The Talons of Weng-Chiang

The bird has flown the coop. One of us is yellow.

The Hinchcliffe era officially ends with the Doctor and Leela doing Sherlock Holmes. Hinchcliffe gave the BBC something of a middle finger with this story, blowing his budget completely out of the water on costuming and set design, both of which have been well praised by fans. However, the story is also well known for being mired in racism both deliberate, as would have been appropriate for the time, and natural.

Plot Summary

Following a show in Victorian London by illusionist Li H'sen Chang, he is confronted by an angry man whose wife was used as a model in his show and subsequently disappeared. Chang denies all knowledge and the man leaves to go see the police. As he walks down the alley, he is attacked by Chang's ventriloquist dummy, Mr. Sin.

The Doctor and Leela arrive as this is happening intent on taking in a show. They arrive at the scene of the attack with several Chinese men taking the body away. The men attack the Doctor and Leela but the pair manage to hold their own. The men flee with the body when they hear police whistles but Leela manages to trip one up and capture him. The police take all three back to the station for questioning.

During a later performance of Chang's show, the theater owner, Henry Gordon Jago, observes blood dripping off Mr. Sin's arm. He dismisses it but he is also unsettled by one of the stagehand's stories of large rats in the basement, though he dismisses the claims.

The Doctor and Leela have their information taken down by the police sergeant, though he is somewhat dismissive of them. Mr. Chang arrives shortly afterwards to serve as an interpreter, despite the Doctor catching the man off-guard by speaking Chinese. Chang slips the man a poison capsule and he dies quickly. Chang leaves, although the Doctor is suspicious.

The Doctor and Leela then head to the mortuary to have a look at the body, which the Doctor is convinced was killed by poison. He noticed that the man was a member of the Scorpion Tongs, a sect devoted to the god Weng-Chiang who was prophesied to return. In the mortuary, he finds Professor Litefoot doing an autopsy on the man whose body was being taken at the beginning. He had been fished out of the Thames but there were large bites on his body like those done by large rodents. He also finds long rat hairs on his clothes.

The Doctor and Leela then head down into the sewers to where the body was likely dumped. There they are confronted by a large rat, grown to nearly ten feet in length. The Doctor sets of a small flash which temporarily blinds the rat, giving them time to get back up to the surface. The Doctor figures the rat is guarding something and sets back to the police station for a plan of the sewers.

Back at the theater, Mr. Jago and the stage hand check the basement to make sure it is clear and find a woman's glove. Jago pockets it and then dismisses the stage hand. After he leaves, Jago sees Chang who then hypnotizes Jago into forgetting the angry man who came earlier. Jago is then sent back to his office.

Chang heads to the basement and then through a secret hole into a hidden lab. There he meets with a masked figure who demands additional people to experiment on to cure a disease the man is suffering from. Chang warns the figure of the Doctor but the masked figure dismisses him as a threat. The two then ascend into the street.

Back at the police station, the Doctor is left a note by Professor Litefoot. The Doctor meets up with him as he is preparing to leave and Litefoot confirms the Doctor's theory that the victim was gnawed on by a large rodent. He also notes that the man who killed him must have been of small stature based on the angle of the stab. Litefoot then invites the Doctor to dinner to discuss things further.

The Doctor and Leela take a cab with Litefoot back to his house but the Doctor leaves halfway there to stop at the Palace Theater. Litefoot and Leela instead enjoy a buffet meal alone, with Litefoot being amused at Leela's complete lack of table manners.

Chang, Mr. Sin and the mysterious figure arrive outside Litefoot's home. They have tracked the figure's time cabinet to this neighborhood but are unsure of what house it is in. Chang and Sin leave to investigate while the figure heads back to the theater.

In the theater, the Doctor undoes the hypnotism performed by Chang on Jago. Using Jago's returned memories the Doctor puts together more of the story. They search the theater, discovering a hologram which created the stagehand's ghost story. The Doctor also detects that a lair must be hidden here, although he is unable to find the entrance. The masked figure reappears and the Doctor chases him through the theater but he is able to escape. The Doctor instructs Jago to watch and gather information while he heads to Professor Litefoot's home.

At the home, Litefoot and Leela finish dinner but Litefoot detects movement outside. Peering through the window, he catches a glimpse of Chang and heads out with a pistol to chase him off. He does a circuit around the house but doesn't find anything. Reentering the house, he is knocked out by Mr. Sin who then advances on Leela. She throws a carving knife into Sin's neck but he continues to advance. She then dives out through the window where the just arriving Doctor finds her. The noise catches the attention of the police and Chang recalls Sin and the two disappear, though having discovered Weng-Chiang's time cabinet. The Doctor goes in to help Litefoot but Leela jumps on the back of the cab to follow Chang.

Litefoot is groggy but unharmed. The Doctor also discovers the time cabinet, which Litefoot purchased while living in China with his father. The Doctor makes a plan of the sewer system while Litefoot recovers and figures the location of the hidden lair under the theater. He then borrows a Chinese cannon gun from Litefoot and asks his help in getting to the sewers from the Thames.

In London, Chang hypnotizes a prostitute and brings her back to the theater. He stashes her in his dressing room and then hypnotizes one of the cleaning women. Whilst doing this, Leela substitutes herself for the hypnotized prostitute. Chang then takes both women, unaware of the switch, to the figure's lair. Chang promises the time cabinet that night but the figure is angry at his repeated mistakes and dismisses him.

The figure places the cleaning woman in a machine where she is enveloped by gas. Leela strikes out, knocking the figure down and turning off the machine, but the cleaning woman has already had her essence drained. The figure fires a ray gun at Leela but misses. She then escapes into the sewer but the figure uses a gong to summon the huge rats guarding the entrance.

She runs through the sewer pursued by one. It catches up and attacks her, only to be shot down by the Doctor, who had entered the sewer earlier via a boat from Litefoot. He takes Leela back to the boat and the trio head back to Litefoot's house where he supplies her with a fresh outfit. The Doctor then proposes to go to the theater to ferret out the mysterious figure. Aware of the danger, the Doctor orders Litefoot to be ready and has a police officer stationed outside.

Chang learns from overhearing Jago that the Doctor has returned and warns his master. The figure still waives off Chang from his service, though he begins to pack his lair. In the theater, Chang enlists the Doctor in his act. The Doctor enters, but avoids Chang's first attempt to trap him. Instead, he uses his own assistant in the trick. But when it ends, rather than the assistant emerging, the dead body of a stagehand emerges, killed by the mysterious figure.

Chang runs to the lair, where he is pursued by the Doctor, Leela and Jago. The figure and his equipment are gone and the Doctor realizes that he intends to set up shop elsewhere. Chang admits to discovering the figure, whom he believes to be the god Weng-Chiang, when he appeared in the time cabinet in rural China. However, as Chang nursed the man back to health, the authorities took the time cabinet and the two have been tracking it ever since. Chang then runs into the sewers where he is attacked by the giant rats.

Back at Litefoot's house, a band of Chinese men kill the police officer standing guard. Inside the house, Mr. Sin emerges from a fresh basket of laundry and knocks out Litefoot again. He opens the door and the group carry away the time cabinet with the mysterious figure in the same cab. They bring the cabinet to a hidden lair but in doing so, the figure is told that one bag with vital equipment was left at the theater. The figure in enraged and kills the man who forgot. He then orders his men to recover it.

The Doctor and Leela return to Litefoot's house and discover the break-in. They treat Litefoot and the Doctor discovers the attacker's method of entrance. The Doctor also figures that Mr. Sin is a well known robot with the cerebral cortex of a pig developed as a toy in the year 5000 but that turned against humanity and disappeared. The Doctor and Leela then head to the laundry to hunt for the attackers.

The bag with the missing components is discovered in the theater by Jago who then takes it to Professor Litefoot's house. Litefoot, upon learning of this, has Jago leave the bag with a note for the Doctor and the pair head out to the theater, figuring that the gang will return and can be followed back to their lair. They do indeed follow the gang but are discovered and captured. Under threat of Jago's life, Litefoot confesses that the bag is back at his house. They are then locked up, to be executed later.

The Doctor and Leela arrive at the laundry and break in. It is deserted and they sneak into an opium den in the back and find Chang. He survived the rat attack but lost his leg and is dying, easing his pain with opium. He reveals that the man posing as Weng-Chiang had a second lair where he would return to the future. However, he dies before he can tell the Doctor where it is.

The Doctor and Leela return to Litefoot's house to find the bag and the note. In the bag is the key to the time cabinet. The Doctor takes it and deduces that Jago and Litefoot went out after the gang. Suspecting that they will be captured and reveal the location of the key, he and Leela prepare defenses for the house. However, as they prepare, the masked figure attacks Leela from inside the house. She spins away, ripping off his mask to reveal a disfigured man. But his attack worked and she loses consciousness.

The Doctor returns to the room where he reveals that he has the time cabinet key. He strikes a bargain with the figure that in exchange for the key, they will head back to the hideout where Jago and Litefoot will be freed. The Doctor also insists that Leela be left behind. The figure reluctantly agrees. As they leave, Leela comes to and follows behind them.

Once at the lair, the figure is revealed as Magnus Greel, a war criminal from the 51st century. Jago and Litefoot are brought out but they inform the Doctor that two women are being held prisoner as well and the Doctor insists on them being freed too. Angry at this push, Greel orders Mr. Sin to fire a laser cannon hidden in the eyes of a dragon statue to which he has snuck behind. The Doctor is knocked out by the blast and Greel orders the three relocked up as he intends to squeeze the Doctor for knowledge of the future.

The Doctor wakes in the room being used as a cell with Jago, Litefoot and the two women. He wakes them and proceeds to set up a makeshift gas bomb using the pipes and a linen bag.

Back in the main room Leela, having killed one guard, sneaks in and attacks Greel. She nearly kills him but is pulled off by his Chinese followers. He has Leela tied to his life extractor machine and then orders the guards to get the other two women. As the guards enter the room, the Doctor sets off the gas bomb. The guards are knocked out and the five prisoners escape, the two women running out of the building entirely. Entering the room, the Doctor throws an axe, disabling the machine before it can kill Leela.

The Doctor frees Leela and Greel orders Mr. Sin to shoot them. Sin begins to fire at them and they take cover behind furniture. The Doctor breaks off and begins to make make-shift repairs to Greel's extractor machine while Greel himself tries to get to his time cabinet. Guards enter the room, but Sin's animal nature take effect and he guns them down, thinking only to kill all humans.

Leela grabs a pistol dropped by one of the guards and empties it into the dragon statue's head, disabling the laser. Greel attempts to activate the time cabinet but the Doctor realizes that if he does so, it will be overpowered and destroy itself and the whole building. He attacks Greel and throws him into the life extractor machine which has been reactivated. His body crumbles to dust once the machine has finished it's cycle.

Mr. Sin emerges from the statue and attacks the Doctor with a knife. Leela, Jago and Litefoot help get him off the Doctor and the Doctor pulls a fuse from his back, deactivating him. The Doctor then destroys the time cabinet key.

With the gang destroyed, Jago and Litefoot prepare to go to the police to close the case. The Doctor and Leela leave in the TARDIS, Leela being very confused by Litefoot's explanation of the protocols of tea drinking.

Analysis

I highly enjoyed this story. If it wasn't for the racism angle, it would probably be regarded as one of the best stories in the canon and quite a few view it that way anyway. But the racism angle cannot be ignored so let's start with that caveat.

There are three forms of racism indulged in in this story: colloquial racism normal for the Victorian era, supplemental racism added by Robert Holmes when none was required and portrayal racism, mostly in the form of John Bennett's portrayal of Li H'sen Chang. The first form is fairly easy to dismiss. In fact, if you had a man like Henry Gordon Jago not calling the Chinese "Celestials" or other slightly derogatory terms, it would have felt out of place. As much as we might not like the history of racism, to endow characters of a particular time with modern sensibilities just strikes a false note. A good example of that is Mel Gibson's southern plantation owner who only uses free black labor in The Patriot. No one did this and such a man would have been ostracized by all his neighbors. It jut feels wrong even though it was made to make him more sympathetic to our sensibilities. So I don't have a problem with the small doses of the first type.

Indeed, Chang actually makes use of established racism to both make a point in suggesting that all Chinese look alike to the Doctor and then later puns on the term yellow as both a descriptor of East Asian people and cowards. Both of these are excellent moment both in terms of undercutting the norms of the day and providing character depth. I especially like Chang's rebuke of the Doctor in Episode One as in one phrase, it undercuts the Doctor's flippancy towards the racism of the day and also establishes that Chang is not on the same level as the henchmen he and Leela encountered earlier. Chang is established quickly as an intellect and a more worthy adversary for the Doctor.

The second type is where things start to get dicey. Nearly all of these are little asides and jokes made by the Doctor. Most of them are height jokes and all are delivered in a corny joke form. He does throw in a couple of harsh barbs, implying that savagery committed by Chinese is somehow more barbaric than that committed by Europeans. To give him a little credit, these harsher barbs are delivered to a character (Litefoot in both cases I believe) who would readily agree with him. But even in a jokey sense and through asides to sympathetic characters, this is a bit discomforting. The Fourth Doctor is flippant and often mildly offensive if you actually listen to what he says, but that does not excuse the degree to which Robert Holmes went in with these. Again, most are dismissive, especially as the Doctor delivers them in that bad joke fashion but even one clanger is enough to give you a bit of pause.

Then there is Li H'sen Chang himself. I'm very torn on this one myself. John Bennett is clearly giving it his all in this performance and he does very well both when he is in conspiring villain mode and playing coy for Jago and the other Victorians. There is poignancy in his performance, especially the scenes of his rejection by Greel and in his death where he comes to grips with being played by a false god. But, you cannot deny that it is an English actor in yellow face and with the Far Eastern stereotypical lisp. It's obviously not as bad as Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffanys, but it is still an obvious indulgence in stereotype. Especially when you have authentically East Asian actors playing all other Chinese roles.

All that being said, Bennett does well enough that you can forget about the yellow face as the performance goes on. This is especially true in later episodes where he loses the cool veneer and allows the emotions of fear and regret to seep through. By the time you see him wasting away, stoned on opium, it is very easy to see only the broken man and not the yellowed stereotype. That you can take moments to forget the makeup and see only the portrayal says a great deal about the quality of the acting.

Steering away from the racism angle, there is an awful lot to enjoy in this story. The Doctor is on point here. He has his typical flippancy but he also gets serious when the situation calls for it. He manages to avoid dipping into the anger that the Fourth Doctor can sometimes get in to as well. His relationship with Leela is also interesting to watch as he clearly displays a level of trust in her so far unseen and unfortunately not indulged in much afterwards.

This may be Leela's best story. Holmes clearly weaves a number of lines and elements from the character of Eliza Doolittle (My Fair Lady) into Leela's dialogue. Yet Leela does not lose her savage edge. She still fights back at every alternative and displays courage often not seen in male companions.

The first of my two personal favorite scenes of hers are when she picks up the side of meat and begins to eat it. Litefoot is taken aback but he is still so charmed by this naiveté that he does the same thing to another side of meat. In fact, the only time he corrects her manners is to use a napkin rather than wiping on the tablecloth (more of an evidence of how much he fears the wrath of his housekeeper). It is just endearing for both characters.

The second of my favorite Leela scenes is when she changes clothes following the giant rat attack. Litefoot gives her a dress and ushers her to another room to change. Up until now, Leela had been wearing an outfit fitting to her more athletic temperament. However, when she emerges in the dress, there is a softness introduced to her. That it impresses Litefoot is not surprising. However, it is the reaction of the Doctor that what make the scene. For the very first time, he is caught by the fact that his companion is attractive. It is subtle and the Doctor never moves or acts on it, but the fact that for the very first time in the series he is moved by the appearance of a companion is very enjoyable to watch. That it would devolve into the mess with Rose in the new series is regrettable but I thought it excellently played here.

The only downside with Leela was near the end when she is sneaking up on Greel. In all reality, Leela would have been able to bury that knife in his back from across the room and probably should have. She only snuck up on him and failed in her attack because the story couldn't end ten minutes sooner and the show needs at least one instance of the Doctor rescuing Leela rather than the other way around as is often the case. Even still, she probably should have been successful in slitting his throat, but again, the story needed ten more minutes and this is tea time drama, no matter how I might imagine it.

Another of the enjoyable aspects of this story are the characters of Jago and Litefoot. These characters became so popular that they even got their own Big Finish spinoff series as a detective duo. In this story, they each serve as Watson to the Doctor's Sherlock Holmes. What is more interesting is that each plays a different form of Watson.

Jago is the more stereotypical Watson as became well known through the Basil Rathbone movies. His Watson is more of the bumbling assistant, desperately trying to keep up with Holmes and generally viewed as comic relief. Litefoot on the other hand, is more of the original Doyle Watson that wasn't portrayed as such much until the Jeremy Brett version of Sherlock Holmes came about. In fact, the Edward Hardwicke version of Watson is strikingly similar to Litefoot in many ways. There is a calm reserve, much more quiet courage than seen in the standard Watson portrayal and a sharper mind than is often initially seen.

I've never listened to the Big Finish audios so I don't know how those typically go but two work well together in the last two episodes of this story. Litefoot takes the more Holmesian lead role with Jago falling in to the comedic sidekick role. That being said, it is Jago and not Litefoot who displays the courage to attract Sin's attention long enough for Leela to get the gun. So, unlike when they are paired with the Doctor, there is not a distinct Holmes-Watson comparison but more of two balancing forces both entertaining and intellectual.

I would be remiss if I didn't also discuss the atmosphere of this story. The costuming, set design and overall atmosphere of this story are about as perfect as you can get. There is night shooting on film, wonderful costuming, elaborate sets. It is as period as you can get with the BBC and that is saying something given the BBC's expertise in Victoriana. Of course, Philip Hinchcliffe broke the bank on this one and put his successor Graham Williams in a real hole. That explains some of the corner cutting seen in Season 15, to it's unfortunate detriment.

Overall, I'd say the good of this story way outweighs the bad. Despite the racism, I'd happily watch this one a second time around. It is paced well and quite exciting. It is only because of the racism that a moment's pause is even required. Still, I mark stories based on how I enjoy them and while the racism does give pause, I enjoyed the story, acting and style too much to be overly bothered by it.

Overall personal score: 5 out of 5