However highly you rate The Trial of a Time Lord (and I rate a lot of it very highly indeed), you won’t deny that the adventure on screen pales in comparison to what was going on behind the scenes. The Trial of a Time Lord gave us larger-than-life characters like Sil and The Valeyard, but couldn’t come up with anything to rival the blinkered, single-minded villainy of Michael Grade, the frothing vitriol of Ian Levine, the bizarre spectacle of writing partners Pip and Jane Baker (Richard Marson calls them ‘the Fanny and Johnnie Cradock of Doctor Who), or the waxen, staring faces of the members of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society on a mission to shoot down their own favourite show (just imagine if one of them actually managed to get their hands on it!).
The Trial of a Time Lord climaxes in a surreal fantasy landscape of Dickensian nightmares, but it can’t hold a candle to much of the utterly bizarre TV coverage of the whole sorry affair1, to say nothing of the outlandish horror that is Doctor In Distress.2
The full drama and horror of all of this is unflinchingly depicted in Trials and Tribulations (on The Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe (DVD) and The Collection: Season 23 (Blu-ray). The DVD range has given us a great many documentaries of the highest quality, and even before The Collection started giving whole season overviews you could find each era covered with admirable detail and style, gathering the thoughts of many of the key players and telling the story with a wealth of archive footage. But this one has the edge as it is simply one of the most turbulent and, frankly, strange episodes in the entire history of the show. Bits of it sound utterly traumatic, but that makes for excellent entertainment. It also features one of the most heroic Doctors at his most heroic: Colin Baker emerges from the whole sorry situation with dignity intact (which is saying something, given his reluctant involvement in the aforementioned venture into charity pop nightmare).
For the ultimate dramatic journey, watch it straight after Celebration, a look back at Doctor Who‘s 20th anniversary celebrations on The Five Doctors special edition DVD or The Collection: Season 20 Blu-ray, which gives a sense of just how beloved and successful Doctor Who was a mere year or so before its ignominious fall from grace.
Next: “a repetitive quality which tends towards monotony has crept in…”
- We are, of course, spoiled by the DVD and Blu-ray range when it comes to how much contemporary footage we are able to review. Spoiled, and occasionally scarred. I blogged about this when I first bought The Trial of a Time Lord on DVD, and it remains a wonderful, indescribable treat fourteen years on. ↩︎
- Doctor in Distress is itself an essential special feature and one which I have enjoyed again and again and again. The perfect accompaniment to any 60th anniversary shindig, though do remember to leave room on your playlist for its natural musical companion. ↩︎
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