The Ribos Operation: Ranking - 156

   The Ribos Operation

(Season 16, Dr 4 with Romana I, 2-23/9/1978, producer: Graham Williams, script editor: Anthony Read, writer: Robert Holmes, director: George Spenton-Foster) 

Rank: 156

'Pssst. Wanna buy a phone box cheap? One careless owner, a quadzillion and four miles on the clock (plus a few billennia). Very spacious - on the inside anyway - vintage model. It just fell off the back of a lorry. Literally - I went back to the start of 'Evil Of The Daleks' to get it. Whaddaya mean you don't need it you've got the internet nowadays? I shall feed you to the shrivenzale personally with an attitude like that! p.s. I might not be around tomorrow for my usual bargains. I'm popping down to 'Cash My Jethryk'.  p.p.s If the British Royal family crown jewels have gone missing it was nothing to do with me!' 

Congratulations! We made it to the halfway point in our journey across time and space. Which also means that its (approximately) halfway between Christmas and new Doctor Who! Fantastic! So here we are in the middle of the list and while that should mean everything is distinctly average, we left the ok stories behind a long time ago and are now deep in ‘really really good but flawed in some way territory. That’s perfect for ‘The Ribos Operation’ where the best description is ‘lots and lots of promise that’s never quite fulfilled’. Recent script editor and longtime Who writer Robert Holmes takes on the difficult job of setting up producer Graham William’s ‘Key To Time’ idea, a mad dance across the universe for hidden relics that keep good and evil in balance and he has a lot to do, creating the Black and White Guardians, the Doctor’s new timelord companion Romana and the idea of the entire series arc while also writing a standalone story in a standalone world we’ve never seen before that leads to the discovery of one of those keys. By Holmes’ standards its not a great story, without his usual twists and turns in the script and dialogue that only sparkles intermittently. What it does have though is a lot of promise that keeps you watching right to the end, of both the story and the series, because the concepts behind both are so darned good. The Black and White Guardians feel like they should be amazing: we only meet the White Guardian here and he seems really nice but with an edge, the new testament idea of God without the beard (so what will the black guardian, unseen for another five stories possibly be like? Well, a hammer horror villain with a raven on his head since you ask, but that’s a disappointment for another day). It’s that edge that makes the White Guardian, never seen again past this story (though impersonated), such an intriguing character. The best and very Holmes-ian line in the story has the 4^th Doctor given the choice of not taking the job and letting the Black Guardian win, learning that ‘nothing would happen to you if you don’t. Because nothing will happen. Ever’. Romana is a tad over-written in her first appearance, the script relying too heavily on Mary Tamm’s 1940s Hollywood looks and love of glamorous costumes to be anything more than a film star diva, before writers and actress find Roman’s more hidden playful side. In a sign of art imitating life Tom Baker’ Dr is irritated at having to share the screen with any one at all and this story marks the first real use of what will soon become a cliché: a Doctor and companion who keep getting on each other’s nerves and bickering. As soon as next story that will develop into mutual respect and softer teasing, but not before the end of this story where Romana plays things by the book and keeps having to be rescued and the Doctor throws out the book and keeps getting things wrong, which soon becomes wearing. Mary Tamm’s response to this story is to treat it as a bawdy comedy that’s beneath her and Tom Baker doesn’t need much excuse to go OTT either; thankfully Douglas Adams’ debut script ‘Pirate Planet’ is next and earns so much respect the cast then behave for the rest of the series. Still, like a lot of other things on offer, Romana has real promise even in what is her worst story as written: its good to have a companion who is keeping this regeneration on his toes, a neat twist on the master-pupil relationship the 4^th Dr had with Leela but much closer in ability now that she is a timelord too. Ribos itself is one of the more interesting planets we get to see, a combination of Earth past and scifi future, one that’s 1920s Russia-esque where it seems to be permanently cold and the Royals are out of touch, holding on to power through their ice-covered fingertips. The story too is based on some truly brilliant conceits from Earth’s past and present at the time of transmission. Binro the Heretic is one of DW’s great characters, the scientist doomed to a life of poverty on the fringes of society for not accepting the superstitious truth of the age he lives in and treated as a mad fool even we know he’s the sanest most rational native to the planet. The visiting Garron and Unstoffe are unscrupulous thieves, the sort of people that on Earth in the 1930s would have been selling public bridges to naive simpletons, or maybe selling timeshares in the 1970s or health drink pyramid schemes in the 21^st century, the only difference being that they’re selling planets that aren’t theirs in return for crown jewels. Unstoffe especially is a strong character who goes from conman’s assistant to rebel and Binro supporter and is another bit of DW stunt guest casting that worked out surprisingly well, played with just the right complexity by Nigel Plaskit, a man best known for being sidekick to another rogue of children’s TV, Hartley Hare. In a story filled with such big characters he’s impressively muted and thoughtful - not that the rest of the cast are bad as they’re doing the big sort of gestures the parts demand of them (even and especially the Doctor and Romana), but this is one of those stories where everyone is trying to be the loudest person in the room and for now there’s no Sarah Jane or Leela to bring things down to Earth (well alright then, Sevateem in the last case). ‘Ribos’ is a nice idea with some nice scenes and some nice acting that sets up a nice overall arc. All these ideas show a lot of promise, but promise that somehow never quite connects into something more than that: the story resolves itself, Romana and the Doctor gain the grudging respect for each other we knew they would and the key is found surprisingly easily, this big quest turning out to be just another DW story when all is said and done without the stakes the White Guardian warned about. Still, the big beating heart at the centre of this story is a good one, asking many deep questions about faith, both that of the Guardians above and that of Binro below, done with the atmosphere of a bawdy pantomime. Which in its own way is kind of DW-y too.

+ One of the best scenes of DW that never gets talked about, certainly in this era, is the one where Unstoffe kindly tells a dying Binro that he believes him – that he’s right, that the sun doesn’t revolve around Ribos and there are other inhabited planets out there, and he knows because he comes from one of them. Binro’s dying relief, that ‘I was right!’ after so many years of everyone assuming he was wrong, is powerful stuff and surely the inspiration for showing Vincent Van Gogh how famous he became after his death in a far more famous DW scene (see yesterday’s review in fact).

- The Key To Time is a poor season all round for monsters (the most realistic and least silly being a giant squid several miles wide) and the Shrivenzale particularly feels like a last minute addition because DW stories always have monsters. Ribos’ equivalent of a corgi, running around the Royal headquarters and sort-of guarding the crown jewels, its a large green stupid lumbering reptile sucking off the state (insert joke about Prince Andrew here). Not what I would choose as my first pick as guard animal, given that the legitimate people can’t get near the crown jewels either, but as it happens rather useful for keeping out stray criminals and timelords after the key to time. I still want one as a pet though, even if in practice it would probably eat me or stand on me with its big clod-hopping feet. If I don’t stand on it with my clod-hopping feet first that is.