“Strange lights in the sky never bode well for the future.”
That may be, but they usually bode well for Doctor Who
viewing, and The Visitation is just what the doctor ordered. A solid script,
wonderful locations, good actors, and decent monsters. The first five minutes
setting up the atmosphere of seventeenth century Earth are the highlight of the
show, and I keep hoping that one or two members of the introductory familial
group survived and will pop up again. None does, but it is a testament to the
rest of the serial that this is only a minor disappointment.
This opening sequence of a companionable family group under siege
is followed up with a mundane TARDIS scene in which the Doctor chastises Adric
for his actions on Deva Loka from our previous story and Tegan recounts to
Nyssa her own adventures on that planet before entering the console room to
shout her displeasure with the Doctor for not getting her back to Heathrow as
promised. The subtle tensions depicted by our first family are contrasted with
the hostile bickering of our second.
The Visitation seems to be addressing the fact that these
are four strangers from four different worlds who are suddenly beginning to
realize that they are stuck with one another. The Doctor especially is
noticeably resentful of these nuisances cluttering his TARDIS. Nyssa is the
only companion that he tolerates in our story. In fact, Nyssa seems to be the
only one of our four who gets on with everybody. Even Adric puts up with her
bossing to a point, and then he simply tunes her out and goes his own way (to
get into trouble, of course; “Poor old Adric; always in trouble,” as Nyssa
says).
Adric is at his worst in this story, but his acting is so
earnestly bad that I can’t help liking him for it. Tegan also appears to be
warming up to the boy wonder. “I’m not entirely convinced that she likes me,”
Adric says of Tegan, yet it is Tegan who consoles him with, “Anyway, I’m
pleased to see you,” after the Doctor admonishes him for moving the TARDIS.
Fortunately the plot allows for the Bickersons to split up
and concentrate on the problems at hand. It is a rather straight-forward tale
of crashed aliens seeking to annihilate all of mankind via a genetically
enhanced plague in the seventeenth century. The Terileptils are our rubber
suited monsters of the day. Three of them have crash landed (actually four but
only three have survived). What three
lonely Terileptils want with the entire Earth I can’t imagine, but that is
their intention—to wipe out all humans to make room for the three of them plus
their beautiful android friend. In the meantime they have a group of controlled
villagers to do their bidding while they prepare the plague they mean to
unleash on the Earth.
I wish we could learn more of this fascinating new race of
creatures and their “love of art and beauty” combined “with their love of war.”
The three in our story are actually fugitives, having escaped from a life
sentence in the “tinclavic mines on Raaga.” The costumes for these creatures
are quite good, although rather restrictive. I guess that is why they need
androids and controlled humans.
Within the context of this simple story the TARDIS crew is
given ample opportunity to vent and work through their various irritations with
one another and to also find some space of their own. There are various
pairings, with the Doctor and Nyssa exploring, Adric and Tegan getting captured,
Adric and Nyssa tinkering in the TARDIS, and the Doctor and Tegan searching for
clues to the Terileptil base. Then too, Nyssa spends some quality time alone in
the TARDIS while she rigs up a sonic device to decommission the android, Tegan
gets mind controlled and aids the head Terileptil in his plague preparations,
and Adric petulantly gets in and out of trouble and back in again.
All four eventually hook back up, the action shifts to
London (Pudding Lane), and the Doctor has yet another great historical fire to
his credit.
I am pleased to see the Fifth Doctor finally following his
detective instincts in this story as he investigates the phenomenon of
mysterious lights in the sky and the empty manor house with walls that shouldn’t
be. He is definitely taking on a more active role than he has in his previous
outings. He also begins to utilize the commonplace objects he now carries in
his pockets, taking on a certain MacGyver quality. A bit of string and a safety
pin are all he needs. Good thing, since his sonic screwdriver has been
destroyed by the Terileptil (“I feel as though you’ve just killed an old friend”).
I am finding that I haven’t much more to say about The
Visitation. It is a pleasant and entertaining diversion, helped in large part
by an over-the-top highwayman/actor by the name of Richard Mace who joins the
Doctor to liven things up. The Terileptils are intriguing, the little we get to
know of them, and the grim reaper disguise for their android is a very clever
and effective scare tactic (“I have always found fear an excellent tool”). And too,
this is well worth the watch on the strength of the opening vignette alone.
I send this out, Gary, hoping that there are a few more
strange lights looming in the Doctor Who sky . . .
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