Vengeance on Varos v. Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead
This week the Randomiser pairs 1985’s Vengeance on Varos, by Philip Martin, with 2008’s Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, by Steven Moffat.
Vengeance on Varos
I’ve thought of Vengeance on Varos as one of my least favourite DW stories, but this re-watch led me to reappraise it positively. It’s dingy and dirty and cringingly 1985 for anyone of an age inclined to cringe at anything from 1985, but it does have some interesting ideas.
Aspects of the story’s design are a bit shonky. Varos looks little more than a cramped TV studio. Chases and gun battles take place in tiny corridors with sponge-dabbed walls. Officers of the guard travel around on golf buggies that would struggle to keep up with a Sinclair C5.
‘Oh, it’s pathetic. When did they last show something worth watching, eh?’
There are some good costume and makeup designs, however - notably Sil, and Peri’s avian transmogrification. There are some interesting and well-acted three-dimensional characters, such as the Governor, Sil, Quillam, and Varosian goggleboxers Arak and Etta.
VOV has a scene of particular infamy in which the Doctor pushes two prison guards into an acid bath. I don’t think it looks too bad, to be honest. The men fall accidentally into the bath as the Doctor defends himself, and in any case it looks more like dishwater than acid.
Actually, in this story the Doctor isn’t responsible for very much at all, other than escaping his own death a few times. I don’t understand why the Governor thanks him so profusely at the end. What did he do to alter the path of Varosian destiny?
I suppose he does help to raise the going price of Zeiton-7, the planet’s rare spaceship fuel component, from 7 credits per unit to at least 20. But is that really what this story is all about? And what *is* the vengeance that occurs on Varos?
Ultimately VOV isn’t about what happens to the Doctor and Peri, Sil or the Governor. It’s a reflection on how we live, our own governance and media, and presumably about where Philip Martin felt we might be heading as a society. We’ve probably got there sooner than he expected.
Angry, household-dividing referendums (voters are told to punch the buttons rather than push them), unregulated trade, corrupt politicians, church and state colluding to perpetuate a patriotic Great Myth, public torture/humiliation broadcast for entertainment. It seems familiar.
Dissent on Varos is outlawed, in terms that could be lifted from the UK’s public order bill. Jondar is tried for ‘sedition, thought rebellion, incitement to organise, to unionise, to terrorise the workforce’. I like to think this is what Mick Lynch looks like with his shirt off.
We recognise the similarities, then wonder whether Varos is in fact a moderate democracy compared to 21stC Britain. Neither of our last two prime ministers (and none of our heads of state, media, business, church or finance) have been democratically elected or held to account.
We’ve moved Beyond the Punishment Dome. Or do we have what a majority in this country do really want, deep down? Perhaps we’ve transmutated, become the living embodiment of the deepest seeds of horror in our collective minds. I hope there’s still time for it to be reversed.
Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead
Talking of horror, SITL/FOTD is one of the scariest stories in the history of the show. The first part upset my young son so much that I wrote a angry post about it on a DW forum. I’m a bit ashamed of that because I love scary Who, but no-one likes seeing their kids traumatised.
He’s 21 now and I don’t think I have to worry about that any more. The scares in this story are fantastic, to be fair. The horror in the shadows, skeletons in space suits, ghosting, Donna’s cyber-dream, Miss Evangelista’s distorted face. The terror of not knowing what’s going on.
The Vashta Nerada are a great concept - silent, sinister, vicious, and unseen yet in our sight all the time. Like other Steven Moffat creations (Weeping Angels, the Silence) they could be among us right now and we wouldn’t know it. No wonder poor James couldn’t sleep after this.
SITL (I’ll shorthand it to that, meaning both episodes) spawned a number of much-remembered and repeated moments and phrases. ‘Spoilers’, ‘Hey, who turned out the lights?’, Other Dave. I’m sure we’re not the only household to say ‘You’ve Vashta Neradered it’ about a clean plate.
It’s a clever story, full of clever ideas and slick set pieces. The doctor moon, the neural relays, the saved librarians; the tense moments of confusion then shocking realisation about the numbers of shadows, the ghosts in the machines, the identical children in the playground.
Visually, these are a beautiful couple of episodes (a particular pleasure following the dirgy VOV). Credit to director Euros Lyn for some memorable sequences and scenes. How many of us would love to visit this incredible Library planet?
SITL, broadcast in 2008, is timey-wimey in itself, not only for the Time Traveller’s Wife-inspired River Song arc, but as a spoiler for the Moffat-produced era of the show that wouldn’t begin for another two years.
Although Russell T Davies was showrunner on this story, it feels like an episode of Moffat’s Doctor Who. It’s an Escher lithograph rather than a Stanley Spencer painting. The impression it leaves is on the mind rather than in the heart.
SITL kick-starts the tenth Doctor’s ‘Time Lord Victorious’ journey, in which he starts to believe in his own godlike status. This will end badly for Ten at the end of the RTD era, faced down by his own hubris as he has to destroy himself to save Wilf.
In SITL, it seems to be River who plants the seeds of omnipotence in the Doctor’s imagination, whispering his name and telling him that one day he’ll be able to open the TARDIS door by snapping his fingers (I can’t stand that), and - subtextually - be really, really great at sex.
Again, we are lifted out of time and feel we are watching a Moffat-showrun episode. This Doctor Superior idea was characteristic of his years. Unlike the RTD version of the Doctor-who-believed-in-himself-too-much, it became, I think, something we were supposed to like. I didn’t.
It’s important that the Doctor is someone we want to be with. When he starts to act as if he knows how much more intelligent and powerful than everyone around him he is, he becomes someone I’m less interested to know, regardless of how many lives saved or funny lines delivered.
Also, for all the intrigue and poignancy of the moment, it would have been great if - instead of whispering his name - River had shouted ‘Bogies!’ in the Doctor’s ear. Didn’t everyone want to do that in a library in the noughties?
Catherine Tate’s Donna is probably the most enjoyable character in SITL. She’s funny, and cuts the Doctor down to size (‘Oi! Hands!’). We feel the horror through her eyes and reactions, and the loss of her alt-life seems genuinely tragic. It’ll be good to see her back later this year.
Vengeance on Varos
One’s a planet full of crooks, the other’s a planet full of books. What could possibly connect Vengeance on Varos with Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead?
It’s an unusual match in that both stories comprise two episodes of around 45 minutes each. It’s unlikely that the Randomiser will select two stories of the same length very often, if ever again, as there were only seven 2x45 stories in the Classic series and 23 in the New.
Flesh-stripped bones feature in both stories. The Vashta Nerada make little attempt to tidy up after their chicken salad packed lunch, and in VOV the Doctor says a pile of bones suggests the two nappy-clad seniors screaming at Jondar, Areta and him were cannibals.
‘When you run with the Doctor it feels like it will never end. But however hard you try, you can't run for ever,’ said River Song. Not a problem in either of these tales as the Doctor and pals are only chased by incredibly slow pursuers: the ‘swarm in a suit’ and the Varosian C5.
On Varos the Great Video is venerated as citizens observe and influence political and entertainment events on television in their cell-like homes. Digitally cloistered within the Library’s operating system, Charlotte Abigail Lux watches events in the outside world through her TV.
These devout telly watchers mirror our own roles as viewers, agog at the Doctor’s perils, and directly affecting events (Arak and Etta vote on the Governor’s life; CAL controls the Library through her remote) - just as we have agency through our viewing choices and responses.
While Arak and Etta watch distortions of reality which they believe to be true (Doctor: ‘Truth is a very flexible commodity here on Varos’), CAL is initially led to believe that the reality she sees is just fantasy (Doctor Moon: ‘The Library is in your mind’).
In that respect, VOV probably offers a better commentary on contemporary television consumption than SITL. Thankfully, both Arak and Etta and Cal end up with a clearer picture of what’s true and what’s not than a lot of us today.
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