Goodbye "Terminus" and Hello "Enlightenment"!
Harry -
It's kind of notable that it took this long in our marathon - Peter Davison's second season - for us to reach a story where our opinions differed so greatly. That it would be over the not-often-mentioned "Terminus" was surprising. But like the start of many a Davison story, here we are still talking about the previous one and assuming the readers will know exactly what's going on.
Sarah -
I'm pretty sure "Terminus" was the farthest apart we've ever been in our ratings.
Harry -
On to "Enlightenment". Did you like this one better? Or... has Mr. Smith now taken to imitating the Black Guardian's uber-panto stage laugh? Perhaps one of the kiddos is going around the house parroting Captain Wrack's saucy pirate ha-ha-ha's?
Sarah -
"Enlightenment" is brilliant! I would rank it as one of my favorites of the Davison Era so far. It was so good I watched it twice. Mr. Smith merely watched it once, but I'm confident all is forgiven.
In addition to being a cracking story, "Enlightenment" also has the distinction of being the first-ever Doctor Who story to be both written and directed by women. Barbara Clegg was the first woman to write for Doctor Who and it's a pity "Enlightenment" is her only work on the series. The excellent Fiona Cumming returns to direct the third of her four Doctor Who stories. Her direction is as strong as it was in "Castrovalva" and "Snakedance", but everything seems to come together in "Enlightenment".
Harry -
To borrow an Edwardian term, this is a ripping yarn. It's enjoyable because it's so unsettling. It's not an "easy" watch, if that makes sense.
Sarah -
There’s so much going on that isn’t apparent to the TARDIS crew or the viewer.
Harry -
Everyone involved did a brilliant job of casting the Doctor and his friends into a series of situations where escape never looked possible, and that's a mark of excellence in Doctor Who.
Sarah -
There are so many times in other stories when the Doctor walks into a situation completely confident that he’ll work his way out it. That doesn’t happen in "Enlightenment". He really doesn’t know what’s going on for much of the story.
Harry -
It's a great peeling-back-the-onion story, with a new twist coming from each teased-out revelation. It begins once again in the TARDIS console room. Tegan and Turlough play chess without acknowledging the obvious symbolism of the game.
Sarah -
I love the opening shot of the chessboard. In fact, I have to say I adore this entire opening sequence in the TARDIS. After suffering through the brightly lit sets in "Terminus", I love the subdued lighting in the TARDIS when the power is low. The orange hue looks spectacular and makes the TARDIS look mysterious, which really it how it should look. It’s much closer to how the TARDIS looks in the contemporary series.
Harry -
Dim lights equals instant atmosphere. The Doctor, meanwhile, starts hearing voices. The TARDIS suddenly lurches and the lights dim. Something or someone is draining vast amounts of energy from the ship. The Doctor suddenly encounters an apparition - it's the White Guardian. Using the energy of the TARDIS, he tries to relay a message but the Doctor can only make out part of it. The Black Guardian then makes himself seen, and the Doctor realizes that the gig might be up, and his long flight across the universe may be at an end.
And just like that, they land in the hold of a sailing ship.
Sarah -
Tegan is left behind to wait for a message from the White Guardian, while the Doctor and Turlough set out to do a bit of exploring. They manage to evade one of the ship’s officers and end up in the crew quarters, where they discover that no one remembers when they came on board.
Harry -
The sailors were very authentic. They looked, sounded and spoke like one imagines they would have a hundred years ago.
Sarah -
The crew quarter scenes were delightful, especially the moment when they realized that “The Doctor” means you’re the new cook on board. Turlough got a good laugh off that.
Meanwhile, Tegan receives a warning message from the White Guardian and leaves the TARDIS only to fall into the hands of Marriner, the ship’s first mate. I love the moments before she opens the TARDIS door, when Marriner’s face fills the screen in the console room. It’s so wonderfully creepy.
Harry -
Marriner is skin-crawlingly creepy throughout -- especially when we first see him pawing the TARDIS, or when he calls out to Tegan in the dark. Christopher Brown was great in the role.
Sarah -
He’s brilliant. In the commentary track, there’s much speculation about whether he’s acting or if that’s just how he is.
Eventually, the Doctor and Tegan end up in the same dining room with the ship’s captain, Striker, and the rest of the officers. Dinner is cut short when the winds pick up and the Captain announces that the race has begun. The crew is ordered on deck and Turlough finds himself expected to go with him, which he manages to avoid, being the clever little weasel he is.
Harry -
Enlightenment features a lot of tight shots on the characters' faces, which made me realize what bugs me most about Turlough: his weird upturned eyebrows. That, coupled with his alternating weasel/wuss nature means I'm finding it hard to like him.
Sarah -
The eyebrows really are disconcerting – brushed up and doused with hairspray, it seems. Strickson even comments on how weird they make him look.
Harry -
We finally found something alien about him.
Sarah -
This leads us to episode one’s excellent cliffhanger, in which it is revealed that we are not on a Edwardian racing schooner, but are, in fact, on a space ship – surrounded by other space ships that look like sailing vessels from various points in Earth’s history. Brilliant!
Harry -
The revelations begin! The officers are not merely aliens, but eternals who are competing in a race through space as a diversion.
Sarah -
Eternals who never blink! When I realized they weren’t blinking, I became obsessed with watching for any signs of blinking. I only caught one from Marriner. All this focus on blinking made me wonder what would happen if the eternals met up with the angels – nothing would ever happen!
Harry -
Stalemate!
The crew, however, have been plucked from the Earth -- as have the crews of the other racing ships -- and their minds are ransacked for the knowledge to create and operate a period-accurate ship. The eternals can read the minds of ephemerals, which sounds about as haughty and perjorative a thing an eternal could say about a human. The Doctor and Tegan are outraged by their dismissive attitude.
Sarah -
Striker is so dismissive of the Time Lords. We don’t run into that very often!
Harry -
But the eternals are not all-powerful. Everyone looks on as an ancient sailing vessel is blown up, seemingly by a buccaneer ship. And for a brief moment, Stiker is unable to read the Doctor's mind, which the Doctor finds fascinating.
Sarah -
The doctor is off to Tegan’s room when this happens, which leads me to the moment when the story started to get under my skin. When Tegan entered her room, I noticed it contained the same chair as her room on the TARDIS…and her purple uniform…and a photo of her Aunt Vanessa. She tells Turlough that it’s a combination of her room on the TARDIS and her room at home in Brisbane. Can you imagine how terrifying that would be?
Harry -
That was one of those "not easy to watch" moments, very unsettling.
Meanwhile, Marriner is increasingly fascinated by Tegan. And he keeps telling her so, repeatedly. But his mannerisms leave Tegan creeped out rather than enamoured, which the eternal doesn't seem to understand.
Sarah -
He is totally that creepy guy who won’t leave you alone at the bar. He’s clearly never met an Australian air hostess before now!
Things really get going when the Doctor, Tegan, and Marriner visit Captain Wrack’s pirate ship – to retrieve Turlough, who managed to toss himself overboard and attend a fancy dinner party. Tegan gets to play dress up and it quite fetching in her Edwardian gown and wig, which the Doctor completely fails to notice, of course.
Harry -
Turlough's mad act of suicide was the first really bold thing he's done. What a shocking moment.
Sarah -
It really is quite shocking, and perhaps our first indication that Turlough is moving to the Doctor's side of things.
Harry -
He drifts away from the Edwardian yacht, bumps up against the buccaneer vessel and is promptly scooped up by a net and hauled before its captain for questioning.
Sarah -
How wonderful is Captain Wrack? Lynda Baron’s performance is beyond broad – she positively devours the scenery. Unfortunately, Leee (with 3 E’s, mind you) John’s Mansell can’t manage to deliver even the most basic line without sounding like a first year drama student. On second thought, he’s not even that good.
Harry -
Lynda Baron was another example of stunt casting in the JN-T era, where he often plucked a well-known light entertainment persona and put them into a more serious role. I say serious, but Baron clearly has the time of her life playing the pirate captain.
Watching Leee John's performance reminded me that his is one of the most notoriously bad outings in the history of Doctor Who. He fights through his lines and has a terrible time of it. I looked him up and it turns out he was a last-minute replacement for another actor. His only other claim to fame is that he was part of a forgettable pop trio called Imagination in the mid 80s. Can't say I know any of their numbers.
Sarah -
Should you strike up a conversation with Mr. Smith about "Enlightenment", it's unlikely that he'll want to talk about anything beyond Leee John's performance. It will come as no surprise to you that he's familiar with Imagination and may even have some of their work in the collection.
In the bonus featurette, John is very actorly in describing his process -- which seems to have been essentially to learn his lines. He won me over a bit by talking about how nervous he was in taking the part and how kind Lynda Baron was to him on set. Still, it's got to be the worst performance in Doctor Who, ever.
Harry -
Back to Captain Wrack. I love her scenes with Turlough, as he tries to win her confidence and she's not buying any of it. She plays him for a fool and seems to accept his services, even showing him the red crystals that she has been using to destroy the other ships. I think Mark Strickson was at his best when he was toadying up to other characters.
Sarah -
He carries it off much better than Matthew Waterhouse ever did.
Harry -
The party scene aboard Wrack's ship was amusing. Tegan seemed wildly overdressed, and the Doctor didn't say a word about it. I liked that moment when he quietly picked out a fresh celery stalk for himself, like it was nothing unusual at all.
Sarah -
It's a delightful moment. Do you think Eternal celery is more powerful than Time Lord celery? Did you notice when he took the wine glass away from Tegan without a word? No getting tipsy on this mission!
Harry -
Tegan's gown and tiara do come into play, as Wrack decides to install one of her killer crystals into the tiara before sending her guests back to the Edwardian yacht... without Turlough, who has foolishly gotten himself into trouble again. Is it just me or did the Black Guardian give him about 10 or 12 "last chances"? By "Enlightenment", it felt like we were watching them have the same conversation over and over.
Sarah -
This is the problem in trusting minions to do your work. The Black Guardian really should know by now that if you want something done properly, you've got to do it yourself. He really backed the wrong horse in Turlough.
Harry -
And Marriner chose the wrong human to become obsessed with. "Love? What is love? I want existence." His mewly pleadings to Tegan are probably the least charming things she's ever heard from a suitor. It was never meant to be.
Sarah -
Tegan’s got no time for that! Speaking of Tegan, I couldn’t help by notice her enhanced cleavage in this story. She’s been wearing that costume all season and suddenly she’s busting out all over. This follows Nyssa’s strip act and cleavage shots in Terminus, so it was clearly an intentional decision to sex up the female companions after two seasons of making it clear that there was no hanky panky going on in the TARDIS.
Harry -
By this point Tegan and the Doctor have returned to the Edwardian yacht, killer crystal embedded in her tiara. Back on the buccaneer ship, Wrack invokes an unseen power -- the one that has been helping her blast the other ships out of existence by training a death ray on those crystals. Turlough looks on in horror as the Black Guardian's voice rings out, urging Wrack to focus her mind and destroy the yacht. It was quite an effective scene.
Sarah -
The Black Guardian really gets around, doesn’t he?
Harry -
Over at the yacht, the Doctor finally becomes aware of the crystal and smashes it into bits. He scoops up the fragments and tosses them overboard before they can destroy the ship, then heads back to the buccaneer for a final confrontation with Wrack.
Sarah -
Ah yes, another exciting run through the corridors – or should I say corridor? They did their best with the single corridor/stairs set, but it was painfully obvious that the actors were just being shot from different angles as they ran around in circles.
Harry -
That was amusing to watch. But now...
Here's where the TARDIS, the yacht, the buccaneer and everyone aboard plunge through a plot hole the size of Venus. As the folks on the yacht look on, two figures are thrown from the buccaneer ship, their bodies in shadow as they drift away in space. It seems that Wrack and her horde have sent the Doctor and Turlough to their deaths, just in time for her ship to dock at the glittery finish station. She has won enlightenment. The White and Black Guardians appear on board, ready to present the prize. But instead of Wrack, the Doctor and Turlough appear and completely and utterly fail to explain how they got there. Seriously, this was one of the most disappointing moments in our entire marathon. Their escape was completely glossed over without a word of acknowledgement. Did they overpower the villains? Did they trick them? Did the White Guardian intervene? We are left with no explanation at all.
Sarah -
The plot hole is the one gaping problem with "Enlightenment". It’s disappointing to have this lazy resolution in an otherwise carefully plotted script. Even the brief moment when Tegan thinks the Doctor and Turlough are dead carries no emotional weight whatsoever.
Harry -
While I was raging over that, Turlough was presented the prize, and he faced his moment of truth. Kill the Doctor, or rebel against the Guardian. He chooses the latter, and Valentine Dyall spontaneously combusts and vanishes amid the most epic fit of smoker's cough ever filmed. What a finish!
Sarah -
The final scene makes up for the preceding silliness. Turlough finally makes his choice and becomes a full member of the TARDIS team.
Harry -
Enlightenment contained many echoes of previous Who stories, like "The Celestial Toymaker" (omnipotent beings making sport with mortals), "The War Games" (groups of humans snatched up to take part in, er, war games), "Four to Doomsday" (groups of humans snatched up again), and even "Horror of Fang Rock" (the Doctor and friends finding themselves stuck in an enclosed space with a bunch of Edwardian characters). It still managed to be a totally unique story, and probably the strongest of the Black Guardian trilogy. However, I'm still raging at the Doctor's unexplained escape from death. That's going to cost it a point.
Sarah -
I thought of "The War Games" while watching "Enlightenment", but, to be fair, I don’t need much of an excuse to think of "The War Games". I’m willing to cut the story some slack on the resolution because the rest of the story is so strong. It’s definitely the best of the trilogy and I really enjoyed rewatching it for the first time in about thirty years.
Harry -
Best Line: "Enlightenment was not the diamond, enlightenment was the choice."
Favourite Moment: Striker listens in on the Doctor's conversation with Tegan, and visibly perks up with interest when the TARDIS is mentioned.
Lasting Image: Marriner pawing the TARDIS. That creepy freak!
7/10
Sarah -
Best Line: “You are a Time Lord. A lord of time. Are there lords in such a small domain?”
Favorite moment: Every line Leee John delivers filled me with a twisted joy.
Lasting Image: Dashing around the single corridor.
8/10
Our marathon continues with Story #128: The King's Demons...
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