DOCTOR WHO - SEASON-BY-SEASON: SEASON TWENTY-THREE

Yet another fairly controversial season. Not quite as tumultuous as Twenty-Two, of course. But there was still a fair amount of Yule and Cry. Colin's Era will always have this sort of shadow hanging over it. It was a very difficult period for the show. Unfortunately, his name was attached to it while all of this trouble was going on. Even though he contributed in no real way to the problems that were going on. In fact, I'm amazed he still attaches himself to Doctor Who at all. Had I been him, I would have been more inclined to distance myself from the whole experience as much as possible! 

THE TRIAL OF A TIME LORD (REVISITED) 

Like my Review of Season Sixteen, we're in a bit of an awkward situation, here. I have done a pretty thorough and comprehensive review of this season, already, in a special series of entries that I did about Umbrella Seasons (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/04/review-overview-which-is-best-umbrella_15.html). For those of you who read it, I would hate to make you endure to the same nonsense all over again! 

I shall do my best to repeat myself as little possible. I'll focus on nuances that I didn't bother to bring up in that first review. There will, of course, be things that must be discussed again. But I'll try to cover them in a different way. 

I will also take this opportunity to discuss the Sixth Doctor Era, in general. So there may be some references going back to Season Twenty-Two. There is still a lot that can be said about this period that I couldn't really talk about as much as I wanted to in the previous essay. 

So, if you're thinking: "I can't be bothered to read this one! He said it all in his REVIEW OVERVIEW of Umbrella Seasons!" then, rest assured, I will do my best to give you something new and different. 

MEMORIES....

It's the early 2000s. A friend approaches me with a stack of those recordable "I've definitely pirated something" DVDs and hands them to me. 

"You've got to watch this." he instructs me, "It's a TV show called Dexter. It's amazing." 

Taking his advice, I go home and put the DVDs on. I'm almost immediately sucked in. Not just because the central premise of the show is interesting (a serial killer that only kills other serial killers), but the actual story-telling is quite compelling. My friend pirated the first two seasons for me. I ploughed through them in no time. 

A short while later, I'm returning the DVDs to my friend. We discuss what we enjoyed so much about the show. 

"I love the way there's no attempt to make any of the episodes self-contained." he remarks, "It's just one long story that gets told over the span of the season. It's just so cool and different." 

Of course, Dexter was not quite the first show in the 2000s to use this sort of formula. The Sopranos, for instance, was doing something similar. As were a few other programmes. But Dexter seems to have popularised the format more than anything else that was out at the time. 

(We suddenly get one of those weird "feels a bit like we're underwater" cross-fades that's meant to represent a journey into the past)

It's 1986. Trial of a Time Lord has just finished running its reduced 14-episode season. 

"It's stupid." fans are saying, "The episodes are telling one long story (which, technically, they're not. The story's been broken down into sub-sections!). No one can stay with something for that long! It's bad television." 

"Television will always be about self-contained episodes." other fans claim, "Viewers need that rest in the narrative. You can't do things like this. It doesn't work." 

"You're alienating the casual viewer!" 

"No one will ever watch TV this way!"       

(Another "underwater" cross-fade that brings us back to the present. Although, technically, I should have been using this framing device right from the start since the story does begin in the early 2000s!) 

As rude as it may sound, it seems blatant to me that this "you can't just tell one long story" accusation that was levelled at Trial of a Time Lord was a bunch of horse crap. This season didn't do anything wrong except be about twenty years ahead of its time. Audiences just weren't quite ready for this. 

Although they should have been. They'd had little problem with stories like The Invasion that went for eight episodes. The War Games that went for ten. And The Dalek Masterplan that went for twelve (thirteen if you count Mission to the Unknown. Which is, essentially, a prelude to Masterplan). Did just one more episode, officially, constitute too much?! Or was this just one more example of how overcritical fandom had become during this period? Were they, once more, looking for any little possible flaw and blowing it out of proportion? Or even just making up problems that weren't really there?! 

I think you can guess what my opinion is on the matter! 

THE FANS AIN'T SO BAD THIS TIME

When Trial came out, I was still somewhat young and naive. I tended to trust the opinions of others more than I do, now. Season Twenty-Two, however, had caused me to question Popular Fan Consensus quite heavily So much of what was said about the content of that year didn't line up with what I actually saw..But I still wasn't sure just how much I should disregard how other people felt, yet. Back then, I believed I should still be giving a fair listen to what fans were saying (in many ways, I still do - I just take what they say with much bigger grains of salt, these days!) So what people opined about this season would continue to have some influence on my own views. It would still be quite some time before I really started forming into the Great Contrarion!  

Admittedly, fan reaction from this year won a bit of my faith back. At this point in my life, I was subscribed to multiple fanzines. Most of them ran reviews of people who had managed to watch the season before I could. I enjoyed hearing what they had to say about it - whether the feedback was negative or positive. It gave me some degree of insight into what was coming my way once the episodes made it overseas to the PBS stations in my area. 

I was legitimately impressed by just how many people had good things to say about Season Twenty-Three. Fanzine reviews had been nothing but Doom and Gloom during Season Twenty-Two. Talking about everything that you felt was wrong about that collection of stories was the favorite pastime for contributors. But, with Trial of a Time Lord, many did feel the show was turning itself around. In some ways, such a sentiment still bothered me. I didn't feel like there was anything the show needed to turn itself around from. Season Twenty-Two, as far I was concerned, had been great. So saying that Trial was getting the show back on track did, sort of, bother me. It hadn't gone off track to begin with. But still, it was nice to hear less moaning and groaning. That was happy, at least! 

To say that this season was well-received by everyone, however, would be a pretty big stretching of the truth. There were still fans that were on the warpath with the show. More and more, they struck me as people stuck in the past. They felt Doctor Who should still be making the sort of stuff that had been popular back when it was in its "Golden Age" (please envision those quotation marks as being gigantic!). As far as they were concerned, there was no room in Who for deeply symbolic psychic snakes or other such high-concept nonsense. The show should still have big fat Gothic undertones with a silly Doctor that larked about and tripped over his overly-long scarf. Anything else was unacceptable. 

THE DARKER SIDE OF FANDOM

While some fans did lighten up for this season, there were still plenty who continued to be as toxic as all Hell. I liken them to witch hunters. These particular "crusaders" made a decision, already, before they even apprehended someone they suspected of witchcraft. A trial was conducted on their behalf, but it was there for effect. Evidence was manufactured and a sentence of "Guilty" was ready to be pronounced at the end of the inquest. Someone accused of being a witch had no hope of being found innocent. 

In the same way, toxic fans seem to have already decided that they are going to hate whatever new episodes the show is going to release even before they see it. They put on a pretense of giving the latest content a fair chance. But, as soon as they start watching, they're really just looking for any little flaw that they can exaggerate to an extreme. Ultimately, they will claim there are enough problems with a story to make it officially "bad". But, really, these latest episodes never had a hope of impressing them. Just like the witch hunters, a decision had been made long before the trial. 

Fans of this nature seem quite evident in both of Colin's seasons. They get especially nitpicky with Trial of a Time Lord. By no means is Season Twenty-Three absolutely perfect. But I also don't actually think it has all that many flaws, either. Overall, it's quite competently-written and it actually goes in some very interesting directions. The only aspect that really bothered me that much was the fact that the Doctor and Mel's timelines are a bit muddled at the end of the saga. She's actually meant to be from his future but they still leave the Space Station together in the TARDIS. She should have climbed back into one of those box-like thingies and been returned to her time period. Or something like that. But she shouldn't just be leaving with him as she does. It's an issue that ought to have been dealt with either at the end of Season Twenty-Three or the beginning of Twenty-Four. But it just, sort of, gets glossed over. 

Aside from this, any other quibbles I may have with this season are quite minor. Not even really worth mentioning. More times than others, it's  an issue of my own personal taste rather than a valid mistake made by the production team. Okay, okay - Ycranos and the werewolf fighting over Peri's attention in Mindwarp was really blatant padding! But that really is the only other thing that I felt was all that shoddy! 

Just like Season Twenty-Two, when I hear fans going on endlessly about the flaws of  Trial of a Time Lord, I am baffled. I just don't see a lot of  what they're saying. There is even a somewhat popular opinion that this season is as good as it is bad. That, for every impressive moment that it has, there is something else that occurs that is deeply cringe-worthy. 

I'm more inclined to believe that fans that talk about Trial in such a manner are making mountains out of mole-hills. I'm sorry if you're someone who feels this way about the season and I've offended you by saying that. But it's very hard for me to take this view seriously. I really have seen some petty criticisms levelled at this 14-parter. There are, for instance, any number of people who have validly said they don't like this year of Doctor Who because Colin let his hair grow out too long! 

I'm serious. I really have heard that from several fans. It's pretty hard to see such an opinion as valid. They're, basically, saying: "The writing was great! Direction was awesome! Stellar acting! But, I'm sorry, I don't like Colin's hair so the whole thing sucks!" 

SEXY SIXIE  

In an effort to continue to resist repeating myself, I'll now deal with some general aspects of the Sixth Doctor Era. It's almost good that this season has been thoroughly reviewed already. It gives me a bit of room to express some things that I feel need to be said about my favorite incarnation of this Time Lord. 

There are certain tonal issues with this period that I actually really appreciate. Oddly enough, I like that it tends to wear its errors on its sleeve. When Production does make a bad call, it's often quite obvious. Peri being rescued by the tree in Mark of the Rani, for instance, is blatantly awful. But it's over quite quickly and we get back to some fun bickering with the three renegades. Whereas I find a lot of mistakes that get made in that "Golden Age" can muddle on for quite some time. They are, perhaps, more subtle than what we get in 80s Who (which may account for some of the sharper criticism that 80s Who receives), but they do seem to linger for much longer. Padding things out with capture-and-escapes, for example, will go on for a better part of an episode. To the point where you can almost fast-forward to the next part since little will have actually happened in the plot. I find this enormously tedious. I prefer that a misstep be big and bold but very short-lived.  That just works better for me. 

On a deeper level, however, there's something that resonates even more strongly for me. Whether it's flawed or not, I just find so much of what happens during this period to be so much more engaging. Never do I feel more "drawn in" than I do when watching a Sixth Doctor story. It's almost as if what's on the screen leaps out at me and grabs me. Keeping me riveted the whole time. 

Much of this I attribute to Colin, himself. I don't think anyone put more into his portrayal than he did. Shooting schedules for TV can be long and gruelling. Particularly for something as effects-laden as Doctor Who. The leads that have been cast in the show have always been brilliant - don't get me wrong. But there are times where I do get the impression that they're at the end of a long day of shooting and the energy in a scene feels just a bit low. 

That never seems to happen with Colin. Every second that he's onscreen, he's giving it 110%. It's particularly impressive that the role, itself, requires a lot of energy. The Sixth Doctor is confident to the point of arrogance. He also always seems extremely sharp and alert. And, of course, he's a very succinct and animated orator. These are all character traits that demand tremendous effort from an actor to maintain. But Colin always steps up to the plate. He took great relish in playing the part. He also showed tremendous commitment and emotional investment. 

Only giving him two seasons was an absolute crime. 

MY BIGGEST CRITICISM 

While my love of Sixie runs deep, I am still not scared to give criticism where it's due. I laid in to Season Twenty-Two quite hard for a few critical errors that it makes (ie: yet more end-of-story supporting cast slaughterfests). I try not to place blame too specifically on anyone during these Reviews, but I will actually point the finger at Eric Saward for a lot of the issues that I have with this period. JNT did tend to like to give the writers and script editors as much space as he could. But it's possible that Saward should have actually been kept on a tighter leash. A lot of the dips in quality that I do see are often the responsibility of a script editor to fix. Particularly something like continuity from story-to-story. The fact that Colin, himself, had to ask for some dialogue to be put in about the Doctor being Lord President during Trial of a Time Lord speaks volumes of Saward's neglect.     

There is one "sin", however, that I definitely have to pin on John Nathan-Turner. This was clearly something he took charge of. It is also my biggest problem with this whole period. No, it wasn't Six's costume (believe it or not, I actually love the outfit!). It runs far deeper than mere aesthetics. 

Basically, we've taken a pretty big step back with the companions. 

While the number of companions aboard the TARDIS has meant very little to me, many fans do seem to prefer it when it's just the Doctor and one other person. I was happy to see the show revert back to this format just because it had been a few years since we'd seen it. But, as is often the case when the Doctor is travelling with a single female, the companion gets badly-written. 

While many viewers complained of the argumentative nature between Six and Peri, I quite enjoyed it. It was a dynamic that I felt we should see, at some point, with a regeneration. Peri became friends with Five. To have him suddenly make such a big turnaround in personality should rankle her. I liked the realism of it all. This sort of thing ought to happen from time-to-time with a character who can change so radically. 

Outside of the arguing, however, they really don't give Peri much. We've gone back to a female companion being a damsel-in-distress .Her main job in stories is to be rescued at regular intervals. She also gets lusted after a lot (understandably so! Even to this day, Nicola Bryant is stunning). Occasionally, a writer also remembers to bring up that she studies Botany. But that's all there really is to her. And, quite frankly, it's a bit insulting. We had some great companions like Leela and Romana who could really make valuable contributions to the plot. Even Nyssa and Tegan were nuanced enough to keep a story spicy. But, with Peri, it does feel like we've regressed. 

The problem continues with Mel. As a Canadian, it was easier to give her a fair chance. I was not familiar with her career in the way Brits were. Many felt she was totally unsuitable for the show (I still remember Alexie Sayle's famous quote about her!). I will even say that Pip and Jane Baker did their damnedest to make her useful in Terror of the Vervoids. But, from that point onwards, things degenerate rapidly. Essentially, Mel becomes a 60s Screamer for the rest of her time on Who. 

While I do feel that both actresses did the best with what they were given, the Sixth Doctor Era was not kind to its companions. This is, perhaps, its greatest flaw. 

"IT'S ALL JUST CARROT JUICE IN THE END!" - C. Baker 

As this era comes to a close, it's hard not to feel sad. Or even a bit angry. 

So many plans that they had for this incarnation were never allowed to reach their fruition. Colin, himself, claimed he absolutely had to beat Tom's record of seven seasons. Ironically, he does the exact opposite and gets the least amount of seasons in the classic series. 

And then there was the arc they were trying to build into the character. Starting Six off as an anti-hero and making him more and more likeable. In that sense, we do get to see quite a bit of that going on in these two short seasons. Especially when you consider that Terror of the Vervoids is set in the future and the Doctor does seem to have softened even more since the events of Mindwarp. 

But, the greatest shame is that someone who loved the role as much as Colin did was not allowed to bid us adieu. Whereas other actors get great final lines like: "Doctor - I let you go." or "It's the end, but the moment has been prepared for.", all poor Colin gets is: "Carrot juice! Carrot juice! Carrot juice!"  

But what I find even sadder is just how mired in controversy this period was. To this day, there are fans who still strongly believe this is some of the worst Who ever made. Which I will never be able to understand. I see so much of the opposite. The stories really tried to take risks and do something different (and often succeeded). The man who played the title character did it with all his heart and all his being. We even got what is, easily, the most memorable costume the Doctor ever wore! 

But some people just don't see things like that In some strange, naive way, I wish I could change their minds. But they will just never be happy with 'Ole Sixie. There are those who even mock me for loving him so much.

Which is fine with me, really. To quote a great man: 

"I always fancied myself a bit of an iconoclast!"