6.9: The Mysterious Planet

In which the Central Line has looked better.

Broadcast: September 1986

Watched: January 2021

Funny how a hiatus of 17 months apparently felt like the end of the world. Seems like about five minutes now – although I suppose we’ve not gone that long between episodes since the show came back, even in slow years. Longest gap is what, Husbands to Mysterio, so exactly a year minus 45 minutes or something? [That was true when I wrote it: The Power of the Doctor to The Star Beast looks likely to be a couple of weeks longer, but still only about 13 months.]

The Trial of a Time Lord, Part One

“Why d’you stop it at the best bit? I was rather enjoying that.”

Britbox, strangely, uses the novelisation/Programme Guide titles, even though they’re all Trial… when you actually play them. Obviously I still think this is four linked stories, not one, but rules are rules, I’m using episode titles as on screen. [The entire season was broadcast under one title, as a last minute publicity stunt – “It isn’t the shortest season yet, it’s the longest story ever!” This is obvious bullshit which didn’t fool anybody]

I quite like this version of the theme music, even if it seems a waste that they only used it for one year. The opening model shot is brilliant – not just “ooh, impressive that they did this on Doctor Who in 1986”, but actually impressive now. How did they do it? [They spent a lot of money, it seems.]

I’m trying not to read the series backwards, and without knowing that the whole Trial thing is going to end in a mess the set up does actually grab you. It’s so different from previous season openers. There’s a load of stuff we don’t know but assume we’ll find out. It feels clever.

The implication from the Valeyard’s bitching that the court has been waiting quietly for the Doctor, possibly for months, is very funny. So is the way the Doctor deflates when he finds he isn’t Lord President any more (although the idea that role is above the law isn’t great). Lynda Bellingham made this at 37, f*ck.

I quite like the version of the Doctor we see on Ravalox, too. The way he’s testing Peri, waiting for her to notice the lack of birds and how odd the post-fireball existence of plant life is – it reminds me of season 18 Tom with Adric. The Doctor suddenly realising, back in court, that he’s lost Peri is jarring in the right way. So is his “Nothing can be eternal” speech. And his offhand reference to civilisations that collect railway stations is lovely.

“Somehow I always feel foolish saying this. Take me to your leader!” Glitz and Dibber are fantastic – probably the most charming of Holmes’ criminal double acts. The way Glitz calls Joan Sims, eight years his senior, an ageing female is incredibly rude and also just right. There’s a lovely unexpected camera zoom when Katryka says the gun is “what we’ve been waiting for”.

I love that the post apocalyptic civilisation still knows of space travel. The technical elite living in the underground feels reminiscent of other stories. Face of Evil? More?

The cliffhanger upgrading the enquiry to a trial would be more effective if it hadn’t seemed like one to begin with, not least because of the actual on screen title. Would the stoning have made a better cliffhanger? Oh wait the trial might now be to the death, that’s fine.

The Trial of a Time Lord, Part Two

“Only the two cleverest youths. It is said the Immortal eats them.” This too feels familiar. “Oh good, more f*cking twins,” I thought until I realised one of them accidentally spoke their lines in a Scottish accent, they’re not twins they’re just both blonds.

The fact Merdeen is getting people out, underground railway style (DYSWIDT?) is a nice twist. So they’re not an elite after all, they’re prisoners, it’s the primitives who are in the position to aspire to.

Once again Peri is discussed as a sex object, though at least this time its a woman inflicting it and there’s a suggestion she maybe has a choice about it all. Dibber saying the execution is a waste of wood is hilarious

All the interruptions are a problem. When the judge asks what the relevance is, she’s talking about the story, but the audience may be forgiven for thinking the same of the trial sequences

The last line (“I really feel this might be the end”) feels like an addition to ramp up a decent but not amazing cliffhanger. It’s all very fun, but I’m a bit baffled there are two episodes left, I can’t really remember what is left to happen.

The Trial of a Time Lord, Part Three

“I would appreciate it if these brutal and repetitious scenes are reduced to a minimum.” Was Holmes just... really sick of Doctor Who? I mean, the guy was dying, maybe it was pissing him off.

After all, the main thing I’ve noticed about Holmes’ Who is that he keeps moving: he’ll keep chucking new things at the screen to keep each episode fresh. This one doesn’t do that. It’s really thin. It’s fun, because it’s a fun cast, but other than one scene of Grell and Merdeen plotting, and the destruction of the L1, nothing really happens here. It’s slow.

On the upside, Joan Sims is great isn’t she? With this role and this casting you’d expect camp as Christmas, but she plays it quite straight. The free not killing the regulars because Broken Tooth and Balazar recognise each other is the sort of thing that literally happened to people in the early US with Indian guides you know. The actor playing Broken Tooth is a mildly successful radio DJ. Huh.

“I can’t let people die if there’s a chance of saving them” is a moment when a court scene would actually have been welcome – the Doctor is doing something good, the Time Lords won’t see it that way, there’s a debate to be had. But of course we don’t get one. And the bleeping out of vital evidence, thus highlighting the stuff the Time Lords don’t want anyone to know, is just stupid. It would make sense if the Valeyard were actually on the Doctor’s side on some level… but they don’t play that note either.

How does the L1 get up the broken escalator? Why does Holmes think Andromeda is a constellation, not a galaxy? (Other than being old, I suppose.) And most importantly of all – which Doctor does Colin think he’s impersonating when he mentions Sarah Jane?

The Trial of a Time Lord, Part Four

Better. The last episode was running on the spot, but this has some good stuff in it. The ethics debate. The food tunnel peril scene.

Firstly, though, the resolution of the cliffhanger sucks, although Merdeen mourning for Grell after shooting him is weirdly affecting. (It’s just dawned on me that Chadbon and Jayston are basically wearing the same outfit, which is weird.) The way the surviving free hang around waiting to be executed is oddly sad.

Drathro refusing to save people because their only function is to serve him feels quite relevant in the age of debates about AI ethics. Is this an underdeveloped parallel between the robot and the Time Lords? Is that what it was going for? This is exactly what the Doctor should be saying to the court.

Meanwhile, the Doctor’s “-yard” jokes make me yearn for his execution. Oh wait NOW we’re getting the arguments about Time Lord law and morality, which is good... but it gets less time than the banter, which isn’t. Also, a realisation: the Valeyard should be a personification of the Doctor’s self loathing, but he isn’t, he’s just the Master again, because any character you can summarise as “the Doctor, but evil” will be the Master, because that’s literally the point of the Master. To make the character work you play up the self-hatred. The Dream Lord is the Valeyard done right.

Dibber is brilliant and it’s a shame we never saw him again (“That is a lot of what if.” “Yeah but the most important of all is, what if I’m right?”) Also brilliant: the fact the secrets are on big microdot tapes.

“Please don’t start. I’m too tired and too scared to cope.” Even now Peri is traumatised by being with the sixth Doctor. On, and it ends on the worst Colin face yet. 

Anyway, it’s fine. I enjoyed it, in a way I don’t a lot of season 22. But it doesn’t do what it needs to do, and you can tell Holmes is not quite firing on all cylinders.