Four episodes
Aired between 1st November 1986 and 22nd November 1986
Written by Pip and Jane Baker
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Chris Clough
Synopsis
Given the opportunity, the Doctor now presents his defence to the court. He chooses a defence that says whilst he's been guilty of meddling in the past, it will demonstrate that not only can he change, but that he can be of benefit.
He highlights the Hyperion III, a star liner that in addition to taking passengers on a cruise, is also transporting rare metals from the planet Mogar to Earth. The Doctor insists that a murder is about to occur.
One of the passengers, Kimber, recognises a new arrival, calling him Hallett. The man however denies that he knows him and insists his name is really Grenville.
Other passengers include a team of scientists, Bruchner, Dolland and Professor Laskey, as well as a bunch of Mogarians.
In the TARDIS, the Doctor has evidently found a new companion - Mel. She is ruthlessly making him work out to get into better shape.
Whilst he's doing so, a secret message comes in to say "...perative traitor be identified before reaching Earth". The pair agree to investigate and end up on the Hyperion III. It's not long before they are captured and taken to Commodore Travers, the man in charge.
Travers knows of the Doctor, having met him in the past. He thinks the Doctor is trouble, but agrees to let him stay, ordering his security to keep an eye on him so that the Doctor can get to the bottom of the mysterious mayday call.
The Doctor and Mel hang around the ship, using the Gymnasium and leisure facilities. The scientists become increasingly suspicious, and Bruchner even informs Laskey that someone has broken into their supplies.
Mel is eventually contacted over headphones and told to take the Doctor to Cabin 6. They both eventually go there and see that the cabin is trashed, with seeds stolen from the scientists being stowed in there, along with a single boot.
The boot it turns out, belongs to Grenville who's found himself thrown into a waste disposal unit and got himself killed.
Mel decides to investigate the Hydroponics section, but the Doctor declines (a fact that he states has been manipulated in the Matrix). Mel finds Edwardes, one of the ships officers down there. Together they investigate, but Edwardes triggers a trap and is killed by electrocution. The unleashed energy interacts with strange plant like pods and something inside begins to move.
Mel is saved by more guards and taken to the Commodore. Later, Dolland and Bruchner discover that the pods are now empty.
Rudge, head of security, summons the Doctor to question both him and Mel about the goings on. As he's doing so, the guards contact him and tell him Edwardes body has gone. Travers gets anxious and changes course, speeding up the arrival time, but bringing them close to the Black Hole of Tartarus.
Later, one of the Mogarian's collapses after having a drink. Despite protests, he removes the mask and reveals that it's Grenville, or as he knows him, Harllett, an undercover agent. The Doctor surmises that Harllett has been murdered and he was the one who left the demeter seeds to lead them to the Hydroponics station. They go there and see the empty pods and on the way back, see Laskey leaving a guarded room. They cause a distraction and get into the room, finding a half-human / half-plant woman in quarantine. The woman is Dolland's assistant. She became that way after a small speck of pollen infected a cut on her thumb. The team are taking her to Earth to try and cure her.
A short time after, Mel manages to record a strange conversation coming from the air ducts, surmising that it's the plants, planning to kill everyone on board. She's knocked out with chloroform by an unknown assailant and dumped in the disposal bin. The Doctor rescues her just in time to stop her being thrown in the incinerator, but the recording she made has gone.
Bruchner, starts going mad at the thought of their own discoveries, going around the air vents killing people, so he decides to destroy all the research and by gunpoint, forces the crew to steer the Hyperion III into the path of the black hole. The Doctor and the crew all try to break into the bridge, but when they do, they find that the Vervoids have gotten there first and killed Bruchner, filling the room with "marsh gas".
Rudge enlists the Mogarian's (who breathe methane) to go into the room and steer the ship away from the black hole. They do this, then they and Rudge turn the tables, holding everyone to ransom. Rudge is involved purely as a hired gun to get a better retirement fund as he was due to be on the scrap heap after this voyage. The Mogarian's are doing it because they want to take back the minerals in the storage that they claim were stolen from their planet. It's not long however, before the unknown assailant turns up and kills the Mogarian's by damaging their suits.
The group all manage to get free and find the Mogarian's dead, then disarm Rudge.
Back to the investigation, the Doctor goes on the hunt for the missing recording that Mel took. Through process of elimination, they find it on Dolland, who admits to the murders, and outlines his plan to use the Vervoids as slave labour, taking over robots and men. He's arrested, but on the way to the brig, he and the guard are killed by the Vervoids.
The Doctor, Mel, Travers and Laskey all meet on the bridge to discuss what to do with the Vervoid infestation. Laskey tries to play the situation down, but the Doctor insists that all animal life is the natural enemy of the plant-like Vervoids and they're simply following instinct. The conclusion they come to is to kill the Vervoids before they in turn, are killed. All present ask for the Doctor's help to do this, a fact that is pointed out in the Time Lord's courtroom.
Laskey tries to implore the Vervoids before they use the herbicide on them, but they kill her.
The Doctor comes up with a plan to use the Mogarian metal in the storage that burns very bright to accelerate the Vervoid's life cycle. Travers lowers the heat and lighting, forcing them back into their lair, and then the Doctor and Mel use the metal on them, making them wither and die. They lament the loss, whilst they find humans piled up on a grotesque "compost heap".
Back in the courtroom, the Valeyard uses the outcome of this to insist that the Doctor be tried for Genocide.
Trivia
- The next story (The Ultimate Foe) and this were made all as one filming block, in fact, the next story was actually filmed before this
- Despite this, I will cover the whole behind the scenes shenanigans in the next story as it's more relevant to that bit. For now, it's safe to note that Pip and Jane Baker were asked to write this story, a fact that Eric Saward did not like
- We welcome Bonnie Langford here. She was given a rough ride by Eric Saward who believed she would be far too "pantomime" for the show, as her background indicates. He gave her a very complicated script, full of big words, and asked her to read it in the audition. The story goes that she rose to the challenge and blew everyone away, hence she was accepted.
- Mel's story of how she came onto the TARDIS is never explained on screen, but in the background notes, she's supposedly a computer programmer, and helped the Doctor foil the Master's plans to bankrupt the world by messing with the stock exchange computers.
- Around this time, Eric Saward gave a very scathing interview with Starburst magazine, bitching about Nathan-Turner. The legal team got involved and it was decided Saward would become a martyr if they made a big deal of it, so they let the story die without comment. BBC higher ups wanted Saward gone, but it seems that Nathan-Turner actually stuck up for Saward to stay.
- The cat badges that the Doctor wears in this story were made with Colin Baker's own cats in mind
- After all the fracas and disappointing reception of this season, the BBC head, Grahm Powell asks for John Nathan-Turner to resign. He later comes back to him and says that the show will continue, and he's prepared to allow Nathan-Turner to remain (because they can't find anyone else suitable) but as a consequence, he will have to tell Colin Baker that he's fired.
The Review
Terror of the Vervoids is a story that I want to like. Looking at it in annual stints, when you forget about the details of it, a murder mystery on a space liner is just the kind of story that harks back to the golden era of Doctor Who (Robots of Death anyone?). The problem comes when you actually watch the story - it's poorly executed, poorly scripted, very 1980's and at times very boring. It's not necessarily Pip and Jane Baker's fault because they had to do a rush job, but if you're fighting to keep Doctor Who alive, this is hardly the story that you'd pull out of the bag and show to the executioner.
At the time, Bonnie Langford was a major concern to most fans, but in actual fact, I would say she's one of the redeeming features of this. Yes, she's a little bit too "pantomime", but she's far more intelligent, switched on and pro-active than any companion has been since Sarah-Jane and Romana. It's sad to say, but it feels like a breath of fresh air. The Doctor himself feels better when he's not arguing all the time, and once he gets going is more like the Doctor we wish we'd have seen from Colin Baker.
Terror of the Vervoids should all be firing on all cylinders, but it most certainly isn't, so what's wrong? Exactly as I stated, it's rushed, it's half-hearted and blunt - no subtle nuances - the fact that we get Laskey reading Murder on the Orient Express is like a sledge hammer to the brain. It feels tedious with a lot of backwards and forwards without much happening. The end turns out to be paper-thin motives to kill people and most of the victims are from a plant that doesn't need reasons, so it feels...unsatisfying.
And all of this without digging into the fact that the Doctor could have chosen any period from his VERY long life to find something that didn't end with him being charged with genocide.
Rating
4 out of 10
Re-Watchability Factor
4 out of 10
Watch this if you liked...
- The end of the World (Doctor Who, Series 1)
