N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
I’ve often wondered whether the doubt and moral handwringing that accompanies Star Trek‘s encountering of so-called less-developed societies is due in part to the United States itself having grown out of a colony.
In Doctor Who, there often appears to be little such concern. The Doctor, with his oddly endearing arrogance, turns up, gets involved, does what he needs (or wants) to do and then leaves. There is something of the colonial in the Doctor in this aspect of his character. With him often seeming ostensibly British in outlook it’s perhaps not surprising that the show has imbued him with some of Britain’s historical perspective towards (ahem) exploration.
Indeed, unlike his staunchly non-interventionist fellow Time Lords, the Doctor positively revels in getting stuck in, despite his earlier claims that you can’t rewrite one line of history.
Might this perceived difference in perspective on how you should (or should not) intervene in other cultures be explained by relating each show to its own cultural background and history. Is it fair to say the historical colonisers are less concerned about their impact on a culture than the colonised – those who have experienced its effects?
“According to Bartholomew’s Planetary Gazetteer, it has a protected class three society.”
Romana, The Ribos Operation: Part One
It is perhaps a specious argument – I’ve certainly not done the evidential legwork to back it up – and I’m perhaps being harsh on the Doctor, who of course is but one Time Lord compared to the Federation’s fleet of starships.
It’s more of an impression of a difference than anything, one that The Ribos Operation prompted me to revisit, mainly because both Romana and later Garron refer to the classification of the planet as grade three. Such astronomical taxonomy is ingrained in Star Trek; it’s less prevalent in Doctor Who.
That’s not to say that concern about the development status of Ribos has an impact on either the Doctor’s attitude towards the quest for the Key to Time or perhaps less surprising Garron and Unstoffe’s attempts to swindle Graff Vynda-K. But it’s interesting enough (to me at least) that it warrants a mention.
“Romana, you can’t be a successful crook with a dishonest face.”
The Doctor, The Ribos Operation: Part Two
What of the story itself?
Well, The Ribos Operation offers up the kind of effortless brilliance we’ve come to expect from Robert Holmes. There’s the comic double-act support in Garron and Unstoffe, the casually tossed-in continuity references – the Doctor’s age 759 or 756 depending on who you believe – and a witty script that’s eminently quotable (“Don’t just lie there, do something!”).
Throw in a villain who’s dialled up to eleven from the get-go and a refreshing antagonism between the Doctor and his new assistant and you couldn’t really ask for much more.
Indeed, Romana possesses a kind of aristocratic glamour we’ve not seen before in the Doctor’s companions and is a sharp, if obvious, contrast to Leela’s rough-hewn character. It makes a nice change in the dynamic for the Doctor not to be so sure he’s smarter than his travelling companion. I like how, for all the Doctor’s patronising attitude towards her – considering her some wet-behind-the-ears newbie barely qualified to make the tea – it’s clear Romana is going to stand for none of the Doctor’s sh*t.
If The Invasion of Time was the type of big, end-of-season finale in a way that perhaps only The War Games had previously come closing to being, the The Ribos Operation sets up something Doctor Who has not had before – the season-spanning arc. The Doctor and Romana’s quest for the Key to Time is the kind of loose thread of connections that we have come to expect in seasons of 21st century Who. Take these and Underworld‘s attempts to create a world almost entirely out of blue-screen and it illustrates, for the third story in succession, that Graham Williams was, in many ways, ahead of his time.
"The Doctor’s new companion’s name is Romanadvoratrelundar. The Doctor calls her Romana for short, but she is also fine with Fred. Funny."
"The (robot) dog whistle that the doctor uses to get K-9 (Mark II) must be very loud or high-pitched for K-9 to hear it outside a whole castle – either that or K-9’s got good hearing."
"What a mad man!"
"He was so crazy he exploded!"
Son of UT Rating: 7/10
