Arc of Infinity Part Two

The one where Tegan comes back...

It was kind of obvious that the Doctor wasn't really dead. The very first cliffhanger of a brand new series, and they tried to make us believe that Maxil had killed him. Not likely, is it? In actual fact, the Doctor's barely stunned, and groggily sits up within seconds of being gunned down. At least viewers in 1983 only had to wait 48 hours to see what happened next, rather than seven days.

In The Deadly Assassin, when the Doctor was imprisoned and interrogated by Hilred, our hero was stripped to his shirt sleeves and strung up by the wrists in a cavernous chamber. Things seem to have become more civilised in the intervening years, as this time the Doctor is incarcerated in his own TARDIS, specifically in Nyssa's bedroom. It's an odd place to imprison him. I do love how the Doctor looks at the glass of orange juice Nyssa gives him, then absently places it to one side as if he's not sure what to do with it. I also love the evils Nyssa gives Maxil. At last, Sarah Sutton gets to do some emoting!

The High Council of the Time Lords (dressed grandly in their robes and head dresses, despite the fact we were told they were "seldom worn" in The Deadly Assassin) decide that the quickest and easiest way to destroy the creature which has come through from the anti-matter dimension is to execute the Doctor, who has provided a bridgehead between the two dimensions. This is a very stuffy collection of Time Lords, even by their standards. Paul Jerricho gives the Castellan a pleasing sneer, while Michael Gough comes across as the kindly uncle. Max Harvey and Elspet Gray have much less impact, while Leonard Sachs - the third version of Borusa - is merely adequate.

We learn that the Doctor and Hedin are old friends, and there's mention of Romana and Leela (who is "well and very happy", which is good to know). When Borusa sentences the Doctor to be executed, Peter Davison reacts with unusual grit. "Have you nothing further to say, Doctor?" asks the President, to which our hero growls: "I have a great deal to say!" Not a particularly powerful line on the page, but delivered with Davison's edge, it's very effective.

The story, at least those bits set on Gallifrey, seems to be settling down, with Nyssa (played with rare indignance and urgency by Sutton) teaming up with another of the Doctor's old pals, the handsome Damon, to try and save him before execution. I find it amusing that we glimpse a Gallifrey that for once seems properly populated, with other Time Lords milling about in corridors, and a good number chatting and relaxing in some sort of rec room.

When Nyssa and Damon manage to secure an audience with the Doctor (in Nyssa's bedroom), the Doctor asks a lot of his old friend Damon. It's sadly unexplained what the friendship between the two Time Lords has been, we're simply told they're mates and that's that. But when the Doctor asks Damon to get him another space/ time element for his TARDIS, with no recall circuit, it suggests the two have a closer bond than just being pals at the Academy together. If Damon gets found out, he'll be in big trouble, but he helps the Doctor unquestioningly. He'd make a great companion replacement for Adric.

It's nice that Sarah Sutton gets more to do as Nyssa in this story, probably because it's written by her creator, Johnny Byrne. She's hellbent on preventing the Doctor's execution, and even becomes a gun-toting Annie Oakley when she nabs a Perspex laser weapon from the computer room's armoury and holds the President of the High Council of Time Lords at gunpoint! You might think it's slightly out of character, but the girl is nothing if not devoted to the Doctor, and has got previous when it comes to wielding weapons (The Keeper of Traken).

By the end of the episode, Commander Maxil, resplendent in ridiculous helmet plume, is revelling in the fact he is to oversee a rare Time Lord execution. The Doctor steps beneath a giant hairdryer, but at the moment of apparent execution, his form merges with that of the mysterious Renegade, before disappearing. Everyone assumes the Doctor is dead, but seeing as this is only the second episode of a 22-part series, the viewer assumes that the Doctor is not dead at all, just somewhere else.

That somewhere else is likely to be the Renegade's TARDIS, which is lit in queasy green by Don Babbage. The Renegade and his unidentified (it's Hedin) Time Lord conspirator don't appear very much in part 2, but towards the end we get a fabulously bonkers scene featuring the Renegade (seated, of course), the robot chicken thing from part 1, and zombified Colin, still in his fluorescent socks. All this lit in viridescent green. It might look silly, but it's actually a very important scene, because it tells us that the bad guy has a TARDIS (or is he in the Doctor's TARDIS?), and it also connects what's happening with the Doctor and Gallifrey with what's been happening (or not happening) in Amsterdam. It doesn't answer why the Renegade has gone to all the trouble of enslaving Colin just to press some buttons which he could probably do himself if he got up off his fat beige arse. But when a lad can look that fetching even as a brainless zombie, who can blame him?

The editing and pacing of the story still struggle to marry the two plot strands, with rapid cuts between Gallifrey and Amsterdam, and back again, doing more to confuse than fuse. The scenes filmed in Holland are so distinctly separate and unconnected to everything else (not helped by the fact they're on film, and Gallifrey's on videotape) that they start to get annoying. When Tegan turned up at the airport to meet her missing cousin Colin, I did breathe a sigh of relief, I must admit. The presence of Tegan in any situation would reassure me simply because she tends to speak sense. Janet Fielding has a new elfin haircut and is dressed in a skimpy boob tube top and shorts, but I suppose anything's better than that mauve air hostess uniform she wore for 13 months.

The arrival of this friendly face turns the Dutch scenes into something like The Tegan Jovanka Adventures, as she and Robin investigate Colin's disappearance. Well, they don't so much investigate as talk about it a lot, resulting in the relative urgency of trying to save the Doctor's life on Gallifrey juxtaposed with a rather underpowered Search for Colin.

The two plot strands need to come together soon if this story has any chance of feeling like a cohesive whole. I believe writer Johnny Byrne's done the work, but director Ron Jones has completely bastardised it in the edit.

First broadcast: January 5th, 1983

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The empowerment of Nyssa.
The Bad: The almost total disconnection between the Dutch and the Gallifreyan plots.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: Part Three...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Three; 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.

Arc of Infinity is available as part of a BBC DVD box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Time-Flight-Arc-Infinity/dp/B000R20VKA