4.37: Meglos

In which you will observe, he is a plant.

Broadcast: September-October 1980

Watched: November 2020

Meglos, Part One

“Some fifty years ago, I knew a man who solved the insoluble by the strangest means. He sees the threads that join the universe together and mends them when they break.”

Okay, I’d been putting this off because a) this story is ridiculous and b) I had it in mind it was a sort of last vestige of the Williams era (unspecified power sources, cultists in hats, and so forth). But actually I really enjoyed that. Maybe it just looks better coming so soon after Horns of Nimon.

Good things: the pirates’ vaguely Russian costumes. The model work, and integration with the CSO, when the spaceship lands is terrific – Star Wars influence clear again. The chronic hysteresis bit, which is more existentially terrifying than I remembered, and which the regulars actually take seriously for once. There’s a sort of sense of wonder in some of the scripting – the way Romana describes, “A great civilisation blown away to sand and ashes”, or the way Zastor describes the Doctor, as above.

Also – I quite like the trick of keeping the Doctor and co off stage for so long, so someone else can impersonate them.

Bad things: Zastor is either acting badly or being badly directed (”I have always argued-” “Well that’s certainly true” just doesn’t flow like it should). [Apparently this is atypical, and the actor, Edward Underdown, was ill and soon retired.] Bloody hell, those wigs. The parliament, which is a small cupboard, is silly. I totally missed the faith/science split until I looked at the Wikipedia page to check a character name.

It fundamentally makes no sense how plants could evolve an advanced civilisation without movement but I guess I’ll just have to run with that because it’s Doctor Who. Also, it makes no sense why people possessed by Meglos would have spikes. Or why, when he becomes the Doctor, he doesn’t.

Who voices Meglos? Do we know? [Crawford Logan, who plays an entirely different character.]

The fact Jacqueline Hill [who’d spent two years as Barbara, one of the first companions] is back in such a silly role feels odd but I can’t think what to say about it.

Actually, two other questions:

There’s a bit of a theme of decay and collapse this season. Is that conscious/deliberate?

Why does season 18 have 28 episodes, not the standard 26? [The producer, John Nathan-Turner, argued that the six parters were more trouble than they were worth, so persuaded the BBC to give them two more episodes.]

Meglos, Part Two

“I? Swear allegiance to Ti? I’ll swear allegiance to Ti with great pleasure.” The joke’s a bit telegraphed and clunks.

Anyway. Still enjoying this, and I have a theory about Doctor Who and tone: it’s easier to get right when the show is about something.

The show is, inherently, ridiculous and is conscious of it – from at least The Velvet Web, arguably from earlier – and so the winks to the audience about it are sort of built into the format. But at the same time, it needs to take the threat – even the ridiculous ones, like an evil cactus – seriously or the whole thing collapses.

That’s quite a difficult needle to thread. So my theory is that the series being about something makes it easier. To jump back a story, the people making The Leisure Hive may find the foamasi costumes ridiculous; but the story, about preserving and memorialising a civilisation that was wiped out in a 20 minute nuclear holocaust, isn’t ridiculous at all. So it becomes clearer that the winks are about specific things, not about the whole thing being stupid.

Which is why Hartnell, Pertwee, RTD and Moffat eras work, and the Williams era doesn’t. There’s nothing there *but* winks to the audience, and even when it threatens themes (Armageddon Factor 1) they tend to get forgotten.

None of which is really about Meglos, but I think it’s why this story just about works, despite being nuts.

Anyway. Other things. This is the opposite of a Doctor-lite episode. The two Doctors.

Tom & Lalla pretending to be bad actors feels like more of a meta commentary than anything you get in the Williams era – also Tom’s pretending to fall over isn’t notably different from his pretending he’s trying to fall over.

The last few minutes, with Doctor cheerfully wandering into the story as the locals announce he should be arrested and we see the Meglos/Doctor sneaking away obviously turning back into a cactus, is weirdly farcical.

Seriously, how the hell did a race of plants evolve the ability to manipulate time? 

Meglos, Part Three

This episode is a major landmark, by the way: the last episode broadcast in a world without me in it. I was born the day before the broadcast of part 4.

The titles still feel so much more modern than what came before, even though I’ve known them all my life. There’s probably a whole thesis to be written about stuff created for one Doctor that ends up more associated with the next. These will always be the Davison titles, but they were created for Tom; see also Ben & Polly, Sarah Jane, Rose, Clara...

Anyway. This is less fun because there’s less silly cactus pirate stuff and more Tigellan politics. I don’t really care about the Deons mounting a coup and chucking the Savants out. It’s not amusing enough. (Incidentally, the scene in which two Savants discuss the decahedron is really, really bad. Just written and played embarrassingly poorly. So is Romana’s “The Doctor?” when she sees Meglos.)

Caris screams when she sees Meglos’ face, not when she sees that a weird cactus hand is touching her on the shoulder. That doesn’t make sense. Neither does Meglos confessing his identity to her. Tom is having fun being the villain though.

The killer plants are probably better done than the ones in Planet of Evil, but it’s too well lit to be scary.

Romana being kidnapped by some pirates is a rubbish cliffhanger to pt 2. Who cares. The cultists burning through the ropes holding the big rock suspended above the Doctor is a much cooler cliffhanger here.

Was Jackie Hill’s return to Who commented on at the time? [No. No it wasn’t. Which is sad.]

Meglos, Part Four

“It’s the wrong Doctor!”

Babs 2 saving Romana’s life is pretty poorly done too. I do like Tom’s utter indifference (“We’ve got other things to do”) though. Such a prick.

Oh they’ve taken a couple of randoms in the Tardis to Zolfa-Thura, which feels like a very early JNT thing. Funny how Big Finish hasn’t stuck a whole season in there already.

The Doctor impersonating a giant cactus who’s impersonating the Doctor is under-used, I feel. I mean they play it but they don’t have Tom announce he’s a plant or something. The scene where it's just Tom arguing with Tom feels very much like Tom’s ideal version of Doctor Who.

Oh, Meglos can move on his own. Still no thumbs, though.

Gallifrey calling the TARDIS back also feels very much of this era. Unusual choice of cliffhanger though.

Something else I like about this season: the story titles. I find the combination of conceptual or weird space-y words far more evocative than I do The Adjective of Noun ones that dominated the 70s.