Now that things have settled down a bit, the Doctor attempts to get Tegan back to Heathrow airport in time for the flight she was trying to catch way back in Logopolis when she wandered into the TARDIS hoping to call the police for help with a flat tire. The Doctor manages to land in the right place, but the timing is a bit off, probably “due to nothing more than a slight imbalance in the lateral balance cones, nothing to worry about.” In fact the year is 1666— and there’s more to worry about than the recent epidemic of Plague that has the local villagers terrified.
Following the oddity of Kinda, Dr Who returns to more familiar ground with an alien invasion. But this is a new era for the series and the story is quite different from the many menacing monsters of the UNIT era. I say “new era” but there’s something about Peter Davison’s first season as the Doctor that actually recalls the very first season, with William Hartnell. We have the crowded TARDIS with three companions. One of them (back then it was two, Ian and Barbara) is an unwilling companion who only wants to go home, and the Doctor is trying to get her there but the TARDIS’ unreliable navigation prevents it. Of all the subsequent Doctors, the Fifth is the one you can most picture as a younger and less tetchy version of the First.
But there’s also the style of the story. First, the historical setting. It differs from the historicals of the Hartnell era in the alien invasion story, but it also pays more attention to the events of the period than would be typical for the (rare) visits to Earth’s past since the series dropped the historicals. The outbreak of Plague was an event in the real year 1666, so so was the Great Fire of London, which also figures into the story. The Doctor and company are here to participate in actual historical events, although they’re given a science fiction explanation in the aliens.
The aliens of the story, the Terileptils, are also more like the very early aliens of the series, in that they are not simply the monsters of the story, nor are they an outright invasion force such as UNIT often faced. Instead they are simply a party of aliens whose spacecraft crashed on Earth. The Doctor spends most of the episode trying to get in touch with them in order to offer them a lift home, and although they do turn out to be villains in the end it’s not because their planet is plotting to conquer the Earth: they’re escaped convicts who’ll be executed if they go home, and as career criminals they’re ready to hurt anyone who gets in their way.
I can see the First Doctor along with Ian, Barbara and Susan going through this story. Ian and Barbara would be suspicious of the alien “monsters” right away. The Doctor would explain Terileptil civilization (we learn they are indeed a warlike race that believes death in battle is honorable, but also that they are keen lovers of art and beauty). These Terileptils turn out to be bad guys but the Doctor’s point is proved in that they’re not just representing their species. Early episodes like The Sensorites covered similar ground. Early Dr Who did not have “monsters” as we later came to expect from the series— even the Daleks were more complicated than that in the early years— and so far neither has Peter Davison’s first season.
But is all of this a good thing? I say yes. The series is now creeping up on the historic 20th season, and the 20th anniversary following, and although I don’t know whether this was at all deliberate, it feels right to have it drawing inspiration from its beginnings. The style of season 19 is not just an homage to season 1, but the heritage is clearly in view. I think it’s best displayed in this story out of all of season 19, and I’d pick this as my favorite story of this season.
Details
Pictured: Terleptil Art
- The Terileptil’s love of art and beauty is seen in the design of their android henchman, which leaves viewers in no doubt this story was produced in the 1980s.
- The Visitation was written by new script editor Eric Saward, although he wrote it before taking that job. Originally commissioned by Christopher Bidmead, by the time Saward submitted it, it was interim script editor Antony Root who worked on it (and Root is credited as editor on this story). Saward got the job as script editor after the writing work on this story was done. The complexity of behind-the-scenes personnel changes is, perhaps, another similarity of season 19 to the very early years.
- Not content with the “crowded TARDIS,” The Visitation actually introduces a guest character to join our heroes (in a definitely companion-type role) for the duration of the story. Larger-than-life thespian Richard Mace, out of work since the closing of the theaters (something else that was going on in 1666) has turned into a highwayman who makes his living liberating lonely strongboxes from the hands of well-to-do passersby. He seems quite jolly about it. Though he initially irritates the Doctor with his disbelief in everything the Doctor tells him, by the end it seems he’s actually enjoying it and at the very end the Doctor offers him a lift home in the TARDIS— which based on Tegan’s experience means an invitation to become an “official” companion for a while. Although that would have made for a seriously overcrowded TARDIS, it’s also a pity that Mace turns down the offer. He would have made an interesting companion!
- The story plays with the famous “bigger on the inside” reaction everyone has when they first enter the TARDIS. Finding the Terileptil spaceship, the Doctor and Richard Mace go inside to find a huge chamber. “How are the dimensions greater within?” Mace asks— but it’s not bigger on the inside, the Doctor just explains most of the craft is buried so it wasn’t seen from the outside. Later Mace enters the TARDIS, shakes his head, and says “This is not possible”— with a half smile as if by now he likes the fact.
- We get an extended set of scenes involving the bedroom that Nyssa and Tegan apparently share, another Hartnell-era throwback. Although we got a glimpse of Romana’s bedroom once during the Fourth Doctor’s time, this is the first time since the first season we’ve really had scenes in the ship’s living quarters. At the start, Nyssa and Tegan have a scene discussing what happened to Tegan in the previous story (see below), and then later Nyssa builds a sonic disruptor there to destroy the Terileptil’s android. The bedroom is furnished with brass twin beds, some wicker furniture, a vanity with a mirror, and a shelf displaying a china teapot and other knick-knacks. There’s also a large potted plant by the door. It appears to be the same room, and the same furnishings, that Romana used.
- So what happened to John Nathan-Turner’s desire to make Dr Who seem more like a single ongoing serial, like it did back in the early years (a desire that makes me think the similarities to the Hartnell era I describe above are not accidental)? Kinda did not end with a cliffhanger into this story. Instead JN-T chooses to have this story open with the characters discussing the events of the previous one— which really is not the same thing at all. Instead of keeping viewers on the hook for the next episode with a feeling that the adventures never end, it just feels like rehashing old business. The story begins with the Doctor reprimanding Adric for an incident in the previous story. The problem is, the characters got over that before that story ended— why are they arguing about it now? Worse, the dialog limps along with the argument merely serving as pretext for obvious exposition recapping the previous events. But the real offender on that score is the following scene between Nyssa and Tegan. Actress Janet Fielding should have sued the show for cruel and unusual punishment for making her say the line, “But while you were enjoying forty-eight hours’ peaceful sleep under the delta wave augmenter, my mind was… occupied.”
- No cliffhanger to end The Visitation either, but we’re not done with these “previously on” recaps to open coming episodes.
Next Week:
“Black Orchid,” 2 episodes.
