The Ultimate Foe
| 143d[1] – The Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Doctor Who serial | |||
| File:Ultimate Foe.jpg The final battle between the Doctor and the Valeyard | |||
| Cast | |||
Others
| |||
| Production | |||
| Directed by | Chris Clough | ||
| Written by | Robert Holmes (episode 13) Pip and Jane Baker (episode 14) | ||
| Script editor | Eric Saward (episode 13), John Nathan-Turner (episode 14, uncredited) | ||
| Produced by | John Nathan-Turner | ||
| Executive producer(s) | None | ||
| Music by | Dominic Glynn | ||
| Production code | 7C[2] | ||
| Series | Season 23 | ||
| Running time | 2 episodes, 25 minutes and 30 minutes | ||
| First broadcast | 29 November – 6 December 1986 | ||
| Chronology | |||
| |||
The Ultimate Foe is the fourth and final serial of the 23rd season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in two weekly parts from 29 November to 6 December 1986. It is part of the larger narrative known as The Trial of a Time Lord, encompassing the whole of the 23rd season. This segment is also cited in some reference works under its working title of Time Incorporated (or Time Inc.). This was the last regular story to feature Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor.
Plot
 | This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. (November 2011) |
The Doctor acknowledges that he has no further evidence for his defence. He says that the Valeyard's evidence has been falsified, and that the Matrix has been tampered with. The Keeper of the Matrix insists this impossible.
Sabalom Glitz and Mel Bush arrive unexpectedly in the courtroom. The Master appears on the Matrix screen to claim responsibility and to demonstrate that the Doctor's allegation that the Matrix has been breached is plausible.
At the Master's insistence, Glitz gives evidence. He reveals that the data he was trying to obtain on Ravolox included technological secrets from the Matrix, which had been stolen by the Sleepers. The Time Lords, having discovered the theft, traced the Sleepers to their base on Earth and seized the planet, dragging it across space to the location in which the Doctor found it - and nearly annihilating all life in the process.
The Doctor denounces the Time Lords as decadent and corrupt. The Master alleges that the High Council took advantage of the Doctor's blundering into the situation on Ravolox by making an arrangement with a future version of the Doctor - the Valeyard - to falsify evidence against the Doctor in return for his remaining regenerations. The Master claims that the Valeyard is the distillation of the Doctor's darker side, from between the Doctor's twelfth and final incarnations.
The Doctor's demand that the trial be halted, since the same person cannot be both prosecutor and defendant, is turned down by the Inquisitor - but at that moment the Valeyard flees the courtroom. The Doctor and Glitz pursue him into the Matrix, a virtual reality where normal logic does not apply. They emerge in what appears to be a deserted Victorian city. The only sign of life is a building labelled "The Fantasy Factory (proprietor: J. J. Chambers)". The Doctor and Glitz sneak past a number of identical clerks, named Mr Popplewick, who try to obstruct their progress; eventually one ushers them through a door to Chambers's 'waiting room'. Through the door is a deserted wasteland. To the Doctor's horror, hands emerge from the ground and grab him , dragging him underground.
Glitz is unable to rescue him, but the Doctor rises from the ground unharmed, insisting correctly that nothing that happens in the Matrix is real. The Valeyard appears and taunts the Doctor before unleashing nerve gas, forcing the Doctor and Glitz to take refuge in a run-down cottage. As they stumble inside, it dematerialises - it is the Master's TARDIS.
In the trial room, the Inquisitor and Mel look on helplessly. Mel tries to grab the key from the Keeper so that she can enter the Matrix, but she trips over him in the attempt.
The Master reveals that he wishes the Doctor to prevail over the Valeyard, since he fears the Valeyard's ability to defeat him. He puts the Doctor into a catatonic state and sends him out of his TARDIS to lure the Valeyard out of hiding in the Fantasy Factory. Glitz helps the Master, since he believes the Doctor is defeated. The Valeyard emerges onto a balcony but is not fooled and returns fire. The Master flees.
Mel emerges from a tunnel and the Doctor, recognising her voice, emerges from his trance. She leads him out of the Matrix and into the trial room. They agree that she should tell the truth, and she confirms to the court that the scenes of the Vervoids' destruction, the basis of the Valeyard's charge of genocide, are as she witnessed them. The Inquisitor finds the Doctor guilty and declares that his life is forfeit. He accepts the verdict as the fulfilment of justice and is led off to execution.
However, in the real courtroom, this last scene - including the real Doctor - is revealed to be another illusion shown on the Matrix screen. Mel is frantic that the Doctor needs help, this time successfully grabbing the Keeper's key and entering the Matrix. She finds the Doctor and warns him - but he had already realised that the courtroom was a fake and merely wished to reach a final confrontation with the Valeyard.
Bribed by the Master to lead the Doctor to the Valeyard, Glitz returns to the Fantasy Factory. There, he finds the master tape of the data he thought had been destroyed on Ravolox. Mr Popplewick catches him, and Glitz persuades him to lead him and the Doctor to Chambers. Glitz escapes with the data to the Master's TARDIS.
Popplewick does not produce Chambers. The Doctor and Mel lay hold of him, and the Doctor peels away his face to reveal that it is the Valeyard in disguise. They realise that a concealed machine in the room is a particle disseminator, with which the Valeyard plans to murder the members of the court.
In the real trial room, the Inquisitor learns that the High Council has been deposed. The Master appears on the Matrix screen to offer to impose order in return for power. He loads Glitz's master tape into his TARDIS systems, but a booby-trap is triggered, paralysing him and Glitz.
Mel emerges from the Matrix to warn the Time Lords. They cannot turn off the Matrix screen, but the Doctor sabotages the Valeyard's weapon and the Fantasy Factory explodes.
The Doctor flees the Matrix and returns to the court room. There, a grateful Inquisitor drops the charges against him and reveals that Peri Brown survived the events on Thoros Beta and became Yrcanos's queen. She urges the Doctor to stand for Lord President of the new Council, but he suggests she should stand. He urges the Time Lords to be lenient towards Glitz and departs in the TARDIS - protesting at Mel's insistence that he follow her regime of strict exercise and carrot juice.
As the Inquisitor leaves the trial room, she gives instructions to the Keeper of the Matrix. As he looks up at the camera, he is revealed to be the Valeyard.
Continuity
Thanks to time travel, since Mel is from the Doctor's future, she has already met him, but from the Doctor's perspective he is meeting her for the first time. Most spin-off media, including the novelisation by the Bakers, have assumed that the Doctor, at the end of the trial, takes Mel back to her proper place in time and eventually travels to her relative past to meet Mel for the first time from her perspective. That meeting, never seen on screen, is related in the Past Doctor Adventures novel Business Unusual by Gary Russell and also in the alternature universe audio story He Jests at Scars, which provides a semi-sequel to this TV story.
This was the last story to feature Colin Baker as the current Doctor. Baker was fired by the BBC and John Nathan Turner was ordered, reportedly by Michael Grade, to recast the lead part for the following season. Baker was offered the chance to appear as the Doctor in all four episodes of the first story of Season 24, but he declined this and the invitation to return for the traditional regeneration sequence in Time and the Rani. Baker reprised the role on stage, in 1989's Doctor Who - The Ultimate Adventure, and on screen in the 1993 charity special Dimensions in Time, as well as in various audio adventures for Big Finish Productions.
The Time Lords, apart from a brief flashback in "The Sound of Drums", were not shown again until the 2009 Doctor Who special The End of Time. James Bree (The Keeper of the Matrix) had appeared in The War Games (in a different role), which was the first serial to feature the Time Lords. The Valeyard has since appeared in the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who Unbound audio He Jests at Scars... with Michael Jayston reprising the role. The character has been featured (usually in dream sequences or metaphors) in the New Adventures and Missing Adventures book ranges from Virgin Publishing and the Past Doctor Adventures from the BBC- his appearance in the novel Matrix featuring him using his new control of the Matrix to try and destroy the Doctor in all his incarnations while assuming the role of Jack the Ripper, his plans only being thwarted at the last minute by the Seventh Doctor. The Valeyard's origins are explored in the unlicensed charity release novel Time's Champion. The Inquisitor reappears in most of the episodes of the Big Finish spin-off audio series Gallifrey.
Whereas previously Anthony Ainley's Master had appeared in at least one story per year since Season 18, it was another three years before he returned for the last time in Survival, the final story of the show's original run. Information about his escape is provided in the novel State of Change.
The Sixth Doctor sequence in the novel The Eight Doctors - where the Eighth Doctor visits and assists his past selves - takes place at the beginning of this episode, the Eighth Doctor interacting with a version of the Sixth Doctor created by the Valeyard's attempt to 'force' a timeline where the Sixth Doctor will be executed, the two Doctors subsequently working together to set up an inquiry into the High Council's attempt to put the Sixth Doctor on trial to cover up their failures.[citation needed]
Production
Template:Doctor Who episode head Robert Holmes was originally commissioned to write the two episodes. However, he died from a chronic liver ailment after completing a draft of the first and left nothing beyond a plot outline of the second. The series script editor Eric Saward resigned around this time due to disagreements with the producer, John Nathan-Turner, but agreed to write the final episode based on Holmes' outline, and also rewrite Holmes' draft to tie the two together, for which he was credited as Script Editor. The original ending to this segment (and, indeed, the whole Trial story and possibly the series) would have seen the Doctor and the Valeyard in an inconclusive cliffhanger, both (seemingly) plunging into a void to their deaths as an extra "hook". However, Nathan-Turner felt this was too downbeat and believed that it was important that the season did not end on an inconclusive note since it was important after the hiatus to prove the series was back in business. Saward refused to change the ending and withdrew permission to use his script very late in the day, by which point the production team had been assembled and the segment was entering rehearsals.
John Nathan-Turner commissioned Pip and Jane Baker to write a replacement final episode. For copyright reasons they could not be told anything of the content of Saward's script (and there were lawyers observing all commissioning meetings). The only similarity between the two is the announcement that the High Council of the Time Lords have resigned, which was a natural development of the earlier scripts. The new script ended on an optimistic note, with the Doctor departing for new adventures.[3] In keeping with this more optimistic stance, Nathan-Turner decided to amend the script at the last minute to show how Peri had not died as shown in Mindwarp but had in fact survived and became Yrcanos's queen. Her apparent death was a part of the Valeyard's tampering with the Matrix. A shot from the earlier story was used to show this. Nicola Bryant was disappointed to learn how the fate of her character had been changed.[citation needed] The working title of this story was Time Incorporated.[3] This title did not appear in the final scripts or on-screen.
The works of Charles Dickens are evident in the story: the fictional landscape in the Matrix resembles Victorian era Britain, and the character (and name) of Mr. Popplewick are strongly Dickensian. The Doctor also quotes the final two lines of A Tale of Two Cities, prompting Mel to chide him: "Never mind the Sydney Carton heroics!"
Although the other episodes of this season were the usual 24 minutes in length, it proved impossible to edit episode 14 down to that length. Nathan-Turner applied for and received special permission for the episode to run 5 minutes over its scheduled time slot.
In print
Template:Doctor Who book A novelisation of this serial, written by Pip and Jane Baker, was published by Target Books in April 1988 as The Ultimate Foe. The Ultimate Foe was the working title for the 9th to 12th parts of the season, now generally called Terror of the Vervoids.
VHS and DVD releases
In October 1993, this story was released on VHS as part of the three-tape The Trial of a Time Lord set. On 29 September 2008, it was released on Region 2 DVD, similarly boxed with the other three stories of this season.
References
- ^ From the Doctor Who Magazine series overview, in issue 407 (pp26-29). The Discontinuity Guide, which counts the unbroadcast serial Shada, lists this segment of The Trial of a Time Lord as an individual story, number 147. Region 1 DVD releases follow The Discontinuity Guide numbering system.
- ^ Pixley, Andrew (1992). "Archive Feature Serial 7C The Ultimate Foe". Doctor Who Magazine (Winter Special 1992). London: Marvel UK: 43–49. ISSN 0693-1275.
{{cite journal}}: Check|issn=value (help) - ^ a b Template:Brief
Further reading
- Howe, D. J.; Stammers M.; and Walker S. J., Doctor Who—The Handbook: Sixth Doctor. (1993) Dr Who Books (Virgin Publishing Ltd)
External links
- Reviews
- Target novelisation