5.8: Arc of Infinity

In which Omega, Gallifrey and Tegan are all back, and Colin makes his first appearance.

Broadcast: January 1983

Watched: December 2020

Arc of Infinity, Part One

“It MUST be the Doctor.” Well, as sophomore season openers go it’s hardly The Impossible Astronaut, is it? [In retrospect, I think this is best seen as JNT’s third season rather than Davison’s second, but never mind.]

We open on Gallifrey with a shadowy figure talking to a glowing monster thing that would be familiar to fanboys and presumably anyone who’d seen The Five Faces of Doctor Who, but possibly mystifying to anyone else. Meanwhile the Doctor is attempting some repairs; and in a thread that is not going to connect with anything else that is happening at any other point in this episode, and which is hobbled by some of the worst acting the BBC has ever seen, two unconvincing backpackers decide to hang out in a crypt in Amsterdam for some reason.

I can see how, on paper, “Omega, Time Lords, Amsterdam” sounded like a good story to launch the anniversary year. But like the last story, the big problem here is that the stakes aren’t really articulated. Characters spout technobabble at each other... but it’s not clear what is happening or why we should care. Blerugh. At least I know the season gets better.

Anyway. The bit where we cut to some dullard Gallifreyan techie guys is clearly what Moffat is ripping off/improving on at the start of Name. Also, one of them uses the phrase “One of the Time Lords”, making clear that not everyone on Gallifrey gets the title. Mind you, what kind of moron gormlessly chooses the name of the gun being aimed at him for his last words. (“Impulse laser?”)

The first location scene is helpfully accompanied by “Tulips from Amsterdam”. Only Fools: To Hull & Back pulls the same trick a couple of years later. Was the Amsterdam tourism board part funding this stuff or something? Oooh, trams.

Ha, Nyssa has noticed that the production team had forgotten about the “state of temporal grace”, too. I don’t like her new hair. I do like it when, once again, she knocks someone unconscious. Nyssa is quietly quite badass.

The bit in the crypt with the TARDIS noise is quite cool: you assume it’s the Doctor who’s materialising but it isn’t, it’s another random TARDIS with a chicken in it (which, at one point, takes out a weeping angel without anyone realising). When the backpacker shows up as a zombie, and there’s a big dramatic build up I genuinely assumed Tegan was going to walk in, but no she’s just not in this one. A reverse of the “Adric in the Radio Times credits” trick I assume.

The Doctor and Nyssa slow motion running in the TARDIS is hilarious. The Time Lord robes creak whenever anyone moves, which is even funnier.

COLIN! Shooting his predecessor! Just think – less than five years after making this, he’d be getting fired from the programme. 

[Two weeks pass.]

Arc of Infinity is so bad it took me 14 times longer to get to episode two than it took the original viewers, but: 

Arc of Infinity, Part Two

“Oh no the Doctor’s dead!” is always a rubbish cliffhanger because he isn’t, obviously, so why bother? By the same token the whole “sentenced to death” plot is entirely lacking in tension because there is literally no chance he won’t get out of it.

So this is really just boring isn’t it? A lot of nonsense about who has access to biodata, Gallifreyans in stupid hats, some apparently unconnected wandering around Amsterdam.

The scene in which Nyssa tries to save the Doctor and he takes the weapon off her and asks the court for clemency is quite nice, but otherwise, this is a really poor episode.

Tegan is back quickly. I like her new hair.

Colin the cousin is somehow worse as a zombie than he was as himself.

Colin the actor is remarkably charmless. There’s nothing at all in his performance to suggest him as the next Doctor.

Arc of Infinity, Part Three

The only even vaguely interesting bit of this was when I thought, Oh, so that’s where that bit from Name of the Doctor comes from. It’s not even cheap, the matrix effects are flirting with good, it’s just really tedious.

“There’s no sense brooding on it, Nyssa.” Interesting approach to grief from the most beige member of an entirely beige cast.

Are we meant to recognise Omega from his helmet? I’d assumed we were but his identity is played as a revelation.

The Doctor and Tegan’s reunion in the matrix is weirdly underplayed. The Ergon is hilarious.

Nyssa is massively f*cking bloodthirsty, isn’t she? Waves guns all over the place. Makes Leela look like Ghandi.

At least there is only one episode left.

Arc of Infinity, Part Four

“Expect me on Gallifrey soon.”

Yes, once it’s been pointed out, the fact it’s the exact same cliffhanger as Traken 3 is a bit obvious.

It is at least novel. Most bad Doctor Who has a decent episode one and then goes off the rails. This is total crap but has a good bit in part four. The big problem I think is that it’s mostly technobabble. The reason Omega’s adventures in Amsterdam – the bit where he and the kid smile at each other; the only bit of this I could actually remember – works is because suddenly it’s a story about a person, not just a lot of wibble about biodata and transfer and the matrix.

But... Omega not actually being evil, just wanting escape, is sort of under-exploited. He seems bothered by the death of Hedin, doesn’t especially want to hurt Tegan, even when he wants to destroy everything it’s an expression of his pain. The guy should be redeemable: he just wants to live. But the narrative does nothing with this.

Oh well, that’s that done, now there’s a run of good stories.

Other things: the melting mask effect is appalling. Nyssa screaming at a chicken, after being so bad ass for three episodes, is a bit pathetic. I like the running joke of the Doctor running into people and getting increasingly unbothered about helping them up (“HE’LL BE ALRIGHT!”).

I also really like Nyssa’s delight at Tegan being back (though her laughter at the fact her friend got the sack is a bit off), matched with the look on the Doctor’s face when he thinks they’re not looking, like he really doesn’t want Tegan back at all.