Full Circle Part Four

The one where the Marshmen run riot through the Starliner...

It's weird seeing the Marshmen lumbering along the Starliner's corridors, but a cool sight nonetheless. We've only seen them on location, or in their natural habitat, so far, so it's mildly arresting to see them flooding the ship, wielding cudgels (and robot dog heads). They're really good at marauding, smashing up laboratories, breaking their way through barraged doors and tearing up those bloody silly system files. And there's a lot of them. Romana lets an awful lot of the Marshmen in!

Another thing the Marshmen do well is kill people, and the first victim we see is Tylos. I'm not sorry to see him go, he should have been written out episodes ago, but the way he goes at least has some pathos to it, as he helps a nameless supporting actor escape the clutches of a Marshman, only to be dragged back by the same monster. There's a very deliberate shot of the rescued man deciding not to return the favour, and running away instead of helping to save Tylos. It's a nice little character beat for a background artist, giving him more characterisation than Tylos had!

When the Doctor tells Adric, Keara and Varsh that Tylos is dead, the response is really badly played. "He's dead," says the Doctor, striding off, and the only reaction we get from any of Tylos's friends is a vaguely disconsolate expression from Keara. There's absolutely no reaction whatsoever from Varsh or Adric. This is unacceptably poor of both writer Andrew Smith and director Peter Grimwade (as well as script editor Christopher H Bidmead). OK, so Tylos wasn't exactly a great loss, but he was these people's friend, he should mean much more to them than just a sorry look. There should be reaction, consequence, anger, despair, tears. What do we get? Nothing. Why kill a character off if it doesn't mean anything?

On the subject of characterisation, there's a lovely, but subtle, relationship developing between the Doctor and Adric which is quite endearing. An uncle/ nephew sort of a relationship, but with a valuable element of respect from Adric and affection from the Doctor (or as affectionate as this Doctor can get). I've always thought that Adric works much better with the Fourth Doctor than the Fifth, and never more so when it's just the two of them in The Keeper of Traken. I think the dynamic is just right in that story. There's a lovely little moment in this episode where the microscope blows up as it's got a broken image translator in, and Adric surreptitiously replaces the working one on the table. He'd stolen it to give to the Doctor (whose TARDIS needs one), but the little expression of awkwardness on Matthew Waterhouse's face is so impishly sweet, and Tom Baker's mock outrage at Adric having pinched it (but actually it's OK to steal things sometimes!) makes for a beautiful little exchange, easily missed. The subtly developing repartee can also be glimpsed in the scene where the Doctor asks Adric how his knee is, and Waterhouse is delightful.

As the Marshmen wreak chaos through the Starliner, the Doctor finds K-9's severed head, and uses it to fend off the approaching monsters. He also comes across the possessed Romana, who he persuades to stay with the TARDIS by trying to remind her of familiar things, such as the police box and the robot dog. It strikes me that Lalla Ward hasn't had an awful lot to do in this story, having been possessed and largely mute for the final two episodes, floating round like a Bride of Dracula. She does it well though.

The bit where she is cured and comes round from her coma is lovely, director Grimwade treating us to a beautifully framed and lit shot of Ward's girlish grin which just screams "I'm back!" And as soon as she's back she's applying her scientific knowledge to the problem at hand, seemingly much more adept than the Doctor.

It's a good job the Starliner is well equipped with oxygen tanks because it turns out that is what repels the Marshmen best. The oxygen is too rich for them and they cannot adapt to it fast enough, so everybody grabs an oxy-tank and begins to push them back outside the ship. Adric and Varsh team up to repel the Marshmen, and rather unwisely use up all of their oxygen on a Marshman who's trapped behind a wall and cannot physically reach them. Foolish, because this ultimately leads to Varsh's doom.

Heroically trying to hold them back while Adric fetches more oxygen, Varsh is pulled under a closing bulkhead door by the Marshmen, and meets his death. When the door is reopened, Adric, Keara and the Doctor rush to the prone Varsh, but it's too late. In contrast to the universal non-reaction to Tylos's demise, this little scene is quite touching. Waterhouse plays Adric as utterly numbed by his brother's death, unable to speak and clearly struggling to comprehend. This is so much better than June Page's slightly sorry expression earlier, and I don't think Waterhouse is given enough credit for when he does get things right, like here. He looks like a little boy lost as he gently grasps Varsh's rope-belt, which he will wear himself for the rest of his time on the show (notably holding it to his chest as he faces his own fate in Earthshock, also directed by Peter Grimwade).

It's quite startling how many companions lose family members in 1980s Doctor Who: Adric loses his brother Varsh, Nyssa loses her father Tremas, and Tegan loses her aunt Vanessa. In Season 19, the Doctor is basically travelling in the TARDIS with three grieving orphans, so no wonder things get grouchy!

The Marshmen are finally beaten back when Login floods the Starliner with oxygen, forcing the creatures outside. However, the discoveries made by the Doctor and Romana in the lab reveal that the Marshmen are the ancestors of the Alzarians, and that is why they gravitate toward the ship. They are highly adaptive creatures, and would eventually work out how to fly the Starliner. It's a pity the Deciders decided to hold back the community in doing the same for themselves.

But Terradon is not their true home at all. Alzarius is. The Deciders, the Elite, the Outlers all evolved on Alzarius, from spider to marsh creature to man. In the end, with the death of Nefred from a slight head graze, the two remaining Deciders opt to leave Alzarius and head for Terradon after all, where the community will be safer. Login does well to persuade drippy Draith to take off, because he's obviously petrified of change!

Adric very kindly leaves the working image translator on the TARDIS console so that the Doctor can view the negative coordinates of Exo-Space on the scanner. Now they are trapped in an alternative universe, unless they can happen across another Charged Vacuum Emboitement (CVE), which is unlikely as CVEs are one of the rarest space/ time events in the universe. What the heck an "emboitement" is is beyond me, it seems to be a French word meaning "interlocking" in English, but it's just another example of how Bidmead was packing so much scientific gobbledygook into Doctor Who to try and make it seem more adult, but was actually alienating the core audience. This episode also casually throws in "gel electrophoresis", "morphological similar carrier types" and "inversions in bands eight to nine", which may make some sense to biologists, but means virtually nothing to 95% of the five million people watching.

Full Circle is a very clever story, rooted in science and evolution, written by a Doctor Who fan who was only 17 when he was commissioned. I'm sure Bidmead had a heavy hand in guiding what we see on the screen, but it's remarkable that a writer so young and inexperienced could come up with such a mature, considered and enjoyable story. It's got some fabulous monsters (directed expertly by Grimwade) and has a solid story that progresses naturally. There are a few issues with character, but all in all it's by far the superior story of the season to this point.

First broadcast: November 15th, 1980

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Matthew Waterhouse's numbed reaction to his brother's death.
The Bad: Everybody's lack of reaction to Tylos's death.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (story average: 7.5 out of 10)

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 24

NEXT TIME: State of Decay...

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/2014/08/full-circle.html

Full Circle is available on BBC DVD as part of the E-Space Trilogy box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Space-Trilogy-Warriors/dp/B001MWRTUY