Meglos
The planet Tigella is in a lot of trouble. Dependant on an energy source they do not understand, and forced to live underground rather than fight off the deadly foliage above, they need help when their energy source begins to falter. The religious sect of their society, the Daeons, do not want anyone - least of all an outsider - to go near their symbol of power, the Dodecahedron, for they believe it is sacred, a god. The Savants, the more scientific minded, believe it is an artefact and needs to be studied. Their leader, Zastor, has the solution; he will contact the Doctor. En route to Tigella, though, the TARDIS is snared in a chronic hysteresis, which sees the Doctor, Romana, and K9 going through the same two minutes of their lives in a perpetual loop. The hysteresis is no natural phenomenon, though; behind it is the cactus-creature Meglos, who models his appearance on the Doctor and with the help of the Gaztak mercenaries plans to go to Tigella himself and steal the Dodecahedron.
I suppose script editor Christopher H. Bidmead was having fun letting all of this techincal sounding stuff slip into the dialogue. Doesn't make for easy speech though. Chronic hysteresis indeed. Sounds like a one-day science fiction convention event at the SkyDome. And Savant is actually French for scientist, isn't it? But why, ask Jay, Jim and I, do all the Savants have to have such bad hair? Why is it so often in Doctor Who and a lot of other science fiction that alien races are never as diverse as humans are? Why why why?
Yes, as you can gather I did not watch this one alone. The internationally famous Jim Wylie sat in with Jay and I, watching in sheer horror as Jay and I mocked the show we say we enjoy. But then he started to help.
The special effects of this one were interesting, and even though there was very little shimering on the edge of the CSO effects with the screens of Zolfa-Thura (which look a lot like the bits of shell from The Creature from the Pit) the set still looked like a model. All those sequences with the Doctor and company running around the base of it looked a bit hokey. The Gaztak ship looked a little clunky to be capable of space flight. The plants on Tigella all looked like rubber.
And what about planets like Tigella? How do entire cultures evolve underground with enough scientific know how to expand a city and fuel it, but not have enough know how to go upstairs and cut down some trees? It boggles the mind. And if they are familiar with aliens, then presumeably they may have space travel of their own, so why not just leave? One might argue that the religious hyperbole of Lexa, leader of the Deons, might hold people there but if the Savants are so willing to defy the religious sect, why hang around?
Oh Lexa. Jaqueline Hill returns from wherever she has been hiding ever since leaving the role of Barbara Wright to play again in Doctor Who, making her the fourth person out of eight to play both a regular role and another character, the others being Nick Courtney who was Bret Vyon in The Dalek Master Plan before he became the Brigadier, Ian Marter who appeared in Carnival of Monsters before becoming Harry Sullivan, John Leeson in Power of Kroll taking a holiday from his role as the voice of K9, Lalla Ward as Astra in The Armageddon Factor before becoming Romana, Colin Baker who would appear in Arc of Infinity before taking on the role of the Doctor in 1984, Jean Marsh returning in Battlefield in 1989 after her apperances in The Crusades as Joanna and The Dalek Master Plan as Sara Kingdom, and the latest would be Freeman Agyeman who will play new companion Martha Jones in the 2007 series after an appearance as a victim of the Cybermen in Army of Ghosts.
I always get a bit thrown by this sort of thing; the Doctor notices everything, or so he says, but he doesn't twig when he sees his old friends' faces on other people. Wierd.
Creepy factor for this episode? It's actually pretty high; Meglos needs a human body to bond with to effectively double as the Doctor, but when his control starts to break down and the human tries to escape, the Doctor-facade begins to break down and we see Tom Baker painted green and covered with sharp quills, then he has to retreat to the sahdows to gather his strength.
K9 is once again next to useless. After being short circuited in The Leisure Hive when he takes his impromptu swim at Brighton, he's now unable to fully recharge for the entire episode and has to be dragged around. Gah. I mean I like K9 but it might be time to think about putting him in his kennel for a bit. Maybe give him his own series.
The adventure ends happily enough, but an interesting twist presents itself; Romana leans out of the TARDIS to tell the Doctor that she has just been called by Gallifrey, and they are wanted back on their home planet immediately...
NEXT EPISODE : FULL CIRCLE
I suppose script editor Christopher H. Bidmead was having fun letting all of this techincal sounding stuff slip into the dialogue. Doesn't make for easy speech though. Chronic hysteresis indeed. Sounds like a one-day science fiction convention event at the SkyDome. And Savant is actually French for scientist, isn't it? But why, ask Jay, Jim and I, do all the Savants have to have such bad hair? Why is it so often in Doctor Who and a lot of other science fiction that alien races are never as diverse as humans are? Why why why?
Yes, as you can gather I did not watch this one alone. The internationally famous Jim Wylie sat in with Jay and I, watching in sheer horror as Jay and I mocked the show we say we enjoy. But then he started to help.
The special effects of this one were interesting, and even though there was very little shimering on the edge of the CSO effects with the screens of Zolfa-Thura (which look a lot like the bits of shell from The Creature from the Pit) the set still looked like a model. All those sequences with the Doctor and company running around the base of it looked a bit hokey. The Gaztak ship looked a little clunky to be capable of space flight. The plants on Tigella all looked like rubber.
And what about planets like Tigella? How do entire cultures evolve underground with enough scientific know how to expand a city and fuel it, but not have enough know how to go upstairs and cut down some trees? It boggles the mind. And if they are familiar with aliens, then presumeably they may have space travel of their own, so why not just leave? One might argue that the religious hyperbole of Lexa, leader of the Deons, might hold people there but if the Savants are so willing to defy the religious sect, why hang around?
Oh Lexa. Jaqueline Hill returns from wherever she has been hiding ever since leaving the role of Barbara Wright to play again in Doctor Who, making her the fourth person out of eight to play both a regular role and another character, the others being Nick Courtney who was Bret Vyon in The Dalek Master Plan before he became the Brigadier, Ian Marter who appeared in Carnival of Monsters before becoming Harry Sullivan, John Leeson in Power of Kroll taking a holiday from his role as the voice of K9, Lalla Ward as Astra in The Armageddon Factor before becoming Romana, Colin Baker who would appear in Arc of Infinity before taking on the role of the Doctor in 1984, Jean Marsh returning in Battlefield in 1989 after her apperances in The Crusades as Joanna and The Dalek Master Plan as Sara Kingdom, and the latest would be Freeman Agyeman who will play new companion Martha Jones in the 2007 series after an appearance as a victim of the Cybermen in Army of Ghosts.
I always get a bit thrown by this sort of thing; the Doctor notices everything, or so he says, but he doesn't twig when he sees his old friends' faces on other people. Wierd.
Creepy factor for this episode? It's actually pretty high; Meglos needs a human body to bond with to effectively double as the Doctor, but when his control starts to break down and the human tries to escape, the Doctor-facade begins to break down and we see Tom Baker painted green and covered with sharp quills, then he has to retreat to the sahdows to gather his strength.
K9 is once again next to useless. After being short circuited in The Leisure Hive when he takes his impromptu swim at Brighton, he's now unable to fully recharge for the entire episode and has to be dragged around. Gah. I mean I like K9 but it might be time to think about putting him in his kennel for a bit. Maybe give him his own series.
The adventure ends happily enough, but an interesting twist presents itself; Romana leans out of the TARDIS to tell the Doctor that she has just been called by Gallifrey, and they are wanted back on their home planet immediately...
NEXT EPISODE : FULL CIRCLE
Labels: K9, Romana, The 4th Doctor
posted by Sean Hoover @ 5:13 AM
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