The Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe by: Robert Holmes and Pip and Jane Baker directed by: Chris Clough

 

The Ultimate Foe stars Colin Baker as the Doctor, Bonnie Langford as Melanie, Michael Jayston as the Valeyard, and Linda Bellingham as the Inquisitor with Tony Selby as Sabalom Glitz, and Anthony Ainley as the Master.  It was written by: Robert Holmes and Pip and Jane Baker and directed by: Chris Clough, with Eric Saward and John Nathan-Turner as Script Editors and John Nathan-Turner as Producer.  It was originally broadcast on Saturdays from 29 November to 6 December 1986 on BBC1.

 

Doctor Who fans don’t seem to understand the point of The Trial of a Time Lord.  Doing an overarching season arc with the Doctor on trial was done simply to convince the higher ups at the BBC that the show deserved to continue.  If you look at it in those terms, it is a success: Doctor Who would then run for three more seasons before its cancellation in 1989, but when you look at the critical reception of the time and how it has aged thirty years later, it tells a different story.  The Ultimate Foe is the title given to the final two episodes of Serial 7C originally commissioned for writer Robert Holmes as almost an homage to “The Final Problem” which “killed” off the great detective Sherlock Holmes by throwing him off a cliff in Switzerland.  Robert Holmes submitted his first draft of “Part Thirteen” and an outline of “Part Fourteen” before sadly passing away on 24 May 1986.  Script Editor Eric Saward would step in and edit “Part Thirteen” and write “Part Fourteen” based on Holmes’ notes, however, Producer John Nathan-Turner and Saward disagreed on the ending of “Part Fourteen.”  Saward wished to follow the wishes of Holmes leaving the Doctor and the Valeyard in a battle in the time vortex, while Nathan-Turner wished for a happier ending, fearing cancellation.  By 4 June 1986, Saward withdrew his permission to use the script so Nathan-Turner called his lawyers and met with Pip and Jane Baker to actually finish the story.  The Bakers were given a copy of the script for “Part Thirteen” and told to write “Part Fourteen” based on that, with a lawyer present to ensure none of Saward’s, and by extension Holmes’, ideas made it into the final episode.

 

This odd way of writing a serial means that The Ultimate Foe is a story of two wildly different halves.  “Part Thirteen” opens the story with really one last hurrah from Robert Holmes: the dialogue sparkles, Holmes gives Mel this perky optimism that really makes her mesh with the Sixth Doctor, Anthony Ainley shows up as the Master and gets to be delightful, if not a little evil.  The Doctor then goes into the Matrix after the Valeyard, who is revealed to be a sort of darker distillation somewhere between the Doctor’s twelfth and final incarnations.  The Matrix here takes its inspiration from a Victorian office in the era of Jack the Ripper which allows director Chris Clough to have some fun with the foggy foundry sets and jabs at bureaucracy.  The episode culminates in a cliffhanger where hands rise from the mud and drag the Doctor down.  While the cliffhanger is shot in a very simple manner and it does look slightly cheap.  Colin Baker sells the performance, but you can tell that he really isn’t being grabbed and is shimmying his way down into the mud.  Outside of that the episode is nothing short of brilliant.  There’s this minor character, Mr. Popplewick, where Holmes has a glorious amount of fun jabs at filling out forms.  Tony Selby’s Sabalom Glitz is ever the lovable rogue and Michael Jayston truly gets to flex as the Valeyard.  This is Holmes going out in the closest he can get to a blaze of glory.

 

“Part Fourteen” on the other hand ends the story with an incredible amount of mess.  Gone is the sparkling dialogue and in its place is a mass of technobabble about “megabyte modems” and how “nothing you can do can prevent the catharsis of spurious morality.”  The former is an example of technobabble which dates the episode while the later is an example of something that means nothing.  The plot is that the Valeyard attempts to trick the Doctor into signing over the rest of his regenerations and is eventually defeated by flipping some switches and overloading his contraption.  The episode even ends with a hook that the Valeyard is still alive to make a possible reappearance, completely doing away with the homage to The Final Problem.  Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and there is a lot to like about “Part Fourteen”.  The cast is great, and there is quite a bit of tension to be had with the characters going around in the Matrix as anything can happen.  Pip and Jane Baker add some absurd dangers to the Matrix sequences including comically large harpoons, explosions, and the Master’s own TARDIS appearing at several points to get in the way.  The Bakers have the Master kind of playing both sides for his own power, and oddly to save the universe which is interesting, though not very well developed.  The inconsistencies with the script can’t really be blamed on Pip and Jane Baker: they had barely two weeks to finish the scripts, scripts that were not then edited, and had absolutely no idea on where the story was supposed to be heading.  For what it is worth, “Part Fourteen” at least ends the story, even if there are major missteps.

 

John Nathan-Turner’s interference with the story is also felt at several points.  There’s already the very happy ending for the Doctor, who leaves in the TARDIS with Mel (who has nothing to do in the final episode).  The Inquisitor basically just lets the Doctor go and goes off to possibly have a run for President, but the real kicker is that the death of Peri Brown in Mindwarp has been undone and she has been given her own life with King Yrcanos.  This is an odd ending, as it puts a companion in a random marriage and really undercuts a lot of the performance of Colin Baker in the trial segments of Terror of the Vervoids.  Sure, Big Finish and Bad Therapy would both use this as a premise to explore Peri in depth, even allowing all of her possible fates to be true, the story as it is presented here simply a messy ending.  There’s also the sad fact that Colin Baker’s final line is lamenting carrot juice.  The Ultimate Foe is just one of those stories that you can at least say was a fun way to spend an hour, though beneath the fun nature of the story is a production that lacks any sort of guidance.  Two creative directions vie for control and neither really can win out as the story just stops in its tracks and ends the season on a weird note.  Sure it allowed the show to continue, but there isn’t nearly as much here for people to see as excitement for the inevitable Season 24.  5/10.