Of all the stories in season 18, Meglos is the one most like last season in terms of its general silliness level. We have a gang of dimwitted space pirates who might as well have been transplanted directly from the dimwitted bandits of Creature from the Pit, the Doctor doing slapstick pratfalls in the TARDIS, and the main villain is an intelligent, shape-shifting cactus called Meglos. All this lands in the middle of what’s trying to be a far more serious story treading the well-worn religion vs. science controversy, but unfortunately the silly side never lets that issue get any proper dramatic treatment, while the seriousness of the actors on the drama side never lets the comedy get very funny. The end result is an episode that is essentially unmemorable with the sole exception of Tom Baker’s excellent performance as Meglos (impersonating the Doctor).
For the majority of the story, Tom Baker plays Meglos as well as the Doctor. Baker in the cactus makeup when Meglos is losing its grip on the impersonation actually makes quite a creepy Dr Who monster, but he really stands out when Meglos is perfectly transformed and there’s no monster makeup to help out. Meglos is, like the Doctor, eccentric and alien— but in a completely different, and malevolent, way.
The story takes place on Tigella, where for thousands of years a mysterious object called the Dodecahedron has supplied the power for the entire civilization. Having originally fallen out of the sky, the Dodecahedron is regarded as a religious object by the Tigellans. Two castes in their society deal with it: the religious order of the Deons, who guard the object itself and serve as priests, and the Savants, technicians who manage the power systems. Over the centuries the Savants have developed a scientific approach and now are in bitter disagreement with the Deons over just what the Dodecahedron is. Lately its power output has begun fluctuating, causing dangerous accidents. The Savants want to study it, perhaps repair it. The Deons regard that as blasphemy. The Tigellan leader, who shares both the Deons’ faith and the Savants’ desire to understand (and is presented as the reasonable man on the planet) is unable to reach a compromise, and having met the Doctor fifty years earlier asks him to come help.
But Meglos overhears the transmission and, with his band of mercenary space pirates, arrives on Tigella to impersonate the Doctor in order to steal the Dodecahedron and use its power for the sort of galaxy-conquering ambitions that many classic Dr Who villains harbor. Of course the Doctor will be blamed for the theft, unless he can clear his name.
As has often been the case with the lesser episodes of Classic Dr Who, you could make a really great story out of that. But Meglos’ uneven veering between comedy and drama, together with a lot of inconsequential wandering around between perils that aren’t perilous enough to be really exciting, drag it down. I would call it the weakest outing for season 18, a last unwelcome echo of last year’s troubles before things start to really change.
Details
- There’s a familiar face among the guest characters. Jacqueline Hill, last seen on Dr Who playing Barbara Wright, companion of the First Doctor, returns as the Deon high priestess Lexa. Although many actors have made multiple guest appearances on Dr Who over the years, Hill’s return marks the only time in Dr Who history that a former companion has returned to the series in an unrelated role (Billie Piper in The Day of the Doctor doesn’t count— “The Moment” chose that shape specifically to resemble Rose Tyler).
- By the time season 18 went into production, Tom Baker had announced it would be his last. Two stories into the season, we can see the beginnings of an overarching theme that will build up throughout the season leading to Baker’s departure: every episode in season 18 has something to do with things breaking down, growing old, running out of time. (Last time, the Argolins had all been rendered sterile by the interplanetary war, and their Leisure Hive was only a last gasp of their civilization as they were all aging toward the extinction of their species. This time, the Dodecahedron is starting to break down, and we learn it came from a now-dead planet where all life went extinct long ago.) Unlike the very obvious “Key to Time” arc of a few seasons ago, this season arc resembles much more closely the kind of things the new series has done. The theme of decay and entropy will get stronger with each story, and a somber mood will be spreading over the series as we go forward, leading up to the catastrophic events of the Fourth Doctor’s departure.
- K-9 finally gets to participate again. Much of the first episode is spent with the Doctor and Romana working to repair him after the accident that kept him out of all but the first few minutes of The Leisure Hive. In keeping with the theme, though, he too is running down a bit, his batteries no longer able to hold a charge that will last very long.
Next Week
“Full Circle,” 4 episodes
