vengeance on varos is a story that aims for a lot of lofty, inherently political messages, which are hard to unpack from each other. it's a story inherently tied to a critical take on the shape of modern liberal democracy by presenting an extreme example of the form in which they take in the modern day. taking swipes at how the media (or, in this case, just any source of information) sways the democratic process, even when the voting populace are convinced that they are making decisions of their own free, anti-establishment will. varos itself is a directly democratic state, in which every decision made by the governor is put to a simple yes-no vote, but the unrelenting stream of information coming solely from the screen everyone has installed in their houses means that they can, quite confidently, present a range of alternatives that is acceptable to them. the inherently non-participatory nature of this voting system, in which the complex nature of voting is stripped down to "we should accede to the demands of galatron" or "we should hold out for better terms", because they are not aware that there is an alternative. at the end of the story, the television is switched off in our perspective characters' house. the people are left to make their own minds up, rather than being told what the options are from their television screen. one could even extend this concept to a future where new sources of information pop up, outside of the control of the economic elites, allowing for a broad range of ideas to make their way to the top.

it's a story that, also, takes aim at punitive justice, looking at it how it is, how it is portrayed in the media. vile torture porn, graphic in nature and not tied to the goal of reducing offending, but rather of fulfilling some twisted, animalistic sense of justice rampant throughout varosian society, eventually cut off when subversion becomes normal and the decision is made to destroy the injustice, torture, and executions of the government. it goes after how poor decisions are made when decision-making is distant, with the death of the chief officer due to his unfamiliarity of the very torture dungeon he himself administers.

perhaps most interesting are the elements of metatext throughout, this deep rumbling as the story cuts to the two people watching the show from their own home, reacting, cheering on the rebels just as the viewers themselves will be. alongside sleep no more, it's one of the only stories whose metatext criticises the viewer, and the very nature of the story itself. the subversion on display in the dome is meant to excite citizens, but not incite them to rebel accordingly. it is subsumed into the capitalist superstructure, just as the story itself would undeniably be.

it's a fabulous episode, and, alongside perhaps a pantheon of snakedance, enlightenment, the face of evil and the ambassadors of death, among my favourite classic stories. well-executed, well-scored, well-dones all around. genuine tension at both the cliffhanger to part 1 and the hanging scene, some great horror with the transmogrification machine. fantastic sets that, even on a bbc budget, makes the story feel expansive.