The Unwinding World

On a distant colony world, the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki have been separated from the TARDIS for about three months. In that time they have become part of the society of that world while they work at getting the ship back so they can leave. In that time, though, they notice that this world is full of flaws as systems break down and things fall apart, but the people by and large do not notice or care - they go to work, they eat, they watch TV and the next day they repeat. There is a subversive element at work as well, spray painting slogans on public property, but as fast as the slogans go up they are removed by robot workers. It's obvious that someone is controlling all of this, but it's hard to figure out who when nobody is complaining.

As with Starborn this is another Companion Chronicle without the storytelling hindsight of Vicki's years away from the TARDIS, it is made to fit in alongside the original series episodes, somewhere between The Web Planet and The Crusades. Or somewhere convenient. There is mention of the crew having lived in Rome for a while but no other references to place the tale more precisely. But while there are no direct mentions of this crew's past adventures, there are a lot of mentions of the future adventures of the Doctor with the TARDIS pegged as a subversive symbol on other worlds, even if its configuration is slightly different in those instances. Sneaky.

Thematically this story is a lot of technical than others of its era would have been. Vicki is quite the computer whiz all of a sudden, even if the computers themselves are old by her own perspective. Barbara and Ian are not computer savvy as they had no such things in their time and have to take manual labour jobs to be able to afford the small flat they have all been living in since they arrived. The whole thing is being overseen by a robot/computer system called Connie, who sounds like the sort of HR person you don't entirely trust.... oh she's polite enough and asks the right questions but there's this underlying sense of menace to her voice... but then again why wouldn't there be? Vicki and her friends have no real records of living here, they've just shown up out of nowhere and fabricated their existence while actively inquiring with the authorities about the whereabouts of their property, which is in the form of a subversive symbol. The bulk of this story is actually told with mere dialogue between Vicki and Connie and minimal amounts of additional voices, and plenty of sound effects to help things along.

Here's a sticking point to consider though, and I was only really slightly aware of this until someone else put in into words: the Doctor and company seem bound to start a revolt against whatever is going on here, but their motivation seems questionable: are they doing it so they can survive, or are they doing it just because they can? And when it comes down to it, there might be other things going on that they have not considered. Lessons to learn; you don't just go around leaving civilizations turned on their heads...

NEXT EPISODE: THE DALEKS' MASTER PLAN (episodes 1 - 7)