Category: Complete Review
Doctor Who episode 592: Terminus – Part One (15/2/1983)
‘There is no return. This is Terminus.’ Steve Gallagher is very good at space gothic – the crumbling castle of Warriors’ Gate, the haunted landscapes of Nightmare Country, and this: with secret passages, medieval lepers, and ghostly skulls it’s a futuristic Castle of Otranto. The setting is promising, but this episode drags ominously and it was almost certainly a mistake to sequence it between two other stories that also involve pottering around (better looking) spaceships.
Doctor Who episode 591: Mawdryn Undead – Part Four (9/2/1983)
‘I’m supposed to be working against him.’ This is a hot mess. Two episodes ago, Mawdryn declared he was going to be a Time Lord, now he just wants to die. Turlough is meant to be assassinating the Doctor, but now the Black Guardian’s complaining he isn’t following the Doctor’s orders. Mawdryn’s mutation is now, somehow, a time travel virus. It’s difficult to imagine anything quite so spotty going out under any other established production team.
Doctor Who episode 590: Mawdryn Undead – Part Three (8/2/1983)
‘Spare me the endurance of endless time.’ I’m torn between finding this all perfectly pleasant adventuring and wishing there was actually more to it than lots of people wandering about in their own little storylines. Turlough’s continual excuses to avoid killing the Doctor, and the Black Guardian’s grumpy exhortations are wearing a bit thin, even if the Guardian’s appearance on the TARDIS scanner is a nice little link back to The Armageddon Factor. Still, Strickson gets to appear in the creepiest scene in the episode: Turlough’s discovery of the room of the undead.
Doctor Who episode 589: Mawdryn Undead – Part Two (2/2/1983)
‘What worries me is the level of coincidence in all this. Almost as if some cosmic influence…’ Grimwade at least makes some effort to imply someone is trying to direct these events – perhaps a hint that the White Guardian is working behind the scenes to provide the Doctor with allies against his counterpart (maybe you could ret-con the whole of the first part of Season 20 to the White Guardian’s interventions – reuniting the Doctor and Tegan, and freeing Tegan from the Mara before pitching them into a battle against darkness). Or maybe it’s just a cheap hand wave to excuse the second accidental reunion this series.
Doctor Who episode 588: Mawdryn Undead – Part One (1/2/1983)
‘I don’t trust that boy.’ Adric’s replacement feels like another attempt to create JNT’s ideal of a tricky, untrustworthy boy companion. There are several things in Turlough’s favour though. First, while he’s naturally ‘cunning as a fox’ (he lies to the headmaster about Hippo’s responsibility for crashing the Brigadier’s car, then later tells Hippo he’s taken full responsibility), he’s also a victim of a higher power. Secondly, while he’s clearly not an ordinary human being (‘I hate Earth’), he’s introduced in recognisable surroundings and more easy to warm to than a space brat declaring his genius every five minutes. And he’s played by Mark Strickson, who brings his experience and training to create a character with the twitchy panic of a trapped animal, full of nervy energy.
Doctor Who episode 587: Snakedance – Part Four (26/1/1983)
‘Fear is the only poison.’ In the final analysis, this ending doesn’t quite land as well as it might, which is perhaps why the story as a whole undervalued. It’s a shame we’re left to imagine the comeuppances for such a vivid cast of characters – though I imagine after Lon’s public humiliation and Ambril’s part in it the Federation might well be looking for new leadership. I suppose with limited time, it’s right that the story focuses on Tegan’s recovery, and it’s fitting that it ends in quiet contemplation. I don’t think the concept of the Snakedance is well articulated, so it all ends up sounding a bit airy-fairy, but fortunately enough groundwork has been laid with the telepathic crystals that it doesn’t entirely matter.
Doctor Who episode 586: Snakedance – Part Three (25/1/1983)
‘Nobody these days believes in legends.’ This avoids some of the normal pitfalls of third episodes with a structure that keeps the Doctor out of the action but in the detail, learning about the origins of the Mara and the Snakedancers from Dojjen’s journal which he has persuaded Chela to share with him. Meanwhile, Lon and Tegan lure Ambril to their lair, and manipulate the same sort of greed that created the Mara to persuade him to reveal the great crystal required in the Mara’s resurrection ceremony. It has less forward motion than the first half, but it’s a useful clarification and the mirroring of the Doctor’s temptation of Chela with Lon’s of Ambril creates a nice balance between the two elements.
Doctor Who episode 585: Snakedance – Part Two (19/1/1983)
‘Mystical mumbo jumbo.’ What a shame this wasn’t broadcast as produced – the first story of the 20th series. I love its mixture of weary cynicism and a sense of wonder. It’s the best material Davison has been presented with, by a writer who, I sense, has seen what he can do and channels it into a Doctor every bit as compelling (and perhaps moreso) as the previous four. The Doctor is full of energy, dashing between the TARDIS, Ambril’s office and the marketplace like a madman. Which is, incidentally, what he looks like as he bursts into Ambril’s celebratory dinner with Tanha and associated lackeys. A lot is made of this Doctor’s determination in The Caves of Androzani, as if it’s something unique to that story. It’s not – he’s every bit as driven to save Tegan here as he will be Peri.
Doctor Who episode 584: Snakedance – Part One (18/1/1983)
‘Dare you come face to face with the finally unfaceable? Children half price.’ The opening shot – a hermit in a painted landscape – looks very artificial. But that works because the whole episode is full of artifice; the Manussan culture has turned archaeology, history and religion into a commodity for tourists. Showmen and fortune tellers twist the story of the Mara into a way to cash in. Tanha is all fake charm and concern: actually she’s as dismissive as her awful, entitled son of people like Ambril, she just does more to hide it.
Doctor Who episode 583: Arc of Infinity – Part Four (12/1/1983)
‘You’re stuck with me aren’t you.’ Much as I’m not a fan of “shipping” there’s plenty here to keep the Nyssa/Tegan slash fanciers going, particularly Nyssa’s delight when she realises Tegan is still alive, and evident excitement to see her friend again. The Doctor seems less delighted – the final shot, of his barely-concealed disappointment at regaining Tegan as a travelling companion is very funny indeed, even if I can’t imagine any other period of the show suggesting the Doctor likes his friends so little.
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