Hogan Reviews

When it came to finally reviewing a story from Season 16 I couldn’t bring myself to choose a later serial as the season is one long connective story arc from start to finish, so for this season only (well, and probably Season 23…) I will be reviewing these in order, whenever I swing back round to it again. “The Ribos Operation” isn’t exactly a stellar start, while I do like the concept of the season and Mary Tamm impresses straight away as Romana a lot of the actual core story is, well, dull frankly. Oh well, let’s take a closer look!

Before we even reach Ribos the story kicks off with The Doctor (Tom Baker) being brought to a strange dimension where he meets the White Guardian (Cyril Luckham), the protector of all that’s good in the universe. He claims his evil counterpart The Black Guardian is planning to collect the six segments of the Key to Time, a cube that governs the flow of time across the universe, and that The Doctor must collect them first. Despite this monumental moment The Doctor is more cheesed off that he has to take a break from his aimless wandering, even more so when he gets back to his TARDIS and a young Time Lady called Romana (Mary Tamm) is waiting for him with a Key to Time tracer and a mission to assist him. Along with a new “Mark II” version of K9 (voiced by John Leeson) the trio head to the first planet that’s setting the locator off: Ribos. Before they arrive on the planet we see a pair of conmen, specifically Garron (Iain Cuthbertson) and his underling Unstoffe (Nigel Plaskitt) break into the royal jewel vault of Ribos but rather than steal anything they place a chunk of valuable rock known as “jethrik” inside and leave.

Unstoffe doing the dirty work (just realised I didn’t take a screenshot of the White Guardian! Oh well…)

The duo soon meet with Graff Vynda-K (Paul Seed) and his loyal servant Sholakh (Robert Keegan), the former being a deposed ruler of a distant planet looking to build a new army and reclaim his throne. Garron manages to convince Vynda-K that he owns the deed on Ribos and that the planet is full of jethrik and therefore perfect to fund the creation of a new army, and the Graff does also see value in the local populace, even if they’re technologically backwards they might be trained into soldiers. At this point The Doctor and Romana materialise and head out, the Key to Time locator pointing them to the same jewel vault from earlier only they’re not aware of the deadly Shrivenzale creature that Garron had knocked out and they become trapped… but are soon free after they hide from the guards as they come in (good old cliffhanger!) Garron soon has Unstoffe pretend to be a native of Ribos and spins a tale of a lost jethrik mine to the Graff as the ruler looks at the jethrik in the jewel case and he soon agrees to the large price for the planet. Garron’s con seems to be going well, until a short while later and Vynda-K finds a bug planted in his room and starts to put two-and-two together. Speaking of which, The Doctor follows Unstoffe when he returns to the vault to retrieve the jethrik and realises that the precious stone is the Key to Time piece he’s after but after chasing him down alongside Romana the trio bump into the Graff, who orders their execution on the spot…

“I think you’ll find I win the “worse hat” competition!” “Yes my lord…”

So, as you can tell, there is a lot of talking, a lot of Garron acting like an old London conman in space somehow, and in the latter half of the story, there’s a lot of walking around rather dull looking catacombs. It’s a shame because I always enjoy that opening scene with the White Guardian but the rest of Ribos is just… a bit dull.

The Continuity:

The Good, the (comparatively) Bad and The Doctor.

As well as being the first story in an arc of six (the next one being “The Pirate Planet”) it also makes mention of Gallifrey being invaded by Sontarans, which happened in the previous story “The Invasion of Time”. Along with these stories the Key to Time itself reappears in a series of Fifth Doctor audios starting with “The Judgement of Isskar”.

The White Guardian on the other hand reappears on TV with the Fifth Doctor story “Enlightenment” and on audio in the Fourth Doctor two-parter “The Pursuit of History / Casualties of Time”. Also The Seventh Doctor later returns to Ribos in the audio story “The Ribos Inheritance”, which coincidentally includes Garron having recently returned to the planet himself!

Overall Thoughts:

“That’s what I like about you, you’re always smiling!” “…”

“The Ribos Operation” kicks off with a fun set up for the season-long arc but then descends into a rather dull story for the other three and a half episodes. It’s not actively bad and the characters are brought to life well, but the script just isn’t there and it is hard to keep your interest, especially as the dreaded catacombs arrive and gives an excuse for lots of aimless running!

As The Doctor and Romana escape with the help of K9 Unstoffe runs into a “heretic” living on the streets called Binro (Timothy Bateson) who claims to think that Ribos is a planet and there are other worlds out there etc etc but he was tortured and left for dead due to it. Unstoffe reveals he’s correct to his pleasure and he helps him hide from the Graff, but the fun homeless man is killed for it shortly after. I thought I’d mention that side-plot because it’s actually quite enjoyable! Anyway, this is where The Doctor, Romana and K9, along with Garron, end up in the catacombs under Ribos, followed shortly by the Graff and Sholakh. After a lot of running around and dodging deadly creatures Sholakh is killed in a cave-in and Vynda-K attempts to take the jethrik / Key to Time piece but The Doctor switches it with a bomb the Graff had his men plant and as the Graff suddenly goes somewhat insane and runs into the maze like he’s leading a charge he explodes in the distance.

Ah, technology vs. religion, the age old debate… or in this case, execution!

As they make their way out of the catacombs Garron takes the jethrik and switches it for a regular stone before giving it back to the Doctor and heading off with Unstoffe, but much to his surprise a short while later The Doctor managed to switch it back. The Doctor and Romana use the tracer to convert the jethrik into the Key piece, which the Doctor holds up and remarks “one down, five to go”.