Vengeance On Varos (1985) Review

Classic fans watching Twelve's tank scene in The Magician's Apprentice like...

Vengeance On Varos is a violent story that satirises TV violence. In short, it's brilliant entertainment.

WRITTEN BY

Philip Martin, who knows all about unforgiving dystopia thanks to his Gangsters series from the late 70s.

PLOT

To repair the TARDIS, the Doctor and Peri are forced to land on Varos, a 1984-esque planet where the only source of entertainment are snuff films. Their presence and hints of the treasure hoard the Varosian people are unknowingly sitting on wreak havoc on incredibly important trade negotiations(please don't think Phantom Menace) that could potentially drag Varos out of poverty... if anyone even wants to leave the gutter.

ANALYSIS

Varos does an incredibly good job at both being entertaining on a primal level(the labyrinth of traps that the Doctor and co have to overcome plus comments from the parody of TV viewers) as well as complex. Whilst the set design really fails to evoke a whole world, the logic of Varos is sound thanks to the terrific characters of the Governor and the viewers, and their differing reactions to the cruelty around them.

The script is layered and full of the sort of delicious irony that people like Eric Saward and Robert Holmes loved. It can be see as a nod towards the Mary Whitehouse debacle, and I wouldn't rule out the ineffectual, perpetually tortured Jason Connery character being a deliberate send-up of the Fifth Doctor.

In any case, it's worlds away from the self-contained optimism of the first four, maybe five Doctors. This is the 80s for real now, and the subject on the table is decadence.

CHARACTERS

Colin Baker fares better here than in the two previous stories, as his Doctor and Peri seem to have a more solidified relationship and after experiencing the cruelty of Varos, his Bondian quips are downright satisfying(that acid bath scene was awesome, nothing wrong with some grim humor in such a terrible situation).
If I had any complaint to make about him, I'd say I still wish he played the role with a bit more subtlety, as he comes off incredibly cartoonish at times. There is pomposity, and then there's the feeling that he's being railroaded by lazy scriptwriters.

This is easily Nicola Bryant's best story since Planet Of Fire, as her incessant whining has finally led way to a more lighthearted sniping between her and the Doctor. Throughout the story, she seems to have a better hold of herself and there's even a very sweet scene where the Doctor gently reminds her of her identity after a nasty experience. So yeah, I think I'm finally getting used to this TARDIS team.

Jason Connery(son of Bond and my favourite incarnation of Robin Hood) has the rather thankless role of Jondar, who gets rescued by the Doctor and then merely exists to spout bits of exposition throughout the story. As I said before, he is eerily reminiscent of the Fifth Doctor.
M
Nabil Shaban is glorious as a sort of miniature, hyperactive Jabba the Hutt figure called Sil, who seems to have an orgasm at the very thought of doing evil. It's a brilliantly alien performance and great comic relief in the best sense of the term.

Martin Jarvis(ex-Zaaaaaarbiiii) has a quiet gravitas as the Governor. I loved how the audience's perception of him constantly shifted, from dictator, to ineffectual puppet, to a man of integrity. There was much more to him than immediately met the eye, and by the end, he was one of my favourite characters.

Stephen Yardley(the friendly Muto in Genesis Of The Daleks) and Sheila Reid(Clara's grandmother in The Time Of The Doctor and Dark Water) play the viewers, representing the ordinary people of Varos and how the events playing out in the Dome affect them. This is where the allegorical side of the story is at its strongest, with references to viewing figures and musings on violence, not to mention reinforcing how totalitarian the regime is. Both really well acted as well, with a sympathetic side, but also a creepy apathy towards misery.

And finally, I have to mention the only two happy people on Varos: Forbes Collins's portly Chief Officer, who is purely greedy, and Nicolas Chagrin's Quillam, who is purely cruel. The humanoid representations of the problems Varos must overcome and indeed, the only two main characters who die by the end of the story. Spectacularly memorable performances too, especially Quillam, who is a sort of demented mirror universe Phantom of the Opera.

NOTES

*Why does Arak not have a shirt underneath his uniform?

*Peri knows what fashion style suits her and sticks to it. The blue arguably looks even better than the pink. Accentuates her curves a bit more.

*Whilst Sil's costume is mostly terrific, it is incredibly obvious that he's wearing a mask over his head.

*Love that tongue thing that Sil does whenever he laughs.

*What actually went wrong with the TARDIS, that caused it to end up in a "mental and temporal void"?

*And if zeiton-7 is a vital component to fixing it, you'd think Varos would be under Time Lord control.

*The TARDIS's predilection for bizarre chair designs continues. At least this one's an improvement over the wicker chairs in The Five Doctors.

*I find the concept of the Doctor trapped in his own TARDIS pretty fascinating. That should be the plot of an episode(basically Heaven Sent, but in the TARDIS).

*As in the Twelfth Doctor era, I am not a fan of trivialising regeneration by mentioning it in regular episodes. Although at least here, it's justified.

*I want voting buttons on my TV.

*The guard who suggests Jondar's execution looks eerily like my old drill sergeant. It's the pouty lips.

*The Doctor seems to have a nicked a new TARDIS manual from Gallifrey between this and The Ribos Operation.

*What's up with the Sixth Doctor's continued hatred of Peri's accent?

*It's 1985, and Sil has black slaves. Sigh.

*It's a bit dumb of Sil to shout his evil plan aloud right next to the Governor, even if he has collapsed out of exhaustion.

*Now that the Doctor knows that the entire Dome is wired with cameras, why does he say out loud that the TARDIS is his only means to escape?

*A fly is Peri's worst imagining? For real?

*The group encounter a fearsome monster, and then Jondar blurts out "Just like ComTec design to put a real monster immediately beyond an imaginary one!" Dude's got great vocabulary skills even under extreme stress, gotta hand him that.

*All of the mirages are absolutely hilarious, my favourite being Peri melodramatically enjoying a good cup of water whilst the Doctor is dying of thirst.

*I would've added a few more directorial touches just to use the gimmick of this being a TV show in a TV show.

*Quillam didn't recognise the Doctor before he removed his mask? Um, Awesome Coat?

*Why are Varosian blasters slow as molasses?

*Would've been more appropriate to turn Peri into a butterfly a la The Twin Dilemma. Martin Jarvis could've instructed her on insect movement.

*They clearly touch those oh-so poisonous tendrils quite a few times in plain sight.

*RTD should've scrapped Lady Cassandra and just gotten Nabil Shaban back.

*As amazing as the story is, the end is kind of an anticlimax. Instead of the natural conclusion of the Governor taking his business elsewhere(*cough* Gallifrey *cough*), instead Sil's invasion force just kind of decides to piss off and come up with elaborate excuses as to why they can't be bothered to invade Varos.

CONTINUITY ADVISOR

1) Peri notes that since the two of them left Telos, the Doctor has caused a lot of mayhem on the TARDIS. What was Eric Saward's obsession with tying stories together?

2) Peri seems to have a new catchphrase now: "All these corridors look the same to me." To be fair, in this case they do.

BEST QUOTE

"I want to hear them scream until I'm deaf with pleasure!" - Quillam. This story is full of good quotes, but that was my absolute favourite.

CONCLUSION

Quite possibly the iconic Sixth Doctor story, as it picks apart every trend of the era with gusto.