The Talons of Weng-Chiang [Doctor Who, Story 91]

The Talons of Weng-Chiang by Robert Holmes

26 February - 2 April 1977​

There's really only one straightforward way to put it: this one's a bit racist.

The Talons of Weng-Chiang is a notoriously difficult beast, especially for new-generation fans like me watching the classic series for the first time. On a certain level, one can appraise the script on a line-by-line level and concede that it's well written. But on another, you just have to look at the way that Chinese people are portrayed in it to see that no amount of good writing would salvage this thing..

Talons is drenched in Victoriana more than almost any other story in the show's Classic run (see also Evil of the Daleks and Ghost Light) which leads to a great feeling of atmosphere, helped by those moody, foggy London streets and the lovely period sets. But in this instance, that also means picking up the less savory tropes of the era and failing to deal with them in a critical way. Fears of Chinese triads wreaking havoc in London date back deep into the Victorian era, and I think (but of course do not know for certain) that Robert Holmes's intention was to send it up, along with everything else. Holmes was a keen satirist, but this time it's misfired badly. Satirizing racist tropes doesn't work unless it's clear that you think the trope is bad, and your script needs to actually treat the victims of those tropes as real people with their own agency. Putting it another way:​

This has proved a difficult subject for me to grapple with, because I'm not Chinese and don't feel like I have the right to "excuse" this yellow peril rubbish for the sake of the other aspects of the story. It's true that I've reviewed Doctor Who stories with racist elements more than once since the start of this marathon, but a part of me hoped that would be left behind back in the Sixties when the show was otherwise at least trying to be progressive for its time. It's pretty shameful that a Doctor Who story turned out like this as late as 1977, and it badly damaged my ability to enjoy the story overall.

While all this dimmed my enjoyment of the rest of the story, in Jago and Litefoot we at least have two things from this story that are very much worth keeping around. I intend to check out their Big Finish range sometime and see what it has to offer.

You can blame my agonizing over how to review this story for Season Fourteen taking so long to finish. Now that the beast is dispatched, I can review the season in my next post. See you then.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 18 May 2021.)