I noticed for the first time here that Colin Baker has a couple of black cats sown into the inside of the yellow lapel of his coat. I was aware that Colin was a cat fan, as the cat badge the Doctor always wears was his own contribution to the costume. There are some great moments in the last few stories where the Doctor has rubbed the cat badge for luck.....I had to try really hard there not to make a "pussy" joke....yes I think I made the right decision not to. Anyway the black cats inside the coat are a count of how many adventures the sixth Doctor has been on with an extra cat added after every story..that's pretty cool. Also it seem that Colin may have had some precognition of how unfortunately short lived his stint as the Doctor would be. Where the hell would all the cat badges go once the lapels were complete??
Anyway I'm ignoring the story here and I don't know why because this one is awesome and I think definitely one of the strongest of the sixth Doctor era.
The Doctor visits Varos in order to obtain some minerals (Zeiton-7) that he needs to power the TARDIS. Varos is one of the only planets where this mineral can be obtained and as it is an important part of most craft then it is extremely valuable. However the people of Varos are living in poverty as they are unaware of the true value of Zeiton and are being taken advantage of by a creepy slug like alien called Sil who is purchasing the mineral from them at ridiculously low prices.
One thing I love about this story is that the world just seems so real. The history of the planet is rich and every time I see it I learn new things about Varos that I have failed to pick up on before.
Varos was previously a prison planet and now the inhabitants are living in poor conditions with their main entertainment being "reality TV" broadcast from the punishment dome where they can view tortures and executions.
The political system is also quite interesting. The Governor makes decisions for his people to vote on which they can do immediately via voting buttons in their homes. If his decision is agreed upon then that is fine. If they disagree however then he is blasted with a ray causing great pain, and after several bad decisions will eventually cause death. The idea being that a man afraid for his life will find a way out of the terrible predicaments that Varos finds itself in. Just this idea itself makes this story awesome. The Governor knows that there are no popular choices and therefore has to accept his fate that eventually his people will kill him.
There are just so many interesting things going on I could talk forever about this one. Unfortunately I'm still running behind with this blog so I must be moving on to the next one now!
No comments:
Post a Comment