DOCTOR WHO-FULL CIRCLE part 4

 

DOCTOR WHO-FULL CIRCLE part 4

 

It seems to me that Varsh could have been saved, similar to what will happen to Adric in EARTHSHOCK…Tylos’ death meant that at least he saved someone and I guess Varsh did, too. I tend to go with the idea that Adric saved the entire history of the human race but Ian Marter’s book and perhaps the original idea is that Adric’s tampering or not, the dinosaurs would have been wiped out either way. I guess it can be debated but I’d rather think his death meant something.

 

In any case, I DO see the need for the Doctor to do his lab work but…here it does make him seem a bit distant from the action and a much less action hero than he used to be as Pertwee or early Tom. I mean Adric runs in and returns to Varsh, warning the Doctor that Varsh is trapped and all the Doctor can do is say, “What?” and once more stand there.

 

He seems, as the alien Fourth Doctor always was, mostly just mildly annoyed by the deaths around him. “Poor Varsh.” That’s all he can say? Of course, once again, if Varsh and Keara listened to Adric they would have stayed in the science unit. A hilarious bit is Adric acquiring the image translator, basically stealing it and the Doctor chiding him for it and then commenting later in the TARDIS about it to Romana but using it anyway. The idea of Deciders unable to decide is also such a great DW idea and it works here.

 

For his part, here the Doctor seems once more a non-action hero and his slow movements seem to cause more death than needed to be if he just got more involved. Then again, maybe he would have just been killed, too.

 

Of course, once more we have a lot of Tom-isms and the idea that Romana has to talk him into helping them fly the ship or at least teach them is a nice one. If she were not there, would have just left? I also, unlike others, love that he uses K9’s head to scare the Marshmen or ward them off.

 

At one point, it looks like the TARDIS doors are open behind Keara, Varsh, and Tylso so…why not just hide inside?

 

Adric also seems to get the serum away from the rampaging marsh men, showing us once more his worth.

 

Not sure the whole idea is all that cleverly depicted on screen as to the fact that the spiders evolved into marshmen who evolved into the people we see but it’s definitely there. This makes it a bit like FACE OF EVIL and probably other DW stories.

 

Even so, I enjoyed this episode and this story a great deal, even though I’ve seen it FAR TOO MANY TIMES in one lifetime, which is what took me so long to finish the re-watch and for Tom and maybe the rest, it might take longer? Time will tell. Certainly I’m very familiar with Tom’s stuff and Davison’s as well. I try not to rewatch any Colin or McCoy stuff too often because I was not very fond of the show when their stuff aired and for good reason and also because they killed off Adric and never really dealt fairly with that fact. At times, I hated the new companions, mostly because they were boring and I couldn’t relate to them, and because most of them fell into the same old same old: Earth girl screaming. And the stories and execution became silly and stupid (almost all of TRIAL, many of Colin’s scenes in his first season other than MARK OF THE RANI, at least half of McCoy’s). BUT I’m jumping ahead of myself.