Enlightenment

Enlightenment has at its core a simple image- a sailing ship gliding through space. This hugely evocative image is immediately appealing in its own right, but this story takes that image and runs away with it. Barbara Clegg turns it into a race between immensely powerful beings called Eternals, who exist outside time and space. The Eternals, however, lack creativity, dependent on ‘ephemerals’ for ideas, perhaps even intelligence itself. This is best shown in the ambiguities of the character Marriner- is he galvanized by her personality or is he, indeed, in love with Tegan? The guest cast do excellent work with these characters. Marriner is beautifully played by Christopher Brown, and Keith Barron plays Captain Striker with an eerie sense of detachment that is absolutely perfect. Lynda Baron’s performance as Wrack is hugely entertaining, while actually staying the right side of OTT. The only performance that isn’t first rate is Leee John. Hee tries to bee intense, but only suceeeds in beeing very camp- although the fact that hee is placed in the foreground for the Wheeelhouse sceenes for non-speeaking shots tends to reflect badly on him- it takes a very good actor to not look stupid when hee is placed in such a situation and hee was not a professional actor.

The story is beautifully realised, with sumptuous costuming and great sets- the design work is very carefully modulated so that we can see the contrasts between the different ships and crews without them clashing. Fiona Cumming is great in the director’s chair, setting up interesting compositions and it is probably due to her talent that Leee John remains watchable. There are many memorable scenes apart from the ships, such as the message from the White Guardian, the first appearance of Marriner (which starts off being very eerie and then becomes funny) and Wrack channelling the Black Guardian’s power. The lighting is superb throughout and the special effects beautiful, if not exactly state-of-the-art. Even the music (by Malcolm Clarke) is worthy of special praise.

This brings the Black Guardian Trilogy to an end. As an arc it was a rather weak one, so it is good that the stories had so much else to recommend them. The final scene has all the threads coming to a head, with Turlough making a final decision as to which side he’s on. The relationship between the Doctor and Turlough is very interesting; at the beginning, the Doctor all-but tells Turlough that he doesn’t fully trust him, and the end is unclear as to if the Doctor knew of Turlough’s bargain. Tegan’s interplay with Marriner is excellently performed- indeed this is very strong material for Strickson and Fielding and the companions come off almost as well as the Doctor. Almost, but not quite. Davison makes the Doctor a champion for all whose time is finite and we are cheering him all the way.

This is a wonderful story, that had me spellbound at the age of seven and still enchants today.

NEXT: The King's Demons