6-12. The Rings of Ikiria.

2 episodes. Approx. 58 minutes. Written by: Richard Dinnick. Directed by: Ken Bentley. Produced by: David Richardson. Performed by: Richard Franklin, Felicity Duncan.


THE PLOT

A series of crop circles has appeared on Sark, one of the Channel Islands. These aren't ordinary crop circles, but instead are pictograms, whose intricate shapes the Doctor identifies as letters in the Etherian language. The Etherians are trans-dimensional beings, a race the Doctor is happy to say are non-aggressive.

When the final pictogram appears, the Doctor realizes that they spell out "Ikiria" - the name of the Etherian who is making contact. Ikiria (Felicity Duncan) introduces herself as an artist, who manipulates matter to create works of beauty. She gives the Brigadier a ring to show to his superiors as a gesture of friendship. He then returns to the Home Office to make arrangements for Ikiria to meet some high-ranking officials, leaving Capt. Mike Yates in charge.

Mike quickly finds the situation slipping out of his control. The Doctor disappears, apparently (and rather suspiciously) having fallen from a nearby cliffside. Ikiria is distributing her rings among UNIT soldiers, and it is clear that she has a disturbing influence over them. With the officials soon to meet Ikiria, Mike is left with no choice but to take desperate action that could spell the end of his military career - if it doesn't cost him his life!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Though he knows the Etherians to be essentially peaceful and non-aggressive, he does not give Ikiria his full trust. She identifies him as a threat early on, and takes steps to remove him. Though he's absent from the middle of the story, the Doctor has already made an impression on Mike as someone to be relied upon, and the captain never stops believing that the Doctor is still out there and ready to fight Ikiria - faith that is rewarded in the story's final Act.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: When the Doctor states that the pictograms are letters, the Brigadier reaches for the most obvious question: "What do they spell?" He likes concrete, practical answers, and has little patience when the Doctor tries to explain that the meaning of the letters won't become clear until all of them have appeared. After Ikiria gives him the first of her rings, the Brigadier becomes a cartoon of his own worst traits. This apparently alien-influenced Brig refuses to listen to Mike's concerns about her influence over the men and responds to Mike's doubts by threatening to transfer him out of UNIT.

Capt. Mike Yates: UNIT is the first posting that has seen Mike truly "at home." He has an enormous amount of faith in both the Doctor and the Brigadier. He seems to look upon the Brigadier almost as a father figure, which makes it all the more painful when the Brigadier says that UNIT may not be for Mike. Even knowing that the other man is under Ikiria's influence, hearing these words from him is painful to Mike.


THOUGHTS

The Rings of Ikiria hits the ground running. Literally, as it opens with a teaser in which Mike Yates runs from his UNIT comrades. He runs through a field of crops until he finds himself at a cliffside, surrounded. The Brigadier appears, brandishing a gun which he levels at Mike, firing and sending the captain over the edge.

Which yes, means we go into credits literally on a cliffhanger.

The story itself is basic, bread-and-butter Who, very much of the era in which its set. A remote country area on a peninsula, an alien claiming to come in friendship but having another agenda... Heck, it's even resolved by the Doctor putting together a Thingie to Reverse the Polarity of something-or-other. It's such a complete pastische of Pertwee-era Who that it could easily have been dreary in its predictability.

But that opening demonstrates the story's big assets. It may deliberately be formulaic, but The Rings of Ikiria zips along. The story moves breathlessly from plot point to plot point, making up in sheer momentum what it lacks in surprise. It also has real verve to it. Writer Richard Dinnick isn't cynically ticking off boxes on a list labeled "Pertwee UNIT story." His script sparkles with energy, made even more evident by Richard Franklin's enthusiastic reading. It may all be a bit lightweight, but it's such good fun that it's impossible to fault it for that.

Things do weaken a bit toward the end, with the resolution to the crisis seeming a bit too easy. Technobabbling a gadget may be in keeping with the television era, but it doesn't make it a good climax to a story. Also, the Companion Chronicles' own format means that a Third Act twist is easy to see coming well in advance. I'm not saying the twist in question would have been a big surprise in a full-cast story, but in a Companion Chronicle the nature of the presentation makes it regrettably obvious.

In the end, this story is solid fare. It's hardly indispensable, and it's far from ambitious. But its energy, enthusiasm, and spark make it a lot of fun. Its ambitions are modest, but it achieves them splendidly, making it an easy story to recommend. 


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Television Story: Inferno
Next Television Story: Terror of the Autons

Search Amazon.com for Doctor Who

3rd Doctor Audio Review Index

3rd Doctor Television Review Index


Doctor Who: The Companion Chronicles Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On BlueSky:

Follow @RandomMusings09 on BlueSky

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

6-10. The Wanderer.

2 episodes: The Dark Pilgrim, The Scorpion Men. Approx. 64 minutes. Written by: Richard Dinnick. Directed by: Lisa Bowerman. Produced by: David Richardson. Performed by: William Russell, Tim Chipping.


THE PLOT

When the TARDIS materializes in Siberia at the turn of the twentieth century, the time travelers observe lights in the sky. The Doctor instantly sees that these are not shooting stars.  Something alien has come to Earth, crashing in the nearby wilderness. All who have come in contact with it have been struck by a bizarre illness. The villagers have turned to Grigory (Tim Chipping), a wandering holy man, for help. The illness is outside Grigory's experience, however... but not outside the Doctor's.

The cause is chronon energy, radiating from a surveillance probe sent by the alien Dahensa. The probe has malfunctioned, the chronon energy causing it to absorb information not about Earth's present but about its future. The result is devastating to anyone who touches the probe, who receives a mind-destroying vision of everything that is to come.

This is poison to the Doctor and Susan. But to Grigory it is a tantalizing prize - a chance to realize his destiny!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Portrayed as a guardian of history, a role which fits the First Doctor very well. The man who proclaimed, "You cannot rewrite history, not one line" is easily recast as insisting that you must not rewrite it, much as he indeed was by Season Two's The Time Meddler. As soon as he recognizes the alien probe's threat to not only human lives but to human history, it becomes a matter of urgency for him to see it neutralized. When Grigory attempts to use the probe for his own ends, the Doctor reacts with moral outrage, making it clear that he views the Russian's actions as an obscenity.

Ian: The last part of Episode One sees Ian revealing the full truth about himself and his companions to Grigory... a moment I simply cannot buy into. The only occasion I can think of on television in which Ian told someone about being a time traveler was in The Reign of Terror - and then it's as a slap in the face, telling the full truth to an interrogator he knows full well will not believe it. Here, he tells Grigory the truth expecting to be believed, and then seems surprised when there are consequences. I don't know who this idiot is, but he isn't Ian Chesterton.

Thankfully, this scene is the only one to break my suspension of disbelief. William Russell does his usual splendid job of recreating his old television role, and the rest of Richard Dinnick's script portrays Ian more suitably. He's selfless but not stupidly so. Even when he rushes into a dangerous situation, he does so after having realized that he has no other alternative if he wishes to save lives. He is protective of all his traveling companions, but is especially so of Barbara, and he clings to the bond he and Barbara share to keep him grounded during his wanderings with the Doctor.

Barbara/Susan: Are very much the "extra characters" here, though the story does use them much as the television series tended to. Susan manages to put herself in danger multiple times, and the major part of Episode Two's action is devoted to Ian finding and rescuing her from the Dahensa. Barbara also requires rescue, but the story takes care to note her rationality and emphasize the role she plays as a support to Ian. Both characters have been used better elsewhere but, in fairness, they have also been used far worse.


THOUGHTS

Having already crafted a solid First Doctor/Ian adventure in the audio "Short Trip" A Star Is Born, writer Richard Dinnick returns to the Hartnell era with The Wanderer. Dinnick is a good fit for the First Doctor. He has a sense of the feel of that era of the show, with its measured pace and more reflective tone, and he has a particularly strong grasp of the First Doctor's persona.

This is a clever story. It manages to reference Doctor Who as a franchise while setting itself at a point in the show's run before there was a franchise, and it does so in a way that fits perfectly within the narrative. It has a neat twist at the midpoint, one which is possible to see coming - though I freely confess that I did not. It's also a rare two-part story in which the second half is actually better than the first. Part One does its job of establishing the setting, characters, and overall plot, but Part Two raises the stakes and quickens the pace.

Nor does the ending let it down. The main conflict is resolved in a way that works within the story, but the strongest beats are in the well-developed epilogue. Here, the parallels and contrasts are msot clearly drawn among the story's wanderers - not only Ian and Grigory, but the aligned pairs of Ian/Barbara and the Doctor/Susan. These final passages show that there's more here than just a clever little tale, well-told. There's also that extra little something that elevates one story above another.

A quality best described simply as, "Heart."


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Television Story: The Reign of Terror
Next Television Story: Planet of Giants

Search Amazon.com for Doctor Who

1st Doctor Audio Review Index

1st Doctor Television Review Index


Doctor Who: The Companion Chronicles Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On BlueSky:

Follow @RandomMusings09 on BlueSky

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads