The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon: Enlightenment

 ENLIGHTENMENT (Part One) 01/03/2023 

Wow! Why the hell couldn't the rest of this series have been as good as this? Fantastic lighting, brilliant sets, an amazing script c/o Barbara Clegg (is this seriously the first time the show has had a sole female scriptwriter? WTF have they been playing at???). It had atmosphere in droves, and at points felt wonderfully Sapphire And Steel. The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough were brilliantly written and, although I missed Nyssa during the first few minutes, I'm actually enjoying this dynamic.

The first few minutes in the TARDIS were beautifully lit as the power was drained, but somewhat poorly performed due to the presence of Cyril Luckham with his tedious, atmosphere-free repetition and Valentine Dyall's annoying appearance. I know that they're the driving mechanism for the story, but it all felt rather hamfisted compared to how wonderfully creepy the rest of the episode was. And I should have mentioned this before, but why the hell does the Black Guardian have a dead crow sat on his head? I'm guessing it's because it's a bird that's black, but everyone knows that Corvids are some of the smartest of creatures on the planet. Subsequently, the White Guardian has what appears to be a cross-eyed dove on his head which I can't decide as looking better or worse!

They've materialised on an Edwardian sailing yacht and the Doctor asked Tegan to stay in the TARDIS to receive the rest of the White Guardian's message after he and Turlough went and explored outside. Basically, the yacht is in space and the crew don't know that, but the Captaincy do. They also know who the Doctor and Tegan are, and one of them had some rather rapey scenes with the latter. Janet Fielding is acting her socks off! Her scenes on the yacht were really quite disturbing and I'm looking forward to seeing where this is going.

I know the BBC are renowned for their period drama, but this mashup of it with Science Fiction was incredible. It blew everything from Season 19 out of the water and literally gushed a waterfall of diarrhoea over the rest of Season 20 just to make sure we knew how shit it has been so far. I'm actually astounded, and a little angry, at how good this episode was (and I've not even mentioned the amazing score) because if the production team are capable of putting together as good an episode as we've seen this evening, what the fuck has stopped them over the last eight weeks?

ENLIGHTENMENT (Part Two) 02/03/2023 

Another brilliant episode. Barbara Clegg has written a fantastic script and the production values shine! Everyone is giving fantastic performances with the exception, I'm afraid, of Valentine Dyall who made one appearance today where he chewed at the gorgeous Edwardian scenery, cackled like a bad Panto villain, then exited. Peter Davison is relishing playing the Doctor's outrage and concern, and showing the Doctor piecing together the clues about the crew of the ship - they're Eternals; beings who exist outside time and are embarked upon a race through space using the planets of the Solar System as buoys and abducted mariners from various points in Earth's history to crew their ships. This episode saw them slingshot around Venus, during which a Greek vessel exploded (seemingly sabotage, but not by Captain Striker). The Eternals need Humans, or 'Ephemerals' as they call them, for their knowledge, technology and, primarily, entertainment. At the end of the race, which Striker (brilliantly played by Keith Barron as dead-eyed and matter-of-fact) intends to win, the prize is 'Enlightenment'; basically, the winner's heart's desire.

Elsewhere, Janet Fielding is getting some utterly brilliant writing for Tegan. Stalked by the massively creepy Marriner, she's been given a room which is a mashup of her room in the TARDIS and that back home in Brisbane. There were nice touches like her Black Orchid costume, stewardess uniform, wicker bucket chair, a stuffed toy, and a photo of poor Auntie Vanessa. It all served to underline the fact that the Eternals can read minds incredibly well and make what they see real.

Christopher Brown is doing an amazing job of making Marriner come across as an obsessive sociopath fixated on Tegan, and Janet is playing the discomfort of being in that situation perfectly. Both Tegan and Turlough requested to go back to the TARDIS (another brilliant way of expressing how unnerving this story's narrative is), but the Doctor's concern about his ship alerted Striker to its presence and he's made it disappear, which is a nice way of trapping the lead cast.

Speaking of which, Turlough's desire to leave was due to the Black Guardian trying to strangle him and telling him he would remain on Striker's ship for all eternity as a punishment for failing to kill the Doctor. Turlough clearly (still) doesn't want to do this and Mark Strickson is doing a great job of expressing the alien teenager's conflicting emotions, more so than even in his first story. Even smaller parts, like Tony Caunter's Jackson, are given memorable scenes and very naturalistic dialogue.

The episode ended with the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough going up on deck with Marriner, all wearing nicely designed spacesuits (just as a precaution as the void is kept out by an invisible forcefield) only for Turlough to be taunted by the Black Guardian's threats in his head and subsequently jump overboard.

This is, so far, an absolutely brilliant story with droves of Sapphire And Steel-type atmosphere and truly stunning production. If only the rest of this season had been this good! It really does show that when all the right elements fit perfectly together, this programme can be astoundingly good! I really hope the rest of the story remains on this level.

ENLIGHTENMENT (Part Three) 08/03/2023 

Still incredibly good this week. Turlough was rescued by Captain Wrack of the Buccaneer, Striker's main adversary, where it was made clear she's the one responsible for the destruction of the Greek vessel - this time another opponent had their ship destroyed during a meteor storm, actually blown apart by a concentration of energy sent to a crystal in the pommel of a sword she sent Captain Davey as a gift. It seems she's intent on offing Striker next!

Wrack is brilliantly played by Lynda Baron; a complete contrast to Striker and his crew, she seems to revel in the greed and lust for power of her no-doubt-pirate crew. Her sidekick is played by Leee John, the lead singer of rubbish Disco-Funk band Imagination, whose performance is equally scenery-chewing and decidedly bizarre. Wrack seems to think that Turlough chose to come to her ship - not sure how she reached that conclusion because he clearly leapt overboard and was floating helplessly in space when her ship drew up beside him and rescued him with a net. He seems willing to play along with her assumption, though, and said he wants to know what the source of her power is. This led to her taking him down to her power room, leaving him outside whilst she blew up Davey's ship.

Wrack then invited the rest of the Eternals to a reception on her ship - the Doctor, Tegan and Marriner went in Striker's place in order to retrieve Turlough. Tegan looked good in an Edwardian dress replete with fancy wig and tiara. On the Buccaneer, Turlough broke into the power room and was confronted by the Black Guardian when the room was locked and opened to space by one of the Eternal pirates; meanwhile, Wrack took Tegan off 'to meet someone' and hypnotised her, placing a focussing jewel in her tiara. This was pretty cool as it was made clear that the Doctor had earlier taken little notice of what she was wearing (much as he did with Nyssa's new outfit in Snakedance) and the gem doesn't stand out much against the wig. The Doctor swapped his now-wilting fake Castrovalvan celery for a presumably-just-as-fake celery from Wrack's buffet, before going to find and rescue Turlough. Leee John was waiting as they left the room, though, and held a dagger to the Doctor's throat - not again!

There was a nice little scene between Tegan and Marriner early on where she cleared her mind of thoughts, which Marriner seemed most upset about. And the final scene where Wrack spoke to camera was a bit weird but somehow didn't feel out of place.

Overall, this is turning out to be a brilliantly written, stylishly directed and wonderfully designed story, full of atmosphere and with a gorgeous score. It's a clever mix of Science Fiction with recognisable historical elements which has always been a winning combination. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's episode. Here's hoping they don't drop the ball at the final hurdle!

ENLIGHTENMENT (Part Four) 09/03/2023 

Well, that was absolutely brilliant! By far the best story of this season and, I think, the best Fifth Doctor story so far. Kinda and The Visitation were incredible last season, as were the rest, but didn't quite match this story in terms of production quality, tone, script, design and performances. Likewise, the closest contenders this year were Snakedance and Terminus but, whilst the scripts were both excellent, they had issues with production and direction. Everything fell into place here. The script was fantastic - they really need to get Barbara Clegg back asap as she really knows how to give depth to the characters she's writing for. The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough all had their parts to play, be it in narrative or social commentary. Fuck it! They just really need to get more women writers involved in the series! The last was Leslie Scott in 1966 and, as far as I'm aware, she was only included as co-writer by request of her husband (who was commissioned to write The Ark). Regardless, given the series was originally brought to life by a female producer and a gay Indian director, the creatives over the last 18 years have been shockingly uniform in their White masculinity.

But enough ranting. This was brilliant... no, that's just not good enough a word. The pacing was perfect, the tone was spot on, the music stunning. Mark Strickson really brought Turlough to life after an iffy debut and a second outing crawling through service ducts. His scenes with Lynda Baron were wonderful and it was entirely right that the conclusion should focus on him and his choice to give the Black Guardian the 'prize' of Enlightenment or keep it and give the Black Guardian the Doctor. I wish Valentine Dyall had (ahem) dialled it down a bit, but his appearance at the end with Cyril Luckham's White Guardian was very nicely presented (and very much at odds with the camp of the previous serials) and I really hope we do get a third and final match between the Doctor and the Black Guardian at some point, but maybe in a bit more than four years time.

That bloke from Imagination continued to drool his lines as if her were trying to impersonate Fenella Fielding channelling Eartha Kitt after way too many hits of Nitrous Oxide. On the other hand, Christopher Brown was wonderful as Marriner. The scene where Tegan returned to the reception and he expressed his concern about her absence and confessed to her that without her he was nothing was nothing short of stunning:

"Love? What is love? I want existence!"

When the White Guardian banished the Eternals back to the void from which they came and Marriner pleaded with Tegan to help him it was almost quite sad! As technology becomes more sophisticated and the series becomes ever-longer lived I find these more complex and emotionally deep stories far more interesting than the runarounds that the show has given us in the past. Just compare this to Arc Of Infinity, which should have been a landmark start to the 20th Anniversary Season. In Arc... we had a tawdry selection of stereotypes, most incredibly bland and one dimensional, the Doctor and Nyssa not exactly at the forefront of the narrative (well, Nyssa got some good bits but the Doctor was pretty blandly written from start to finish) and a horribly convoluted return for Tegan. Narratively, it failed horribly, the Direction was bland and shockingly unimaginative given they were filming in fucking Amsterdam and the conclusion was massively unsatisfactory. In contrast, Enlightenment brought back both the Black and White Guardians (arguably) better than ever before, gave us stunning visuals, sets and camera work despite being studio-bound, and made you actually give a shit about a character who was literally a one dimensional being which fed off mortals' emotions in order to exist! This is the kind of stuff which makes Doctor Who great, even when the visuals don't quite match, and so when everything works so incredibly well as we've seen in the last two weeks it verifies why this is one of the most brilliant, intellectual, socially relevant TV shows that has ever been made. It can be anything and everything, and when it pulls its finger out its arse and presents us with socio-political commentary alongside an entertaining narrative, that's when it's at its best!