18x2. Meglos
Writers: John Flanagan & Andrew McCulloch
Director: Terence Dudley
Script Editor: Christopher Bidmead
Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Synopsis: The Doctor is
planning to visit a friend on the planet Tigella, where the main power
source - an object known simply as the Dodecahedron - is beginning to
fail. Two factions, the scientist Savants who believe it should be
studied and the religious Deons who revere it as a sacred object, are
coming into conflict, while at the same time Meglos, the last
Zolfa-Thuran, is impersonating the Doctor and attempting to steal the
device along with some less-than-reliable space pirates.
Review: "Meglos" is one of
those fairly ho-hum serials that passes as filler but doesn't really
distinguish itself. The philosophical conflicts between the Savants and
the Deons on Tigella are mildly interesting, and I actually liked the
sequence with the "chronic historesis," whereby the Doctor and Romana
are forced to replay the same events over and over again until they
devise a way to stop it. If nothing
else, it takes advantage of the most unique element of the series'
premise, i.e. time travel, rather than simply using it to land the
Doctor in a more conventional sci-fi setting. But the script takes
almost two entire episodes to get the Doctor and Romana involved in the
story, and while the space pirates are sometimes amusing (especially
the way Meglos enlists their help while clearly expecting that they
might betray him, as indeed they attempt to do at one point), none of
the guest characters are what I'd call standouts. And it's never
exactly clear why the Doctor has to reprogram the Dodecahedron at the
end to self-destruct - obviously he had to stop them from using it to
destroy Tigella, but couldn't he have just shut it down rather than
blowing up Meglos and the pirates (and potentially himself, Romana, and
two of the Tigellans as well if they hadn't gotten back to the TARDIS
in time)? Like its predecessor "The Leisure Hive," this one clocks in
under the standard Doctor Who running
time, so it's not as if they were short on time to explain things. And
I hate to say it, but I wasn't that impressed with Tom Baker's
performance as Meglos: even when he's alone with the pirates and
doesn't have to keep up the ruse, he doesn't seem all that different
from when he's playing the Doctor. That's not to say that his
performance is bad, just unmemorable - rather like the serial itself.
Rating: **1/2 (out of four)
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