REVIEW OVERVIEW: WHICH IS THE BEST UMBRELLA SEASON OF DOCTOR WHO? - PART 3 -A: TRIAL OF A TIME LORD

So we've taken care of the Key to Time and now we're moving on to that 80s Epic: Trial of a Time Lord. I seemed to be only so happy with Season 16. Will I be more enthusiastic about the 23rd season?    

BACKGROUND: 

Trial of a Time Lord, easily, represents Doctor Who at its most turbulent of times. The actual central premise of the story is even meant to symbolise this! 

Behind the scenes, key BBC executives were systematically trying to kill the show. Not just in the way they had put it on hiatus and then radically reduced the episode count. They also refused to increase its budget yet still complained about how cheap it looked. They were even issuing huge demands about creative control that, more oftentimes than not, worked to the detriment of the program. 

On the public front, ratings were starting to drop. Some of this was through misrepresentation in the way information was being gathered in surveys, at the time (accounting for only those who watched it live when so many people were now using VCRs to tape it and watch it later). But there was still a fair amount of legitimate discontent brewing. The casual viewer was losing interest because the show couldn't keep up with other sci fi that had better visual effects. The fans, at the same time, were becoming more and more difficult to please. The show was moving through one of those periods where it was becoming popular to hate it (sound familiar?!). 

The future of Doctor Who looked bleak. Cancellation seemed imminent. How much or how little people enjoyed new content being produced would have a huge bearing on its fate. 

Art imitates Life in Season 23. For the duration of that season, the Doctor is put on trial by his own people. Should he be found guilty of the charge against him, he will face execution. 

It's impossible not to see the parallels.... 

THE MORE OBJECTIVE POINTS OF CRITERIA 

Once again, we will start with the things about the season that are a bit more provable. I will still be stating a lot of opinion, but I will be able to back it up with a bit more evidence than just: "I think this sucks!" or: "This is good!" 

(Again, if you haven't read up on the Points of Criteria and what they mean, go to this link: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/03/review-overview-which-is-best-umbrella.html) 

1. The Foundation 

Like The Key to Time, this Umbrella Season does take the first few minutes of its initial episode to lay out its central premise to the audience. In this case, however, it doesn't quite knock you over the head with it so blatantly.   

There's more of a sense that we are "hitting the ground running" with Trial of a Time Lord. After the magnificent opening model shot, the Doctor hastily emerges from the Police Box and wonders how he came to be where he is. Clearly, he was in the middle of something else that seemed quite urgent (I love how, eight episodes later, we will finally find out what it was that he was doing!). After a moment to gather himself, he walks into the trial room and starts learning what's happening to him. The information gets fed to him (and us) over the next few minutes as he tries to orientate himself and prepare for the legal battle that is about to ensue.

Although I still think The Key to Time introduces itself very well too, this is an undeniably better way to set things up for what's to come.  The Doctor is, essentially, doing two things at once: Adjusting to the new environment he's going to be stuck in for the duration of the season and discovering why the Time Lords have brought him here. It gets the whole season off in a far less jarring way than Key to Time did. Which will massively benefit the season's momentum (which, of course, we'll get to shortly).

Once a few basic things get explained by the Valeyard and the Inquisitor we get into the actual format. We will watch an adventure on the Matrix that will occasionally get paused for trial room commentary. This is displayed to us throughout the course of Part One. 

As we finally get to the first Cliffhanger, one more crucial development kicks in. This won't just be a harmless inquiry, after all. The Doctor will be put on trial for his life! 

This really is a flawless first episode for an Umbrella Season. All the basic arcs and character are laid out in a very smooth way that eases us into things beautifully. Later episodes will also introduce a crucial plot point concerning the Sleepers from Andromeda that will have a huge bearing on the whole season. But this development is just a bit more icing on the cake for what I think constitutes an absolutely perfect Foundation. 

Again, Robert Holmes delivers a very solid first story that isn't, necessarily, a total Classic. But it's  very good. And it gives the season somewhere to go. 

2. Momentum

I will just say, upfront, that I find the Momentum for this season to be excellent. Even when watching it in  these modern days of fast-paced television, it stands up quite well. There's really not much of a sag anywhere. 

Part of what keeps everything compelling is the diversity of pacing that we see in the middle stories. Mindwarp is legitimately slow and ponderous. But the way it veers between heavy gravitas, dark comedy and vicious satire keeps it all quite engaging. Peri, Ycranos and Dorf breaking for lunch is about the only time I feel things grinding to a legitimately screeching halt (blatant padding becomes all-the-more poignant when the rest of the story is paced magnificently).

Terror of the Vervoids, on the other hand, is almost dizzy with all of its various plot strands. There's actually almost too much going on in this one. But that's more of a structural issue we can attack in the individual reviews. In terms of Momentum, it really keeps things fresh and interesting. The two tales are almost at the opposite ends of the spectrum from each other in terms of how they flow. Which keeps those middle eight episodes humming along nicely. 

Now there is an obscure segment of Fandom that does claim that the trial room interruptions slow things down horribly. I'm not part of that camp, however. To me, they enhance things beautifully. It's like we actually got five stories this season. Mysterious, Mindwarp, Vervoids, Ultimate Foe and then all the other stuff that takes place in the trial room when we're not watching what's on the Matrix. 

The scenes are also interesting because they do take a "deeper cut" into the cause-and-effects of the Doctor's actions. The Valeyard, for instance, makes a great point at the end of the first story. Less lives might have been lost had the Doctor never gone to Ravalox to begin with (more than likely, Katryca would have just killed Glitz and Dibber as she has so many others who have come for the Great Totem). This little bit of extra navel contemplation is an interesting reflection on all the action we're watching. I think it works great.  Others may disagree, of course. 

I know some fans will always hate those trial interruptions!   

3. Conclusion

Given the behind-the-scenes nightmare that went on in production, the very fact that this story even gets a Conclusion is fairly amazing. The fact that it comes out as well as it does is near mind-boggling. 

The original version of Episode 14 by Eric Saward does actually seem half-decent (from what I know of it, at least, I've never seen the script - only read a synopsis or two). But it would have left the whole season on a cliffhanger that BBC Execs probably would have taken full advantage of. His version of the finale would have seen the series axed. 

For this reason, alone, I have to favor what Pip and Jane Baker gave us for that final part. The far more upbeat ending worked just as well. On top of that, however, it also gave us three more seasons of Doctor Who!   

What impresses me most about Ultimate Foe, however, is how truly epic it all feels. Normally, when Classic Who tried to do something grandiose, it tended to not come off so well. Not the case, here. Off-camera insurrections on Gallifrey and Matrix tapes that will provide vast knowledge aren't visually impressive, but they sound quite ominous! Even the Valeyard's ultimate aim to assassinate the Supreme Court of Gallifreyan Law is really just an attempt to kill a bunch of background extras. But Colin and Jayston really sell the moment. Because of some clever writing, solid direction and great acting, this really does feel like the end of a saga.

And it was accomplished against what seemed like insurmountable odds. But even if I didn't know a thing about the fight between JNT and his script editor at the time, I think I would still be very impressed. This really is a very satisfying conclusion to it all. With lots of exciting twists and turns in the plot and something that truly felt larger-than-life. 

Exactly how the ending of a season-long adventure should feel. 

4. Coherency

Coherency in the Trial of a Time Lord season is easily established. Those courtroom scenes that some fans found so wildly intrusive remind us on a regular basis of the Bigger Story that's being told over the course of the fourteen episodes. It's a very simple and highly effective way of creating the framework that a good Umbrella Season needs. 

But there are other ways in which links are made. Mindwarp bridges quite nicely into Terror of the Vervoids by showing the Doctor in a state of shock over Peri's death at the end of Episode 8 and then mourning her loss at the beginning of Episode 9. A similar trick is done from Vervoids to Ultimate Foe. The Valeyard accuses the Doctor of genocide in the final seconds of the Pip and Jane four-parter. The entire trial then shifts gears to pursue the charge for the final two episodes. 

The way the Doctor slowly-but-surely starts doubting the Matrix evidence as we climb through the season is another great little device that helps with Coherency. Glitz returning to the plot to clarify the mystery of the Andromedan Sleepers from Mysterious Planet also brings together the season's continuity nicely. There are a few other techniques of this nature. Trial of a Time Lord is heavily-peppered with this sort of stuff so that we can really get a sense of one long story being told through a series of subsections. 

I would go so far to say that the Coherency for this Umbrella Season is actually quite flawless. 

Once more, we'll take a little break before we tackle our last two Points. I don't even feel like I got quite as long-winded, this time. But it still might be nice to give you all a brief intermission.