Sarah -
I'm not going to lie, Old Boy, I've always been a big fan of The Trial of a Time Lord. The story has its ups and downs, but it's always been my favorite part of the Sixth Doctor's era. I know I've seen the four stories that make up Season 23's The Trial of a Timelord more than anything in Season 22. If I remember correctly, you're a fan, as well.
Harry -
Oh hell yes!
I keep a list of reasons why The Trial of a Time Lord is Extremely Excellent in my wallet for moments like this. Should I share the list here?
Sarah -
I love it! This is exactly why we are best pals. Bring it on!
Harry -
*ahem* Here follows my list of reasons why The Trial of a Time Lord is Extremely Excellent:
- Dominic Glynn's revised, minimalist theme music is intimately celestial
- Colin becomes increasingly psychotic as the story goes on
- Also, Colin's hair becomes increasingly psychotic as the story goes on (compare its length in each story)
- Speaking of which, Peri's new Kate Bush hairstyle is gorgeous
- The Valeyard is a grim creep, but I can't look away from his intensity
- The Doctor's repeated putdowns ("Barnyard, Scrapyard, etc") are hilarious
- I love gratuitously gigantic robots, like the one that controls the Mysterious Planet
- "Mindwarp" lands the TARDIS team in the middle of the "Ashes to Ashes" video
- Peri's demise is truly horrific
- Sagacity!
- Mel sets a new standard for glass-shattering screams, might as well be remembered for something eh?
- Tom Chadbon, BRIAN BLESSED!, Honor Blackman, Geoffrey Hughes
- Every cliffhanger is an extreme close up of Colin about to go mad again
- Vervoids are creepy as hell
- The "genocide!" cliffhanger is one of my all time favourites
- The Master's sudden appearance on the big screen is classic
- In the end, it was all a bit rubbish, but that's the beauty of Doctor Who: it isn't so much about the final resolution, but the journey there.
Sarah -
These are all excellent reasons, although perhaps a bit spoilery. Still, after 30 years, I don't think anyone can complain.
Liz from the Verity Podcast has suggested that everyone would have loved The Trial of a Time Lord if Colin Baker had just gotten a proper haircut, but I kind of love the madness. It feels like the Doctor has no shits left to give every time he shakes those curls about.
I completely agree about the journey being more important than the destination. It will be interesting to see how we feel at the end of this season.
Harry -
Is it possible to love something even more than the love you had for it before?
Sarah -
We can hope.
During Doctor Who's eighteen-month hiatus, Eric Saward developed an idea for a full-season arc, where the Doctor would be on trial for his habit of interfering in other planets. The trial is an appropriate metaphor for the position in which the series found itself in 1986.
Before we begin our lovefest, I'm going to tell you how much I hate, loathe, and abominate the Season 23 opening theme. It sounds tinny and cheap and fills me with rage every time I hear it. Fortunately, it's followed by The Trial of a Time Lord, so my mood is soothed relatively quickly.
Harry -
My love for Dominic Glynn's theme puts me among a minority of fans, but I'm OK with that.
Sarah -
One of the best things about being a Whovian is that you can hold the craziest of opinions and it's all good. I suspect Trekkers have fought to the death over lesser disagreements.
Harry -
Saward's inquiry/trial arc is established after we watch the first, sweeping shot of the TARDIS being beamed aboard a space station.
Sarah -
OMG, can we discuss the majesty of the opening shot? The model work on the space station is freaking amazing. I had to watch it twice to fully appreciate its beauty. Apparently, it took at week to film the opening shot, which cost £8,000 -- making it the most expensive sequence to date. Makes me feel like I should watch it a few more times, to help amortize the cost.
Harry -
It has to be the most professional looking special effect in classic Who history.
Sarah -
It really is incredible. The shot ends with the TARDIS entering the station. The Doctor finds himself in a courtroom full of Time Lords, where we meet some memorable characters.
The Valeyard leads the prosecution and faces the Doctor's contempt. The Inquisitor serves as judge, keeping the proceedings in line. She's got her hands full with the Doctor and Valeyard facing off.
Harry -
Before the prosecution may begin, the Inquisitor asks the question that is on all our minds: hasn't the Doctor already been accused and prosecuted for meddling? I didn't like how the Valeyard just shrugged it off and said "Nah, we were too lenient last time, let's do it again." He moves straight into his presentation, starting with an adventure from the Doctor's recent past.
Sarah -
I guess there's no concept of double jeopardy on Gallifrey. To help us keep the timeline straight, a costume change is introduced. The Doctor wears his turquoise cravat in the flashback sequences and a red cravat in the courtroom.
Peri is allowed to be fully clothed again, apparently after concerns over her Season 22 bodysuit-and-shorts wardrobe.
Speaking of the Doctor and Peri, they seemed to have mellowed towards each other in these intervening months. Baker and Bryant are lovely. They're still given bickering dialogue, but they deliver it like two old friends who love to tease each other. I wish they had gotten to this point sooner.
Harry -
Leave it to Bob Holmes to set things right again. The cheery stroll through the woods was a nice bridge to the story proper.
Sarah -
Good old reliable Bob Holmes in his final full Doctor Who story.
Harry -
But what a bizarre opening adventure. Has there ever been a goofier collection of post-apocalyptic survivors?
Sarah -
The first characters we meet are a classic Bob Holmes double act -- Sabalom Glitz and his sidekick Dibber. I love these two even if they are mercenaries whose first action is to try to kill the Doctor and Peri as they emerge from the TARDIS.
Harry -
Dibber and Glitz observe as our friends find an entrance way to the underground. The Doctor marches straight in, but Peri chooses to stay on the surface. The mercenaries are after something down there, but it's guarded by an L-3 robot. In order to disable the robot, they will have to knock out its power source: a large antenna that acts as a light converter and provides the robot with blacklight energy. It also provides the locals with a totemic object of worship.
Sarah -
Peri is understandably wigged out when they discover the Marble Arch sign in the underground. Something about this planet feels all too familiar.
Harry -
If it's Earth, it's in the wrong position in space and time.
Dibber and Glitz decide to go and ask nicely if they can dismantle the light converter. At the village, we meet the Pythonesque locals led by Katryca, tribeswoman and leader of the free. Played by Joan Sims, she just screams "JN-T stunt casting!" Is this another Beryl Reid, some treasured light entertainer from the past? Sure enough, a quick Google search reveals that Sims was a star of the "Carry On..." series of comedy films. So she would have been very familiar to viewers as a comic actor. She plays Katryca dead seriously here, but there's still a comic feel to the performance.
Sarah -
Unlike Beryl Reid, Sims understands why she's there and acts the heck out of Katryca. I love her reaction to Glitz's attempts to charm her -- she's heard it all before and it having none of it.
Harry -
Katryca rejects the request and has Dibber and Glitz imprisoned. She is a fierce defender of her folk beliefs, but won't betray them in order to stop the L-3 robot, known coloquially as the Immortal. For the tribe of the free, the answer can only be brute force and weaponry.
Sarah -
Nobody likes change, especially when religion is involved.
The Doctor, meanwhile, has stumbled into an underground complex and finds himself the focus of a stoning after he picks up a bottle of water. Ravolox is never going to make the list of Top Ten Friendliest Planets in the Universe, is it?
Harry -
The Doctor survives the gentlest stoning ever, at the hands of some gentle underground dwellers. These are people who believe that the world above their city is consumed by flames. That is why they entrust their existence to the Immortal, and haul the Doctor before it when commanded to.
Sarah -
They're all quite matter-of-fact about the their situation.
Harry -
Two of these people are played by Tom (Duggan!) Chadbon and Adam Blackwood. I liked Blackwood's character -- the reader of the books. He's basically the chief librarian of this society, overseeing all three volumes of ancient knowledge.
Sarah -
I love when Balazar names the sacred texts -- Moby Dick by Herman Melville, The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley, and U.K. Habitats of the Canadian Goose by H.M. Stationery Office -- and the Doctor does his best to look suitably impressed.
It's great when favorite actors return to Doctor Who, but I was hoping for a bit more smashing into things from Chadbon. Still, his Merdeen turns out to be a bit of a hero. He's been sending people to the surface for years to help them escape life in the underground.
Harry -
Like Sims, Chadbon resists all temptation to camp it up and plays Merdeen with total seriousness. The same could be said for the entire cast. Everyone is so, so serious in this one.
When Drathro the L-3 robot finally meets the Doctor, it realizes that he is an intelligent organic creature, and tasks him with repairing its faulty blacklight energy system.
Sarah -
We get another classic Bob Holmes double act in Humker and Tandrell, Drathro's human assistants. As annoying as it would be to work with these two, they definitely lighten the mood.
Harry -
Okay, they definitely played it for some laughs as campy rivals. Meanwhile, Peri is hauled before Katryca, who determines she will make a fine wife to many husbands. Peri is not impressed, but she's thrown in the same cell as the mercenaries. They quickly plot an escape, just as the Doctor does.
Sarah -
Peri cannot catch a break. After a season of being lusted after by every random baddie, she's now being offered to a pack of shaggy locals.
Harry -
After blowing up the light converter, Glitz, Dibber and Peri meet up with the Doctor and Balazar at the entrance to the underground -- only to find themselves caught between the angry villagers and one of the Immortal's robot drones. And cue the cliffhanger closeup!
Sarah -
"I don't know. I really think this could be the end..." Oh, Colin!
But wait, it's not the end! Huzzah! The tribesfolk shoot the robot with Dibber's gun and haul everyone back to the village. The Doctor tries to work his charms on Katryca, but we all know how that's going to end. Back in the prison cell, Glitz confirms that the planet is Earth. Before the Doctor can find out why it's been moved, the service robot breaks into the cell and captures the Doctor.
Katryca and the tribe, thinking the Immortal is dead, set off to the underground to reap the spoils of victory. Peri rescues the Doctor from the robot and they head to the underground to stop the tribe. Back in the underground, they encounter Merdeen who shouts "You!" while looking at the Doctor and shoots his crossbow. Could this be the end? Nah, Merdeen was just taking out another guard who had figured out what Merdeen was up to.
Meanwhile, at Drathro's castle, Katryca is quickly electrocuted and the rest of the tribe are dismissed.
Harry -
A shocking demise for Katryca and Broken Tooth, fried until their skin begins to blacken. There's a lot more Saward than Holmes to moments like this.
One interesting theme that Holmes developed was having the Doctor caught between villagers who cling to their folk lore, and an advanced robot that clings to its pre-programmed logic. Neither side would budge from their positions, leaving the Doctor to negotiate a careful path out of there.
Sarah -
The Doctor returns to the castle and tells Drathro he's going to repair the black light system, but soon realizes it's beyond repair and is going to explode. Drathro is initially prepared to let the explosion happen, until Glitz offers to take the robot away in his ship, claiming to have black light there.
Harry -
I love how the Doctor and Dratho practically get into a shouting match, and then Glitz comes along and charms the robot right out of its castle.
Sarah -
It's almost kind of sad to see Drathro packing up his things to head off with Glitz and Dibber, excited for his new life in the Andromeda Galaxy. He's the only character in the story who doesn't immediately see through Glitz's manipulative charm. Drathro's hope is short-lived, of course, as the system has already started to self destruct. The Doctor manages to contain the explosion to the castle, but Drathro doesn't survive.
Merdeen and Balazar lead the underworlders to the surface and a new life with the Tribe of the Free.
Harry -
Huzzah!
Sarah -
Meanwhile, back in the courtroom, the Doctor declares himself savior of the universe and prepares to mount his defense. The Valeyard promises that there is more evidence to come and in the end the Doctor's life will be forfeit. Cue the cliffhanger!
Harry -
Man, that Valeyard is a creep. He's definitely up to something.
Overall, "The Mysterious Planet" was a fast-paced romp to open the season. The return to the four-part, 24-minute format kept the plot bouncing along. The Doctor and Peri juggled their way out of a jam between competing factions and emerged unscathed. One common complaint that I share with fandom is that there were too many cutaways back to the courtroom, breaking up the momentum of the adventure. This would have been a fun story on its own, without the trial components. We'll see if this becomes an ongoing trend.
And now... ARE YOU READY FOR MINDWARP, SARAH?
Sarah -
I've been ready since we started this marathon!
Harry -
Best Line:
Upon meeting Peri: "Sabalom Glitz, my dear, and this youth with the vacuous expression and single track mind is Dibber."
Favourite Moment: Balazar gets slimed by the food processing unit.
Lasting Image: the gratuitously gigantic robot!
7/10
Sarah -
Best Line: "Five rounds rapid should do the trick."
Brig callbacks always warm my heart.
Favorite Moment: Glitz sweet talking Drathro.
Lasting Image: Glitz and Dibber, ready for action.
7/10
Our marathon continues with Story #143B - The Trial of a Time Lord: Mindwarp...
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