Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...
Day 608: Arc of Infinity, Episode One
Dear diary,
Those of you who’ve been following The 50 Year Diary may remember our first proper trip to Gallifrey in The Deadly Assassin (Hush, I know, but The War Games keeps us pretty confined), in which I said I rather liked the design of the Citadel, but that it wasn’t the way that I imagined Gallifrey to be. It wasn’t grand enough, not majestic enough, and it was really very green. That said, though, I’d take the Tom Baker era version of the planet any day, because I really hate Peter Davison era Gallifrey. It puts in two appearances - in both this story and The Five Doctors, and in both it feels completely wrong to me. Here, for example, there are sofas dotted around in the corridors, and random examples of modern art taking up space for no apparent reason (the same could be said of lots of art, but still). If I didn’t think the Gallifrey of The Deadly Assassin was impressive enough, you can imagine how I feel about this version.
Anyway, enough about that. I told myself to get the complaint out of the way right away so that I can just settle in and enjoy the rest of the story. Arc of Infinity is another one of those tales that doesn’t fare all that well with reputation. That said, it’s certainly a bold way to open a new season. For a start, we’re in Amsterdam! People tend to mock John Nathan-Turner’s insistence on going abroad to film the programme (the man was, after all, the driving force behind all of the classic run’s overseas excursions, even City of Death), but it gives us a really different atmosphere once the location shots appear. It helps to make the show feel like it’s playing on a bigger canvas than mocking up an alien world in TV Centre can, and picking a popular tourist destination just helps to bring it all home for British viewers.
It’s a shame, then, that we spend our time in Amsterdam today with some truly atrocious actors. I’d more or less managed to block this pair from my mind, but the second we get their first line - ‘oh, no. A policeman’ - it all came thundering back. I try not to be too critical of people in Doctor Who is I can help it, but I’m sorry to say that this is one of the worst performances that we’ve ever had in the series. I’m hoping it gets better as it goes along (I’m not sure I’ve ever made it to the end of the story to check before!).
It’s also one of those stories in which the Doctor and his companion spend a large amount of time stuck inside the TARDIS - almost as though we’re back in Season Eighteen again. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing (though it may be nice to get the pair involved in the action a little swifter at the start of the new year), and I’m surprised just how well Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton are working together here. Truth be told, I often felt that she was the weakest of the three companions during the last season, so I’m glad that I’ve taken to her a little more here. Maybe having room to breathe away from the others allows a bit more of the character to come out, and a chance for Sutton to really flex her acting skills?
