The Talons of Weng-Chiang

091 – The Talons of Weng-Chiang
Doctor Who serial
The Doctor confronts Magnus Greel with the key to Greel's Time Cabinet.
Cast
Doctor Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor)
Companion Louise Jameson (Leela)
Guest stars
Christopher Benjamin — Henry Gordon Jago Trevor Baxter — Professor Litefoot John Bennett — Li H'sen Chang Deep Roy — Mr Sin — Michael Spice — *Magnus Greel Chris Gannon — Casey Alan Butler — Buller Tony Then — Lee Vincent Wong — Ho John Wu — Coolie David McKail — Sergeant Conrad Asquith — PC Quick Judith Lloyd — Teresa Vaune Craig-Raymond — Cleaning Woman Penny Lister — Singer Dudley Simpson — Conductor Patsy Smart — Ghoul
Production
Writer	Robert Holmes
Director	David Maloney
Script editor	Robert Holmes
Producer	Philip Hinchcliffe
Executive producer(s)	None
Production code	4S
Series	Season 14
Length	6 episodes, 25 minutes each
Originally broadcast	February 26–April 2, 1977
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → The Robots of Death Horror of Fang Rock

The Talons of Weng-Chiang is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from February 26 to April 2, 1977.

Synopsis

The Doctor brings Leela to Victorian London of the 1890s, to see how her ancestors lived, but is rapidly drawn into a fiendish plot involving Chinese tongs, disappearing women, an Oriental stage magician, a murderous ventriloquist's dummy and giant rats in the sewers.

Plot

The Doctor and Leela arrive in London so that Leela can learn about the customs of her ancestors, specifically the musical theatre of Victorian England. Performing at the Palace Theatre on an extended run is the stage magician Li H'sen Chang, although the Doctor did hope to catch Little Tich. On their way to the Palace Theatre, the Doctor and Leela encounter a group of Chinese men who have apparently killed a cab driver. They attempt to silence the Doctor and Leela but are frightened away by the distant whistle of an approaching peeler. All but one escape, and he and the Doctor and Leela are taken to the local police station.

At the station, Li H'sen Chang is called in to act as an interpreter, but unbeknownst to everyone else he is the leader of the group and he secretly gives the captive henchman a pill of concentrated scorpion venom, which the henchman takes immediately and dies. The Doctor, upon a brief examination of the body finds a scorpion tattoo – the symbol of the Tong of the Black Scorpion, devout followers of an ancient god Weng-Chiang.

The body is taken to the local mortuary, along with the body of the cabbie which had just been found floating in the river. There they meet Professor Litefoot, who is performing the autopsies. The cabbie is Joseph Buller, who had been looking for his wife Emma, the latest in a string of missing women in the area. Buller had gone down to the Palace Theatre where he had confronted Chang about his wife's disappearance, threatening to report Chang to the police if she was not returned to him. Chang, fearful of discovery, had sent his men, including the diminutive Mr Sin, to kill Buller. Chang is in the service of Magnus Greel, a despot from the 51st century who had fled from the authorities in a time cabinet. The technology of the cabinet is based on "zygma energy," which is unstable and has disrupted Greel's own DNA. This forces him to drain the life essences from young women to keep himself alive. At the same time, Greel is in search of his cabinet, taken from him by Chinese Imperial soldiers, and which in turn had been given by the Imperial Court to Professor Litefoot's parents as a gift. Mr Sin is also from the future but is a robotic toy constructed with the cerebral cortex of a pig. It is better known as the Peking Homunculus, a vile thing that almost caused World War Six when its organic pig part took over the toy's functions.

Greel tracks down the time cabinet and steals it, whilst concurrently the Doctor tracks Greel to the sewers underneath the Palace Theatre, aided (rather clumsily) by the theatre's owner, Henry Gordon Jago. However, Greel has already fled his lair, abandoning Chang to the police. Chang escapes but only to be mauled by one of the giant rats – products of Greel's experiments, which were then used to guard his sewer hideout.

While the Doctor and Leela try to find Greel's new hideout, Jago comes across a bag of future technological artefacts, among which is the key to the time cabinet. He takes it to Professor Litefoot's house, and there, after leaving the artefacts and a note for the Doctor, the Professor and Jago set out to follow anyone coming around the Palace Theatre in search of the bag. However, they are captured for their efforts. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Leela happen upon Chang in an opium den; there, he tells them that Greel can be found in the House of the Dragon but dies before telling them its exact location.

The Doctor and Leela return to Professor Litefoot's house. There they find the note and the key to the time cabinet. They decide to wait for Greel and his henchmen. When they arrive, the Doctor uses the key, a fragile crystal known as a Trionic Lattice, as a bargaining chip. He asks to be taken to the House of the Dragon, offering the key in exchange for Lightfoot and Jago's release. Instead, Greel overpowers the Doctor and locks him in with the two amateur sleuths.

Leela, who had been left at Litefoot's house at the Doctor's behest, has followed them and confronts Greel. She is captured and set in his life-essence extraction machine, a catalytic extraction chamber, but before her life essence is drained in order to feed Greel, the Doctor, Jago and Litefoot escape and rescue her. In a final confrontation, Mr Sin turns on Greel as the Doctor convinces it that Greel escaping in his time cabinet will create a catastrophic implosion. The Doctor defeats Greel by forcibly pushing him into his own catalytic extraction chamber, thus damaging it and causing it to overload. Having fallen victim to his own machine, Greel suffers Cellular Collapse and disintegrates. The Doctor defeats the Peking Homunculus by ripping its cerebral cortex from its toy-body before bringing the Zygma Experiment to a permanent end by destroying the lattice, just in time for the coming dawn and the muffin man.

As the Doctor prepares the TARDIS, Litefoot attempts to explain tea to Leela, only to baffle her further. The Doctor and Leela bid farewell to Jago and Litefoot as they enter the TARDIS. Confused by the police box, Litefoot is astonished by its dematerialisation, a stunt which Jago remarks that even Li H'sen Chang could have appreciated.

The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Professor Litefoot (Trevor Baxter)

Cast notes

• Deep Roy, who played Mr. Sin, had an uncredited role as an unnamed alien trade delegate in The Trial of a Time Lord: Mindwarp.^[1]
• Dudley Simpson, who composed much of the music for Doctor Who in the 60s and 70s, has a cameo as the conductor of Jago's theatre orchestra.
• Michael Spice appears in this story as the main villain, Magnus Greel. He also provided the voice of Morbius in the previous season's The Brain of Morbius.
• John Bennett had previously appeared in Doctor Who as General Finch in Invasion of the Dinosaurs.
• Christopher Benjamin had previously appeared in Inferno as Sir Keith Gold and would return to play Colonel Hugh in "The Unicorn and the Wasp".

Continuity

• For dating of this serial, see the Chronology.
• The Virgin Missing Adventures spin off novel The Shadow of Weng-Chiang by David A. McIntee is a sequel to this story, and again features Mr Sin.
• The Doctor encounters Professor Litefoot again in the Eighth Doctor Adventures novel The Bodysnatchers by Mark Morris.
• The Time Agents who pursue Greel are featured in the Eighth Doctor Adventures Eater of Wasps and Emotional Chemistry. The Ninth and Tenth Doctor's former companion and leader of Torchwood, Jack Harkness identified himself as an ex-Time Agent also from the 51st century.
• This is the only story from the Tom Baker era in which he is not seen wearing one of his trademark scarves. His dress, instead, resembles that of Sherlock Holmes.
• This is also one of two stories in which Leela is not shown wearing her leathers. According to the textual information track on the DVD release, this change in costume was supposed to be permanent as the Doctor and Leela established a Professor Higgins/Eliza Doolittle-style relationship, but the idea was soon dropped.
• At one point, the Doctor empties his pockets, revealing a number of odds and ends, including a bag of his trademark jelly baby sweets and a toy Batmobile (the identity of this toy is confirmed in the DVDs textual information track).
• The Mahogany Murderers is a Big Finish Productions audio drama in which Jago & Litefoot (played by the original actors) relate another adventure they shared, but without the Doctor's help.

Production

• Working titles for this story included The Talons of Greel.
• This was the final Doctor Who story produced by Philip Hinchcliffe. Hinchcliffe was succeeded by Graham Williams as the series producer, who sat in on this story's production.
• This story featured the first Doctor Who work by John Nathan-Turner as series production unit manager. Nathan-Turner would succeed Williams as the show's producer from 1980 to 1989.
• Filming for the serial took place in Wapping, London. The interior shots of the theatre were recorded using outside broadcasting cameras during four days spent at the Royal Theatre, Northampton.
• A large pile of straw seen in one scene was placed there to cover a modern car that had not been moved off the street.
• The production team briefly considered giving Jago and Litefoot their own spin-off series.
• The production of this serial featured in a BBC Two documentary, Whose Doctor Who, presented by Melvyn Bragg, which was part of the arts series The Lively Arts. Including interviews with Tom Baker, Philip Hinchcliffe and fans of the series, it was the first in-depth documentary made by the BBC on the series and was transmitted on the day following the final episode.

Outside references

• There are a number of references to the Sherlock Holmes novels by Arthur Conan Doyle. The Doctor is dressed in a similar way as the stereotype Sherlock Holmes caricature (although the Holmes of Doyle's stories would never have worn a deerstalker and Inverness cape in town) and uses sayings and mannerisms similar to Holmes'. The era and location, which the episode is set is late Victorian London. Professor Litefoot is a similar character to Sherlock Holmes' colleague Dr Watson and he has a housekeeper called Mrs Hudson (who is the housekeeper at 221b Baker Street in the Sherlock Holmes novels). At one point the Doctor says to him "...elementary my dear Litefoot".
• In so far as Magna Greel is a hideously deformed character living beneath a 19th century theater who convinces a performer that he is a spirit rather than a man, the story is also reminiscent of The Phantom of the Opera.
• When Chang calls the Doctor to the stage, there is a short musical excerpt from Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado.
• The story is referenced in the first issue of the comic book Albion. In the flashback to Janus Stark's capture, part of a poster for Li H'Sen Chang's stage show is visible beneath one for Stark's own.

Criticism and praise

• This story has aroused some controversy because of its alleged racism. Some of the English characters display racist attitudes towards the Chinese characters, while the Chinese immigrants themselves are portrayed in a stereotypical fashion — other than Li H'sen Chang (a major villain who is himself akin to Fu Manchu, but portrayed by a white actor - another source of criticism), all of the Chinese characters are coolies or members of Tong gangs. As a result of a complaint to TVOntario following the initial broadcast of the story the Canadian channel chose not to rebroadcast it when that year's season was rerun. A number of other stations across North America refused to screen the serial.
• This story was voted the best Doctor Who story ever in the 2003 Outpost Gallifrey poll to mark the series' 40th anniversary.^[5]
• Russell T. Davies, writer/producer for Doctor Who's 21st-century revival, praised this serial, saying "Take The Talons of Weng Chiang, for example. Watch episode one. It's the best dialogue ever written. It's up there with Dennis Potter. By a man called Robert Holmes. When the history of television drama comes to be written, Robert Holmes won't be remembered at all because he only wrote genre stuff. And that, I reckon, is a real tragedy."^[6]

In print

Doctor Who book
Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang
Series	Target novelisations
Release number	61
Writer	Terrance Dicks
Publisher	Target Books
Cover artist	Jeff Cummins
ISBN	0-426-11973-8
Release date	15 November 1977
Preceded by	Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin
Followed by	Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora

• A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in November 1977, entitled Doctor Who and The Talons of Weng-Chiang.
• The script was published by Titan Books in November 1989, entitled "Doctor Who The Scripts The Talons of Weng-Chiang" and edited by John McElroy.

VHS, DVD and Other Releases

• The serial was released as a compilation on VHS in the UK in 1988. In order to obtain a "PG" rating from the BBFC, shots involving the use of nunchukas – which were then classed as illegal weapons and unable to be shown on-screen – were removed from the fight scene involving the Doctor and the Tong of the Black Scorpion. (Over the next decade and a half the BBFC's guidelines were relaxed).
• This story was one of three stories released on VHS as a compilation that never had an episodic VHS re-release. (The other two being The Seeds of Death and The Time Warrior).
• The story was released complete and unedited on DVD in April 2003 in a two-disc set as part of the Doctor Who 40th Anniversary Celebration releases, representing the Tom Baker years. It featured a commentary by David Maloney, Philip Hinchcliffe, Louise Jameson, Christopher Benjamin and John Bennett. Also featured is the 1977 documentary Whose Doctor Who, presented by Melvyn Bragg, which examined the success of the Doctor Who series and focused on the production of this serial. The DVD also includes an interview with producer Philip Hinchcliffe on an episode of Pebble Mill at One in 1977.
• On September 2, 2008, this serial was released for sale on iTunes.

References

External links

• The Talons of Weng-Chiang at bbc.co.uk
• The Talons of Weng-Chiang at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• The Talons of Weng-Chiang at the Doctor Who Reference Guide

Reviews

• The Talons of Weng-Chiang reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• The Talons of Weng-Chiang reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide

Target novelisation

• Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
• On Target — Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang