Category: Episode by Episode
Doctor Who episode 482: The Ribos Operation – Part Three (16/9/1978)
For all it’s a comedy, Holmes inserts a great deal of pathos into this. The scenes with Binro are rightly praised, with his touching delight in Unstoffe’s validation of his beliefs. But I also think Tom Baker gets some weightier material that plays against the slightly conceited comedy of the earlier episodes (e.g. getting caught in a net), when he does something clever to convert Garron’s bug into a communicator, and when he stops joking about with Garron to remind him, ‘A lot of people are going to die if we don’t get out of here.’
Doctor Who episode 481: The Ribos Operation – Part Two (9/9/1978)
This is one of the great comedy episodes of Doctor Who, with Holmes extracting a huge amount of witty mileage from Garron and Unstoffe’s long con on the singularly humourless Graff. Unstoffe’s delight in his own improvised story of the ‘scringe stone’ is brilliant, and highlights how well this is performed: had everyone been doing things as broadly as in some of Season 15, the comedy yokel wouldn’t have worked nearly as well. And while no-one could accuse Iain Cuthbertson of giving an understated performance, it’s completely right for Garron, who’s one of the slipperiest customers the Doctor’s met. His lapse from Jagoish master of ceremonies to Cockney villain is wonderful, especially because the implication is neither is the true Garron. He’s always playing to the audience.
Doctor Who episode 480: The Ribos Operation – Part One (2/9/1978)
The show’s new mission statement is introduced with considerable style as the Doctor and K9 MII’s plans for a holiday are interrupted by crashing organ chords announcing the arrival of the White Guardian. With the Time Lords comprehensively debunked, apparently Graham Williams felt the Doctor needed a new “higher authority” he was accountable to. What we get is an ageing white man who feels that things have gone too far into permissiveness and chaos, and that order needs to be restored – a back-to-basics approach for the universe, which can only be achieved through assembling the six segments of the Key to Time (or ‘of Time’, the script isn’t sure).
Doctor Who episode 479: The Invasion of Time – Part Six (11/3/1978)
I’m coming to the conclusion that Doctor Who isn’t very good at endings. This is easily the weakest episode of the story, with far too much wandering about, the Doctor solving everything with a massive gun, and then forgetting all about it. It’s very “that’ll do”. And it’s bizarre that the De-Mat gun should be the solution to the Sontaran threat, when constructing it relies so much on secret presidential knowledge. If there had to be a particularly boring and secret super weapon, it might have been a better pay off to the long game with the Vardans rather than improvised off the cuff.
Doctor Who episode 478: The Invasion of Time – Part Five (4/3/1978)
Derek Deadman is no Kevin Lindsay. He whispers like an Ice Warrior and sounds like Ian Dury (cue laboured Ian Stor-y and the Potato Heads’ Hit Me With Your Swagger Stick joke). The Sontarans are generally a good choice for this though, having assessed Gallifrey’s military potential as far back as The Time Warrior and, with their endless clone army, being a more credibly formidable threat than the Cybermen, and a more thuggish contrast to the genteel Time Lords than the Daleks. This lot look suitably robust and solid as they march through the Capitol.
Doctor Who episode 477: The Invasion of Time – Part Four (25/2/1978)
‘Disappointing, aren’t they?’ Like The Invisible Enemy, this makes a joke of its rubbish “monsters”, although unlike The Invisible Enemy there are better monsters waiting until the end of the episode to make an appearance. I really like this: if the Vardans had just been rubbish it would feel a bit contemptuous to the audience, but it’s all part of the build to that rug-pulling climax and the return of the Sontarans.
Doctor Who episode 476: The Invasion of Time – Part Three (18/2/1978)
Looking past some of the design deficiencies (the green plastic furniture on Gallifrey is horrid, and makes this look like Bi-Al’s Kasterborous branch) this is pretty good. I really like the location filming, which – intentionally or otherwise – has the burned orange sky Susan mentions in The Sensorites, and has become the template of Gallifrey for the new series in a way that the blasted heath of The Five Doctors hasn’t.
Doctor Who episode 475: The Invasion of Time – Part Two (11/2/1978)
Some of the jokes in this are very broad indeed. ‘Even the sonic screwdriver can’t get me out of this one,’ sounds like it was written explicitly for clip compilations, and the Doctor’s bit of jelly baby business with Andred is cute, as is his playing hopscotch through the Capitol and talking to Borusa’s empty chair. Elsewhere the script has a pleasingly dry wit, like the Castellan’s comment that the old-looking Gomer is ‘young yet, and impetuous’. Tom Baker even consents to deliver some bafflegab in a nice back-and-forth exchange with a (very noisy) K9.
Doctor Who episode 474: The Invasion of Time – Part One (4/2/1978)
It can’t be a coincidence that The Invasion of Time is one of the first Doctor Who stories to be made in the wake of Star Wars. The opening model shot – of a small ship dwarfed by a much larger one flying overhead – is a visual reference. But more than that, like Star Wars this begins in medias res: the story is already underway, with none of the familiar scene setting we’ve been used to for the last 15 years. The grammar of SF storytelling is changing, and this is one of the first beneficiaries.
Doctor Who episode 473: Underworld – Part Four (28/1/1978)
Even as they face imminent destruction, the Seers sound about as interested by this as I feel. Transposing myths to sci-fi settings is going to be a recurring and unloved genre in the Graham Williams seasons in serials by Baker and Martin, and Anthony Read. Possibly the producer thought they could do better than this.
Next Time... 