When did they last show something worth watching, eh?
By 1985, Doctor Who has, in keeping with the essentially protean nature of the main character, embodied many genres: historical romps, action adventures, existential ruminations, alien crime whodunnits, twelve-part space operas, and comedic asides. Rarest of the dramatic forms, though, stands the didactic commentary, wherein the Doctor encounters a situation germane to contemporary events. Philip Martin, channeling his inner Roberts (Sloman and Holmes, the keenest practitioners of social commentary on Doctor Who), revives the lost art of pointing fingers at the present in “Vengeance on Varos” (Story Production Code 6V), putting on trial the very idea of television itself as an addiction, a veritable opiate of the masses. But where Robert Holmes made a merry jest of workers overthrowing (and throwing over) the ruling classes in “The Sun Makers,” Martin takes a darker tone from the off.
After an establishing model shot of a domed city on a barren landscape, director Ron Jones kicks off the ninety minute, two episode story with a close up of a shirtless rebel (Jondar, played by Jason Connery) being tortured via laser blasts, his screams and torment all for the enjoyment of the overworked citizens of Varos, portrayed in miniature by Arak and Etta (Stephen Yardley and Sheila Reid). It’s a discomfiting beginning, with Jondar’s agony mixed at full blast on the audio track; Arak and Etta take it in hungrily as they pick at the meager rations offered for their daily meal, the dissonance between their contentment and the captured rebel’s suffering landing quite effectively. When the bread is lacking, the circuses must be increased.
Colonized originally as a prison planet hundreds of years in the past, Varosian society holds a strict social demarcation between the descendants of the overseers and those of the prisoners, who toil still in the mines. Varos represents the sole source of Zeiton-7 ore, used to power the engines of “space-time craft,” and thus should be a wealthy planet. An off-world mining conglomerate, represented by the slug-like Sil (Naibil Shaban) seeks to extract as much ore as possible from the planet for the lowest price, and has driven the planet to financial ruin in the process. As part of contract re-negotiations, the Governor (Martin Jarvis) submits his proposal to lower rations in order to hold out for a better price to the viewers, who resoundingly reject the plan, voting in real time on their viewscreens, subjecting him to a near-lethal shock as a consequence. Television ratings have real consequences in this setting—a situation no doubt weighing heavily on the mind of producer John Nathan-Turner at the time, with Doctor Who‘s own fate constantly in the balance.
From the moment the TARDIS arrives on Varos, so the Sixth Doctor and Peri can procure Zeiton-7 to reline the “transitional elements” in the power-drained time rotor, we watch Arak and Etta watch our time travellers attempt to escape from the Punishment Dome, where they have fortuitously interrupted Jondar’s execution. Martin continuously puts the viewers (the real ones) a step removed from the action, highlighting the artifice of television and the choices made by the people controlling the screens. The moments of second-order distance, with the Doctor and Peri’s travails frequently observed through screens that are shown on the screen, work tremendously well in highlighting the inherent desensitization caused by watching from afar, made more striking by the CRT televisions of the time, with their slight blurring and glare when themselves filmed.
The cameras constantly follow the Doctor, Peri, Jondar, and his partner Areta (Geraldine Alexander) as they confront the psychological horrors of the Purple Zone, which cause fears to become visually manifest—specifically, a giant fly’s head, which, as an effect, fares slightly better than the mega-rat in “The Talons of Weng-Chiang.” The Chief (Forbes Collins), who is secretly working in league with Sil to undermine the Governor, exalts in the potential for sales of the tapes of the chase and eventual execution to “every civilized world,” a grim commentary of the galactic culture of the time (and, indirectly, of the direction of contemporary international media sales towards gore and violence). Once the Doctor enters the “No Options Kill Center,” the tongue-in-cheek dystopian nomenclature played characteristically straight in this story, the Governor orders the camera operator to zoom in on the Gallifreyan’s death throes, the executive function on Varos at once political and directorial. For yet again, John Nathan-Turner and script editor Eric Saward deliver a cliffhanger in which the Doctor, convinced by the telepathic devices in the Dome that he is suffering from heatstroke, seemingly dies…
It doesn’t take, of course, and the Doctor awakens from his apparent demise to the shock and delight of the viewers, both Varosian and otherwise. In the ensuing struggle with guards who had been preparing to drop the Doctor’s body in a vat of acid, the two hapless extras fall into the vat instead, with trademark Saward-ian disfigurement and burbling goo. Somewhat disconcertingly, especially in a story that attempts to shine a harsh light (indeed, a camera) on the glorification of televised violence, the background music turns jaunty as the men melt in the acid, with a “wah-wah” effect as the Doctor flippantly remarks, “Forgive me if I don’t join you.” The occasional moments of humor cutting through the story, which is otherwise unremittingly dark, fall rather flat, as does the attempt to turn the figure of Sil into a hyperbolically disgusting caricature of greed and malice. A touch of subtlety would have been much in order here.
Upon being recaptured, the Doctor and Jondar face execution by hanging, that being an archaic form of execution sure to drive ratings, while Peri and Areta find themselves consigned to cell regression experiments. The trip to the gallows features chanting monks extolling the glories of the Great Video, a nice touch pointing to the degradation of society in the face of government-mandated television watching on Varos. When the Doctor realizes that the cameras have been turned off, he feels no real fear of death—a true hanging would be televised, naturally—and he takes his chance to convince the Governor that Varos has been cheated by Galtron Mining’s cut-rate price for Zeiton-7, causing an agitated Sil to order his guards to pull the lever and release the trap doors beneath their feet. The audience (the real one) doesn’t know the hanging is for show, and the sight of the Doctor and Jondar plunging but a few feet below the scaffolding causes a moment’s pause. A showman’s trick on the part of the Governor to elicit the truth, it turns out, and emboldened with the Doctor’s revelation of the ore’s true worth, he stands up to Sil and orders the Chief and head scientist Quillam (Nicholas Chagrin) to stop the experiments on Peri and Areta.
In league with Sil, they disobey, hoping that the permanent transformation of the two into atavistic creatures will cause the Doctor to withhold the information crucial to Galtron Mining retaining their monopoly on Zeiton-7 ore. The sequence of Peri and Areta’s transformation, while cleverly filmed by Jones and the effects team, feels, much like the violence in the story, antithetical to the overall theme Martin seems to be working towards—the extended sequence of body horror, pointedly not shown to Varosian viewers, comes across as pandering and voyeuristic, exactly the kind of televised pablum that “Vengeance on Varos” ostensibly condemns. Indeed, the Chief and Quillam leer at Peri and Areta struggling against their restraints through a small wall cut-out, enjoying the show on display. Are viewers to mock their appetites or wonder about their own?
A quick laser-blast to the experiment switch panel by the Doctor—who, in league with Jondar, overpowers the surprisingly small yet narratively convenient number of guards in the main control room—shuts down the process, just in time to prevent the transmutations from becoming fixed. The four then make an escape that features much running through corridors, into the “Endgame” section of the Punishment Dome, but Peri’s disoriented state sees her re-captured and put on trial along with the Governor himself. The Chief invokes a regulation to call a “final vote” on the Governor, as his popularity amongst viewers has plummeted to a low state. It’s noteworthy that Peri has spent much of the story interacting with the Governor, attempting to draw some semblance of humanity out of him, and she, as much as the Doctor, finally brings about a change in the man. Previously stoically resolved to going along with the long customs of his planet, the Governor gathers the courage to tell the people of Varos that their system is broken and that they deserve better. If not, perhaps, as resounding a call to action as Howard Beale’s “mad as hell” invocation in 1976’s Network—an oblique yet obvious stylistic influence on the design, direction, and general tenor of “Vengeance on Varos”—the moment serves as a turning point in the story, with truth finally being spoken from the viewscreen.
The notion of truth comes in for scrutiny in Martin’s story, with the Doctor wryly noting:
“Truth is a very flexible commodity here on Varos, Peri. As long as things appear truthful, that’s all that matters.”
Perhaps more so than a blanket condemnation of televised violence as a base means of entertainment, then, “Vengeance on Varos” seeks to point out that television itself, inherently, cannot be trusted as representative of reality, appearances being manipulated by directors and writers (and producers and script editors) to create a desired outcome. Fairly standard media studies stuff, but a relatively daring approach for a science fiction series still aimed, at least in part, at a younger demographic than that devouring McLuhan at the time.
Which is not to say the action is lacking here, and the final fifteen or so minutes keep a pacey balance between dialogue and derring-do, with the Governor and Peri escaping through ventilation shafts thanks to a sympathetic guard, Maldak (Owen Teale), moved by the Governor’s pleas, as well as an interlude between the Doctor, Jondar, and Areta and a pair of hungry, loincloth-clad cannibals who chase them through thickets of poisonous tendrils. When finally cornered by the Chief and Quillam, who are desperate to kill the Doctor and consolidate their power, the Doctor rigs a trap, sending the perilous plants into their faces, killing them in a scene of writhing agony. Meanwhile, Sil’s plans to take over Varos on behalf of his conglomerate fall to nothing, as a new source of Zeiton-7 has been discovered, with orders from Galtron Mining coming through to secure as much as possible, at any price, to sell before their competitors’ new mines comes online.
All that remains is for the Doctor to make a quick exit, with a bit of Zeiton-7 to repair the TARDIS as recompense, and for Arak and Etta to confront a world where the television is finally turned off.
The guest cast turns in a remarkably strong performance in “Vengeance on Varos,” and Martin does well to spread the wealth of the script around equally. Martin Jarvis, as the Governor, sells his transformation from hidebound bureaucrat to actual leader in a genuine manner; under Peri’s prodding, he gradually changes, rather than suddenly having a switch thrown on his moral compass. Though the initial call with his agent must have been interesting, Naibil Shaban absolutely brings Sil to life, no easy task in the heavy makeup and costume required for the selfish slug. The range of emotion Shaban manages to convey while perched on a wheeled platform astounds, and one feels as though an avaricious alien has appeared, making Sil’s final comeuppance all the sweeter.
But without Stephen Yardley and Sheila Reid, who, as Arak and Etta, stand in for the entirety of Varosian society, the story loses much of its emotional punch. Martin hits upon an effective framing device in having the viewers watch Yardley and Reid watch the Doctor and company, and they play their parts with a subtlety lacking, broadly, throughout the rest of the production. At once there’s a sense of domesticity and a shared, long-suffering, relationship, and their glee at the exciting events on screen organically turns to utter bewilderment as the Governor announces that Varosian society has changed, shutting down the cameras in one of the most striking, and well-earned, codas in recent memory.
Nicola Bryant’s Peri, as noted, drives much of the intellectual action in “Vengeance on Varos,” contributing greatly to the Governor’s slow shift in attitude and understanding, a fair counterpoint to Martin’s use of her in more sadly typical means by being captured. (Has any prior companion been captured or otherwise harshly waylaid quite so frequently as Peri in her first five stories?) Felicitously, Peri is shown to have quite a bit of familiarity with the operation of the TARDIS, and Martin suggests that some decent interval of time has passed between this story and the events of “Attack of the Cybermen,” even if the wardrobe department didn’t get the memo that she might have, in the interim, discovered clothes cupboards aboard the blue box with more practical clothing options than low-slung, tight-fitting leotard tops and short shorts.
Gone, here, finally (one hopes), is the manic personality shifting of the Sixth Doctor, with Colin Baker able to portray everyone’s favorite Gallifreyan as a mostly steady presence. His preferred presentation of the Doctor seems almost an amalgamation of the Fourth Doctor’s bonhomie with the Fifth Doctor’s tendency to brood, and it’s an agreeable take, one suited to his skills and demeanor. The Doctor does dispatch more than a few foes in this one, both inadvertently into acid and more deliberately with various laser shoot-outs and a bunch of baleful briars. More specifically, Baker has settled into the role and perhaps Nathan-Turner and Saward have realized that he portrays a stronger Doctor when the script no longer requires him to lash out at whatever foes, imaginary and real, the pair have accumulated in Television Centre.
While the overall “message” of “Vengeance on Varos” remains, ultimately, somewhat hedged—television is bad but we’re glad you’re watching and here’s some slightly gratuitous violence that you shouldn’t like but we know you do so here you go but don’t let it dictate how you view the world because we’re lying to you, too—the story, as a narrative and visual whole, works tremendously well. Martin puts together one of the best, most complete, stories on Doctor Who in some time, neatly balancing ideas with action, featuring a very solid guest cast and good lines for Baker and Bryant. Everyone involved in the production pulls together towards the same goal. It’s the kind of story that one hopes will lead to more Doctor Who, as on balance for the past year or so, it has been trending towards that staticky screen with no broadcast at all.
(Previous Story: Attack of the Cybermen)
(Next Story: The Mark of the Rani)
Post 144 of the Doctor Who Project