Rate and Discuss: The Ribos Operation

[SiHart]

The Doctor has been chosen for a vitally important task- the search for the Key to Time. Given a new companion, a Tracer and a mission by the White Guardian, the doctor's journies are not as random as before...



The search for the first segment take him to Ribos, to an encounter with a conman and a mad dictator. Watch out for the Shrivenzale!

What do you think of The Ribos Operation?

[Rob McCow]

Ah, The Ribos Operation! You know, it's hard to think of a cozier, lovelier story than The Ribos Operation. It doesn't stand out like Talons, it wasn't written by a famous person like The Pirate Planet, it is seriously lacking in decent monsters, but it is possibly the epitome of Tom's time as the Doctor.

It is so much fun. You can tell that Tom Baker adores Iain Cuthbertson and the two of them play off each other wonderfully. It lifts the whole show, which on the face of it could have been quite dull.

Robert Holmes doesn't seem to be ripping off The Phantom of The Opera for once, so the focus is all on the characters and the dialogue. Even the often overlooked Graf Vynda K has moments where he is sympathetic - or maybe just pathetic. I love the desperation of the ruler down on his luck.

I don't think it'll ever be viewed as a classic, but it is kind of perfect.

[Terry Leptil]

Season 16 is one of my favourite seasons. I like the idea of the Doctor searching for six segments making up a powerful artefact. (As it's the fiftieth anniversary this year, perhaps we could do Season 23 for Planet Skaro Goes Back... next)

The Ribos Operation is a good story to open the season with some great performances especially by Iain Cutherbertson and Paul Seed. It's not Robert Holmes' best but a worthy effort nevertheless. (Even though the show has moved on from the gothic horror of the Hinchcliffe era to the comedy of the Williams era, there is that scene at the end where the Doctor delibrately swaps a bomb over blowing up the Graff Vynda-K.)

8/10

[Si Hunt]

It's absolutely hilarious. Garron is such a believable, lovable character.

I love the bit where he says "I always thought dying was the last thing I wanted to do." and Tom laughs off camera. Garron then nods at him ruefully and chuckles before carrying on.

"Wilco, Graham, out!"

"It's either Romana... or FRED!"

"Is there no-one you can TRUST these days Unstoffe!"

Si.

[Rob McCow]

To me Sholakh, TO MEEE!

And what about 'Bones of our fathers, bones of our mothers...'

'All but ONE - are doomed to die!'

Here's some background reading, for those who are interested:

TV Tropes:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...RibosOperation

Wife In Space:
http://wifeinspace.com/2012/07/the-ribos-operation/

[SiHart]

I couldn't think of any of those wonderful quotes when I was doing the poll this morning. My brain was blank.

[SiHart]

This sis a story I love more and more as I get older. I remember finding the Target book dead boring when I was little and when I first saw it in 1992, I remember liking it but not loving it. As the years have gone on, I've found more and more to love about it- lots of lovely performances, gorgeous sets and costumes and I sense of a place that is lived in and feels real, right down to the details. Robert Holmes was always good at sketching in a civilisation and this is one of his best efforts- from the OPEK spending Chyrnnic Empire to the ice Time of Ribos, it all works.

Every performance is huge in this story, and that works too. It shouldn't, but the material supports it. There are lovely moments like Binro was right, moments of comedy and even Sholack's death is rather touchingly homoerotic. Marvellous!

A very strong start to the season.

[Andrew Curnow]

It's lovely. As a kid I remember watching it, but my memories of 'first time round' are mainly the opening exchange between the Doctor & the Guardian, and the fireplace in the Graff's quarters!!

It's such a small scale little tale, but is so elegantly written, it's a beautifully tight little story. I love the relationships in this one - between Garron and Unstoffe, between the Graff & Sholakh, even the Doctor and Romana. Tom simply IS the Doctor here, a wanderer through the universe who loves what he does. My favourite bits are where they're locked up (part 3) and the Doctor tells new girl Romana, "Come and sit down - when you've been locked up as often as I have, this is much more fun" and carries on chatting to Garron; and the daft running gag about being from 'the North'.

[Jeff]

I love this season and Ribos is probably my favorite of it, though it is close. It's a series that starts out great and then sort of falls off at the end for me though.

[Stuart Wallis]

Like Si, I wasn't impressed by the novelisation; unlike Si, when I finally got to see the story on DVD a couple of years ago, I still wasn't impressed. For some reason, the Graf doesn't quite work - possibly because if you're going to do OTT, you don't step over the line into uber-OTT, which Paul Seed just about does at times. Iain Cuthbertson, Nigel Plaskitt and Mary Tamm are the only actors who were at all believeable, and the story, while as Si says, concentrates on background, does so at the expense of actual plot and event. There's a lot of sitting around talking in other words, and I felt they could have just got on with something. The famous scene about Binro being right may well have been a good bit of dialogue writing, but it had nothing to do with anything. So I was glad to get the whole thing out of the way.

3/10

[J.R. Southall]

[sighs]

Bloody wonderful.

[enters a dream-like state]