Dragonfire

The Doctor and Mel arrive at the space colony of Iceworld, on the planet Svartos, where they encounter Sabalom Glitz in a bit of a cash crunch. Having sold his crew off and in debt for a delivery of rotten fruit, he is contemplating searching for the fabled Dragon's Treasure as a means to regain his fortunes. Glitz is unaware that he is being played by Kane, a notoroius criminal who can only survive in extreme cold temperatures. Mel befreinds a waitress named Ace and together they join the Doctor and Glitz in the ice catacombs beneath Iceworld, dodging Kane's deep-frozen mercenaries, and the Dragon itself as it protects its treasure...

Dragonfire is by far the best story of the 24th season. The mood is set right away from the opening moments of episode one when Kane's newest recruits are brought in to be frozen in the gloomy control centre. Again, as with Time and the Rani and Paradise Towers the sets are built on a large scale and there is a lot of overhead work done, with action happening on more than one level at a time. The ice catacombs, though, aren't really that well realized; anyone looking close enough will see that it's not even solid stuff, it's guaze or taffeta or something stretched out ceiling to floor. The colony feels like a proper spaceport comeplete with aliens of all shapes and sizes hanging out at the milkshake bar (shades of the Mos Eisly cantina from Star Wars) including a long Argolin last sen in The Leisure Hive.

When Jay and I watched this he had forgotten that Glitz was back, and often pondered aloud why they had brought him back. True, he could have been anyone but when you're dealing with a 3 episode story it cuts down on a lot of trust-gaining if you go off looking for treasure with someone you already know. Also, the story is rich in new characters already: Kane and his fixation on revenge all brought on by his broken heart - oh and he can kill people with the touch of his freezing cold hand; Belascz disillusioned at how Kane's previous affection for her has faded; and Ace, the plucky streetwise waitress from Earth who arrived on Iceworld as a result of a freak time storm. Glitz gets some better treatment this time around, although he does still speak in mad fluting ways.. and his musical cues from The Mysterious Planet are used again for his scenes.

The real triumph of this episode though is the Doctor. Sometimes the clown, still the mysterious friend, he has finally come into his character this time, with good chemistry between himself and all the other characters.

Oh there's a dragon. Sort of. It's a biomechanoid. Looks like the BBC's attempt at Alien just more rubbery. Initially it's a monster to be feared, but the truth of its existence reveals it to be not as hostile as originally believed. In the end, it too becomes a sympathetic character to be mourned when it meets its end, right along with Kane who would rather die than face eternity alone.

Mel. The screaming. THE SCREAMING. You can see at the climax of episode one when she and Ace come face to face with the dragon how pained Sophie Aldred (Ace) looks at having this shrilling right in her ear. The other climax to episode one, with the Doctor stupidly allowing himself to dangle over a sheer drop by the end of his umbrella, is just stupid. And how the hell did he and Glitz get down without getting killed?

Where was I going here... oh right. Mel. Out of nowhere, she decides to leave. A sudden impulse takes her and she decides to leave the Doctor and run off adventuring with Glitz. The Doctor is hurt and sulks initially but then wishes her well. After all if Glitz sold his crew off just for doing their job she'd be up on the block pretty quick after one scream. But the companion transition happens right away; at Mel's suggestion the Doctor offers Ace a place on board the TARDIS rather than take her back to her boring life on Earth. And Ace literally jumps at it, forming what will be remembered as one of the most dynamic Doctor-companion teams in the history of the show right along with the fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith, the second Doctor and Jamie, and these days the tenth Doctor and Rose.

So after starting on a pretty lame note the series regains some of its footing and the fan base would start to rebuild. The production team would start doing new things with the Doctor and Ace for the 25th anniversary season, starting with pitting the new duo against classic enemies...

NEXT EPISODE : REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS

Red

The TARDIS suffers a telepathic attack, bringing the Doctor and Mel to a controlled colony where all the inhabitants of the Needle are monitored by a system called White Noise. The system is breaking down, though, and something is driving the inhabitants to kill ... something Red. Every colonist in the Needle has been fitted with a chip that inhibits violent actions, but over time the chips have deprived the colonists of the ability to feel anything. White Noise needs to stop the killings in keeping with its function, but something Red has other plans...

Every utopian setup has something wrong with it, although the problems with the Needle are all there for anyone to see: the building itself is for all intents alive, and White Noise acts like a god using chips to curtail the violent impulses of the people who live there, and when they experience a thought outside the parameters of White Noise's functions, the computer edits them out. The Doctor, of course, won't stand for it, and when he is fitted with a chip against his will he is able to resist White Noise's intrusions but he becomes linked to Red and witnesses the killings first hand. Red, in turn, is able to see into the Doctor's mind and comes up with more creative ways to kill.

The whole identity of Red is a bit unclear for the longest time; is it a collective manifestation of everyone's repression? Is it a telepathic alien? It is a rogue computer virus? Whatever Red is, it knows what it is doing and speaks through its agents as it kills, chanting the word red over and over as it throttles the life out of whoever is nearby. And seeing as only White Noise identifies the behaviour as "red-lining", it is obviously somehow part of this process.

Melanie falls in with people who have left The Needle; people who realized that surrendering their control of themselves to White Noise was a mistake, but they are all still chipped and vulnerable to the influences of Red. Their recreational escape from the otherwise dull reality is a drug called "slow" which places them out of synch with time around them, slowing everything down to their perception and leaving them vulnerable to attack.

I'm going to have to admit though that as clever as some of it sounds, I fell asleep through this one. A lot. Maybe it was a bad week. Or maybe it just wasn't that gripping. I do remember enjoying bits that I was awake for, but the rest... I think I'll need to go back and see.

Later.

NEXT EPISODE : DRAGONFIRE

Flip Flop

The Doctor and Mel arrive on the planet Puxatornee not once, but twice at separate intervals some thirty years apart. Both times upon their arrival they discover that they are already wanted persons, either as dissidents undermining the rule of the slug-like uber polite Slithergees, or as Slithergee agents attempting to spy on the human population. In both threads of time, the Doctor and Mel are forced to travel in the TARDIS and assist in altering time for the betterment of the planet's human population, and in both threads the Doctor warns that changing the future can have unforseen consequences...

Flip Flop is actually pretty brilliant storytelling; it is a 4 episode story that has no defined beginning or end and more or less puts the Doctor and Mel into a loop of time as they try to free themselves from the goings on of Puxatornee. As their own understanding of the events around them unfolds they begin to realize that they are now in a race against time themselves to get off the planet before their alternate selves arrive in their own TARDIS.

I really picked the wrong days to try and listen to this audio, though; working nights you really need to have all your brain cells firing when concentration is required and I just kept dropping off and having to go back and listen to sections again. Flip Flop, like many of the other stories inserted into the background of season 24, maintains some elements of the televised episodes of the time; there's no real feel of a threat to the Doctor and Mel and the villains of the piece are hardly scary at all. The Slithergees are a bit of an absurdity, humbly requesting sanctuary on one of Puxatornee's moons and then gradually insinuating themselves into the power roles of the colony's government through political correctness. And the hint of nuclear war. And when the humans are in power and struggling to deal with the fallout of exactly that war, they are desperate and ugly, convinced that going back in time to stop the war is what they need to do, even though it may well land them under Slithergee control again.

This is actually the sort of thing I could see the new televised series trying to achieve; it's a clever premise, it's handled well and even if the Doctor seems to be a bit too calm throughout the show, he is still very much on form where his defence of the web of time is concerned. Mel is as always Mel, with more clever dialogue and still no screaming. I'm actually going to miss her. Or this new version of her.



NEXT EPISODE : RED

The Fires of Vulcan

An archaeological expedition recovers the TARDIS from the ruins of Pompeii in present day Earth. UNIT investigators are called in to identify the object. Hundreds of years in the past, the Doctor and Melanie visit the city during its final days. The Doctor knows well enough about the discovery in the future; it's something he has been trying to avoid for the longest time but now he has arrived at what he believes will be his last adventure. Melanie refuses to accept the Doctor's defeatist attitude and strikes out on her own to try and change the future, but as events progress and the travellers become more enmeshed in the past, it looks as if they will not escape the eruption of Vesuvius and will indeed die with Pompeii.

Here's an interesting twist on the whole "changing the past" thing. The Doctor knows he can't do it. He's told his companions often enough that they cannot do it, and on occasion has warned them that if they become part of history he will not be able to protect them from it. What happens, though, when he realizes that his own number might be up? Do the rules change for a Time Lord, or does he accept his fate and just wait for the end? After all he has the power to change it. And then there's Melanie to consider as well; does he doom her along with himself or does he try to at least save her life?

Fate and destiny. There's that old argument again that was thrust upon my OAC English class when we were reading Hamlet. Do we have power to change things? Or is it true what Jaye says in an episode of the inspired yet short-lived Wonderfalls, "We're all fate's bitch. Bend over for destiny,"

Against this struggle with the inevitible also comes the story of the Doctor and Melanie's visit to Pompeii. Their own fate is in question, but what about the people who live there? True to fashion they meet people and become involved in their lives, people who see the smouldering volcano next door as a chimney for Vulcan's furnaces where he works at his forge. They don't know what's coming, and history forbids the Doctor and Mel from saying anything, even if it means their own lives are at risk. Classic Doctor dilemma. In the face of this disaster, though, one wonders why he doesn't just leave and escape fate, absolve himself of the guilt of not being able to save anyone else this time. He thinks it's futile, that somehow he will just end up back here, and the TARDIS will be found later as it always has been. Sylvester McCoy goes a bit darker in this one, broody and moody, which I'm not a big fan of. He can't do defeated without sounding ... well... melodramatic.

The new series of Doctor Who due to start in April sees the tenth Doctor and his companion Donna in Pompeii as well; I'm not sure if they are there for the eruption but it's a pretty safe bet that they are. Why else would they go there? So will their adventure negate this one, will it overwrite and ignore The Fires of Vulcan? Or will it be adapted from this one, throwing continuity out the window and recycling key plot elements once more as was the case with Jubilee ? We'll find that out in April or May 2008.

Meanwhile...

NEXT EPISODE : FLIP-FLOP

Delta and the Bannermen

Delta, the Queen of the Chimerons and the last of her people, is on the run. Her planet has been invaded by Gavrok and his mercenary army of Bannermen, her people slaughtered. Custodian of the future of her species, Delta disguises herself as a tourist amongst the Navarino party going to Disneyland on Earth in 1959 on a Nostalgia Trips Bus. The Doctor and Melanie are also along for the ride, having won their places on the trip as the 10,000,000,000th customers at a galactic toll port, but a freak accident lands the tour group at a holiday camp in Wales. The Bannermen raiding party is not far behind, bringing danger to an otherwise dull part of the world.

See how well a premise can start up and then just go right into the crapper? If you dig sci fi farce along the lines of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, then the trend of absurdities on season 24 would be sort of up your alley, if, indeed, it was on par. Sadly it's not.

Now Delta not without its relative strengths; it's actually quite innovative and shot almost entirely on location (the exceptions being a brief scene inside the TARDIS and a few other simple sets) in a pleasant setting. It also has the first vocal incidental music score since The Gunfighters back in 1966, along with some re-imagined classic rock and roll tracks and similar inspired music. And the props people got the whole thing pretty good, kitting the cast out in retro 50's attire. But period looks have never been a problem for any arm of the BBC.

Where this one suffers, is, as I have said before, the realization of an alien tour group coming to earth in disguise. Clever, yes. Well executed? No. It just feels too... happy. And not engaging enough. I remember watching it for the first time back in 1987 and enjoying it because it was new, but then thinking I would never actually show this episode to someone as as elling point for the series. I did, however, show it to Jay yesterday and we did what we usually do and discussed the merits of the show (usually when we see a hot guy, and in this case we agree that young mechanic Billy is the eye candy of the piece) and a few of the detracting elements like mis-placed moments of musical score, the odd camera angle that did not make sense, and obvious gaffes like Sylvester McCoy clearly seen wearing his glasses as he drives a motorbike across a field. And even some downright funny bits where Gavrok kicks Mel to the ground.

For a 3 episode story, Delta has a pretty big cast, and some of them being very big names in British television. So I am told, anyways. Ken Dodd as the toll collector. Don Henderson as Gavrok. American actor Stubby Kaye as a bumbling American intelligence agent. And then there's this absolute gem of a character, the sensitive and lovely Ray, played by Sara Griffiths. I remember being really annoyed at the end of the show when Ray did not leave in the TARDIS with Mel and the Doctor; she would have been a great addition to the series as a period character. But no.

The show concludes on a happy note, with "Happy Days Are Here Again" playing as the TARDIS dematerializes (and the mysterious old Goronwy character winking leaving us to wonder just who this guy is - a Time Lord? The White Guardian? Just a really nice old guy who has strangers into his home for a cup of tea and a chat?). Happy days were not next, though, as the next episode in the televised series would be a bit more grim. But Big Finish have thrown a few new tales into the mix as well, with a few nasties out there for the Doctor and Melanie to face...

NEXT EPISODE : THE FIRES OF VULCAN

Bang Bang A Boom!

The Doctor and Mel arrive on Dark Space 8, a once famous and bustling space station now a semi-forgotten corner of the galaxy. In a case of mistaken identity, the Doctor assumes the guise of the station's new Commander just as the Galactic Song Contest is about to begin on board. The contestants are from all over the galaxy, including worlds who are currently attending a peace conference on another station. But the politics of the peace conference are alive and well at the competition, and someone is going to become a murderer.

Another comedy. You can tell from the get go as the chief medical officer makes a melodramatic log entry with orchestral fanfare in the background. The obvious satirical target here is Star Trek : Deep Space Nine but it feels more like Babylon 5 as we get to know more of the characters and their political relations with each other. The Doctor steps in easily to cover for the real commander, who was murdered in his shuttle, and Melanie takes the guise of his pilot. The characters come fast and furious, most notable being Angvia, the psuedo-Viking songstress with designs on the Doctor ("The universe can vait! I am a voman!") and flash-in-the-pan Earth pop sensation Nicky Newman who seeks solace with Mel because she is nonplussed at his stardom. Throw in a gaseous gestalt entity and a nervous gerbil-like Pakhar, along with the station's floundering medical officer ("I feel so.. helpless,") and there's the main players in the drama.

Although season 24 was on the whole played for a lot of laughs and without very heavy undertones, Big Finish's audios of the time seem to raise the bar on the humour a bit through more clever writing than what we were actually given in 1987. Not that the season was totally totally wrong, but there was a lot of room for improvement in production and even in the regular cast's performances (which get better with each Big Finish, as though they were reinventing their characters). I find myself liking McCoy's amiable chap seventh Doctor a lot more than some of his moodier and brooding sides that are to come when presented this way. He does quite well opposite Patricia Quinn (Magenta from Rocky Horror Picture Show) in their scenes together, and they're a marked contrast (style-wise) from when they worked together in the 1987 season finale, Dragonfire. It's always fun when someone famous is part of the show, isn't it?

I don't really have much else to say. It was fun. It was not the best but it never tried to be. As soon as you get anything written by Gareth Roberts it's a given it's not going to be the most serious script ever penned, but it will be interesting.

NEXT EPISODE : DELTA AND THE BANNERMEN

Paradise Towers

The Doctor and Mel head for Paradise Towers, a massive apartment block known for its architectural vision and flawless design. When the TARDIS arrives, though, the complex has deteriorated into a slum under seige from within. The residents prey upon each other, all-girl street gangs roam the corridors and deface the walls with graffitti, the caretakers have formed a totalitarian regime, and the automated cleaning machines have embarked on a killing rampage.

On a lot of levels Paradise Towers is sheer brilliance. Hay sat in on this episode with me and we both remarked that the direction was markedly different from other Doctor Who episodes, resulting in very effective use of the episode's large two-storey main set. As with any of the series' classic adventures, there's always a consciousness about money and there's only so much that can be done, but the gloomy hallways of the Towers are made very astmospheric though use of clever lighting and rearranging. If you look close enough you start to spot the same bits of graffiti here and there, but usually there's too much actually going on across the screen to stop and do that.

There's no real indicators if the Towers are in space somewhere or on a planet. Nobody goes outside, it's very claustrophobic. The sky outside does appear to be blue. The population is made up of a group of weary and mean caretakers whose spirits have been broken by their regimented lifestyles. They're supposed to be looking after the place, but their automated cleaning machines are taking matters into their own hands. Uh, claws. The Doctor realizes this right away when he is their prisoner, but they take a turn for the worst and start planning his execution. The residents of the Towers are made up of primarily old people, mostly old ladies. We get to meet them through Melanie when she is separated from the Doctor, and their first instinct is to start feeding her (and she needs it - but damn there goes her health consciousness right out the window pretty quick) so they can fatten her up and eat her. Melanie then falls in with a muscleguy named Pex (another extra right from the JN-T casting couch, Jay and I reckon) who is here on some agenda on his own - which turns out to be dodging the draft. And the final little group are the Kangs - teenage girls gone wild and playing a game of tag in the corridors and broken up into three separate colour camps: red, blue and yellow. Oh, primary colours, I just got that now. The last yellow Kang is no more by the time the Doctor and Mel arrive, and the Doctor spends most of his time with the red Kangs and their leaders Fire Escape and Bin Liner (yes, names are everything).

Jay and I weren't sure if there was some kind of message in the subtext of the show. Is this some critique of subsidized housing? An examination of the stupidity of trying to work while governed by a rule book? (Take that CUPW!) Is it a comment on how society breaks down and tribal warfare begins when people are forced to exist together in small spaces with depleting resources? Sure people are dying, the residents are turning into cannibals and something really nasty is lurking in the basement screaming that it is hungry, but that's all pretty simple stuff isn't it?

It's good to keep in mind that this is the second proper televised adventure with the seventh Doctor and Melanie, and it feels as if a bit of time has gone by. There's some friendly teasing between the two of them now, and the Doctor is starting to come into his own. He's started to carry an umbrella around with him now, and his tendancy to muddle up proverbial sayings that was so painfully established in Time and the Rani has been thankfully dropped. Problem is, since they're getting along so well and everything is cheerful, their relationship is a bit boring. There's no sexual chemistry between them (not that there ever was between any of the Doctors and companions until recent times) so we're left with two friends on their merry way through the galaxy in a police box. It's simplistic, I suppose, but neither of them has much going on beneath the surface here.

And then there's the screaming. Melanie. Screaming. Screaming. Melanie. My ears.

The incidental music is pretty good, some of it done as to keep in pace with the actions of the characters on the screen, whether they be walking, flinching from something that happens in front of them, or even turning their head slightly. Paradise Towers only really suffers because of the dialogue. The potential for this to be more gripping is all around. Maybe it also needs more blood. It might even need some swearing. But it could be really really scary right up until we find out what's really down in the basement of the building. Oh and the robotic cleaner in the pool could have drowned Melanie. Or Pex. Or, as Jay and I would have appreciated, Pex could have taken off his shirt (although some of those muscles are padding we suspect).

When this one comes out on DVD I'm going to be right there to get it from the UK. I do not know when this is going to be, though. But as I have said before, my region-free DVD player downgrades the image a bit and turns tacky bright sharp cheap video image into something a little more like film quality; it adds entirely new levels to the way some of the all-video episodes look, and I think Towers could look quite good that way.

I'll let you know.

NEXT EPISODE : BANG BANG A BOOM!

Unregenerate!

The Doctor's been locked up in an asylum, the walls of which echo with the screams and cries of the other patients around him. The TARDIS returns to Earth without him, and Melanie realizes that her friend is in trouble but beyond her reach. Meanwhile, the powers in charge of the asylum are making deals with people on Earth to collect them the day before they die and siphon off their memories to preserve them - but towards what ultimate end?

I have to admit, this one went a totally different direction from where I thought it was headed. Melanie has to survive without the Doctor for over half of the story, and when she does find him there's not much left of his mind to engage. The staff of the institute are aware that he is a Time Lord, and that he has recently regenerated, and at times it feels as if the persona that is the seventh Doctor is being wiped out and the sixth (or someone else) is trying to emerge. There' a certain amount of disharmony amongst the staff as well; Klyst (played by Jennie Lyndon - her first role in Doctor Who was on the big screen with Peter Cushing as the Doctor) is starting to feel a certain amount of responsibility for the people they are inadvertantly harming with their work, Louis shows compassion for them as soon as he recruits them but abandons it when they are collected, and Rigan just wants everyone to follow orders, and heaven help whoever disobeys. Add the latest human recruit, Johannes, to the mix and a strange alien named Shokhra in the next cel, and the place is brimming with well defined characters. And let's not overlook Mel's defacto companion for the episode, the Cabbie; he adjusts to the situation quickly and forms a protective interest in her, but not quite a romantic one.

And let me say: when the truth about what's going on in the institute came out, I was really surprised.

If this actually was the second adventure with the seventh Doctor, it's debatable if it would have flown on television. For starters the effects of the show might have been too much; the institute is linked to a facility in space on an asteroid (shades of the tenth Doctor's predicament in 2007's Smith and Jones). But there's the sudden absence of the seventh Doctor; with the audience still in a bit of shock after the regeneration it wouldn't be too wise to remove the character and drive him nuts. Still, this is all retcon and the rules are different.

The joy of retcon is anyone can get in on it. Big Finish does it for as many aspects of Doctor Who as they can (including Sarah Jane Smith, the Daleks, Cybermen, UNIT and Professor Bernice Summerfield), Magic Bullet got a piece with the Kaldor City adventures, and BBV are in on it as well, going beyond the bounds here and there, including their own sequel to the seventh Doctor's debut story...

NEXT EPISODE : THE RANI REAPS THE WHIRLWIND

Time and the Rani

The TARDIS is shot down over the planet Lakertya and crash lands. Mel is left inside for dead but the Doctor is dragged out by the Rani and one of her Tetrap henchmen. The Doctor regenerates while unconscious, the sixth Doctor's larger features giving way to a smaller successor, and leaves the Doctor at the mercy of the Rani. While Mel is rescued by one of the native Lakertyans, Ikona, and learns of the Rani's suppression of the planet for her experiments, the Doctor is duped into helping her through trickery, but the Rani requires him further as a componant of an experiment that will give her control over time.

So that's it. Sixth Doctor gone. The regeneration happens right before the titles roll - the first time Doctor Who has ever started this way - and then we're hit with a new opening sequence (the starfield sequence that started with Tom Baker's face back in The Leisure Hive finally replaced) and a new arrangement of the theme song (which sounds like it's being played through a kazoo). And the regeneration itself is done in a very clever way; so clever, in fact, you might even think that Colin Baker was there for it, but he wasn't. Nope. Sylvester McCoy in a wig, concealed by special effects. The story was actually written with regeneration in mind, but it was hoped that Colin Baker would return for one last story and be killed off in the end, which he rightfully refused to do (there's even commentary about this back in the novel Synethspiens - gotta love retcon!) When the new seventh Doctor does make his actual entrance/recovery a few minutes later, he's still confused by his regeneration, although not on the edge of death/lunacy as has been the case in previous tales. The new Doctor has a faint Scottish burr to his voice, and he seems to be picking up on the second Doctor's tendancy to clown around and be goofy.

Jay was back in on it with me for this one, which was nice since honestly, there's not much joy in watching this one alone. The series was in terrible trouble at this point in its history; seen as a joke within the BBC itself and the ratings sagging all around despite Bonnie Langford brought in midway through the previous season to make it a more family-oriented show. The solution in the minds of the BBC brass was to facelift the whole thing, and Colin Baker had to go. The script was still written with him in mind, and it still sounds like him in places, which makes for an interesting bit of regeneration theory; the last vestiges of his previous self still there, not ready to go yet.

I don't really know why this one feels so forced and so bad. All the elements are there. New look. Kate O'Mara as the Rani playing it up impersonating Bonnie Langford's Melanie. More guest stars including Mark Greenstreet (a real hottie although his costume totally eliminates any of his attributes) Wanda Ventham, and Donald Pickering (both appeared in The Faceless Ones back in 1967). New monsters in the form of the bat-like Tetraps. Pretty cool special effects.

But then there's the script by Pip and Jane Baker. Some of ther performances are less than their best. The direction needed help. And then there was the screaming.... oh the SCREAMING. There's a moment where Melanie just stands there and screams. Doesn't run. Doesn't fight. SCREAMS. And when she is finally saved she doesn't exactly make haste to run away from what's scaring her so much. And why does the Doctor go through every costume worn by his previous selves before arriving at his own new look - that questionable question mark vest.

I think Jay and I agreed with the Rani at the start of episode 1 where she says "This is idiotic!". Yeah she's supoosed to be speaking to the Doctor but maybe she's gotten a look at the script a few pages ahead.

Now that I've had some extra time to enjoy the sixth Doctor, though, I find myself more resentful than usual towards this episode. I really feel cheated as a fan. At least with Spiral Scratch we got some set-up as to why the Doctor was regenerating in the first place; he can take a lot of abuse but if the Rani's attack on the TARDIS was enough to trigger a regeneration, it should have absolutely killed Mel. And if it has been me and the TARDIS was crashing in my script, I'd have the inside of the sucker in flames for a change, bash it up a bit.

In the end, the new Doctor promises Mel "Oh I'll grown on you,", which sounds like more of producer John Nathan-Turner's indirect commentary to the fans, much akin to "I am the Doctor, whether you like it or not!" back at the end of The Twin Dilemma, which feels like a lifetime ago now.

The combination of the seventh Doctor and Melanie went on to be one of the less-favoured duos of the series, but thankfully Big Finish have worked their magic on this era as well as the previous season to bring out some new adventures for them and give them a bit more to do, some more intelligent dialogue in keeping with the audience's expectations.

Let's see.

NEXT EPISODE : UNREGENERATE!

Spiral Scratch

A visit to the Doctor's friend Professor Rummas on his library-world, Carsus, brings the Doctor and Melanie face to face with the grim image of Rummas' murder - and the Doctor's. Somehow the time lines have become damaged, and various Doctors and Melanies from different universes are crossing paths on the same mission: to solve the mystery of the Lamprey family before reality unravells all around them.

I hate multiple universe stories. Hate em hate em hate em. That is, if they're not done right. That old "alternate universe" clause gets bandied around far too much in science fiction for my liking, and although the Doctor only legitimately goes to such places twice in the televised series (maybe three times, we're still not sold on the events of Battlefield taking place anywhere but on this Earth), the phrase comes up to dismiss continuity errors and sloppy research by writers.

So Gary Russell wants to write about the multiverse. And you know what, he does okay. His plot threads never get away from him, the ideas are not too challenging to follow, and despite the fact that events are whipsawing all across time and space - indeed, some events are revistied several times from the perspective of different Doctors - it never gets confusing to the extent that the reader wants to throw the book away in disgust.

When I say multiple Doctors, though, we're not talking the whole set of six showing up, but different universe versions of the same - the sixth - Doctor. Essentially they're all the same, the most different one being the one all dressed in black with a horrid scar down his face, but he's not akin to the Valeyard, he's just the Doctor in black. And the same can be said of the different versions of Melanie, including a version of her from Earth where Rome's empire never fell, and a hybrid human-Silurian Mel. All different, and all the same. There are even glimpses of Peri, Evelyn, and Frobisher at times. No Grant, though.

Do I buy into the Lampreys being a real monster threat? Sort of. From how they are described I am more reminded of the Fendahleen than anything, but I have just looked up a picture of a lamprey on wikipedia and I am reminded of how creepy those things really are. Okay, I buy it. They're bad. And intelligent as well as ugly.

Remember back when I was doing Synthespiens and I said how I loathed writers who decided they would write THE last story before a pivotal event in the series' history? This is one of those books. This is meant to be THE final adventure for the sixth Doctor. And this time I do not mind. Owing to certain foolish decisions at the BBC back in 1986 we were cheated out of a final story for the sixth Doctor; there was no closure, no noble end, nothing. Just a cop-out. The last time we saw the Doctor in this incarnation on our screens was when he and Melanie left the Time Lord space station after the Doctor's trial was finished. The sixth Doctor never got fleshed out properly; we never really got to know him until years later when writers were allowed to go back and give him more adventures and new companions. Doctor Who is not one of those series where the phrase "too little too late" applies; I'll admit that I was never keen on the sixth Doctor before simply because I never got to see enough of him, and what I did see I did not enjoy. Well, my opinion changed over the years, and now that I have come to the end of his run (at least for now) I can say that I will miss him. Thanks to the efforts of the writers for BBC Books, Virgin Books and Big Finish, this Doctor has been allowed to ascend to a more noble stature than he was previously granted, which makes his departure from the televised series all the more irritating and sad.

NEXT EPISODE : TIME AND THE RANI

The Wishing Beast and The Vanity Box

A mysterious signal brings the TARDIS to a secluded region of space where the Doctor and Mel meet a pair of old ladies living in a small cottage. The ladies are sisters, one half mad, and they both greet Mel as a heroic traveller in space and time, promising her a meeting with the Wishing Beast, who will grant her her greatest desire. The Doctor is rightfully suspicious and discovers a presence on the world is trying to make contact but is being stifled from breaking through. The warning that is sent out is dire, but surely two harmless old ladies can't be the cause of such dismay?



Oh yes they can. Both posessed by powers that cannot be fully grasped, they lure travellers to their domain and treat them like heroes, only to feed them to the Wishing Beast and leave them as non-corporeal entities. But the agony of the lost souls never ends there, as the essence of the travellers is peeled away layer by layer by the Beast as it returns to feed on them time and again.

Creepy. Old people always get a bum deal in sci fi; they're almost always posessed by some evil force, or they're older than old and seething with evil power. Or they're just plain evil. Sure there's the odd one who is a benevolant type, but the baddies far outnumber them, especially when it's a pair of old ladies living on their own (there's more of that to come in Paradise Towers). Is it cliche? Not exactly. Sucking up the remaining essence of the disembodied with a vacuum... that might be. And then there's the true nature of the Beast itself; there's enough hints dropped about who it could be across the whole story that the blind and the deaf could see and hear it coming.

The Wishing Beast is played out across three episodes, leaving one single episode as another one-off adventure, The Vanity Box.

Box picks up right where Beast ends, with the Doctor and Mel arriving in the swinging 60s looking for somewhere fabulous and finding miracle time restoring makeover magic in the backstreets of London. Or somewhere in England. Maybe it was Manchester. But there's a new salon in town, with a new man running things, and people are coming out of it with years knocked off them.

Unlike the previous 3-part and 1-part combo, I.D. and Urgent Calls, both stories here are linked together not just by mere reference but by actual progression of events, with the very French sounding Mr Coiffure (there's a shock) the salon owner unwittingly acting as the agent of an alien entity. The Doctor mixes with the locals who sound like classic 1960s characters from Coronation Street, and then for the third time in the series he does drag.

At this point, Big Finish have not produced any further adventures for the sixth Doctor and Melanie Bush, and as an interesting end to the episode, Melanie makes a wish that her travels with the Doctor could continue on indefinitely. Whether this was intentional or not remains to be seen, but once more there is this feeling that Big Finish are quietly tidying up their own continuity as if they're moving on. I've still not heard if their license is being renewed for these adventures or not, but in time we shall see.

NEXT EPISODE : SPIRAL SCRATCH

Thicker Than Water

On a whim, the Doctor decides to take Mel to visit his old friend and former companion, Evelyn Smythe. Happily married to her old flame Justice Rossiter, Evelyn is now an influential figure in the political theatre on the planet Vilag during its reconstruction after the Killoran invasion. Protests to destroy all machinery and devices left from the war are now the hot topic, the loudest voice being Evelyn's new stepdaughter, Sophia. The day the Doctor and Mel arrive violence breaks out, and Vilag is once more on the brink of destruction, this time from within, with Evelyn caught in the middle.

Evelyn, as you may have noticed by now, never had a farewell scene or story. Clever Big Finish; they've given her a happy ending of sorts here with her new life with Rossiter, complete with a flashback to when she actually did leave the Doctor. Her departure hurts him, you can tell by the tone his voice takes when she says she is going to stay with Rossiter, but by an interesting switch of circumstance when the Doctor and Mel come face to face with Evelyn there's an awkward pause and even a slight bit of tension between the two companions. Why Evelyn should feel anything about the Doctor having a new companion travelling with him is hard to say, considering she did leave him. If anyone should be upset, it should be the Doctor at having been so casually discarded.

Political situations on Vilag have not gotten any better after the invasion; all three nations are now united as one but the internal strife over what to do with the Killoran remnants is causing friction on all levels. And somewhere in there, someone has their own agenda just to suit themself. Where the temptation would be to have a second invasion attempt seeing as this is a sequel, thankfully it is not the case; the struggle of the world to put itself back together and carry on is far more interesting, especially with an old "friend" like Evelyn enmeshed in it.

I liked this one. A lot. I liked it a lot better than a novel called Instruments of Darkness, a BBC novel by Gary Russell which also features the first meeting between Evelyn and Mel, but under very different circumstances. All I really enjoyed about Instruments was the Doctor's rant early in the adventure when chided by Mel to return a "borrowed" Volkswagen beetle (the writers trying so hard to be trendy back then - the eighth Doctor actually had one as a sad replacement attempt for Bessie); he insists that Grant would let him keep the car (the last time we hear that name to date) and then muses that Evelyn would as well, and would make him a chocolate cake while she was at it.

What else did I like? The story just felt more real, and the whole feel of Vilag was recreated through the characters who survived the invasion, and the mention of those who were not so fortunate like the lovestruck couple the Doctor and Evelyn befriended on their first adventure there. It's also got a bit of a harder edge to it with the abduction of Evelyn and Mel, and Mel getting smacked around a bit (and you might not think she deserves it, as she is being better written in audio than she was on television, but just wait... you won't like her after a few season 24 episodes), and the terrible truth of what's going on behind the scenes on Vilag. And to close off the whole Evelyn storyline, she receives a surprise visit by the seventh Doctor with some news from her past and his future to share. Clever, though; with no definitive final Evelyn story, Big Finish can go back and pair her with the sixth Doctor as long as they continue producing episodes on CD.

So there's not much more time left for the sixth Doctor and Melanie. Change is coming. Just a few more adventures.

NEXT EPISODES : THE WISHING BEAST and THE VANITY BOX

Catch - 1782

A simple visit to Mel's uncle John goes awry when Melanie is flung backwards in time to 1781. Her coming into contact with a prototype metal causes the TARDIS telepathic circuits to react, but once the Doctor finds her in 1782 events have already moved ahead at an alarming pace. The amnesiac Mel has been kept in a locked room and watched over by her ancestor Henry Hallum, and now he is determined to keep her under his care, even going so far as to marry her and trap her in her own family's past.

I already said simple, didn't I? It is just that. No aliens, no invasions, no end of the world dilemmas, just a back in time story. The whole bit about Melanie getting caught up in her own past starts to get a little too Day of the Daleks for me though; this debate about just that concept has been a lively one between myself and my friend Greg for the last few weeks, and I am still not convinced that people altering their own pasts can escape the paradox they find themselves in. But it's all down to point of view, apparantly.

Note the difference in Mel's reaction to being stranded in this adventure, as opposed to her previous marooned status in The Juggernauts. The effect of travelling through time without the protection of the TARDIS leaves her confused and frightened and without most of her memory, but she retains enough of it to know that without the Doctor coming to get her, she is stuck. She later laments about wasting six months of her life in 1782, which is odd since she lost three months on Lethe waiting for the Doctor to show up there and wasn't too bothered. Maybe the love interest of Geoff on Lethe was enough to keep her optimistic. That or Davros was a nicer man than Hallum.

Hallum's not exactly a bad man; when Mel is found in his home it is mere months after his own wife, Jane, has passed (the ancestor where Mel gets her middle name, it would seem) and he feels duty bound to protect her and see her back to health as he was powerless to help his own wife get better. But we all know how rebounds work, so when the Doctor shows up with uncle John in tow, Hallum is far from pleased. His housekeeper, Mrs McGregor, would be pleased to see Mel leave, though as she has her widowed eyes set on the master of the house herself.

So back into space and time for the Doctor and Melanie. And now they've visited Melanie's family, why not drop in on an old friend of the Doctor's next?

NEXT EPISODE : THICKER THAN WATER

The Juggernauts

Separated during an attack on a deep space cruiser, Melanie and the Doctor eventually find themselves on the colony world Lethe. Melanie's escape pod brings her into the company of Professor Vaso, himself a crash survivor, and some three months later the Doctor arrives - on a mission from the Daleks. Vaso is in fact Davros, escaped from his Dalek captors and now attempting to carve himself a new niche to continue his experiments, but the Daleks see his newest project as a threat to them: a breed of machines called the Juggernauts, but the Doctor knows them as the Mechanoids...

Is it just me or is this concept of Davros trying to get into big business starting to wear a bit thin? It was great in Revelation of the Daleks when he was bleeding Kara's factories dry on Necros, and then the Big Finish audio Davros took the whole concept even farther (even if it was meant to take place earlier) but now... I can't help but feel it's been done enough. Davros is indeed a cutthroat individual, having sold out everyone in his past to get what he wanted, even the entire Kaled race (Nyder would have gotten his eventually if you ask me), but he's never going to be perfect in a three piece business suit. Exterminating the shareholders as a means to succeed seems a bit heavy-handed even for him, more an act of desperation than a well thought out move.

The real shocker in this whole adventure is Melanie. Well, once you get past the Doctor co-operating with the Daleks. Mel has a lot more guts here than ever before, even going so far as to (gasp!) kiss a boy! Yes, Mel in involved in an office romance. And why not - she's been marooned for three months with no sign of the Doctor but makes sure that it's known she'll be off with him again the minute he shows up. And when he does there's no recrimination, no rebuke, just relief to see him again and joy at the idea of resuming their travels together. I can almost liken it to Zoe's relationship with her boss in The Indestructible Man - the computer geek finding happiness.

They said The Juggernauts was a gritty tale, and to an extent it is, but it's not as extreme as it could have been. Davros' improvements to the Mechanoids are of course gross and scary but nothing he hasn't done before. His intent is to create an army of perfect Dalek-killing machines and purge the universe of his creations to start from scratch, but are these oversized tennis balls really the instrument of their destruction? I'm not sure how many people really bought into that scheme back in 1965 when the Daleks ran into the Mechanoids in the final episodes of The Chase, but there was enough of a battle sequence to make people ignore their disbelief and enjoy the carnage. There's a good old fashioned clash in here again but it's just noise, really. Shoot. Dalek scream. Mechanoid jibberish. Boom. More shooting. Repeat.

I have had this CD in my collection for two years, waiting for the blog to roll around this far to enjoy it. Maybe there was too much pressure on it from me to be something it's clearly not, which is to say a good Dalek story. It's more the continuing saga of Davros where the Daleks play a less and less significant part. In episode four Davros says that after centuries have gone by he can no longer be held responsible for the Daleks, and I am starting to agree. Once upon a time as far as the televised episodes went there was no having one without the other, but after a while it's good to have them part ways. The news that Davros is returning to the new series next year to face tenth Doctor David Tennant (and companions galore in a season finale/series pause to end all) is interesting, and I am wondering what the angle is going to be. Still a Dalek master, or is he working on other things now?

Let Davros go. Let him and the Daleks part ways; stop throwing them back together when the result is always going to be the same.

NEXT EPISODE : CATCH-1782

The One Doctor

At the vulgar end of time, the Doctor and Mel come to the planet Generios to answer a distress call. When they arrive, though, they discover a pair of cons masquerading as the Doctor and companion, after having saved the planet from a staged invasion. But when a real threat arrives and demands the three great treasures of the Generios system, the cons crumble and become unwilling companions to the genuine articles as they scour the system for the treasures. Hilarity ensues.

Yes, it's a comedy.

Okay so it's not a bad comedy. It's pretty funny actually, played totally for laughs and giving Colin Baker and Bonnie Langford some great material together as the Doctor and Mel. Their relationship carries on much as it did on screen back in The Trial of a Time Lord, perhaps a bit less saccharine laced; and they really sound like they are enjoying working together on CD despite their very short on-screen acquaintance. Bonnie Langford seems to have relaxed in the role, as if there's no pressure on her to save the show now with her star power. And.... she doesn't scream! She threatens to at one point, but thankfully it never happens.

Since it's not to be taken seriously it's hard not to enjoy Melanie's struggle to assemble the Shelves of Infinity (which anyone who has ever grappled with an IKEA Billy system will appreciate), or the Doctor's arrival in a Weakest Link inspired game show where the contestants have to stump a supercomputer under the watchful eye of an Anne Robinson-esque hostess. The imposters, Banto Zane and Sally Anne, split off and accompany Mel and the Doctor respectively on their tasks once they realize the truth of matters; as far as they were concerned the Doctor was just the stuff of legend, and they never expected the real thing to come along.

The One Doctor fits in snugly with the established tone of the televised series at the end of The Trial of a Time Lord, even if it is a bit more clever than some moments in Terror of the Vervoids and almost all the scripts in the show's 24th season, but it's that same bubbly hey-we're-just-kidding tone that started driving people away. Thankfully this trend is coming to a screeching halt (at least I've heard it is) with the next story...

NEXT EPISODE : THE JUGGERNAUTS

Millennial Rites

It's 1999 and the Doctor and Melanie are in London in time for the festivities of New Years Eve. Melanie looks up some old friends while the Doctor gets in touch with some people from his own past, and both paths lead to the same place: a plan to run a computer program that will over-write reality and allow a brooding sentience a foothold into the world.

Again, another novel I read a long time ago when it first came out in 1995, and I mention it here as more of a continuity piece than a stellar piece of plot and writing. Rites was the first story in the series to take place on New Years Eve between 1999 and 2000, playing on the growing concerns the media had for the future of the world when all the computers hit 01/01/00 (and obviously nothing happened), and since that time Millennium Shock and the first TV movie on FOX also have been set on the same evening - and none of their events coincide despite the fact that two tales take place in the same city. Ah continuity. How can this series have none when it counts? That aside though, Rites fits into the tapestry of what was, at the time, a loose arc of future-current history in the series' fledgling new adventures range as published by Virgin press, and draws on previous tales to bring characters together in its narrative. Anne Travers, menaced by the Yeti in The Web of Fear is now a Dame, and after the events at New World University in Downtime is petrified if another incursion by the Great Intelligence. Her parinoia is joined by that of Ashely Chapel, now a millionaire but in the past an associate of Tobias Vaughan during his bid to sell out Earth to the Cybermen. They have the best of intentions, as the Doctor cannot always be there to save them, but despite his warnings their plan unleashes an even worse fate where his own dark nature begins to seep through in the form of the Valeyard.

To me, Rites is more of a piece of the puzzle than it is a stellar bit of writing on its own. I don't remember buying into the alternate-world scenario very much while I was reading it, where Melanie is transformed into Melaphyre and is an authority figure. Even with that freaky Bride of Frankenstein hairdo on the cover, I don't really think Mel was ever leadership material. Still, once it's all back to normal things slot back into place; Mel and the Doctor heading back to parts unknown but the Doctor's fate already known to the readers (this was at the time the only novel written to fill the gap between Trial of a Time Lord and Time and the Rani, but now there is substantially more material in various media to extend their time together).

I promise I'll read it again more thoroughly; at best I just skimmed it trying to reignite my old thoughts. And if I have something better to say, I'll be back to edit.

Meanwhile...

NEXT EPISODE : THE ONE DOCTOR

Business Unusual

The Doctor arrives in Brighton in 1989 and discovers that Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart has disappeared - perhaps been abducted - while investigating the insanely low-priced video game console manufactured by a company called SeneNet. Knowing that the Brigadier would not go comparison shopping without very good reason, the Doctor begins a search and rescue mission for his friend, braving the dangers of SeneNet's security, and coming face to face with the person he has been desperately attempting to avoid for years now: a computer programmer called Melanie Bush.

The plot's pretty thin on the ground here, and SeneNet turns out to be the Nestenes again making another bid to conquer Earth for their own purposes. The hallmark of a Nestene invasion plot has never been complexity; find plastic, inhabit it, invade, kill. Oh yeah, defeated by the Doctor, forgot that part.

So here she is now. Mel. Last seen at the end of The Trial of a Time Lord, the Doctor returned her to the future point in time where she was pulled from and then went out of his way to stay away from her and delay the inevitible as long as possible. In this case the inevitible is progressing down the road to his possible future of becoming the Valeyard. Another inevitiblity might be going deaf from the screaming. The Doctor has hidden behind Grant, Frobisher and Evelyn to avoid this point in time, and his attempts to keep Mel from getting involved with him only serve to egg her on to do just the opposite.

Melanie Bush is, of course, one of the least favourite companions of all time; I'm sure a lot of fans rolled their eyes at the intro story before realizing that in print, no one can hear you scream. This is the sort of thing author Gary Russell likes to do when he writes a novel; take the unfinished plot threads and try to tie them back together, eben going as far as to make sure the sixth Doctor gets some time with the Brigadier, although the latter has now already done so in The Specrte of Lanyon Moor. The Brig's continuity with Brendan school is observed as well, although if memory serves (I haven't read this book since it was published in 1997) he has not gotten married to Doris yet, which would actually put Business Unusual before Spectre. Ah continuity. I would have to read it again to be totally sure. And draw myself a continuity map...

Mawdryn Undead
The Five Doctors
The King of Terror
Downtime
Business Unusual
The Spectre of Lanyon Moor
Battlefield

Yes I'm dipping into the future there.

Ah well. So the Doctor has met Melanie Bush at last and we start moving ahead back towards the televised series. It's been forever since Jay and I sat down and watched an episode together. Soon we shall... soon...

NEXT EPISODE : MILLENIAL RITES

He Jests At Scars

The Doctor has been destroyed. The Valeyard has won and is free to roam and plunder time and space in the TARDIS. At his side is companion Ellie Martin, a bewlidered young woman dumbfounded by the callousness and cruelty she sees him inflict. But the Valeyard's freedom has come at a terrible price; he alters history at a whim and sets in motion chains of events that shatter the web of time. Mel is sent by the remaining Time Lords to try to appeal to whatever shreds of the Doctor's character that may remain, but with reality collapsing all around them, is it too late?

Another of Big Finish's Unbound series, He Jests at Scars goes farther than previous installations and looks at the Universe without the Doctor. Michael Jayston reprises his role as the malevolant Valeyard with Bonnie Langford carrying on as Mel, but a more hardened Mel who has been changed by all she has seen. She's more determined, the's angrier, she's reconclied herself to the fact that she may have to kill, and best of all, she doesn't scream (imagine that din through headphones - no thanks). As far as the collapse of reality goes, Mel herself becomes a temporal anomaly here; she was only at the Doctor's trial as a result of being brought back in time, and with the Doctor gone, he will never meet her - a circumstance the Valeyard goes out of his way to ensure.

As a replacement companion, Ellie Martin is not exactly a good match for the Valeyard; she doesn't really get the implications of what is going on util it's far too late, despite the fact that she is witness to her terrorizing ways and she herslef is put in direct danger for him to achieve his goals. The actual character of Ellie Martin was originally created for Big Finish's spin off audio series Sarah Jane Smith - and you can guess who the star of that one is.

It can only be assumed, then, that the Valeyard managed to do away with everyone who was witness to the Doctor's trial; the Inquisitor, the Keeper of the Matrix, the jury, Glitz, the Master and even the pair of twit guards who ran out the door at the first sign of trouble. It can also be assumed that Mel was protected from the carnage as she was within the Matrix, and she was pulled out by the Time Lords to help them fight the monster they had created. Typical, as the Doctor would say.

But of course it didn't really end like that. As I said before, it ended with the Doctor and Mel leaving in the TARDIS and presumeably he was off to return her to her proper place in space and time - to his future - and then carry on. And carry on he does, even if the adventures in print and audio are not officially regarded as canon. Luckily the guardians of the series who kept the books and audios coming are still a bit driving force behind the new televised adventures and they keep in mind what was done during those lean years where there were no new episodes on television. The further adventures of the sixth Doctor during this span are by far the most interesting of any range, as there is potential all over for him to go anywhere and meet anyone. Colin Baker went on record when he took the role as wanting to remain in the role of the Doctor for longer than namesake Tom Baker's seven years, and with all the material produced by Big Finish, Virgin Publishing, and BBC Books there is at least enough published material to seem as if he achieved it.

The televised series would return 9 months later with a new Doctor, Colin Baker being released from the role early (which is French for he was fired), but as far as this blog is concerned he's still got a long way to go...

NEXT EPISODE : THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE

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 Trial of a Time Lord - episodes 9 to 12 : Terror of the Vervoids

Still reeling from the shock of Peri's death on Thoros Beta, the Doctor uses the Matrix to gather evidence for his defence. The Doctor looks to the future, to a time when he is travelling with a new companion named Melanie, and they answer a distress call on a luxury spaceliner headed from the planet Mogar to Earth. The call has been faked, though, and the commanding officer, Commodore Travers, is less than pleased to see the Doctor on his ship as their paths have apparantly crossed before. Also on board the ship are members of the Mogarian race, as well as the eminent agronimist Sarah Laskey and her team of researchers. As the flight is underway, the passengers and crew being to diasppear, murdered by forces unknown, until the ship is overrun with the planet-creatures known as Vervoids. The Vervoids are a result of experiments by Laskey, who has plans to use the race to perform menial tasks on Earth, but they have become self aware and view all mammalian life as a threat to them. As the bodies begin to pile up on a compost heap, the Doctor is forced to take drastic action and wipe out all the Vervoids before they reach Earth - committing an act of genocide...

There's a lot to be said about what goes on in these four episodes, even if they're not the best of the season. For starters there is the Doctor's growing conviction that the evidence is being tampered with at its source - confirmed by sequences he reviewed in priavte now being at odds with what the jury and the Inquisitor see in the trial room. The Valeyard is all smug about it and says that the Matrix cannot lie, and it's a dead cert now that he's somehow behind it. By now the sniping across the courtroom is getting a bit tiresome - every few minutes the action is interrupted, including one pointless demonstration where a sequence is rewound to show a poisoning victim.

Melanie Bush, the new assistant, is played by Bonnie Langford, and she's always smiling, and always bouncy, and a health freak, and she has this squeaky voice ... and the most shrill scream EVER in the history of the series. Personally... I don't like her. Too perky. I have this urge to backhand the TV when she starts the screaming. Oh the SCREAMING. Why do we need this? WHY? And why is the Doctor so whipped in her presence? Stupid stupid stupid.

The Vervoids. Hostile plant people. Not like the Krynoid, though; they have a pack mentality and a highly developed sense of self-awareness and parinoia. And poison thorns. They're not realized the best - they're obviously just dude in rubber suits with thick leaves glued on, but it's hard to do it convincingly on any budget. Their genocide doesn't exactly leave a yawning gap in an evolutionary sequence, but they're still a species, and they're all gone now, and it's all the Doctor's fault, so whether he's simply a meddler or not, he's now a mass murderer.

The Time Lords. Interesting how they sit there all judgemental about the Doctor saving Earth from extinction at the hands )leaves?) of the Vervoids yet these are the same people who two regenerations ago sent the Doctor to do just that very thing to the Daleks. (Although the Dalek thing has now been retconned in light of the new series - see future blogs about any Dalek story from 2005 and onward).

So at the end of it the Doctor almost proves his point, that he is needed where he goes and he helps when asked - and he almost is home free until the truth of how he deals with the Vervoids comes to light. Foolish if you ask me. Like he's played right into the Valeyard's hands.

NEXT EPISODE : THE ULTIMATE FOE