"Doctor Who" The Trial Of A Time Lord: Part One... !NEW!
Doctor Who had returned to production after a near-cancellation and an eighteen-month production hiatus. For the first time, a season consisted of a single story, The Trial of a Time Lord, although this was made up of four serials from a production perspective: each serial was written by a different person (save for The Mysterious Planet and the first part of The Ultimate Foe, both of which were written by Robert Holmes) and featured a different story presented as evidence, excluding the final two episodes which concluded the ongoing story of the trial; the trial storyline itself acted as a framing device to bracket the first three serials. As a result, whether The Trial of a Time Lord should be considered one story or four has been intensely debated. This single-story format, sometimes referred to as a "miniseries", would later be utilised for the third and fourth series of Torchwood. In an interview in Doctor Who Magazine 448, Timelash author Glen McCoy said that he came up with the idea of the Doctor being put on trial. Although on an extra found on The Trial of a Time Lord DVD box set, Eric Saward stated his wife came up with the idea as she suggested since the show was on trial, put the Doctor on trial.
"Doctor Who" The Trial of a Time Lord: Part One...
(A darkened room. A figure sits in a pew. Everyonesay Hi! to MichaelJayston.) VALEYARD: At last, Doctor. DOCTOR: Am I late for something? VALEYARD: I was beginning to fear you had lost yourself. Sit down. (The Doctor moves to where the Valeyard indicates, to discover a chair.The Valeyard then turns on the lights and we see that the chair is in adock.) DOCTOR: Well, even I would find it hard to lose myself in a corridor.Especially, when propelled by the mental energy of so manydistinguished Time Lords. (The Doctor waves at a group of shadowy figures in the formal Time Lordcostume sitting in two raised rows of pews by the wall to his left.) VALEYARD: Oh, I don't know. You seem to have a great talent forstraying from the straight and narrow. (Citadel guards enter and the lights come up to full as a woman inwhite robe with a red scarf is escorted to a separate chair and tablebelow the rows of Time Lords. Everyone wave Hi! to Lynda Bellingham.) DOCTOR: Would it be too much to ask what all this is about? INQUISITOR: The accused will remain silent until invited to speak. DOCTOR: The accused? Do you mean me? INQUISITOR: I call upon the Valeyard to open the case. VALEYARD: By order of the High Council, this is an impartial enquiryinto the behaviour of the accused person, known as the Doctor, who ischarged that he, on diverse occasions has been guilty of conductunbecoming a Time Lord. DOCTOR: Not guilty! VALEYARD: He is also charged with, on diverse occasions, transgressingthe First Law. It is my unpleasant task, Madam Inquisitor, to prove tothe enquiry that the Doctor is an incorrigible meddler in the affairsof other peoples and planets. INQUISITOR: Yes. I see, Valeyard, that it is on record that the Doctorhas faced trial already for offences of this nature. VALEYARD: That is so, my lady, and I shall contend that the HighCouncil showed too great a leniency on that occasion. INQUISITOR: Very well. Doctor, you've heard the charges. Do you wish tosay anything before the enquiry proceeds? DOCTOR: Only that this whole thing is a farce. I am Lord President ofGallifrey. You can't put me on trial. INQUISITOR: Doctor, since you willfully neglected the responsibility ofyour great office, you were deposed. DOCTOR: Oh. Is that legal? INQUISITOR: Perfectly. But we won't hold it against you. Quite thecontrary in fact. And to see that your interests are fully protected, Ipropose to appoint a court defender to represent you. DOCTOR: Ah, oh, er, thank you, but no thank you. I have been throughseveral such inquiries before. I think it would be easier if I speakfor myself. INQUISITOR: The court notes the Doctor refuses the services of a courtdefender. Proceed, Valeyard. VALEYARD: Inquisitor, I am not proposing to waste the time of the courtby dwelling in detail on the activities of the accused. DOCTOR: Good. VALEYARD: Instead, I intend to adumbrate two typical instances fromseparate epistopic interfaces of the spectrum. These examples of thecriminal behaviour of the accused are fully recorded in the Matrix, therepository of all knowledge. DOCTOR: Objection. INQUISITOR: I hear the accused. What is this objection? DOCTOR: The Matrix does not contain all knowledge. It merely containsall Time Lord knowledge. INQUISITOR: It has long been accepted that the Matrix is the repositoryof all knowledge. DOCTOR: Well, that only shows the insular complacency of this society.How do you know that there isn't knowledge that you don't possess? INQUISITOR: All that is known is within the Matrix. DOCTOR: Oh, a micro-organism in a drop of water might think it knowsthe universe. All it knows is that drop of water. VALEYARD: I think this is merely a semantic point, my lady. INQUISITOR: I agree. I find the objection of the accused to be notvalid. Please continue. VALEYARD: Thank you, my lady. (Everyone in the court turnsto a screen high on the wall above the ranks of Time Lords.) VALEYARD: I should like to begin with the Doctor's involvement in theaffairs of Ravalox, a planet within the Stellian galaxy. 041b061a72