Monday, August 19, 2013

Vengeance on Varos

Dear Gary—
Watching Vengeance on Varos is a thoroughly unpleasant experience. That’s a shame because it is the best script to date of the Colin Baker era (which isn’t saying too much since there have only been two others). The worst thing about Vengeance on Varos is that it becomes the very thing it is purporting to criticize, that is exploitative, voyeuristic, reality based TV, or the modern day version of the Colosseum. The whole serial could be one of the shows packaged and exported as entertainment by the government of Varos.
What makes this possible is the Doctor. It would be one thing if he and Peri simply landed on Varos and got caught up as unwitting participants in the freak show on screen. It is another, however, when the Doctor at times seems to take relish in his role, and ultimately he does nothing to bring these atrocities to an end. After viewing Vengeance on Varos I almost feel as if I should be giving my thumbs up or thumbs down vote along with the rest of the populace of Varos.
The Doctor begins this particular adventure on a rather dubious note, giving up when the TARDIS runs out of energy and materializes “into actual and temporal void.” He pulls up a chair and sits in a selfish snit of resignation. This is the second time he has obligated Peri to a lifetime of nothingness, the first being when he vowed to turn hermit at the onset of his regeneration.
I have little sympathy for Peri, however. She spends the first few minutes of our story haranguing the Doctor with a list of things he has done wrong, including burning her dinner the night before. Peri did invite herself along, after all. She’s looking for a three month vacation to replace the Morocco jaunt she missed out on (those nice English guys she intended on traveling with should breathe a sigh of relief) and expects the Doctor to act as tour guide to the universe for her. Now the Doctor and his companions have usually shared a good natured ribbing from time to time, but never has the Doctor been subjected to such relentless ridicule as these last two generations have suffered. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Doctor isn’t acting out this latest fit of childishness in retaliation.
He soon gets over it, though, when Peri finds the TARDIS manual and the Doctor whisks them off to Varos in search of the rare and precious mineral Zeiton-7 he needs for repairs.
Varos is a truly vile place and the viciousness in the air seems to rub off a little on the Doctor. While he doesn’t directly cause the death of the two attendants in the acid bath--one accidently stumbles in and the other is pulled in by his partner as he struggles with the Doctor--the whole scene is played for laughs, capped by the unfeeling “You’ll forgive me if I don’t join you,” by the Doctor as he leaves the two corpses to be eaten away in the bubbling acid. This is strictly done for the TV viewing audience.
The audience, our Greek Chorus of Arak and Etta, is everything that is right and everything that is wrong about Vengeance on Varos. This bickering pair, impassively commenting on the torture they view on screen, is a biting commentary on human nature. Unfortunately, with the Doctor playing up to them the commentary loses its bite and we are invited to laugh along with them.
That is not to say that laughter is bad, just not at the expense of human lives. This serial could have benefited from some appropriately placed humor.
The Doctor is curious about the voyeuristic nature of the Dome, commenting on the omnipresent cameras, but he never condemns. And he never takes the opportunity to speak to that slavish audience, enlightening them as to their untold wealth in Zeiton-7 or urging them to rebel against their cruel and tyrannical society. A little righteous indignation would be welcome here. Doctors One through Four would have been full of it; I’m uncertain of the Fifth; the Sixth just makes sure he gets in his one-liners.
The Doctor does reveal his knowledge regarding the value of Zeiton-7, but not until near the end and only to the Governor.
The Governor might seem reasoned and cultured, but he is not “a bit better than these other brutes” as Peri surmises. He does not have the welfare of his people at heart; he is only looking after his own hide in this. He’ll let the dust settle, I’m sure, before looking around to see how much of the 20 credits he has negotiated for the Zeiton-7 he can pocket for himself. The people of Varos, the Araks and Ettas, will be no better off.
The other brutes, and there are quite a few on Varos, aren’t so lucky. Sil is the cream of the crop. So disgustingly repulsive that Varos almost deserves him. Sil has been holding Varos hostage to his company’s demands. However since Zeiton-7 is supposedly as rare and precious as we are led to believe, I can only wonder how his company has retained the monopoly and kept all rival companies at bay. He clearly is fearful that these companies are poised to swoop in. Why have none of them ever contacted the ruling elite on Varos? Or are the ruling elite so corrupt that they also know the true value of their resource but are keeping it to themselves and profiting on the side? And there clearly is a ruling elite over and above the poor sap of a Governor. But Sil is abruptly halted, not by the Doctor, not by the Governor, not by the people of Varos. Sil is halted by his own company. In a last minute Hail Mary of a conclusion, Sil receives communication from his company that a new source of Zeiton-7 has been located, and rather than lessening the value of Varos’ supply of this mineral, for some convenient reason this means that Varos can now ask any price it wants. I’m disappointed that Sil doesn’t decompose or melt down into his vat of water ala The Collector in The Sun Makers. He is merely rendered insignificant by communiqué.
Then there is the double dealing Chief Officer and the sadistic Quillam. The Chief Officer is sufficiently under-the-radar duplicitous, working both equally repellant sides to no good. Quillam, however, is too much of a ranting Sharaz Jek wannabe. Both are killed swiftly and horrifically by the Doctor with no fanfare or remorse, with two just-doing-their-job guards killed along with them for good measure. Makes for good ratings, though. (The Doctor actually has Jondar rig up and execute the death trap so he can keep his hands clean.)
All of this bleak grimness is played out in a funhouse of death broadcast for the complacent pleasure of a downtrodden people.
The Doctor’s arrival and contribution to this snuff film mentality, though, is what livens things up. His death by acid bath and poison vine, not to mention the gratuitous death by laser for a hapless guard early on, trumps the rather lame hallucinations that are the norm on Brutish Broadcasting Corp One. The dreaded ‘Purple Zone’ offers up a giant fly as the best it can offer. I’m sorry, but with four of them, just take off your coat (OK, Mr. Sean Connery Jr. only has his bare torso and Peri only has, well, a barely covered torso, but the Doctor at least could spare his clown overcoat) and start flicking away at it. Or, just close your eyes and walk past as they subsequently do. This is followed by the frighteningly lifelike green lights. Scary stuff. Then there are the Jondar, Areta, and Doctor holograms beckoning our heroes on to their certain doom. Again I’m sorry, but if I was confronted with a creepy smiling version of myself waving me onward, I would turn tail and run, not smile as though on some kind of acid trip and stumble ahead into the unknown.
No wonder Arak and Etta are so bored by the proceedings. Even the torture at the beginning doesn’t make for very compelling viewing. I suppose the bare-chested Jondar is what keeps Etta glued to the set, but the game of laser tag would lose its appeal real fast for the majority.
The Doctor's seeming death scene in the fake desert is effective, but I have to wonder if a few moments of thinking you are dying of thirst would really kill a person. It obviously doesn't kill the Doctor.
The fake hanging also has potential for some riveting TV, except it is never aired. This is simply staged by the Governor to compel the Doctor to talk; which he does, but only after realizing that the event isn’t being broadcast. This is news for elite ears only, not for the masses.
What I want to know is: where are the directors and producers of this repugnant programming? There must be a booth somewhere in which the decision is being made to cut from camera one in the Punishment Dome to camera two in the Purple Zone to camera three in the Cannibals In Their Nappies District.
Just to add to the bleakness of the tale, we have the transmogrifier turning Peri into a bird woman and Areta into a reptile. This, too, is hastily and conveniently dealt with. A quick shot or two at the machine and magically the two revert back to their normal bodies. The wonders of television.
The base perverseness of the former penal colony that is Varos is never confronted by the Doctor, however. The Governor, no longer under fear of his life at the hands of the voters (not sure how or why—Just because Quillam and the Chief Officer are dead? Just because they are getting full price for Zeiton-7? Just because some machinery was blown up? Just because the Governor says so? The constitution is suddenly overturned and no more voting?), promises a “glorious tomorrow.”
To the average citizen of Varos, all this means is an end to voting and to their so-called entertainment.
Etta: “It’s all changed. We’re free.”
Arak: “Are we?”
Etta: “Yes.”
Arak: “What shall we do?”
Etta: “Dunno.”
I’ll have to give this one a split decision, both thumbs up and thumbs down, as I send this out, Gary, awaiting your vote . . .

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