Full Circle

Spoilers

My review of the Doctor Who serial Full Circle is my 100th blog post. 😀

The story begins with the Doctor setting a course for Gallifrey with K9’s help. The Doctor tells K9 that he will be seeing his twin. Then he finds Romana in her room looking worried. She tells him that she doesn’t want to return to Gallifrey. The Doctor replies with “You can’t fight Timelords Romana.”

But they will never get to Gallifrey. Everything starts to get all fuzzy all of a sudden before they land on a planet that they assume to be Gallifrey. When the Doctor and Romana venture out however, they see that it is not Gallifrey. They find a river where beside it, people in mostly yellow, green or orange clothes are carving fruit.

The planet is known as Alzarius. It turns out to be in a parallel universe known as E-Space. The Doctor and Romana then find out that they got in via a Charged Vacuum Emboitment (CVE). They will have to find another one if they want to get back to N-Space.

The writer of this story was Andrew Smith from Scotland, with the original title being The Planet That Slept. When he wrote the story that we now know as Full Circle, Smith was 17 years old which I think is very ambitious. He is thought to have attended the location shoot at Black Park in Buckinghamshire, and was suffering from a virus, which lead to him vomiting on the costumes of the main monster in the story.

Full Circle was the first Doctor Who story that used the services of Peter Grimwade. He would go onto work on a few other Doctor Who serials afterwards, mostly as a writer, although he still directed some.

The Alzarians live between the river and a grounded spaceship known as the Starliner. They fear that Mistfall will be coming soon and so they are preparing to leave in the Starliner for safety. Of course, there are those that don’t share that opinion.

Andrew Smith wasn’t the only teenager that was involved in this story. A few teenage actors were hired to play a gang of rebels. The three most prominent are Varsh, Tylos and Keara. Tylos was played by Bernard Padden who is from the North of England. There was some scepticism over this as apparently aliens aren’t supposed to have Northern accents, but then all planets have a North. 😀 Varsh’s actor, Richard Willis, and Keara’s actress, June Page went on to get married.

Then we have the character of Adric who is Varsh’s younger brother, played by Matthew Waterhouse. This is his very first appearance in Doctor Who and therefore establishes his origins. Adric wants to join the rebels, but Varsh is reluctant. Adric shows them his badge for mathematical excellence, which the others don’t have. They do however show Adric their own badge made from crystals and rope, which they say has to be earned.

At the river, the natives become scared when they witness what Decider Draith calls “the coming of Mistfall.” They therefore gather their belongings and head for the Starliner. Draith then notices Adric attempting to steal river fruits which leads to him giving chase. When Draith catches up to Adric, they engage in a fight which leads to Draith falling into the mud before being swallowed up, and his last words to Adric are “Tell Dexeter we’ve come full circle.” This does become significant at the story’s climax.

Adric is horrified and flees in order to find help. He then finds the Tardis and enters, shockingly finding that it is bigger on the inside than the outside. He faints and the Doctor and Romana see to him. Adric has injured his knee and so they put a bandage on it. Adric also speaks of what is going on outside, so the Doctor and K9 venture out to investigate.

They lots of fog rising from the river, which K9 is unable to decode because they are in a different universe. Then bipedal frog-like creatures begin to emerge from the river. They are known as the Marshmen. I found them to be pretty impressive in terms of design, although maybe their mouths could have moved. The sets both on location and in studio are also well made, especially the Starliner.

Speaking of the Starliner, pretty much everyone is aboard, except for Draith and the outliers. Unaware of his death, Deciders Nefred and Garif decide to seal the Starliner, but Keara’s father Login is desperate for his daughter to be found. Login is then elected to be the third decider after taking the offer from Nefred. Incidentally, Nefred was played by James Bree who had previously played a Security Chief in The War Games and would go onto play the Keeper of the Matrix in The Trial of a Timelord.

In the Tardis, Adric shows Romana that his knee has healed, since Alzarians heal faster than the people of N-Space. One thing that should be noted is, this wasn’t Matthew Waterhouses’ first story to be produced. That was State of Decay, which was followed in production order by Meglos, and then Full Circle. It must have been interesting to have Tom Baker and Lalla Ward do a story with Matthew and then one on their own.

Adric returns to the outsiders cave and tells them about the Tardis. They don’t believe him at first, but he takes them there which leaves them astonished. All of the outsiders, apart from Adric, then proceed to take Romana hostage and commandeer the Tardis.

The Doctor meanwhile has been separated from K9 and meets a Marshchild that got left behind. It runs away when it sees the Doctor who then heads off to the Starliner. When he gets there, he leaves the door open and starts exploring, which allows the Marshchild to enter. This leads to them both being captured, the Doctor for questioning by the Deciders, and the Marshchild for experimenting.

Romana manages to regain control of the Tardis, just before it throws them around and they then open the doors to find that the Tardis has been carried by the Marshmen into the outsiders’ cave. The Marshmen then appear and K9 goes to fight them. Shockingly, one of them manages to behead K9! Good grief! Andrew Smith didn’t need to go that far.

Then some spiders begin to appear. Romana remarks that “they’re only spiders.” But they will soon prove to be more than that. The outsiders scramble into the Tardis, abandoning Romana. Adric tries to stop them, but he accidentally sets the Tardis to dematerialise.

Romana tries to get away from the Marshspiders, before proceeding to pick up a river fruit. Before she can throw it however, a Marshspider emerges from it and attacks Romana, causing her to faint.

On the Starliner, the Doctor is being questioned by the three Deciders, Login having become on of them. They find out that the Doctor is a scientist and so they allow him to see the Marshchild which is currently in the custody of the scientist Dexeter, who plans to operate on it.

Then the Tardis arrives, but the Doctor was expecting to see Romana, and instead finds the Outsiders. Whilst he and Adric go back for Romana and K9, Varsh, Tylos and Keara are questioned by the Deciders.

When the Doctor and Adric return to the cave, they find Romana sitting still with a blank expression on her face. She insists that she is fine and she boards the Tardis, bringing K9 with her. K9 does get fixed by the end which I was relieved about.

The Outsiders meanwhile are sentenced to carry out maintenance to the ship. Dexeter is preparing to perform a vivisection experiment on the Marshchild. The Doctor arrives and implores that Dexeter doesn’t carry the experiment out, but he does. This backfires and the Marshchild breaks free from the chair and strangles him, before punching the screen that shows the Deciders’ room when it sees the Doctor, and then it dies.

The Doctor criticises the Deciders’ handling of things. Nefred denies that he is at fault, despite being the main decider. He also keeps up the claim that the Starliner isn’t ready for take-off, but the Doctor shows him otherwise, telling Login that Nefred and Garif have been trying to pull the wool over his eyes. However, Nefred tells the Doctor that no-one knows how to pilot the Starliner.

A possessed Romana manages to let more Marshmen into the Starliner by opening a door in another part of the ship. They terrorise the Alzarians onboard the Starliner and even kill Tylos upon finding him.

The other Outsiders and the Doctor manage to fight them off before getting Romana into the laboratory. The Doctor studies the DNA of the Marshmen, and then reveals that the Alzarians, Marshmen and Marshspiders are all the same species and have therefore come full circle.

The Doctor then tries to develop a defence for them from the Marshmen. He struggles at first, but Romana is fully cured and able to help him. We even get to see Lalla Ward’s trademark smile when she first speaks after the cure has done it’s work.

Nefred meanwhile is dying. Before he does so, he manages to tell Garif and Login how what they need to do to get the Starliner going. Despite this, they still think they will need the Doctor’s help.

Adric and Varsh work together in driving the Marshmen off with fire extinguishers that expel oxygen, which in it’s pure form is toxic to the Marshmen, but not lethal. They succeed, but unfortunately Varsh gets dragged by one of the Marshmen and is killed. Adric is devastated to have lost his brother, especially as Varsh died against his own will, rather than self-sacrifice.

Luckily, the Marshmen leave the Starliner and so all is well in the end. The Doctor and Romana say their final goodbyes to the Alzarians, with the Doctor telling them that all they have to do is press a red button on the control panel to get the Starliner to take-off.

The Doctor and Romana return to the Tardis which they dematerialise from the Starliner. Then they notice via the scanner screen that the Starliner has taken off. It’s at that moment that they realise they need to find a way of returning to N-Spaces. Unbeknown to them, Adric has stowed away onboard.

Full Circle isn’t what I’d call an amazing Doctor Who story. But I liked it in most aspects, especially the plot and character moments.

It is the start of a trilogy of three tv stories that are set in E-Space, although Big Finish have given the Fourth Doctor, Romana and K9, as well as Adric more adventures there.

Stay tuned for my review of State of Decay.

Rating: 7/10

Take care WF92.