Saturday, March 26, 2022

The Trial of a Time Lord Part Thirteen


The one where the Valeyard turns out to be the Doctor...

The shit hits the fan in this episode. Big time. With all of the evidence dealt with, it's time for conclusions to be drawn, but before anybody can sum up, there are a few twists in the tale first. There's the strange fact that the Matrix has a Keeper who walks around with Rassilon's Key buttoned to his robes 24/7. This Time Lord, played by James Bree (wasted in the role), reckons it is impossible to meddle with the Matrix, and the only way to get into it is using his trusty key. As the Doctor points out, it is possible to copy keys, which is exactly what THE MASTER did.

I'm sorry, the what-who?! Yes, the Master, played with unusual insouciance by Anthony Ainley, looking down on the courtroom from his day-glow disco within the Matrix. It's a fabulous twist to have the Master rock up this late in the story, but it's rather disappointing that he doesn't really do anything. He just sits there letting out his little amuse-bouche secrets bit by bit, a smug smile on his face, but his presence doesn't add the elevated danger that it should. It's almost like a cosy reunion.

The Master has a lot of secrets to spill though, including filling everyone in on what was really going on in parts 1-4 with the Sleepers of Andromeda and the stolen Matrix secrets. For casual viewers at the time, this must have come across as terrifically boring, referring to something that happened more than two months ago and which had pretty much been forgotten about. The revelation that the High Council of the Time Lords moved Earth and its solar system, causing the destructive firestorm which turned Earth into Ravolox, falls flat because it comes far too late in the story/ season. If this revelation had come in part 4, it would have meant a bit more, but it feels like writer Robert Holmes is trying to explain something that doesn't need explaining, because nobody really cares.

I mentioned that this episode feels like a reunion, and that's because Holmes decides to beam in two characters from earlier in the story - Sabalom Glitz and Melanie Bush. Arriving in a couple of intergalactic coffins, Mel and Glitz (where's Dibber?) are probably the last two people I'd expect to turn up at this point. First of all, Glitz isn't exactly the Doctor's friend, merely an acquaintance, while Mel really shouldn't be here at all because this Doctor hasn't met her yet. The moment she bursts into the courtroom, a vision in midnight blue, things get complicated. Mel knows the Doctor because I presume she's been taken out of some adventure she was having with him in the future, but the Doctor - this version of him - has yet to meet her, and is only aware of her because he was sifting through his own future in the Matrix (I wonder if he saw Evelyn Smythe there too?). Mel's presence is a complete anomaly, she simply shouldn't be there!

From Mel's point of view, she must wonder why the Doctor she's just been taken away from is now in a courtroom in space. She should be terribly confused, but instead takes it all in her stride as if she's read the script. Holmes should have brought back an old companion (Tegan always seems available), or maybe revealed that Peri isn't really dead by having her come back instead. That would have added emotional depth to an episode built largely on exposition.

Oh yes, the Peri thing. She's not really dead at all, but hanging out with King Yrcanos as a Warrior Queen of the Krontep. This fact is thrown away like a mere aside, when it should be a major revelation which propels the narrative forward. As it is, it's dumped into the episode unceremoniously, as if Holmes is just trying to get it out of the way so he can get on with the rest of the show. Peri's apparent survival completely undermines the impact of her death in part 8, and weakens the moment retrospectively. The power of 'Mindwarp' was Peri's shocking demise, but you can never watch it a second time the same way, knowing she isn't really dead at all. It also smacks of the production team chickening out of what was a very brave narrative twist, and it weakens the whole season as a result. Peri should have stayed dead, because that means more, it matters, and it informs the way the Doctor behaves.

The arrival of Glitz and Mel leads to some cringe-worthy dialogue ("That's it, Doc. Now we're getting at the dirt!") and acres of exposition, but Holmes very cleverly hides the Big Revelation in plain sight when the Master casually refers to the Valeyard as the Doctor. Mid-speech, this bombshell might be easy to miss, but when the Doctor numbly picks it up, it becomes a wonderful narrative Dutch angle, stopping everyone - both on and off screen - in their tracks.

The Master knows the Valeyard as the Doctor, and reveals that he is an amalgamation of the darker sides of the Doctor's nature, somewhere between his twelfth and final incarnation. The Valeyard is the equivalent of Cho-je or the Watcher, a representation of the Doctor's dark side. It's a fascinating idea - a genius one, in fact - turning the entire story on its head. The man prosecuting the Doctor, attempting to forfeit his life, is actually a future Doctor, of sorts, who's been promised the Doctor's future regenerations by none other than the High Council itself. Now that's a doozy of a twist!

The Valeyard comes somewhere between the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors (the numbers got messed up when David Tennant lost his hand and Steven Moffat lost his mind), but the idea of the Sixth Doctor fighting his darker self is actually rather perfect. After everything this Doctor has been through, both on and off screen, it's fitting that he should face up to his evil alter-ego, like confronting himself in a mirror. The Doctor that strangled, poisoned and bullied his way through his era finally confronts his darker side - the side that got the show put on hiatus - and it feels wonderfully apt.

Rumbled, the Valeyard flees into the Matrix (how he gets in there isn't explained - did he go to Timpsons with the Master?), followed in hot pursuit by the Doctor, who enters via the Seventh Door (where are the other six?). It's appropriate that the Doctor returns to the Matrix in an episode written by its creator, Robert Holmes. This iteration of the Matrix is a creepy Victorian London, a place of plague rats, cholera and flickering lamplight. Doctor Who always does Victoriana well, and the sound design when the Doctor enters the Matrix is gorgeous: distant children chanting nursery rhymes, a tolling bell, the sound of music hall varieties. Is Holmes about to bring back Henry Gordon Jago (wouldn't that have been fantastic?).

It's an odd choice for the Doctor to choose Glitz to enter the Matrix with him, rather than Mel, who's been beamed into part 13 just to stand about and screech. At some point between just then and right now, the Master gives Glitz a hand-written note telling the Doctor where to look for the Valeyard (why couldn't Glitz have just told him?). They are led to the Fantasy Factory, a Victorian workhouse adorned with an incongruous fairground sign which is about as subtle as the Doctor's coat. Holmes tries to make the Matrix feel as weird and uncanny as he did in The Deadly Assassin, but it's not as effective. The killer hand in the water barrel is suitably odd, but when Glitz gets a harpoon square in the chest, it feels more horror film than unheimlich. The suddenness of the harpoon is quite a surprise though.

The Doctor and Glitz arrive at the Fantasy Factory to see the Valeyard but are met by assiduous jobsworth (the very junior) Mr Popplewick, a wonderfully Dickensian character played by Geoffrey Hughes. The casting of Hughes has always puzzled me, because he was an actor best known for playing scruffy binman Eddie Yeats in Coronation Street (and would later become synonymous with scruffy characters, including Onslow in Keeping Up Appearances and Twiggy in The Royle Family). He just seems miscast here. If they were trying to cast against type to add to the weirdness of the Matrix, then they failed because I'm not convinced by Hughes in the role at all.

Too much time is spent with the Doctor trying to get past the Popplewicks. Aside from the fact it's boring, is the Valeyard intent on humiliating the Doctor using red tape? However, some of the dialogue is amusing, particularly the nonsensical circular logic used by Popplewick:

POPPLEWICK: You wish to see the proprietor. Now, the correct procedure is to make an appointment.
DOCTOR: But we're already expected.
POPPLEWICK: But the junior Mr Popplewick isn't allowed to expect anyone.
GLITZ: You knew we were coming. Why didn't you give him the nod?
POPPLEWICK: And upset the procedure? The junior Mr Popplewick has his pride too.

When the Doctor steps into the waiting room and emerges on a windswept beach, that's when Holmes finally manages to evoke the weirdness of The Deadly Assassin. It's wonderfully unexpected, like something out of Alice in Wonderland, and I love the Doctor's witticism about missing the "hopelessly out-of-date magazines"!

The Sixth Doctor's last ever cliffhanger sees him being dragged beneath the sandy surface of the beach by clawing hands in a scene reminiscent of a zombie horror film (but at the seaside). Naturally, Colin Baker overacts terribly (as he has done throughout this episode), culminating in a cheesy "Nooooooooooooo!" as the end credits flood in. It's a good idea for a cliffhanger, slightly undermined by the way Baker very obviously wriggles himself into position before sinking beneath the surface, dragged down by the grasping hands of unseen assailants. Maybe they're BBC executives baying for Baker's blood, having fired him behind the scenes weeks earlier?

Quick observations:
  • Mel is deliciously shady when she first meets Glitz: "As a matter of total disinterest, who are you?" Little does she know he's the man she'll end up flying off into space with when she leaves the Doctor (not this Doctor, who she hasn't met yet, but another Doctor, who she hasn't met yet either).
  • Bonnie Langford is also afforded some terrible dialogue, including: "How utterly evil!"
  • Supporting my observation that The Trial of a Time Lord is the greatest misnomer in Doctor Who history, the Inquisitor says: "This is an independent inquiry appointed by the High Council to investigate serious charges." So, here we are on part 13 and it's still not a trial!
  • The Doctor says he is unable to present witnesses to corroborate his version of events because they're scattered to the four corners of time and space. That's surely a weak excuse. He's a Time Lord, a race of people who can pluck people out of their time stream in space coffins!
  • Love the bit where the Master boasts about his meddlesome machinations: "There's nothing purer and more unsullied than the desire for revenge. But, if you follow the metaphor, I've thrown a pebble into the water, perhaps killing two birds with one stone, and causing ripples that'll rock the High Council to its foundations." And Ainley's little snigger is wonderful!
Will everything be wrapped up neatly in part 14? How will the Doctor defeat himself? And what exactly is the Master up to? Can't wait to find out...

First broadcast: November 29th, 1986

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The sound design for Victorian London is spooky and unnerving.
The Bad: Changing Peri's true fate undermines so much of what has gone before. She should have stayed dead.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆


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