Originally broadcast Nov. 29-Dec. 6, 1986.) A number of storylines were submitted, with six eventually being commissioned between September 198… The Valeyard, on the other hand, is explicitly a creature of rules and laws, and even more so is Mr. Popplewick (whose name and general air of oppressive, overbearing Victorian bureaucracy are among several Dickensian touches throughout the story). But the problem with the the Sixth Doctor era is not that they had a bad Doctor, but that they never followed through on the idea of having a bad Doctor. In mid-1985, Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner and script editor Eric Saward decided that the fourteen episodes of Season Twenty-Three would be tied together by the umbrella theme of the Doctor being put on trial by the Time Lords. By Doctor Who’s 23rd season we’d seen any number of Gallifreyan renegades and criminals, particularly the Doctor himself but also mischief-sowers like the Monk and the Master, who shows up here to save the life of his longtime enemy because he can’t stand the idea that anybody else should kill him. In the course of the run, he must review past actions, present actions and, (being a Time Lord) future actions. The other principal architect of this concept was writer Robert Holmes. The basics of Holmes’ original ending are known—the Doctor and the Valeyard wind up locked in a never-ending death struggle in a “time vent,” which I’d guess was inspired by the Star Trek episode “The Alternative Factor.” But because of the behind-the-scenes breakdown catalyzed by Holmes’ death, none of his ideas are developed beyond hints and possibilities. DOCTOR: Madam, this revelation should halt this trial immediately. Why had he had this breakdown, and how would he grow past it and find his best self again? For legal reasons, that ending had to be scrapped, and Nathan-Turner had to bring on new writers to finish the last episode but could tell them nothing about what was supposed to have happened. credit: BBC. And the Fourth Doctor’s season-long “Key To Time” arc, in order, with stories from other seasons inbetween. Take your favorite fandoms with you and never miss a beat. VALEYARD: Oh, I … With Colin Baker, Bonnie Langford, Michael Jayston, Lynda Bellingham. Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord: Part 10. He’s a spoiler. "Doctor Who" The Trial of a Time Lord: Part Eight subtitles. It comprises the entirety of series twenty-three of the show and ran on BBC One from September 6th to December 6th, 1986. All those on Ravolox are in exponentially greater peril than anyone can comprehend. Of course, there was an unavoidable reason why “The Ultimate Foe” failed to follow through on exploring the implications of its shocking twists—not just that the Valeyard was the Doctor, but that Ravolox from “The Mysterious Planet” was really Earth, moved across several light-years and disguised in order to cover up corruption in high Time Lord circles. As the trial continues, the Doctor presents an event from his future as evidence of his reform. El episodio The Trial of a Time Lord, Part Four, es el episodio 4 de la temporada 23 de Doctor Who, se estrenó en televisión el 1986-09-27 y cada episodio dura más o menos 25 minutos, para poder ver este episodio completo en HD puedes usar diferentes opciones, Tv de pago o … In response, producer John Nathan-Turner and script editor Eric Saward devised the “Trial” concept as a way to answer the question of whether Doctor Who deserved a future by forcing the Doctor to fight for his own future in a courtroom against an implacably hostile prosecutor, a Time Lord called the Valeyard, in a multi-part story that mixed his past, present and future and collectively formed the longest serial the show had ever attempted. Homepage. A review of parts 1 to 4 of the epic serial 'The Trial of a Time Lord', as written by Robert Holmes. The first transfer is flawed, so Dr. Crozier needs to transfer Lord Kiv into another host body. It shouldn’t be terribly surprising that after a dozen episodes of mediocre buildup, the final two half-hours wrap up the story in a less than satisfying way. In July, we’ll start covering the Fourth Doctor’s season-long “Key To Time” arc, in order, with stories from other seasons interspersed inbetween. https://tvdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Doctor_Who:_The_Trial_of_a_Time_Lord_(Part_4)?oldid=192385. But heading into the final stretch, it’s clear that nobody gave enough thought to the much-more-important overarching courtroom plot—neither in how the three “evidence” storylines were relevant to it, nor in how to make a compelling story out of the trial itself. Perhaps the most effective moment of “The Ultimate Foe” is the surreal scene when the Doctor shoves his way past Popplewick to force a meeting with the Valeyard, only to find another Popplewick at an identical desk in an identical room staring back at him. And it’s impossible to know whether he would have been able to make it work anyway, given his poor health. The idea of a Doctor who has become so afraid of dying that he sabotages his own past to keep himself alive could have made a great story, especially if it explored how his fear so twisted him that he became his own opposite, not merely evil but also someone whose power rested on his ability to use rules and laws to get what he wants—diametrically opposed to any of the Doctors we had met up to this point, all of whom were iconoclasts and forces of chaos more than anything else. Who led the revolt against the High Council, and why wasn’t that a bigger part of the storyline? The Valeyard insists that he has more damning evidence that will condemn the Doctor. Power-mad conspirators, Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen, they’re still in the nursery compared to us. "The Trial of a Time Lord (Part 4)" is the fourth part of the "The Trial of a Time Lord" storyline, which ran through episodes 1-14 in series 23 of Doctor Who. The trial is over, and though the Doctor is found innocent, the show itself was proven guilty of a drastic need for change. Going forward, some more schedule changes: Instead of biweekly, I’ll be writing about the show on a monthly basis instead, publishing at 2 p.m. on the first Saturday of each month. Pop culture obsessives writing for the pop culture obsessed. It comprises the entirety of series twenty-three of the show and ran on BBC One from September 6th to December 6th, 1986. After 12 episodes, 3 stories, 2 companions and 1 very angry and desperate Doctor, we reach the end of ‘The Trial of a Time Lord’. It’s full of plot holes and silly concepts executed clumsily: Why did the Valeyard bother to take the alias of J.J. Metacritic TV Episode Reviews, The Trial of a Time Lord, Part Four, The Doctor must reason with Drathro to prevent an explosion that could wipe out an entire civilization. "Doctor Who" The Trial of a Time Lord: Part Four subtitles. Synopsis. Chambers? Ten million years of absolute power, that’s what it takes to be really corrupt.”. The episodes originally aired on BBC1 from September 6th to December 6th, 1986. But what Holmes gives us in his episode of “The Ultimate Foe” is certainly intriguing. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Doctor Who - The Trial of a Time Lord (DVD, 2008, 4-Disc Set) at the best online prices at eBay! All this ensured that “The Ultimate Foe” was essentially doomed to be a confused, sloppy mishmash. In his prosecution, the Valeyard presents the transgressions in the style of flashbacks on a video screen, depicting the Doctor… What does the Valeyard’s line “there’s nothing you can do to prevent the catharsis of spurious morality” even mean? The show had been put on hiatus for a year following criticism of Colin Baker's first season. So this is it. Directed by Chris Clough. Edit Submit Cancel We have produced a Style Guide to help editors follow a standard format when editing a listing. DOCTOR: Well, even I would find it hard to lose myself in a corridor. Free shipping for many products! But it makes perfect sense—if the Doctor is chaotic and ever-changing, why should there not be a rulebound Time Lord who values procedure above everything else, who regenerates into the same form every time, and whose separate selves organize themselves into a rigid hierarchy? But the Sixth Doctor’s flaws, by design, were always both more flamboyant and more deeply corrosive to the central concept of the character. It is part of the larger narrative known as The Trial of a Time Lord, encompassing the whole of the 23rd season. That never happened, and to me, that makes the entire experiment a pointless drag. The oldest civilisation, decadent, degenerate and rotten to the core. (The Doctor waves at a group of shadowy figures in the formal Time Lord costume sitting in two raised rows of pews by the wall to his left.) The Doctor fails to prevent him from activating it, and must follow him back to Earth's primordial past to stop him from preventing the development of the human race. But given the behind-the-scenes chaos that plagued this season and particularly the making of these last two episodes, it’s a victory that they were finished at all. “The Trial Of A Time Lord, Part 4: The Ultimate Foe” (Season 23, episodes 13-14. But the Valeyard and his bureaucratic sidekick Mr. Popplewick are a kind of Time Lord renegade we’d never seen before—not forces of chaos but of stifling order. And the writers he chose were Pip and Jane Baker of “Terror Of The Vervoids,” whose scripts had the virtue of coming in on time but were condescendingly simplistic, pedantic and aimed at an audience of children they seemed to think were kind of dumb—and hugely at variance with the intelligent but deeply cynical approach characteristic of Holmes. With Colin Baker, Bonnie Langford, Michael Jayston, Lynda Bellingham. The change of format that Doctor Who had undergone in Season 22(45-minute episodes, moving back to one episode per week on Saturday evenings) had been reasonably successful, with ratings around the 6–8 million mark. The Doctor is foxed by Drathro's logic as the Tribe make a foolhardly attack on Marb Arch. The Trial of a Time Lord was certainly presented and promoted to the general public as a single fourteen part story - it was billed as such on screen and in Radio Times - … Absolutely the most ambitious undertaking in the history of Who, "Trial" is a season-long cliff hanger, with the Doctor on trial for his very life. If anything in the entire universe is to survive, it may come down to the Doctor arguing against machine logic over the value of life. Offscreen, the show loses the script editor who was, for better or worse, the driving force behind the grim, violent, and often misanthropic vision of mid-1980s Doctor Who, and it would very soon lose Six’s actor, Colin Baker, who was fired after season 23 was over. Though the Doctor repeatedly suggests that something is fishy with the evidence being drawn from the Time Lords’ supposedly unimpeachable databank, the Matrix, the obvious next step of showing him actually trying to investigate the problem never happens. In this episode, Scaroth captures Romana and blackmails her into completing Kerensky's work on his time machine. • It’s worth noting that Colin Baker gets to sink his teeth into one really solid monologue as the Doctor, in high dudgeon, rails against the hypocrisy of Gallifrey’s powers-that-be: “In all my travellings throughout the universe I have battled against evil, against power-mad conspirators. That’s the problem with a lot of big surprise twists: The twist often is the story, and keeping it secret means you can’t tell that story the way it needs telling.