Our second Bristol Boys script comes with a less glowing (tee hee) reputation than The Claws of Axos, but I have to say that I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Although there are parts where the seams obviously show - particularly the change in focus from the political message to the pure sci-fi around halfway through the story - there's a lot of fantastic ideas in this story, plus some really cool visuals.
The Earth Empire's plan to pull out of Solos and grant it independence must have been quite topical at the time, as the United Kingdom was in the later stages of the dissolution of its empire. There are also some obvious indicators pointing to a criticism of South African apartheid, and I don't think that the German name of Jaeger, a scientist performing cruel experiments on the locals, was an accident. Although the Solonians are not technologically sophisticated, they are generally treated with respect by the script, though I'm not sure if it's for the better or worse that they're all white (and male...)
Talking of race, I was pleasantly surprised that there is a speaking role for a named black character in this serial, namely Cotton. Although he isn't a particular standout among the characters of this season, as nice as it is that he's left in charge at the end, I still wish this was something that was a little more normal for the program by this point. The last we had was Fariah, back in 1967/68, and before her, Williams in The Tenth Planet and Jamaica in The Smugglers. Come to think of it, there were a lot of them during Innes Lloyd's tenure, and unless I'm forgetting some exception or another, Rick James playing Cotton is the first since then. Most odd.
The conceit of their metamorphic cycle is absolutely a cool idea, and a nice twist for a species that we at first think is outwardly identical to humankind. Between Thals, the Moroks, the Time Lords and all the others, we come to expect that most alien species are identical to humans, so the fact that the non-humanity of the Solonians is so clearly emphasized is a nice touch. It's undone somewhat by the revelation that their final forms are ethereally beautiful and humanoid (quite glam, in fact) but overall the "don't judge a book by its cover" message is appreciated.
The mutants themselves look fascinating, and although much is made of the CSO in this story by nitpicking fans, I though the cave sequences looked very interesting. The only effect that doesn't really succeed, in my book, is the metamorphosed Ky stretching his arms and no-clipping through Skybase to come save the Doctor. The Skybase set is almost certainly overlit to hell, however, which tends to render the scenes there somewhat visually uninteresting. Generally, it's one sign of many that the direction of this story was not all it could be, and indeed it seems like I'm hardly the first to chalk the flaws of this story up to Christopher Barry's apparent antipathy for this story. The first would be Jon Pertwee, evidently, on whose account Barry won't return to direct again until Tom is the Doctor.
Overall, I had a good deal of fun with this story. There's a solid script here buried under some direction flab, but while it never excels, it's still quite good. The Time Monster is next.
(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 3 April 2021.)
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