Last time I discussed the first two parts of The Trial of a Time Lord, so today I will be talking about Terror of the Vervoids and The Ultimate Foe.
I thought Terror of the Vervoids was ok. It didn't do anything too suicidal (hey, for a Colin Baker story things are looking up!), but at the same time it didn't do anything to impress either. It seemed a bit of a shameless rip-off The Robots of Death to me, but since that story aired nearly ten years before The Trial of a Time Lord I doubt that bothered any of the viewing audience at the time. People enjoy that sort of Agatha Christie "whodunit" genre, anyway.
From what I can tell from reading, the Vervoids, the creatures themselves, got very mixed reviews. Some people loved them and thought them to be excellent characters, while others labeled them as poorly produced. I tend to agree with the latter, although I will say that a mutant alien plant species would be a challenge for anyone to put on screen, especially such a modest show like Doctor Who. At the very least you have to give the production guys credit for their ambition and imagination. However, it's just so obvious that the Vervoids are guys dressed up in weird plant suits. It's hard to buy into the idea that they are supposed to be a radically different type of life than humans, but yet have the basic anatomical format we do; limbs for walking, torso, general face-like area. I mean, they can even talk! Critic Michael James is perhaps the hardest on our plant friends when he states, "The Vervoids - the latest attempt to stick a guy in a wet suit and hope that no one notices. The costume department overdid it a bit by gluing (what looked like) a cauliflower to the head of the suit and leaving the zips prominent (for) everyone (to see). And as for giving them Geordie accents - that made them really memorable for me....".
I thought Terror of the Vervoids was ok. It didn't do anything too suicidal (hey, for a Colin Baker story things are looking up!), but at the same time it didn't do anything to impress either. It seemed a bit of a shameless rip-off The Robots of Death to me, but since that story aired nearly ten years before The Trial of a Time Lord I doubt that bothered any of the viewing audience at the time. People enjoy that sort of Agatha Christie "whodunit" genre, anyway.
From what I can tell from reading, the Vervoids, the creatures themselves, got very mixed reviews. Some people loved them and thought them to be excellent characters, while others labeled them as poorly produced. I tend to agree with the latter, although I will say that a mutant alien plant species would be a challenge for anyone to put on screen, especially such a modest show like Doctor Who. At the very least you have to give the production guys credit for their ambition and imagination. However, it's just so obvious that the Vervoids are guys dressed up in weird plant suits. It's hard to buy into the idea that they are supposed to be a radically different type of life than humans, but yet have the basic anatomical format we do; limbs for walking, torso, general face-like area. I mean, they can even talk! Critic Michael James is perhaps the hardest on our plant friends when he states, "The Vervoids - the latest attempt to stick a guy in a wet suit and hope that no one notices. The costume department overdid it a bit by gluing (what looked like) a cauliflower to the head of the suit and leaving the zips prominent (for) everyone (to see). And as for giving them Geordie accents - that made them really memorable for me....".
Another bothering aspect in Terror of the Vervoids is the Doctor's new assistant, Mel Bush. First of all, she isn't very impressionable as a character. True, it's a bit of a relief not having Peri scurrying around, complaining about whatever comes before her eyes, but Mel seems totally blah. She doesn't do anything substantially wrong, although certain critics are quite harsh on her in this serial, but neither does she do anything to separate herself from the crowd as a character. She delivers her lines with professionalism and vigor, but I feel she offers no more than an ability to take up space on the set. She gets the job done, but no more.
Part of this can be explained by the fact that she has perhaps the worst introduction of any companion in Doctor Who history. She is introduced when.....well, she doesn't get introduced, actually. The events in Terror of the Vervoids occur in the Doctor's future; which means that in The Trial of a Time Lord the Doctor hasn't met Mel yet and doesn't know how he will do so, only that he will. So, the audience is just expected to accept that the Doctor meets Mel somewhere, they become fast friends, and she becomes his co-traveler in the TARDIS. We have no idea where this girl comes from, or anything about her. Absolutely RIDICULOUS.
Part of this can be explained by the fact that she has perhaps the worst introduction of any companion in Doctor Who history. She is introduced when.....well, she doesn't get introduced, actually. The events in Terror of the Vervoids occur in the Doctor's future; which means that in The Trial of a Time Lord the Doctor hasn't met Mel yet and doesn't know how he will do so, only that he will. So, the audience is just expected to accept that the Doctor meets Mel somewhere, they become fast friends, and she becomes his co-traveler in the TARDIS. We have no idea where this girl comes from, or anything about her. Absolutely RIDICULOUS.
This leads me to my next point; continuity. Yes, the thing writers dread most begins to rear its ugly disfigured head as the producers suddenly regain their senses and remember their audience will most likely want answers to questions that were raised in an earlier part of the narrative. The Doctor's use of the Matrix to show something that happens in the future doesn't make much sense and creates more questions than answers. First of all, why does he feel obligated to show them something in the future at all? Surely it would have been easier to pick out an example that he remembered from his past. If the Doctor is traveling with Mel in the future, doesn't that mean he survived the trial? Why not use the Matrix and see the results of the trial? Also, Terror of the Vervoids seems a pretty weak defense to me. If you were the Doctor, wouldn't you pick out the best example you could find of your innocence and your devotion to justice and fairness? Yet at the end, he is almost worse off than he starts because the Valeyard charges him with the genocide of the entire Vervoid race. Why didn't the Doctor pick an adventure that showed him avoiding any appearance of wrong-doing or breaking any Time Lord laws, no matter how bogus he thought the law to be? The trial story arc begins unraveling just a bit in Terror of the Vervoids, and continues to do so in The Ultimate Foe.
It's hard to rate The Ultimate Foe. It's only two episodes, and the man who was supposed to write it, Robert Holmes, died having only submitted half the story. It's an interesting idea having the Doctor enter the Matrix for a final confrontation with the Valeyard, and the visuals are similar to other well-known Doctor Who stories like The Mind Robber or Warrior's Gate. However, with its unusual writing situation even more continuity problems are created in an attempt to tie up loose ends, particularly concerning the Valeyard. I suppose hind-sight is 20-20, but how did the production team think they were going to be able to have a coherent 14-part story with four or five different authors working separately from one another? If the other aspects of production went perfectly (which they didn't), would the story have been successful, even then? Was this story doomed from the start simply because of its challenging logistics? With the continuity errors, The Ultimate Foe degrades into a bit of a mess and The Trial of a Time Lord as a whole become a somewhat wasted opportunity to present the Colin Baker-era in a better light.
It's hard to rate The Ultimate Foe. It's only two episodes, and the man who was supposed to write it, Robert Holmes, died having only submitted half the story. It's an interesting idea having the Doctor enter the Matrix for a final confrontation with the Valeyard, and the visuals are similar to other well-known Doctor Who stories like The Mind Robber or Warrior's Gate. However, with its unusual writing situation even more continuity problems are created in an attempt to tie up loose ends, particularly concerning the Valeyard. I suppose hind-sight is 20-20, but how did the production team think they were going to be able to have a coherent 14-part story with four or five different authors working separately from one another? If the other aspects of production went perfectly (which they didn't), would the story have been successful, even then? Was this story doomed from the start simply because of its challenging logistics? With the continuity errors, The Ultimate Foe degrades into a bit of a mess and The Trial of a Time Lord as a whole become a somewhat wasted opportunity to present the Colin Baker-era in a better light.
How in the world did the Valeyard get to be a Time Lord prosecutor? How does he plan to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations, especially considering how he is calling for the Doctor's head throughout the trial? If he takes the Doctor's regenerations, isn't that a paradox? How can the Doctor live out his life to become the Valeyard (the Master claims he exists sometime between the Doctor's 12th and 13th incarnations) if they are stolen from him by the Valeyard?
All these ideas left me, to be perfectly honest, a bit stunned and wildly confused. In the official ranking, The Trial of a Time Lord is ranked 142nd out of 200. Some might rank it a little lower, some a little higher, but it's definitely in the right region. At times the plot moves well, and the concept for the story is interesting enough. The visuals are stunning at times, but the glue that keeps all narratives together is the writing, and this serial is lacking in this department. If viewed as four individual stories, each part of The Trial of a Time Lord stands up pretty well, and the viewer will not be bothered by each stories own small narrative problems. However, if viewed as one gigantic story (which, unfortunately, was what it was advertised to be) these problems become more than the sum of their parts to create a massive story that is neither particularly organized or engaging. All this makes for a severely irritating and confusing Doctor Who serial.
Additional Notes
-You can't really blame Mel for putting the Doctor on a diet and making him drink carrot juice. Watch an episode from Baker's first season and then The Trial of a Time Lord. He looks like he's gained 20 pounds! Good thing the Doctor didn't have too many athletic things to do this season, otherwise he would have been in serious trouble. Oh, and his hair is too long.
- I really enjoyed seeing Honor Blackman in Terror of the Vervoids. I am a big Avengers fans, especially the early seasons (believe it or not I like Cathy Gale better than Emma Peel), so it was a treat to see her in one of my other favorite shows.
All these ideas left me, to be perfectly honest, a bit stunned and wildly confused. In the official ranking, The Trial of a Time Lord is ranked 142nd out of 200. Some might rank it a little lower, some a little higher, but it's definitely in the right region. At times the plot moves well, and the concept for the story is interesting enough. The visuals are stunning at times, but the glue that keeps all narratives together is the writing, and this serial is lacking in this department. If viewed as four individual stories, each part of The Trial of a Time Lord stands up pretty well, and the viewer will not be bothered by each stories own small narrative problems. However, if viewed as one gigantic story (which, unfortunately, was what it was advertised to be) these problems become more than the sum of their parts to create a massive story that is neither particularly organized or engaging. All this makes for a severely irritating and confusing Doctor Who serial.
Additional Notes
-You can't really blame Mel for putting the Doctor on a diet and making him drink carrot juice. Watch an episode from Baker's first season and then The Trial of a Time Lord. He looks like he's gained 20 pounds! Good thing the Doctor didn't have too many athletic things to do this season, otherwise he would have been in serious trouble. Oh, and his hair is too long.
- I really enjoyed seeing Honor Blackman in Terror of the Vervoids. I am a big Avengers fans, especially the early seasons (believe it or not I like Cathy Gale better than Emma Peel), so it was a treat to see her in one of my other favorite shows.