Review: Doctor Who Classic: Enlightenment

Turlough considers Enlightenment.

Doctor Who - Season 20, Story Five - Enlightenment

Enlightenment is a unique story in many ways. It presents itself first as a pseudohistorical, but very soon it becomes apparent that this story is much deeper than it appears. Even more importantly, the story justified the Black Guardian Triolgy by taking a brilliant concept and building it around the Black Guardian and his counterpart. For the first time, Turlough shows some promise as a companion and his presence is justified also.
      When The White Guardian contacts a damaged Tardis, The Doctor follows his co-ordinates and finds himself on what appears to be a 17th Century ship. Upon cohorting with the crew, he is taken to meet the Officer class - a group of people called Eternals with telepathic powers, who occupy space but not time. The Eternals have the ability to conjure into being whatever they find in the minds of time-occupying beings (known to them as Ephemerals), and because of the boredom of eternity use this power to entertain themselves.
     The Eternals on this ship happen to be part of a race, organised by the White and Black Guardians. The winner of the race would acheive what the Eternals call, "Enlightenment," a powerful prize that they believe will allow them to have emotion and imagination of their own. The Black Guardian abandons Turlough, and he throws himself off-board to escape his wrath, finding himself floating off to another Eternal ship commanded by Wrack (Lynda Baron), who is also in service of The Black Guardian. In their pursuit of Enlightenment, Wrack's ship has destroyed the majority of the other competitors using powers from the Guardian. The Doctor saves Turlough and finally sets his mind against the Black Guardian. When they inadvertantly win Enlightenment, Turlough rejects the Black Guardian and the White Guardian explains that Enlightenment is in fact the choice between Good and Evil.
     The core ideas of the story are a lot more consistant than the previous two stories in the triolgy, focussing on the very nature of human morality. The Eternals are emotionless and thus amoral; they may display emotional tendencies but everything they experience is robbed from mortal beings. Their contempt for mortality is only matched by their lack of imagination or drive - they rely on the Guardians to organise activities for them, and take everything they knwo from the Ephemerals. While Wrack's chaotic activities do oppose Striker's starch Upper-Class pride, it's allegance to a Guardian rather than a true sense of right or wrong.

Captain Wrack works for The Black Guardian.

    The actors playing the Eternals on Striker's ship are creepily emotionless, but they all show their own signs of character. Keith Barrat's striker is persistant and determined despite his lack of drive for the rest of life. Christopher Brown plays the slightly frightening Marriner, who through Tegan's mind falls in love with the simple concept of mortal life. Lynda Baron, on the other hand, is very hammy as Wrack, and often at times her bodaciousness clashes with the nature of the Eternals as a race.
      And, after some silly costume design from both Mawdryn Undead and Terminus, this story looks gorgeous. The Eternal's obsession means that the ships are beautifully detailed with period features - what the BBC do best - and the costumes are straight out of historical dramas. The production values in creating a race in space are incredibly high, and it's clear where the majority of the trilogy's budget went.  
      Enlightenment corners off our trilogy with another brilliant Sci-Fi idea, only this time the plot isn't clouded. Weaving The Guardians into plot made it all seem rather relevant, and the final story in Turlough's turmoil-filled encounter with the Black Guardian provides excellent closure for his opening development and for the arc that it occupies.

Thanks.

NEXT TIME: When Robots Fail Because Their Owners Die! See you next time in The King's Demons.