Terror of the
Vervoids is the beginning of the Mel era on the show and also the first
opportunity that the Doctor has of defending himself. He picks a story in his
future which does imply I suppose that it means he gets off in the trial but as
any fan with half a brain knows, things can be re-written all the time so it is
by no means a certainty that he would be freed by the end of this adventure.
Pip and Jane Baker return to the show after their impressive debut in the
previous season. Although you would forgive them for working under conditions
which weren’t ideal bearing in mind that Eric Saward and John Nathan Turner
have had a severe falling out at this point. This story is heavily influenced
by several Agatha Christie stories as this is a whodunit.
The sombre Doctor that we see at the beginning of the
episode is something that we haven’t seen from Colin Baker’s Doctor before. I
buy that the Doctor is still not over the death of Peri and holds himself
partly to blame for what happened to her. That is about as much time as Peri
gets in this episode and I think that it’s a good move because its Mel’s time
and things move on.
The story moves along and it seems like this is just another
piece of evidence but then things change. There is another example of things
being change. The Doctor speaks out after one moment where he tells Mel to
basically go away is something that the Doctor doesn’t remember when he saw the
film before.
Michael Craig plays Commodore Travers and he is the rather
standard no nonsense captain. The thing about the Commodore is that it seems
that he has encountered the Doctor before although few details are revealed. Hopefully
this is an adventure that Big Finish decide to do in the future. Denys
Hawthorne plays Rudge who is the security officer who is on his last journey in
this story so its clear that he is going to be involved in some shape or form.
Another clue is how he is undermined by the Commodore. Honor Blackman is the
first person who speaks in the Hyperion III story. Blackman appeared in the
best Bond film ever (Goldfinger) and previously appeared as Kathy Gale in The
Avengers. I really like the character as she is driven almost to the point
where she would step over a dead person to get to what she wants.
Bonnie Langford’s first appearance in the show isn’t
particularly strong as we see her trying to get the Doctor into shape by riding
an exercise bike and drinking carrot juice (more of that in future episodes). I
think bearing in mind that it is the first story for the character, a bit more
effort should have been made to make the viewer warm to her. Luckily that bumpy
start is replaced with a character that is rather like Sarah Jane Smith.
Firstly don’t start writing messages of hatred at me, by similar I mean that
she is quite inquisitive and wants to try and solve the puzzle. Sadly she ends
the episode in a less than stellar way because her screaming is rather annoying
but at least it doesn’t involve the Doctor and/or a zoom in. As far as the
relationship between the Doctor and Mel, its weird how the partnership seems to
be working well already. It took several stories for the Doctor’s relationship
with Peri to mellow (in fact it wasn’t until The Mysterious Planet that this happened).
It was an interesting episode and its weird how there seems
to be a shift in the way the series appears on screen and as we reach the
business end of the season its clear the best is still yet to come. I am
feeling a lot more warmly towards the season than I was at the beginning and
think that its starting to look like my opinion of the season as a whole might
improve.
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