The 16th season of "Doctor Who", which was first broadcast in 1978 and 1979, is unusual in that the six serials which comprise it are linked by a single theme. (Most seasons were made up of several independent, free- standing adventures). "The Ribos Operation" was the first serial of the season, and opens with the Doctor receiving a summons from God.
For most of the time, "Doctor Who" is just an ordinary science fiction series, but occasionally it seems to take on the character of a religious allegory, with the Doctor as a Christ-figure. This is seen most clearly in the "regeneration scenes" in which the Doctor typically sacrifices his life for the good of others and then rises from the dead in a new body. His designation as a Time Lord recalls the words of the hymn "Crown Him with Many Crowns":-
"Crown him the Lord of Years, The Potentate of Time".
And was the name of his home planet, Gallifrey, deliberately chosen for its closeness to "Galilee"?
"The Ribos Operation" gives the series its God-figure, formally referred to as the White Guardian, the being charged with maintaining order throughout the universe. This being a British series, he is a very English God, an elderly cocktail-sipping gentleman in a white suit and broad-brimmed hat. The White Guardian gives the Doctor the task of retrieving the six hidden segments of the Key to Time, an artefact which would give its possessor immense power. He warns him, however, that the Black Guardian (for which read the Devil) is also seeking the segments.
Each of the six serials deals with the Doctor's quest to recover a segment of the Key. His first adventure takes him to the planet Ribos, an icy world with a culture roughly based on that of mediaeval Russia. The plot is a complicated one, but, apart from the Doctor and his companion Romana, the main characters are the Graff Vynda-K, a ruthless intergalactic warlord who is trying to buy the planet and Garron, a sort of dodgy intergalactic estate agent who is trying to sell it to him. The Graff's main reason for wanting to buy the planet is his (inaccurate) belief that it is a rich source of a precious mineral named jethrik, a belief in which he is encouraged by the unscrupulous Garron. Garron turns out to be an Earthman, originally from the East London district of Hackney. The Graff's title makes it sound as if he should be from Germany- "Graf" is a German aristocratic title equivalent to "Count" or "Earl" in Britain- but in fact he comes from some far-distant part of the galaxy.
The serial introduced Mary Tamm as the Doctor's new companion, Romana. Apart from his granddaughter Susan, who appeared in the earliest episodes, all the Doctor's previous companions (even Leela) had been human, but Romana (like Susan) is one of his own species, a female Time Lord. (Or, if you prefer, a Time Lady, although that phrase is not actually used in this serial). After Louise Jameson, who played the primitive tribeswoman Leela, left the series, the producers wanted to replace her with someone who would provide a complete contrast, giving the Doctor an assistant who was his intellectual equal. Most of Romana's predecessors, even if like Zoe or Liz they were highly intelligent by Earth standards, were not able to cope with Time Lord technology. Romana, indeed, regards herself as the Doctor's intellectual superior, and in the early days of their relationship Tamm played her as rather snooty and supercilious. The Doctor's other companion, the robot dog K- 9, makes a return from the previous season.
Like most "Doctor Who" serials this one has both its strengths and its weaknesses. The main weakness is an over-hectic, often confusing plot with a weak ending. That "shrivenzale"- supposedly a ferocious carnivorous beast- also looked pretty unconvincing. These points, however, are outweighed by its strengths. The acting is generally good and Iain Cuthbertson's Garron is a splendidly lovable rogue. The scriptwriters and designers succeed in making Ribos a believable alien world with its own distinctive culture- something which was by no means always the case on "Doctor Who". And, most important of all, Romana is just as lovely as her predecessor Leela. (I was a teenager when these programmes were first broadcast, so the loveliness of the Doctor's companions was a key factor for me).
