The Armageddon Factor

Dear Gary—

“This thing makes me feel in such a way I’d be very worried if I felt like that about someone else feeling like this about that.”

Amen.

The Armageddon Factor is the conclusion to the Key to Time season, and it is my least favorite story of the six. That is not to say that I don’t like it; it does have some good points to it; it just doesn’t capture my imagination like the other five do.

For starters, it is six episodes in length with not enough to hold my interest for the entirety. The plot, revolving around a futile and endless war between two planets, has potential, and it is structured nicely with two parts Atrios, two parts Zeos, and two parts shadow planet. But rather like the Marshal spending the better part of three episodes in a time loop giving the signal to fire over and over, the story seems to run down the same corridors over and over with little deviation.

Then we have Astra and Merak, the love interest we are supposed to care about, but I just don’t care. They are both rather lackluster and ineffectual. I remember, Gary, my outraged reaction the first time I realized that Astra, or the actress playing her Lalla Ward, was to become the new Romana. The lowlight for me is when Princess Astra is spitting out her lines with the Marshall at the beginning of our story and concludes with, “Then let me go to the hospital. I can’t do anything here.” She begins her delivery in the same angry tone she had been using throughout her dialogue with him, only to realize partway through that this isn’t entirely appropriate to the line and she tempers it, limping her way to the finish. I get the feeling the Marshall lets her go just to get her off screen. Her subsequent scenes with Merak are equally lame, and it doesn’t help that Merak matches her lack of intensity. About the only time I like Lalla Ward’s acting is when Astra is under the influence of the Shadow and playing evil.

In hindsight it is interesting to see the two actresses, Lalla Ward and Mary Tamm, side by side. Too bad neither has any real chance to shine, or at least neither takes the opportunity to shine. The Armageddon Factor is Mary Tamm’s last appearance as Romana in Doctor Who, and I do like that she is given quite a lot to say and do. However what I do not like is that she is humorless throughout. It is a shame that we see none of her personality in this story, and the last we see of her she is delivering a harangue against the Doctor.

There is some humor in The Armageddon Factor, however unlike most Doctor Who serials it doesn’t arise naturally but rather seems forced and out of place. In particular, the characters of Shapp and Drax. These are actually two of my favorite characters in the story, but they just don’t fit.  As K9 observes, “Your silliness is noted.” Shapp and Drax do introduce some much needed lightheartedness to the proceedings, but the action around them is so very serious and grim that it seems glaringly silly in contrast. These two seem to go with a different tale altogether, and I often wish it was that one I was watching.

Thank goodness for the Doctor. I go back, Gary, to The Ribos Operation. Romana asks the Doctor, “Aren’t you frightened?” to which he replies, “Yes, terrified.” Or going back even further to The Ark in Space: “When I say I’m afraid, Sarah, I’m not making jokes.” The Doctor might seem devil-may-care, but beneath his jovial façade we know he is deadly serious. There is much for the Doctor to fear in The Armageddon Factor, but his persona never changes. His is the only humor in this serial that works because it is natural (“Diagonal thinking; that’s what’s required!”).

“Empirical poppycock,” the Doctor says when Romana expresses her expectations of the worst. “Where’s your joy in life? Where’s your optimism?”

“It opted out,” Romana replies—her one moment of humor, but unfortunately prophetic for the rest of the story.

K9, too, has a good line here: “Optimism. Belief that everything will work out well. Irrational, bordering on insane.” Typical K9 logical thinking.

“Oh, do shut up K9,” and typical Doctor berating his mechanical friend. “Listen Romana,” the Doctor continues, “whenever you go into a new situation you must always believe the best until you find out exactly what the situation’s all about. Then believe the worst.”

The worst is what they walk into on Atrios. A world devastated by nuclear war, the people scarred and wounded, the planet contaminated, their fleet depleted, their leaders disconsolate, but a Marshal intent on victory at all costs, throwing everything and everyone at the war effort with no mercy.

“No sign of immediate life,” K9 offers as the Doctor and Romana walk through the empty corridors of Atrios. And then he adds, “The corpse on the left, however, is recent.” That is what is sorely missing from most of The Armageddon Factor, a heavy dose of black humor. Oh what the Coen brothers could do with this script. Wouldn’t that be a fantastic pairing, Gary—the Coen brothers and Doctor Who.

Instead what we get is mostly dark and humorless with sudden bursts of silliness.

I’m not even going to go into the wealth of questions that arise, like what is that skull that talks to the Marshal and why doesn’t it sense the presence of Romana and Merak; why does the Marshal have to look into the mirror to get his instructions; what does the Shadow need with the Marshal when the Marshal seems to want war at all costs regardless of mind control; what happened to all the people on Zeos; and so many more questions I ask myself as the story progresses, but I find I don’t really care enough to get the answers.

 “You don’t beg for peace, Princess, you win it.” The Marshal dominates the first third of the action as it plays out on Atrios, and his single-minded pursuit of victory in the face of devastating losses is engrossing. However the discovery that he is a mere puppet of the Shadow somehow blunts this. Perhaps his monomania is induced, but there is no indication that he was ever any other way. How much more effective this would be if we had glimpses of his true, more moderate self instead of the end product with which we are presented. With the Princess we see the transformation from good to evil, and even though the good is blasé and the evil somewhat inexplicable (can the Shadow really change a personality so completely with just a small black button on the neck?), at least we have the contrast in front of us to add some teeth to the Shadow’s menace. Having only Astra’s change before us I can only wonder why she acts as she does; seeing the Marshal’s conversion would have added a more convincing bite to the Shadow’s power.

Even a hint of his past self would suffice. Perhaps a wife or child agonizing over the personality change. A few simple lines, gestures, looks from one of those wonderful Doctor Who supporting cast members could have added a wealth of depth to this storyline. Instead we get his right hand man Shapp merely rolling his eyes as the Marshal becomes more unreasonable.

For the middle section we move to Zeos and learn that there are no Zeons on Zeos. Miles and miles of empty, dusty corridors and one computer master minding the war effort. Who’s minding the computer, keeping the dust out of the server room, performing minor maintenance, making sure the power stays on? No mention, no matter. Who’s manning those war ships we see as tiny blips on the Atrios radar screen? No mention, no matter. What happened to all of the people of Zeos, or at least their corpses? No mention, no matter.

Finally we arrive at the Shadow’s lair for the denouement (“you are in the Valley of the Shadow”). Here we get an abandonment of the first two thirds of the story (or at least a temporary pause as it is held up in a time loop) so we can get to the Key to Time thread of the plot.

Enter Drax. Drax, a renegade Time Lord like the Doctor, had been employed by the Shadow to build the Zeos war computer Mentalis and has now been conscripted into entrapping the Doctor. Drax recognizes him and for the first time we get an actual name attached to the Doctor (other than his alias of John Smith). “Hello, Theet. How you been, boy?” Theta Sigma, as we will come to learn in later serials, was the Doctor’s nickname back at the Academy. The Doctor seems annoyed at the dredging up of this old appellation and calmly but rather sternly corrects Drax: “Doctor.” I have to say I’m a bit annoyed myself at this familiarity. I do adore Drax, but as I say, he is out of place and his intimate use of the name seems almost sacrilege (and I have to admit, Gary, that I always heard Theet as Feet and was therefore doubly outraged). “No offence,” the Doctor adds, however, because he too likes Drax.

Now we have the Shadow using Romana, I mean Princess Astra, to lure Romana (the real, true, first Romana) and also Merak off into danger, and we have some strange sequences of holographic Romanas (the real, true, first Romana) and the Doctor calling out and walking down corridors (“Ah, I see what you’re at; splitting us up. Divide and conquer, is that it?”). If that is what he’s at, I don’t get it. He already had them split up. What exactly was the point of that? It was some more out of place silliness, like a funhouse set down in the middle of a war torn battlefield.

And then we have the Shadow enslaving K9. The Doctor has the right idea about these little black buttons the Shadow uses; he simply takes it off and scoffs at it. I can see how Astra has come under the influence, and the Marshal doesn’t seem to need any undue influence (although why he didn’t take the thing off as a nuisance I don’t know), but K9? A tin dog? Really? This leads to some rather comical scenes with K9, the Doctor, and Drax, all out of place in the somber Shadow’s lair, but nonetheless entertaining and much appreciated.

Finally we have the revelation that Romana, I mean, er, Astra, is the sixth segment to the Key to Time, and that the Shadow is working for the Black Guardian. Astra willingly undergoes her “metamorphosis” and the Doctor unshrinks himself (don’t even ask about the shrinking shtick) in the nick of time to grab the segment away from the Shadow and race for the TARDIS.

Now we have the first appearance of the Black Guardian, a nice end cap to the Key to Time season. It would have been nice if he posed more of a serious threat, but I have to say that I don’t really mind the fairly anticlimactic end to this quest. All of the fun was in the search, who really cares if it was all for naught? The key is assembled for a brief time, and presumably this is enough for the White Guardian to do his thing. I’m sure he is all-knowing enough to sense it has been assembled and all-powerful enough to restore balance. That’s all a bit of minor technicality that I can leave to my suspension of disbelief.

The Doctor’s “Absolute power over every particle in the universe” routine in the closing moments is worth the entire season-long exercise in futility.

With the Key dispersed once again, Astra is restored to her Merak (although honestly I care more for the Atrios soap opera lovers than I do this duo), the Doctor and Romana are now at the whim of the randomizer the Doctor has newly fitted to the TARDIS guidance system (that “operates under a very complex scientific principle called pot luck”), and Drax is off to peddle his talents to the frustrated Marshal just released from his time loop. Now that, Gary, is another Doctor Who spinoff I would love to see.

And so the Key to Time season comes to a close; a season of diminishing returns.

I’m making it sound as though I don’t like The Armageddon Factor at all, but I do in fact enjoy it. It is just the lost potential that I lament.

But then, Gary, you know that old saying about ifs and buts . . .