REVIEW: The Trial of a Timelord (Introduction)

"Sagacity?!"

Trying to review the entirety of 'The Trial of a Timelord' is like trying to appraise an entire season of Doctor Who at once: it's quite a challenge, and even if it were doable, it wouldn't necessarily be an enjoyable read. Rather than doing that, I will instead write a series of reviews for each of its parts: 'The Mysterious Planet', 'Mindwarp', 'Terror of the Vervoids' and 'The Ultimate Foe'. In this post, I will just cast a few thoughts about Trial in general, concentrating mainly on the court room scenes and the general composition of the story arc.

Doctor Who had just come back to our screens after a long hiatus that saw 1985 entirely bereft of any Who action. Script editor Eric Saward and producer John Nathan-Turner were never told why the show had been taken off the air in the first place, but were convinced that they needed to do something a bit different in order to spice it up and avoid seeing it junked a second time by the Evil Lord Grade (a man worthy of being a Who villain in his own right).

Their idea? To create an entire season of stories linked together with a single arc that would resolve itself in the final two episodes. This became "The Trial of a Time Lord", a 14-episode monster that revolved around the notion that the Doctor (Colin Baker) was being tried by his fellow Time Lords for the arch crime of... interfering. Each of the three main stories (four episodes a piece) would be interspersed with scenes taking place in a Gallifreyan courtroom, with the Doctor defending himself against the court prosecutor, known as the Valeyard (Michael Jayston). The final decision would be reached by the Inquisitor (Lynda Bellingham).

Each 'story' is thus presented as evidence - either by the prosecution, in the case of Mysterious Planet and Mindwarp, or for the defence as with Terror of the Vervoids. As a conceit, I can imagine it working on paper when Saward and co. were cobbling it together. However, on screen it doesn't always work so well. The main reason for this is that nothing taking place in any of the three stories really matters: we know the Doctor survives because he's there, in the court room. Any so-called cliffhanger which ends with a moment of peril inside one of the stories doesn't work - because we know the Doctor is actually sitting in a court room watching along with us. Even with the Vervoids story set in his own future (more on that in a minute) we know the Doctor survives because he's already watched it himself when preparing for his defence. Thus the only cliffhangers that make sense are ones inside the court room - but these mainly involve close-ups of Colin Baker's face looking aghast following a particularly nasty remark from the Valeyard.

Only twelve more close-ups to go...

What is more, the back-and-forth between story scene and court scene completely breaks the dramatic tension. The interruptions add nothing to what is going on, mainly involving the Doctor hurling abuse at the Valeyard using one of a number of 'yard' puns (scrapyard, knacker's yard, railyard etc.) or the Valeyard moaning about how such-and-such a scene is "irrelevant".

And herein lies one of the chief problems of the Trial story arc: it isn't a trial at all. The notion of a courtroom drama for Doctor Who is intriguing, and it has mileage. Indeed, the final two episodes that comprise 'The Ultimate Foe' showcase some excellent speeches from Colin Baker where he lays into his own people and their depravity. But the court scenes up to this point are - as the Valeyard might say - "irrelevant". We know from the beginning that the Doctor is on trial for his life. Nothing in the back and forth between him, the Inquisitor and the Valeyard from that point onwards advances the peril. It's as if the script writers feel a need to remind us there's a trial going on - but really, there's no point reminding us because each time we're reminded, nothing new actually happens.

Then there's the strangeness of Gallifreyan law. At the beginning, the Doctor is being tried for interference. OK, fair enough. But by the end of the Vervoids story, the Valeyard dispenses with that charge and introduces an entirely new one for genocide! For a race of people who are slavishly bound by the First Law of Time and other such legal necessities, it seems rather bizarre that their own courts can just chop and change the charges willy-nilly mid-trial. As for their jury, half of them can't even see the screen with the evidence - and the ones who can are quite prone to nodding off.

Now, for the evidence itself. The Valeyard chooses a story from the Doctor's past and another from his present - he was plucked out of time at the end of that story to be put on trial. The Doctor, meanwhile, decides that in order to defend himself, the only piece of evidence strong enough is an event that takes place in his future. I'll say that again. In his full 900 years of life, the Doctor cannot think of a single episode that demonstrates his power for doing good and instead reaches into the future. Not only that, but he chooses an event in his future in which nearly everybody bar a handful of people dies! If I were in court, on trial for my life, and knew my prosecutor was a wily sort - and that Gallifreyan law permits the introduction of new charges at any given point during that trial - I wouldn't want to take any chances.

With your entire future to choose from, this
story might have been a better choice, Doctor

But it's not just that aspect which makes little sense: there are all of the logical problems which it presents as well. If this is an event in his future, and we're watching the Doctor act it out on screen, that presumably means he survived the trial and wasn't executed. What is more, the Doctor we see innocently trying to work out whodunnit aboard the good ship Hyperion ALREADY KNOWS WHODUNNIT because his past self saw it in the matrix. Armed with such knowledge he could've chucked the Vervoid pods into the pulveriser the moment the TARDIS landed. Then there's Mel (Bonnie Langford). Somewhere between the end of the trial and the Vervoids story, the Doctor must have gone to Pease Pottage and met her. Yet, before the trial story ends, Mel gets transported into the trial room, care of the Master, and the Doctor behaves like he already knows her - to the extent that he tells the court "I would trust Mel with my life". That's a pretty big claim to make considering he hasn't actually met her yet! Then, to compound one logical problem on top of another, at the very end of the fourteenth episode, Mel hops on board the TARDIS, tells the Doctor it's "time to get you back on the exerciser" and away they go. This, in spite of the fact that the Doctor has not actually gone to Pease Pottage yet to meet her. It. Just. Doesn't. Make. Sense.

In spite of all that, I love 'The Trial of a Timelord'. It's a great yarn, the Valeyard is a brilliant villain and the stories that comprise the overall story arc are splendid fun. Colin Baker is on top form, having really settled into the role (which makes it all the sadder to know that this was to be his final outing as the Doctor) and his relationship with both Peri (Nicola Bryant) and Mel is warm and friendly, with much of his character's former surliness discarded. The idea of stringing the whole season together was a brave one, and although the denouement isn't wholly satisfying, it is nevertheless a highlight of 1980s Who.

Tune in next time for an in-depth look at... The Mysterious Planet!