The Trial of a Time Lord Part Eight

The one where Peri dies...

"Is Peri dead?" the Doctor asks the Valeyard at the start of this episode. "No," the prosecutor replies, but he should have added: "Not yet." I'm glad Colin Baker manages to inject a modicum of emotion into this exchange, reflecting the fact he thought Peri was dead, and showing that he would actually care if this were the case. "You won't convict me by using shock tactics," the Doctor says, but as becomes clear, all the Valeyard requires is the truth. All very ominous...

In the lab, Crozier has managed to transfer Kiv's brain into the host body of a Mentor fisherman, but the transfer remains unstable and a new, larger-skulled donor will be needed very soon. Sil and Kiv do business with the simply magnificent Posikar delegate, a squeaky-voiced red-faced dragon imp played by Deep Roy (aka Mr Sin from The Talons of Weng-Chiang) who I think should get his own spin-off, perhaps teamed up with the Bandril Ambassador?

The Trial of a Time Lord Part Seven

The one where Peri teams up with the inevitable resistance fighters...

Michael Jayston is good casting as the venomous Valeyard, and gives the character a steely, uncompromising gravitas which runs rings round the defendant Doctor. The Valeyard has an answer for everything, he always has a trick up his sleeve, and he certainly knows how to put on a good show. Like a good Netflix documentary, he always has a tantalising twist to keep viewers involved.

I also like his prodigious vocabulary, here calling the Doctor "a toady, a coward, a turncoat!" And he's not wrong, unlike the Doctor when he insists: "I would never want to harm Peri." Erm, well, yes... we'll just gloss over that claim, shall we?

The Trial of a Time Lord Part Six

The one where the Doctor's mind is addled by Crozier's machine...

The Doctor is rescued from Crozier's mind-altering machine when Yrcanos breaks free of his bonds and starts trashing the laboratory. The release of Brian Blessed means the tone ramps up by roughly 1,000% from hereon in, thanks to his predictably over-the-top performance. Scattered with ridiculous affectations, whistles, and buzzwords like "Rombrom ssssss sabaluma", Blessed's portrayal of King Yrcanos, King of the Krontep, Lord of the Vingten and Conqueror of the Tonkonp Empire, is about as subtle as an anvil in the face. Blessed wasn't always like this, as anybody who saw his portrayal of Augustus in I, Claudius will know. I think it was his international success as Vultan in 1980's Flash Gordon which changed him as a performer, sadly.

Unfortunately, Blessed at full-throttle seems to give Colin Baker - never the subtlest of actors to begin with - free rein to push his boat out too. His mind adversely affected by Crozier's cerebral transfer machine, the Doctor tips first of all into a childish stupor, and then regresses to a version of himself all too familiar to those, like me, trying to forget the horrors of The Twin Dilemma. Yes, he's back: the original Sixth Doctor, the one who tried to murder his companion, throttle an aged friend, and acted both cowardly and mercilessly throughout his earliest adventures. Back then he claimed to be affected by post-regenerative trauma, while here he's reportedly addled by Crozier's machine. Either way, it's concerning just how close to the surface this version of Sixie is.

The Trial of a Time Lord Part Five

The one where the Doctor and Peri are reunited with Sil...

It's time for the Valeyard to present his second piece of evidence in what he insists on referring to as a trial, when in fact the Inquisitor never upgraded it from an enquiry when the prosecutor suggested it in part 1. In the following episode the Inquisitor actually pooh-poohed the idea of the enquiry becoming a trial - "What the Valeyard wants and what the court decides are two entirely different things" - so surely this remains an enquiry? Has The Trial of a Time Lord been a misnomer all these years?

This episode is punctuated much more often by the courtroom interjections, which on the one hand is a little annoying because they interrupt the flow of the story, but on the other do play out more as a trial enquiry would. Whenever a scene supports the Valeyard's prosecution, he pauses the tape and underlines it for the jury, responding to what they've watched and extrapolating its consequence. It is more realistic, but doesn't half get in the way of the Doctor's latest "frightening adventure" getting going!