Out and about on daily travels, it suddenly hit the THT Executroids like an anvil. Today, June 13, is Valeyard Day. Back in misty remembrances of the interwebs there was a site called 6:13 dedicated to pictures of Colin Baker and Michael Jayston in their respective guises from the problematic Trial of a Time Lord season. Sadly because it was a FortuneCity site it’s long since been subsumed by the tides of web hosting (of which we bear many scars as well).
It’s all to easy to remember that the interactions between the characters only consisted of shouting at each other across a BBC stage, but one of the coolest parts of the Trial season, including the opening effects sequence in episode 1, was the revelation, and it was Robert Holmes’ last significant contribution to Doctor Who, that the Valeyard was an amalgamation of the Doctor’s darker self, somewhere between his 12th and 13th (actually 11th and 12th to be fine about it) regeneration.
The Ultimate Foe is every bit the sloppy mess we all remember, but the kernels of greatness were in that story. We wonder how Mr. Future Showrunner will make this bit of future history work here in a few years.
