DOCTOR WHO, SEASON 14 SERIAL 6:

THE TALONS OF WENG-CHIANG

Doctor: Fourth (Tom Baker)

Companion: Leela

April 2023

This serial is going to bug the shit out of me.

Not just because it’s racist—don’t get me wrong, the fact that it was bad enough that Britbox had to slap on an honest to god warning should be enough to tell you to steer clear. Not only is one of the major antagonists a white man in horrible yellowface putting on a terrible accident. Not only because every single Chinese character is an antagonist. No, the problem I keep having is that we get hints of some great character moments, an exciting murder mystery with a cult in Victorian London, investigated by the Doctor and Leela in period dress!—and then it cuts back to Li H’sen “Racist Caricature” Chang. It’s really very striking how every single Chinese character we meet a) trying to kill the Doctor and Leela or b) decidedly involved in the sinister-plot-of-the-week. This is the Yellow Peril episode of Doctor Who, and it’s readily apparent even in the first five minutes, when we’re “treated” to John Bennett parading around in horrendous makeup and mixing up his L’s and R’s. Seriously! It feels like this episode surely can’t have come out twelve years after Marco Polo, because even Marco frickin’ Polo has a more nuanced portrayal of Asian people! This is a Doctor Who episode that sees our crew traveling back to a more prejudiced time and reinforcing those prejudices! And even more infuriatingly, Leela gets to trick the main villain and nearly beat him in a fight, twice. The Doctor gets to inspire Sherlock Holmes. The characters of Litefoot and Jago, beloved enough that they got their own spinoff audio show, are introduced in this serial. It didn’t even have the common decency to have no redeeming qualities, which just makes the cringing whenever anyone not of western European descent appears on screen even worse! It’s awful! And it’s six episodes! What the hell!!

There is a good story here, buried in the mire of yellowface and Sinophobia, a good story where Leela shocks the prudish mores of Victorian England by describing how to stab someone through the heart, where she and the Doctor uncover an alien conspiracy hidden by a hypnotist, inspired by Phantom of the Opera and Sherlock Holmes and all in delightful period dress. We get glimpses of it! But this story is cauterized by the way our heroic white allies can’t go a scene without disparaging how “mysterious” and “odd” Chinese people are. Professor Litefoot—one of our friends!—actually drops a slur! In his second scene!

The story is taunting, tantalizing me with the prospect of some actually good not horrifically racist storytelling—we get Leela springboarding off a table and through a glass window, we get the Doctor counter-hypnotizing a man and doing some lovely detective work, or having a chase sequence in the backstage of a theatre—hell, even the scenes where Leela fights the actual main antagonist, who is some sort of alien, are quite good!—and not two minutes in, it cuts back to John Bennett doing an offensive accent in yellowface. Litefoot changes the subject to how he doesn’t understand Chinese people. The “monster” of the serial is a caricature of a caricature.

I would be remiss not to mention one of these good scenes, the best in my opinion, which stuck with me since I first saw the serial some years ago. Leela is invited to dinner with Professor Litefoot, a gentleman coroner, and not only immediately begins having at the meat with her bare hands and teeth, but successfully peer pressures Litefoot into eating the same way. It is possibly my favorite Leela scene, representative of her character in the best ways, and therefore it is a fucking tragedy that it is in this most dire of serials. It's in episode 2.

Leela is great here—she always is, but contrasting the action-focused and bloodthirsty Leela with the prudish values of Victorian London is a winning combination: it makes for the most watchable parts of the story, rising far above the rest for some really funny comedy and character moments. She’s also given not one but two fun dresses, which rocks.

Litefoot and Jago also make a wonderful tag team, by the time they finally meet up in episode 5. I’m glad that they have an audio series via Big Finish, because they deserve it.

The most disappointing part is that there is a good story buried in here. It comes out in the sequences in the sewers, it comes out most when our heroes interact with the story’s actual villain, who isn’t a caricature at all, and that story is so compelling. The second half of the story holds up marginally better, because the focus is more on the alien parts than the depressingly static racism-in-Victorian-London parts. It also helps that Chang begins to be portrayed in a mildly more sympathetic light in Episode 4 shortly before his death in episode 5. For this reason, the last two episodes come off as significantly more watchable than the first parts. But really, this story didn’t need to be reinforcing the virulent prejudice of the setting. This story could be switched easily to simply be about a hypnotist at the head of a cult, in the sway of an alien hidden in the basement, and it would not only be easy but it would be better for it. It would be watchable.

Overall Thoughts:

Some people say this is one of the best Doctor Who stories ever, and to that I reluctantly say: I can see why you think so. But I also more emphatically say,

because god damn it is endemic to this story!! It is everywhere! And it is virulent! It says something that in this story Litefoot knows something is going on outside because he sees a Chinese person. Literally every Chinese character is a villain here!

If you do watch this story, know that it starts out at its worst point and gradually becomes better. But really, watch The Robots of Death or The Face of Evil. I’ve heard great things also about The Horror of Fang Rock or The Foe from the Future, which is an audio story adapted from the original script that was cut and replaced with Talons. (Edit 5/23: yeah watch Horror of Fang Rock, it's a great horror period piece with the same Dr/Companion duo, it's real good.) But really, don’t watch this story. It will make you sad and angry and disappointed, just like it made me sad and angry and disappointed.

Next time we’ve got another historical story, that I’ve heard is quite good and not racist at all! It’s time for Horror of Fang Rock! Which I am deeply looking forward to.

Leela Kill Tally: 7 (+1, with Janus thorn!)