The Trial of a Time Lord - episodes 13 and 14 : The Ultimate Foe
The trial is coming to its end. With the destruction of the entire Vervoid race now hanging over him, the Doctor must fight for his life, but cannot produce any witnesses to attest to his versions of events and back up his claims that the Matrix has been altered. Help arrives in the most unexpected form : Glitz and Mel are yanked from their time streams and delivered to the trial space station - by the Master! The Valeyard bridles at the presence of the Doctor's old foe, but with the testimony of Gltiz a lot of things become clear; Earth was moved across the galaxy and renamed Ravalox by the High Council of Time Lords themselves in an attempt to hide Gallifreyan secrets that had been skimmed out of the Matrix by Drathro's masters. The arrival of the Doctor and Peri threatened to break the scandal and the trial, along with altered evidence, cooked up to cover the truth, and the Valeyard was installed as court prosecutor with the Doctor's remaining regenerations as his reward for success. The Valeyard flees into the Matrix, pursued by the Doctor and Glitz, and a battle of wits ensues, with the survival of the Doctor and the Time Lord society itself at stake.
The real big revelation here is the true identity of the Valeyard. He's the Doctor. He is the future version of the Doctor, a distillation of all the Doctor's darker thoughts and nature, a possibility that could emerge somewhere between his twelfth and thirteenth (and final) incarnation. Bound by the Doctor's moral impulses to serve the greater good the Valeyard is powerless to emerge until the shady machinations of the High Council allow him the possibility of escape. The Doctor is, in effect, fighting himself, and the battleground of the Matrix proves to be full of traps and tricks as seen during the fourth Doctor's battle against Chancellor Goth in The Deadly Assassin.
So what's the Master's deal in all this? He's Glitz's boss, and had originally sent Glitz and Dibber to Ravalox to retrieve the secrets held by Drathro for his own means. The Master's plan stretches further though; with his arrival and the revelation about the fate of Earth, the High Council of Time Lords is deposed by an outraged public, and he sees this as an opportunity to seize power for himself. His revelations go farther, though, to include the fate of Peri: she is not dead, as was seen on the screens, but lived, and became Yrcanos's queen (although one would imagine she's going to have a bone to pick with the Doctor for leaving her behind if their paths ever cross again).
We know that the Valeyard cannot win; and when the Doctor emerges victorious he dodges an offer of the presidency and takes off with Mel in the TARDIS. This was the last time the sixth Doctor would appear in the regular series, although logically he cannot go on with Mel seeing as she is from his future. We do not see him return her to where she belongs, so as far as anyone knows there's this big temporal paradox out there, although in the years since the combined efforts of Virgin Publishing, Big Finish and BBC Books have made the most of this and created the further adventures of the sixth Doctor, giving him a massive amount of material in the end (ironic for the second shortest-lived TV incarnation of the Doctor). Of course, I'm going to talk about some of this material.
But before I do, another trip back to the Doctor Who Unbound range and a look of what might have been if the Valeyard had indeed won his case against the Doctor and become free...
NEXT EPISODE : ...HE JESTS AT SCARS
The real big revelation here is the true identity of the Valeyard. He's the Doctor. He is the future version of the Doctor, a distillation of all the Doctor's darker thoughts and nature, a possibility that could emerge somewhere between his twelfth and thirteenth (and final) incarnation. Bound by the Doctor's moral impulses to serve the greater good the Valeyard is powerless to emerge until the shady machinations of the High Council allow him the possibility of escape. The Doctor is, in effect, fighting himself, and the battleground of the Matrix proves to be full of traps and tricks as seen during the fourth Doctor's battle against Chancellor Goth in The Deadly Assassin.
So what's the Master's deal in all this? He's Glitz's boss, and had originally sent Glitz and Dibber to Ravalox to retrieve the secrets held by Drathro for his own means. The Master's plan stretches further though; with his arrival and the revelation about the fate of Earth, the High Council of Time Lords is deposed by an outraged public, and he sees this as an opportunity to seize power for himself. His revelations go farther, though, to include the fate of Peri: she is not dead, as was seen on the screens, but lived, and became Yrcanos's queen (although one would imagine she's going to have a bone to pick with the Doctor for leaving her behind if their paths ever cross again).
We know that the Valeyard cannot win; and when the Doctor emerges victorious he dodges an offer of the presidency and takes off with Mel in the TARDIS. This was the last time the sixth Doctor would appear in the regular series, although logically he cannot go on with Mel seeing as she is from his future. We do not see him return her to where she belongs, so as far as anyone knows there's this big temporal paradox out there, although in the years since the combined efforts of Virgin Publishing, Big Finish and BBC Books have made the most of this and created the further adventures of the sixth Doctor, giving him a massive amount of material in the end (ironic for the second shortest-lived TV incarnation of the Doctor). Of course, I'm going to talk about some of this material.
But before I do, another trip back to the Doctor Who Unbound range and a look of what might have been if the Valeyard had indeed won his case against the Doctor and become free...
NEXT EPISODE : ...HE JESTS AT SCARS
Labels: Melanie Bush, The 6th Doctor, The Master
posted by Sean Hoover @ 4:45 AM
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