Doctor Who:
Meglos
By John Flanagan & Andrew
McCulloch
“Flies trapped in amber.
Not even the Doctor can escape a chronic hysteretic loop.”
Meglos wants the Dodecahedron
and he wants it in a really bad way. He
has intercepted a call from Tigella to The Doctor that there leader Zastor
needs his help to solve their power problems.
So Meglos puts the TARDIS in a chronic hysteretic loop trapping The
Doctor so he can take his place by posing as him.
Meglos succeeds for a
while as he does manage to steal the Dodecahedron and causing the people of
Tigella an immense crisis as they will only have 2 hours until their
underground city loses all power and cease to function to support life. When The Doctor and Romana do break free of
the timeloop they get to Tigella to late as Meglos has already stolen the Dodecahedron
and now The Doctor has been accused of stealing it. Lexa is not convinced of The Doctors
sincerity in claiming he was set up by a doppelganger and she thinks the gods
need to be appeased by sacrificing The Doctor.
A lot on The Doctor’s plate this time as he must stop Meglos from
creating an immense weapon of great power with the Dodecahedron.
Every once in a while you
come across a story that isn’t highly regarded or regarded at all and just enjoy
it a guilty pleasure to put it mildly. Well Meglos is just that for me. While season
18 had a lot of good and strong stories Meglos misses the mark and is
considered to be the worst of the season.
It is a story with lots of faults as it is just an ordinary monster of
the week story and this time the monster is a cactus. Yes only Doctor Who can make an alien Cactus
to be an evil doer and it actually works pretty well especially when Meglos takes
on human form.
You know what? I like
Meglos even though it is not the greatest of stories but after watching some of
the pitiful stories from last season Meglos looks like a masterpiece. I really enjoyed watching Tom Baker playing
the villain. It was actually pretty cool
watching him being Meglos and going around being all evil. It showed he could do more than being a silly
and maniacal person. Meglos gave Tom
Baker a chance to show off his acting muscles and it looked like for the most
part that he was enjoying himself.
Meglos had a feel of being
like a story from the later part of Robert Holmes reign. Not so much in a gothic way but more in the
dialog as there was some pretty good dialog in this story. It might just be me but I found some of the
dialog to be pretty witty at times.
Meglos also saw the return
of Jacqueline Hill who played Lexa in this story. Fans of the classic series will know her as
original companion Barbara Wright. She
was last seen in the show with 1965’s The Chase. She played the religious minded Lexa and was
really good in the role. It was good to
see the actress again as her portrayal of Barbara was one of the best and she
was indeed one of the best companions.
It was a bit strange seeing her in Doctor Who and not being Barbara.
So is Meglos the greatest
story? No, but it isn’t the worst story either but it is one that I like in a
guilty pleasure kind of way.
Grade B
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