Mawdryn Undead

Dear Gary—

“In 30 years of soldiering I’ve never encountered such destructive power as I have seen displayed here and now by the British schoolboy.”

Welcome back Brigadier! Twice over no less! This alone makes Mawdryn Undead worthwhile. Add to this the introduction of Turlough as new companion, combined with a fine script and production values, and it approaches the top of my list (at least of Davison serials; it still has a ways to go to top my all time Who list).

I have to say that I am bewildered to find the Brigadier idling away his retirement at a boy’s school. I prefer to think that he was on an undercover mission for UNIT when he was ‘zapped,’ forgot his assignment, and merely settled into the life presented to him.

“After all, if I was suffering from amnesia I’d be the first to know about it wouldn’t I?” The Brigadier is in there, he just needs to be snapped out of his befuddled state. It takes more than the Doctor, though. This fifth Doctor is rather unremarkable and I don’t blame the Brig for not remembering right off. No, it takes the mention of Liz Shaw, Jo Grant, and Sarah Jane Smith to jog his memory.

“Well, bless my soul. So, you’ve done it again Doctor.” And the Brigadier is back, unfazed as ever.

“I knew a Tegan once.” The Brigadier is back and he is remembering.

“Your Tegan; my Tegan; it’s the same person,” the Doctor tells the Brigadier, although he doesn’t quite grasp the concept: “”Not a hundred percent, Doctor.”

“You never did understand the interrelation of time.”

Two Brigadiers, the 1983 version and the 1977. Whether in alternate realities as in Inferno or separate time lines as in our present Mawdryn Undead, Nicholas Courtney owns this role, and instinctively he portrays the subtle differences of the same character walking two unique paths.

Mawdryn Undead is ambitious in its storytelling. Almost too ambitious. The separate time lines, the Flying Dutchman aspect of Mawdryn and his fellow mutants, and the Black Guardian recruiting Turlough to kill the Doctor could each be a story unto itself; in fact the Guardian/Turlough plot is only introduced here in Mawdryn and plays out over three serials, leaving the divergent timelines and the Mawdryn threads only to be resolved in our present.

I do have to admit, however, that the opening Turlough scenes are rather lame, and the accompanying musical score is as much of a car wreck as Turlough’s and Ibbotson’s joy ride turns out to be. Furthermore, I find the Black Guardian aspect contrived. I don’t for a minute buy the “I may not be seen to act in this; I must not be involved” excuse that the Guardian gives Turlough as to why he doesn’t just kill the Doctor himself. And I can’t for the life of me figure out his choice of Turlough as his hit man. “If you fail me again, I shall destroy you” he threatens, yet Turlough continues to fail and is never destroyed. It seems to me that the Guardian’s threat rings hollow and undoubtedly he has more effective and willing henchmen to choose from.

I’m also not really sure why Turlough plays along. Initially he complies because he is told that the Doctor is evil and that the Black Guardian can rescue Turlough from his torment on Earth, but he quickly learns the lies behind these assertions. True, the Black Guardian can follow him around and haunt his dreams, but Turlough seems made of sterner stuff to let that bother him. Maybe at times the control crystal proves impossible to throw away, but only when convenient. At other times he is free to leave it about or put it in his pocket. It doesn’t seem to harm him in any way, either. It only glows occasionally and appears to act as a conduit for the Guardian to growl his commands. I can’t understand why Turlough is constantly holding it up as though he is a priest standing at an altar offering up a sacrifice.

However, this is a sufficient enough excuse to allow Turlough to join the TARDIS crew so I will accept it as the plot device it is.

But the main story is that of Mawdryn and his ship of perpetually doomed mutants. Disfigured by their own experiments to learn the Time Lord secret of regeneration, these eight suffering scientists seek only to die. This is at least the second hint of Time Lord history involving alien races attempting to duplicate the regenerative process, the first being the Minyans from the serial Underworld. Those weary travelers of Underworld also longed for death, but they had their quest to keep them going. Mawdryn and his cohorts have nothing of interest on their ship of perpetual orbit; they spend all their time holed up in a hidden room behind the wall and apparently only venture out once every 70 years to find help from whatever planet is currently within transmat distance.

The transmat is apparently the root of all the trouble in Mawdryn Undead, wreaking havoc with the TARDIS and causing the travel to two separate time lines, with Tegan, Nyssa, and Mawdryn ending up in one (1977) and the Doctor and Turlough in the other (1983), and with the Brigadier on hand to greet both landing parties.

(What a massive cosmic deal New Who could make out of this—first the out of the blue reuniting of the Doctor and Tegan in Arc of Infinity, and now the reappearance of the Brigadier. One huge coincidence followed by another. Surely the universe as we know it is coming to an end . . . yet again.)

The Brigadier is the salvation of Mawdryn in more ways than one. Not only does he brighten the tone by his mere presence, he manages in his bemused way to provide the clues necessary to reunite the Doctor with his TARDIS (not to mention his companions), and ultimately he unwittingly supplies the big bang power source that is essential to bringing Mawdryn’s “endurance of endless time” to an end.

Despite the ambitiousness of the tale, there really isn’t much more to it. With an alien not intent on taking over the world but rather simply looking to be euthanized, and with the Growling Guardian story really only in a holding pattern until it can be fully realized, there isn’t much in the way of action in this story. There are a lot of scenes roaming about the “Queen Mary” or “Mary Celeste” (take your pick) ship, trying to keep the two Brigadiers apart, traveling to and fro in TARDIS and transmat between ship and Earth, and running about the boy’s school.

However, the attention is in the details as they say. In this case, it is in the characterizations. It is in the Brigadier (as already discussed); it is in the agony of Turlough as he wrestles with his choice; it is in the wretched purgatory of Mawdryn; it is in the urgency of Tegan as she tries to find help for the ailing Doctor (or so she thinks). And finally, it is in the Doctor.

“Don’t you understand,” the Doctor states when asked to aid Mawdryn and his fellow condemned souls, “if I did it would be the end of me as a Time Lord.”

(Again I have to note that New Who would have used this not as a mid-season cliffhanger for episode three, but would have opened the first episode of the new season with this startling revelation, telegraphing a painful season-long story arc that wouldn’t be resolved until the final moments of the last episode of the last story of the season in a bigger and better and brasher that tops all that went before—but just wait until next year—conclusion that leaves one exhausted.)

This declaration by the Doctor is not a signal for a special effects laden season of endless melodrama, but a moment of inner turmoil and crisis of conscience.

The Doctor is being asked to give up all of his regenerations so that the mutilated scientists can at last find peace. (Side note: a definitive statement that the Doctor is on his fifth generation with a total of only twelve regenerations possible for Time Lords.) It is too much for the Doctor to give up. “Sometimes you have to live with the consequences of your actions.”

But the consequence for the Doctor’s refusal is what brings him back to Mawdryn. Tegan and Nyssa have become infected with the same mutation; they cannot leave the ship; even the Doctor’s “reverse the polarity of the neutron flow” cannot save them. If they leave they either age or revert to childhood. There is no escape. The Doctor is their only hope just as he is Mawdryn’s only hope.

It is a tragic, touching moment as the Doctor prepares to sacrifice himself for his friends. And then the Doctor Who ex machina in the form of the duplicate Brigadier and, “as Tegan would say, Zap!” The Blinovitch Limitation Effect. “The two Brigadiers just shorted out the time differential” thus providing the power source needed and saving the Doctor’s regenerations: “I am a Time Lord.”

The Doctor is still a Time Lord, Tegan and Nyssa are free from the infection, the mutants are dead, and the two Brigadiers are returned to their own timelines.

Wait—“Where’s Turlough?”

“I’m not that easy to get rid of.” Turlough is on the TARDIS.

“Doctor, may I join you?”

“I think you already have,” the Doctor replies.

Turlough—not the innocent school boy he portrays. With the alien and technical knowledge he displays throughout Mawdryn Undead, he can’t have fooled the Doctor. But that, it seems, is a story yet to be told.

This story, though, is done, and I send this out, Gary, ever hopeful . . .

Snakedance

Dear Gary—

“We’re not where we’re supposed to be.” A familiar TARDIS refrain as Snakedance opens with a companionable scene between the Doctor and Nyssa. Nyssa has lately emerged as the companion of choice and the two play well together. They are both so very understated and the humor arises in subtle ways. In this instance Nyssa comes into the console room newly attired in what I can only describe as a garage sale mismatch of hand-me-down clothing. Obviously proud of her new outfit, Nyssa presents herself before an obtuse and preoccupied Doctor. Personally I think he is just trying his hardest not to laugh in her face and he latches onto the unexpected landing as a means of suppressing the what-were-you-thinking giggles.

This low key relationship results in another amusing bit later in the TARDIS when they silently work at cross purposes to exit, one flipping the switch and then the other, countering the control. Nyssa simply looks at the Doctor, flips it again, and out the door they go. No words necessary in this pantomime of comedy.

Just a brief aside, here, Gary, on the emerging Nyssa. I can’t help getting the feeling that, despite her increased Doctor time, the actress is beginning to chafe at the confines of the character. Two instances in particular. The Doctor, Nyssa, and Chela are confronted by guards during their escape attempt. Now, running for an exit, chased by armed guards, escape route cut off, swords drawn, order to kill given, nobody’s but nobody’s first reaction would be to scream. I can only assume that the 1-2-3 cue scream reaction from Nyssa is Sarah Sutton’s subtle sabotage. Next we have the Doctor, Nyssa, and Chela racing to stop the ceremony. “Thank you; it wasn’t necessary,” Nyssa says as she is helped along. The look that the Doctor and Chela give each other says it all—‘what was that all about?’ What it was about, undoubtedly, is the resentment at the patronization of Nyssa.

One more Nyssa moment that I can’t help commenting on. “It can’t be,” Nyssa says as the crystal that the Doctor has been concentrating on glows. “It’s impossible.” All that Nyssa has witnessed with the Doctor and she can’t get over a glowing crystal? I know I’m jumping around, Gary, on unrelated Nyssa matters, but I wanted to get those out of the way before starting in on this marvelous story because the Nyssa/Doctor relationship is finally starting to take off and I didn’t want it to get lost.

However, the aforementioned unexpected landing, engineered by Tegan, or more accurately by the Mara who still resides within Tegan, is what drives our plot and not the Doctor and Nyssa. Mara possessed Tegan—she was impressive in Kinda and she is again here in Snakedance. And the Mara is much more effective in Snakedance because it is fully integrated into the story. The Mara is the story.

The Mara, the fascinating in concept but disappointing in realization monster from Kinda, continues to haunt Tegan’s dreams, and now the Mara has guided the TARDIS to Manussa where it awaits its second coming. Somehow the Doctor figures this out based on the fact that Manussa was formerly home to the Sumaran Empire “which may or may not ring a bell.” It does not; not for me at any rate, but the Doctor apparently is familiar with it and expects Tegan to be as well.

Knowing that the Mara is most dangerous to a sleeping mind, the Doctor places Tegan under hypnosis to find out the Mara’s plans. All he learns, besides the fact that six year old Tegan used to tell lies in her garden, is that the Mara is seeking a cave. Seems to me he could have gathered that much information from stopping a passing Manussan in the street. Next the Doctor gives Tegan an earpiece to wear that is attached to a device that “inhibits the production of brainwaves associated with dreaming.” In addition to impairing her hearing, it also gives her tunnel vision and seemingly renders her mute. He then proceeds to drag her through the streets of the city, and when he locates the cave (which he found by asking a passerby) he leaves the terrified, deaf, dumb, and practically blind Tegan in the care of Nyssa, who promptly loses her.

Not an auspicious start for the Doctor and Nyssa.

Now we have two strands of the plot as the Doctor tries to learn all he can about the Mara’s history while the Mara takes full control of Tegan. Both will eventually lead back to the cave where the ceremony commemorating the destruction of the Mara takes place. Both are equally well told tales tied together by a trio of excellent supporting characters: Lon, his mother Tanha, and the Director Ambril.

Lon, the Federator’s son, and Tanha, the Federator’s wife, have an interesting relationship. Lon doesn’t care much about anything, and yet he has a mutual respect and liking for his mother. Neither is a sympathetic character, yet both are richly developed and highly intriguing. Their evident contempt for the absent Federator is the conceivable bond between the pair, hinting at undertones of a shared history. The mother puts up with the son’s rudeness to a point, reprimanding only slightly; while the son relies on his mother’s approval.

Lon: “Am I forgiven?”

Tanha: “What? Oh yes, of course. Aren’t you always?”

Their lives are superficial, but their depths are boundless.

While Lon can’t hide his ennui, Tanha can at least feign an interest in Ambril’s droning on of ancient history; putting up appearances; but I imagine a wealth of thwarted desires lurking beneath her yawns. Ambril, on the other hand, is one note; no subterfuge, no subtext.

Together the three dance a dance that we never get to see from the Snake Dancers, with Mara/Tegan calling out the steps.

“The Federator’s son is bored.” Lon is the picture of indolence; too lazy even to be cruel. “You’ve disappointed me Doctor,” he says, “I should have you punished.” But when the Doctor runs off Lon decides, “No, let them go. What’s the point?” Infected by the Mara, though, Lon is more fully able to indulge his nasty side, adding a whole new level to his lethargic creepiness.

Ambril, on the other hand, needs no undue influence; his natural greed for fame and glory as the discoverer of untold wealth and knowledge is all it takes to turn him over to the evil bidding of the Mara.

Tanha, however, left in the dark, can only react. “What does he mean, evil? Who is evil?” she asks, confused by the accusations flying. “Lon, what arrangement? What did you promise him?” she enquires, suspicious of the conspiracies she doesn’t want to admit to. “I know: you’re planning something. Is it to be a surprise?” she wonders, attempting to make unfathomable truths conform to her world view.

And through it all Tegan/Mara laughs that evil laugh and moves ever closer to her/it’s becoming.

That is a difference between Kinda and Snakedance that I want to applaud. In Kinda the Mara transferred from Tegan to Aris whereas in Snakedance the Mara remains within Tegan and merely influences Lon and tempts Ambril, a decided improvement. Similarly, in Kinda the Mara was repulsed by mirrors, however in our current story it revels in a funhouse full of mirrors. “On the Kinda world I was trapped in a circle of mirrors,” the Mara offers by way of explanation. “There is no circle here.” The Mara encourages Tegan to look at her reflection and it only grows stronger.

Perhaps the discrepancies arise from the fact that the Mara is now on its home planet; but that begs the question, what was it doing on Deva Loka to begin with?

There are still many unanswered questions concerning the Mara, but the Doctor does his share of digging out information as he runs about hyperventilating all over the place (he really should start carrying a paper bag with him to breath into occasionally). His problem, however, is that he can’t get anyone to listen to him. Perhaps if he slowed down and bothered to explain himself instead of shouting at people he might be heard. As it is, Ambril chucks him in jail to get him out of his hair.

This Fifth Doctor does lack that certain command of authority that each of his predecessors boasts. Even when he points out that the sixth face of the Six Faces of Delusion headdress is the wearer’s own (and does the archeological scholar Ambril really not know that?) he does it in a ‘look Ma, no hands’ kind of approval seeking way rather than the confident arrogance of any of the other Doctors.

Confined as he is, though, the Doctor does start to piece things together, with the help of Ambril’s assistant Chela who brings him the previous Director Dojjen’s diary, and with the help of Nyssa who realizes that the crystal, the Great Crystal that is the center of the Mara ritual, is in fact manmade. This all leads the Doctor to realize that the Mara itself is manmade, born of the fears and greed and hate of the mind.

Armed with this knowledge, the Doctor seeks out Dojjen.

A word here, Gary, about this Dojjen character; he is a kindred spirit to the Kinda; one of those who prefers to work in cryptic visions rather than conversation. Dojjen put together the truth of the Mara and when he couldn’t convince the Manussan people of the Mara’s imminent return he hightailed it to the hills. Talk about indolence. This guy sits cross legged in the wilderness while the danger lurks below; he is well out of it; if the Doctor wants to rush off to help, let him. The Snake Dancers, too. We never get to meet these mysterious outcasts who know the truth of the Mara and “who kept the knowledge alive, hidden in traditions and legends.” I guess they figure they are protected; let the masses fend for themselves once the Mara manifests.

The Doctor does rush in where Dojjen and the Snake Dancers fear to tread. Into the cave; into the middle of the ceremony. “Reach inside yourselves and find the still point,” he admonishes the cowering crowd. One last appeal to Nyssa, but the Doctor is alone in this. Taking his own advice, reaching deep inside himself, he finds that mental version of the paper bag, breaths deeply, and defeats the Mara.

“It was awful; it was awful.” The Doctor comforts a sobbing Tegan. I’m going to miss the deep-throated Tegan of the Mara. And I’m going to miss Lon, Tanha, and Ambril. I wish there was more of an afterward to this saga. But as the Mara is more effective in the dark recesses of the mind, I suppose Snakedance is more effective in the nuances, and some tales are better left to the imagination.

And so I take my leave, Gary, and can only imagine . . .

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 . . .

Time-Flight

Dear Gary—

I’m probably a minority of one, but I thoroughly enjoy Time-Flight; I think it is my favorite Davison story to date. I don’t really care that the show’s budget had clearly run out for the season or that the plot is incomprehensible in spots. Perhaps it is the buoyancy of an Adric-less TARDIS; but I think it has more to do with the infectious nature of Captain Stapley’s relentless enthusiasm. Stapley is like a one man cheerleading squad for the Doctor, and by the end I’m full of the ‘Here-We-Go, Doctor, Here-We-Go’ spirit.

It does start out with a bit of a hiccup. Picking up at the dramatic conclusion of Earthshock it is rather unsettling that the Doctor, after his initial “There are some rules that cannot be broken, even with the TARDIS” speech, decides that a fitting memorial to the recently departed Adric is a holiday at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Now I disliked Adric as much as the next guy, but his character deserves better, especially after his touching demise in Earthshock. Apparently the TARDIS thinks so too because they never make it to the Crystal Palace.

“Are you responsible for this box, sir?” Instead they are sidetracked to Heathrow just when Tegan had stopped campaigning to return there.

“Well, I try to be,” the Doctor replies. I’m not sure why the three don’t just duck back into the TARDIS and take off thus avoiding the authorities, but then we wouldn’t have a story.

“UNIT,” the Doctor responds when asked to open the TARDIS. “You’d do much better to check with UNIT, department C19. Sir John Sudbury is the man you want.” The Doctor even remembers his old friend Lethbridge-Stewart. Some nice continuity that further endears me to this fifth Doctor.

The mystery of the vanishing Concorde to open Time-Flight is an excellent diversion from the mourning of Adric, and as I said before, I don’t mind the cheap sets or somewhat dodgy special effects. The concept of an entire aircraft disappearing from time is very Twilight Zone in tone and holds my attention. I want to know where it ends up; I’m just as curious as the Doctor as he follows the path of the first Concorde in a second (with pep squad captain Stapley piloting the way). And by the way, I love the Doctor’s comment regarding the aircraft, “This thing is smaller on the inside than it is on the outside.”

The Doctor is mystified upon debarking from the plane to find himself back at Heathrow instead of “the spatial equivalent of four hundred billion miles from Air Traffic Control.”

“That’s why this tree, doth continue to be, since observed by, yours faithfully, God.” In other words, the Doctor translates, “To be is to be perceived; a naïve eighteenth century philosophy.” In other words, to translate the Doctor, they are not in fact at Heathrow Airport but rather have landed “some a hundred and forty million years ago” and what they are seeing is an illusion. A bit of concerted effort and they are able to break through the trance to the reality of the phony rocks around them.

From this point I kind of stop following the plot, mainly because it doesn’t lead us on a clear cut path. Some bubble wrap Plasmatons engulf people but apparently this is non-threatening behavior, Nyssa starts spouting prophetic warnings, Professor Hayter wanders on camera from out of nowhere, and a fascinating Oriental looking alien being chants into a crystal ball while observing all of this.

I am vaguely interested in getting to the bottom of these mysteries and somewhat disappointed when they are unveiled. The intriguing mystic Kalid, for example, loses much of his appeal once he is revealed to be the Master in disguise. But for some reason I don’t mind too much; I am simply enjoying watching the show, and again the only explanation I can come up with is that the overwhelming gusto of Captain Stapley is carrying me along. He doesn’t know what’s going on either, but he’s not letting that deter him from having the time of his life.

Professor Hayter embodies a skeptical counterpoint that adds another dimension of interest to the program. Positive that they are in Siberia, Hayter scoffs at the Doctor’s claims. While Stapley presents the Doctor with all of the adulation of a magician’s assistant, Hayter huffs at the Doctor, “I’ve never heard such an extravagant explanation.” Slowly, however, Hayter comes to respect the Doctor before literally throwing himself completely into the adventure.

The sleepwalking passengers off of the initial Concorde are of passing interest as they shuffle around, futilely banging at the metal egg like container in the center of the room. I’m mildly curious as to what they are doing and why, but again somewhat disappointed with the reason. However it is the reaction of the others to these zombie workers that is of more relevance to me. Professor Hayter’s advice to Angela to focus on fish and chips as a means of counteracting the spell is priceless, and Stapley briefly getting caught up in the imaginary world of flight checks while trying to snap Bilton out of his trance is well done.

Then we have the Master running back and forth between his TARDIS and the Doctor’s, swapping out parts. I’m not really sure what he’s doing or why and don’t much care. The Master is forever getting himself stranded and having to use the Doctor to get himself out only to have the Doctor send him off to yet another confinement. Stapley and Bilton stowing away on the TARDIS while the Master fiddles about is another story and one that is vastly more appealing. Stapley’s determination to learn to fly the TARDIS, Bilton’s “Oh, I wouldn’t have thought it was that” just when Stapley is about to pull the correct lever to close the TARDIS door, and Stapley’s efforts to throw a spanner in the Master’s plans are all highly amusing.

Tegan and Nyssa making their way into the citadel is diverting as well, especially when confronted with phantom Adric, and I find it humorous that the wall simply opens for them while everyone else is frantically beating away trying to get through.

As for the Xeraphins, they are quite thought provoking but underutilized. The struggle between the good and the bad of this gestalt intelligence is short lived, and I’m not exactly sure why Hayter needs to be devoured by this energy source or how he ends up on the TARDIS just in time to save Stapley and Bilton. The idea of the Xeraphin is wasted, devolving into yet another all-powerful force that the Master is seeking to control, merely an excuse to move the plot along and give some semblance of meaning to the Master’s actions.

“It means the Master has finally defeated me,” the Doctor says as a cliffhanger for episode three as the Master spirits away the Xeraphin into his own TARDIS. I haven’t the slightest clue as to how the Master getting his TARDIS back in working order via the use of the Xeraphin in any way defeats the Doctor, nor do I for one second believe it. And of course episode four bears this out, even though I again have no clue how. It all somehow has to do with the part swapping (really, can’t the Master tell the difference between a temporal limiter and a time lapse compressor when he’s stealing one?) and inhibition factors in the programming.

Again I have Stapley's gung ho attitude to thank for keeping me invested in this story as he works on getting Concorde back into flying shape. If this were another time, another program, I could imagine him saying, "We'll save the orphanage; we'll put on a show." Once the aircraft is back in working order, and after an exchange of parts and passengers (I wonder how they board without the aid of the airport stairway), they are off to traverse the time warp back to the future.

Safely back at Heathrow (have Horton and Sheard really sat in that little room staring at a blank screen for 24 hours waiting for the Concorde’s return?) the Doctor does a bit more wizardry and the Master is once more stuck on an alien planet (this time Xeraphas).

Stapley manages to get in one more “You’re amazing, Doctor” before the Doctor and Nyssa take off in such a hurry that they inexplicably leave Tegan behind.

“Happy landings, Doctor,” Tegan and Stapley both say as the TARDIS disappears.

“Hello; I thought you were going with the Doctor,” Stapley says. “So did I,” Tegan replies with a tear in her eye.

I send this out, Gary, with a ‘happy landings’ and a tear in my eye . . .

 

 

 

Earthshock

Dear Gary—

The return of the Cybermen; Adric’s death; Earthshock is a landmark serial based on these two momentous plot elements. For me, however, I will always remember Earthshock as the serial for which I finally and fully accept Peter Davison as the Doctor.

Until now the Fifth Doctor has been little more than a playground monitor to his companions; for the first time in Earthshock I sense some real emotion behind the clashing personalities, and as the Doctor’s and Adric’s conflict comes to a head I feel the anguish of previous partings from past generations bubbling to the surface.

I have to give credit to Adric for much of this. “I’m tired of being considered a joke,” Adric tells the Doctor. Adric is fed up with the constant teasing and is feeling neglected by the Doctor. He wants to go home, back to E-Space. He rebuffs the Doctor’s attempts at conciliation and the argument heats up. For once Adric’s performance is more than mere petulance; there is genuine hurt behind his remarks.

The Doctor is aware of this as well and becomes angrier as Adric grows more serious. Nyssa and Tegan, too, realize that this is more than a minor dust-up and try to inject some calm and reason back into the mix. But the Doctor is beyond reason. “Do you really think I’d be making all this fuss if it weren’t,” the Doctor demands when Tegan asks if it would be so dangerous to return to E-Space. He is making a fuss, and I think back to the First Doctor when confronted with Barbara’s and Ian’s desire to leave. “I will not aid and abet suicide,” he said in that long ago time, and continued, “You’ll end up as a couple of burnt cinders flying around in space.” Now, faced with another companion raising an abrupt desire to leave, he declares, “I’m not waiting around while you plot the course to your own destruction.”

The Doctor exits the TARDIS to cool off, Adric plots his course home, and then the adventure begins allowing the context for the Doctor and Adric to admit their faults and make up. It is an affecting moment as Adric confesses he doesn’t really want to go home (“There’s nothing there for me anymore”) and the Doctor gently ribs him, “So, you’ve done all these calculations for nothing.” A display of warmth, and I almost wish Adric had more life to live to explore this budding father/son relationship that is long overdue.

But Earthshock has other things in store.

Adric: “It’s not our problem, Doctor.” (Having made his point, Adric now seems more concerned with eating than with adventure.)

Doctor: “Oh . . . isn’t it?” (The Doctor is always ready for adventure.)

The adventure of Earthshock starts with a bang (more figuratively than literally since the bomb is defused). The opening sequences as the military expedition explores the tunnels are some of the best in all of Doctor Who. The tension mounts as one by one the blips representing life forms on the screen go out, with Walters sitting helpless in silent witness to the obliteration of his colleagues; and suspense builds with glimpses of shadowy sleek silhouettes against the cave walls stalking the remaining party. The shot of Snyder’s name tag dripping with the slime green remains of her body is truly gruesome as it gets trod underfoot.

Then the Cybermen appear and the spell of the taut drama is broken and we are launched into the realm of Doctor Who sci-fi. That is not to say that the Cybermen are a disappointment or that Doctor Who sci-fi is not any good, or even that Doctor Who sci-fi and taut drama are mutually exclusive. It is only that your typical Doctor Who serial cannot sustain the taut drama to that high degree over a full four episodes, nor would I necessarily want it to. In fact those opening scenes are interspersed with the Doctor/Adric spat and are therefore somewhat blunted to begin with; and while I have to admit, Gary, that I therefore resented the Doctor/Adric intrusion upon first viewing, I have since come to appreciate both aspects of this opening episode of Earthshock.

I also have to say that both aspects are skillfully drawn together and eventually knit into one cohesive unit. As the Doctor cools his heals outside the TARDIS, Nyssa and Tegan begin to explore the fossils in the cave and draw the Doctor into a conversation about dinosaurs and their mysterious demise millions of years ago. “I’ve always meant to slip back and find out,” the Doctor says of the cause of this catastrophe. Meanwhile the surviving military expedition tracks the trio in the belief that they are responsible for all of the killings while Adric looks on from the TARDIS console room and provides running commentary. The expedition confronts the Doctor and company just as the androids attack and Adric plays the hero. The Cybermen are revealed, the bomb exposed, and the Doctor and Adric work together to defuse it.

Doctor: “I think drastic action is called for.”

Adric: “But there can’t be much time left. What can we do?”

Doctor: “Abandon methodical procedure for blind instinct.”

That is more like the Doctor I know and love.

Blind instinct not only aids him in neutralizing the bomb but leads him to follow the signal back to its originating source and straight to the Cybermen. Lieutenant Scott and his remaining team tag along.

“Don’t call me ma’am on the bridge.” “Why is she always running me down?” Captain Briggs and Security Officer Ringway are playing out their own mother/son scenario parallel to the Doctor/Adric version, but without the happy ending. Ringway has secreted 15,000 Cybermen aboard the freighter headed to Earth, presumably in a pique against the deprecating Captain. However, believing that Ringway has double crossed him, the Cyber Leader has him killed early on in the proceedings.

Now some of our taut drama elements seep through as Scott’s squad, accompanied by a newly jump-suited Tegan, search through the freighter for the Doctor while Cybermen break free from their cellophane bindings and patrol the corridors. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Adric are on the bridge with Briggs and her First Officer Berger, and through some technobable wizardry involving antimatter they manage to momentarily shield themselves from the Cyber onslaught, with a nod to special effects for the great shot of the Cyberman melding into the doorway.

Cybermen are not so easily dissuaded, however, and soon the Cyber Leader breaks through and reveals his plans. Since the Doctor has foiled Plan A (which was the bomb), he is turning the freighter into a bomb on a crash course with Earth where an interstellar conference is taking place to form an alliance against the Cyber forces. “It will be a great psychological victory,” he states. Cyber psychology—what a concept.

Cybermen have had their emotions removed, but they were once humanoid and this Cyber Leader displays vestiges of lost passions. “Compared to some,” the Doctor says of him, “this one is positively flippant.”

“When did you last have the pleasure of smelling a flower, watching a sunset, eating a well-prepared meal,” the Doctor asks the Leader. “These things are irrelevant,” the Leader replies. But the Doctor knows better. He knows that emotions are not a weakness as the Cyber Leader claims. “For some people,” the Doctor says, “small, beautiful events is what life is all about.”

And what of friendship? “You do not consider friendship a weakness,” the Leader enquires as he discerns the Doctor’s affection for Tegan. A simple “No” is the Doctor’s answer. And even though the Cyber Leader can now hold the threat of Tegan’s death over the Doctor’s head, it is the Doctor who emerges as the better man and the stronger.

Friendship. Through all of the bickering and teasing and complaining, the Doctor has at last uncovered the underlying friendship of his companions. Alas, too late for the ill fated Adric. The Doctor’s last farewell of the boy wonder is moving as the Cyber Leader escorts the Doctor and Tegan back to the TARDIS leaving Adric, Briggs, and Berger behind on the doomed freighter.

Tegan: “Can’t you do something?”

Doctor: “Not at the moment.”

The Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa on the TARDIS watching hopelessly as the freighter approaches ever nearer to Earth. As helpless as Walters from our opening sequence, all the Doctor can do is stand by and offer slight comfort to his friends: “Gently, Tegan.” (Of course Tegan is anything but gentle.) And then, thanks to Adric, the freighter jumps time warps and starts hurtling backwards in time. “It may be of some small consequence,” the Doctor says, “to know we’ve travelled backwards in time some sixty five million years.” Back to the demise of the dinosaurs; so the Doctor has slipped back to find out after all.

“You’ve failed, Leader,” the Doctor triumphs. But it is of little comfort, knowing that Adric is still aboard the flying bomb. Perhaps that accounts for the Doctor’s relish as he guns down the Cyber Leader after first having used Adric’s badge of gold to disable him.

Adric.

“Now I’ll never know if I was right.”

Adric, so desperate to prove himself, so proud of his badge of mathematical excellence, so young and so vulnerable. Adric, intent on solving the logic puzzles to override the Cyberman technology and save the Earth. Adric, dragged away to safety just when he was so close to the solution. Adric, hit with sudden inspiration and darting back into danger only to be thwarted by a Cyberman’s sabotage. Adric, facing his mortality, clutching his brother’s belt like a security blanket.

“Now I’ll never know if I was right.”

Doctor: “I must save Adric!”

But it is too late.

Nyssa: “Adric!”

Tegan: “Adric? Doctor! Oh, no.”

Adric.

The Doctor stands helpless. His friend. His surrogate son. Dead. Adric’s broken badge at his feet.

A moment of heartbreak. And in that moment I know; Peter Davison is the Doctor.

Black Orchid

Dear Gary—

Tegan: “Now what? Where are we going?”

Doctor: “To a cricket match.”

Tegan: “Why?”

Doctor: “Why not?”

Why not indeed. A cricket match is just the ticket for our quarrelsome quartet. Tegan has finally decided to stay on as TARDIS crew member so the constant harping on the Doctor to get her to the airport on time has ceased, but our four adventurers need some down time to regroup.

With a cricket match, a fancy dress party, a cocktail, a buffet, and a bath the two episode Black Orchid orders up some much needed respite from the relentless infighting, and there is just enough trouble to keep them on their toes.

I like it.

Black Orchid is purely a period piece. No aliens, no sci fi, no important historical significance, just a mad and mutilated son hidden away and casting a pall over the ball. Oh, it may be a lazy plot. So what? For a two episode interlude this can be forgiven. Let Tegan do the Charleston and Adric chow down while Nyssa and her doppelganger Ann are menaced by the phantom of the manor and the Doctor wanders hidden corridors and is arrested for murder.

Black Orchid does demonstrate that the art of the period piece has been lost over the years. This is the kind of story that only William Hartnell’s Doctor could truly pull off. The Troughton era took a stab at the historical with The Highlanders but abandoned the genre thereafter. However I like that the Davison era is at least willing to give it a try, and it wisely kept the script to only two episodes. Of course the shortness of it could be the reason it turned out so weak, but if not and it was extended out over the typical four parts it would have been torturous. As it is, it is a brief and breezy stroll through the 1920’s.

It does seem to go at a leisurely pace despite the murders, the kidnapping, and the Doctor’s arrest. The bulk of the first episode is taken up with the cricket match in which the Doctor proves to be a one man show and a “much better player than Smutty,” and then with some relaxed conversation over drinks, and finally with the ball itself while the Doctor gets lost in a maze of secret passageways (“Why do I always let my curiosity get the better of me?”).

In keeping with the serene nature of the serial, no one seems to get overly excited about anything. In fact about the most noticeable reaction shot comes courtesy of the chauffer as he desperately tries to conceal his surprise at the remarkable resemblance between Nyssa and Ann Talbot. The others express some slight interest in the likeness and take it as an opportunity to question Nyssa’s background until Lady Cranleigh observes, “Our curiosity has been vulgar enough,” and changes the subject. Some things are above notice, like the strange clothes of the newcomers. When Tegan raises the concern that they have no costumes to wear for the fancy dress party Sir Robert simply states, “I was just thinking how charming yours was.”

As things start to heat up, the lid becomes tighter on the emotions. Shown a dead body in the cupboard, Lady Cranleigh takes a ‘let’s keep this between ourselves’ attitude to which the Doctor replies “Yes, of course,” and goes off to dress for the ball. Even when arrested for murder the Doctor just seems to shrug with an ‘oh, all right, if you must’ air. The topper is when Sir Robert and the police enter the TARDIS. “Strike me pink,” is about the strongest response the TARDIS receives, and Sir Robert’s “all this is going to be rather difficult to explain in my report” is the ultimate in understatement.

It is all very nonchalant. The police don’t really seem very serious about detaining the Doctor, either. With a mere ‘By the way can we stop at the railway station on the way to jail’ the Doctor is able to wander about the depot unhindered searching for his missing TARDIS. Then when the TARDIS is located at the police yard Sir Robert takes this, along with the discovery of a second victim, as evidence that the Doctor is innocent.

But then, the Cranleighs also don’t appear exactly eager to keep George detained. His ‘friend’ Latoni, the Brazilian guard, is easily outwitted and overcome and lets his prisoner escape several times during the story. And knowing that there is a madman loose on the premises who is killing off the servants, Lady Cranleigh and Latoni aren’t in any hurry to recapture him.

And despite the hiding away of her son (even though she keeps him bound and gagged, not much of a life for a loving mother to give her son, mad or not) and protecting him from murder charges, Lady Cranleigh doesn’t act overly upset when George plummets to his death. In fact at the end, aside from the mourning clothes, one would almost think the family group had just come from a garden party and not a funeral.

Amazingly, the one person (or rather two in one) to express any feeling above the level of mild interest throughout Black Orchid is Nyssa/Ann. She (they) gets to scream. Even that is too much for Ann, though, and she faints. (Although I do have to say that Tegan gets unnaturally excited about the Charleston and the Doctor is uncharacteristically elated during the cricket match, perhaps to compensate for the pent up sensibility of the overall serial.)

It is a pleasant little foray into the 1920s, not quite a murder mystery since there is very little mystery about it, and not quite a thriller since everyone rides it out on an even keel, but enough pseudo elements of each to keep us entertained.

I hope, Gary, that somewhere out there you, too, are being kept sufficiently entertained as I send this out and wait . . .

The Visitation

Dear Gary—

“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 . . .