u/FitCheesecake4006

Hi! Some of you might know me as the writer of The Doctor Who Saved Me Reviews, and this is a different post from me from my usual postings to this community.

I recently watched the fantastic The Robots of Death which, as a huge fan of murder mysteries, I absolutely loved. That alongside me finishing up my The Talons of Weng-Chiang review got me thinking of other Doctor Who stories that are murder mysteries, as the mystery genre is my all time favorite genre and I adore whenever Doctor Who decides to do this kind of story. I was hoping for recommendations for other Doctor Who stories that are murder mysteries since I was hoping to add more to my list to either review or just check out on my own time; primarily those involving The Doctor, since I love seeing them play detective in a story.

Note that it doesn't have to be a strictly be a whodunnit murder mystery, though those would of course be appreciated, any investigations into crimes and such by The Doctor would be appreciated. Like The Talons of Weng-Chiang isn't a strict murder mystery but it is still very much a detective story, and stories like that are more so along the lines of what I'm thinking alongside convential murder mysteries. Even stories tied somewhat to murder mysteries I'd be happy to see, as it's always fun to see it as a part of a story even if it isn't the main thing. Like The Power of the Daleks isn't primarily a murder mystery but it has those elements with the investigation into the death of the Earth Inspector which even more to my love for that story. I would love any recommendations or just shout outs to more obscure stories that one could give, I'm accepting whatever medium be it novels, audios, or comics, I'm looking to explore the EU so whatever medium is no problem for me; doesn't matter it their considered good or bad, I'd be interested in at least checking them out all the same.

I'm already familar with most of the mystery episodes from the main Doctor Who show, having been working through a watch through of the series. With stories like Black Orchid, Trial of a Timelord: Terror of the Vervoids, and The Unicorn and the Wasp being the main mystery stories following on from The Robots of Death. With there even being other detective stories which while not stirctly mystery I do consider counting as detective mystery stories like The End of the World, The Crimson Horror, and Deep Breath. What other stories would you consider detective stories?

Also familiar with the usual suspects of mystery audio like The Chimes of Midnight and Master, and was wondering what other good mystery stories, or ones you'd consider as such, are in audio outside of those main two. Would be happy to hear about any novel and comic mysteries as well since their two mediums I'm especially curious about getting into.

Thank you so much in advance to all of you who do comment. Murder Mysteries are my favorite genre, as I said, and I truly do love it whenever Doctor Who does one so any recommendations for these kinds of Who stories would be greatly appreciated.

Season 14, Episode 5

The Robots of Death(4 parts)

-Written by Chris Boucher

-Directed by Michael E. Briant

-Air Dates: January 29th-February 19th, 1977

-Runtime: 97 minutes

Or as I like to call it...

The one that would make Anakin Skywalker have an aneurysm

We Begin!!! On a desert planet in the midst of a huge storm, though the storm a Sandminer is scraping precious minerals from beneath the sands. Aboard the large Sandminer is a nine person crew who are working hard to pursue the storm as it'll lead to more valuable minerals being brought up. The Sandminer there on is also staffed by several Kaldor robots fulfilling the various tasks set out for them. However the usual work routine is shaken when one of the crew is mysteriously murdered by one of the Kaldor robots who just suddenly turned murderous and strangled him to death. His body is found by the crew and an investigation is underway in order to try and figure out who killed him and why. Meanwhile The Doctor and Leela have landed aboard the Sandminer and are quickly accosted by the Kaldor robots, with them soon finding themselves under suspicion of the murder, especially once more bodies begin turning up. It's a race to solve the mystery of these murderous robots and find out who is trying to kill off the whole crew of the Sandminer lest they end up finding themselves another victim of the robots of death(eyyy).

Episode Proper

You all know I’m a huge murder mystery fangirl, mentioned it several times over the course of my reviews, so of course I’d end up loving this. The Robots of Death is another one of my most anticipated stories when doing this watch through. As a huge fangirl for murder mysteries I was incredibly excited to see Doctor Who try and do an Agatha Christie style murder mystery. I had seen Modern Who’s attempts to do this type of story with The Unicorn and the Wasp, though it’s been so long that I barely remember anything about it other than some funny lines with Donna and the fact there was a giant wasp. Still I do remember it having left something to be desired, which is why I was interested in seeing how The Robots of Death would tackle this type of story, and thankfully it very much lived up to my expectations.

The show has tackled the mystery genre beforehand to some extent, or at least dipped it's toes, each time I lovingly pointed it out, with episodes like The Keys of Marinus, The Rescue, The Power of the Daleks, The Faceless Ones, The Ambassadors of Death, The Curse of Peladon, The Monster of Peladon, and, of course, the latest example, The Deadly Assassin; and I have loved when they did each time. However what makes The Robots of Death stand out is that this is probably the most intentional and direct tackling of the genre that it has done up to this point. By this I mean, the murder mystery is actually at the forefront of this episode instead of being one part of the greater story, with structure and story flow of this episode making it clear it is a deliberate attempt to tell a murder mystery story within the usual conventions of the genre, just with a little sci-fi twist, which is fun.

The Robots of Death is focused on giving us a fun cosy murder mystery in a sci-fi setting, and it does it very well. The episode is based around a staple of the mystery genre, the closed circle mystery, with it feeling very much in line with stories like And Then There Were None… and Evil Under the Sun. We got a decent sized cast, making for a limited number of suspects as they are stuck on the isolated location that is the Sandminer, where they begin dying off one by one. It’s a classic mystery set up which was fun to see done in Doctor Who, especially with them giving a neat sci-fi twist to slice things up; because when was Doctor Who ever one to do some wacky sci-fi twist to a pre-established type of story, it likes to have fun with genre.

The main premise of the episode is fantastic, with it being a murder mystery set on a Sandminer ship which is on a mining expedition, where someone among the crew has been using the ship's robotic staff in order to kill people. I love the little sci-fi twist they do for the classic mystery story, with the robots being the one to kill people instead of one of the group of suspects, with the mystery instead being who's been controlling them to kill people, and how; the episode also tackles the 3 Laws of Robotics which is crucial for the plot. The use of robots for the killings is really fun and interesting, making for a good consistent threat throughout the episode that the characters have to deal with alongside trying to solve the murders. 

The setting of the Sandminer itself is also great whenever to really liven up the story and give that good sci-fi take on the mystery genre. The Sandminer is a fairly cool location for the story to take place, being this giant roving mining machine that traverses the sand filled planet of Kaiser in an effort to locate valuable minerals that are hard to come by in the sandy terrain. We get some solid worldbuilding on the Sandminer and the main mining company with it doing well to bring us into this part of the universe and understand the task that was meant to be happening before it goes awry with all the murders. What I really like about the Sandminer as a setting is the danger of it all, with the need to be constantly on the move, lest it sink into the sand, and the intense storms which while good for mining serve to thrash the machine violently as well. It makes for a great tense location to just be in, aside from the murderous robots, with the part 2 cliffhanger where they start sinking being excellent.

Murder mysteries are an absolute favorite of mine, which I have said countless times already in this review, with the mystery of this episode being fantastically told. I love the build up of it all, with it starting with just one murder committed by one of the Kaldor robots, with it being great fun watching the preliminary investigation into the crime, especially once The Doctor and Leela start getting in on the action; seeing detective work in action is so much fun. We get solid scenes of some parlor room discussion as each of the crew begin accusing one another, with each of the motives being laid out for us to see, even if it’s clear they aren’t talking with the full truth in mind. 

I liked seeing the cast slowly come to the realization that the Kaldor robots are somehow involved in the murders, with someone using them to kill. While we as the audience know that, it was fun seeing the possibility start to be floated around and the conflict as we learn that it would violate the Laws of Robotics implanted in the robots, ticking the mystery further as they have to figure out which one committed this kind of sabotage and why. I love seeing the plot only thicken further as two more crew members are killed in the search for The Doctor and Leela, who are the ones currently on the highest list of suspects at the moment. The multiple murders adds further tension and aids the mystery with it being clear that they aren’t dealing with one murder and various motives, but a serial killer who is attempting to kill off the entire crew for unknown reasons. This is only made all the more intriguing with the use of corpse markers, that are meant for robots, on the victims of the murder, making it clear the killer has some kind of agenda.

I had so much fun seeing the mystery develop from there, with cool scenes of the culprit working from the shadows, building up the tension well as we see more and more robots be infected and be driven to kill. Loved the further investigations as the bodies begin to pile up, with the great shakeup of the appearance of D84 on the ship, revealing his hiding out on the vessel and investigations into a radical robot revolutionist supposedly onboard the ship. I’ll be honest I thought it was a red herring at first, but it’s made clear it’s another development in the mystery, with it being great now having the motive put in place and the true name of the culprit, Taren Capal, even if the cast aren’t yet sure who among the remains crew Capal is. 

I really enjoyed the reveal of who the culprit was, with us getting all the Kaldor robots their assigned mission to kill the last of the crew, with the name that is missing from the list being the culprit, which The Doctor also surmises once the robots begin their final attack. The way they showed who the culprit is reminded me of the similar method utilized in Death Note, which I found a funny correlation between two shows I’ve seen; let’s see The Doctor try and catch Light, he probably would, especially 7. It was a neat wrap up to the mystery with Dask as the culprit having some decent clues, like him not noticing or caring about the blood on the Kaldor robots, with him also having been the first to shoot down idea of robots as possible culprits, having shown great affinity for the machines, with his robot revolutionary aspects also explain his motive and the use of corpse markers for the victims, with this all making for a satisfying answer to the driving question of the episode.

The final portion of the episode is good fun, with the mystery having now been solved, and all that’s left is to stop Capal and his robots from killing everyone else, leading to some great tense moments as the robots start hunting the remainder of the people down. The chase is great, leading to some decent action and clever moments in order to stop Capal and wrap up the crisis on the Sandminer. It served nicely as a solid ending to the story, giving some nice bits of action and tension to tie up the story after the culprit has been found; they of course weren’t going to end on a classic Summation Gathering, especially in a murder case such as this, so this fun ending was a solid wrap up to this delightful Doctor Who take on murder mysteries.

Themes

I really enjoyed this episode’s themes, tackling the relationship between robots and humans in a cool and interesting way I haven’t really seen done before. This episode gives us a society that is dependent on robots in order to function, with them fulfilling various vital roles and services. The interesting angle they play here is in how humans react to robots, that being the idea of robophobia. I like how this plays on humans' fear of robots, the possibility of damage they can cause even if they are bound here by the 3 Laws of Robotics; which they took straight from I, Robot by the way but a good amount of sci-fi with robots does. 

I love the idea of robophobia, with it being very interesting take on robot hatred, with it being caused by just the creepy, uncanny valley feeling that robots provide, being so human in various ways, but not in many others, leading to this dissonance that can be incredibly unnerving to many people. This is not helped by the humanoid look of the robots mixed with their lifeless feeling, with the episode doing well to describe them as basically feeling like walking corpses which I found very interesting. We get to see this further in action in the episode, as one of the crew starts to develop robophobia, with him fully breaking down at the sight of blood, with the thought of these machines all around him which seem so human and deadly, actually capable of killing you being a too frightening through to bare, especially since the only consolation to the fear of the Kaldor robots was their inability to kill, with that going out the window and making it clear why one would go mad from that.

I really enjoyed this analysis of the creepy nature of robots and the use of this uncanny valley feeling around them and how humans would react if they had become all around us. Like think about those humanoid robots they give fake skin too that you see sometimes pop up on YouTube or TV, with them just having this unnerving nature to them with just how off they feel, they sort of appear human but it’s clear something is deeply wrong while looking at them, and if you imagine them being all around us 24/7, I could certainly see people developing a phobia to them. Honestly I see the episode as rather ahead of its time in this aspect, doing really well to analyze a situation which could become real in our future. Robophobia is an interesting examination of the relationship between humans and robots that I haven’t seen before but was absolutely fascinated by how it was explored in the episode proper, with it making for some genuinely cool and unique themes on robots for the episode.

This episode also examines some of the ethics around having highly advanced robots basically be our 24 hour servants, mainly with Capal. It is interesting to think about the ethics of treating humans, these beings that are so close to people as servants, which allows for the dichotomy to be made between man and machine. The theme of this is interestingly explored as they never give a proper answer to the question, just some parts to play with in regards to the ethics of their servitude. The episode makes it clear with the Kaldor robots stiltedness and The Doctor’s own observations, that the Kaldor robots are just machines, with human-like programming but machines nonetheless, not having the same emotional intricacy as humans do, with the interactions between The Doctor and D84 doing well to show the difference in emotion and intelligence.

However it’s also clear that the Kaldor robots, even if they aren’t as emotive as humans and don’t possess consciousness in the same way we do, still possess a level of intelligence and individuality, especially with D84 who, while stilted, shows are that he is his own person and interacts normally with The Doctor and Leela. D84 and the other Super-VOCs make it clear these robots are more than just machines, possessing a greater level of thought and nuance. Even still the episode makes it clear that they are fulfilled in their purpose and don’t seek that much more than that. Even if Capel could have a point in the robots deserving a bit more respect, the episode makes it clear the method he goes about robot revolution is one they evidently don’t want, with one of the robots reacting in pain and screaming out before he’s forcefully changed by Capel for the revolution; which in turn actually shows more control and taking away the robot’s agency. While the episode doesn’t answer the question of the ethics behind this, the themes are still interesting to look at, with it definitely giving a good bit to chew on nonetheless.

Pacing and Atmosphere

The pacing of this episode was excellent, with the episode keeping up the pace nicely throughout to give a good and interesting mystery. Each part doing well to progress the intrigue and tension to make for a good watch that never dragged. This episode also has some pretty good atmosphere, with it doing well to get across the dangerous and isolated setting of the Sandminer. I liked how well they utilized the sets and costumes of the Sandminer robots to give a tense, almost unnerving vibe throughout several parts of the episode, especially when the Sandminer robots are committing their killings, lunging after people in such an inhuman and robotic way; does a nice job at getting some good tension during the several murder scenes and the final attack led by Capel.

Sets and Special Effects

The sets this episode were solid, with the inside of the Sandminer looking pretty good, especially the ventilation shaft that The Doctor and Leela find themselves in at the start. The special effects in this episode are fantastic, with the model used for the Sandminer being great alongside the outside of Kaldor that we see it moving on; the lighting is very good. The video effects we see are solid, with the red grains doing well at getting across the virus infecting the Kaldor robots, with the red effect done on the eyes being great at enhancing their creep factor as they kill. The costumes for this episode are probably the best effects here as the Kaldor robots look amazing. It really has to do with the simple but effective humanoid design of the helmets and body that does a fantastic job at getting across the uncanny valley nature of the robots and how they would disturb people. This solid design is then brought to life excellently to give just an effective, iconic look for the Kaldor robots that are great to see in action. The outfits on the other hand, woof, they are gaudy as hell in an attempt at futuristic clothing but I find them fun all the same, especially with that one fish cap that one of the crew inexplicably has.

Kaldor Robots and D84

The Kaldor robots were such a cool concept for this episode, working well both in their themes, as I’ve already discussed, and as a threat with them being the main menace the TARDIS crew have to deal with, being controlled by the killer and all. The design for the Kaldor robots is fantastic, as I already said, with it making sense why they would serve to help induce these cases of robophobia in people after being around them for a long time. I really liked how they were presented here, with their really stilted and robotic speech matched with their distanced emotional style and movement help really get across the feelings of uncanny valley that they’re trying to get at with these robots, it’s really cool. I liked their use for the themes of robophobia and the relationship between robots and machines, with it being an interesting and cool usage of robots that I’ve actually haven’t seen that much of before; the former I mean.

The Kaldor robots themselves are a neat presence into the episode when they aren’t attacking people, being nice and kind beings that help the crew well during their mission. I really liked how much insight and worldbuilding we get into the Kaldor robots, with them having whole subdivisions of robots. There are the Dums, the simplest group made to do labor and aren’t that intelligent, incapable of speech and most intelligence, the Vocs, who are capable of speech and perform a variety of tasks, being the main service robots who help out and maintain the ship, and the Super-Vocs, which are the most intelligent robots, who serves as a relay point and leader for all other robots, containing the ability to make decisions and organize the robots. This diversity serves as a nice bit of worldbuilding that makes the robots feel more than just generic machines.

The Kaldor robots serve well as threats for the episode, being taken over by Capel, who removes their limitations of the Laws of Robotics, and forces them to kill. Their nature as semi-intelligent and strong machines makes them incredibly threatening to deal with, as their strength is well above most people, having metal grips that are hard to escape from, especially when they manage to start strangling you. They’re smart, able to strategize and chase, making them pretty scary to run away from, especially with how durable they are to direct attacks; all in all the Kaldor robots worked well as threats for this episode.

One of the robots really stood out in this episode and that was D84. We see him sneaking about, hiding his intelligence and posing as a Dum before he eventually reveals he’s been sent there by the mining company to investigate a note by Capal and the possibility he might attack. D84 is kind and helpful, with him being an incredibly endearing character to have around. While he may act robotic and stilted, it is clear he has emotions to him and interacts nicely with The Doctor and Leela, even if him being a robot does lead to some comical mistakes on his part, like repeatedly asking who the cry he heard was which The Doctor repeatedly has to answer was him. D84 is just a nice robot who wants to do his best to help out, and serves well as an indicator that Capal’s extremist views are wrong and he isn’t fully grasping what the Kaldor robots want for themselves.

I found D84 to be a lot of fun in this episode, he was kind of cute in a robot sort of way(if that makes sense), with him being very endearing to me, loving every moment he was on screen. I was saddened when he sacrificed himself to help The Doctor beat Capal, he was nice and I wish he got to live; I could honestly see an alternate universe where he became a companion instead of K9 and I wouldn’t mind having seen having him as a companion play out, as we see here he works great with The Doctor and Leela. Gregory de Polnay did a fantastic job as D84, doing well to really endear to this nice, goofy robot and making me sad when he died; Miles Fothergill also did a good job as the main SV7. The Kaldor robots overall were just an amazing part of this episode, with it being nice to see them become an iconic staple of Classic Who; I liked that they had that sort of impact since I really enjoyed them here and they deserve the recognition.

Every murder mystery has got a culprit, well not alway but that's neither here nor there, and in this case our culprit is engineer Dask, in reality a mad scientist known as Taren Capel, with him making for a solid villain for this story. The clues in the story are all well laid out to suspect something is up with him with it never doing a cheap trick like some non murder mystery shows attempts at one can end up doing. It all does well to make logical sense that he's the one behind everything, though it is admittedly pretty obvious when one thinks about it for a little bit, given he's the one consistently talking about the robots and their safety and has great knowledge of their mechanics. Once they reveal that Taren Capal is aboard the ship, it's not too hard to guess that he is in reality Capal and the one behind everything; still I think the reveal is nicely done and a satisfying answer to this murder mystery.

Taren Capal

Taren Capal makes for a solid villain for this kind of story, being a robot extremist who believes robots should rise up and rule over humanity, considering himself more robot than human. I found his backstory cool, with him being raised entirely by robots and coming to see them as his sort of family, believing them to be better than humanity and that they should rule over it. His philosophy is pretty interesting seeing all robots as having sentience and capabilities that are better than humans, with him not being entirely wrong with robots like D84 clearly having some measure of thought and humanity to him, but takes it in the completely wrong direction and believes all of them are capable of this, even the mute autonomous grunts, and want to follow in his plans to take over humanity; with D84's existence and fight against him making clear that is not what they want.

I really liked seeing Capal work in the shadows with it being pretty creepy seeing him take robots and injects them with this new programming to make them, with the wiggling and how uncomfortable the Kaldor robots are at being reprogrammed making it clear that he is going about this entirely the wrong way and is being more harmful to the robots by forcing them to kill humans for his plans. It's pretty clear there is something twisted about Capal, especially with his serial killer modus operandi he does by leaving the corpse marker on his victims which is pretty unnerving to see. Capal makes for an effective threat for the last portion of the story, sending the robots loose to kill the last of the survivors on the sandminer, with his face paint as a robot being both fun and a good way to show how delusional he is. Capal's defeat is well done, with him ultimately being killed by one of his own malfunctioning robots he turned, being unable to speak to it to stop as it kills him just like he made them do to so many others; good karmic death. David Baillie gives a great performance as Capal, doing well to get across his initial unassuming nature before showing his delusional madness later, helping to make a solid culprit for this mystery.

Supporting Cast

The rest of the supporting cast of this episode were pretty good, nothing much to write home about, but they serve their purpose well. Also we get not one but two POC characters and actors in this episode that's not a historical setting, that’s got to be a record for the amount of POC people in space we’ve seen. They’re a good bunch of suspects for the mystery to have, with it being interesting seeing them slowly picked off one by one. They work well with each other, making for some fun dynamic conversations as they discuss the murders and through suspicion at one another. I liked learning about their backstories a bit more with it being interesting learning the truth behind that one woman’s brother’s death, with it also playing into the themes of robophobia well. I especially liked Lish Toos, played well by Pamela Salem, with her working well of Leela during the latter half of the story. They were a solid bunch of suspects that worked well for the murder mystery.

The Doctor

The Doctor is fantastic in this episode, with it being a continuing trend of me enjoying whenever The Doctor gets to play detective, with it being a lot of fun to see him do so here in a story that is structured like a classic whodunnit, just with robots. I loved seeing The Doctor act as the detective for the story with it being great fun seeing him go around looking for clues, examining the crime scenes, questioning suspects, and attempting to make logical deductions from the facts he has at hand to find out what's going on. It's an absolute delight and I thoroughly enjoy whenever he gets the chance to do so, with this story being no exception. Seeing The Doctor uncover evidence, look at the murders and try and piece together what happened is just a lot of fun for me personally, with the use of the murder mystery in Doctor Who being what makes this episode so enjoyable for me to watch.

I found The Doctor's opening scenes in this story a lot of fun, seeing him banter nicely with Leela, giving an actually pretty fun scene where he attempts to explain how the TARDIS works using two boxes and perspective. Honestly the explanation he does give is the most amount of sense the show has, and probably will get, to explaining how the TARDIS works, and honestly I find that neat. I really like the imagery of perspective when thinking about the TARDIS with the way he explains it; also there are some funny lines afterwards about The Doctor's inability to properly fly the TARDIS which I liked. I enjoy him being this teacher to Leela, being sort of this guiding figure helping her understand these very complicated concepts, with the chemistry the two have with one another being a lot of fun, like with the later scene where he's explaining robots and how they don't have emotions.

The Doctor and Leela are of course blamed for the murders and have to spend a decent amount of time clearing their names, which plays into him playing detective which I already mentioned how much I enjoy. The Doctor is just a lot of fun in this episode with there being so many scenes I enjoyed that show off his nice and silly charm that I can't help but love. I really enjoyed moments like when he offers the crew a jelly baby when being interrogated, randomly decides to quote the Bee Movies like 30 years early, his annoyance at D84's constant questioning, or when he just gives that fun whimsical look at one of the Kaldor robots when looking at them. The ending portion when he's captured by Capal is both tense and funny as he insults him, with us getting to see him use his respiratory bypass again which is neat. It's all great stuff that I had such a good time watching, this isn't like the previous two stories where they really challenged The Doctor, it's just a nice fun mystery that's great to see him solve and cleverly put a stop to the culprit at the end. Tom Baker was so much fun in this episode with him continuing to be an absolute delight as The Doctor, really enjoyed him here.

Leela

Leela was excellent in this episode with her being a lot of fun being placed in a murder mystery story of all things. I liked the opening with Leela with it just including so many nice funny character moments for her like her playing with the YoYo out of misconception of its importance and asking The Doctor how the TARDIS operates, with it being neat detail with how she compares the great technology she sees to the Tesh which nicely harkens back to her origins. I loved how well she followed along to The Doctor's explanation of how the TARDIS functions with it showing her honest intelligence and curiosity, understanding the theory behind it quite well. The detail of Leela trying to bring her weapons along for the adventure was a fun one with it showing her warrior personality and again gives some neat conflict with The Doctor as he has to try and convince her to not bring them along.

Leela works well off The Doctor in this story with her being a fun investigating partner for The Doctor in this story as he runs around piecing everything together with Leela nicely remaining headstrong and vigilant to possible danger which I liked. It also, like Jo, always feels like she's learning from the questions she asks, with it being nice seeing her gain a greater understanding of the various curiosities she sees. I enjoyed the scenes where Leela encounters D84 and is suspicious of his heightened intelligence, with the two sharing some good interactions with one another. The scenes of Leela being interrogated are fun with it being great how standoffish she is when she's being questioned, not standing for any restraint and certainly biting back which I love. I really liked how she said she'd cripple the guy who was questioning her, which again shows nicely how she won't back down without a fight, which is just something that really endears me to Leela.

I also really liked that moment where Leela says a guy moves like a hunter would when they're being restrained, neatly diving into her own knowledge of such a thing. There's also that neat moment where Leela doesn't really have much to base it off, but she gets a feeling that something is deeply wrong as their locked up in one of the rooms before the Sandminer starts sinking, with it again being a small but effective moment with her; especially with The Doctor not wanting to be "I told you so"-ed after this ends up happening. She gets a decent bit of action running from the robots, though much less than her previous episode due to the shift in genre, and spends a decent portion working well off Lish as a bit of her protector which I found nice. I enjoyed seeing her contribute to Capal's defeat at the end, releasing helium which led to his voice being unrecognizable and him to be killed, with it getting a funny follow up as her voice also gets squeaky as a result; would've liked if she had a bit more action with the robots but this was still a solid showing. Louise Jameson was great as Leela here, while certainly not getting as much as her introduction, she remained a lot of fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing her work with Tom Baker and playing the character of Leela in this new setting; I really enjoy having her around.

Closing Thoughts/TLDR

As a whole, this episode was so much fun with it always being an absolute treat seeing Doctor Who do a murder mystery. The murdery mystery was fantastic, and I had a blast following the various twists and turns of the story, with it all being quite well done. The setting of the Sandminer is great, with it making for a good tense location for the mystery to play out, with that being especially true with the addition of a solid supporting cast were all really solid suspects for this story and bounced well off one another and the TARDIS crew; helped really make this story really captivating. The robot attack at the end was a solid action packed finish to this episode, doing well to wrap up the mystery of the whole thing. There were some pretty interesting themes tackled here about the relationship between robots and humans with the concept of robophobia being especially fascinating and really well played with. The pacing is solid here with this episode also having some good atmosphere, especially during the murder scenes. The sets for this episode were great with the location of the Sandminer looking pretty good, with the special effects here also being solid, especially with the fantastic look of the Kaldor androids. The Kaldor androids were an excellent part of this episode with them being such a good threat for the episode, with their design and mannerisms coupled with their bouts of murder really helping to give them a creepy factor that really makes clear the robophobia concept they're going for with them. It was really interesting learning about how they function, with the one we really get to meet D84 being a nice addition to the episode who I really enjoyed and was bummed when he died. Taren Capal made for a solid culprit for this murder mystery with a cool motive and served well as a good villain with a great defeat. The Doctor is fantastic in this episode, with it once again being so much fun watching him play detective, with there being so many moments that show off his nice, silly charm so well. Leela is excellent here, while she may not get as much to do here as her previous appearance, she's still great to have around with her working so well off The Doctor with a good amount of moments showcasing her unique element she brings to the table. Overall I loved this episode, I am a murder mystery fangirl so it was likely a given but this episode legitimately is just a fun and cosy time that I couldn't help but enjoy my time with it; here's to the murder mysteries to come, can't wait to see Doctor Who do more, even if it's only once in a while, I enjoy it all the same.

Next time: The Doctor and Leela arrive on the streets of Victorian London and quickly find themselves enraptured in a sinister plot as they end up investigating a series of kidnappings of young women by a mysterious group that has been terrorizing London town. What is happening to these young women and what does this have to with the enigmatic magician Li H'sen Chang and the cloaked figure which he serves, these are questions they'll have to solve though they aren't alone on this adventure, being joined by two new friends, Jago and Litefoot.

Final Rating: 9/10

"Terran insects. Aerodynamically impossible for them to fly, but they do it. I'm rather fond of bumble-bees."

-The Doctor, randomly quoting the Bee Movie, like 30-40 years before that, while also being a nice in character quote

Season 14, Episode 5

The Robots of Death(4 parts)

-Written by Chris Boucher

-Directed by Michael E. Briant

-Air Dates: January 29th-February 19th, 1977

-Runtime: 97 minutes

Or as I like to call it...

The one that would make Anakin Skywalker have an aneurysm

We Begin!!! On a desert planet in the midst of a huge storm, though the storm a Sandminer is scraping precious minerals from beneath the sands. Aboard the large Sandminer is a nine person crew who are working hard to pursue the storm as it'll lead to more valuable minerals being brought up. The Sandminer there on is also staffed by several Kaldor robots fulfilling the various tasks set out for them. However the usual work routine is shaken when one of the crew is mysteriously murdered by one of the Kaldor robots who just suddenly turned murderous and strangled him to death. His body is found by the crew and an investigation is underway in order to try and figure out who killed him and why. Meanwhile The Doctor and Leela have landed aboard the Sandminer and are quickly accosted by the Kaldor robots, with them soon finding themselves under suspicion of the murder, especially once more bodies begin turning up. It's a race to solve the mystery of these murderous robots and find out who is trying to kill off the whole crew of the Sandminer lest they end up finding themselves another victim of the robots of death(eyyy).

Episode Proper

You all know I’m a huge murder mystery fangirl, mentioned it several times over the course of my reviews, so of course I’d end up loving this. The Robots of Death is another one of my most anticipated stories when doing this watch through. As a huge fangirl for murder mysteries I was incredibly excited to see Doctor Who try and do an Agatha Christie style murder mystery. I had seen Modern Who’s attempts to do this type of story with The Unicorn and the Wasp, though it’s been so long that I barely remember anything about it other than some funny lines with Donna and the fact there was a giant wasp. Still I do remember it having left something to be desired, which is why I was interested in seeing how The Robots of Death would tackle this type of story, and thankfully it very much lived up to my expectations.

The show has tackled the mystery genre beforehand to some extent, or at least dipped it's toes, each time I lovingly pointed it out, with episodes like The Keys of Marinus, The Rescue, The Power of the Daleks, The Faceless Ones, The Ambassadors of Death, The Curse of Peladon, The Monster of Peladon, and, of course, the latest example, The Deadly Assassin; and I have loved when they did each time. However what makes The Robots of Death stand out is that this is probably the most intentional and direct tackling of the genre that it has done up to this point. By this I mean, the murder mystery is actually at the forefront of this episode instead of being one part of the greater story, with structure and story flow of this episode making it clear it is a deliberate attempt to tell a murder mystery story within the usual conventions of the genre, just with a little sci-fi twist, which is fun.

The Robots of Death is focused on giving us a fun cosy murder mystery in a sci-fi setting, and it does it very well. The episode is based around a staple of the mystery genre, the closed circle mystery, with it feeling very much in line with stories like And Then There Were None… and Evil Under the Sun. We got a decent sized cast, making for a limited number of suspects as they are stuck on the isolated location that is the Sandminer, where they begin dying off one by one. It’s a classic mystery set up which was fun to see done in Doctor Who, especially with them giving a neat sci-fi twist to slice things up; because when was Doctor Who ever one to do some wacky sci-fi twist to a pre-established type of story, it likes to have fun with genre.

The main premise of the episode is fantastic, with it being a murder mystery set on a Sandminer ship which is on a mining expedition, where someone among the crew has been using the ship's robotic staff in order to kill people. I love the little sci-fi twist they do for the classic mystery story, with the robots being the one to kill people instead of one of the group of suspects, with the mystery instead being who's been controlling them to kill people, and how; the episode also tackles the 3 Laws of Robotics which is crucial for the plot. The use of robots for the killings is really fun and interesting, making for a good consistent threat throughout the episode that the characters have to deal with alongside trying to solve the murders. 

The setting of the Sandminer itself is also great whenever to really liven up the story and give that good sci-fi take on the mystery genre. The Sandminer is a fairly cool location for the story to take place, being this giant roving mining machine that traverses the sand filled planet of Kaiser in an effort to locate valuable minerals that are hard to come by in the sandy terrain. We get some solid worldbuilding on the Sandminer and the main mining company with it doing well to bring us into this part of the universe and understand the task that was meant to be happening before it goes awry with all the murders. What I really like about the Sandminer as a setting is the danger of it all, with the need to be constantly on the move, lest it sink into the sand, and the intense storms which while good for mining serve to thrash the machine violently as well. It makes for a great tense location to just be in, aside from the murderous robots, with the part 2 cliffhanger where they start sinking being excellent.

Murder mysteries are an absolute favorite of mine, which I have said countless times already in this review, with the mystery of this episode being fantastically told. I love the build up of it all, with it starting with just one murder committed by one of the Kaldor robots, with it being great fun watching the preliminary investigation into the crime, especially once The Doctor and Leela start getting in on the action; seeing detective work in action is so much fun. We get solid scenes of some parlor room discussion as each of the crew begin accusing one another, with each of the motives being laid out for us to see, even if it’s clear they aren’t talking with the full truth in mind. 

I liked seeing the cast slowly come to the realization that the Kaldor robots are somehow involved in the murders, with someone using them to kill. While we as the audience know that, it was fun seeing the possibility start to be floated around and the conflict as we learn that it would violate the Laws of Robotics implanted in the robots, ticking the mystery further as they have to figure out which one committed this kind of sabotage and why. I love seeing the plot only thicken further as two more crew members are killed in the search for The Doctor and Leela, who are the ones currently on the highest list of suspects at the moment. The multiple murders adds further tension and aids the mystery with it being clear that they aren’t dealing with one murder and various motives, but a serial killer who is attempting to kill off the entire crew for unknown reasons. This is only made all the more intriguing with the use of corpse markers, that are meant for robots, on the victims of the murder, making it clear the killer has some kind of agenda.

I had so much fun seeing the mystery develop from there, with cool scenes of the culprit working from the shadows, building up the tension well as we see more and more robots be infected and be driven to kill. Loved the further investigations as the bodies begin to pile up, with the great shakeup of the appearance of D84 on the ship, revealing his hiding out on the vessel and investigations into a radical robot revolutionist supposedly onboard the ship. I’ll be honest I thought it was a red herring at first, but it’s made clear it’s another development in the mystery, with it being great now having the motive put in place and the true name of the culprit, Taren Capal, even if the cast aren’t yet sure who among the remains crew Capal is. 

I really enjoyed the reveal of who the culprit was, with us getting all the Kaldor robots their assigned mission to kill the last of the crew, with the name that is missing from the list being the culprit, which The Doctor also surmises once the robots begin their final attack. The way they showed who the culprit is reminded me of the similar method utilized in Death Note, which I found a funny correlation between two shows I’ve seen; let’s see The Doctor try and catch Light, he probably would, especially 7. It was a neat wrap up to the mystery with Dask as the culprit having some decent clues, like him not noticing or caring about the blood on the Kaldor robots, with him also having been the first to shoot down idea of robots as possible culprits, having shown great affinity for the machines, with his robot revolutionary aspects also explain his motive and the use of corpse markers for the victims, with this all making for a satisfying answer to the driving question of the episode.

The final portion of the episode is good fun, with the mystery having now been solved, and all that’s left is to stop Capal and his robots from killing everyone else, leading to some great tense moments as the robots start hunting the remainder of the people down. The chase is great, leading to some decent action and clever moments in order to stop Capal and wrap up the crisis on the Sandminer. It served nicely as a solid ending to the story, giving some nice bits of action and tension to tie up the story after the culprit has been found; they of course weren’t going to end on a classic Summation Gathering, especially in a murder case such as this, so this fun ending was a solid wrap up to this delightful Doctor Who take on murder mysteries.

Themes

I really enjoyed this episode’s themes, tackling the relationship between robots and humans in a cool and interesting way I haven’t really seen done before. This episode gives us a society that is dependent on robots in order to function, with them fulfilling various vital roles and services. The interesting angle they play here is in how humans react to robots, that being the idea of robophobia. I like how this plays on humans' fear of robots, the possibility of damage they can cause even if they are bound here by the 3 Laws of Robotics; which they took straight from I, Robot by the way but a good amount of sci-fi with robots does. 

I love the idea of robophobia, with it being very interesting take on robot hatred, with it being caused by just the creepy, uncanny valley feeling that robots provide, being so human in various ways, but not in many others, leading to this dissonance that can be incredibly unnerving to many people. This is not helped by the humanoid look of the robots mixed with their lifeless feeling, with the episode doing well to describe them as basically feeling like walking corpses which I found very interesting. We get to see this further in action in the episode, as one of the crew starts to develop robophobia, with him fully breaking down at the sight of blood, with the thought of these machines all around him which seem so human and deadly, actually capable of killing you being a too frightening through to bare, especially since the only consolation to the fear of the Kaldor robots was their inability to kill, with that going out the window and making it clear why one would go mad from that.

I really enjoyed this analysis of the creepy nature of robots and the use of this uncanny valley feeling around them and how humans would react if they had become all around us. Like think about those humanoid robots they give fake skin too that you see sometimes pop up on YouTube or TV, with them just having this unnerving nature to them with just how off they feel, they sort of appear human but it’s clear something is deeply wrong while looking at them, and if you imagine them being all around us 24/7, I could certainly see people developing a phobia to them. Honestly I see the episode as rather ahead of its time in this aspect, doing really well to analyze a situation which could become real in our future. Robophobia is an interesting examination of the relationship between humans and robots that I haven’t seen before but was absolutely fascinated by how it was explored in the episode proper, with it making for some genuinely cool and unique themes on robots for the episode.

This episode also examines some of the ethics around having highly advanced robots basically be our 24 hour servants, mainly with Capal. It is interesting to think about the ethics of treating humans, these beings that are so close to people as servants, which allows for the dichotomy to be made between man and machine. The theme of this is interestingly explored as they never give a proper answer to the question, just some parts to play with in regards to the ethics of their servitude. The episode makes it clear with the Kaldor robots stiltedness and The Doctor’s own observations, that the Kaldor robots are just machines, with human-like programming but machines nonetheless, not having the same emotional intricacy as humans do, with the interactions between The Doctor and D84 doing well to show the difference in emotion and intelligence.

However it’s also clear that the Kaldor robots, even if they aren’t as emotive as humans and don’t possess consciousness in the same way we do, still possess a level of intelligence and individuality, especially with D84 who, while stilted, shows are that he is his own person and interacts normally with The Doctor and Leela. D84 and the other Super-VOCs make it clear these robots are more than just machines, possessing a greater level of thought and nuance. Even still the episode makes it clear that they are fulfilled in their purpose and don’t seek that much more than that. Even if Capel could have a point in the robots deserving a bit more respect, the episode makes it clear the method he goes about robot revolution is one they evidently don’t want, with one of the robots reacting in pain and screaming out before he’s forcefully changed by Capel for the revolution; which in turn actually shows more control and taking away the robot’s agency. While the episode doesn’t answer the question of the ethics behind this, the themes are still interesting to look at, with it definitely giving a good bit to chew on nonetheless.

Pacing and Atmosphere

The pacing of this episode was excellent, with the episode keeping up the pace nicely throughout to give a good and interesting mystery. Each part doing well to progress the intrigue and tension to make for a good watch that never dragged. This episode also has some pretty good atmosphere, with it doing well to get across the dangerous and isolated setting of the Sandminer. I liked how well they utilized the sets and costumes of the Sandminer robots to give a tense, almost unnerving vibe throughout several parts of the episode, especially when the Sandminer robots are committing their killings, lunging after people in such an inhuman and robotic way; does a nice job at getting some good tension during the several murder scenes and the final attack led by Capel.

Sets and Special Effects

The sets this episode were solid, with the inside of the Sandminer looking pretty good, especially the ventilation shaft that The Doctor and Leela find themselves in at the start. The special effects in this episode are fantastic, with the model used for the Sandminer being great alongside the outside of Kaldor that we see it moving on; the lighting is very good. The video effects we see are solid, with the red grains doing well at getting across the virus infecting the Kaldor robots, with the red effect done on the eyes being great at enhancing their creep factor as they kill. The costumes for this episode are probably the best effects here as the Kaldor robots look amazing. It really has to do with the simple but effective humanoid design of the helmets and body that does a fantastic job at getting across the uncanny valley nature of the robots and how they would disturb people. This solid design is then brought to life excellently to give just an effective, iconic look for the Kaldor robots that are great to see in action. The outfits on the other hand, woof, they are gaudy as hell in an attempt at futuristic clothing but I find them fun all the same, especially with that one fish cap that one of the crew inexplicably has.

Kaldor Robots and D84

The Kaldor robots were such a cool concept for this episode, working well both in their themes, as I’ve already discussed, and as a threat with them being the main menace the TARDIS crew have to deal with, being controlled by the killer and all. The design for the Kaldor robots is fantastic, as I already said, with it making sense why they would serve to help induce these cases of robophobia in people after being around them for a long time. I really liked how they were presented here, with their really stilted and robotic speech matched with their distanced emotional style and movement help really get across the feelings of uncanny valley that they’re trying to get at with these robots, it’s really cool. I liked their use for the themes of robophobia and the relationship between robots and machines, with it being an interesting and cool usage of robots that I’ve actually haven’t seen that much of before; the former I mean.

The Kaldor robots themselves are a neat presence into the episode when they aren’t attacking people, being nice and kind beings that help the crew well during their mission. I really liked how much insight and worldbuilding we get into the Kaldor robots, with them having whole subdivisions of robots. There are the Dums, the simplest group made to do labor and aren’t that intelligent, incapable of speech and most intelligence, the Vocs, who are capable of speech and perform a variety of tasks, being the main service robots who help out and maintain the ship, and the Super-Vocs, which are the most intelligent robots, who serves as a relay point and leader for all other robots, containing the ability to make decisions and organize the robots. This diversity serves as a nice bit of worldbuilding that makes the robots feel more than just generic machines.

The Kaldor robots serve well as threats for the episode, being taken over by Capel, who removes their limitations of the Laws of Robotics, and forces them to kill. Their nature as semi-intelligent and strong machines makes them incredibly threatening to deal with, as their strength is well above most people, having metal grips that are hard to escape from, especially when they manage to start strangling you. They’re smart, able to strategize and chase, making them pretty scary to run away from, especially with how durable they are to direct attacks; all in all the Kaldor robots worked well as threats for this episode.

One of the robots really stood out in this episode and that was D84. We see him sneaking about, hiding his intelligence and posing as a Dum before he eventually reveals he’s been sent there by the mining company to investigate a note by Capal and the possibility he might attack. D84 is kind and helpful, with him being an incredibly endearing character to have around. While he may act robotic and stilted, it is clear he has emotions to him and interacts nicely with The Doctor and Leela, even if him being a robot does lead to some comical mistakes on his part, like repeatedly asking who the cry he heard was which The Doctor repeatedly has to answer was him. D84 is just a nice robot who wants to do his best to help out, and serves well as an indicator that Capal’s extremist views are wrong and he isn’t fully grasping what the Kaldor robots want for themselves.

I found D84 to be a lot of fun in this episode, he was kind of cute in a robot sort of way(if that makes sense), with him being very endearing to me, loving every moment he was on screen. I was saddened when he sacrificed himself to help The Doctor beat Capal, he was nice and I wish he got to live; I could honestly see an alternate universe where he became a companion instead of K9 and I wouldn’t mind having seen having him as a companion play out, as we see here he works great with The Doctor and Leela. Gregory de Polnay did a fantastic job as D84, doing well to really endear to this nice, goofy robot and making me sad when he died; Miles Fothergill also did a good job as the main SV7. The Kaldor robots overall were just an amazing part of this episode, with it being nice to see them become an iconic staple of Classic Who; I liked that they had that sort of impact since I really enjoyed them here and they deserve the recognition.

Every murder mystery has got a culprit, well not alway but that's neither here nor there, and in this case our culprit is engineer Dask, in reality a mad scientist known as Taren Capel, with him making for a solid villain for this story. The clues in the story are all well laid out to suspect something is up with him with it never doing a cheap trick like some non murder mystery shows attempts at one can end up doing. It all does well to make logical sense that he's the one behind everything, though it is admittedly pretty obvious when one thinks about it for a little bit, given he's the one consistently talking about the robots and their safety and has great knowledge of their mechanics. Once they reveal that Taren Capal is aboard the ship, it's not too hard to guess that he is in reality Capal and the one behind everything; still I think the reveal is nicely done and a satisfying answer to this murder mystery.

Taren Capal

Taren Capal makes for a solid villain for this kind of story, being a robot extremist who believes robots should rise up and rule over humanity, considering himself more robot than human. I found his backstory cool, with him being raised entirely by robots and coming to see them as his sort of family, believing them to be better than humanity and that they should rule over it. His philosophy is pretty interesting seeing all robots as having sentience and capabilities that are better than humans, with him not being entirely wrong with robots like D84 clearly having some measure of thought and humanity to him, but takes it in the completely wrong direction and believes all of them are capable of this, even the mute autonomous grunts, and want to follow in his plans to take over humanity; with D84's existence and fight against him making clear that is not what they want.

I really liked seeing Capal work in the shadows with it being pretty creepy seeing him take robots and injects them with this new programming to make them, with the wiggling and how uncomfortable the Kaldor robots are at being reprogrammed making it clear that he is going about this entirely the wrong way and is being more harmful to the robots by forcing them to kill humans for his plans. It's pretty clear there is something twisted about Capal, especially with his serial killer modus operandi he does by leaving the corpse marker on his victims which is pretty unnerving to see. Capal makes for an effective threat for the last portion of the story, sending the robots loose to kill the last of the survivors on the sandminer, with his face paint as a robot being both fun and a good way to show how delusional he is. Capal's defeat is well done, with him ultimately being killed by one of his own malfunctioning robots he turned, being unable to speak to it to stop as it kills him just like he made them do to so many others; good karmic death. David Baillie gives a great performance as Capal, doing well to get across his initial unassuming nature before showing his delusional madness later, helping to make a solid culprit for this mystery.

Supporting Cast

The rest of the supporting cast of this episode were pretty good, nothing much to write home about, but they serve their purpose well. Also we get not one but two POC characters and actors in this episode that's not a historical setting, that’s got to be a record for the amount of POC people in space we’ve seen. They’re a good bunch of suspects for the mystery to have, with it being interesting seeing them slowly picked off one by one. They work well with each other, making for some fun dynamic conversations as they discuss the murders and through suspicion at one another. I liked learning about their backstories a bit more with it being interesting learning the truth behind that one woman’s brother’s death, with it also playing into the themes of robophobia well. I especially liked Lish Toos, played well by Pamela Salem, with her working well of Leela during the latter half of the story. They were a solid bunch of suspects that worked well for the murder mystery.

The Doctor

The Doctor is fantastic in this episode, with it being a continuing trend of me enjoying whenever The Doctor gets to play detective, with it being a lot of fun to see him do so here in a story that is structured like a classic whodunnit, just with robots. I loved seeing The Doctor act as the detective for the story with it being great fun seeing him go around looking for clues, examining the crime scenes, questioning suspects, and attempting to make logical deductions from the facts he has at hand to find out what's going on. It's an absolute delight and I thoroughly enjoy whenever he gets the chance to do so, with this story being no exception. Seeing The Doctor uncover evidence, look at the murders and try and piece together what happened is just a lot of fun for me personally, with the use of the murder mystery in Doctor Who being what makes this episode so enjoyable for me to watch.

I found The Doctor's opening scenes in this story a lot of fun, seeing him banter nicely with Leela, giving an actually pretty fun scene where he attempts to explain how the TARDIS works using two boxes and perspective. Honestly the explanation he does give is the most amount of sense the show has, and probably will get, to explaining how the TARDIS works, and honestly I find that neat. I really like the imagery of perspective when thinking about the TARDIS with the way he explains it; also there are some funny lines afterwards about The Doctor's inability to properly fly the TARDIS which I liked. I enjoy him being this teacher to Leela, being sort of this guiding figure helping her understand these very complicated concepts, with the chemistry the two have with one another being a lot of fun, like with the later scene where he's explaining robots and how they don't have emotions.

The Doctor and Leela are of course blamed for the murders and have to spend a decent amount of time clearing their names, which plays into him playing detective which I already mentioned how much I enjoy. The Doctor is just a lot of fun in this episode with there being so many scenes I enjoyed that show off his nice and silly charm that I can't help but love. I really enjoyed moments like when he offers the crew a jelly baby when being interrogated, randomly decides to quote the Bee Movies like 30 years early, his annoyance at D84's constant questioning, or when he just gives that fun whimsical look at one of the Kaldor robots when looking at them. The ending portion when he's captured by Capal is both tense and funny as he insults him, with us getting to see him use his respiratory bypass again which is neat. It's all great stuff that I had such a good time watching, this isn't like the previous two stories where they really challenged The Doctor, it's just a nice fun mystery that's great to see him solve and cleverly put a stop to the culprit at the end. Tom Baker was so much fun in this episode with him continuing to be an absolute delight as The Doctor, really enjoyed him here.

Leela

Leela was excellent in this episode with her being a lot of fun being placed in a murder mystery story of all things. I liked the opening with Leela with it just including so many nice funny character moments for her like her playing with the YoYo out of misconception of its importance and asking The Doctor how the TARDIS operates, with it being neat detail with how she compares the great technology she sees to the Tesh which nicely harkens back to her origins. I loved how well she followed along to The Doctor's explanation of how the TARDIS functions with it showing her honest intelligence and curiosity, understanding the theory behind it quite well. The detail of Leela trying to bring her weapons along for the adventure was a fun one with it showing her warrior personality and again gives some neat conflict with The Doctor as he has to try and convince her to not bring them along.

Leela works well off The Doctor in this story with her being a fun investigating partner for The Doctor in this story as he runs around piecing everything together with Leela nicely remaining headstrong and vigilant to possible danger which I liked. It also, like Jo, always feels like she's learning from the questions she asks, with it being nice seeing her gain a greater understanding of the various curiosities she sees. I enjoyed the scenes where Leela encounters D84 and is suspicious of his heightened intelligence, with the two sharing some good interactions with one another. The scenes of Leela being interrogated are fun with it being great how standoffish she is when she's being questioned, not standing for any restraint and certainly biting back which I love. I really liked how she said she'd cripple the guy who was questioning her, which again shows nicely how she won't back down without a fight, which is just something that really endears me to Leela.

I also really liked that moment where Leela says a guy moves like a hunter would when they're being restrained, neatly diving into her own knowledge of such a thing. There's also that neat moment where Leela doesn't really have much to base it off, but she gets a feeling that something is deeply wrong as their locked up in one of the rooms before the Sandminer starts sinking, with it again being a small but effective moment with her; especially with The Doctor not wanting to be "I told you so"-ed after this ends up happening. She gets a decent bit of action running from the robots, though much less than her previous episode due to the shift in genre, and spends a decent portion working well off Lish as a bit of her protector which I found nice. I enjoyed seeing her contribute to Capal's defeat at the end, releasing helium which led to his voice being unrecognizable and him to be killed, with it getting a funny follow up as her voice also gets squeaky as a result; would've liked if she had a bit more action with the robots but this was still a solid showing. Louise Jameson was great as Leela here, while certainly not getting as much as her introduction, she remained a lot of fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing her work with Tom Baker and playing the character of Leela in this new setting; I really enjoy having her around.

Closing Thoughts/TLDR

As a whole, this episode was so much fun with it always being an absolute treat seeing Doctor Who do a murder mystery. The murdery mystery was fantastic, and I had a blast following the various twists and turns of the story, with it all being quite well done. The setting of the Sandminer is great, with it making for a good tense location for the mystery to play out, with that being especially true with the addition of a solid supporting cast were all really solid suspects for this story and bounced well off one another and the TARDIS crew; helped really make this story really captivating. The robot attack at the end was a solid action packed finish to this episode, doing well to wrap up the mystery of the whole thing. There were some pretty interesting themes tackled here about the relationship between robots and humans with the concept of robophobia being especially fascinating and really well played with. The pacing is solid here with this episode also having some good atmosphere, especially during the murder scenes. The sets for this episode were great with the location of the Sandminer looking pretty good, with the special effects here also being solid, especially with the fantastic look of the Kaldor androids. The Kaldor androids were an excellent part of this episode with them being such a good threat for the episode, with their design and mannerisms coupled with their bouts of murder really helping to give them a creepy factor that really makes clear the robophobia concept they're going for with them. It was really interesting learning about how they function, with the one we really get to meet D84 being a nice addition to the episode who I really enjoyed and was bummed when he died. Taren Capal made for a solid culprit for this murder mystery with a cool motive and served well as a good villain with a great defeat. The Doctor is fantastic in this episode, with it once again being so much fun watching him play detective, with there being so many moments that show off his nice, silly charm so well. Leela is excellent here, while she may not get as much to do here as her previous appearance, she's still great to have around with her working so well off The Doctor with a good amount of moments showcasing her unique element she brings to the table. Overall I loved this episode, I am a murder mystery fangirl so it was likely a given but this episode legitimately is just a fun and cosy time that I couldn't help but enjoy my time with it; here's to the murder mysteries to come, can't wait to see Doctor Who do more, even if it's only once in a while, I enjoy it all the same.

Next time: The Doctor and Leela arrive on the streets of Victorian London and quickly find themselves enraptured in a sinister plot as they end up investigating a series of kidnappings of young women by a mysterious group that has been terrorizing London town. What is happening to these young women and what does this have to with the enigmatic magician Li H'sen Chang and the cloaked figure which he serves, these are questions they'll have to solve though they aren't alone on this adventure, being joined by two new friends, Jago and Litefoot.

Final Rating: 9/10

"Terran insects. Aerodynamically impossible for them to fly, but they do it. I'm rather fond of bumble-bees."

-The Doctor, randomly quoting the Bee Movie, like 30-40 years before that, while also being a nice in character quote

Season 14, Episode 4

The Face of Evil(4 parts)

-Written by Chris Boucher

-Directed by Pennant Roberts

-Air Dates: January 1st-22nd, 1977

-Runtime: 99 minutes

Or as I like to call it...

The one with giant scary Tom Baker face

We Begin!!! In the midst of a meeting of the Sevateem tribe where they are deciding whether to exile one of their members Leela out into the dangerous forest on the count of blasphemy for denouncing their god Xoanon. She is exiled with her father sent to take the Test of the Horda in her place for which he likely will die as she is sent out into the woods and chased down by her people. As Leela runs she stumbles upon the TARDIS where The Doctor has come out exploring the local surroundings, and is quite taken aback by him, seemingly recognizing The Doctor and referring to him as the Evil One. The Doctor is confused but tries to reassure her and gives her some jelly babies to help calm her down a bit as the two begin to work together with The Doctor getting to learn a lot more about the situation at hand and the beliefs in Xoanon and the Evil One. The Doctor tries to approach with his appearance, scaring the other Sevateem members with him soon being captured and brought forth in front of the rest of the Sevateem with the head priest Neeva examining him while also preparing the warriors for an upcoming attack on the Tesh, praying to Xoanon. Leela takes the opportunity to free The Doctor and as the two run off they happen upon a mountain where a face has been carved into it, with it turning out that the face of evil(eyyy) which the Sevateem fear truly is none other than The Doctor's own.

Episode Proper

Yeah, this one was a solid watch. The Face of Evil is a pretty interesting episode, of course being the introduction to Leela as a companion, but also serving to be the one of the first episode to really tackle the consequences of The Doctor’s adventuring and how just because he consistently does great good, he isn’t infallible and can make mistakes with dire consequences. This is something that was touched on in The 1st Doctor story, The Ark, with the Monoid take over being helped by The Doctor curing the pandemic they were dealing with, showcasing that there can be consequences, though it really isn’t focused on that much there compared to here. Deconstructing The Doctor’s travels and showcasing the possible fallout that can happen from them is something that would become a staple of Modern Who and the EU, primarily the audios, with it becoming a much more regular thing, but back in Classic Who it wasn’t done that often, so it’s cool to see it really it get its start here.

This episode’s general premise is really good, being about two quarreling tribes, one primitive and one technologically advanced, being manipulated by an incredibly advanced supercomputer posing as their god in order to try and figure out its own ends.This starting premise is good but it becomes excellent with the great twist that The Doctor is unintentionally responsible for the whole situation, with it actually being his face that is considered the Evil One by the Sevateem. It serves to really make this episode stand out, even among and already well loved crowd of stories this season, with the use of The Doctor’s involvement helping to give it a great layer of depth that is wouldn’t have had this just been a standard, The Doctor stumbling into a crisis, with it giving it a whole new dimension that really works in its favor.

I’ll talk more on this deconstruction a little later, but first I want to talk about the primary plot for most of the episode, that being the conflict between the Sevateem and the Tesh. I like the build up of how we get to Xoanon and the reveal of what’s really going on, with The Doctor encountering this strange tribe of humans who are all incredibly fearful of him for some unknown reason, with us learning more about the tribe and their customs and beliefs which I do find interesting to learn. I adore the the backstory of the Sevateem, and the Tesh by connection, with the idea of this rather primitive tribe actually being the descendants of these space explorers who ended up on this planet being great, showcasing and interesting evolution in what happened to them, to the point they no longer remember that they were technologically advanced space faring humans. It’s good showcase of Xoanon’s influence, especially in contrast to the Tesh who have that similar lack of memory to their past but have instead advanced psychically and kept their technological advancements; a great dichotomy that fits well in with the experiment Xoanon is attempting to conduct.

I really enjoyed learning about the Sevateem and their relation to Xoanon, the Tesh, and The Doctor. I loved how they have all this advanced technology with them, most no longer working, that they barely understand how they work, with it being fun seeing how they have come to interpret them into their culture, like the ceremonial helmet that has the glove of a space suit on its head, or various sacred artifacts being various pieces of equipment that they have interpreted as having spiritual meaning instead of technological usage. Even the name Sevateem has a fun twist, with it actually being a misinterpretation over the years of the term survey team, which the Sevateem originally were before Xoanon’s influence; the same also applies to the Tesh who were originally just technicians before this shift in their development. It all helps show well the difference between the Sevateem and the Tesh well, with it also being a fun look as to what would happen to all this advanced technology once the society that understood it was gone; just the concept is cool, asking some fun little existential questions of what would future generations think of the current one, or alien societies to abandon Earth technology, rather interesting to think about.

I’ll be honest though, while I do really enjoy this story and liked learning about the Sevateem and their culture, I found the first half dealing with their tribe politics a bit boring. While it was interesting learning more about them, the infighting between much of the Sevateem I just found to be rather monotonous and not that interesting. While it is somewhat reasonable and could be interesting, basically being some of the Sevateem not wanting to go on the offensive knowing the defense by the Tesh will kill them, especially since it plays a major part in Leela meeting The Doctor, it just went on for longer than I cared for, with it feeling that there was little progression with them. It reminded me of the similar annoyance and boredom I felt with the Thals infighting in Planet of the Daleks. Thankfully though, it’s not nearly to that level, with it being cut short for the more interesting action to go on instead, with the conflict between the Sevateem and Tesh being way more interesting.

I like the build up to the Tesh, with them being these mysterious figures who are feared by the Sevateem and also seem to have a close connection with Xoanon. They have incredible power from the little we see of them in the first half, as they mercilessly mow down the Sevateem. While their outfits are laughable, looking like they are about to do The Nutcracker ballet, they do live up to their reputation by the Sevateem when we end up on their side of the fence in the latter half of the episode. They have immense and cool psychic power which was interesting to see, with them being incredibly technologically advanced compared to the Sevateem, making them a great threat once The Doctor and Leela end up having to deal with them, with even The Doctor being susceptible to their psychic attacks.

The Tesh serve well to shake the episode up once they become a more prominent presence in the latter half, with the conflict between them and the Sevateem being fantastic. The contrast between them is readily apparent even at a glance with it being great seeing it explored in the episode and how deliberately this dichotomy of the two groups is meant to be. I love how while the Tesh are more technologically advanced compared to the Sevateem, they are also much more close minded, having an almost eugenic like mentality to the Sevateem, seeing them as lesser beings who they must destroy. Despite their advancements and lack of superstition, they are actually much more hateful and cruel than the Sevateem, which makes sense since these advancements are caused by a culture made by Xoanon to repress emotion and be more cold and logical, thus they lack any of the emotions that would make them more open to peace, and instead are awful to those they consider lesser.

I loved the conflict between the Tesh and Sevateem, with the action being great between them, with it being cool to see the differing interactions between them once both groups finally meet up face to face. The conflict between the Tesh and Sevateem have some great themes about hate with it also serving well to parallel Xoanon’s struggle internally between both sides of himself. The latter part is intentional with the great reveal that both groups have been part of an experiment by Xoanon in an attempt to understand his own condition and eventually make a decision. I love that explanation for what’s going on, so cool and interesting to see this experiment by an extremely powerful intelligence, with it doing well to also tie into The Doctor’s own failings and show how his own misunderstanding of the situation really did lead to all this happening.

I love the last part of the episode with the experiment by Xoanon coming to an end, and him deciding to try and end his dual identity once and for all. It’s so tense yet fun at the same time, with the Tesh and Sevateem converging on one another, the tension of the latter being wiped out being replaced by the greater tension when Xoanon takes control of every member of both tribes to attack The Doctor and complete destruction. It’s a wild and tense finale, especially with Leela being controlled as well, with the added commentary by Xoanon making for a truly exciting final action sequence for the episode which I was on the edge of my seat while watching. The first half of this episode might’ve been a bit slow, but the latter half and especially this finale more than make up for it; I was truly captivated the whole time, it was 

Pacing, Sets, and Special Effects

The pacing here was pretty good for the most part, even if it is a bit slow to get going at first with the tribe infighting. The sets here are solid, I like the jungle sets for the outside area of the planet, with it being nice and colorful while having a nice sinister feel about them, reminding me well of the sets used in Planet of Evil. The inside areas are also pretty good, from the cave area to the Tesh base which excellently contrasts the Sevateem’s jungle environment. I love the set used for the main hub of Xoanon, with it being simple, just a bunch of screens which they project Xoanon’s creepy face on forward and backward, but it’s incredibly effective, especially for that cliffhanger for part 3 where they all move about; great, creepy stuff.

The special effects for this episode were actually pretty good, with the video effects used to depict Xoanon’s face and the monsters attacking people actually being rather creepy and effective. It just looks so cool with Tom Baker’s face doing well to give this disturbed look to it with all the video effects added on; even if they look a bit cheesy, I like having his face be the invisible monsters that attack people, with that effect also looking pretty good. The props for this episode were excellent, your usual blasters of course, but I really liked the model used of The Doctor’s face on the side of the cliff, with that just looking fantastic. The costumes for this episode are good, with the Sevateem outfits getting across their tribal aesthetic with the torn rags, with the costumes for the Tesh looking good, albeit very silly.

Xoanon

Xoanon was a fantastic and really compelling villain for this episode, especially with how he is a result of The Doctor’s meddling. Xoanon is well built up in the episode before we get to learn much about him, learning that both the Sevateem and the Tesh worship him as a god, with the legend of the Evil One and attack in The Doctor by the Sevateem who recognize his face serving to build the intrigue until we get the great reveal of the giant carving of The Doctor’s face. Not only does the reveal of The Doctor’s face make for a fantastic cliffhanger for part 1, with it literally being carved onto the side of a cliff, his face as the one the supercomputer Xoanon takes served to really facilitate that The Doctor has been here before and it’s his fault for what’s going on. I like Xoanon’s subtle and manipulative presence throughout the episode, just being this disembodied voice manipulating the Sevateem for mysterious reasons and seemingly having great power. He’s always in the background it feels like, with the level of control he has being rather threatening even if we don’t see him, leading various Sevateem to their deaths for unknown reasons, with his control of the invisible creatures of the forest also being very scary; not the least of which being because they are giant version of The Doctor’s face.

When we finally get to where the Tesh are and more importantly where Xoanon is, The Doctor finally figures out who he is and the part he played in all this. I love Xoanon’s backstory, being an incredibly intelligent being that became so advanced it turned into a new form of life that was accidentally tampered with by The Doctor, who believed it to simply be malfunctioning, with his imprinting of his personality into the computer and failure to remove it being what caused this whole mess. Xoanon basically had DID and went insane due to this split personality and struggle with identity, with that resulting in his manipulation of the Sevateem and the Tesh. I like how Xoanon casts a shadow on The Doctor, with this being a monster of his own making due to his carelessness, making this whole mess his fault; he’s a product of The Doctor’s adventures and wouldn’t have caused so much trouble had The Doctor not meddled or been more careful, really impactful stuff. 

Xoanon’s insanity over his split personalities and struggles for self identity make him a very tragic monster, as he never wanted to be like this, it was The Doctor who accidentally made him this way, going crazy till he could no longer see reason. This resulted in an actually really interesting villain plan by Xoanon where it turns out his separate development for the Sevateem and the Tesh has all been part of a plan to organize the various sides of himself and try and figure out which personality is him, with that being seen well in how he made the Tesh incredibly advanced but cold and purely logical, while making the Sevateem a tribal people, but very emotive and have keen instincts and strength. This experiment to try and figure out himself was very interesting and helps to contextualize a lot of what he’s done as part of this insane experiment to try and fix his own insanity which I found really compelling, especially with how he concludes it.

I loved Xoanon’s meeting with The Doctor and how he ends up having a full blown identity crisis in his presence, not understanding what’s going on anymore, as his own personality is partly The Doctor’s mind so seeing him separate further confuses him and drives him into a spiral of identity crisis, questioning who he is. This makes for a phenomenal part 3 cliffhanger as he calls out who he is; seriously that cliffhanger has been living rent free in my head ever since I saw it. I adore the use of Tom Baker’s face for Xoanon, with them doing such an incredible job of making him incredibly creepy and disturbing, with the multiple layered and differing voices used for Xoanon, including Tom Baker’s own which he does a fantastic job on, only add to his presence and creepy factor for the episode which I just loved to see; makes Xoanon an incredibly memorable villain for me.

I love how following his breakdown Xoanon comes to the conclusion of his experiment, deciding to blow himself up just to be free from the pain, not caring that doing so would blow up everyone else on this part of the planet. He just wants it all to end which is both really sad and also very scary with what he does to make sure The Doctor doesn’t succeed in stopping this from coming to fruition, even though The Doctor is simply trying to fix his mistake and help Xoanon from his messed up state. That finale is amazing, with it being really creepy how Xoanon controls all the Sevateem and Tesh to do his bidding and attack The Doctor as the time counts down for his destruction, all while chanting "Destroy and be free"; it’s just incredible stuff, I loved it. Xoanon defeat is great, being shot by the priest who he had manipulated but had gone just as insane as him and was able to break through the mind control and blast him, allowing The Doctor to be able to delete his personality from Xoanon and finally let him be free of his insanity.

I really liked how Xoanon was still alive after The Doctor helped to fix him and he was attacked by the priest, with it being nice to see Xoanon get a second chance at life. I like how he kindly asking The Doctor where did he go wrong, clearly wanting to do better now that he’s in the right state of mind again, seeking to make amends to the Sevateem and Tesh who he had wronged, now wanting to live in peace with them, though he offers them the chance at revenge to destroy him but the two tribes refuse. It’s nice that Xoanon gets this second chance to do right, with us also seeing his omnipotent powers, creating a couch for The Doctor and Leela to sit on, showing the great good he can do now that he’s finally himself for the first time. Xoanon was a fantastic antagonist for this episode, being incredibly memorable and an effective threat, doing well to hold a mirror up to The Doctor and show some of the issues with his adventuring and attitude.

Supporting Cast

The supporting cast for this episode was solid and fulfilled their role in the episode well. The Sevateem and Tesh were great groups that were cool to see in the episode proper even if individually most didn’t; not helped by the fact I was annoyed by the constant infighting among some of the main guys. One character that did stick out to me though was crazy priest guy, Neeva, with him being a lot of fun and a nice change of pace from the usual religious zealot character. I like how he gives us some insight into the culture of the Sevateem and their beliefs, with his outfits being a fun bit of scrap put together; looks cool. 

I really enjoyed his development, with him starting off antagonistic to The Doctor and Leela and being a devout follower of Xoanon, before learning that in truth he and the others were just being used by him as Xoanon betrays them in the attack with many of them dying. He becomes fairly catatonic because of this and loses his antagonism, struggling what to do and think with this earth shattering revelation for him, with it eventually driving him mad. I liked how due to going mad, Neeva is the only one able to not be affected by Xoanon’s control, and manages to partly redeem himself blasting Xoanon at the cost of his life, which greatly aids The Doctor in giving him the few seconds needed before he explodes. Neeva was a fun character with some neat development, with David Garfield doing a solid job as the character, getting across his crisis of fate really well.

The Doctor

The Doctor is fantastic in this episode, with the whole story serving nicely as a showcase for the potential consequence of his careless travels, with it being a well done deconstruction of his usual shtick. His opening moments are fun with us getting some of that self narration solo Doctor in that first scene of his like we saw in The Deadly Assassin, with it being funny seeing him pull a knot out of his pocket and then decide to begin to curiously look around; it's definitely interesting to see him act like he has a companion with him when it's clear he doesn't. I liked when he ran into Leela and immediately tried to get a hold of what's going on with her, with it being nice seeing his confusion as he offers a jellbaby to her and is told the Evil One eats babies before offering her some jelly babies. Speaking of jelly babies this of course leads to that hilarious scene where The Doctor threatens one of the Sevateem hunters with a jellybaby, which is just amazing to see and feels so at home with this kind of Doctor.

The build up of the confusion for The Doctor throughout the story during this first part is well done, with his capture and constantly being called the Evil One, eventually going to that great reveal of his face on the mountain side. I really liked seeing The Doctor piece everything together throughout the story trying to slowly remember what happened, realizing he visited this planet before and recognizing all the spaceship parts that both the Sevateem and the Tesh are using, and understanding the truth of the whole situation; especially with the cool detail of realizing that Xoanon uses his voice. The Doctor gets some fun action in this story alongside Leela, with his cool crossbow skills to escape the trap; there's also the imagery later of him scaling his own face which is quite fun to see.

The Doctor's encounter with the Tesh is quite interesting to see, with him being described as a Lord of Time and being a figure of great respect and admiration by them which stands as a neat contrast compared to his encounter with the Sevateem who tied him up due to him holding the face of the Evil One. I liked him quickly getting on their bad side once it's shown he doesn't approve of what they're doing to the Sevateem people, with it reminding me a bit as to what happened with the leaders all the way back in The Savages, holding him in high esteem while hoping that he would be cool with what they're doing. The Doctor gets a neat escape from that situation, with it nicely followed by his full realization of what is actually going on with Xoanon.

I adored the reveal of what's actually going on with Xoanon and The Doctor's part in all of this with it being such a good deconstruction of The Doctor's usual attitude towards his travels. The backstory to the whole situation is just really interesting to me, with The Doctor having landed on this planet earlier in his travels and encountered the crew of the ship, doing his usual thing of trying to save the day and help out by fixing the ship's seemingly malfunctioning computer, uploading his own personality into it to help fix it, not realizing the truth as to what was going on with the computer, that it was gaining sentience and was a new powerful form of life, all while forgetting to delete his own personality leaving it a confused and damaged being with a split personality. It's such a fantastic and creative choice to have The Doctor accidentally being the person who caused this entire situation with Xoanon, with it really working for this incarnation of The Doctor because he is so egotistical and lost in his own world that it is very believable he would confidently do all this not realizing the mess he's leaving in his wake; also gets a funny hat trick on the Tesh.

I love seeing The Doctor realize that this situation is his own fault, with it being really strong stuff as he comes to terms with that fact, especially with his own bit of humility which we haven't seen all that much of from this incarnation, fully admitting that the entire situation is his own fault and due in part to his own egotism. It was really nice seeing The Doctor admit his fault in this situation and work tirelessly to try and correct his mistake, which feels very in line with The Doctor to try and work so hard to fix the mistake he's made and try his best to make amends for the whole mess. It never feels like he ever dodges that responsibility which I really like, he takes full credit even when speaking directly to Xoanon in a fantastic scene in an effort to try and stop whatever plans it has, repeating multiple times it was his mistake which is just such strong stuff to see from The Doctor which we haven't really seen done at all in this show, fixing a mistake of his own travels; also like the detail of him telling Leela to wait outside, knowing Xoanon will possibly kill him, to me shows his willingness to not let others get hurt for his mistake and he needs to fix it himself.

I really loved how they deconstructed the typical shtick of The Doctor here, seeing him arrive on a planet but accidentally end up causing more of mess in his efforts to help out because of his own blind egotism, not realizing the damage he was causing in his efforts to aid or the potential consequences of his actions. It's something the show hasn't really tackled much at all before aside from that questioning of The Doctor's travels back in The War Games, with this deconstruction of their actions being something many stories would go on to touch on; so really this is like one of if not the first story to deconstruct The Doctor's travels which is pretty neat. I liked how quickly The Doctor took to trying to fix this mess after realizing he's responsible for the whole mess, never once denying it and working his best opportunity to try and fix the mess, with it feeling the exact way one should take The Doctor and his travels.

The way this story handles the deconstruction of The Doctor's adventures is the way I very much prefer and like to see it happen. Normally I'm always a bit hesitant and don't really enjoy stories that go too far in trying to deconstruct The Doctor as a character and what they are because it more than always feels like they're taking the character in a much more morally grey than I feel is appropriate for the character. Often times they lead to stories that feel way too grimdark and depressing that it feels more so like they're trying to be edgy and make The Doctor a much more cold character that they actually are, framing their adventures as more grey and dark than they really are; at least to me that's how it comes across. Listen I say all this as someone who loves The 7th Doctor, from the stories and snippets of audio I have experienced of him before my watch through I can get with a darker take on The Doctor, same with The War Doctor; it just has to still feel in line with the character of The Doctor.

It's just so often to me it feels like certain fans want to deconstruct the concepts and ideas of The Doctor way too much and drive them into being a much darker and more grey character than they actually are. I'm not saying there isn't some darkness you can play with for The Doctor and that there isn't stuff to criticize with his adventures and travels, like I said I really like 7 and am endlessly excited to actually dive into his stories; though even then I feel his dark chessmaster personality is overstated, yes it's integral, but it feels like it overlooks the rest of his character who does legitimately care about the people around him and has more fun and whimsy outside of that chessmaster strategist. What I am saying is that it can feel like some fans want to deconstruction to go farther than I feel is comfortable and normal for The Doctor, where it feels like they're trying too hard to make them this much more morally grey and questionable figure than I feel they actually are; with it usually just feeling uncomfortable to hear stuff like that.

Is The Doctor a perfect person? No, there is stuff to criticize about themselves and the way they go about things but it still has to be in line with the character who is pretty much always just trying to do the right thing, not this consistently grey mastermind who plays with lives as part of his plans, not this uncaring immortal or lonely god with a dark side, they are just a nice weirdo traveling in a box trying to do where they can, that is at the core of each of the Doctors and I feel is sometimes missed in these attempts to go overly dark with the character. The Doctor is a flawed person that doesn't always make the right decisions and messes up but they are always a good person, at least trying to be, do their best to do right. It's why even without having seen the full story I adore the "Kind" speech that the 12th Doctor gives in World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls because it just speaks to that truth of that character so perfectly.

I like the way The Face of Evil handles its deconstruction of The Doctor because it allows a questioning of The Doctor's adventures and attitude towards them that feels very much in line with the character and isn't trying to go overly dark or edgy on the topic. It goes into his character and shows his flaws and shortcomings, looking into his egotism and tendency to dive into things even if they generally aren't his business, which I found quite interesting to see done. I really liked how instead of spending time to brooding and self-loathing about this mistake, or trying to make it something that shows The Doctor is much more gray and not always a good person, The Doctor just accepted that responsibility straight away, realizing where he messed up and still feeling awful about it, but not staying for pity and just trying to work hard to fix where he messed up, nearly losing his life in the process to fix Xoanon after accidentally causing the ordeal.

Again not saying there isn't time for that introspection and if it's done well I like it, I just liked this attitude of The Doctor seeing their flaws and screw ups and quickly trying to fix that problem. I generally prefer my deconstructions combined with reconstructions, and generally I think for the most part, most stories do this idea well of deconstructing the ideas of The Doctor while still ultimately reconstructing the idea of The Doctor, who they are and what they always stand for. It's part of the reason I don't mind the retcon done in The Day of Doctor with the saving of Gallifrey and the Time Lords, because it feels like a proper resolution that feels in line with who The Doctor is and what they stand for; a person always trying to do good and give hope in hopeless situations. The Face of Evil I feel understands that point really well and I like how we get insight that The Doctor does screw up and end up causing things to become worse, but they still remain that person who always tries their best to do good and quickly works to correct this failure. A good form of the kinds of deconstructions that feels in line with who the character of The Doctor is.

I've always been hesitant with how far certain stories have and many fans say The Doctor could and should be taken, how much darker or more grey can this character be made, trying to deconstruct and pick apart these pieces of The Doctor's character and modus operandi. Like I said, it's not like they're aren't things to criticize or go a little darker with, I've already mentioned how much I like how this episode deconstructs The Doctor's attempts to help and save people without always having full information as to what's going on, with others showing The Doctor's darker side like Dalek being phenomenal stories I've really enjoyed. It's again just that it just sometimes feel it goes too far and takes away from The Doctor as a character genuinely is to ask questions about them that really don't need to be asked, and feel like your trying to take the character to a place of moral grey that feels almost antithetical to who the character is.

I've been talking for a good while about this, but I guess it's just something I had a lot of thoughts on in my head. I think Stubagful's review of Doctor Who Season 2/15, is the reason I got this idea in my head because while I did like the video and love his other videos, especially his Big Finish reviews into the 8th Doctor audios which is in part what inspired me to do this whole run through of the series, I really dislike the segment in that video where he looks into whether The Doctor is a narcissist. While I don't disagree with that notion of The Doctor's ego and narcissism I really hate that analysis he gives of The Doctor using that character in The Robot Revolution to have further adventures and mourning the fact he can't use her for that when she dies, with his description of The Doctor feeling frankly sociopathic, especially with the way he says he cries with little behind the eyes. It's frankly just uncomfortable and feels like a take on The Doctor and his reaction to those who die around him as way darker than it actually is to the point it really does feel out of character.

Not to say Stu is wrong for thinking that I just heavily dislike this seeming push to try to make The Doctor grayer, to make them almost more sinister than how they really are which just irks me and feels completely against The Doctor both as a character and a concept; I could be totally misinterpreting what he's saying in that part of the video and I apologize if that isn't what was intended, that's just how it came off to me. You can criticize the dangerous lifestyle The Doctor lives, and it's been done in ways I really like, as with the entire storyline involving Rose and Jackie which shows how dangerous traveling with The Doctor is outside the fun adventures and the risks of that. There is a line and I feel sometimes certain fans and stories are too eager to have The Doctor cross it in order to make for this dramatic story when to me it just feels uncomfortable and against the actual nature of The Doctor and who they're meant to be. Once more I'm not saying there aren't things to deconstruct, there are and it's great when stories like this one do that, I just prefer it to actually feel in line with who The Doctor is instead of trying to make them much darker than they really are.

Ok rant over; sorry that went on so long, apparently had a lot of emotions regarding that topic that I wanted to get out and process. Anyways I liked the climax of the story with The Doctor rewiring the machine and attempting to fully undo his mistake and delete his personality from Xoanon, with it being fun and tense. I found the resolution quite funny with The Doctor being shocked and annoyed that he's been asleep for two days before having a rather nice conversation with Xoanon now that he's rehabilitated, even giving some neat pointers to try and help set things right on wear to go; his reaction to Leela coming aboard is also quite fun, clearly not seeking to originally have her aboard but her coming in anyway. Tom Baker was fantastic in this episode, having so many fun scenes while also representing The Doctor's remorse about his actions quite well; he also does a great job as Xoanon alongside all the other voices used for him.

Leela(Introduction)

Leela debuts in this story and this is a near phenomenal introduction to her character, who she is and what her whole deal is. I love how much Leela stands out from other companions we've had so far, with her being this warrior woman from a tribal people who were left on a fairly uninviting planet; the closest I could compare her to is Katarina and Jamie, one about their need to learn many things and constantly being curious about certain things, and the other because of heir fighting prowess. Leela's introduction is handled well with her first scenes being really strong as we see her headstrong attitude standing up to her tribes' worship of Xoanon and trying to stop her father from going to the test where he would surely die. The rest of the story would do well in this opening, with it all helping to give a clear indication of who Leela is just from this scene alone, a headstrong and righteous person who fights against what she sees as unjust while still caring about the people close to her.

Leela as a warrior woman is so fun and cool with her getting some excellent action that is I had a blast watching, seeing her run away and try and put a fight against her tribe, even trying to tell one of her friends who tries to help her to leave her on her own as she can take care of herself. There are a lot of good action scenes with her and they're all a lot of fun to see happen, with her managing several successful and almost successful breakouts for The Doctor when he's in trouble. Female companions have often shown themselves to be quite capable of being part of the action and fighting, see Babrara running over Daleks, but Leela definitely stands out as being a much more action focused character who isn't as knowledgeable as most companions normally are; I made the Katarina comparison for that reason.

-Went a bit longer than I expected on this one, probably cause of my long talk on the deconstructing The Doctor, but not over long so rest will be in the comments, hope you enjoy

Season 14, Episode 4

The Face of Evil(4 parts)

-Written by Chris Boucher

-Directed by Pennant Roberts

-Air Dates: January 1st-22nd, 1977

-Runtime: 99 minutes

Or as I like to call it...

The one with giant scary Tom Baker face

We Begin!!! In the midst of a meeting of the Sevateem tribe where they are deciding whether to exile one of their members Leela out into the dangerous forest on the count of blasphemy for denouncing their god Xoanon. She is exiled with her father sent to take the Test of the Horda in her place for which he likely will die as she is sent out into the woods and chased down by her people. As Leela runs she stumbles upon the TARDIS where The Doctor has come out exploring the local surroundings, and is quite taken aback by him, seemingly recognizing The Doctor and referring to him as the Evil One. The Doctor is confused but tries to reassure her and gives her some jelly babies to help calm her down a bit as the two begin to work together with The Doctor getting to learn a lot more about the situation at hand and the beliefs in Xoanon and the Evil One. The Doctor tries to approach with his appearance, scaring the other Sevateem members with him soon being captured and brought forth in front of the rest of the Sevateem with the head priest Neeva examining him while also preparing the warriors for an upcoming attack on the Tesh, praying to Xoanon. Leela takes the opportunity to free The Doctor and as the two run off they happen upon a mountain where a face has been carved into it, with it turning out that the face of evil(eyyy) which the Sevateem fear truly is none other than The Doctor's own.

Episode Proper

Yeah, this one was a solid watch. The Face of Evil is a pretty interesting episode, of course being the introduction to Leela as a companion, but also serving to be the one of the first episode to really tackle the consequences of The Doctor’s adventuring and how just because he consistently does great good, he isn’t infallible and can make mistakes with dire consequences. This is something that was touched on in The 1st Doctor story, The Ark, with the Monoid take over being helped by The Doctor curing the pandemic they were dealing with, showcasing that there can be consequences, though it really isn’t focused on that much there compared to here. Deconstructing The Doctor’s travels and showcasing the possible fallout that can happen from them is something that would become a staple of Modern Who and the EU, primarily the audios, with it becoming a much more regular thing, but back in Classic Who it wasn’t done that often, so it’s cool to see it really it get its start here.

This episode’s general premise is really good, being about two quarreling tribes, one primitive and one technologically advanced, being manipulated by an incredibly advanced supercomputer posing as their god in order to try and figure out its own ends.This starting premise is good but it becomes excellent with the great twist that The Doctor is unintentionally responsible for the whole situation, with it actually being his face that is considered the Evil One by the Sevateem. It serves to really make this episode stand out, even among and already well loved crowd of stories this season, with the use of The Doctor’s involvement helping to give it a great layer of depth that is wouldn’t have had this just been a standard, The Doctor stumbling into a crisis, with it giving it a whole new dimension that really works in its favor.

I’ll talk more on this deconstruction a little later, but first I want to talk about the primary plot for most of the episode, that being the conflict between the Sevateem and the Tesh. I like the build up of how we get to Xoanon and the reveal of what’s really going on, with The Doctor encountering this strange tribe of humans who are all incredibly fearful of him for some unknown reason, with us learning more about the tribe and their customs and beliefs which I do find interesting to learn. I adore the the backstory of the Sevateem, and the Tesh by connection, with the idea of this rather primitive tribe actually being the descendants of these space explorers who ended up on this planet being great, showcasing and interesting evolution in what happened to them, to the point they no longer remember that they were technologically advanced space faring humans. It’s good showcase of Xoanon’s influence, especially in contrast to the Tesh who have that similar lack of memory to their past but have instead advanced psychically and kept their technological advancements; a great dichotomy that fits well in with the experiment Xoanon is attempting to conduct.

I really enjoyed learning about the Sevateem and their relation to Xoanon, the Tesh, and The Doctor. I loved how they have all this advanced technology with them, most no longer working, that they barely understand how they work, with it being fun seeing how they have come to interpret them into their culture, like the ceremonial helmet that has the glove of a space suit on its head, or various sacred artifacts being various pieces of equipment that they have interpreted as having spiritual meaning instead of technological usage. Even the name Sevateem has a fun twist, with it actually being a misinterpretation over the years of the term survey team, which the Sevateem originally were before Xoanon’s influence; the same also applies to the Tesh who were originally just technicians before this shift in their development. It all helps show well the difference between the Sevateem and the Tesh well, with it also being a fun look as to what would happen to all this advanced technology once the society that understood it was gone; just the concept is cool, asking some fun little existential questions of what would future generations think of the current one, or alien societies to abandon Earth technology, rather interesting to think about.

I’ll be honest though, while I do really enjoy this story and liked learning about the Sevateem and their culture, I found the first half dealing with their tribe politics a bit boring. While it was interesting learning more about them, the infighting between much of the Sevateem I just found to be rather monotonous and not that interesting. While it is somewhat reasonable and could be interesting, basically being some of the Sevateem not wanting to go on the offensive knowing the defense by the Tesh will kill them, especially since it plays a major part in Leela meeting The Doctor, it just went on for longer than I cared for, with it feeling that there was little progression with them. It reminded me of the similar annoyance and boredom I felt with the Thals infighting in Planet of the Daleks. Thankfully though, it’s not nearly to that level, with it being cut short for the more interesting action to go on instead, with the conflict between the Sevateem and Tesh being way more interesting.

I like the build up to the Tesh, with them being these mysterious figures who are feared by the Sevateem and also seem to have a close connection with Xoanon. They have incredible power from the little we see of them in the first half, as they mercilessly mow down the Sevateem. While their outfits are laughable, looking like they are about to do The Nutcracker ballet, they do live up to their reputation by the Sevateem when we end up on their side of the fence in the latter half of the episode. They have immense and cool psychic power which was interesting to see, with them being incredibly technologically advanced compared to the Sevateem, making them a great threat once The Doctor and Leela end up having to deal with them, with even The Doctor being susceptible to their psychic attacks.

The Tesh serve well to shake the episode up once they become a more prominent presence in the latter half, with the conflict between them and the Sevateem being fantastic. The contrast between them is readily apparent even at a glance with it being great seeing it explored in the episode and how deliberately this dichotomy of the two groups is meant to be. I love how while the Tesh are more technologically advanced compared to the Sevateem, they are also much more close minded, having an almost eugenic like mentality to the Sevateem, seeing them as lesser beings who they must destroy. Despite their advancements and lack of superstition, they are actually much more hateful and cruel than the Sevateem, which makes sense since these advancements are caused by a culture made by Xoanon to repress emotion and be more cold and logical, thus they lack any of the emotions that would make them more open to peace, and instead are awful to those they consider lesser.

I loved the conflict between the Tesh and Sevateem, with the action being great between them, with it being cool to see the differing interactions between them once both groups finally meet up face to face. The conflict between the Tesh and Sevateem have some great themes about hate with it also serving well to parallel Xoanon’s struggle internally between both sides of himself. The latter part is intentional with the great reveal that both groups have been part of an experiment by Xoanon in an attempt to understand his own condition and eventually make a decision. I love that explanation for what’s going on, so cool and interesting to see this experiment by an extremely powerful intelligence, with it doing well to also tie into The Doctor’s own failings and show how his own misunderstanding of the situation really did lead to all this happening.

I love the last part of the episode with the experiment by Xoanon coming to an end, and him deciding to try and end his dual identity once and for all. It’s so tense yet fun at the same time, with the Tesh and Sevateem converging on one another, the tension of the latter being wiped out being replaced by the greater tension when Xoanon takes control of every member of both tribes to attack The Doctor and complete destruction. It’s a wild and tense finale, especially with Leela being controlled as well, with the added commentary by Xoanon making for a truly exciting final action sequence for the episode which I was on the edge of my seat while watching. The first half of this episode might’ve been a bit slow, but the latter half and especially this finale more than make up for it; I was truly captivated the whole time, it was 

Pacing, Sets, and Special Effects

The pacing here was pretty good for the most part, even if it is a bit slow to get going at first with the tribe infighting. The sets here are solid, I like the jungle sets for the outside area of the planet, with it being nice and colorful while having a nice sinister feel about them, reminding me well of the sets used in Planet of Evil. The inside areas are also pretty good, from the cave area to the Tesh base which excellently contrasts the Sevateem’s jungle environment. I love the set used for the main hub of Xoanon, with it being simple, just a bunch of screens which they project Xoanon’s creepy face on forward and backward, but it’s incredibly effective, especially for that cliffhanger for part 3 where they all move about; great, creepy stuff.

The special effects for this episode were actually pretty good, with the video effects used to depict Xoanon’s face and the monsters attacking people actually being rather creepy and effective. It just looks so cool with Tom Baker’s face doing well to give this disturbed look to it with all the video effects added on; even if they look a bit cheesy, I like having his face be the invisible monsters that attack people, with that effect also looking pretty good. The props for this episode were excellent, your usual blasters of course, but I really liked the model used of The Doctor’s face on the side of the cliff, with that just looking fantastic. The costumes for this episode are good, with the Sevateem outfits getting across their tribal aesthetic with the torn rags, with the costumes for the Tesh looking good, albeit very silly.

Xoanon

Xoanon was a fantastic and really compelling villain for this episode, especially with how he is a result of The Doctor’s meddling. Xoanon is well built up in the episode before we get to learn much about him, learning that both the Sevateem and the Tesh worship him as a god, with the legend of the Evil One and attack in The Doctor by the Sevateem who recognize his face serving to build the intrigue until we get the great reveal of the giant carving of The Doctor’s face. Not only does the reveal of The Doctor’s face make for a fantastic cliffhanger for part 1, with it literally being carved onto the side of a cliff, his face as the one the supercomputer Xoanon takes served to really facilitate that The Doctor has been here before and it’s his fault for what’s going on. I like Xoanon’s subtle and manipulative presence throughout the episode, just being this disembodied voice manipulating the Sevateem for mysterious reasons and seemingly having great power. He’s always in the background it feels like, with the level of control he has being rather threatening even if we don’t see him, leading various Sevateem to their deaths for unknown reasons, with his control of the invisible creatures of the forest also being very scary; not the least of which being because they are giant version of The Doctor’s face.

When we finally get to where the Tesh are and more importantly where Xoanon is, The Doctor finally figures out who he is and the part he played in all this. I love Xoanon’s backstory, being an incredibly intelligent being that became so advanced it turned into a new form of life that was accidentally tampered with by The Doctor, who believed it to simply be malfunctioning, with his imprinting of his personality into the computer and failure to remove it being what caused this whole mess. Xoanon basically had DID and went insane due to this split personality and struggle with identity, with that resulting in his manipulation of the Sevateem and the Tesh. I like how Xoanon casts a shadow on The Doctor, with this being a monster of his own making due to his carelessness, making this whole mess his fault; he’s a product of The Doctor’s adventures and wouldn’t have caused so much trouble had The Doctor not meddled or been more careful, really impactful stuff. 

Xoanon’s insanity over his split personalities and struggles for self identity make him a very tragic monster, as he never wanted to be like this, it was The Doctor who accidentally made him this way, going crazy till he could no longer see reason. This resulted in an actually really interesting villain plan by Xoanon where it turns out his separate development for the Sevateem and the Tesh has all been part of a plan to organize the various sides of himself and try and figure out which personality is him, with that being seen well in how he made the Tesh incredibly advanced but cold and purely logical, while making the Sevateem a tribal people, but very emotive and have keen instincts and strength. This experiment to try and figure out himself was very interesting and helps to contextualize a lot of what he’s done as part of this insane experiment to try and fix his own insanity which I found really compelling, especially with how he concludes it.

I loved Xoanon’s meeting with The Doctor and how he ends up having a full blown identity crisis in his presence, not understanding what’s going on anymore, as his own personality is partly The Doctor’s mind so seeing him separate further confuses him and drives him into a spiral of identity crisis, questioning who he is. This makes for a phenomenal part 3 cliffhanger as he calls out who he is; seriously that cliffhanger has been living rent free in my head ever since I saw it. I adore the use of Tom Baker’s face for Xoanon, with them doing such an incredible job of making him incredibly creepy and disturbing, with the multiple layered and differing voices used for Xoanon, including Tom Baker’s own which he does a fantastic job on, only add to his presence and creepy factor for the episode which I just loved to see; makes Xoanon an incredibly memorable villain for me.

I love how following his breakdown Xoanon comes to the conclusion of his experiment, deciding to blow himself up just to be free from the pain, not caring that doing so would blow up everyone else on this part of the planet. He just wants it all to end which is both really sad and also very scary with what he does to make sure The Doctor doesn’t succeed in stopping this from coming to fruition, even though The Doctor is simply trying to fix his mistake and help Xoanon from his messed up state. That finale is amazing, with it being really creepy how Xoanon controls all the Sevateem and Tesh to do his bidding and attack The Doctor as the time counts down for his destruction, all while chanting "Destroy and be free"; it’s just incredible stuff, I loved it. Xoanon defeat is great, being shot by the priest who he had manipulated but had gone just as insane as him and was able to break through the mind control and blast him, allowing The Doctor to be able to delete his personality from Xoanon and finally let him be free of his insanity.

I really liked how Xoanon was still alive after The Doctor helped to fix him and he was attacked by the priest, with it being nice to see Xoanon get a second chance at life. I like how he kindly asking The Doctor where did he go wrong, clearly wanting to do better now that he’s in the right state of mind again, seeking to make amends to the Sevateem and Tesh who he had wronged, now wanting to live in peace with them, though he offers them the chance at revenge to destroy him but the two tribes refuse. It’s nice that Xoanon gets this second chance to do right, with us also seeing his omnipotent powers, creating a couch for The Doctor and Leela to sit on, showing the great good he can do now that he’s finally himself for the first time. Xoanon was a fantastic antagonist for this episode, being incredibly memorable and an effective threat, doing well to hold a mirror up to The Doctor and show some of the issues with his adventuring and attitude.

Supporting Cast

The supporting cast for this episode was solid and fulfilled their role in the episode well. The Sevateem and Tesh were great groups that were cool to see in the episode proper even if individually most didn’t; not helped by the fact I was annoyed by the constant infighting among some of the main guys. One character that did stick out to me though was crazy priest guy, Neeva, with him being a lot of fun and a nice change of pace from the usual religious zealot character. I like how he gives us some insight into the culture of the Sevateem and their beliefs, with his outfits being a fun bit of scrap put together; looks cool. 

I really enjoyed his development, with him starting off antagonistic to The Doctor and Leela and being a devout follower of Xoanon, before learning that in truth he and the others were just being used by him as Xoanon betrays them in the attack with many of them dying. He becomes fairly catatonic because of this and loses his antagonism, struggling what to do and think with this earth shattering revelation for him, with it eventually driving him mad. I liked how due to going mad, Neeva is the only one able to not be affected by Xoanon’s control, and manages to partly redeem himself blasting Xoanon at the cost of his life, which greatly aids The Doctor in giving him the few seconds needed before he explodes. Neeva was a fun character with some neat development, with David Garfield doing a solid job as the character, getting across his crisis of fate really well.

The Doctor

The Doctor is fantastic in this episode, with the whole story serving nicely as a showcase for the potential consequence of his careless travels, with it being a well done deconstruction of his usual shtick. His opening moments are fun with us getting some of that self narration solo Doctor in that first scene of his like we saw in The Deadly Assassin, with it being funny seeing him pull a knot out of his pocket and then decide to begin to curiously look around; it's definitely interesting to see him act like he has a companion with him when it's clear he doesn't. I liked when he ran into Leela and immediately tried to get a hold of what's going on with her, with it being nice seeing his confusion as he offers a jellbaby to her and is told the Evil One eats babies before offering her some jelly babies. Speaking of jelly babies this of course leads to that hilarious scene where The Doctor threatens one of the Sevateem hunters with a jellybaby, which is just amazing to see and feels so at home with this kind of Doctor.

The build up of the confusion for The Doctor throughout the story during this first part is well done, with his capture and constantly being called the Evil One, eventually going to that great reveal of his face on the mountain side. I really liked seeing The Doctor piece everything together throughout the story trying to slowly remember what happened, realizing he visited this planet before and recognizing all the spaceship parts that both the Sevateem and the Tesh are using, and understanding the truth of the whole situation; especially with the cool detail of realizing that Xoanon uses his voice. The Doctor gets some fun action in this story alongside Leela, with his cool crossbow skills to escape the trap; there's also the imagery later of him scaling his own face which is quite fun to see.

The Doctor's encounter with the Tesh is quite interesting to see, with him being described as a Lord of Time and being a figure of great respect and admiration by them which stands as a neat contrast compared to his encounter with the Sevateem who tied him up due to him holding the face of the Evil One. I liked him quickly getting on their bad side once it's shown he doesn't approve of what they're doing to the Sevateem people, with it reminding me a bit as to what happened with the leaders all the way back in The Savages, holding him in high esteem while hoping that he would be cool with what they're doing. The Doctor gets a neat escape from that situation, with it nicely followed by his full realization of what is actually going on with Xoanon.

I adored the reveal of what's actually going on with Xoanon and The Doctor's part in all of this with it being such a good deconstruction of The Doctor's usual attitude towards his travels. The backstory to the whole situation is just really interesting to me, with The Doctor having landed on this planet earlier in his travels and encountered the crew of the ship, doing his usual thing of trying to save the day and help out by fixing the ship's seemingly malfunctioning computer, uploading his own personality into it to help fix it, not realizing the truth as to what was going on with the computer, that it was gaining sentience and was a new powerful form of life, all while forgetting to delete his own personality leaving it a confused and damaged being with a split personality. It's such a fantastic and creative choice to have The Doctor accidentally being the person who caused this entire situation with Xoanon, with it really working for this incarnation of The Doctor because he is so egotistical and lost in his own world that it is very believable he would confidently do all this not realizing the mess he's leaving in his wake; also gets a funny hat trick on the Tesh.

I love seeing The Doctor realize that this situation is his own fault, with it being really strong stuff as he comes to terms with that fact, especially with his own bit of humility which we haven't seen all that much of from this incarnation, fully admitting that the entire situation is his own fault and due in part to his own egotism. It was really nice seeing The Doctor admit his fault in this situation and work tirelessly to try and correct his mistake, which feels very in line with The Doctor to try and work so hard to fix the mistake he's made and try his best to make amends for the whole mess. It never feels like he ever dodges that responsibility which I really like, he takes full credit even when speaking directly to Xoanon in a fantastic scene in an effort to try and stop whatever plans it has, repeating multiple times it was his mistake which is just such strong stuff to see from The Doctor which we haven't really seen done at all in this show, fixing a mistake of his own travels; also like the detail of him telling Leela to wait outside, knowing Xoanon will possibly kill him, to me shows his willingness to not let others get hurt for his mistake and he needs to fix it himself.

I really loved how they deconstructed the typical shtick of The Doctor here, seeing him arrive on a planet but accidentally end up causing more of mess in his efforts to help out because of his own blind egotism, not realizing the damage he was causing in his efforts to aid or the potential consequences of his actions. It's something the show hasn't really tackled much at all before aside from that questioning of The Doctor's travels back in The War Games, with this deconstruction of their actions being something many stories would go on to touch on; so really this is like one of if not the first story to deconstruct The Doctor's travels which is pretty neat. I liked how quickly The Doctor took to trying to fix this mess after realizing he's responsible for the whole mess, never once denying it and working his best opportunity to try and fix the mess, with it feeling the exact way one should take The Doctor and his travels.

The way this story handles the deconstruction of The Doctor's adventures is the way I very much prefer and like to see it happen. Normally I'm always a bit hesitant and don't really enjoy stories that go too far in trying to deconstruct The Doctor as a character and what they are because it more than always feels like they're taking the character in a much more morally grey than I feel is appropriate for the character. Often times they lead to stories that feel way too grimdark and depressing that it feels more so like they're trying to be edgy and make The Doctor a much more cold character that they actually are, framing their adventures as more grey and dark than they really are; at least to me that's how it comes across. Listen I say all this as someone who loves The 7th Doctor, from the stories and snippets of audio I have experienced of him before my watch through I can get with a darker take on The Doctor, same with The War Doctor; it just has to still feel in line with the character of The Doctor.

It's just so often to me it feels like certain fans want to deconstruct the concepts and ideas of The Doctor way too much and drive them into being a much darker and more grey character than they actually are. I'm not saying there isn't some darkness you can play with for The Doctor and that there isn't stuff to criticize with his adventures and travels, like I said I really like 7 and am endlessly excited to actually dive into his stories; though even then I feel his dark chessmaster personality is overstated, yes it's integral, but it feels like it overlooks the rest of his character who does legitimately care about the people around him and has more fun and whimsy outside of that chessmaster strategist. What I am saying is that it can feel like some fans want to deconstruction to go farther than I feel is comfortable and normal for The Doctor, where it feels like they're trying too hard to make them this much more morally grey and questionable figure than I feel they actually are; with it usually just feeling uncomfortable to hear stuff like that.

Is The Doctor a perfect person? No, there is stuff to criticize about themselves and the way they go about things but it still has to be in line with the character who is pretty much always just trying to do the right thing, not this consistently grey mastermind who plays with lives as part of his plans, not this uncaring immortal or lonely god with a dark side, they are just a nice weirdo traveling in a box trying to do where they can, that is at the core of each of the Doctors and I feel is sometimes missed in these attempts to go overly dark with the character. The Doctor is a flawed person that doesn't always make the right decisions and messes up but they are always a good person, at least trying to be, do their best to do right. It's why even without having seen the full story I adore the "Kind" speech that the 12th Doctor gives in World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls because it just speaks to that truth of that character so perfectly.

I like the way The Face of Evil handles its deconstruction of The Doctor because it allows a questioning of The Doctor's adventures and attitude towards them that feels very much in line with the character and isn't trying to go overly dark or edgy on the topic. It goes into his character and shows his flaws and shortcomings, looking into his egotism and tendency to dive into things even if they generally aren't his business, which I found quite interesting to see done. I really liked how instead of spending time to brooding and self-loathing about this mistake, or trying to make it something that shows The Doctor is much more gray and not always a good person, The Doctor just accepted that responsibility straight away, realizing where he messed up and still feeling awful about it, but not staying for pity and just trying to work hard to fix where he messed up, nearly losing his life in the process to fix Xoanon after accidentally causing the ordeal.

Again not saying there isn't time for that introspection and if it's done well I like it, I just liked this attitude of The Doctor seeing their flaws and screw ups and quickly trying to fix that problem. I generally prefer my deconstructions combined with reconstructions, and generally I think for the most part, most stories do this idea well of deconstructing the ideas of The Doctor while still ultimately reconstructing the idea of The Doctor, who they are and what they always stand for. It's part of the reason I don't mind the retcon done in The Day of Doctor with the saving of Gallifrey and the Time Lords, because it feels like a proper resolution that feels in line with who The Doctor is and what they stand for; a person always trying to do good and give hope in hopeless situations. The Face of Evil I feel understands that point really well and I like how we get insight that The Doctor does screw up and end up causing things to become worse, but they still remain that person who always tries their best to do good and quickly works to correct this failure. A good form of the kinds of deconstructions that feels in line with who the character of The Doctor is.

I've always been hesitant with how far certain stories have and many fans say The Doctor could and should be taken, how much darker or more grey can this character be made, trying to deconstruct and pick apart these pieces of The Doctor's character and modus operandi. Like I said, it's not like they're aren't things to criticize or go a little darker with, I've already mentioned how much I like how this episode deconstructs The Doctor's attempts to help and save people without always having full information as to what's going on, with others showing The Doctor's darker side like Dalek being phenomenal stories I've really enjoyed. It's again just that it just sometimes feel it goes too far and takes away from The Doctor as a character genuinely is to ask questions about them that really don't need to be asked, and feel like your trying to take the character to a place of moral grey that feels almost antithetical to who the character is.

I've been talking for a good while about this, but I guess it's just something I had a lot of thoughts on in my head. I think Stubagful's review of Doctor Who Season 2/15, is the reason I got this idea in my head because while I did like the video and love his other videos, especially his Big Finish reviews into the 8th Doctor audios which is in part what inspired me to do this whole run through of the series, I really dislike the segment in that video where he looks into whether The Doctor is a narcissist. While I don't disagree with that notion of The Doctor's ego and narcissism I really hate that analysis he gives of The Doctor using that character in The Robot Revolution to have further adventures and mourning the fact he can't use her for that when she dies, with his description of The Doctor feeling frankly sociopathic, especially with the way he says he cries with little behind the eyes. It's frankly just uncomfortable and feels like a take on The Doctor and his reaction to those who die around him as way darker than it actually is to the point it really does feel out of character.

Not to say Stu is wrong for thinking that I just heavily dislike this seeming push to try to make The Doctor grayer, to make them almost more sinister than how they really are which just irks me and feels completely against The Doctor both as a character and a concept; I could be totally misinterpreting what he's saying in that part of the video and I apologize if that isn't what was intended, that's just how it came off to me. You can criticize the dangerous lifestyle The Doctor lives, and it's been done in ways I really like, as with the entire storyline involving Rose and Jackie which shows how dangerous traveling with The Doctor is outside the fun adventures and the risks of that. There is a line and I feel sometimes certain fans and stories are too eager to have The Doctor cross it in order to make for this dramatic story when to me it just feels uncomfortable and against the actual nature of The Doctor and who they're meant to be. Once more I'm not saying there aren't things to deconstruct, there are and it's great when stories like this one do that, I just prefer it to actually feel in line with who The Doctor is instead of trying to make them much darker than they really are.

Ok rant over; sorry that went on so long, apparently had a lot of emotions regarding that topic that I wanted to get out and process. Anyways I liked the climax of the story with The Doctor rewiring the machine and attempting to fully undo his mistake and delete his personality from Xoanon, with it being fun and tense. I found the resolution quite funny with The Doctor being shocked and annoyed that he's been asleep for two days before having a rather nice conversation with Xoanon now that he's rehabilitated, even giving some neat pointers to try and help set things right on wear to go; his reaction to Leela coming aboard is also quite fun, clearly not seeking to originally have her aboard but her coming in anyway. Tom Baker was fantastic in this episode, having so many fun scenes while also representing The Doctor's remorse about his actions quite well; he also does a great job as Xoanon alongside all the other voices used for him.

Leela(Introduction)

Leela debuts in this story and this is a near phenomenal introduction to her character, who she is and what her whole deal is. I love how much Leela stands out from other companions we've had so far, with her being this warrior woman from a tribal people who were left on a fairly uninviting planet; the closest I could compare her to is Katarina and Jamie, one about their need to learn many things and constantly being curious about certain things, and the other because of heir fighting prowess. Leela's introduction is handled well with her first scenes being really strong as we see her headstrong attitude standing up to her tribes' worship of Xoanon and trying to stop her father from going to the test where he would surely die. The rest of the story would do well in this opening, with it all helping to give a clear indication of who Leela is just from this scene alone, a headstrong and righteous person who fights against what she sees as unjust while still caring about the people close to her.

Leela as a warrior woman is so fun and cool with her getting some excellent action that is I had a blast watching, seeing her run away and try and put a fight against her tribe, even trying to tell one of her friends who tries to help her to leave her on her own as she can take care of herself. There are a lot of good action scenes with her and they're all a lot of fun to see happen, with her managing several successful and almost successful breakouts for The Doctor when he's in trouble. Female companions have often shown themselves to be quite capable of being part of the action and fighting, see Babrara running over Daleks, but Leela definitely stands out as being a much more action focused character who isn't as knowledgeable as most companions normally are; I made the Katarina comparison for that reason.

-Went a bit longer than I expected on this one, probably cause of my long talk on the deconstructing The Doctor, but not over long so rest will be in the comments, hope you enjoy