I almost always enjoy a good “evil twin” scenario in a genre show. Like body-swapping stories, they’re generally a fun way to see the actor in question playing a wildly different character, it’s interesting to see who picks up on it and who doesn’t, and there’s usually at least one scene of the regular character we know and love trying to pass themselves off as the baddie. This serial delivers nicely on these fronts.
The Fourth Doctor, Romana II, and K9 are anticipated on their arrival to Tygella. Meglos, a sentient shapeshifting plant from Tygella’s twin planet who’s up to no good (just go with it,) knows of their coming, and he traps them in a time loop before copying the Doctor’s form and infiltrating the planet’s locals for his own nefarious purposes. Naturally, though, it’s only a matter of time before our heroes free themselves and Tygella has twin Doctors running around, each with their own aims. Also features a technology-worshipping religious order, less sentient plants that are just as dangerous, and a criminal with a taste for bold sartorial choices.
I wouldn’t say Meglos does a particularly good Doctor impression—he’s conspicuously blank and doesn’t do a terrific job of responding to people in kind, not to mention his occasional, involuntary habit of turning green and sprouting cactus spines—but he does create all sorts of trouble for the Doctor, who’s put in the awkward position of having to convince people that he’s not the evil one. As I alluded to above, we also get to see the Doctor having to play Meglos playing him, all the while trying to evade his double, which is fun.
The story is a little all over the place. It’s really crazy, what with the sentient shapeshifting plants and all, but it has some good one-off characters and is generally entertaining. It’s a story that invents some built-in history for the Doctor in its featured setting, which works well overall. I’m a little meh on the technology-worshipping religious order that rules the city with an iron fist and has some seriously arcane execution rituals; that part of the story mainly feels like it’s coasting on fact that Jacqueline Hill (First Doctor companion Barbara Wright!!!) is featured as Lexa, the head priestess. Lexa couldn’t be more different than Barbara, of course, but it’s a enormous fangirl treat to see her anyway.
Poor K9 spends big chunks of the serial out of commission. His batteries are on the fritz, but bless him, he’s not about to let that stop him from trundling to the rescue when the Doctor or Romana need him… until he runs out of power twenty yards from them, that is. Upon rewatch, you start to notice just how often the script hobbles K9, probably because he’s a bigger technological deus ex machina than the sonic screwdriver and the Doctor and co. have to figure out how to do some stuff without his easy fixes. Not to mention, I’m sure it could be tricky to maneuver the K9 prop over various surfaces.
Romana, though, makes a pretty good showing. She keeps her cool when she’s set upon by a pair of unscrupulous rogues, still manages to condescend to them in the midst of a dangerous situation, and uses a different dangerous experience she had earlier to escape them. I’ll admit she all but walks into these situations sometimes, but once there, she usually handles herself with aplomb.
No comments:
Post a Comment