Day 223 — August 11th 2021
The Deadly Assassin Parts Three and Four
The Deadly Assassin — Part Three
One of the biggest problems I have with The Deadly Assassin is that I simply can’t get my head around the concept of the Matrix on Gallifrey. What it’s supposed to be and what it’s actually presented as are two very different things to my mind, and this is a problem which only becomes compounded by the later appearance in The Trial of a Time Lord.
In Part Two, when Doctor Who first talks about going inside the Matrix, it’s described as such;
Engin: ‘Trillions of electrochemical cells in a continuous matrix. The cells are the repository of departed Time Lords. At the moment of death, an electrical scan is made of the brain pattern and these millions of impulses are immediately transferred to the…’
Doctor Who: ‘Shush. I understand the theory. What’s the function?’
Engin: ‘Well, to monitor life in the Capitol. We use all this combined knowledge and experience to predict future developments’.
I can wrap my head around that, mostly, and it makes a kind of sense to me. At the moment a Time Lord dies, their brain is scanned and their accumulated knowledge and memory are stored in vast computer banks. It’s like a library — a complete repository of all Time Lord knowledge. I’m not entirely clear on how that helps them to predict future events, but I’m happy to hand wave that as being something to do with history repeating itself and using the combined memories to predict patters and blah blah blah. The point is; I completely get what the Matrix is supposed to be.
But then Doctor Who gets plugged into it — something which is believed by the expert on the matter, Engin, to be almost impossible — and wakes up in a barren scrubland, fighting for his life against alligators and runaway trains. If this is the sum of Time Lord memories, and they’re a race who hardly ever leave their planet or do anything exciting, then why is this imaginary world filled with so many Earth-based threats?
There’s samurais, and biplanes, a laughing clown, grenades… the list goes on and it feels so bizarre that I honestly struggle to work out how it all fits together. That’s sort of the point — it doesn’t fit together because this is a world created by a madman, but all the same I spent far too long wondering how Chancellor Goth knew what all these things were when I should have been worrying about the fate of Doctor Who.
Towards the end of this episode, we get a bit more explanation of exactly what’s going in, and it presents a slightly different view of the Matrix;
Spandrell: ‘It’s only a mental battle. If the Doctor’s losing, why can’t he just
pull out?’
Engin: ‘It’s not that simple. His adversary must have been in the matrix
many times before. He’s created a mental stronghold, a dreamscape if you
like. The Doctor’s got caught up in it.’
The two versions of the Matrix aren’t necessarily incompatible — if it’s made up from information stored in a computer then I can appreciate that an advanced enough IT person could get in and rearrange the data to create something else. That’s fine. My issue seems to come from how quickly different characters are able to work out what’s going on, given that they’re not in possession of all the facts, or indeed any clues which would point them in the right direction.
I was complaining yesterday that the episodes were boring — far too many old men standing around spouting exposition at each other. That’s not a criticism one could level at this third episode, though. If anything it goes completely the other way — this is possibly the episode of Doctor Who with the least dialogue in. The first six minutes of this episode contain only 36 words, and even after that it doesn’t get much chattier.
And I’m sure that if you were a thirteen year old watching this in 1976 it would have been the most exciting thing in the world. It’s full of action! There’s a biplane! And a big spider! Doctor Who gets battered and bruised and ends the episode being drowned! But for me as a 32 year old in 2021, I can’t say it’s done a lot for me. I’ve spent too much of the episode wondering about the logistics, and not being completely immersed in the story.
I’m sorry, it’s another 2/10 for me. I appreciate that some people really love this one, but I deny that reality!
Oh, and I know this is going to sound petty, but it really bothered me that Doctor Who doesn’t have his scarf on outside the Matrix, but has gained it when he first goes in. I know it’s a land of make believe in which anything is possible, but it feels more like a continuity error than an attempt to make things seems strange or out of place!
The Deadly Assassin — Part Four
I’ve made it all the way to the final episode of this story without mentioning the major villain making a return — it’s the first appearance of the Master since Season Ten, and the first time we’ve seen the character played by someone other than Roger Delgado. While people have different favourite incarnations of the character, I think it’s generally pretty accepted that Delgado is one of the strongest actors to take on the part and this new version pales in comparison.
The big fight between the Master and Doctor Who here is the perfect example of that. It’s not the best staged fight sequence that we’ve ever had in the series and it’s lacking the finesse that was always there whenever Pertwee and the Master did battle. I think back to the extended sword fight in The Sea Devils and it feels like a world away from the brawl we see here.
It’s true of the characterisation, too. Delgado’s Master was constantly getting in over his head and being betrayed by whichever alien he’d teamed up with that week, but somehow he always retained a fairly cool swagger about him. I get that the character is desperate at this point and doing anything to survive, but I struggle to connect the two versions of the character. Doctor Who describes him in this episode, and it paints the picture of someone very different to the caricature we get here;
Engin: ‘What about his character?’
Doctor Who: ‘Bad.’
Engin: ‘Oh, Doctor, could you please be a little more specific?’
Doctor Who: ‘He was evil, cunning and resourceful. Highly developed powers
of ESP and a formidable hypnotist. And the more I think about it, the less
likely it seems.’
Engin: ‘What?’
Doctor Who: ‘Well, that the Master would meekly accept the end of his regeneration cycle. It’s not his style at all.’
I don’t think it’s helped that I’m really not a fan of the Master’s appearance in this story. I don’t have any issue with the ‘decaying’ look, but the version we get here just looks too much like an ill-fitting rubber mask. The eyes look too fake, and the teeth — as scary as they are — don’t move in time with the actor’s mouth, so it has the effect of being a mask rather than a face. I’ll probably say the opposite when I get there, but I think I prefer The Keeper of Traken’s approach, where you can see real eyes and teeth.
I can’t say I’ve had any great about-turn in my opinion on this story, but I’m bumping this episode up to a 3/10 because the direction throughout has been brilliant, and that’s especially on show in this episode. As much as the story isn’t for me, I can’t fault David Maloney’s work on the show, and I dread to think how much worse this could have been without his input.
There’s really very little else for me to say for this one. I’ve never been a big fan, and I think I’ve enjoyed it less this time around than ever before. I hate to think that people will assume I’m being all contrary for the sake of it, but that’s a risk you run in a project like this, I suppose! The next story was, I think, my highest-rated Tom Baker tale in my last marathon, so I’m going in with high hopes for an uptick in my appreciation, after eight episodes which really haven’t done it for me…
