For the first time in the series’ history, a Dr Who story is set on the Doctor’s home planet of Gallifrey. We’ve seen the Time Lord planet before, in the Doctor’s trial at the end of The War Games and in scenes during The Three Doctors as the planet was drained of energy by that story’s emergency. But this is the first time the main story has centered on Gallifrey, and the Time Lords in this story set the pattern for everything done with them since— from the costume designs to the world-building in writer Robert Holmes’ script. As a result, for fans this story is so crammed full of series lore that it sometimes overshadows the story itself.
It’s worth remembering that Holmes’ purpose here wasn’t to establish a series bible on the Time Lords but to tell a specific story, and (as I’ve previously noted) Holmes was a master of science fiction world-building— so the Time Lords he gives us are designed to serve this particular story, which is Dr Who’s take on The Manchurian Candidate. It’s a political thriller with the Doctor skillfully framed for the assassination of the Lord President of Gallifrey, and conspiracy and corruption lurking in the shadows. Holmes bases Time Lord society on a combination of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and a stereotyped version of aging Oxford dons. These old fuddy-duddies are far removed from the near godlike beings who swept in at the end of The War Games to put everything right with a wave of their hands, and then outwit the Doctor’s every attempt to escape them (although in fairness, even in that episode the Second Doctor told his companions the reason he left home was because the Time Lords were very dull— although one imagines he meant a different kind of dull from what we see here). With hindsight, today’s fans say “of course these are the Time Lords,” and not only appreciate the story but also obsessively mine it for every nugget of information. But fans of the time were disappointed, the then-president of the UK’s Doctor Who Appreciation Society (the official fan club) writing a review that slammed the episode for its portrayal of the Time Lords.
But that overlooks the fact that they work for this story, and this story is another excellent entry in Dr Who’s Golden Age. The story brings back the Doctor’s old enemy the Master, now dying and unable to regenerate, who’s conspiring with a member of the Time Lord High Council to renew his life by seizing the Eye of Harmony, the black hole that’s the source of all the Time Lord’s power. In keeping with this era’s tone, the Master is a more horrific character than the charming “magnificent bastard” who crossed swords with the Third Doctor. He appears to have been horribly burned, reduced to a near-skeletal state, and says it’s only his hatred that’s kept him alive. It’s clear that his sufferings have finally driven him completely insane, there’s no trace left of the gamesmanship he used to enjoy with the Doctor. He lures the Doctor into his scheme because he wants to see the Doctor die in disgrace, and despite the objections of his accomplice who knows it wasn’t necessary. “We could have used anyone,” the accomplice says. (Note to villains: it’s bad enough when the Doctor stumbles across your scheme. Never actually go out of your way to invite him to your party!)
Details
- With the Doctor in between companions, the sidekick role in this story is shared by Castellan Spandrel, essentially Gallifrey’s chief of police, and Coordinator Elgin, the keeper of the archives. They are a delightful pair of characters, despite Spandrel’s inexplicable German accent (the accent belonged to the actor playing him, who does such a good job you can forgive the linguistic mystery).
- This episode firmly established (though later ones will call it into question) that not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords. The Time Lords are a ruling class, graduates of the Academy. At one point Elgin tells Spandrel that each Time Lords’ file in the archive is color-coded and Spandrel replies he didn’t know that. “Well, your duties generally involve you with more plebeian classes,” Elgin says. So, clearly, “more plebeian classes” exist on Gallifrey. Spandrel himself is evidently not a Time Lord, based on this exchange, although future episodes will see the Castellan becoming more important— by the time of The Five Doctors “Castellan” will be a position on the High Council rather than a Police Commissioner.
- Speaking of the Academy, we learn students (and graduates) are divided into chapters, each of which is marked by different color robes on ceremonial occasions. We learn the Doctor is a member of the Prydonian chapter, considered the most elite. The Prydonians have produced more Time Lord presidents than all other chapters combined, their colors are scarlet and orange, and they are notoriously devious (although another Prydonian answers that by saying, “not true, we simply see farther ahead than most”).
- This story introduces the legendary figure of Rassilon, founder of Time Lord society, who managed to obtain the black hole called the “Eye of Harmony” and (in what even the Doctor describes as an astounding feat of technology) set it in a “perpetual dynamic balance against the mass of the planet.” By episode’s end, we see that the Eye of Harmony is physically located in a chamber directly beneath the Panopticon (the Time Lord’s ceremonial meeting hall) and either looks like, or is contained inside, a huge black crystal. How this can be squared with the story of Omega, earlier introduced in The Three Doctors is not clear, though it will eventually be settled that Omega and Rassilon were colleagues.
- Also introduced here is the idea that Time Lords can only regenerate twelve times— thus the Master’s inability to do so, having used up all his regenerations. Some guides mistake this for saying a Time Lord has twelve lives— i.e. there can only be twelve Doctors— but it’s clearly stated as twelve regenerations, which would make thirteen total incarnations. Fans have wondered what the series will do when the Doctor hits the limit, but there’s no need to: although Elgin firmly states that “nothing can prolong life” beyond the twelfth regeneration, this story itself tells us otherwise: the Master’s whole plan is to do just that, so he knows better than Elgin what’s possible and what isn’t, and so do we. When the series gets there, the Doctor will figure it out (assuming the series at that time doesn’t just ignore the issue).
- The distinctive Time Lord costumes with their high collars (if that’s what you’d call that big disk sticking up behind the wearer’s head) first appear in this episode. It’s notable that we only see them in the formal ceremony where the Lord President was going to retire, and that they’re described as “seldom-worn” ceremonial robes. For the rest of the episode, the Time Lords wear simpler and more practical costumes (still robes, but not so elaborate). In future episodes, however, those “seldom worn” robes will become what Time Lords always wear.
- It is notable that this story does not have a single female character, not even among the background extras (although the computer does speak with a female voice). Although we’ll see female Gallifreyans and Time Lords starting with their very next appearance, the all-male society we see in this story has often been taken by fans as evidence that Time Lords are actually entirely sexless beings. The Classic series’ “No hanky-panky in the TARDIS” rule (a directive from higher up in the BBC that there would never be any romance or even romantic tension between the Doctor and his companions) also nudged fans toward concluding that this was a fact of the Doctor Who universe. In the tie-in novels written during the time the series was off the air, this theory eventually took the form of saying that Time Lords reproduce— or more accurately produce more of themselves— using genetic engineering devices called “looms.” The new series has firmly repudiated this whole idea, on more than one level.
- Episode 3 of this story is almost entirely taken up with a battle between the Doctor and the Master’s accomplice which takes place in a virtual reality called “the Matrix.” So, do the Wachowksi Brothers owe Dr Who royalties on every penny they made with their movies? Yes, they do. Absolutely.
- I mentioned a few weeks back the political pressure from Mary Whitehouse, leader of a watchdog group that aimed to “clean up” British television in the late sixties through the seventies. Whitehouse had a special dislike of Dr Who, because it was scary and that was just horrible, horrible, to scare the innocent little children, don’t you know? This story, and especially the matrix episode with its nightmarish imagery and final hand-to-hand combat, sent her right over the top: and that’s a dangerous thing to do with a political activist who has a powerful movement behind her, however stupid the movement might be. With newly energized outrage behind them, largely off of this episode, Whitehouse and her organization would soon get the BBC to clamp down on Dr Who and bring its golden age to an end.
- Finally, and this is really just snarky of me, but on the subject of the title: is there any kind of assassin other than a “Deadly” one?
Next Week:
“The Face of Evil,” 4 episodes
