Terror of the Vervoids

The Trial of a Time-Lord Parts 9 to 12

Season 23, Story 3/4, Serial 7C, 4 x 25 min episodes, 1st to 26th November 1986, Writer: Pip & Jane Baker, Director: Chris Clough, Script Editor: John Nathan-Turner (Uncredited), Producer: John Nathan-Turner.

Previously on Doctor Who...

Oh yeah, that theme arrangement. Hmm.

KrynoidPodCast@KrynoidPodCast It's lightweight but OK-ish... until the electric kazoo kicks in for the middle eight..

The Doctor's reaction to Peri's "death" is much more believable than when Adric died or, at least, it's more believable that he has to move on quickly as he's on trial for his life, and 2-0 down. 

atruedrwhofan@atruedrwhofan I'm not surprised, after all, the Doctor liked Peri. 

The idea of evidence from the future is just nonsense. We know he gets off in that case. 

As soon as we open on the Hyperion III this is immediately very Agatha Christie like. Shame about the music. 

There's a mix-up with the rooms, a mix-up with the guests' identities... 

Some shifty types aren't keen on the idea of an investigator snooping around. 

But snoop he does... 

That music Mel has the Doctor exercising to is execrable. 

His new waistcoat is a monstrosity. 

Carrot juice? The 6th Doctor's "he will knock four times"... 

Back aboard the Hyperion III the stewardess is startled by a Mogarian. 

"You make delicious coffee, Janet." 

Someone knocks out the communications officer and sends a distress call - to the TARDIS! 

Mel's skipping in the TARDIS. 

As we never saw her proper 1st story, I'm choosing to believe he let her come aboard because he lost a bet. 

Seems the Doctor still wears that coat in the future, so he never learns. 

As we never saw her proper 1st story, I'm choosing to believe he let Mel come aboard because he lost a bet. 

Mel's raring to get stuck in; it's the Doctor doing the dithering here. I like how pro-active she is in story terms. 

They're soon arrested by guards, of course, and taken to the Commodore. 

"Tonker" Travers, eh? Blimey. 

"I found myself involved in a web of mayhem and intrigue!" Pip & Jane have landed... 

JN-T must have had some kind of deathwish - the character of Mel seems designed to kill the show. 

The incidental music has really gone South this season. Just awful. Whimsical/comical with farting keyboards. 

The security officer, Rudge, is due to retire, & not a moment too soon as far as the Commodore's concerned. 

Down among the giant pods, one of the Mogarians skulks about. 

There's a curious silence in the studio when there's no incidental music. 

The Doctor tries to charm Janet into giving him the passenger list. 

More cretinous music in Mel's gym headphones. 

Pussy Galore gets agitated when there's trouble in the isolation room. 

Rudge decides to take the Commodore's advice and let the Doctor nose around. 

The Doctor declines the role of Judas Goat. 

Pussy Galore's Groundforce team find someone's been at their pods. 

Mel finds a ransacked cabin, and the Doctor's already on the scene, investigating silver seeds. 

Check out the Dan Dare artwork in the cabins, by the way - with thanks to the following "Eagle" eyed smarty pants types... 

Andrew-Mark Thompson ‏@Andydrewz It's pages of artwork from Eagle. Dan Dare.

Paul Cooke ‏@paulpcooke  My mate Shaqui on Facebook has come up trumps. Rogue Planet Vol 7, no 19, 11 May 1966! There's not much he doesn't know when it comes to comic art 

"Whoever's been dumped in there has been pulverised into fragments and sent floating in space and in my book that's murder!" 

It's been a nice long while before our first trial interruption in this segment. Much better than the last segment. 

Bruckner's got the collywobbles. 

The Valeyard nearly flies off the handle at the suggestion that the Matrix could be tampered with. Touchy. 

Mel goes to the Cargo Hold, apparently at the urging of the Doctor, though he denies it. 

She's shown around by Edwards... 

"We don't want you breaking your neck, at least not until..." What the hell was the end of that sentence? 

Poor Edwards has been electrocuted, and there's worse to come: Mel's ultrasonic scream! Bloody hell! 

That's 2 out of 9 cliffhangers so far that *haven't* been a Colin Close-up.

With the high intensity light of the electrocution, the pods start to split open...  

...and we get a monster POV shot as something bears down on the investigating guard. 

The Doctor says all this evidence is guff anyway put we might as well press on. Way to gee up the audience. 

"What are you, a comedian?" No-one's laughing. Except at the coat. 

Mel's being interrogated as if they really think she killed Edwards. No CCTV on board? 

The skulking Mogarian finds a leafy clue by the TARDIS. 

The Gardener's World gang find their pods are now empty husks... 

Mel wants a look at the Doctor's seeds. He volunteers to get them out for Pussy Galore. 

The Prof reports him to Rudge for thieving. They should put him on trial or something. 

Pussy Galore drops the charges. "He may be a fool but he's not a thief." 

Love Colin's sulky bean-eating. 

Tonker takes a short cut. 

The Mogarians play space invaders. 

But seriously, "Bromide"?! WTF? Who uses that word, in real life, in the (then) 20th Century, in *any* context? What were Pip and Jane *ON*?? 

James Cooray Smith@thejimsmith Bromide was thought to be routinely put in tea to quell soldiers' libidos in WW2, so commonly known by Pip & Jane's generation. 

Pip & Jane's Vocabulary Agenda is the worst of all the agenda in Doctor Who's history, it mercilessly bulldozes the 4th wall. 

Yes, yes, we all spotted that the 3rd Mogarian didn't use his translator. 

The non-Mogarian Mogarian croaks, and it turns out it's the investigator Hallet. 

Hallett/Grenville staged his own death & disguised himself as a Mogarian when Kalmar recognised him. 

Colin & Michael Jayston are looking nicely tanned after their trip to the beach that hasn't happened yet... 

The Valeyard asks if the Doctor has been editing the matrix only an episode or so after having angrily blasted on about such a thing being impossible. 

You would say that's the kind of sloppy detail that typified Saward's lazy ball-dropping hand-waving approach to script editing - except he'd already left by now... 

Gordon Ridout@GordonRidout Saward didn't edit Vervoids, as he'd resigned by then. TTOATL 13-14 was recorded before 9-12. 

Ah, of course! Was JNT effectively script editor at this point? 

Gordon Ridout@GordonRidout Effectively, yes. He oversaw TTOATL 14, 9-12 and Time and the Rani: all written by the same duo. 

James Cooray Smith@thejimsmith This is my "mini pip & Jane era" theory. M'colleague Gordon is broadly correct. Eric did read Vervoids & did initial work on it. (Acknowledges this in 1987 DWB interview; also his draft of Part 13 contains references to it.) But he was out the door by the time final scripts were signed off. So no real responsibility. 

Gordon Ridout@GordonRidout That's why I went for "oversaw" rather than edited. Thank you for clarification, sir! Still love that DWB interview. I like Saward in "Grrr" mode. 

Not ultimately script-edited by him, so Saward's not 'at fault' but it would be harsh to blame JNT having to do the job in the absence of anyone else there to do it. 

Gordon Ridout@GordonRidout I don't blame JNT, but I don't blame Saward either. Shit happens. 

We have to absolve Saward for Vervoids specifically, obviously, but my criticism of his tenure stands. 

The Doctor and Mel check out the empty pods. 

Something with a green tinged view is lurking nearby... 

Bruckner is starting to split ranks from Laskey and Doland. What's he so afraid of...? 

Presumably, whatever's watching them from the ventilation shaft... 

Oh dear, Mr. Kimber's for it.  

His attacker seems to sting him somehow. It's Triffids, isn't it? 

The Brink of Disaster? Have they checked the fast return switch? 

Freaky plant girl! Mel screaming to burst your ear drums! Colin Close-Up! End of part 10... 

Hey, remember those continuity announcer re-caps they used to do this far on in the story? Seemed an admission they thought The Trial of a Time-Lord confusing. Yet nowadays the "previously on..." with most continuing series is pretty much the norm. 

I remember thinking that episode 10 must be the last, surely. Then 12... 

The Mogarians want a word with Rudge. They're a pair of tossers, really, aren't they? 

The Vervoids are on the rampage now. 

Bruckner's more and more unstable. Doland catches him destroying their work, and ends up locking him in. 

Someone's trying to bin Mel. Oh come on, she's not *that* bad. She's growing on me, actually. 

Of course the Doctor saves her with a rather predictable "Don't throw in the towel, Mel!" 

The Vervoids are another 80s monster with visible zips & joins. Decent try at something "different" though.  

But no-one thought 'hang on that looks like a...'? 

Steve Powner@StevePowner Never occurred to me until now honest Guv

We see the Doctor knacker the radio with an axe but back in the trial room he gives it the Shaggy defence. "Wasn't me." 

Laskey tries to talk Bruckner down, but he ends up doing a runner. Colin thinks he's gone for dinner. 

Bruckner has hijacked the ship now, determined to destroy the Vervoids before they can reach Earth. 

Just want to stop you here. If you've seen this story, you know the Doctor's solution. Why doesn't Bruckner do that? 

You know, the "black" hole of Tartarus looks suspiciously like an orange swirly thing in space. Will they all be going backwards in the next episode...? 

The Doctor has to point out the bleeding obvious to Pussy Galore via a Colin Close-Up. 

Now the Vervoids attempt to stink Bruckner to death, meaning the ship's out of control...  

The Mogarians come to the rescue! Sort of. 

Now it turns out that the Mogarians have their own agenda, they've teamed up with Rudge... 

Rudge has a grudge. 

Rudge will get a tidy payment to his meagre retirement fund for helping the Mogarians steal back their ores. 

Or he would, if someone hadn't thrown acid in their faces and melted their masks. 

The Doctor wields a "phaser" to interrogate Doland. He's sent Mel to talk to Laskey. 

So he obviously thinks it's Doland who's the killer. 

A Vervoid earwigs on Doland's confession that he plans to get rich quick exploiting them as slave labour. 

Doland is captured, but not for long, as the Vervoids attack. 

What the hell kind of accent is that supposed to be? 

It does make me laugh when Doland tries to shake the Vervoid's hand. 

James Cooray Smith@thejimsmith God, no, it's brilliant & terrifying. Freaks my wife out a bit to this day. 

Oh, absolutely black humour - the levity being in Doland's hubris believing they'll accept him. What happens is nasty alright. 

In the trial room the Doctor smugly points out he was asked to help 4 eps into this tale after most people are dead. 

Laskey doesn't last long when she tries to show her mothering side to her little saplings. 

After talking to Mel about a heap of crap, the Doctor gets a bright idea. 

Is the Vionesium an actual deus ex machina here and not just a Doctor Who-fan version? 

So the Doctor's saved the day but Tonker wants him to clear off and never come back. There's gratitude. 

Now this really is nonsense. How can they try the (at least this) Doctor for something he hasn't yet done? 

Doesn't letting him see his future break all kinds of laws of time anyway? 

Geoffrey Gould@realbadger The Celestial Intervention Agency is the Gallifreyan version of Minority Report, apparently... 

Genocide of the Doctor! Join us next time to see if "The Doctor Gets Off"! (If that doesn't sound like a Moffat episode, I don't know what does). 

Paul Cooke@paulpcooke Is it really genocide? The vervoids were an engineered species, so can be re-engineered, surely?

James Cooray Smith@thejimsmith I have no real issues with the scripts for 9-12.

I think it's got a good plot, some dialogue is naff but overlookable, and the main thing that doesn't really work is not really anything to do with Pip & Jane i.e. the genocide charge.

Gordon Ridout@GordonRidout Most things about 9-12 I dislike are directorial choices and nowt to do with the script.

Script Doctor

I've always said, I enjoy very much the stories Eric Saward writes, but I don't rate him as a script editor at all.

Mr Matthew Stott@MattStottWrites yeah, wrote some crackers, but not the strongest at steering the ship.

atruedrwhofan@atruedrwhofan I dont think Saward cared very much by this point tbh so let the script mistakes go through.

Think part of the problem was he didn't like any of the characters he had to work with inc. the Doctor (6th especially).

Mr Matthew Stott@MattStottWrites Yeah, he's made it pretty clear in the past that Colin would not have been his choice..!

Chris Cwej@chriscwej he said Davison was miscast. I'm just re-reading the Starburst interview now, and he praises Tom Baker.

Mr Matthew Stott@MattStottWrites I like Davison, but you can sort of see his point..... *ducks*

Will Barber- Taylor@Blackadder345 Pfft, if anyone was miscast it was Saward. Great writer, terrible Script Editor.

James Cooray Smith@thejimsmith I think this can be proved with reference to his job description.

Exactly how I see it, yes.

Will Barber- Taylor@Blackadder345 Saying that I don't know who else would have done the job if he hadn't.

True, though I feel he was far more replaceable than the star or producer.

Will Barber- Taylor@Blackadder345 Oh true, I'm sure they'd have easily found someone else but off the top of my head I can't think who out of the then current Who writers would have done it.

I wonder who he might have thought would make a good Doctor after Davison. That'd be really interesting. I'd be really intrigued to know who he would have cast. Do we know how he rated previous Doctors at all?

Mr Matthew Stott@MattStottWrites Yeah, he MUST have been asked that question at some point during interviews over the years..?..?

Chris Cwej@chriscwej I'm sure that even if they had got Christopher Lee or Laurence Olivier, Saward would have still whinged...

Darth Marenghi@DarthMarenghi It's always amazed me how Saward gets a free pass from fandom.

His choices were often very poor, but JNT cops all the flak & isn't here to defend himself. His choices were often very poor, but Saward was in charge of the nuts and bolts of the scripts, and could have solved *some* of the problems if he'd cared to.

Darth Marenghi@DarthMarenghi Absolutely - no reason why we couldn't have had great stories surrounded by 80s campery!

Mr Matthew Stott@MattStottWrites Makes you wonder if Who in the mid-80s might have been in a better position if he'd left when Davison did.
Darth Marenghi@DarthMarenghi Definitely an argument for JNT/Saward going "Well, someone else can do Colin's 1st story after the strike".

I've mused on this with others before and really always end up concluding it would never have gone any differently. I mean after Davison left and the show moved back to Saturdays. Production personnel might have shuffled but the show was hated in the BBC and no-one wanted to take over as producer, so it would always have ended if JNT left, just sooner. And I don't think whoever was the script editor - or even the star - could have changed that.

James Cooray Smith@thejimsmith I think it's really complex. A perfect storm in some ways. Ultimately, I blame Thatcher. No, really. The '83 election impacts Warriors of the Deep's studio dates, Warriors of the Deep is then the root cause of Grade's ire.

I think that absolutely has merit, though Grade was already on record as gunning for Doctor Who when he arrived at the BBC .

TTFN! K.
Coming Soon... The Ultimate Foe