The Deadly Assassin

The Deadly Assassin is, quite simply, one of the greatest Doctor Who stories ever made. Very few Doctor Who stories work successfully on so many levels. It is a thriller, a work of televisual surrealism, a political drama, a tale of the decline, fall and possible resurrection of a great civilisation. Most of all, it manages to be Doctor Who in every fibre of its being, whilst being unlike any other story- something which hadn’t happened since the Hartnell era.

Robert Holmes’s script is taut, yet is a thoroughly convincing portrait of the society of Gallifrey. A good deal on contemporary criticism of the story concerned its discontinuity with previous portrayals of the Time Lords. These are not the austere gods of The War Games, nor the technocrats of The Three Doctors. These are Time Lords with bad hips, old buffers who have ‘turned away from the barren road of technology’ whose great scientific achievements have become myth. The society of the Time Lords is led by a President and Chancellor, but other iconography is reminiscent of the Vatican. The Time Lords are, therefore, priests who have forgotten that they were once the very gods they served. However, there is still clearly a great deal of power on Gallifrey- mentions are made of a ‘Celestial Intervention Agency’ and the character of Borusa clearly knows more than he is telling. This world-building and political intrigue is bolstered by some very effective dialogue, making this a thoroughly believable reading of Gallifrey.

I have noted many times my admiration of David Maloney as a director and in this story, he really outdoes himself. From the very start of the story, with its scrolling text narrated by the Doctor, he sets out to make this story different. The scenes on Gallifrey have a foggy, funereal atmosphere and his shots are thoroughly effective throughout. Use of flashbacks and flash-forwards and interesting editing are used sparingly and effectively throughout. Then there are the scenes set in the Matrix (Holmes's estate should really sue the Wachowski brothers!) which is a fantastic array of surreal and frightening images, ranging from scenes inspired by Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, common phobias of injections and clowns, and the purely visceral, such as when the Doctor steps on a giant rotting egg and hears a ghostly squawk. Indeed, parts of this episode are like the Doctor Who equivalent of Eraserhead! This leads to a very tense face-off between him and his assailant, which takes up most of part three. These sequences are breathtaking in an already visually stunning story. The production values are impressive throughout- even the rather immobile mask used for the Master works reasonably well.

The performances are excellent across the board, with special mention being given to Angus MacKay as Borusa. This is the only story where the Doctor is not given a companion and Tom Baker manages to deal excellently with all aspects of the story, both dark and humorous. This is truly one of the all-time great stories- so what are you waiting for?

NEXT: The Face of Evil