Monday, March 14, 2022

The Trial of a Time Lord Part One


The one where the Doctor is put on trial by the Time Lords for a second time...

"I intend to adumbrate two typical instances from separate epistopic interfaces of the spectrum..."

Almost 18 months after we saw Colin Baker struggle to say "Blackpool", Season 23 brought Doctor Who back to Saturday teatime with a brand spanking new theme tune. Same graphics, different sound. And I really, really like the new theme tune. Dominic Glynn's synthier version has a lovely, strummy beat, almost like a gallop. The theme needed updating after five years, and while I know many people find the Season 23 theme quite thin and screechy, I really like it. I wish this had been the Sixth Doctor's theme all along.

The opening scene is rightly celebrated as one of the greatest in Doctor Who history. In truth, nothing else in the entire season tops this masterful, eye-boggling trip around a giant space station, into which the TARDIS is beamed (docking bay three), a fly caught in amber. Glynn's incidental score is beautifully doom-laden and funereal, evoking a ticking clock or a tolling bell, all signposting that something's amiss. The new theme and the opening model shot make these 75 seconds some of the most exhilarating in the canon.

And then the TARDIS materialises in a bland, uninspired sci-fi corridor, which is underwhelming after the spectacle we just witnessed. Although it transpires this is a Gallifreyan space station, it lacks the telling hallmarks of previous designs, such as the spurty little water features, the chrome and faux leather furniture, or the trip-hazard buttresses.

Sadly, there hasn't been a rethink in the intervening 18 months about the Sixth Doctor's appalling outfit, and Baker tumbles out of the TARDIS looking just as clownish as ever. It's indicative of the basic failure of that 18-month hiatus to enable a complete rethink of Doctor Who as a product and commodity. I know all the arguments about the BBC not actually giving a crap about the show at this point, but if the bosses on the Sixth Floor had anything about them, they'd have released John Nathan-Turner and Eric Saward from their positions and got in a new, fresh, more imaginative team to steer Season 23. Let's face it, neither of them was happy in their jobs.

So instead of reimagining what Doctor Who was, we get the same, but different. The idea of putting the Doctor in the dock - because, y'know, so is the TV show - was an error of judgement. Why refer to Doctor Who's "criminal reputation" on screen, rather than forget about the horrors of Season 22 and crack on with something fresh and exciting? The inquiry theme is all too on-the-nose for me, and the opening dialogue between the Doctor and the Valeyard could just as easily be about the hiatus as it is the situation on screen.

VALEYARD: At last, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Am I late for something?
VALEYARD: I was beginning to fear you had lost yourself. Sit down.

There's an underlying wit to Robert Holmes' dialogue in the inquiry scenes, as if winking to the audience. These scenes occasionally interrupt the main action throughout the season, like an intergalactic Gogglebox giving a running commentary on what we're watching. Holmes "gets" this dynamic, and uses the interjections to perhaps voice the thoughts of the viewer at home. "Why do I have to sit here watching Peri getting upset, while two unsavoury adventurers bully a bunch of natives?" asks the Doctor, then: "As a matter of interest, where is Peri?" Exactly what we'd been wondering... The Valeyard's ominous retort tells us that Peri's whereabouts shall remain a mystery for now: "Where you left her." Is Peri safe? From which adventure was the Doctor plucked? All very intriguing...

Once we settle down to watch a repeat of Doctor Who that's not been shown before, things improve. Instantly what strikes me is the much better relationship between the Doctor and Peri, walking arm-in-arm through the nippy forest of Ravolox, the Doctor wielding a multi-coloured umbrella and Peri dressed like she's just finished a shift at a holiday camp. They're more at ease with one another, both physically and emotionally closer. It's as if the Doctor and Peri have had a good sit-down and thrashed it all out while they've been away. Either that or they've been in therapy.

Baker in particular has dialled back the abrasiveness and softened his responses, so instead of criticising or demeaning Peri every time she opens her mouth, he genially encourages her, or gives an affectionate smile. This softening of the dynamic between them had been hinted at towards the end of Season 22, but here it's fully formed. I love the smiles the actors exchange, the way Bryant hugs Baker's shoulder, the little nudge Baker gives Bryant when Peri asks if there's intelligent life: "Apart from me you mean? I don't know. Shall we find out?" If only it had been like this from day one, rather than the Doctor almost strangling the poor girl to death within moments of seeing her.

As the Doctor and Peri explore Ravolox (which all feels very Terry Nation Part One) I feel like I'm watching "proper" Doctor Who again, the sort of Doctor Who I haven't seen for a while. Two pals who travel through time and space together exploring an alien world. It's refreshingly reassuring in its simplicity, but that's the template Doctor Who has had since the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan stepped out of the TARDIS onto the prehistoric plain in The Cave of Skulls. Adventure, intrigue, new places to discover and new people to meet! Welcome back, Doctor Who.

The Doctor and Peri discover a door which takes them below ground to what turns out to be a London Underground station (Marble Arch to be precise). How can a London tube station be on the planet Ravolox, which is geographically in the wrong part of space, and two billion years in Peri's future? It's interesting that Peri feels uneasy about being on Ravolox, as if she senses there's something wrong, and when they come to suspect it's actually Earth, her reaction is pitched beautifully by Holmes.

The most revealing aspect of Peri's emotional response to the fate of Earth is the way the Doctor deals with it. Previously, he'd have just blustered through her feelings and told her to shut up and get on with things, but here he listens to what Peri has to say, relates to her, and tries to allay her fears. It's a beautiful scene between Bryant and Baker.

DOCTOR: I know how you feel.
PERI: Do you?
DOCTOR: Of course I do. You've been travelling with me long enough to know that none of this really matters. Not to you. Your world is safe.
PERI: This is still my world, whatever the period, and I care about it. And all you do is talk about it as though we're in a planetarium.
DOCTOR: I'm sorry. But look at it this way. Planets come and go, stars perish. Matter disperses, coalesces, reforms into other patterns, other worlds. Nothing can be eternal.

The Sixth Doctor apologises! He sees something from someone else's point of view, and adjusts accordingly. He's nice, for god's sake! This is the Doctor Colin Baker should have been playing all along, but with a better outfit naturally!

And because the Doctor has shown this compassion and empathy, when he still refuses to go back to the TARDIS because he wants to explore, it feels all the more Doctorish, and truthful to his character. "Oh I can't! There's a mystery here! Questions to which I must have an answer!" The fact Peri decides not to go with him, but to stay behind, feels like something of 'A Moment' in their relationship. Peri is suddenly more independent, more grown-up. Her new hairstyle and mature dress sense indicates she is more of a young woman than a teenage girl now. It's a little alarming when the Doctor does leave her behind, but Peri deserves that independence. So it's unfortunate when it all comes unravelled when she runs into the arms of captors seconds later...

The other story strand involves two garrulous reprobates called Glitz and Dibber, each dressed like a cross between a pirate and an extra from Adam Ant's Prince Charming video. They're obviously Holmes's latest double act, and Tony Selby and Glen Murphy bounce off each other nicely, building character through dialogue and performance very quickly (the occasional amused smile Murphy gives is great). The lines Holmes gives them might be a little over-ripe in parts, but at least they're amusing and engaging. Glitz is given quite a bit of back-story very quickly, as we learn he's been in prison and has been seen by a great many psychiatrists. Glitz is something of a criminal hard case, although he's played more like a cuddly uncle than a hard-nosed assassin.

Glitz and Dibber are on Ravolox to steal something from the L3 Robot (we briefly see this robot, which looks like a giant fork), but first they have to destroy the robot's power source. That source is a black light converter which has been appropriated by the local villagers as a totem of their earth god Haldren. These local villagers (the Tribe of the Free) are led by the Queen Katryca, a flame-haired pensioner played by Carry On legend Joan Sims.

Now, I love Joan Sims, she was one of the finest comedy actors the UK ever produced (and rarely recognised as such). She could do straight roles too, but her talent lay in comedy, not drama. Her casting as a ferocious medieval gladiatrix is so off-message that you can't help but laugh when she strides onto screen. Bless Joanie, she's doing precisely what's expected of her, and doing it as well as she can, but in a Beryl Reid kinda way, she's simply miscast. At no point does she convince me she is a fearsome leader of men (very hairy men). The list of other actors considered for the part of Katryca reads like a who's who of guest stars from 80s Doctor Who: Lynda Baron, Brenda Bruce, Isla Blair, Sheila Hancock, Wanda Ventham, Fiona Walker, Elizabeth Spriggs... Also on that list was Honor Blackman, who would end up playing Professor Lasky later in the series, but I reckon she'd have been ideal as Katryca, and just the right shade of subtle/ sexy.

But with Sims it's such a shame because the bubble is burst on what is otherwise a gorgeous presentation of a medieval-style settlement, filmed at the Butser Hill ancient farm project.

The Doctor's explorations underground find him accused of being a water thief after he lifts a jug and eight chaps in yellow pyjamas emerge from three doors (behind which they must surely have been waiting all along). The Doctor is chained up and questioned by Balazar, the Reader of the Books ("Where are you from, Old One?"). The Doctor asks which books he reads, and there are three: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, The Water Babies by Charles Kinglsey, and UK Habitats of the Canadian Goose by HM Stationery Office (ha ha, very witty!). Interesting that the real-world books are both Victorian, suggesting late-19th century literature is most likely to survive a solar apocalypse!

The Doctor is rather brutally stoned by the pyjama men, and although he tries to use his brolly as a shield, there's no stopping those rocks getting through and knocking him unconscious. As the Doctor falls to the floor, the Valeyard stops the tape and we return to the courtroom. "Oh why'd you stop it at the best bit? I was rather enjoying that!" protests the Doctor (Holmes's dialogue again wittily reflecting the viewer's thoughts). "Clever, eh? That trick with the umbrella?" (I did actually think that as I watched it too!).

At this point, the Valeyard proposes that the inquiry into the Doctor's "conduct unbecoming a Time Lord", and his transgression of the First Law of not interfering in the affairs of others, should become an actual trial, and if the Doctor is found guilty, the sentence should be the termination of his life.

Well, that escalated quickly. All he did was pick up a jug of water...

First broadcast: September 6th, 1986

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The fonder relationship between the softer Doctor and more mature Peri.
The Bad: Joan Sims as Queen Katryca.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆


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