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.