Terror Of The Vervoids: Ranking - 224

 Terror Of The Vervoids

(Season 23, Dr 6 with Mel, 1-22/11/1986, producer: John Nathan-Turner, script editor: John Nathan-Turner (uncredited), writers: Pip 'n' Jane Baker, director: Chris Clough)

'I think we should go back to our 'roots' on this series of Dr Who...Oh that's what you've included in the script eh? Great...wait, walking plants wasn't quite what I meant!'

Ranking: 224

 

 On the day that Trump gets indicted it seems apt to have a story where a brash man with no taste in clothes is put on trial for mass genocide, although I suspect the Doctor’s arguments about false evidence and tampering from the prosecution will stand up in court better than the orange menace’s. Yes, it’s the Trial of a Timelord part three, this time the defence which has been submitted from the Doctor’s future that he hasn’t lived to do yet – and no, I don’t know how that works either (I would suggest if you ever end up in court not relying on the defence ‘I’m going to do better in the future’ because I don’t think it works at all on Earth). Nor can I explain how the Doctor ends up walking off at the end of the trial with the companion he’s never met before this future scenario, Melanie Bush. Nor why the production team thought they could a) get away with that name and b) get Bonnie Langford back in her immediate post-Violet Elizabeth Bott days in to play her. Like the rest of the trial this story doesn’t quite work, but for a whole host of different reasons to the others. This one is another of those occasional doctorwhodunnits featuring dome weird guest stars and some even weirder monsters that are easily the rudest ever seen in DW (just beating Erato, the Crature from the Pit in the final). As carnivorous planets they’re the sort of monsters that would give DW a bad name anyway, with their sudden ‘gas emissions’ and the fact their foliage is wrapped around some leggings and trainers emblazoned with a very Eartj-bound brand, even if you hadn’t seen their heads which resemble male genitalia sticking out of female genitalia. They are, apparently, meant to resemble tulips which they sort of do, but you have to question just how much action anyone in the production team was getting that everyone signed off on this and let it through. Everyone might have gotten away with it had this been one of DW’s darker, edgier, maturer stories but instead it’s one of the more childish, with a whole plot centred round walking plants picking people off. To give them credit, though, this is easily Pip ‘n’ Jane Baker’s best script for the series. They ‘get’ the sixth Doctor and how his ego-trips and desire to be the focal point in every room is really defensive bluster for how unsure he feels and with this story coming from his ‘future’ he’s mellowed a lot since we first met him, Colin Baker nailing the subtle changes in the script. Mel, too, is about as well catered for as she ever is, the same hyperactive optimistic overgrown toddler she always is but also one who cares for and is open-minded to all the aliens she meets and loyal to the Doctor to a fault. She even gets her definitive moment as early as her first episode when she screams at just the right pitch for the musical ‘sting’ at the end of the first cliffhanger and have it seem entirely in character; not many actresses could pull that off.  The guest cast all get distinct identities and something to do as well and there’s a nice sense of tension as the bodies pile up, reducing the suspect list to two (and it’s not the one I was expecting the first time round). Considering how quickly this story was written, at the absolute last minute, it’s highly impressive and professional, give or take the Vervoids. The difficulty is, it’s more Midsummer Murders than Poirot or Sherlock, a cosy one-pipe problem, and if the whole of the Doctor’s trial defence is that he’s relying on how brilliant he is in the future, well, he doesn’t really do a lot does he? The Valeyard picks up instantly on how quickly the Doctor commits genocide by killing off the plants to save a few straggler Humans and compared to other stories that we know he could have used, even if the production team of course didn’t, he really does very little (I mean, saving the world from Davros in ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’, 27 planets in ‘Journey’s End’ and Gallifrey itself in ‘Day Of the Doctor’ seem more obvious candidates). The Doctor’s argument? He got involved because somebody ‘asked’. So that’s alright then. Trump will probably try the same argument (although I suspect he’s more Slitheen than Vervoid). The real problem with going small though is that with a whole season built round a ‘trial’, with the Doctor’s life and possibly the series on the line, it needs to epic and spectacular – and this story would feel small-fry even in an ordinary DW series.  

+ This is the last story Colin Baker filmed in the role of the Doctor for television (this story being broadcast before but made after ‘The Ultimate Foe’) and as with so many of his stories he’s the best thing here by miles. He’s softened his Doctor from mean bully to tetchy and twitchy and he’s always doing something highly watchable that isn’t in the script, be it striding across a room to rolling his eyes to the comedy of pretending to follow Mel’s exercise bike regime to pulling the multiple faces needed in the endlessly repetitive ‘Trial’ cliffhangers. By now the 6^th Doctor feels like a seasoned traveller with all the tough edges knocked off him, a benevolent Uncle with a hatred for injustice rather than an angry young man who loves clashing with others for the sake of it in everything from arguments to that sodding coat. His Doctor works a lot better with Mel’s than the 7^th Dr’s character too I think – she needs a larger than life protective soul to bounce off, not an odd mysterious eccentric playing the spoons.  In other words, while BBC controller Michael Grade was arguably right that some things had to change to make the series better in this era the star was even more arguably the part that was working, at least by the end. Thankfully the Big Finish range of 6^th Doctor series finally makes good on this most maligned of Doctors, returning to this later softer side and adding multiple years, several new companions and a lot more gentleness to his character.    

- We’ve never had sentient plants in DW as such, not even so much as a Triffids, so I can see why the Bakers had a bash at writing them in. Preventing the Vervoids from talking, though probably sensible from a biological point of view, was a blow for the monsters though who never get a chance to put their side across about why they feel the need to destroy humanity. It’s the designers, though, who really dropped the ball: their shuffling gait, the gas pipe placed in a most unfortunate place, the Adidas advertising, the fact they look as if they’ve just wondered in from a Playboy centrefold: the Vervoids rival The Gel Guards, the Ergon, The Fish People, The Myrka, The Bandrils and The Taran Wood Beast as DW’s silliest monster (though I still say The Myrka wins in a close contest).