The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Six

The one where Weng-Chiang's true identity is revealed...

Tom Baker is so 100% The Doctor in this episode, commanding the screen with the greatest of ease and dominating every shot he's in, never mind every scene. It wouldn't be long until Baker's interpretation of his Doctor would slacken a little, soften up and become less commanding, but this really feels like one of the final examples of this version of the Fourth Doctor. The first meeting between Weng-Chiang and the Doctor is delightful, with Tom switching from light and playful to deadly serious effortlessly. "What have you done to her?" he asks of Leela. "Nothing, yet," teases Weng-Chiang, to which a steely Doctor replies: "Take my advice. Don't."

You really would not cross this Doctor, not this version for sure! It's another example of how the Doctor seems to have developed a great fondness for the savage Leela. He expressed concern for her several times in The Face of Evil (even throwing a flesh-eating monster at someone for slapping her across the face), and here his concern shows through again with a barely veiled threat.

The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Five

The one where Jago and Litefoot finally meet...

The Doctor and Leela return to Litefoot's house to find a policeman dead in the garden with an axe sticking out of his back. A gruesome death indeed, especially for a family programme. Perhaps even more gruesomely, the Doctor pulls the axe out of the policeman's back to use as his own weapon (yes, I know he'd never use it, but Dr Who and axes really should not mix).

After reuniting with poor Litefoot, who gets his fair share of bumps to the head in this story, the Doctor miraculously deduces that Mr Sin is something called the Peking Homunculus, a robotic toy from the year 5000 with the cerebral cortex of a pig. It apparently almost caused World War Three, then went missing, never to be found, but it's obviously turned up here, in 19th century London. How the Doctor deduces that Mr Sin is the Peking Homunculus is a huge stretch. I mean, Sin could genuinely be a homicidal midget for all he knows. The Doctor says the homunculus "hates humanity", but it obviously has a soft spot for Professor Litefoot, who it refuses to actually kill!

The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Four

The one where the Doctor becomes a magician's assistant...

While I'm not offended by the use of "yellowface" in this story (my views on this were set out in part one), I do think there's a fine line being crossed in the writing at times. There are lots of racist references to Chinese people in Robert Holmes's script, but many of them can be excused as being representative of how people would have spoken in the late 19th century (rightly or wrongly). I don't mind a script pursuing verisimilitude by being brave enough to reflect the racism which was rife at the time, but sometimes I question Holmes's choice.

For instance, when Leela refers to Chang as "the yellow one" at the start of this episode, it doesn't quite ring true, because a) Leela is not from this culture so wouldn't harbour racist views, and b) Chinese people aren't yellow, so she couldn't have picked it up just by looking at them. It's also inappropriate for the Doctor to refer to Chang's "epicanthic eyebrows", an observation that a benevolent alien would not make unless he was prejudiced in some way (which I'm sure the Doctor isn't). It's actually just Robert Holmes trying to be clever with his alliterative dialogue, but in truth it feels unnecessary.

The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Three

The one where Leela jumps through a window...

As the 450th episode of Doctor Who gets underway, we have a snorting, knife-wielding sentient ventriloquist's dummy shambling towards the Doctor's companion, something I doubt would ever have crossed the minds of the script writers back in '63! It's all so deliciously dark. Some might argue too dark, especially when the companion picks up her own knife and hurls it at the throat of the approaching creature - AND IT JUST KEEPS ON COMING! Horrific stuff. Strange that we didn't get a comedy B-DOINNNG sound effect when Leela threw the knife though, like we did in The Robots of Death just weeks earlier.

In order to escape the porcine peril, Leela decides to hop, skip and jump bodily through the window, which is the first time a companion has ever done this (but not the last!). It's this scene, and the one later where Leela escapes the clutches of Weng-Chiang in the underground lair, which makes me think the savage isn't being written quite as bravely as previously. She's still spirited and ballsy, but she seems to give up that little bit quicker, and I don't think Louise Jameson quite maintains Leela's huntress demeanour. I guess that might be something to do with the fact she's having to act in lacy knickers rather than her usual loins!

The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part Two

The one where Leela enjoys/ devours a cold collation...

Our heroes escape the giant rat by throwing an oil lamp at it and scarpering back up the ladder onto the street. The Doctor assumes the rat is a guard, keeping people away, but if that is the case, why was poor cabby Joseph Buller mutilated by it before being chucked in the river? He was killed on the street by a stab to the heart by Mr Sin, so how did he get down into the sewers before being washed up?

Li H'sen Chang visits a secret lair deep beneath the Palace Theatre, which is home to his beloved master, the god Weng-Chiang. Writer Robert Holmes was obviously lifting wholesale from Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, and the scene toward the end of this episode, where the Doctor pursues Weng-Chiang among the theatre flies and rigging, is another iconographic steal. Weng-Chiang is not a well man, it seems, and requires the bodies of young women to put into his distillation chamber, which sucks the life essence from them to give to him. So far, so gruesome.

The Talons of Weng-Chiang Part One

The one where the Doctor and Leela find a giant rat in the sewers of Victorian London...

Doctor Who has always felt right and comfortable in Victorian times. The first time the Doctor visited the Victorian era on TV was The Chase, but this story is one of three prime examples in classic Who, along with The Evil of the Daleks and Ghost Light. It's something to do with the BBC's perennial talent at depicting the era that makes these Doctor Who stories so memorable. The 21st century series has also made the most of this ideal setting in stories such as The Unquiet Dead, The Next Doctor and The Crimson Horror.

Of course, the main thing that overshadows The Talons of Weng-Chiang these days is the controversy surrounding the portrayal of Li H'sen Chang, a Chinese illusionist, by a Caucasian actor, John Bennett. In these more enlightened times, a director would never contemplate casting a non-Asian actor in an Asian role like this, but back in the 1970s, this was quite common and acceptable. It might not be acceptable now, but it was in 1977, when this serial was made, and that is how the story must be judged. If you judged everything in history using the morals and ethics of 2020, everything would seem wrong, but it's important to view things in context. Nobody who made The Talons of Weng-Chiang intended to offend, that was just the way TV drama was made at the time.