Vengeance on Varos

The TARDIS stalls in mid flight, a situation caused by the deterioration of the transitional elements of the time rotor. Only zeiton-7 ore can be used to repair them, and the Doctor and Peri go to the planet Varos to get some. Trouble is, Varos is a former prison colony now seeking independence and its every resource is being controlled by the Galatron Mining Corporation, headed by the vile Sil. To keep the empoverished colonists in line, the Punishment Dome has been set up, the images of torture and execution being broadcast into every home as a lesson to those who would rebel. And guess where the TARDIS chooses to land...

There's no glossing over the fact that this is the most deliberately violent Doctor Who adventure ever, but for some reason it never seems to be that bad. True there is the image of a shirtless Jason Connery as Jondar being lasered to death as torture, and there are cannibals, but a lot of the torture in the Punishment Dome is imaginary; illusions that trick the mind into thinking the body is dying such as the sun-bleached desert illusion that the Doctor faces (which even leaves the Varosians watching feeling parched). Violence and torture are things Varosians come to accept as routine, even getting the chance to vote for their Governor to be lashed by a cell disintigration ray when his policies are not to the liking of the people. (Imagine how fast we'd go through Prime Ministers if we had that here). The state of terror that exists on Varos is such that the citizens are encouraged to spy on each other, even driving a wedge between husbands and wives.

Lording over it all with the ruling class of the planet is Sil, a diminutative sadistic creature from the planet Thoros Beta. The DVD cover above shows him in his glory; he's a slug. Although he looks like dog poo. The legless actor Nabil Shaban brings him to insane life, though, throwing himself into the role and cackling insanely as he watches people suffer, and throwing tantrums when things do not go his way. Producer John Nathan-Turner wanted to cast the most malignant creature ever with this one, but once again all the hype didn't quite live up to it and Sil is more a comical character than he is a credible monster. I remember back in 1985 when I was in grade 8 and I was reading the synopsis of the story in a zine, and the description I saw made me imagine ravers partying in the streets watching executions on screens overhead, not the tired worn out depressed mining couple, Arak and Etta, slumped in front of their screen in their living room, forced to watch hours of the torture. Either vision would work for this, I suppose.

Jay and I watched this together, although I'll admit we talked through most of it, making light of Peri's impractical outfit for the adventure (low cut top and shorts... riiight, that's just what you want to wear for space exploration) for the most part. For the show's broadcast on North American TV, the 45 minute episodes were halved down to 23 minutes to fit into a 30 minute time slot, resulting in some not-so-cliffhangers, some of which I remembered and pointed out as they came along. Jay would just shake his had and say "Are you kidding? What's suspenseful about that?"

Is there any suspense in Vengeance on Varos? Its claustrophobic setting certainly loaned itself to enough shadows for things to hide in, but in the end it just turned into corridor after corridor and mericore effects here and there. If it was supposed to be a comment on how much violence was on TV at the time, I'm not sure if the argument was made properly. It came along at roughly the same time as The Running Man, so some parallels can be drawn between the two, with heroic characters being thrown into the meat grinders of the Punishment Dome to keep the rest in line.

Oh well.

NEXT EPISODE : THE MARK OF THE RANI