A megabyte modem!
The Ultimate Foe is the unfortunate child of a lot of bad things happening at once. Robert Holmes was supposed to write the whole thing, but he died after finishing Episode Thirteen, leaving only an outline for the rest. Eric Saward stepped in but John Nathan-Turner disliked his ending so he gave it to Pip and Jane Baker, who were not allowed to see Eric Saward's draft. That left them fumbling in the dark. Combine that with some shoddy acting and rather poor direction and you have a terrible mess on your hands.
Plot Summary
To address the Doctor's charges of tampering with the Matrix, the Keeper of the Matrix is brought in. Although the Doctor gets him to admit that the Matrix is accessible with either the Key of Rassilon or a copy, he denies any tampering has occurred. The Doctor's only other alternative is produce material witnesses to verify his version of events.
The Doctor states his witnesses would be scattered across time and space when two capsules arrive, containing Sabalom Glitz and Mel. They had been sent by the Master who appears on screen, claiming to be within the Matrix. Glitz reveals that the Council of Time Lords had been behind events which led to the Earth being move and renamed as shown in The Mysterious Planet. The Doctor is outraged and castigates the Time Lords for their actions, including setting him up to be the scapegoat. The Master agrees and also reveals that the Valeyard is an amalgamation of the dark aspects of the Doctor's personality formed sometime after his twelfth iteration, who had been promised the Doctor's remaining regenerations if he prosecuted the Doctor.
Unmasked, the Valeyard flees into the Matrix. The Doctor purses, dragging Glitz along with him. The two emerge in what looks like Victorian London. They discover the Valeyard's factory base and enter. There they encounter Mr. Popplewick, who acts as a screener. Through him the Doctor agrees to play the Valeyard's game that if he dies, the Valeyard will absorb the Doctor's remaining regenerations.
Moving to the next room, the Doctor finds himself on a beach where arms pull him down into quicksand. Glitz tries to help the Doctor but he disappears. But the Doctor reemerges having reasserted his mind over the quicksand illusion. The Valeyard appears as an image, taunting the Doctor. The Doctor and Glitz are forced to flee when the Valeyard releases a wave of nerve toxin at them.
They run into the Master's TARDIS where the Master puts the Doctor into a catatonic state. Offering the Doctor as bait, the Master attacks the Valeyard but is thrown back and the Master flees. The Doctor awakens to see Mel offering a way out. The two of them walk back into the courtroom where despite Mel's testimony, the Doctor is found guilty of genocide and sentenced to execution. The Doctor goes willingly along with the guards.
The courtroom is revealed to be a fake as events are observed from the real courtroom. The real Mel leaves the courtroom and enters the Matrix freeing the Doctor from the execution wagon. He is annoyed with her as he had been playing along trying to use the execution as a means to get close to the Valeyard. Glitz also reemerges having been bribed by the Master to help out. The three reenter the Valeyard's factory base and begin to look around.
Glitz finds what he believes to be the Matrix master tapes and also confronts Mr. Popplewick. The Doctor meanwhile finds a list of Time Lords that had been working with the Valeyard and are now on an execution list. Glitz emerges with Mr. Popplewick as hostage. Popplewick agrees to take the Doctor to the Valeyard. As they leave, Glitz tries to leave with the master tapes but is taken by the Master who then takes the tapes and Glitz back to his TARDIS. However, the tapes were a fake and the Master and Glitz are frozen within the Matrix.
In the new location, the Doctor unmasks Mr. Popplewick as the Valeyard in disguise and ties him to a rail. Mel discovers a device that will atomize anyone tapped into the Matrix, meaning that the entire courtroom will die. The Doctor sends Mel out to warn the court while he tries to defuse the device. The Doctor sets a feedback loop which sends the worst of the device's rays back into the Matrix. He flees as the device proceeds to destroy the area the Valeyard had set up with him seemingly caught in the wash.
Emerging from the Matrix, the charges against the Doctor are dismissed and with the Council of Time Lords having resigned, the Inquisitor suggests the Doctor run for Lord President again. He declines and suggests that she run instead. She also informs him that Peri had actually survived the events shown in Mindwarp and was now married to King Yrcanos. The Doctor and Mel then leave with the Doctor bemoaning another round of carrot juice. As the Inquisitor leaves, she orders the Keeper of the Matrix to secure it again. He nods and when he turns around, he is revealed to be the Valeyard in disguise.
Analysis
Where to begin on this one? There is not a lot of good to say about it. The story in convoluted and confusing with two very different visions in each part that are only slightly connected. I'm not going to lay this one completely at the feet of Pip and Jane Baker either as Episode Thirteen was rather convoluted plot-wise. Things might have been better explained in the planned Episode Fourteen, but as it was, the first part did not make a lot of sense on it's own. Fourteen tried to untangle that mess, but it went out on it's own tangent with it's own problems.
Just as bad, if not worse, than the script was the acting. Worst of all was Mel who delivered all her lines in a high pitched whine. Any calm or even delivery that she showed in Terror of the Vervoids was gone and she became like nails on a chalkboard. The Valeyard also descended into mustache twirling, which might not have been that bad, except that he was shown to be far more menacing when played straight and serious. Going over the top suited the Master much more and the Master was enjoyable in this story with his obvious relish at the havoc he was causing.
Even the Doctor's performance got on my nerves at some points. The melodrama he affected when trying to convince the Valeyard that he had been tricked by the fake courtroom was the stuff of children's theater it was so over the top. That anyone believed it, especially the Valeyard, strained the limited credibility remaining.
The direction was very off as well. I can only guess that the director was trying to mimic the unsettling nature of the Matrix as first shown in The Deadly Assassin but it just came across as shoddy. The Valeyard hologram appearing and disappearing at the beginning of Episode Fourteen was especially weird. There was also something off with regard to the lighting. I think they were trying to achieve a creepy factor with the darkness and that did work in Mr. Popplewick's office. But anytime they were in the Victorian street, something just didn't work and it had the effect of making things look cheap instead. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something was definitely not jiving.
There was also the technobabble at then end to resolve the plot. Technobabble can work in some instances, but it's best to keep it to completely out of the realm of the relatable for it to work. Mel's use of "megabyte modem" is exactly the type of thing to avoid as both terms would have been familiar to computer people but were not to writers. Obviously they wouldn't have known how familiar these terms would become to the populace but still, pulling these two random terms together makes no sense. It would be like referring to some new food as a "sunflower parsnip". Both are edible plants but shoving them together makes no sense and is a serious clang in the mind.
While near the subject of technobabble, there is also the time paradox of Mel. She is brought by the Master in what must be after the events of Terror of the Vervoids for her, since she is to testify on the Doctor's behalf. But the Doctor hasn't had his first meeting with her yet. At the end, they leave as though she had arrived with him. So now the Doctor is traveling with a companion who has known him for some time and had adventures with him that he hasn't had yet. They can't go on these adventures now as Mel would remember them, thwarting the outcome so she must leave the TARDIS at some point in order for her to meet the Doctor originally and have their initial adventures before being taken by the Master back to the trial. It's enough to make Steven Moffat's brain hurt.
There were a few enjoyable moments in this story. The horror elements brought about with the arms in Episode Thirteen were quite creepy and there was an amusing aspect to the illogic bureaucracy of Mr. Popplewick. I'm sure there was some political satire mixed in there as well that as an American I didn't fully catch. As mentioned before, I also enjoyed the Master and his mildly over the top performance. But it was a shaky start that didn't resolve itself well at all.
This is most disappointing as the first three sections of The Trial of a Time Lord are pretty good. Mindwarp wasn't quite to my taste but it is not bad. The other two segments are quite good in my opinion. But this was just a weak ending to a decent arc. The only reprieve I can give it is that it is only two episodes so it doesn't drag things out too long. I can't imagine watching this one again unless as part of being a completionist in rewatching the Trial as a whole. But it is certainly not worth bothering about as any kind of stand alone.
Overall personal score: 1 out of 5
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