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Centuries ago, Varos was a prison planet. The descendants
of the original officers still rule - over a poverty-stricken
working class kept in line by broadcasts of real-life torture
and execution. Varos is also the only place that the Doctor
can obtain Zeiton-7, a rare mineral vital to the functioning
of his TARDIS...
In
their quest to release at least one DVD from each Doctor's
era, BBC Worldwide faced a problem when it came to Colin Baker.
His tenure was brief and, through no fault of the actor, woefully
lacking in quality. Arguably Baker's best TV story in terms
of script, direction and production values was Revelation
of the Daleks, but that title was issued relatively recently
on VHS (and then for a second time in the current Davros
Collection boxed set). Revelation might also have
made the DVD series appear to lack variety if placed alongside
Sylvester McCoy's Remembrance of the Daleks on the
shelf.
However,
although Varos doesn't quite merit "classic" status,
it does come close. Admittedly, Philip Martin's script contains
some fairly undeliverable lines. The cast, including Forbes
Collins as the corrupt Chief Officer and Martin Jarvis as
the Governor, mostly succeed at making their dialogue sound
natural. Jarvis in particular turns in a splendid and subtle
performance as a decent man who is forced to endorse cruel
activities in order to survive and attempt to improve the
lot of his people. However, Jason (son of Sean) Connery as
the rebel Jondar and Geraldine Alexander as his wife Areta
manage less well, and end up sounding distinctly hammy in
many scenes.
And
the less said about the oh-so-scary (not) old men in nappies,
the better! Nicola (Peri) Bryant rightly scoffs with derision
during the audio commentary when these unfortunate guys make
their entrance.
Where
this story succeeds is in its ingenious, even post-modern,
media satire. Back in the 1980s, Philip Martin was inspired
by the then topical subject of "snuff" movies, video nasties
in which people are killed for real. However, as Nabil Shaban
(who plays the villainous alien Sil) points out in the commentary,
the writer also managed to predict the reality TV shows of
today. Just as occupants of Big Brother have been voted
out by public opinion, so the longevity of the Governor, Varos'
political figurehead, is at the whim of the viewing public
- and on Varos, political defeat means death.
Both
of the 45-minute episodes end with characters watching television
screens as a transmission is cut. Indeed, the cliffhanger
that concludes Part One has the dramatic close-up on the apparent
death of the Doctor being directed within the context the
story.
A
particular stroke of genius - which the commentary and on-screen
text information inform us was the work of script editor Eric
Saward - is the inclusion of Arak (Stephen Yardley) and Etta
(Sheila Reid). These characters, ordinary citizens who do
nothing throughout the story except view and comment upon
the broadcast events, comprise a comic double-act in the great
tradition of writer Robert Holmes.
Back
in 1985, there was a hysterical reaction to this story's violent
content, including claims that the supposedly non-violent
Doctor pushed a character into an acid bath. Viewing the serial
again confirms that the Time Lord does no such thing. He handles
guns, but never fires them at people, only at machinery (although
he does leave a laser cannon emitting a constant beam, which
a guard later, rather stupidly, walks into). Certainly the
levels of violence and horror are no more excessive than those
of, for example, The Brain of Morbius or The Seeds
of Doom.
Among
the disc's special features are ten minutes' worth of deleted
and extended scenes. None of this extra material is particularly
earth-shattering, although one TARDIS scene does reveal that
the Doctor and Peri made several landings between Attack
of the Cybermen and Vengeance on Varos. Also included
is footage showing several takes that precede the perfected
version of a scene from early in Part Two.
Something
the DVD overlooks is the fact that this story was also divided
into four 25-minute episodes for exported editions. It would
have been nice to have seen the endings to these 25-minute
instalments, complete with their musical "stings", or at least
to have had these breaks sign-posted by the on-screen text.
The
text information is in fact rather thin on the ground compared
to previous releases. Nor does it get off to a good start
when it informs us that the surface of Varos was actually
a model - blimey, I would never have guessed! The audio commentary,
provided by Baker, Bryant and Shaban, proves rather more entertaining,
containing as it does a high level of (frequently bawdy) humour.
This
might be the least "classic" Who story to have been
issued on DVD to date, but Vengeance is still well
worth seeking.
Richard
McGinlay
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