Arc of Infinity

Dear Gary—

Arc of Infinity marks three significant returns to Doctor Who. I’ll start with Tegan, the companion left stranded at Heathrow during the season ending Time Flight.

“Well, you know how it is; you put things off for a day, next thing you know it’s a hundred years later.”

Some time must have passed since the TARDIS took off leaving a teary-eyed Tegan behind. The Doctor and Nyssa are completing some long overdue repair work on the TARDIS and not a mention is made of their missing companion. And when next we see Tegan she reveals she has just lost her job; no backward glances at her space/time travels; it is life on Earth as usual. They have gone their separate ways and that is that.

Except being Doctor Who, that is not always that, and Tegan re-enters the Doctor’s life when he is least expecting it. Now, I would like it if the show would throw us some kind of a bone of an explanation; say, Omega chooses her knowing her link to the Doctor, or the Mara within her is guiding her. However, in the absence of any coherent theory for this glaring coincidence I will simply take Tegan’s return in Doctor Who stride just as the Doctor and Nyssa do.

 I have to digress a bit here Gary. Future generation Doctor will make a huge cosmic deal out of two people who have left TARDIS adventure behind only to reappear suddenly in his life (Donna and her grandfather Wilfred Mott). But then, new Who has a tendency to make everything a huge cosmic deal. I think I prefer the low key approach of the Fifth Doctor.

Next in line returning to Doctor Who: Time Lords. I have never been a big fan of the Gallifrey excursions, but the mystique has long since been shattered surrounding this supposedly noble race, so I can tolerate yet another example of the stilted, stratified, and stagnant life on the Doctor’s home planet. And what a surprise to see none other than future Doctor Colin Baker taking a turn as a guard for the Time Lords. His is not so much a return as a pre-turn. Commander Maxil; he is just as insufferably arrogant as his future Doctor portrayal. ( I do find his commentary on the DVD highly entertaining, however, and I can’t help thinking that if he had let one or two of his ‘bwack, bwack, bwacks’ through to the character it would have served him well. As it is, perhaps his resentment of having to carry around that chicken of a hat is what is motivating his haughty conceit.)

Finally we have the return of Omega, one of the Founding Fathers of Time Lord society last seen in The Three Doctors. This is a toned down version of Omega; gone are the beautifully luxuriant robes as well as the raging insanity and lust for power. This Omega is less animated and more subtle, but he really doesn’t come alive until he removes his mask revealing the Doctor’s countenance as his own. Peter Davison as Omega is memorably touching. Omega is no longer the raving lunatic of The Three Doctors or the sly schemer of the first episodes of Arc; he is simply a newborn discovering the joys of walking in the world once more.

Arc of Infinity does a decent job combining these three returning elements into an entertaining and cohesive story.

Omega, in an attempt to return from the realm of antimatter, tries to bond with the Doctor through the aid of a traitorous Time Lord. I’m not surprised, given Gallifreyan history, that a Time Lord is behind most of the doings in our story; they must not do a very vigorous screening of High Council members as they are constantly betraying their brethren. However, I have to give Hedin credit; he is not motivated by greed or hubris or ambition; he merely wants to aid “the first and greatest” of the Time Lords. “The one,” he explains, “who sacrificed all to give us mastery of time and was shamefully abandoned in return.” And I have to say that I am sympathetic to this sentiment.

I think Hedin would have been better off, though, if he tried to get Thalia aside to explain his and Omega’s intentions. Thalia seems the most open to the possibilities of what they are trying to do. Surely with the Time Lords working together they could come up with a way to bring Omega back. But that doesn’t seem to be the Time Lord way. They would rather plot and connive and undermine. Man, Time Lords are a devious lot.

They are trigger happy, too. They claim that the execution of a Time Lord “has in fact only happened once before,” but the less formal shoot to kill orders are not out of the ordinary.

The hushed and hurried approach that Omega and Hedin take is their downfall. The Time Lords are forced to react, and their trigger happy instincts take over, leaving the Doctor vulnerable to their warped sense of justice. Nyssa, the outsider (why is it that the Doctor can bring any companion he wants to Gallifrey except for Sarah Jane?), tries to talk reason to the High Council in her foolish naiveté. Realizing their utter lack of sense, she is driven to the only tactic they seem to understand—gunplay. The Doctor, however, intervenes. He seems to sense that the as yet unknown to him power behind the action has set the scenario up, and he is right, of course, but it still seems to me a convoluted and wrong way to go about things.

Now with the Doctor awkwardly dangling in the Matrix while the whole Gallifreyan world believes he is dead, Omega and Hedin are free to do whatever it is they are doing in Amsterdam with Tegan, Tegan’s cousin, Tegan’s cousin’s friend, and the “psycho synthesis” chicken monster. Like many a Doctor Who serial, I stop trying to figure out what they are doing and just enjoy the ride.

However their haste has aroused suspicions and Omega and Hedin are forced to free the Doctor so that they can put an even more rushed order on Omega’s transfer. The Doctor rushes himself, off to Amsterdam where the action for some mysterious reason shifts. Something to do with water. Being Earth, you know—water, water everywhere—wouldn’t the bottom of an ocean or, I don’t know, Venice, do just as well or better? Being a native Wisconsinite I can’t help putting a plug in for our Great Lakes of Michigan and Superior, or how about neighboring Minnesota—Land of 10,000 Lakes? But to Amsterdam we go.

Apparently because of the precipitate nature of their actions, Omega’s transfer to the world of matter is unstable (again—if he had taken his time, worked with the Time Lords, added the Doctor’s two cents . . .) and universal catastrophe is imminent. Now we have the Doctor, Nyssa, and Tegan (together again) running through the streets of Amsterdam looking for the Doctor look-alike who is transmuting before our eyes into green Rice Crispy Man. His sojourn on this Earth is brief, his delight in the simple pleasures of smiling upon a youthful face tragically doomed to the reversion of anti-matter.

“I can expel or destroy you, Omega. It’s your choice,” the Doctor says as he points the Egron weapon at him. There, of course, is their out if they ever want to bring Omega back. We might think he is dead, but is he? Or is he merely ‘expelled’ as the Doctor offers? We thought he was dead back at the end of The Three Doctors only to learn, “No, he exists.” The Doctor isn’t any too sure, either. “Well, he seemed to die before,” he says of the vaporized Omega, “yet he returned to confound us all.”

Omega returned; the Time Lords returned; Tegan returned.

“I got the sack; so you’re stuck with me, aren’t you?”

Tegan is staying.

Looking none too pleased, the Doctor welcomes her back on board.

The Doctor/Nyssa bonding was nice for one story; Nyssa really had a chance to shine. But Tegan adds a sorely needed dash of spice to TARDIS life.

And as the Doctor is stuck with Tegan, I suppose, Gary, that you are stuck with me as I continue on this slow path I have started . . .