The Sun Makers

Love the revolutionary spirit. A solid doctor who episode. The collector is an antisemitic charicture which sucks.

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: Image of the Fendahl

I didn't expect to like this one as much as I did, I hadn't heard much about this story and the little I did know made me think it was going to be fairly annoying. Luckily, I was wrong.

It starts off quite bleak, a man forced to pay taxes for the death of his father. Since he can't afford it, he tries to kill himself in a place where he would be fined if he was caught. It immediately tells you what kind of story this is, Robert Holmes was clearly upset about his taxes, and this is the story that came out of it.

This is a brilliant story to show people who believe classic Doctor Who was subtler in its political messages, the Collector and the Gatherer at times almost feel like caricatures, especially the former, but they are both played really well.

Politics aside, this is a fun serial in general, it's got plenty of memorable lines and each character feels like they get enough time to shine. K9 now has his voice again and therefore is able to participate in the story, Leela is in her element inciting a revolution and the Doctor similarly feels quite comfortable toppling a government.

"Oh, the taxes. My dear old thing, all you need is a wiley accountant."

Next Story: The Exxilons

This one starts extremely well, exploring how governments / companies can exploit their population with aggressive tax and extreme control. Annoyingly, as sometimes happens with Doctor Who, it descends into a runaround. The Doctor is trapped, Leela runs after him, then Leela is trapped, The Doctor runs after her. Much of this can be forgiven this time round as it’s a fun setting with creepy, interesting villains and our wonderful regulars.

What is harder to deal with is shootouts with absolutely no pace or drama. A lot of telling and not showing and tension-free cliff hangers. Enemy rebels, who treat the doctor and Leela very poorly become friends with them all too easily.

There is a thread of fun and cleverness though, and a great sense of victory when the regime is overturned in the end (I can’t believe they threw that man off the top of the building with such glee!)