4.38: Full Circle

In which we cannot return to Terradon.

Broadcast: October-November 1980

Watched: November 2020

Full Circle, Part One

Love this one. Who’s Next is very mean about it. [For those just joining, that’s the 2005 episode guide book written by my mates.]

The “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on Gallifrey!” bit is the closest Romana has come to convincingly expressing emotion since Lalla arrived, or possibly ever.

Is e-space green? The way the TARDIS viewer still shows n-space is a bit weird. 

“Well of course I’m better than you, I’m a elite”. I have a soft spot for Adric but, god, no wonder everyone hates him.

I really like the portrayal of Alzarius – the OB stuff is just really nicely filmed, all the stuff about mistfall and embarkation is the first plot that isn’t obvious in a while. But the outlers are far too middle class for outlaws and the fact that only one is a girl is a bit of a pathetic cliche.

Andrew Smith was very young when he wrote this wasn’t he? Blocks me on twitter for some reason. 

Adric has a theme – is he the first character to get one? Did the Delgado Master have one?

The way the deciders comfort Login about his dead daughter by offering him a job is pretty funny.

Full Circle, Part Two

Beginning to think that the Britbox episode summaries are not written by native English speakers. “What is the strange journey of the TARDIS? How do the Marshmen make short work of K9?” [Jim Cooray-Smith thinks this might be the original Radio Times billing.]

Anyway. “Oh, he can be repaired. In fact, we always seem to be repairing him.” Feels almost like a meta joke that we get several sequences of K9 exploring with inspiring music and the moment he actively interacts with the plot someone knocks his head off.

Having half the guest cast invade the TARDIS and take it over feels oddly like a violation, as does the marshmen physically moving it. Quite like that this is paralleled by the Doctor and the marshchild getting into the starliner.

I really like this one. It’s about an alien culture with a level of complexity –  that isn’t just an allegory –  which is very rare in Who. Have we had anything like that before? I can’t think of one, trying to work out if it’s a Bidmead thing.

Only allowing one decider at a time to know the truth about the ship feels a bit harsh, you’d want to talk about it. One of the outlers looks distractingly like the idiot who sits on the wall in Father Ted.

The cliffhanger is clearly one that affected me a lot as a kid because Romana’s delivery of “They’re only spiders” is burned into my brain.

Full Circle, Part Three

“Too much patience goes absolutely nowhere.” I like the way the Doctor works out that they’re faking embarkation, but gets the reason totally wrong: he just reckons they’re cowards, not that they don’t know what they’re doing.

Maybe I’m just too used to him, but Matthew Waterhouse is quite good compared to the other outlers. The “cross your fingers – no, not like that” makes me wonder if he’s (no bear with me) meant to be Leela again: clever, but unworldly. Also the Doctor treats him like a companion immediately. No wonder he stows away.

George Baker is very good. Plays it with sincerity. They all do, really. Big shift from season 17.

The TARDIS is doing a lot of what’s most convenient to the plot in this one – Adric pulls the wrong lever, it automatically goes to the starliner, where it’s never been before etc. You can sort of tell Smith was a fanboy in that he treats the TARDIS as a part of the story rather than just the sort of entry portal into it.

“Now that my father’s a decider, I’m an orphan too” – you’re not though are you.

The Doctor’s genuine rage about the treatment of the marshchild is great.

Full Circle, Part Four

“That’s why we can’t return to Terradon” – having said the story wasn’t an allegory, is it in fact an allegory for mankind’s reaction to Darwin’s work?

It’s not obvious to me why a bunch of people descended from marshmen need to find Terradon to be honest, but there we are. It’s also not massively obvious why being bitten by a spider makes Romana want to help the marsh creatures invade the starliner.

Adric is the wettest of the outlers, which isn’t well thought through, since he’s the one we’re stuck with.

Once you’ve noticed that the marshmen are wearing platform boots it’s very distracting.

“Four thousand generations” the starliner is in quite good nick considering it’s been hanging around 100,000 years or so.

Who’s Next is quite down on this story. Why? I think it’s great.

Some other thoughts:

• The outlers all sort of play extra companion roles here: it could plausibly be setting Keara up as a companion too. 

• How exactly did marsh creatures end up thinking they were people? And why are there still marsh creatures? Oh right it’s Darwin again isn’t it.

• “We cannot return because we have never been there” – there’s a whole thing to be written about blood and soil use of the word “we” to mean our ancestors here, but the story kind of sweeps past it in the need to drive out the marsh creatures. 

• Actually part of the problem is some of the dialogue gets lost behind marsh creatures making noises.

• Ha, [writer Andrew] Smith wrote a BF sequel. Of course he did. He must still be the youngest person ever to have written for TV Who, right? He was only 17-18 when they made this. 

• Sort of love that no attention is drawn to the fact Adric has stowed away, it all happens quietly. Anyway. Doesn’t matter. Still love it.