Enlightenment

Dear Gary—

Enlightenment is half of a good story. In fact, the half that is good is remarkably good and therefore it is not dragged down too much by the half that is not.

“This is the sort of excitement that makes eternity bearable.” The Eternals, as portrayed by Striker, Marriner, and crew, are excellent aliens. Empty beings existing in perpetuity; parasites feeding on the minds of ephemerals; infinitely bored immortals craving the diversion only mortals can give them. This is Enlightenment at its best.

“Have you ever seen a man flogged to death? Or keelhauled? Very painful. You Ephemerals have such inventive ways of inflicting pain.” Then there is Wrack, her right hand man Mansell, and her gang of pirates. Enlightenment at its worst.

These can’t be the same creatures; the one detached, empty vessels; the other cackling fiends.

The best and the worst; the good and the bad; an unintended (I am sure) and unfortunate parallel between the White and Black Guardian forces at work in our serial.

For once I don’t mind the Growling Guardian storyline (although I do wish he would make up his mind—does he want to trap Turlough in eternity or kill him?). Here it is not an intrusion but rather the impetus for the plot. At last the Black Guardian is getting down to the nitty gritty of what he has intended all along; and at last I can accept his choice of Turlough as pawn. The Black Guardian wanted to stop the Doctor from interfering in this Eternal race. Knowing that the time was drawing near, he simply picked the handiest non-Earthling trapped on Earth seeking a means of escape and not much caring how he does it (Turlough) who happened to be at the same time and place as the Doctor. And at last I know that this annoying three serial story arc is coming to an end so I am celebrating just a little bit.

I do find it strange that the White Guardian has to use up all of the TARDIS’ power to communicate with the Doctor and even at that is cutting in and out, talking in half sentences, and ultimately disconnected, almost as if he had some bad cell phone reception. The Black Guardian, on the other hand, can come and go at will, always on full power. (He must be using the standard land line; old fashioned and outmoded, perhaps, but reliable all the same.)

(Also, is it just me Gary, or despite all of the claims about the invincibility and impregnability of the TARDIS, do an awful lot of aliens seem to be able to enter and control it?)

“Must not win. Tell the Doctor, winner takes all.” If he knew he was losing reception, couldn’t the White Guardian have been clearer than that? The who at least would have been helpful. The Doctor can figure out the “winner take all" portion, what with a race going on and all, but who exactly is not to win and why?

Enlightenment is the prize for winning the race Striker informs the Doctor and explains, “The wisdom which knows all things, and which will enable me to achieve what I desire most. Do not ask what it is. I will not tell you.”

Wrack, on the other hand, explains this way, “Everything conceived in time, from the beginning to the end, will be clear to me. I shall create and destroy as I wish. I’ll never be bored again.”

I don’t think I’d want either one of these beings to win; and what of the other Eternals in the race? The Doctor learns nothing of them. So I guess the answer is no one should win, as the Doctor ultimately works out. “I’m not ready for it,” the Doctor says of Enlightenment. “I don’t think anyone is; especially not Eternals.”

So why exactly did the White Guardian make this silly bet with the Black? And then realizing what a stupid thing he just did he decides to enlist the Doctor’s aid without giving him the full facts. Who is this White Guardian anyway?

Striker describes mortals in this way, “It is true that Ephemerals, dwellers in time, do have a certain entertainment value.” “You talk as though they were toys,” the Doctor says to which Striker responds, “To me, they are.” But if the Eternals are using people as their playthings, the Guardians, both Black and White, are using the Eternals as their own. Doesn’t strike me as much different; Black or White, Light or Dark, Guardian or Eternal; all of them are acting as superiors manipulating their inferiors for their own amusement. The White Guardian just had a twinge of conscience and pulled in the Doctor to right his wrong.

Luckily for us he does, because now it is being played out for our amusement.

After receiving the garbled message of danger from the White Guardian, the Doctor and Turlough explore what they soon learn to be a sailing ship of Edwardian England while Tegan stays with the TARDIS to be terrorized by an extremely creepy Marriner.

But things are not exactly as they appear, and slowly the mystery deepens as the Doctor and Turlough interview the crew that has been below deck for two days and can’t seem to remember boarding. Next the Doctor and Tegan, escorted by Marriner, meet the blank faced Striker and his officers.

It is all very well done as bit by bit the puzzling revelations are pieced together. The anachronistic wet suits in the corridor, the screams of the crew as they go topside for the first time, the darkness when daylight is expected, the electronics on an Edwardian sailing ship. And then the panels are opened to reveal the magnificent sight of sailing ships racing through the stars with the planets of Earth’s solar system as their marker buoys.

The Eternals themselves, as first depicted by Striker and his officers, are intriguing. Functioning in “the endless wastes of eternity,” the Eternals read the minds of Ephemerals, stealing every bit of knowledge and ideas and technology for their own enjoyment, and the exchanges between Striker and the Doctor are engrossing.

“You are a Time Lord,” Striker says as he reads the Doctor’s mind. “A lord of time; are there lords in such a small domain?”

But the vast, unending, timeless path that the Eternals walk is empty, and the relationship between Marriner and Tegan skillfully expands on this theme.

“It’s as though somebody’s been rummaging around in my memories,” Tegan says as she looks about the cabin to find elements from her rooms on the TARDIS and in Brisbane. While Striker has been concentrating on the Doctor, Marriner has been delighting in the innermost thoughts of Tegan. “I find it such a fascinating place,” he says of her mind. “Full of niches. Life. It fascinates me.”

He is as gentle and devoted as the most ardent lover from Edwardian England. “I am empty,” he confesses to Tegan. “You give me being. I look into your mind and see life, energy, excitement. I want them. I want you. Your thoughts should be my thoughts. Your feelings, my feelings.” Except he has no concept of love: “Love? What is love? I want existence.”

He is truly touching, in a creepy stalker kind of way. “The sparkle has gone from your mind,” he mourns when Tegan believes the Doctor to be dead. And then his plea for help at the end as he fades away, “I need you . . .”

However this intriguing, touching, creepy aspect of the Eternals gets lost once we meet up with Wrack and crew.

Wrack is not played with any hint of pathos. There is no subtlety, no delicacy, no depth. I know that the Edwardian Eternals are empty vessels, yet they are vessels that still manage to reflect all of those things. Not so Wrack. It’s a shame, because an Eternal with a detached penchant for cruelty could be quite compelling; but Wrack has nothing of the Eternal about her.

If she is an Eternal, why does she need the Black Guardian? I have no doubt that she could come up with her own means of sabotage. Her goal is to win; so why is it that when she is pulling away and seemingly can’t lose, she stops to perform one last act of destruction?

This brings me to Turlough. Turlough is very good throughout. At last he is coming to terms with his reluctant mission for the Black Guardian. He doesn’t want to kill the Doctor and he won’t, even going so far as to attempt suicide to escape his pact with the devil. He has flashes of cowardice and bravery; flashes of greed and generosity. He is having massive inner struggles, and it’s interesting that none of the mind reading Eternals pick up on this. Wrack tries to read him, but somehow Turlough’s devious mind manages to evade her on most counts.

Adric was always one to act the mole, never successfully or convincingly. Turlough, on the other hand, has multiple occasions in Enlightenment to play the part, and I have to say that he is so good at it that even now I’m not entirely sure that he isn’t genuine in his various betrayals of the Doctor.

And in the end it all comes down to his choice. The Black Guardian offers him a diamond that could buy a galaxy in exchange for the Doctor. Turlough’s agony is real as he finally flings the diamond at the Black Guardian who bursts into flames for some reason (“light destroys the dark”). “Enlightenment was not the diamond,” the Doctor summarizes, “Enlightenment was the choice.”

Of course the White Guardian explains that the Black Guardian wasn’t really destroyed (so what was the point of the flames from hell?). “Dark cannot exist without knowledge of light,” but so too, “nor light without dark.”

“While I exist, he exists also,” the White Guardian proclaims, “until we are no longer needed.” I’m not entirely sure why they are needed, except I suppose that without light or dark it would be like the Eternals in their echoing void hungry for any hint of existence.

And so I send this out into that echoing void, Gary, hoping that somewhere out there the light and the dark are reaching you too . . .