By Roy Mathur, on 2025-08-12, at 23:42:03 to 00:23:13 BST, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
I sound different (again) because I am again using the Shure SM58 for the foreseeable future.
Notable Cast: Sixth Doctor: Colin Baker, Companion Mel Bush: Bonnie Langford, Sabalom Glitz: Tony Selby, The Master: Anthony Ainley, The Valeyard: Michael Jayston, The Inquisitor: Lynda Bellingham (Blake's 7, All Creatures Great and Small), The Keeper of the Matrix: James Bree (The War Games, Full Circle), Popplewick: Geoffrey Hughes (Hyacinth's slob brother, Onslow, in BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances)
Director: Chris Clough, also Terror of the Vervoids, Delta and the Bannermen, Dragonfire, The Happiness Patrol, Silver Nemesis
Writer: Robert Holmes 13 (died), Eric Saward wrote 14, but JNT didn't like it and replaced it with Pip and Jane Baker's unrelated script (see Trivia).
Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Location: BBC Television Centre, Shepherd's Bush, Camber Sands it the Matrix beach and the Master's shed (TARDIS) is at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve in East Sussex, J.J. Chambers' machine room is at Gladstone Pottery Museum in Stoke-on-Trent, 1986
Broadcast: Story 143d, serial 3, season 23, Parts 13--14, finale of The Trial of a Time Lord following Terror of the Vervoids (pod 587), 2 x c. 25 and 30 min, 29 Nov--6 Dec 1986
Media: Target novelization by Pip and Jane Baker 1988, VHS 1993, DVD 2008, 2014, Blu-ray 2019, BBC iPlayer since 1 Nov 2023
The UK no. 1 single was Berlin's Take My Breath Away from Top Gun (I still haven't seen the sequel).
In court, the alleges the Matrix footage hacked.
Unexpectedly, Glitz and Mel arrive in coffin-shaped pods. They have been sent by the Master as defence witnesses because he wants the pleasure of killing the Doctor. Glitz says he was on Ravolox (Earth) to steal Matrix secrets stolen by the Sleepers. They were tracked by corrupt Time Lords, who moved, then devastated Earth. (Marb Station underground suspended animation shelter, serviced by Drathro and human slaves, where the Sleepers hid with the stolen Matrix data. See pod 577 from April).
The Master addresses the court from the Matrix screen. He reveals the Valeyard an evil incarnation of the Doctor between his twelfth and last regenerations, prosecuting the Doctor on behalf of the corrupt Time Lords in exchange for the Doctor's remaining regenerations.
The Doctor and Glitz chase the Valeyard into the Matrix to the Fantasy Factory. A clerk, Popplewick, sends them to the waiting room; a beach, where the Doctor is consumed by the ground despite Glitz's rescue attempt. However, all is an illusion. The Valeyard attacks with nerve gas and they flee to a shed, which turns out to be the Master's Tardis. The Master puts the Doctor in trance and uses him to bait the Valeyard, but the plan backfires and the Master flees. Mel appears and takes the Doctor back to the court, where she is forced to condemn him. In actuality, the Doctor is still being toyed with in the Matrix.
In the real court, Mel snatches the Key of Rassilon from the Keeper of the Matrix. She finds the Doctor in the Matrix, but already aware of the ruse.
In the Matrix, Glitz finds the tape, he thought destroyed on Ravalox, in the Fantasy Factory. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Mel tear off Popplewick's mask to reveal the Valeyard. They also discover his weapon in the machine room set up to attack the court through the Matrix screen.
The Master appears on the Matrix screen, loads the Ravalox Matrix data tape, but he and Glitz are frozen by a trap. Mel warns the court to turn off the screen.
Luckily, the Doctor sabotages the weapon, which blows up as he escapes.
The Doctor's charges are dropped, he is told that Peri lived and married Yrcanos (the Master revealed this to the court earlier), and he is offered the presidency again (see pod 398 The Invasion of Time). He asks for leniency for Glitz and leaves with Mel, who says he needs carrot juice and exercise. The Inquisitor speaks to the Keeper of the Matrix, but as she leaves his face is that of the Valeyard.
Colin Baker is remarkably erudite in his dialogue delivery, "...the Railyard's so-called evidence was a farrago of distortion which would have had Ananias, Baron Munchhausen and every other famous liar blushing down to their very toe nails." This makes up for some of his verbal gaffs in earlier episodes like The Mark of the Rani (pod 569). It think they are more a result of his ambitious dialogue, and a budget that allowed no time for re-takes or ADR, than an inability to deliver lines. A lesser actor would have stumbled more.
I'm always surprised by the calibre of Doctor Who actors and this is no exception. Lynda Bellingham (Inquisitor), James Bree (Keeper), and Geoffrey Hughes (Popplewick) are all prolific actors, with extensive and impressive careers outside of Doctor Who.
Creepy, dark Victorian streets and characters with a decidedly Dickensian-bent, like the clerk, Popplewick.
I cheated and watched the 2022 Blu-ray, Doctor Who: The Collection: Season 22 at some point between this and the last story, Terror of the Vervoids in pod 587, to find out what happened to Peri and now, finally, in the classic series, the Master tells the court of her shacking up with Yrcanos.
The script sounds very hard sci-fi, with the Valyard's Maser, and that excited me. Unfortunately, the weapon, defined by the Doctor correctly as "microwave amplification and stimulated emission of radiation", is describes by the Valyard as the, "ultimate weapon. Even subatomic particles, gravitons, quarks, tau mesons, all completely disseminated.". Unfortunately, that is not at all what masers do. Nice try with the tech talk word salad, but no cigar.
Sets, locations, effects, etc. The Victorian set were suitably grim and gloomy. On-location filming took place on nice deserted beaches, though I thought the Masters shed a bit unbecoming. Effects I enjoyed included the Doctor's psychedelic trance, the lightning booby-trapped Matrix tape, and the big explosion at the end. I enjoyed the torn off rubber mask, revealing that Popplewick was the Valyard.
It's a convoluted plot, cleverly constructed, unsually fast-paced and hard to follow. That's partly because it's taken me half a year to finish this one arc and I can barely remember how it started, but alos because it's two rushed episodes by multiple writers. (Again, see Trivia).
Thus ends the single arc of season 23: The Mysterious Planet (pod 577), Mindwarp (pod 586), Terror of the Vervoids (pod 587), and The Ultimate Foe. If you want more information on the arc in general, see pod 577.
Season 23 originally consisted of entirely different scripts, cancelled due to budget. Most appealing to me is The Nightmare Fair, novelised by the original scriptwriter, Graham Williams. I now possess an eBook copy and perhaps will find time to enjoy it at some point.
Robert Holmes was supposed to write both episodes, but died, so script editor Eric Saward finished the second episode from Holmes's notes, but the conflict between the Doctor and Valeyard ended on a cliffhanger and was rejected by John Nathan-Turner, which led to Saward resigning. JNT hired Pip and Jane Baker to write the second episode with zero reference to Saward's script because he refused them permission.
If you thought New Who controversial, with the so-called "pause" and Ncuti's truncated tenure, here's even some in Old Who. Colin Baker was fired at the end of this story, then offered a final four-parter, but refused to do less than a full season, so that was it. I don't even know if his face appears in the next story because I'm enjoying the revisit as spontaneously as I can. This is the Peri's fate fiasco all over again.
Only a minor one, though not Who-related. In non-revisit episode 588, I said I would have a long break, then didn't, but I should have because I was done in afterwards.