Tuesday, September 03, 2002

 

Cora's comments on Doctor Who:

Yesterday I watched The Invasion of Time, an episode from 1978.

This story doesn't seem to be rated very highly, but I enjoyed it a lot. Even though - to be honest - the plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It actually starts of quite well, by addressing a plot point left unresolved in The Deadly Assassin. Since the Doctor and the bad guy working for the Master (whose name I've forgotten, but I recently spotted the actor in a Bond film) were the only candidates for the presidency and the bad guy gets killed, that effectively makes the Doctor president of Gallifrey. Only that the Doctor takes off at the end of Deadly Assassin and the presidency is never mentioned again.

But Invasion of Time finally has the Doctor return to Gallifrey to claim the presidency, which makes the other Timelords considerably less than happy. The Doctor's induction ceremony as president was wonderfully pompous. And the master of ceremonies was so obviously hoping somebody would just jump up and cry "me", when he asked whether anybody had any objections. And all that tapping on the floor and this and that "of Rassilon". What's up with this Timelord tendency to put "of Rassilon" after every old artifact anyway? I was fully expecting to see objects like the butterknife of Rassilon or the trashcan of Rassilon. Even more interesting, why do Timelord presidents wear nightgowns at their induction? Once inducted, the Doctor keeps on insulting and annoying everybody, particularily his old teacher Borusa (who has apparently used the absence of a president to make himself ruler of Gallifrey), and quite generally behaves very strangely. From the very first scene on, we are given very good reason to suspect that there is a reason for the Doctor's strange behaviour, as we see him making a deal with some unseen and very sinister seeming aliens. Can it be? Has the Doctor really gone bad and is selling his own homeplanet out to the aliens?

Like Leela (who unfailingly keeps on believing in the Doctor, even though she gets treated very badly) we do not really want to believe that the Doctor has gone bad. On the other hand, we are given serious reasons to doubt him. Because the Doctor is so clearly behaving out of character. It's always said that Sylvester McCoy was the dark and manipulative Doctor, but personally I find that Tom Baker seems a lot more sinister at times. That evil chuckle at the end of part 2, when the aliens have invaded, was worthy of the Master. This Doctor is also more manipulative than the Sylvester McCoy incarnation. In this story he manipulates everybody; the aliens, the Timelords, even Leela. Besides, could we really blame the Doctor for selling out Gallifrey, considering how the Timelords have treated him in the past? The insults hurled at Borusa sound sincere enough and they probably were, even though the Doctor later apologizes. But he certainly seems to enjoy finally getting back at the Timelords for everything they did to him. Of course, the Doctor hasn't really gone bad. He's only trying to trick the aliens (who can read minds) into believing that he has. But it's a very convincing act. If the point behind Deadly Assassin was making clear just why the Doctor felt the need to leave, then Invasion of Time is the Doctor finally getting some revenge on the Timelords.

Gallifrey itself seems to have been redecorated since we last saw it in Deadly Assassin and the changes are not necessarily for the better. The Gallifrey of Deadly Assassin was gloomy and dark, this version looks a lot like an exaggerated version of a 1970s public service building. Many of the sets could just as well be a school, university, library or hospital built in the 1970s. In fact, my old school looked a lot like this version of Gallifrey. They machinery powering the various forcefield barriers protecting the planet is even worse. I mean, this is supposed to be the most advanced planet in the universe and their defense systems look like a heating unit from the 1950s? And with all the furniture ever developed in the universe available, they felt the need to import inflatable plastic furniture from late 1960s Earth? The Doctor's office with all the wheels on the walls looked pretty cool, though. This time around, we also get to see what Gallifrey looks like outside the capitol. Unfortunately, it looks like a sandpit. Well, it could have been worse. They could have used another quarry, for example.

The Timelords are much like they were portrayed in Deadly Assassin, pompous, decadent, corrupt and pretty useless. They don't know how to react to the invasion, they don't know how their own technology works and they like to say "Rassilon" a lot. There is again a high ranking traitor in the form of the slimy Castellan. I hope this Castellan is a new character and not a later regeneration of the rather decent Castellan seen in Deadly Assassin. There is a single female Timelord in this episode, Rodan, who is not much more useful than her male counterparts. I wonder why they didn't use Romana for this part, especially as the Doctor would be companionless by the end of this episode.

Borusa: I already liked him in his brief appearance in The Deadly Assassin and he was great here. Borusa is a lot like Yoda in Star Wars. Scheming, manipulative and actually a very unpleasant character, but so enjoyable to watch that you cannot help but adore him anyway. Very interesting relationship with the Doctor, they obviously respect each other yet keep on insulting each other anyway. The fact that Borusa used to be the Doctor's teacher probably plays into this as well. Though Borusa must have been a pretty lousy teacher considering that Gallifrey's foremost renegades, the Doctor, the Master (whom he claims not to know in Deadly Assassin) and the Rani all were his students.

Talking of renegades, what's up with those drop-out Timelords living outside the city? It's certainly interesting that there are internal renegades on Gallifrey, it means that there would have been alternatives to running away for the Doctor (and the Master and the Rani as well). Unfortunately, we don't learn much about the background of those drop-outs, as they basically exist only as cannon fodder. And why don't they regenerate when they get killed? For that matter, why doesn't anyone who gets killed in The Deadly Assassin regenerate?

Villains: That's a real low-point in this story. The Vardans are menacing while we don't see them. They even manage to remain somewhat menacing after they materialize as a really bad special effect (it looks like aluminium foil, it sounds like aluminium foil, it is aluminium foil). But then they fully materialize and look like humans in really awful costumes. Okay, maybe the Vardans being distinctly unimpressive was the point. After all, the Doctor says "Disappointing, aren't they?" after they materialize. The sudden appearance of the second threat was a real surprise, that much I must admit. However, the Sontarans are hardly a huge threat and they're a lot less impressive here than in Sontaran Experiment. I got a good laugh out of the lisping leader ("I am commander Sssstorr of the Sssontaran Ssspecial Sssshocktroops"), which certainly wasn't the intention. And what exactly is the plan of the Sontarans (or for that matter the Vardans) anyway? They don't really seem to do anything useful once they get to Gallifrey except chasing people through the city. And then through the TARDIS.

Talking of the TARDIS, the last episode is one big chase through the interiors of the TARDIS. As TARDIS runarounds go, this one is certainly better than the crisis of infinite TARDISes in Logopolis. But those brick corridors don't look very much like the TARDIS and the workshop clearly has windows taped off with black plastic. But the "bathroom", which is a full-sized swimming pool, is really cool. And for an instant I thought that Leela was swimming naked.

K9: Finally, the little robot dog gets to do something. He accesses the Matrix, blows up a force field generator, stuns guards. Apparently the production team did not consider K9 a failed idea. Because even though he departs at the end of the story (along with Leela), the Doctor pulls out a box with a second K9. K9 also gets in a really funny line, when he calls the TARDIS "a very stupid machine". Talking of dialogue, there was some wonderful dialogue throughout the story. Pity about the plot.

Leela: Only recently I saw her first story, now I saw her last. She certainly has changed physically since Face of Evil. Whereas before they were trying to make her look exotic with lots of body make-up, brown eyes and hair dyed very dark, she know has paler, slightly freckled skin, auburn hair and blue eyes. She's still a good character, even though she doesn't really get all that much to do in this story. Okay, she gets to organize the resistance against the invaders and kill a few Sontarans. And the "Don't call me madam!" bit in the scene where she's supposed to choose suitable clothes for the Doctor's induction ceremony (and ends up wearing her usual leather mini) is great. By the way, if Sarah had to be left behind, because no outsiders were allowed on Gallifrey, how come that the Doctor can take Leela along and nobody bats an eyelash? Okay, the master of ceremonies at the induction ceremony says "madam" in a very disapproving tone, but apart from that nobody seems to mind. And not only is Leela allowed to come to Gallifrey, she's even allowed to stay behind with Guard Commander Andred. I must say, this came as a total surprise to me. Well, Andred was obviously smitten with Leela (and who can blame him, she's probably the only woman he's ever seen except for Rodan), but I hadn't expected that she felt something for him. Personally, I suspect that Leela's decision to stay behind had more to do with being (undertsnadably) angry at the way the Doctor treated her than with being genuinely in love with Andred. Even though he is rather cute and one of the few Timelords that look under forty. And I really can't see these two living happily ever after. I mean, wild Leela on Gallifrey - that's never going to work out.

As for the ending, what exactly happened there? The Doctor finally locates the lost Great Key of Rassilon (which is neither great nor lost - Borusa had it all along). Allegedly, the various Rassilon artifacts combined create unmeasurable power. The Doctor promptly combines them to create... a gun (which surprisingly is not called the gun of Rassilon). He shoots the lead Sontaran, there is an explosion and the Doctor has lost all memory of what has happened. Sure, that makes a lot of sense.

Messy plot, but a lot of fun.

posted by Cora link 02:11