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Terror of the Vervoids Format Reviewed: VHS Review The Trial of a Time Lord series continues with Terror of the Vervoids. Here, we stay in the court room as the trial hots up towards its conclusion in the following story. We also see the introduction of a new companion to Doctor Who with Bonnie Langford playing Melanie Bush, or Mel for short. The red haired live wire provides a marked contrast to the previous companion, Peri. Terror of the Vervoids is the start of the evidence the Doctor presents for the defence. Throughout, the Doctor protests in the court that the evidence from the matrix has been tampered with. The start sees Mel putting the Doctor through his paces physically, before they respond to a distress call on a ship. There, people are being murdered and disappearing and the finger of suspicion points everywhere. Mutant plant life, the Verviods are beginning to roam having been developed by Professor Lasky and her assistant Doland. Doland is behind several of the murders, but he is eventually killed by the Verviods who are planning to kill all animal life. The Doctor eventually succeeds by driving the Vervoids back to their lair and killing them by accellerating their growth with Vionosium. In the court room, the Doctor now stands accused of genocide though and is in great peril. After the damp squib that was Mindwarp, Terror of the Vervoids is a better story, that which was presented as evidence at least. The court room scenes are still pointless bickering that has permeated the entirity of this series so far. The story is quite good, although with all the plots and counter plots make it quite complicated to follow. It is also interesting to see a different kind of aggressor in the Vervoids who are possibly derived from the tale of the Triffids. The Vervoids also have a good makeup, with the prosthetics being believable, quite unlikely for this era! The new TARDIS crew of Colin Baker and Bonnie Langford make an interesting matchup. Colin Baker now is completely at ease with his role, and, despite it not being totally to my taste, does well again here. Bonnie Langford though still, as she did at the time, makes my skin crawl with her whiney voice and hammy acting. The guest cast in this story is good, with the fantastic Honor Blackman as Professor Lasky being the highlight. None of the guest cast have a bad time, and all do well. The samey bickering in the court room though means Michael Jayston and Lynda Bellingham are becoming one dimensional. This isn't their fault though and their performances are passionate. I think the main problem with this story is that it is presented in the same way as the previous two in this series. You therefore get the impression that you are covering the same ground despite the actual story presented not being too bad. Also, with having to keep going back to the court to bicker, or set up stories for the series finale, we are losing time to enhance and tell the story presented. Overall, Terror of the Vervoids is a decent story that suffers from the context in which it has been presented. The Trial of a Time Lord series I believe needed to move on in this story where as in reality it stagnated somewhat. We also see the introduction of my least favourite companion in Bennie Langford who plays Mel. She unfortunately is prominent in this and subsequent stories until being replaced during the Sylvester McCoy era. Rating:  |