Arc Of Infinity (1983) Review

If looks could kill...

For most of its runtime, Arc Of Infinity was just... lame. Quite possibly the blandest, most witless Doctor Who story ever. However, the excellent characterisation given to a returning villain in the final episode makes it a tremendous lost oppurtunity instead.

WRITTEN BY

Johnny Byrne, who previously penned The Keeper Of Traken. I wonder if he was restrained by the concepts he had to include in this story.

PLOT

Omega makes another attempt to break free from anti-matter, this time through the Matrix on Gallifrey, using the Doctor's stolen biodata to form a clone body. In desperation, the Time Lords recall the Doctor to execute him and dispel Omega's plan. Meanwhile on Earth, an investigation in Amsterdam leads Tegan to Omega's TARDIS.

ANALYSIS

A lot of this story is just boring drivel. The mystery of who Omega is and what exactly is he doing is stretched out for three episodes, meaning that everyone just runs around like headless chickens. By the time the Castellan reveals his conspiracy theories about the Doctor, Borusa and Omega, it's almost become comical. 

The idea that the Doctor would willingly go to Gallifrey and step into an execution chamber on the off chance that he might find out what's going on is ludicrous. As is Tegan's cousin and his friend stumbling into Omega's TARDIS and her arriving to Amsterdam just in time.

Fortunately, the final episode actually ends up giving Omega the depth that his character had lacked previously and his demise is genuinely tragic. 

CHARACTERS

The Fifth Doctor's flaws have never been more highlighted than in this episode. Where once was Tom Baker playing the Time Lords like a fiddle, now stands an awkward boy who is completely helpless when faced with the authoritarian men around him. Even once he is rescued by a guntoting Nyssa with a TARDIS on standby to leave, he submits to the Time Lords' will, purely because he thinks the villain might be clever enough to retrieve him. 
As the universe is about to crumble due to Omega's reverting into antimatter, he stops to help an old lady he ran into pick up her fruits. It's just an idiotic level of passivity. 

Surprisingly enough, it's probably Nyssa's best story so far, as she has a lot of chemistry with Peter Davison without other companions around. There's an adorable gentleness to their relationship as she's pretty much the only one to still really look up to the Doctor. Plus, she's not afraid of weaponry and continually proves her bravery by standing up to the Time Lords. 

Who the heck cast Alastair Cumming and Andrew Boxer? They're supposed to play a pair of ordinary people in a mildly humorous situation, but I've never seen two such weaselly looking actors. 

Michael Gough(of Batman fame, and of course the Celestial Toymaker) plays Councillor Hedin, apparently an old friend of the Doctor's who inexplicably turns traitor, believing that Omega's exile was disgraceful and that he will be charitable towards Gallifrey. It's not a bad performance at all, but grossly underwritten. I badly wanted to know what emotionally compelled this kindly old man to go so far for Omega, but he's just unceremoniously killed off shortly after this reveal. 

Paul Jerricho as the Castellan, and Colin Baker(!!!) as Commander Maxil served as an oasis of entertainment in the desert. They're both so insanely dedicated to their jobs that watching them fail at it was hilarious. Colin in particular gives a wonderful performance, giving the impression of a bullish man who solves all of his problems by pointing a gun at it. 

The friendly Time Lord Damon(played by Neil Daglish), who serves as Nyssa's sidekick in trying to save the Doctor, is a worse actor than Matthew Waterhouse. He can't emote at all. Even when they believe the Doctor has been killed, he's just calmly delivering his lines like HAL 9000. 

Okay, let's talk about Omega. Way back in The Three Doctors, he was a mildly cool villain. A good concept combined with a good voice, but not particularly effective or interesting. For the most part, not much has changed here, except that he's in a really crappy costume that makes him look fat and diseased. 

However, once he's able to convert into Peter Davison and wander off into the city of Amsterdam, we finally get to see Omega from a completely different perspective, that of a man who's been trapped alone for a very long time. He appears to be enchanted by the smallest things, like a child who smiles at him, and a musical steam organ. Once his body reverts to anti-matter, however(which he deliberately ignores, not even willing to imagine failure and having to return to the anti-matter universe), Omega simply chooses to die and the Doctor is actually forced to euthanize him to prevent universal catastrophy. 

It's a brilliant moment of near-redemption, and a great send-off for a villain who was never that great to begin with. So the question is, why couldn't the story of Omega's suffering been the actual story we were going with, as opposed to wasting three episodes on Gallifrey, wondering what the heck was going on?

NOTES

*I'm not kidding about Gallifrey, by the way. The set design is awful, with lots of white, beige and brown everywhere. The technology all looks dated, like 60s Star Trek, but not nearly as endearing.

*I like how Nyssa reminds the Doctor to fix things in the TARDIS. They seem almost like a couple sometimes.

*There's no transitioning to between the scenes in Gallifrey and Amsterdam at all. Casual viewers would be utterly lost from part 1.

*The good old stasers are still around, and as dumb as ever.

*The gunfire from Omega's soldiers rips off the negative effect from Dalek weaponry.

*Nyssa doesn't even blink when she hears about Gallifrey or the Matrix.

*Somehow, the Doctor and Nyssa are able to deduce everything that's happening on Gallifrey before they even go there!

*Why does the Doctor want to break out of the Citadel's security compound rather than just wait and see what his people want from him?

*Colin Baker shooting Peter Davison is awesome. Just saying.

*"Of that fact I am more than aware!" Yeah, the dialogue doesn't always shine here...

*Tegan just goes along with a random googly-eyed man, who won't even tell her what happened to her cousin until she goes along with him? Stranger danger!!

*The story seems to forget that Borusa is the Doctor's teacher, as the two barely acknowledge one another.

*Also, Tegan's new haircut is a massive improvement. She looks really hot now. 

*Tegan thinks every country is completely disinterested in lost tourists from other countries. Well, I wasn't around in the 1980s, but nowadays, definitely not.

*How did Tegan lose her job? And it's a bit annoying to see her not care in the slightest after all the trouble she gave the Doctor about it last year.

*And speaking of that: the look that the Doctor gives when Tegan announces she's back to stay is priceless.

*"So much for your JUSTICE!" Nyssa exclaims before leaving the room. Gosh, why are everyone so melodramatic in the 80s?

*If Gallifrey is in such danger, why do they wait a whole episode before executing the Doctor? I didn't hear any explanation for it, they just let the Doctor sit in the TARDIS for a while before deciding to finally do it.

*The room where they execute the Doctor is memorably called "the place of termination".

*And it's not exactly the cool erasure from time we see in The War Games. No, it's just a tube of steam. And when the Doctor is terminated, we can clearly see Omega appear around him, which everyone finds odd, but nobody really seems bothered about it.

*If the Doctor's mind is in the Matrix, why doesn't he appear in some kind of terrain like in The Deadly Assassin, as opposed to idiotically floating in the Time Lords' representation of the time-space continuum?

*If the Doctor needs money to operate a phone booth, can't he just check in the TARDIS? Surely he has coins in there somewhere!

*Would a post office really hand over letters just because it's "very important"?

*So, are kids supposed to understand what "psychosynthesis" means?

*How do the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan know where to look for Omega after he's escaped from the crypt?

*Why do the Time Lords not get involved with chasing Omega down? They mention that he's in control of the Matrix(which somehow prevents the Time Lords' ships from leaving Gallifrey), but how can he be, after he converts into a clone body and escapes his ruined TARDIS?

*"Why couldn't you be content to survive as you are?" That is the most idiotic question I've ever heard the Doctor ask. 'Why aren't you happy in your eternal prison?'

*Can't Omega kill himself in the antimatter universe? And if not, why does the Doctor not want to euthanise him, he's clearly suffering and never hurt anyone before going mad from spending an eternity in there with nothing, but his will to keep him around!

CONTINUITY ADVISOR

1) All the usual Gallifrey story staples are around, like a Castellan, the Matrix and Borusa.

2) The Doctor repairs the audio in the TARDIS scanner, which seemed to be non-functional in Earthshock.

3) Temporal grace(inability to fire guns in the TARDIS) was established in the Fourth Doctor era and is now broken, for reasons unknown, as we saw in Earthshock. I guess it's neat to tidy up that continuity error, but they could've just left it there. 

4) "To stay, the creature would have to reverse its polarity." The line actually makes sense, and it's a cute callback to Pertwee's famous line.

5) The Doctor mentions that the Time Lords have a recall circuit in the TARDIS(presumably installed in The War Games) and it's only been used twice before. One was in Meglos, when they demanded Romana's return, but I'm not sure about the other. Since this is a Gallifrey story, I guess I won't mind them mentioning Romana again. And it is nice that that subplot from season 18 was resolved. I'd sure love to know what that other incident was, though.

BEST QUOTE

"Well, you know how it is. You put things off for a day and next thing you know, it's a hundred years later."

CONCLUSION

The story only really starts in the last episode. It's worth watching only for Omega's scenes on Earth and the double-act of Maxil and the Castellan. 

Since I didn't have room to do it in the last review, let's review season 19 here. Sadly, it was pretty poor. There are some stories I liked more than others, but all of them were flawed. And the main season arc(getting Tegan to Heathrow airport) was pathetic, particularly after the complex season 18. Don't get me wrong, there is a precedent for a simple story arc: much of season 13 was spent on trying to return Sarah Jane to London. But there, it was more of a lighthearted recurring gag and the focus was still on having fun. 

Here, they make Tegan miserable and the Doctor's excuses are desperate instead of teasing. As a result, all enjoyment gets sucked out and the adventures become more of a drag. Why should we enjoy it if the characters don't? 

Bringing back the Master sounds like a good idea on paper, but unlike Delgado's cool and laidback villain, Ainley uses every cliche in the book and his return is actually boring, because you know he's just going to be laughing maniacally and threatening everyone with his tissue compression eliminator. 

Overall, a really weak first year for Peter Davison. Fortunately, season 20 sounds good: Davison has had time to settle into the role so if the writing is good, then so should he. I love the idea of making every episode about a returning villain in the anniversary year, Tegan seems to have loosened up(somehow) and there's less companions to bicker with. Go softly on!