Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord

DVD review (region 2)
Starring Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Michael Jayston, Bonnie Langford
Release date 29 September 2008

Captured by the Time Lords and put on trail for his meddling, the Doctor fights for his life. But does the mysterious prosecutor have a secret agenda?

On paper, this probably looked like a surefire winner. A set of three adventures unified with a framing device and a final two-part wrap-up featuring a fantastic and disturbing twist: what could go wrong?

Episode one starts strong, despite a particularly horrid version of the theme tune. The opening budget-busting shot of the Gallifreyan space station is terrific and matched perfectly by an epic musical cue that is genuinely awe-inspiring. As the TARDIS lands and the Doctor walks into a darkened courtroom to be confronted by a figure clad in black it seems like Doctor Who is back in fine form - and then the lights go up. It’s been 40 seconds. That’s how long it takes before the mood is shattered.

A fraught production put paid to good intentions and any sense of creativity, and The Trial of a Time Lord marked the first point where the show failed to capture the public imagination.

The first story, The Mysterious Planet, is a bog standard runaround that never gets interesting. Guest star Joan Sims is hopelessly miscast as a warrior queen and, as much as it hurts to say it, Robert Holmes’s Midas touch had clearly deserted him during this era of the show.

Things pick up considerably in Mindwarp, a nasty tale that reintroduces Sil, as played with wonderfully sadistic glee by Nabil Shaban. The sense of confusion during this story (which extended to members of the production team and a certain actor in the lead role) contributes to the alienness of the tale every bit as much as the then-groundbreaking pink skyline and dark, oppressive cave sets. The fact that the Doctor, our hero and guide to the alien worlds visited each week, turns bad guy is unsettling and scary - especially given what happens with Peri over the course of the story.

Terror of the Vervoids, Pip and Jane Baker’s homage to Agatha Christie is without a doubt the weakest story of the season. It’s not terrible, just completely bland – although the phallic Vervoid costumes are forever memorable. The revelation as to ‘whodunit’ is washed away, and despite some inventive direction from Chris Clough, this feels like a filler in a season that should have been hitting us with classic after classic. Bonnie Langford is surprisingly inoffensive – there, I said it! – and she has a pleasing rapport with Baker from the off that could have been the start of something big…

The final two episodes were originally scripted by Holmes and, following his death, rewritten by Pip and Jane Baker. For reasons mulled over the DVD, they attempted to relive past glories - The Deadly Assassin being a huge point of reference. Some of it works. The revelation as to the Valeyard’s identity is brilliantly underplayed and the dark Victorian streets on which much of the action takes place are genuinely sinister. Yet it never quite makes the kind of cohesive sense that it should, especially after what would then have been 13 weeks’ viewing.

This might be the first Doctor Who DVD to contain a selection of special features that are actively depressing. Virtually everyone expresses regret and disappointment, including script-editor Eric Saward (with one of his now-familiar ‘I told you so’ diatribes) voicing doubts to Colin Baker over his costume and the format the series took. Even a vintage Wogan interview features Baker and Bellingham attempting to defend the show as it comes under fire for not being Star Wars! It’s odd that there are no contemporary interviews with Nabil Shaban or Bonnie Langford given their prominence over the course of the season, although they are represented by some nice archival clips.

Despite not being Doctor Who at its best, this is still essential thanks to the brutally honest set of extras that shed light on those turbulent times. Gavin Lovely