The Invisible Enemy

Dear Gary—

“The Age of the Virus has begun.” Sounds prophetic, and while the Doctor wins out at the end of The Invisible Enemy, I am a little afraid, Gary, that “contact has been made.”

Don’t get me wrong. I still love Doctor Who; I still love Tom Baker as the Doctor. The show is still entertaining and vital. But that is the problem with reaching a pinnacle as the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era did with The Talons of Weng-Chiang, all of the surrounding serials suffer in comparison.

Take Michael Sheard, for example. He does an excellent job portraying Lowe in The Invisible Enemy, but I can’t help but think of him as the much more richly textured character of Laurence Scarman in Pyramids of Mars.

OK. Time to move on. The Doctor, too, has moved on. He has abandoned the short-lived wood paneled and brown Sherlock Holmesian control room for the previous, more modish white and sci-fiish control room of old.

Leela: “We’ve never been in here before.”

Doctor: “You’ve never been in here before.”

Leela: “What is it?”

Doctor: “Number two control room; has been closed for redecoration. I don’t like the color.”

Leela: “White isn’t a color.”

Doctor: “That’s the trouble with computers: always think in black and white; no aquamarines, no blues, no imagination . . .”

But there is something comforting in going back to the old, the tried and true.

And that is what The Invisible Enemy gives us. The old; the tried and true; the sci-fi universe of Who vs. the literate, richly textured Who.

Contact has been made.

The Doctor and Leela and the TARDIS arrive in about the time of 5,000 AD, the time of Leela’s ancestors, “the year of the great breakout.” The year when Man, as the Doctor explains, “went leapfrogging across the solar system on their way to the stars.” (I’m going to leapfrog myself, here, Gary, and reminisce about The Waters of Mars, but past, present, future—time is relative.)

“Asteroid belt’s probably teeming with them now,” the Doctor continues. “New frontiersmen, pioneers waiting to spread across the galaxy like a tidal wave. Or a disease.”

The Age of the Virus.

“Why disease?” Leela asks the Doctor. “I thought you liked humanity.”

“Oh, I do, I do,” the Doctor replies. “Some of my best friends are humans. When they get together in great numbers, other life forms sometimes suffer.”

But as in any good old fashioned Doctor Who sci-fi story it is humanity that is in danger, and it is the Doctor who must save the day.

“Must have had a bot of a shik.”

A bot of a shik?—“rightly perfect, thank you.”

The Doctor might have to save the day, but he has to do it with a slightly addled brain; a brain that has been infected; a brain that has had “a bot of a shik.”

What better way for the Doctor to attack his infected brain than to enter it himself and do battle with the infection? Taking Leela along for good measure?

A fantastic voyage of an idea.

Leela: “I am a hunter.”

Doctor: “You are a savage.”

Leela: “Perhaps. I’m not ashamed of what I am.”

Leela is a hunter; a savage; she is not ashamed of who she is. “She’s all instinct and intuition.”It is this which saves the Doctor. It is this which saves humanity.

Leela has left behind the tea lessons and has once again donned her skins. Hunter; savage; all instinct and intuition. As such, the virus has rejected her (“Reject yourself!”). Instead, the virus, the Nucleus of the Swarm, has selected the Doctor as the perfect host and has nestled itself into his brain. Realizing that the Nucleus is feeding on his intelligence, the Doctor puts himself into a self-induced cataleptic trance, although he pops in and out of it as the plot dictates.

There are quite a lot of unanswered questions and suspensions of disbelief in The Invisible Enemy. For example, why would the infected Lowe take Leela and the Doctor to the Bi-Al Foundation for treatment? And once there, why does he leave the Doctor and Leela on their own? But like the Doctor popping in and out of his coma, it is all for the convenience of the plot.

There are some intriguing ideas in the plot, like the idea of an intelligent microorganism as a deadly threat to the galaxy, or the idea of the Doctor and Leela being cloned, miniaturized, and injected into the Doctor’s body. However these ideas are not fully fleshed out.

There are some nice moments with the clones and inside of the Doctor’s brain, but not enough. The whole of this seems rather rushed, taking place in only one of the four episodes. Yet, peculiarly, it takes entirely too much time. Supposedly the clones have all of ten, maybe eleven minutes of life. Most of this, I would think, would be eaten up before they even get to the injection, yet amazingly the Doctor strolling along to the TARDIS to retrieve his Relative Dimensional Stabilizer, hooking this RSD up in the lab, explaining what to do to Marius, the shrinking process, the scooping up and injection all must take place in less than a minute. Similarly, the shrinking and injecting of Lowe and his catching up to the Doctor and Leela must also be done at lightning speed. It is all rush, rush, lightning speed with the countdown ticking and ultimatums breathing down their necks, yet there is no sense of urgency on anyone’s part. These ten to eleven minutes must be transdimensionally relative; they’re longer on the inside than on the outside.

And then there is the microorganism, the virus, the Nucleus of the Swarm. This is an idea that would have been better if it were not fleshed out.

“The virus has a perfect right to exist as a virus, not as a giant storm threatening the entire Solar System.”

I’m sorry, Gary, but that giant storm is laughable not threatening. No one is hiding behind the couch on this one. Bug-eyed Doctor Who monsters are a dime a dozen and, given budgetary constraints, forgivable. But when they have to be wheeled along between two supporting cast members all excuses, all suspension of disbelief, all forgiveness is thrown out the window.

This is where Leela comes in. Leela the hunter; Leela the savage; Leela, all instinct and intuition.

Leela: “Doctor, why don’t we just blow up Titan? Nucleus, breeding tanks, everything?”

Doctor: “That’s you answer to everything, isn’t it? Knock it on the head.”
Leela: “Effective, isn’t it? Smash it once and for all. Well?”

Well . . . the Doctor doesn’t operate that way.

Doctor: “Shall we try using our intelligence?”

Leela: “Well, if you think that’s a good idea.”

Leela—instinct and intuition; knock it on the head. The Doctor—intellect; use one’s head.

The Doctor, using his head, has come up with an antidote for the virus based on the immunity factor found in Leela.  Armed with a batch of the antibodies, the Doctor is off to Titan to attack the Nucleus, now macro sized. Conveniently and carelessly, the Doctor drops the container and in the end he has to use Leela’s method—blow it up.

All very neat, but rather sloppy.

Doctor: “That was a good idea of mine, K9, to blow it up.”

K9: “Affirmative.”

Ah, yes. K9. If The Invisible Enemy is notable for anything it is for introducing K9. K9, the tin dog. Professor Marius’ personal data bank and best friend, but Marius is returning to Earth and asks the Doctor to look after him.

Leela is especially happy with the addition of K9. K9 does talk above her like the Doctor (“Can you explain simply?” “Negative.”), but he is handy to have around when something needs blasting or the enemy is advancing. K9 is just as comfortable knocking things on the head as he is using his head.

The Doctor and Leela have been joined by a tin dog and our three companions fly off in the new old control room. It was a bot of a shik, but contact has been made and a new era of Doctor Who begins.

I leave you with that, Gary. Something old is new again. Time is relative . . .

Horror of Fang Rock

Dear Gary—

Horror of Fang Rock—I rather like this little story. After the big scale, richly layered Talons of Weng-Chiang, it is nice to have it followed up by a tight, four part script. It is not just the plot that is compact; the set is confined as well, taking place almost wholly within a lighthouse.

“You said I would like Brighton,” Leela says as she emerges from the TARDIS on a dark and foggy shore. “Well, I do not.”

I feel rather sorry for the Doctor’s companions. He is always promising them a little pleasure trip, some rest and relaxation, a bit of sun and beach. The adventures are exciting and all, but a little diversion at Brighton once in a while is well deserved. Alas, it never seems to be.

“Does this look like Brighton?”

Leela, of course, has never been to Brighton. “The machine has failed again?”

The Doctor forever has to come to the defense of the TARDIS: “Because the localized condition of planetary atmospheric condensation caused a malfunction in the visual orientation circuits. Or to put it another way, we got lost in the fog.”

And as usual, Brighton is put off while the Doctor investigates the curiosity of a lighthouse without a light. I feel so sorry for his companions.

There is a mystery lurking in that lighthouse. Mystery and death. It is ripe for an Agatha Christie murder plot, or a Dracula-like horror tale. A lonely lighthouse on a foggy night isolated and shrouded in supernatural lore. A dead body found by the generator. A load of shipwrecked passengers stranded and seething with their own internal intrigues.

But this gothic horror mystery setting is only atmosphere.

Palmerdale: “Are you in charge here?”

Doctor: “No, but I’m full of ideas.”

The Doctor and Leela have inserted themselves into this gothic horror mystery setting. They see beyond the gothic horror mystery setting. The inhabitants, however, are enmeshed in the gothic horror mystery setting.

Reuben with his warnings of mythical beasts and the impressionable Vince. “He won’t rest easy,” Reuben says of the dead Ben. “There’ll be anger in his soul. And when they die like that, they’ll never rest easy.”

“The dead do not walk,” Leela assures the frightened Vince. “That is not possible.”

The Doctor and Leela do not succumb to the macabre sensibility of the lighthouse. “Curiouser and curiouser,” perhaps, but not supernatural.

“I used to believe in magic,” Leela tells an astrology minded Adelaide, “but the Doctor has taught me about science. It is better to believe in science.”

But there is something about gothic horror mystery that speaks to the human soul. That is why it is so effective. We, the audience, feel the suspense along with the lighthouse crew and the shipwrecked passengers. Our intellect knows, along with the outsiders Doctor and Leela, that there are no ghosts and no ancient beasts walking the foggy shore of Fang Rock, but our gut reacts just the same with the horror of walking dead and ancient lore.

The fog, the forlorn sound of the foghorn, the lights going on and off, the dead bodies piling up, the sudden cold coming on, all contribute to the sense of foreboding.

Reuben: “There’s always death on this rock when the beast’s about.”

Reuben is the voice of the past, the voice of superstition and tradition. “The last time they found two of the keepers dead and t’other mad with fear.” His warnings echo in the other’s ears, chilling the blood in their veins.

Palmerdale: “Preposterous rubbish. What is the fool saying?”

Palmerdale is the owner of the shipwrecked yacht. Selfish and greedy, anxious to get to London, no time for foolishness. Palmerdale sees nothing but himself. He cares nothing for dead bodies. He cares nothing for mystery. He cares nothing for superstition.

Reuben: “I’m saying it’s happened before, it’ll happen again.”

Reuben, keeper of the lighthouse, persists.

Palmerdale: “Superstitious idiot. If we’re expected to take notice of some fisherman’s tale . . .”

Palmerdale is the villain without being a villain. He is the one least likely to be liked. Stranded in a lonely lighthouse of death, he has no patience or sympathy, and has not our patience or sympathy.

Leela: “Silence! You will do as the Doctor instructs, or I will cut out your heart.”

Leela cuts through the rubbish, the superstition, and the callousness. Leela cuts to the heart.

And that slap! I do believe that Leela slapping the hysterically screaming Adelaide, the self absorbed, shrilly annoying Adelaide, is one of my favorite moments in Doctor Who.

Leela has no patience, but she has our sympathy.

“We must forget him now; it is time for us to fight.” Leela, the savage, the huntress, is nearer the Doctor than he thinks. The Doctor, too, showed his alien nature in his seemingly unfeeling reaction to Scarman’s death in The Pyramids of Mars. Leela is not alien, Leela is human, but she is a human from another time, another place. Leela, like the Doctor, sees the bigger picture. There will be a time for mourning (and being human, I cannot help but mourn for the loss of Vince), but now is not that time.

“Don’t fire until you see the green of its tentacles.” Now is the time to fight.

“Leela, I’ve made a terrible mistake. I thought I’d locked the enemy out. Instead I’ve locked it in with us.”

Reuben the Rutan. Reuben, keeper of the lighthouse, superstitious, old-fashioned Reuben. Impersonated by a Rutan. The Rutans being the age-old enemy of the Sontarans. Who knew they were nothing more than a green jelly fish? Green jelly fish with the ability to shape shift.

Leela: “They are hard to kill, these Rutans.”

Doctor: “Been celebrating, have you?”

Leela: “It is fitting to celebrate the death of an enemy.”

Doctor: “Not in my opinion. I haven’t got time to discuss morality.”

The Doctor and Leela are not too far apart, but there is a gap still, and there is much yet for Leela to learn.

Seven people dead. Three lighthouse crew and four off the yacht. All dead. Everybody dies, Leela, everybody dies. The Doctor and Leela, only, walk away from the lighthouse.

The eerie, mysterious lighthouse. The Horror of Fang Rock. Everybody dies.

“Aye, though we hunted high and low, and hunted everywhere, of the three men’s fate we found no trace . . .”

Eerie, mysterious lighthouse. Everybody dead.

 “. . . In any time, in any place. But a door ajar and an untouched meal and an over-toppled chair . . .”

The Doctor and Leela leave this mystery behind, and Brighton, I’m afraid, is long forgotten. But then I think, Gary, that Leela is more the type to confront Reuben the Rutan than she is to bat around a beach ball.

Yes, I rather like this compact little tale. And so I send this out, Gary, and hope it finds you, “. . . In any time, in any place . . .”

The Talons of Weng-Chiang

Dear Gary—

“Mister Chang. Wonderful, wonderful. Words fail me, sir. Words fail me.”

Words fail me. Words fail me. I have struggled with this one. I have started and stopped. I have finished and scrapped. Words fail me.

The Talons of Weng-Chiang is probably the pinnacle of the Tom Baker Era, if not of Doctor Who. Since Robot, serial after serial has been outstanding, culminating in The Talons of Weng-Chiang. This is the last pairing of the dynamic duo of producer Phillip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes and they go out on the highest of high notes.

Perhaps that is why, along with Mr. Jago, words fail me.

How can I do justice to this classic of the classic?

“We don’t want to be conspicuous.” I’ll start with the Doctor. The Doctor and Leela. The Doctor and Leela emerging from the TARDIS onto the foggy streets of Victorian London. The Doctor dressed in his best Sherlock Holmes (sans scarf), and Leela, not in her traditional skins, but in a proper Victorian boy’s outfit.

“Doctor, you make me wear strange clothes, you tell me nothing, you are trying to annoy me.”

“I’m trying to teach you, Leela.”

The promise of the Professor Higgins/Eliza Doolittle relationship of this duo comes to life in The Talons of Weng-Chiang.

But it is Pygmalion set in a Sherlock Holmes/Jack the Ripper/Phantom of the Opera/Fu Manchu mystery thriller.

Words fail me.

Which brings me back to Mr. Jago, so maybe I’ll start there. Mr. Jago, Li H’sen Chang, Mr. Sin, Casey, a Victorian London music hall with a Chinese ventriloquist/magician and a ghost in the cellar. And the missing Emma Buller. “Don’t come the cod. She’s disappeared. Nobody’s seen her, not since she come here last night, so what about it, eh?”

So what about it? So much set up in the first few minutes.

And then we have the Doctor and Leela tussling with a gang of murderous Chinese thugs (Tong of the Black Scorpion) in an alley.

Atmosphere and mystery and characters abound and we’ve only just begun.

“On my oath, you wouldn’t want that served with onions. Never seen anything like it in all my puff. Oh, make an ‘orse sick, that would.” The unfortunate cabby in search of his missing wife Emma Buller, recently departed from the theater with his accusations against Li H’sen Chang ringing in Mr. Jago’s ears, has turned up dead in the river.

So what about it? So, bring in the Doctor and Leela as witness, bring in the one member of the Tong of the Black Scorpion who did not escape (“When I got here, he was being strangled with his own pigtail”), bring in Li H’sen Chang as interpreter.

“Show us a trick,” says the Doctor upon recognizing Chang from his music hall poster. Immediately the Chinese prisoner falls dead. “Very good, very good,” the Doctor applauds.

Bring in Professor Litefoot to perform the autopsy. “It’s been jolly interesting, wouldn’t you say? Most of the corpses around here are jolly dull. Now I’ve got a couple of inscrutable Chinks and a poor perisher who was chewed by a giant rat, having been stabbed by a midget.”

This brings up a valid criticism of The Talons of Weng-Chiang, Gary, and that is the racism that runs throughout. However, I have to point out that you cannot have a story set in Victorian England dealing with Chinese Tongs and make it feel authentic without using the epithets and attitudes of the time.  Li H’sen Chang himself is a counterpoint to the racism. “I understand we all look the same,” Chang tells the Doctor who is trying to remember where he has seen him before (“I haven’t been in China for 400 years.”). Li H’sen Chang, for all his villainy, is nobly realized.

As are all of the characters in The Talons of Weng-Chiang, from the unfortunate Casey up to our title character Weng-Chiang. I haven’t even mentioned Weng-Chiang yet. Weng-Chiang, our phantom lurking under the Palace Theater. Weng-Chiang, Chinese god of abundance. Weng Chiang, aka Bent Face, aka Magnus Greel.

Weng-Chiang provides the science in our Pygmalion/Sherlock Holmes/Jack the Ripper/Phantom of the Opera/Fu Manchu fiction. Weng-Chiang, aka Magnus Greel, “the infamous Minister of Justice, the Butcher of Brisbane” from the 51^st Century who used a time machine based on zigma energy and fell from the sky like a god upon the peasant Li H’sen Chang. Weng Chiang, aka Magnus Greel, falling apart before our eyes, having to drain the life essence from young girls to keep himself alive.

Weng-Chiang brought with him Mr. Sin. Sin, posing as Li H’sen Chang’s ventriloquist dummy but in reality the Peking Homunculus, a cyborg toy with the cerebral cortex of a pig that was made for the children of the Commissioner of the Icelandic Alliance about the year 5,000 and that almost caused World War Six. (The Doctor knows all of this, having been “with the Filipino army at the final advance on Reykjavik” at the time.)

“I say, I may have had a bang on the head, but this is a dashed queer story,” Litefoot says upon hearing this preposterous history.

Dashed queer story, perhaps. Preposterous, perhaps. But intelligent, witty, entertaining, engrossing, and fun.

Words fail me.

“My dear Litefoot, I’ve got a lantern, a pair of waders, and possibly the most fearsome piece of hand artillery in all of England. What can possibly go wrong?”

Words never fail the Doctor. The Doctor has confidence, and Jago has supreme confidence in the Doctor. Henry Gordon Jago, one of the best Doctor Who characters ever created. He could have easily fallen to caricature but never does.

Henry Gordon Jago, proprietor of the Palace Theater, has the utmost trust in the Doctor, believing him to be in high standing with Scotland Yard, solving half their cases himself. “It stands to reason,” he explains. “I mean, they’re policemen. We all know they’re solid, sterling fellows, but their buttons are the brightest things about them, don’t you agree? Now the Doctor’s a real detective.”

The scenes early on between Jago and his Irish stagehand Casey, the “pixilated leprechaun” (“You’ve been drinking.” “Not a drop, sir.” “Well, it’s time you started.”), set the stage for his later pairing with Litefoot. Jago and Litefoot are a true Charters and Caldicott duo that saw life beyond The Talons of Weng-Chiang in the form of an audio series from Big Finish Productions. I’ll have to look into those one of these days, Gary.

Jago: “Well, I’m not awfully . . . . Well, I’m not so bally brave when it comes to it. I try to be but I’m not.”

Litefoot: “When it comes to it, I don’t suppose anybody is.”

Jago: “Well, I thought I ought to tell you anyway, in case I let the side down.”

Litefoot: “You won’t, Henry. I know you won’t.”

And neither one does.

Litefoot, for his part, is as good a character as Jago. Litefoot, the Dr. Watson/Pickering to the Doctor’s Sherlock Holmes/Professor Higgins. Litefoot, complete with a Mrs. Hudson as housekeeper, is priceless in his delicate dealings with the savage Eliza Leela (“found floating down the Amazon in a hat box”). When Leela bypasses the plates and cutlery as she dives into the buffet, Litefoot gallantly picks up his own leg of lamb to gnaw on. But he draws the line at using the tablecloth as napkin.

Leela is no slouch herself in The Talons of Weng Chiang. Diligently trying to absorb the intricacies of tea (“it’s very complicated”), Leela is more at home with a knife in her hand or at the throat of her enemy. There is no ‘Eek, a mouse’ moment for Leela. Trudging through the rat-infested sewers she says of the rodents, “They don’t look very dangerous.” She does run upon encountering the giant rat, but who wouldn’t, without a weapon and in one’s soaking underclothes? Even if the giant rat is the one unconvincing element in all of the six episodes of The Talons of Weng-Chiang.

“Spawn of evil, now I destroy you,” Leela exclaims as she jumps upon Weng-Chiang. Even faced with imminent death she remains defiant: “Kill me any way you wish. Unlike you I am not afraid to die.” And she continues, “I shall not plead. But I promise you this: when we are both in the great hereafter I shall hunt you down, Bent Face, and put you through my agony a thousand times.”

And she would, too. In a Doctor Who alternate time line I could very well see the huntress Leela stalking the cowering Magnus Greel.

But the Doctor rushes in at the last moment to save her.

Like Jago, I have every confidence that the Doctor will save the day. It is interesting, though, Gary, that Leela does not whimper companion-like in the face of death, calling for the Doctor. She faces it. She relishes it. She lays her plans for it.

But she needn’t.

“I owe you my life, Doctor. Thank you.”

Simple. Direct. She does not expect the Doctor to save her. She does not rely on the Doctor to save her. But when the Doctor does save her: “I owe you my life, Doctor. Thank you.”

Neither Leela nor the Doctor has let the side down.

“The list of your failures is growing.” Li H’sen Chang, on the other hand, has let Weng-Chiang down.

The Li H’sen Chang/Weng-Chiang relationship, like tea, is complicated. Li H’sen Chang is not your typical Doctor Who sycophant or groveling disciple or mercenary. Li H’sen Chang is not motivated by your typical villainous greed or lust or vengeance. Li H’sen Chang truly believes he is serving the cause of a god. And when his “list of failures” grows too great, Chang offers himself up to the giant rat as sacrifice.

But it is more complicated than that. Li H’sen Chang was a simple peasant. Magnus Greel came down upon him as a god—as Weng Chiang. Li H’sen Chang nursed him, protected him, saved him. Now Li H’sen Chang serves him. Weng-Chiang is his god.

But it is more complicated than that. Weng-Chiang has given Li H’sen Chang powers. Li H’sen Chang is a magician, a ventriloquist, a music hall favorite. Simple peasant Li H’sen Chang: “Next month the great Chang would have performed before the Queen Empress at Buckingham Palace. I, the son of a peasant.”

Now the simple peasant Li H’sen Chang, raised to theatrical prominence, has sunk to the depths of a sewer rat charnel house; has dragged himself, half dying and legless, to an opium den; has been shamed by his “false god.” Li H’sen Chang: “I believed in him. For many years I believed in him.” Li H’sen Chang: “Until he shamed me. I lost face. The whole theater saw my failure.”

Li H’sen Chang relied on Weng-Chiang. Weng-Chiang has failed him.

Weng-Chiang/Magnus Greel is an experiment in failure. He is surrounded by failure. He is a failure. Just don’t tell him that.

Doctor: “The zigma experiments came to nothing. They were a failure. Nothing came of them.”

Greel: “No! No, they were a success. Why, I used them to escape from my enemies. The first man to travel through time.”

Doctor: “Hmmm. Look what it did to you.”

Greel: “A temporal distortion of my metabolism. It can be readjusted.”

You can’t argue with delusion. But a midget pig-brained cyborg Peking Homunculus sidekick who is manning a death ray can be convinced that the zigma experiments are a failure and a last attempt to use the time cabinet will cause a deadly implosion.

“This is mutiny, Sin!” Surrounded by failure, set upon by mutinous pig-brained midget followers, Magnus Greel, aka Weng-Chiang, hasn’t a chance. Leave it to the Doctor to finish him off in Greel’s own catalytic extraction chamber; hoisted by his own petard.

The dust has settled. Magnus Greel aka Weng-Chiang has disintegrated, Mr. Sin the Peking Homunculus has been defused. All that is left is for the Doctor and the Leela to take their leave of Jago and Litefoot.

I am sorry to see the end of this, Gary. I was prejudiced going in knowing this was a six parter; normally I cringe at anything longer than four. But I almost wish The Talons of Weng-Chiang was longer. I could do with some more of Jago and Lightfoot. I could do with some more of Weng-Chiang and Mr. Sin (the Peking Homunculus). I could do with some more of Li H’sen Chang. I could do with some more of the foggy streets, the sewers, the theater, the opium den, and the House of the Dragon. I could even do with some more of the giant rat.

But it is the end. The end of The Talons of Weng-Chiang. The end of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era. However, as the Doctor says, “sleep is for tortoises,” and this is no time for sleep. It is time to look forward not time to reflect. There is much more of the Doctor and Tom Baker and I need to put this behind and get back on track.

And yet, Gary, words still fail me . . .

Robots of Death

Dear Gary—

I can’t get over the high quality of the show, story after story, during this stretch. They just keep coming, one after the other. Robots of Death is no exception.

“To the rational mind nothing is inexplicable, only unexplained.”

The Doctor has begun his education of Leela.

Leela, the Eliza Doolittle to the Doctor’s Professor Higgins. Leela the primitive with limited learning but with an open and curious mind. And a mind with an eye for the practical.

“That’s silly,” is her reaction when the Doctor tries to illustrate with different sized boxes at different distances how the TARDIS can be bigger on the inside than on the outside. She knows which box is bigger, even if it looks smaller—“That’s because it’s further away.” She knows. “That’s silly.”

“That’s transdimensional engineering, a key Time Lord discovery,” but the Doctor hasn’t time to pursue this further for the TARDIS (the silly, bigger on the inside than on the outside TARDIS) has materialized.

Doctor: “This is the exciting bit.”

Leela: “What’s exciting?”

Doctor: “Well, seeing what’s outside.”

It’s not just an education; it’s an adventure.

What’s on the outside—the adventure—is the outstanding Robots of Death.

Our first glimpse of Robots of Death sets the tone for this adventure. It is Art Deco sumptuous automaton. (I want to aside here, Gary. Art Deco has been used before to great effect in The Black Cat—the Karloff/Lugosi classic. There, too, Art Deco enhanced harsh, stark cruelties.)

It is not just the cruelties that are harsh and stark in The Robots of Death; so too is the landscape. “It’s beautiful,” Leela says as she peers out at the arid desert before them.

However the sandminer vehicle in which the TARDIS has landed and which is extracting minerals from the surface of this desert planet is another story, as are the occupants thereof. These miners are not your average underground, dirt and grime, hard hat miners. Nor are they your typical uniformed space explorers. I like how each uniform is highly individual and hints of rank and caste and ancestry woven into this rich tapestry of costumery. The interplay between the cast of characters, too, hints of multiple threads—this is a soap opera in the making.

And then the dead bodies start piling up. Now we have an Agatha Christie Ten Little Indians mystery going on.

The Doctor and Leela materialize in the middle of this Art Deco soap opera murder mystery with robots.

We know that the robots are responsible for the killings. The Doctor knows the robots are responsible for the killings. The human occupants, the Art Deco soap opera miners, do not.

“Shumf! All over in two seconds.” Our first victim, Chub, probably would have known. But he is dead. All over in two seconds. Shumf!

Robots, everybody knows, have a prime directive: “Robots can’t harm humans.” But Chub knows: “They go wrong, my friend. It’s been known.” Leela knows too: “The second principle is that humans can’t harm robots. I know. I tried and they don’t bleed.”

Our Art Deco soap opera miners, however, take some convincing. (“You know, you’re a classic example of the inverse ratio between the size of the mouth and the size of the brain.”)

A word, Gary, about our Art Deco soap opera miners. Another superb cast depicting deeply characterized roles. Unfortunately many of them get killed off—one, two, three—Chub, Cass, Borg (and Karril who is only seen as a corpse). And then there is Zilda. Zilda is part of the underlying soap opera from a family of wealth and power that has lost both, suspicious of the captain and mourning the tragic loss of her brother. A story told in seconds of looks, tones, throw-away dialogue. Zilda, however, provides the one sour note in this symphonic tapestry. The climactic scene towards the end of episode two when she accuses the captain over the intercom, to my mind, is rather overdone. But she is killed and that is the end of that.

Now we are left with the captain Uvanov, with Toos, with Poul, and with Dask. Our last remaining Little Indians. And the robots. The Robots of Death.

One of these four remaining, we know, has reprogrammed the robots, is Taren Capel in hiding. Taren Capel—the human brought up by robots. Taren Capel the mad, or as the Doctor puts it: “Right now he must be a happy little maniac.” Taren Capel must be on board. (“Oh that’s dim. Even for a Dumb, that’s dim. You realize he’s almost certainly on board.”)

Uvanov was the obvious red herring, with hints of Zilda and her tragic brother accusing him surreptitiously and then outright. Uvanov, the mercenary miner with zelanite rather than blood running through his veins. Uvanov with secret longings of his own.

Toos would have been a master stroke, but Toos is too valuable as she is.

Poul is eliminated early on—Poul who goes mad with ‘Robophobia’ or ‘Grimwade’s Syndrome’ when he realizes that the robots really are to blame.

That leaves the obvious Dask. Dask/Taren Capel. Our villain. Mastermind of the robot revolution, of the robots of death.

I’m not sure why he chose a lonely sandminer vehicle on a desert planet for his master plan, but since this is Doctor Who, who cares?

“Kill, kill, kill.”

“Kill the Doctor. Kill the Doctor. Kill the Doctor.”

Murderous robots. ”Kill, kill, kill.”

Taren Capel. Murderous robots. Kill, kill, kill.

Robots are single minded. You program them to kill, they kill. Kill, kill, kill.

Humans have nuances:

Uvanov: “You have cost me and the company a great deal of money and you have killed three people. Can you think of any good reason why I should not have you executed on the spot?”

Leela: “No, but you can, otherwise you’d have done it.”

Humans do not kill, kill, kill. Humans kill with reason. Humans kill with purpose. Robots, when so programmed, kill, kill, kill.

That is why they are so easily defeated. True, you can reason humans out of killing, but humans are unpredictable. You never know exactly what your human opponent is thinking. Machines, computers, robots—they are all the same, they are all predictable. You know what they are thinking: “Kill, kill, kill.”

And machines, computers, robots—they are all so literal. One comma out of place, one “mouse in the wainscoting” and it is all over.

“All good things come to an end.”

Taren Capel/Dask is dead. The robots are decommissioned. Uvanov, Toos, and the deranged Poul survive.

And the education of Leela continues.

Leela: “Sometimes you talk like a Tesh.”

Doctor: “Thank you.”

Leela: “It was not well meant.”

Well . . . it continues with qualifications. Leela has an open mind and is willing to learn. But don’t give her double talk. Don’t talk down to her. Don’t talk above her.

And so, Gary, we leave these “creepy mechanical men” behind with a “Kill the . . . kill the . . . kill the . . .” echoing back from the Doctor’s time swirl, and the Doctor and Leela enter that loveably unreliable TARDIS (Leela: “You mean you can’t control this machine?” Doctor: “Well, of course I can control it—nine times out of ten. Well seven times out of ten. Five times . . . look, never mind . . .”) and we look forward to the next adventure/lesson.

All good things must come to an end . . . Shumf!

The Face of Evil

Dear Gary—

“Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?”

The Doctor’s own voice, echoing, repeating, reverberating. The Doctor’s own face, larger than life and multiplied before him.

“Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?”

Circling around him in a symphony of insanity.

The Face of Evil.

The Mandragora Helix in the Masque of Mandragora let the Doctor off the hook. The Face of Evil does not. The Face of Evil confronts the Doctor with huge depictions of himself in various forms—cut in rock, floating projections, images on a screen—giant, accusatory faces. The Doctor has been here before.

“I must have made quite an impression.”

When the Doctor first emerges from the TARDIS with, “I think this is not Hyde Park,” (“Could be a nexial discontinuity.”) he is alone. Sarah Jane has been left behind, as has Gallifrey. Companionless, the Doctor begins talking to the camera, which I find rather jarring (although not unprecedented—William Hartnell wishing the audience a Merry Christmas during The Feast of Steven). Almost immediately, however, he meets up with Leela, and the hints start piling up that he has been here before.

“The Evil One,” Leela exclaims upon first meeting the Doctor.

“Well, nobody’s perfect, but that’s overstating it a little,” the Doctor replies and offers her a Jelly Baby, to which Leela retorts, “They say the Evil One eats babies.”

The Evil One, The Face of Evil. The Doctor is not going to be let off the hook on this one.

The Doctor starts putting the clues together when he encounters the Sevateem, a primitive tribe from which Leela has been expelled for heresy. Their ritual hand motions, the Doctor realizes, are the gestures used when checking the seams on a Starfall Seven spacesuit, and their holy relics are relics from a long lost space mission. “The whole place is littered with their equipment, their weapons and tools,” the Doctor explains. These Sevateem are not what they seem.

Eventually the Doctor pieces together that the Sevateem are descendents of the Mordee Expedition, and he recalls having helped this expedition by repairing their computer.

The Doctor has long held computers in disdain, and he has had several run-ins with computers gone amok (WOTAN and BOSS among the more memorable). Now he has Xoanon to contend with. Xoanon, made in his own image. Xoanon, worshiped as a god. Xoanon, schizophrenic engineer of a eugenics experiment gone awry. Xoanon.

“Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?”

The Doctor is not being let off this hook. The Doctor is the cause of this mess. The Doctor is the creator of this world (a world, curiously enough, with only one Eve).

“Gods don’t use transceivers.” The Doctor must put this mess right, and he begins by cutting through the ceremonial trappings of superstition and stating facts.

This is where Leela is so brilliantly conceived.

Leela has grown up with this ceremony. Leela has been instilled with this superstition. But Leela has an open and curious mind. Leela rejects the ceremony. Leela rejects the superstition. Leela is just waiting for the Doctor to arrive to fill in the answers for her. Or more accurately, to guide her to seek her own answers.

Leela: “Do you know the answer to everything?”

Doctor: “Yes. Well, no, no. Answers are easy. It’s asking the right questions which is hard.”

But the right questions often lead to uncertainty:

Leela: “I don’t know what to believe any more.”

Doctor: “Well, that sounds healthy, anyway, Leela. Never be certain of anything. It’s a sign of weakness.”

Being certain is what has weakened the Sevateem and the Tesh. The Sevateem—the survey team of the original Mordee Expedition, gone out to explore the planet surface. The Tesh—the technicians of the original Mordee Expedition, left behind in the rocket. Divided by a barrier created by Xoanon, the Sevateem have developed in body while the Tesh have developed in mind. And each, the Sevateem and the Tesh, is certain in their beliefs. Certain in their myths. Certain in their superstitions. And each, the Sevateem and the Tesh, is weak.

I find it interesting, Gary, that the Sevateem—the tribe of the body, the tribe of brute strength, the tribe of survival instinct—has produced more rebels, has produced more flexibility of thought, has produced more open minds. The Tesh, on the other hand, the think tank of Mordee, is rigid and intractable.

It is easy to look at Leela and Tomas and Calib of the Sevateem to prove the point, but let’s look to Neeva vs. the Tesh Jabel. These are the two true believers. The two spiritual leaders. Let us look to them.

Neeva: “The gates of Paradise shall be opened to the people of Xoanon and his dwelling place revealed.”

The ancient litany is coming true.

Tomas: “We’ve outgrown the old superstitions, Neeva.” Tomas has never believed—he has always been a doubting Tomas—but he was more coward than rebel and never voiced his doubts to the tribe as his friend Leela had.

Neeva: “But it is there, isn’t it Tomas?”

The ancient litany IS coming true.

Neeva (continuing): “We start getting proof and we stop believing.”

The ancient litany is coming true. It is right there, isn’t it? Right there before them. Xoanon’s dwelling place revealed just as the litany spoke. The proof of the litany is before them. Stop believing just when the litany is coming true?

Tomas: “With proof, we don’t have to believe.” Doubting Tomas never believed, but he now has the proof before him and no longer needs any ancient litany to tell him what he can see in front of him.

But it is not the proof of the litany that shakes Neeva’s faith. That started with the Doctor. The image of the Evil One with the voice of his god. The litany was true—the proof is before them. It is Xoanon who was false.

“I underestimated that man,” the Doctor says when Neeva acknowledges that it is the Doctor and not Xoanon speaking to him through the holy relic. The Doctor has been laying bare Xoanon’s lies since his arrival. It is the Doctor who has revealed Xoanon’s dwelling place. Xoanon has betrayed them. Xoanon has betrayed Neeva. The Doctor has cut through the ceremonial trappings of superstition and stated the facts. Confronted with these facts, with the proof, Neeva understands the true nature and betrayal of Xoanon.

Now let’s look at Jabel.

“Welcome Lord,” Jabel says upon meeting the Doctor. The Doctor has the face, not of the Evil One, but of Jabel’s god, the face of Xoanon.

“I do you honor, Lord of Time. We’ve waited long for your return,” Jabel intones as he kneels before the Doctor.

Here is his god personified: “You and he are as one. You will show us the way.”

But when the Doctor contradicts Jabel’s litany: “You are not the Lord of Time come again to save us!”

Concentrating on building strength of body, the Sevateem are able to accept truths outside of their belief system. Concentrating on building power of mind, the Tesh are not.

Doctor: “The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: they don’t alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views, which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that need altering.”

The Sevateem have altered their views. The Tesh have not. The Doctor is a fact that needs altering. (Interesting parallel to the Time Lords in The Deadly Assassin who saw the need for fact altering, but that is another line of thought that hasn’t room at the present.)

But it is not the Sevateem and it is not the Tesh that the Doctor needs to confront. It is himself. It is Xoanon. Xoanon is he and he is Xoanon. “You and he are as one. You will show us the way.” Jabel was right in that.

The Doctor had been there before. He had fixed the Mordee Expedition computer.  “And I thought I was helping them,” he says.  “I misunderstood what Xoanon was,” he adds. Xoanon is not a mere computer; it is “a machine that’s become a living creature.” A living creature with the Doctor’s personality print in the data core, resulting in a split personality—the Doctor’s and its own.

“Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?”

A question repeated over and over, echoing and reverberating and circling endlessly.

“Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?”

“And I thought I was helping them.” Or did he?

“Or did I really forget? I forget if I forgot.”

Did the Doctor forget to wipe his personality from the data core?

“It may have been my own egotism.”

The Doctor is not letting himself off the hook on this one.

 “Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?” The endless question. And the answer? “We are Xoanon.” Except: “And I am the Doctor.” “No!” “I’m the Doctor.” “No!” “I am the Doctor.” “No! No! No! No! No!”

“Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?”

A living, sentient, computer being with a split personality.

Doctor: “Is that clear?”

Leela: “No.”

Doctor: “Well, come on then.”

Wiping his personality from the data core, the Doctor restores sanity to Xoanon the god/fiend and the dual personalities of the planet, Sevateem and Tesh, come together as one.

Well, it’s not quite as simple as that. At odds for so long with drastically different world views, these two tribes are not ready to mix and mingle just yet. Bickering over who is to be leader, the Doctor ducks out on these two newly reconciled factions of the same lineage, and Leela ducks out with him.

Leela: “Take me with you.”

Doctor: “Why?”

Leela: “What? Well, you like me, don’t you?”

Doctor: “Well, yes, I suppose I do like you. But then I like lots of people and I can’t go carting them around the universe with me.”

Dodging past the Doctor and into the TARDIS, we hear, “Don’t touch that! Don’t touch . . .” as the TARDIS dematerializes.

The Doctor has a new companion.

The Face of Evil is a richly layered story, Gary; one that I have grown to appreciate more with each viewing. And a perfect introduction to Leela. I was sorry to see Sarah Jane depart, but Leela is a worthy successor.

Who am I? A question that echoes through the universe. An answer for which many of us search in vain. Who am I?

I hope, Gary, that you have found your answer . . .

The Deadly Assassin

Dear Gary—

“Through the millennia, the Time Lords of Gallifrey led a life of peace and ordered calm, protected against all threats from lesser civilizations by their great power. But this was to change. Suddenly and terribly, the Time Lords faced the most dangerous crisis in their long history . . .”

Scrolling across the screen ala Star Wars (several months before Star Wars was released), the above prologue, voice-over narration by Tom Baker, sets up The Deadly Assassin as something unique in Doctor Who history.

As a unique chapter in Doctor Who, The Deadly Assassin is quite good, but I am glad it is one of a kind.

At the end of The Hand of Fear the Doctor received ‘the call from Gallifrey’ and therefore left Sarah behind. The Doctor arrives on his home planet alone, his only companion being the trusty TARDIS, identified in The Deadly Assassin as a Type 40 and obsolete. (“Twaddle. Take no notice my dear old thing,” the Doctor affectionately reassures his faithful friend.) Castellan Spandrell is the closest to a companion role in the story, but for the most part the Doctor is uncharacteristically on his own.

He is on his own and he is home. Home. Gallifrey. But we never get to see the burnt orange sky or silver leaved trees we have heard about. The Deadly Assassin never leaves the Citadel, a rather cold and barren place. The Time Lords, it seems, are not much for art, although they do go in for lots of pomp and circumstance.

The Deadly Assassin is all about the Time Lords, filling in details of their long and storied past. And the details would be disappointing if I didn’t already have a dismal view of these ‘galactic ticket inspectors’ from the few glimpses we have had of them during the course of the show. The Doctor is clearly the cream of the crop and there is a reason why he ran away from their society all those hundreds of years ago.

“Through the millennia, the Time Lords of Gallifrey led a life of peace and ordered calm . . .”

“They live for centuries and have about as much sense of adventure as door mice.”

The Deadly Assassin plays this well. The myth of the Time Lords. The lore of the Time Lords. The mystique of the Time Lords. It is all there, hints of a glorious past. But the reality stands before us in the person of Runcible, “Runcible the fatuous;” in the person of Goth, the power-mad, gullible stooge; in the person of Borusa, the truth-bender. Dry and feeble; petty and doddering; cynical and sadistic; stunted and stilted.

The Doctor, we learn, is of the Prydonian chapter of these Time Lords, color coded scarlet and orange. The Arcalians are green whereas the Patrexes are heliotrope. Much pomp. Much circumstance. These Time Lords stand on ceremony.

“. . . protected against all threats from lesser civilizations by their great power.”

Previously we met Omega, now we learn of Rassilon, the long ago heroes of the Time Lords, the architects of Time Lord time travel technology. We learn of the Eye of Harmony, the Sash of Rassilon, and the Great Key. All of the ancient symbols and relics of the Time Lord’s mythic past and sources of power. Such power. Time travel; endless life. Power on a massive scale. “And of course,” Engin explains, “it was long before we turned aside from the barren road of technology.” (Apparently in favor of the barren road of politics.)

Time Lords have great power, but they are not above the baser instincts of humanity. Just look at some of the Time Lords gone wrong the Doctor has encountered in the past—Omega, the Master, Morbius, the Meddling Monk. Such power in the hands of a Time Lord run amok is good enough reason for the Time Lords to have devolved, to have invested the powerful relics with nothing more than ceremonial symbolism, to have cut themselves off from any involvement in the universal struggles, to have become mere ‘intergalactic ticket inspectors.’

“But this was to change.”

The Doctor escaped from this wasteland of a society; so too the Master. Now the Master, at the end of his twelfth and final regeneration, has come home to wrest control of all that latent power, and he has brought his old enemy the Doctor (“so despicably good; so insufferably compassionate”) home as well, bent on ultimate revenge (“Only hate keeps me alive.”).

Interesting that the Time Lords have so far removed themselves that they no longer recall the Doctor or the Master. The Doctor’s trial back in The War Games is forgotten. The Time Lord’s directives to the Doctor to deal both with the Master and with the Daleks in stories past have been forgotten. At least by these far-removed, pomp and circumstance, by-the-book Time Lords. For the first time we hear of the CIA (Celestial Intervention Agency), and perhaps it is this enigmatic agency that has covertly worked with the Doctor in the past. Intriguing detail that does not get completely filled in. And if the CIA has been involved in the Doctor’s life in the past and interested in the Master’s activities, why are they not present in this our story, The Deadly Assassin? Or perhaps they were the ones to make that initial call to the Doctor back at the end of The Hand of Fear. Perhaps they have yet again steered the Doctor on a course of intervention and are now standing back to let the Doctor take charge.

“Suddenly and terribly, the Time Lords faced the most dangerous crisis in their long history . . .”

I’m not entirely sure about that—the Omega threat back in The Three Doctors was a fairly dangerous crisis in their long history as well. However this threat is occurring right on their own doorstep, within the walls of their own Panopticon. And of course the Master is always an ultimate threat, even though he is so easily outwitted in every meeting.

Roger Delgado was so masterful as the Master, but he tragically died during the Pertwee years and his character has not been seen since—until now, until The Deadly Assassin. Emaciated and dying, the Master has co-opted Chancellor Goth to do his bidding with the promise of the Time Lord Presidency as his reward. Why he wants to be President of this do-nothing society is beyond me, but perhaps that would have made an interesting alternative time line for Doctor Who—the Presidency of Goth as he returns Gallifrey to galactic glory. But alas, it is not to be, and it is just as well because I have serious doubts that Goth could do much of anything, President or not. (Just an aside, Gary, but every time I see this actor—Bernard Horsfall—in Doctor Who I can’t help but see him as Gulliver from The Mind Robber.)

No, this is not so much a crisis for the Time Lords as it is another crisis in the long history of the Doctor. Another Doctor/Master confrontation, this time with Goth as the surrogate for the incapacitated Master, but with the Master calling the shots nonetheless.

And what a confrontation it is, this most dangerous crisis—The Most Dangerous Game. (And I’m so very sorry, Gary; I hate to ruin the suspense and tension of this most thrilling story, but I can’t think of this scenario without thinking of the Gilligan’s Island take on it, just as I can never think of Hamlet in the same way due to the Gilligan’s Island musical version—“I askto be or not to be . . . .”)

But it is a dangerous game the Master and the Doctor are playing, all taking place within the virtual reality of the Matrix, the Time Lord electronic neural network. The hunter and the hunted. Stark, surreal, nightmarish. From samurai to crocodiles, from hypodermic needles to gas masks, from train tracks to battle fields. “I deny this reality. The reality is a computation matrix.” But it is a computation matrix with a sting. It is the Master’s (Goth) reality, and the Master’s (Goth) reality takes precedence. The hunter and the hunted. But when the hunted is the Doctor, no amount of bullets and drowning and poison can stop him. “The Doctor is never more dangerous than when the odds are against him.”

If the Master had been at full strength, if the Master did not have to rely upon the intermediary Goth, how different the outcome might have been. I’m sure the Doctor would still have won, but at what cost? As it is, the cost is Goth’s life. And seemingly the Master’s, who concedes defeat. But we know him better than that. Even on the last breath of his last regeneration, we know him better than that. Even after his last and final confrontation with the Doctor, we know him better than that. And so too does the Doctor: “Are you suggesting he survived?” “No, no, I hope not, Spandrell. And there’s no one in all the galaxies I’d say that about. The quintessence of evil.”

This most dangerous crisis is over.

“Somehow, Cardinal, I don’t want to stay.” The Doctor, seeming victor, wants to leave this do-nothing society behind him once and for all. He has fought yet another battle for them, a hard-fought battle. In return the Time Lords place their revisionist spin upon events: “We must adjust the truth.” Goth is proclaimed a hero: “If heroes don’t exist, it is necessary to invent them. Good for public morale.”

But this was to change? Little, it seems, has changed.

“Somehow, Cardinal, I don’t want to stay.”

I wouldn’t either. Now if the Doctor had materialized out on that mountain where his guru sat, under the burnt orange evening sky with the bright silver leaves around him, perhaps he would have stayed. Perhaps he would have found peace and ordered calm.

No, with the scarlet and orange mantel of the Prydonian chapter about his shoulders, with the inane echoes of old schoolmates in his ears, with the admonitions of past teachers reiterated (“You will never amount to anything in the galaxy while you retain your propensity for vulgar facetiousness”), the Doctor can only proclaim, “Vaporization without representation is against the constitution!” and invoke Article 17 in his defense as he wends his way through this most stratified and stringent of societies on his way back to the TARDIS and out of this world, back to his wayward wanderings.

Yes, The Deadly Assassin is unique. No companion and steeped in Time Lord tradition it is unique. But I can’t help but be glad that the Doctor has left it all behind, and I look forward to the more traditional fare of Doctor Who.

And so I send this out on its wayward way, Gary, and hope . . .

The Hand of Fear

Dear Gary—

“Eldrad must live.” For better or worse, Sarah Jane Smith will always be known for these words.

Eldrad, the hand of fear. Eldrad, the she that is a he. Eldrad. Eldrad must live.

I can’t talk about The Hand of Fear, Gary, without talking about Eldrad. Eldrad is obliterated to begin our story. Obliterated. But Eldrad must live; and Eldrad does live. For 150 million years Eldrad’s hand survives, fossilized, buried deep in the Earth, until Sarah finds it in a quarry. Eldrad and his/her ring bearing her/his genetic code. Eldrad.

Eldrad undergoes several transformations in The Hand of Fear, beginning as a fossilized, four fingered hand but quickly re-growing its fifth finger and gaining flexibility it becomes a crawling hand straight out of horror films. Next Eldrad grows a body—the body of Judith Paris in a form fitting, crystal encrusted costume to dazzle the eyes. But Eldrad is not done. Eldrad must not only live, Eldrad must regenerate.

“Why is she a he?” Good question. The seemingly crushed Eldrad emerges from the regeneration chamber in the body of Stephen Thorne.

Eldrad must live. For 150 million years the obliterated Eldrad survived and was reformed. After 150 million years “Eldrad lives and shall again rule Kastria;” but “Hail Eldrad. King . . . of nothing.” The Doctor has refused to break the laws of time for Eldrad and will only return him/her to Kastria in present time, to a Kastria that has been dead for 150 million years. Kastria did not have the same imperative to live.

And so Eldrad, Eldrad who has survived obliteration, Eldrad who has lived 150 million years, Eldrad who has escaped deadly traps laid out for him/her on Kastria, Eldrad who re-grows from a hand, Eldrad who cheats death with regeneration, Eldrad is tripped up by the Doctor’s scarf and falls into an abyss and we are to believe he/she is dead? And the Doctor throws Eldrad’s ring down after the body, Eldrad’s ring containing Eldrad’s genetic code? Eldrad must live.

Like Eldrad, The Hand of Fear undergoes several location and casting transformations of its own. The story begins in a quarry and then hospital where we meet Dr. Carter. It next moves to a nuclear power station where we meet Professor Watson. Finally it arrives on Kastria where we meet King Rokon. Each section is unique and compelling in its own right.

“This isn’t South Croydon.” No, the Doctor and Sarah have landed in a quarry right at the moment of a planned detonation. However the two remain inexplicably unaware of the imminent danger; as alarm bells blare and strangers wave them off, the Doctor rather nonchalantly practices his cricket throws. It’s an effective scene, despite their uncharacteristic thick-headedness. The relaxed companionability of the Doctor and Sarah juxtaposed against the hard rock quarry and the audience’s sense of impending doom. The resulting explosion, the Doctor’s frantic search through the rubble, and Sarah’s reaching out to grasp the stone cold hand of Eldrad are all heart racing.

An unconscious Sarah is taken to the local hospital where the Doctor, with the aid of Dr. Carter, begins his Sherlock Holmes phase of investigation into the mysterious hand. Determining it to be a silicon based survivor of an explosion from millions of miles away and millions of years ago, he finds it intriguing. Sarah, meanwhile, finds it (or rather its ring) mesmerizing. Under the hypnotic influence of the ring, Sarah steals the hand and makes for the nearest nuclear power plant.

Now begins our ‘China Syndrome’ phase of the story. It is unnerving to see a glassy-eyed Sarah making her way through the plant, zapping workers who get in her way, and then settling herself down with the crawling hand in the reactor, again juxtaposed with the brightly colored ‘Andy Pandy’ jumpsuit she is wearing. More warning sirens blare as the plant braces for a meltdown.

“I want this damn racket stopped!” The director of the plant, Professor Watson, establishes himself as the nerves of steel, no-nonsense authority that the Doctor can turn to in this crisis, at least for the moment. There are two separate emergencies during our time at the nuclear station, and Professor Watson stands up well throughout. And I like how these early Whos take the time for quiet little scenes like that of the director phoning home as the plant has been evacuated and he remains in what could very well be his last moment, giving his love to his family. Another unnecessary bit to our plot, but necessary nonetheless.

Too bad that Watson takes leave of his senses later on, running around madly with a hand gun and actually thinking that mere bullets can stop Eldrad when the absorption of massive radiation and nuclear missiles have failed.

“Listen, you owe your regeneration to this man—remember that,” the Doctor admonishes Eldrad as Eldrad holds Watson in a deadly gaze. Despite Watson’s mental lapse, his character continues to be treated with dignity. (Speaking of mental lapses—ordering a bombing raid on a nuclear power plant?!)

Explosions, radiation, bombs, bullets—“I think we should try much older weapons,” says the Doctor.  “Speech, diplomacy . . . . Conversation.” Communication. “How? With hand signals?” The Doctor gives Eldrad the benefit of the doubt; Sarah, no longer under the ring’s influence, remains skeptical.

“Why must he help you? You’re destructive,” Sarah exclaims to the reconstituted Eldrad. But the Doctor is reminded of an old Time Lord pledge “to uphold the laws of time and prevent alien aggression.”  However, “only when such aggression is deemed to threaten the indigenous population. I think that’s how it goes,” the Doctor adds.

Just an aside here, Gary. Upholding the laws of time, yes. I can see that. But preventing alien aggression, even if threatening the indigenous population? No. I can’t see that. Not with the do-nothing Time Lords. The Doctor, yes. The Time Lords, no. Perhaps long ago, before the standoffish nature of the Time Lords became the rule. But not now. Not in the Doctor’s lifetime. That is the reason he left Gallifrey in the first place.

But back to our story and on to Kastria. Kastria is the weakest link in our story. I find it hard to believe that the Doctor is so hoodwinked by Eldrad. Especially after the destructive events on Earth, as Sarah has pointed out. Especially after Eldrad attempts to turn on them in the TARDIS, only to learn that weapons won’t work in the TARDIS: “In a sense, you see, we don’t exist while we’re in here, so you can’t hurt us and we can’t hurt you.” Especially after Eldrad’s own people have gone to such lengths as to lay traps against Eldrad’s improbable return. Although I guess I can buy the Doctor’s argument that he is simply getting Eldrad away from Earth, and at least he is taking Eldrad back to present Kastria and not turning back time 150 million years as Eldrad had requested.

I rather enjoy Stephen Thorne’s raging lunatic take on Eldrad, though, upon emerging from the regeneration chamber. But really, were the Kastrian’s so useless that they couldn’t figure out how to repair the solar barriers? And were they really so desperate as to commit mass suicide rather than to risk the most unlikely return of Eldrad? They obviously had the technology for space travel as evidenced by the obliteration pod they sent Eldrad off in. Could they not travel out into the universe if they couldn’t repair the barriers or face life underground on their own planet? They clearly had the means to create deadly traps to waylay Eldrad upon his doubtful return, couldn’t they lay the same traps without having to commit self-genocide? Surely they could prepare themselves to defeat Eldrad if he ever were to return; they had imprisoned and executed him once before after all. And that last ‘gotcha’ hologram from Rokon—really? They would rather face extinction so they could send a posthumous raspberry to Eldrad just in case he/she beat all the odds and came back? Why would Eldrad want to rule such a pathetic people?

And then the anti-climatic trip down the abyss. “The gravity of the law finally caught up with him.” I don’t know. Eldrad must live.

“Eldrad must live.” Words, for better or worse, that Sarah Jane Smith will always be known by.

Sarah Jane Smith. I cannot talk about The Hand of Fear, Gary, without talking about Sarah Jane Smith.

There is a telling little moment near the beginning as the Doctor rushes back and forth between the quarry and the pathology lab, when he stops and affectionately adjusts the Do Not Disturb sign on Sarah’s hospital room door. It is one of those quiet little pools of calm that characterizes the Doctor’s and Sarah’s relationship.

“I worry about you,” Sarah tells the Doctor as she sneaks back into the power plant when he goes to confront Eldrad.

“Yes but . . . I worry about you,” the Doctor replies.

There is a warmth between the Doctor and Sarah Jane that shines through in every serial they appear in together.

The Doctor has said goodbye to many companions up to this point. His departure from Susan, Ian and Barbara, and Jo Grant are among the most memorable. His parting from Sarah Jane is as heartfelt as any.

“I’m going to pack my goodies and I’m going home.” We know, of course, that Sarah Jane doesn’t mean it. The Doctor is ignoring her as he works on the TARDIS, asking for the astro-rectifier, multi-quantiscope, mergin nut, ganymede driver, zeus plug, and sonic screwdriver. Sarah goes along, handing him what he asks for as she complains, “I’m sick of being cold and wet, and hypnotized left right and center. I’m sick of being shot at, savaged by bug-eyed monsters, never knowing if I’m coming or going . . . or been.” We know that she is sick of it all, we know that she just wants “to feel human again,” but we also know that she really doesn’t mean it. All she really wants is the Doctor’s attention. When Victoria left she voiced similar complaints, but we knew that she meant it. Not Sarah.

The Doctor has his childish snits, and so too does Sarah. “I’m going to pack my goodies and I’m going home.” To show him she’s not fooling she does pack her goodies. But she is fooling. She only wants him to notice.

“How did you know?”

“Look, I was only joking. I didn’t mean it.”

Yes, we know. She didn’t mean it. She was only joking.

“Oh, come on. I can’t miss Gallifrey.”

Gallifrey. The call from the Time Lords. “I can’t take Sarah to Gallifrey.”

Those do-nothing Time Lords. Those meddlesome Time Lords.

“You’re a good girl, Sarah.”

So much said, and yet so little said.

“Don’t forget me.”

“Oh, Sarah. Don’t you forget me.”

 “This isn’t Hilview Road. I bet it isn’t even South Croyden. Oh, he blew it.”

No, still not South Croyden. Not even a quarry full of danger.

Freeze frame on Sarah. Freeze frame on Sarah looking up to the stars, looking up to her Doctor.

Don’t forget me . . .