DOCTOR WHO:  THE DEADLY ASSASSIN

commentary by Judy Harris

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	#14: THE DEADLY ASSASSIN (4 Parts)	ORIGINALLY AIRED: 10/30/76 to 11/20/76
	WRITTEN BY: Robert Holmes	DIRECTED BY: David Maloney
	PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe	SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes

THE DEADLY ASSASSIN is a very special DOCTOR WHO adventure in many ways. It is the first time the Doctor is without a companion. It is the first story ever introduced with a written narration (also spoken by Tom Baker). And it is the first story actually set on the Doctor's planet of origin, Gallifrey. Glimpses of Gallifrey showed up first in the last Patrick Troughton story THE WAR GAMES and in the Jon Pertwee story THE THREE DOCTORS, but the main action of these stories was set elsewhere.

THE DEADLY ASSASSIN is especially notable because it is written by script editor Robert Holmes, who contributed the most dimensional characters, the best plots and the most quotable dialogue to DOCTOR WHO. It is chock full of details of Time Lord lore and technology.

There is speculation among WHO fandom that this story is a dig at British politics, but it appears more a parody of the widespread corruption and media misuse in the American political system, with overtones of satire of the machinations, pomp and ceremony of the inner retinue of the Catholic Church.

The story is prefaced by the following prologue:

	"Through the millennia,
	the Time Lords of Gallifrey
	led a life of peace and ordered
	calm, protected against all
	threats from lesser civilisations
	by their great power.
	But this was to change.  Suddenly
	and terribly, the Time Lords
	faced the most dangerous
	crisis in their long history..."

The action begins immediately after the end of THE HAND OF FEAR, in which the Doctor had received a summons to the Panopticon on Gallifrey. The Panopticon is a large circular room in the Capitol, where Time Lord official ceremonies take place.

The Doctor, in the auxiliary control room, gets another telepathic vision in which someone in the Panopticon shoots the Time Lord President with a staser rifle. The Doctor collapses from the shock of this intrusion into his mind.

The TARDIS makes an unauthorized materialization in the Sector 7 Cloisters, right outside the Capitol itself. The Doctor knows he's in trouble now for transducting in an unauthorized zone.

He switches on his scanner and sees the Chancellery Guards. "What a welcome," he mutters. Hildred, the head of the Chancellery Guards, and his superior, Castellan Spandrell, approach and identify the Doctor's TARDIS as a type 40 TT, an obsolete model. "Twaddle! Take no notice, my dear old thing!," the Doctor bridles and pats the TARDIS console.

"The barrier on this model is a double curtain trimonic," Spandrell tells Hildred, "so you will need a cypher indent key to get in." Spandrell also tells Hildred to arrest the occupants and impound the TARDIS. The Doctor overhears it is Presidential Resignation Day.

Spandrell visits Coordinator Engin of the Records Section to find out the owner of the TARDIS. The computer tells him there were only 305 type 40 TTs ever registered; one is unaccounted for. Spandrell is referred to malfeasance tribunal order dated 309906.

This refers to the Patrick Troughton story THE WAR GAMES, in which the Time Lords finally catch up with the Doctor and, for interfering in the affairs of others and for stealing the TARDIS, they sentence him to a regeneration and to be permanently stuck on Earth.

The Doctor realizes he must get past the guards to warn the President. He writes a note in a Gallifreyan script which somewhat resembles Cyrillic. Then he turns down the lights and sets up a decoy to mislead the guards, using his coat and scarf on a chair with a hookah he picked up "Cash and Carry Constantinople."

The Guards find the correct set of keys to the TARDIS and get in; while they are aiming their weapons at the Doctor's coat, he sneaks out the door and presses for an elevator to the Communications Tower. When the elevator door opens, the Doctor comes face to face with a guard, who is shot by a hooded figure that leaves immediately.

The Doctor sends the elevator up, so the guards think he is in the tower. Then he doubles back to the TARDIS.

Spandrell researches the Doctor's tribunal transcript and discovers his sentence was banishment to Earth. "Sol Three in Mutters Spiral," Engin explains. The Doctor's sentence was remitted at the intercession of the CIA, the Celestial Intervention Agency.

This refers to the Jon Pertwee story THE THREE DOCTORS, in which the Time Lords contact the Doctor and suspend the Laws of Time to allow him to work with his two previous incarnations in order to defeat Omega, a renegade Time Lord who is draining Gallifrey of power with the use of antimatter. In gratitude, the Time Lords lifted the Doctor's banishment sentence.

Hildred reports the Doctor eluded him and gets a tongue lashing from Spandrell, who reads aloud the letter the Doctor wrote:

"To the Castellan of the Chancellery Guard - I've good reason to think the life of His Supremacy, the President, is in grave danger. Do not ignore this warning. - The Doctor"

The note is signed by the Doctor over the Prydonian seal. Engin supports the Doctor's right to use this seal. Based on the color coding of the Doctor's biog data extract (D-E), the Doctor was a member of the Prydonian chapter of Time Lords. This chapter has produced more presidents than all other Time Lord chapters put together.

Spandrell seeks permission from Chancellor Goth to withdraw 50 guards from the Panopticon to search for the Prydonian renegade.

A word here about the Time Lord costumes. They are robed in long gowns, accented with large gloves. On their heads are tight caps that come to a point in the middle of the forehead. On more formal occasions, the Time Lords wear high collars, reminiscent of Ming the Merciless in the old FLASH GORDON serials; and their robes are trimmed with their insignia. The outfits are color coordinated, depending on the Time Lord chapters:

	Prydonian - scarlet and orange
	Arcalian  - green
	Patrexes  - heliotrope

The Doctor returns to the TARDIS and calls up the local Public Register Video news program on his scanner. As the commentator drones on, speculating on who the President will name as his successor, the Doctor recognizes him as Runcible the fatuous.

Goth suggests Spandrell transduct the Doctor's TARDIS into the Capitol to get it out of the Cloisters. Spandrell tells Hildred to have it transducted to the Museum. The TARDIS disappears in pieces, totally unlike its normal dematerialization and then reappears also in pieces. "What a way to travel," the Doctor remarks, emerging from the TARDIS in the museum.

He finds the Gold Usher ceremonial gown on display and removes it, leaving his own coat and scarf. Then he sets off to penetrate the Panopticon. A meeting of two shadowy figures takes place beneath the Capitol. One is the Master. His appearance is right out of VAULT OF HORROR comics with bulging immobile eyes and skinless face and hands, beneath which you can see arteries and veins. His head is shiny with skull-like teeth. Even his cloak seems to be rotting off his body. His co-conspirator is a Time Lord who speaks in whispers to disguise his identity. They gloat that the Doctor is unknowingly acting according to their plans and will shortly die.

In the Time Lord robing room, the Doctor pretends to be an attendant and hands a Time Lord the Gold Usher gown he stole from the museum, which he switches for a Prydonian orange robe. Meantime on the gallery above the Panopticon, Runcible's camera technician is killed by the Master.

The Doctor reaches the Panopticon in his stolen robes and avoids the guards by chatting to Runcible, who asks if he's had a face lift. The Doctor replies, "Several, so far," referring to the fact that the role has been portrayed by progressively younger actors since William Hartnell first played it.

Runcible can't get a signal from his camera technician in the gallery above the Panopticon. The Doctor realizes this is the viewpoint of his vision and catches sight of a gun, so he rushes up there.

The President arrives, wearing the Sash of Rassilon and carrying the Rod of Rassilon. The Doctor, at the Public Register Video camera, picks up a staser and looks through the sights. He fires and the President falls down!

The guards seize the Doctor and knock him out. The President is dead. Goth insists the trial start immediately, but Spandrell needs time for his investigation. Goth claims a constitutional crisis because the President died without naming his successor; an election must be held within 48 hours.

The Doctor is stripped of his stolen Prydonian gown and appears for the rest of the story in red trousers, a blousy white shirt that ties with laces, and boots.

The Doctor is strung up by his wrists and tortured by Hildred. After hearing such tantalizing hints about the Time Lords for so long, it is very disappointing to find they practice such mundane barbarity.

The Doctor refuses to confess, calling Hildred Tweedle Dum and Spandrell Tweedle Dee. He notes they are filling the roles of the good cop/bad cop, or, as the Doctor puts it, "the hot and cold technique."

Spandrell tells the Doctor the vaporization chamber is being prepared for his execution; he has about 3 hours to live. The Doctor is incensed: "Vaporization without representation is against the constitution."

The Doctor tells Spandrell of his premonition of the President's death, received in the TARDIS while traveling in vortex after he heard the Panopticon summons.

Spandrell returns to the Records section with the Doctor's biog data extract. He feels it must have been in the reader recently because it contains no mica dust. Engin is sure no one removed the Doctor's D-E because the only operating code which shows up against the Doctor's archive is Engin's own. Engin assures Spandrell it would take a mathematical genius with a phenomenal grasp of applied exitonics to erase an access record.

Goth wishes to speed up the Doctor's trial and execution because it is the custom for incoming presidents to pardon political prisoners, and Goth feels he may be the next president. He doesn't want to have to deal with this dilemma. Borusa, the leader of the Prydonians and recently elected Cardinal reminds Goth it is by their decisions presidents are judged. No one seems to realize assassination is not merely a political crime. It is yet another disappointment to learn the Time Lords keep political prisoners.

At his hearing the Doctor sits and doodles, drawing caricatures of the Time Lords as they testify; it doesn't look good for him. Goth makes the mistake of asking the Doctor if he has anything to say before sentence is pronounced. The Doctor has: "Article 17." He offers himself as a candidate for the presidency.

Article 17 of the Gallifreyan Constitution is a guarantee of liberty and says, in part: "No candidate for office will in any way be debarred or restrained from presenting his claim." The Doctor and Goth are the only candidates.

The Doctor defends his claim as a legal right. Court is adjourned until the election is over. The Doctor now has 48 hours, which is better than 3. With this extra time, he hopes to convince Spandrell he didn't murder the President.

Beneath the Capitol, the Master tells the Time Lord he conspires with that, as he is at the end of his regeneration cycle (Time Lords can regenerate only 12 times), the only thing keeping him alive is hate. The Master must see the Doctor die in shame and dishonor and must destroy the Time Lords.

At the Panopticon, the Doctor shows Spandrell the staser he was holding when captured. The sights have been fixed so the Doctor couldn't hit either the President or the real assassin, at whom he was aiming. The Doctor locates evidence of where the staser fire actually hit in the Panopticon.

Spandrell sends Runcible to get a video disk of the assassination from the Public Register Video in the gallery above the Panopticon. Runcible opens the camera, screams and faints, while a shadowy figure steals most of the video disks.

In the camera cylinder, Runcible's technician has been miniaturized and killed. "Matter condensation," the Doctor tells Spandrell, a technique of the Master, a Time Lord and the Doctor's sworn arch enemy, "a fiend who glories in chaos and destruction." In future appearances of the Master, this trademark is called "tissue compression."

The Doctor tells Spandrell, "If the Master is here on Gallifrey, then this represents the final challenge. It explains why I was brought here. There are old scores to settle; and that's just a sort of greetings card."

Actually, the Master in this story is substantially unlike the Master who appeared in several Jon Pertwee stories. In the Pertwee era, most of the Master stories took place on Earth, and the Master was more or less a supercriminal who used hypnotism and disguises to carry out his various schemes. He was played by Roger Delgado, a friend of Jon Pertwee, and they had a rather civilized and almost friendly competition. When Delgado was killed in a crash, the character was retired. The Master is played in this story by Peter Pratt as a much more diabolical and unremittingly evil character.

Runcible has managed to retain the last sequence disk of the video. Spandrell asks him to take it to the Records Section. As Runcible departs, Spandrell warns the Doctor not to settle a private feud with the Master on Gallifrey. "It cannot be avoided," the Doctor insists, "Like it or not, Gallifrey is involved, and I'm afraid Gallifrey will never be quite the same again."

Back on the floor of the Panopticon, Runcible staggers in from the shadows and falls dead, a large knife in his back. Spandrell rants about the four deaths so far (the President, a guard, the camera technician and Runcible). "Flea biting, Spandrell, flea biting. Things will get a lot worse," the Doctor assures him, which might rouse some Time Lords from their lethargy: "They live for centuries and have about as much sense of adventure as dormice."

No record of any Time Lord with the title of the Master can be found in Engin's records. The Doctor tells Spandrell and Engin that anyone with a little criminal knowhow could erase a D-E: "I could do it myself;" the Doctor adds, "Exitonic circuitry is child's play to the Master." As for mathematics, the Master is "brilliant, absolutely brilliant; he's almost up to my standard."

The Doctor asks about a piece of equipment in the Records Section, and Engin tells him it's the APC Control--Amplified Panotropic Computations--trillions of electrochemical brain cells in a continuous matrix. "The cells are the repository of departed Time Lords. At the moment of death an electrical scan is made of their brain pattern and these millions of impulses are immediately transferred" to the APC Net. Its function is to monitor life in the Capitol. All this combined knowledge and experience is used to predict future developments.

The Doctor has figured out part of the Master's plan: "We Time Lords are telepathic; that's (the APC Net) simply a brain storage system." The Master "intercepted its forecast that the President was to be assassinated and beamed it into my mind." He reminds Spandrell and Engin his D-E had been scanned: "He'd need a biography print to beam a message accurately over that distance."

This telepathic ability of Time Lords appears to be another one-time power, similar to the isomorphic TARDIS controls and the temporal grace in the TARDIS, which never shows up again.

The Doctor speculates the Master was able to intercept a thought pattern within the matrix itself "by going in there and joining it" because "in a sense that's all a living mind is--electrochemical impulses."

The Doctor proposes going into the APC Net to discover where the Master intercepted the circuit. Engin feels it's too dangerous; the psychosomatic feedback might kill the Doctor. But it's better than being vaporized, so Spandrell and Engin agree to let him try.

Engin produces a bed which slides out from the wall. It somewhat resembles the STAR TREK diagnosis bunks in the Enterprise's sick bay. The Doctor lies down; his head is placed in contact with the equipment. This is the procedure dying Time Lords go through, although they're normally unconscious. Engin warns the Doctor there is some pain involved.

Engin turns on the connection and the Doctor's body arches in pain; the time tunnel effect from the opening credits is shown as the Doctor's mind leaves his body and enters the matrix.

It is in this matrix the second and major disappointment of THE DEADLY ASSASSIN occurs. All of the images of the reality projection in the matrix, which are controlled mainly by the Doctor's unknown adversary, are familiar Earth sights. There isn't anything in the whole matrix experience--which lasts the entire third part of the story, and for a little bit of parts two and four--which is any way alien.

That aside, the matrix experience appears very physical for Tom Baker, who seems to be doing most of his own climbing, falling and fighting stunts. The events in the matrix are a series of disconnected, vaguely threatening nonsense images, such as you would experience in a nightmare. All the matrix figures the Doctor encounters wear masks of one kind or another.

While the Doctor fights for his life in the matrix, Spandrell and Engin monitor his progress. At one point the Doctor's brain activity stops; when it starts up again shortly thereafter, Engin remarks the Doctor must have an unusually high level of artron energy. Later the Doctor's respiration rate increases as an adrenaline response; Engin notes there's a massive blood sugar demand.

From Tom Baker's autobiography, WHO ON EARTH IS TOM BAKER?"  "In THE DEADLY ASSASSIN there was a scene where I was being held under water and where I had to appear genuinely afraid of death.  It wasn't too hard for me to do this because I really am very afraid of water and I suppose this fear made me overdo the terror.  David Maloney said it was very powerful and this made me faintly ill at ease.  I didn't see the editing, and the broadcast came as I happened to be going through Preston on the way back from the DOCTOR WHO exhibit in Blackpool.  I was with [a BBC publicist] and talking to him about this episode and my anxiety about the water sequence.  [The publicist] suggested we watch it in the window of a TV shop.  We tried to but all that time ago in Preston the shop was either closing or the sets were turned to the other channel.  So the driver took us disappointedly off through some suburb or other and, as he slowed down on a corner, I saw a couple of kids' bikes in a garden and wondered if I dared invite myself into the house to see DOCTOR WHO.  [The publicist] encouraged me and stayed tactfully with the driver while I went to the back door of this house and knocked."  The father opens the door and sees Tom and simply said, "'Come in Doctor'.  And in I went."   Two little boys are watching the programme and they suddenly notice Tom.  "Their amazement was simply amazing!  They were utterly gobsmacked as the two images jostled in their heads.  They could not grasp how I could be in two places at once and then, to the delight of their dad, they couldn't believe Doctor Who was in their house.  What a wonderful hour or so it was."  Tom had no pictures or jellybabies with him, but he promised to send some to the children to prove he had been there.  The publicist called the local paper and a reporter was sent round to the house "and the children became famous and were believed.  It had to be true, it had been in the newspaper.  Oh boy, those were the days.  I was a hero in Preston and all over the world."

Toward the end of what is a 25-minute section of this story, but which is meant to be only 4 minutes of elapsed real time, Engin tells Spandrell the Doctor is on the point of collapse; he has no blood pressure, shallow respiration, high levels of carbon dioxide. But the Doctor has a slight advantage because his opponent is expending great energy just in maintaining the reality projection.

Below the Capital there is another APC control with another Time Lord hooked up, while the Master monitors his progress. When the Master determines it's not going well for his co-conspirator, he sends Solis--the Chancellor's personal guard, whom he has hypnotized--to the Records Section to disconnect the Doctor, which will kill him. In the nick of time, Spandrell prevents this, shooting Solis with a staser.

After a series of exhausting and painful encounters in the Matrix, during which the Doctor is shot in the leg and arm, he gets his opponent to reveal himself. It is Goth. The Master sees the Doctor is winning the mental battle, so he tries to trap the Doctor in the Matrix, sacrificing Goth. The circuits are blowing, but the Doctor returns to consciousness and tells Spandrell the murderer is Goth.

With the help of Engin and Spandrell, the Doctor traces the Master's APC link to an underground vault beneath the Capitol. They discover the Master's body and the dying Goth. Goth explains he assassinated the President because he wanted power. The retiring President made the mistake of telling Goth he was not his successor.

Goth met the Master on Tersurus; the Master was dying, no more regenerations were possible for him; and promised to share all his knowledge if Goth brought him to Gallifrey. Once there, he kept Goth under his mental dominance. Goth dies before he can reveal the Master's plan. "No answer to a straight question," the Doctor remarks bitterly, "typical politician."

Cardinal Borusa hushes up the affair, rewriting history to prevent scandal. "The story is not acceptable," he tells Spandrell and Engin, explaining how adjusting the truth will maintain public confidence in the Time Lords and their leadership. The story he decides on is that the Master assassinated the President, and Goth tracked him down and killed him, dying himself--a hero.

Borusa says the Doctor is free to leave, if he'll assist Engin in compiling a biog of the Master. "Only in mathematics will we find truth," the Doctor quotes, "Borusa used to say that during my time at the Academy, and now he's setting out to prove it."

The Doctor feels the Master must have had a plan which hinged on Goth becoming President--who is, after all, only an elected Time Lord who holds the symbols of office. These relics from the Old Time are the Sash of Rassilon and the Key.

The Doctor feels his hair curling, "and that means either it's going to rain, or else I'm on to something."

Engin tells the Doctor Rassilon is thought of as the Founder of Modern Time Lord Civilization, but in his own time--before the Time Lords turned aside from the "barren road of technology"--he was known mainly as an engineer and an architect.

Engin digs up a modern transgram of the Book of the Old Time, which states:

"And Rassilon journeyed into the black void with a great fleet. Within the void no light would shine and nothing of that outer nature continue in being except that which existed within the Sash of Rassilon. Now Rassilon found the Eye of Harmony, which balances all things that they may neither flux nor wither nor change their state in any measure; and he caused the Eye to be brought to the world of Gallifrey, wherein he sealed this beneficence with the Great Key. Then the people rejoiced."

Engin tells the Doctor the Sash of Rassilon is held by the President; while the Great Key is an epolite rod kept in a display case in the Panopticon. It is carried by the President on ceremonial occasions but its actual function is a complete mystery. (In the next story set on Gallifrey, THE INVASION OF TIME, the Great Key has a completely different explanation; and a third explanation crops up in THE TRIAL OF A TIME LORD.)

The Guards find a hypodermic needle beneath the Master's body. Hildred gives it to Spandrell, who shows it to the Doctor. The Doctor breaks it open and smells the contents, identifying it as Tricophenylaldehyde, a neural inhibitor. The Master is still alive!

The Master revives and uses his tissue compressor. The Doctor, Spandrell and Engin arrive too late to save Hildred. They confront the Master, who pulls a staser on them. The Master forces Engin to give him the Sash of Rassilon from the body of the President. He shoots Spandrell and the Doctor, but they are only stunned.

The Doctor and Spandrell revive. The Doctor tells Engin the Sash of Rassilon "is a technological masterpiece; it protects its wearer from being sucked into a parallel universe. All he needs now is the Great Key and he can regenerate himself and release a force that will obliterate this entire stellar system."

The Doctor figures out the Eye of Harmony is the nucleus of a black hole. "All the power of the Time Lords devolves from it." He tells Spandrell, "Rassilon stabilized all the elements of a black hole and set them in an eternally dynamic equation against the mass of the planet. If the Master interferes, it will be the end not only of this world but of a hundred other worlds too."

The Master steals the Rod from the Museum and places it in a special hole in the floor. A panel opens nearby and a black monolith rises; it is the Eye of Harmony. The Master starts to disconnect the Eye of Harmony, causing tremors throughout Gallifrey; plaster and debris rain down.

The Doctor, Engin and Spandrell are locked in a hundred feet below the Panopticon. The Doctor crawls up a service shaft, dodging falling bits of the Panopticon.

He emerges from the shaft right next to the Master, telling him, "You're releasing a force that nothing can stop." He momentarily causes the Master to doubt the Sash of Rassilon will protect him by saying it was damaged by staser fire during the President's assassination.

The Doctor pushes the Master away and starts to reconnect the Eye. The Doctor and the Master fight and the Master falls through a chasm that opens in the floor. The Doctor finishes reconnecting the Eye, and the tremors stop.

Later, Borusa wonders what to tell the people. "Well, you'll just have to adjust the truth again, Cardinal. What about subsidence owing to a plague of mice?" the Doctor remarks. Borusa bridles at the Doctor's sarcasm and reprimands him. The Doctor reverts to a reverent attitude, like a young schoolboy: "Yes, sir. You said that many times, sir. May I go, sir?"

Borusa relents and awards points to the Doctor: "Nine out of ten." The Doctor smiles: "Thank you, sir."

The Doctor says goodbye to Engin and Spandrell, mentioning he didn't actually see the Master fall. "There was a good deal of power coming out of that monolith, and the Sash would have helped him to convert it."

Actually, the Master was still wearing the Sash when he disappeared; its recovery is never shown, although it is back in Time Lord hands for the next Gallifreyan story, THE INVASION OF TIME.

The Doctor's TARDIS dematerializes. Then there is a sound of another TARDIS; a dusty grandfather clock disappears; it belongs to the Master. Spandrell tells Engin the Master is heading "out into the universe and, you know, I have a feeling it isn't big enough for the two of them."

Bernard Horsfall, who plays Chancellor Goth, also played a Time Lord in THE WAR GAMES and Gulliver in THE MIND ROBBER (both Troughton stories); and Taron in the Pertwee story PLANET OF THE DALEKS; he's a Royal Shakespeare Company member as well.

George Pravda, who plays Castellan Spandrell, played Denes in the Troughton story THE ENEMY OF THE WORLD and Jaeger in the Pertwee story THE MUTANTS. He died in 1986.

Erik Chitty, who plays Coordinator Engin, played Preslin in the Hartnell story THE MASSACRE.

Hugh Walters, who plays Commentator Runcible, played William Shakespeare in the Hartnell story THE CHASE and Vogel in the Colin Baker story REVELATION OF THE DALEKS.

Angus Mackay, who plays Borusa, plays the Headmaster in the Davison show MAWDRYN UNDEAD.

Michael Bilton, who plays a Time Lord, played Collins the butler in the Tom Baker story PYRAMIDS OF MARS and Toligny in the Hartnell story THE MASSACRE.

Peter Mayock, who plays Solis, played Namin in the Tom Baker story PYRAMIDS OF MARS.