Doctor Who Twitch Watch: recommendations of the day 06/29
By James Aggas
The Fourth Doctor returns to Gallifrey. But why? And what’s he planning?
(Photo credit: Doctor Who/BBC.
Image obtained from: BBC.)
The Fourth Doctor returns to Gallifrey, begins his search for the Key to Time, and meets Romana for the first time, as Twitch’s classic Doctor Who marathon continues!
It’s another day of goodbyes and hellos with Twitch’s ongoing Doctor Who marathon. Days after saying “hello” to Leela in The Face of Evil , we say goodbye to her today.
But on the plus side, the Doctor’s about to make a new friend. One that’s perhaps unlike any he’s ever traveled before or even since, as he meets Time Lady Romana for the first time!
The Invasion of Time
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The Invasion of Time might honestly be one of the most disappointing stories of the Fourth Doctor’s era. It’s not that it’s the weakest. On the contrary, there are a lot of really strong and amazing moments in it.
The story beginning with a nice tie-in to The Deadly Assassin and the Doctor demanding to be President of Gallifrey is a wonderful beginning. The Doctor is behaving more eccentric than ever. Neither Leela nor the Doctor’s old mentor Borusa knows why.
There are moments when his eccentricities are highly worrying. A scene of the Doctor shouting at Borusa and making demands, before he’s even made President, is shocking to watch.
Disappointing story
So The Invasion of Time has an incredibly strong beginning. Why is it disappointing?
Because after a certain point – once the invasion of the title actually begins, in fact – the story starts to go downhill. It gradually starts to lose the plot and begins to involve a lot of chasing up and down corridors.
We do get an amazing cliffhanger in part four, at least. If you don’t know, I won’t spoil it, but it really is fantastic, and makes you eager to watch the next episode straight away.
Unfortunately, the last two episodes are even worse. The aliens are portrayed so poorly, and there’s even more running down corridors. We’re supposed to see more of the TARDIS, but clearly, we just see the inside of a warehouse, instead.
And then we get to Leela’s exit. It comes out of nowhere and is completely unconvincing. Even worse is that it really doesn’t suit the character at all.
The Invasion of Time starts out very strong and very ambitious. But it all falls apart quite quickly. Like I said, a very disappointing story overall.
The Doctor begins his search for the Key to Time in The Ribos Operation.
(Photo credit: Doctor Who/BBC.
Image obtained from: BBC.)
The Ribos Operation
WIth The Ribos Operation, we not only have the start of a new season, but also a brand new arc to go with it. Doctor Who didn’t have many clear season arcs in the Classic Series, but Season Sixteen has a big exception with the Key to Time.
A powerful object split into six pieces across space and time, the Doctor is sent to go looking for all the pieces. He also meets a brand new companion: Romanadvoratrelundar, or Romana as the Doctor likes to call her.
Brilliantly played by Mary Tamm, she’s a Time Lady sent to help the Doctor on his mission. She’s also very confidant, and in some ways even smarter than the Doctor, at least academically.
However, she also has a lot to learn about the universe at this point. So it’s interesting seeing the relationship between these two characters get started.
For The Ribos Operation, there isn’t a large amount of plot. However, it avoids feeling dragged out by focusing on its characters a great deal. Not only is The Ribos Operation a nice low-key opening to the season, but the characters are brilliantly written and portrayed.
A real standout is the conman Garron. He’s a very colorful character that’s just a joy to watch, and Iain Cuthbertson is brilliant as he performs Robert Holmes’s excellent dialogue.
The Ribos Operation is very slow-paced, but it’s still lots of fun, especially if you enjoy stories that focus on great characters. A decent start to the season.
On The Pirate Planet, the Captain rules with an iron fist!
(Photo credit: Doctor Who/BBC.
Image obtained from: BBC.)
The Pirate Planet
Douglas Adams’s first ever script for Doctor Who, this story has so many of his classic hallmarks. It has a great deal of his incredibly silly humor and wit. But it also has plenty of his utter genius, too. The way the story combines the two is fantastic to watch. Especially in a serial much faster-paced than the previous one.
The Pirate Planet kicks off with so many interesting questions. The Doctor and Romana are supposed to have arrived on Calufrax for the second segment. Instead, they’ve arrived on a completely different planet called Zanak. Why? And where does Zanak get its riches from?
What’s also brilliant is that the story seems to start out poking fun at many cliches, particularly with the Pirate Captain of the planet. Initially, he just seems to be a big overgrown bully. But the longer the story goes on, the more you realize that there’s a lot more to him than meets the eye.
The whole serial’s like that. It has as much fun as a story with the title of The Pirate Planet should do. But it’s also far cleverer and far more exciting than you might expect, too. A real Doctor Who classic.
Overall recommendation of the day: The Pirate Planet
Douglas Adams shows off so much of his talent with this story. It’s not hard to see why he was made script editor the next season. It packs in so much, including comedy, science-fiction and drama.
Even better, Adams’s script gives Tom Baker’s Doctor so much to do. He can be wonderfully silly one moment and deadly serious the next. A scene where he fully confronts the Captain over the billions of lives that the planet has destroyed is fantastic to watch. Overall, The Pirate Planet is a very strong highlight for the season.
(It also has a fight scene between a robot parrot and a robot dog. Seriously, why wouldn’t you want to watch a story like that?)
Next: Twitch Watch: recommendations of the day 06/28
Will this be your first time watching Douglas Adams’s first story for Doctor Who? Are you a fan of the story already? Out of today’s choices, is it your favorite, or do you prefer another serial? Let us know in the comments below.