Doctor Who: Series 19, Episodes 13-16 – “The Visitation” (1982)

Terrific alien historical yarn.  We’ve got the whole package here:  fun Doctor-companion interactions, a nice showing by our heroes, interesting villains, a creative plot, and entertaining one-shot characters to boot.  One of my favorite Fifth Doctor stories.

The Fifth Doctor has finally succeeded in getting Tegan back to Heathrow; unfortunately, they’ve arrived a bit early.  It’s 1666, and when the Doctor, Tegan, Adric, and Nyssa go out to explore, they find that all’s not well in 17^th-century London.  There’s widespread fear of outsiders due to a plague (which doesn’t help Team TARDIS ingratiate themselves with the locals,) an important family is caught up in a conspiracy, and awesome harlequin robots are running around (or rather, awkwardly staggering around – awesome or not, they’re still a product of classic Who’s costume budget.)

I’m a sucker for stories that mix historical fact with alien fiction, so this serial is right up my alley.  I like how the Terileptils exploit human superstition in 1666 to do their work, and the big climax is a wonderfully-Whoish blending of sci-fi and history.  We also have a fun side character in one Richard Mace, former actor turned dramatic highwayman.  He has a nice pseudo-companion role and is ridiculous without being unbelievable.  I’m reminded a little of the Player in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead; Richard is obviously far less in the know, but he has the same kind of flair, and he works wonderfully with the Doctor.  Plenty of Who stories have episodic supporting characters that the show hopes will “pop,” but for my money, not many do it as successfully as Richard Mace.

I already mentioned the Terileptils’ cleverness at taking advantage of their surroundings, but I also just like them in general.  Like the Doctor, I’m interested in the dichotymy in their culture:  art and warfare, beauty and bloodshed.  Over the years, the show has given us a lot of alien races that are emotionless killing machines – for some of them, having no emotion is precisely the point – and I understand why it’s hard for the Doctor to know how to approach an enemy that seems in many ways so enlightened and yet is also so ruthless.  Not to mention, I like a good confrontation with a “gentleman villain,” especially when the villain in question looks so alien and non-gentleman-like.

Everyone has some good stuff here.  This serial famously features the destruction of the sonic screwdriver (back in the days before the TARDIS could spit out a new one whenever it felt like it, so the Doctor can break, lose and/or give them away with abandon,) forcing the Doctor to come up with other ways get the job done.  Meanwhile, the ladies both make excellent contributions; Tegan doesn’t break under interrogation, and she later pulls off an impressive escape, and Nyssa sciences up a pretty great tool that’s instrumental in fighting the aforesaid harlequin robots.  Even Adric isn’t too bad, which is saying something – he doesn’t try to betray the rest of the group or anything!

Side note:  I also love the little threads woven in here reminding you that, in this team of four, Tegan is the only human.  The Doctor, Adric, and Nyssa have a few moments commiserating over the perplexing/infuriating ways of “Earth people.”  Not that it’s all that flattering, but it highlights Tegan’s feeling of uneasiness on the subjects, as well as demonstrates how everyone is slowly changing and learning to understand one another better.