Doctor Who (TV Series) The Ribos Operation: Part One (1978) User Reviews

The Makings of a Juicy Saga

[darryl-tahirali · 8/10 · 16 March 2022]

"Doctor Who" fans tuning in for the start of season 16 in September 1978 were in for a surprise: The inaugural four-part serial "The Ribos Operation," while a self-contained story, was just the first of six segments in a season-long story arc dubbed "The Key to Time," itself comprising six segments scattered across the universe, with the Time Lord the Doctor and his new companion Romana, herself a Time Lord, dispatched by the White Guardian (Cyril Luckham) to retrieve them in order to reassemble them and recalibrate the universe--without allowing the Black Guardian to retrieve them and plunge the universe into oblivion.

The brainchild for "The Key to Time" was producer Graham Williams, whose arrival on "Doctor Who" came at a contentious time. Following the mid-1970s departure of "Doctor Who" producer Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes, a glory period that saw this family-oriented science-fiction series both praised for its edgy, adult-oriented gothic-horror stories and vilified in the next breath by cultural conservatives such as Mary Whitehouse--not to mention the BBC itself--Williams stepped in as producer for season 15 in 1977 with orders to tone down the horror angle, of which Williams himself had been critical even as it helped current Doctor Tom Baker become a series icon. Baker would become even more iconic with Williams's season 16.

Ironically, Williams turned to Holmes to kick off the story arc with "The Ribos Operation," arguably the best script from a writer lauded for landmark stories including "Terror of the Autons," "The Time Warrior," "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," and "The Caves of Androzani." Central to Holmes's well-conceived tale is his favorite theme of clashing civilizations. Using the segment locator given to them by the White Guardian, the Doctor and Romana arrive on the planet Ribos, currently in "ice-time" and inhabited by medieval, superstitious folk unaware that other worlds even exist.

Also on Ribos is veteran huckster Garron (Iain Cuthbertson) and his protégé Unstoffe (Nigel Plaskitt), lying in wait for the Graff Vynda-K (Paul Seed), a brutal tyrant exiled from the technologically-superior Levithian Empire and looking for an advantage to enable him to regain his lost reign--and guess who has what he's looking for planted as bait to lure him into a planet-sized con?

Playing the first companion who is equal--if not in some ways superior--to the Doctor, Mary Tamm holds her own against, by this time, an intimidating Baker. Her Romana, younger, glamorous, academically accomplished, exudes cool imperiousness that contrasts with the scruffy Time Lord flashing his street smarts and grizzled experience ("Lady and the Tramp," anyone?); in a neat inversion of the companion's typical "what's that, Doctor?" expository purpose, Romana has to explain the functions of the segment locator to him.

Filmed entirely on the sound stage, the first part of "The Ribos Operation" has all the earmarks of a classic wobbly-walls, men-in-rubber-suit monsters (I'm looking at you, shrivenzale) "Doctor Who" serial. It also has, thanks to Holmes's crackling script, the makings of a juicy saga.

Part 1 is interesting but a wee bit doddery

[Sleepin_Dragon · 7/10 · 15 August 2015]

So for the first time we get an entire series in classic who with an arc, 6 serials all part of 1 big story (Mr Moffatt eat your heart out)

The Doctor is hijacked in time by Cyril Luckham, the White Guardian, sat in a wicker chair, drinking mouthwash, he is ordered to search out the 6 segments of the key to time, in order for the Universe to be re-set, as a disaster is looming. The Doctor is given a locater and a new assistant. The Doctor is warned against the Black Guardian.

Step in Mary Tamm, for her first outing as Romana (1) and what a breathtaking beauty she was, even K-9 was impressed, she starts of super smart, cocky and witty, a good match for the Doctor.

Part 1 is a little bit slow, we are shown Ribos, an icy planet, and introduced to Garron and Unstoffe who are planning some kind of swindle with the richly dressed and wonderfully named Graff Vynda-K. 20 minutes in and new companion Romana is already in trouble (how 70's) but will she survive?

Graham Williams's influence is instantly apparent, Philip Hinchcliffe's gigantic influence on the show had all but faded and the glorious run of dark Gothic horror was gone, and so too was the show's purple patch.

Already there is a little too much out of place humour, we've not had a great deal over the last few years, but under Graham's watch more was to come, in some instances it worked well, there was just too much of it.

Part 1 overall is good, a little slow, but lots of high points, Romana is great, Iain Cuthbertson is fantastic, the production values are high (not the shrivenzale, a bit rubbery.) It feels different somehow.

I can't count how many times I've watched this episode.

[invisibleunicornninja · 6/10 · 16 April 2018]

So for some reason my dad has showed me this episode dozens of times. Its a good episode, I guess. Its clever and the acting is pretty good. There are far better episodes of this show that I'd prefer watching though. Most of the negatives to this episode can be attributed to the low budget. If you're a fan of the show I guess you could watch it, but I don't really recommend it.

The Key to Time - Story 1

[A_Kind_Of_CineMagic · 9/10 · 3 December 2019]

Review of all 4 parts:

This 4 part story is the first story in Season 16 and is the start of the first ever full season story arc which is called The Key to Time. That arc involves The Doctor being set a task by the White Guardian to find the Key to Time which is in different parts spread across different locations. He is given a device to locate them and a new assistant who is a female Timelord (Romana, played by Mary Tamm). The aim is to unite the Key and stop it falling into the hands of the villainous Black Guardian.

The Doctor is guided to Ribos, location of the first part of the Key where he discovers shady salesmen trying to sell the planet and an unpleasant military leader trying to buy it.

The story is largely comedic, in keeping with the later Tom Baker seasons (as opposed to the darker, more serious and stronger earlier Tom Baker seasons) but in this case the humour is well written and funny thanks to the great writer Robert Holmes. The two conmen are a very amusing duo with some really nice dialogue. Tom Baker and Mary Tamm are also immediately very amusing together with the sparkling script delivered to perfection by them. K-9 adds some fun asides and the whole story bubbles along entertainingly.

There are more serious aspects. The villains are more serious at times but also rather larger than life. Some lovely scenes occur with the character Binro, who had been declared a heretic for believing the stars were all other suns with other worlds around them. His realisation that he was right and the beautiful dialogue and emotion really adds another dimension to this story.

Even the monster in the catacombs is pretty good for the time and the overall story is strong.

Interesting, humorous and very enjoyable.

My ratings: All 4 episodes - 9/10.

A Very English God

[JamesHitchcock · 31 December 2014]

The 16th season of "Doctor Who", which was first broadcast in 1978 and 1979, is unusual in that the six serials which comprise it are linked by a single theme. (Most seasons were made up of several independent, free- standing adventures). "The Ribos Operation" was the first serial of the season, and opens with the Doctor receiving a summons from God.

For most of the time, "Doctor Who" is just an ordinary science fiction series, but occasionally it seems to take on the character of a religious allegory, with the Doctor as a Christ-figure. This is seen most clearly in the "regeneration scenes" in which the Doctor typically sacrifices his life for the good of others and then rises from the dead in a new body. His designation as a Time Lord recalls the words of the hymn "Crown Him with Many Crowns":-

"Crown him the Lord of Years, The Potentate of Time".

And was the name of his home planet, Gallifrey, deliberately chosen for its closeness to "Galilee"?

"The Ribos Operation" gives the series its God-figure, formally referred to as the White Guardian, the being charged with maintaining order throughout the universe. This being a British series, he is a very English God, an elderly cocktail-sipping gentleman in a white suit and broad-brimmed hat. The White Guardian gives the Doctor the task of retrieving the six hidden segments of the Key to Time, an artefact which would give its possessor immense power. He warns him, however, that the Black Guardian (for which read the Devil) is also seeking the segments.

Each of the six serials deals with the Doctor's quest to recover a segment of the Key. His first adventure takes him to the planet Ribos, an icy world with a culture roughly based on that of mediaeval Russia. The plot is a complicated one, but, apart from the Doctor and his companion Romana, the main characters are the Graff Vynda-K, a ruthless intergalactic warlord who is trying to buy the planet and Garron, a sort of dodgy intergalactic estate agent who is trying to sell it to him. The Graff's main reason for wanting to buy the planet is his (inaccurate) belief that it is a rich source of a precious mineral named jethrik, a belief in which he is encouraged by the unscrupulous Garron. Garron turns out to be an Earthman, originally from the East London district of Hackney. The Graff's title makes it sound as if he should be from Germany- "Graf" is a German aristocratic title equivalent to "Count" or "Earl" in Britain- but in fact he comes from some far-distant part of the galaxy.

The serial introduced Mary Tamm as the Doctor's new companion, Romana. Apart from his granddaughter Susan, who appeared in the earliest episodes, all the Doctor's previous companions (even Leela) had been human, but Romana (like Susan) is one of his own species, a female Time Lord. (Or, if you prefer, a Time Lady, although that phrase is not actually used in this serial). After Louise Jameson, who played the primitive tribeswoman Leela, left the series, the producers wanted to replace her with someone who would provide a complete contrast, giving the Doctor an assistant who was his intellectual equal. Most of Romana's predecessors, even if like Zoe or Liz they were highly intelligent by Earth standards, were not able to cope with Time Lord technology. Romana, indeed, regards herself as the Doctor's intellectual superior, and in the early days of their relationship Tamm played her as rather snooty and supercilious. The Doctor's other companion, the robot dog K- 9, makes a return from the previous season.

Like most "Doctor Who" serials this one has both its strengths and its weaknesses. The main weakness is an over-hectic, often confusing plot with a weak ending. That "shrivenzale"- supposedly a ferocious carnivorous beast- also looked pretty unconvincing. These points, however, are outweighed by its strengths. The acting is generally good and Iain Cuthbertson's Garron is a splendidly lovable rogue. The scriptwriters and designers succeed in making Ribos a believable alien world with its own distinctive culture- something which was by no means always the case on "Doctor Who". And, most important of all, Romana is just as lovely as her predecessor Leela. (I was a teenager when these programmes were first broadcast, so the loveliness of the Doctor's companions was a key factor for me).

Guardians of the Galaxy...

[Xstal · 8/10 · 7 July 2022]

The Doctor's summoned to find a lost key, it's in six pieces and scattered liberally, a new friend to assist, adds an intriguing twist, she's a time traveller too, but more of a trainee.

Not A Classic Story To Open A Forgettable Season

[Theo Robertson · 5/10 · 12 January 2014]

The Doctor is contacted by The White Guardian who asks him to locate the six hidden segments of the key to time . To help the Doctor on his quest he is given a time locater and an new assistant Romana , The White Guardian warns the Doctor that his nemesis The Black Guardian is also searching for the key to time

Producer Graham Williams was under a lot of pressure as DOCTOR WHO producer . Under no circumstances was he to retain the horror elements that led to complaints from an army of concerned parents outraged that a tea time series for children was causing trauma amongst the little ones . Legend has it that Williams defended himself against the BBC executives by replying that's exactly what the audience wanted only to be shouted down . This led to a massive change in the show with an injection of humour often revolving around the larger than life persona of Tom Baker which was very much an acquired taste . Watching the opening episode of The Ribos Operation my sister commentated she found it boring and as someone even to this day considers DOCTOR WHO to be a slightly low brow version of QUATERMASS and Hammer horror did feel at this point the show had taken a definite turn for the worse . Things probably weren't helped either by the BBC producing BLAKES 7 at the same time which probably leeched the resources of DOCTOR WHO . Terry Nation's cynical space opera come political thriller did have better production values and was a much more enjoyable show than DOCTOR WHO from this period

With hindsight it's wrong to lament what could have been and the strength of the show is the flexibility of its format . For the first time in the show's history we have a running theme throughout the season , a quest to find The Key To Time . What Williams has managed to do is produce a season that isn't reliant on a running theme and the stories effectively remain standalone . Compare this to how NuWho is produced under RTD and Moffat . Moffat especially ties himself and the audience in knots in a big pay off at the season finale which always ends on a whimper rather than a bang despite throwing everything including the kitchen sink in to the mix

Robert Holmes wrote this story and we get to see the Holmesian hallmarks of a double act , purple prosaic dialogue in a plot that involves a heist . It's not one of Holmes more memorable scripts for the show but like Williams the writers were hamstrung as to the type of stories they could tell and the production has a bizarre feel almost like one of those Sunday teatime serials the Beeb used to broadcast in the 1970s , though one with a zany sense of humour that sometimes goes overboard but at least Iain Cuthbertson holds his own against Tom Baker and Paul Seed makes an entertaining villain in a mildly diverting tale

It also sees the debut of the stunning Mary Tamm as Time-Lady Romana who despite being sophisticated and on an intellectual par with the Doctor is just there to act as a sounding board to the title character and get rescued when the script demands it

Messily written Tom Baker adventure

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 24 May 2015]

Review of the Complete Story:

THE RIBOS OPERATION is one of the lesser Tom Baker Dr Who outings. The strength of these serials lies entirely in the calibre of the writing, which just isn't up to scratch here. The story is set on another alien planet, where various factions are competing for possession of a valuable mineral; unlike the Italian and medieval stories found elsewhere in this series, there's a distinctly Russian influence on this planet which has a chilly atmosphere all of its own.

The back-and-forth of the narrative is rather complicated - needlessly, I might add - and lesser than the sum of its parts; come the end, you wonder what exactly has been going on. The only thing the tale has going for it is an outstanding performance from Iain Cuthbertson who plays a larger than life lovable rogue, an outer space salesman if you will, who dominates the screen with his strength of personality.

Baker is on typically good form here, butting heads with his new assistant, the imperious Romana (thankfully her character would be softened in subsequent serials). K9 always makes for a welcome presence, and there's some extra intrigue in that this is the first in the 'Key to Time' six-part serial featuring a mysterious guardian character. It's just a shame that the main story is so ordinary, enlivened only by a very silly dragon-type creature.