The Visitation is perhaps of one of my favourite stories from Davison’s first series as the Doctor. After some different types of stories it was a return to basics for the show with a good old fashioned story. This story was written by Eric Saward who would be the show’s Script Editor from 1982 until midway through the 1986 series. It’s nice after a few stories of the Master, spaceships and spiritual stuff to get back to a pseudo-historical adventure where the Doctor is trying to get Tegan back to Heathrow but misses by about 300 years.
The story takes place at the exact time that the Terileptil’s have landed on earth. It’s quite a simple one where there are some aliens and they are trying to attack humans. The story manages to move at a good pace but for the second story running, Sarah Sutton is forced to stay in the TARDIS. True, its not as long or as silent as in ‘Kinda’ but I do feel that because she’s the smartest and the most normal out of the three companions that she has to spend a fairly big portion of the story putting some device together so that she can destroy the android.
The story benefits from some fine characters and actors playing them. For instance Michael Robbins who is sublime as Richard Mace. His lively and comical performance is one of two top outings in this story. He comes across as a likeable and more importantly believeable character who is initially reluctant to accept what the Doctor says. Another aspect which is good is the realisation of the Terileptil leader (as played by Michael Melia), it’s one of the most impressive monster designs since possibly the Cybermen and shows how far we’ve come since the bubble wrap wirrn in ‘The Ark in Space’.
After such a strong performance in ‘Kinda’ it was obvious that the writing wouldn’t allow Janet Fielding to repeat her performance in this story. That said she did do well but did ham it up when she was possed. Matthew Waterhouse was his usual self which isnt saying much but didn’t really contribute anything to the story. Davison’s performance is quite good and he has some good scenes especially with Mace.
It’s a sad but important story in the history of Doctor Who as after 14 years, the Sonic Screwdriver is written out. This was because JNT thought that the screwdriver was an easy way of getting the Doctor out of a situation. Well that argument works for K9 but I’m not so sure that it’s the case with the screwdriver. If it were that much of a burden then they could have just not used it. It’s almost as if JNT or the script editors didn’t trust the writers NOT to use it. It’s a sad moment but one that didn’t need to happen.
The end of episode four is perhaps a little bit cheeky. It seems to be a thing in Doctor Who to associate famous moments in history to the Doctor. The reason why the Marie Celeste was empty was linked to the Daleks in the 1965 adventure ‘The Chase’, now the 1666 Great Fire of London has been linked to the Doctor and the Terileptils. I question whether doing such a thing achieves anything relating to the story.
The Visitation is a sound story that has some fun moments and moves along at a solid pace. The crowded TARDIS issue is becoming just that and this does affect the story slightly but there is enough here to enjoy the Visitation for what it is and the Davison era is continuing in a solid way.
The story takes place at the exact time that the Terileptil’s have landed on earth. It’s quite a simple one where there are some aliens and they are trying to attack humans. The story manages to move at a good pace but for the second story running, Sarah Sutton is forced to stay in the TARDIS. True, its not as long or as silent as in ‘Kinda’ but I do feel that because she’s the smartest and the most normal out of the three companions that she has to spend a fairly big portion of the story putting some device together so that she can destroy the android.
The story benefits from some fine characters and actors playing them. For instance Michael Robbins who is sublime as Richard Mace. His lively and comical performance is one of two top outings in this story. He comes across as a likeable and more importantly believeable character who is initially reluctant to accept what the Doctor says. Another aspect which is good is the realisation of the Terileptil leader (as played by Michael Melia), it’s one of the most impressive monster designs since possibly the Cybermen and shows how far we’ve come since the bubble wrap wirrn in ‘The Ark in Space’.
After such a strong performance in ‘Kinda’ it was obvious that the writing wouldn’t allow Janet Fielding to repeat her performance in this story. That said she did do well but did ham it up when she was possed. Matthew Waterhouse was his usual self which isnt saying much but didn’t really contribute anything to the story. Davison’s performance is quite good and he has some good scenes especially with Mace.
It’s a sad but important story in the history of Doctor Who as after 14 years, the Sonic Screwdriver is written out. This was because JNT thought that the screwdriver was an easy way of getting the Doctor out of a situation. Well that argument works for K9 but I’m not so sure that it’s the case with the screwdriver. If it were that much of a burden then they could have just not used it. It’s almost as if JNT or the script editors didn’t trust the writers NOT to use it. It’s a sad moment but one that didn’t need to happen.
The end of episode four is perhaps a little bit cheeky. It seems to be a thing in Doctor Who to associate famous moments in history to the Doctor. The reason why the Marie Celeste was empty was linked to the Daleks in the 1965 adventure ‘The Chase’, now the 1666 Great Fire of London has been linked to the Doctor and the Terileptils. I question whether doing such a thing achieves anything relating to the story.
The Visitation is a sound story that has some fun moments and moves along at a solid pace. The crowded TARDIS issue is becoming just that and this does affect the story slightly but there is enough here to enjoy the Visitation for what it is and the Davison era is continuing in a solid way.
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