Doctor Who: The Black Guardian Trilogy
Dating back to 1983, the The Black Guardian Trilogy has just been released on DVD. It features three stories from the Peter Davison era of Doctor Who, including the companions Tegan, Nyssa and of course Turlough.
For me, Peter Davison was my childhood Doctor Who as I remember it: I was too young to properly appreciate the Tom Baker era (although later, and with repeats I did come, like so many others to install him as my favourite) and so for me Peter Davison was the benchmark against which all of the other Doctors were compared, much like David Tennant will be the benchmark for many of today’s kids.
I think one of the things that particularly worked during the Davison-era Who was his companions: Tegan, Adric, Nyssa, Turlough were all interesting characters who bounced off one another well, although I personally couldn’t be doing with Peri.
The Black Guardian trilogy opens with Mawdryn Undead, in which the TARDIS gets stuck on a starliner, and the Doctor needs to use the ship’s transmat beam to head down to earth, leaving Tegan and Nyssa on the TARDIS while he sorts it out. He beams down and encounters an old mate — Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, now teaching at a school, as well as Turlough, a slightly odd and not entirely well-behaved pupil at the school.
Oddly enough, the Brigadier can’t remember the Doctor at all … but does remember encountering a Tegan Jovanka six years earlier, in 1977. The Doctor and the Brigadier have to try to piece together the Brig’s missing memory in order to get back to Nyssa and Tegan, and while Turlough goes with them to ‘help’, in reality he has been contacted by the Black Guardian and ordered to kill the Doctor.
It’s an enjoyable story — I’ve always been a great fan of the Brigadier, and his appearance in both 1977 version and 1983 versions together is rather integral to the plot. Valentine Dyall, with his very distinctive voice is excellent as the Black Guardian, and it’s always nice to have a companion that you don’t entirely trust…
There’s also some interesting extras on the DVD including an interview with the Brigadier (not Nicholas Courtney the actor, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, the character) which is a little different and quite an interesting retrospective, although it does rather remind you of the disappointment that then-Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart’s first screen appearance (in the Troughton plus Yeti serial The Web of Fear) is one of the serials butchered and deleted by the BBC.
After Mawdryn Undead, we have Terminus, where after the TARDIS is sabotaged by Turlough on the instructions of the Black Guardian, it is forced to make on an emergency landing on a ship that docks with a deserted space station. Only it turns out that the station isn’t quite as deserted as they had first thought…
…it is in fact a plague ship where the inhabitants have a leprosy-like disease and are basically left to die, although it is purported that some can be cured. The TARDIS crew have to somehow find their way off the ship without being infected, only to encounter the station guards — the Vanir — who don’t want to let potential sources of infection leave.
But there are further questions to be answered — how come the space station Terminus is at the exact centre of the universe? Has Nyssa contracted Lazar’s Disease? And who, or what, is the Garm?
While the stakes seem considerably higher in this one — as opposed to simply the Doctor’s life, it turns out that indeed the future of the entire universe rests upon the actions of the Doctor — it is also less polished and possibly a little more disjointed than Mawdryn Undead (although this can possibly be explained by the production problems which are detailed if you view the title with the information text on).
Terminus is however notable for being the last story to feature Sarah Sutton’s character Nyssa of Traken, whom I had always liked as a companion (although not as much as the Brigadier, who unfortunately does not feature in either Terminus or the final Black Guardian story Enlightenment).
Enlightenment returns to the highs of Mawdryn Undead although it is a very different story. While Mawdryn Undead is a contemporary story (set mostly in 1977 and 1983), and Terminus very much a ‘future’ story, Enlightenment has a touch of period drama to it, even though it too is set in the future.
The Doctor and his companions find themselves on an Edwardian sailing ship, taking part in an interplanetary race against other period ships — including a pirate ship captained by Captain Wrack (who you might recognise as Nurse Gladys Emanuel from Open All Hours). The ships officers are beings from outside of time called the Eternals who refer to everyone else as Ephemerals.
The race is to be the first to reach The Enlighteners and gain enlightenment as their prize, with the pirate Buccaneer resorting to various underhand methods to ensure that they win (although this does expose a minor plot hole — it appears that the Buccaneer is by far the fastest ship, easily capable of outstripping all the others — so one does wonder why the need for sabotage…!).
Turlough’s character gets the opportunity to develop a little more as he chafes under the yoke of the Black Guardian — who isn’t exactly pleased that the Doctor is still alive — and instead of looking to obey the Black Guardian tends to spend his time looking for a way to escape from his service. The mood of this story is excellent, and in particular the sets and costumes need a great degree of credit, adding a considerable amount of authenticity to the episode.
You also get to see Peter Davison replace the stick of celery pinned to his lapel for a fresher one, but I’d have to describe that as a quirky little ‘touch’ rather than any sort of significant plot element.
The three stories hang together very well, with the best two setting up and finishing off the story, and while in contrast Terminus is not up to the same high standard, it’s not a bad story as such (some great costumes in there as well). If you’ve been away from Doctor Who for a while, or you’ve not seen any of the old-era Doctor Who, this boxed set might be an ideal jumping-in point…
Graham Cluley says:
September 8th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I haven’t seen these Doctor Who stories for some 25 years, but they still stick in my head.
One thing I’ve noticed when I buy Doctor Who DVDs is that I rarely actually watch the show in its unaltered form itself!
Instead I’ll watch it with the commentary on, or with the production subtitles enabled. More and more I find myself more interested in the behind-the-scenes aspects of Doctor Who than the program as seen on screen itself.
Maybe I’m worried that it will ruin my memories of what I once thought was excellent (I remember thinking that Terminus Part One, for instance, was very atmospheric before it descended into a shaggy dog story).
It was great after so many years to have the Brigadier back in Mawdryn Undead, even if fans did find UNIT dating a little strange with references to him working as a public school maths teacher during the 1977 Jubilee. Surely they could have plotted around that?
Of the three though, I remember Enlightenment as being the stand-out tale of the three. Even if the final showdown between the Black and White Guardians was something of a damp squib.
Oh, and you’re clearly a little bit younger than me if you didn’t properly appreciate the delights of Nicola Bryant as Peri when she became a regular in the TARDIS.
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