214: Arc Of Infinity
Doctor : 5th (Peter Davison)
Companions : Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding) Nyssa (Sarah Sutton)
Series : 20
Originally Transmitted: 3rd - 12th January 1983
Originally I was going to do Timelash next but having done Time Flight this pitiful excuse of a story was bundled with Time Flight as a DVD double pack. After a quick look through it I thought 'Yeah, let's do this one next' It was due to come up sooner rather than later anyway.
So at the end of Time Flight we get a lame kind of cliffhanger where Tegan runs out of Heathrow Airport just in time to look on disappointedly as The Doctor and Nyssa leave in the Tardis without her Which is all the more ironic when you consider than she spent the entire previous series moaning and complaining that The Doctor couldn't get her to Heathrow so she could start her new job as an air hostess. What's even funnier is neither The Doctor nor Nyssa even bother to say goodbye to her.
So we have the Doctor & Nyssa travelling in the Tardis both doing some repair work when suddenly a strange energy force attacks the Tardis & tries to bond with The Doctor.
The Doctor concludes that this could only be possible by someone who has access to his Bio-data (Kind of like a Time Lord DNA) and heads for Gallifrey. The Time Lords are already aware of this already and have decided that The doctor is a threat to Gallifrey and on his arrival is shot by the head of the Gallifreyan guard Commander Maxil, played by Colin Baker.
Now you may be wondering why Maxil spends the whole story carrying his hat around under his arm, that's because they made it too big for him to be able to walk through doors. Baker would walk around the set stroking it pretending it was a chicken called Esmerelda and make chicken noises wondering why Peter Davison was giving him funny looks.
Meanwhile in Amsterdam two backpackers Colin Stuart & Robin Frazer decide that rather than stay in a backpacking hostel the best place to spend the night is a creepy old crypt which just happens to be the base of the source of the beam of energy that attacked the Tardis made by a renegade Time Lord.
During the night Colin is captured by The Ergon, a creature created by The Renegade that can only be described as looking like the worst chicken you've ever had the misfortune of meeting. He is turned into a zombie like state to work for the Renegade.
Anyway it turns out the Doctor was only stunned so that he could be bought in front of the High Council of Time Lords. It's established that the energy comes from a renegade Time Lord from another universe made from Anti Matter and that he is being shielded in this universe by the Arc Of Infinity. Unbeknownst to The Doctor one of the high council is in collusion with The Renegade secretly. It's not hard to work out which of the Time Lords this is as although they hide his face they make no effort whatsoever to disguise his voice.
After discussing the issue the Time Lords then decide rather than let The Doctor do something about it that the best thing to do is execute him by hairdryer before the bond is complete.
Back in Amsterdam Robin decides to go to the airport and meet up with Colin's cousin. who just happens in a bizarre twist of fate to be Tegan Jovanka. He tells her that Colin has gone missing and they go to the crypt. they find Colin but the chicken captures and stuns them before they can do anything.
The Time Lords then discover than The Doctor isn't dead after all and he is having a game of Pong with The Renegade in The Matrix, a kind of super computer made up of all the brains of dead Time Lords. The Renegade decides to show The Doctor that he's also playing Pong with Tegan. She yells out that The Renegade's base is in Amsterdam
The Doctor pops up again and tells the Time Lords that The Renegade has control of The Matrix and can take over Gallifrey. The Time Lord in collusion with The Renegade reveals himself to be the traitor to everybody, and then reveals who The Renegade is.... Omega, the man who gave the ability of time travel to the Time Lords but was blasted to an anti matter universe during the process.
The Doctor slips away from Gallifrey, goes to Amsterdam and tracks down Omega's base and frees Colin & Tegan. However the Doctor is too late to stop Omega and the bonding is now complete. Omega reveals that he has taken form of the Doctor in a new body so that he can leave his anti matter universe.
The Doctor tells Omega that the Arc is not stable and his body will not last long. Omega runs away. The Doctor picks up Omega's anti matter gun in pursuit. We then get a long drawn out chase through the streets of Amsterdam with Peter Davison chasing Peter Davison with green slime & rice krispies all over his face as Omega's body decays. Eventually they catch up with him, shoot him with the anti matter gun and this sending him back to his anti matter universe.
The Time Lords celebrate, Tegan checks on her cousin in hospital and then tells the Doctor she was fired from her job and would like to carry on travelling with him, as if the poor sod hasn't suffered enough already.
............
Arc of Infinity was a part of the series 20th anniversary year. During that years it was decided that each story during the 20th series would have a returning monster from doctor Who's past finishing at the end of the year with The Five Doctors special anniversary show.
The First Monster to be bought back in the series for this story was the renegade Time Lord Omega, last seen during the 10th Anniversary story The Three Doctors back in 1973.
While it seemed a good idea in practice none of the appearances really ever went anywhere save for that of the Black Guardian (Last seen during Tom Baker's series long Key To Time adventure) who was used as a tool to bring in a companion who wanted to kill the Doctor (Turlough), and even then that got dull rather quickly.
Arc of Infinity could have been a good story but it's just too slow paced and suffers from the usual Doctor Who trait of having people being captured, then escape, run along a load of corridors and then get captured again whilst not progressing the story one iota. The Time Lords just sort of sit around talking and not doing very much other than sentencing the Doctor to death and just generally being stupid. If you watch this story you could well understand why Russell T Davis wanted the kill the whole bloody lot of them off. They're boring. And damn you Moffat for bringing them back.
There's also the annoying level of coincidence. A couple of backpackers just happen to enter the one place where Omega's base is and one of them just happens to be related to a friend of the guy that he's trying to use. Oh and she just happened to leave the Doctor in the previous story. It's just lazy lazy plotting.
Also if you decide you want to read the Target novelisation of this story rather than watch the episode, don't bother as shows you who the traitor in the High Council is on the front cover pulling a gun on the Doctor.
Stupid Stupid Stupid