Monday, 5 August 2019

Who Reviews Meglos by Matt Rabjohns



"The point is, the Doctor doesn't get to Tigella!"
"Oh, but he does gentlemen, he does...We mustn't disappoint the Tigellans!"

Far from being a lacklustre season, season 18 was an incredibly strong farewell to Tom Baker as the Doctor. Over the course of seven wonderful years he had taken the show to the zenith of its popularity. But as the 80s began Doctor Who was seriously up against some serious viewing figure challenges like never before. The viewing figures for Season 18 were very low indeed. But this is by no means any indicator that the show was lagging. Because it was actually entering the 80s with quite some mature and fervent bang to be honest.

From the opening scene of Meglos though one can see that our wonderful main man of the moment, Tom himself, is in very distinctly poor health. He looks worn out and even haggard and it’s a true credit to his acting ability that he still gave his utmost to the role even when poorly and discontent with the show. The changeover in production had not sat well with Tom and so he reluctantly decided to leave. But with Meglos that happenstance is still five stories away.

In many ways Meglos is perhaps the most traditional of all the season eighteen stories. It has the megalomaniacal despot, this time though in the very distinctive form of Meglos. Meglos of course resembles a cactus in his natural Xeraphite form, but this cactus is one mean and nasty baddie indeed. It is a real pleasure that we get none other than Tom Baker playing Meglos too, and his performance is unsurprisingly rich and superb. There is a real vein of acidity in his performance of Meglos. Of course, with Tom playing both the role of the Doctor and Meglos its inevitable that we will have the epic meeting of the dopplegangers at the climax of the story. But as with every single doppleganger story before in the show, here it is a brilliant moment that caps off a very entertaining and very underrated romp indeed. Yes, and the Meglos make up looks phenomenally good on Tom, even though it must have been uncomfortable for him to perform in. What a trooper Tom, thank you!

Lalla Ward is hilarious when she leads the Gaztaks around in circles and makes fools of them. I love the streak of grit that runs through both of Romana's hearts. She is not a pushover; she could easily manage being the lead of her own show.

Bill Fraser is a wonderful henchman to Meglos, his General Grugger being rough and tough and sharp tongued. However, it is his own underling Brotadac, played with zeal and aplomb by the superb Frederick Treves who rather steals the scenes. It’s very amusing to think the writers of the story came up with the name Brotadac as a funny re arrangement of the words Bad Actor, with them seeing the character whilst writing it as perhaps being portrayed by some hammy or underwhelming actor! John Flannagan and Andrew McCulloch have since quoted Frederick as playing the role extremely well indeed, and one cannot disagree with them.

Another great yet understated performance is given by Christopher Owen as the Earthling. I wonder how any normal person would feel being kidnapped by Gaztaks and then taken over Meglos! Considering this very thing happens to his character, the Earthling still gets some good moments when he rebels and fights desperately to free himself of Meglos's spines. You root for him and eventually he does shake off Meglos. Although his last comment to the Doctor before he gets to go home is rather casually sexist and unnecessary. But this is only a very minor quibble and can pass by the way.

Jacqueline Hill! Oh, to see the wonderful actress back in a new Doctor Who story is very special and very, very welcome. There is absolutely nothing of Barbara Wright in Lexa. Lexa in fact starts out brash and perhaps bordering on the typical religious zealot, but when she knows she is the wrong for almost having the Doctor executed as a sacrifice she comes good. And then the poor women is shot in good old trusted "Let’s kill off the best characters in the show" brigade. But it is a chance to be savoured seeing Jacqueline light up the screen again after so long.

Colette Gleeson and Crawford Logan are equally diverting in their roles as Caris and Deedrix. their early run ins with Lexa are brilliantly charged and performed. They spice up the early segments of the story nicely.

Edward Underdown is rather kindly, and portrays the Tigellan leader Zastor with a huge amount of gentle pathos. He is unassuming and this helps him stand out as one of the more reasonable and approachable leaders of an alien society on another planet.

The story's use of Scene Sync is very impressive, and here works very well indeed, it’s a considerable leap forward from Colour Separation Overlay.

Perhaps the story's main shortfall is it does seem terribly short. The last three episodes of the story seriously underrun, the last in particular being a very meagre 18 minutes! The other shortfall is the poor realisation of the jungle, particularly the bell plant designs. They fail to remotely convince and its strange thinking these same designs come from the same show that a few months previously had produced a spectacular jungle in The Creature from The Pit. But despite the limitations of the budget, this story is still well paced, with a very strong central villain.

And just because this is the most traditional of the season 18 yarns, there is still some very good ideas floating around in this story. Especially the Chronic Hysteresis. How the Doctor and co escape from the trap set by Meglos too is wonderfully simple and yet comes over as a brilliant means of breaking the fold of time.

Meglos is one of those stories you never hear much spoken of. It has plenty of worth and merit. It’s a very solid story in a vastly underrated overall season. Tom Baker did not bow out with a whimper, he went out with a bang. And a resounding and brilliant bang at that...



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