Underworld

Dear Gary—

Underworld is rather underwhelming. It has some nice elements to it and is a pleasant enough story, but it is just kind of there and never really gels into anything of note.

“The quest is the quest,” our Minyans of 100,000 years journey are wont to say. Tired and uninspired, they search on for their elusive Golden Fleece, the missing P7E ship with the Minyan race bank on board. “The quest is the quest;” their memorized mantra. “A ship of ghosts, Doctor,” Jackson says, “going on and on and unable to remember why.”

That is a little like Underworld itself, the initial spark of adventure and purpose is missing and what’s left is a weary going-through-the-motions attitude. But it is still Doctor Who, and any long journey is bound to have its down time. There is still enough there to keep one going. The quest, after all, is still the quest, and Doctor Who is still Doctor Who.

“We’re on the edge of the cosmos, the frontiers of creation, the boundary between what is and isn’t, or isn’t yet, anyway. Don’t you think that’s interesting?” The Doctor still has his spark of adventure burning bright. “I feel just like a goldfish looking out on a new world.”

What he doesn’t expect, though, is for the Minyans to head straight into the nebula in pursuit of the P7E.

The entire first episode of Underworld is littered with these promising nuggets; it is the beginning of the quest. The edge of the cosmos, the birth of a new solar system, crashing through to the core of a “soft planet in the process of formation.” And the Minyans. The Minyan race itself is a gem of a story; too bad we come in at the end. Minyos has long been gone, destroyed 100,000 years ago, and we learn of its fascinating history in only the briefest of summaries from the Doctor.

New at space exploration, the Time Lords came upon the planet Minyos and offered their aid, medical and scientific, and surprisingly for the pacifistic Time Lords, better weapons. The Minyans looked upon these Time Lords as gods, but in the end kicked them out. “Then they went to war with each other, learnt how to split the atom, discovered the toothbrush, and finally split the planet.” It was this first baby step into space on the part of the Time Lords that went awry and sent the Time Lords on their path of non-intervention. Seems to me they gave up a little easily, but then the more I learn of the Time Lords the less I am impressed.

This scenario sets up the potential for an intriguing conflict when the TARDIS lands on the Minyan ship, but it is explored only slightly via the character of Herrick: “If I get one of them in my sights again, then I’ll dematerialize him for good. If they’re on board this ship, then I’ll sniff them out!” But Jackson takes command, seeking aid from the Doctor (not a god) in their quest, and Herrick is pacified. (“So you did develop the pacifier.” “Very few and too late.”)

The pacifier is another come and gone element of the story, and its only purpose seems to be to make Leela the butt of a joke. It is rather funny to see the savage Leela thanking Orfe for shining the pacifying light on her and then waxing poetic over his name. It is equally amusing when the Doctor snaps her out of her euphoric state. “Leela, Leela, listen to me. You’re primitive. Wild, warlike, aggressive, and tempestuous. And bad tempered too.” “I am?” Leela asks in wonder and the Doctor continues, “Yes. You’re a warrior leader from a warrior tribe. Courageous, indomitable, implacable, impossible . . .”

“Right, that’s enough,” Leela exclaims, pulling her knife, back to her old self.

But then it doesn’t seem so funny. “You’re all laughing at me.” Leela feels violated and betrayed and it is a credit to Louise Jameson that we feel the same with her. “I’ll smash your stupid grins off your stupid faces.” It is a cruel joke on a naïve, courageous, compassionate woman. An uncomfortable moment that is swept aside with the continuing quest.

It is the continuation of the quest wherein all the intriguing elements introduced in the first episode are set aside. The quest is the quest, long and dreary though it may be, and there is no time for explorations.

The quest itself offers up some intrigue of its own: the Tree of Life, the Golden Fleece, yet another Ark. Then there are the slave Minyans off the P7E and their guards, the Seers, and the Oracle. But it is all in service of the quest, the 100,000 year dreary long quest.

“Myths often have a grain of truth in them if you know where to look.” Trouble is myths often are more compelling than the truth.

The truth of the P7E: trapped at the center of a newly formed planet, one level of the Minyan crew has become the ruling class and the rest, the rabble, are used as slave labor to dig tunnels and process rock for fuel and food. The ruling Minyans, the guards, stage ‘skyfalls’ to keep the slave population in check. Meanwhile the race bank is being protected by “just another machine with megalomania” known as the Oracle (“There are no gods but me. Have I not created myself? Do I not rule? Am I not all-powerful?), which is in turn guarded by two Seers who have strangely mutated metal, dome shaped heads with three jewel eyes. And it is all a rather strangely mutated The Faceof Evil all over again, but not as interesting.

The questers and the P7E descendents are a truth that would be very compelling if allowed a moment to explore. The questers—Jackson, Herrick, Orfe, and the newly regenerated Tala—are all original Minyans. Direct from the planet Minyos. 100,000 years old and counting. 100,000 years they have lived and they have quested. 100,000 years they have lived a lifespan and regenerated. 1,000 times each they have regenerated. To begin, Tala has “gone past her regeneration point deliberately, just like all the others.” 100,000 years of history told in that line. How many ‘others’ have gone past their time? And these four only are left to quest on. Jackson, Herrick, Orfe, and Tala. Tala who is forced to regenerate for a one thousandth dreary time.

Presumably the Minyans were given the ability to regenerate from their ‘gods’ the Time Lords, however the Minyan regeneration is machine induced and simply renews the body back to youth. And apparently has limitless lifetimes to spare. And apparently this technology was not available to the inhabitants of the P7E.

The Minyans of the P7E have regenerated the old fashioned way—they have gone forth and multiplied (although how have the guards multiplied, given the fact that there don’t seem to be any female guards?). The Minyans of the P7E have never seen Minyos. Minyos is stuff of legends to them. Their eyes are not weary from 100,000 years of dreary long questing but rather from the everyday beating down of life under ground. In a sense, they are on a similar never-ending loop of a quest: “We are born, live, and die in the tunnels.” They are born, live, and die to process the rock. “For fuel. For processing into food so that we can go on working to get more rock.”

Minyans, in any iteration, are somewhat of a plodding, boring peoples. But their history would make a fascinating study if only the quest wouldn’t get so relentlessly in the way.

Even the plot seems to tire of it. OK, it seems to say, let’s get these 100,000 years over with already. “Then should we not give them what they want and let them depart?”

Of course there has to be a slight hitch so that the Doctor can be clever. The wrong cylinders switched out for the right cylinders, the slave Minyans hurried on board the quester’s ship, the planet about to explode, and it’s off to Minyos II.

The quest is over. Both the race bank and the bonus of the P7E descendents are safe. Although the Doctor has to convince Jackson of this: “Listen Jackson, this is your people; this is your race. Descendents of the people who came on the P7E.” Only 370 years and these Minyans will be settled on Minyos II. Given the glimpses of their history we have been given, though, I can only wonder what a mess they will make of it.

“Perhaps those myths,” the Doctor muses, “are not just old stories of the past, you see, but prophecies of the future.”

“Negative,” K9 opines, and I hope he is right and that Underworld is not a hint of Doctor Who yet to come.