State of Decay Part Three

The one where the Doctor tells Romana of the Great Vampires...

We get told a lot of information in this episode, but it's told engagingly, and rarely feels like a blatant info-dump. The early scene between the Doctor, Romana and Aukon tells us that the Hydrax fell through the CVE and was lured to the planet by the Great One, and now the Three Who Rule hope their master can help them return to N-Space.

It's also revealed that Zargo, Camilla and Aukon are not ancestors of Sharkey, MacMillan and O'Connor - they are Sharkey, MacMillan and O'Connor! They were given "unending life" by the Great One, and now they hope for the same for the Chosen Ones (ie, the Doctor, Romana and Adric).

Ah yes, Adric. When Aukon casually mentions their "other companion", the Doctor and Romana are puzzled, although why their minds don't automatically go to K-9 I don't know. But it isn't K-9 who's turning to the dark side, it's "the boy". "Boy? What boy?" demands Romana, and this is the moment when the Time Lords discover that Adric is in this story too. It's odd they don't wonder between them how it happened. There's also a fleeting hint here that Time Lords are "the ancient enemies". Of whom, though?

Locked up in a rather glitzy cell, the Doctor and Romana get a solid five minutes chatting between them with more prime Terrance Dicks dialogue. After the splendour of part 2, this is just a bonus, and it's actually pretty rare for the Doctor and his companion to sit and talk at length in the classic series. Examples spring to mind, such as the First Doctor apologising to Barbara in The Brink of Disaster, or the Third Doctor telling Jo about his old Gallifreyan hermit friend in The Time Monster part 6, but it's a pleasant change to have characters just talk, as real people, interacting in their own unique way.

And unique is the best way to describe Tom Baker and Lalla Ward around this time. They spark off one another wonderfully, regardless of what turmoil they were going through personally behind the scenes. The Doctor begins to tell Romana about a story an old Gallifreyan hermit friend used to tell him (a lovely oblique reference to K'anpo from Planet of the Spiders). He says it is a ghost story, but it isn't, it's actually a horror story, of when a race of Giant Vampires appeared from nowhere and swarmed through the universe, devouring planets. The Time Lords constructed bowships to defeat them by firing a giant bolt of steel through their hearts, but one of them - the King of the Giant Vampires - escaped, vanishing from all time and space.

Vanishing into E-Space!

It's a genius idea, typical of Terrance Dicks to add to Time Lord mythology, something which he picked up again in spin-off works such as the books Blood Harvest and Goth Opera, and which became key to the Time Lord Victorious multi-platform story in 2020. It's the mark of a man whose first involvement with Doctor Who was in 1968, but whose ideas and creativity are still being fed on over 50 years later.

The interaction between Baker and Ward in this scene is mesmerising, never more so than when Romana reveals that she used to work in the Bureau of Ancient Records where she once saw the Record of Rassilon, a copy of which was installed in all Type 40 TARDISes. "The TARDIS is a Type 40," grins the Doctor, to which Romana cheekily counters: "Is it?", as if she didn't know! The chemistry between them sings from the screen. "You are wonderful," whispers the Doctor, looking at her adoringly. "Me? Wonderful?" grins Romana. "I suppose I am. I've never really thought about it."

Meanwhile, rebellion is fomenting. Tarak decided to go against Kalmar's frustratingly non-committal orders in part 2 and returned to masquerade as a guard at the tower, and now Ivo is insisting on leading an attack on the tower, roused by the fact he thinks Habris allowed his strapping son Karl to be murdered. Kalmar is like one of the Deciders from Full Circle: he never decides anything, he just delays, procrastinates, puts off until tomorrow (or another generation's time) what really could be attempted today. I don't blame Tarak and Ivo. It's time for the worms to turn.

Romana teams up with Tarak to infiltrate the Three Who Rule's inner sanctum, where Zargo and Camilla lie sleeping, as vampires in daylight. They discover Adric also in some kind of coma - it's clear Adric wasn't in Dicks's first draft of this story as he is crowbarred in very obviously, and doesn't appear in part 3 until 18 minutes in! - and try to rescue him, but it's too late. Two of the Three Who Rule have woken up, and they're hungry! It's a shame Zargo kills Tarak as he and Romana made a nice little team, although Camilla is probably most annoyed as she would rather have drunk his blood while he still lived. As it is, she finds it "stale and flat"!

It's a great cliffhanger, with Adric cornered by Camilla and Romana by Zargo, their vampiric eyes flaring with bloodlust, their talons sharpened to slice their jugulars.

First broadcast: December 6th, 1980

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The scene between the Doctor and Romana in the prison cell.
The Bad: Not a fan - never have been - of the Doctor punching people's lights out, as he does with the cell guard here.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★★

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

NEXT TIME: Part Four...

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

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/2014/09/state-of-decay.html

State of Decay 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