A D V E N T U R E S
I N S P A C E
AND TIME
Courage isn't just a matter of not being frightened. It's being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway
Courage isn't just a matter of not being frightened. It's being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway
"I want to hear them scream till I'm deaf with pleasure..."Doctor Who in 1985 was a show at the top of its game, and Vengeance on Varos, Phillip Martin's brilliant satire of the '80s "video nasty" market, is surely the season's most original entry.
More than thirty years on, it's fascinating to note how episode one's cliffhanger (one of the show's best) anticipates the reality TV swamp we now find ourselves in.
The accusations of Varos being "too violent" (particularly the Doctor himself, with the acid bath scene being JNT haters go-to example) are red herrings. It's no more so than in 1963 or 1976.The show would be this clever, and this good, again, finding its form in the 1988/9 seasons. But after 1985 it wouldn't be the confident, "big swinging dick" it was in this vivid, thrilling year of adventures. Still high on the twentieth anniversary, Doctor Who was a show that was bigger and better than ever before - until sneering public schoolboy Michael Grade decided he didn't like it. And so, because he could, he cancelled it.
And of all the gifts Varos bequeathed us - Arak and Etta, Quillam, half-naked, beefcake bodyguards - the '80s best monster, Sil, is the most rewarding. Here he is.
Be sure to visit our friend Cathode Ray Tube for a detailed essay on Vengeance On Varos.
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About the quotation in the title.
"It all started out as a mild curiosity in a junkyard, and now it's turned out to be quite a spirit of adventure."
Doctor Who - The Sensorites (1964).
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