DVD Extras include:
- Audio commentary by actors Tom Baker (The Doctor)
and Bernard Horsfall (Goth)
and producer Philip Hinchcliffe.
- "The Matrix Revisited" making-of featurette (29 min.),
including director David Maloney
and designer Roger Murray-Leach.
- "The Gallifreyan Candidate" featurette (10 min.):
a look at the plot similarities in
Richard Condon's novel "The Manchurian Candidate"
- "Frighten Factor" Q&A panel featurette (16 min.)
- Pop-up Production Note Subtitles
- Photo Gallery (5 min.)
In-Depth Analysis Review
by Martin Izsak
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WARNING: This review contains "SPOILERS", and is intended for
those who have already seen the program. To avoid the spoilers,
read the Buyers' Guide version instead.
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At last the Hinchcliffe era settles in for a run of really good
stories. Robert Holmes easily tops the season with this 4-part
Gallifreyan gem, pushing to the forefront the format of tightly
written sci-fi mysteries, with which he and future Blake's 7 script editor
Chris Boucher will dominate the rest of the season.
Episode One is a complete masterpiece in itself, setting the scene
with a unique piece of opening narration and focusing squarely on
whether or not the Doctor will be able to prevent a high-profile
assassination in the midst of a highly populated Time Lord ceremony.
This main event forms a climax for the episode where all the various
aspects of production: drama, directing, music, etc. come together
to form one of the most perfect cliffhangers ever. A nice touch is
that it's not the Doctor's life that is at stake, or that of any other
regular companion character who you know will pull through one way or
another. The threat is on (despite his title) an unknown minor character
whom the writer can easily bump off if he so chooses. Thus an audience
seeing this for the first time can truly be kept guessing.
The Doctor, his TARDIS and the society of Gallifrey are all most
expertly introduced, with the police box making a solid normal
materialization at the beginning and an extra appearing act later on,
with the Doctor coming out and commenting "What a way to travel!"
Brilliant. The interior/exterior relationship comes across best through
the liberal use of the scanner screen, which is particularly well done
in this story. An establishing model shot of the Capitol and tower
complex might have been a nice extra touch, but the setting comes
across well from the dialogue between Castellan Spandrell and
Commander Hildred. Spandrell and Commentator Runcible end up fulfilling
the usual explain-the-plot function of the Doctor's companion, since
the Doctor is traveling alone in this story. They must do so in
particularly clever ways during this first episode, as the Doctor
necessarily has as little contact with anyone as possible. Director
David Maloney is in top form, in keeping all the Doctor's motivations
crystal clear all the way through.
The episode's only real drawback is that it has to make do with
the dark substandard secondary console room in the TARDIS instead of the
proper one. This was the first season fourteen story I ever saw, and I
was shocked and horrified to see that the white control room described
in the novelization was not used on tv. How many more stories would
suffer this room before the white one returned to rule? I had a most
sinking feeling about how something disappointing always seems to
happen on the Doctor Who screen where the novelisations carried through
perfectly.
Episode Two is full of investigation and intrigue, episode three
sustains itself through some of the sweatiest location material ever,
while episode four delivers a very dramatic, mythologically rich
conclusion to a wonderful story. The plot moves very well. The JFK-style
conspiracy in this story first unraveled in front of viewers at a time
before such things became popular
mainstream ways of thinking, and showcases the better side of Robert
Holmes' politically-themed writing. Episode One gives us the events,
then episode two gives us the aftermath and consequences, and answers
nearly all the questions raised while the events are still fresh in
the viewers' minds.
As if that wasn't enough, Keanu Reeves and the Wachowski Brothers
can eat their hearts out - Doctor Who did the Matrix 23 years earlier.
Where Neo takes an entire movie to figure out that he should deal with
the environment with his mind instead of his muscles, the Doctor figures
it out in his first ten minutes and quickly levels the field between
himself and his adversary.
And then there's Time Lord mythology, for which this has been the
defining story ever since it first came out. Did it really upset what
had gone before? Omega went out to a black hole, altered it for Time Lord
use (possibly sending it homeward), and got lost in it in the process.
Rassilon stayed closer to home, capturing and harnessing the black hole
on Gallifrey, and taking far more credit. It's silly to think either one
worked alone; there were probably untold assistants and specialists in
various fields involved as well. And it is perhaps the Doctor's experience
with Omega that allows him to figure out what Rassilon's Eye of Harmony is
when every other Time Lord dismisses the legends as meaningless stories.
George Pravda, often given stereotypical east-European roles,
is a surprising choice for the role of Castellan Spandrell at first,
but at the end of the day, it's a refreshing change from the otherwise
near-total Britishness of Time Lord society. And of his three roles
on Doctor Who, Pravda is at his best and most loved in this one.
He and Bernard Horsfall lead a superb guest cast, everyone giving
a solid portrayal. The Master's mask is quite limiting and not
altogether believable. The irony is that while Hinchcliffe wished
to bring back a villain from Doctor Who's past without going for a
bug-eyed monster, the re-working of the late Roger Delgado's Master
character has now made him into a bug-eyed monster. Peter Pratt
does a fine job in the role despite this, and Maloney keeps the Master
nicely shrouded in darkness wherever possible to maintain the best effect.
We get a very unique special effect for the weapons fire in this
story - obviously the script demands something other than a visual
beam that shows where and who it came from. The four-pointed star
effect on the target, complete with soft edges, movement, and the
ability to grow and shrink as the intensity of the blast climaxes
and fades away, is far better than the usual blobs we've had to
put up with in the previous two seasons, and it integrates perfectly
with the footage Maloney directs. The sound effect is good too, lots
of energy and dynamic harmonics, fading away with a good echo.
The music is excellent. Only it is a great pity that Dudley Simpson
was not allowed to re-use his Master music from season eight as logic would
normally dictate; that would have been the icing on the cake.
Another good point: Holmes finally allows the Doctor to undertake the
final climactic, heroic act of the story, instead of giving it away to
other characters as he has done so often in previous stories. Nice.
And for all the wrestling simplicity of the climax, the production is
surprisingly excellent at this point, putting more energy and
dramatic tension into it than I would have guessed at by merely reading
the script. Very well done.
"The Deadly Assassin" is a classic in the truest sense of the word.
An easy winner for the season.
This story is now on DVD and VHS video.
Oh yes.
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