The Ribos Operation - Episode 3

The episode starts off with a bit of humour which seems to undermine any tension that there might have been at the cliffhanger. I know that the humour has replaced the darkness in these stories and I have no problem with humour in Doctor Who but I think that two seconds after the episode starts isn’t perhaps the right time to do this. It doesn’t take for the Graff Vynda-K to realise that he is being conned (even though he must have suspected something in the previous episode.

Binro the heretic is introduced in this episode and becomes a nice person when he helps Unstoffe hide from guards. He’s played rather sweetly by Timothy Bateson. In one scene he tries to prove to Unstoffe that there are other worlds and Unstoffe tells him that he’s right and one day people will believe him. In just a few short scenes he has become one of my favourite characters in the story. Primitive Mumbo-jumbo is the reaction from Sholakh when the seeker is doing her thing. Oddly enough it’s the same reaction I gave. I haven’t commented much of Sholakh because he’s sort of been one of the quieter characters but I thought that he was quite good and worked well with Paul Seed to make the Vynda-K and Sholakh just as good a double act as Garron and Unstoffe.

The story does come across quite good when the action moves into the catacombs because it shows us that there is more to Ribos than the two or three rooms that are starting to look less appealing as the story progresses. I suppose that this is one of the limitations of a studio bound story is that eventually the sets lose their appeal.

The duo of Baker and Tamm seem to working well together, there still seems to be a bit of a frostiness (forgive me for that one) but I like the dynamic between the two. I think that its better than the one the Doctor has with Leela.

The episode ends with the Doctor, Romana, K9 and Garron hiding from the Graff Vynda-K and it’s a rather disappointing ending. The whole episode felt a bit like the previous one in that there isn’t much happening. I mean stuff happens but I cant think that isn’t one of Robert Holmes’ best scripts. It’s not terrible but when you have written the sort of stories that he has written then anything below par is going to look weaker than if it had been written by another writer. I still maintain that the story is holding together and I still maintain that the excitement isn’t there really. Apart from that its ok.