| Production Code: 6Q
First Transmitted
The Doctor - Peter Davison
Crew
Plot Outline from Wikipedia On the desert world of Sarn, robed natives worship the fire god Logar and follow the Chief Elder, Timanov, who demands obedience. Those who dissent are known as Unbelievers, and two of them, Amyand and Roskal, cause unrest when they claim to have ventured to the top of the sacred fire mountain but not found Logar. One of the Sarns, Malkon, is known as the Chosen One because of the unusual double triangle symbol burnt into his skin: he is also unusual for having been found as a baby on the slopes of the fire mountain. The same triangle symbol is found on a metal artefact uncovered in an archaeological dig in Lanzarote overseen by Professor Howard Foster. His step-daughter Peri Brown is bored with the dig and wants to go travelling in Morocco and when he seeks to prevent this she steals the strange artefact and tries to swim for freedom. Fortunately for her the TARDIS has landed nearby – responding to a distress call sent by the strange artefact - and Turlough sees her drowning and rescues her. Going through her possessions as she recovers he finds the artefact and acknowledges the same triangle symbol is burnt into his own flesh. The Doctor returns to the TARDIS after a stroll, and events make the ship dematerialise. It soon arrives on Sarn and the Doctor and Turlough set off to explore. The Doctor's other companion, the android Kamelion, has meanwhile made mental contact with its old controller, the Master, who turns it into a series of unstable images before Peri. Kamelion tries to warn Peri of the Master but the Time Lord asserts his control. She flees the TARDIS with the creature in pursuit as the rumblings of the volcanoes of Sarn gather ferocity. In the Sarn colony Timanov has damned the Unbelievers to be sacrificed to appease Logar and stop the tremors. They flee to a secret base in the mountains which is filled with seismological apparatus and which the Doctor and Turlough stumble across. The Doctor informs the Unbelievers that the tunnels which have been their refuge are volcanic vents which will soon fill with molten lava. It is also established that Turlough is of the same race as these people who, when they see his Misos Triangle, greet him as a second Chosen One. Turlough realises Malkon may be his brother and becomes even more worried when Peri turns up and mentions the Master. Another important figure in Sarn mythology is the Outsider, a promised prophet, and the Master/Kamelion fulfils this role admirably. He convinces Timanov of the appropriateness of harsh action and when the Doctor arrives with the Unbelievers they are all seized for burning. However, Malkon and Peri arrive shortly afterward and end this assault, though not before Malkon has been injured. Turlough is aghast when he finds his relative has been shot and the Doctor presses him for as much information as he has on the strange circumstances of Sarn. It seems it is a long abandoned Trion colony planet, and that Turlough, a Trion, suspects some of his family were sent here after a revolution against the hereditary leading clans of his homeworld. He supposes his father died in a crash but that Malkon survived, while he himself was sent in exile to Brendan School In England, overseen by a Trion agent masquerading as a solicitor in Chancery Lane. The Master/Kamelion has meanwhile seized Peri and uses her to transport a black box into the control room of his TARDIS. It contains a miniature Master – the real thing – who has been shrunken and transformed by a disastrous experiment with his Tissue Compression Eliminator. The Master thus re-established the psychic link with Kamelion to gain the power of movement and has manoeuvred the robot to Sarn so that he can take advantage of the restorative powers of the Numismaton gas within the fire mountain. Turlough realises the imminent volcano bursts will destroy the Sarn colony so nobly uses a functioning communication unit to get in touch with Trion and plead for a rescue ship to evacuate Sarn. In doing so he abandons his own freedom. When the ship later arrives, the Trions all depart, including Turlough and Malkon. They have both been pardoned in an amnesty issued by the new Sarn government. The only Trion to remain on the planet and face the erupting volcanoes is Timanov, now sure to die, his faith in tatters. The Doctor meanwhile succeeds in weakening the Master's hold of Kamelion, and interrupts the numismaton experiment. He adds calorific gas to the numismaton surge and seemingly burns the Master alive. The Doctor also puts the terminally wounded Kamelion out of its misery. He returns to the TARDIS with a heavy heart, but with a new companion, Peri, for company.
Analysis by Cuisle The Doctor is forced, twice, to act against his nature. He adds the ‘calorific gas’ to the restorative gas of Sarn, burning The Master alive, a rather gruesome end – though unlikely to be the FINAL end. And then he commits what amounts to euthanasia on Kamelion, whose electronic brain is so badly damaged by The Master that it needs putting out of its misery. But before the story reaches those dramatic decisions for The Doctor, we are treated to a beautifully visualised story of reason versus religion in the Sarn people, the truth about Turlough, and the introduction of Peri to the TARDIS, as well as more of The Master’s machinations. The location – beautiful. The early scenes of the harbour and street café establish the exotic tone. When the action moves to Sarn, filmed among the volcanic remnants that bring thousands of tourists to Lanzarote, it is only obviously the same place if you have actually BEEN one of those tourists or looked up the locations with Google Earth. Well worth the cost of travelling to that location to film. The Master in his little box, hoist by his own petard, was a treat to those of us who find him such a pain in the neck. We all enjoyed The Doctor’s moment of schadenfreude when he saw him. But even reduced in size he was able to be a real villain. The Kamelion-Master with Peri as his prisoner was an interesting series of sequences. Peri adapted to the situation very quickly and there was some very good interaction between them. Particularly memorable is her reaction to The Master’s usual ‘You will obey me’ – “I can shout just as loud as you.” Although he had her as his prisoner he never subdued her. Despite her opening shots being pure voyeurism as the camera focussed on her bikini line, Peri was proving more than just fluff to keep the men watching. The people of Sarn and their worship – or not – of Logar was the central part of the plot, though in the end perhaps not so important after all, once Logar has been explained by science – the image worshipped was a man in a space suit. The majority of the people are happy to abandon their religion and the planet when offered escape. Only Timanov remains, prepared to die for his belief. And he did so with such dignity and unshakeable faith that he came across as a martyr, not a fool. As for Turlough! At last we know the truth. His family were political exiles from Trion. His father died bringing his baby brother to Sarn. He had been sent to Earth under the guard of a Trion agent – the solicitor who had him placed at the boarding school. When he finds the transmitter and contacts Trion, he believes he is making a great sacrifice – his freedom for the lives of all the people of Sarn. Although acting as a self-confessed coward throughout his tenure as a companion of The Doctor, he shows his true, courageous, colours completely. If it seems a bit too convenient that Trion now has a new government and he and his brother are pardoned, who is going to deny him the happy ending, the return to his own world he yearned for? Some critics have panned this story. But really they have not seen it for what it is. A story of endings and beginnings. The end of The Master – well maybe not. The end of Sarn, and of the worship of Logar, the end of Turlough’s exile, and of Kamelion. The beginning of a new partnership in the TARDIS.
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