16x3. The Stones of Blood
Writer: David Fisher
Director: Darrol Blake
Script Editor: Anthony Read
Producer: Graham Williams
Synopsis: The Doctor and Romana
travel to Earth in search of the third segment of the Key to Time and
quickly become embroiled in a mystery surrounding a local cult of the
Cailleach, a Celtic goddess who is in fact the alien criminal Cessair
of Diplos currently posing as a woman named Vivian Fay, and her servants, the alien Ogri who otherwise appear to be
large inanimate rocks. The Doctor's attempts to outmaneuver Cessair
eventually lead him to a prison ship trapped in hyperspace, where he
has a dangerous encounter with the Megara - bureaucratic "justice
machines" who were originally assigned to sentence Cessair but are now
intent on executing the Doctor for a breach of protocol.
Review: I have a confession to make - for whatever reason, back when my age was in the single digits and I was watching Doctor Who
on the local PBS station, "The Stones of Blood" was one of my very
favorite serials, to the point that I probably nearly wore out the VHS
tape that it was recorded on. Looking back, I'm not exactly sure why it
was such a favorite, and while I'm not as enamored of it as I once was,
I still have a bit of a sentimental spot for it, and it holds up nicely
on its own.
Much has been said about how the first two episodes resemble one of the
"gothic horror" setups typical of the Holmes/Hinchcliffe era, but the
tone is a bit lighter even at the beginning. When the Doctor awakes
mid-ritual to find himself about to become a human...er...Gallifreyan
sacrifice victim, he responds by warning the cultists about the dangers
of using an unsterilized knife and (noticing Professor Rumford
approaching by bike) asking them if the Cailleach rides a bicycle. In
fact, I wouldn't be surprised if "The Stones of Blood" has the highest
quips-per-minute ratio for the Doctor of any serial to date - among my
favorites have to be "hyperspace is a theoretical absurdity, and I've
always wanted to be lost in one of those" and (to Romana) "you're too
late, I've just been executed." At the same time, the jokes don't
undercut the situation or downplay the Doctor's intelligence. While his
confrontation with the Megara is amusing for his famous employment of a
barrister's wig and his general filibustering, he's also skillfully
using the process to try to find out who Vivian Fay really is, and his
journey into hyperspace reflects his typical willingness to put himself
at risk to help others.
It helps that he's surrounded by a strong cast. He and Romana seem to
have settled into a sort of friendly minor rivalry - he still has
trouble dealing with a potential equal, and she's still less impressed
by him than his past companions have been - but they also respect each
other and have turned out to be an effective team. K-9 has one of his
best stories since joining the TARDIS crew, both proving to be
indispensable in holding the Ogri at bay and also forming a bit of a
friendly rivalry of his own with the Doctor, memorably troubleshooting
the Doctor's hyperspace teleportation device and matter-of-factly
asserting that, contrary to the Doctor's claims, he has not in fact
always wanted to be a bloodhound. "Stones" also boasts one of the best
guest characters in recent memory in the form of Professor Emelia
Rumford, a feisty elderly academic who never lacks for a pithy comment
about her scholarly rivals and proves to have quite an adventurous
spirit of her own, even suggesting to the Doctor that they try to
capture one of the Ogri "in the name of science!"
The villains of the piece are unfortunately not quite up to the same
standard. The Ogri are at least a change of pace from humanoid aliens
in rubber suits and makeup, but they necessarily lack anything
approaching a personality, and the cult priest Leonard DeVries and his
followers are a fairly unremarkable bunch. As for Cessair herself, I
don't necessarily object to her lack of any overarching plan. She's a
criminal on the run, and she's found a place where she can live in
anonymity with plenty of Cailleach cultists to serve her wishes. On the
other hand, it's never explained how exactly the birds are related to
her or her powers, why the Ogri to kill two of her most dedicated
followers for allowing one of them to be lost, or whether we're meant
to make anything of the idea that the Doctor's arrival was somehow
prophesied ahead of time. It's
been suggested that she's an agent of the Black Guardian, given her
knowledge of how the segment works and the "beware the Black Guardian"
message transmitted into the TARDIS at the beginning. But this is less
than evident, and my take on the message at the beginning was that it
was meant to bring casual viewers up to speed and give the Doctor a
pretext to tell Romana the truth about who had assigned her to this
mission.
"The Stones of Blood" no longer occupies the place in my Doctor Who
collection that it once did, and it suffers from some loose ends
regarding Cessair's situation and a scene towards the end (specifically
the Doctor's failed execution) that is so poorly staged that I'm still
not sure what exactly happened. But if nothing else, it's a supremely
entertaining romp that effectively pairs humor with sci-fi adventure.
Rating: ***1/2 (out of four)
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