The Stones of Blood Part Four

The one where the Doctor is put on trial by the Megara...

The last thing I expected when I started watching The Stones of Blood was a courtroom drama in space. When the story began, with its covens, sacrificial stones, ravens and mythological references, I didn't expect it all to end on a brightly-lit spaceship with people painted silver and two Tinkerbells fizzing around the bewigged head of the Doctor.

If only the Doctor hadn't broken that seal on the cell door and let the Megara out, much of this tiresome legal drama could be cut out. Sadly, the Doctor did break the seal, so what we get is 20 minutes of rather tedious exchanges between a desperate Doctor (wearing a barrister's wig, for no reason), the smug Vivien, and the two sparkly justice machines. This trial of a Time Lord has none of the scale or gravity of The War Games or Season 23. It's just a couple of quacking fairy lights.

The Doctor manages to ascertain what the Megara were doing before they got sidetracked by this trial. They were on their way to the planet Diplos in the Tau Ceti system to try the criminal Cessair, who had committed murder, and removed and misused the Great Seal of Diplos. The officers they were in transit with - now all dead - would have identified Cessair before the Megara put her on trial. Interestingly, Cessair is a character from the pseudo-historical Book of Invasions (Lebor Gabala Erenn), and also, in some accounts, the granddaughter of Noah (of Ark fame)!

The Doctor goes to great lengths to try and get the Megara to identify Vivien Fay as Cessair, but they stubbornly confound him at each attempt, and Susan Engel is wonderful as she cranks up Vivien's smugness, watching the Doctor struggle to defend himself. I love the fact that at the first sign of trouble, she summons her Ogri, but the Megara simply vaporises it (which is odd, as the Ogri wasn't on trial, so shouldn't really be executed).

The Doctor sends Romana back to Earth to try and find some evidence that Vivien is Cessair, to present to the Megara, but this all comes to nothing as her evidence isn't needed at all in the end. She spends much of the episode rooting around in Vivien's cottage with Amelia and K-9, looking for clues as to Vivien's true identity, and inexplicably comes up with the idea she's from Diplos by finding ingredients crossed out in a recipe book! That's a reach by anyone's script-writing standards! But what I don't get is how Romana thinks she can prove what she's discovered. She says: "Right. We can prove she's got a non-Terran metabolism, comes from a Class G planet, and we even know the date of her arrival on Earth." But how can she prove these things? Sure, she knows these things, but she still has no evidence, and I don't think an old recipe book is going to convince the Megara.

Luckily, Romana's flimsy evidence isn't needed in the end as the Doctor manages to get the Megara to scan Vivien's memories. They see that she is actually Cessair of Diplos, and find her guilty of impersonating a religious personage (a Celtic goddess), for which the penalty is imprisonment for 1,500 years. Now, that's a pretty harsh sentence by anyone's standards. Just pretending to be a mythological figure is a punishable galactic crime! Cessair is also found guilty of stealing the Great Seal of Diplos, for which the penalty is perpetual imprisonment. "The sentences run consecutively," says the Megara (very funny!).

Bizarrely, Cessair's perpetual imprisonment takes the form of being turned to stone and becoming part of the ancient circle of the Nine Travellers on Boscombe Moor on 20th century Earth. Quite why the Megara choose to imprison her in that way, and in that place, is a mystery, although it seems appropriate at least. Luckily, just before she's turned to stone, the Doctor manages to snatch Cessair's necklace, which is actually the Great Seal of Diplos, which is actually the third segment of the Key to Time. He then miraculously zaps the Megara "back to Diplos", and everything appears to be neatly tied up.

But it's not, is it? The Megara were never on Diplos in the first place, they were on their way there. And now Cessair's been dealt with, they have no need to go there at all. The Doctor says that "it should give us a couple of thousand years grace", presumably before the Megara catch up with him to carry out their sentence of execution. This suggests that the Doctor continues to be a wanted criminal, and that one day the Megara will catch up with him, but I'm more than happy for that sequel never to be written.

Plus, surely the Doctor just stole the Great Seal of Diplos himself, which means he'd be found guilty of the same crime as Cessair, which means perpetual imprisonment (as a stone?). It's all a bit of a logistical mess, not properly thought through by writer David Fisher, but on the surface, it appears to make sense, which is the sign of a deft writer. Just don't think about it too much!

It's then time to bid farewell to Amelia outside the TARDIS, a nice traditional goodbye scene, although the Doctor himself doesn't bother to say thanks or farewell to Professor Rumford, leaving Romana with the pleasantries (and the rather sweet kiss on the cheek, which seems to please the dear old professor). The Doctor (particularly the Fourth) has never liked goodbyes, but it would have been nice for him to wish Amelia all the best.

The Stones of Blood starts strongly, wallowing in the trappings of gothic Hammer-esque horror, which suits Doctor Who down to the ground. But when it transfers to hyperspace, it loses its focus and the tedious trial of a Time Lord unravels all the goodwill generated by the first couple of episodes. It's such a shame, because the story is full of great ideas - the mythology, stone circles, blood-sucking rocks, hyperspace, bio-mechanical justice machines - it just doesn't hang together as a pleasingly cohesive whole.

First broadcast: November 18th, 1979

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Susan Engel shines (literally) as the smug, self-confident Cessair, who's defeated by a simple handshake.
The Bad: The removal of the Megara is far too easy and convenient, and the trial idea is tedious.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆ (story average: 6.8 out of 10)

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 18

NEXT TIME: The Androids of Tara...

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-stones-of-blood.html

The Stones of Blood 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