14x6. The Talons of Weng-Chiang
Writer: Robert Holmes
Director: David Maloney
Script Editor: Robert Holmes
Producer: Philip Hinchcliffe
Synopsis: The Doctor and Leela
arrive in Victorian-Era London, where the Chinese stage magician
Li-H'Sen Chang is carrying on a double life as the leader of a cult
dedicated to the god Weng-Chiang. The cult is responsible for a series
of a kidnappings and murders for the purpose of allowing Weng-Chiang --
who is actually a war criminal from the future named Magnus Greel -- to
absorb their energy as he prepares to return to the future with his
"time cabinet."
Review: "The Talons of
Weng-Chiang" is a good example of a fairly ordinary story built up by
lots of stylistic flourishes. I don't necessarily have a whole lot to
say about it as a reviewer, but it kept me interested and it never felt
slow or padded despite its six-episode length.
"Talons" is above all Robert Holmes' homage to Sherlock Holmes: in
addition to the Victorian setting, the Doctor even wears a deerstalker,
and at one point, there's even a line about how he's probably doing
most of the police's work for them. The era is reproduced skillfully by
the production team, and the sci-fi elements play a relatively minor
role so that the script can focus on the characters and the murder
mystery (though, one very un-Conan Doyle element is the fact that the
culprit is given away before the Doctor unravels it). Li-H'Sen Chang's
stage act receives considerable screen time and is plenty entertaining
in its own right, and Holmes supplies two engaging guest characters in
Professor Litefoot and Henry Gordon Jago. The latter in particular
works well as the sort of person whose enthusiasm gets the better of
him as he eventually finds himself in over his head.
Some have suggested that the serial is somehow racist in its treatment
of the Chinese, but I think it's more the guest characters who display
racially insensitive attitudes rather than the script or the production
itself. While having a Caucasian actor portray Chang is certainly
politically incorrect by today's standards, the character, while a
villain, does not strike me as particularly stereotypical. If anything,
he seems to regard the racism of the society around him with a certain
condescension, as seen in his sarcastic "we all look the same" comment
and his "one of us is yellow" joke during his stage act (which, of
course, is itself an exploitation of the "exotic foreigner" stereotype
as cover for his real purposes). Chang's final scene allows him to exit
the story with some degree of honor, in that he truly believed he was
serving a god in orchestrating the murders and kidnappings, and the
entire situation is presented as a form of "blowback" from British
imperialism -- the time cabinet that Greel is trying to find was
apparently captured in a "Punitive Expedition" to China.
If the story has a weak point, it's probably that Greel just isn't all
that interesting an adversary. There are a few references to his
background -- the Doctor calls him "the Butcher of Brisbane," for
example -- but for the most part he's just a fairly standard alien war
criminal of the week. He doesn't bring the sort of depth to the story
that other villains this season have displayed -- Eldrad, Goth, and
Taren Capel in particular come to mind -- nor does he have the maniacal
energy of even comparatively simplistic villains like Solon or Morbius.
The idea that he's suffered from a botched attempt at time travel is an
okay concept, but the script doesn't do anything particularly creative
with it.
I haven't been quite as enamored of the Holmes/Hinchcliffe era, of
which this serial is the final installment, as some Who fans, but all
the same, it's the strongest run for the show since Pertwee's first
season, and "Talons" is a fitting bookend for three seasons of skillful
balance between relatively macabre material and a rather whimsical and
unpredictable Doctor.
Rating: *** (out of four)