Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

"Why do they keep showing that stiff?"

Forgive me but I'm playing catchup with episode two of the fabulous Vengeance on Varos or as I shall be calling it from here on in "Worst... episode... ever!". But at last, there's some real horror in the shape of an acid bath. But with the scene ended by a very poor corny Bond-style line from the Doctor we descend into a land where mediocrity is not only King, but also occupies the entire lineage to the throne of Tedium.

I think one of the things wrong with it is it's suffering from a case of The Fantom Menace, it's basically a dull-as-ditch-water trade negotiation. Lucas didn't have to spend millions of dollars on making the actual thing just to find out how bad it would have been, $29.99 from Best Buy would have gotten him the region 1 version of Varos and he could have put his feet up for a few years.

It comes to something when I'm getting excited by the brief glimpse of the show that Arak and Etta (not the Spanish separatists group) are watching, kind of looks like a stone-age equivalent of Antiques Roadshow meets the Mud Wrestlers from the WWF. Breathtaking action as the two nappy-clad combatants fight over a piece of pottery. This is brilliant, and has much more going for it than the main feature. But I'm drifting, and I've also just cremated my baked spud (but you don't need to know that).

I suppose the story brought us Sil, and a couple of good performances - both of them Peri's leotard - and that's about that. Thank the lord Sir Jesus Christ we all managed to get past that...

'What shall we do?' 'Dunno'.

Kinda sums up my feelings after watching part two of Vengeance on Varos...

Okay, confession time again. Watching this evening, all I can recall is Nicola Bryant’s chest. Sexist and adolescent that comment may be, but it’s the truth.

And the worst part is that it (they?) was by far the most memorable thing in the whole forty-five minutes. Because in spite of starting out as an interesting meditation on the nature of free will, Varos part two descends swiftly into a rather aimless run-around; something to become far too familiar during Season 22’s expanded/overstretched (delete as you see fit) format.

It’s also one of the worst examples of that perennial ‘Who’ sport, corridor running. The Doctor and co. get caught, escape, get caught again, escape again, and do little else but go up and down Varos’ boring, brown corridors. And when the Doctor appropriates a scarcely disguised golf cart to aid one of their escape, the speed at which it moves sets a new standard in the K-9 land-speed records.

As if it needs saying, episode two is a barely stringed together series of set pieces - the acid bath scene, Peri and Aretta’s transmogrifications (which if nothing else give Dorka Nieradzik’s make-up team something to do) and the final climactic hunt through the Punishment Dome’s traps. The pacing of this episode is particularly poor, with no sense that the story is building to any climax (in fact, when it arrives, it’s so underwhelming that you’re convinced there must be another fifteen minutes left…God forbid).

So, in the absence of anything non-mammary related to report on, let’s have a look at some of the Doctor’s dubious dealings in this episode…

The Acid Bath scene - hmm, okay so the deaths of the two morgue attendants are rather farcical accidents. But it’s the Doctor’s Bondian one-liner - a trait he repeats later after killing Shockeye in ’The Two Doctors - that leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Not even Baker the first at his most biting would descend to this sort of glorying in an enemy’s misfortune.

Quillam and the Chief’s deaths - while it is Jondar and Aretta who release the deadly vines, it is clearly done at the Doctor’s suggestion. So this Doctor’s such a shit that he even gets others to do his dirty work for him rather than bloody his hands himself.

Oh, and let’s not forget the guard killed by the laser machine left on by the Doctor in part one - I mean, what did he think was going to happen?

The evidence, m’lud, is quite irrefutable. Here is a Doctor who, while not quite a cold-blooded murderer, is nevertheless capable of casually allowing an enemy’s ill-feeling to rebound on them to terminal effect. Say what you like about Colin Baker’s performance - and the well documented attempts by him and the production team to instil this new persona with an unpredictable quality - but to rob the show of the moral rudder that the Doctor’s basic character represents is both negligent and, as we were soon to find, detrimental to the show’s future.

Just in case you’re thinking there are no redeeming features to Varos 2, I’ve just remembered Arak and Etta, those two Shakespearean muses I forgot to mention from Part One. It’s a bold move to devote so much screen-time to two characters who bear little influence on the story’s events; but that’s the whole point, as these two pretty much symbolise the feelings of ‘Who’ viewers at this time: bored, cynical and just a little bit fed up of the meaningless violence they’re being dished out week after week.

So that’s it. And the shocking thing to realise is that Vengeance on Varos is one of the crowning jewels of the Colin Baker era - a status which more than anything else underlines the dross that surrounded it, both this season and the one after. And, despite the Doctor’s reassurances to the contrary, it was going to take more than mineral water to freshen up this particular formula…

"There's not any prime time viewing here"

And so we come to the Colin Baker era. Or, as the Americans would say it - "error". And you know what? They're right!

I wish I could be bothered to give an excellent analytical review of this story like Sean did (that man deserves a medal) but I can't. All I can do is bitch. Sorry.

I know, I know, it's like kicking a dog when it's down but bollocks to re-evaluation. We'll be excusing the Third Reich next.

The show is a pale shadow of its former selves. It tries, it really does, but it fails abysmally at almost every turn. The sub-Holmesian cod dialogue, the shite Casio soundtrack, the limp direction, the appalling costume design, the irritating monsters, the lesser Connery, the patrol car that reaches speeds of 3, the silly names, but mostly it's the sheer boredom of it all.

And if I wanted to watch people bickering I'd have turned off the TV and listened to my parents instead.

But it does have some redeeming features. Marvin Jarvis is sublime as the Governor and the plot is actually very prescient. At the time it must have seemed very far fetched but having watched The Guantanamo Guidebook on Channel 4 the other week, it looks pretty tame in comparison. If the rumours are true the new series will explore the very same subject matter (I did plan this really, you know).

The cliffhanger is great, though. Post-modernism before it became post-modern. In fact, Varos works best when you are 35 years old and equipped with Sky Plus. But God only knows what the 11 year old kids made of it.

Unfortunately, the final shot is also extremely emblematic of the series as a whole. Doctor Who - out for the count.

'And cut it...now'

You’ve gotta admit, that opening shot is one of the poorest models ever in the show - you almost expect John Noakes to pop his head up from behind it and say those immortal words ‘Here’s one the BBC Visual Effects knocked-up earlier’.

The legacy of ‘Caves’ is all over Vengeance on Varos - from the gloomy torture-scene opening, to the adult subject matter and the slightly fetishistic masked villain, Varos has ‘gritty’ imbedded through it like ‘Blackpool’ through a stick of rock. Season 22 suffers as a whole from living in the shadow of the one story that successfully raised it to the par of such contemporaneous drama as ‘Edge of Darkness’. And Vengeance, despite its atypically literate script, suffers more than most from this pretension to be something more than just a well-made children’s programme.

But the biggest shock in 1985 was the fact that just as you were waiting for the traditional end-of-episode cliff-hanger, it never came. Yes, it’s that most bizarre concept, the 45-minute episode. And while Varos does have one of the better cliff-hangers of this period - of which more later - the viewer was somewhat robbed of that sense of anticipation as the twenty-minute mark crept past. Of course, JNT & co. were only given this format at a relatively late stage of the season’s scripting; resulting in some rather drawn-out episodes, evidently padded out to fill the time-slot. And it also means that, far too often, the Doctor and Peri spend the equivalent of a twenty-five minute opening episode divorced from the main action. Somehow, I don’t think the Doctor and Rose will befall this same fate…

Add in the fact that the TARDIS scenes the regulars do share are so interminably dull, and you could be forgiven for thinking that the title ‘Doctor Who’ is now a contravention of the Trades Description Act. The whole, pointless Zeiton-7 business is at best contrived, and worst completely against the ethos of the Doctor as an unflappable hero (can you imagine Davison giving up so easily just three stories earlier?). And the result is that the viewer inevitably looks at what else is going on to find some diversion. Here, thankfully, there is some reward. Because at heart, Varos is a clever, witty story, with plenty to say about political rule, the symbiosis of supply and demand and the power of television. In the case of the latter, it achieves that most rare distinction of actually predicting a future social phenomenon; with Varos’ use of sadism as entertainment being far more resonant in today’s ‘Weakest Link/Reality TV’ world than it ever was in that post-early ‘80s age of the video nasty.

And while the performances are generally of the am/dram variety so prevalent in ‘Who’ - with Jason Connery and Geraldine Alexander being particularly worthy of the Order of the Plank - there are still Martin Jarvis’ finely judged Governor - as worthy of our sympathy as he is our contempt - and Nabil Shaban’s deliciously slimy Sil; arguably the only truly successful new monster in the whole of ‘80s ‘Doctor Who’. Writer Philip Martin doesn’t do character a fraction as well as he does subtext, but Jarvis and Shaban at least lend his broadly drawn protagonists a real sense of believability.

You may think I’m skirting the regulars on account of their almost exclusion from the first ‘part’ of this story. But really it’s because I’ve little to add to what’s already been said a thousand times about the pairing of Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant. While she’s undeniably easy on the eye, Bryant struggles to make little impression beyond the whiny stereotype for which she is remembered. While Baker - admittedly handicapped in extremis by that costume - nevertheless lacks the presence or charisma so intrinsic to the role. I have nothing but admiration for Colin Baker’s unstinting support of the show, both during and after his tenure. And both at conventions and in TV documentaries, his knowledge and passion for the programme is second to none. But sadly, he was ultimately miscast in the programme at a time when behind-the-scenes conflicts and the lack of any Harper-like hunger amongst the show’s directors meant that the programme simply looked gaudy and childish around him. And as he was the most gaudy and childish thing in it himself, he largely ended with up with most of the blame.

However, that is a cracking post-modern cliff-hanger, isn’t it? And one of the few times in these most troubled of years when the show managed to wink at its dwindling audience and not fall on its arse doing so…

I like that one. The one in the funny clothes...

...well you're the only one, dear! My anti hallucination helmet is malfunctioning. This is terrible.

You know, it's almost as if Neil planned this meticulously. St. Patrick's Day. And we're reviewing Varos. And at least I'm going through this from the perspective of several pints of Guinness, which I'd thought was a basic prerequisite. I was actually expecting Twin Dilemma, having just watched Androzani. Fortunately I'm pleasantly surprise! But not for long. Christ on a Segway, this new Doctor is so defeatist. The old model wouldn't have even thought about sulking about the TARDIS after it had been reduced to hanging around an intergalactic lay-by, he would have gotten out an pushed!

The one shining light in this entire fiasco is Sil, even if he does start talking like Yoda! With a laugh so dirty it would take an army of council rapid response graffiti cleaning teams to even start to shift. I'm surprised that Marsh Minnows haven't supplanted Jelly Babies in the affections of Who fans. And Varos seems to be rich in Zeiton 7 ore, how lucky that that's exactly what the TARDIS is lacking. Actually, if the TARDIS was needing a thick slice of gammon, topped with pineapple, which could only be obtained from the Road Chef on the M16, junction 34, that would be much more believable.

As much as I like Colin Baker, I think that's got more to do with the Big Finish rehabilitation of the 6th Doctor, and not to do with this time as the Doctor in the TV series. Fortunately this series also coincided with me getting a Saturday job, so I kinda lost track of the series...