The Trial of a Time Lord II

[jedichad]

Confession time: "Mind Warp" is brilliant. I never thought I'd say those words, but the DVD has made me a convert. Now, admittedly, loathing was slung at this story from my direction. However, the passage of time has made me view it in a whole new light. I'm not saying it's perfect by any means. Only I was truly amazed by how much I enjoyed it

Comments

[nwhyte]

Agreed on all points, except that I think the trial scenes nearly work here, and are much better than in the other stories of the season.

[scarfman]

Other than that, the only thing I found marring the production was the Doctor's unexplained change of character. What a revelation the commentary turned out to be! Now it all makes sense. Eric Saward needed his hands smacked for not communicating this fact to Colin Baker and director Ron Jones.
What fact?
What an absolute shame they had to go and retcon the whole thing at the end of the trial.
That depends on taking the Master as a more reliable source than the Valeyard. Which isn't necessarily wrong - the Valeyard's possible motivations for falsely reporting Peri dead are a lot more obvious than the Master's possible motivations for falsely reporting Peri married. Now you're discussing the out-text perspective rather than the in-text perspective here, and your point is a good one. But Peri is one of my favorite companions too and, like the issue of the Doctor's name I mentioned earlier, the issue of Peri's death is one I react to reflexively: there's wiggle room there, for fanfiction or even the show itself to go back and do

[jedichad]

>> What fact?

That Dr. Crozier's mind transference device still held remnants of Yrcanos' warlike nature when it was used on the Doctor... hence his change in character.

[jedichad]

>> and the hideous love-heart retconning of Peri's 'death'

Ugh! Dude, that's like the gayest thing in Doctor Who ever.