DOCTOR WHO REVIEW : VENGEANCE ON VAROS
Written By : Phillip Martin
Directed By : Ron Jones
Vengeance on Varos, was the third story to feature Colin Baker as the sixth doctor. It was about a nasty planet of narcissistic commissioners broadcasting, cheap, sadistic game shows on TV. The Doctor becomes involved in a game show where people are killed for the purposes of entertainment.
Varos, for me is Colin Baker's strongest story out of all the stories that he did as the Doctor on TV. Without a doubt. I say that because Varos is the most relatable to today's society. You got reality TV Shows on today like Gogglebox, Big Brother, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and Love Island. All of which are shows which are set up to see people in emotional pain and is portrayed in such a way that is a big drama and cheap entertainment, easy viewing yet weirdly addictive.
The writing is stronger, the acting is great from all members of the cast, it's a very dark story but it's also interesting. It's very rare that you watch a doctor who story that you get so sucked into it, you really can't wait to find out what's going to happen.
So by this time, Peter Davison had left, and Colin was just starting out, taking things as they go and holding things in its stride. The Twin Dilemma had not been as popular a story as it could have been with viewers and Attack of the Cybermen was and still is considered to be an okay story. Varos is one of few stories in the Colin Baker era which shows Colin off as the Doctor he should be. The Sixth Doctor era is a tricky one, because you have stories like Twin Dilemma, Timelash, Two Doctors, different verities of story telling that didn't seem to gell well with viewers tastes. Not to mention that the show had also entered a new forty five minute format, which we audiences of today have become accustomed and used to. It didn't work back in the eighties. It just didn't work and people didn't like it. It was great for the production team because it meant they had more time to develop. A four twenty five minute episode story, you have to build up from your starting point, move the story on a little bit and then start to build to the cliffhanger. A new format allows more story to develop better, and it also meant shorter episode structures. Four twenty five minute part stories, became two forty five minute part stories. It was better on the production side of view, on the receiving end it didn't work quite so well, because people at the time were used to the regular format.
There was a lot of change going on at the time, and not just from the the production point of view and in the character of the Doctor Who. The show was moving in a new direction under the wing of the producer John Nathan Turner and Script Editor Eric Saward. Eric Saward wanted to move the show back into the Gothic Horror days of 'Holmes and Hinchcliffe' whereas John owned the show, and wanted to make it his own, and it was very bold, and camp, and colourful. That being portrayed in the doctor's exuberant costume and overtly colourful title sequence at the beginning and end of every story.
As a story, you watch Varos not really knowing what's going on, and you watch it thinking "what the hell am I watching?" and then once you're in the mood of the story it really carries you along and you become more invested in the rather unpleasant things that happen to the main protagonists.
We have some great villains in this, from Nail Shaban as slimy Sil to Nicolas Chagrin as pantomime type villain Quilliam, who in my personal opinion has one of the best lines in the whole story.
One of the best performances for me, throughout is from Martin Jarvis who shines throughout as The Governor. He plays a man on the edge. He plays a broken man in a way, because he knows that he is doing is wrong and yet feels powerless by his superiors to do anything about it. It's a really edge of your seat performance.
Colin Baker shines as the Doctor. Vengeance on Varos is certainly one of his better stories and he did very well in maintaining an energetic yet slightly contained performance. One which is a little unusual but playful at the same time.
A noticeable thing is the heavy and graphic violence which happens, not just in this story but throughout season twenty two. In this particular story, you have the acid bath scene, where two men are thrown into a bath full of acid, poisonous vines, the possibility of a gruesome hanging, amongst other things, really quite volatile and horrible things happen in such a context. The things that these commissioners put people through for the purposes of entertainment is truly gruesome and horrible.
Set design and lighting is very interesting in the way that the director can make the same corridor look different just by adding a different colour of lighting or positioning the camera differently, a lot of the sets in Varos are used repeatedly, to make a corridor look different just by adding a different light or positioning the camera differently.
In a nutshell, Varos is a much stronger story than what fans give it credit for.
NEXT WEEK: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
