The Ribos Operation Part Four

The one where the Doctor blows the bad guy to smithereens...

The dog whistle that the Doctor has perfected for K-9 Mark II also seems effective in summoning Shrievenzales, but not - oddly - K-9 himself. The whistle is used twice in this episode to attract the unconvincing lizard creatures, and on both occasions K-9 stays put and does not heed the call. Maybe the Doctor can whistle different notes? Or maybe it's just a neat little convenience? Either way, it means we see slightly more of those ridiculous monsters with their floppy claws and lumbering gait, and which look like nothing more than men in rubber suits rolling around on the floor.

Thankfully, there's more scenes between Binro and Unstoffe to cheer me up. Those two together are lovely. Timothy Bateson is obviously a seasoned professional who, despite affecting a country bumpkin accent, manages not to send up the part one iota. Nigel Plaskitt was much less experienced as an actor, and actually ended up specialising as a puppeteer, but is so gentle, warm and convincing here that you'd think he'd been going for years. He is so good with Bateson. The scene where Binro says that just knowing he was right about the stars and the planets is heart-breaking. "It's worth a life."

Of course, in TV scriptwriter's language, this means Binro isn't going to make it to the end credits, and the moment when he rushes toward Unstoffe to warn him about the Graff, and he's shot down, is devastating, both for Unstoffe and the viewer. And then Unstoffe rises in anger against the Graff, and he too is shot, although not fatally. It's a surprisingly raw scene, telling us that basically anybody can die now, because the Graff is such a monomaniacal murderer. It hurts that dear old Binro dies, and it's supposed to be bittersweet that he dies in the knowledge that his heresies were right all along. Binro is vindicated. But while it might make good drama, it's still a shame that Binro didn't get to see inside the TARDIS at the end, just to finish his story more positively. They'd do it in the new series, I'm sure; give Binro that Big Moment, so he can see that he was right, rather than just being told. It's a shame, but I can see why Robert Holmes killed him off, because here I am still writing about it more than 40 years later!

The Graff also kills the Seeker, who ironically falls victim to her own prophesy that only one shall live. The Graff, trying to make it so that it is he who survives, murders her, leaving just himself and one of his Levithian Invincibles, who he instructs to commit suicide so that he alone may live. Little does he know that the last remaining guard is actually the Doctor in disguise, who plants the explosive on the Graff before the crazed tyrant wanders off into the catacombs, and finally blows up. It's a nasty end for a very nasty villain, but I can't help wondering if the Doctor could have come up with a better way of winning, rather than blowing the Graff to smithereens. It's the sort of demise you'd expect to see in a cartoon, or The A-Team, and even though it happens off-camera, you know exactly what's happened to the Graff, and exactly what the mess must look like round that corner.

Paul Seed is excellent as the Graff throughout the story, a seething torrent of anger and outrage tempered by his sidekick Sholakh. But when Sholakh is killed by a rockfall, the Graff's life seems to collapse around him. His sanity frays, and he begins to unravel even more than he was before. Sholakh's death scene is refreshingly emotional, with the Graff mourning his friend in a way that so few characters get to do in classic Doctor Who. Usually, people just die and everybody moves on, not giving it a second thought, but here, the bond between these two men is dwelt upon, and it's nicely played.

Compare the death of Sholakh, or Binro, to the death of the Shrieve earlier on. To demonstrate his power, the Graff kills a Shrieve, but the Shrieve dies off-camera and you don't actually get to see the Graff's laser hit him. And then Prentis Hancock tries his very best to act, but as is often the case, fails, delivering his reaction line with as much feeling and truth as a stuffed badger. "He's dead. What have you done?" Well, he's killed him, you stupid oaf! I've never been an admirer of Hancock's thespian abilities. He should have stayed at the level of "2nd Reporter" in Spearhead from Space, and should never have risen to the heights of a guest lead (Planet of the Daleks, Planet of Evil). I mean, just playing the relatively undemanding Shrieve Captain here seems to push his talent too far. Hancock has been consistently flat and bland throughout this story, and indeed his entire Doctor Who "career".

Another victim of this episode is Mary Tamm, who has to spend most of it crouching next to K-9 and talking nonsense. It really struck me in this episode how poorly Tamm copes with scenes in which she only has K-9 to talk to. It's almost like the character deserves more than having to resort to speaking to an annoying computer dog, and she just doesn't have that whimsy to get away with it like Tom Baker does. Much of K-9's dialogue is either bland information, or frustrating contrariness. He takes everything so literally, because he's a computer, but this rapport doesn't seem to work with the refined, intelligent Romana, whereas it did with Leela because she was very literal-minded too.

Some more observations about this episode:

• Unstoffe refers to "the Doctor and the girl". Long-time readers of my reviews will know how much I hate this phrase, referring to the female companions as "the girl". No, Mr Script Writer, they have names and characters, they are not simply "girls". Any character that says this most probably does know the girl's real name, but refuses to use it, and would rather define her by her gender. It's sickeningly sexist writing, and in any case, if ever there was a companion who resolutely was not a girl, it's Romana. Mary Tamm is very much all woman!
• K-9's nose laser manages to make entire rockfalls disappear, as if by magic. He doesn't melt the rock (which I suspect was the written intention), he just zaps it and it magically disappears.
• They really were taking the piss every time they appeared to show K-9 exiting or entering the TARDIS, weren't they? That whacking great step into the police box would be like an insurmountable mountain range to a dog on castors, but by showing the actors watching K-9 glide effortlessly in and out, we're expected to believe it. Well, no. Even a five-year-old would call it into question!
• The ending sees Unstoffe and Garron make off together for the Graff's now abandoned spaceship, which is apparently laden with 18 years worth of loot. It's a fitting end for a great dynamic duo, and we can imagine them cruising the space lanes with their pots of opeks and wily schemes. There's a spin-off in there somewhere, but I'm glad it didn't happen. Rather like Glitz and Mel at the end of Dragonfire, it's probably best left in the imagination.

And so the Doctor and Romana have secured the first of the six segments of the Key to Time. One down, five to go. The Ribos Operation has been a huge improvement on the cheap tat of what Season 15 had become. While it's not the most fast-moving story, it has bags of class and charm, with some great characters and stunning design work.

First broadcast: September 23rd, 1978

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Paul Seed gets to go out with a bang (literally), pumping so much into Sholakh's death scene, and his own crazed departure.
The Bad: Mary Tamm doesn't work well with K-9 alone. And Prentis Hancock just doesn't work well at all ("Take cover. I'll close the catacombs forever!").
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (story average: 7.5 out of 10)

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 17

NEXT TIME: The Pirate Planet...

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

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-ribos-operation.html

The Ribos Operation is available on BBC DVD as part of the Key to Time box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Key-Time-Re-issue/dp/B002TOKFNM