Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 597: The Visitation, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Is it just me, or is Adric really getting the short straw today? The Doctor is treating him horribly throughout and it’s almost a little bit off putting. Adric said the other day that he didn’t think Tegan liked him very much - I have a feeling that it’s the Doctor he should be worrying about!

I’m somewhat disheartened that today’s episode sees the start of something that becomes a bit of a trend during the Peter Davison era of Doctor Who: guest characters getting to look around the TARDIS. It’s almost something of a running joke between a friend and me that it’s the default solution to the Doctor’s problems in this period of the programme once the Sonic Screwdriver has appeared. At least in today’s instance it’s a character who’s filled a large part of the narrative. It’s really in the next story that it starts to get a bit silly.

But we’re also starting to see a bit of a mockery about the way the TARDIS can work. Three times now, we’ve seen the Doctor aiming to get Tegan back to Heathrow in time for her first shift and failing in some way. Only last season the Doctor went on about just how difficult it is to control the TARDIS on short hops. And yet here, Adric is able to manoeuvre the ship into the drawing room of the manor house (mere feet from the Doctor) with interference caused only by Nyssa’s recent attack on an android, and then the Doctor is able to take the ship all the way to London and appear right outside the bakery in which the aliens have hidden!

Now, it could be (and I think this may be my theory for it) that the TARDIS is going out of its way to make sure that these short trips are working out so well because as soon as they touch down in 1666 the Doctor’s place in the flow of history is set in stone. Now that he’s here, he has to be the cause for the Great Fire of London, and thus time is ensuring that the TARDIS can work properly for a short while (could it even be the Time Lords manipulating it?). It’s in this final sequence that we come to one of the things that everybody knows about The Visitation, and that’s the Doctor dropping his flaming torch and setting the place ablaze. He’s getting quite the reputation for this, what with the fire of Rome, too…!

Overall, The Visitation has been something of a mixed bag for me, and I’m coming away from it now really knowing what I think. On the one hand, I’ve enjoyed a lot of the dialogue (particularly anything to have come from Richard Mace’s mouth), been impressed with the Terileptil costumes (another one of those instances where I’m surprised they spent the money on three when only one ever features prominently - making me even more surprised that they weren’t used again), and it’s been a visually nice tale. On the other hand, I’ve been bored during segments of the story, and I’ve got those few issues with it as discussed above. I think this may be another one to add to that list of ‘needing a re-watch once the marathon is over’ to see if it improves at all next time around. I certainly hope so - it’s a story that I’d really like to enjoy more!