From: jblum@hamlet.umd.edu (Hi ho -- Kermit the Frog here...)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho
Subject: Re: ARCHIVE: Review of the JN-T Era of Doctor Who, Part 1
Date: 9 Oct 92 20:52:00 GMT
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park

In article <1992Oct5.135644.6840@fia.dmg.ml.com> jogulin@pub_one.fia.dmg.ml.com (Joseph Ogulin) writes:
>Back by popular request, here's our JN-T era review...
>including the all-new, sparkling part 8 (season 25)!
>And look...we even nroff'ed it for you! :-)

Ooooooh boy.  This is gonna be fun.

I wrote a pretty exhaustive in-depth review series of the JNT seasons,
just like this, for a newsletter a few years ago.  This was before I
figured out that the vast majority of people didn't care about one
cranky fan's opinions.
 
>Full Circle -
 
>     Eeegad!!  Boring!!  Preachy!!  We've  actually  figured
>out  what that negative sign means:  rather than being inha-
>bited by time-geriatrics, Adric is from this planet.  To top
>it off, this story was done by a then 19 year old Doctor Who
>fan.

see below...
 
>Warriors' Gate -

>     Louis:  certainly one of the clumsiest exits of compan-
>ions.

see below... 
 
>The Keeper of Traken -
 
>     Flop!  Right on its face...or posterior, slightly below
>the  coccyx  (take  your  pick...we don't pick ours, person-
>ally...)  A nice idea thrown out the window  with  a  crummy
>plot.   Oh  well...

That does it.  You can sneer and smirk, you can get in my face,
you can flame JNT all over the place, you can do anything that
you wanna do, but uh-uh, honey, lay off of my KEEPER OF TRAKEN!

This is a story that crammed more ideas per square inch in than
any episode up to McCoy -- and still had time for characterization,
and actual subtlety.

Look at the story in almost mythological terms -- it's the story of
the Fall, of an Eden becoming corrupt from within.  Kassia becomes
an Eve figure, and the Master is the serpent whispering in her ear.

Kassia is a truly wonderful character.  She is a lonely woman, unstable,
a bit hysterical, but not fundamentally evil.  She is a mystic, like
so many people in this world, because the real world has had so many
disappointments.  She loves her new husband, but she isn't allowed to
get close to him because he is Keeper-nominate... and the only person
in the world she feels close enough to to tell her troubles, is the
statue of Melkur in the Grove.

She has so many little traits -- her possessiveness, her combative
relationship with her step-daughter Nyssa, her desire that Tremas
not be harmed even as she's willing to destroy Traken -- that add
up to create a marvellous portrait of a three-dimensional woman, and
a woman in long-buried pain.  Even in this earthly paradise of Traken,
she is unhappy.

In fact, she leaves us to question how perfect this stable, unchanging
society actually is.  There are many small flaws in this planet's
diamond -- Neman is moneygrubbing and corrupt, spineless Luvic is hardly
a shining example of a person, and the general public are all too
willing to fall into the cult of Melkur.  (A fascinating little detail
that is kept very much in the background of the story.)

Plus, Sheila Ruskin turns in an amazing performance as Kassia falls
farther and farther into her darker side.  When Seron confronts her
and urges her to reject the evil of Melkur, look at her face when she
hisses "I cannot!"  She doesn't WANT to.  Or does she?  And is she
shouting "Now, Melkur!" or "NO, Melkur!"?

This story has so many good points -- sets, direction, acting, writing,
and a really literate and intelligent basic idea -- that it's one of
my favorite pieces of Who.  It's one of the cornerstones of an (IMHO)
excellent season.

I'm amazed that anyone could "review" season 18 and not even notice
the fact that the stories had, not a linked plot, but a linked THEME.
Every single story deals with change and decay -- the gigantic cycles
of death and rebirth.  

The season begins with K9's "death," a shock reminder of how suddenly
the failures can come.  "Leisure Hive" is set on a dead world, with
inhabitants who are all in their final days of life, but who are risking
all to create a new life.  The Doctor also comes face to face with being
old and decrepit.  "Meglos" features two dead planets, and a stagnant
civilization being held in check by religious fundamentalism.  The
refusal to examine the Dodecahedron prevents any form of progress or
change.

"Full Circle" deals with another static, unchanging civilization that
is decaying because of its constant bureaucracy.  The irony comes from
the fact that the Alzarians are in fact descended from the Marshmen,
whose accelerated evolution is the archtype of change.  "State of Decay"
makes the theme explicit -- the unchanging world ruled by the Three is
in a state of decay.

"Warrior's Gate", besides putting K9 in a state of decay of his own,
is all about the passage of Time, and the fall of the Tharil civilization.
Plus, there's the run-down slave ship, and Captain Rorvik's insane elation
at "finally getting something done!  Mua ha ha ha!".  And so the slavers
in their turn fall, and the Tharils are re-born.  Also, this story shows
the Doctor dealing with change -- saying goodbye to K9 and Romana.  (Her
departure had been very carefully set up in "Full Circle", since she
knows she's going to have to go back to Gallifrey, a static, unchanging
world in its own right, and she wants to keep adventuring.)

"Keeper of Traken" apparently stands the image on its head -- we meet a
static world that appears to be quite content and stable, Traken.
However, the web of harmony is quickly broken by the Master, who
undergoes a rebirth.  Traken may have been peaceful, but it was as rotten
as the other worlds we have seen in the end.

And last of all, "Logopolis" applies the theme to the Doctor himself --
the crumbling TARDIS, the greying Doctor, the rejuvenated Master
defeating him, the deaths of Tremas and Auntie Vanessa, memories of
Romana, and finally the entire Universe beginning to die from old age.
The Doctor finally faces the ultimate in change -- regeneration.

There's a much more exhaustive article on this subject in a recent Doctor
Who Magazine, but I just felt it needed pointing out that this is one of
the most subtle and (IMHO) best-written seasons of Who ever.  Sustaining
a single theme over 28 episodes of series television is something Chris
Bidmead (who did about 70% of the final writing, apparently) should be
damn proud of.

Oh, one more thing...

>Logopolis -
 
>The Doctor has to collaborate with
>you  know  who  to  save you know what before the end of the
>universe...considering it's past the point of  natural  heat
>death  and  the  CVE's (here we go again...) are keeping the
>universe alive (neat...get a physics  prof  to  explain  the
>whole  thing...bet  he  can't...).

Well, try to get him to explain dimensional transcendentality while
you're at it.  Sure.  :-)