Category: Classic Season 23

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Classic Season 23 Doctor Who

The Mysterious Planet (Trial Of A Time Lord, Parts 1-4)

Doctor WhoA huge space station drags the TARDIS out of time and space, depositing the Doctor in a Gallifreyan courtroom where a Time Lord tribunal accuses him of meddling in the history of the galaxy. The ruthless prosecutor, the Valeyard, presents events from the Doctor’s past as evidence of his transgression of the Time Lords’ non-interference laws. In the adventure shown, the Doctor and Peri – who is curiously absent from the courtroom – discover that the planet Ravolox is actually Earth, two million years hence, and somehow moved into another solar system. Two rogues from another galaxy are hunting down copies of a huge databank which have found their way into the possession of a robot which lords over the last remaining humans on Earth. The source of these copies also turn the Time Lords themselves into suspects in the crime of the eon – the disappearance of Earth.

Order the DVDwritten by Robert Holmes
directed by Nicholas Mallett
music by Dominic Glynn

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Bonnie Langford (Melanie), Michael Jayston (The Valeyard), Lynda Bellingham (Inquisitor), Tony Selby (Glitz), Joan Sims (Katryca), Glen Murphy (Dibber), Tom Chadbon (Merdeen), Roger Brierly (Drathro), David Rodigan (Broken Tooth), Adam Blackwood (Balazar), Timothy Walker (Grell), Billy McColl (Humker), Sion Tudor Owen (Tandrell)

Broadcast from September 6 through 27, 1986

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 23 Doctor Who

Mindwarp (Trial Of A Time Lord, Parts 5-8)

Doctor WhoThe Valeyard presents another adventure as evidence of the Doctor’s meddlesome nature. During this escapade, the Doctor and Peri arrive on Thoros Beta, the home planet of their old enemy Sil. Kiv, the leader of Sil’s people, faces a painful death unless a way can be found to transplant Kiv’s mind into a physically larger brain. When the Doctor and Peri are captured by the guards, the Doctor is subjected to an experiment wiith the mind transplantation equipment and becomes mentally unstable. Peri escapes with the help of King Yrcanos, a warrior from neighboring Thoros Alpha, whose people are enslaved by Sil. But the Valeyard’s evidence seems to show the Doctor betraying Peri to save his own skin, despite the Doctor’s insistence that these events never occurred. But even the Doctor is stunned into silence when he finally learns why Peri is not present to defend him at his trial.

Order the DVDwritten by Philip Martin
directed by Ron Jones
music by Richard Hartley

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Bonnie Langford (Melanie), Michael Jayston (The Valeyard), Lynda Bellingham (Inquisitor), Brian Blessed (King Yrcanos), Nabil Shaban (Sil), Christopher Ryan (Kiv), Patrick Reycart (Crozier), Alibe Parsons (Matrona Kani), Richard Henry (Mentor), Trevor Laird (Frax), Gordon Warnecke (Tuza), Thomas Branch (The Lukoser)

Broadcast from October 4 through 25, 1986

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 23 Doctor Who

Terror of the Vervoids (Trial of a Time Lord, parts 9-12)

Doctor WhoThe Doctor finally gets his chance to present his defense in his trial. He presents an adventure from his own future, in which he and new companion Melanie are summoned to a posh space luxury liner by an anonymous distress call. While the ship’s captain – who has met the Doctor on a previous occasion – and the incompetent chief of security initially regard the Doctor and Mel as stowaways, they find themselves with other problems when murders begin to occur aboard the ship, and three scientists are being very secretive about their hydroponics experiment in the ship’s cargo deck. As more passengers die mysteriously, the ship’s captain asks the Doctor to help – but, according to the evidence, the Doctor isn’t really all that helpful…which isn’t how he remembers the story.

Order the DVDwritten by Pip Baker & Jane Baker
directed by Chris Clough
music by Malcolm Clarke

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Bonnie Langford (Melanie), Michael Jayston (The Valeyard), Lynda Bellingham (Inquisitor), Honor Blackman (Professor Lasky), Michael Craig (Commodore Travers), Denys Hawthorne (Rudge), Yolande Palfrey (Janet), Tony Scoggo (Enzu/Grenville), Malcolm Tierney (Doland), David Allister (Bruchner), Arthur Hewlett (Kimber), Simon Slaters (Edwardes), Barbara Ward (Mutant), Sam Howard (Atza), Leon Davis (Ortezo), Hugh Beverton (Guard), Mike Mungarvan (Duty Officer), Peppi Borza (First Vervoid), Bob Appleby (Second Vervoid), Barbara Ward (Ruth Baxter)

Broadcast from November 1 through 22, 1986

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Classic Season 23 Doctor Who

The Ultimate Foe (Trial Of A Time Lord, Parts 13-14)

Doctor WhoThe Doctor is still on trial for his life, facing a new charge – genocide – levelled at him by the prosecuting Valeyard. The Doctor counters that the Valeyard has tampered with the evidence through the immense Gallifreyan information storage system known as the Matrix – but a Time Lord whose job is to tend the Matrix refutes this charge. Then, mysterious things begin happening. Two friendly witnesses arrive in the form of criminal Sabalon Glitz and future companion Melanie – with whom the Doctor has yet to travel at this point in his history. And then the Master appears from within the Matrix, admitting to providing these witnesses as part of his plan to help the Doctor and topple the High Council of the Time Lords at the same time. The Master also reveals that the Valeyard is, in fact, a future incarnation of the Doctor – a future incarnation gone mad and turned to evil. With this revelation the Doctor and the Valeyard plunge into the Matrix, aided and abetted by Glitz, Mel, and the Master, ready to fight the most dangerous battle between good and evil that any Time Lord has ever fought, where his mortal adversary is himself.

Order the DVDpart 13 written by Robert Holmes
part 14 written by Pip Baker & Jane Baker
directed by Chris Clough
music by Dominic Glynn

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Bonnie Langford (Melanie), Michael Jayston (The Valeyard), Lynda Bellingham (Inquisitor), Anthony Ainley (The Master), Tony Selby (Glitz), Geoffrey Hughes (Mr. Popplewick), James Bree (Keeper of the Matrix)

Broadcast from November 29 through December 6, 1986

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green