|
 All good things must come to an end, or so the cliche goes. The Talons of Weng-Chiang marks not one, but two endings. It is the end of the superlative Season 14, of course; but it also, and far more critically, marks the end of the popular Hinchcliffe/Holmes era of Doctor Who.
For his final story as producer, Philip Hinchcliffe called on his best writer--story editor Robert Holmes--and his best director--David Maloney--who had also collaborated to superb effect in The Deadly Assassin. But this time, Holmes and Maloney were not breaking formulas. This time,they were using them. The resulting story encapsulates everything that made the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era what it was.
THE GOOD
In my review of The Robots of Death, I expressed disappointment at Tom Baker’s weak and disinterested performance. Well, maybe he was saving all his energy for this story, because Baker is absolutely flawless here. From the moment he steps out of the TARDIS in Episode One to the moment he returns to it at the end of Episode Six, he gives nothing but his best to every scene.
It probably helps that the setting is so perfectly suited to his Doctor. Caught in the midst of a deadly mystery centered around a theatre in Victorian London, Baker’s Doctor gets the chance to play Sherlock Holmes against a beautifully-realized backdrop that borrows elements of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Fu Manchu, and blends them into something distinctly Doctor Who.
The period production is exceptional. The atmosphere is so lustrously rich and thick, when you inhale you can almost smell the streets of Victorian London. As with the best stories, it’s the details that really sell it. The rough, Cockney accents, consistent among all the characters living or working around the theatre. The filthy old hag, cackling in grotesque glee as she shows the police the body floating in the Thames. The casual racism the police and even the likeable coroner, Dr. Lightfoot, display toward the Chinese throughout the serial. Some of it may have drawn ire from critics of its day, but it all adds up to a feeling of authenticity. From the characters’ clothes, to their attitudes, to their speech and their slang, there is nothing that ever peeks through to make us question that we are watching real people, in the London of that age.
Nor do the guest performances let the production down. Much has been written of the scheming, cowardly, yet oddly amiable Henry Jago (brought deftly to life by Christopher Benjamin). And Trevor Baxter’s Lightfoot makes almost as enjoyable a Henry Higgins to Leela’s Eliza Doolittle as he does a Watson to Tom Baker’s Holmes.
But most memorable of all is John Bennett, who is purely magnificent as the silkily sinister Li H'sen Chang. Bennett is riveting every instant he is on screen, whether he is performing his (convincingly spellbinding) magic act on stage, or whether he is smoking an opium pipe on his deathbed while railing against the betrayals that led him there. Sinister, despicable, and ultimately tragic, Bennett’s Chang is one of the genuinely great one-off villains of the entire series.
THE BAD
So magnificent is Bennett’s Chang, in fact, that it is a shame Chang is not the principle villain of this particular piece. The Talons of Weng-Chiang is indeed a summing-up of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era, the bad as well as the good. Sadly, that includes a tendency to feature a supporting “hench-villain” who is far more interesting than the actual villain turns out to be.
Like Solon was to Morbius, like Harrison Chase was to The Krynoids, that is what Li H'sen Chang is to Magnus Greel, the ranting madman from the future who passes himself off as “Weng-Chiang.” Chang is a magnetic presence. He is sinister, multi-layered, and endlessly fascinating. Greel is another bloody ranting madman, from an era of the show that had seen a few too many ranting madmen already. Once Greel takes over centerstage from Chang, the story becomes (in this reviewer’s opinion) far less absorbing. It stops seeming like a darkly magical Chinese puzzle box, and starts seeming more like a typical Doctor Who story.
Which isn’t to say that the story stops being entertaining. Greel’s backstory is nicely integrated into the serial, neatly avoiding “info-dump” scenes that might have ground the pace to a halt. But the final two episodes (centering around Greel) simply don’t have the same “pull” to them that the first four episodes (centered around Chang) possessed.
There are other minor complaints, of course. The giant rat looks like a badly put-together stuffed animal, and scenes where it is meant to be threatening end up being hilarious. Never have genetic mutations looked so cuddly! But to complain about poor special effects in a Doctor Who story is to miss the point. And the giant rat is not so prominently featured as to harm the story, in any case (of course, I liked Invasion of the Dinosaurs, so what do I know?).
None of these complaints severely harm this mesmerizing tale. The all-around excellence of this production proves yet again that Doctor Who tends to be at its best in historical settings. And the final collaboration of Philip Hinchcliffe, Robert Holmes, and director David Maloney results in a tale that is not only the finest story of a very fine season; it is a fitting valedictory address for a period that many fans consider the show’s “golden age.”
Rating: 
» Review by J. Paul Halt, Copyright 2003.
|
Something strange is going on in Victorian London. Nine young girls have gone missing. The Doctor and Leela arrive and help Professor Litefoot. People believe that it is the Chinese Magician Li H'sen Chang, who's to blame. But they are almost right. In fact - it is his master… Weng-Chiang!
)
