Meglos

Dear Gary—

I know I’m going to like Meglos from the start with this exchange:

Doctor: “First things first?”

Romana: “Exactly.”

Doctor: “But not necessarily in that order.”

 What’s not to love about Meglos? A giant cactus monster, bumbling space pirates, a doppelganger Doctor, the Dodecahedron—no one seems to know what exactly the Dodecahedron is and nor do I; I just love saying it, Dodecahedron—and Barbara. Barbara! I keep expecting the Doctor to do a double take. Talk about your doppelgangers.

There are a few problems with Meglos, quite a few actually, but I think a giant talking cactus overrides them. I mean, any show that has the audacity to use a giant talking cactus as its monster is allowed a little latitude.

Let me start with the Tigellan society. It is a simple enough dichotomy between the scientific Savants on one side and the religious Deons on the other with Zastor in the middle acting as leader and mediator. However Zastor does very little leading and the Deons are clearly in control. Zastor never makes a decision, all he seems to do is preside over bicker sessions between the Savants and Deons and in the end everyone does what the Deons dictate and I’m not really sure why. Lexa (Barbara!), leader of the Deons, is the de facto leader of Tigella; Zastor is a joke; the Savants, led by Deedrix, are all discontented talk and no action.

The Dodecahedron (what a great word) is the source of power for the Tigellan underground city and worshipped by the Deons. Nobody other than the Deons are allowed to even view the Dodecahedron, although the Savants have figured out a way to harness its energy even in the face of this handicap. The Savants are constantly arguing the need to study the Dodecahedron, especially since its output has become somewhat unreliable. Seeing as the life of their city depends on it, I would think the Savants would press their point more forcefully. After all, they have guns and it doesn’t appear that the Deons do. Perhaps the guards on duty are also Deons. When Lexa (Barbara!) stages a coup and has Zastor and the Savants tossed out the guards do her bidding. But why would the Savants and Zastor hand this authority over to the Deons in the first place?

Then there is the whole underground dwelling thing. Granted, the planet surface is infested with “lush, aggressive vegetation” but surely the Savants at least could devise a way to deal with it. After all, the Doctor, Romana, the bumbling space pirates, and Meglos all wander about Tigella with little trouble. Occasionally one of them gets attacked by a bell plant, but it seems relatively easy for them to get free. And in the end, with the loss of the Dodecahedron, the Tigellans are forced up top and don’t have a problem with the transition. So much for the decades of preparation Deedrix predicted would be needed to re-inhabit the surface.

But what does any of this matter when we have a doppelganger Doctor walking around? A doppelganger Doctor who occasionally sprouts green spikes?

Meglos, our giant cactus, is the sole survivor of Zolfa-Thura, “a great civilization blown away to sand and ashes.” Meglos has been hiding out underground for what must have been a very long time. At one point he mentions returning below for another thousand years but later he mutters something about ten thousand years. At any rate, why did it take him so long to act? But then, cacti are a long-lived, slow growing plant so perhaps it was only a blink of an eye to a Zolfa-Thuran.

Once he does ascend, Meglos employs a band of space pirates, or as they are called, Gaztaks, to obtain a body, one that is a “male Caucasian around two meters tall” for him to inhabit. I guess it is easier for a humanoid body to move around than it is for a cactus. I’m not sure why the specifics, but so what? The human snatched by the Gaztaks is perfectly played as the ordinary man on his way home from work who is suddenly snatched by space pirates and whisked off to another planet only to be inhabited by an alien cactus.

Once transferred to this rather bewildered human, Meglos has the ability to shape shift, and since he has intercepted a message from Zastor to the Doctor (apparently the Doctor had been to Tigella 50 years previous and therefore knows Zastor) Meglos decides to impersonate the Doctor. But not before trapping the Doctor and Romana in a chronic hysteresis (time loop) to avoid complications. (I love saying chronic hysteresis almost as much as Dodecahedron.)

I have to say, Gary, that the way in which the Doctor breaks the chronic hysteresis is ingenious, especially since he only has the few moments at the end of the loop before it cycles over to work things out. I’m sure Romana is everlastingly grateful to the Doctor for freeing them or she would have to go through eternity in her ridiculous beach costume that she still hadn’t changed since Brighton. However once they are released she promptly changes into one of the most hideous outfits yet, so perhaps she plain just has bad taste in clothes and wouldn’t have known any better.

Romana does have rather a good time of it once they reach Tigella running the space pirates around in circles, taking advantage of the anticlockwise rotation of the planet.

Brotadac: “What’s she talking about?”

Grugger: “Rotation, direction, revolving.”

I do have to say, though, that when Romana is stressed or distressed in the slightest she comes out with a most pathetic succession of cries, whines, whimpers, grunts, pants, and screams.

The Doctor, meanwhile, runs into his own trouble when he enters the city after his doppelganger Meglos has waltzed off with the Dodecahedron from under the Tigellans’ noses. The Dodecahedron, it seems, did not descend from the heavens as a gift from the god Ti as Lexa (Barbara!) believes, but is actually a great power source developed on Zolfa-Thura and Meglos intends to return it to his home planet where he will utilize the amplification of the great Screens of Zolfa-Thura to use the Dodecahedron to conquer and destroy through the universe. Yes, the story does devolve into your typical egomaniacal villain wanting to take over the universe. What a single sentient cactus wants with the universe I don’t know and don’t care. Who am I to question a talking cactus?

Meglos’ undoing is his reliance upon the Gaztaks. Being a cactus does have its limitations and Meglos therefore needs the Gaztaks to do most of his dirty work even though they are constantly scheming to double cross him. In the end all it takes is a punch in the stomach and they lock him up along with the Doctor for good measure. Meglos has already shown them how to use the equipment controlling the screens and the Dodecahedron, although what they do not know is that the Doctor has tampered with the controls and they are preparing to blow themselves up rather than their intended target of Tigella.

It is a very simple story, really, and not very inspired. However the “lush, aggressive vegetation” of Tigella is impressive and Brotadac--he who covets the Doctor’s coat--is hilarious. Also the moments when the possessed human tries to escape from Meglos are effective as the Doctor/Meglos pulls the struggling man back into himself.

Earthling: “Let go of me! You’ve no right.”

Meglos: “Quite right, but academic.”

And when the Earthling is finally released at the end we have some wonderfully underplayed comedy as he worries about what the wife will think.

Tom Baker does a great job with the dual roles; with the subtlest change in demeanor we know which is which, even when he’s not green. And I like the science vs. faith aspect, one that is used a lot in Doctor Who. In Meglos Lexa (Barbara!) gets the best of it: “Believe? A word too large for their small minds.” And “Faith dwells in the deeds, Zastor, not in the words.” But it is Zastor who puts his finger on it when he describes the Doctor: “The Doctor has the maturity to respect many points of view.” And so too Doctor Who. The show might pit science against religion often, but Doctor Who is itself the perfect blend of knowledge and faith, and Meglos is a flawed but fun entry in the canon.

Zastor has another description of the Doctor, and it is this I want to close with: “He sees the threads that join the universe together and mends them when they break.”

I send this out, Gary, into the threads of the universe . . .