N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
The opening shot to The Trial of a Time Lord is still magnificent, even over thirty years later. Indeed, the model work is so impressive that my son could hardly believe it wasn’t a new special effect.
“I intend to adumbrate two typical instances from separate epistopic interfaces of the spectrum.”
The Valeyard, The Trial of a Time Lord: Part One
One consequence of the world currently being in lockdown is that my son and I were afforded the time to watch the whole of Trial in one day. I knew the story greatly benefited from viewing it this way and I was keen for him to see it the way I’d first watched it when I was a student and had time for such lazy days. It was the TARDIS-shaped tin that the VHS release of The Trial of a Time Lord came in back then, not the fabulous Blu-ray with multiple versions of each episode that we have now. I resisted the urge to go all ‘Four Yorkshiremen’. High-definition, we used t’ dream o’ ‘igh definition …
In discussing such an epic story, I’ve broken it down the segments using its commonly known, if slightly inaccurate, alternative titles. Which means we begin with a trip to Ravalox …
The discovery of an underground railway station and the revelation that the Doctor and his companion have arrived on some future ravaged version of Earth would be, in the hands of lesser talents, the big twist to which the story would build and subsquently lead to some bludgeoning expository preach about how it doesn’t have to be this way. Not so Robert Holmes who uses it as the basis for a far more interesting discussion between the Doctor and Peri about the transient nature of things as well as being the catalyst to a proper adventure.
PERI:
Do you?
DOCTOR:
Of course I do. You’ve been travelling with me long enough to know that none of this really matters. Not to you. Your world is safe.
PERI:
This is still my world, whatever the period, and I care about it. And all you do is talk about it as though we’re in a planetarium.
DOCTOR:
I’m sorry. But look at it this way. Planets come and go, stars perish. Matter disperses, coalesces, reforms into other patterns, other worlds. Nothing can be eternal.
PERI:
I know what you mean, and I still want to get away from here.
DOCTOR:
Oh, I can’t. There’s a mystery here. Questions to which I must have an answer.
It’s also a conversation that is symptomatic of how mellow the Doctor and Peri’s relationship has become. It’s quite lovely and really suggests that they’ve been travelling together for a long time.
“I would appreciate it if these brutal and repetitious scenes are reduced to a minimum.”
Inquisitor, The Trial of a Time Lord: Part Three
It’s not the only thing about “The Mysterious Planet” segment that seems softened compared to the events of the previous season. The level of violence has been toned down considerably (although still not enough for the Inquisitor’s liking).
The death of Katryca and Broken Tooth is really the only gruesome moment in this first story. Glitz and Dibber are a classic Holmes double-act and far too likeable to pose any real menace, despite Glitz’s plans to wipe out indescriminately the underground dwellers. Indeed, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Sabolam Glitz was 80’s Alan Sugar (albeit with more charm and wit).
Overall though, “The Mysterious Planet” is a strong start to the season, with Robert Holmes sprinkling the generic sci-fi and his own tropes (Krotons, anyone?) with his typical wit and skill for characterisation. The trial scenes set the season up well, although I did wonder why the Valeyard would choose to present evidence that would arouse suspicion due to its having elements that are redacted so as not to embarrass the Time Lords.
“I don’t remember that. I can’t recall anything after the power flooded through my brain.”
The Doctor, The Trial of a Time Lord: Part Six
The “Mindwarp” segment of The Trial of a Time Lord suffers a little from being the most manipulated part of the trial, to the extent that we don’t really know how much of what is seen is accurate.
What we do see is intriguing — with scientific experimentation and economics again at the fore of Philip Martin’s script. Even if it sags a little from too much running around in the caves and tunnels of Thoros Beta, things are enlivened considerably whenever Brian Blessed lets rip with a display of roaring not seen since Stephen Thorne last graced Doctor Who.
The somewhat psychedelic opening and the fact that, like the Doctor, we’re never quite sure which events are part of the Doctor’s plan, which are the effects of the mind alteration and which are being misrepresented by the Matrix, make for a disquieting set of episodes.
Indeed, the tone is unusual throughout. It’s almost a throwback to season 22 with the gruesomeness of Crozier’s experimentation, but the humour here feels slightly at odds with it. I can’t put my finger on what causes my unease, although of course, given the story’s apparent conclusion, this might well have been the intention all along.
It’s tempered somewhat by the return of Nabil Shaban’s Sil, the addition of the also-excellent Christopher Ryan as his superior, Kiv, and the bombast of the aforementioned Blessed as Vultan, prince of the Hawkmen Yrcanos, “King of the Krontep, Lord of the Vingten, Conqueror of the Tonkonp Empire”. And, as has been noted by other commentators, Crozier’s sip of tea before attending to Kiv’s cardiac arrest is the epitome of nonchalant cool.
But it’s what it all leads to that makes “Mindwarp” worth the effort. The Doctor’s increasing anxiety in the trial scenes, especially when he sees himself removed from the action by the Time Lords, means you know that this is not to going to end well.
“You killed Peri.”
The Doctor, The Trial of a Time Lord: Part Eight
Peri’s onscreen death is certainly dramatic. That she dies with her mind erased, replaced by the Mentor lord Kiv and believing the Doctor had betrayed and abandoned her, has to be the most downbeat exit of any companion the show has seen. For a few weeks at least it seems, Nicola Bryant got her wish to go out with a bang.
When it starts out, you think you’re set for a straightforward whodunnit but by the end of “Terror of the Vervoids”, there are so many subplots and motives exposed that it’s hard to keep track of who’s left who isn’t an antagonist. There have been mysteries where everyone is a suspect before and there have been mysteries where more than one person has committed the crime before, but here we have a story where all the suspects are involved in separate crimes! In a way its ambition to be more than just a simple murder mystery is admirable, even if ultimately it doesn’t quite come together.
“This is a situation that requires tact and finesse. Fortunately, I am blessed with both.”
The Doctor, The Trial of a Time Lord: Part Ten
What’s obvious from this segment of the trial is that the Doctor is just as injudicious in his choice of evidence material as his prosecutor. Whilst it might have been unavoidable for the Valeyard to have used the “Mindwarp” segment, he nevertheless chose a particular adventure — “The Mysterious Planet” — where there was evidence of tampering by the High Council, which was bound to raise suspicions.
Similarly, the Doctor chooses a story that, whilst admittedly does show that his help was asked for, ultimately results in his wiping out an entire race, hardly painting himself in a glorious light. He’d have been better off picking Genesis of the Daleks, which shows it’s the Time Lords themselves who want to him commit or at contemplate genocide.
On the plus side, I rather like how the introduction of Mel is handled — that she’s been travelling with the Doctor for a while is apparent and gives us something different from the standard companion introduction story.
Elsewhere, the extended edit adds some distinctly dodgy model effects that the production team were absolutely right to leave out and the story’s studio-bound nature means you never really get a sense of how big the Hyperion passenger liner really is. Indeed, it seems particularly cramped in the climactic scene where the Doctor and Mel kill off the Vervoids.
But there’s more to “Terror of the Vervoids” than I remembered, with its obscene-looking monsters and arguably the greatest scream in Doctor Who history. (On first viewing, I’d also misheard the description of Professor Lasky as an andogynist, which I thought might be synonymous with misandry, but actually isn’t a word at all. Why I thought working with soil would make her hate men is a mystery to me to this day.)
“Terror of the Vervoids” will never top any Doctor Who polls — it’s not even the show’s best whodunnit set on a space ship — but it’s not the worst Sixth Doctor adventure we’ve seen, despite its flaws.
“I don’t understand any of this.”
Glitz, The Trial of a Time Lord: Part Thirteen
My aversion to Alice in Wonderland type flights of fantasy makes me like this segment of the season less than I perhaps should. I can appreciate how thematically it make sense to take the story into the matrix, given how much the manipulation of the matrix has played in the trial, but these anything-can-happen-and-probably-will type stories rarely engage me. (That said, I do like The Deadly Assassin‘s foray into the APC net, so it’s not a blanket dislike.)
Yet again, a massive revelation — that the Valeyard is an unspecified future version of the Doctor — is done almost in passing, seemingly casually thrown into a line of the Master’s dialogue. With some writers, you’d have half an episode of build-up to a line like that, but not here. That’s possibly because it was considered secondary to the real meat of the story’s illusory pursuit through the matrix, but for once I wouldn’t have minded a bit more exploration of how the Valeyard came to be.
In keeping with the meta nature of some of the dialogue in the courtroom scenes, the illusion of a trial within the matrix is a nice touch. I even quite like the Scooby-doo reveal of Popplewick as the Valeyard. It just needed him to tell the Doctor he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids, and that would have been the capper. (As a side note, are all Gallifreyans experts in the design and construction convincing latex masks? The Master, The Rani and now The Valeyard — are all purveyors of these excellent disguises. Is Ethan Hunt a Time Lord too? Or do they all use the same guy?)
More pertinently, marrying off Peri to Yrcanos — well, frankly, that’s just pants. Peri’s fate, as originally shown was far more memorable! Yet it’s a testament to Doctor Who‘s occasional predilection for ill-thought out endings to a companion’s adventures, that it is only the second-least likely marrying-off the show has tried to pass off as plausible. And the question of course remains: was the Master lying though, manipulating the matrix himself?
Ultimately, whilst the last two episodes of The Trial of a Time Lord will never be my type of story, they are nonetheless impressive, especially when you consider the oft-documented tumultous off-screen events that accompanied its production.
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“Members of the court, we have just witnessed a typical glorious escapade of the Doctor.”
Valeyard, The Trial of a Time Lord: Part Five
The Trial of a Time Lord is a classic example of a tale that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Using the past, present and future framework of A Christmas Carol is ingenious, meaning it builds to a dramatic climax in Part Eight with the Doctor being taken out of time and Peri’s subsequent death.
Mel’s timeline messes with your mind, though. Presumably the Doctor takes her back to her post-Vervoids place in time, drops her off, then carries on with his own adventures. Does he feign ignorance when he meets her?
“Is the vocabulary of all the Time Lords so antediluvian?”
Mel, The Trial of a Time Lord: Part Ten
Unlike many I don’t find the trial scenes to be too intrusive. I’m even fond of the occasionally overblown dialogue. Anyone who’s suffered through the second series of Broadchurch knows just how god-awful courtroom drama can be. Compared to that Trial‘s courtroom scenes are positively Rumpole of the Bailey levels of quality, even if the Valeyard’s changing of the charges three-quarters of the way through it is somewhat ludicrous.
All in all though, The Trial of a Time Lord, while by no means perfect, is a hell of a lot better than its reputation and makes you lament that this was the end for Colin Baker’s Doctor.
Well, on-screen, at least …
