Of course, John Nathan-Turner and Eric Saward were still in control, which didn’t bode well for the season as a whole. The “trial” concept was meant as a commentary on their own “trial” by the BBC. This kind of insider baseball rarely works, because the vast majority of folks watching just want to have adventures. From a storytelling perspective, the trial mainly served to stop the action whenever it started to get interesting. The tone is all wrong, the Time Lord costumes are – as always – a disaster. The ratings certainly reflected the general disinterest in the series. The show came back to its worst numbers (under 4 million per episode) in its history, though they did eventually stabilize around 5 million.
Alas, Robert Holmes ends his nearly two-decade relationship with Doctor Who with a less than stunning script. It involves a mysterious Earth-like planet that turns out to be Earth. A typically crazy robot/computer thing, and warring factions of descendants from a high technology society (think The Face of Evil, but with the wrong Baker and no Leela). On the upside, Holmes’ wit is intact, as we get one last great double act, led by the rascal trader/pirate Glitz.
Writer Philip Martin returns for best of the Trial storylines, and we get Brian Blessed being Brian Blessed. More horses! The lizard-like Sil returns, and is joined by another of his race (played, in heavy makeup, by Mike from The Young Ones), who plots to transfer his consciousness into another body. There is a lot of corridor running and near escapes, but the story moves at a strong pace and lots of danger. It also ends with perhaps the biggest downer in Doctor Who history, as Peri has her mind wiped and replaced by the evil fish thing. Really, Peri’s had the worst time on the Tardis this side of Katarina.
Oh great, Pip and Jane Baker are back in this story that’s a lot like Nightmare in Eden – only
worse. And we get Mel, a companion that is somehow more annoying that Peri. This time out, it’s killer plants on a space liner who are about to kill everything if they escape. Arrayed against the Doctor are some bad scientists, led by an underutilized Honor Blackman. At story’s end, the Doctor kills all of the Vervoids, and gets accused of... genocide! Cue ending credits. And then watch that particular plot thread get dropped in the series finale.
The finale feels like the work of two different writers – because it is. Actually, there are four writers involved here. Robert Holmes started it, but fell ill and died after completing most of episode one. Eric Saward took over, completed that episode and wrote the second part according to Holmes’ outline. Saward and JNT had a falling out over the ending (involving the Doctor and the Valeyard locked in mortal combat for a cliffhanger), which lead the author to withdraw his script. Pip and Jane (oh no!) Baker were brought in to finish it, but were not allowed to even glance at Saward’s work, but had to use the sets established in that part. In other words, it’s a mess. The Valeyard is revealed to be the evil distillation of the Doctor, out to get his remaining regenerations. The moment is dropped by the Master (oh no!) as a casual aside, like “Hey Doctor. Hey Evil Doctor. What’s up?”
The Valeyard’s plot revolves around something called the Megabyte Modem, so apparently he wants to bring internet access to the universe and destroy society with Twitter and Instigram. He gets stopped and all is well. Even Peri turns out to be alive, robbing the season of its most powerful moment. And Colin Baker’s last line in the role? “Carrot juice.”
At the end of this season, Baker was fired. John Nathan-Turner was still stuck on the show, and the worst season of the show’s history was, well, history. I wish I could say this lead to a renaissance, but the bad times would continue to roll when Sylvester McCoy took on therole (though it will get better).
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