THE PLOT
The TARDIS is out of fuel. The Doctor uses emergency reserves to take he and Peri to the planet Varos, the one place that mines the rare mineral Zeiton-7, which is used to fuel time and spacecraft.
Varos is in the midst of its own problems. The governor (Martin Jarvis) is attempting to negotiate with the grasping Sil (Neil Shabin) to sell their minerals at a price that will raise living conditions on Varos. What the governor asks is still far below the value Sil would get out of it... but Sil is not satisfied, and seems intent on stalling until the governor is voted out of office. On Varos, such votes inevitably prove fatal.
The Doctor arrives in the midst of Varos' form of "entertainment." Jondar (Jason Connery), a former guard who has been denounced as a rebel, is about to be executed. Rescuing him immediately makes the Doctor and Peri into targets. As they traverse the Punishment Dome and its many varied horrors, their progress is viewed by the governor, the guards, and Sil (indeed, by all of Varos). Sil, worried about the possibility of a corporate rival, wants the strangers dead. The governor, needing a popular vote to stay alive, wants them captured or killed so he can be seen to be putting down insurrection.
All of which means that a single wrong turn by the Doctor and his friends could prove fatal!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Doesn't push anyone into an acid bath, no matter what fan legend may insist. What may be slightly more disturbing than the false acid bath issue is his rigging of the laser, creating a fatal booby trap for a guard before he even knows that Jondar is innocent. For all the Doctor knows, he might be helping a monstrous criminal to escape, while rigging that laser to kill a perfectly decent human being.
That aside, this is the best story yet for the 6th Doctor. Though Colin Baker's more, um, theatrical tendencies drag down the (poorly-written) early TARDIS scenes, his performance sparkles once he and Peri arrive on Varos. From his use of the execution laser to free Jondar, to his insistence on everyone closing their eyes as he leads them through The Purple Zone, to his wonderful nonchalance during his faked "execution" in Part Two, this story sees a Doctor who is proactive, keenly observant, and clever. Colin has expressed a strong appreciation for this script, and he does seem to be having great fun. Most of all, this story sees him properly the Doctor, far more so than either of his first two serials.
Peri: Nicola Bryant has developed a strong working rapport with Colin by this point. Moments, such as the two of them leaning out of the corner to greet the guard, or the relieved hug they share when reunited near the story's end, show them very much in sync. This story gives Peri relatively little to do, but Bryant plays her part well. Her character feels more fully-formed here than in Attack of the Cybermen, particularly when she gets some quite decent scenes opposite Martin Jarvis in the second half.
Sil: Neil Shabin's Sil is the first truly memorable alien creation of the Colin Baker era. He is the monstrous face of the most grotesque aspects of capitalism. None of the good elements - Sil doesn't represent ingenuity or inspiration, he doesn't represent entrepreneurship. He is just a parasite. Perching, slug-like and near-immobile, he gains pleasure from watching the suffering of others, laughing his inimitably reptilian laugh at the mere thought of the pain or ruin of those whose existence he finds inconvenient. Shabin revels in the character, and it's quite easy to see why a return for Sil was commissioned almost immediately.
THOUGHTS
Well, it's finally happened. Three stories in, and the Colin Baker era manages to deliver a genuinely good story. I enjoyed The Twin Dilemma far more than its reputation, but it was more a case of "fun tackiness" than anything else. Attack of the Cybermen, though extremely well-made, was largely dreadful.
Vengeance on Varos has a genuinely clever script, with a harshly satiric core that has actually gained in relevance since its broadcast. In today's atmosphere of nonstop reality television, including shows that trade on their contestants' humiliation, Varos suddenly doesn't seem all that far away.
There may not be quite enough story to fill 90 minutes. This results in the shockingly poor TARDIS padding scenes in the otherwise excellent first episode. Then the second episode is bogged down with an entirely gratuitous "transmogrifier" subplot. Both of these moments, in addition to some repetitive corridor-crawling and a few too many too-similar scenes between Sil and the governor/Sil and the security chief, lead me to wonder if this couldn't have been condensed to a single, tightly-focused 45-minute episode.
The guest acting is variable. The major roles are well-played. Neil Shabin is terrific as Sil, as is Martin Jarvis is excellent as the fundamentally decent governor (a rare sympathetic authority figure in this patch of the Saward era). But the second-tier guest players are far weaker. Jason Connery, as Jondar, and Geraldine Alexander, as his wife Areta, vary between barely-adequate and appalling. The guard who suggests Jondar's method of execution looks like he's performing in a drama school production. Then there are bizarre moments where any semblance of decent realization vanishes - notably, the Black Golf Carts of Doooom ("Oh no, there's a security car! Walk briskly!"), and the bit in Part Two in which the Doctor and his allies are menaced by two old men dressed in diapers.
Still, Vengeance on Varos offers an intriguing concept, a good central performance by Colin Baker, a sympathetic guest performance by Martin Jarvis, and a terrific villain in Sil. It may be imperfect, but it's intelligent and suspenseful, and even quite funny in turns. Even with a bit of padding and a somewhat slack second half, I find myself inclined to give a high score.
Oh, and the cliffhanger is a serious contender for a "Top 10" cliffhangers list. Really great stuff. The ending of Part Two is also rather good, and I enjoyed the Doctor's exit ("Now you see me...")
Rating: 8/10.
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