What's Wrong With... The Ultimate Foe

Trial of a Time Lord limps to its conclusion, and we have already covered some of the problems with this season-long single story, such as the bizarre vagaries of the Time Lord judicial system.

One thing we have to bear in mind is that the Vervoid story hasn't actually happened yet. The Doctor hasn't met Mel at this point in his own timeline, and what we saw for the last four weeks was simply a look into his future. Which begs the question of what he will actually do when he finally gets that call for help from Special Investigator Hallett?

Do the Time Lords wipe his memory of those events before he goes free after this is all over? There's no suggestion that they do anything of the sort. He simply departs the space station with Mel.

Everyone now knows that he is going to commit genocide at some point in the future, so is that addressed? Unless the Valeyard really messed about with the last bit of evidence then the Doctor showed no sign of remembering having seen these events unfold before. Is he just a very good actor, or does his memory get wiped?

If he does recall those events, will he feel obliged to allow everything to run its course, or will he attempt to handle things differently to avoid genocide - even if that means changing his own timeline and those of everyone on the Hyperion III?

Look at any typical court case and you'll probably find witnesses involved. So far none have been called for the Doctor's case, by either side. It finally gets mentioned here, but the Doctor moans that anyone who might be able to help him is scattered throughout time and space. But these are Time Lords, who can visit any point in time and space they choose - so picking up witnesses should be the simplest of tasks.

We can understand why the Master selected Glitz to be brought to the station, as he had evidence of the High Council's involvement with Ravolox and the thefts from the Matrix, but why bring Mel whom the Doctor only knows through watching an (unreliable) future adventure?

The biggest problem with this pair of episodes is the Matrix. It's an artificial environment which can be manipulated by whoever controls it. In this case, that's the Valeyard.

At one point the Doctor ties him up. But that's Matrix wire he's using. The Valeyard should simply be able to think himself free. Same for everything that happens here, yet he fails to kill the Doctor or Glitz.

Maybe it is the fault of the troubled circumstances under which these episodes were written but there is no consistency regarding the rules of how the Matrix works. One minute it's not real so you can't be harmed, and the next you can be.

If it's an artificial environment fashioned by the Valeyard, how did the Master manage to park his TARDIS inside? It's a physical object, which the creator of the domain must surely have noticed.

The Matrix is said to have seven doors, but the Keeper claims that there is only one key. Does that key then open all seven doors - a bit of a security risk if they left it on the bus. If each door has its own key, then what's the Keeper talking about? Does each door have its own Keeper, and this one only looks after the one on the space station?

Was the Keeper a disguised Valeyard all the time, or did he simply bump him off and take his outfit only after escaping from the Matrix?

The Valeyard, posing for no real reason whatsoever as the Dickensian Popplewick figure, tries to get the Doctor to sign away his remaining lives. The Doctor agrees to do this, on the basis that the Valeyard could kill him anytime anyway. So why doesn't the Valeyard do this? Why only here and now is he able, or willing, to destroy the Doctor and thus gain an existence of his own?

What has giving consent got to do with the process?

The separate business of assassinating another bunch of Time Lords, who all just happen to be gathered to watch this trial, isn't very well set up. It's suddenly added late in the final episode.

If you've got everyone you want to kill assembled in one place, in deep space, isn't it easier to simply sabotage the space station? Let all the air out or blow it up.

The least said about a Megabyte Modem being a devastating weapon, the better... The only thing scary about those was the time it took to download videos.

The Valeyard unleashes a Particle Disseminator onto the court. If this really does what the name implies, then you shouldn't be able to avoid its effects by simply ducking under your chair. Interesting how all the Chancellery Guards leg it from the courtroom, leaving their superiors to fend for themselves. The weapon not only fails to harm anyone in the courtroom, but it doesn't even damage the furniture.

And earlier, did the Valeyard really have to stress the word "disseminate" so obviously when talking to the Doctor - giving away his whole plan?

More Pip & Jane unrealistic dialogue on show, especially things like the Valeyard's "catharsis of spurious morality".

Mel states that Gallifrey doesn't have any Crown Jewels. How would she know? And surely the well known relics of Rassilon - his Coronet, Sash, Rod and Key - constitute a "crown jewels" of sorts.

Once the Valeyard's scheme has been defeated, the Inquisitor simply shrugs her shoulders as though nothing really serious has occurred - even though we've just heard that there's civil strife on Gallifrey. She suggests that the Doctor run for President again - despite now knowing that he's not only capable of genocide but will actually commit it in the near future.

And what has she said or done throughout these entire proceedings to make the Doctor think that she might be the best person for the job? She was all for the assassination plot to take out Crozier for one thing.

The fact that Peri is still alive and married to Yrcanos is a massive cop-out on the ending to Mindwarp.

Bearing in mind once again that Mel will only become his companion at some later date, why doesn't the Doctor simply go and collect Peri now that he knows she's still alive? Does she actually want to be stuck on a barbaric planet with Brian Blessed?

And just what did actually happen at the conclusion of Mindwarp, if she's still alive and not a repository for Kiv's mind? (Or is it actually Kiv whom Yrcanos married...?).

Not a problem at the time, but hindsight certainly hasn't been kind to this story. 

The "gap" between incarnations during which the Valeyard was said to come into being came and went without anyone even noticing it, when Steven Moffat decided to have the Doctor's life-span come to an end on Trenzalore at Christmas 2013. Then Chris Chibnall decided that the Doctor wasn't an actual Time Lord at all, and had lots of incarnations before the grumpy old bloke in Totter's Lane - so the Valeyard should really have come from a point in the Doctor's distant past, and not his future. 

(One way round this is to accept that there is a potential for a Valeyard-type figure for any Time Lord towards the end of their normal 12 regenerations cycle. Perhaps the Borusa of The Five Doctors was actually his "Valeyard", who had bumped off the nice but doddery Arc of Infinity one and usurped his role as President. Left with only a single aged life after finally achieving his own existence, he would certainly want to become immortal).

A lot of unanswered questions, but we should just mention those troubled circumstances under which this story came into being. The Ultimate Foe is a bit like the Valeyard himself actually, falling between the incarnation started by Robert Holmes and completed by Eric Saward, and the incarnation devised by Pip & Jane Baker after Holmes passed away and Saward then fell out with JNT and quit.

Unlike the Valeyard, this story actually succeeded in bumping off the Doctor, as Colin Baker got the chop very soon after...