The verdict: Vervoid Terror
| Episode of the Doctor Who series | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| title | The verdict: Vervoid Terror | ||
| Original title | The Trial of a Time Lord: Terror of the Vervoids | ||
| Country of production | United Kingdom | ||
| original language | English | ||
| length | 4 × 25 minutes | ||
| classification | Season 23, episodes 9–12 648th - 651st episode overall ( list ) |
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| First broadcast | November 1, 1986 to November 22, 1986 on BBC One |
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| German-language first broadcast |
February 17, 1995 to February 22, 1995 on VOX |
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| Rod | |||
| Director | Chris Clough | ||
| script | Pip Baker and Jane Baker | ||
| production | John Nathan-Turner | ||
| music | Malcolm Clarke | ||
| occupation | |||
| chronology | |||
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Vervoid Terror (Terror of the Vervoids) is the third part of the 143rd story arc entitled The Judgment (The Trial of a Time Lord) of the British science fiction - television series Doctor Who . It consists of 4 episodes that aired from November 1st to November 22nd, 1986.
action
To prove his innocence, the Doctor, with the help of Gallifrey's Matrix, shows the High Court a record of a future experience of himself on the spacecraft Hyperion III.
In the TARDIS , the doctor and his companion Mel receive an emergency call from the spacecraft Hyperion III, which is just passing the TARDIS. When the two time travelers land on the ship, they are arrested by the security staff and taken to the captain of the ship Commodore Travers. He recognizes the doctor from a previous encounter and asks him to find out what he has lost on his ship. When it turns out that no distress signal was sent on behalf of the captain, the doctor offers to help find out who sent the signal. The Commodore agrees, the Doctor and Mel begin their examinations and discover that every passenger on the ship seems to have a secret.
During the investigations, crew members of the ship disappear again and again, and when the Commodore changes the course of the ship in order to get to Earth faster, the three Mogarians, a race of aliens with full body suits, which they protect from oxygen, which is toxic to them, begin to cross the to complain about changed course. This brings the ship too close to a black hole, which could destroy the ship. The Commodore appeases the three Morgians and asks them to trust him.
Some time later, one of the three Morgians collapses and the Doctor and the Commodore are surprised to find that it is a human investigator named Hallett, who appears to have been poisoned by someone on board. While the doctor tries to find out what Hallett was doing on the ship, Mel and Edwardes, a crew member, begin to examine the cargo on the space cruiser, and they discover strange cocoons of plants. As Edwardes approaches the cocoons, he sets off a trap and is electrocuted, which also activates the lamps in the hold and causes the cocoons to burst. Startled, Mel escapes and returns to the bridge of the ship to inform the doctor and the Commodore of the events.
When they return to the cargo hold together with the security staff, Edwarde's body and the contents of the cocoons have disappeared. As the doctor finds out, the cocoons are the property of the plant researcher Professor Lasky and he tries to confront her and her assistants. In the process, he discovers a strapped mutated woman in Lasky's laboratory who has been hidden behind a wall. The doctor and Mel learn from Lasky's assistant Doland that this is another assistant to the professor who came into contact with plant seeds during a gene experiment and thus mutated. Doland asks the doctor to keep her existence a secret when the professor tries to bring her to Earth to find a cure for her mutation.
At the same time, Bruchner, another assistant to Professor Lasky, takes control of the space cruiser and steers it directly into the black hole. Bruchner thinks it is the only way to save the earth. But before the Commodore and the Doctor can confront Bruchner, they notice that the ship's bridge is filled with toxic gas and that Bruchner is already dead. Rudge, the chief of security on board, asks the other two Morgians to go to the bridge of the ship and change course again, since the two Morgians are protected from the poisonous gas by their protective suits.
After the ship's course has been corrected, Rudge and the Morgians take control of the ship, as they want the valuable minerals stowed in the hold for their own purposes. When Mel tries to regain control of the ship with some crew members, they discover that the Morgians on the bridge have already been murdered, and when Rudge learns about this, he takes flight towards the cargo hold. But on the way to the hold, Rudge also disappears without a trace and the doctor tries to expose the murderer who is on board.
The doctor confronts Doland and, through a skillful diversion, is able to expose him as the murderer of Edwardes and Hallett. When he too tries to flee, he is attacked, killed and kidnapped by plant-like beings. The doctor has to watch this to his horror and finds out through Professor Lasky that the beings are vervoids, a plant life form that can only survive through water and light. It was Doland's plan to bring the Vervoid cocoons to earth and sell them to the highest bidder so that they could work as slaves. When the Vervoids find out, they begin attacking the ship's crew directly.
Professor Lasky tries to negotiate with the Vervoids, but they have no understanding, kill Lasky and swear to kill all people and take over the earth. The doctor is forced to wipe out the vervoids on the ship in order to save all humanity. With the help of Vionesium, one of the rare minerals, the doctor manages to poison all vervoids on board, which then perish and wither in a very short time. Commodore Travers thanks the doctor for the help and admits that without his help he would probably not have been able to save the ship and the earth.
Back in the courtroom, the presiding judge (in the original Inquisitor) asks whether all vervoids have been destroyed, and the doctor confirms this, because if only one leaf of a vervoid had reached the earth, it would have resulted in a new vervoid. The prosecutor relies on the doctor's testimony and is now accusing him of genocide .
production
Several scripts were written for this part of The Judgment and repeatedly discarded, including works by authors David Halliwell and Jack Trevor and Christopher H. Bidmead and Peter J. Hammond , creators of the science fiction series Sapphire & Steel . Hammond's script, Paradise 5, was very popular with then-script editor Eric Saward , but it was ultimately rejected by series producer John Nathan Turner and he hired the writing duo Pip and Jane Baker instead. The discarded script for Paradise 5 was later implemented by Big Finish Productions as part of their Lost Stories series.
Audience ratings
- The Trial of a Time Lord - Part 9: 5.2 million viewers
- The Trial of a Time Lord - Part 10: 4.6 million viewers
- The Trial of a Time Lord - Part 11: 5.3 million viewers
- The Trial of a Time Lord - Part 12: 5.2 million viewers
Cast and dubbing
The dubbing of the story was done by HW Film in Munich, directed by Hendrik Wiethase , who also wrote the dialogue book.
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| The (6th) doctor | Colin Baker | Michael Schwarzmaier |
| Melanie "Mel" Bush | Bonnie Langford | Michaela Amler |
| Prosecutor (Valeyard) | Michael Jayston | Fred Maire |
| Chairperson (Inquisitor) | Lynda Bellingham | Marion Hartmann |
| Professor Lasky | Honor Blackman | Eva Pflug |
| Commodore Travers | Michael Craig | Joachim Höppner |
| Rudge | Denys Hawthorne | Niels Clausnitzer |
| Janet | Yolande Palfrey | Ute Bronder |
| Doland | Malcolm Tierney | Holger Schwiers |
| Bruchner | David Allister | Hans-Georg Panczak |
| Grenville / Hallett | Tony Scoggo | Hendrik Wiethase |
| officer | Mike Mungarvan | |
| Guard # 1 | Hugh Beverton | |
| Guard # 2 | Martin Weedon | |
| Kimber | Arthur Hewlett | Bruno W. Pantel |
| Edwardes | Simon Slater | Gerhard Acktun |
| Atza | Sam Howard | Willy Schäfer |
| Vervoid # 1 | Peppi Borza | |
| Ortezo | Leon Davis | Christoph Lindert |
| Vervoid # 2 | Bob Appleby | |
| Mutant / Ruth Baxter | Barbara Ward | Michaela Amler |
publication
In England, a novel version of the story, written by Pip and Jane Baker, was published by Target Books in September 1987. The title Terror of the Vervoids was used for the 4 episodes . In 1993 it was released on VHS , along with the other 10 parts of the storyline, as The Trial of a Time Lord Box Set and on September 29, 2008 a DVD box of all 14 episodes followed under the same title.
In Germany, the 4 episodes were shown in German for the first time from February 17 to 22, 1995. The episodes were released on DVD on July 29, 2016 as part of the Doctor Who DVD set - The Sixth Doctor: Volume 3 . They received the title Vervoid Terror .
Trivia
- An early production title during the planning phase for the 4 episodes was The Vervoids (in German Die Vervoids ).
- How the doctor gets to his new companion Mel is never revealed within the series.
Web links
- Vervoid Terror on the official website of the BBC with Photonovel with Telesnaps to illustrate the episode
- Vervoid Terror - Detailed recap in the Doctor Who Reference Guide. (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/7c-1.html
- ↑ https://www.synchronkartei.de/serie/17557
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