The Sun Makers Part Three

The one where Leela is sentenced to public execution by steaming...

Louise Jameson really is the star of this story, and I'm not surprised to learn that it is her favourite of the nine she recorded. Leela is so well characterised, and gets some good, strong scenes, even if they don't really move the plot along (what plot there is). The start of part 3 sees Team Leela (the savage, lofty Bisham, timid Cordo and tin dog K-9) take on two MegroGuards in their buggy, but it's one of those sedately choreographed and directed fight scenes which makes it look like under-rehearsed children in the playground (there were similar problems in The Invisible Enemy).

The guards are predictably useless, as almost all guards are in the science-fiction genre, being unable to hit a barn door at three paces, but perfectly capable of waiting patiently to be shot down by a rubbish laser beam. There's no urgency or jeopardy in the way these fight scenes are staged, and the buggy Leela and co commandeer is no better than Doctor Who's most infamous of rubbish vehicles, The Happiness Patrol's go-kart. It's pathetically slow, but all the guards can manage is a glancing blow to Leela's forehead.

The best thing about it all is K-9 seeking approval from his mistress when he shoots the guards down, with him wagging his tail and her asking if he wants a biscuit as reward!

Meanwhile, the Doctor is being threatened with an unconvincing hot iron by moany old Mandrel, who's probably one of the most annoying rebel leaders in all of Who. It's a blessing when Bisham and Cordo turn up to "rescue" him, because only then can some proper plot progression take place, with the Doctor rounding up the rabble and trying to incite some fight in them. The Doctor inspiring a rebellion is pretty traditional fare for Doctor Who, with our hero siding with the underdog to overthrow the tyrannous authorities, but it's taking far too long for this to form in The Sun Makers.

They decide that the key to rebellion is to take over central control, where the anxiety-inducing PCM is pumped into the air-con. It's a pretty straightforward plan, but not one that seems to have occurred to anybody else before. Granted, the PCM probably inhibits rebellious thoughts, but the PCM isn't pumped into the undercity, so why haven't the outlaws thought to do this before? It seems it's because they're wimps, led by a man who gives in before he's even started (he's definitely all mouth and no trousers). They're officially the most pathetic rebels since the Xeron uprising of The Space Museum (which was led by a knee-sock wearing Vicki!).

I still roll my eyes whenever Gatherer Hade or the Collector come on screen. Richard Leech is on a completely different level of performance to everybody else (in contrast to Jonina Scott's almost comatose turn as Marn), and Henry Woolf's Collector is a very, very poor man's Davros, lurching about in his electric wheelchair trying to be evil but actually just looking silly. I like Janis Gould's make-up for him. There's a sort of green shiny tinge to his skin, his fingernails are blackened and his eyebrows spiked up like a miniature Freda Kahlo. I don't mind the way the Collector looks; the problem is when he opens his mouth.

The injured Leela is taken to the correction centre, where she is wrapped in a straitjacket and hung by a wire from a wall at 45 degrees. Ouch! I really feel for Jameson in this scene, because it cannot have been comfortable for her no matter how much the production team tried to make it so. Jameson gives Leela so much fire and venom in the scenes where she is a prisoner. The scene where she meets the Collector is wonderful, full of anger and resentment. "GET THIS THING OFF ME!" she shouts as she's brought before the Collector, then threatening the guard: "I'll split you!" Jameson does angry very well indeed.

The Collector sentences Leela to public execution by steaming, an event which will be televised for all to see, and ticketed at 5 talmars if anybody wants to see it before their very eyes. I'm surprised that any of the suppressed, anxious population would pay 5 talmars to watch someone steamed to death, and indeed the turn-out is disappointingly low when it comes to it.

Learning of Leela's fate, the Doctor delays the planned rebellion in order to take Central Control and prevent the steaming. Central Control is the most Chock-A-Block that The Sun Makers has been so far, the big wall-sized mainframe looking just like the computer I talk about in my review of part 2. I hate the design, all pastel orange with big simplified dials and counters. It's technology imagined by a six-year-old, like a Duplo version of the Ultima Machine from The Curse of Fenric.

Oh, and it's run by two inept technicians un-amusingly called Synge and Hackett. This is a play on cross-dressing comedy duo Hinge and Bracket, who were inexplicably popular on British TV at the time. Synge and Hackett (the latter pretty much disappears after his first scene) are the latest in a long line of "comedy double acts" so beloved of writer Robert Holmes, some of which were more successful than others. Good examples were Jago and Litefoot (The Talons of Weng-Chiang), Garron and Unstoffe (The Ribos Operation) and Glitz and Dibber (The Mysterious Planet), but Synge and Hackett make for a pretty half-hearted attempt at a double act which barely gets off the ground (they remind me of the appalling Humker and Tandrell from The Mysterious Planet, perhaps the very weakest example of Holmes's preoccupation).

The episode ends with Leela being shoved into the steaming chamber, and the Collector looking forward to her screams on the duodecaphonic sound system. But to be honest, I'm losing the will to care any more because this story is turning into a pretty shambolic snorefest. It's annoying that the cast aren't really up to the script, and that the script doesn't really have enough plot to sustain four episodes. There's ideas aplenty, but it's not quite enough to make this feel worthwhile to me.

Just give Leela a whole 25 minutes to herself and things would look up immediately.

First broadcast: December 10th, 1977

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Louise Jameson knocks it out of the park, acting everybody else off the set.
The Bad: It's all substance over style. There's an OK idea at the heart of this story, but it's executed so shoddily. I'm kinda bored.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 13

NEXT TIME: Part Four...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Two; Part Four

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: https://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-sun-makers.html

The Sun Makers is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Sun-Makers-DVD/dp/B004VRO87O