#6 (13.1 - 13.4): Terror of the Zygons

4 episodes. Written by: Robert Banks Stewart. Directed by: Douglas Camfield.  Produced by: Philip Hinchcliffe.


THE PLOT

The Brigadier's call for help brings the Doctor, Sarah Jane, and Harry back to Earth. Specifically, to Scotland, where several oil rigs have been destroyed by an unknown force. Investigating the wreckage, the Doctor determines that the metal bears the unmistakeable impression of teeth - with a single tooth being roughly half the size of a man!

The attacks are the work of the Zygons, who crash landed on Earth centuries earlier. They have kept a low profile until now, content to await rescue. But now their home planet has been destroyed. With no home of their own to return to, the Zygon leader has decided to turn Earth into their new home world... with crushing the human race the first step in their plan of conquest.


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: In the face of yet another alien invasion in the UK, the Doctor seems not only unflappable, but positively... bored. I'm afraid this is the first Tom story (indeed, the first story I've thus far reviewed) in which the Doctor really doesn't work for me. There's no sense of personal threat, and the script doesn't provide enough wit or humor to compensate. Tom fills in some of the gaps by emphasizing his Doctor's eccentricities. But there really isn't much here for him to sink his teeth into, and by the end I got the sense that both Tom and the Doctor were a bit bored by the proceedings - which affected my own interest, as well.

Sarah Jane Smith: Sarah Jane actually has a better story here than the Doctor does. When the Brigadier briefs them on the situation, she instantly siezes on her area of specialty - interviewing the locals, finding out what they may know about strange occurrences. When Harry comes to her after a brief disappearance, she is of course overjoyed to see him. But she senses that he is behaving particularly strangely, leading her to stop him from getting away with a Zygon device the Doctor had discovered. Sure enough, this "Harry" proves to be a Zygon duplicate. Finally, her persistence in nosing around the Duke's estate allows her to find the entrance to the Zygon ship. Elisabeth Sladen throws herself in with typical enthusiasm, and seems to enjoy getting more to do than usual. Her rapport with Tom elevates several scenes in the first and final episodes, too, with Tom's performance noticeably elevated in the scenes he shares with Sladen.

Harry Sullivan: Gets the smallest slice of the action he has had since Robot, put out of action early on and kept to the periphery even after his recue. This may well have been a conscious decision: minimize Harry's involvement in his final regular story to emphasize the one-on-one bond between the Doctor and Sarah Jane. Harry still gets a few bright moments, particularly in Part Three when he saves the Doctor by plunging in and pushing down on random switches.  Ian Marter remains as likable as ever, and will definitely be missed in future stories.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: After appearing at least once per season since Season Five, this was the his swansong as a regular character. It would be several years before he would appear again, and then only as an occasional special guest star. It was probably time for the Brig and UNIT to be given a rest, as they had certainly fallen far from the crisp, military competence exhibited in Season Seven. Here, we see the Brig perplexed at such a basic and obvious investigative technique as filling a cavity with a plaster of paris to gain an impression or investigating the Duke's abandoned estate for clues (both things the Season Seven Brig would have probably ordered done as a matter of course).

Nicholas Courtney still retains a stiff dignity, and the character gets some better material later in the story, such as in a rather well-planned mortar attack on the loch which has the exact effect intended, in that it forces the Zygon ship to surface. It is also appropriate that, in his final regular story, he gets to meet and deal with an alien menace that is not resistant to bullets. Nevertheless, the character has grown a bit stale by this point, and the spark Courtney had playing opposite Pertwee just isn't there opposite Tom. It's regrettable, but I'd have to agree with Hinchcliffe's decision to discontinue the character.


THOUGHTS

While I know Terror of the Zygons is a fan favorite, I have to admit that it's not a favorite of mine. On this viewing, it really struck me how often the serial feels like just a collection of scenes, rather than a full story. One thing doesn't necessarily seem to lead to the next.  Scattered set pieces - Sarah and the false Harry, the Doctor and the Scarasen, the UNIT soldiers' hunt for the Zygon - often seem like they could have been inserted anywhere, in any order, along the loose skeleton that forms the plot.

Up until the final episode, which finally gets a bit of momentum going, everything is very laid back... too laid back, lacking any sense of urgency. We're told at the outset that many people have died, but it doesn't feel like anything important is happening. Episode One sets up the situation; Episode Four sees the Zygons put their plan into effect. The middle two episodes basically just fill screen time with rather mild set pieces. The Doctor never really seems concerned, and given the Zygons' rather thin plan could probably have been dealt with by humanity without the Doctor's help, albeit with a much higher body count, I can't say that I really blame him for his lack of interest. It all leads to Tom's least energetic performance yet.

Like a handful of other early Tom Baker stories, Terror of the Zygons feels in many ways a leftover Pertwee story. It has the Brigadier and UNIT investigating strange occurrences in a rural area, there's an energy conference whose specifics are vague but apparently important, the Doctor gets to climb on a soapbox about fossil fuels, and locals are portrayed as highly superstitious, simple folk, useful mainly for providing exaggerated "local color." Just to emphasize that we're in rural Scotland, the Scot in the opening scene is complaining that he can't get a decent haggis.  Meanwhile, the bagpipe-playing innkeeper talks of having "The Sight." There's even a bit of dodgy model work and a painfully fake-looking loch ness monster. Replace Elisabeth Sladen with Katy Manning, and this would fit quite snugly in the middle of Seasons Nine or Ten.

All of this might make it sound like I'm slating Terror of the Zygons, and I really don't mean to. It's one of the weaker stories I've reviewed thus far, with a particularly poor Episode Three. Even so, it is a perfectly reasonable entertainment. The Scarasen may be infamously poor, but the Zygons themselves are extremely well-realized, one of the best-realized aliens the show has given us at this point. The interior of the Zygon ship is effective, with suitably dim and tinted lighting making it feel just enough like an alien atmosphere to create a fairly eerie overall effect for the Zygon scenes.

Finally, there is the TARDIS team - a team which, as I've mentioned before, is one of my favorites. The opening shot of the trio, walking merrily together through the Scottish countryside, is charming. With the Doctor at maximum eccentricity in his "Scottish garb," and the Doctor's scarf looped lazily about Harry's shoulders, while Sarah walks comfortably and happily between them, they feel almost as much like a family enjoying a holiday as a set of traveling companions preparing to face another alien onslaught. There's a genuine sense of chemistry and affection among the three, the sort of thing that can't necessarily be planned or made to happen. When onscreeen together, they just... plain... work. This, more than anything, makes me regret that Harry was written out so soon. If I were to cite one Philip Hinchcliffe decision that I strongly disagree with, it would be that one - I could have happily watched this trio stay together for another full season, at least.


I go back and forth between a "6" and a "7," here. The story is entertaining. But the plot is haphazard, Tom seems a bit too detached, and the middle episodes are mainly filler that often doesn't even do a good job of pretending to advance the plot.  Apparently, this serial was one that underwent massive rewrites. In this particular case, it shows. On balance, it's probably better-made than Revenge of the Cybermen. Unfortunately, I found it to be not nearly as much fun.


Rating: 6/10.

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#1 (12.1 - 12.4): Robot

The robot menaces the newly regenerated 4th Doctor and Sarah!

4 episodes. Written by: Terrance Dicks. Directed by: Christopher Barry.  Produced by: Barry Letts.


THE PLOT

The Doctor has just regenerated into his fourth persona, and it's his most eccentric yet. Gone is the brittle yet dignified dandy.  In his place is a large, curly-haired, grinning figure who seems to be more than a little childish, and possibly a little insane.

It's a bad time for the Doctor to be unstable. The components of a top-secret disintegrator gun have been stolen by an unknown force. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart initially insists that he needs the Doctor's help just to keep him safely around for observation - but as the crisis escalates to the point of a nuclear apocalypse, it becomes apparent that the Doctor truly is needed, possibly more than ever before.

But can this new Doctor be trusted to maintain focus on the task at hand?


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Cards on the table: Despite being the fan favorite, the Fourth Doctor has never been a particular favorite of mine. That said, most of my issues with him come later, and there's no denying that Tom Baker makes a strong first impression. He's energetic and zany, but he also takes care to keep the Doctor at a certain remove. The Sherlock Holmes-like aspects of the character have always been there, ever since the First Doctor talked a primitive tribe into seeing the significance of a caveman's knife, but they're extremely prominent here.  This is particularly true of scenes in which he appears to be distracted by irrelevancies while actually collecting important observations, such as a crushed dandelion at a crime scene.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: My first draft review of Robot was written after a run of Season Seven stories, and the jump from Inferno to this really showed the Brigadier's deterioration. In Season Seven, he was brisk, efficient, and intelligent - a man born to lead. That Brigadier wouldn't have needed the Doctor to point out that two components of the same weapon had been stolen, he would have noticed all on his own. Even viewing in strict chronological order, I'd rate this as one of the character's most ineffectual showings, and it's as well that the new production team quickly decided to rest both him and UNIT.

Sarah Jane Smith: A strong story for Sarah Jane. With Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks still in charge, her background as a journalist and an independent-minded woman is still a driving force. For the first episode, and for much of the second, she is actually more proactive than the Doctor and the Brigadier are. After she is subject to a "demonstration" of the robot's inability to override its directive to never harm humans, which causes it considerable distress, she shows compassion for it, setting up (overly obvious) King Kong parallels for the rest of the serial.

Harry Sullivan: Ian Marter, who previously played an unrelated guest role in Carnival of Monsters, makes his debut as new companion Harry, a naval physician assigned to UNIT who starts out as the Doctor's doctor. Marter brings a relaxed and likable presence to the role, and he has an easy rapport with both Baker and Sladen. There isn't actually much for him to do in this story, an early sign of why he was written out after only one year, but I wasn't sorry to see him step into the TARDIS at the story's end.


THOUGHTS

Robot marks the beginning of the end of the UNIT era, and it honestly was about time for the show to move on. By this point, UNIT had become a collection of comic book soldiers, an impression not helped by them being pitted against a league of mad scientists plotting to take over the world - with a giant robot and a Ray Gun, no less. I question how some could complain about Doctor Who cartoons such as The Infinite Quest and Dreamland. Decades before that, this was a cartoon that just happened to be in live action!

For all of that, I mostly like Robot. Some of that is nostalgia. It was not the first Who story I ever saw, but it was the one that made me a regular viewer back in the mid-1980s. From here, I watched every story during PBS' mid-1980's omnibus reruns of the series, going all the way through to Trial of a Time Lord (which, for a long time, I had thought to be the series' finale).

Even without nostalgia goggles, there is much to like. Terrance Dicks understands the importance of story construction and pace. Robot moves along briskly, effectively introducing the situation and the guest characters, establishing the threats, and bringing them all together for the final episode. The plot may feel a bit thin, but there are enough strands to give the Doctor and the Brigadier elements to investigate even as Sarah pursues leads on her own.

The UNIT set-up also ensures that Tom Baker's debut story felt familiar to contemporary viewers. This is a very different Doctor, but he's surrounded by familiar regulars while navigating what's essentially a mid-range Pertwee story. Given Pertwee's five-year tenure and his enduring popularity, this was a canny way to reassure the audience that this was still very much the same show, a bit of comfort food before the new production team took over to steer it in a very different direction.

For its first three episodes, I think it works quite well. Too bad that it falls apart in the final installment. Once the robot grows to giant size to make sure no one misses the King Kong allusions, all internal credibility vanishes. The next several minutes, showing the robot rampaging around toy cars, paper houses, and plastic soldiers is ludicrous and - worse - dull.

After five years of spearheading Who, Letts and Dicks had to know the giant robot was going to look awful. Worse, the script doesn't do anything interesting; in fact, once the robot grows in size, the script stops doing interesting things.


OVERALL:

I would rank Robot as the weakest "new Doctor" story of the first five (though it's still better than the debuts of the Sixth and Seventh Doctors). It's a thin story even during the enjoyable first thee parts, and its final episode is largely poor. Still, it is mostly enjoyable, and Tom Baker makes a good first impression in the role.

It's good that a new production team was coming in - because the series was about to get a major jolt of renewed creative energy...


Rating: 6/10.

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