, one of the problems that arises is that this is a story with the sixth Doctor, who the production team has decided needs to be obviously Not Like Us.  And so scenes like the infamous "acid bath" one, near the beginning of part two, end up coming across as harsher than they otherwise would have done.  What we actually get is the Doctor struggling with a guard to not fall into the acid bath as his fellow guard (who fell in earlier) pulls his compatriot in.  What people remember is the callous, James Bond-like quip after ("You'll forgive me if I don't join you"), and that ends up coloring their memories of the scene.  (And curiously, no one seems to comment on the later scene with the deadly tentacles, which the Doctor rigs to kill Quillam and the Chief Officer -- a life-or-death situation, certainly, but the Doctor is more overtly violent there than in the acid bath scene.)

The other problem is that, since Eric Saward took over the script editing post, the stories have become increasingly more vicious -- partly because Saward is interested in telling war stories, but also because he seems to be interested in exploring the idea of a moral Doctor in an amoral universe.  Saward's conclusions tend to be somewhat cynical (see things like Warriors of the Deep, where the moral Doctor is ultimately unable to prevent any of the bloodshed), but at least with the fifth Doctor there was a moral figure people could latch on to.  But now we have the sixth Doctor, who's less traditionally moral (I wouldn't go so far as to call him amoral, but it is the case that some of the fifth Doctor's niceties have gone -- the core is the same, but the veneer is different), and who is therefore going to react somewhat differently from before.  What this means is that we're going to get a string of mercenary stories full of amoral characters, and so Vengeance on Varos is going to end up looking a lot like the surrounding tales, which means that in the audience's eyes it's all of the same cloth.¹³⁸

The Governor negotiates new mining terms with Sil.
(Vengeance on Varos Part Two) ©BBC

This is a shame, because Vengeance on Varos really does have a point.  The exploration of the idea of violence-as-entertainment, while not always totally successful, still makes enough of an impact to consider what's going on.  After all, that's the entire point of having Arak and Etta, the viewing couple who don't interact with anyone else, in this story.  This is the couple who seem inured to the violence, treating it purely as entertainment rather than considering that these are real people.  ("Maybe he isn't fully dead," Etta states while watching the Doctor on their screen.  "Then he soon will be," Arak replies with obvious relish.  "Here comes the acid bath.")  They explore this idea as fully as they can (this is Doctor Who, after all, not The Etta and Arak Show, which means they still have to follow the Doctor around), but it's still not quite as satisfying as you'd want.

The actual meat of the episode is more of the same: running around corridors (incidentally, Nicola Bryant's in-joke was in part one: "All these corridors look the same to me"), avoiding capture and nasty deaths, combined with some facial scarring from Quillam (less successful in all regards, it must be said, than Sharaz Jek was) and an odd subplot about turning Peri and Areta, Jondar's wife, into half-human, half-animal creatures.  There's also a revolution by the end, with the ruling guard elite having been essentially deposed, with a new democracy in its place -- and fair prices for its zeiton-7 ore, much to Sil's displeasure.  (And a nice ending scene too: "We're free," Etta says wondrously.  "...What shall we do?" Arak asks.  "Dunno," Etta replies.)

But it's the exploration of violent media that's ultimately the main point of Vengeance on Varos.  It doesn't really have a solution for any of the issues it brings up, but it is at least thinking about them.  Of course, it has to do this by showing violent content, which means this is an easier story to admire than to actually enjoy.  But it works more than it doesn't, and it gives us an environment for the sixth Doctor to really rail against.  It's certainly a better showing for this Doctor than Attack of the Cybermen was.  It's not for everyone, but it's not meant to be.  And at least it's trying to say something new and different, even if it's not packaged in a nice palatable way -- but this ultimately means that, as these concerns continue to be relevant today, Vengeance on Varos is the sixth Doctor story that's probably improved the most with age.







¹³⁸ There's actually another reason for the public perception of season 22 as being excessively violent, but we'll discuss the 18-Month Suspension and the unfortunate timing of its announcement, matched with the comments of then-BBC1 Controller Michael Grade, under The Two Doctors.