Episode #150 : Dragonfire

"Do you feel like arguing with a can of deodorant that registers nine on the Richter scale?"

Episode 150:    Dragonfire.
Companions:   7th Doctor and Mel.
Air Date:          23rd November to 7th December 1987.

The TARDIS materialises in Iceworld, a space trading colony on the dark side of the planet Svartos. The Doctor and Mel encounter Glitz and learn that he has come here to search for a supposed treasure guarded by a dragon. Also on Svartos is Kane, a - literally - cold-blooded criminal who has been imprisoned here by his own people from the planet Proamon. The Doctor and Mel, aided by Ace, a disaffected waitress, discover that the 'dragon' is a biomechanoid and the 'treasure' a power crystal held within its head. Kane is desperate to obtain the crystal and the Doctor uses it to bargain with him for Ace's freedom. It turns out that Iceworld is a huge spacecraft and the crystal the key that Kane needs in order to activate it.

With Dragonfire the show has finally begun to shirk off the silly stories that started the Sylvestor McCoy era. It still has the silly costumes and low production values of the late 1980's but at least we start to see some decent story and the beginning of the true 7th Doctor.

We finally lose Mel as a companion and she gets replaced at the end of the story with Dorothy "Ace" McShane, a far better choice. I'm not sorry to see Mel go in all honesty. Ace is a plucky young girl with skills in explosive making. We learn that she was swept up in a time storm from 20th century Earth and dropped on Iceworld. This will make a reappearance later as we learn how and why.

The adventure is memorable for the rather grisly final end of the villainous Kane, whose face melts away in clear camera shot. Even now it is rather unpleasant and I wonder how well that went down with children at the time. Not well I imagine.

Dragonfire is a reasonable story that shares elements from lots of different science fiction genres, including some elements that seem lifted straight out of the movie Aliens. It isn't perfect but you can see that things are getting better in the writing and the characterisations.

Episode #146 : The Ultimate Foe

"In all my travelling throughout the universe I have battled against evil, against power mad conspirators. I should have stayed here. The oldest civilisation: decadent, degenerate, and rotten to the core. Power mad conspirators, Daleks, Sontarans... Cybermen, they're still in the nursery compared to us. Ten million years of absolute power. That's what it takes to be really corrupt."

Episode 146:   The Ultimate Foe.
Companions:   6th Doctor and Mel.
Air Date:         29th November to 6th December 1986.

With the evidence complete, the Doctor learns that the Master has gained illicit access to the Matrix in his TARDIS. Glitz is now revealed to be the Master's associate and the 'secrets' to be information stolen from the Matrix. The Valeyard admits his identity as a distillation of the dark side of the Doctor's nature, somewhere between his twelfth and thirteenth incarnations, out to take control over his remaining lives. With the help of Mel, who along with Glitz has been brought to the space station by the Master, the Doctor defeats his future self - although, as they leave in the TARDIS with all charges in the trial having been dropped, it appears that the Valeyard has taken over the body of the Keeper of the Matrix and may not have been as completely vanquished as they had thought.

The Trial of a Time Lord season comes to an end with a rather disappointing two part story in which it is revealed who the Valeyard really is (see above). It then ends up being a repeat of The Deadly Assassin with the Doctor with Glitz in tow, entering the Matrix where he is at the mercy of what the Valeyard can throw at him. It then ends with the Doctor forgiven, though how you can try someone for the same crime twice (see The War Games) is beyond me. But as everyone goes home it is revealed that the Valeyard is still very much alive.

The addition of the Master into this story is pointless. He doesn't do anything and seems to be just there to gloat, and show off how clever he is. It smacks of lazy writing to me. Had the Master been to the one behind it all, having created the Valeyard in an attempt to kill the Doctor from behind the scenes, I think this story might have been better.

I really hoped that in the right spot in the new show that they might show the Valeyard or at least hint at his creation but they never do and the character has never reappeared in canonical Who.

One last thing, we do at least discover that Peri is very much alive, and living as a warrior queen with King Yrcanos. Why the Doctor doesn't go back for her we never learn.

Episode #143 : The Mysterious Planet

"Whereas yours is a simple case of sociopathy, Dibber, my malaise is much more complex. A deep-rooted maladjustment, my psychiatrist said, brought on by an infantile inability to come to terms with the more pertinent, concrete aspects of life."

Episode 143:   The Mysterious Planet.
Companions:   6th Doctor and Peri.
Air Date:         6th to 27th September 1986.

The Doctor is on trial for his life. Plucked out of time and space by the Time Lords, he is charged with transgressing the First Law of Time. He must defend himself against the prosecution led by the sinister Valeyard. The trial begins as the Time Lords review an adventure from the Doctor's recent past. The setting is Ravolox, where the Doctor and Peri find themselves caught in the conflict between a warrior tribe, a pair of intergalactic con-men, and a god-like robot. But deep below the surface of the mysterious planet lie secrets that threaten the very fabric of the universe. And to protect them, drastic measures have been taken that will shock the Doctor to his very core.

After a year and a half hiatus the show comes back with another season long arc similar to the Key to Time. This time however the Doctor is plucked out of time and space by the Time Lords again and put on trial for violating the First Law of Time. The first case presented by the Valeyard is an adventure on the planet Ravolox. The opening sequence where the camera weaves its way across the surface of a space station is excellently done and sets up the trial atmosphere very well. The story then alternates between the court room and the adventure.

The court room scenes prove to be quite amusing as the Doctor relies on humour to poke fun at the Valeyard and the proceedings. Who is the Valeyard and why does he seem to have an aggressive desire to see the Doctor dead? All will be explained in time.

The actual adventure on Ravolox revolves around the mystery of why planet, in fact Earth, has been moved across space into a whole new galaxy and renamed. Even the computer records of the Time Lords have it listed as Ravolox. The planet is supposed to be dead, scoured clean by a fireball, but is actually alive and well, with survivors living a sort of Celtic existence on the surface, and others living underground under the rule of an "immortal" robot. Add to that a pair of immoral space pirate types, Sabalom and Dibber, who seek information hidden somewhere in the underground settlement and you have an interesting tale.