Line #25 Recap/DoctorWhoS20E1ArcOfInfinity


1	[[WMG:[[center:[-''[[Series/DoctorWho Doctor Who]]'' [[Recap/DoctorWho recap index]]\
2	'''Fifth Doctor Era'''\
3	'''Season 20:''' '''1''' \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS20E2Snakedance 2]] \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS20E3MawdrynUndead 3]] \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS20E4Terminus 4]] \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS20E5Enlightenment 5]] \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS20E6TheKingsDemons 6]] \| [[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors AS]]\
4	'''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E1Castrovalva <<< Season 19]]''' \| '''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E1WarriorsOfTheDeep Season 21 >>>]]''']]-]]]
5	!Arc of Infinity
6	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/omega_7594.jpg]]
7	[[caption-width-right:350:Uh, Creator/{{Peter\|Davison}}, you, uh... (starts scratching cheek) You got some... Some, uh... [-Right there-]...]]
8	->Written by Johnny Byrne\
9	Directed by Ron Jones\
10	'''Production code:''' 6E\
11	'''Air dates:''' 3 - 12 January 1983\
12	'''Number of episodes:''' 4
13
14	->''"You know how it is. You put things off for a day and before you know it it's a hundred years later."''
15	-->-- '''The Doctor'''
16
17	JustForFun/{{The one w\|ith}}here Creator/ColinBaker [[RecastAsARegular shows up early]].
18	----
19
20	Travelling alone together ([[CelibateHero with none of that, thank you]]), the Doctor and Nyssa are interrupted in their travels by a random alien force that tries to take over the body of the Doctor. The Doctor is perturbed, sure, but the Time Lords are ''completely freaked out'' by this. Worried that it might happen again, which would be bad news as the alien is made of anti-matter, the Time Lords decide to drag the Doctor back to Gallifrey and ''kill him''... and blame him for Romana leaving, which was no fault of his - she's just as stubborn as he is. With a token show of regret, Lord President Borusa gets Creator/ColinBaker to shoot the Doctor and haul him off to the DisintegrationChamber. But someone has conveniently rigged the circuit so that he ends up just being shoved into the Matrix ([[Film/TheMatrix no, not that one]]) where the anti-matter alien torments the Doctor... and eventually turns out to be the long-lost (and allegedly dead) Time Lord [[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E1TheThreeDoctors Omega]].
21
22	Meanwhile, in [[SceneryPorn Amsterdam]], a pair of English teenagers are menaced by a humanoid chicken with a label-gun. ...[[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer stop laughing]]! One of them is brainwashed, and he happens to be Tegan's favourite cousin, and Tegan happens to have lost her job, and happens to be visiting her cousin on this exact day. Then they all happen to be abducted by Omega, [[ContrivedCoincidence who wasn't actually aware that Tegan knows the Doctor at all]].
23
24	Omega sends the Doctor back to Gallifrey and starts making a copy of the Doctor's body for himself. So the Doctor, Nyssa and the TARDIS run down to Amsterdam, to try and stop him, but they're too late. Omega sheds his massive helmet to reveal... [[MirrorMatch the Doctor]]! In a most surreal scene, the Doctor and Omega-in-the-Doctor's-body banter back and forth before the Doctor reveals the big problem with Omega's plan: the body is only temporary.
25
26	Omega then leads the Doctor on a merry chase throughout Amsterdam, though he does take time out of his busy schedule to watch a Dutch street organ and test out his Villainous Creepy Smile on a little kid. The Doctor and Nyssa try to track him down, Creator/PeterDavison tries to speak Dutch and gets three out of three words wrong, and they freak out a lot of people around the Amsterdam grachten. Alas, Omega's antimatter body is dissolving, shown to truly gross effect by its face and hands dissolving into paste and green Rice Krispies. Eventually, Omega degrades to the point that he's a completely different actor, and the Doctor calmly (if reluctantly) takes out that label-gun and shoots Omega. Omega then fades to dust, and everything is back to normal.
27
28	...oh, and Tegan joins them again. The Doctor tries to put on a happy face, but it looks like he'd rather have [[TheScrappy Adric]] back.
29
30	----
31
32	This serial is notable in three ways. The first is that this features the return of Omega, who last appeared in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E1TheThreeDoctors the 10th anniversary special]] just over a decade prior. The second is that this serial kicks off the 20th anniversary season of ''Doctor Who'', which commemorated the MilestoneCelebration by consisting entirely of {{sequel episode}}s. The final? Sixth Doctor Creator/ColinBaker shows up for the first time -- not as the Doctor, but as {{Jerkass}} security chief Maxil, the only Doctor until Creator/PeterCapaldi to appear in the series ''[[RecastAsARegular before]]'' [[RecastAsARegular landing the big role]]. In fact, there's even a scene of Maxil ''shooting'' the Doctor, something that's caused a lot of jokes within the fanbase and cast. Colin Baker himself joked that he'd gotten the part of the Doctor by [[KlingonPromotion shooting the incumbent.]]
33
34	!!Tropes
35
36	* AntiVillain: Omega, when he has the Doctor's body... just goes around enjoying having a body again and smiling at people. Okay the smile is ''creepy'', but the guy's only company for the past million years have been monsters made of red bubble wrap in an anti-matter dimension... he's a bit out of practice with social interaction.
37	* BewareTheNiceOnes: Nyssa shoots an awful lot of people in this story, and even pulls a gun on the Lord President Borusa.
38	* BigBad: Omega.
39	* BitchInSheepsClothing: Hedin, one of the story's Time Lords, who seems like a nice, genial sort of guy, and about the only one on the council fully in the Doctor's corner. He's the one helping Omega.
40	* BodyHorror: The slow degeneration of Omega's new body.
41	* BoyishShortHair: Tegan's new hairstyle.[[note]]In the DVD commentary, Creator/JanetFielding reveals that last series' hairstyle was the result of an executive trying to start a new 'trend' with the style, and during the period she was off-contract between [[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E7TimeFlight Time-Flight]] and this serial, she got it cut really short when they could no longer ''make'' her keep the old hairstyle.[[/note]]
42	* CombatPragmatist: Maxil.
43	-->'''The Doctor:''' [[CharacterCatchphrase Hello, I'm the Doctor.]]\
44	'''Maxil:''' ''[shoots him with a laser gun]''
45	* ContinuityNod:
46	** The Doctor talks about the Cybermen damaging the TARDIS console with laser fire, though no mention is made of this being a major contributor to his inability to rescue Adric.
47	** The fact that the TARDIS is supposed to be a Zone of Temporal Grace (where guns can't be used) is also referenced.
48	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E5WarriorsGate Thalia comments on the Doctor's inability to return Romana to Gallifrey. The Doctor tells her that she chose to stay in E-Space]].
49	** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E5BlackOrchid The dress worn by Nyssa at Cranleigh Hall is seen in her room]].
50	** The Doctor asks Damon about [[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E6TheInvasionOfTime Leela]]. He replies that she is well. The Doctor is sorry to have missed her wedding.
51	* ContrivedCoincidence: Tegan being in the plot at all.
52	* CreatorCameo: Creator/JohnNathanTurner, wearing a sheepskin jacket, appears on-screen from behind the telephone box in part four. He would later claim this was a deliberate example of a Hitchcockian cameo, in reality he was trying to persuade passers-by not to get into shot.
53	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The Doctor gets zapped by Maxil and his goons on the grounds of "[[BlatantLies resisting arrest]]".
54	* ExtraEyes: The Ergon appears to have four eyes on its face.
55	* ForgotAboutHisPowers: [[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E3TheDeadlyAssassin Once]] ''[[RunningGag again]]'' Time Lords have forgotten they have the ability to regenerate and save themselves from dying permanently. Extra odd when regeneration is actually mentioned by some of the characters.
56	* FriendlyTarget: Omega takes control of Tegan's cousin Colin and forces him to work (making him look pretty sick at the end of the story). When he realizes Tegan is a former companion to the Doctor, he threatens to kill her to make sure the Doctor cooperates (she was able to give him Omega's location though).
57	* HamToHamCombat: Omega and the Doctor lob large roasts back and forth with glee as they devour everything in sight (not even Amsterdam is spared), even while Creator/PeterDavison plays off himself. Creator/ColinBaker does his absolute best to join in the fun.
58	* ItsAllAboutMe: Maxil is positively bored with the Doctor, and spends much of his screentime looking mildly offended or checking his nails. Creator/ColinBaker played Commander Maxil not as a guest role, but as someone who thinks he's starring in his own series. Creator/JohnNathanTurner actually asked Baker to tone it down, because the show was called ''Series/DoctorWho'' and not ''Commander Maxil''. Baker replied that no person would ever consider themselves a minor character in someone else's life, and so he played Maxil as someone convinced he was the main character of the story. Of course, Baker soon would ''become'' the main character of the show, making the whole thing quite HilariousInHindsight[[invoked]].
59	* JustFollowingOrders: Maxil, who nonetheless is too okay with it.
60	* KickTheDog: Omega's diabolical scheme is to get a body that isn't made of anti-matter and then either take over the Time Lords or just... run around enjoying life. So we get the message he is the bad guy, he enslaves a holidaying teenager to work his machinery, and then holds Tegan hostage to ensure the Doctor's cooperation.
61	* MirrorMatch: A lovely scene where Creator/PeterDavison plays the Doctor ''and'' Omega -- with the latter dubbed by Ian Collier, of course. This was so well done that many on the DVD commentary remarked that the voice fit Davison ''better'' than his own!
62	* PlotArchaeology: The main villain is revealed to be Omega, who first appeared in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E1TheThreeDoctors The Three Doctors]]", which aired ten years previously. This kick-started the twentieth season, which featured a returning element from the series' past.
63	* TheReveal:
64	** Colin's cousin is Tegan.
65	** The anti-matter creature is Omega.
66	* ReverseThePolarity: Nyssa claims it's the way to turn matter into antimatter.
67	* SceneryPorn: About a third of this adventure is in Amsterdam. Literally, this was ''the reason'' for the script being written. The script is able to HandWave it away, luckily, but it still feels damned strange.
68	* SealedEvilInACan: Omega, still stuck in the anti-matter world we saw him in during the events of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E1TheThreeDoctors "The Three Doctors"]], serves as the main antagonist of the story.
69	* SequelEpisode: To "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E1TheThreeDoctors The Three Doctors]]".
70	* ShoutOut: The scene of Omega at the Punch and Judy show and interacting with a child was inspired by ''Film/Frankenstein1931'' and ''Film/BrideOfFrankenstein''.
71	* ShownTheirWork: Everything about Amsterdam checks out: the scenery, the street organ, the clothes. The background music is indeed a very popular Dutch tune about Amsterdam. The Dutch people are played by Dutch actors using their regular Dutch accents. And although the city is actually two metres ''above'' sea level, its cellars are indeed a bit below. The only thing that's off is Creator/PeterDavison's truly atrocious pronunciation of Dutch, but luckily, he only gets three words ("Jeugdhotel", "Centraal" and "Frankendael"). Although the city's layout is all over the place, with Frankendael somewhere in the grachtengordel, and the chase in Episode 4 teleporting between various parts of the centre.
72	* TakingTheBullet: Hedin dies leaping in the way of a staser bolt Castellan had aimed at Borusa.
73	* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Averted. Watch when Creator/PeterDavison in monster makeup is staggering through Amsterdam in part 4: most of the citizenry barely notice, but there's a pair of people in one shot who outright goggle at the bizarre sight. Davison, on the DVD commentary, speculates that they ''weren't'' extras, and that it must have made for a weird holiday experience.
74	* VillainousFriendship: Omega appears to be sincerely saddened and angered by Hedin's death.
75	* WellIntentionedExtremist: Hedin assists Omega in his plot apparently out of the sincere belief that Omega taking over Time Lord society would be better for it.
76	* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Poor, screwed up, crazy Omega.... His confusion when running around in Amsterdam, while wearing the Doctor's body, is actually sort of cute.
77	* TheXOfY

Context Recap / DoctorWhoS20E1ArcOfInfinity