Christopher Bailey is a
writer who has two televised stories that are characterized by deeper metaphors
for topics that influenced him as a writer.
He created the Mara which is a metaphor for the fears of humanity and
exactly how we can let it consume us, but his third story is The Children of Seth doesn’t feature the
Mara. In fact it is all a metaphor this
time for a lot of the façades that we put on for society and how technology is
being in control of our lives in every way.
The story sees the Doctor receive a message from someone who he had a
previous relationship with because Nyssa used some technology to get the
message, they arrive at a planet where there is a war being fought against the
evil Seth. There are terrors on Level 14
where people never return and androids for some reason are outlawed, except for
the few hidden in guarding the queen.
The story is very much a story of a puppet king being manipulated by his
court, a queen trying to save him, and an evil entity all created in the minds
of the people. Yes, the villain is just
there because the fact is that it’s all an idea put into people’s heads by a
fear so the government can get rid of people for things they don’t like. Marc Platt does a brilliant job at adapting
what was a detailed outline into a really chilling story. It is one where paranoia runs very high and
you know something is going to go wrong rather quickly and it is only going to
get much worse with time.
The characterization of
the Doctor is great as Peter Davison is enjoying being sucked into the action
of the story where he takes on the role of Seth near the end. Davison also shows that the Doctor has had a
past flame of sorts in Anahita which is a very interesting dynamic. Of course there is the really good idea as
Davison is young while Anahita is very old and played by the brilliant Honor
Blackman. Anahita is also interesting in
her own right as she is the crafty mistress of poisons for the planet and
exiled queen which is honestly great for her story arc as you see the cogs
turning in the character’s brain with the music of the story and Blackman’s
good performance. David Warner features
in this story as Siris who is the oblivious king and let’s be honest it’s David
Warner who just shines through in the script.
Vernon Dobtcheff also features as Shamur who also is glorious in that he
gets to operate bits of the TARDIS really for no other reason.
Janet Fielding as Tegan
once again is great in this story as she is the audience surrogate for the
story. Tegan is the one asking
questions, but also is trying to figure everything out. When of course the Doctor and Nyssa both lose
their minds to Level 14 with the Doctor babbling in binary of all things and
Nyssa is convinced that she is the Doctor, it is Tegan who has to be the one to
figure things out. Fielding is a great
actress and after all these years gets the character down to a tee for the entire
story. Sarah Sutton however is the one
who’s got the short end of the stick for this story. The beginning of the story has Nyssa
partaking in a large exposition dump as there is a lot of information to get
out about how we get the story going.
Platt is a brilliant writer, but he isn’t able to get the exposition out
in a compelling way. Hearing Nyssa act
like the Doctor is also very off because it is again another way that Nyssa is
hypnotized or written out because why not.
To summarize, The Children of Seth is of the three
Christopher Bailey stories, the absolute best of the stories. It isn’t perfect: the pacing is something
that does not lend well to easy listening, the cover art is off as to the
descriptions given in the story, and Nyssa is also underused in the story; but
as a story it has the most depth and once you get around to what exactly Bailey
was intending with this story, it’s something good. The acting is really good in almost every way
and the adaptation is by Marc Platt, so who can complain? 95/100
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