“Oh but each book must have a name Balazar. It’s usually written on the front” – The Doctor
The Mysterious Planet firstly is host to the most spectacular model shot in Classic Doctor Who, and so it should be for the cost. Whilst the story doesn’t live up to the price tag it’s still by all means a perfectly pleasing piece of telly.
Much as in real life, following the hiatus, time too is shown to have passed for our now more tame travellers. Peri and the Doctor both show they have matured, both physically and mentally. The relationship between Peri and the Doctor is at it’s warmest here, as Peri mourns the loss of her planet, the Doctor quite sweetly tries to console her, and at no point, as he once did, berates her for her outbursts.
The story also introduces Sabalom Glitz, who would feature again in season 23, and once more in Dragonfire. Here he is shown as a ruthless killer and an opportunistic criminal. Within the episode we see Sabalom’s hubris as perhaps a replacement for the Doctor’s, who’s own inflated ego seems to have been scrapped from this episode onwards. Indeed Sabalom is quite surprised and nonplussed that Katryca, the Queen of the Tribe of The Free have captured him with apparent ease.
Katryca herself helps bring up the topic of regression within the human condition as her tribe though not savage are primitive, and worship the black light converter (the source of Drathro’s power) as a great totem. That said, whilst viewers may scoff at this, her reasons for denying Sabalom’s request regarding the totem are perfectly understandable, as we later see yet another reason for dismantling the obelisk comes about. The Tribe of the Free also provide a clever contrast, as the future of the human race are primitives.
Drathro makes for an interesting commentary on the adaption of artificial intelligence and it’s subsequent acquisition of a personality. In this case the over riding attribute to Drathro is his own self importance. The robot, whilst a good homage to Ro-Man from “Robot Monster” (whether intentional or not!), also has some good personality traits, such as the communist society he has helped to nurture, and the willingness to expend any of his work units just to get a job done. Unfortunately whilst it has all this going for it the character itself is just ridiculous, complete with crap dialogue and very little thought put into the applications that can be had with a robotic villain, it’s unfortunately one of the big flaws of the serial.
This serial introduces the Doctor’s second trial and makes for a good triple act between the Doctor, the Valeyard and the Inquisitor. In this serial we learn amongst other things the Doctor has been deposed from his presidency of Gallifrey due to his negligence in the role. The Valeyard proves to be an interesting foil to the Doctor’s brash personality as he shouts and mocks his way through his own trial, the Valeyard is made more intense due to the fact in some of his accusations, he really has a point.
A good start to the series and an interesting story if perhaps not the best written, of course it’s not like you have a choice but to watch it, otherwise you’ll have no idea what happens in subsequent episodes.
No comments:
Post a Comment