The Deadly Assassin

In the view of many fans, the great sin of The Deadly Assassin's is its revision of the Time Lords. The all powerful Time Lords of The War Games are replaced with a cast of senile Oxford dons and Anglican bishops. Being the first substantial portray of Dr. Who's home planet, this story must have come as something of a disappointment for many long term viewers.

As a young fan, my perception of Gallifrey was shaped by the post-Deadly Assassin stories. The Invasion of Time was one of my favorite Target novels, and The Five Doctors was the first VHS release that I watched. I was rather disappointed by the lack of Chancellory Guards and Staser guns in The War Games.

As an older fan, my enthusiasm for Chancellory Guards and Staser guns has waned. I have come to prefer the idea that the Time Lords are a god-like race with incredible power. There is a lot in The Deadly Assassin that I dislike. Yet I still find something likable about the idea of the senior Time Lords being a bunch of Oxford academics. It is also undeniable that the visual iconography established in The Deadly Assassin has become a fundamental part of the show. The genius of Lawrence Miles can be seen in the way he has combined Robert Holmes' Gormenghast Time Lords with the elemental Time Lords of the The War Games. In a clever nod to The Deadly Assasin, his Book of the War tells us that the senility of the senior Time Lords is just an act:

"their mumbling, even their occasional deafness is often quite carefully orchestrated. Nowhere on the Homeworld is there a House so ready to work its will by planting the correct whisper in the relevant ear, by making murmured suggestions so subtle that after the fact nobody remembers who spoke. While House Dvora moves with an efficient unstoppable openness, the mandarins of Lineacrux are so softly spoken, so serene, so elderly that in this brutal new War age even those who should known better rarely remember how ruthless these 'senile old men' might possibly be."

It must be pointed out that the view of the Time Lords given in The Deadly Assassin was not a sudden departure. The Three Doctors had shown them to be less than all-powerful, and Genesis of the Daleks and Brain of Morbius had shown them to have a shifty side. This development shows a considerable departure from how the Dr. Who's relationship with his people was originally conceived. The Hartnell Doctor was an exile, but from the beginning he showed a genuine desire to return to his homeworld. When Susan speaks about her planet, it is described as a beautiful place, with its burnt orange sky and silver trees. The Gallifrey of The Deadly Assassin seems such a miserable and grim place that it is hardly a surprise that Dr. Who would want to leave it. If Gallifrey is like that, there is no longer any sense that the Doctor has suffered loss or sacrificed anything in leaving it. For this reason, I very much prefer the idea that Gallifrey is a beautiful and magnificent place, whatever the faults of its ruling elite.

If this serial can be forgiven for its depiction of Gallifrey, and I'm not sure it can, it cannot be forgiven for its appallingly badly thought out plot. The Master's scheme makes no sense and the Time Lords society makes even less. Are we really expected to believe that the Time Lords have been completely unable to figure out the nature of the Rod and Sash of Rassilon and that they have no idea where their electricity comes from? I very much agree with the Prosecution case (presumably Lawrence Miles) in About Time, which castigates The Deadly Assassin's plot as utterly contrived:

"But perhaps the real trouble with "The Deadly Assassin" is that aside from the occasional snack-bite of political satire, everything here is so thoroughly contrived that it's alien in all the wrong ways. The script makes up new rules for Time Lord society minute-by-minute, so what chance does the audience have of feeling as if it's any of their concern? If the Doctor reaches a dead end then a new piece of Time Lord technology or custom can be invented to help him get to the next scene, and if characters aren't in the right places then they can be shifted around by Time Lord "traditions" which everybody knows about except the viewer."

For some reason fans seem to love episode three with the nightmare sequence in the APC Matrix. I don't understand why, as it does nothing to advance the plot and feels tediously long. I have a real dislike of dream sequences in fiction. If what the character is experiencing is not real, why should the viewer or the reader care about it? It is just a string of scary events strung together without actually going anywhere. What is more, this episode indulges the worst aspect of the Hinchcliffe era, a morbid delight in pain and cruelty. It is easy to laugh at Mary Whitehouse, but this episode pushes up the violence in the show to a level that is probably not quite appropriate for younger viewers. The BBC made a wise decision in bringing Hinchcliffe's producership to an end after this story.


What I enjoy most in this serial is Angus Mackay's performance as Borusa. Borusa is such a wonderful character, a school teacher turned into a Machiavellian politician. I love the way the schoolboyish way Dr. Who addresses him as 'sir.' There is such a deep sense of respect between the two characters, which adds to the beautiful poignancy when Davison's Doctor exclaims "What happened to you, Borusa?" in The Five Doctors.


For all its failings, The Deadly Assassin makes a bold attempt to tell a very different kind of Doctor Who story. We get to see the Doctor on his own planet, stripped of the reassurance of his scarf and without a companion to rely on. I don't like this story, but I appreciate the attempt to experiment and do what had not been done before.

The Talons of Tired Tropes

Another fan favorite, another beloved Hinchcliffe story that I am about to complain about? In my defence, I will point out my praise for The Brain of Morbius in the last post. However, once again I must express my disagreement with a fan consensus, in this case, that The Talons of Weng-Chiang is a classic story.

My low opinion of The Talons of Weng-Chiang is shared by many fans who have more love for the Hinchcliffe era than I do. There are plenty of fans who feel that Talons does not compare favourably with the more popular Genesis of the Daleks or Pyramids of Mars (as it happens, I think Talons is better than Pyramids of Mars). So the faults in this story are not simply my bias coming out as a Hinchcliffe critic.

It is easy to understand why The Talons of Weng-Chiang is so popular. There is some wonderful humour in this story, including that delightful moment when Leela has supper with Lightfoot. We have incredibly strong performances from Louise Jameson, John Bennett, Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter. The production values are very strong, though this being a period drama, it does have an unfair advantage over the more overtly science fiction stories. David Maloney's direction cannot be faulted and he would later go on to produce the BBC's astounding adaptation of The Day of the Triffids. Mr. Sin is wonderfully creepy.

Despite all its manifest strengths, Talons is let down by some very significant weaknesses. Perhaps the most obvious one is the appalling racism of this story. Talons is an unashamed throwback to Fu Manchu stereotypes of sinister orientals kidnapping young women. In defence of this it is sometimes pointed out that Lhsen Chang is a well developed and complex character. That may be true, but he is still a stereotypical superstitious and treacherous oriental, who cringes before a white man and who is played by a white actor to top it all.

The Eliza Doolittle subtext with Leela is also a bit suspect. The whole idea of the Doctor teaching Leela to be civilized has some rather unappealing connotations, however funny it might be for the Doctor to promising to reward Leela with an orange. Leela's sudden enthusiasm for dresses and going to the theatre seems completely out of character.

The plot is seriously padded, unsurprising given that it is a six-parter, but still not excusable. It takes Greel six episodes to recover the time cabinet and then to delay the action further, his men just happen to forget the key! We are treated to a parade of captures and escapes that delay the action as long as possible. This padding makes Talons one of the more tedious stories to watch.

Talons of Weng-Chiang betrays the somewhat sadistic delight of Hinchcliffe-era Doctor Who in painful deaths. There is an awful lot of disturbing material, from the life force being drained from young women (why women, we might ask?), the suicides of the Chinese gang-members and Chan dying slowly after his leg gets chewed up. None of this is portrayed very graphically, but there is clearly a very tasteless enthusiasm for pain and butchery on display. Stripping Leela to her underwear and splashing her with water was not a good move in my book either.

What I dislike most about this story, however, is that it is just a mass of Victorian cliches thrown together in the belief that this is rather clever. I have never quite understood the appeal of Scooby-Doo-Victoriana, but for some reason its incredibly popular, hence the rise of the absurd genre of Steampunk. Perhaps this was all rather original in 1977, but with the endless parade of cartoonish Victorian tropes in horror, fantasy and science fiction, Talons of Weng-Chiang feels a bit too much for me.

As for Leela's first outfit in the first episode, not a good choice if he wanted Leela to be inconspicuous. Wearing bloomers for riding a bicycle or doing sports was not unknown in Victorian times, but it would have been a shocking choice of outfit for walking around London and would have aroused disapproval.

Season 14

Like the previous season, Season 14 is one of the most popular seasons in the history of the show. It is widely regarded as the best season of Doctor Who ever. I am therefore offering a dissenting voice in expressing my dislike for it.

While I like some of the stories in the previous season more than the stories in Season 14, I do think Season 14 made improvements over Season 13. Season 14 is much less reliant than the previous season was on borrowing themes from classic horror movies. The departure of Sarah Jane Smith was also an improvement. I can't help thinking of the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith as the 'vanilla' TARDIS crew. There was a real need for a new kind of companion and introducing Leela was a bold and generally successful change. Certainly, Tom Baker had less chemistry with Louise Jameson than he did with Elisabeth Sladen. I would suggest that this was actually a good thing. The rapport between Sarah and the Doctor was a little too strong and did not come off very naturally. I quite like the fact that it is quite apparent that the Doctor does not like Leela very much. I see no reason why the Doctor should always like the people he travels with. After all, as he said in Logopolis "I never choose the people I travel with." Like so many others, Leela barged her way into the TARDIS.

Hinchcliffe had the idea of the Doctor pursuing a kind of 'Eliza Doolittle' style project with Leela. He had this idea that the Doctor was trying to educate her. Personally, I hate this idea and am glad that Graham Williams did not pursue it; at least not very consistently. Perhaps it is because I was overexposed to feminist literature at university, but I find the whole notion rather patronising and chauvinistic. Since when has the Doctor been interested in educating and 'civilizing' people? I much prefer the idea that the Doctor keeps her around because he finds her funny and is useful for threatening people.

Although Leela's Season 14 costume has delighted many a male fan, I don't find it very believable. It looks far too tailored. Realistically, I think somebody from Leela's tribe would be more likely to wear a more loose-fitting tunic (the Season 1 dress version of her costume actually looks more realistic). I am also unconvinced that a primitive society like hers would be able to make such well-made boots (I'm not even going to go into the knife). Leela would probably have been more likely to have gone barefoot in real life, like the cave-people in An Unearthly Child.

In Deadly Assasin, the production team made the bold move of not only making a very different kind of story, but also showing Gallifreyan society close up. The results are mixed, but mostly unsuccessful. There is a real sense of darkness and corruption, as well as an arcane sense of history, however there is none of the grandeur and incredible power that we should expect to see in the Time Lords. It is absurd that the Doctor seems to know more about Gallifrey and it's history than anybody who actually lives there. Even worse, the Time Lords have no idea where their energy comes from, even though the Doctor manages to figure it out pretty quickly (what was Robert Holmes thinking?).

The levels of violence and horror continued to increase in this season. When the Doctor attempted to drown Chancellor Goth in the Matrix, everyone except Doctor Who fans realised that Hinchcliffe had gone too far in allowing excessive violence on a family show. This incident demonstrated that a new producer was needed to clean it up and tone things down. In the last two stories of the season, levels of morbid horror reach new depths. The murdering robots of Robots of Death are shockingly distasteful and the slow and gruesome death of Chang in Talons of Weng-Chiang is shocking.


The Masque of Mandragora (4/10)- Historical settings often make for a lavish production, but do not always result in a good story. It suffers from a lack of interesting characters and the Helix lacks menace. The writers also show a poor understanding of the Renaissance era.

The Hand of Fear (4/10)- A story with a very old school Doctor Who feel. The first part is fast-paced, but the scenes on kastria are very poor. Sarah Jane Smith gives a very hyperactive performance on her last serial.

The Deadly Assasin (6/10)- A bold experiment that is not terribly successful. Gallifreyan society is interesting in this story, but not very believable and rather disappointing. Excessively violent.

The Face of Evil (4/10)- Slow and dull. Computers make very poor villains. On the other hand, dealing with the long-term consequences of the Doctor's actions is interesting and original.

The Robots of Death (6/10)- Another story that I hate. The robot design is great, but this tale of murdering robots is quite tasteless and sadistic. It fails completely as a murder mystery. Nice performances from Tom and Louise though. Pamela Salem also gives a great guest performance. She appears again as Rachel Jenson in Remembrance of the Daleks.

The Talons of Weng-Chiang (7/10)- A story adored by nearly all fans. The script is great with some wonderful humour, but it's rather padded. It's also bit of a Victoriana overload. Leela does not come across very convincingly in this one either. Excessively gruesome in a number of places.

The Masque of Mandragora

The Fourth Doctor and Sarah battle an alien entity in Renaissance Italy.

This story is generally well-regarded, while not being seen as one of the classics of the Hinchcliffe era.

The story suggests the influence of H.P. Lovecraft, with a cosmic intelligence impersonating an ancient deity that is worshipped by a sinister cult. Being a fan of Lovecraft, I like that, however, I do find it hard to be gripped by the conflict with the Mandragora Helix. It is a somewhat to abstract opponent to be really engaging. The two similar cosmic horrors, The Image of the Fendahl and Curse of Fenric were able to make their 'Old Ones' grip the viewer, through a monstrous appearance in Fendahl and through human drama in Fenric. Mandaragora lacks these two strategies.

As always the BBC excels at costume drama and this story works well enough on the level of costumes and sets. On the other hand, it does feature a lot of stock characters. Hieronymous the astrologer is the only character who is particularly interesting.

Like The Ribos Operation there is an element of cosmic irony at work. Although the Doctor has a vastly greater understanding of science, his talk of 'alien intelligences' comes across to the Renaissance characters as superstitous mumbo jumbo. Although Federico thinks he is part of a movement for a better understanding of the world, the truth is that the Whovian comos is actually closer to the world of superstition and magic that he rejects.

The TARDIS' secondary control room is an interesting feature of the story.