The Deadly Assassin
Story 88, Episodes 436-439, Season 14 Episode 9-12
Doctor: The Fourth Doctor
In a sense, The Deadly Assassin is one of the biggest, most ambitious stories in Doctor Who history. It’s almost overwhelming how much we learn about the Time Lords. On execution though, a bizarre third episode drags it down.
The Review
From the beginning, an opening scroll detailing the history of the Time Lords lets you know something is up. The Doctor has a vision, the Time Lord President, gunned down. Even more shocking: he appears to the pull the trigger! The TARDIS lands unauthorized in Gallifrey, and guards unfamiliar with the Doctor attempt to track him down. The amount of world-building for Gallifrey is simply staggering, with us seeing the Panopticon where the high council meets, the very unique and now iconic Time Lord style of dress, learning the Doctor is in the Prydonian chapter. Not to mention we get an amusing look at Gallifreyan cable news and the skittish anchor Runcible. The ending is stunning: the President is killed, and the Doctor apparently shot him! The Doctor is caught and interrogated, but convinces Castellan Spandrell that he didn’t do it. It becomes apparent that the Master has, and the Doctor has to descend into a matrix of dead Time Lord consciousness to get at him.
What follows is a bizarre episode where the Doctor is in the woods trying to avoid being hunted by the acolyte of the Master, who is revealed to be Chancellor Goth, worried that he would not be named to the Presidency. This episode just completely threw me out of what was going on in Gallifrey, and really screwed up the pacing. In the fourth episode we finally get the showdown with the Master, played by Peter Pratt as a hideous decaying creature at the end of his regeneration cycle. The Master despises the Doctor and wishes him dead, something that doesn’t really square with the suave Delgado Master. Sure he tried to kill the Doctor a few times, but was just as eager for his help. Perhaps he blames the Doctor for his disfigurement, but this is never went into further. There’s even more lore as the Master tries to use the power of Rassilon, the ancient founder of the Time Lords, to restore himself before being stopped.
What’s really interesting about this story is how Time Lord society is portrayed. The leader that emerges from this is Borusa, a smart-tongued Time Lord who is a bit harsh but a capable leader. Capable is the least that can be said for most of the Time Lords, the Doctor blasts the Co-Ordinator’s technology as still primitive, and the Time Lords seemingly have forgotten all about Rassilon’s inventions that power all of Time Lord society. Time Lords are portrayed as so self-focused on their banal political dealings that they hardly care to know of the universe or even their own history. Perhaps if we met the ‘Celestial Intervention Agency’ or CIA that has been giving the Doctor missions such as to stop the Daleks we’d se more proactive Time Lords. Of course this isn’t to mention the entirety of Time Lord elite being white and male, the only female voice this story comes from a computer. For a show that so long has had the Doctor shrouded in mystery, even after The War Games, The Deadly Assassin changes everything.
The middle episode is a completely left turn from the rest of the story, and the amount of revelations and new information is almost overwhelming. This was a seminal event in Doctor Who, but part of me couldn’t wait to return to the standard show.
8/10 The companionless story changes everything…if only that Matrix business wasn’t there.
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