| MISSION TO MAGNUS by Philip Martin |
| Story ? Synopsis: The TARDIS is drawn off course by another Time Lord, Anzor, who used to bully the Doctor. He materialises on the nearby planet Magnus, and the Doctor finds a way to follow. The rulers of Magnus are a matriarchy who have applied to the Time Lords so they can use time technology to thwart their local enemies on Salvak. Anzor refuses, so they freeze him. The Doctor is captured, and manages to dispose of Anzor in a trap. The Sisterhood still want the secrets of time. The Doctor is not impressed to see his old enemy Sil is doing business with their leader, Rana Zandusia. Peri makes friends with a rebellious male called Vion, and helps him escape from a death sentence. The Doctor, Peri and Vion make for the frozen north, where they find a group of Ice Warriors, who have nuclear bombs primed to explode. They help free some prisoners who have come from Salvak. The Doctor is unable to prevent detonation, and Magnus is torn from its orbit. Together with the Salvakians, the Doctor tries to convince Zandusia that the Ice Warriors are the real threat. Sil had planned a business venture with the Ice Warriors, but their leader, Vedikael, is no longer interested. By setting off bombs to knock the planet back towards its previous state, the Doctor is able to thwart the Ice Warriors. The Sisters find their dominance over males no longer stands, and the Salvak leader, Ishka, sets his heart on a marital allegiance with Zandusia. Sil considers his options, and the Doctor and Peri leave them all to it. |
| Review:- This story was another from the "lost" Season 23, like The Nightmare Fair, which would have comprised the stories following on from Revelation Of The Daleks. It's a sequel of sorts to Martin's earlier Vengeance On Varos, with the return of Sil, and also contains a return for the Ice Warriors, last seen in 1974's The Monster Of Peladon. To provide some colour, there are also the matrons of Magnus, the suitors of Salvak, and bullying Time Lord, Anzor. On this evidence, it's lucky this story never got made. Things start badly with Anzor. Presumably some guest star would have been lined up for this role, but there's no depth to it. He mysteriously holds a nebulous hold over the Doctor, which the latter slowly overcomes, and is then tricked into leaving anyway. His presence on Time Lord business is diminished when the Magnusian women explain their idea - they appeal for the chance to go back into the history of their planetary rivals, Salvak, to get rid of them. Presumably this is just a bluff to lure a Time Lord to Magnus to get the secret of time travel... isn't it? Because it's an incredibly rotten idea otherwise. It saddles the story with a rather unnecessary plot about time travel, and the rather sexist rule of Zandusia and her ilk is painted in very broad strokes. An audience would assume the Salvakians to be really monstrous to merit this sort of hostility... presumably. Whilst the Doctor parlays with the powerful, Peri panders to young rebellious men who are under the thumb. Peri boldly plays rescuer to Vion, and then it's all off to the north for the 2nd half of the story, where the Ice Warriors turn up. It says something for this story that the arrival of the theoretical bad guys elicits cheers. Their plan is pretty simple, too - to blow the planet out of its present orbit to make it a new home for them. Surprisingly, they succeed, and rather than allow the Salvakians and Magnusians to unite against their common enemy, the Doctor explodes some more bombs to splat the Ice Warriors and knock the orbit back. But! Now the surface is no longer so inhospitable to males. Happy ending? Apparently not, because the Magnusian women still want to attack Salvak, and the Salvakian men think that a marital alliance is a better idea. In the midst of all this is Sil, who gets stuck with the Magnusian when they trap themselves in the TARDIS, a device which cunningly keeps them out of the plot for a long while, whilst not revealing his plan to sell woollens to the Martians (though this idea is left opaque). He is last seen planning to exploit the financial opportunity that the possible ending of Salvak-Magnus hostilities will provide. You'd think he was more an Arthur Daley/Del Boy rogue than he seemed in his last appearance. Peri fairs fairly well, treated with respect by the Doctor, and able to help the downtrodden Vion. The Doctor, too, does well, after his initial cringeworthy reaction to Anzor. He shows little fear to the Magnusians, and has no qualms at risking his life to stop the Ice Warriors. It's the end that's odd. The Ice Warriors beaten, our heroes just nick off in the TARDIS, leaving probable chaos behind them. And that chaos does not suggest any welcome result of the preceding 'battle of the sexes'. Were viewers cheated of a classic when this didn't get made? No. |
| Disclaimer: I have a copy. |